Wednesday, January 29, 2014

The Purest Patriots. By Eric Smith

In late 1943, as soon as he turned 18, my late father was drafted into the US Army and it was his father, who served on the local draft board, who swore him in. Dad, along with his future wife, my Mom, was living in Cleveland OH at the time and they were already several years into their courtship which would result in their getting married in 1948; a marriage that would not end until Dad's death in 2009. Now Dad had never been to the Deep South, the segregated south, and even though he had grown up hearing of the horrors visited upon African Americans living down there, he had never experienced those horrors first hand.

Well it turns out that because of a childhood knee injury suffered years earlier, Dad was deemed physically unfit to serve overseas so his two year stint in the Army was confined to bases stateside in such places as Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. That's when Dad got his education if you will on what it was really like to be a person of color in these United States. The pain, the hurt, and the rage of having not only being unable to dine with his white fellow soldiers in the army mess halls because of his race, but also having to having to first clean up those mess halls after they and POWS from Germany & Italy had been fed before they he and his fellow soldiers of color could sit down & eat, never left him; an indignity further compounded by the fact that they were required to not only clean up those mess halls after the white soldiers and the POWS ate, but after they ate as well.

Think about it; for every meal that was served; breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Dad and his fellow soldiers of color had to clean up those mess halls three times; twice before they could sit down to eat and once afterwards. This was only a small part of it of course. There was another incident where he and some of his buddies were taking a train, a segregated train, from one base in FL to another. Well in the cabin with Dad with his buddies there was a nice young lady & her husband with whom they struck up a pleasant conversation. Since they'd been traveling for hours the plan was for them to get off the train at some station, and spend a few hours stretching their legs & refreshing, at which point they would transfer to another train to complete their journey.

After they disembarked they were directed to the colored waiting room. As they beheld the deplorable & terrible conditions of this place one of Dad's buddies said "We are soldiers in the US Army goddammit wearing the uniform of our country! We shouldn't have to take this!" With that this fellow, Dad, and the rest of them all proceeded to the white waiting room at which point they were immediately ordered out. They refused. The local sheriff was called and placed them all under arrest for violating Florida's segregation laws. By this time the Army had been notified and sent two MPs to the station.

The Army said it would handle it and handle it it did. It immediately placed Dad and his buddies back on that very train they had just exited and in the same cabin with that young lady. Only this time time there were two more people present; two armed MPs with their sidearms clearly visible. Though Dad and his buddies were fortunately not placed under arrest, they were nonetheless forced to complete their journey under armed guard.

I often asked my father how did he and his fellow soldiers of color manage to tolerate all of this crap. I mean how could he believe in this country in the face of this hypocrisy; asking its citizens of color to fight against tyranny abroad while being the victims of tyranny here at home. "It wasn't so much the country itself I believed in son; rather its promise. We took all of this abuse so we could one day help to make America better and be true to itself."

It didn't take me long to figure out that it was Dad and people like him who were the true patriots among us for they loved America not for what it did for them, which was really nothing, but rather for what it could be. In short they loved this country in spite of itself, and those who love anything in this manner posses the purest love of all for they do not have to.

So as someone who was born twenty years after he left the Army in 1945, I early on felt an obligation that I feel to this day, to do whatever I can do to ensure that future generations of people of color will not be forced to love America as Dad was forced to love it; to love it in spite of itself. The only way to guarantee is to ensure that those advances made by my Dad's generation are never taken away; that in all matters of civil & sexual rights our steps forever move forward and never back. That is the debt I owe to my father and all who figuratively marched in his shoes.

No one can tell me what a patriot is because I am the son of one. No one can ever tell me what injustice is because I am the son of a someone who was a victim of a gross injustice, and no can tell me when to stand down and when to let bygones be bygones because I know that to stand down before based on the promise of victory rather than after that victory has been secured, is to guarantee defeat and the loss of all that has been gained.

America is not yet ready to move past the issue of race and America is not yet ready to move past the issue of gender inequality, for while victory to secure full equality in this nation irrespective of race and gender is clearly in sight, it is a victory still far from secure since inequality persists in regards to both; it is merely manifested in different and generally more subtle forms. When will we know that victory has been secure? The answer is when no one else will feel compelled to tell us that we have won.

