FORUM ON "INTRO TO FIRE, 1970 TO PRESENT"

CONDON2.pdf

Home >History homework help >FORUM ON "INTRO TO FIRE, 1970 TO PRESENT"

– SECTION FIVE –

THE FUTURE IN THE PRESENT: CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN-AMERICAN

THOUGHT, 1975 TO THE PRESENT

Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

T INTRODUCTION

he successes of the modern Black Freedom Movement were largely accomplished by the existence of a strong black working class. In 1970, for example, almost 40 percent of all African Americans in the paid labor force

were employed in blue-collar jobs, many in heavy industries such as steel, automobile production, food and tobacco manufacturing, and electrical and non-electrical machinery. Most of these jobs were unionized, which provided pensions and healthcare for workers and their families. The bulk of the well-paid workers were located in the industrial heartland of the U.S. Midwest and Northeast. Blacks had also significantly narrowed the historic wage gap they experienced with whites, as their percentage of medium incomes compared to white incomes rose from about 50 percent in 1958 to 63 percent in 1973. For African Americans with college degrees, under age thirty-five, the historic income gap between blacks and whites virtually disappeared. The number of African Americans attending colleges and professional schools soared, from about 400,000 in 1970 to 1.1 million only 10 years later. Policies such as affirmative action, combined with the enforcement of equal opportunity laws established by the federal government, directly contributed to the creation of the modern black middle class.

The economic foundations for black advancement began to change in the 1970s, due to the destructive processes of what economists termed “deindustrialization.” Between 1973 and 1980, over 4 million jobs disappeared in the United States, as hundreds of American corporations moved their operations outside the country. New York City alone lost 40,000 to 50,000 jobs in the apparel and textile industries. Corporations increasingly divested their profits from U.S.-based subsidiaries and reinvested in operations abroad. In the 1970s, over 30 million total jobs were eliminated through factory closings, relocations, and then phased elimination of operations. The shrinking of U.S.-based industries had a deep impact on labor unions, as the percentage of union members within the American labor force decreased by half in only two decades. Hardest hit were African-American blue-collar workers, because in 1983, over 27 percent of all blacks in the U.S. labor force were union members, a significantly higher percentage than for white workers.

Concurrent with the restructuring of the capitalist economy was a worldwide trend to dismantle the welfare state. Beginning with the 1979 election of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and the triumph of mass conservation in the United States under Ronald Reagan the following year, an antistalist philosophy began to exert hegemony affecting the ways in which governments functioned all over the world. With the shift to the right, the government significantly reduced or eliminated support for many of the liberal welfare programs that had been instituted during the previous half-century: public housing, public education, job training, food stamps and child nutrition, and support for the indigent and disabled. As President Reagan succinctly put the matter, government was “not the solution, government was the problem.” The difficulty confronting black Americans here was twofold. Historically, for all of its limitations, as a result of mass pressure the federal government has

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

been the chief public guarantor of civil rights and has at times even forced the abolition of the most extreme forms of racial domination; for example, the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution outlawing slavery and the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act ending Jim Crow segregation. Reducing federal power and bringing about a return to “states rights” were, at face value, potentially damaging to blacks’ interests. Secondly, African Americans in the 1980s were heavily over-represented as employees of the public sector. Reducing the size of the state inevitably would mean that African Americans would experience significantly higher levels of unemployment. Black women were especially vulnerable to the conservative assault on the public sector. Eighty-five percent of all professional African-American women by the early 1990s, for example, worked in three major industries dominated by government and nonprofit employment: social services, health care, and education.

Another factor that had an impact on black politics was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement during 1989–1991. Since the end of World War II, international politics had been defined by the Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. The dissolution of the Soviet model instantly meant that the political space for a Third World—those non-Western states strategically positioned between capitalism and communism—also ceased to exist. In the 1980s the United States invaded Grenada and installed its own puppet regime, and the leftist Sandinistas lost power in Nicaragua. By the early 1990s, Asian, African, and Caribbean states with long histories of socialist politics were pressured to adopt “neoliberal,” market-oriented policies and austerity measures. Social- democratic parties worldwide shifted significantly to the right. Although no widespread movement for communism or socialism existed in the United States, these global political developments were profoundly felt within African-American politics. With few models to point to, some argued that socialism, however defined, no longer represented a viable alternative to capitalism. If black people had any future, it was argued, it was to be found in the capitalist marketplace. The traditional discourse of the black left—“socialism,” “anti- imperialism,” “cooperative economics”—began to lose ground to the gospel of wealth, entrepreneurship, and black capitalism. The conservative ideology of Booker T. Washington resurfaced in the age of cyberspace.

The erosion of the public sector and the loss of millions of urban jobs contributed to a significant increase in class stratification within the national black community. The African- American community was overwhelmingly working class in composition in the 1970s. By the late 1990s, the socioeconomic profile of black America had changed considerably. About 51 percent of all black employees sixteen years old and over were classified as white-collar workers. Approximately 60 percent of these were white-collar sales and clerical personnel; many in this group were nonunion workers with limited or nonexistent benefits and wages. However, another 20 percent of the black labor force, nearly 3 million workers, was classified as professional and technical workers and administrators. The percentage of blue-collar workers had declined to 28 percent of the black labor force. Black farm laborers, farmers, and agricultural managers, who in 1940 had represented one-third of the entire black workforce, had virtually disappeared, with only about 80,000 jobs remaining. During this period, the black business sector had mushroomed.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

By 1992 the number of black-owned businesses had grown to 621,000. The number of black-owned real estate, insurance, and financial lending companies had quadrupled in only fifteen years, and this sector’s total gross receipts had increased sixfold. By the late 1990s, a small number of African-American executives had become chief executive officers and presidents of major corporations, such as Time Warner and American Express. An even smaller number of black celebrities—such as television personalities Oprah Winfrey and Bill Cosby, pop star Michael Jackson, and superstar athletes such as golfer Tiger Woods, and basketball stars Michael Jordan and Earvin “Magic” Johnson—were each worth hundreds of millions of dollars. For the first time in U.S. history, a “black bourgeoisie” had come to exist.

These economic changes had profound consequences for African Americans. Deprived of their tax revenues from industries and manufacturing companies, city governments reduced expenditures for public institutions of all kinds—schools, hospitals, parks, libraries, public universities, and public housing. With the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980, the new conservative administration quickly moved to reduce federal government spending on urban development and social services. The Reagan administration terminated the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act program, a successful job training program that had been funded in 1982 at $3.1 billion; eliminated $2 billion from the federal food stamps program; reduced federal support for child nutrition programs by $1.7 billion over a two-year period; and closed down the Neighborhood Self Help and Planning Assistance programs, which provided technical and financial help to inner cities. In the first year of the Reagan administration, the real median income of all black families fell by 5.2 percent.

Also in the 1980s, a strong white backlash against civil rights expressed itself in opposition to school desegregation in the North and growing hostility to increased racial integration in higher education and professional occupations through affirmative action. Millions of white Americans became convinced that “too much” had been given to blacks in recent years. Middle-class African Americans also encountered more subtle, yet unmistakable, patterns of racial discrimination that severely restricted their upward mobility. Sociologist Lawrence Bobo has described this racial ceiling on group advancement as “laissez faire racism.” The examples of “laissez faire racism,” which have been documented by numerous studies, are almost endless: white car dealerships that charge blacks hundreds of dollars more for automobiles than they do whites; hospitals that routinely provide substandard treatment for minorities; insurance companies that systematically charge black consumers higher rates than whites to insure homes of identical market value; grocery store chains that transport older produce from white suburban shopping-mall markets to groceries in predominantly black communities; the denial of employment opportunities to blacks at senior levels of management and administration in large companies and institutions.

Many middle-class blacks, confronted with the steady deterioration of public services, schools, and the elimination of jobs in central cities, relocated to the suburbs. However, because white real estate firms, banks, and financial lending institutions continued informal policies of residential discrimination, many upper- to middle-income blacks found themselves moving from segregated ghettoes to racially segregated suburbs or planned communities. Black working-class families without the material resources or credit to purchase homes outside economically depressed areas found themselves living in what, at times, had become almost

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

urban wastelands. In huge districts of America’s major cities, neighborhoods had become desperately poor—

Chicago’s South Side, East New York in Brooklyn, the South Bronx, South Central Los Angeles, East Oakland, and nearly all of Detroit. Families attempting to upgrade their residences or start businesses in these neighborhoods were forced to rely on “predatory lenders,” finance companies charging outrageously high interest rates on borrowed money. In such inner city communities, businesses of nearly every type, other than personal services such as restaurants, barber shops, beauty salons, and funeral homes largely disappeared. By the 1990s in many inner cities, between one-third to one-half of a neighborhood’s total adult population was no longer in the paid labor force. Millions survived in the informal economy, generating a subsistence income through activities as diverse as braiding hair, childcare, collecting and selling recyclable bottles and cans, catering food, auto repair, moving, producing and selling crafts, and so on. For many who had once held stable blue-color jobs, low-wage service jobs, such as in the fast-food industry, were among the few alternatives.

Such widespread poverty, such intense patterns of unemployment, hunger and homelessness, as well as the growth of global markets in drugs and arms, fostered the trafficking in illegal drugs. In the early 1980s, a new addictive product, “crack,” a rock-type of cocaine, was introduced into inner-city neighborhoods. Unlike powdered cocaine, the fashionable drug of choice of the wealthy, crack was very inexpensive, readily available, and highly addictive. Within a few years, several hundred thousand African Americans had become addicted to crack, and relatively few drug treatment centers were available. With the decline in employment and educational opportunities, some young people saw selling drugs as the only way to make a decent income, and violence, once relatively rare in black working-class communities, increased significantly. Although several inner-city communities became the marketplace for the lucrative international traffic in illegal substances, the overwhelming bulk of the profits were reaped by those outside these communities, such as international crime cartels and the banks that launder their money. Inner-city communities became the targets of police sweeps and searches. Though a minority of young men were actively involved in criminal activities connected with the drug traffic, virtually all black male youth were subject to being stigmatized as criminals by the police and media.

Federal and state governments responded by making the penalties for drug sale and possession more severe, by eliminating parole, and by constructing a vast network of new prisons. Legislatures passed new mandatory minimum sentencing laws, requiring convicted felons to serve lengthy prison terms before becoming eligible for release. Juveniles were increasingly treated as adults, and were subjected to many of the same penalties. Developments in New York State during these years were typical of what occurred throughout the nation. Between 1817 and 1981, the state had constructed thirty-three prisons; between 1981 and 1999, it built thirty-eight new correctional facilities. New York’s prison population grew in two decades from 13,500 to 74,000.

Throughout the country, the total population of prisoners reached 650,000 in 1983, 1 million in 1990, and 2 million by 2001. One-half of these prisoners were African Americans. By 2000, one-third of all black males in their twenties were under the control of the criminal justice system, either in prison or jail, on parole, probation, or awaiting trial. The major

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

reason for this disproportion in incarceration was the stark racism that pervaded the criminal justice system. Though African Americans in 2002 constituted approximately 14 percent of all illegal drug users, they comprised approximately one-third of all drug arrests and over 50 percent of all drug convictions in federal and state courts. The socioeconomic and political consequences of mass incarceration for the black community have been profound. Several million black households have been destroyed; tens of thousands of black children separated from their parents and raised in foster care. In seven states as of 2005, convicted felons lost the right to vote for life, and as a result, by 2000 over 1.4 million African Americans had been permanently disenfranchised. For several million blacks with criminal records, better paying jobs were no longer available even years after their release and rehabilitation. Inside prisons, however, incarcerated African Americans organized a wide variety of resistance activities (document 15).

Despite these unprecedented challenges, African Americans in the 1980s collectively initiated a series of highly successful resistance movements. In electoral politics at the local level, the most significant of these was represented by Harold Washington. For nearly fifty years the Cook County Democratic Party machine had controlled municipal government in Chicago by manipulating votes and using corrupt patronage and graft. Under Chicago political boss Mayor Richard Daley the black community was severely disadvantaged; schools were underfunded and public services were unequally distributed. In 1982 a coalition of largely black community organizations convinced Congressman Washington to challenge the Democratic machine. Washington forged an unprecedented coalition of blacks, Latinos, labor, progressive whites, and other constituencies, sometimes referred to as a “rainbow coalition,” and, in a three-way race, Washington defeated incumbent mayor Jane Byrne, and Richard M. Daley, the son of the former mayor, to win the Democratic Party’s nomination. In the general election on April 12, 1983, Washington defeated Republican challenger Bernard Upton to become the first African-American mayor of Chicago (see document 3). As mayor, Washington tried to eliminate corruption, made city government more transparent, forged coalitions with neighborhood groups, expanded city services in minority neighborhoods, and restored the city’s financial health through a property tax increase. Reelected in 1987, Washington died of a heart attack on November 25 of that same year.

The advances achieved by politicians like Washington pressured local and national politics to give greater priority to African-American issues, and set the stage for the 1984 presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson. Becoming involved in the civil rights movement first through CORE, Jackson had joined the SCLC and soon became a protégé of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After King’s assassination, Jackson launched Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity), which created “corporate covenants” and other business-related partnerships that produced jobs and expanded black entrepreneurship.

In 1983, Jackson announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Many black elected officials and prominent civil rights leaders, including Coretta Scott King and Andrew Young, opposed Jackson’s candidacy. However, he successfully built an interracial coalition similar to Harold Washington’s, which included blacks, Latinos, lesbians and gays, environmentalists, peace activists, progressives from organized labor, and many others. In 1984, Jackson lost the three-way Democratic primary to Walter F. Mondale,

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

but his “Rainbow Coalition” won him 3.5 million popular votes, making him the first serious African-American challenger for the presidency.

The success of Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign created widespread support for his second effort to capture the Democratic Party’s nomination four years later. Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition called for federal initiatives to address unemployment, health, education, housing, and urban problems. The campaign mobilized an unprecedented interracial coalition and prompted hundreds of thousands of new black voters to register. Jackson received over 7 million popular votes—from 4 million African Americans and an additional 3 million whites, Asians, and Latinos, and won a series of primary contests. Jackson narrowly lost the nomination, however, to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who was subsequently defeated in the general election by Republican candidate George H. W. Bush (document 7).

Another issue central to black activism in the 1980s and early 1990s was South Africa. The Reagan administration initiated a policy of “constructive engagement” with the apartheid regime of South Africa, encouraging American investment in the country, thus providing economic support for the white-minority state. This prompted demonstrations against apartheid and U.S. investment in South Africa. Following Reagan’s reelection in 1984, several groups of black progressive—nationalists, integrationists, and transformationalists—mapped out strategies to attack the administration’s links with apartheid South Africa. The best known of these groups was led by Randall Robinson, executive director of TransAfrica; Mary Frances Berry, a civil rights commissioner; and District of Columbia congressman Walter Fauntroy. The coalition leaders staged a small, symbolic demonstration in front of the South African embassy in late November 1984, and they were “pleasantly surprised” when officials panicked and called the police. Their arrests sparked hundreds of nonviolent demonstrations across the United States. Within two weeks, protests involving hundreds of thousands of people were staged at South African consulates in more than one dozen cities, including Salt Lake City, Boston, Chicago, and Houston (see document 6).

On college campuses, hundreds of thousands of students demonstrated against universities and corporations that did business inside South Africa. Divestment legislation amounting to $400 million in public funds was secured in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Michigan, Maryland, Philadelphia, and a dozen other smaller cities in 1985. Jesse Jackson challenged the Democratic leadership to demand immediate freedom for Nelson Mandela, the political spokesperson for the African National Congress (ANC) and future South African president, who had been imprisoned on Robben’s Island for over two decades. Other black congressmen pressured for the release of other political prisoners as well.

Successful models of black political resistance also emerged from African-American popular culture. In the 1970s a new urban-based cultural movement popularly termed hip-hop emerged. The core elements of hip-hop culture include graffiti, break dancing, emceeing, deejaying, and rap music, which is based on the spoken word and its interplay with the musical beat. To many, rap’s jarring style and frequent use of profanity was difficult to understand. However, for many young blacks and Latinos born after the civil rights and Black Power period, hip-hop embodied their own feelings and expressions about the nature of contemporary society. Created in the context of poverty, high unemployment, and the drug epidemic in inner cities, rap was a means through which to give voice to a generation’s critique of their own

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

marginalization from mainstream society. Militant, edgy, and radical in their lyrics, hip-hop artists used their records as a platform to address the inequities of the establishment. Such artists as Afrika Bambataa and the Zulu Nation, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who were later termed “old school rap” artists, were unscrupulously exploited by managers and music business executives. In 1982, twenty-two-year-old rapper Chuck D. (Clareton Ridenhower) formed the group Public Enemy, which signed a contract with Def Jam Records. Public Enemy’s second album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, was a bold and provocative statement of revolutionary politics.

In the 1990s, progressive artists such as Public Enemy, KRS One, a Tribe Called Quest, and Mos Def spoke about AIDS/HIV awareness, called for an end to black-on-black violence, encouraged voter registration, and campaigned against budget cuts in public schools. Black female rap artists such as Sister Souljah, Salt-n-Pepa, and Queen Latifah provided powerful images of self-confidence and activism for millions of young African-American women. Successful hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons, cofounder of Def Jam records, initiated campaigns to promote voting among black youth and to oppose the privatization of public schools and a public educational effort to debate the issue of “black reparations,” the question of whether African Americans should finally be compensated for centuries of enslavement and Jim Crow segregation (document 18).

By the mid-1990s, in response to the escalating prison industrial complex and epidemic of police brutality, many African Americans concluded that a new kind of social protest was necessary, to promote black pride, personal responsibility, and collective empowerment. These efforts crystallized in 1994–1995 around Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s call for a “Million Man March.” On October 16, 1995, approximately one million participants poured into the Washington Mall from all over the United States. It was without question the largest single gathering of black people in U.S. history. Studies indicated that the participants were mostly of the middle class, older, and had a proportionally higher level of education than black men in general. The march was, for many, an emotional event that symbolized the coming together of black men across generations, rededicated to a common social and political project of atonement, personal responsibility, and collective empowerment. Speakers who ranged from religious leaders to community activists, addressed issues of education, racism, welfare, and other community issues. This perhaps explains the popular slogan in support of the mobilization: “Farrakhan may have called the March, but the March belongs to us (document 13).”

Black feminists condemned the patriarchy and homophobia prevalent in much of the mobilization’s literature. Others praised the objective of the March but criticized Farrakhan for anti-Semitism and racism. Still others objected to the emphasis on “atonement” at a time when the Republican-controlled Congress was eliminating programs designed to help the black community. Nevertheless, it had an important impact on raising awareness about the continued struggle against structural inequalities. Within the next year, over 1.5 million additional black men had registered to vote.

As the conservative nationalists briefly took center stage, the revolutionary nationalists had become largely marginalized. With the government-sponsored destruction of the Black Panthers and the demise of radical groups such as the League of Revolutionary Black Workers,

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

the revolutionary nationalists sought to reconstitute themselves as a viable political force. In 1980, two progressive nationalist groups emerged: in Brooklyn, the National Black United Front (NBLU), led by the Reverend Herbert Daughtry, and in Philadelphia, the National Black Independent Political Party (NBIPP), which included activists Ronald Daniels and Benjamin Chavis. After attracting several thousand supporters but only achieving modest success, NBIPP disappeared in the mid-1980s, and NBUF largely declined as a political force several years later. The two most prominent revolutionary nationalists in this period were political prisoners who had become internationally known. Assata Shakur, a former activist in the Black Panther Party, escaped from prison and in the early 1980s found political asylum in Cuba. Her moving portrait of the plight of African-American women prisoners presented here gives some insights into her radical political philosophy (document 2).

America’s most celebrated and controversial prisoner on death row in the 1990s was unquestionably Mumia Abu-Jamal. Also a former member of the Black Panther Party, Jamal was convicted of the murder of a Philadelphia police officer. Despite substantial evidence of witness tampering and illegal activities by prosecutors and police, Jamal was denied a new trial. Yet from the isolation of his prison cell on death row, Jamal’s articulate voice and powerful prose found an international audience (document 14).

Some of the most powerful and original critiques of racialized inequality during these years were produced by African-American feminists. The Combahee River Collective statement, originally written in the spring of 1977, reflected the core ideas behind this new feminist movement. The statement envisioned a politics of black liberation that simultaneously challenged sexism, homophobia, racism, and class exploitation at every level of society (document 1). The Combahee River Collective Statement was soon followed by a series of black feminist theoretical works and collections of social essays that powerfully reshaped the entire black left. Some of the major works included Michele Wallace’s Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman, bell hooks’s Ain’t I a Woman and Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (see document 5), Patricia Hill Collins’s Black Feminist Thought, Barbara Smith’s wonderfully titled anthology, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies, and Angela Davis’s Women, Race and Class. One of the most popular black feminist intellectuals was Audre Lorde. A lesbian, feminist, and revolutionary, Lorde wrote poetry and social essays with such grace and clarity that she motivated and appealed to very diverse audiences (document 4). The development of black feminist thought in universities was paralleled by the growth of black women’s leadership in thousands of community-based, grassroots-oriented organizations at the neighborhood level throughout the United States.

The transformationist, black-radical tradition had not disappeared, despite the political defeats and losses in previous years. It has been evident in the militant role played by African- American workers in bringing about significant changes in the AFL-CIO, as well as in the successful struggle for a free South Africa. In the late 1990s, it attempted to reconstitute itself as a vital political force once again. In the aftermath of the Million Man March, a small group of African-American political activists, intellectuals, and leaders from labor, lesbian-gay, feminist, revolutionary nationalist, and Marxist organizations initiated a call for a Black Radical Congress (BRC), a national gathering of black progressive forces. At the Congress,

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

which was held in Chicago on June 19–21, 1998, more than 2,000 activists who self-identified with radical anticapitalist politics came together. A nationwide network of BRC local organizing committees was formed, involving members in various local and national campaigns against police brutality, for full employment, and in efforts to halt the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The BRC’s “Call to the Congress,” “Principles of Unity,” and “Freedom Agenda” presented the basic political beliefs that could unify a broadly diverse group of activists (document 16).

As the twenty-first century dawned, American politics took a sharp turn to the right with two events: the narrow electoral victory of Republican George W. Bush as president in 2000 (see document 17), and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, on September 11, 2001 (see document 20). The attacks on 9/11 prompted the U.S. government to pass laws severely restricting civil liberties and constitutional rights. Many Americans who were of Middle Eastern descent, or were identified as Muslims, were subjected to harassment, surveillance, and even arrest. As the United States launched its military invasion of Iraq in 2003, African-American opposition quickly became overwhelming (document 20). In terms of racial relations, the campaign in Iraq provoked waves of American xenophobia and intolerance. The “war on terror” had created in the United States a new “Racialized Other”—who was Muslim or Middle Eastern in background.

As many African Americans fought to end U.S. military involvement in Iraq and to remove the Republican-controlled Congress, there continued to be reminders that the United States remained a structurally racist society. The most vivid example of this was provided by the Hurricane Katrina crisis of August–September 2005. The areas most devastated by Hurricane Katrina were Louisiana, Mississippi, and southwestern Alabama. By any standard, in terms of tens of billions of dollars in property damage and over one thousand lives lost, it was the largest natural disaster in U.S. history. The most heavily damaged major urban center that the storm affected was New Orleans, a city with an unrivaled historical tradition of black music and culture.

After the disaster struck New Orleans, President George W. Bush defensively argued that no one could have possibly anticipated the flooding experienced throughout much of the city, despite the fact that a number of scientists and investigative reporters had, for years, predicted that such a catastrophe was inevitable. But what made the New Orleans tragedy an “unnatural disaster” was the federal government’s gross incompetence and indifference in taking the necessary measures to preserve the lives and property of hundreds of thousands of its citizens.

Even before Hurricane Katrina struck, it was obvious that the overwhelming majority of New Orleans residents who would be trapped inside the city to face the deluge would be poor and working-class African Americans, who comprised nearly 70 percent of the city’s population. As the levees collapsed and the city’s predominantly black Ninth Ward flooded, thousands of evacuees were herded into the Superdome and Convention Center, where they were forced to endure days without toilets and running water, food, electricity, and medical help. Hundreds of black evacuees seeking escape on a bridge across the Mississippi River were confronted and forcibly pushed back into the city. Much of the media coverage cruelly manipulated racist stereotypes in its reports. The barrage of racialized images of a terrorized crime-engulfed city prompted hundreds of white ambulance drivers and emergency personnel

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

to refuse to enter the New Orleans disaster zone. Television reports locally and nationally quickly proliferated false exposés about “babies in the Convention Center who got their throats cut” and “armed hordes” hijacking ambulances and trucks.

Nationally, most African-American leaders, public officials, and intellectuals were overwhelmed and outraged by the flood of racist stereotypes in the media, and their government’s appalling inaction in the rescuing of poor black people. African Americans were stunned and perplexed by white America’s general apathy and denial about the racial implications of the Katrina catastrophe. But the racial stigmatization of New Orleans’s outcasts forced many African Americans to ponder whether their government and white institutions had become incapable of expressing true compassion for the suffering of their people (document 23).

In 2007–2008, the presidential campaign of Democratic Illinois senator Barack Obama represented one of the innovative challenges by people of African descent to the structure of white privilege and power in America. Unlike Jackson’s protest-oriented presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988, the Obama campaign was from the beginning both pragmatic and ideologically liberal-progressive. Along with a new generation of African-American leaders —such as Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick and Newark, New Jersey, mayor Corey Booker—Obama espoused a race-neutral politics, minimizing discussions about blacks’ grievances while emphasizing the common ground shared by Americans regardless of race, ethnicity, class, or gender. Despite Obama’s relatively moderate politics, many conservative pundits sought to exploit Islamophobia and racial bigotry from the beginning of his campaign. Because Obama’s father had been a Kenyan of Muslim descent, critics falsely charged that Obama, a Christian, was secretly a Muslim, and even a possible terrorist. Another controversy that nearly destroyed Obama’s campaign was the provocative statements of the candidate’s former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Obama’s response to the Wright controversy was a brilliant address, “A More Perfect Union,” which critics praised as the most powerful and thoughtful statement about the meaning of race in American life since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s, “I Have A Dream” speech, delivered at the March on Washington, D.C. (document 25).

Defeating his major opponent, New York senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama captured the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in August 2008. Many still doubted the ability of an African American to be elected to the U.S. presidency, citing previous gubernatorial and mayoral elections in which African-American candidates received far fewer votes from whites than voter surveys had predicted. However, on November 4, 2008, the U.S. electorate made history by electing the first African American, Barack Obama, as the nation’s chief executive. Winning with a margin of nearly 53 percent—the largest vote of any Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964—Obama’s triumph was produced by a combination of old-fashioned coalition building and new age technology. He captured between 95 and 97 percent of all African-American voters, as well as a substantial share of the vote from other racialized minorities, including 67 percent of Latinos and 62 percent of Asian Americans. Jewish voters overwhelmingly backed Obama with 78 percent of their votes. The charismatic candidate won 62 percent from young voters (ages 18–29) and 58 percent from women voters. Supported by the major trade unions, Obama also appealed as well to more educated affluent voters. He won a majority of voters earning over $250,000 annually and held an 18-point

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

margin over his Republican opponent, senator John McCain, among voters with advanced academic and professional degrees. Obama’s electoral victory sparked hundreds, and probably thousands, of spontaneous celebrations and street parties across the country.

Less widely recognized was that a crucial dimension of Obama’s victory was his ability to appeal to moderate Republicans and independents. Roughly one-sixth of Americans who had voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and/or 2004 voted for Obama in 2008. Throughout his presidential campaign, Obama explicitly refused to attack the Republican Party, per se, focusing criticisms on either McCain, the Republican right wing, or Republican policies. Obama’s campaign recognized that in the wake of political disasters such as the unpopular Iraq War, and the federal mishandling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, many voters longed for a politics that transcended partisan divisions. Obama’s race-neutrality and demeanor of cool competency reassured millions of white Americans, allowing them to vote for a “black candidate.”

Does the emergence of Barack Obama represent the possibility of a “post-racial America,” a society that transcends its historic racial divide of structural inequality? Despite this extraordinary accomplishment, it is imperative to distinguish between the elevation of individuals and the material realities of black daily life in twenty-first-century America. In addition to support from a mass movement, Obama’s victory was made possible, in part, by his brilliant oratory and his ability to reframe issues in ways that brought diverse constituencies together. This was clearly represented by Obama’s keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Party National Convention, as well as his later address, “A More Perfect Union” (document 25). Obama has assumed a historic role similar to that of Nelson Mandela of South Africa, an inspirational, charismatic leader of African descent who advances a politics of racial reconciliation, human rights, and color-blind cooperation. One major concern is whether the extraordinary hopes and expectations of Obama’s millions of admirers can be addressed by an administration challenged by a severe economic recession and wars abroad.

It is sometimes stated that the only constant in politics is change. The African-American people, now numbering over 42 million, represent a virtual nation within a nation, possessing its own rich traditions of culture, social organization, rituals and beliefs, and modes of political struggle. The history of black American social and political thought is a history of vast change and transformation through slavery, segregation, and ghettoization. Yet it is also a story of long memory, of political cultures of continuity and institutional developments transcending generations. The ideologies of integration, black nationalism, and radical transformation have in different ways and over time spoken to a common project—the achievement of full and unconditional freedom for black people. Throughout each phase of struggle, through long storms of oppression, black folk have found courage in the enduring belief that they would never be turned around, that the struggle for freedom would continue, and that it could one day be won.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

1 Black Feminisms: Combahee River Collective Statement, 1977

The Combahee River Collective was formed by a group of black feminists in Boston in 1974, and the organization lasted until about 1980. The following statement was a reflection of collective thinking, drafted by Barbara Smith, a prominent black lesbian feminist author and activist, with help from Demita Frazier and Beverly Smith. Although the statement originally appeared in Zilla Eisenstein’s anthology, Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism (1977), it has been reprinted on several other occasions and remains among the most important articulations of black feminist theory and practice. The Combahee River Collective addressed the ways that racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism all work to perpetuate each other and much of their work reflected the goals of other black feminist groups such as the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) and Black Women Organized for Action (BWOFA).

We are a collective of black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974. During that time we have been involved in the process of defining and clarifying our politics, while at the same time doing political work within our own group and in coalition with other progressive organizations and movements. The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. As black women we see black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.

We will discuss four major topics in the paper that follows: (1) The genesis of contemporary black feminism; (2) what we believe, i.e., the specific province of our politics; (3) the problems in organizing black feminists, including a brief her-story of our collective; and (4) black feminist issues and practice.

1. The Genesis of Contemporary Black Feminism Before looking at the recent development of black feminism, we would like to affirm that we find our origins in the historical reality of Afro-American women’s continuous life-and-death struggle for survival and liberation. Black women’s extremely negative relationship to the American political system (a system of white male rule) has always been determined by our membership in two oppressed racial and sexual castes. As Angela Davis points out in “Reflections on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves,” black women have always embodied, if only in their physical manifestation, an adversary stance to white male rule and have actively resisted its inroads upon them and their communities in both dramatic and subtle ways. There have always been black women activists—some known, like Sojourner

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell, and thousands upon thousands unknown—who had a shared awareness of how their sexual identity combined with their racial identity to make their whole life situation and the focus of their political struggles unique. Contemporary black feminism is the outgrowth of countless generations of personal sacrifice, militancy, and work by our mothers and sisters.

A black feminist presence has evolved most obviously in connection with the second wave of the American women’s movement beginning in the late 1960s. Black, other Third World, and working women have been involved in the feminist movement from its start, but both outside reactionary forces and racism and elitism within the movement itself have served to obscure our participation. In 1973 black feminists, primarily located in New York, felt the necessity of forming a separate black feminist group. This became the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO).

Black feminist politics also have an obvious connection to movements for black liberation, particularly those of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of us were active in those movements (civil rights, black nationalism, the Black Panthers), and all of our lives were greatly affected and changed by their ideology, their goals, and the tactics used to achieve their goals. It was our experience and disillusionment within these liberation movements, as well as experience on the periphery of the white male left, that led to the need to develop a politics that was antiracist, unlike those of white women, and antisexist, unlike those of black and white men.

There is also undeniably a personal genesis for black feminism, that is, the political realization that comes from the seemingly personal experiences of individual black women’s lives. Black feminists and many more black women who do not define themselves as feminists have all experienced sexual oppression as a constant factor in our day-to-day existence.

Black feminists often talk about their feelings of craziness before becoming conscious of the concepts of sexual politics, patriarchal rule, and, most importantly, feminism, the political analysis and practice that we women use to struggle against our oppression. The fact that racial politics and indeed racism are pervasive factors in our lives did not allow us, and still does not allow most black women, to look more deeply into our own experiences and define those things that make our lives what they are and our oppression specific to us. In the process of consciousness-raising, actually life-sharing, we began to recognize the commonality of our experiences and, from that sharing and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression.

Our development also must be tied to the contemporary economic and political position of black people. The post–World War II generation of black youth was the first to be able to minimally partake of certain educational and employment options, previously closed completely to black people. Although our economic position is still at the very bottom of the American capitalist economy, a handful of us have been able to gain certain tools as a result of tokenism in education and employment which potentially enable us to more effectively fight our oppression.

A combined antiracist and antisexist position drew us together initially, and as we developed politically we addressed ourselves to heterosexism and economic oppression under capitalism.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

2. What We Believe Above all else, our politics initially sprang from the shared belief that black women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else’s but because of our need as human persons for autonomy. This may seem so obvious as to sound simplistic, but it is apparent that no other ostensibly progressive movement has ever considered our specific oppression a priority or worked seriously for the ending of that oppression. Merely naming the pejorative stereotypes attributed to black women (e.g., mammy, matriarch, Sapphire, whore, bulldagger), let alone cataloguing the cruel, often murderous, treatment we receive, indicates how little value has been placed upon our lives during four centuries of bondage in the Western hemisphere. We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation is us. Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters, and our community which allows us to continue our struggle and work.

This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially the most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression. In the case of black women this is a particularly repugnant, dangerous, threatening, and therefore revolutionary concept because it is obvious from looking at all the political movements that have preceded us that anyone is more worthy of liberation than ourselves. We reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough.

We believe that sexual politics under patriarchy is as pervasive in black women’s lives as are the politics of class and race. We also often find it difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because in our lives they are most often experienced simultaneously. We know that there is such a thing as racial-sexual oppression which is neither solely racial nor solely sexual, e.g., the history of rape of black women by white men as a weapon of political repression.

Although we are feminists and lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand. Our situation as black people necessitates that we have solidarity around the fact of race, which white women of course do not need to have with white men, unless it is their negative solidarity as racial oppressors. We struggle together with black men against racism, while we also struggle with black men about sexism.

We realize that the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy. We are socialists because we believe the work must be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products and not for the profit of the bosses. Material resources must be equally distributed among those who create these resources. We are not convinced, however, that a socialist revolution that is not also a feminist and antiracist revolution will guarantee our liberation. We have arrived at the necessity for developing an understanding of class relationships that takes into account the specific class position of black women who are generally marginal in the labor force, while at this particular time some of us are temporarily viewed as doubly desirable tokens at white-collar and professional levels. We need to articulate the real class situation of persons who are not merely raceless, sexless

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

workers, but for whom racial and sexual oppression are significant determinants in their working/economic lives. Although we are in essential agreement with Marx’s theory as it applied to the very specific economic relationships he analyzed, we know that this analysis must be extended further in order for us to understand our specific economic situation as black women.

A political contribution which we feel we have already made is the expansion of the feminist principle that the personal is political. In our consciousness-raising sessions, for example, we have in many ways gone beyond white women’s revelations because we are dealing with the implications of race and class as well as sex. Even our black women’s style of talking/testifying in black language about what we have experienced has a resonance that is both cultural and political. We have spent a great deal of energy delving into the cultural and experiential nature of our oppression out of necessity because none of these matters have ever been looked at before. No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of black women’s lives.

As we have already stated, we reject the stance of lesbian separatism because it is not a viable political analysis or strategy for us. It leaves out far too much and far too many people, particularly black men, women, and children. We have a great deal of criticism and loathing for what men have been socialized to be in this society: what they support, how they act, and how they oppress. But we do not have the misguided notion that it is their maleness, per se— i.e., their biological maleness—that makes them what they are. As black women we find any type of biological determinism a particularly dangerous and reactionary basis upon which to build a politic. We must also question whether lesbian separatism is an adequate and progressive political analysis and strategy, even for those who practice it, since it so completely denies any but the sexual sources of women’s oppression, negating the facts of class and race.

3. Problems in Organizing Black Feminists During our years together as a black feminist collective we have experienced success and defeat, joy and pain, victory and failure. We have found that it is very difficult to organize around black feminist issues, difficult even to announce in certain contexts that we are black feminists. We have tried to think about the reasons for our difficulties, particularly since the white women’s movement continues to be strong and to grow in many directions. In this section we will discuss some of the general reasons for the organizing problems we face and also talk specifically about the stages in organizing our own collective.

