Banning single women from holding any public office is wrong. That position held by the Kenyan Governor has nothing to do with advancing the nuclear family. It is about advancing some reactionary agenda of depriving the human rights of women point blank period. Depriving women of basic human rights is very much a key portion of the white supremacist agenda. Malcolm X supported the human rights of women as his quotes document. Harriet Tubman led black people to escape from the bondage of slavery. Ida B. Wells led efforts to not only defend Black Men from racist slander, but to lead efforts to oppose lynching in the States. Fannie Lou Hamer led efforts to advocate justice for black humanity and peace in the anti-war movement. So, these Sisters led. Men have led too. Dr. King led efforts to oppose the Vietnam War and advancing human justice for black people. Malcolm X led efforts to oppose the Vietnam War, to oppose imperialism, and seeking justice for black humanity too. So, nothing is wrong with the leadership qualities of man. Men have every right to led. A man leading causes is fine and a woman leading in her special way is not immoral in my eyes. Egalitarianism is superior to misogyny. Single motherhood is a reality. Single motherhood has existed for numerous reasons. Some single mothers exist because a father has passed away or for a number of circumstances. See, poverty, the War on Drugs, the prison industrial complex, racism, lax educational opportunities, discrimination, crime, and other forms of evils in our community are much more threatening to us as a community than single motherhood. A woman has the right to be married or single if she wants to. I know many Sisters in real life that are single, but they are loving, very smart, and they don’t want to destroy the black community. Now, we can grow black families among black men and black women by not demonizing all single mothers, but by advocating solutions (like fighting poverty, handling our economics, encouraging Men to be Men, encouraging Women to be Women, etc.). A woman being single and even having a child out of wedlock should not be banned from our community permanently. Our African culture builds up our people and not castigates them out just because they are single. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. Those suffering problems should be granted an opportunity to better their lives. It is the white power structure that we oppose. Men should fight for their dignity as well as women. It is not some competition to see who must rule the community in an abusive way. It is about us who are black men standing side by side the Sisters to fight for our liberation. IT IS THE WHITE SUPREMACIST SYSTEM CAUSING THESE CONDITIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BLACK MEN OR BLACK WOMEN. BLACK WOMEN ARE JUST AS MUCH VICTIMS of THIS SYSTEM AS BLACK MEN. Men are important and women are important in the Universe. Many Sisters don't bow before the white man as there are tons of conscious Sisters worldwide (like Sistah Soujah, Cynthia McKinney, etc.). Sisters are our allies here and many Sisters know what time it is and are standing with us not against us.
Janaye Ingram is right that we as African Americans must respect and uphold our history. This is our history. One great point that she made was that you can advance the empowerment of women without degrading or belittling men. You can empower women without degrading black people with using such sick language like the N word being used in so many songs now. BLACK UNITY is very important concept to advance. We can never respect ourselves unless we respect each other. WE HAVE TO RESPECT EACH OTHER AS A MEANS TO LOVE OUR TRUE BEING. Our history has been long and filled with struggle. The struggle continues in the 21st century now when we are faced with gentrification, discrimination, imperialism, HIV/AIDS, economic issues, and other important issues in our black community. So, we have a responsibility to not only talk about our heritage, but to actively do things that respect our heritage (like boycotts, teaching the youth about African American culture, and going out to teach the youth on how to fight in a racist society). Our history, culture, strength, and impact in the world as black African Americans should never be degraded, minimized, homogenized, or sanitized at all. Also, we have got to fund legitimate black institutions, organizations, and businesses. We have a lot of economic spending power and when we redirect it to fund our own, and then our powerbase grows. Some of the youth are acting ignorant and some of the youth are doing what is right. When we advance the mentality of inventing, building, and developing the intellectual parameters of our minds, then we are really doing what is necessary to grow the black cultural ethos. We should learn about the unsung Brothers and Sisters in our own communities doing the good work too and reject the slavery mentality with vigor and zeal. That means that we are not the N word. We are not the B word. We are black people and we will stand up against anyone trying to harm us. We understand about our past, so we can remember about the sacrifice our ancestors (and we can appreciate our past for us to build a better present plus future. Our history should be respected). THE BATTLE IS NOT OVER AND WE WILL NOT LOSE FAITH. WE JUST NEED TO CONTINUE ONWARD IN OUR LIVES TO BE A BLESSING TOWARD OTHERS.