We will know it ourselves & within ourselves but until that happens, we keep fighting and we keep fighting without letup and without delay; fighting to secure those rights that are the basic rights of all people regardless of race & gender; the right to be treated with the same dignity and be accorded the same opportunity to succeed or fail on our own merits on the same level playing field; the playing field of life.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

The GOP as the American Al -Qaeda. By Eric Smith

Webster's Dictionary defines terrorism as "the use of force or threats to intimidate as a political policy." Webster's also defines terrorize as "to coerce, make submit, by filling with terror." This being the case one can only conclude that today's Republican Party is to women what Al Qaeda is to the world; it is a terrorist organization engaging in the terroristic tactics of threats & intimidation to demean women, to deny them their basic reproductive rights, to dehumanize them, and to reduce them not only to the level of second class citizenship but to the level of pets & chattel; who's lives & destinies are controlled in every way, shape, and form entirely by men.

Women have every right to be terrified of this terrorist organization otherwise known as the Republican Party. Listen to the rhetoric of its leaders. Visit social media sites and see the condescending, sexist, chauvinistic assaults repeatedly launched against the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Wendy Davis, Sandra Fluke, and any woman who dares to speak up for her humanity; to assert their right to be treated as the equal of men. The Republican Party and its Conservative ancestors of whatever political party opposed women's suffrage, opposed Roe versus Wade, the Equal Rights Amendment, legislation to further criminalize sexual abuse & domestic violence, and it has stood at the forefront of denying equal pay for equal work for women.

The Republican Party has turned a blind eye and fanned the flames of hatred that has led directly to the bombings of family planning clinic and the murder & maiming of the doctors & staff who work in them. In places like Texas it has closed down many of these clinics, forcing women not only to travel hundreds upon hundreds of miles but even out of the country itself to Mexico & Canada in order to exercise those rights of reproductive freedom that our national Constitution guarantees for them right here at home.

We call out terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda for attacking freedom & seeking to suppress individual liberties all over the world. Well it is way past time to start calling out the terrorist organization that is attacking freedom and using threats & intimidation in an effort to suppress individual liberties here at home; that terrorist organization of which I speak being none other than the Republican Party itself! If we regard women as being the equal of men, as being entitled to the same rights & liberties of the male gender, then we must call out the Republican Party for being the terrorist operation that it really is. It is way past the time where we need to concern ourselves with being nice; of worrying whether or not we offend somebody or not.

They, the Republican Party, is what it is; it's actions, conduct and policies speak for themselves. It is indeed engaged in an all out war against women and its tactics are the tactics of terrorists and therefore that makes the Republican Party, at least when it comes to women, a terrorist organization.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Why Dr. King would not be a Republican today in his own words. By Eric Smith

Contrary to what too many Republicans & Conservatives say, if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today he not be one of them; he would instead be engaged in all out war against the Republican Party and all things Conservative His own words bear this out. On the matter of voting rights which the GOP is trying to suppress for people of color Dr. King wrote: 

"“So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote, I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind — it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact — I can only submit to the edict of others.”

The Republican Party and the Far Right of today is opposed to Unions & Labor whereas Dr. King was firmly on the side of both. In response to the Union busting efforts of his time he said: 

“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone. Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights."

Republicans like to say that by being a Christian Dr. King would be against a woman's right to choose and speak out against Planned Parenthood. Really? Well Planned Parenthood certainly did not see Dr. King as an enemy when it awarded him its first series of Margaret Sanger Awards in 1966 at which point Dr. King said of Planned Parenthood and women's reproductive rights: 

“For the Negro, therefore, intelligent guides of family planning are a profoundly important ingredient in his quest for security and a decent life. There are mountainous obstacles still separating Negroes from a normal existence. Yet one element in stabilizing his life would be an understanding of and easy access to the means to develop a family related in size to his community environment and to the income potential he can command.”

Republicans/Conservatives today not only oppose the abolition of the death penalty but are calling for its expansion and a shortening of the appeal process that is designed to prevent an innocent from being executed. Here's what Dr. King said about the death penalty: 

“I do not think God approves the death penalty for any crime — rape and murder included. Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.”