The major source of difficulty in our political work is that we are not just trying to fight oppression on one front or even two, but instead to address a whole range of oppressions. We do not have racial, sexual, heterosexual, or class privilege to rely upon, nor do we have even the minimal access to resources and power that groups who possess any one of these types of privilege have….

Feminism is, nevertheless, very threatening to the majority of black people because it calls into question some of the most basic assumptions about our existence, i.e., that gender should be a determinant of power relationships. Here is the way male and female roles were defined in a black nationalist pamphlet from the early 1970s.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

We understand that it is and has been traditional that the man is the head of the house. He is the leader of the house/nation because his knowledge of the world is broader, his awareness is greater, his understanding is fuller and his application of this information is wiser…. After all, it is only reasonable that the man be the head of the house because he is able to defend and protect the development of his home…. Women cannot do the same things as men—they are made by nature to function differently. Equality of men and women is something that cannot happen even in the abstract world. Men are not equal to other men, i.e., ability, experience, or even understanding. The value of men and women can be seen as in the value of gold and silver—they are not equal but both have great value. We must realize that men and women are a complement to each other because there is no house/family without a man and his wife. Both are essential to the development of any life.

The material conditions of most black women would hardly lead them to upset both economic and sexual arrangements that seem to represent some stability in their lives. Many black women have a good understanding of both sexism and racism, but because of the everyday constrictions of their lives cannot risk struggling against them both.

The reaction of black men to feminism has been notoriously negative. They are, of course, even more threatened than black women by the possibility that black feminists might organize around our own needs. They realize that they might not only lose valuable and hard-working allies in their struggles but that they might also be forced to change their habitually sexist ways of interacting with and oppressing black women. Accusations that black feminism divides the black struggle are powerful deterrents to the growth of an autonomous black women’s movement.

Still, hundreds of women have been active at different times during the three-year existence of our group. And every black woman who came, came out of a strongly felt need for some level of possibility that did not previously exist in her life….

4. Black Feminist Issues and Practice During our time together we have identified and worked on many issues of particular relevance to black women. The inclusiveness of our politics makes us concerned with any situation that impinges upon the lives of women, Third World, and working people. We are of course particularly committed to working on those struggles in which race, sex, and class are simultaneous factors in oppression. We might, for example, become involved in workplace organizing at a factory that employs Third World women or picket a hospital that is cutting back on already inadequate health care to a Third World community, or set up a rape crisis center in a black neighborhood. Organizing around welfare or daycare concerns might also be a focus. The work to be done and the countless issues that this work represents merely reflect the pervasiveness of our oppression.

Issues and projects that collective members have actually worked on are sterilization abuse, abortion rights, battered women, rape, and health care. We have also done many workshops and educationals on black feminism on college campuses, at women’s conferences, and most recently for high school women.

One issue that is of major concern to us and that we have begun to publicly address is Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

racism in the white women’s movement. As black feminists we are made constantly and painfully aware of how little effort white women have made to understand and combat their racism, which requires among other things that they have a more than superficial comprehension of race, color, and black history and culture. Eliminating racism in the white women’s movement is by definition work for white women to do, but we will continue to speak to and demand accountability on this issue.

In the practice of our politics we do not believe that the end always justifies the means. Many reactionary and destructive acts have been done in the name of achieving “correct” political goals. As feminists we do not want to mess over people in the name of politics. We believe in collective process and a nonhierarchical distribution of power within our own group and in our vision of a revolutionary society. We are committed to a continual examination of our politics as they develop through criticism and self-criticism as an essential aspect of our practice. As black feminists and lesbians we know that we have a very definite revolutionary task to perform and we are ready for the lifetime of work and struggle before us.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

2 “Women in Prison: How We Are,” Assata Shakur, 1978

Born Joanne Chesimard, Assata Shakur (1947– ) was a Black Panther and a leader in the Black Liberation Army (BLA) during the early 1970s. As a result, she was subject to systematic surveillance, harassment, and attack by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s infamous COINTELPRO operation. Between 1971 and 1973 she was arraigned and tried seven different times for alleged crimes, ranging from bank robbery to kidnapping to murder, and yet none of the charges led to conviction. In 1973, however, she was captured on the New Jersey State Turnpike after a shootout in which a state trooper and a Black Panther were killed. In 1977 she was convicted of murder by an all-white jury in a highly disputed trial and handed a life sentence. Shakur has always maintained her innocence. She escaped from prison in 1979 and has been living in Cuba since 1986.

We sit in the bull pen. We are all black. All restless. And we are all freezing. When we ask, the matron tells us that the heating system cannot be adjusted. All of us, with the exception of a woman, tall and gaunt, who looks naked and ravished, have refused the bologna sandwiches. The rest of us sit drinking bitter, syrupy tea….

There are no criminals here at Riker’s Island Correctional Institution for Women, (New York), only victims. Most of the women (over 95 percent) are black and Puerto Rican. Many were abused children. Most have been abused by men and all have been abused by “the system.”

There are no big-time gangsters here, no premeditated mass murderers, no godmothers. There are no big-time dope dealers, no kidnappers, no Watergate women. There are virtually no women here charged with white-collar crimes like embezzling or fraud. Most of the women have drug-related cases. Many are charged as accessories to crimes committed by men. The major crimes that women here are charged with are prostitution, pickpocketing, shoplifting, robbery and drugs. Women who have prostitution cases or who are doing “fine” time make up a substantial part of the short-term population. The women see stealing or hustling as necessary for the survival of themselves or their children because jobs are scarce and welfare is impossible to live on. One thing is clear: amerikan capitalism is in no way threatened by the women in prison on Riker’s Island.

One gets the impression, when first coming to Riker’s Island, that the architects conceived of it as a prison modeled after a juvenile center. In the areas where visitors usually pass there is plenty of glass and plenty of plants and flowers. The cell blocks consist of two long corridors with cells on each side connected by a watch room where the guards are stationed, called a bubble. Each corridor has a day room with a TV, tables, multi-colored chairs, a stove that doesn’t work and a refrigerator. There’s a utility room with a sink and a washer and dryer that do not work.

Instead of bars the cells have doors which are painted bright, optimistic colors with slim

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

glass observation panels. The doors are controlled electronically by the guards in the bubble. The cells are called rooms by everybody. They are furnished with a cot, a closet, a desk, a chair, a plastic upholstered headboard that opens for storage, a small book case, a mirror, a sink and a toilet. The prison distributes brightly colored bedspreads and throw rugs for a homey effect. There is a school area, a gym, a carpeted auditorium, two inmate cafeterias and outside recreation areas that are used during the summer months only.

The guards have successfully convinced most of the women that Riker’s Island is a country club. They say that it is a playhouse compared to some other prisons (especially male): a statement whose partial veracity is not predicated upon the humanity of correction officials at Riker’s Island, but, rather, by contrast to the unbelievably barbaric conditions of other prisons. Many women are convinced that they are, somehow, “getting over.” Some go so far as to reason that because they are not doing hard time, they are not really in prison.

This image is further reinforced by the pseudo-motherly attitude of many of the guards; a deception which all too often successfully reverts women to children. The guards call the women inmates by their first names. The women address the guards either as Officer, Miss —— or by nicknames (Teddy Bear, Spanky, Aunt Louise, Squeeze, Sarge, Black Beauty, Nutty Mahogany, etc.). Frequently, when a woman returns to Riker’s she will make rounds, gleefully embracing her favorite guard: the prodigal daughter returns.

If two women are having a debate about any given topic the argument will often be resolved by “asking the officer.” The guards are forever telling the women to “grow up,” to “act like ladies,” to “behave” and to be “good girls.” If an inmate is breaking some minor rule like coming to say “hi” to her friend on another floor or locking in a few minutes late, a guard will say, jokingly, “don’t let me have to come down there and beat your butt.” It is not unusual to hear a guard tell a woman, “what you need is a good spanking.” The tone is often motherly, “didn’t I tell you, young lady, to….”; or, “you know better than that”; or, “that’s a good girl.” And the women respond accordingly. Some guards and inmates “play” together. One officer’s favorite “game” is taking off her belt and chasing her “girls” down the hall with it, smacking them on the butt.

But beneath the motherly veneer, the reality of guard life is ever present. Most of the guards are black, usually from working-class, upward-bound, civil-service-oriented backgrounds. They identify with the middle class, have middle-class values and are extremely materialistic. They are not the most intelligent women in the world and many are extremely limited. Most are aware that there is no justice in the amerikan judicial system and that blacks and Puerto Ricans are discriminated against in every facet of amerikan life. But, at the same time, they are convinced that the system is somehow “lenient.” To them, the women in prison are “losers” who don’t have enough sense to stay out of jail. Most believe in the bootstrap theory—anybody can “make it” if they try hard enough. They congratulate themselves on their great accomplishments. In contrast to themselves they see the inmate as ignorant, uncultured, self- destructive, weak-minded and stupid. They ignore the fact that their dubious accomplishments are not based on superior intelligence or effort, but only on chance and a civil service list.

Many guards hate and feel trapped by their jobs. The guard is exposed to a certain amount of abuse from co-workers, from the brass as well as from inmates, ass kissing, robotizing and mandatory overtime. (It is common practice for guards to work a double shift at least once a

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

week.) But no matter how much they hate the military structure, the infighting, the ugliness of their tasks, they are very aware of how close they are to the welfare lines. If they were not working as guards most would be underpaid or unemployed. Many would miss the feeling of superiority and power as much as they would miss the money, especially the cruel, sadistic ones.

The guards are usually defensive about their jobs and indicate by their behavior that they are not at all free from guilt. They repeatedly, compulsively say, as if to convince themselves, “This is a job just like any other job.” The more they say that the more preposterous it seems….

The black liberation struggle is equally removed from the lives of women at Riker’s. While they verbalize acute recognition that amerika is a racist country where the poor are treated like dirt they, nevertheless, feel responsible for the filth of their lives. The air at Riker’s is permeated with self-hatred. Many women bear marks on their arms, legs and wrists from suicide attempts or self-mutilation. They speak about themselves in self-deprecating terms. They consider themselves failures.

While most women contend that whitey is responsible for their oppression they do not examine the cause or source of that oppression. There is no sense of class struggle. They have no sense of communism, no definition of it, but they consider it a bad thing. They do not want to destroy Rockefella. They want to be just like him. Nicky Barnes, a major black dope seller, is discussed with reverence. When he was convicted practically everyone was sad. Many gave speeches about how kind, smart and generous he was. No one spoke about the sale of drugs to our children.

Politicians are considered liars and crooks. The police are hated. Yet, during cop and robber movies, some cheer loudly for the cops. One woman pasted photographs of Farrah Fawcett Majors all over her cell because she “is a baad police bitch.” Kojak and Barretta get their share of admiration.

A striking difference between women and men prisoners at Riker’s Island is the absence of revolutionary rhetoric among the women. We have no study groups. We have no revolutionary literature floating around. There are no groups of militants attempting to “get their heads together.” The women at Riker’s seem vaguely aware of what a revolution is but generally regard it as an impossible dream. Not at all practical.

While men in prison struggle to maintain their manhood there is no comparable struggle by women to preserve their womanhood. One frequently hears women say, “Put a bunch of bitches together and you’ve got nothin but trouble”; and, “Women don’t stick together, that’s why we don’t have nothin.” Men prisoners constantly refer to each other as brother. Women prisoners rarely refer to each other as sister. Instead, “bitch” and “whore” are the common terms of reference. Women, however, are much kinder to each other than men, and any form of violence other than a fist fight is virtually unknown. Rape, murder and stabbings at the women’s prison are non-existent.

For many, prison is not that much different from the street. It is, for some, a place to rest and recuperate. For the prostitute prison is a vacation from turning tricks in the rain and snow. A vacation from brutal pimps. Prison for the addict is a place to get clean, get medical work done and gain weight. Often, when the habit becomes too expensive, the addict gets herself

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

busted (usually subconsciously), so she can get back in shape, leave with a clean system ready to start all over again. One woman claims that for a month or two every year she either goes to jail or to the crazy house to get away from her husband.

For many the cells are not much different from the tenements, the shooting galleries and the welfare hotels they live in on the street. Sick call is no different from the clinic or the hospital emergency room. The fights are the same except they are less dangerous. The police are the same. The poverty is the same. The alienation is the same. The racism is the same. The sexism is the same. The drugs are the same and the system is the same. Riker’s Island is just another institution. In childhood school was their prison, or youth houses or reform schools or children shelters or foster homes or mental hospitals or drug programs and they see all institutions as indifferent to their needs, yet necessary to their survival.

The women at Riker’s Island come there from places like Harlem, Brownsville, Bedford- Stuyvesant, South Bronx and South Jamaica. They come from places where dreams have been abandoned like the buildings. Where there is no more sense of community. Where neighborhoods are transient. Where isolated people run from one fire trap to another. The cities have removed us from our strengths, from our roots, from our traditions. They have taken away our gardens and our sweet potato pies and given us McDonald’s. They have become our prisons, locking us into the futility and decay of pissy hallways that lead nowhere. They have alienated us from each other and made us fear each other. They have given us dope and television as a culture.

There are no politicians to trust. No roads to follow. No popular progressive culture to relate to. There are no new deals, no more promises of golden streets and no place else to migrate. My sisters in the streets, like my sisters at Riker’s Island, see no way out. “Where can I go?” said a woman on the day she was going home. “If there’s nothing to believe in,” she said, “I can’t do nothin except try to find cloud nine.”

What of our Past? What of our History? What of our Future? I can imagine the pain and the strength of my great great grandmothers who were slaves and

my great great grandmothers who were Cherokee Indians trapped on reservations. I remembered my great grandmother who walked everywhere rather than sit in the back of the bus. I think about North Carolina and my home town and I remember the women of my grandmother’s generation: strong, fierce women who could stop you with a look out the corners of their eyes. Women who walked with majesty; who could wring a chicken’s neck and scale a fish. Who could pick cotton, plant a garden and sew without a pattern. Women who boiled clothes white in big black cauldrons and who hummed work songs and lullabys. Women who visited the elderly, made soup for the sick and shortnin bread for the babies.

Women who delivered babies, searched for healing roots and brewed medicines. Women who darned sox and chopped wood and layed bricks. Women who could swim rivers and shoot the head off a snake. Women who took passionate responsibility for their children and for their neighbors’ children too.

The women in my grandmother’s generation made giving an art form. “Here, gal, take this pot of collards to Sister Sue”; “Take this bag of pecans to school for the teacher”; “Stay here while I go tend Mister Johnson’s leg.” Every child in the neighborhood ate in their kitchens. They called each other sister because of feeling rather than as the result of a movement. They

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

supported each other through the lean times, sharing the little they had. The women of my grandmother’s generation in my home town trained their daughters for

womanhood. They taught them to give respect and to demand respect. They taught their daughters how to churn butter; how to use elbow grease. They taught their daughters to respect the strength of their bodies, to lift boulders and how to kill a hog; what to do for colic, how to break a fever and how to make a poultice, patchwork quilts, plait hair and how to hum and sing. They taught their daughters to take care, to take charge and to take responsibility. They would not tolerate a “lazy heifer” or a “gal with her head in the clouds.” Their daughters had to learn how to get their lessons, how to survive, how to be strong. The women of my grandmother’s generation were the glue that held family and the community together. They were the backbone of the church. And of the school. They regarded outside institutions with dislike and distrust. They were determined that their children should survive and they were committed to a better future.

I think about my sisters in the movement. I remember the days when, draped in African garb, we rejected our foremothers and ourselves as castrators. We did penance for robbing the brother of his manhood, as if we were the oppressor. I remember the days of the Panther Party when we were “moderately liberated.” When we were allowed to wear pants and expected to pick up the gun. The days when we gave doe-eyed looks to our leaders. The days when we worked like dogs and struggled desperately for the respect which they struggled desperately not to give us. I remember the black history classes that did mention women and the posters of our “leaders” where women were conspicuously absent. We visited our sisters who bore the complete responsibility of the children while the Brotha was doing his thing. Or had moved on to bigger and better things.

Most of us rejected the white women’s movement. Miss ann was still Miss ann to us whether she burned her bras or not. We could not muster sympathy for the fact that she was trapped in her mansion and oppressed by her husband. We were, and still are, in a much more terrible jail. We knew that our experiences as black women were completely different from those of our sisters in the white women’s movement. And we had no desire to sit in some consciousness-raising group with white women and bare our souls.

Women can never be free in a country that is not free. We can never be liberated in a country where the institutions that control our lives are oppressive. We can never be free while our men are oppressed. Or while the amerikan government and amerikan capitalism remain intact.

But it is imperative to our struggle that we build a strong black women’s movement. It is imperative that we, as black women, talk about the experiences that shaped us; that we assess our strengths and weaknesses and define our own history. It is imperative that we discuss positive ways to teach and socialize our children.

The poison and pollution of capitalist cities is choking us. We need the strong medicine of our foremothers to make us well again. We need their medicines to give us strength to fight and the drive to win. Under the guidance of Harriet Tubman and Fannie Lou Hamer and all of our foremothers, let us rebuild a sense of community. Let us rebuild the culture of giving and carry on the tradition of fierce determination to move on closer to freedom.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Source: Excerpt from “Women in Prison: How We Are” with permission from Black Scholar 9, no. 7 (April 1978), pp. 50–57.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography (Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill, 1987). ———, “The Continuity of Struggle,” Souls 1, no. 2 (Spring 1999), pp. 93–101. Evelyn Williams, Inadmissible Evidence: The Story of the African-American Trial Lawyer Who Defended the Black Liberation Army (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1993).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

3 “It’s Our Turn,” Harold Washington, 1983

Harold Washington (1922–1987) grew up in Chicago, studied at Roosevelt University and Northwestern University Law School, held various local political offices, and served in the U.S. House of Representatives before he finally became the first African-American mayor of Chicago in 1983. Washington’s campaign was waged outside of the political mainstream, and in vowing to clean up the corruption left over from Richard J. Daly’s political machine, he forged a successful political coalition among black, liberal white, and Latino voters. Yet the strident opposition he faced also helped to expose the racism of many ethnic whites in what is often considered to be the most segregated city in the United States. As mayor, Washington faced legendary battles with Chicago’s city council, although he still implemented many reforms. Partially as a result of stress, overwork, and exhaustion, Washington died suddenly in office in late 1987.

Chicago is a divided city. Chicago is a city where citizens are treated unequally and unfairly. Chicago is a city in decline. Each year for the last decade, we have lost 11,500 jobs, 3,500 housing units and nearly 36,000 people.

Since 1955, women, Latinos, Blacks, youth and progressive whites have been left out of the Chicago government. Since 1979, the business, labor and intellectual communities have been allowed but token involvement in Chicago government.

Sadly, we have learned what happens when there is no governmental stability—and when the few rule over us. The results are that more people don’t have jobs, more are out of food, out of their homes and out of hope.

Our businesses are failing at the highest rate since the Depression, in part from high interest rates, and the only answer the city government provides is fat consultant contracts for a few politically connected firms and jobs for a few patronage workers.

We have a school system which does not educate, in which students continue to lag far behind the rest of the country in tests of reading and math ability.

We have a continuing crime problem in the city. Despite a drop in crime statistics, it’s still not safe to walk the streets or run a business. Even at home, Chicagoans are robbed, mugged and beaten.

We no longer have dependable housing in this city. There has been an epidemic of abandoned buildings and rents have skyrocketed. Subsidized housing is no longer being built. And, with interest rates as they are, no one can afford to buy their own home anymore.

Finally, “the city that works” doesn’t work anymore. City services cost more than in any other city in America, and yet they just aren’t there—sewers are in dis-repair, streets are marred with giant potholes. We have one of the highest infant mortality rates in the country, and traffic appears to be permanently snarled.

We have these terrible problems in Chicago, partly because leadership has not striven for

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

unity and pointed boldly to the new directions. Instead, it has perpetuated outdated politics and pie-in-the-sky financing.

I have compassion for the terrible plight of people and a vision for its future: I honestly believe that of those candidates mentioned, only I can rebuild Chicago by rallying Chicagoans to create a city in which every individual will receive his or her full measure of dignity. In the future, I see a Chicago of compassion; a city where no one has to live with rats, where the sick can be cured and where no one is overtaxed on property and burdened with other hidden taxes.

All the other candidates who have declared and who will be running for mayor would perpetuate politics as usual. Those candidates will continue the shell game of city financing at a time of crisis.

I would prefer not to run. But, there is a sense of urgency which moves me. Chicago can only be rebuilt if all the people of Chicago and her leaders work together. I was born, raised and educated in this city, and I have served it on three levels of government. I love representing Chicago in Washington, where we need courageous voices to speak out and act against Reagan and Reaganomics. But I can’t watch the city of Chicago be destroyed by petty politics and bad government.

I have heard the earnest pleas of thousands of people to enter the race. Therefore, I declare that I am a candidate for the mayor of Chicago. Not to do so would be a mockery of my longstanding dedication to public service.

I see a Chicago that runs well, in which services are provided as a right, not as a political favor.

I see a Chicago of educational excellence and equality of treatment in which all children can learn to function in this evermore-complex society, in which jobs and contracts are dispensed fairly to those that want and qualify for them, and in which justice rains down like water.

Some may say this is visionary—I say they lack vision. Already, a new day is dawning. The unprecedented voter registration and voter turnout in

Chicago in the last week is evidence of this. The people of Chicago who have been neglected by the political bosses have announced their willingness to become involved, to unify and to act. I invite them to join my campaign. If I’m to be mayor, it would be as the spokesperson of this new movement—not the mayor of just a political faction, but mayor of all Chicago. We devoutly search for unity.

As mayor of this city, I would open the doors of City Hall. I would dig into that untapped reservoir of talented whites, Latinos, women and Blacks and unleash that ability for the benefit of this city.

Fairness will be our standard. On my first day in office, I will sign a freedom of information order to open the secret files of City Hall to inspection by all citizens. We seek accountability. As mayor, I shall gather the best talent of the city to tackle the record of problems I have outlined. We shall strive for excellence.

Thousands of Chicagoans have beseeched me to undertake this task. Their faith is not misplaced….

Source: “Harold Washington’s Announcement of Candidacy for the Democratic Nomination for Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Mayor of Chicago,” from Dempsey J. Travis, Harold: The People’s Mayor (Chicago: Urban Research Press, 1989), used by permission of Ramon Price for the Washington Estate.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Paul Kleppner, Chicago Divided: The Making of a Black Mayor (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1985).

Manning Marable, “Harold Washington and the Politics of Race in Chicago,” Black Scholar 17, no. 6 (November–December 1986), pp. 14–23.

Alton Miller, Harold Washington: The Mayor, the Man (Chicago: Bonus Books, 1989).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

4 “I Am Your Sister,” Audre Lorde, 1984

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) was one of the key intellectuals in the feminist movement in the late twentieth century. Born in New York City, Lorde studied at Hunter College and Columbia University, where she earned an M.A. in library science. Later, she worked as a college lecturer, founded the Kitchen Table–Women of Color Press, and served on the editorial committee of the Black Scholar, but she was most widely known as a lesbian feminist, political activist, and poet. Some of her most important works are Uses of the Erotic (1978), which has become a staple of feminist literature, and Sister Outsider (1984), a collection of essays and speeches that traces the development of many of her ideas. Lorde died of lung cancer in 1992. Since her death, the beauty and the expressive power of her writings have become even more widely recognized by an international audience.

AGE, RACE, CLASS, AND SEX: WOMEN REDEFINING DIFFERENCE Much of Western European history conditions us to see human differences in simplistic opposition to each other: dominant/subordinate, good/bad, up/down, superior/inferior. In a society where the good is defined in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, there must always be some group of people who, through systematized oppression, can be made to feel surplus, to occupy the place of the dehumanized inferior. Within this society, that group is made up of black and Third-World people, working-class people, older people, and women.

As a forty-nine-year-old black lesbian feminist socialist mother of two, including one boy, and a member of an interracial couple, I usually find myself a part of some group defined as other, deviant, inferior, or just plain wrong. Traditionally, in American society, it is the members of oppressed, objectified groups who are expected to stretch out and bridge the gap between the actualities of our lives and the consciousness of our oppressor. For in order to survive, those of us for whom oppression is as American as apple pie have always had to be watchers, to become familiar with the language and manners of the oppressor, even sometimes adopting them for some illusion of protection. Whenever the need for some pretense of communication arises, those who profit from our oppression call upon us to share our knowledge with them. In other words, it is the responsibility of the oppressed to teach the oppressors their mistakes. I am responsible for educating teachers who dismiss my children’s culture in school. Black and Third-World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy, which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.

Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

needs outsiders as surplus people. As members of such an economy, we have all been programmed to respond to the human differences between us with fear and loathing and to handle that difference in one of three ways: ignore it, and if that is not possible, copy it if we think it is dominant, or destroy it if we think it is subordinate. But we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as equals. As a result, those differences have been misnamed and misused in the service of separation and confusion.

Certainly there are very real differences between us of race, age, and sex. But it is not those differences between us that are separating us. It is rather our refusal to recognize those differences, and to examine the distortions that result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation.

Racism, the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance. Sexism, the belief in the inherent superiority of one sex over the other and thereby the right to dominance. Ageism. Heterosexism. Elitism. Classism.

It is a lifetime pursuit for each one of us to extract these distortions from our living at the same time as we recognize, reclaim, and define those differences upon which they are imposed. For we have all been raised in a society where those distortions were endemic within our living. Too often, we pour the energy needed for recognizing and exploring difference into pretending those differences are insurmountable barriers, or that they do not exist at all. This results in a voluntary isolation, or false and treacherous connections. Either way, we do not develop tools for using human difference as a springboard for creative change within our lives. We speak not of human difference, but of human deviance.

Somewhere, on the edge of consciousness, there is what I call a mythical norm, which each one of us within our hearts knows “that is not me.” In America, this norm is usually defined as white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure. It is with this mythical norm that the trappings of power reside within this society. Those of us who stand outside that power often identify one way in which we are different, and we assume that to be the primary cause of all oppression, forgetting other distortions around difference, some of which we ourselves may be practicing. By and large within the women’s movement today, white women focus upon their oppression as women and ignore differences of race, sexual preference, class, and age. There is a pretense to a homogeneity of experience covered by the word sisterhood that does not in fact exist.

Unacknowledged class differences rob women of each others’ energy and creative insight. Recently a women’s magazine collective made the decision for one issue to print only prose, saying poetry was a less “rigorous” or “serious” art form. Yet even the form our creativity takes is often a class issue. Of all the art forms, poetry is the most economical. It is the one that is the most secret, that requires the least physical labor, the least material, and the one that can be done between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper. Over the last few years, writing a novel on tight finances, I came to appreciate the enormous differences in the material demands between poetry and prose. As we reclaim our literature, poetry has been the major voice of poor, working-class, and colored women. A room of one’s own may be a necessity for writing prose, but so are reams of paper, a typewriter, and plenty of time. The actual requirements to produce the visual arts also help determine, along class lines, whose art is whose. In this day of inflated prices for material, who are our sculptors, our

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

painters, our photographers? When we speak of a broadly based women’s culture, we need to be aware of the effect of class and economic differences on the supplies available for producing art.

As we move toward creating a society within which we can each flourish, ageism is another distortion of relationship that interferes without vision. By ignoring the past, we are encouraged to repeat its mistakes. The “generation gap” is an important social tool for any repressive society. If the younger members of a community view the older members as contemptible or suspect or excess, they will never be able to join hands and examine the living memories of the community, nor ask the all important question, “Why?” This gives rise to a historical amnesia that keeps us working to invent the wheel every time we have to go to the store for bread.

We find ourselves having to repeat and relearn the same old lessons over and over that our mothers did because we do not pass on what we have learned, or because we are unable to listen. For instance, how many times has this all been said before? For another, who would have believed that once again our daughters are allowing their bodies to be hampered and purgatoried by girdles and high heels and hobble skirts?

Ignoring the differences of race between women and the implications of those differences presents the most serious threat to the mobilization of women’s joint power.

As white women ignore their built-in privilege of whiteness and define woman in terms of their own experience alone, then women of color become “other,” the outsider whose experience and tradition is too “alien” to comprehend. An example of this is the signal absence of the experience of women of color as a resource for women’s studies courses. The literature of women of color is seldom included in women’s literature courses and almost never in other literature courses, nor in women’s studies as a whole. All too often, the excuse given is that the literatures of women of color can only be taught by colored women, or that they are too difficult to understand, or that classes cannot “get into” them because they come out of experiences that are “too different.” I have heard this argument presented by white women of otherwise quite clear intelligence, women who seem to have no trouble at all teaching and reviewing work that comes out of the vastly different experiences of Shakespeare, Molière, Dostoyevski, and Aristophanes. Surely there must be some other explanation.

This is a very complex question, but I believe one of the reasons white women have such difficulty reading black women’s work is because of their reluctance to see black women as women and different from themselves. To examine black women’s literature effectively requires that we be seen as whole people in our actual complexities—as individuals, as women, as human—rather than as one of those problematic but familiar stereotypes provided in this society in place of genuine images of black women. And I believe this holds true for the literatures of other women of color who are not black.

The literatures of all women of color recreate the textures of our lives, and many white women are heavily invested in ignoring the real differences. For as long as any difference between us means one of us must be inferior, then the recognition of any difference must be fraught with guilt. To allow women of color to step out of stereotypes is too guilt-provoking, for it threatens the complacency of those women who view oppression only in terms of sex.

Refusing to recognize difference makes it impossible to see the different problems and Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

pitfalls facing us as women. Thus, in a patriarchal power system where white skin privilege is a major prop, the

entrapments used to neutralize black women and white women are not the same. For example, it is easy for black women to be used by the power structure against black men, not because they are men, but because they are black. Therefore, for black women, it is necessary at all times to separate the needs of the oppressor from our own legitimate conflicts within our communities. This same problem does not exist for white women. Black women and men have shared racist oppression and still share it, although in different ways. Out of that shared oppression we have developed joint defenses and joint vulnerabilities to each other that are not duplicated in the white community, with the exception of the relationship between Jewish women and Jewish men.

On the other hand, white women face the pitfall of being seduced into joining the oppressor under the pretense of sharing power. This possibility does not exist in the same way for women of color. The tokenism that is sometimes extended to us is not an invitation to join power; our racial “otherness” is a visible reality that makes that quite clear. For white women there is a wider range of pretended choices and rewards for identifying with patriarchal power and its tools.

Today, with the defeat of ERA, the tightening economy, and increased conservatism, it is easier once again for white women to believe the dangerous fantasy that if you are good enough, pretty enough, sweet enough, quiet enough, teach the children to behave, hate the right people, and marry the right men, then you will be allowed to coexist with patriarchy in relative peace, at least until a man needs your job or the neighborhood rapist happens along. And true, unless one lives and loves in the trenches it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.

But black women and our children know the fabric of our lives is stitched with violence and with hatred, that there is no rest. We do not deal with it only on the picket lines, or in dark midnight alleys, or in the places where we dare to verbalize our resistance. For us, increasingly, violence weaves through the daily tissues of our living—in the supermarket, in the classroom, in the elevator, in the clinic and the school yard, from the plumber, the baker, the saleswoman, the bus driver, the bank teller, the waitress who does not serve us.

Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you; we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs upon the reasons they are dying.

The threat of difference has been no less blinding to people of color. Those of us who are black must see that the reality of our lives and our struggle does not make us immune to the errors of ignoring and misnaming difference. Within black communities, where racism is a living reality, differences among us often seem dangerous and suspect. The need for unity is often misnamed as a need for homogeneity, and a black feminist vision mistaken for betrayal of our common interests as a people. Because of the continuous battle against racial erasure that black women and black men share, some black women still refuse to recognize that we are also oppressed as women, and that sexual hostility against black women is practiced not only by the white racist society, but implemented within our black communities as well. It is a disease striking the heart of black nationhood, and silence will not make it disappear.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Exacerbated by racism and the pressures of powerlessness, violence against black women and children often becomes a standard within our communities, one by which manliness can be measured. But these woman-hating acts are rarely discussed as crimes against black women.

As a group, women of color are the lowest-paid wage earners in America. We are the primary targets of abortion and sterilization abuse, here and abroad. In certain parts of Africa, small girls are still being sewed shut between their legs to keep them docile and for men’s pleasure. This is known as female circumcision, and it is not a cultural affair as the late Jomo Kenyatta insisted, it is a crime against black women.

Black women’s literature is full of the pain of frequent assault, not only by a racist patriarchy, but also by black men. Yet the necessity for and history of shared battle have made us, black women, particularly vulnerable to the false accusation that anti-sexist is anti-black. Meanwhile, womanhating as a recourse of the powerless is sapping strength from black communities, and our very lives. Rape is on the increase, reported and unreported, and rape is not aggressive sexuality, it is sexualized aggression. As Kalamu ya Salaam, a black male writer points out, “As long as male domination exists, rape will exist. Only women revolting and men made conscious of their responsibility to fight sexism can collectively stop rape.”

Differences between ourselves as black women are also being misnamed and used to separate us from one another. As a black lesbian feminist comfortable with the many different ingredients of my identity, and a woman committed to racial and sexual freedom from oppression, I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self. But this is a destructive and fragmenting way to live. My fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate all the parts of who I am, openly, allowing power from particular sources of my living to flow back and forth freely through all my different selves, without the restrictions of externally imposed definition. Only then can I bring myself and my energies as a whole to the service of those struggles which I embrace as part of my living.

A fear of lesbians, or of being accused of being a lesbian, has led many black women into testifying against themselves. It has led some of us into destructive alliances, and others into despair and isolation. In the white women’s communities, heterosexism is sometimes a result of identifying with the white patriarchy, a rejection of that interdependence between women- identified women that allows the self to be, rather than to be used in the service of men. Sometimes it reflects a die-hard belief in the protective coloration of heterosexual relationships, sometimes a self-hate, which all women have to fight against, taught us from birth.

Although elements of these attitudes exist for all women, there are particular resonances of heterosexism and homophobia among black women. Despite the fact that woman-bonding has a long and honorable history in the African and African-American communities, and despite the knowledge and accomplishments of many strong and creative women-identified black women in the political, social and cultural fields, heterosexual black women often tend to ignore or discount the existence and work of black lesbians. Part of this attitude has come from an understandable terror of black male attack within the close confines of black society, where the punishment for any female self-assertion is still to be accused of being a lesbian and therefore unworthy of the attention or support of the scarce black male. But part of this need to misname

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

and ignore black lesbians comes from a very real fear that openly women-identified black women who are no longer dependent upon men for their self-definition may well reorder our whole concept of social relationships.

Black women who once insisted that lesbianism was a white woman’s problem now insist that black lesbians are a threat to black nationhood, are consorting with the enemy, are basically unblack. These accusations, coming from the very women to whom we look for deep and real understanding, have served to keep many black lesbians in hiding, caught between the racism of white women and the homophobia of their sisters. Often, their work has been ignored, trivialized, or misnamed, as with the work of Angelina Grimké, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Lorraine Hansberry. Yet women-bonded women have always been some part of the power of black communities, from our unmarried aunts to the amazons of Dahomey.

And it is certainly not black lesbians who are assaulting women and raping children and grandmothers on the streets of our communities.

Across this country, as in Boston during the spring of 1979 following the unsolved murders of twelve black women, black lesbians are spearheading movements against violence against black women.

What are the particular details within each of our lives that can be scrutinized and altered to help bring about change? How do we redefine difference for all women? It is not our differences that separate women, but our reluctance to recognize those differences and to deal effectively with the distortions that have resulted from the ignoring and misnaming of those differences.

As a tool of social control, women have been encouraged to recognize only one area of human difference as legitimate, those differences that exist between women and men. And we have learned to deal across those differences with the urgency of all oppressed subordinates. All of us have had to learn to live or work or coexist with men, from our fathers on. We have recognized and negotiated these differences, even when this recognition only continued the old dominant/ subordinate mode of human relationship, where the oppressed must recognize the masters’ difference in order to survive.

But our future survival is predicated upon our ability to relate within equality. As women, we must root out internalized patterns of oppression within ourselves if we are to move beyond the most superficial aspects of social change. Now we must recognize differences among women who are our equals, neither inferior nor superior, and devise ways to use each others’ difference to enrich our visions and our joint struggles.

The future of our earth may depend upon the ability of all women to identify and develop new definitions of power and new patterns of relating across difference. The old definitions have not served us, nor the earth that supports us. The old patterns, no matter how cleverly rearranged to imitate progress, still condemn us to cosmetically altered repetitions of the same old exchanges, the same old guilt, hatred, recrimination, lamentation, and suspicion.

For we have, built into all of us, old blueprints of expectation and response, old structures of oppression, and these must be altered at the same time as we alter the living conditions which are a result of those structures. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.

As Paulo Freire shows so well in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the true focus of Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations that we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor that is planted deep within each of us, and that knows only the oppressors’ tactics, the oppressors’ relationships.

Change means growth, and growth can be painful. But we sharpen self-definition by exposing the self in work and struggle together with those whom we define as different from ourselves, although sharing the same goals. For black and white, old and young, lesbian and heterosexual women alike, this can mean new paths to our survival.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Toni Cade, ed., The Black Woman: An Anthology (New York: Mentor/New American Library, 1970).

