Courtesy of Prometheus6.org.
I really like this speech. It's rare that I agree with every word that proceeds from Barack Obama's mouth. Even during his speech to the NAACP. Didn't like everything I heard. But this is one time where I have to cheer and concur every word he says.
Now, let me say to any white person who happens across my blog. All African Americans want is equality. All we want is justice. That helps everybody. That helps all of us. And it's time that you stop letting those like the ones who've plunged us into this financial crisis take advantage of your racial "resentment" to keep you down, too.
Showing posts with label Equality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Equality. Show all posts
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Voter Suppression in Mississippi
Still At It
Posted by dday
Hullabaloo
August 22, 2008.
http://www.digbysblog.blogspot.com/
This time, in Mississippi.
We often chronicle the voter suppression and
intimidation machinations from the right. There's also
the use of US Attorneys to investigate Democrats at
fortunate times for their Republican opponents. Despite
the high-profile nature of the Don Siegelman case and
others, this element of the Republican machine hasn't
been shut down. In fact, it's in full force in a Senate
race in Mississippi.
As federal courtwatchers wonder if the Mississippi Beef
Plant investigation will entangle Senate candidate
Ronnie Musgrove, a Federal Election Commission check
shows U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee contributed to his
opponent.
Greenlee was nominated for the U.S. attorney post in
2001 by President George W. Bush, supported by
Mississippi Sens. Thad Cochran and Trent Lott.
On Oct. 11, 2002 - just weeks before then-U.S. Rep.
Roger Wicker won another term in Congress - Greenlee
made a donation of $200 to Friends of Roger Wicker [...]
In U.S. District Court, where Greenlee is the chief
prosecutor, two Georgia company executives recently
pleaded guilty to making an illegal campaign
contribution to then-Gov. Musgrove's 2003 re-election
campaign. They admitted they hoped to ask Musgrove for
help as they realized the Mississippi Beef Plant
construction project was in trouble.
The project ultimately failed, leaving hundreds of
people out of work and the state of Mississippi holding
the bag on millions of loan guarantees. Two men have
gone to prison on related fraud charges.
However, Musgrove has not been indicted and repeatedly
insists he did nothing wrong.
Scott Horton has taken notice of this one, as it shares
similarities with the Siegelman case that he's been
following closely - a former Democratic governor in the
Deep South, a Republican operative masquerading as a US
Attorney, and trumped-up charges designed to take down
Musgrove. These executives plead guilty to the illegal
contributions in a plea deal:
The three, all executives with The Facility Group of
Smyrna, Ga., were largely left off the hook on the more
serious charges that they had swindled the state out of
at least $2 million and had left the plant's vendors and
contractors holding the bag. Instead, they were allowed
in a plea bargain to confess to trying to buy influence
with Musgrove by steering $25,000 to the then-governor's
unsuccessful re-election campaign in 2003.
The orchestrated guilty pleas - and the prosecutors'
suggestion that more indictments could be forthcoming -
are a boon to the campaign of Republican Roger Wicker,
who was appointed to the vacant Senate seat in December
but is considered vulnerable. They leave a cloud over
Musgrove in voters' minds and provide more fodder for
negative campaign ads from the G.O.P. camp, even though
Musgrove has not been charged with any wrongdoing and
there's nothing in the court records to document he did
anything illegal.
Well, maybe we can get somebody over at the Justice
Department to investigate. Or I know, an independent
body like the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights! Anyone
know any of their new hires?
It looks like Hans von Spakovsky, an old TPM favorite,
is back in business. The former Justice Department
official, whose nomination to the Federal Election
Commission (FEC) was thwarted when Democrats objected to
his long record of support for restrictions on voting
rights, has been hired as a "consultant and temporary
full-time employee" at the ostensibly bi-partisan U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) the agency confirmed
to TPMmuckraker [...]
Among Spakovsky's duties will be overseeing the USCCR's
report on the Justice Department's monitoring of the
2008 presidential elections, a source inside the USCCR
told TPMmuckraker.
Spakovsky's hiring is at the request of Commissioner
Todd Gaziano, who works for the conservative Heritage
Foundation on FEC issues and has defended Spakovsky in
the press before. According to a federal government
source, Gaziano has recommended Spakovsky at the
government's highest payscale -- which would work out to
about $124,010 annually if Spakovsky was to stay for an
entire year.
Looks like we're in good hands.
_____________________________________________
Posted by dday
Hullabaloo
August 22, 2008.
http://www.digbysblog.blogspot.com/
This time, in Mississippi.
We often chronicle the voter suppression and
intimidation machinations from the right. There's also
the use of US Attorneys to investigate Democrats at
fortunate times for their Republican opponents. Despite
the high-profile nature of the Don Siegelman case and
others, this element of the Republican machine hasn't
been shut down. In fact, it's in full force in a Senate
race in Mississippi.
As federal courtwatchers wonder if the Mississippi Beef
Plant investigation will entangle Senate candidate
Ronnie Musgrove, a Federal Election Commission check
shows U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee contributed to his
opponent.
Greenlee was nominated for the U.S. attorney post in
2001 by President George W. Bush, supported by
Mississippi Sens. Thad Cochran and Trent Lott.
On Oct. 11, 2002 - just weeks before then-U.S. Rep.
Roger Wicker won another term in Congress - Greenlee
made a donation of $200 to Friends of Roger Wicker [...]
In U.S. District Court, where Greenlee is the chief
prosecutor, two Georgia company executives recently
pleaded guilty to making an illegal campaign
contribution to then-Gov. Musgrove's 2003 re-election
campaign. They admitted they hoped to ask Musgrove for
help as they realized the Mississippi Beef Plant
construction project was in trouble.
The project ultimately failed, leaving hundreds of
people out of work and the state of Mississippi holding
the bag on millions of loan guarantees. Two men have
gone to prison on related fraud charges.
However, Musgrove has not been indicted and repeatedly
insists he did nothing wrong.
Scott Horton has taken notice of this one, as it shares
similarities with the Siegelman case that he's been
following closely - a former Democratic governor in the
Deep South, a Republican operative masquerading as a US
Attorney, and trumped-up charges designed to take down
Musgrove. These executives plead guilty to the illegal
contributions in a plea deal:
The three, all executives with The Facility Group of
Smyrna, Ga., were largely left off the hook on the more
serious charges that they had swindled the state out of
at least $2 million and had left the plant's vendors and
contractors holding the bag. Instead, they were allowed
in a plea bargain to confess to trying to buy influence
with Musgrove by steering $25,000 to the then-governor's
unsuccessful re-election campaign in 2003.
The orchestrated guilty pleas - and the prosecutors'
suggestion that more indictments could be forthcoming -
are a boon to the campaign of Republican Roger Wicker,
who was appointed to the vacant Senate seat in December
but is considered vulnerable. They leave a cloud over
Musgrove in voters' minds and provide more fodder for
negative campaign ads from the G.O.P. camp, even though
Musgrove has not been charged with any wrongdoing and
there's nothing in the court records to document he did
anything illegal.
Well, maybe we can get somebody over at the Justice
Department to investigate. Or I know, an independent
body like the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights! Anyone
know any of their new hires?
It looks like Hans von Spakovsky, an old TPM favorite,
is back in business. The former Justice Department
official, whose nomination to the Federal Election
Commission (FEC) was thwarted when Democrats objected to
his long record of support for restrictions on voting
rights, has been hired as a "consultant and temporary
full-time employee" at the ostensibly bi-partisan U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) the agency confirmed
to TPMmuckraker [...]
Among Spakovsky's duties will be overseeing the USCCR's
report on the Justice Department's monitoring of the
2008 presidential elections, a source inside the USCCR
told TPMmuckraker.
Spakovsky's hiring is at the request of Commissioner
Todd Gaziano, who works for the conservative Heritage
Foundation on FEC issues and has defended Spakovsky in
the press before. According to a federal government
source, Gaziano has recommended Spakovsky at the
government's highest payscale -- which would work out to
about $124,010 annually if Spakovsky was to stay for an
entire year.
Looks like we're in good hands.
_____________________________________________
The More Things Change . . .
In my estimation, this article details the historic tension between white feminists and feminists of color. It's why so many white women could only see history being made by Hillary Clinton and could ignore the history being made by Barack Obama. Is why when someone decides to play a game of whose most oppressed, white women always cry about black men being given the right to vote before they were, never mind that black women couldn't vote, and black men's voting rights were complicated eradicated by the time white women got to vote. There are some white feminist would drop all other issues relating to nonwhite women altogether.