Now of course the Republicans say that the GOP & Conservatives were the ones behind the progressive civil rights legislation of the 1960's and that it was the Democrats who were the real racists who opposed it. Well Dr. King certainly didn't think so. Reflecting back on the 1964 presidential election he wrote:

"The Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction, and extremism. All people of goodwill viewed with alarm and concern the frenzied wedding at the Cow Palace of the KKK with the radical right. The “best man” at this ceremony was a senator whose voting record, philosophy, and program were anathema to all the hard-won achievements of the past decade. Senator Goldwater had neither the concern nor the comprehension necessary to grapple with this problem of poverty in the fashion that the historical moment dictated. On the urgent issue of civil rights, Senator Goldwater represented a philosophy that was morally indefensible and socially suicidal.

While not himself a racist, Mr. Goldwater articulated a philosophy which gave aid and comfort to the racist. His candidacy and philosophy would serve as an umbrella under which extremists of all stripes would stand. In the light of these facts and because of my love for America, I had no alternative but to urge every Negro and white person of goodwill to vote against Mr. Goldwater and to withdraw support from any Republican candidate that did not publicly disassociate himself from Senator Goldwater and his philosophy." This sort of sounds like the Republican leadership of today, doesn't it? 

This being so, would Dr. King now be a Republican and support the GOP's agenda? Not according to what he said here. Finally what did Dr. King think of the Conservatives patron saint Ronald Reagan who openly contemplated running for president in 1968? Well looking ahead to that prospect in the final months of his life, Dr. King didn't sound all that enthusiastic about the prospect of a Reagan presidency writing: 

"When a Hollywood performer, lacking distinction even as an actor can become a leading war hawk candidate for the Presidency, only the irrationalities induced by a war psychosis can explain such a melancholy turn of events."

So Dr. King would be a Republican today and support the GOP's agenda. Not according to him. He would be at war with the Republican Party and all things Conservatives and for proof we need only look at his own words.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

To be Pro Choice. By Eric Smith

To be Pro Choice is not to be pro abortion. It is to acknowledge the unique set of circumstances attendant to the female gender in regards to the challenges and lifetime implications of being biologically endowed with the ability to bring life into the world. We men are essentially sperm donors but it is the woman to which all new life is intrinsically bound for she and she alone must bear the physical & psychological burden of bringing that child to term within her physical person over the course of many trying months. What's more, she more than any man must confront the harsh reality of a world that is often cruel, callous, and unfair and deermine whether or not that life she stands to release into the world would be better off entering it or be better served by not entering it at all.

The would be mother recognizes better than anyone that compassion minus commitment is cheap grace; that those who bring life into the world bear a special responsibility to it and so of course do those who force that life to be brought into this world so as to satisfy their own sense of morality. The Pro Life crowd that would outlaw abortions yet absolve itself of any responsibility for the person they forced to be born against the mother's will in effect feels that it is far more important for a child born under these circumstances to suffer from neglect, poverty, and deprivation than for them to be denied the chance to feel good about themselves; to puff out their chests and brag about how such decent, moral Christians they are.

These people can talk all they want about caring about the sanctity of human life but if that were true they wouldn't complain about having to help pay for it for if life is as valuable as they say it is then it is priceless. This Pro Life stance of the Far Right is at heart an exercise in child exploitation of the lowest order for these people are for the most part Pro Life for partisan purposes and partisan purposes alone. Those who are not do not go around telling a woman "I demand that you not abort your fetus but once born I insist that I not be expected to help pay for it!" That is essentially what the Pro Life crowd is saying. They want to be moral but they also want others to pay for the consequences of their forced morality on others.

To be truly Pro Life is not to merely be Pro Life before birth; it is to be Pro Life for the duration of the life of that person who is forced to be born. So since these Pro Life Right Wingers are ultimately more concerned with what's in their wallets than with the lives they would force into the world they should be more Pro Choice than anybody since every aborted poor child is one less child their tax dollars has to pay for. Oh they don't want to hear this but hear it they must and hear it they forever will, from me.

Why I Can't Judge. By Eric Smith

The only men who have even the vaguest idea of what it is to be a woman are those who have their gender changed and start living as one. Short of that we males cannot even begin to guess at the changes in biochemistry & other physiological issues that are biologically unique to the female gender. Aside from obviously not being able to grasp what it is like to be pregnant, neither do we males fully understand what it is like to be paid less for doing the same work as one of a different gender; not because we lack the same qualifications but because our genders are different.

