Among Americans who might otherwise be considered "white", there was more support for the Movement from Jews than from any other group of whites. That may even be true today But the picture is more complicated than it seems. Dr. King noted that especially in northern Black communities, Blacks encountered Jews both as exploiters (e.g. Jewish slumlords) and as allies (Jewish activists and intellectuals who supported the Movement). I've seen this here in Baltimore since I was a child. Interestingly enough, the strike by Memphis sanitation workers in 1968 revealed two Jewish men in BOTH roles. Mayor Loeb who sought to crush the Black strikers, and Jerry Wurf of AFSCME, who supported the sanitation workers AGAINST Loeb administration until the very end. In a sense these two men represented the two most common roles of Jews in their relation to the Black community. But as I' ve long noted, among progressive whites who have supported Black freedom movements, and other progressive movements, there is a larger representation of Jews than of any other group of whites. And yes, I've read that this was also the case in South Africa. And I heard Nelson Mandela say as much while he was here in the USA.
-Savant
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Do you know that when Dr. arrived in Birmingham (as INVITATION of Rev. Shuttleworth) to help lead the famous Birmingham campaign of 1963, that it was members of local Black capitalist clique which tried to dissuade him, that tried to get him to leave Birmingham and no organize a Movement? Rumor has it that Condeleeza Rice's dad were among those trying to get King to abandon the Movement in Birmingham, Alabama. Had he listened to them there would probably have been no March on Washington and no civil rights bill of 1964 Even back in the 1960s our elite weren't but so reliable. I suspect they're LESS--far less--trustworthy now. Rely on the MASSES if you want to move forward.
-Savant
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Dr. Martin Luther King was a brother who LOVED the masses of the people. He was committed to the ordinary worker, the poor, the underprivileged. He called them "the disinherited CHILDREN OF GOD." You'd never hear him refer to the poor as "hood___. " Yet he was a middle class brother with a high level of education. How so UNLIKE our contemporary Black elite was he, Paul Robeson committed himself to the struggles of his people. He sacrificed a $200,000 a year career while fighting for the freedom of his people. Can you imagine what that kind of money was in the 1940s & 50s? Angela Davis was a middle class sister from Birmingham, AL. While teaching at UCLA and COMPLETING her doctoral thesis on Kant's theory of violence she became involved with the Black Panther Party---a revolutionary movement rooted in the ghettoes---and indeed got in trouble with her job, and later with the law, especially after involving herself in the case of the Soledad Brothers Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael) was a middle class brother studying Philosophy (and eventually earning a degree) when he got involved in the Movement in Mississippi as a member of SNCC. Bob Moses, an educator with a M.A.in Philosophy and Mathematics, quite a comfortable job in NYC to join the movement in Mississippi. He became a leading voice in the Mississippi Freedom Summer campaign of 1964. I can name numerous others. Black men and women who were educated men and women of the middle and upper classes who were in solidarity with the poor---sometimes the poor of all races. They all could have become more comfortable and more wealthy had they pursued only their own private desires and class interests. But they pursued higher and nobler ideals. But can we find such privileged class Blacks TODAY? Listening to a speech by Dr. King (around about 1966 or 67) I heard him say that there must be a joining of hands of "the Negro haves and the Negro have-nots." And some of you may know that he gave his life in a final campaign to win economic justice for impoverished Black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Or that he was planning to lead a multiracial Poor Peoples Campaign for economic justice, and an Economic Bill of Rights in Washington, DC. But after his death, our Black middle and upper classes dropped the ball--to their eternal shame. Perhaps the Black masses must move on without the elite, an elite which contemptuously regards them (as do white racists) a "criminal ", low class "hood___. " Our CLASS CONTRADICTIONS can no longer be ignored or played down.
-Savant
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I'm more worried about the prison industrial complex than about race mixing. We have more sisters and brother in the slammer than in IR relations or marriages. We have more folk trapped in an iron cage of destitution than are in IR relationships. It is these things, not IR relations, which pose a real threat to our existence as a people.
-Savant
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Even Blacks who are disappointed with Obama will still object to the racist vilification of Obama by the Right. Even Cornel West, who has RECEIVED much negative reaction from the Black community for his severe critiques of Obama, take exception when he sees Obama being demonized. I agree with much of Cornel West's critique of Obama, and much of the critique by Chomsky as well. In fact, I'm quite PISSSED with Obama for reasons I can explain if anyone is interested. But I am DOUBLY PISSED at his reactionary enemies.
-Savant
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A war on Black men would be a war on Black women, and a war on Black women would be a war on Black men. You can't destroy one half of a people--male or female--without destroying the WHOLE people. Whoever can't see that is a DUNCE.
-Savant
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Hillary Clinton might be our next President!
If that happens I will hold my nose (have a stiff drink, but not too much) and press the button for the jive a___ Democrat. The Republicans have moved so far to the right that a VOTE for them is virtually a vote for fascism. Problems is that the difference between the Democrats and Republicans is becoming smaller and smaller. We need an ALTERNATIVE, a non-corporate, progressive, antiracist and anti-plutocratic alternative. A party of the people, of the poor and working people, a party which defends the rights of racial minorities and women. That we don't have.
-Savant
Not by Me: I won't vote for Hillary, but every other word that he wrote is true.
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