1921: Alice Paul Pulls the Strings
By Freda Kirchwey
This article appeared in the March 2, 1921 edition of The Nation.
July 31, 2008
Women won the right to vote in 1919, but African-American women continue to be disenfranchised. At the National Women's Party convention in 1921, their pleas for representation were rebuffed by suffragist leader Alice Paul. The Nation's outraged correspondent Freda Kirchway reports.
The spirit of the National Woman's Party convention at Washington last week was summed up in two striking sentences. Said a disheartened delegate after the last day's session: "This is the machine age." Said one of the leaders of the Party to another delegate who tried to plead for a free consideration of a real program: "At a convention human intelligence reaches its lowest ebb."
That was what it amounted to; the leaders acted on the theory of an amiable contempt for their followers; the rank and file, either cynically or enthusiastically, watched the wishes of the leaders become the law of the convention. With quiet precision the Woman's Party machine--a veritable tank--rolled over the assembly, crushing protestants of all sorts, leaving the way clear--for what? If anyone left the convention with a distinct idea of what the Party will do now that it has solemnly disbanded and solemnly reorganized, it is, perhaps, Alice Paul and the Executive Committee and some members of the Advisory Council and a few State chairmen. The rank and file, not realizing that their intelligence was at a low ebb, are vaguely disappointed. They do not know what their party will do; they only know that no action was taken in behalf of the Negro women, who have not yet got the vote in spite of the Nineteenth Amendment; that birth control and maternity endowment and most of the questions that stir the minds of modern women were ignored; that disarmament was ruled out; and that the program finally adopted--the majority report of the resolutions committee--declared vaguely against "legal disabilities" and for "equality" leaving the future definition of those terms and their translation into action to the executive board. The only specific application of the word equality appeared in the demand that it be "won and maintained in any association of nations that may be established"!
It may, of course, be asserted that since this mild and hypothetical program was adopted by a vote of the convention it was therefore the will of the convention, but one is forced to wonder whether the result would have been the same if a dissenting delegate or a minority committeeman had presented the winning report, and if Alice Paul's program had included disarmament or birth control or the enfranchisement of Negro women. I, for one, would back Miss Paul's chances on either side she chose to support. When the minority report recommending disarmament was before the house it was opposed vehemently by several ardent militarists of the order who declare: "I am as much against war as anybody in this room, but when the world is on fire . . . " From the point of view of the leaders this opposition was undesirable; the majority report would only be weakened by militarist adherents. Presently the floor was taken by a well-known pacifist who set herself squarely on the side of immediate, complete disarmament and then proceeded on other grounds to an effective attack on the disarmament program. Later in the day this same pacifist--who is also a radical and a feminist--had a program of her own in the field in opposition to the majority report. This new dissenting program was specific. It demanded, in addition to the removal of the legal disabilities of women, the rewriting of the existing laws of marriage, divorce, guardianship; and sexual morality on a basis of equality; the abolition of illegitimacy; the establishment of motherhood endowment and of the legal right of a woman who chooses homemaking as her profession to an equal share in the family income; the repeal of all laws against the dissemination of information regarding birth control.
These proposals were sternly opposed by the machine. The leaders declared that such a program was too vague; they declared that it was too definite; they declared that it was too comprehensive; they claimed that the majority program could be interpreted to include all those demands and more besides. But in expounding the majority program they were cautious; not one of the leaders specifically stated, for example, that it should be interpreted to cover the question of birth control. "And after all, that's the acid test," said one of the younger delegates. The new program received the support of a few of the less orthodox members of the Advisory Council, but its most persuasive advocates were among the young Party workers who charged that the majority report offered no more inspiration than the programs of other women's organizations which they had long been trained to look down upon as cautious, respectable, dull. Again the leaders were worried; they couldn't let the idea get about that only middle-aged respectability stood for the majority report. And presently a couple of the younger workers rose from their seats and opposed the radical program and swore by all the suffrage prophets that the majority report offered inspiration enough for any feminist. And it was well known to those who hung about in the lobby or watched the play from the wings, that Alice Paul had spoken the word necessary to make the pacifist oppose disarmament and the young radicals oppose the radical program.
Some day the story of the working of the National Women's Party machine will be told. It will be an interesting story, full of strange contradictions. It will tell of valiant self-sacrifice and magnificent defiance coupled with an incongruous willingness to appeal to the tradition of feminine weakness. It will be full of idealism and steadfast purpose and yet of a readiness to use any trick or pretense that might bring that purpose nearer to fulfillment. It will tell of independence and individual heroism existing side by side with obedience bordering on subservience. It will show sympathy and ruthlessness walking together. But that story cannot be written until the people who know it get out from under the spell of the Alice Paul legend. Today any attempt would be futile.
The efforts--finally successful--of the birth control advocates to secure a chance to speak at the convention would form an amusing chapter of that story. At the second day's session representatives of women's organizations with legislative programs made brief addresses stating their aims. Even old-time enemies of the Woman's Party were given a place. For weeks before the convention the head of the Voluntary Parenthood League had been in correspondence with the Party leaders demanding her chance to be heard. First the leaders refused, then they demurred, finally they surrendered; but their written objections to the presence of this organization on the platform of the convention were redolent with the faint fragrance of Victorian delicacy and reserve.
The efforts--wholly unsuccessful--of the representatives of the colored women would form a tragic chapter of the same story. A delegation of sixty women sent by colored women's organizations in fourteen States arrived in Washington several days before the convention. They requested an interview with Alice Paul so that they might take up with her the question of the disfranchisement of the women of their race. They were told Miss Paul was too busy to see them. They said they would wait till she had time. Finally, grudgingly, she yielded. The colored women presented their case in the form of a dignified memorial--which read as follows:
The attitude of Alice Paul and her supporters toward these disturbers of the peace--Negro women and birth control advocates alike--was the attitude of all established authorities. "Why do these people harass us?" asked Miss Paul. "Why do they want to spoil our convention?" The answer, that never occurred to her, was this: "For the very same reason that made you disturb the peace and harass the authorities in your peculiarly effective and irritating way: because they want to further the cause they believe in."
In the lobby, among the futile opponents of the machine, there was much discussion of the cause of their leaders' hostility to all that was new and clear-cut. The great fighting issue was gone; if the organization was to continue it must turn its attention to other issues and work for them one at a time or several together, not only in Congress but in the States. Would the leaders evolve out of their vague program an issue which they could again attack with military precision and on which they could hope again to raise their disciplined volunteer army? Would they justify their tactics, as they had so often done before, by the brilliant success of their results? Or were they only greedy of power, eager to hold the final decision close in their own hands, unwilling to trust to the desires of their followers? Or were they, perhaps, only half awake to the fulness of life? Absorbed in a task of immense proportions, for years they had forfeited, as soldiers must, the common enterprises of life--love, marriage, children, the economic struggle. Had they thereby lost touch with the plain demands of modern women who are more interested in their opportunities for personal expansion and economic freedom and the right to bear children when they choose than they are in the presence of women in the councils of an unborn or dying League of Nations? The opponents of the machine never decided those questions; the Alice Paul legend hung too closely over them and its phrases sounded in their ears through the closed doors of the convention hall.
Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
About Freda KirchweyFreda Kirchwey was a former managing editor, literary editor, editor and, ultimately, publisher of The Nation. She died in 1976.
1921: Alice Paul Pulls the Strings
By Freda Kirchwey
This article appeared in the March 2, 1921 edition of The Nation.
July 31, 2008
Women won the right to vote in 1919, but African-American women continue to be disenfranchised. At the National Women's Party convention in 1921, their pleas for representation were rebuffed by suffragist leader Alice Paul. The Nation's outraged correspondent Freda Kirchway reports.
The spirit of the National Woman's Party convention at Washington last week was summed up in two striking sentences. Said a disheartened delegate after the last day's session: "This is the machine age." Said one of the leaders of the Party to another delegate who tried to plead for a free consideration of a real program: "At a convention human intelligence reaches its lowest ebb."