As males we have no way of fully grasping the feelings of powerlessness that women feel when the state forces them to undergo an invasive medical procedure to which they have not given their consent. To those males who feel that a state mandated ultrasound is not invasive and does not constitute rape, let them support laws which will make penal & rectal exams mandatory to satisfy a political versus medical aim (which is the case with forced ultrasounds) and then let's see if these same males will then say that they do not feel powerless, that they do not feel violated, and that they are not being subjected to state sanctioned rape.

Since we males cannot carry a child to term over the nine months from conception to birth, we are not burdened with having to weigh whether or not it is better for the child we have carried to be aborted or be born due to horrible economic or pre natal conditions. We as men cannot really grasp the terrible emotional trauma that women contemplating the performance of an abortion must endure; of having to decide whether or not that life they are carrying would be better served by not ever being born at all rather than be condemned to endure a lifetime of ceaseless suffering; and we cannot grasp the horrible second guessing that destined to be endured by those women is who choose either route; who will for the rest of their lives be haunted by their decision if they conclude they made the wrong one.

As a man I do not have the right to tell a woman what to do in such matters because as a man I know I lack the knowledge about what life is like as a woman that necessary to make the right call. I cannot do it and I will not endeavor to try because I know that to do this is to disrespect not only every woman I have ever known but every woman who has ever lived; who has gone through life knowing exactly what it is to be a woman because she is a woman.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Rhetoric versus Reality. By Eric Smith

Tomorrow is the King Holiday and all across this nation men, women, and children will honor the life and legacy of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the official commemoration of what would have been his 85th birthday on January 15th of this year had he been granted the wish he publicly made the night before he was killed on April 4, 1968 to "live a long life." There will be parades & speeches galore, extolling him as the hero that he was and of course the Republican Party & the Far Right will be front and center in singing his praises and falsely claiming him as one of their own.

Of course this will enrage many of us who know better but in truth we who know better need not be bent out of shape by this attempt by those on the Right to revise history so as to make it shine on their current hateful conduct for this whole scene is nothing more than a simple case of rhetoric versus reality; the rhetoric of those of the Right claiming Dr. King as their own and the reality that was his life.

Let us therefore take a moment to compare the two right now; rhetoric versus reality. The Republican Party says that Dr. King was a Republican and would be a Republican today. Really? While Dr. King of course is no longer alive to speak for himself in this regard we can get a fairly good idea of where he would stand in relation to the Republican Party of today by comparing the positions & policies the Republican Party holds today versus the positions & policies Dr. King held and fought for in his lifetime:

1. Civil Rights.

The Republican Party and the Far Right thinks that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an overreach of Federal authority; that people have the individual right, according to the US Constitution, to discriminate along the lines of race if they so choose and that all questions pertaining to civil rights & discrimination should be left to the states, rather than the Federal Government, to deal with. Dr. King, from the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 to the rest of his life led countless demonstrations at the cost of many lives (ultimately including his own) to overturn legal apartheid. He correctly believed that discrimination along the lines of race was a violation of the spirit of the Constitution and an immoral indignity against the rights & liberties of individuals and that therefore not only was the Federal Government right to enforce anti discrimination laws but that it also had a duty to do so since the states had remained hostage to regional prejudices for over a century and thus been unwilling to do so themselves. Hence, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which made American apartheid a violation of Federal Law.

2. Voting Rights.

The Republican Party is opposed to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and with the blessing of the US Supreme Court is now actively engaged in voter suppression across the land through the racially discriminatory imposition of Voter ID laws, voter intimidation, and the like. Dr. King led the Selma to Montgomery March in March of 1965 to secure passage of the Voting Rights Act that summer because he rightly recognized that the right to vote is inviolate in a free society and that its arbitrary denial along the lines of race undermines the key pillar of democracy by making the people powerless insofar as they will be denied a say in who represents them in public office.

3. Labor/Unions

The Republican Party is anti Labor and it is anti Union. It is engaging in a ceaseless war to undermine a person's right to collectively organize, bargain, strike, and protest for higher wages and better working conditions. Dr. King was 100% on the side of Labor and Unions. He interrupted his preparations for the upcoming Poor People's Campaign in Washington DC to publicly support striking garbage workers in Memphis TN who were being brutalized by the city leaders because they had dared to Unionize and strike in order to get higher wages and better working conditions. It was in Memphis TN that Dr. King was assassinated at the age of 39 on the night of April 4, 1968. He took a fatal bullet to his head while supporting those rights that the Republican Party is so opposed to today; the right to Unionize & bargain for higher wages and better working conditions.