Alexis De Veaux, Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004).

Joan Wylie Hall, ed., Conversations with Audre Lorde (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004).

Audre Lorde, The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde (New York: Norton, 1997). ———, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Out and Out Books, 1978). ———, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (Trumansberg, N.Y.: Crossing Press, 1982). ———, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Trumansberg, N.Y.: Crossing Press, 1984). ———, A Burst of Light: Essays (Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand Books, 1988).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

http://www.tenspeed.com

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

6 The Movement against Apartheid: Jesse Jackson and Randall Robinson

The single most important international issue confronting black America after the end of the Vietnam War was apartheid. For nearly forty years, the white-minority regime in South Africa had imposed a rigidly authoritarian form of racial oppression on millions of African people. Thousands of South Africans were executed, imprisoned, or exiled. Mass organizations that led the movement against apartheid, such as the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, were banned.

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan initiated a cordial bilateral policy toward South Africa, termed “constructive engagement.” African Americans, outraged by the Reagan administration’s friendly initiatives toward apartheid, began to mobilize a mass protest movement to pressure U.S. firms to “divest” their holdings from South Africa. Many protest organizations mobilized black opposition to apartheid. One of the coordinators of the anti- apartheid movement in the United States during the 1980s was Randall Robinson, head of TransAfrica, a black American lobbying agency for Africa and the Caribbean.

Robinson (1941– ), born in Richmond Virginia, graduated from Virginia Union University and earned a law degree from Harvard Law School. Robinson has published numerous books whose subjects range from critiques of poverty and crime in America to the demand for black reparations. After his departure from TransAfrica, Robinson continued efforts to address the socioeconomic and political problems of Africa and the Caribbean.

In the first document below, civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson addressed an antiapartheid conference held at the United Nations in 1984. In the second document, political scientist and journalist Clarence Lusane interviewed Robinson in October 1985.

DON’T ADJUST TO APARTHEID … A great Afro-American, Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois, long ago called attention to “The African Roots of War,” as he revealed how the policies of plunder and exploitation of the African continent led to war between the European and American Powers who had developed at the Expense of Africa, and who often went to war between themselves over a redivision of the spoils.

Our Africa policy in the United States, our relations and attitudes towards the countries of the African continent, have always been in distinct contrast to our policy and attitudes towards the nation-states of Europe. Europe, in our perception, has historically been seen as a source of immigrants and culture. While Africa is perceived in our country as a source of cheap labor and raw materials to be exploited for the benefit of a privileged class of European settlers.

This stereotype of Africa, as being without culture and civilization, a continent to be subjugated by the advocates of “master race” politics, has led to a kind of Tarzan, Jane, Boy relationship between the United States and Africa. This not only reflects racial chauvinism, but

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

a grossly unreal attitude which underplays the significance of Africa to the world in general and to the United States in particular.

One of the tragedies of our own times that this history of negative attitudes has produced, is the massive starvation and drought in huge areas of the African continent. We live in a scientific age that recognizes that what are viewed as natural disasters are often the by-product of years of neglect and plunder. The hunger and death that stalks wide areas of the African continent today must become the concern of the entire international community because it is a threat to the human family.

Poverty and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We, in North America, blessed with one of the most fertile and productive agricultural lands in the world, must cease being insensitive to the current suffering in Africa. We must mobilize our abundant resources, through both government and non-governmental organizations, to bring assistance and relief to our brothers and sisters that are in Africa.

It is a measure of the callousness of the present administration in the United States that it would pull 82 million acres of arable land out of production, while 5,000,000 people a year die of starvation in the Third World. This, too, is a dimension of United States Africa policy, when we, who have such abundant capacity to feed the hungry, deny members of the human family access to this relief from hunger and starvation.

This policy of cynicism and callousness has the United States in an official partnership with the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. Corporate greed, in the search for the maximum return on investments, has found in the racist apartheid system, with its brutal denial of human rights, a favorable climate guaranteeing the highest profits in the world. An American government that pretends to be outraged by the human rights situation in Poland is apparently quite satisfied with the brutal denial of human rights in Pretoria.

This is measured in part by the deafening official silence in our country concerning the plight of 8,000,000 Black Africans who have been stripped of their South African citizenship and forcibly removed from the cities of South Africa and relocated into Bantustans, thereby made refugees and aliens in their own country. In the language of the apartheid regime, this is called “separate development” and the United States southern Africa policy which supports this barbarism is called “constructive engagement.”

In the service of this policy, the Reagan administration has given the green light for loans to South Africa from the International Monetary Fund. It has allowed more South African consulates to open in the United States; expanded military ties with the apartheid regime, which includes training the South African Coast Guard; it has encouraged South Africa’s repeated military invasions in Angola by withholding diplomatic recognition to the Angolan People’s Republic; and has generally created a climate of official endorsement that has made the United States South Africa’s number one trading partner.

It must be remembered that the flow of foreign capital into South Africa, from the United States, Britain and other allies, is essential to the apartheid regime’s economic growth, and economic growth in South Africa, as elsewhere, is essential to political stability.

Double Standard

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

In order to promote the political stability of the apartheid regime, United States policy invariably adopts a double standard in matters of human rights. For example, when a solidarity union in Poland is suppressed and a leader is jailed, our official policy is to implement an economic boycott against Poland in response to this violation of human rights. When the ANC in South Africa and the trade unions affiliated to it are suppressed and abolished, and leaders like Nelson Mandela are jailed, we respond to this violation of human rights by expanding economic, diplomatic and military ties with the regime.

Furthermore, the United States veto is repeatedly used in the United Nations Security Council to frustrate every effort by the international community to effect economic sanctions against South Africa. We, in the United States, must measure human rights by one yardstick and free ourselves of this hypocrisy that increasingly alienates us from the peoples of the world struggling for human dignity and self-determination. Our national view of southern Africa must radically change from seeing it as essentially a piece of geopolitical real estate to be used by the United States for selfish ends, without regard to the aspirations of the people of southern Africa.

This purely geopolitical approach has led to a dangerous situation in which American nuclear technology has been made accessible to the apartheid regime. Now that regime has acquired the technical capability of producing atomic weapons. In this way, our Africa policy, together with that of Israel, has helped to create a situation that is a threat to the sovereignty of every nation on the African continent. The disarmament movement in our country must give far more attention to this particular nuclear threat than it has in the past.

Constructive Engagement The Reagan administration’s “constructive engagement” policy is a multi-pronged strategy designed to help South Africa gain acceptance and respectability in the West and thereby break out of the isolation it has experienced in the international community since the late 1960s. This support from the United States has emboldened the apartheid regime and encouraged its military aggressions.

This places a particularly heavy burden on the frontline States, who have courageously maintained a principled opposition to apartheid in the face of ever-mounting military and diplomatic pressures upon them to accommodate to South Africa’s wishes. All of us have been inspired by the courageous struggles and sacrifices being made by these newly-emancipated countries, in an effort to overcome generations of economic and cultural deprivation that are the legacy of colonialism. The fruits of these sacrifices are now being threatened by a new form of subjugation coming from the most brutally racist regime on earth.

I need not tell you that we live in perilous times. I need not tell you that the vast majority of humankind wants peace, economic and social justice and the right of self-determination. This very institution was designed and built by the nations of the world, including the United States, to implement these goals. We in the United States have had a very special interest and mission in creating the United Nations.

Our people have come from all corners of the globe, from Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas. Our nation indeed is a mini–United Nations. I want to assure you that as I travel around this country and talk to the people in the towns, cities and factories, they tell me how

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

important it is that we learn to live with the rest of the world especially because we are fast becoming a genuinely interdependent world.

The electronic media brings to our living rooms the wars in El Salvador, Lebanon and Angola. The people of this country know and want a continuing dialogue with the rest of the world and they see the United Nations as a forum where this dialogue can take place. I would like to assure you that the political gimmicks to punish this or that international organization are nothing more than political gimmickry. After all, it is somewhat humorous when a major power like ours begins to punish an international organization devoted to uplifting the small farmers of the world. The real American tradition is to stand by the seashore and wave people to come in and share our bounty and not to wave them goodbye….

STATE OF THE U.S. ANTI-APARTHEID MOVEMENT The following interview with Randall Robinson of TransAfrica and the Free South Africa movement was conducted for The Black Scholar on October 17, 1985.—Clarence Lusane

SCHOLAR: Approximately one year has passed since the U.S. anti-apartheid movement surged forward. What is your assessment of the major achievement over this period? ROBINSON: We started the campaign with three major objectives to be pursued in sequence. The first objective was to more broadly educate the American people on South Africa, and to do that through civil disobedience and broad demonstrations that would provoke the kind of press coverage that the issue has gotten in the United States over the last eleven months.

The second objective growing out of that was to begin a dramatic change in American policy toward South Africa. As a result, the Congress and the administration found themselves in a posture of having to account to a newly informed and invigorated American public. The Congress responded with legislation and President Reagan with an inadequate Executive Order that nonetheless repudiated his own policy of constructive engagement, but does little else in moving us significantly towards the kind of sanctions that the situation in South Africa warrants.

The third objective—yet to be realized, and that’s what we have to work on—is that when American policy changes as substantially as it ought to, it begins to influence policy in other Western countries. Then we will have South Africa in a position to do nothing but respond to Western pressure and to negotiate with the real leadership in South Africa. Now, progress toward that objective has been made inasmuch as the unrest in South Africa, coupled with heightening pressure and concern around the world, has produced a hemorrhage of money leaving South Africa both in investment and in bank commitments, and that has caused the South African government an unprecedented kind of concern about the traditional commitment of the West to support the regime.

So we are moving in the right direction and when the Congress comes back, we’re going to push for tougher legislation in the next session of Congress. In the meantime, we have to sustain the campaign with thoughtful projects and sustain it with a pace, understanding that we have to have the resources to go for a long, long period of time. It was with that thought that the demonstrations were launched in the first place.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

That kind of planning and that kind of expectation have given us the capacity to have daily demonstrations at the South African Embassy and around the country since November 21 of last year—demonstrations that have resulted in the arrest of almost 5,000 people nationally, and over 3,500 at the embassy in Washington.

And we have every capacity to sustain and build on this kind of long-term process of pressure application so that we are now beginning to reap fruit in the middle of the country, since there is divestment legislation virtually under consideration at every level of government, even in cities and towns and states that previously had never even considered South Africa to be a major issue. So, this issue has now reached every university; it has become an issue in supermarkets selling goods and in winestores selling wines imported from South Africa. It has become an issue that really has permeated the entire American society.

SCHOLAR: What have been the main problems and outstanding weaknesses of the campaign? ROBINSON: The problems are that the administration, along with the South Africans, is attempting to counterattack by the use of the coarsest tactics, characterizing leadership as Marxist; further, instead of frontally attempting to defend apartheid, they are attacking the countries that South Africa would want to destabilize—Angola, Mozambique—and the whole issue of American-Soviet containment in the region is being raised in a way that would have the American public believe unrelated to the South Africa issue.

But it is very much related and is a part of South Africa’s strategy, taken with right-wing conservatives here in the United States, to weaken the anti-apartheid movement by mustering support for Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA in Angola and the MNR in Mozambique, thereby buying South Africa time in Namibia, buying their resources at home to be used in their repression at home. If America will materially support Savimbi and others like him, it is really joining the South African conspiracy to destabilize the region and to cement apartheid at home.

So I think that the counterattack is being waged in that way because they’ve had diminishing success in their efforts to defend the domestic application of apartheid in South Africa itself.

SCHOLAR: As you note, Botha and Reagan are attempting to buy time, but what are their real options over the next couple of years since the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa doesn’t seem to be abating at all? ROBINSON: First of all, I think this upsurge has to be distinguished from Sharpeville or even from Soweto. Since 1982, we’ve seen an unprecedented increase in resistance to apartheid that is broad and deep all across South Africa. The government’s State of Emergency has done nothing to diminish the black commitment to destroy the apartheid system altogether. Nothing short of one person, one vote in a unitary state will be favorably received by the black majority and the black leaders in South Africa. So the South African government now finds the ball in its court; it must decide how to respond.

Our job here is to make certain that the United States, in its private and public sectors, no longer gives encouragement to whites to try to tough it out. So, we have our work cut out for us in making sure that America is removed as a major component of the underpinnings of that

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

system and for white intransigence in general.

SCHOLAR: How do you see the role of the Free South Africa Movement over the next year and what are some of your plans? ROBINSON: Right now we are working on a Freedom Letter Campaign. We are sending a letter from the American people to Bishop Desmond Tutu signed by a million Americans saying that we stand with black South Africans in their struggle for justice. We are going to try to take that letter to Bishop Tutu in Soweto and deliver it personally in December with as many as want to go in the delegation to do that.

This is part of a continuing, consciousness-raising campaign that leads us into next year where we will seek passage in the Congress of stronger legislation; reintroduction of Ronald Dellums’ bill calling for disinvestment of American investment so that we will ask for tougher sanctions.

We will also take our campaign to the private sector by giving Americans a better sense of the extent to which American corporations are pivotally involved in the repression of 22 million black South Africans, hopefully mustering enough pressure on those corporations to accelerate their departure from South Africa. All of this will be a part of the 1986 FSAM campaign.

SCHOLAR: What is your assessment on how soon change will come in South Africa and is there any possibility for peaceful change? ROBINSON: It’s hard to put a timetable on social change as a general rule since it’s difficult to forecast with any accuracy. The thing of which one is certain is that change is inevitable and that it will come in the foreseeable future, whether that is five years, or ten years, or fifteen years, one can’t say. It could be within the next few months.

You have variables that come together in combination to make the force for change simply irresistible and have a lot to do with the continued development of urban military capacity on the part of the African National Congress, the continued growth and political strength of black labor unions in South Africa; the continued deepening of consciousness and activity of young people throughout South Africa, all coupled with increased pressure from without.

When these come together in a kind of requisite chemistry; then you will see South Africa fundamentally changed. One can’t say with any preciseness when that will happen. I’m confident having said that that we will see change in the foreseeable future. We are closer to it now than we have ever been.

Sources: (1) Jesse L. Jackson, “Don’t Adjust to Apartheid,” with permission from Black Scholar 16, no. 6 (November/December 1984), pp. 39–43; and (2) Clarence Lusane, “State of the U.S. Anti-Apartheid Movement: An Interview with Randall Robinson,” with permission from Black Scholar 17, no. 6 (November/December 1985), pp. 40–42.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kevin Danaher, “South Africa, U.S. Policy, and the Anti-Apartheid Movement,” Review of Radical Political Economics 11, no. 3 (1997), pp. 42–59.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Janice Love, The U.S. Anti-Apartheid Movement: Local Activism in Global Politics (New York: Praeger, 1995).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

7 “Keep Hope Alive,” Jesse Jackson, 1988

Born Jesse Burns in South Carolina, Jesse Jackson (1941– ) took his stepfather’s surname in 1956. While he was an undergraduate at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, Jackson emerged as a leader of the civil rights demonstrations in Greensboro, North Carolina. Jackson graduated from college in 1964, and in the spring of 1966 he became head of the Chicago chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s (SCLC) Operation Breadbasket. A confidant of Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson became an ordained minister in 1968. In the 1970s, Jackson created Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity), a civil rights organization focusing on economic empowerment and social protest in impoverished, urban areas. In 1983, Jackson announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, a decision that generated widespread African-American support. Running under the slogan, “Rainbow Coalition,” the civil rights leader attracted significant support from Latinos, Asian Americans, and many whites around a liberal-left public policy agenda. By the end of the 1984 Democratic primaries, Jackson’s efforts had received 3.5 million popular votes. Four years later, Jackson revived his Rainbow Coalition campaign for the presidency, this time winning over 7 million popular votes. Jackson’s presidential campaigns illustrated that an African-American candidate could in principle successfully compete for the nation’s highest office. Jackson’s 1988 address, “Keep Hope Alive,” captures the idealism and the spirit behind his unsuccessful presidential campaigns. Since the 1990s, Jackson has been extensively involved in human rights efforts throughout the world, as well as social justice and antiracist struggles in the United States as well.

COMMON GROUND AND COMMON SENSE Tonight we pause and give praise and honor to God for being good enough to allow us to be at this place at this time. When I look out at this convention, I see the face of America, red, yellow, brown, black and white, we’re all precious in God’s sight—the real rainbow coalition. All of us, all of us who are here and think that we are seated. But we’re really standing on someone’s shoulders. Ladies and gentlemen. Mrs. Rosa Parks.

The mother of the civil-rights movement. I want to express my deep love and appreciation for the support my family has given me

over these past months. They have endured pain, anxiety, threat and fear. But they have been strengthened and made secure by a faith in God, in America and in you. Your love has protected us and made us strong. To my wife, Jackie, the foundation of our family; to our five children whom you met

tonight; to my mother, Mrs. Helen Jackson, who is present tonight; and to my grandmother, Mrs. Maltilda Burns; my brother Chuck and his family; my mother-in-law, Mrs. Gertrude Brown, who just last month at age 61 graduated from Hampton Institute, a marvelous achievement; I

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

offer my appreciation to Mayor Andrew Young who has provided such gracious hospitality to all of us this week.

And a special salute to President Jimmy Carter. President Carter restored honor to the White House after Watergate. He gave many of us a

special opportunity to grow. For his kind words, for his unwavering commitment to peace in the world and the voters that came from his family, every member of his family, led by Billy and Amy, I offer him my special thanks, special thanks to the Carter family.

My right and my privilege to stand here before you has been won—in my lifetime—by the blood and the sweat of the innocent.

Twenty-four years ago, the late Fanny Lou Hamer and Aaron Henry—who sits here tonight from Mississippi—were locked out on the streets of Atlantic City, the head of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

But tonight, a black and white delegation from Mississippi is headed by Ed Cole, a black man, from Mississippi, twenty-four years later.

Many were lost in the struggle for the right to vote. Jimmy Lee Jackson, a young student, gave his life. Viola Luizzo, a white mother from Detroit, called nigger lover, and brains blown out at point blank range.

Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney—two Jews and a black—found in a common grave, bodies riddled with bullets in Mississippi. The four darling little girls in the church in Birmingham, Ala. They died that we might have a right to live.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lies only a few miles from us tonight. Tonight he must feel good as he looks down upon us. We sit here together, a rainbow, a

coalition—the sons and daughters of slave masters and the sons and daughters of slaves sitting together around a common table, to decide the direction of our party and our country. His heart would be full tonight.

As a testament to the struggles of those who have gone before; as a legacy for those who will come after; as a tribute to the endurance, the patience, the courage of our forefathers and mothers; as an assurance that their prayers are being answered, their work has not been in vain, and hope is eternal; tomorrow night my name will go into nomination for the presidency of the United States of America.

We meet tonight at a crossroads, a point of decision. Shall we expand, be inclusive, find unity and power; or suffer division and impotence. We come to Atlanta, the cradle of the old south, the crucible of the new South. Tonight there is a sense of celebration because we are moved, fundamentally moved, from

racial battlegrounds by law, to economic common ground, tomorrow we will challenge to move to higher ground.

Common ground! Think of Jerusalem—the intersection where many trails met. A small village that became

the birthplace for three great religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Why was this village so blessed? Because it provided a crossroads where different people

met, different cultures, and different civilizations could meet and find common ground. When people come together, flowers always flourish and the air is rich with the aroma of a

new spring. Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Take New York, the dynamic metropolis. What makes New York so special? It is the invitation of the Statue of Liberty—give me your tired, your poor, your huddled

masses who yearn to breathe free. Not restricted to English only. Many people, many cultures, many languages—with one thing in common, the yearn to

breathe free. Common ground! Tonight in Atlanta, for the first time in this century we convene in the South. A state where governors once stood in school-house doors. Where Julian Bond was denied

his seat in the state legislature because of his conscientious objection to the Vietnam War. A city that, through its five black universities, has graduated more black students than any

city in the world. Atlanta, now a modern intersection of the new South. Common ground! That is the challenge to our party tonight. Left wing. Right wing. Progress will not come through boundless liberalism nor static

conservatism, but at the critical mass of mutual survival. It takes two wings to fly. Whether you’re a hawk or a dove, you’re just a bird living in the same environment, in the

same world. The Bible teaches that when lions and lambs lie down together, none will be afraid and

there will be peace in the valley. It sounds impossible. Lions eat lambs. Lambs sensibly flee from lions. But even lions and lambs find common ground. Why?

Because neither lions nor lambs want the forest to catch on fire. Neither lions nor lambs want acid rain to fall. Neither lions nor lambs can survive nuclear war. If lions and lambs can find common ground, surely, we can as well, as civilized people.

The only time that we win is when we come together. In 1960, John Kennedy, the late John Kennedy, beat Richard Nixon by only 112,000 votes—less than one vote per precinct. He won by the margin of our hope. He brought us together. He reached out. He had the courage to defy his advisors and inquire about Dr. King’s jailing in Albany, Georgia. We won by the margin of our hope, inspired by courageous leadership.

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson brought both wings together. The thesis, the antithesis and to create a synthesis and together we won.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter unified us again and we won. When we do not come together, we never win.

In 1968, division and despair in July led to our defeat in November. In 1980, rancor in the spring and the summer led to Reagan in the fall. When we divide, we

cannot win. We must find common ground as a basis for survival and development and change and growth.

Today when we debated, differed, deliberated, agreed to agree, agreed to disagree, when we had the good judgment to argue our case and then not self-destruct, George Bush was just a little further away from the White House and a little closer to private life.

Tonight, I salute Governor Michael Dukakis. He has run a well-managed and a dignified campaign. No matter how tired or how tried, he

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

always resisted the temptation to stoop to demagoguery. I’ve watched a good mind fast at work, with steel nerves, guiding his campaign out of the

crowded field without appeal to the worst in us. I’ve watched his perspective grow as his environment has expanded. I’ve seen his toughness and tenacity close up. I know his commitment to public service.

Mike Dukakis’s parents were a doctor and a teacher; my parents, a maid, a beautician and a janitor.

There’s a great gap between Brookline, Massachusetts, and Haney Street, the Fieldcrest Village housing projects in Greenville, South Carolina.

He studied law; I studied theology. There are differences of religion, region, and race; differences in experiences and perspectives. But the genius of America is that out of the many, we become one.

Providence has enabled our paths to intersect. His foreparents came to America on immigrant ships; my foreparents came to America on slave ships. But whatever the original ships, we’re in the same boat tonight.

Our ships could pass in the night if we have a false sense of independence, or they could collide and crash. We would lose our passengers. But we can seek a higher reality and a greater good apart. We can drift on the broken pieces of Reaganomics, satisfy our baser instincts, and exploit the fears of our people. At our highest, we can call upon noble instincts and navigate this vessel to safety. The greater good is the common good.

As Jesus said, “Not my will, but thine be done.” It was his way of saying there’s a higher good beyond personal comfort or position.

The good of our nation is at stake—its commitment to working men and women, to the poor and the vulnerable, to the many in the world. With so many guided missiles, and so much misguided leadership, the stakes are exceedingly high. Our choice, full participation in a Democratic government, or more abandonment and neglect. And so this night, we choose not a false sense of independence, not our capacity to survive and endure.

Tonight we choose interdependency in our capacity to act and unite for the greater good. The common good is finding commitment to new priorities, to expansion and inclusion. A commitment to expanded participation in the Democratic Party at every level. A commitment to a shared national campaign strategy and involvement at every level. A commitment to new priorities that ensure that hope will be kept alive. A common-ground commitment for a legislative agenda by empowerment for the John Conyers bill, universal, on-site, same-day registration everywhere—and commitment to D.C. statehood and empowerment—D.C. deserves statehood. A commitment to economic set-asides, a commitment to the Dellums bill for comprehensive sanctions against South Africa, a shared commitment to a common direction.

Common ground. Easier said than done. Where do you find common ground at the point of challenge? This campaign has shown that politics need not be marketed by politicians, packaged by pollsters and pundits. Politics can be a marvel arena where people come together, define common ground.

We find common ground at the plant gate that closes on workers without notice. We find common ground at the farm auction where a good farmer loses his or her land to bad loans or

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

diminishing markets. Common ground at the schoolyard where teachers cannot get adequate pay, and students cannot get a scholarship and can’t make a loan. Common ground, at the hospital admitting room where somebody tonight is dying because they cannot afford to go upstairs to a bed that’s empty, waiting for someone with insurance to get sick. We are a better nation than that. We must do better.

Common ground. What is leadership if not present help in a time of crisis? And so I met you at the point of challenge in Jay, Maine where paper workers were striking for fair wages; in Greenfield, Iowa, where family farmers struggle for a fair price; in Cleveland, Ohio, where working women seek comparable worth; in McFarland, California, where the children of Hispanic farm workers may be dying from poison land, dying in clusters with cancer; in the AIDS hospice in Houston, Texas, where the sick support one another, twelve are rejected by their own parents and friends.

Common ground. America’s not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth. When I was a child

growing up in Greenville, S.C., and grandmother could not afford a blanket, she didn’t complain and we did not freeze. Instead, she took pieces of old cloth—patches, wool, silk, gabardine, crockersack on the patches—barely good enough to wipe your shoes with.

But they didn’t stay that way very long. With sturdy hands and a strong cord, she sewed them together into a quilt, a thing of beauty and power and culture.

Now, Democrats, we must build such a quilt. Farmers, you seek fair prices and you are right, but you cannot stand alone. Your patch is not big enough. Workers, you fight for fair wages. You are right. But your labor patch is not big enough. Women, you seek comparable worth and pay equity. You are right. But your patch is not big enough. Women, mothers, who seek Head Start and day care and prenatal care on the front side of life, rather than jail care and welfare on the back side of life, you’re right, but your patch is not big enough.

Students, you seek scholarships. You are right. But your patch is not big enough. Blacks and Hispanics, when we fight for civil rights, we are right, but our patch is not big enough. Gays and lesbians, when you fight against discrimination and a cure for AIDS, you are right, but your patch is not big enough. Conservatives and progressives, when you fight for what you believe, right wing, left wing, hawk, dove—you are right, from your point of view, but your point of view is not enough.

But don’t despair. Be as wise as my grandmama. Pool the patches and the pieces together, bound by a common thread. When we form a great quilt of unity and common ground we’ll have the power to bring about health care and housing and jobs and education and hope to our nation.

We the people can win. We stand at the end of a long dark night of reaction. We stand tonight united in a commitment to a new direction. For almost eight years, we’ve been led by those who view social good coming from private interest, who viewed public life as a means to increase private wealth. They have been prepared to sacrifice the common good of the many to satisfy the private interest and the wealth of a few.

We believe in a government that’s a tool of our democracy in service to the public, not an instrument of the aristocracy in search of private wealth. We believe in government with the consent of the governed of, for, and by the people. We must not emerge into a new day with a

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

new direction. Reaganomics, based on the belief that the rich had too much money—too little money, and the poor had too much.

That’s classic Reaganomics. It believes that the poor had too much money and the rich had too little money.

So, they engaged in reverse Robin Hood—took from the poor, gave to the rich, paid for by the middle class. We cannot stand four more years of Reaganomics in any version, in any disguise.

How do I document that case? Seven years later, the richest 1 percent of our society pays 20 percent less in taxes; the poorest 10 percent pay 20 percent more. Reaganomics.

Reagan gave the rich and the powerful a multibillion-dollar party. Now, the party is over. He expects the people to pay for the damage. I take this principled position—convention, let us not raise taxes on the poor and the middle class, but those who had the party, the rich and the powerful, must pay for the party!

I just want to take common sense to high places. We’re spending $150 billion a year defending Europe and Japan forty-three years after the war is over. We have more troops in Europe tonight than we had seven years ago, yet the threat of war is ever more remote. Germany and Japan are now creditor nations—that means they’ve got a surplus. We are a debtor nation—it means we are in debt.

Let them share more of the burden of their own defense—use some of that money to build decent housing!

Use some of that money to educate our children! Use some of that money for long-term health care! Use some of that money to wipe out these slums and put America back to work! I just want to take common sense to high places. If we can bail out Europe and Japan, if we

can bail out Continental Bank and Chrysler—and Mr. Iacocca makes $8,000 an hour, we can bail out the family farmer.

I just want to make common sense. It does not make sense to close down 650,000 family farms in this country while importing food from abroad subsidized by the U.S. government.

Let’s make sense. It does not make sense to be escorting oil tankers up and down the Persian Gulf paying $2.50 for every $1.00 worth of oil we bring out while oil wells are capped in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. I just want to make sense.

Leadership must meet the moral challenge of its day. What’s the moral challenge of our day? We have public accommodations. We have the right to vote. We have open housing.

What’s the fundamental challenge of our day? It is to end economic violence. Plant closing without notice, economic violence. Even the greedy do not profit long from greed. Economic violence. Most poor people are not lazy. They’re not black. They’re not brown. They’re mostly white, and female and young.

But whether white, black or brown, the hungry baby’s belly turned inside out is the same color. Call it pain. Call it hurt. Call it agony. Most poor people are not on welfare.

Some of them are illiterate and can’t read the want-ad sections. And when they can, they can’t find a job that matches their address. They work hard every day, I know. I live amongst them. I’m one of them.

I know they work. I’m a witness. They catch the early bus. They work every day. They Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

raise other people’s children. They work every day. They clean the streets. They work every day. They drive vans with cabs. They work every day. They change the beds you slept in these hotels last night and can’t get a union contract. They work every day.

No more. They’re not lazy. Someone must defend them because it’s right, and they cannot speak for themselves. They work in hospitals. I know they do. They wipe the bodies of those who are sick with fever and pain. They empty their bed-pans. They clean out their commode. No job is beneath them, and yet when they get sick, they cannot lie in the bed they made up every day. America, that is not right. We are a better nation than that. We are a better nation than that.

We need a real war on drugs. You can’t just say no. It’s deeper than that. You can’t just get a palm reader or an astrologer; it’s more profound than that. We’re spending $150 billion on drugs a year. We’ve gone from ignoring it to focusing on the children. Children cannot buy $150 billion worth of drugs a year. A few high-profile athletes—athletes are not laundering $150 billion a year—bankers are.

I met the children in Watts who are unfortunate in their despair. Their grapes of hope have become raisins of despair, and they’re turning to each other and they’re self-destructing—but I stayed with them all night long. I wanted to hear their case. They said, “Jesse Jackson, as you challenge us to say no to drugs, you’re right. And to not sell them, you’re right. And to not use these guns, you’re right.”

And, by the way, the promise of CETA—they displaced CETA. They did not replace CETA. We have neither jobs nor houses nor services nor training—no way out. Some of us take drugs as anesthesia for our pain. Some take drugs as a way of pleasure—both short-term pleasure and long-term pain. Some sell drugs to make money. It’s wrong, we know. But you need to know that we know. We can go and buy the drugs by the boxes at the port. If we can buy the drugs at the port, don’t you believe the federal government can stop it if they want to?

They say, “We don’t have Saturday-night specials any more.” They say, “We buy AK-47s and Uzis, the latest lethal weapons. We buy them across the counter on Long Beach Boulevard.” You cannot fight a war on drugs unless and until you are going to challenge the bankers and the gun sellers and those who grow them. Don’t just focus on the children, let’s stop drugs at the level of supply and demand. We must end the scourge on the American culture.

Leadership. What difference will we make? Leadership cannot just go along to get along. We must do more than change presidents. We must change direction. Leadership must face the moral challenge of our day. The nuclear war build-up is irrational. Strong leadership cannot desire to look tough, and let that stand in the way of the pursuit of peace. Leadership must reverse the arms race.

At least we should pledge no first use. Why? Because first use begat first retaliation, and that’s mutual annihilation. That’s not a rational way out. No use at all—let’s think it out, and not fight it out, because it’s an unwinnable fight. Why hold a card that you can never drop? Let’s give peace a chance.

Leadership—we now have this marvelous opportunity to have a breakthrough with the Soviets. Last year, 200,000 Americans visited the Soviet Union. There’s a chance for joint ventures into space, not Star Wars and the war arms escalation, but a space defense initiative.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Let’s build in space together, and demilitarize the heavens. There’s a way out. America, let us expand. When Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev met, there was a big

meeting. They represented together one-eighth of the human race. Seven-eighths of the human race was locked out of that room. Most people in the world tonight—half are Asian, one-half of them are Chinese. There are twenty-two nations in the Middle East. There’s Europe; forty million Latin Americans next door to us; the Caribbean; Africa—a half-billion people. Most people in the world today are yellow or brown or black, non-Christian, poor, female, young, and don’t speak English—in the real world.

This generation must offer leadership to the real world. We’re losing ground in Latin America, the Middle East, South Africa, because we’re not focusing on the real world, that real world. We must use basic principles, support international law. We stand the most to gain from it. Support human rights; we believe in that. Support self-determination; we’ll build on that. Support economic development; you know it’s right. Be consistent, and gain our moral authority in the world.

I challenge you tonight, my friends, let’s be bigger and better as a nation and as a party. We have basic challenges. Freedom in South Africa—we’ve already agreed as Democrats to declare South Africa to be a terrorist state. But don’t just stop there. Get South Africa out of Angola. Free Namibia. Support the front-line states. We must have a new, humane human-rights assistance policy in Africa.

I’m often asked, “Jesse, why do you take on these tough issues? They’re not very political. We can’t win that way.”

If an issue is morally right, it will eventually be political. It may be political and never be right. Fannie Lou Hamer didn’t have the most votes in Atlantic City, but her principles have outlasted every delegate who voted to lock her out. Rosa Parks did not have the most votes, but she was morally right. Dr. King didn’t have the most votes about the Vietnam war, but he was morally right. If we’re principled first, our politics will fall in place.

Jesse, why did you take these big bold initiatives? A poem by an unknown author went something like this: We mastered the air, we’ve conquered the sea, and annihilated distance and prolonged life, we were not wise enough to live on this earth without war and without hate.

As for Jesse Jackson, I’m tired of sailing by little boat, far inside the harbor bar. I want to go out where the big ships float, out on the deep where the great ones are. And should my frail craft prove too slight, the waves that sweep those billows o’er, I’d rather go down in a stirring fight than drown to death in the sheltered shore.

We’ve got to go out, my friends, where the big boats are. And then, for our children, young America, hold your head high now. We can win. We must

not lose you to drugs and violence, premature pregnancy, suicide, cynicism, pessimism and despair. We can win.

Wherever you are tonight, I challenge you to hope and to dream. Don’t submerge your dreams. Exercise above all else, even on drugs, dream of the day you’re drug-free. Even in the gutter, dream of the day that you’ll be up on your feet again. You must never stop dreaming. Face reality, yes. But don’t stop with the way things are; dream of things as they ought to be. Dream. Face pain, but love, hope, faith, and dreams will help you rise above the pain.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Use hope and imagination as weapons of survival and progress, but you keep on dreaming, young America. Dream of peace. Peace is rational and reasonable. War is irrational in this age and unwinnable.

Dream of teachers who teach for life and not for living. Dream of doctors who are concerned more about public health than private wealth. Dream of lawyers more concerned about justice than a judgeship. Dream of preachers who are concerned more about prophecy than profiteering. Dream on the high road of sound values.

And in America, as we go forth to September, October and November and then beyond, America must never surrender to a high moral challenge.

Do not surrender to drugs. The best drug policy is a no first use. Don’t surrender with needles and cynicism. Let’s have no first use on the one hand, or clinics on the other. Never surrender, young America.

Go forward. America must never surrender to malnutrition. We can feed the hungry and clothe the naked. We must never surrender. We must go forward. We must never surrender to illiteracy. Invest in our children. Never surrender; and go forward.

We must never surrender to inequality. Women cannot compromise ERA or comparable worth. Women are making 60 cents on the dollar to what a man makes. Women cannot buy meat cheaper. Women cannot buy bread cheaper. Women cannot buy milk cheaper. Women deserve to get paid for the work that you do. It’s right and it’s fair.

Don’t surrender, my friends. Those who have AIDS tonight, you deserve our compassion. Even with AIDS you must not surrender in your wheelchairs. I see you sitting here tonight in those wheelchairs. I’ve stayed with you. I’ve reached out to you across our nation. Don’t you give up. I know it’s tough sometimes. People look down on you. It took you a little more effort to get here tonight.

And no one should look down on you, but sometimes mean people do. The only justification we have for looking down on someone is that we’re going to stop and pick them up. But even in your wheelchairs, don’t you give up. We cannot forget fifty years ago when our backs were against the wall, Roosevelt was in a wheelchair. I would rather have Roosevelt in a wheelchair than Reagan and Bush on a horse. Don’t you surrender and don’t you give up.

Don’t surrender and don’t give up. Why can I challenge you this way? Jesse Jackson, you don’t understand my situation. You be on television. You don’t understand. I see you with the big people. You don’t understand my situation. I understand. You’re seeing me on TV but you don’t know the me that makes me, me. They wonder why does Jesse run, because they see me running for the White House. They don’t see the house I’m running from.