That was what it amounted to; the leaders acted on the theory of an amiable contempt for their followers; the rank and file, either cynically or enthusiastically, watched the wishes of the leaders become the law of the convention. With quiet precision the Woman's Party machine--a veritable tank--rolled over the assembly, crushing protestants of all sorts, leaving the way clear--for what? If anyone left the convention with a distinct idea of what the Party will do now that it has solemnly disbanded and solemnly reorganized, it is, perhaps, Alice Paul and the Executive Committee and some members of the Advisory Council and a few State chairmen. The rank and file, not realizing that their intelligence was at a low ebb, are vaguely disappointed. They do not know what their party will do; they only know that no action was taken in behalf of the Negro women, who have not yet got the vote in spite of the Nineteenth Amendment; that birth control and maternity endowment and most of the questions that stir the minds of modern women were ignored; that disarmament was ruled out; and that the program finally adopted--the majority report of the resolutions committee--declared vaguely against "legal disabilities" and for "equality" leaving the future definition of those terms and their translation into action to the executive board. The only specific application of the word equality appeared in the demand that it be "won and maintained in any association of nations that may be established"!
It may, of course, be asserted that since this mild and hypothetical program was adopted by a vote of the convention it was therefore the will of the convention, but one is forced to wonder whether the result would have been the same if a dissenting delegate or a minority committeeman had presented the winning report, and if Alice Paul's program had included disarmament or birth control or the enfranchisement of Negro women. I, for one, would back Miss Paul's chances on either side she chose to support. When the minority report recommending disarmament was before the house it was opposed vehemently by several ardent militarists of the order who declare: "I am as much against war as anybody in this room, but when the world is on fire . . . " From the point of view of the leaders this opposition was undesirable; the majority report would only be weakened by militarist adherents. Presently the floor was taken by a well-known pacifist who set herself squarely on the side of immediate, complete disarmament and then proceeded on other grounds to an effective attack on the disarmament program. Later in the day this same pacifist--who is also a radical and a feminist--had a program of her own in the field in opposition to the majority report. This new dissenting program was specific. It demanded, in addition to the removal of the legal disabilities of women, the rewriting of the existing laws of marriage, divorce, guardianship; and sexual morality on a basis of equality; the abolition of illegitimacy; the establishment of motherhood endowment and of the legal right of a woman who chooses homemaking as her profession to an equal share in the family income; the repeal of all laws against the dissemination of information regarding birth control.
These proposals were sternly opposed by the machine. The leaders declared that such a program was too vague; they declared that it was too definite; they declared that it was too comprehensive; they claimed that the majority program could be interpreted to include all those demands and more besides. But in expounding the majority program they were cautious; not one of the leaders specifically stated, for example, that it should be interpreted to cover the question of birth control. "And after all, that's the acid test," said one of the younger delegates. The new program received the support of a few of the less orthodox members of the Advisory Council, but its most persuasive advocates were among the young Party workers who charged that the majority report offered no more inspiration than the programs of other women's organizations which they had long been trained to look down upon as cautious, respectable, dull. Again the leaders were worried; they couldn't let the idea get about that only middle-aged respectability stood for the majority report. And presently a couple of the younger workers rose from their seats and opposed the radical program and swore by all the suffrage prophets that the majority report offered inspiration enough for any feminist. And it was well known to those who hung about in the lobby or watched the play from the wings, that Alice Paul had spoken the word necessary to make the pacifist oppose disarmament and the young radicals oppose the radical program.
Some day the story of the working of the National Women's Party machine will be told. It will be an interesting story, full of strange contradictions. It will tell of valiant self-sacrifice and magnificent defiance coupled with an incongruous willingness to appeal to the tradition of feminine weakness. It will be full of idealism and steadfast purpose and yet of a readiness to use any trick or pretense that might bring that purpose nearer to fulfillment. It will tell of independence and individual heroism existing side by side with obedience bordering on subservience. It will show sympathy and ruthlessness walking together. But that story cannot be written until the people who know it get out from under the spell of the Alice Paul legend. Today any attempt would be futile.
The efforts--finally successful--of the birth control advocates to secure a chance to speak at the convention would form an amusing chapter of that story. At the second day's session representatives of women's organizations with legislative programs made brief addresses stating their aims. Even old-time enemies of the Woman's Party were given a place. For weeks before the convention the head of the Voluntary Parenthood League had been in correspondence with the Party leaders demanding her chance to be heard. First the leaders refused, then they demurred, finally they surrendered; but their written objections to the presence of this organization on the platform of the convention were redolent with the faint fragrance of Victorian delicacy and reserve.
The efforts--wholly unsuccessful--of the representatives of the colored women would form a tragic chapter of the same story. A delegation of sixty women sent by colored women's organizations in fourteen States arrived in Washington several days before the convention. They requested an interview with Alice Paul so that they might take up with her the question of the disfranchisement of the women of their race. They were told Miss Paul was too busy to see them. They said they would wait till she had time. Finally, grudgingly, she yielded. The colored women presented their case in the form of a dignified memorial--which read as follows:
We have come here as members of various organizations and from different sections representing the five million colored women of this country. We are deeply appreciative of the heroic devotion of the National Woman's Party to the women's suffrage movement and of the tremendous sacrifices made under your leadership in securing the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.Miss Paul was indifferent to this appeal and resented the presence of the delegation. Their chance of being heard at the convention was gone. A Southern organizer told the one active supporter of the colored women--a white woman and a delegate from New York--that the Women's Party was pledged not to raise the race issue in the South; that this was the price it paid for ratification. But no such sinister motive is necessary to explain the treatment of the colored delegation; they were simply an interruption, an obstacle to the smooth working of the machine. Their leading members were not allowed to ride in the elevators of the Hotel Washington where the convention was held, until finally they made a stand for their rights. And only by the use of tactics bordering on Alice Paul's own for vigor and persistence, did their spokesman--the delegate from New York--get a moment to present a resolution in their behalf-a resolution which was promptly defeated and which left the question precisely where it stood.
We revere the names of the pioneers to whom you will do honor while here, not only because they believed in the inherent rights of women, but of humanity at large, and gave themselves to the fight against slavery in the United States.
The world has moved forward in these seventy years and the colored women of this country have been moving with it. They know the value of the ballot, if honestly used, to right the wrongs of any class. Knowing this, they have also come today to call your attention to the flagrant violations of the intent and purposes of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in the elections of 1920. These violations occurred in the Southern States, where is to be found the great mass of colored women, and it has not been made secret that wherever white women did not use the ballot, it was counted worthwhile to relinquish it in order that it might be denied colored women.
Complete evidence of violations of the Nineteenth Amendment could be obtained only by Federal investigation. There is, however, sufficient evidence available to justify a demand for such an inquiry. We are handing you herewith a pamphlet with verified cases of the disfranchisement of our women.
The National Woman's Party stands in the forefront of the organizations that have undergone all the pains of travail to bring into existence the Nineteenth Amendment. We can not then believe that you will permit this amendment to be so distorted in its interpretation that it shall lose its power and effectiveness. Five million women in the United States can not be denied their rights without all the women of the United States feeling the effect of that denial. No women are free until all are free.
Therefore, we are assembled to ask that you will use your influence to have the convention of the National Woman's Party appoint a special committee to ask Congress for an investigation of the violations of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in the elections of 1920.
The attitude of Alice Paul and her supporters toward these disturbers of the peace--Negro women and birth control advocates alike--was the attitude of all established authorities. "Why do these people harass us?" asked Miss Paul. "Why do they want to spoil our convention?" The answer, that never occurred to her, was this: "For the very same reason that made you disturb the peace and harass the authorities in your peculiarly effective and irritating way: because they want to further the cause they believe in."
In the lobby, among the futile opponents of the machine, there was much discussion of the cause of their leaders' hostility to all that was new and clear-cut. The great fighting issue was gone; if the organization was to continue it must turn its attention to other issues and work for them one at a time or several together, not only in Congress but in the States. Would the leaders evolve out of their vague program an issue which they could again attack with military precision and on which they could hope again to raise their disciplined volunteer army? Would they justify their tactics, as they had so often done before, by the brilliant success of their results? Or were they only greedy of power, eager to hold the final decision close in their own hands, unwilling to trust to the desires of their followers? Or were they, perhaps, only half awake to the fulness of life? Absorbed in a task of immense proportions, for years they had forfeited, as soldiers must, the common enterprises of life--love, marriage, children, the economic struggle. Had they thereby lost touch with the plain demands of modern women who are more interested in their opportunities for personal expansion and economic freedom and the right to bear children when they choose than they are in the presence of women in the councils of an unborn or dying League of Nations? The opponents of the machine never decided those questions; the Alice Paul legend hung too closely over them and its phrases sounded in their ears through the closed doors of the convention hall.
Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
About Freda KirchweyFreda Kirchwey was a former managing editor, literary editor, editor and, ultimately, publisher of The Nation. She died in 1976.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Slavery Wasn't Abolished in Actuality Until 1951
I have a lot on my mind. Bill Clinton's, "I never made a racist comment." Geraldine Ferraro's lame notion that if Barack Obama chooses any woman besides Hillary Clinton, it will be an insult to both Hillary Clinton and her supporters. I wrote about that a couple of days ago.
I'm also thinking about Obama's lead in a recent poll with the white working-class. I also wonder how long Pat Buchanan will be treated like a respectable voice on politics, race, and the politics of race. Video on all that below. Perhaps I'll post about that later. And I did see the phallic symbols. And white people don't always "see" racism.
What I know I'll address is this complaint from Republicans that they can't criticize Obama and engage in regular political discussion because any criticism of Obama leads to charges of racism. That complaint is unfounded, and I will certainly take it apart later. But for now, I have another issue on my mind.
What's on my mind is the fact that slavery wasn't really abolished until 1951, when Congress finally made clear that "any form of slavery in the United States was indisputable a crime" (Douglas A Blackmon. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. New York: Doubleday, 2008.) The forms of slavery engaged in at the time, and by slavery I mean illegally enforced involuntary servitude, included peonage and the chain gangs. It included the illegal use of the justice system whereby a black man would be charged with some crime he either didn't commit or committed simply by virtue of being black and out in public; then he'd be charged with all kinds of fines he couldn't pay; a white man would pay the fines and have the black man as essentially a slave to work off his "debt." Then the so-called prisoners would be beaten and whipped and forced to live in condemnable conditions all the while chained. If a prisoner died, no one was charged with murder. Even if it were clearly murder.
Then there's the rape and sexual abuse of black women. White men felt access to black women's bodies was a birthright and used it frequently. With their lives being economically dependent on white men and no legal or extralegal recourse, neither the black women nor their families were in a place to fight back much. A preacher was even killed because he encouraged black women to say, "No" (ibid. 243).
Yes, the North had its issues. There were lynchings and redlining. But, there was no slavery. That's why so many African Americans left the South like children leaving school at the end of the year. The "Jim Crow" era would be better called "the age of Neoslavery." That's Blackmon's idea, but I like it.
That may not be of great concern to you. But it's something that always got to me. Before, questions about the Great Migration and the difference between the North and South would essentially end with the notion that Northern whites were equally racist as Southern whites, but on the whole, Northern racism was easier to deal with. But now, I know that Northern racism was easier to deal with because it wouldn't lead to forced labor. Of course, there remained the sexual abuse of domestic workers. But, there was no slavery.
I'll have more about Blackmon's book in the coming days. I don't know if I'll be writing a book review so much as I'll be going about my usual rants with more evidence.
I'm also thinking about Obama's lead in a recent poll with the white working-class. I also wonder how long Pat Buchanan will be treated like a respectable voice on politics, race, and the politics of race. Video on all that below. Perhaps I'll post about that later. And I did see the phallic symbols. And white people don't always "see" racism.
What I know I'll address is this complaint from Republicans that they can't criticize Obama and engage in regular political discussion because any criticism of Obama leads to charges of racism. That complaint is unfounded, and I will certainly take it apart later. But for now, I have another issue on my mind.
What's on my mind is the fact that slavery wasn't really abolished until 1951, when Congress finally made clear that "any form of slavery in the United States was indisputable a crime" (Douglas A Blackmon. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. New York: Doubleday, 2008.) The forms of slavery engaged in at the time, and by slavery I mean illegally enforced involuntary servitude, included peonage and the chain gangs. It included the illegal use of the justice system whereby a black man would be charged with some crime he either didn't commit or committed simply by virtue of being black and out in public; then he'd be charged with all kinds of fines he couldn't pay; a white man would pay the fines and have the black man as essentially a slave to work off his "debt." Then the so-called prisoners would be beaten and whipped and forced to live in condemnable conditions all the while chained. If a prisoner died, no one was charged with murder. Even if it were clearly murder.
Then there's the rape and sexual abuse of black women. White men felt access to black women's bodies was a birthright and used it frequently. With their lives being economically dependent on white men and no legal or extralegal recourse, neither the black women nor their families were in a place to fight back much. A preacher was even killed because he encouraged black women to say, "No" (ibid. 243).
Yes, the North had its issues. There were lynchings and redlining. But, there was no slavery. That's why so many African Americans left the South like children leaving school at the end of the year. The "Jim Crow" era would be better called "the age of Neoslavery." That's Blackmon's idea, but I like it.
That may not be of great concern to you. But it's something that always got to me. Before, questions about the Great Migration and the difference between the North and South would essentially end with the notion that Northern whites were equally racist as Southern whites, but on the whole, Northern racism was easier to deal with. But now, I know that Northern racism was easier to deal with because it wouldn't lead to forced labor. Of course, there remained the sexual abuse of domestic workers. But, there was no slavery.
I'll have more about Blackmon's book in the coming days. I don't know if I'll be writing a book review so much as I'll be going about my usual rants with more evidence.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
A Cop Kills an Unarmed Woman Because He Heard Shots?!
Are you kidding me? Really? You hear shots so you shoot at the woman holding a baby? Are you kidding me?!
The jury to hear the case is all white. I hope more facts come out, but it's hard not to jump to conclusions. Cause the first paragraph and title says the cop heard shots. In the story, he saw movement and fired at the second floor of the house after dogs had been released from a bedroom on the first floor. You really need to read the story below.
And whatever you decide, let me remind you that this comes just two days after a white man went into a church, killing 2, wounding 6, over the church's liberal views, and he's still alive! This comes the week after CNN's Black in America special. I wasn't particularly impressed by the special, but Lord! When are we going to have a special on white people, their pathologies - including but not limited to cops killing innocent, unarmed black people with impunity - and privileges - including but not limited to the fact that no white man was to worry that others may see him as another Jim D. Adkisson - White in America?
E-spitting? Naw. I'm just plain old pissed.
Defense: Officer who killed bystander heard shots
By JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press Writer
LIMA, Ohio - A white police officer accused of fatally shooting an unarmed black woman holding her 1-year-old son thought he was being fired upon by a drug dealer when he pulled the trigger, his attorney said Tuesday.
The death of 26-year-old Tarika Wilson set off protests and debate about race relations in this northwest Ohio city, where one in four residents is black.
Sgt. Joseph Chavalia heard gunshots that two fellow SWAT team officers fired at pit bulls released from a first-floor back bedroom by drug dealer Anthony Terry, defense attorney Bill Kluge said during opening arguments in Chavalia's trial.
The dogs were released as Chavalia headed upstairs. He saw movement and fired through stairway railings into a second-story bedroom where Wilson was with six children, said Prosecutor Jeffrey Strausbaugh.
Chavalia has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor counts of negligent homicide and negligent assault. He faces up to eight months in jail if convicted of both counts. An all-white jury was selected Monday with a black woman and a white woman as alternates.
Wilson, Terry's girlfriend, was hit in the neck and chest, Strausbaugh said, and her son, Sincere Wilson, was hit in the shoulder and hand. One of the boy's fingers was later amputated.
Wilson's family has said she was an innocent bystander when officers burst in looking for Terry during the Jan. 4 raid.
Dozens of people accused the police department of being hostile and abusive toward minorities. Many were upset the officer was not charged with more than two misdemeanors.
Kluge blamed Terry for putting his girlfriend in the line of fire and described the scene as chaotic, with other officers also believing they were under fire.
"It's not like they had a couple minutes to come in and decide what to do," Kluge said. "These decisions are made in milliseconds."
Officers were told before the raid that children were likely inside the house, based on sightings of toys outside, Strausbaugh said.
Kluge said the SWAT team announced they were police with search warrants and repeatedly yelled warnings to get down.
"You could hear it down the block," he said.
Terry pleaded guilty in March to charges of drug trafficking.
The jury to hear the case is all white. I hope more facts come out, but it's hard not to jump to conclusions. Cause the first paragraph and title says the cop heard shots. In the story, he saw movement and fired at the second floor of the house after dogs had been released from a bedroom on the first floor. You really need to read the story below.
And whatever you decide, let me remind you that this comes just two days after a white man went into a church, killing 2, wounding 6, over the church's liberal views, and he's still alive! This comes the week after CNN's Black in America special. I wasn't particularly impressed by the special, but Lord! When are we going to have a special on white people, their pathologies - including but not limited to cops killing innocent, unarmed black people with impunity - and privileges - including but not limited to the fact that no white man was to worry that others may see him as another Jim D. Adkisson - White in America?