When you get older, you have the chance to place the truth into context. There are legitimate progressive critiques of the policies from the White House. Then, there is the reactionary slander of the President and his family, which I reject 100 percent. Racism is a system of evil domination and it is about the lie about one's "race" being superior to others. We see that a deteriorating capitalist system is causing a worsening of the lives of everyone, both blacks and non-blacks. There is a legitimate critique about the current administration not adopting a tougher stand against white racism and corporate privilege. "Bipartisanship" has contributed to situation that we are in now, because it has lead into the evil policies of sequester and controversial drone strikes worldwide. The reality is that Main Street and Wall Street don't have the totally same interest at all. For one thing, on some issues, President Barack Obama is too reactionary. The current administration is wrong to advance a imperialist foreign policy and to love an oppressive domestic NSA spying program domestically. We are in an ideological fight against reactionaries, plutocrats, and racists who have the effrontery to charge their victims with racism. Also, the mainstream Right is ignorant to hand President Barack Obama his 2nd Presidential victory on a silver platter a year and a half ago. The Republican campaign of 2012 was so cartoonish and extremist. This was one reason out of many that many black people and others voted for President Obama. Back in 2010, one survey said that as high as about half of African American college students were disappointed in Obama (for reasons of not fighting enough and doing deals even with his enemies). Yet, when the Republican wave came about in 2010 and these Republicans initiated laws of restricting voting rights, which blatantly were designed to suppress the Black and Latino vote. Also, scholars like Basil Davidson, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Roger Bastide gave accurate accounts on the richness including beauty of the Motherland of Africa. Then, African Americans were aroused to vote in anger against the Republicans among for other reasons in the year of 2012. Many economists claim that the White House didn't go far enough in handling the recession. The Recovery Act eased the recession, but it was not the sweeping progressive revolutionary action that could have significantly cut unemployment (though unemployment has decreased). So, the extremists are wrong to call Obama the worse President in American history. There are Presidents who waged genocidal wars against the Native Americans and helped protect plus manage an abominable slave empire (which shamelessly called itself a Republic). There was the paranoia and persecutions of McCarthyism under both Truman and Eisenhower. The Nixon regime orchestrated the CIA funded 1973 military coup of Chile. The fascists in Chile killed the democratically elected President Allende, which destroyed Chilean democracy (and impose of the most murderous military fascist states in Latin America). There were Presidents who administered the destruction of Mosadegh in Iran in 1953, toppling a progressive democratically elected regime in favor the brutal despotism of the Shah and who engineered the destruction of Patrice Lumumba's democratically elected regime in the Congo, precipitating the unending misery (beginning with Mobutu dictatorship) which continues even today. There was the propping up of the murderous fascistic, Nazi-esque apartheid regime in South Africa--a crime for which both Democrat and Republican administrations share guilt. NO, those who are claiming that Obama is the WORST president in American history are guided by white racism and reactionary political and social values. George W. Bush slept on his job when attacks on 9/11 occurred (we know the truth about these attack too) and started two wars which caused hundreds of thousands of lives while devastating the economy. So, there are Presidents worse than President Barack Obama. We see tons of research on the continuation of racism and injustice against Black people (and other peoples of color too). Lawless capitalism promotes wars and poverty. We have worse economic inequality now than when Dr. King was unfortunately assassinated. We need to address economic forces to build up our families. Economic justice is a must.