4. The Poor

The Republican Party hates the poor and through its opposition to raising the minimum wage, cutting food stamps, and extending unemployment benefits, its bestial treatment of the weakest & least fortunate among us knows no bounds. Dr. King on the other hand was at war with poverty all of his adult life and never wasted an opportunity to highlight its corrosive effect on the human soul from the poorest slums in the Deep South to the most oppressive ghettos in the North. He died while deep in preparation for a Poor Campaign in Washington DC scheduled for May of 1968 to highlight America's inexcusable tolerance of poverty to the world.

5. War

Not only does the Republican Party love war, it believes in preemptive war; striking at nations that pose no immediate threat to America or its interests. For proof we only need to look at President Reagan's invasion of Grenade in the Fall of 1983 or President George W. Bush's uncalled for & disastrous war in Iraq that he started in 2003. Being a man of peace Dr. King opposed war; especially when the resources to fight wars drained the resources necessary to fight injustice and poverty here at home. In speaking out against the Vietnam War on April 4, 1967 (one year to the day before he was killed) Dr. King said the following:

"A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept -- so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force -- has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John:

Let us love one another; for love is God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says : 'Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.'

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The 'tide in the affairs of men' does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late.'"

All of the above positions held by the Republican Party and the Far Right today are thus diametrically opposed to everything believed in and fought for by Dr. King. I won't even go into how he would have reacted to the GOP's turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the racist hatred being directed at our first African American president, Barack Obama, in the form of comparing him to an African witch doctor, hanging him in effigy from a tree, calling for the murder of him and his wife & children, and waving a Confederate flag in front of the White House. Does anyone in their right mind think that Dr. King would have anything to do with a political party that not only tolerates but encourages such conduct?

Does anyone believe for a minute that he would not call out the madness of African American Republicans/Conservatives who have crazily cast their lot with such hateful individuals just as those bought off African Americans of Dr. King's time publicly sided with those southern segregationists who brutalized & murdered the Civil Rights warriors back then? Some things are so utterly ridiculous that again we need only compare the rhetoric to the reality to prove the absurdity of such blatant falsehoods for in such a contest reality always wins.

So in closing I ask you to remember the words of the late, great African American post Carl Wendell Hines who in his 1971 poem "Now that he is Safely Dead" prophetically foretold of the day when the enemies of Dr. King would seek to hijack his legacy and claim it as their own when he was no longer here to call them out on their unjust theft and disgusting distortion of who he was & what he stood and fought for in life.

"Now that He is Safely Dead."

"Now that he is safely dead,
Let us Praise him.
Now that he is safely dead,
Let us Praise him.
Build monuments to his glory.
Sing Hosannas to his name.

Dead men make such convenient Heroes.
They cannot rise to challenge the images
We would fashion from their Lives.
It is easier to build monuments
Than to make a better world.

So now that he is safely dead,
We, with eased consciences, will
Teach our children that he was a great man,
Knowing that the cause for which he
Lived is still a cause
And the dream for which he died
Is still a dream."

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Echoes of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney

When I hear these Republicans, Libertarians, and Tea Party member call upon this nation to follow the US Constitution as it was originally framed and their belief in state's rights and the right of states to secede from the Union I hear again the words of then Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney who wrote in his majority opinion of the infamous Dred Scott case of 1857 the following: "It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in regard to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted; but the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

In short, the GOP & the Far Right's call to follow the Constitution as it was originally written has nothing to do with expanding Liberty and everything to do with limiting the full enjoyment of Liberty to those with white skin. From their ill treatment of President Obama to their mistreatment of people of color across the board through voter suppression & policies which hurt the poor who are disproportionately people of color, the racist white supremacy mindset of Chief Justice Taney is the mental mantra of the Republican Party & the Far Right today. It is a mindset which believes as Taney did that people of color in these United States have no rights that white people are bound to respect.

If you want to understand why the Republican Party & the Far Right treats President Obama and people of color as they do, read again the last sentence of Chief Justice Taney's decision in Dred Scott. That sums it perfectly and if they deny this to be the case then merely point to their treatment of President Obama, the policies they promote, and the devastating effects these policies have had and continue to have on our citizens of color in these United States. It is as simple as that.