E-spitting? Naw. I'm just plain old pissed.
Defense: Officer who killed bystander heard shots
By JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press Writer
LIMA, Ohio - A white police officer accused of fatally shooting an unarmed black woman holding her 1-year-old son thought he was being fired upon by a drug dealer when he pulled the trigger, his attorney said Tuesday.
The death of 26-year-old Tarika Wilson set off protests and debate about race relations in this northwest Ohio city, where one in four residents is black.
Sgt. Joseph Chavalia heard gunshots that two fellow SWAT team officers fired at pit bulls released from a first-floor back bedroom by drug dealer Anthony Terry, defense attorney Bill Kluge said during opening arguments in Chavalia's trial.
The dogs were released as Chavalia headed upstairs. He saw movement and fired through stairway railings into a second-story bedroom where Wilson was with six children, said Prosecutor Jeffrey Strausbaugh.
Chavalia has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor counts of negligent homicide and negligent assault. He faces up to eight months in jail if convicted of both counts. An all-white jury was selected Monday with a black woman and a white woman as alternates.
Wilson, Terry's girlfriend, was hit in the neck and chest, Strausbaugh said, and her son, Sincere Wilson, was hit in the shoulder and hand. One of the boy's fingers was later amputated.
Wilson's family has said she was an innocent bystander when officers burst in looking for Terry during the Jan. 4 raid.
Dozens of people accused the police department of being hostile and abusive toward minorities. Many were upset the officer was not charged with more than two misdemeanors.
Kluge blamed Terry for putting his girlfriend in the line of fire and described the scene as chaotic, with other officers also believing they were under fire.
"It's not like they had a couple minutes to come in and decide what to do," Kluge said. "These decisions are made in milliseconds."
Officers were told before the raid that children were likely inside the house, based on sightings of toys outside, Strausbaugh said.
Kluge said the SWAT team announced they were police with search warrants and repeatedly yelled warnings to get down.
"You could hear it down the block," he said.
Terry pleaded guilty in March to charges of drug trafficking.
Monday, July 28, 2008
McCain Tests The Waters Of Race As Campaign Issue
Grrrrrrrrr! I'm so angry, I could e-spit*!! In fact, yes, I'm e-spitting right now! Not just me, either. Field negro is e-spitting, too!
Read the article from Huffington Post. Basically, McCain's in favor of ending affirmative action programs.
I don't know which is worst: McCain stance, McCain's flip-flop, or Ward Connelly deceitful and hurtful campaign.
Again, let me repeat some facts.
1 - Affirmative action works.
2 - It helps white women more than people of color, male or female. And the husbands and children and communities of white women, the overwhelming majority of whom are also white, benefit from white women's being paid more than what they'd earn otherwise and being promoted more than what they would otherwise.
3 - Neither white students nor workers are displaced by affirmative action programs.
4 - It is illegal to hire a person of color or a woman unqualified for the job over a white person or a man.
5 - Discrimination still exists. Affirmative action is still necessary.
6 - Affirmative actions help ensure a meritocracy.
7 - Using "socioeconomic" affirmative action instead of race/gender based affirmative action only aggravates existing racial/gender disparities.
Here're some more facts: The backlash against affirmative actions began as soon as the programs were legislated. The backlash that exists today is as based on ignorance and whites' racial animosity as it was then. African Americans are not the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action; and, the idea that we are is only effective in opposing affirmative action because of the racism that remains today.
And since I'm not in the great of a mood about this, let me point out something else. White America is not in the position, not even objectively, to comment on the necessity of affirmative-action. I'm sure you all would like to pat yourselves on the back for being so "color-blind." At the turn of the 20th century, the South wanted a pat on the back for not returning Negroes back to wholesale slavery even though it openly ignored the civil rights of African Americans, flouting the Constitution, including habeus corpus.
And now that I think of it, what is it with white people and their premature self-congratulatory pats on the back?
*e-spitting is something I just came up with. I'm sure you get the idea.
Read the article from Huffington Post. Basically, McCain's in favor of ending affirmative action programs.
I don't know which is worst: McCain stance, McCain's flip-flop, or Ward Connelly deceitful and hurtful campaign.
Again, let me repeat some facts.
1 - Affirmative action works.
2 - It helps white women more than people of color, male or female. And the husbands and children and communities of white women, the overwhelming majority of whom are also white, benefit from white women's being paid more than what they'd earn otherwise and being promoted more than what they would otherwise.
3 - Neither white students nor workers are displaced by affirmative action programs.
4 - It is illegal to hire a person of color or a woman unqualified for the job over a white person or a man.
5 - Discrimination still exists. Affirmative action is still necessary.
6 - Affirmative actions help ensure a meritocracy.
7 - Using "socioeconomic" affirmative action instead of race/gender based affirmative action only aggravates existing racial/gender disparities.
Here're some more facts: The backlash against affirmative actions began as soon as the programs were legislated. The backlash that exists today is as based on ignorance and whites' racial animosity as it was then. African Americans are not the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action; and, the idea that we are is only effective in opposing affirmative action because of the racism that remains today.
And since I'm not in the great of a mood about this, let me point out something else. White America is not in the position, not even objectively, to comment on the necessity of affirmative-action. I'm sure you all would like to pat yourselves on the back for being so "color-blind." At the turn of the 20th century, the South wanted a pat on the back for not returning Negroes back to wholesale slavery even though it openly ignored the civil rights of African Americans, flouting the Constitution, including habeus corpus.
And now that I think of it, what is it with white people and their premature self-congratulatory pats on the back?
*e-spitting is something I just came up with. I'm sure you get the idea.
Please, Help the Johnson Achieve Justice
This young woman was raped, murdered, and her body was burned...
...the Army called it suicide.
To help, please click here to go to colorofchange.org.
LaVena Johnson was a 19 year old private in the Army, serving in Iraq, when she was raped, murdered, and her body was burned--by someone from her own military base. Despite overwhelming physical evidence, the Army called her death a suicide and has closed the case.1
For three years, LaVena's parents have been fighting for answers. At almost every turn, they've been met with closed doors or lies. They've appealed to Congress, the one body that can hold the military accountable. But, as in other cases where female soldiers have been raped and murdered and the Army has called it suicide, Congress has failed to act.
Will you join Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in calling on Congressman Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee, to mount a real investigation into LaVena Johnson's death and the Army's cover-up2? Will you ask your friends and family to do the same?
From the beginning, LaVena's death made no sense as a suicide. She was happy and had been talking with friends and family regularly3--nothing indicated she could be suicidal. And when the Johnsons received her body, they noticed signs that she had been beaten.4 That was when they started asking questions.
After two years of being denied answers and hearing explanations that made no sense, the Johnsons received a CD-ROM from someone on the inside. It contained pictures of the crime scene where LaVena died and an autopsy showing that she had suffered bruises, abrasions, a dislocated shoulder, broken teeth, and some type of sexual assault. Her body was partially burned; she had been doused in a flammable liquid, and someone had set her body on fire. A corrosive chemical had been poured in her genital area, perhaps to cover up evidence of rape.5
Still the Army sticks by their story. They refuse to explain the overwhelming physical evidence that LaVena was raped and murdered and continue to claim that she killed herself.
For many Black youth, and working class young people of every race, the military is seen as an option for securing a better future. LaVena came from a deeply supportive family, and while the military wasn't her only option, she was attracted by its promise to help her pay for a college education and the opportunity to travel around the world. She also thought that by joining she could continue her lifelong commitment to serving other people in need. She made a decision to serve in the military, with all its risks, and expected respect and dignity in return.
LaVena's death is part of a disturbing pattern of cases where female soldiers have been raped and killed, and where the military has hidden the truth and labeled the deaths suicides.6,7 In virtually all cases, Congress has been slow to investigate or hold the military accountable in any way. Unfortunately, most families simply don't have the resources, time, and psychological strength to push back.
We can help the Johnsons, and other families, by holding Congress accountable in the LaVena Johnson case and by demanding it investigate the pattern of cover-ups by the military.