I have a story. I wasn’t always on television. Writers were not always outside my door. When I was born late one afternoon, October 8th, in Greenville, S.C., no writers asked my mother her name. Nobody chose to write down our address. My mama was not supposed to make it. And I was not supposed to make it. You see, I was born to a teen-age mother who was born to a teen-age mother.

I understand. I know abandonment and people being mean to you, and saying you’re nothing and nobody, and can never be anything. I understand. Jesse Jackson is my third name. I’m adopted. When I had no name, my grandmother gave me her name. My name was Jesse Burns until I was 12. So I wouldn’t have a blank space, she gave me a name to hold me over. I

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

understand when nobody knows your name. I understand when you have no name. I understand. I wasn’t born in the hospital. Mama didn’t have insurance. I was born in the

bed at home. I really do understand. Born in a three-room house, bathroom in the backyard, slop jar by the bed, no hot and cold running water. I understand. Wallpaper used for decoration? No. For a windbreaker. I understand. I’m a working person’s person, that’s why I understand you whether you’re black or white.

I understand work. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I had a shovel programmed for my hand. My mother, a working woman. So many days she went to work early with runs in her stockings. She knew better, but she wore runs in her stockings so that my brother and I could have matching socks and not be laughed at at school.

I understand. At 3 o’clock on Thanksgiving Day we couldn’t eat turkey because mama was preparing someone else’s turkey at 3 o’clock. We had to play football to entertain ourselves and then around 6 o’clock she would get off the Alta Vista bus; then we would bring up the leftovers and eat our turkey—leftovers, the carcass, the cranberries around 8 o’clock at night. I really do understand.

Every one of these funny labels they put on you, those of you who are watching this broadcast tonight in the projects, on the corners, I understand. Call you outcast, low down, you can’t make it, you’re nothing, you’re from nobody, subclass, underclass—when you see Jesse Jackson, when my name goes in nomination, your name goes in nomination.

I was born in the slum, but the slum was not born in me. And it wasn’t born in you, and you can make it. Wherever you are tonight you can make it. Hold your head high, stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Don’t you surrender. Suffering breeds character. Character breeds faith. In the end faith will not disappoint.

You must not surrender. You may or may not get there, but just know that you’re qualified and you hold on and hold out. We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. On tomorrow night and beyond, keep hope alive.

I love you very much. I love you very much.

Source: “Common Ground and Common Sense,” address delivered July 20, 1988, reprinted in Vital Speeches 54, no. 21 (August 15, 1988), pp. 649–53.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lucius Barker and Ronald W. Walters, eds., Jesse Jackson’s 1984 Presidential Campaign: Challenge and Change in American Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989).

Sheila D. Collins, The Rainbow Challenge: The Jackson Campaign and the Future of U.S. Politics (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1986).

Elizabeth O. Colton, The Jackson Phenomenon: The Man, the Power, the Message (New York: Doubleday, 1989).

Marshall Frady, Jesse: The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson (New York: Random House, 1996).

Roger D. Hatch, Beyond Opportunity: Jesse Jackson’s Vision for America (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Manning Marable, Black American Politics: From the Washington Marches to Jesse Jackson (London: Verso, 1985).

Adolph Reed, The Jesse Jackson Phenomenon and the Crisis of Purpose in African- American Politics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986).

Barbara A. Reynolds, Jesse Jackson: America’s David (Washington, D.C.: JFJ Associates, 1985).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

8 “Afrocentricity,” Molefi Asante, 1991

Born Arthur Smith in Valdosta, Georgia, Molefi Kete Asante (1942– ) holds a Ph.D. from UCLA and is currently professor of African-American studies at Temple University. Asante chaired the Department of African-American Studies at Temple for many years, and was responsible for making the program one of the most influential of its kind in the United States. A prolific author, Asante was founding editor of the Journal of Black Studies (1969). Asante’s lasting influence as an intellectual is chiefly derived from his theory of “Afrocentricity.” Asante’s ideas about culture, education, and philosophy have had a profound impact on the scholarship of black studies. In this essay, Asante discusses the differences between what he describes as “Eurocentric education” versus multiculturalism.

THE AFROCENTRIC IDEA IN EDUCATION

Introduction Many of the principles that govern the development of the Afrocentric idea in education were first established by Carter G. Woodson in The Mis-education of the Negro (1933). Indeed, Woodson’s classic reveals the fundamental problems pertaining to the education of the African person in America. As Woodson contends, African Americans have been educated away from their own culture and traditions and attached to the fringes of European culture; thus dislocated from themselves, Woodson asserts that African Americans often valorize European culture to the detriment of their own heritage (p. 7). Although Woodson does not advocate rejection of American citizenship or nationality, he believed that assuming African Americans hold the same position as European Americans vis-à-vis the realities of America would lead to the psychological and cultural death of the African-American population. Furthermore, if education is ever to be substantive and meaningful within the context of American society, Woodson argues, it must first address the African’s historical experiences, both in Africa and America (p. 7). That is why he places on education, and particularly on the traditionally African-American colleges, the burden of teaching the African American to be responsive to the long traditions and history of Africa as well as America. Woodson’s alert recognition, more than 50 years ago, that something is severely wrong with the way African Americans are educated provides the principal impetus for the Afrocentric approach to American education.

… I will examine the nature and scope of this approach, establish its necessity, and suggest ways to develop and disseminate it throughout all levels of education. Two propositions stand in the background of the theoretical and philosophical issues I will present. These ideas represent the core presuppositions on which I have based most of my work in the field of education, and they suggest the direction of my own thinking about what education is capable of doing to and for an already politically and economically marginalized people—African Americans:

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

1. Education is fundamentally a social phenomenon whose ultimate purpose is to socialize the learner; to send a child to school is to prepare that child to become part of a social group.

2. Schools are reflective of the societies that develop them (i.e., a White-supremacist– dominated society will develop a White-supremacist educational system).

Definitions … Afrocentricity is a frame of reference wherein phenomena are viewed from the

perspective of the African person. The Afrocentric approach seeks in every situation the appropriate centrality of the African person (Asante, 1987). In education this means that teachers provide students the opportunity to study the world and its people, concepts, and history from an African world view. In most classrooms, whatever the subject, Whites are located in the center perspective position. How alien the African-American child must feel, how like an outsider! The little African-American child who sits in a classroom and is taught to accept as heroes and heroines individuals who defamed African people is being actively de- centered, dislocated, and made into a nonperson, one whose aim in life might be to one day shed that “badge of inferiority”: his or her Blackness. In Afrocentric educational settings, however, teachers do not marginalize African-American children by causing them to question their own self-worth because their people’s story is seldom told. By seeing themselves as the subjects rather than the objects of education—be the discipline biology, medicine, literature, or social studies—African-American students come to see themselves not merely as seekers of knowledge but as integral participants in it. Because all content areas are adaptable to an Afrocentric approach, African-American students can be made to see themselves as centered in the reality of any discipline.

It must be emphasized that Afrocentricity is not a Black version of Eurocentricity (Asante, 1987). Eurocentricity is based on White-supremacist notions whose purposes are to protect White privilege and advantage in education, economics, politics, and so forth. Unlike Eurocentricity, Afrocentricity does not condone ethnocentric valorization at the expense of degrading other groups’ perspectives. Moreover, Eurocentricity presents the particular historical reality of Europeans as the sum total of the human experience (Asante, 1987). It imposes Eurocentric realities as “universal”; i.e., that which is White is presented as applying to the human condition in general, while that which is non-White is viewed as group-specific and therefore not “human.” This explains why some scholars and artists of African descent rush to deny their Blackness; they believe that to exist as a Black person is not to exist as a universal human being. They are the individuals Woodson identified as preferring European art, language, and culture over African art, language, and culture; they believe that anything of European origin is inherently better than anything produced by or issuing from their own people. Naturally, the person of African descent should be centered in his or her historical experiences as an African, but Eurocentric curricula produce such aberrations of perspective among persons of color.

Multiculturalism in education is a nonhierarchical approach that respects and celebrates a variety of cultural perspectives on world phenomena (Asante, 1991). The multicultural approach holds that although European culture is the majority culture in the United States, that

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

is not sufficient reason for it to be imposed on diverse student populations as “universal.” Multiculturalists assert that education, to have integrity, must begin with the proposition that all humans have contributed to world development and the flow of knowledge and information, and that most human achievements are the result of mutually interactive, international effort. Without a multicultural education, students remain essentially ignorant of the contributions of a major portion of the world’s people. A multicultural education is thus a fundamental necessity for anyone who wishes to achieve competency in almost any subject.

The Afrocentric idea must be the stepping-stone from which the multicultural idea is launched. A truly authentic multicultural education, therefore, must be based upon the Afrocentric initiative. If this step is skipped, multicultural curricula, as they are increasingly being defined by White “resisters” (to be discussed below) will evolve without any substantive infusion of African-American content, and the African-American child will continue to be lost in the Eurocentric framework of education. In other words, the African- American child will neither be confirmed nor affirmed in his or her own cultural information. For the mutual benefit of all Americans, this tragedy, which leads to the psychological and cultural dislocation of African-American children, can and should be avoided.

The Revolutionary Challenge Because it centers African-American students inside history, culture, science, and so forth rather than outside these subjects, the Afrocentric idea presents the most revolutionary challenge to the ideology of White supremacy in education during the past decade. No other theoretical position stated by African Americans has ever captured the imagination of such a wide range of scholars and students of history, sociology, communications, anthropology, and psychology. The Afrocentric challenge has been posed in three critical ways:

1. It questions the imposition of the White-supremacist view as universal and/or classical (Asante, 1990).

2. It demonstrates the indefensibility of racist theories that assault multiculturalism and pluralism.

3. It projects a humanistic and pluralistic viewpoint by articulating Afrocentricity as a valid, nonhegemonic perspective.

Suppression and Distortion: Symbols of Resistance … Naturally, different adherents to a theory will have different views on its meaning.

While two discourses presently are circulating about multiculturalism, only one is relevant to the liberation of the minds of African and White people in the United States. That discourse is Afrocentricity: the acceptance of Africa as central to African people. Yet, rather than getting on board with Afrocentrists to fight against White hegemonic education, some Whites (and some Blacks as well) have opted to plead for a return to the educational plantation. Unfortunately for them, however, those days are gone, and such misinformation can never be packaged as accurate, correct education again.

Ravitch (1990), who argues that there are two kinds of multiculturalism—pluralist multiculturalism and particularist multiculturalism—is the leader of those professors whom

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

I call “resisters” or opponents to Afrocentricity and multiculturalism. Indeed, Ravitch advances the imaginary divisions in multicultural perspectives to conceal her true identity as a defender of White supremacy. Her tactics are the tactics of those who prefer Africans and other non-Whites to remain on the mental and psychological plantation of Western civilization. In their arrogance the resisters accuse Afrocentrists and multiculturalists of creating “fantasy history” and “bizarre theories” of non-White people’s contributions to civilization. What they prove, however, is their own ignorance. Additionally, Ravitch and others (Nicholson, 1990) assert that multiculturalism will bring about the “tribalization” of America, but in reality America has always been a nation of ethnic diversity. When one reads their works on multiculturalism, one realizes that they are really advocating the imposition of a White perspective on everybody else’s culture. Believing that the Eurocentric position is indisputable, they attempt to resist and impede the progressive transformation of the monoethnic curriculum. Indeed, the closets of bigotry have opened to reveal various attempts by White scholars (joined by some Blacks) to defend White privilege in the curriculum in much the same way as it has been so staunchly defended in the larger society. It was perhaps inevitable that the introduction of the Afrocentric idea would open up the discussion of the American school curriculum in a profound way….

The Condition of Eurocentric Education Institutions such as schools are conditioned by the character of the nation in which they are developed. Just as crime and politics are different in different nations, so, too, is education. In the United States a “Whites-only” orientation has predominated in education. This has had a profound impact on the quality of education for children of all races and ethnic groups. The African-American child has suffered disproportionately, but White children are also the victims of monoculturally diseased curricula….

Afrocentricity and History. Most of America’s teaching force are victims of the same system that victimizes today’s young. Thus, American children are not taught the names of the African ethnic groups from which the majority of the African-American population are derived; few are taught the names of any of the sacred sites in Africa. Few teachers can discuss with their students the significance of the Middle Passage or describe what it meant or means to Africans. Little mention is made in American classrooms of either the brutality of slavery or the ex-slaves’ celebration of freedom. American children have little or no understanding of the nature of the capture, transport, and enslavement of Africans. Few have been taught the true horrors of being taken, shipped naked across twenty-five days of ocean, broken by abuse and indignities of all kinds, and dehumanized into a beast of burden, a thing without a name. If our students only knew the truth, if they were taught the Afrocentric perspective on the Great Enslavement, and if they knew the full story about the events since slavery that have served to constantly dislocate African Americans, their behavior would perhaps be different….

Enslavement was truly a living death. While the ontological onslaught caused some Africans to opt for suicide, the most widespread results were dislocation, disorientation, and misorientation—all of which are the consequences of the African person being actively de- centered. The “Jim Crow” period of second-class citizenship, from 1877 to 1954, saw only slight improvement in the lot of African Americans. This era was characterized by the

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

sharecropper system, disenfranchisement, enforced segregation, internal migration, lynchings, unemployment, poor housing conditions, and separate and unequal educational facilities. Inequitable policies and practices veritably plagued the race.

No wonder many persons of African descent attempt to shed their race and become “raceless.” One’s basic identity is one’s self-identity, which is ultimately one’s cultural identity; without a strong cultural identity, one is lost. Black children do not know their people’s story and White children do not know the story, but remembrance is a vital requisite for understanding and humility. This is why the Jews have campaigned (and rightly so) to have the story of the European Holocaust taught in schools and colleges. Teaching about such a monstrous human brutality should forever remind the world of the ways in which humans have often violated each other. Teaching about the African Holocaust is just as important for many of the same reasons. Additionally, it underscores the enormity of the effects of physical, psychological, and economic dislocation on the African population in America and throughout the African diaspora. Without an understanding of the historical experiences of African people, American children cannot make any real headway in addressing the problems of the present….

Conclusion The reigning initiative for total curricular change is the movement that is being proposed and led by Africans, namely, the Afrocentric idea. When I wrote the first book on Afrocentricity (Asante, 1980), now in its fifth printing, I had no idea that in ten years the idea would both shake up and shape discussions in education, art, fashion, and politics. Since the publication of my subsequent works, The Afrocentric Idea (Asante, 1987) and Kemet, Afrocentricity, and Knowledge (Asante, 1990) the debate has been joined in earnest. Still, for many White Americans (and some African Americans) the most unsettling aspect of the discussion about Afrocentricity is that its intellectual source lies in the research and writings of African- American scholars. Whites are accustomed to being in charge of the major ideas circulating in the American academy. Deconstructionism, Gestalt psychology, Marxism, structuralism, Piagetian theory, and so forth have all been developed, articulated, and elaborated upon at length, generally by White scholars. On the other hand, Afrocentricity is the product of scholars such as Nobles (1986), Hilliard (1978), Karenga (1986), Keto (1990), Richards (1991), and Myers (1989). There are also increasing numbers of young, impressively credentialed African- American scholars who have begun to write in the Afrocentric vein (Jean, 1991). They, and even some young White scholars, have emerged with ideas about how to change the curriculum Afrocentrically.

Afrocentricity provides all Americans an opportunity to examine the perspective of the African person in this society and the world. The resisters claim that Afrocentricity is anti- White; yet, if Afrocentricity as a theory is against anything it is against racism, ignorance, and monoethnic hegemony in the curriculum. Afrocentricity is not anti-White; it is, however, pro- human. Further, the aim of the Afrocentric curriculum is not to divide America, it is to make America flourish as it ought to flourish. This nation has long been divided with regard to the educational opportunities afforded to children. By virtue of the protection provided by society and reinforced by the Eurocentric curriculum, the White child is already ahead of the African American child by first grade. Our efforts thus must concentrate on giving the African-

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

American child greater opportunities for learning at the kindergarten level. However, the kind of assistance the African-American child needs is as much cultural as it is academic. If the proper cultural information is provided, the academic performance will surely follow suit.

When it comes to educating African-American children, the American educational system does not need a tune-up, it needs an overhaul. Black children have been maligned by this system. Black teachers have been maligned. Black history has been maligned. Africa has been maligned. Nonetheless, two truisms can be stated about education in America. First, some teachers can and do effectively teach African-American children; secondly, if some teachers can do it, others can, too. We must learn all we can about what makes these teachers’ attitudes and approaches successful, and then work diligently to see that their successes are replicated on a broad scale. By raising the same questions that Woodson posed more than fifty years ago, Afrocentric education, along with a significant reorientation of the American educational enterprise, seeks to respond to the African person’s psychological and cultural dislocation. By providing philosophical and theoretical guidelines and criteria that are centered in an African perception of reality and by placing the African-American child in his or her proper historical context and setting, Afrocentricity may be just the “escape hatch” African Americans so desperately need to facilitate academic success and “steal away” from the cycle of miseducation and dislocation.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Molefi Asante, Afrocentricity: The Theory of Social Change (Buffalo, N.Y.: Amulefi Publishing Company, 1980).

———, The Afrocentric Idea, rev. and expanded ed. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998).

Molefi Asante, Eileen Newmar, and Cecil A. Blake, eds., Handbook of Intercultural Communication (Beverly Hills, Ca.: Sage Publications, 1979).

Molefi Asante and Abdulani S. Vandi, eds., Contemporary Black Thought: Alternative Analyses in Social and Behavioral Science (Beverly Hills, Ca.: Sage Publications, 1980).

Molefi Asante and Mark T. Mattson, eds., The African-American Atlas: Black History and Culture: An Illustrated Reference (New York: Macmillan, 1998).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

9 The Anita Hill–Clarence Thomas Controversy, 1991

In 1991, President George Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, a conservative black Republican who was at the time a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, to replace Thurgood Marshall as Associate Judge on the U.S. Supreme Court. Thomas had previously served as the head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission during the Reagan administration. Anita Hill, an African-American attorney and law professor, charged that Thomas had sexually harassed and abused her when she worked as his assistant in the federal government. In highly publicized hearings held by the Senate judiciary committee, Hill outlined her charges against Thomas, which he vigorously denied. Despite major opposition from many African Americans and liberal organizations, Thomas was confirmed by the Senate for a seat on the Supreme Court.

The first document below was issued by a group of African-American female scholars and activists who were outraged by the sexist and reactionary rhetoric surrounding the media’s and political establishment’s defense of Thomas. The statement was first published in an advertisement in the New York Times, and was conceived and organized by black-feminist scholars Barbara Ransby, Elsa Barkley Brown, and Deborah King. The second document is an excerpt from an essay by scholar and poet June Jordan, which discusses the failure of many African-American political organizations and leaders to support Hill and to oppose both the sexist personal behavior and conservative political agenda of Thomas.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN IN DEFENSE OF OURSELVES As women of African descent, we are deeply troubled by the recent nomination, confirmation and seating of Clarence Thomas as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. We know that the presence of Clarence Thomas on the Court will be continually used to divert attention from historic struggles for social justice through suggestions that the presence of a Black man on the Supreme Court constitutes an assurance that the rights of African Americans will be protected. Clarence Thomas’ public record is ample evidence this will not be true. Further, the consolidation of a conservative majority on the Supreme Court seriously endangers the rights of all women, poor and working-class people and the elderly. The seating of Clarence Thomas is an affront not only to African-American women and men, but to all people concerned with social justice.

We are particularly outraged by the racist and sexist treatment of Professor Anita Hill, an African-American woman who was maligned and castigated for daring to speak publicly of her own experience of sexual abuse. The malicious defamation of Professor Hill insulted all women of African descent and sent a dangerous message to any woman who might contemplate a sexual harassment complaint.

We speak here because we recognize that the media are now portraying the Black

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

community as prepared to tolerate both the dismantling of affirmative action and the evil of sexual harassment in order to have any Black man on the Supreme Court. We want to make clear that the media have ignored or distorted many African-American voices. We will not be silenced.

Many have erroneously portrayed the allegations against Clarence Thomas as an issue of either gender or race. As women of African descent, we understand sexual harassment as both. We further understand that Clarence Thomas outrageously manipulated the legacy of lynching in order to shelter himself from Anita Hill’s allegations. To deflect attention away from the reality of sexual abuse in African-American women’s lives, he trivialized and misrepresented this painful part of African-American people’s history. This country, which has a long legacy of racism and sexism, has never taken the sexual abuse of Black women seriously. Throughout U.S. history Black women have been sexually stereotyped as immoral, insatiable, perverse; the initiators in all sexual contacts—abusive or otherwise. The common assumption in legal proceedings as well as in the larger society has been that Black women cannot be raped or otherwise sexually abused. As Anita Hill’s experience demonstrates, Black women who speak of these matters are not likely to be believed.

In 1991, we cannot tolerate this type of dismissal of any one Black woman’s experience or this attack upon our collective character without protest, outrage, and resistance. As women of African descent, we express our vehement opposition to the policies represented by the placement of Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. The Bush administration, having obstructed the passage of civil-rights legislation, impeded the extension of unemployment compensation, cut student aid and dismantled social welfare programs, has continually demonstrated that it is not operating in our best interests. Nor is this appointee. We pledge ourselves to continue to speak out in defense of one another, in defense of the African- American community and against those who are hostile to social justice no matter what color they are. No one will speak for us but ourselves.

CAN I GET A WITNESS? I wanted to write a letter to Anita Hill. I wanted to say thanks. I wanted to convey the sorrow and the bitterness I feel on her behalf. I wanted to explode the history that twisted itself around the innocence of her fate. I wanted to assail the brutal ironies, the cruel consistencies that left her—at the moment of her utmost vulnerability and public power—isolated, betrayed, abused, and not nearly as powerful as those who sought and who seek to besmirch, ridicule, and condemn the truth of her important and perishable human being. I wanted to reassure her of her rights, her sanity, and the African beauty of her earnest commitment to do right and to be a good woman: a good black woman in this America.

But tonight I am still too furious, I am still too hurt, I am still too astounded and nauseated by the enemies of Anita Hill. Tonight my heart pounds with shame.

Is there no way to interdict and terminate the traditional abusive loneliness of black women in this savage country?

From those slavery times when African men could not dare to defend their sisters, their mothers, their sweethearts, their wives, and their daughters—except at the risk of their lives—

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

from those times until today: Has nothing changed? How is it possible that only John Carr—a young black corporate lawyer who maintained a

friendship with Anita Hill ten years ago (“It didn’t go but so far,” he testified, with an engaging, handsome trace of a smile)—how is it possible that he, alone among black men, stood tall and strong and righteous as a witness for her defense?

What about spokesmen for the NAACP or the National Urban League? What about spokesmen for the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus? All of the organizational and elected black men who spoke aloud against a wrong black

man, Clarence Thomas, for the sake of principles resting upon decency and concerns for fair play, equal protection, and affirmative action—where did they go when, suddenly, a good black woman arose among us, trying to tell the truth?

Where did they go? And why? Is it conceivable that a young white woman could be tricked into appearing before twelve

black men of the U.S. Senate? Is it conceivable that a young white woman could be tricked into appearing before a lineup

of incredibly powerful and hypocritical and sneering and hellbent black men freely insinuating and freely hypothesizing whatever lurid scenario came into their heads?

Is it conceivable that such a young woman—such a flower of white womanhood—would, by herself, have to withstand the calumny and unabashed, unlawful bullying that was heaped upon Anita Hill?

Is it conceivable that this flower would not be swiftly surrounded by white knights rallying —with ropes, or guns, or whatever—to defend her honor and the honor, the legal and civilized rights, of white people, per se?

Anita Hill was tricked. She was set up. She had been minding her business at the University of Oklahoma Law School when the Senators asked her to describe her relationship with Clarence Thomas. Anita Hill’s dutiful answers disclosed that Thomas had violated the trust of his office as head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Sitting in that office of ultimate recourse for women suffering from sexual harassment, Thomas himself harassed Anita Hill, repeatedly, with unwanted sexual advances and remarks.

Although Anita Hill had not volunteered this information and only supplied it in response to direct, specific inquiries from the FBI,

And although Anita Hill was promised the protection of confidentiality as regards her sworn statement of allegations,

And despite the fact that four witnesses—two men and two women, two black and two white distinguished Americans, including a Federal judge and a professor of law—testified, under oath, that Anita Hill had told each of them about these sordid carryings on by Thomas at the time of their occurrence or in the years that followed,

And despite the fact that Anita Hill sustained a remarkably fastidious display of exact recall and never alleged, for example, that Thomas actually touched her,

And despite the unpardonable decision by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to prohibit expert testimony on sexual harassment,

Anita Hill, a young black woman born and raised within a black farm family of thirteen children, a graduate of an Oklahoma public high school who later earned honors and graduated

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

from Yale Law School, a political conservative and, now, a professor of law, Anita Hill, a young black woman who suffered sexual harassment once in ten years and,

therefore, never reported sexual harassment to any of her friends except for that once in ten years,

Anita Hill, whose public calm and dispassionate sincerity refreshed America’s eyes and ears with her persuasive example of what somebody looks like and sounds like when she’s simply trying to tell the truth,

Anita Hill was subpoenaed by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee of fourteen white men and made to testify and to tolerate interrogation on national television.

1. Why didn’t she “do something” when Thomas allegedly harassed her? The Senators didn’t seem to notice or to care that Thomas occupied the office of last

recourse for victims of sexual harassment. And had the Committee allowed any expert on the subject to testify, we would have learned that it is absolutely typical for victims to keep silent.

2. Wasn’t it the case that she had/has fantasies and is delusional? Remarkably, not a single psychiatrist or licensed psychologist was allowed to testify.

These slanderous suppositions about the psychic functionings of Anita Hill were never more than malevolent speculations invited by one or another of the fourteen white Senators as they sat above an assortment of character witnesses hand-picked by White House staffers eager to protect the President’s nominee.

One loathsomely memorable item: John Doggett, a self-infatuated black attorney and a friend of Clarence Thomas, declared that Thomas would not have jeopardized his career for Anita Hill because Doggett, a black man, explained to the Senate Committee of fourteen white men, “She is not worth it.”

3. Why was she “lying”? It should be noted that Anita Hill readily agreed to a lie-detector test and that, according to

the test, she was telling the truth. It should also be noted that Clarence Thomas refused even to consider taking such a test and that, furthermore, he had already established himself as a liar when, earlier in the Senate hearings, he insisted that he had never discussed Roe v. Wade, and didn’t know much about this paramount legal dispute.

Meanwhile, Clarence Thomas—who has nodded and grinned his way to glory and power by denying systemic American realities of racism, on the one hand, and by publicly castigating and lying about his own sister, a poor black woman, on the other—this Thomas, this Uncle Tom calamity of mediocre abilities, at best, this bootstrap miracle of egomaniacal myth and self-pity, this choice of the very same President who has vetoed two civil-rights bills and boasted about that, how did he respond to the testimony of Anita Hill?

Clarence Thomas thundered and he shook. Clarence Thomas glowered and he growled. “God is my judge!” he cried, at one especially disgusting low point in the Senate proceedings. “God is my judge, Senator. And not you!” This candidate for the Supreme Court evidently believes himself exempt from the judgments of mere men.

This Clarence Thomas—about whom an African-American young man in my freshman composition class exclaimed, “He’s an Uncle Tom. He’s a hypocritical Uncle Tom. And I don’t care what happens to his punk ass”—this Thomas vilified the hearings as a “high-tech lynching.”

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

When he got into hot water for the first time (on public record, at any rate), he attempted to identify himself as a regular black man. What a peculiar reaction to the charge of sexual harassment!

And where was the laughter that should have embarrassed him out of that chamber? And where were the tears? When and where was there ever a black man lynched because he was bothering a black

woman? When and where was there ever a white man jailed or tarred and feathered because he was

bothering a black woman? When a black woman is raped or beaten or mutilated by a black man or a white man, what

happens? To be a black woman in this savage country: Is that to be nothing and no one beautiful and

precious and exquisitely compelling? To be a black woman in this savage country: Is that to be nothing and no one revered and

defended and given our help and our gratitude? The only powerful man to utter and to level the appropriate word of revulsion as a charge

against his peers—the word was “SHAME”—that man was U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, a white man whose ongoing, successful career illuminates the unequal privileges of male gender, white race, and millionaire-class identity.

But Ted Kennedy was not on trial. He has never been on trial. Clarence Thomas was supposed to be on trial but he was not: He is more powerful than

Anita Hill. And his bedfellows, from Senator Strom Thurmond to President George Bush, persist—way more powerful than Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill combined.

And so, at the last, it was she, Anita Hill, who stood alone, trying to tell the truth in an arena of snakes and hyenas and dinosaurs and power-mad dogs. And with this televised victimization of Anita Hill, the American war of violence against women moved from the streets, moved from hip hop, moved from multi-million-dollar movies into the highest chambers of the U.S. Government.

And what is anybody going to do about it? I, for one, I am going to write a letter to Anita Hill. I am going to tell her that, thank God,

she is a black woman who is somebody and something beautiful and precious and exquisitely compelling.

And I am going to say that if this Government will not protect and defend her, and all black women, and all women, period, in this savage country—if this Government will not defend us from poverty and violence and contempt—then we will change the Government. We have the numbers to deliver on this warning.

And, as for those brothers who disappeared when a black woman rose up to tell the truth, listen: It’s getting to be payback time. I have been speaking on behalf of a good black woman. Can you hear me?

Can I get a witness?

Sources: (1) “African-American Women in Defense of Ourselves”; and (2) June Jordan, “Can I Get a Witness?” Both are reprinted with permission from Black Scholar 22, nos. 1 and 2

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

(Winter/Spring 1991), pp. 56–58, 155.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Anita F. Hill and Emma C. Jordan, eds., Race, Gender and Power in America: The Legacy of the Hill–Thomas Hearings (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Toni Morrison, ed., Raceing Justice, En-gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality (New York: Pantheon, 1992).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

10 “Race Matters,” Cornel West, 1991

Cornel West (1953– ) was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and raised in Sacramento, California. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and received his doctorate from Princeton University in 1980. He quickly produced a series of theoretically engaging texts in the fields of theology, philosophy, and Marxist thought. West joined the Democratic Socialists of America in 1982, and for many years served as its honorary chairperson. From 1989 to 1994 he was professor of African-American studies at Princeton, and subsequently joined the faculty of African-American Studies at Harvard University. After a public conflict with Harvard’s president, West rejoined the faculty of Princeton University as a University Professor. Considered one of the most influential intellectuals in America, West published the widely read book, Race Matters (1991). In subsequent works such as Democracy Matters (2004), West advocates a fundamental redistribution of wealth and resources, the reduction of the power of the market, and the creation of a more equitable society in the United States.

NIHILISM IN BLACK AMERICA Recent discussions about the plight of African Americans—especially those at the bottom of the social ladder—tend to divide into two camps. On the one hand, there are those who highlight the structural constraints on the life chances of black people. This point of view involves a subtle historical and sociological analysis of slavery, Jim Crowism, job and residential discrimination, skewed unemployment rates, inadequate health care, and poor education. On the other hand, there are those who stress the behavioral impediments to black upward mobility. They focus on the waning of the Protestant ethic—hard work, deferred gratification, frugality, and responsibility—in much of black America.

Those in the first camp—the liberal structuralists—call for full employment, health, education and child-care programs, and broad affirmative-action practices. In short, a new, more sober version of the best of the New Deal and the Great Society: more government money, better bureaucrats, and an active citizenry. Those in the second camp—the conservative behaviorists—promote self-help programs, black business expansion, and non-preferential job practices. They support vigorous “free market” strategies that depend on fundamental changes in how black people act and live. To put it bluntly, their projects rest largely upon a cultural revival of the Protestant ethic in black America.

Unfortunately, these two camps have nearly suffocated the crucial debate that should be taking place about the prospects for black America. This debate must go far beyond the liberal and conservative positions in three fundamental ways. First, we must acknowledge that structures and behavior are inseparable, that institutions and values go hand in hand. How people act and live is shaped—though in no way dictated or determined—by the larger circumstances in which they find themselves. These circumstances can be changed, their limits attenuated, by positive actions to elevate living conditions.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Second, we should reject the idea that structures are primarily economic and political creatures—an idea that sees culture as an ephemeral set of behavioral attitudes and values. Culture is quite as structural as the economy or politics; it is rooted in institutions like families, schools, churches, synagogues, mosques, and communication industries (television, radio, video, music). Similarly, the economy and politics are not only influenced by values, they also promote particular cultural ideals of the good life and good society.

Third, and most important, we must delve into the depths where neither liberals nor conservatives dare to tread, namely, into the murky waters of despair and dread that now flood the streets of black America. To talk about the depressing statistics of unemployment, infant mortality, incarceration, teenage pregnancy, and violent crime is one thing. But to face up to the monumental eclipse of hope, the unprecedented collapse of meaning, the incredible disregard for human (especially black) life and property in much of black America is something else.

The liberal-conservative discussion conceals the most basic issue now facing black America: the nihilistic threat to its very existence. This threat is not simply a matter of relative economic deprivation and political powerlessness—though economic well-being and political clout are requisites for meaningful black progress. It is primarily a question of speaking to the profound sense of psychological depression, personal worthlessness, and social despair so widespread in black America.

The liberal structuralists fail to grapple with this threat for two reasons. First, their focus on structural constraints relates almost exclusively to the economy and politics. They show no understanding of the structural character of culture. Why? Because they tend to view people in egoistic and rationalist terms, according to which they are motivated primarily by self-interest and self-preservation. Needless to say, this is partly true about most of us. Yet, people, especially degraded and oppressed people, are also hungry for identity, meaning, and self- worth.

The second reason liberal structuralists overlook the nihilistic threat is a sheer failure of nerve. They hesitate to talk honestly about culture, the realm of meanings and values, because to do so may seem to lend itself too readily to conservative conclusions in the narrow way Americans discuss race. If there is a hidden taboo among liberals, it is to resist talking about values too much because it takes the focus away from structures, especially the positive role of government. But this failure leaves the existential and psychological realities of black people in the lurch. In this way, liberal structuralists neglect the battered identities rampant in black America.

As for the conservative behaviorists, they not only misconstrue the nihilistic threat, but inadvertently contribute to it. This is a serious charge, and it rests upon three claims. First, conservative behaviorists talk about values and attitudes as if political and economic structures hardly exist. They rarely, if ever, examine the innumerable cases in which black people do act on the Protestant ethic and still remain at the bottom of the social ladder. Instead, they highlight the few instances in which blacks ascend to the top, as if such success is available to all blacks, regardless of circumstances. Such a vulgar rendition of Horatio Alger in blackface may serve as a source of inspiration to some—a kind of model for those already on the right track. But it cannot serve as a substitute for serious historical and social analysis of the predicaments of and prospects for all black people, especially the grossly disadvantaged

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

ones. Second, conservative behaviorists discuss black culture as if acknowledging one’s obvious

victimization by white-supremacist practices (compounded by sexism and class condition) is taboo. They tell black people to see themselves as agents, not victims. And on the surface, this is comforting advice, a nice cliche for downtrodden people. But inspirational slogans cannot substitute for substantive historical and social analysis. Although black people have never been simply victims, wallowing in self-pity and begging for white giveaways, they have been —and are—victimized. Therefore, to call on black people to be agents makes sense only if we also examine the dynamics of this victimization against which their agency will, in part, be exercised. What is particularly naive and peculiarly vicious about the conservative behavioral outlook is that it tends to deny the lingering effect of black history—a history inseparable from though not reducible to victimization. In this way, crucial and indispensable themes of self-help and personal responsibility are wrenched out of historical context and contemporary circumstances—as if it is all a matter of personal will.

This ahistorical perspective contributes to the nihilistic threat within black America in that it can be used to justify right-wing cutbacks for poor people struggling for decent housing, child care, health care, and education. And, as I pointed out earlier, although liberals are deficient in important ways, they are right on target in their critique of conservative government cutbacks for services to the poor. These ghastly cutbacks are one cause of the nihilistic threat to black America.

The proper starting point for the crucial debate about the prospects for black America is the nihilism that increasingly pervades black communities. Nihilism is to be understood here not as a philosophic doctrine that there are no rational grounds for legitimate standards or authority; it is, far more, the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness. This usually results in a numbing detachment from others and a self-destructive disposition toward the world. Life without meaning, hope, and love breeds a coldhearted, mean-spirited-outlook that destroys both the individual and others.

Nihilism is not new in black America. The first African encounter with the New World was an encounter with a distinctive form of the Absurd. The initial black struggle against degradation and devaluation in the enslaved circumstances of the New World was, in part, a struggle against nihilism. In fact, the major enemy of black survival in America has been, and is, neither oppression nor exploitation but rather the nihilistic threat—that is, loss of hope and absence of meaning. For as long as hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of overcoming oppression stays alive. The self-fulfilling prophecy of the nihilistic threat is that without hope there can be no struggle.