There are legitimate critiques of Jesse Jackson, but he is right to say that without the civil rights movement, we will not see the Super Bowl as it is. Now, we should do all that we can legitimately to fight discrimination and build economic power in our community. There is nothing wrong with group economics and using other economic solutions as advocated by Dr. Claude Anderson and others. We need to be careful about one thing though. We should be careful not to mimic the policies of reactionaries or allying with the 1% as an excuse to fight for reform (not true revolutionary change). This goal of the reactionary Nixonian "black capitalism" agenda will never totally solve our conditions totally since that agenda will only cultivate a select black elite (to control of our community under the auspices of white supremacy) at the expense of the interests & power of the masses of black people. At the end of the day, we want the interests of the masses of black people (especially poor black people) to be fully represented. That agenda from Jesse Jackson mixes legitimate items with pro-Wall Street rhetoric. Wall Street was involved in our modern economic recession. Many of their members are criminals and our people should realize that Wall Street should be exposed as corrupt and greedy. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had agreements and disagreements with Jesse Jackson when he was alive. Dr. King disagreed with Stalinist Communist, but he was notoriously anti-capitalist. That is why many Americans have been so brainwashed and indoctrinated by poor education and the corporate media that some feel that you either have to be a capitalist or a communist in your economic views. Dr. King disagreed with Marx's atheistic materialism philosophically, but he realized that Marx had many things correct on his critiques of capitalism. The following words accurately describe Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s views on economics. "This was, for most of us, our first trip to Scandinavia...We felt we had much to learn from Scandinavia's democratic socialist tradition."(AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., p. 259). While I don't have It with me as present, you can find in King's papers an address to the SCLC stating that he thought that America would also have to move toward some form of democratic socialism. In the AUTOBIOGRAPY he speaks of his "anti-capitalist sentiments" (p. 2). In a July 18, 1952 letter to Coretta, King writes "I am much more socialistic in my in my economic theory than capitalistic...[T]oday capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes." That letter appears in the King Papers, but is included on p.36 of the AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Yet, we should not degrade Jesse Jackson in an evil way. Jesse is not perfect, but even he sacrificed his life for the struggle of freedom. There are many folks who talk about Jesse Jackson that didn't do a single thing to enrich the lives of black people. It is just that we have to advocate an end to imperialism, the maintenance of our democratic rights, confront oppression facing workers & the poor, and seek human justice. In order for us to have economic empowerment and self-determination, then we have to use transcendence of capitalism itself. Black owned enterprises can improve our situation, especially if they exist as democratic cooperatives. Democratic cooperatives allow the AVERAGE person can play a bigger role in securing his/her well-being and that of the community. There should be a radical redistribution and economic and political power.
Hurricane Katrina was a terrible event. The elite used racism, gentrification, and class warfare to attack the people of New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. FEMA's Michael Brown did a poor job in the affairs including the mayor, the governor, and the President. Now, we are discussing about race, gentrification, policing, housing, and education. New Orleans is a very old location that had many people in it early on in the United States since it was populated by free black citizens as early as the 1730's. New Orleans's black culture then and now is special. Now, we see more of the truth. There has been the charter school takeover of the New Orleans school system, the firing of thousands of teachers and their replacement with Teach for America workers. There has been the tearing down of the city's public housing and them mismanagement of federal aid. There has been the mismanagement of the Road Home Program, which is a federally funded, state administered program. We witness the whole neoliberal agenda that harmed New Orleans in many areas. The rescues of the victims were militarized. Many people were on rooftops surrounded by water. Many of the victims were slandered by the corporate media as looters, murderers, and thugs. Then-Governor Kathleen Blanco announced, “I’m sending in National Guard troops, they’re locked and loaded, they’ve been trained to shoot to kill, and I expect they will.” Police were given orders to “take the city back,” and armed vigilante groups roamed parts of the city. In the following days, police shot and killed unarmed civilians on Danziger Bridge, at a shopping center in the Algiers neighborhood, at the New Orleans Convention Center, and other locations. It was not until 2009 that the media (and federal investigators) were suddenly interested in these post-Katrina killings. A dozen officers have been convicted for their role in the killings and subsequent cover-ups. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has called Hurricane Katrina "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans.” That was a perverted statement to say the least. Now, we see the many residents left homeless and some of the protests that tried to prevent the demolitions. Even the show Treme documents the reality of the fight for improvement in New Orleans from housing rights to educational rights. The show even shows a police department rife with corruption and officers literally getting away with murder. So, Treme is a type of work that should be analyzed and respected for its realistic portrayal of New Orleans. There is nothing wrong with advocating REVOLUTIONARY and PROGRESSIVE change in the world.
By Timothy
No comments:
Post a Comment