Please take a moment to join those calling on Congressman Waxman to investigate the cover-up of LaVena Johnson's death:
Thanks and Peace,
-- James, Gabriel, Clarissa, Andre, Kai, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
July 28th, 2008
References:
1. "The cover-up of a soldier's death?" LavenaJohnson.com, March 6, 2007
http://www.lavenajohnson.com/2007/03/cover-up-of-soldiers-death.html
2. "Is There an Army Cover Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?" CommonDreams.org, April 28, 2008
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/28/8564/
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. "Suicide or Murder? Three Years After the Death of Pfc. LaVena Johnson in Iraq, Her Parents Continue Their Call for a Congressional Investigation," Democracy Now!, June 23, 2008.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/23/suicide_or_murder_three_years_after
6. See reference 2.
7. "2 Years After Soldier's Death, Family's Battle Is With Army," New York Times, March 21, 2006.
http://tinyurl.com/mzcvh
Other References:
"Justice for Pfc. LaVena Johnson," DailyKos, June 30, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/5bh73v
"Rapists in the Ranks, Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/2z2c8l
...the Army called it suicide.
To help, please click here to go to colorofchange.org.
LaVena Johnson was a 19 year old private in the Army, serving in Iraq, when she was raped, murdered, and her body was burned--by someone from her own military base. Despite overwhelming physical evidence, the Army called her death a suicide and has closed the case.1
For three years, LaVena's parents have been fighting for answers. At almost every turn, they've been met with closed doors or lies. They've appealed to Congress, the one body that can hold the military accountable. But, as in other cases where female soldiers have been raped and murdered and the Army has called it suicide, Congress has failed to act.
Will you join Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in calling on Congressman Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee, to mount a real investigation into LaVena Johnson's death and the Army's cover-up2? Will you ask your friends and family to do the same?
From the beginning, LaVena's death made no sense as a suicide. She was happy and had been talking with friends and family regularly3--nothing indicated she could be suicidal. And when the Johnsons received her body, they noticed signs that she had been beaten.4 That was when they started asking questions.
After two years of being denied answers and hearing explanations that made no sense, the Johnsons received a CD-ROM from someone on the inside. It contained pictures of the crime scene where LaVena died and an autopsy showing that she had suffered bruises, abrasions, a dislocated shoulder, broken teeth, and some type of sexual assault. Her body was partially burned; she had been doused in a flammable liquid, and someone had set her body on fire. A corrosive chemical had been poured in her genital area, perhaps to cover up evidence of rape.5
Still the Army sticks by their story. They refuse to explain the overwhelming physical evidence that LaVena was raped and murdered and continue to claim that she killed herself.
For many Black youth, and working class young people of every race, the military is seen as an option for securing a better future. LaVena came from a deeply supportive family, and while the military wasn't her only option, she was attracted by its promise to help her pay for a college education and the opportunity to travel around the world. She also thought that by joining she could continue her lifelong commitment to serving other people in need. She made a decision to serve in the military, with all its risks, and expected respect and dignity in return.
LaVena's death is part of a disturbing pattern of cases where female soldiers have been raped and killed, and where the military has hidden the truth and labeled the deaths suicides.6,7 In virtually all cases, Congress has been slow to investigate or hold the military accountable in any way. Unfortunately, most families simply don't have the resources, time, and psychological strength to push back.
We can help the Johnsons, and other families, by holding Congress accountable in the LaVena Johnson case and by demanding it investigate the pattern of cover-ups by the military.
Please take a moment to join those calling on Congressman Waxman to investigate the cover-up of LaVena Johnson's death:
Thanks and Peace,
-- James, Gabriel, Clarissa, Andre, Kai, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
July 28th, 2008
References:
1. "The cover-up of a soldier's death?" LavenaJohnson.com, March 6, 2007
http://www.lavenajohnson.com/2007/03/cover-up-of-soldiers-death.html
2. "Is There an Army Cover Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?" CommonDreams.org, April 28, 2008
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/28/8564/
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. "Suicide or Murder? Three Years After the Death of Pfc. LaVena Johnson in Iraq, Her Parents Continue Their Call for a Congressional Investigation," Democracy Now!, June 23, 2008.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/23/suicide_or_murder_three_years_after
6. See reference 2.
7. "2 Years After Soldier's Death, Family's Battle Is With Army," New York Times, March 21, 2006.
http://tinyurl.com/mzcvh
Other References:
"Justice for Pfc. LaVena Johnson," DailyKos, June 30, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/5bh73v
"Rapists in the Ranks, Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/2z2c8l
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Michelle Obama Is Blogging!
I discovered the news at prometheus6.org. But, here she is. From now own, you can look for her at blogher.com or in my sidebar.
Let's Talk
by Michelle Obama
Hi everybody,
I’m excited to be posting on BlogHer. Not only because blogging is something I’ve actually been able to beat my daughters to; but because it gives me the opportunity to tell you a little bit about them, my husband, myself, and our experiences traveling all over this great country.
Over the course of this campaign, I’ve been hosting roundtable discussions with working women all across America. I’m there to talk about my husband, of course – but more importantly, I’m there to listen. We talk about what it’s like to play multiple roles at once and what it’s like to feel stretched thin between the demands of a career and family.
And of course, we talk about our children. How they’re the first thing we think about when we wake up in the morning, and the last thing we think about when we go to bed at night. I know that no matter where I am – work, the campaign trail, wherever – my girls are always on my mind.
to finish reading, click here
Let's Talk
by Michelle Obama
Hi everybody,
I’m excited to be posting on BlogHer. Not only because blogging is something I’ve actually been able to beat my daughters to; but because it gives me the opportunity to tell you a little bit about them, my husband, myself, and our experiences traveling all over this great country.
Over the course of this campaign, I’ve been hosting roundtable discussions with working women all across America. I’m there to talk about my husband, of course – but more importantly, I’m there to listen. We talk about what it’s like to play multiple roles at once and what it’s like to feel stretched thin between the demands of a career and family.
And of course, we talk about our children. How they’re the first thing we think about when we wake up in the morning, and the last thing we think about when we go to bed at night. I know that no matter where I am – work, the campaign trail, wherever – my girls are always on my mind.
to finish reading, click here
Monday, July 21, 2008
Pretty Sure This Isn't Montgomery, Alabama
Or, 1964.
And a hint for anyone seeking domestic work - don't live in the home with your employers. I'm sure it looks like phone on TV; but historically, it has only led to sexual assualt and harrassment and even rape, being "on-call" 24/7, losing a sense of control over one's destiny, etc, etc.
Shared Struggle Led Women to Political Action
Domestic Workers Spurred Montgomery Protections
By Katherine ShaverWashington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 21, 2008; A01
Most Sundays for the past six years, about 25 live-in nannies and housekeepers from across the Washington area have gathered in Silver Spring to share stories of mandatory six-day workweeks, 14-hour days and salaries that amount to as little as $1 an hour.
Calling themselves the Committee of Women Seeking Justice, they gather in a circle and commiserate in English, Spanish, Hindi and French. Among the topics: no sick days, little overtime pay, feeling "on call" at all hours and sleeping on basement floors. Several have shared stories of having been kept as modern-day slaves, organizers said, rarely allowed out of the house and never seeing a cent.
Some are so worried their bosses will find out about the meetings that organizers use code -- "Come to my nephew's christening" or "Come to my niece's birthday party" -- when calling their employers' homes.
Click here to read more.
And a hint for anyone seeking domestic work - don't live in the home with your employers. I'm sure it looks like phone on TV; but historically, it has only led to sexual assualt and harrassment and even rape, being "on-call" 24/7, losing a sense of control over one's destiny, etc, etc.
Shared Struggle Led Women to Political Action
Domestic Workers Spurred Montgomery Protections
By Katherine ShaverWashington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 21, 2008; A01
Most Sundays for the past six years, about 25 live-in nannies and housekeepers from across the Washington area have gathered in Silver Spring to share stories of mandatory six-day workweeks, 14-hour days and salaries that amount to as little as $1 an hour.
Calling themselves the Committee of Women Seeking Justice, they gather in a circle and commiserate in English, Spanish, Hindi and French. Among the topics: no sick days, little overtime pay, feeling "on call" at all hours and sleeping on basement floors. Several have shared stories of having been kept as modern-day slaves, organizers said, rarely allowed out of the house and never seeing a cent.
Some are so worried their bosses will find out about the meetings that organizers use code -- "Come to my nephew's christening" or "Come to my niece's birthday party" -- when calling their employers' homes.
Click here to read more.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Black. Female. Accomplished. Attacked.
I only disagree with the comment about the hip-hop industry. The stereotype of the sexually deviant black woman has been around for the last 4-5 centuries. The name Saartjie "Sarah" Baartman comes to mind - or at least it did after some googling.
Black. Female. Accomplished. Attacked.