The genius of our black foremothers and forefathers was to create powerful buffers to ward off the nihilistic threat, to equip black folk with cultural armor to beat back the demons of hopelessness, meaninglessness, and lovelessness. These buffers consisted of cultural structures of meaning and feeling that created and sustained communities; this armor constituted ways of life and struggle that embodied values of service and sacrifice, love and care, discipline and excellence. In other words, traditions for black surviving and thriving under usually adverse New World conditions were major barriers against the nihilistic threat. These traditions

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

consist primarily of black religious and civic institutions that sustained familial and communal networks of support. If cultures are, in part, what human beings create (out of antecedent fragments of other cultures) in order to convince themselves not to commit suicide, then black foremothers and forefathers are to be applauded. In fact, until the early seventies black Americans had the lowest suicide rate in the United States. But, now young black people lead the nation in suicides.

What has changed? What went wrong? The bitter irony of integration? The cumulative effects of a genocidal conspiracy? The virtual collapse of rising expectations after the optimistic sixties? None of us fully understands why the nihilistic threat is mor powerful now than ever before. I believe that the commodification of black life and the crisis of black leadership are two basic reasons. The recent shattering of black civil society—black families, neighborhoods, schools, churches, mosques—leaves more and more black people vulnerable to the nihilistic threat. This shattering spawns a deracinated and denuded people with little sense of self and few existential moorings.

Black people have always been in America’s wilderness in search of a promised land. Yet many black folk now reside in a jungle with a cutthroat morality devoid of any faith in deliverance or hope for freedom. Contrary to the superficial claims of conservative behaviorists, these jungles are not primarily the result of pathological behavior. Rather, this behavior is the tragic response of a people bereft of resources to confront the workings of U.S. capitalist society. This does not mean that individual black people are not responsible for their actions—black murderers and rapists should go to jail. But it does mean that the nihilistic threat contributes to criminal behavior—a threat that feeds on poverty and shattered cultural institutions. The nihilistic threat is now more powerful than ever before because the armor to ward against it is weaker.

But why this shattering of black civil society, this weakening of black cultural institutions in asphalt jungles? Corporate market institutions have contributed greatly to this situation. By corporate market institutions I mean that complex set of interlocking enterprises that have a disproportionate amount of capital, power, and influence on how our society is shaped. Needless to say, the primary motivation of these institutions is to make profits, and their basic strategy is to convince the public to consume. These institutions have helped create a seductive way of life, a culture of consumption that capitalizes on every opportunity to make money. Market calculations and cost-benefit analyses hold sway in almost every sphere of U.S. society.

The common denominator in these calculations and analyses is usually the provision, expansion, and intensification of pleasure. Pleasure is a multivalent term; it means different things to many people. In our way of life it involves comfort, convenience, and sexual stimulation. This mentality pays little heed to the past, and views the future as no more than a repetition of a hedonistically driven present. This market morality stigmatizes others as objects for personal pleasure or bodily stimulation. In this view, traditional morality is not undermined by radical feminists, cultural radicals in the sixties, or libertarians, as alleged by conservative behaviorists. Rather, corporate market institutions have greatly contributed to undermining traditional morality in order to stay in business and make a profit. This is especially evident in the culture industries—television, radio, video, music—in which gestures of foreplay and

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

orgiastic pleasure flood the marketplace. Like all Americans, African Americans are influenced greatly by the images of comfort,

convenience, machismo, femininity, violence, and sexual stimulation that bombard consumers. These seductive images contribute to the predominance of the market-inspired way of life over all others—and thereby edge out nonmarket values—love, care, service to others—handed down by preceding generations. The predominance of this way of life among those living in poverty-ridden conditions, with a limited capacity to ward off self-contempt and self-hatred, results in the possible triumph of the nihilistic threat in black America.

A major contemporary strategy for holding the nihilistic threat at bay is to attack directly the sense of worthlessness and self-loathing in black America. The angst resembles a kind of collective clinical depression in significant pockets of black America. The eclipse of hope and collapse of meaning in much of black America is linked to the structural dynamics of corporate market institutions that affect all Americans. Under these circumstances, black existential angst derives from the lived experience of ontological wounds and emotional scars inflicted by white-supremacist beliefs and images permeating U.S. society and culture. These wounds and scars attack black intelligence, black ability, black beauty, and black character daily in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

The accumulated effect of these wounds and scars produces a deep-seated anger, a boiling sense of rage, and a passionate pessimism regarding America’s will to justice. Under conditions of slavery and Jim Crow segregation, this anger, rage, and pessimism remained relatively muted because of a well-justified fear of brutal white retaliation. The major breakthroughs of the sixties—more psychically than politically—swept this fear away. Sadly, the combination of the market way of life, poverty-ridden conditions, black existential angst, and the lessening of fear toward white authorities has directed most of the anger, rage, and despair toward fellow black citizens, especially black women. Only recently has this nihilistic threat—and its ugly inhumane outlook and actions—surfaced in the larger American society. And it surely reveals one of the many instances of cultural decay in a declining empire.

What is to be done about this nihilistic threat? Is there really any hope, given our shattered civil society, market-driven corporate enterprises, and white supremacism? If one begins with the threat of concrete nihilism, then one must talk about some kind of politics of conversion. New models of collective black leadership must promote a version of this politics. Like alcoholism and drug addiction, nihilism is a disease of the soul. It can never be completely cured, and there is always the possibility of relapse. But there is always a chance for conversion—a chance for people to believe that there is hope for the future and a meaning to struggle. This chance rests neither on an agreement about what justice consists of nor on an analysis of how racism, sexism, or class subordination operate. Such arguments and analyses are indispensable, but a politics of conversion requires more. Nihilism is not overcome by arguments or analyses; it is tamed by love and care. Any disease of the soul must be conquered by a turning of one’s soul. This turning is done by one’s own affirmation of one’s worth—an affirmation fueled by the concern of others. This is why a love ethic must be at the center of a politics of conversion.

This love ethic has nothing to do with sentimental feelings or tribal connections. Rather it is a last attempt at generating a sense of agency among a downtrodden people. The best

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

exemplar of this love ethic is depicted on a number of levels in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. Self-love and love of others are both modes toward increasing self-valuation and encouraging political resistance in one’s community. These modes of valuation and resistance are rooted in a subversive memory—the best of one’s past without romantic nostalgia—and guided by a universal love ethic. For my purposes here, Beloved can be construed as bringing together the loving yet critical affirmation of black humanity found in the best of black nationalist movements, the perennial hope against hope for transracial coalition in progressive movements, and the painful struggle for self-affirming sanity in a history in which the nihilistic threat seems insurmountable.

The politics of conversion proceed principally on the local level—in those institutions in civil society still vital enough to promote self-worth and self-affirmation. It surfaces on the state and national levels only when grass-roots democratic organizations put forward a collective leadership that has earned the love and respect of and, most important, that has proved itself accountable to these organizations. This collective leadership must exemplify moral integrity, character, and democratic statesmanship within itself and within its organizations.

Like liberal structuralists, the advocates of a politics of conversion never lose sight of the structural conditions that shape the sufferings and lives of people. Yet, unlike liberal structuralism, the politics of conversion meet the nihilistic threat head-on. Like conservative behaviorism, the politics of conversion openly confronts the self-destructive and inhumane actions of black people. Unlike conservative behaviorists, the politics of conversion situates (not exonerates) these actions within inhumane circumstances. The politics of conversion shuns the limelight—a limelight that solicits status seekers and ingratiates egomaniacs. Instead, it stays on the ground among the toiling everyday people, ushering forth humble freedom fighters —both followers and leaders—who have the audacity to take the nihilistic threat by the neck and turn back its deadly assaults.

The nihilistic threat to black America is inseparable from a crisis in black leadership. This crisis is threefold. First, at the national level, the courageous yet problematic example of Jesse Jackson looms large. On the one hand, his presidential campaigns based on a progressive multiracial coalition were the major left-liberal response to Reagan’s conservative policies. For the first time since the last days of Martin Luther King, Jr.—with the grand exception of Harold Washington—the nearly de facto segregation in U.S. progressive politics was confronted and surmounted. On the other hand, Jackson’s televisual style resists grass-roots organizing and, most important, democratic accountability. His brilliance, energy, and charisma sustain his public visibility—but at the expense of programmatic follow-through. We are approaching the moment in which this style exhausts its progressive potential.

Other national nonelectoral black leaders—like Benjamin Hooks of the NAACP and John Jacobs of the National Urban League—rightly highlight the traditional problems of racial discrimination, racial violence, and slow racial progress. Yet their preoccupation with race— the mandate from their organizations—downplays the crucial class, environmental, and patriarchal determinants of black life chances. Black politicians—especially new victors like Mayor David Dinkins of New York City and Governor Douglas Wilder of Virginia—are part of a larger, lethargic electoral system riddled with decreasing revenues, loss of public

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

confidence, self-perpetuating mediocrity, and pervasive corruption. Like most American elected officials, few black politicians can sidestep these seductive traps. So black leadership at the national level tends to lack a moral vision that can organize (not just periodically energize) subtle analyses that enlighten (not simply intermittently awaken), and exemplary practices that uplift (not merely convey status that awes), black people.

Second, this relative failure in leadership creates vacuums to be filled by bold and defiant black nationalist figures with even narrower visions, one-note racial analyses, and sensationalist practices. Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton, and others vigorously attempt to be protest leaders in this myopic mode—a mode often, though not always, reeking of immoral xenophobia. This kind of black leadership not only is symptomatic of black alienation and desperation in a country more and more indifferent or hostile to the quality of life among black working and poor people, it also reinforces the fragmentation of U.S. progressive efforts that could reverse this deplorable plight. In this way, black nationalist leaders often inadvertently contribute to the very impasse they are trying to overcome: inadequate social attention and action to change the plight of America’s “invisible people,” especially disadvantaged black people.

Third, this crisis of black leadership contributes to political cynicism among black people; it encourages the idea that we cannot really make a difference in changing our society. This cynicism—already promoted by the larger political culture—dampens the fire of engaged local activists who have made a difference, yet who also have little interest in being in the national limelight. Rather they engage in protracted grass-roots organizing in principled coalitions that bring power and pressure to bear on specific issues.

Without such activists there can be no progressive politics. Yet state, regional, and national networks are also required for an effective progressive politics. That is why local-based collective (and especially multigendered) models of black leadership are needed. These models must shun the idea of one black national leader; they also should put a premium on critical dialogue and democratic accountability in black organizations.

Work must get done. Decisions must be made. But charismatic presence is no legitimate substitute for collective responsibility. Only a charisma of humility and accountability is worthy of a leadership grounded in a genuine democratic struggle for greater freedom and equality. This indeed may be the best—and last—hope to hold back the nihilistic threat to black America.

Source: Cornel West, “Nihilism in Black America,” Dissent (Spring 1991).

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cornel West, The Future of the Race (New York: Knopf, 1996). Cornel West, The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989).

———, The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1991).

———, Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America (New York: Routledge, 1993). ———, Race Matters (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

———, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight against Imperialism (New York: Penguin Books, 2005).

———, and bell hooks, Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life (Boston: South End Press, 1992).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

11 “Black Anti-Semitism,” Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 1992

Henry Louis Gates Jr. (1950– ) was born and raised in West Virginia, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Yale University. Currently the W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, Gates is one of America’s most influential public intellectuals. Gates won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981, and in 1983 earned acclaim with his rediscovery of Harriet E. Wilson’s 1859 novel, Our Nig. Gates also gained prominence as an advocate of a black literary cannon to complement the traditional, Eurocentric cannon. Perhaps Gates’s greatest scholarly achievement was the development of Encarta Africana, a massive research project that, in some respects, completed the unfinished Encyclopedia Africana project initiated by Du Bois almost a century earlier. In this essay, originally published in the New York Times, Gates sharply condemns expressions of anti-Semitism and social intolerance within the African-American community.

BLACK DEMAGOGUES AND PSEUDO-SCHOLARS During the past decade, the historic relationship between African Americans and Jewish Americans—a relationship that sponsored so many of the concrete advances of the civil rights era—showed another and less attractive face.

While anti-Semitism is generally on the wane in this country, it has been on the rise among black Americans. A recent survey finds not only that blacks are twice as likely as whites to hold anti-Semitic views but—significantly—that it is among the younger and more educated blacks that anti-Semitism is most pronounced.

The trend has been deeply disquieting for many black intellectuals. But it is something most of us, as if by unstated agreement, simply choose not to talk about. At a time when black America is beleaguered on all sides, there is a strong temptation simply to ignore the phenomenon or treat it as something strictly marginal. And yet to do so would be a serious mistake. As the African-American philosopher Cornel West has insisted, attention to black anti-Semitism is crucial, however discomfiting, in no small part because the moral credibility of our struggle against racism hangs in the balance.

When the Rev. Jesse Jackson, in an impassioned address at a conference of the World Jewish Congress on July 7, condemned the sordid history of anti-Semitism, he not only went some distance toward retrieving the once abandoned mantle of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s humane statesmanship, he also delivered a stern rebuke—while not specifically citing black anti-Semitism—to those black leaders who have sought to bolster their own strength through division. Mr. Jackson and others have learned that we must not allow these demagogues to turn the wellspring of memory into a renewable resource of enmity everlasting.

We must begin by recognizing what is new about the new anti-Semitism. Make no mistake: This is anti-Semitism from the top down, engineered and promoted by leaders who affect to be

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

speaking for a larger resentment. This top-down anti-Semitism, in large part the province of the better educated classes, can thus be contrasted with the anti-Semitism from below common among African-American urban communities in the 1930s and 40s, which followed in many ways a familiar pattern of clientelistic hostility toward the neighborhood vendor or landlord.

In our cities, hostility of this sort is now commonly directed toward Korean shop owners. But “minority” traders and shopkeepers elsewhere in the world—such as the Indians of East Africa and the Chinese of Southeast Asia—have experienced similar ethnic antagonism. Anti- Jewish sentiment can also be traced to Christian anti-Semitism, given the historic importance of Christianity in the black community.

Unfortunately, the old paradigms will not serve to explain the new bigotry and its role in black America. For one thing, its preferred currency is not the mumbled epithet or curse but the densely argued treatise; it belongs as much to the repertory of campus lecturers as community activists. And it comes in wildly different packages.

A book popular with some in the “Afrocentric” movement, The Iceman Inheritance: Prehistoric Sources of Western Man’s Racism, Sexism, and Aggression, by Michael Bradley, argues that white people are so vicious because they, unlike the rest of mankind, are descended from the brutish Neanderthals. More to the point, it speculates that the Jews may have been the “‘purest’ and oldest Neanderthal-Caucasoids,” the iciest of the ice people; hence (he explains) the singularly odious character of ancient Jewish culture.

Crackpot as it sounds, the book has lately been reissued with endorsements from two members of the Africana Studies Department of the City College of New York, as well as an introduction by Dr. John Henrik Clarke, professor emeritus of Hunter College and the great paterfamilias of the Afrocentric movement.

Dr. Clarke recently attacked multiculturalism as the product of what he called the “Jewish educational Mafia.” And while Dr. Leonard Jeffries’s views on supposed Jewish complicity in the subjugation of blacks captured headlines, his intellectual cohorts such as Conrad Muhammad and Khallid Muhammad address community gatherings and college students across the country purveying a similar doctrine. College speakers and publications have played a disturbing role in legitimating the new creed. Last year, U.C.L.A.’s black newspaper, Nommo, defended the importance of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious Czarist canard that portrays a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. (Those who took issue were rebuked with an article headlined: “Anti-Semitic? Ridiculous—Chill.”) Speaking at Harvard University earlier this year, Conrad Muhammad, the New York representative of the Nation of Islam, neatly annexed environmentalism to anti-Semitism, when he blamed the Jews for despoiling the environment and destroying the ozone layer.

But the bible of the new anti-Semitism is The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, an official publication of the Nation of Islam that boasts 1,275 footnotes in the course of 334 pages.

Sober and scholarly looking, it may well be one of the most influential books published in the black community in the last twelve months. It is available in black-oriented shops in cities across the nation, even those that specialize in Kente cloth and beads rather than books. It can also can be ordered over the phone, by dialing 1-800-48-TRUTH. Meanwhile, the book’s conclusions are, in many circles, increasingly treated as damning historical fact. The book, one

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

of the most sophisticated instances of hate literature yet compiled, was prepared by the historical research department of the Nation of Islam. It charges that the Jews were “key operatives” in the historic crime of slavery, playing an “inordinate” and “disproportionate” role and “carv[ing] out for themselves a monumental culpability in slavery—and the black holocaust.” Among significant sectors of the black community, this brief has become a credo of a new philosophy of black self-affirmation.

To be sure, the book massively misrepresents the historical record, largely through a process of cunningly selective quotation of often reputable sources. But its authors could be confident that few of its readers would go to the trouble of actually hunting down the works cited. For if readers actually did so, they might discover a rather different picture.

They might find out—from the book’s own vaunted authorities—that, for example, of all the African slaves imported into the New World, American Jewish merchants accounted for less than 2 percent, a finding sharply at odds with the Nation’s of Islam’s claim of Jewish “predominance” in this traffic.

They might find out that in the domestic trade it appears that all of the Jewish slave traders combined bought and sold fewer slaves than the single gentile firm of Franklin and Armfield. In short, they might learn what the historian Harold Brackman has documented—that the book’s repeated insistence that the Jews dominated the slave trade depends on an unscrupulous distortion of the historic record. But the most ominous words in the book are found on the cover: “Volume One.” More have been promised, to carry on the saga of Jewish iniquity to the present day.

However shoddy the scholarship of works like The Secret Relationship, underlying it is something even more troubling: the tacit conviction that culpability is heritable. For it suggests a doctrine of racial continuity, in which the racial evil of a people is merely manifest (rather than constituted) by their historical misdeeds. The reported misdeeds are thus the signs of an essential nature that is evil.

How does this theology of guilt surface in our everyday moral discourse? In New York, earlier this spring, a forum was held at the Church of St. Paul and Andrew to provide an occasion for blacks and Jews to engage in dialogue on such issues as slavery and social injustice. Both Jewish and black panelists found common ground and common causes. But a tone-setting contingent of blacks in the audience took strong issue with the proceedings. Outraged, they demanded to know why the Jews, those historic malefactors, had not apologized to the “descendants of African kings and queens.”

And so the organizer of the event, Melanie Kaye Kantrowitz, did. Her voice quavering with emotion, she said: “I think I speak for a lot of people in this room when I say ‘I’m sorry.’ We’re ashamed of it, we hate it, and that’s why we organized this event.” Should the Melanie Kantrowitzes of the world, whose ancestors survived Czarist pogroms and, latterly, the Nazi Holocaust, be the primary object of our wrath? And what is yielded by this hateful sport of victimology, save the conversion of a tragic past into a game of recrimination? Perhaps that was on the mind of another audience member. “I don’t want an apology,” a dreadlocked woman told her angrily. “I want reparations. Forty acres and a mule, plus interest.”

These are times that try the spirit of liberal outreach. In fact, Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Nation of Islam, himself explained the real agenda behind his campaign, speaking before an audience of 15,000 at the University of Illinois last fall. The purpose of “The Secret Relationship,” he said, was to “rearrange a relationship” that “has been detrimental to us.”

“Rearrange” is a curiously elliptical term here. If a relation with another group has been detrimental, it only makes sense to sever it as quickly and unequivocally as possible. In short, by “rearrange,” he means to convert a relation of friendship, alliance and uplift into one of enmity, distrust and hatred. But why target the Jews? Using the same historical methodology, after all, the researchers of the book could have produced a damning treatise on the involvement of left-handers in the “black holocaust.” The answer requires us to go beyond the usual shibboleths about bigotry and view the matter, from the demagogues’ perspective, strategically: as the bid of one black elite to supplant another. It requires us, in short, to see anti-Semitism as a weapon in the raging battle of who will speak for black America—those who have sought common cause with others or those who preach a barricaded withdrawal into racial authenticity. The strategy of these apostles of hate, I believe, is best understood as ethnic isolationism—they know that the more isolated black America becomes, the greater their power. And what’s the most efficient way to begin to sever black America from its allies? Bash the Jews, these demagogues apparently calculate, and you’re halfway there.

I myself think that an aphorist put his finger on something germane when he observed, “We can rarely bring ourselves to forgive those who have helped us.” For sometimes it seems that the trajectory of black-Jewish relations is a protracted enactment of this paradox.

Many Jews are puzzled by the recrudescence of black anti-Semitism, in view of the historic alliance. The brutal truth has escaped them that the new anti-Semitism arises not in spite of the black-Jewish alliance but because of it. For precisely such trans-racial cooperation —epitomized by the historic partnership between blacks and Jews—is what poses the greatest threat to the isolationist movement.

In short, for the tacticians of the new anti-Semitism, the original sin of American Jews was their involvement—truly “inordinate,” truly “disproportionate”—not in slavery, but in the front ranks of the civil rights struggle.

For decent and principled reasons, many black intellectuals are loath to criticize “oppositional” black leaders. Yet it has become apparent that to continue to maintain a comradely silence may be, in effect, to capitulate to the isolationist agenda, to betray our charge and trust. And, to be sure, many black writers, intellectuals, and religious leaders have taken an unequivocal stand on this issue.

Cornel West aptly describes black anti-Semitism as “the bitter fruit of a profound self- destructive impulse, nurtured on the vines of hopelessness and concealed by empty gestures of black unity.”

After twelve years of conservative indifference, those political figures who acquiesced, by malign neglect, to the deepening crisis of black America should not feign surprise that we should prove so vulnerable to the demagogues rousing messages of hate, their manipulation of the past and present.

Bigotry, as a tragic century has taught us, is an opportunistic infection, attacking most

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

virulently when the body politic is in a weakened state. Yet neither should those who are about black America gloss over what cannot be condoned: That much respect we owe to ourselves. For surely it falls to all of us to recapture the basic insight that Dr. King so insistently expounded. “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,” he told us. “Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” How easy to forget this—and how vital to remember.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Race,” in Writing, and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).

———, The Signifying Monkey: Towards a Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).

———, Colored People: A Memoir (New York: Knopf, 1994). ———, America Behind the Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans (New York: Warner Books, 2005).

———, and Nellie Y. McKay, eds., The Norton Anthology of Afro-American Literature (New York: Norton, 1996).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

12 “Crime—Causes and Cures,” Jarvis Tyner, 1994

Jarvis Tyner (1941– ) is the national vice chairman of the Communist Party, USA. He was the founding chairman of the Young Workers Liberation League (YWLL) in 1970 and has been active in struggles concerning civil rights, labor, peace, and anti-imperialism. He has written extensively on political action, civil rights, the struggle for peace, the fight against racism, and many other subjects. Tyner ran for vice president on the Communist Party ticket in both 1972 and 1976. He is currently a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Black Radical Congress. In this essay, Tyner presents a Marxian analysis for the reasons for crime in U.S. society.

The growing problem of crime and violence in our country has reached epidemic proportions, as have demands that the government find real solutions.

It is a serious problem indeed. There were over 14 million crimes committed in the U.S. in 1992. While 12 million of these were crimes of property, 1.9 million were violent crimes, including 1.1 million aggravated assaults and 22,760 murders.

Over the past decade the number of violent crimes has grown dramatically. There are over 200 million guns in the hands of civilian Americans. The odds of getting murdered in the U.S. are one in 12,000—which is high by any standard. The streets are not safe. Even children are carrying guns and many of the innocent victims of violence are children and the elderly. Some senior citizens dare not venture out of doors at night.

The growth of crime is one of the most dramatic examples of the general decay of U.S. capitalism. While our government goes around the world boasting of a “stable,” “democratic” and “free” technologically advanced society, the tragic presence of so many guns and drugs and the accompanying crime and violence show that our country is facing a deep social and political crisis. We are a nation that is technologically advanced but moving backward in terms of social relations and stability. The country is headed for greater chaos and suffering if the problem of crime and violence is not addressed in an honest, humane and democratic way.

Sickness or Symptom? Over the last decade there has been a massive campaign around the crime issue. The mass media has spared no effort in sensationalizing this issue. Listening to the evening news is like reading a police rap sheet. The sensationalized journalism of the cheap supermarket tabloids is becoming the dominant style of U.S. journalism—it is news designed to promote hysteria and panic. It is also designed to promote racism, male supremacy and other anti-working-class sentiments so as to rationalize repressive policies and sow greater division among the people. It is news designed to lower the confidence among the masses in humanity, and thereby promote hopelessness and powerlessness.

While the problem is very serious, and must be addressed, the U.S. ruling class has been

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

projecting it as the central issue confronting the country. Many voters in the last elections said that crime is their main concern. This issue has to be carefully considered for it can divide and confuse more than any other. Clearly the answer does not lie in simple calls to “get tough.” It is necessary to understand the real source of the problem and act in a way that does not further victimize those already victimized.

Crime presents a danger to society, but it must be understood as a symptom of much bigger ailments.

Our nation is experiencing a prolonged, deep-going structural and systemic crisis of its capitalist system. This is the main sickness which must be addressed if crime and violence are to be seriously reduced.

While there has been a growth in the number of wealthy Americans over the past two decades, the most dramatic growth has been in the number of people living in poverty. Since 1970, 14 million have joined the ranks of the poor. We are a nation where even by modest count, 37 million people live in poverty—one out of every six persons.

Over 20 million are unemployed and underemployed. Millions of people have never had a steady job. These are the long-term unemployed, including the homeless and the millions who are hungry and without health care. With the closing down of many basic industrial plants in the ’70s and ’80s and the downsizing of major corporations in the ‘90s, millions of working people have been locked out of better-paying jobs and reduced to permanent unemployment and underemployment. For most working people there is no job security. There is a major decline in the standard of living of the entire working class. Most families need two or more wage earners to make ends meet today.

Economic Racism Hit hardest of all are the racially oppressed, the African American, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Asian and Pacific Island and Native American working people. They are victims of economic racism.

The pro-corporate, racist policies of big business and government have led to a situation where the racially and nationally oppressed experience more than double the unemployment and poverty rates of white people. Forty percent of African Americans and Latinos now live in poverty. And linked to the growth in extreme poverty is the resurgence of super segregation.

The crisis is particularly sharp for African American and Latino youth who are confined to the hard life in the cities—a life of drugs, bad housing, underfunded schools, few recreation facilities and no jobs. These are youth whose unemployment rates range from 60 to 80 percent. Many have never worked, and if there is no basic change in the economy and the political situation, most have no future.

At the bottom of this crisis lies the historic decline of U.S. capitalism. This situation has created many hopeless and desperate people who see no honest way of surviving. Feeling that society has abandoned them, too many have concluded, “Why not abandon society?”

Because of the systemic crisis, despite the ups and downs in the business cycle, the economy has been going qualitatively downward. We now have a national emergency of the most urgent kind requiring government action to provide jobs and massive funding to rebuild cities and meet human needs. But the policy has been building jails instead of providing jobs.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

This situation is a breeding ground for unstable family life, drug addiction, street crime and many other serious problems. The crisis of capitalism is also breeding extreme greed, corruption and thievery in government and industry. This is part of the crime problem as well.

Along with economic conditions, the factor that has driven crime figures drastically up over the past decade has been the massive growth of drug abuse. Sixty-two percent of all street crime is drug-related; most random shootings and “drive-by” killings of innocent victims are related to the drug trade.

The drug epidemic has grown so severe because in fact the government’s policy is not to stop it. In fact, the government is part of the problem—it has allowed the massive importation of narcotics and other drugs. This can be seen in the Iran-contra conspiracy and in many new reports that show the CIA has for years been working with drug smugglers, and is even importing drugs itself.

Role of Government and Police On the community level, local police practice a policy called “selective enforcement”—which is really a form of drug legalization. Selective enforcement has been the chief law enforcement tactic on the nation’s streets, especially in low-income Black and Brown communities.

Selective enforcement allows drugs to be sold openly; it is responsible for the streets being turned into war zones where people in hundreds of communities dare not go outside for fear of being caught in the crossfire. Any 12-year-old can tell you where drugs are being sold. Certainly the police know, yet they allow it to go on and only periodically arrest the pushers. The government’s complicity can also be seen in the many examples of direct involvement by local police in dealing drugs and shaking down dealers. The authorities not only know where drugs are coming from and are being sold—they are part of the process.

The drug problem did not start in the ghettos and barrios, contrary to what is said in the media. The importation and distribution of drugs goes all the way up to the high councils of the CIA, the government, the military, organized crime and the banking industry.

African-American and Latino youth who are the prime victims of the drug epidemic are being arrested and jailed more than any other group. The prisons are full to the point of overflowing. We live in a society where millions of youth—in a special way African American youth—are tragically cast aside, oppressed and neglected, then imprisoned and criminalized. It is the shame of our nation that, by a wide margin, there are more African- American youth in jail or under the jurisdiction of the courts than are in college. This is a basic failure of the U.S. capitalist system.

However there are other types of crime to which scant attention is paid. White-collar crimes cost billions of dollars annually and cause massive human suffering because the dollars stolen could be spent to benefit the people. The S&L bailout—a multi-billion-dollar scandal that cost the American people dearly—is an example.

Studies show that crime—not to mention drug use—is also high amongst the upper-middle class and the rich. One study showed that the amount of money embezzled from banks was 6,000 times the amount robbed from banks (as cited by A. Monteiro in 4/91 Political Affairs). If one were to add up the amount of money lost because the rich, who are the biggest tax cheaters, are not paying their share of taxes, including wealthy bankers laundering drug money,

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

the sum comes to hundreds of billions in cost to society, in effect many times more than the cost of petty crime on the streets. As a rule, the rich steal larger amounts, more often, and are punished less severely and less often.

In addition, the federal government is guilty of political crimes, like crimes against the cities. Over the past decade, 50 percent of the aid to cities has been cut—at a time when corruption in government has risen to an all-time high. There is no major city that is not in financial straits. Almost every state faces cutbacks and retrenchment as they try to avoid bankruptcy.

To this can be added the cost in human suffering and death caused by long-term unemployment, homelessness and hunger, and the fact that the denial of health care to 37 million is cause for a shorter life span and higher mortality rates. These are crimes too— crimes rooted in capitalist greed, racism and anti-working-class policies of government and big business. They are of a political and social character but are crimes nonetheless.

These are all reasons why crime is growing and will continue to grow unless the basic ailments of our society are addressed.

Anti-Crime Hysteria Rather than addressing the social and economic roots of crime, drugs and violence, the government, over the past decade especially, continues to put its emphasis on more cops, increased police brutality, more prisons, longer sentences and expanding the death penalty.

The mass media, government and most capitalist politicians are creating a hysteria— mainly a racist hysteria—about crime. This was most clearly revealed with the Willie Horton ads that the Republicans used in the 1988 elections. This policy continues under Clinton.

Typically the reason given for the rise in crime is that America has become too lenient on criminals. The view is often expressed that “criminals are getting away with crimes, and if arrested are given too short a sentence.” It is argued that the absence of the death penalty, lenient sentencing and the parole system have made committing crimes less risky. Similarly, it is alleged that the police are outgunned.

Most capitalist politicians are quick to blame crime on the criminal mind, lack of character, etc., of individuals, while they do nothing about the prison system, one of the most brutal and the worst in terms of rehabilitation.

Ignored by these views are the economic roots of crime. This school of thought, which is dominant in government, media and industry, is based on the notion that there is nothing basically wrong with the economic system but that there is something wrong with the American people. The victims of poverty and drugs are blamed rather than trying to eliminate the real causes.

Crime, Racism, and Male Supremacy Linking crime with race and gender is the most prominent form of this anti-people line of argument. Such ideas were very prominent in Pat Buchanan’s “family values” speech at the 1992 Republican Convention and the campaign rhetoric of ex-Vice President Dan Quayle during the presidential campaign.

Part of the move to the right by the Clinton Administration and other Democrats can be seen Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

precisely around these issues. President Clinton’s speeches in Memphis and Los Angeles (November ’93) to promote his anti-crime bill had much of the same message as Quayle and Buchanan. In fact, Clinton has been promoting the right-wing “family values” issue openly, while heaping praise on the likes of Dan Quayle.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan has built his career around attacking female-headed households, especially African American, as the prime causes of crime and violence. He insists that poverty is not the reason for crime. In an article in the winter 1993–94 issue of the American Educator, published by the American Federation of Teachers, he writes

A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future—that community asks for and gets chaos. Former New York City Mayor Edward Koch has for a long time put most of his political

energy into attacking non-whites. He has consistently raised the question of “Black and minority crime.” In his column which appeared in the New York Daily News (November 16, 1993), he hailed the Memphis and Los Angeles speeches of Clinton as a breakthrough because Clinton was willing to attack “minority crime.” Koch felt that the “dam of political correctness has been broken” and now one can discuss the question without being called a racist. To identify the African-American people with crime, according to Koch, is to honestly deal with the problem. In a bare-faced defense of racist oppression and injustice Koch put it this way: “… [the] lack of personal responsibility is the single most important factor contributing to escalating minority crime rather than white racism in all its manifestations.”

A widespread example of this approach is the chorus of blame directed at rap artists for crime and violence among youth. Whether or not one agrees with the content of the music, blaming the rappers takes the government and the corporations off the hook. It is the highly profitable record companies who are the main promoters, and beneficiaries—making millions upon millions by promoting violence….

Capitalism without Entitlements Capitalism without entitlements means greater use of police state methods to control the enormous social problems that will result; it means more jails, not jobs.

When considered in light of Clinton’s pledge to arbitrarily throw people off welfare, a picture emerges of an administration that actually plans to force new hundreds of thousands into extreme destitution and ultimately prison—in order to contain their dissatisfaction, anger and rebellion.

Like NAFTA, this bill is strongly supported by big business. They see it as necessary for maintaining control over the victims of poverty and unemployment in an era where they want to eliminate entitlements.

Basically, the anti-crime bill is designed to control poor folks and curb possible political rebellion. It is not designed to stop crime—it’s designed to stop the people. It is first and foremost an attack on the rights of the unemployed and under-employed, primarily aimed at the ghettos and barrios, at the victims of economic racism. The thinking that motivates this kind of draconian legislative assault on democratic rights is racist and anti-working-class. It’s

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

basically a defense of U.S. capitalism on the decline. And it shows that Clinton is continuing the same thinking and policies of the capitalist class that Reagan and Bush promoted.

It is important to understand that despite the fact that organized crime is behind much of the importation and the distribution of drugs, the proposed anti-crime legislation is not aimed at them at all. This shows that the ruling class has no intention of really attacking crime. There is a conscious racial, anti-working-class political bias behind the entire effort.

It is necessary to fight against this bill and demand instead that the government come up with a serious program that attacks the root causes of crime. Unless there is a strong protest from the people, this bill will be made into law in the early part of this year.

A Monumental Failure While in 1992 the people voted to defeat George Bush and his policies, the new crime bill is actually a continuation of the same old reactionary policies and worse. The fact that the Clinton Administration is staying the course shows that the capitalist class is unified and the new repressive policy transcends the two main capitalist political parties.

During the Reagan–Bush administrations, record numbers were arrested and imprisoned. The demand for prison space could not keep up with the rate of convictions. And the ’80s brought a new phenomenon: prisons for profit. Privately owned and run prisons is now one of America’s biggest growth industries. Lucrative profits are being made in this industry, over the misery of so many. And there are even different levels of prison accommodations based on one’s ability to pay—a new level of class differentiation in the prison system: horrible medieval-type prisons for the poor and country club prisons for the rich.

During the 1980s, African Americans and Latinos were jailed at unprecedented rates. Under the cover of these policies, the government criminalized hundreds of thousands, especially non-white youth. The United States has achieved the dubious distinction of being the number one nation on the earth when it comes to incarcerating its own population. By 1990 the inmate population, according to the ACLU study, Americans Behind Bars: One Year Later, had reached 1,139,803, which is a rate of 455 per 100,000 population—considerably higher than apartheid South Africa which is the second jailer-nation on earth with 311 per 100,000 population.

For African-American men, the rate is 3,370 per 100,000, which is ten times the overall U.S. rate and five times the rate for African males in South Africa. While the South African figures have gone down from 1989, the U.S. overall rate of incarceration increased by 6.8 percent. With the U.S. population at 250 million, by the end of the Reagan era 1 out of every 220 persons in the U.S. were in jail and 2,600 people were on death row. For African- American men that’s 1 out of every 28. The Reagan–Bush years were one of the worst periods of racist repression in U.S. history.

If measured by its impact on lowering crime and violence—which after all was the stated intent—this policy was a monumental failure. According to recent studies, even after doubling the number of people put in prison, the crime rate only dropped slightly and may actually have increased by 7 percent.

It is argued that the country cannot afford a federal jobs bill because the “money is not there.” However, incarceration presently costs the federal, state and local governments $20.3

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

billion a year. The absurdity and senselessness of this waste is mind-boggling: it costs about $40,000 a year to send a youth to prison but only $20,000 to send them to college.

The use of the death penalty has not worked either. Murder rates in states with the death penalty are usually slightly higher than in non-death penalty states. Reducing crime by increasing incarceration and through capital punishment has been a costly failure.

An increase in the prison population, use of mandatory sentencing, the death penalty, more cops with more lethal weapons and less rights for the people will lead us in the direction of a police state and do further harm to public safety and democratic rights. Based on the present policies, with more police there will be more police brutality. Communities, especially inner- city communities need real protection but that’s not what they get—bitter experience shows they get more repression.