Why I am grateful. By Eric Smith

Maybe I'm wrong and maybe I am too willing to let go of the past but the fact of the matter is I feel a great deal of gratitude towards the people of color in this country who lived in chains, who perished by the lash and the rope; who were beaten, raped, castrated, and set afire while tied to trees so that people like me could grow up in a nation where such conduct is regarded as the evil it truly is; where there are no more "white" & "colored" waiting rooms, water fountains, lunch counters & the like.

I like the idea that I don't have to sit in the back of a bus, can still vote, and see a person who looks like me and understands my story occupy the highest office in the land. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1956 at the height of the Montgomery Bus Boycott "I want future generations to know that those rights and privileges they will enjoy did not come without someone suffering to get those rights." I get it and I like to think I always have.

So I do not have it in me not to nod an acknowledgement of thanks to every elderly person of color I pass by or to smile at every old white person who's path I cross who I know had a hand in breaking down these laws of segregation and nullification. I know I owe and it enrages me to no end to see people of color ingratiate themselves with and speak the same hateful language as those who feel that the horrors of the atrocities I have described have been way overblown and that we should move on from them & allow bygones to be bygones; as though none of it never really happened.

I feel nothing but contemptuous contempt for those lacking in gratitude. It is a cardinal sin in my book and so when I see African Americans spouting the Republican Party/Conservative line I react with the same enraged indignation as one would upon seeing a person drop their pants or their dress in a cemetery and publicly defecate upon the grave of a dead family member. That is precisely what African American/Conservatives are doing to the memories of the honored dead; to those who sacrificed and suffered so much so they could enjoy the rights and privileges they have now.

If you are a black Republican/Conservative today you are using the memories of Dr. King, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, all of them; as you use a toilet. You are defiling them and that is wrong, it is immoral, and it is evil. The other day a friend of mine was surprised when I told her that I do not like to be so harsh with people like these black Republicans/Conservatives but looking back I realize I misspoke for truth be told I have no problem with being so vicious, contemptuous, and nasty towards my Republican/Conservative fellow citizens of color.

I can understand to a point why some white people will go the Republican/Conservative side because the color of their skin has never been a problem for them. They cannot fully grasp the African American experience in this country because they have not lived in America as African Americans. To argue as some do that they fully understand our situation because they have been discriminated against because they are Jewish, Polish, gay, Italian, etc. is nonsense. That may make them more empathetic in certain cases but empathy and understanding are two vastly different things; they are miles apart for empathy is about feeling whereas understanding is feeling combined with actual experience and so there are just certain things beyond one's grasp unless they have actually lived through it.

One can talk about being Jewish, Polish, gay, Italian, etc., all one wishes; all of these claims for having been reasons for having been the victim of discrimination are valid but add color to the mix and its a whole new ballgame because in this case judgments are made before one has a chance to determine whether or not that person is Jewish, Polish, gay, Italian, etc. One look at a person's dark skin is all it takes for opinions to be instantly formed about that person. That is the difference here and so for an African American to claim that this is not the case is the height of stupidity.

Notice how these black Republican/Conservatives friends will always refer to them and their other so called friends of color as their black friend. Notice also how they will not refer to their other friends who are white as their Jewish friend, their Polish friend, their gay friend, their Italian friend. Why? Because when it comes to African Americans color is first and foremost on their minds.

As such every time a white person says he/she has a black friend that individual is playing the race card because race is the first card they play in thinking about and describing that individual. Color is the first thing they think about; not their nationality, religion, or their sexual orientation; it's their color, period. Yet African American Republicans/Conservatives have brainwashed themselves into actually believing that these kind of people are really their friends.

So again I make zero apologies for calling out these African American Republicans/Conservatives for being the zeroes that they are. If you lack gratitude then there is nothing to recommend you as a person. You're not entitled to be treated with any kind of respect because your attitudes & conduct shows that you have no respect for those who sacrificed so much on your behalf; to at least give you a fighting chance in a country that still to a large extent automatically see's you as an enemy alien in your own land solely because of the dark complexion of your skin.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Calling out the sellouts. By Eric Smith

We arbitrarily dismiss African American Republicans/Conservatives as being clueless, clownish buffoons at our own risk. Yes, their antics are hysterical but it is not so much their individual performances that should give us pause, it is rather those forces behind the scenes that choreograph that pose the real danger. These individuals are being used and in return for the selling of their souls allowing themselves to be used by their masters in the GOP to try to immunize the Far Right against charges of racism and give it cover for pursuing policies that discriminate along the lines of race; not the least of which is voter suppression, and denying the most needy among us who are most proportionally people of color, the most basic necessities of life; be it food, housing, education, or employment opportunities.