By Sophia A. Nelson
Sunday, July 20, 2008; B01
There she is -- no, not Miss America, but the Angela-Davis-Afro-wearing, machine-gun-toting, angry, unpatriotic Michelle Obama, greeting her husband with a fist bump instead of a kiss on the cheek.
It was supposed to be satire, but the caricature of Barack Obama and his wife that appeared on the cover of the New Yorker last week rightly caused a major flap. And among black professional women like me and many of my sisters in the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, who happened to be gathered last week in Washington for our 100th anniversary celebration, the mischaracterization of Michelle hit the rawest of nerves.
Welcome to our world.
We've watched with a mixture of pride and trepidation as the wife of the first serious African American presidential contender has weathered recent campaign travails -- being called unpatriotic for a single offhand remark, dubbed a black radical because of something she wrote more than 20 years ago and plastered with the crowning stereotype: "angry black woman." And then being forced to undergo a politically mandated "makeover" to soften her image and make her more palatable to mainstream America.
Sad to say, but what Obama has undergone, though it's on a national stage and on a much more prominent scale, is nothing new to professional African American women. We endure this type of labeling all the time. We're endlessly familiar with the problem Michelle Obama is confronting -- being looked at, as black women, through a different lens from our white counterparts, who are portrayed as kinder, gentler souls who somehow deserve to be loved and valued more than we do. So many of us are hoping that Michelle -- as an elegant and elusive combination of successful career woman, supportive wife and loving mother -- can change that.
"Ain't I a woman?" Sojourner Truth famously asked 157 years ago. Her ringing question, demanding why black women weren't accorded the same privileges as their white counterparts, still sums up the African American woman's dilemma today: How are we viewed as women, and where do we fit into American life?
"Thanks to the hip-hop industry," one prominent black female journalist recently said to me, all black women are "deemed 'sexually promiscuous video vixens' not worthy of consideration. If other black women speak up, we're considered angry black women who complain. This society can't even see a woman like Michelle Obama. All it sees is a black woman and attaches stereotypes."
Black women have been mischaracterized and stereotyped since the days of slavery and minstrel shows. In more recent times, they've been portrayed onscreen and in popular culture as either sexually available bed wenches in such shows as the 2000 docudrama "Sally Hemings: An American Scandal," ignorant and foolish servants such as Prissy from "Gone With the Wind" or ever-smiling housekeepers, workhorses who never complain and never tire, like the popular figure of Aunt Jemima.
Even in the 21st century, black women are still bombarded with media and Internet images that portray us as loud, aggressive, violent and often grossly obese and unattractive. Think of the movies "Norbit" or "Big Momma's House," or of the only two black female characters in "Enchanted," an overweight, aggressive traffic cop and an angry divorcée amid all the white princesses.
On the other hand, when was the last time you saw a smart, accomplished black professional woman portrayed on mainstream television or in the movies? If Claire Huxtable on "The Cosby Show" comes to mind, remember that she left the scene 16 years ago.
The reality is that in just a generation, many black women -- who were mostly domestics, schoolteachers or nurses in the post-slavery Jim Crow era -- have become astronauts, corporate executives, doctors, lawyers, engineers and PhDs. You name it, and black women have achieved it. The most popular woman on daytime television is Oprah Winfrey. Condoleezza Rice is secretary of state.
And yet my generation of African American women -- we're called, in fact, the Claire Huxtable generation -- hasn't managed to become successfully integrated into American popular culture. We're still looking for respect in the workplace, where, more than anything else, black women feel invisible. It's a term that comes up again and again. "In my profession, white men mentor young whites on how to succeed," a financial executive told me, but "they're either indifferent to or dogmatically document the mistakes black women make. Their indifference is the worst, because it means we're invisible."
As someone who recently left a large law firm to work in the corporate sector, I have to agree. I liked my firm, but I always felt that I had to sink or swim on my own. I didn't get the kind of mentoring that I saw white colleagues, male and female, getting all around me. The firm was actually one of the better ones when it came to diversity, and yet of 600 partners, only five were black women.
A 2007 American Bar Association report titled "Visible Invisibility" describes how black women in the legal profession face the "double burden" of being both black and female, meaning that they enjoy none of the advantages that black men gain from being male, or that white women gain from being white.
Invisibility isn't the only problem. I run an organization dedicated to supporting African American professional women and often run empowerment workshops at various conferences. At a recent such workshop, I asked the participants to list some words that would describe how they believe they're viewed in the workplace and the culture at large. These are the kinds of words that came back: "loud," "angry," "intimidating," "mean," "opinionated," "aggressive," "hard." All painful words. Yet asked to describe themselves, the same women offered gentler terms: "strong," "loving," "dependable," "compassionate."
Where does the disconnect come from? Possibly from the way black women have been forced into roles of strength for decades. "Black women are the original multitaskers of necessity," says one nonprofit executive. "We've perfected it because we've been doing it for so long. But people don't appreciate the skill it requires, and they don't recognize the toll it takes on us as human beings."
For all our success in the professional world, we have paid a significant price in our private and emotional lives. A life of preordained singleness (by chance, not by choice) is fast becoming the plight of alarming numbers of professional black women in America. The fact is that the more money and education a black woman has, the less likely she is to marry and have a family.
Consider these stunning statistics: As of 2007, according to the New York Times, 70 percent of professional black women were unmarried. Black women are five times more likely than white women to be single at age 40. In 2003, Newsweek reported that there are more black women than black men (24 percent to 17 percent) in the professional-managerial class. According to Department of Education statistics cited by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, black women earn 67 percent of all bachelor's degrees awarded to blacks, as well as 71 percent of all master's degrees and 65 percent of all doctoral degrees.
With all the challenges facing professional black women today, we hope that Michelle Obama will defy the negative stereotypes about us. And that, now that a strong professional black woman is center stage, she'll bring to light what we already know: that an accomplished black woman can be a loyal and supportive wife and a good mother and still fulfill her own dreams. The fact that her husband clearly adores Michelle is both refreshing and reassuring to many of us who long to find a good man who will love and appreciate us.
Recently, a friend who's a married professional mother of three girls wrote to me: "I think one of the most interesting things about Michelle Obama is that what she and her husband are doing is pretty revolutionary these days -- and I don't mean running for president. For a black man and woman in the U.S. to be happily married, with children, and working as partners to build a life -- let alone a life of service to others -- all while rearing their children together is downright revolutionary."
It's how so many black professional women feel. And our hope is that if Michelle Obama becomes first lady, the revolution will come to us at last.
snelson@iaskinc.org
Sophia A. Nelson is a corporate attorney and president of iask, Inc., an organization for African American professional women.
Black. Female. Accomplished. Attacked.
By Sophia A. Nelson
Sunday, July 20, 2008; B01
There she is -- no, not Miss America, but the Angela-Davis-Afro-wearing, machine-gun-toting, angry, unpatriotic Michelle Obama, greeting her husband with a fist bump instead of a kiss on the cheek.
It was supposed to be satire, but the caricature of Barack Obama and his wife that appeared on the cover of the New Yorker last week rightly caused a major flap. And among black professional women like me and many of my sisters in the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, who happened to be gathered last week in Washington for our 100th anniversary celebration, the mischaracterization of Michelle hit the rawest of nerves.
Welcome to our world.
We've watched with a mixture of pride and trepidation as the wife of the first serious African American presidential contender has weathered recent campaign travails -- being called unpatriotic for a single offhand remark, dubbed a black radical because of something she wrote more than 20 years ago and plastered with the crowning stereotype: "angry black woman." And then being forced to undergo a politically mandated "makeover" to soften her image and make her more palatable to mainstream America.
Sad to say, but what Obama has undergone, though it's on a national stage and on a much more prominent scale, is nothing new to professional African American women. We endure this type of labeling all the time. We're endlessly familiar with the problem Michelle Obama is confronting -- being looked at, as black women, through a different lens from our white counterparts, who are portrayed as kinder, gentler souls who somehow deserve to be loved and valued more than we do. So many of us are hoping that Michelle -- as an elegant and elusive combination of successful career woman, supportive wife and loving mother -- can change that.
"Ain't I a woman?" Sojourner Truth famously asked 157 years ago. Her ringing question, demanding why black women weren't accorded the same privileges as their white counterparts, still sums up the African American woman's dilemma today: How are we viewed as women, and where do we fit into American life?