This will all negatively affect thousands of working-class people, their families and their communities. And it won’t work. Any anti-crime bill that does not have a strong massive job creation component is no anti-crime bill at all.

A Job: A Constitutional Right Rather than eliminating entitlements, what is needed is a federal jobs bill to rebuild the country and create millions of jobs. Offering free treatment to the massive numbers of drug-addicted people and taking dangerous weapons out of the hands of the population is the way to reduce crime. Strong gun control is needed, starting with outlawing automatic weapons. Safe streets are possible only with less access to firearms and greater economic security of the working class. Jobs not jails has to be the starting point in attacking all of the problems that contribute to the high crime rates; be they medical, social, cultural, psychological, etc.

A job should be a constitutional right. It should be guaranteed by the government. When the private sector fails to provide the needed jobs, the government should be required to provide them. Rather than cutting back on government services and aid to the cities, the government should tax the rich and cut the military budget to provide funding to meet those vital human needs. Rather than throwing people off of welfare into starvation and homelessness, more welfare should be provided until a decent good-paying job can be created. “Jobs or income” needs to be the birthright of every American.

Rather than boot camps, what is needed is more money for education and massive job creation with union wages and affirmative action, and training. Rather than jailing people addicted to drugs, there needs to be a massive effort to set up free drug rehabilitation facilities all across the country.

A Stake in Society When so many have been pushed into long-term joblessness and the depths of poverty, it is understandable that some would reach the point of despair, the sense of being defeated, without any hope. Lacking the necessary experience of work, many develop total alienation from family, friends and, of course, from society as a whole. When you add the ingredients of drug addiction, police brutality and racism, that alienation can take on a dangerous dimension. Many have been pushed to the limits of despair as a result of the crisis of capitalism and turn to crime and violence. This system has created conditions that are forcing hundreds of thousands

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

down the path of self destruction; it is a form of entrapment, socioeconomic entrapment. Some will argue that many have been so dehumanized that a job won’t be enough to bring

them back. In some cases that is true. But every person must be fought for. We must keep in mind that this situation can be reversed. Most poor people are not criminal. Most youth who live in severe poverty do not turn to crime and drugs.

People are looking for real solutions. Many of them can be won to struggle and indeed can be changed through struggle. The overwhelming majority want to work and want to do the right thing. They have not lost all hope and can be won to a healthy, contributing relationship to society. Instead of pacification they need higher levels of class consciousness.

The first thing needed is to reverse the policies of government that are responsible for putting millions of young people, especially African American and Latino youth, into such horrible circumstances. Providing jobs is the first step in the many steps needed to bring hundreds of thousands out of despair. Health care is needed, plus counseling, sports and recreation—experiences that foster a healthy outlook toward one’s fellow human beings.

Ironically, those who demonstrate total alienation actually reflect in a stark way the attitudes of the corporate world: complete selfishness, total greed, not caring who you hurt as long as you get what you want. These are considered “virtuous” in the dog-eat-dog business world. Anything to make a buck is an accurate motto of big business. These ideas didn’t start with the drug pusher on the street corner, they started in the corporate suites and are alive and prominent in the media and on Wall Street today. There must be a total fight against such ideas, including exposing their source in the capitalist system, if we are to win.

How to Win After NAFTA and the many other rebuffs to the people’s agenda, it’s clear now that Clinton, left on his own, will not deliver progressive change. It is therefore necessary to build a multi- racial grassroots movement, of working people first and foremost, that can force change. And that is what the Communist Party USA is working for. We have a long history of participating in the building of such movements.

In our view, there is a new militancy in the ranks of labor and a new level of unity of labor and the racially oppressed. There is renewed militancy in the ranks of the racially oppressed and those desiring peace and equality. Among all progressive forces there is a greater willingness to build independent politics, including third-party movements, and to support candidates who are ready to fight for jobs and equality.

Our starting point is that there is a way out. Taxing the rich and slashing the military budgets are among the most popular slogans of our day. The goal of the Communist Party program is to bring these slogans to life. Our program would provide an additional one trillion dollars per year to finance people’s needs while reducing the tax burden on the majority. It would do more than provide the conditions for lowering crime drastically. It would upgrade the national spirit and social and cultural well-being of the people. It would provide the means for greater unity of all races and nationalities. It would make the streets safer and homes more livable for the people—working people in the first place.

This program is based on affirmative action, which means it would make a special effort where the problem is especially critical, in regards to the victims of discrimination. We are for

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

a special effort to uplift those especially held back: African Americans, Latinos, other racially oppressed, and women.

Our country needs a different approach that protects people from crime but also gets more to the causes of crime, an approach that provides a humane and democratic solution. It must be a solution that rejects police state methods, that will unite the people across racial lines and move our country forward, not backward.

The death penalty does not deter crime and is mainly applied to poor people. What we need is not more prisons but more schools, free and accessible drug-treatment facilities, more recreation and health centers, decent housing for all and a guaranteed future for the youth. What is needed are tough laws against discrimination and racism and a commitment to provide for children and families, assuring a more stable home life. What is needed is a government, and a political-economic system based on the principle of putting people before profits.

And ultimately, what is needed is “Bill of Rights” socialism here in our country, if not today, then tomorrow.

Source: “Crime—Causes and Cures.” Reprinted by the courtesy of Jarvis Tyner, Vice Chairman, Communist Party USA.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

13 Louis Farrakhan: The Million Man March, 1995

Louis Farrakhan (1933– ) for more than a generation, has been one of the most influential, although controversial, leaders within the African-American community. Born Louis Walcott in Bronx, New York, he was raised in Boston, Massachusetts. As a youth, he learned to play the violin and guitar, and became a talented and popular singer. In 1955, Walcott attended the Nation of Islam’s annual Savior’s Day Convention in Chicago, where he first encountered Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. Joining the NOI later that year, and becoming Louis X, he quickly rose to leadership. In 1956 Louis X became the assistant minister to Malcolm X at Harlem’s Mosque 7. Two years later, Louis X was named minister of the NOI’s mosque in Boston. Following the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, Louis X became the minister of Harlem’s Mosque 7 for the next decade. Renamed Louis Farrakhan by Elijah Muhammad, in the 1970s, he became a powerful force within black American society. With the death of Elijah Muhammad in 1975, the leadership of the NOI passed to Elijah’s son, Wallace Muhammad, ultimately leading Farrakhan to break from the Nation of Islam. In 1981 he reconstituted the “new” Nation of Islam around the conservative patriarchal principles of Elijah Muhammad. On October 16, 1995, Farrakhan organized the “Million Man March” in Washington, D.C., which was the largest public gathering of African Americans in U.S. history. Ten years later, in 2005, Farrakhan returned to Washington, D.C., to convene the “Million Family March.”

“STILL 2 AMERICAS, ONE BLACK, ONE WHITE” Right here on this mall where we are standing, according to books written on Washington, D.C., slaves used to be brought right here on this Mall in chains to be sold up and down the eastern seaboard. Right along this mall, going over to the White House, our fathers were sold into slavery. But, George Washington, the first president of the United States, said he feared that before too many years passed over his head, this slave would prove to become a most troublesome species of property.

Thomas Jefferson said, he trembled for this country when he reflected that God was just and that his justice could not sleep forever. Well, the day that these presidents feared has now come to pass, for on this mall, here we stand in the capital of America, and the layout of this great city, laid out by a Black man, Benjamin Banneker. This is all placed and based in a secret Masonic ritual. And at the core of the secret of that ritual is the Black man, not far from here is the White House.

And the first president of this land, George Washington, who was a grand master of the Masonic order laid the foundation, the cornerstone of this capitol building where we stand. George was a slave owner. George was a slave owner. Now, the President spoke today and he wanted to heal the great divide. But I respectfully suggest to the President, you did not dig deep enough at the malady that divides Black and White in order affect a solution to the problem.

And so, today, we have to deal with the root so that perhaps a healing can take place…

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

You came not at the call of Louis Farrakhan, but you have gathered here at the call of God. For it is only the call of Almighty God, no matter through whom that call came, that could generate this kind of outpouring. God called us here to this place. At this time. For a very specific reason.

And now, I want to say, my brothers — this is a very pregnant moment. Pregnant with the possibility of tremendous change in our status in America and in the world. And although the call was made through me, many have tried to distance the beauty of this idea from the person through whom the idea and the call was made.

Some have done it mistakenly. And others have done it in a malicious and vicious manner. Brothers and sisters, there is no human being through whom God brings an idea that history doesn’t marry the idea with that human being no matter what defect was that human being’s character.

You can’t separate Newton from the law that Newton discovered, nor can you separate Einstein from the theory of relativity. It would be silly to try to separate Moses from the Torah or Jesus from the Gospel or Muhammad from the Koran.

When you say Farrakhan, you ain’t no Moses, you ain’t no Jesus, and you’re not no Muhammad. You have a defect in your character.

Well, that certainly may be so, however, according to the way the Bible reads, there is no prophet of God written of in the Bible that did not have a defect in his character. But, I have never heard any member of the faith of Judaism separate David from the Psalms, because of what happened in David’s life and you’re never separated Solomon from the building of the Temple because they say he had a thousand concubines, and you never separated any of the Great Servants of God.

So today, whether you like it or not, God brought the idea through me and he didn’t bring it through me because my heart was dark with hatred and anti-semitism, he didn’t bring it through me because my heart was dark and I’m filled with hatred for White people and for the human family of the planet. If my heart were that dark, how is the message so bright, the message so clear, the response so magnificent?

So, we stand here today at this historic moment. We are standing in the place of those who couldn’t make it here today. We are standing on the blood of our ancestors. We are standing on the blood of those who died in the middle passage, who died in the fields and swamps of America, who died hanging from trees in the South, who died in the cells of their jailers, who died on the highways and who died in the fratricidal conflict that rages within our community. We are standing on the sacrifice of the lives of those heroes, our great men and women that we today may accept the responsibility that life imposes upon each traveler who comes this way.

We must accept the responsibility that God has put upon us, not only to be good husbands and fathers and builders of our community, but God is now calling upon the despised and the rejected to become the cornerstone and the builders of a new world.

And so, our brief subject today is taken from the American Constitution. In these words, Toward a more union. Toward a more perfect union.

Now, when you use the word more with perfect, that which is perfect is that which has been brought to completion. So, when you use more perfect, you’re either saying that what you call perfect is perfect for that stage of its development but not yet complete. When Jefferson

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

said, “toward a more perfect union,” he was admitting that the union was not perfect, that it was not finished, that work had to be done. And so we are gathered here today not to bash somebody else.

We’re not gathered here to say, all of the evils of this nation. But we are gathered here to collect ourselves for a responsibility that God is placing on our shoulders to move this nation toward a more perfect union. Now, when you look at the word toward, toward, it means in the direction of, in furtherance or partial fulfillment of, with the view to obtaining or having shortly before coming soon, eminent, going on in progress. Well, that’s right. We’re in progress toward a perfect union. Union means bringing elements or components into unity.

It is something formed by uniting two or more things. It is a number of persons, states, etcetera, which are joined or associated together for some common purpose. We’re not here to tear down America. America is tearing itself down. We are here to rebuild the wasted cities…

White supremacy is the enemy of both White people and Black people because the idea of White supremacy means you should rule because you’re White, that makes you sick. And you’ve produced a sick society and a sick world. The founding fathers meant well, but they said, “toward a more perfect union.” So, the Bible says, we know in part, we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away with.

So either, Mr. Clinton, we’re going to do away with the mind-set of the founding fathers. You don’t have to repudiate them like you’ve asked my brothers to do me. You don’t have to say they were malicious, hate filled people. But you must evolve out of their mind-set. You see their minds was limited to those six European nations out of which this country was founded. But you’ve got Asians here. How are you going to handle that? You’ve got children of Africa here. How are you going to handle that?

You’ve got Arabs here. You’ve got Hispanics here. I know you call them illegal aliens, but hell, you took Texas from them by flooding Texas with people that got your mind. And now they’re coming back across the border to what is Northern Mexico, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. They don’t see themselves as illegal aliens. I think they might see you as an illegal alien. You have to be careful how you talk to people. You have to be careful how you deal with people. The Native American is suffering today. He’s suffering almost complete extinction. Now, he learned about bingo. You taught him. He learned about black jack. You taught him. He learned about playing roulette. You taught him. Now, he’s making a lot of money. You’re upset with him because he’s adopted your ways. What makes you like this? See, you’re like this because you’re not well. You’re not well. And in the light of today’s global village, you can never harmonize with the Asians. You can’t harmonize with the islands of the Pacific.

You can’t harmonize with the dark people of the world who out number you 11 to 1, if you’re going to stand in the mind of white supremacy. White supremacy has to die in order for humanity to live…

Now, brothers, moral and spiritual renewal is a necessity. Every one of you must go back home and join some church, synagogue or temple or mosque that is teaching spiritual and moral uplift. I want you, brothers, there’s no men in the church, in the mosque.

The men are in the streets and we got to get back to the houses of God. But preachers we have to revive religion in America.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

He have to revive the houses of God that they’re not personal chiefdoms of those of us who are their preachers and pastors. But we got to be more like Jesus, more like Mohammed, more like Moses and become servants of the people in fulfilling their needs.

Brothers, when you go home, we’ve got to register eight million, eligible but unregistered brothers, sisters. So you go home and find eight more like yourself. You register and get them to register. I register as Democrat? Should I register as a Republican? Should I register as independent?

If you’re an independent, that’s fine. If you’re a Democrat, that’s fine. If you’re a Republican, that’s OK. Because in local elections you have to do that which is in the best interest of your local community. But what we want is not necessarily a third party, but a third force.

Which means that we’re going to collect Democrats, Republicans and independents around an agenda that is in the best interest of our people. And then all of us can stand on that agenda and in 1996, whoever the standard bearer is for the Democratic, the Republican, or the independent party should one come into existence. They’ve got to speak to our agenda….

Now, brothers, I want you to take this pledge. When I say I, I want you to say I, and I’ll say your name. I know that there’s so many names, but I want you to shout your name out so that the ancestors can hear it.

Take this pledge with me. Say with me please, I, say your name, pledge that from this day forward I will strive to love my brother as I love myself. I, say your name, from this day forward will strive to improve myself spiritually, morally, mentally, socially, politically, and economically for the benefit of myself, my family, and my people. I, say your name, pledge that I will strive to build business, build houses, build hospitals, build factories, and then to enter international trade for the good of myself, my family, and my people. I, say your name, pledge that from this day forward I will never raise my hand with a knife or a gun to beat, cut, or shoot any member of my family or any human being, except in self-defense.

I, say your name, pledge from this day forward I will never abuse my wife by striking here, disrespecting her for she is the mother of my children and the producer of my future. I, say your name, pledge that from this day forward I will never engage in the abuse of children, little boys, or little girls for sexual gratification. But I will let them grow in peace to be strong men and women for the future of our people. I, say your name, will never again use the B word to describe my female, but particularly my own Black sister.

I, say your name, pledge from this day forward that I will not poison my body with drugs or that which is destructive to my health and my well being. I, say your name, pledge from this day forward, I will support Black newspapers, Black radio, Black television. I will support Black artists, who clean up their acts to show respect for themselves and respect for their people, and respect for the ears of the human family.

I, say your name, will do all of this so help me God

Source: Excerpt from Farrakhan’s speech at the Million Man March, Washington, D.C., October 16, 1995 as recorded by CNN. www-cgi.cnn.com/US/9510/megamarch/10- 16/transcript/index.html

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

http://www-cgi.cnn.com/US/9510/megamarch/10-16/transcript/index.html

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mattias Gardell, In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996).

Arthur J. Magida, Prophet of Rage: A Life of Louis Farrakhan and His Nation (New York: Basic Books, 1996).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

14 “A Voice from Death Row,” Mumia Abu-Jamal

Born Wesley Cook, Mumia Abu-Jamal (1954– ) grew up in Philadelphia and at age fifteen served as the Minister of Information for the Philadelphia chapter of the Black Panther Party. After the destruction of the Panthers, he turned to radio broadcasting, where he became a local celebrity. He served as president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, and became an outspoken advocate of the local radical MOVE organization. In 1981, while he was moonlighting as a cab driver, Jamal was involved in a late-night altercation in which a police officer, Daniel Faulkner, was shot and killed. Jamal had a registered .38 handgun, but it was never decisively linked to Faulkner’s wounds. Nevertheless, Jamal was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. After more than twenty years on death row, a federal district court found that instructions to jury members had been unconstitutional, and as a result, in 2001 Jamal’s sentenced was commuted to life imprisonment. Jamal’s case has attracted worldwide attention as a possible human rights violation.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT The death penalty is a creation of the State, and politicians justify it by using it as a stepping stone to higher political office. It’s very popular to use isolated cases—always the most gruesome ones—to make generalizations about inmates on death row and justify their sentences. Yet it is deceitful; it is untrue, unreal. Politicians talk about people on death row as if they are the worst of the worst, monsters and so forth. But they will not talk about the thousands of men and women in our country serving lesser sentences for similar and even identical crimes. Or others who, by virtue of their wealth and their ability to retain a good private lawyer, are not convicted at all. The criminal court system calls itself a justice system, but it measures privilege, wealth, power, social status, and—last but not least—race to determine who goes to death row.

Why is it that Pennsylvania’s African-Americans, who make up only 9% of its population, comprise close to two-thirds of its death row population? It is because its largest city, Philadelphia, like Houston and Miami and other cities, is a place where politicians have built their careers on sending people to death row. They are not making their constituents any safer. They are not administering justice by their example. They are simply revealing the partiality of justice.

Let us never forget that the overwhelming majority of people on death row are poor. Most of them cannot afford the resources to develop an adequate defense to compete with the forces of the State, let alone money to buy a decent suit to wear in court. As the O. J. Simpson case illustrated once again, the kind of defense you get is the kind of defense you can afford. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, in Florida, in Texas, in Illinois, in California—most of the people on death row are there because they could not afford what O. J. could afford, which is the best defense.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

One of the most widespread arguments in favor of the death penalty is that it deters crime. Study after study has shown that it does not. If capital punishment deters anything at all, it is rational thinking. How else would it be conceivable in a supposedly enlightened, democratic society? Until we recognize the evil irrationality of capital punishment, we will only add, brick by brick, execution by execution, to the dark temple of Fear. How many more lives will be sacrificed on its altar?

Source: Jamal News Service, 1998.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mumia Abu-Jamal, Live from Death Row (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1995). ———, Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience (Plough Publishing House, 1997).

J. Patrick O’Connor, The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2008).

Leonard Weinglass, Race for Justice: Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Fight against the Death Penalty (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995).

Daniel R. Williams, Executing Justice: An Inside Account of the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

15 “Let Justice Roll Down Like Waters,” African-American Prisoners in Sing

Sing, 1998

By the end of the twentieth century, about one in three black males in their twenties was imprisoned, on probation or parole, or awaiting trial in the United States. Nearly one million black Americans were incarcerated in federal prisons, state correctional facilities, and local jails. Prisons have become, in effect, the principal means for extending social control over the lives of millions of African Americans. We have selected excerpts from three essays written by prisoners who in 1998 were enrolled in a Master’s of Professional Studies Program in the infamous Sing Sing Prison, one of the oldest correctional facilities in the United States.

STATEMENT BY SING SING PRISONERS We are seventeen theology students currently in exile within the bowels of a New York state prison. Mostly from the five boroughs of New York City, we are from various ethnic groups, mainly Black and Latino. Our faith traditions are primarily Christianity and Islam. We are believers striving to live out our faith in all that we say and do each day. We were transferred to Sing Sing Correctional Facility to study as a group toward a master’s degree in professional studies.

There are seventy prisons in New York state and approximately seventy thousand prisoners. According to the New York State Department of Correctional Services figures for 1995, the New York state prison population is made up of 85 percent Blacks and Latinos, with 75 percent coming from the inner-city areas of New York City. Upon release 98 percent of us will return to our neighborhoods.

It is clear that Black and Latino communities are most impacted by the policies of the criminal justice system. Yet our communities have the least to say about what goes on in prison. Those establishing and enforcing criminal justice policies are seldom from our urban communities, and their policies are out of step with the needs of Blacks and Latinos. The policy makers are commonly vociferous and consistently diligent with regard to their “tough- on-crime” stance. But they are eerily silent when it comes to the issues of poverty, education, housing, and health care for the marginalized.

Correctional facilities have become big businesses. With 98 percent of state prisons located in rural districts, the prison-industrial complex reflects the interests of those communities. It costs taxpayers approximately $30,000 a year to incarcerate a prisoner; by contrast it costs $11,215 to send an undergraduate to the State University of New York for a year. The crime rate has actually declined, but they continue to build more prisons. As the educational system in our communities continues to deteriorate, prison construction escalates. The high school dropout rate is alarmingly high in our communities, yet educational budgets are slashed and remedial education is eliminated.

We are prepared to make the best of our time and the necessary adjustments for a Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

successful reentry into society, but facing the parole board is like returning to court and having the judge sentence you again for the same crime. There is a double standard of justice and a double jeopardy in judgment.

There is a public outcry against the parole system. To listen only to government officials one would conclude that most of the crimes committed in New York City are committed by individuals on parole. However, 1995 statistics compiled by the NYPD indicate that only 4.5 percent of crimes were committed by parolees.

Many of the churches and other faith communities in the Black and Latino neighborhoods from which we have come have abandoned us. The silence of Black and Latino Christian, Jewish, and Islamic congregations in urban communities makes them unwilling accomplices to the plight of prisoners.

We feel trapped and cut off by a system that seems to have no capacity for love or compassion and refuses to recognize that people can change. Increasingly, politicians and the media manipulate public sentiment toward vengefulness instead of redemption, and that makes the public slow to understand the social causes of wrong behavior. Prison: easy to get in and difficult to get out—even when you are eligible for parole. Prison is a branding method tantamount to modern slavery; it totally rejects any possibility of rehabilitation….

A message needs to be sent to those in power to stop penalizing every prisoner for the criminal acts of a few parolees. We should be judged by what we have done to change our own lives and should be held accountable for our own actions, not somebody else’s.

As a measure to deter crime and to keep urban youth out of prison, adequate and effective education should be the focal point for government, churches, and recreation centers. Education builds a sound and safe society, while illiteracy contributes to the destruction of humanity, perpetuating the poverty that too easily leads to prison. We know first-hand the benefits of education and pledge ourselves to share those benefits both in prison and when we return to our communities.

We ask in the Spirit of Righteousness and the One, True, and Living God, that you take this document to heart, remembering always to consider the good that is inherent in all of creation and the struggle of the despised and imprisoned throughout our nation. Let us “believe and do good works, and exhort one another to truth and exhort one another to endurance” (Qur’an 103.3). Seek God’s Spirit and Righteousness with us in every endeavor. In the words of Amos, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).

THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: AN INVESTMENT IN FAILURE Bliss as a consequence of profound ignorance is a far-reaching, all-encompassing and enduring lie. This nation generally perceives quality education as a privilege and has greatly erred in embracing this obsolete and futile socio-political stance. In 1995, when elitist policy makers and the media contrived to eradicate post-secondary education from prisons, they hustled and beguiled the public with the premise that higher education is a privilege, and prisoners should not have access to it.

It was irrelevant that only a few prisoners participated in post-secondary education. In fact

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

fewer than 1 percent received government grants. The fact that higher education had proved to be the most dramatic recidivism-reducing program within prisons and saved taxpayers more in the long run was lost in the hullabaloo and “get-tough” rhetoric. New York State prisons only provide an eighth-grade education for its captives. Who benefits from ignorant, inter- personally and managerially incompetent prisoners? No one but the Prison-Industrial Complex.

The Prison-Industrial Complex is a national phenomenon with a vested interest in economic and political power. This multi-billion-dollar industry targets African Americans and Latinos, primarily within socially, economically and politically destitute communities. The criminal justice system is the complex machine that devours African-American and Latino men, women and children as the raw material to sustain the Prison-Industrial Complex under the moral banner of “the war on crime.” This is more accurately a war on “street crime,” revealed as a war on people of color, the marginalized. Historically, this country has always misused its power against its marginalized. The method has not changed. Mass media works with elitist policy makers to shape and create public misperceptions which so desensitize citizens to the real issues that the targeted group is held with contempt or indifference. The Prison-Industrial Complex is unequivocally “an institutionally racist mechanism, which is neutralizing generations of Black and Latino males in New York and across the nation and is devastating communities of color that comprise America’s inner cities,” according to John Flateau.

In 1995, 150 new prisons were built in the United States alone, and 171 existing prisons were expanded. New York State Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) is moving forward with the largest prison expansion in 70 years, and residents in New York State are more likely to be victims of crime than in 1981. State and federal governments have mobilized massive resources and demonized, criminalized, and incarcerated African Americans and Latinos. Policy makers are quite vociferous when it comes to “street crime”; they are reticent and less vocal when it comes to poverty, meeting children’s needs in such areas as education, health and child care, housing, substance abuse treatment, college tuition, recreation and jobs.

The propensity for this nation to take reactionary measures seems more often than not to benefit the ruling class. It is easier to declare war on “street crime” than it is to declare war on poverty, inferior education in dilapidated schools, and substandard housing. It is easier to build prisons than it is to build people up with hope and a sense of purpose.

Jim Wallis highlights this contradiction well in his book, The Soul of Politics. Wallis writes, “Washington is the most powerful city in the nation, and D.C. is the most powerless, without control even over its own affairs and destiny. Considered by many to be a colony, the District of Columbia didn’t obtain partial home rule until 1974. To this day, District residents (more than 606,000 people) have no voting representation in Congress, and all actions taken by elected city government are subject to congressional veto. As the ‘last colony,’ D.C. symbolizes the relationship that many parts of the world have with official Washington.”

This national symbolism is illustrated in Albany and City Hall. It is not subtle, but blatant. With about 70,000 prisoners in New York State and about 63,000 ex-offenders on parole at any given time, it is not hard to conclude that current criminal justice policies are more geared toward investment in recidivism, and keeping non-violent offenders for bizarre and lengthy sentences only as financial pawns. If we expect prisoners to return to their communities, why are post-secondary education and effective therapeutic programs scarce, and obsolete in their

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

application? If we desire men and women to return to society with civil interpersonal skills, why relegate them to repositories of violent rage? If we expect men and women to return to their communities as assets, and with respect for the law, why do we ignore brutal and corrupt prison guards/police officers who abuse those in their custody with impunity?

We must honestly question what we expect and how our ideology drives the Prison- Industrial Complex. Young men entering the criminal justice system are asphyxiated by despair and banality. They are fatalistic in their reasoning, and angry. Their escalating negativism and sense of dejection make them ideal fuel for the Prison-Industrial Complex.

America could not let go of slavery, so she inserted a clause in the 13th Amendment which made slavery legal for those who were locked up, and convicted of a crime. Prior to the Civil War, the Slave Codes governed all African-American slaves in the South. Once slavery was abolished America merely rewrote the Slave Codes, and called it the Black Codes. African Americans were arrested and locked up on trumped-up charges and became a captive labor force. They were leased out to white plantations and other private businesses. The State of Georgia illustrated this well in 1878 when it leased out 1,239 convicts. Not surprisingly, 1,124 were African Americans. Brutality abounded unchecked for decades before reform took place in the 1930s. But where carte blanche control over another human being’s life is allowed, exploitation and abuse will continue unabated, especially where the prisoner is held with the lowest regard.

In conclusion, higher education has proven to be a critical therapeutic device for me. Others saw deeper qualities within me that I could not see myself. As my horizons expanded, and I was reconciled with my humanity, the possibilities of what I could become exploded before me. It takes courage and perseverance to honestly acknowledge your deficiencies and work earnestly to correct them. My ignorance was not blissful. I have caused a lot of pain for others, and for myself. While I am still incarcerated, critical education has liberated and empowered me. I will be an asset to others, no matter where I am. Unfortunately, many in prison will not have that opportunity, though they desperately need it.

RIVER HUDSON The River Hudson, what a wonderful sight for me, even from what is such a negative place behind prison fences and walls. Nonetheless, akin to every other place in time, life is what you and I make it. I close my eyes then, and dream, not of faraway places but of places up the river and down. It is during these times that I am free, if only in my mind. Prison bars, cells, fences and walls can never take away my true freedom inside, for I am free to go sailing up and down the River Hudson through every corner of my mind. As I stand at my prison window facing north, in my mind’s eye I see the Boulderberg Manor, a wonderful restaurant from days of old; then, my mind goes south to pier 91 where the Queen Elizabeth II (QE II) sits docked in all her majesty. These thoughts signify freedom for me; the River Hudson, what a wonderful place to be.

As I stand staring into the waves of the river from my window, I think of days my wife and I made countless trips to and from the Palisades Parkway via Annsville Circle, the Bear Mountain Bridge, and the breathtaking scenery along the way. We awoke to frost some days,

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

sunshine on others, but always with a heartwarming view of the River Hudson as we made our way to and from work or leisure. There were never better days in my life. What a blessing to be able to close my eyes and see the gracefulness and peace the River Hudson holds for me. I stay the course behind these fences and walls, drifting, sailing, hoping—little gentle breezes engulfing me—in the corners of my mind.

On yet another day, though they all seem the same from here, I sit looking out across the River Hudson to Rockland County facing me. For the life of me I cannot stop my mind from drifting up the river as I wonder—I see it as clear as if it were yesterday—the Boulderberg Manor Restaurant, overlooking the River Hudson from Tompkins Cove, NY. Again the River Hudson: what a breathtaking view even from the Rockland County side, I recall, during a delectable dining experience. Fresh grilled salmon, asparagus covered with hollandaise sauce, yellow rice pilaf, freshly baked sweet potato bread (I can almost smell that warm fresh baked aroma!); and, lest I forget the view, the River Hudson. Whether facing north, south, or simply east from the gazebo on the restaurant lawn, the view was always the absolute best, as we gazed contentedly across to Westchester. Thus, I truly believe one day in the future, perhaps not the Boulderberg with the impeccable service and delightful hospitality we grew so accustomed to, but some place facing the River Hudson awaits Christine and me when these present days, too, will be thoughts of the past.

Still, some days I lay in my Sing Sing bunk, and I reminisce on my love for driving. There is nothing quite like driving along the River Hudson from Westchester County, going south through small towns and quaint villages like Croton on the Hudson, Ossining, Tarrytown, and Dobbs Ferry. Once I make my way to River-dale, I prepare to cross the Henry Hudson Bridge. Upon approaching the West Side Highway along the riverside, I see the distinctive reddish- orange and black smokestack of Cunard’s QE II luxury cruiseliner perched at New York City’s Pier 91. It is something again to draw closer to that seafaring vessel, leave the car, and embark upon the ship itself. The view driving alongside the river is calming, but the view from the ship is something I shall never forget, even as I lie here in my bunk. I think of the vessel moving away from the pier and cruising slowly down the River Hudson—New Jersey on the right, New York City on the left—an unbelievable sight! And as these thoughts rest with me now and again, I know one day I will move away from these banks of Sing Sing and move down the River Hudson to my freedom and joys untold.

Freedom rings bright in the halls of my mind, and yet I know that one day again, freedom will truly be mine. Like a cool breeze that passes across the prison yard I admire the gentle— sometimes choppy—waves of the River Hudson. I think of it now, I’ll think of it then—what a pleasure; but such freedom will never elude me again. For me, the River Hudson has been a wonderful source of inspiration, it reminds me I have a better life to come. There are bars, fences, and walls that separate me from some experiences anew, but never from the hopes and dreams of my heart and my mind too. Freedom, that inevitable freedom, is yet to come to release me from this time, but physically, not just in the corners of my mind.

Sources: (1) Statement by Sing Sing Prisoners, May 1998, pp. 36–38; (2) Michael J. Love, “The Prison-Industrial Complex: An Investment in Failure,” pp. 24–25; and (3) Willis L. Steele, Jr., “River Hudson,” in Pamphlet, Voices of the Class of 1998: Master of Professional

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Studies Program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility (New York: New York Theological Seminary, 1998), pp. 34–35.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

16 Black Radical Congress, 1998

On March 1, 1997, a group of thirty-five veteran political activists met in Chicago to discuss the state of the black-American left and the future of progressive U.S. politics. They decided to plan a large national meeting to be called the “Black Radical Congress,” bringing together a broad range of progressive organizations and individuals who were involved in socialist, Communist, lesbian and gay, feminist, and revolutionary black-nationalist political work. The Black Radical Congress (BRC) was held in Chicago on June 19–21, 1998, and attracted more than two thousand African-American activists. The BRC established a network of local organizing committees, and its members became involved in a variety of political activities, including anti–police-brutality cases, economic-justice campaigns, and the struggle to defend public education. The documents below are the “Principles of Unity” that were approved at the initial 1997 Chicago organizing meeting, and served as the basis for the BRC’s national mobilization; the “Call to the Congress” issued in the fall of 1997 and circulated nationally; and the major policy document of the BRC, the “Black Freedom Agenda.” The “Freedom Agenda” was the product of several drafts and intense discussion over eighteen months. The version presented below was approved by the BRC’s national council in April 1999. The Freedom Agenda was largely inspired by the African National Congress’s “Freedom Charter,” the Black Panther Party’s “Ten-Point Program,” and the Combahee River Collective Statement of 1977.

PRINCIPLES OF UNITY The Black Radical Congress will convene to establish a “center without walls” for transformative politics that will focus on the conditions of Black working and poor people. Recognizing contributions from diverse tendencies within Black Radicalism—including socialism, revolutionary nationalism and feminism—we are united in opposition to all forms of oppression, including class exploitation, racism, patriarchy, homophobia, anti-immigration prejudice and imperialism. We will begin with a gathering on June 19–21, 1998. From there we will identify proposals for action and establish paths forward. The Black Radical Congress does not intend to replace or displace existing organizations, parties or campaigns but will contribute to mobilizing unaffiliated individuals, as well as organizations, around common concerns.

1. We recognize the diverse historical tendencies in the Black radical tradition including revolutionary nationalism, feminism and socialism.

2. The technological revolution and capitalist globalization have changed the economy, labor force and class formations that need to inform our analysis and strategies. The increased class polarization created by these developments demands that we, as Black radicals, ally ourselves with the most oppressed sectors of our communities and society.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

3. Gender and sexuality can no longer be viewed solely as personal issues but must be a basic part of our analyses, politics and struggles.

4. We reject racial and biological determinism, Black patriarchy and Black capitalism as solutions to problems facing Black people.

5. We must see the struggle in global terms. 6. We need to meet people where they are, taking seriously identity politics and single-issue

reform groups, at the same time that we push for a larger vision that links these struggles. 7. We must be democratic and inclusive in our dealings with one another, making room for

constructive criticism and honest dissent within our ranks. There must be open venues for civil and comradely debates to occur.

8. Our discussions should be informed not only by a critique of what now exists, but by serious efforts to forge a creative vision of a new society.

9. We cannot limit ourselves to electoral politics—we must identify multiple sites of struggle.

10. We must overcome divisions within the Black radical forces, such as those of generation, region and occupation. We must forge a common language that is accessible and relevant.

11. Black radicals must build a national congress of radical forces in the Black community to strengthen radicalism as the legitimate voice of Black working and poor people, and to build organized resistance.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES: SETTING A BLACK LIBERATION AGENDA FOR THE 21ST CENTURY CHICAGO, ILLINOIS—JUNE 19–21, 1998

Black people face a deep crisis. Finding a way out of this mess requires new thinking, new vision, and a new spirit of resistance. We need a new movement of Black radicalism.

We know that America’s capitalist economy has completely failed us. Every day more of us are unemployed and imprisoned, homeless and hungry. Police brutality, violence and the international drug trade threaten our children with the greatest dangers since slavery. The politicians build more prisons but cut budgets for public schools, day care and health care. They slash welfare yet hire more cops. The government says working people must pay more taxes and receive fewer services, while the rich and the corporations grow fat. Black people and other oppressed people have the power to change the way things are today. But first we must unite against the real enemy.

Now is the time for a revival of the militant spirit of resistance that our people have always possessed, from the Abolitionist Movement to outlaw slavery to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s, from Black Power to the anti-apartheid campaign of the 1980s. Now is the time to rebuild a strong, uncompromising movement for human rights, full employment and self-determination. Now is the time for a new Black radicalism.

If you believe in the politics of Black liberation, join us in Chicago in 1998 at the Black Radical Congress. If you hate what capitalism has done to our community—widespread joblessness, drugs, violence and poverty—come to the Congress. If you are fed up with the corruption of the two-party system and want to develop a plan for real political change, come to the Congress. If you want to struggle against class exploitation, racism, sexism and

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

homophobia, come to the Congress. The Black Radical Congress is for everyone ready to fight back: trade unionists and workers, youth and students, women, welfare recipients, lesbians and gays, public-housing tenants and the homeless, the elderly and people on fixed incomes, veterans, cultural workers and immigrants. You!

Sisters and Brothers, we stand at the edge of a new century. The moment for a new militancy and a new commitment to the liberation of all Black people, at home and abroad, has arrived. Let us build a national campaign toward the Black Radical Congress, setting in motion a renewed struggle to reclaim our historic role as the real voice of democracy in this country. Spread the word: “Without struggle, there is no progress!” Now’s the time!