These people provide and have provided just enough of a diversion to allow the implementation of draconian social policies that annually costs untold thousands of poor people of color their lives either due to malnutrition, exposure, lack of adequate healthcare, or all three. We cannot afford for this to continue from either a practical or moral standpoint and as such we are obligated to speak out, expose, and undermine these individuals at every opportunity because in this case silence equals complicity. We simply cannot allow the Dr. Ben Carsons, the Clarence Thomases, and Herman Cains, of the world to blind us to the evil they front for. They may have sold their souls to the devil in return for a pot of gold but the rest of us do not have to.

There is far more to life than mere material gain or public prominence. Yes, the African middlemen who led the European slave catchers to Kunta Kinte, the person or persons of color who betrayed Nat Turner & John Brown, and more recently in another context the Jew or Jews who revealed the hiding place of Ann Frank to the Nazi Gestapo were all no doubt richly rewarded and held in the highest esteem by those who's cause they served but their personal enrichment & so called success in no way shape or form symbolized an advancement for those oppressed people they represented and the same holds equally true for the African American Republicans/Conservatives of today.

The advancement of a race, a religion, or a group, is a collective achievement; it is in no way signified by the advancement of a token few. A single grain of pepper in a pile of salt does not diversity make and those who claim it is so must be constantly called out for their vanity, their greed, and their placing of self far above that of the common good. If they accuse us of racism & being intolerant, fine. So be it. Let them. Who cares? Look merely at the people they front for and the policies they promote and you will know without a doubt who the real racists & intolerant ones among us are.

Call out these sellouts for what they are for there is nothing honorable about being a lackey for those who hate you and promote policies that are designed to ensure your ultimate destruction. Betrayal for whatever rhyme or reason is fundamentally evil. Not one successful African American Republican/Conservative would have gotten anywhere near where they are now if it had not been for those very civil rights laws, Affirmative Action programs, and expanded social safety nets that they now publicly despise. Not one. But for these policies which in effect gave the government the power to end legal segregation, voter suppression, and discrimination along the lines of race, we would never have heard of a Dr. Ben Carson, a Clarence Thomas, or a Herman Cain, because the racist people who gave them their key breaks in life would have felt under no legal obligation to do so.

Thus, the ultimate irony in all of this is that every black Republican/Conservative is where he or she is today because of some form of Affirmative Action. Had it been otherwise there would have been far more of them. You know, once Clarence Thomas got on the US Supreme Court to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall, there was no further talk on the part of President George H.W. Bush or of his son President George W. Bush adding another person of color on the Court to join him. If these Republicans had really been for diversity like they say, they wouldn't have just stopped at one. Likewise, now that President Obama has been reelected we hear no more talk of a "real" black man who happens to be Conservative being on top of the GOP presidential ticket in 2016.

Oh when President Obama first took office in 2009 we heard a whole lot of talk about "real" black men along the lines of Allen West, Herman Cain, and Tim Scott, being on the ticket against President Obama in 2012 but even then there was no serious talk about any of these people of color being on the top of that ticket and now that 2012 has passed there is absolutely no talk of any person of color being on the 2016 GOP presidential ticket at all.

Coincidence? No. A token only has value when it can be played and once these folks on the Far Right conclude that their tokens of color can no longer be used to positive effect, they are quickly cast aside & discarded; just ask Allen Keyes, Michael Steele, Allen West, or Herman Cain. We no longer hear the Republicans speak of these men as being presidential timber. We no longer hear the Republican establishment touting them as the alternative to Barack Obama now that he has been reelected and black people in 2012 again voted against the GOP to the tune of damn near 95%.