THE FREEDOM AGENDA

Preamble During the last 500 years, humanity has displayed on a colossal scale its capacity for creative genius and ruthless destruction, for brutal oppression and indomitable survival, for rigid tradition and rapid change. The Americas evolved to their present state of development at great cost to their original, indigenous peoples, and at great cost to those whose labor enabled modernization under the yoke of that protracted crime against humanity, slavery. Even so, a good idea is implicit in the Declaration of Independence of the United States that all people are “endowed with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” That the idea of a just society, contained in those words, remains unrealized is what compels this declaration.

Not only has the idea not been realized, but we are moving further away from its realization by the hour. Global capitalism, both the cause and effect of neo-liberal and Reaganist policies, has facilitated the transfer of enormous wealth from the bottom to the top of society in recent years, concentrating the control of abundant resources in ever fewer hands. As a result, the working people who constitute the vast majority of people have confronted a steady decline in their prospects for earning a decent living and controlling their lives. In the U.S., the threat of sudden unemployment hangs over most households. We pay unfair taxes and receive fewer services, while multibillion-dollar fortunes accumulate in the private sector. Prisons proliferate as budgets are slashed for public schools, day care, healthcare and welfare. The grip of big money on the two-party electoral process has robbed us of control over the political institutions that are mandated to serve us. We are losing ground, and democracy is more and more elusive.

As for people of African descent, most of whose ancestors were among the shackled millions who helped build the edifices and culture of the Americas, we carry an enormously disproportionate burden. In the U.S., the living legacy of slavery, and the pervasiveness of institutional white supremacy, have placed us on all-too-familiar terms with poverty, urban and rural, exploitative conditions of employment; disproportionately high rates of unemployment and underemployment; inferior health care; substandard education; the corrosive drug trade, with its accompanying gun violence; police brutality and its partner, excessive incarceration; hate-inspired terrorism; a biased legal system, and discrimination of every kind—persistent

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

even after the end of legal segregation. Resistance is in our marrow as Black people, given our history in this place. From the

Haitian revolution, to the U.S. abolitionist movement against slavery, to the twentieth-century movement for civil rights and empowerment, we have struggled and died for justice. We believe that struggle must continue, and with renewed vigor. Our historical experiences suggest to us, by negative example, what a truly just and democratic society should look like: It should be democratic, not just in myth but in practice, a society in which all people—regardless of color, ethnicity, religion, nationality, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, family structure, or mental or physical capability—enjoy full human rights, the fruits of their labor, and the freedom to realize their full human potential. If you agree, and if you are committed to helping achieve justice and democracy in the twenty-first century, please sign your name and/or the name of your organization to this 15-point Freedom Agenda.

The Freedom Agenda I. We will fight for the human rights of Black people and all people. We will struggle for a society and world in which every individual enjoys full human rights, full protection of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and in the United States equal protection of the Constitution and of all the laws. We seek a society in which every individual—regardless of color, nationality, national origin, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, family structure, or mental or physical capability—is free to experience “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We affirm that all people are entitled to:

a. safe and secure home; b. employment at a living wage—that is, compensation for the full value of their

labor; c. free, quality health care, including full reproductive freedom with the right to

choose when or whether to bear children, and free, quality child care; d. free, quality public education.

We oppose the Human Genome Project in its current form and with its current leadership, and we oppose all sociobiological or genetic experiments that are spurred by, and help perpetuate, scientific racism. We will fight for a society and world in which every individual and all social groups can live secure, dignified lives.

II. We will fight for political democracy. We will struggle to expand political democracy to ensure the people’s greater participation in decision-making. In the U.S., we will work to replace the current two-party, winner-take-all electoral system with a more democratic multiparty system based on proportional representation, and we will fight to abolish all registration procedures that restrict the number of eligible voters. We oppose private financing of electoral campaigns, especially corporate contributions; we will work to replace the present corrupt system with public financing.

III. We will fight to advance beyond capitalism, which has demonstrated its structural incapacity to address basic human needs worldwide and, in particular, the needs of Black

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

people. Guided by our belief that people should come before profits, we will fight to maximize economic democracy and economic justice.

a. We seek full employment at livable wages, public control of private-sector financial operations, worker control of production decisions, and a guaranteed annual income for the needy;

b. we will fight to end racial discrimination by capitalist enterprises, especially banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions;

c. we seek a society in which working people enjoy safe working conditions and flexible hours to accommodate family responsibilities, leisure and vacations;

d. we seek laws mandating public ownership of utilities, and mandating federal and local budgetary emphases on programs for the general welfare—health care, education, public transportation, recreation and infrastructure;

e. we will struggle for laws that regulate private-sector business practices, especially regarding prices, fees, plant shutdowns and job relocations—where shutdowns are permitted, adequate compensation to workers shall be required;

f. we support the historical mission of trade unions to represent workers’ interests and to negotiate on their behalf;

g. we seek a fair, equitable, highly progressive tax system that places the heaviest taxes on the wealthiest sector, and we seek expansion of the earned income tax credit.

IV. We will fight to end the super-exploitation of Southern workers. More than 50 percent of people of African descent residing in the U.S. live in the South, where workers’ earnings and general welfare are besieged by corporate practices, and where “right to work” laws undermine union organizing. Thus, we seek relief for Southern workers from corporate oppression, and we will struggle to repeal anti-union laws. We will also fight for aid to Black farmers, and for the restoration of farm land seized from them by agribusiness, speculators and realestate developers.

V. We will struggle to ensure that all people in society receive free public education. We affirm that all are entitled to free, quality public education throughout their lifetime. Free education should include adult education and retraining for occupational and career changes. We will fight to ensure that curricula in U.S. schools, colleges and universities are anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobic, and for curricula that adequately accommodate students’ needs to express and develop their artistic, musical or other creative potential.

VI. We will struggle against state terrorism. We will fight for a society in which every person and every community is free from state repression, including freedom from state-sponsored surveillance. We seek amnesty for, and the release of, all political prisoners. We will struggle to repeal all legislation that expands the police power of the state and undermines the U.S. Constitution’s First and Fourth Amendments. We will fight to eliminate the deliberate trafficking in drugs and weapons in our communities

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

by organized crime, and by institutions of the state such as the Central Intelligence Agency.

VII. We will struggle for a clean and healthy environment. We will fight for a society in which the welfare of people and the natural environment takes precedence over commercial profits and political expediency. We will work to protect, preserve and enhance society’s and the planet’s natural heritage—forests, lakes, rivers, oceans, mountain ranges, animal life, flora and fauna. In the U.S., we will struggle against environmental racism by fighting for laws that strictly regulate the disposal of hazardous industrial waste, and that forbid both the discriminatory targeting of poor and non-white communities for dumping and despoilment of the natural environment.

VIII. We will fight to abolish police brutality, unwarranted incarceration and the death penalty. We are determined to end police brutality and murder:

a. We will fight for strong civilian oversight of police work by elected civilian review boards that are empowered to discipline police misconduct and enforce residency requirements for police officers;

b. we seek fundamental changes in police training and education to emphasize public service over social control as the context in which law enforcement occurs, and to stress respect for the histories and cultures of the U.S.-born and immigrant communities served;

c. we seek to limit incarceration to the most violent criminals, only those who have clearly demonstrated their danger to the lives and limbs of others;

d. regarding non-violent offenders, we demand that they be released and provided with appropriate medical, rehabilitative and educative assistance without incarceration;

e. we will struggle for abolition of the death penalty, which has been abolished in the majority of developed nations. In the U.S., the history of the death penalty’s application is inextricable from the nation’s origins as a slave state. Since Emancipation, it has been a white-supremacist tool intended to maintain control over a population perceived as an alien, ongoing threat to the social order. Application of the death penalty, which is highly discriminatory on the basis of color and class, violates international human-rights law and must be eliminated.

IX. We will fight for gender equality, for women’s liberation, and for women’s rights to be recognized as human rights in all areas of personal, social, economic and political life. We will work to create a society and world in which women of African descent, along with their sisters of other colors, nationalities and backgrounds, shall enjoy non-discriminatory access to the education, training and occupations of their choice. We will struggle to ensure that all women enjoy equal access to quality health care and full reproductive rights, including the right to determine when or whether they will bear children and the right to a safe, legal abortion. We will fight to end domestic abuse and sexual harassment in the workplace.

X. We recognize lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people as full and equal members of society, and of our communities.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

We affirm the right of all people to love whom they choose, to openly express their sexuality, and to live in the family units that meet their needs. We will fight against homophobia, and we support anti-homophobic instruction in public schools. We will fight for effective legal protections for the civil rights and civil liberties of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and we demand that violence and murder committed against such people be prosecuted as hate crimes. We will also fight to end discrimination against this sector in employment, health care, social welfare and other areas.

XI. We support affirmative action. We will fight to retain and expand affirmative-action policies in education, employment, the awarding of government contracts and all other areas affected by historical and contemporary injustices. Affirmative action, with goals and timetables, is indispensable for achieving equal opportunity, justice and fairness for the members of all historically oppressed groups.

XII. We will fight for reparations. Reparations is a well-established principle of international law that should be applied in the U.S. Historically, the U.S. has been both the recipient and disburser of reparations. As the descendants of enslaved Africans, we have the legal and moral right to receive just compensation for the oppression, systematic brutality and economic exploitation Black people have suffered historically and continue to experience today. Thus, we seek reparations from the U.S. for

a. its illegal assault on African peoples during the slave trade; b. its exploitation of Black labor during slavery; and c. its systematic and totalitarian physical, economic and cultural violence against

people of African descent over the last four centuries.

XIII. We will struggle to build multicultural solidarity and alliances among all people of color. We will fight against white-supremacist tactics aimed at dividing people of color. We seek alliances with other people of color to develop unified strategies for achieving multicultural democracy, and for overcoming the divisions that exist around such issues as immigration, bilingual education, political representation and allocation of resources.

XIV. We will uphold the right of the African-American people to self-determination. The formation of the Black Radical Congress in June 1998 was an act of African-American self-determination, a principle which is codified in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The African-American people are entitled to define the direction, priorities, allies and goals of our struggle against national and racial oppression. Building the power to exercise these prerogatives is central to our struggle against all the systems of oppression confronting our people. Therefore, we will fight for both a national program of liberation and for a mass base of power in the social sectors, institutions, all levels of government, communities and territories of society that affect the lives of our people.

XV. We support the liberation struggles of all oppressed people. We affirm our solidarity with peoples of African descent throughout the African diaspora. We support their struggles against imperialism and neo-colonialism from without, as well as

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

against governmental corruption, exploitation and human-rights abuses from within. We especially support struggles against transnational corporations, whose global market practices gravely exploit all workers, abuse workers’ rights and threaten all workers’ welfare. We affirm our solidarity with all oppressed people around the world, whatever their color, nation or religion—none of us is free unless all are free. We believe that all people everywhere should enjoy the right to self-determination and the right to pursue their dreams, unfettered by exploitation and discrimination.

Sources: (1) “BRC Principles of Unity”; (2) The “Call to Congress”; and (3) “The Freedom Agenda of the BRC.” Copies in possession of the editors.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

17 2000 Presidential Election

The 2000 presidential election was one of the closest and most bitterly contested in American history. Vice president Al Gore, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, received over 500,000 more popular votes than his Republican challenger, Texas governor George W. Bush. However, as in the contested election of 1876, an extremely close race in Florida placed that state’s electoral votes into question. Florida officials led by Bush’s brother, governor Jeb Bush, halted the count of ballots and proclaimed the Republican candidate the victor by several hundred votes. There was widespread evidence that tens of thousands of poor and African-American voters had been denied access to voting. The U.S. Supreme Court in its decision, Bush v. Gore, declared the Florida ballot recount unconstitutional, and in effect named Bush the winner of the presidency.

At the U.S. Congressional tally of the Electoral College vote on January 6, 2001, the Congressional Black Caucus objected to awarding Florida’s twenty-five contested electoral votes to George W. Bush. Though just one vote from a senator was required to put a stop to the count and adjourn the session, not one senator stepped forward to cast the necessary vote. The Caucus walked out of the session in protest, and Bush was declared president of the United Sates.

In a subsequent investigation of voting rights violations, the Commission on Civil Rights concluded that there were gross violations of the Voting Rights Act in Florida during the 2000 presidential election, preventing thousands of residents from voting and discarding the votes of others. In addition, the Commission found that African-American voters were significantly more likely than whites to be barred from voting.

LETTER TO GOVERNOR BUSH FROM CHAIRPERSON MARY FRANCES BERRY

March 8, 2001

Via Facsimile and U.S. Mail

The Honorable John Ellis Bush Governor Office of the Governor The Florida Capitol Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001

Dear Governor Bush:

I am writing to express my deep disappointment with your statement of priorities that was presented during the opening of the Florida legislative session, in which you did not address the most serious problems that occurred in Florida during the 2000 elections. My

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

disappointment is based on my preliminary assessment that these problems would not be resolved even if the legislature approved your request that new technology for recording votes be acquired and put into place. Voting technology reforms are necessary and your support of them is a step in the right direction. These measures standing alone, however, are insufficient to address the significant and distressing issues and barriers that prevented qualified voters from participating in the recent Presidential election.

As you know, the Commission has undertaken a formal investigation into allegations by Floridians of voting irregularities arising out of the November 7, 2000 Presidential election. The Commission has held two fact-finding hearings in Florida to examine whether eligible voters faced avoidable barriers that undermined their ability to cast ballots and have their ballots counted in this closely contested election.

In total, over 100 witnesses testified under oath before the Commission, including approximately 65 scheduled witnesses who were selected for the two hearings due to their knowledge of and/or experience with the issues under investigation. The Commission heard testimony from top elected and appointed state officials, including your own testimony, that of the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Director of the Florida Division of Elections and other Florida state and county officials. A representative of Database Technologies, Inc. [Choicepoint], a firm involved in the controversial, state-sponsored removal of felons from the voter registration rolls also testified.

We also heard the sworn testimony of registered voters and experts on election reform issues, election laws and procedures and voting rights. Also, the Chair and Executive Director of the Select Task Force on Election Reforms that you established testified before the Commission. Testimony was also received from the supervisors of elections for several counties, county commission officials, law enforcement personnel, and a states attorney. In addition to the scheduled witnesses, the Commission extended an opportunity for concerned persons, including Members of Congress and members of the Florida State Legislature, to submit testimony under oath that was germane to the issues under investigation. Significantly, the Commission subpoenaed scores of relevant documents to assist with this investigation.

The evidence points to an array of problems. These problems cry out for solutions, for example, a process for insuring the equitable allocation of resources to insure that poor and or people of color areas are not disproportionately affected. They also include a better process for identifying felons who are ineligible to vote, insuring coordination between the DMV and election boards to make sure registrations are actually filed and on a timely basis, funds for better training of poll workers, improved and updated communication systems, funds for voter education, and clarifications in the law to permit provisional ballots to be cast, when appropriate. As you know, counties have uneven funding bases and priorities.

Because I believe the need to address these problems is serious, I have determined that the Commission should hold additional hearings in Florida after the conclusion of the legislative session to bring state and local officials before us to assess what changes have been legislated

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

or enacted at the state and local level and to report to the public on what progress has been made.

I expect the Commission to formally endorse the new hearings at our meeting on March 9, 2001. We intend to keep a steady focus on these developments to ensure that the voting rights of all eligible persons are protected.

Respectfully,

Mary Frances Berry Chairperson

Source: Mary Frances Berry, “Letter to Governor Bush from Chairperson Mary Frances Berry,” U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, (2001) www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/Berry.htm.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Douglas Brinkley, “The Great Election 2000 Media Debacle,” Harvard International Journal of Press/ Politics 6, no. 2 (March 1, 2001), pp. 82–88.

Corrine Brown, “On Voting Rights,” House of Representatives (2004) www.house.gov/corrinebrown/ccorner108/cc_041007_votingrights.htm.

John Conyers and United States Congress House Committee on the Judiciary, How to Make over One Million Votes Disappear: Electoral Sleight of Hand in the 2000 Presidential Election: A Fifty-State Report (Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, 2001).

Hermon George Jr., “Putting Election 2000 in Perspective: A Declaration of War,” Black Scholar 31, no. 2 (June 2001), pp. 11–13.

Lani Guinier, “What We Must Overcome,” American Prospect 12, no. 5 (March 12, 2001), pp. 26–31.

Revathi I. Hines, “The Silent Voices: 2000 Presidential Election and the Minority Vote in Florida,” Western Journal of Black Studies 26, no. 2 (Summer 2002), pp. 71–74.

Jack N. Rakove, ed., The Unfinished Election of 2000 (New York: Basic Books, 2001). United States Commission on Civil Rights, “Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election,” The Commission (2001) www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/main.htm.

Hanes Walton Jr., “The Disenfranchisement of the African American Voter in the 2000 Presidential Election: The Silence of the Winner and Loser,” Black Scholar 31, no. 2 (June 2001), pp. 21–24.

Jerry White, “Why Did the U.S. Media Black out the Civil Commission Report on the Florida Vote?,” Black Scholar 31, no. 2 (June 2001), pp. 8–10.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/Berry.htm

http://www.house.gov/corrinebrown/ccorner108/cc_041007_votingrights.htm

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/main.htm

18 Hip-Hop Activism

Hip-hop emerged in the Bronx during the mid-1970s as a challenge to structural racism. One element of hip-hop—rap music—became a mainstream multimillion-dollar business. However, a more progressive strand of hip-hop is typically associated with activism. The term hip-hop activism, which became popular in the 1980s, drew attention to hip-hop as a social critique of injustice. Young organizers, scholars, activists, artists and cultural workers have used hip-hop to address the serious issues confronting their generation, including poverty, police brutality, massive incarceration of juveniles, felony disenfranchisement, and the HIV/HIV pandemic. The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), founded in 2001 by Russell Simmons, was one of many organizations to use hip-hop music as a framework for activism.

“WHAT WE WANT” 1. We want freedom and the social, political and economic development and empowerment

of our families and communities; and for all women, men and children throughout the world. 2. We want equal justice for all without discrimination based on race, color, ethnicity,

nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, creed or class. 3. We want the total elimination of poverty. 4. We want the highest quality public education equally for all. 5. We want the total elimination of racism and racial profiling, violence, hatred and

bigotry. 6. We want universal access and delivery of the highest quality health care for all. 7. We want the total elimination of police brutality and the unjust incarceration of people of

color and all others. 8. We want the end and repeal of all repressive legislations, laws, regulations and

ordinances such as “three strikes” laws; federal and state mandatory minimum sentencing; trying and sentencing juveniles as adults; sentencing disparities between crack and powdered cocaine use; capitol punishment; the Media Marketing Accountability Act; and hip-hop censorship fines by the FCC.

9. We want reparations to help repair the lingering vestiges; damages and suffering of African Americans as a result of the brutal enslavement of generations of Africans in America.

10. We want the progressive transformation of American society into a Nu America as a result of organizing and mobilizing the energy, activism and resources of the hip-hop community at the grassroots level throughout the United States.

11. We want greater unity, mutual dialogue, program development and a prioritizing of national issues for collective action within the hip-hop community through summits, conferences, workshops, issue task force and joint projects.

12. We want advocacy of public policies that are in the interests of hip-hop before

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Congress, state legislatures, municipal governments, the media and the entertainment industry. 13. We want the recertification and restoration of voting rights for the 10 million persons

who have loss their right to vote as a result of a felony conviction. Although these persons have served time in prison, their voting rights have not been restored in 40 states in the U.S.

14. We want to tremendously increase public awareness and education on the pandemic of HIV/AIDS.

15. We want a clean environment and an end to communities in which poor and minorities reside being deliberately targeted for toxic waste dumps, facilities and other environmental hazards.

THE TOOKIE PROTOCOL FOR PEACE Point I:

Proclamation

A-1: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES WILL immediately cease fire and end any verbal, written, or physical violence against one another.

A-2: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES WILL cease and desist the perpetuation of drive-by shootings, walk-up shootings, set-up shootings, ambushes, murder, drug deals, robbery, vandalism, kidnapping, rape, extortion, female and child abuse, illegal profiteering, or any other kind of violence or criminality.

A-3: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES WILL use every nonviolent measure to resolve all past, present, or future conflicts between us.

A-4: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES WILL learn to respect one another and co-exist in peace within the community and elsewhere.

A-5: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES WILL help to restore order and to rebuild the community.

A-6: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES WILL not disrespect, instigate, or taunt each other or family members, relatives, wives, girlfriends, and acquaintances of the opposite parties.

A-7: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES WILL not encroach upon each other’s community or neighborhood without prior notice, to avoid suspicion or conflict.

A-8: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES WILL help individually and collectively to keep the community safe from any improprieties.

A-9: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES WILL not use the Peace Accord as camouflage to commit mayhem against each other.

A-10: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES WILL neither seek out nor plot with acquaintances or outsiders (defined as parties not obligated to this Proclamation) to carry out vendettas against each other.

A-11: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES WILL not allow mistreatment or harm to befall any individuals appointed as Peacekeepers or others involved in the peace process.

A-12: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES will put forth effort to become educated, computer- Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

literate, and to learn a trade that will enable us to become productive in the reconstruction of our community.

A-13: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES WILL eliminate any self-destructive behavior and personal vices—illicit drug usage, drug dealing, abuse of alcohol, inhalants, etc.—that would intoxicate our minds, impair our judgment and jeopardize the peace negotiations.

A-14: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES will work side by side to do whatever is ethical to uphold the Peace Accord and Proclamation, and we vow to live in harmony.

A-15: WE THE INVOLVED PARTIES recognize both the Peace Accord and Proclamation as being fair and attainable. We agree to its entire contents.

Sources: Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, “What We Want,” www.hsan.org/content/main.aspx?pageid=27. Stan “Tookie” William, “Tookie Protocol for Peace,” www.tookie.com/protocol/index.html.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005).

Raymond Codrington, “Hip-Hop Beyond Appropriation: An Introduction to the Series,” Transforming Anthropology 15, no. 2 (October 2007), pp. 138–140.

Michael Eric Dyson, Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip-Hop (New York: Basic Civitas, 2007).

Bakari Kitwana, The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2002).

Tony Mitchell, ed., Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA, Music/Culture (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2001).

Mark Anthony Neal and Murray Forman, eds., That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 2004).

Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, Music/Culture (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1994).

Andrew Ross and Tricia Rose, eds., Microphone Fiends: Youth Music & Youth Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994).

Simmons Russell and Chavis Benjamin, “Hip-Hop Summit Action Network Calls for End to ‘Bitch,’ ‘Ho’ and ‘Nigger’ in Music,” Michigan Chronicle (April 25, 2007), p. A1.

Timothy Francis Strode and Tim Wood, eds., The Hip Hop Reader (New York: Pearson/Longman, 2008).

S. Craig Watkins, Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

http://www.hsan.org/content/main.aspx?pageid=27

http://www.tookie.com/protocol/index.html

19 World Conference Against Racism—Durban, South Africa

The World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and other Forms of Intolerance was held in Durban, South Africa, from August 31 to September 8, 2001. The conference and its Non-Governmental Organizations Forum was attended by 8,000 people including delegates, activists, and scholars from more than 160 countries. Though there were more than 1,500 black Americans who participated in preconference panels and in the official proceedings, official representatives from the U.S. State Department walked out of the meeting in protest with the Israeli delegation.

Among other important topics, conference participants discussed reparations for slavery and colonialism. Conference participants endorsed a document that recognized the negative effects of racism and globalization; the connections between racial discrimination, xenophobia, and class oppression; and called upon Western governments to acknowledge slavery as “a crime against humanity.” The conference dramatically escalated social movements by people of African descent in many Third World countries, especially across Latin America.

THE VIENNA DECLARATION AND PLAN OF ACTION, 20011

Acknowledging the Black Holocausts Whereas, African Slave Trade and Slavery exploited the motherland of Africa; Forced the brutal displacement or removal of over one hundred million of its people (the largest forced migration in history); Directly caused the death of millions [of] Africans; Destroyed African civilizations which were among the most advanced societies of the world; Impoverished African economies which had prospered up to that time; and launched a period of African under-development and marginalization which continues to this day—five hundred years later;

Whereas, Africa was dismembered and divided among European powers, which created Western monopolies for the continued exploitation of vital African natural resource riches for Western industries; and

Whereas, African Slavery was imposed by and for the benefit of major European and American states to satisfy their appetites for free labor; and the exploitation of Africans

and African descendants by these States continued unabated for over three hundred years; and Whereas, After the Slave Trade, Africa was subjected to another form of enslavement,

namely, Colonization in which the exploitation of Africa’s rich natural resource heritage continued unabated by the European powers; and, Eliminating Anti-Black Racism

Whereas, Africans and African descendants are commonly victims of anti-Black racism and of multiple forms of overt and covert discrimination. The most pernicious are institutional, systemic, structural and cultural discrimination. The impact of institutional, structural and cultural racism is felt in every aspect of life: housing, employment, education, health, civil and criminal justice, economic development. Many of these policies and practices are perpetrated

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

by the states themselves; and, Whereas, Anti-Black racism (both past and present) is fundamentally rooted in white

supremacist ideology and the economic profits of the colonial and neo-colonial oppressors; and

Whereas, Anti-Black racism cannot be eradicated without the elimination of social ghettoization and demonization of Africans and African descendants; and Whereas, Many Africans and African descendants suffer from multi-oppressions structured around class, gender, disability, immigrant status and sexuality. These forms of oppression must be eliminated; and,

Whereas, African and African descendant women play, and have always played, a fundamental role in the development and maintenance of our families, peoples, communities and nations, even though historically they have faced the worst conditions, the greatest marginalization and systematic exclusion. Women and men, and children and youth of both genders are equal and must be treated so; and,

Whereas, Racism is a major health determinant. Historical and current discrimination, as well as colonial and neo-colonial policies against Africans and African descendants have resulted in Africans and African descendants having significantly lower health status, less or no access to health care and poorer quality health care;

Whereas, AIDS represents a human genocide, disproportionally victimizing African people, both on the continent and in the Diaspora and,

Whereas, Media and new technologies (including the internet) play a significant role in the maintenance of structural and cultural anti-black racism; and,

Whereas, Environmental racism refers to any government, military, industry or other institution’s action, or failure to act, which has a disproportionate negative environmental impact on Africans and African descendants, on Indigenous peoples, Latino, Asian, migrant or other ethnic groups or the places where they live. Environmental racism, although not new, is a recent example of the historical double standard as to what is acceptable in certain communities, villages or cities and not in others. The mobility of corporations has made it possible for them to seek the greatest profit, the least government and environmental regulations and the best tax incentives, anywhere in the world. Natural resource extraction techniques, chemical uses and disposal of wastes unacceptable in white communities are routinely employed in African descendants communities; and,

Whereas, Africans and African descendants are victims of grave discriminatory treatment in the legal and judicial processes as well as police procedures (specifically police brutality). This includes the framing up of accusations against Africans and African descendants, the duration of prison sentences, the inhuman state of prisons and, where it exists, the death penalty which particularly affects Africans and African descendants; and,

Whereas, To ensure the future of all Africans, special attention must be given to protecting and empowering African indigenous peoples, language groups and cultures both inside and outside the African continent; and,

Restoring Africa, the Motherland Whereas, The development of Africa has been greatly impeded by the global imbalances in

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

power created by slavery, colonialism, and other forms of exploitation and is maintained and extended today by neo-colonial policies and practices including the pillage of the human and material resources of Africa and the draining of its financial resources by foreign debt services; and,

Whereas, Current day slavery has just taken other forms and the right to life and freedom of African people is being regularly violated with complete indifference in Western countries and by African dictators who are very often supported and protected by Western countries; and,

Whereas, The world major powers are plundering the African continent through a “debt” which has already been paid off three times over and to which the African states assign more than 50% of their national budgets; and,

Whereas, To ensure total control over the enslaved Africans and African descendants, the Western slaveholding states resorted to systematic violence, brain-washing, falsifying and negating African history and values while enhancing Western history and values in a policy of cultural imperialism; and,

Whereas, Africans and African descendants have significantly contributed to world history, their achievements need to be re-assessed within the context of the significant positive contributions made by Africa culture, Africans and African descendants; and,

Whereas, In a world where people are valued and devalued according to a given level of economic development, it is essential that the economic development of Africa be promoted as a means of fighting anti-black racism; and

Now, therefore, Africans and African Descendants from across the world, gathered in Vienna, Austria, in

unity and solidarity born of the common African root, recognition of sharing a common history —that of the African Slave Trade, Slavery, and Colonialization—and a continuing common experience of anti-Black racism, which root, history and experience bind us as a unique community; and

Respectful of the Memory of Our Ancestors and the ultimate sacrifice which they paid, and mindful that this memory must never be forgotten; and

As a Community, Committed to the elimination [of] anti-Black racism wherever it occurs in the World; and

Cognizant of the Enormity of the depredations of the Black Holocausts (Slavery and Colonialization) and the significance of these historical epochs for the world; and,

In fraternity with all peoples imbued with a sense of genuine respect for the rights of people of all races, ethnicities and creeds; and,

In abhorrence of all forms of African Slavery and the African Slave Trade (trans-Atlantic, trans-Saharan and trans-Indian Ocean) and the Colonization of Africa;

BE IT RESOLVED that this Assembly:

Black Holocausts (Slavery and Colonization)

CONDEMNS AFRICAN SLAVERY in all its manifestations (trans-Atlantic, trans-Saharan and trans-Indian Ocean) and calls on the United Nations and the governments of the World to do likewise;

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

DECLARES AFRICAN SLAVERY AND COLONIZATION and the attendant unprecedented genocide and systematic violations of human rights and the rights of Africans and African descendant People, as Crimes Against Humanity;

CALLS, SPECIFICALLY, ON former European countries and American slave-holding States and all those who benefitted [sic] from the slave trade and colonization of Africa to unconditionally and separately adopt a Declaration of recognition of the Black Holocausts (Slave Trade/Slavery and Colonization) as Crimes Against Humanity;

CALLS, SPECIFICALLY, ON former European and American slave-holding States and all those who benefitted [sic] from the slave trade and colonization of Africans to unconditionally and separately adopt a Declaration which asks for forgiveness for the exactions committed during the Slave Trade/Slavery and Colonization and for their lasting effects on the Africans and African Descendants, in psychological spheres as well as on economical, social, political and cultural ones;

CALLS ON THE UNITED NATIONS AND GOVERNMENTS of the World to make it an offence, punishable by law, for anyone to deny the existence of the Black Holocausts (African Slave Trade/Slavery and Colonization);

CALLS ON FORMER EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN SLAVE-HOLDING STATES and all those who benefitted [sic] from the slave trade and colonization of Africans to acknowledge the principle of reparations for the cultural, demographic, economic, political, social and moral wrongs of the Slave Trade/Slavery and Colonization and that the Africans and African descendants victims of the Slave Trade/Slavery and Colonization reserve the right to determine the form and manner of reparations; and,

DEMAND THAT THE Governments of the World condemn the trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean slave trade which, like the trans-Atlantic slave trade, brought serious damages to Africa. Unlike the trans-Atlantic slave trade, vestiges of the trans-Saharan slave trade continues [sic] [to] this day unabated (specifically in Mauritania and Sudan); and, call on the governments of Mauritania and Sudan to recognize this problem and to eradicate it completely [sic].

CALL on the German and Italian Government[s] to ask for forgiveness for the exactions and genocide committed during the World War [II] by the Nazis and Fascist[s] against Africans and African descendants; recognizing that African and African descendant victims of Nazism have the same right to compensatory measures as Jews or Romas;

and, CALLS ON STATES, SURVIVING CORPORATE INTERESTS, CHURCHES AND NON-

GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the resulting slavery and colonization to acknowledge their wrongdoings and accept the principle of restitution and that the Africans and African descendants victims of the Slave Trade/Slavery and Colonization reserve the right to determine the form and manner of reparations; and,

Eliminating Anti-Black Racism DEMANDS THAT GOVERNMENTS AND ORGANIZATIONS recognize anti-Black racism as a form of racism which has its own specificity in the same way as anti-Semitism and to be differentiated from all other forms of racism, discrimination and intolerance; and,

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

CALLS ON GOVERNMENTS AND OTHERS TO condemn any political, economic or social structure that has the effect of promoting, encouraging, or facilitating anti-Black racism; and,

DEMAND THAT States eliminate racial disparities in education, housing, economic development, health and health care, [the] environment, civil and criminal justice; and,

DEMAND THAT States adopt effective mechanisms for monitoring and eliminating all forms of overt and covert racial discrimination, placing particular emphasis on institutional and structural anti-Black racism in education, housing, economic development, health and health care, environment, civil and criminal justice; and,

CALL ON States, and United Nations organizations (such as World Health Organization) to routinely and systematically collect race, gender and socioeconomic class data related to education, housing, economic development, health and health care, environment, civil and criminal justice; and,

DEMAND THAT STATES stop the criminalization of blackness immediately. REQUEST THAT a representative of the Africans and African Descendants Caucus be

allowed to address the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Forms of Intolerance in South Africa; and,

DEMAND THAT ALL ORGANIZATIONS (multilateral, financial, development and human rights) formulate diagnostic indicators of the impact of their policies and programs on African and African descendant communities; and,

DEMAND THAT States, and the international community, develop effective anti- discrimination laws which provide an adequate institutional framework for redress that is specific to eliminating institutional and structural anti-Black discrimination (both overt and covert); and,

URGE states to institute educational steps to combat racism including challenging racist language and eradication of words and terms with a racist content especially when used by authorities; and adopting a prohibition against racist documents particularly books for children which convey a depreciative image of Africans and African Descendants; and,

CALL on civil society groups to help develop advocacy strategies that link environmental issues (including environmental racism) to human rights; and Governments adopt and enforce legislation and policies that protect society from environmental racism; and,

CALL on the United Nations to support a world institute dedicated to research, fact finding and resource networking for Africans, African descendants and related issues. The research should serve to bridge the gap between the past, by presenting African history according to credible African resources, the present, by monitoring the overall life conditions of Africans and African descendants worldwide and the future, by implementing its’ [sic] research in informal and formal education to change attitudes, perceptions and promote understanding; and,

REQUEST the media of the world and providers of Internet services to implement initiatives for increasing public awareness of anti-racist and tolerant behavior towards Africans and promote a positive and valorizing image of Africans; and,

URGE States and organizations to give special attention to adolescents and young people of African descent in terms of empowerment, training, mentoring and possibilities to exercise responsibilities; Attention must be given to activities promoting a healthy and balanced African

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

identity for children and youth; Youth participation must be se- cured on national and international levels of political decision making; and,

URGE the international community to take practical steps to understand the political nature of the AIDS epidemic and to improve prevention strategies, testing material, access to medicines and care for those infected with AIDS; and,

CALLS ON AFRICANS AND AFRICAN DESCENDANTS to recognize that the struggle against anti-black racism is inevitably linked with the struggle against poverty, racism against others, imperialism, globalization and war. Africans and African descendants express solidarity with other peoples who are similarly oppressed and exploited; and,

Restoring Africa, the Motherland

CALL ON AFRICANS AND AFRICAN DESCENDANTS TO END conflicts based on ethnic divisions which is tearing the African continent apart through ethnic genocide, ethnic cleansing and ethnic culture war; the struggle against racism must go hand in hand with struggle against negative ethnicity in Africa; and

CALL ON AFRICAN NATIONS to take legal action and give priority to the equitable redistribution of stolen, possessed and occupied land on the continent; and call on the international community to support such actions; and,

CALL on African governments to adopt policies to grant all Africans and African descendants the possibility to return home and settle without limitations or discrimination; and,

DEMAND that European, American and other governments repatriate funds stolen from African countries/people and stored in European and American banks to the African countries of their origin; and,

URGE the debt-holding countries to take practical steps toward the cancellation of the “debt” of African States; and,

DEMAND THAT THE MANY ART[I]FACTS AND ANTIQUITIES of African civilization which have been stolen or taken out of the country without permission be returned or that the countries from which these antiquities were taken be compensated; and,

DEMAND THAT THE TRAFFICKING OF AFRICAN AND AFRICAN DESCENDANT women, children and youth for sex, and for forced labour and various forms of enslavement be stopped in both locations receiving victims of trafficking, and in locations of origin. International, local/national, and other media are urged to continue and increase their much- needed work of reporting on these crimes; and,

CALL ON AFRICANS AND AFRICAN DESCENDANTS to urgently free themselves from slave and colonial mentality and attitudes. The rich African cultural heritage at our disposal serve[s] as the first step in a real liberation and renaissance of Africa and its people all over the World.

Source: Excerpt from “Paper Trail: World Conference against Racism, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance,” Souls 4, no.3 (May 2002), pp. 69–82.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

“The Vienna Declaration and Plan of Action: African and African Descendents Caucus”, 2001) academic.udayton.edu/race/06hrights/WCAR2001/NGOFORUM/Victims.htm.

Carol Barton, “UN World Conference against Racism-Breaking the Silence,” World Conference Against Racism (2001) www.wicej.addr.com/wcar_docs/index.html.

Salih Booker and William Minter, “Global Apartheid,” Peace Research Abstracts 40, no. 2 (2003), pp. 123–261.

Linda Burnham, “The Light of History,” Souls 4, no. 1 (January 2002), pp. 15–19. Gernot Kohler, Global Apartheid (New York: Institute for World Order, 1978). ———, “The Three Meanings of Global Apartheid: Empirical, Normative, Existential,” Alternatives 20, no. 3 (1995), pp. 403.

Leith Mullings, “Race and Globalization,” Souls 6, no. 2 (June 2004), pp. 1–9. Scott Sherman, “Target Ford,” Nation 282, no. 22 (June 5, 2006), pp. 13–20. J. Michael Turner, “The Road to Durban—and Back,” NACLA Report on the Americas 35, no. 6 (May/ June 2002), pp. 31–35.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/06hrights/WCAR2001/NGOFORUM/Victims.htm

http://www.wicej.addr.com/wcar_docs/index.html

20 African Americans Respond to Terrorism and War

On September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks destroyed the World Trade Center towers in New York City. These crimes against humanity claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people, including passengers on the planes that crashed into the towers or to the ground. Another terrorist attack took place at the Pentagon, where more than 100 people were killed. Like most Americans, African Americans were outraged by these attacks and supported military retaliation against the Al Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan. However, when the attacks were used by the Bush administration as justification for undermining civil liberties incarcerating Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent based on their religion or ethnic background alone, many black Americans protested.

Representative Barbara Lee was the only member of Congress to oppose authorizing the Bush administration to use military force to invade Afghanistan. After the initiation of the “War on Terror” and the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security, the majority of African- American leaders vigorously protested the curtailment of civil liberties and the unilateral expansion of U.S. militarism in the Muslim world. As the war expanded into Iraq in 2003 a significant number of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi war veterans turned against the war, citing the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in the country and the massive cost to the U.S. taxpayer.

“BARBARA LEE’S STAND” When Congress voted to authorize the Bush Administration to use military force in response to the September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Representative Barbara Lee stood alone in opposition to what she saw as a “rush to judgment.” Lee, the California Democrat who holds the Bay Area seat once occupied by antiwar activist Ron Dellums, spoke with John Nichols, The Nation’s Washington correspondent, this week.

THE NATION: How did you reach the decision to oppose authorizing the use of force?

LEE: I was at the National Cathedral in Washington. I went to the memorial service on the Friday after the attacks and I prayed. I said to myself, “You’ve got to figure this one out.” I was dealing with all the grief and sorrow and the loss of life, and it was very personal because a member of my staff had lost a cousin in the Pennsylvania crash. I was thinking about my responsibility as a member of Congress to try to insure that this never happens again. I listened to the remarks of the clergy. Many of them made profound statements. But I was struck by what one of them said: “As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.” That was such a wise statement, and it reflected not only what I was feeling but also my understanding of the threats we continue to face. When I left the cathedral, I was fairly resolved.

THE NATION: Were you also concerned about the constitutional implications of the vote? Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

LEE: Absolutely. Given the three branches of government, and given that each has a role in the making of monumental decisions such as this, I thought the Congress had a responsibility in this instance especially to step back and say, “Let’s not rush to judgment. Let us insist that our democracy works by insuring that the checks and balances work and that the Congress is a part of the decision-making process in terms of when we go to war and with whom…. I think we disenfranchised the American people when we took their representatives out of the decision- making on whether to go to war with a specific nation.

THE NATION: Were you surprised that no other members of Congress voted with you?

LEE: It never dawned on me that I would cast the only vote against this resolution. Many members asked me to change my position. They were friends, and they said, “You do not want to be out there alone.” I said, “Oh, no, don’t worry. There will be others.” When there weren’t, I said, “Oh my God.” I could not believe it. It was an awesome feeling. And a lonely feeling.

THE NATION: You mentioned that other members said, “You don’t want to be out there alone.” Do you think other members shared your concerns but were unwilling to cast a risky vote with emotions running so high?

LEE: If you read the floor statements. you’ll see that there are many members of Congress who share my concerns. I think that, when I cast that vote, I was speaking for other people in Congress and outside Congress who want a more deliberative approach.

THE NATION: At the same time, you have received precisely the sort of criticism that most politicians fear.

LEE: I’ve been called a traitor, a coward, a communist, all the awful stuff. It’s been quite difficult for me. But I still believe that I cast the right vote. My district, I think, understands this vote…. I’ve gotten probably 20,000 e-mails. At first, there were a lot of very harsh messages. But now we are hearing more from people who are saying, “Yes, let’s use some restraint. Yes, let’s break the cycle of violence if we can.” I think the further we get away from that tragic day, the more we will hear those voices of reason.

Iraq Veterans Against the War

Why we’re against the War Q: Why are veterans, active duty, and National Guard men and women opposed to the war in Iraq?

A: Here are 10 reasons we oppose this war:

The Iraq war is based on lies and deception. The Bush Administration planned for an attack against Iraq before September 11th, 2001. They used the false pretense of an imminent nuclear, chemical and biological weapons threat to deceive Congress into rationalizing this unnecessary conflict. They hide our casualties of war by banning the filming of our fallen’s caskets when they arrive home, and when they refuse to allow the media into Walter Reed Hospital and other Veterans Administration facilities which

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

are overflowing with maimed and traumatized veterans.

The Iraq war violates international law. The United States assaulted and occupied Iraq without the consent of the UN Security Council. In doing so they violated the same body of laws they accused Iraq of breaching.

Corporate profiteering is driving the war in Iraq. From privately contracted soldiers and linguists to no-bid reconstruction contracts and multinational oil negotiations, those who benefit the most in this conflict are those who suffer the least. The United States has chosen a path that directly contradicts President Eisenhower’s farewell warning regarding the military industrial complex. As long as those in power are not held accountable, they will continue…

Overwhelming civilian casualties are a daily occurrence in Iraq. Despite attempts in training and technological sophistication, large-scale civilian death is both a direct and indirect result of United States aggression in Iraq. Even the most conservative estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths number over 100,000. Currently over 100 civilians die every day in Baghdad alone.

Soldiers have the right to refuse illegal war. All in service to this country swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. However, they are prosecuted if they object to serve in a war they see as illegal under our Constitution. As such, our brothers and sisters are paying the price for political incompetence, forced to fight in a war instead of having been sufficiently trained to carry out the task of nation-building.

Service members are facing serious health consequences due to our Government’s negligence. Many of our troops have already been deployed to Iraq for two, three, and even four tours of duty averaging eleven months each. Combat stress, exhaustion, and bearing witness to the horrors of war contribute to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a serious set of symptoms that can lead to depression, illness, violent behavior, and even suicide. Additionally, depleted uranium, Lariam, insufficient body armor and infectious diseases are just a few of the health risks which accompany an immorally planned and incompetently executed war. Finally, upon a soldier’s release, the Veterans Administration is far too under-funded to fully deal with the magnitude of veterans in need.

The war in Iraq is tearing our families apart. The use of stop-loss on active duty troops and the unnecessarily lengthy and repeat active tours by Guard and Reserve troops place enough strain on our military families, even without being forced to sacrifice their loved ones for this ongoing political experiment in the Middle East.

The Iraq war is robbing us of funding sorely needed here at home. $5.8 billion per month is spent on a war which could have aided the victims of Hurricane

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Katrina, gone to impoverished schools, the construction of hospitals and health care systems, tax cut initiatives, and a host of domestic programs that have all been gutted in the wake of the war in Iraq.

The war dehumanizes Iraqis and denies them their right to self-determination. Iraqis are subjected to humiliating and violent checkpoints, searches and home raids on a daily basis. The current Iraqi government is in place solely because of the U.S. military occupation. The Iraqi government doesn’t have the popular support of the Iraqi people, nor does it have power or authority. For many Iraqis the current government is seen as a puppet regime for the U.S. occupation. It is undemocratic and in violation of Iraq’s own right to self-governance.

Our military is being exhausted by repeated deployments, involuntary extensions, and activations of the Reserve and National Guard. The majority of troops in Iraq right now are there for at least their second tour. Deployments to Iraq are becoming longer and many of our service members are facing involuntary extensions and recalls to active duty. Longstanding policies to limit the duration and frequency of deployments for our part-time National Guard troops are now being overturned to allow for repeated, back-to-back tours in Iraq. These repeated, extended combat tours are taking a huge toll on our troops, their families, and their communities.

Sources: (1)“Barbara Lee’s Stand,” The Nation (October 8, 2001), p. 5. (2) “Iraq Veterans against the War,” www.ivaw.org/about.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Patricia Foulkrod, The Ground Truth, Universal City: Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 2006. DVD Video.

Derrick Z. Jackson, “Blacks Have Good Cause to Oppose War in Iraq,” Boston Globe (February 26, 2003), p. A19.

Yvonne Latty, In Conflict: Iraq War Veterans Speak out on Duty, Loss, and the Fight to Stay Alive (Sausalito: PoliPoint Press, 2006).

Yvonne Latty and with photographs by Ron Tarver, We Were There: Voices of African American Veterans from World War II to the War in Iraq (New York: Amistad, 2004).

Bill Maher, Ann Coulter, and Dennis Miller, “Weapons of Mass Seduction: The War in Iraq and Inside the U.S.,” in Debating Race with Michael Eric Dyson, ed. by Michael Eric Dyson (New York: Basic Civitas, 2007).

Julianne Malveaux and Reginna A. Green, eds., The Paradox of Loyalty: An African American Response to the War on Terrorism, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Third World Press, 2004).

Manning Marable, “Racism in a Time of Terror,” Souls 4, no. 1 (January 2002), pp. 1–14. Barack Obama, “Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Turning the Page in Iraq” (September 12, 2007) www.barackobama.com/2007/09/12/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_23.php.

Martha J. Simmons and Frank A. Thomas, eds., 9.11.01: African American Leaders Respond to an American Tragedy (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 2001).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

http://www.ivaw.org/about

http://www.barackobama.com/2007/09/12/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_23.php

21 The “Personal Responsibility vs. Institutional Racism Debate” Bill Cosby vs.

Michael Eric Dyson

In the early twentieth-first century, a national debate erupted between social policy researchers and educators over the escalating crisis of the “criminalization of black youth.” Statistical evidence mounted across the country that African-American young people, as a group, had become stigmatized as antisocial, delinquent, and potentially violent. Such stereotypes profoundly effected the administrative treatment of black youth inside educational institutions. For example, in Oakland, California, during the 2004–2005 school year, black males comprised 28 percent of the city’s public school students but accounted for 53 percent of all suspensions. Nationwide that same year, black youth were 17.1 percent of all public school students, but 32.7 percent of expulsions. As of 2000, black youth comprised only 15 percent of their national age cohort, but represented 29 percent of all youth arrested, and 44 percent of all youth in juvenile correctional facilities.

Social conservatives and some religious leaders in the black community began to argue that such social devastation was the result of irresponsible behavior by African-American young people. They criticized the bawdy language of hip-hop music and other elements of black popular culture as socially destructive and nihilistic.

COSBY SUMMARY It was from this perspective that comedian and philanthropist Bill Cosby addressed an NAACP-sponsored event celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the May 19, 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, outlawing the legal racial segregation of public schools. Cosby recognized the accomplishment of that legal victory, but he was far more concerned with what he considered social deviance and violence by young blacks who comprised a post-Brown generation.

Cosby attributed the socioeconomic inequalities and problems that were devastating the national black community to antisocial behaviors, criminality and the absence of parental control in African-American households. He ridiculed the clothing, language and hip-hop cultural style of black young people. “Are you not paying attention, people with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isn’t that a sign of something?” Inner-city blacks who claim that their cultural values are drawn from Africa, Cosby implied, were simply fooling themselves. “What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans, they don’t know a damned thing about Africa.” Cosby made fun of the African and Islamic names many young blacks have. “With names like Shaniqua, Shaliqua, Mohammed, and all that crap and all of them are in jail…. What’s the point of giving them strong names if there is not parenting and values backing it up.”

Cosby’s rant was laced with humorous asides, but his core message was profoundly conservative, and critical of African-American young people and their popular culture. It said

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

virtually nothing about factors such as racial discrimination within educational institutions and the criminal justice system that have negatively affected black youth. Nevertheless, the national media eagerly picked up Cosby’s anti–hip-hop polemic and media pundits debated the implications of Cosby’s arguments. Many suggested that affirmative action was not only no longer necessary, but for criminalized black youths it was undeserved. In the preparation of this anthology, Cosby’s representatives refused to extend permission to reprint the entire text of the comedian’s remarks. However, due to the significance of the issues involved, the editors have presented a brief summary of Cosby’s statement (above) and, to accompany it, a critical response by cultural critic and religious studies scholar Michael Eric Dyson.

DYSON RESPONSE Cosby’s overemphasis on personal responsibility, not structural features, wrongly locates the source of poor black suffering—and by implication its remedy—in the lives of the poor. When you think the problems are personal, you think the solutions are the same. If only the poor were willing to work harder, act better, get educated, stay out of jail and parent more effectively, their problems would go away. It’s hard to argue against any of these things in the abstract; in principle such suggestions sound just fine. But one could do all of these things and still be in bad shape at home, work or school. For instance, Cosby completely ignores shifts in the economy that give value to some work while other work, in the words of William Julius Wilson, “disappears.” In our high-tech, high-skilled economy where low-skilled work is being scaled back, phased out, exported, or severely under-compensated, all the right behavior in the world won’t create better jobs with more pay. And without such support, all the goals that Cosby expresses for the black poor are not likely to become reality. If the rigidly segregated educational system continues to miserably fail poor blacks by failing to prepare their children for the world of work, then admonitions to “stay in school” may ring hollow.

In this light, the imprisonment of black people takes on political consequence. Cosby may be right that most black folk in jail are not “political prisoners,” but it doesn’t mean that their imprisonment has not been politicized. Given the vicious way blacks have been targeted for incarceration, Cosby’s comments about poor blacks who end up in jail are dangerously naïve and empirically wrong. Cosby’s critique of criminal behavior among poor blacks neglects the massive body of work that catalogs the unjust imprisonment of young blacks. This is not to suggest an apologia for black thugs; instead, it suggests that a disproportionate number of black (men) are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses. Moreover, Cosby seems to offer justification for the police killing a young black for a trivial offense (the theft of a Coca-Cola or pound cake), neglecting the heinous injustices of the police against blacks across the land. Further, Cosby neglects to mention that crime occurs in all classes and races, though it is not equally judged and prosecuted.

Cosby also slights the economic, social, political and other structural barriers that poor black parents are up against: welfare reform, dwindling resources, export of jobs and ongoing racial stigma. And then there are the problems of the working poor: folk who rise up early every day and often work more than forty hours a week, and yet barely, if ever, make it above the poverty level. We must acknowledge the plight of both poor black (single) mothers and poor black fathers, and the lack of social support they confront. Hence, it is incredibly difficult

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

to spend as much time with children as poor black parents might like, especially since they will be demonized if they fail to provide for their children’s basic needs. But doing so deflects critical attention and time from child—rearing duties-duties that are difficult enough for two- parent, two-income, intact middle-class families.2 The characteristics Cosby cites are typical of all families that confront poverty the world over. They are not indigenous to the black poor; they are symptomatic of the predicament of poor people in general. And Cosby’s mean-spirited characterizations of the black poor as licentious, sexually promiscuous, materialistic and wantonly irresponsible can be made of all classes in the nation….

Cosby’s views on education have in some respects changed for the worse. His earlier take on the prospects of schooling for the poor was more humane and balanced. In his 1976 dissertation, Cosby argued against “institutional racism” and maintained that school systems failed the poorest and most vulnerable black students. It is necessary as well to acknowledge the resegregation of American education (when in truth it was hardly desegregated to begin with). The failure of Brown v. Board to instigate sufficient change in the nation’s schools suggests that the greatest burden and responsibility—should be on crumbling educational infrastructures. In suburban neighborhoods, there are $60-million schools with state-of-the-art technology, while inner city schools fight desperately for funding for their students. And anti- intellectualism, despite Cosby’s claims, is hardly a black phenomenon; it is endemic to the culture. Cosby also spies the critical deficiency of the black poor in their linguistic habits, displaying his ignorance about “black English” and “Ebonics.” But the intent of Ebonics, according to its advocates, is to help poor black youth speak “standard” English while retaining an appreciation for their dialects and “native tongues.” All of this suggests that structural barriers, much more than personal desire, shape the educational experiences of poor blacks. In fact, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, Cosby’s lauded ‘70s television cartoon series, won greater acceptance for a new cast of black identities and vernacular language styles. Cosby has made money and gained further influence from using forms of Black English he now violently detests…

Cosby also contends that black folk can’t blame white folk for our plight. His discounting of structural forces and his exclusive focus on personal responsibility, and black self-help, ignore the persistence of the institutional racism Cosby lamented in his dissertation. To be sure, even when black folk argued for social justice, we never neglected the simultaneous pursuit of personal responsibility and self-help, since that’s often the only help we had. In the end, Cosby’s views may make white and black liberal fence—sitters unfairly critical of the black poor. Cosby may even convince them that personal behavior will help the poor more than social programs, thus letting white and black elites off the hook…

Sources: Dr. Bill Cosby speaks at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court Decision, May 17, 2004. Excerpt from Michael Eric Dyson, Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind? (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2005) pg. 6–14.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Damian Bruce, “Poor Excuse: Cosby and the Politics of Disgust,” in Debating Race with

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Michael Eric Dyson, ed. by Michael Eric Dyson (New York: Basic Civitas, 2007). Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint, Come on, People on the Path from Victims to Victors (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007).

Juan Williams, Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America—and What We Can Do About It (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

22 U.S. Senate Resolution Against Lynching, 2005

Between 1880 and 1940, nearly five thousand Americans, most of whom were black, were lynched in the United States. For many decades, the NAACP pressured the U.S. Congress to pass federal legislation outlawing the crime of lynching. Southern white opposition repeatedly blocked these efforts in Congress. Scholars contend that lynching was a form of social control and domination for “uppity” blacks, thus asserting white supremacy throughout the South. On June 13, 2005, the 109th Congress passed Senate Resolution 39, “apologizing to the victims of lynching and the descendents of those lynchings for the failure of the Senate to enact anti- lynching legislation.” After the passage of the resolution, eight white senators, all Republicans, refused to sign the document. Although the resolution was an unprecedented occasion, scholars have noted that despite the passage of the resolution black people continue to experience incidents of extreme brutality and extra legal terrorism in the United States.

109th CONGRESS 1st Session S. RES. 39

Apologizing to the victims of lynching and the descendants of those victims for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES February 7, 2005

Ms. LANDRIEU (for herself, Mr. ALLEN, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. FRIST, Mr. REID, Mr. ALLARD, Mr. AKAKA, Mr. BROWNBACK, Mr. BAYH, Ms. COLLINS, Mr. BIDEN, Mr. ENSIGN, Mrs. BOXER, Mr. HAGEL, Mr. CORZINE, Mr. LUGAR, Mr. DAYTON, Mr. MCCAIN, Mr. DODD, Ms. SNOWE, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. SPECTER, Mr. FEINGOLD, Mr. STEVENS, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Mr. TALENT, Mr. HARKIN, Mr. JEFFORDS, Mr. JOHNSON, Mr. KENNEDY, Mr. KOHL, Mr. LAUTENBERG, Mr. LEAHY, Mr. LIEBERMAN, Mr. NELSON of Florida, Mr. PRYOR, Mr. SCHUMER, Ms. STABENOW, Mr. SALAZAR, Mr. VITTER, Mr. OBAMA, Mrs. LINCOLN, Mr. SANTORUM, Mr. SARBANES, Mr. KERRY, Mr. BYRD, Mr. COBURN, Mr. COLEMAN, Mr. CRAIG, Ms. MIKULSKI, Mrs. MURRAY, Ms. CANTWELL, Mr. DEMINT, Mr. DOMENICI, Mr. DORGAN, Mr. INOUYE, Mrs. CLINTON, Mr. NELSON of Nebraska, Mr. CARPER, Mr. GRAHAM, Mr. BURR, Mr. MCCONNELL, Mr. BUNNING, Mr. MARTINEZ, Mr. BURNS, Mr. DEWINE, Mrs. DOLE, Mr. ROCKEFELLER, Mr. THUNE, Mr. WYDEN, Mr. WARNER, Mr. BAUCUS, Mr. ROBERTS, Mr. CHAFEE, Mr. SESSIONS, Mr. BOND, Mr. CHAMBLISS, Mr. ISAKSON, and Mr. INHOFE) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

June 13, 2005

Committee discharged; considered and agreed to

RESOLUTION Apologizing to the victims of lynching and the descendants of those victims for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation.

Whereas the crime of lynching succeeded slavery as the ultimate expression of racism in the United States following Reconstruction;

Whereas lynching was a widely acknowledged practice in the United States until the middle of the 20th century;

Whereas lynching was a crime that occurred throughout the United States, with documented incidents in all but 4 States;

Whereas at least 4,742 people, predominantly African-Americans, were reported lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968;

Whereas 99 percent of all perpetrators of lynching escaped from punishment by State or local officials;

Whereas lynching prompted African-Americans to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and prompted members of B’nai B’rith to found the Anti-Defamation League;

Whereas nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress during the first half of the 20th century;

Whereas, between 1890 and 1952, 7 Presidents petitioned Congress to end lynching; Whereas, between 1920 and 1940, the House of Representatives passed 3 strong anti-

lynching measures; Whereas protection against lynching was the minimum and most basic of Federal

responsibilities, and the Senate considered but failed to enact anti-lynching legislation despite repeated requests by civil rights groups, Presidents, and the House of Representatives to do so;

Whereas the recent publication of ‘Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America’ helped bring greater awareness and proper recognition of the victims of lynching;

Whereas only by coming to terms with history can the United States effectively champion human rights abroad; and Whereas an apology offered in the spirit of true repentance moves the United States toward reconciliation and may become central to a new understanding, on which improved racial relations can be forged: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate— (1) apologizes to the victims of lynching for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-lynching

legislation; (2) expresses the deepest sympathies and most solemn regrets of the Senate to the

descendants of victims of lynching, the ancestors of whom were deprived of life, human dignity, and the constitutional protections accorded all citizens of the United States; and

(3) remembers the history of lynching, to ensure that these tragedies will be neither forgotten nor repeated.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

SOURCE: Senate, “Apologizing to the Victims of Lynching and the Descendants of Those Victims for the Failure of the Senate to Enact Anti-Lynching Legislation” (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2005).

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: “Eight U.S. Senators Decline to Cosponsor Resolution Apologizing for Failure to Enact Anti- Lynching Legislation,” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education Weekly Bulletin (June 30, 2005).

Alfred L. Brophy, Reparations: Pro & Con (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). W. Fitzhugh Brundage, ed., Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).

Jacqueline Denise Goldsby, A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).

Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, “Senate Apologizes for Not Enacting Anti-Lynching Legislation, a Look at Journalist and Anti-Lynching Crusader Ida B. Wells,” Democracy Now (June 14, 2005), www.democracynow.org/2005/6/14/senate_apologizes_for_not_enacting_anti.

Jacqueline Jones Royster, ed., Southern Horrors and Other Writings: The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892–1900, The Bedford Series in History and Culture (Boston: Bedford Books, 1997).

Julius Eric Thompson, Lynchings in Mississippi: A History, 1865–1965 (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2007).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

http://www.democracynow.org/2005/6/14/senate_apologizes_for_not_enacting_anti

23 Hurricane Katrina Crisis,2005

Hurricane Katrina hit the southern U.S. coastline bordering the Gulf of Mexico on August 29, 2005, with Mississippi, southwestern Alabama, and Louisiana suffering the most devastation. The storm resulted in tens of billions of dollars in property damage and the loss of more than 1,000 lives. When the levees were breached, New Orleans was overwhelmed by massive flooding. Local residents were forced to remain in the Superdome and Convention Center for days without adequate food, running water, or toilets. Generally agreed to be a national disgrace, the response of the U.S government was woefully inadequate. Much of the national media presented racially biased stereotypes in describing black victims of the flood. The documentary by filmmaker Spike Lee, “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” provided an analysis of the aftermath and the stories of victims, those who stayed in New Orleans and those who were dispersed to other states.

“THIS IS CRIMINAL” It’s criminal. From what you’re hearing, the people trapped in New Orleans are nothing but looters. We’re told we should be more “neighborly.” But nobody talked about being neighborly until after the people who could afford to leave … left.

If you ain’t got no money in America, you’re on your own. People were told to go to the Superdome, but they have no food, no water there. And before they could get in, people had to stand in line for 4–5 hours in the rain because everybody was being searched one by one at the entrance.

I can understand the chaos that happened after the tsunami, because they had no warning, but here there was plenty of warning. In the three days before the hurricane hit, we knew it was coming and everyone could have been evacuated.

We have Amtrak here that could have carried everybody out of town. There were enough school buses that could have evacuated 20,000 people easily, but they just let them be flooded. My son watched 40 buses go underwater—they just wouldn’t move them, afraid they’d be stolen.

People who could afford to leave were so afraid someone would steal what they own that they just let it all be flooded. They could have let a family without a vehicle borrow their extra car, but instead they left it behind to be destroyed.

There are gangs of white vigilantes near here riding around in pickup trucks, all of them armed, and any young Black they see who they figure does-n’t belong in their community, they shoot him. I tell them, “Stop! You’re going to start a riot.”

When you see all the poor people with no place to go, feeling alone and helpless and angry, I say this is a consequence of HOPE VI. New Orleans took all the HUD money it could get to tear down public housing, and families and neighbors who’d relied on each other for generations were uprooted and torn apart.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

Most of the people who are going through this now had already lost touch with the only community they’d ever known. Their community was torn down and they were scattered. They’d already lost their real homes, the only place where they knew everybody, and now the places they’ve been staying are destroyed.

But nobody cares. They’re just lawless looters … dangerous. The hurricane hit at the end of the month, the time when poor people are most vulnerable.

Food stamps don’t buy enough but for about three weeks of the month, and by the end of the month everyone runs out. Now they have no way to get their food stamps or any money, so they just have to take what they can to survive.

Many people are getting sick and very weak. From the toxic water that people are walking through, little scratches and sores are turning into major wounds.

People whose homes and families were not destroyed went into the city right away with boats to bring the survivors out, but law enforcement told them they weren’t needed. They are willing and able to rescue thousands, but they’re not allowed to.

Every day countless volunteers are trying to help, but they’re turned back. Almost all the rescue that’s been done has been done by volunteers anyway.

My son and his family—his wife and kids, ages 1, 5 and 8—were flooded out of their home when the levee broke. They had to swim out until they found an abandoned building with two rooms above water level.

There were 21 people in those two rooms for a day and a half. A guy in a boat who just said “I’m going to help regardless” rescued them and took them to Highway I-10 and dropped them there.

They sat on the freeway for about three hours, because someone said they’d be rescued and taken to the Superdome. Finally they just started walking, had to walk six and a half miles.

When they got to the Superdome, my son wasn’t allowed in—I don’t know why—so his wife and kids wouldn’t go in. They kept walking, and they happened to run across a guy with a tow truck that they knew, and he gave them his own personal truck.

When they got here, they had no gas, so I had to punch a hole in my gas tank to give them some gas, and now I’m trapped. I’m getting around by bicycle.

People from Placquemine Parish were rescued on a ferry and dropped off on a dock near here. All day they were sitting on the dock in the hot sun with no food, no water. Many were in a daze; they’ve lost everything.

They were all sitting there surrounded by armed guards. We asked the guards could we bring them water and food. My mother and all the other church ladies were cooking for them, and we have plenty of good water.

But the guards said, “No. If you don’t have enough water and food for everybody, you can’t give anything.” Finally the people were hauled off on school buses from other parishes.

You know Robert King Wilkerson (the only one of the Angola 3 political prisoners who’s been released). He’s been back in New Orleans working hard, organizing, helping people. Now nobody knows where he is. His house was destroyed. Knowing him, I think he’s out trying to save lives, but I’m worried.

The people who could help are being shipped out. People who want to stay, who have the skills to save lives and rebuild are being forced to go to Houston.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

It’s not like New Orleans was caught off guard. This could have been prevented. There’s military right here in New Orleans, but for three days they weren’t even mobilized.

You’d think this was a Third World country. I’m in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, the only part that isn’t flooded. The water

is good. Our parks and schools could easily hold 40,000 people, and they’re not using any of it.

This is criminal. These people are dying for no other reason than the lack of organization. Everything is needed, but we’re still too disorganized. I’m asking people to go ahead and

gather donations and relief supplies but to hold on to them for a few days until we have a way to put them to good use.

I’m challenging my party, the Green Party, to come down here and help us just as soon as things are a little more organized. The Republicans and Democrats didn’t do anything to prevent this or plan for it and don’t seem to care if everyone dies.

Source: Malik Rahim, “‘This Is Criminal’: Malik Rahim Reports from New Orleans” (September 1, 2005) www.cwsworkshop.org/katrinareader/node/268.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: “Race an Issue in Katrina Response: Lawmakers Voice Opinions on Role of Skin Color in Rescue Efforts,” CBS News (Sept. 3, 2005) www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/03/katrina/main814623.shtml.

Darwin Bond Graham, “The New Orleans That Race Built: Racism, Disaster, and Urban Spatial Relationships,” Souls 9, no. 1 (January–March 2007), pp. 4–18.

Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (New York: Morrow, 2006).

Michael Eric Dyson, Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster (New York: Basic Civitas, 2006).

Kevin Michael Foster, “Are They Katrina’s Kids or Ours?: The Experience of Displaced New Orleans Students in Their New Schools and Communities,” Souls 9, no. 1 (2007), pp. 45– 52.

Chester W. Hartman and Gregory D. Squires, eds., There Is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina (New York: Routledge, 2006).

Jed Horne, Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the near Death of a Great American City (New York: Random House, 2006).

Spike Lee, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, New York: HBO Documentary Films, 2006. DVD Video.

Manning Marable and Kristen Clarke, eds., Seeking Higher Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis, Race, and Public Policy Reader (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). Betsy Reed, ed., Unnatural Disaster: The Nation on Hurricane Katrina (New York: Nation Books, 2006).

Lydia Sargent, The Katrina Crisis: Race, Class, & Disaster in New Orleans, Woods Hole: Z Video Productions, 2006. DVD Video.

David Dante Troutt, ed., After the Storm: Black Intellectuals Explore the Meaning of Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

http://www.cwsworkshop.org/katrinareader/node/268

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/03/katrina/main814623.shtml

Hurricane Katrina (New York: New Press, 2006).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

24 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007–2008

In the aftermath of the federal government’s irresponsible actions connected with the 2005 Hurricane Katrina crisis, many African-Americans became more pessimistic about their ability to impact national politics. So when in early 2007, a young, first-term senator from Illinois named Barack Hussein Obama (1961– ), an African American, announced his candidacy for the presidency most blacks doubted that he would be successful. Some African American critics, noting that his mother had been white, questioned his racial authenticity. Obama’s political message, moreover, was a sharp departure from the protest-style of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition campaigns of the 1980s. Obama was a liberal progressive, but his style down played “race,” and emphasized consensus issues that brought people together regardless of color, class, or gender. As late as December 2007, in public opinion surveys, a majority of African Americans favored New York Senator Hillary Clinton over Obama for the presidency.

But in a stunning triumph, Obama defeated Clinton and other Democratic challengers in the Iowa caucus, in January 2008, where blacks represented less than 2 percent of all voters. In the following months Obama won a series of primaries and caucuses in many states with relatively few blacks or other racialized minorities. Obama consistently won majorities among voters under age thirty, college-educated voters, and voters earning over $50,000 annually. By the South Carolina Democratic primary, the vast majority of blacks swung their allegiance behind Obama, and by the final races the candidate’s African-American support exceeded 90 percent. Winning the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in August 2008, Obama subsequently ran what many media observers described as a near-flawless campaign. On November 4, 2008, Obama easily defeated his Republican opponent, Arizona senator John McCain, winning nearly 53 percent of the popular vote.

The rise of a Barack Obama was at a certain level inevitable. Demographically, the white majority population will begin to decline in several years. Latinos, Asians, African Americans, and other racialized minorities will outnumber whites by 2042, according to Census Bureau projections. But the larger question is what the Obama victory portends for the realization of racial justice, or “freedom,” that remains the central motivating factor behind the African-American struggle. Is Obama’s victory a statement of symbolic representation for blacks, or will it be translated into a transformed political environment with greater opportunities and fewer inequalities for people of color?

KEYNOTE ADDRESS AT THE 2004 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION Excerpts are from speech as prepared for delivery. Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place: America, which stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before. While studying here, my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression. The day after Pearl Harbor he signed up for duty, joined Patton’s army and marched across Europe. Back home, my grandmother raised their baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the GI Bill, bought a house through FHA, and moved west in search of opportunity.

And they, too, had big dreams for their daughter, a common dream, born of two continents. My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or “blessed,” believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren’t rich, because in a generous America you don’t have to be rich to achieve your potential. They are both passed away now. Yet, I know that, on this night, they look down on me with pride.

I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible. Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation, not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody’s son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will he counted—or at least, most of the time.

This year, in this election, we are called to reaffirm our values and commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers, and the promise of future generations. And fellow Americans—Democrats, Republicans, Independents —I say to you tonight: we have more work to do. More to do for the workers I met in Galesburg, Illinois, who are losing their union jobs at the Maytag plant that’s moving to Mexico, and now are having to compete with their own children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour. More to do for the father I met who was losing his job and choking back tears, wondering how he would pay $4,500 a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits he counted on. More to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn’t have the money to go to

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

college.

Don’t get me wrong. The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don’t want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or the Pentagon. Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. No, people don’t expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.

In this election, we offer that choice. Our party has chosen a man to lead us who embodies the best this country has to offer. That man is John Kerry….

… John Kerry believes in America. And he knows it’s not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga.

A belief that we are connected as one people. If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It’s that fundamental belief—I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper—that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. “E pluribus unum.” Out of many, one….

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism here—the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!

REMARKS OF SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: “A MORE PERFECT UNION” Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

As Prepared for Delivery “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution— a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part—through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk—to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign—to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together—unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction—towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners—an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts—that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely—just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country—a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems—two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth—by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters…. And in that single note—hope!—I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories—of survival, and freedom, and hope—became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about … memories that all people might study and cherish—and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety—the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions—the good and the bad—of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother—a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America —to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through—a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination—where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments—meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families—a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods—parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement—all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it—those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations—those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience—as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze—a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns—this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy—particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction—a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people—that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances—for

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

better health care, and better schools, and better jobs—to the larger aspirations of all Americans—the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives—by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American—and yes, conservative—notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country—a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old—is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know—what we have seen—is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope—the audacity to hope—for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination—and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past—are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds—by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand—that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle—as we did in the OJ trial—or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina—or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation—the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today—a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat. She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Source: Excerpts from (1) Barack Obama, “Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention” (July 27, 2004) and (2) Barack Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” (March 18, 2008).

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: David Mendell, Obama: From Promise to Power (New York: Amistad/HarperCollins, 2007). Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006).

———, Barack Obama in His Own Words, ed. by Lisa Rogak (New York: Carroll & Graf, Marable, Manning, Stokely Carmichael, Leith Mullings, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Kete Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Cyril V. Briggs. Let Nobody Turn Us Around, edited by Manning Marable, et al., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=467152. Created from apus on 2017-03-28 11:29:33.

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .

2007). ———, Barack Obama: Speeches 2002–2006, ed. by Maureen Harrison and Steve Gilbert (Carlsbad: Excellent Books, 2007).

———, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, rev. ed. (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006).

John K. Wilson, Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest (Boulder: Paradigm, 2008).

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: Robert D. Bullard, ed., The Black Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century: Race, Power, and Politics of Place (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).

Michael Eric Dyson, April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Death and How It Changed America (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2008).

Patricia Hill Collins, From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism, Politics, History, and Social Change (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006).

Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present (New York: Vintage Books, 1995).

Manning Marable, Ian Steinberg, and Keesha Middlemass, eds., Racializing Justice, Disenfranchising Lives: The Racism, Criminal Justice, and Law Reader, Critical Black Studies Series (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

Leith Mullings, “Losing Ground: Harlem, the War on Drugs, and the Prison Industrial Complex, Souls, 5, no. 2 (June 2003), pp. 1–21.

———, On Our Own Terms: Race, Class, and Gender in the Lives of African American Women (New York: Routledge, 1997).

Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the New Millennium, Critical Social Thought (London: Routledge, 2008).

Nell Irvin Painter, Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

James B. Stewart, ed., African Americans and Post-Industrial Labor Markets (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1997).

C o p yr

ig h t ©

2 0 0 9 . R

o w

m a n &

L itt

le fie

ld P

u b lis

h e rs

. A

ll ri g h ts

r e se

rv e d .