However, not all elections are runaways and so we need to keep calling these black sellout out for being sellouts. We can't let up on them. We owe it to ourselves as people of color and to this country we love & cherish to call them out and undermine them at every opportunity for in the end not only lives are at stake but the future of freedom in this country itself. Let us not ever forget that.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Education: The Fishing Pole of Life. By Eric Smith

I'd like to know why these Dr. Ben Carsons, Justice Clarence Thomases, Herman Cains, Michael Steeles, and all these other black Republicans/Conservatives who are now speaking out against so called African American "victim hood" and the need for people of color to "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps" aren't at the forefront of those speaking out against the epidemic of public school closures in our inner cities; schools that are not necessarily being closed due to poor performance but rather because of budget cuts necessitating the laying off of nurses, guidance counselors, teachers, and student aides. Why aren't these black Conservatives of all people, not raising hell about this for where would they have been had their schools been similarly closed and they denied the opportunity to receive an education?

It goes without saying that education provides the bootstraps that one needs to pull themselves up out of poverty. Education is the essential key to achieving independence and becoming self sufficient. Deny that to our children and we condemn them to a lifetime of poverty & deprivation; to a life forever chained to food stamps and welfare. If Conservatives in general and black Conservatives in particular are sincere in their calls for ending so called "entitlements" and getting more people to make it on their own then they must be among those leading the calls to not only stop closing schools in our inner cities, but also demanding that we invest more of our tax dollars to build newer and better schools in these depressed areas; to provide every child who desires to learn the necessary resources to learn in the modern world.

Conservatives love to invoke Scripture by saying "if you give a person of fish, you will feed that person for a day but if you teach that person how to fish that person can feed him/herself for a lifetime." Well, teaching a person how to fish means nothing if you fail to show that person how to acquire and use a fishing pole. That is what education is; the fishing pole of life. Deny our children that pole and the opportunity to learn how to use it, and we forever consign them to begging others for a fish since they will not have the know how to acquire fish on their own.

In other words you simply cannot tell a person what they need to do and what they should do if you deny them the chance to learn how do it. If we wish to lower the number of those who are dependent we must increase the numbers of those who are educated and we can only do that if we provide our children a place to learn, and a place which provides them with the tools to learn that which is needed, and in a safe & secure environment where to them life and death is not about their getting shot down in the street as they travel to and from school, but rather passing the next test, making the grade, and rising as far and as fast as their natural talents will allow them to do.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

The American Promise made real. By Eric Smith

However much the Republican Party and Racist Far Right would have us believe, President Barack Obama is not an African American president. He is a president who happens to be African American. This is important to remember since it not possible for there to be an African American president in these United States and by that I mean a president who primarily represents the African American people. This is because we African Americans are a decided minority in this country and as such we simply lack the numbers to elect anyone to the presidency on our own. 

Barack Obama is President of the United States because he represents everybody. He is the living embodiment of our national melting pot; the national promise made real. That is why he is not and never will be marginalized because of the color of his skin no matter how hard the Racist Right will try because he personifies far, far more than mere pigmentation. There is something truly glorious when a nation, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. finally begins "to live up to the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self evident that all are created equal..."; when we finally give a glimpse to ourselves and to the world of that day, also in the words of Dr. King, when America will finally be "what it says it is on paper."

As such, while racism is the root of the hatred the Republican Party and the Far Right feels towards President Obama, there is far more to the vitriol that fuels this racism than mere color alone. My feeling is that just as Dr. King inspired the hatred of his enemies by revealing to them the true power of love, President Obama inspires the hatred of his enemies by revealing to them the lie that is at the heart of their very existence; that there really is indeed no such thing as a master race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, and that America deep down is at heart what it has always said it is.

These people simply can't handle this truth and their awakening to it in the form of President Obama has literally caused them to crack up and lose their minds. Obama Derangement Syndrome is real for it has caused the racists in our midst, who were mentally unbalanced by merely being racists in the first place, to completely flip out. President Obama has yanked their wigs off and shown these people for the truly ugly human beings they are and history will forever record their homely dispositions, their putrid thoughts, and their nasty, ignorant attitudes. 

In a way what we see happening now is a cleansing of the American soul. The poison now being released by the Republican Party and the Far Right is indeed foul smelling and hideous to behold but at least the national boil under which it was for so long hidden has finally been lanced and once it runs its course, true healing will finally commence. We will in this country and in the lifetimes of many now living, move past the issues of race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. We will do this because in 2008 and 2012 the people of these United States reached down deep to grab something noble about the soul of this nation and used it as a catalyst to elect and reelect not the first African American president, but the first president who happened to be African American and in the process forever proved the eternal truth of President Abraham Lincoln's final words at Gettysburg in which he said that America is indeed "the last best hope of Earth."