"Thanks to the hip-hop industry," one prominent black female journalist recently said to me, all black women are "deemed 'sexually promiscuous video vixens' not worthy of consideration. If other black women speak up, we're considered angry black women who complain. This society can't even see a woman like Michelle Obama. All it sees is a black woman and attaches stereotypes."
Black women have been mischaracterized and stereotyped since the days of slavery and minstrel shows. In more recent times, they've been portrayed onscreen and in popular culture as either sexually available bed wenches in such shows as the 2000 docudrama "Sally Hemings: An American Scandal," ignorant and foolish servants such as Prissy from "Gone With the Wind" or ever-smiling housekeepers, workhorses who never complain and never tire, like the popular figure of Aunt Jemima.
Even in the 21st century, black women are still bombarded with media and Internet images that portray us as loud, aggressive, violent and often grossly obese and unattractive. Think of the movies "Norbit" or "Big Momma's House," or of the only two black female characters in "Enchanted," an overweight, aggressive traffic cop and an angry divorcée amid all the white princesses.
On the other hand, when was the last time you saw a smart, accomplished black professional woman portrayed on mainstream television or in the movies? If Claire Huxtable on "The Cosby Show" comes to mind, remember that she left the scene 16 years ago.
The reality is that in just a generation, many black women -- who were mostly domestics, schoolteachers or nurses in the post-slavery Jim Crow era -- have become astronauts, corporate executives, doctors, lawyers, engineers and PhDs. You name it, and black women have achieved it. The most popular woman on daytime television is Oprah Winfrey. Condoleezza Rice is secretary of state.
And yet my generation of African American women -- we're called, in fact, the Claire Huxtable generation -- hasn't managed to become successfully integrated into American popular culture. We're still looking for respect in the workplace, where, more than anything else, black women feel invisible. It's a term that comes up again and again. "In my profession, white men mentor young whites on how to succeed," a financial executive told me, but "they're either indifferent to or dogmatically document the mistakes black women make. Their indifference is the worst, because it means we're invisible."
As someone who recently left a large law firm to work in the corporate sector, I have to agree. I liked my firm, but I always felt that I had to sink or swim on my own. I didn't get the kind of mentoring that I saw white colleagues, male and female, getting all around me. The firm was actually one of the better ones when it came to diversity, and yet of 600 partners, only five were black women.
A 2007 American Bar Association report titled "Visible Invisibility" describes how black women in the legal profession face the "double burden" of being both black and female, meaning that they enjoy none of the advantages that black men gain from being male, or that white women gain from being white.
Invisibility isn't the only problem. I run an organization dedicated to supporting African American professional women and often run empowerment workshops at various conferences. At a recent such workshop, I asked the participants to list some words that would describe how they believe they're viewed in the workplace and the culture at large. These are the kinds of words that came back: "loud," "angry," "intimidating," "mean," "opinionated," "aggressive," "hard." All painful words. Yet asked to describe themselves, the same women offered gentler terms: "strong," "loving," "dependable," "compassionate."
Where does the disconnect come from? Possibly from the way black women have been forced into roles of strength for decades. "Black women are the original multitaskers of necessity," says one nonprofit executive. "We've perfected it because we've been doing it for so long. But people don't appreciate the skill it requires, and they don't recognize the toll it takes on us as human beings."
For all our success in the professional world, we have paid a significant price in our private and emotional lives. A life of preordained singleness (by chance, not by choice) is fast becoming the plight of alarming numbers of professional black women in America. The fact is that the more money and education a black woman has, the less likely she is to marry and have a family.
Consider these stunning statistics: As of 2007, according to the New York Times, 70 percent of professional black women were unmarried. Black women are five times more likely than white women to be single at age 40. In 2003, Newsweek reported that there are more black women than black men (24 percent to 17 percent) in the professional-managerial class. According to Department of Education statistics cited by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, black women earn 67 percent of all bachelor's degrees awarded to blacks, as well as 71 percent of all master's degrees and 65 percent of all doctoral degrees.
With all the challenges facing professional black women today, we hope that Michelle Obama will defy the negative stereotypes about us. And that, now that a strong professional black woman is center stage, she'll bring to light what we already know: that an accomplished black woman can be a loyal and supportive wife and a good mother and still fulfill her own dreams. The fact that her husband clearly adores Michelle is both refreshing and reassuring to many of us who long to find a good man who will love and appreciate us.
Recently, a friend who's a married professional mother of three girls wrote to me: "I think one of the most interesting things about Michelle Obama is that what she and her husband are doing is pretty revolutionary these days -- and I don't mean running for president. For a black man and woman in the U.S. to be happily married, with children, and working as partners to build a life -- let alone a life of service to others -- all while rearing their children together is downright revolutionary."
It's how so many black professional women feel. And our hope is that if Michelle Obama becomes first lady, the revolution will come to us at last.
snelson@iaskinc.org
Sophia A. Nelson is a corporate attorney and president of iask, Inc., an organization for African American professional women.
You Have Got to Be Kidding Me
I keep myself informed. I read books, news articles, opinion pieces. Occasionally I check out George Mason University's History News Network. Sometimes there're good pieces. Other times, there's this: How Obama Might Change the Politics of Race in Unexpected Ways by James C. Cobb, history professor and author.
It's another one of those pieces that essentially argue, "with a black person in the Oval Office it might be more difficult than ever to blame these clouds on whites."
Of course, that's just plain ole false. As is the assertion that African Americans debated whether or not Obama is "black enough." It's as false as the "gospel according to a certain Mr. Cosby."
Here's the thing. There're probably millions of black voters who are upset with Obama's "personal responsibility" speeches that aren't intended for us at all. He mentioned his intention to continue focusing on personal responsibility in his speech at the NAACP's "Youth Night"; but in the speech, he talked more forcefully about structural and institutional racism that creates barriers for African Americans. Unfortunately, the MSM missed the part. Which, isn't surprising. Mainstream America often only hears what it wants.
The problem with Prof. Cobb's assessment is that it's the same assessment made after Counter Reconstruction. The argument that racism didn't hold former slaves and their descendants back, it was: their unfamiliarity with freedom; their inferior morality and intelligence. Sound familiar? Booker T Washington played Bill Cosby's roll then, arguing that black only had to concentrate on personal responsibility and economic education, and the future would be theirs. It was a lie then. It's a lie now. White America has been saying for over a century that racism isn't as bad as African Americans make it out to be. When are we finally gonna stop acting like that may be true. Since when did anyone trust those privileged by an unjust system to really call the system what it is? So why do we trust white America's assessment now?
If Obama success signaled a death nail for America's original sin, he wouldn't be roundly praised by white corporate media outlets for repeating to African Americans something we hear every Sunday as though he was saying something black folks just don't say to ourselves. If his success were anything for white America to hail, the dap his wife Michelle gave him wouldn't have made national news. He wouldn't have to beat back lies about his religion and true intentions. Michelle wouldn't face questions about her patriotism. Faux News wouldn't describe Michelle as Obama's "baby mama" then wonder why so many black women are "angry."
Let's just suffice it to say if racism wasn't an issue that Obama's facing during this election, much less something everyday African Americans face daily, he could be "black enough" without worrying about how many votes it would cost him. I'm going to write a post on this soon, but let me just say here that the politics of grievance will only be over when the grievance stops. It continues.
The truest thing Prof. Cobb says is, "If the Democrats manage to win in November, however, the full potential of their victory will be realized only if they can walk the fine line between celebrating a truly momentous achievement as an emotional springboard toward other such accomplishments and allowing that celebration to degenerate into an orgy of self-congratulation that has precisely the opposite effect."
But let's remember, the aim of the Civil Rights Movement and many black activists today isn't just to put black and brown faces in places of high position in the same ole Euro-centric, white privileged system. The goal was and is to radically change the system to end all kinds of injustice, race and gender as well as economic injustice.
Cause Lord I 'clare, the more things change, the more the stay the same.
It's another one of those pieces that essentially argue, "with a black person in the Oval Office it might be more difficult than ever to blame these clouds on whites."
Of course, that's just plain ole false. As is the assertion that African Americans debated whether or not Obama is "black enough." It's as false as the "gospel according to a certain Mr. Cosby."
Here's the thing. There're probably millions of black voters who are upset with Obama's "personal responsibility" speeches that aren't intended for us at all. He mentioned his intention to continue focusing on personal responsibility in his speech at the NAACP's "Youth Night"; but in the speech, he talked more forcefully about structural and institutional racism that creates barriers for African Americans. Unfortunately, the MSM missed the part. Which, isn't surprising. Mainstream America often only hears what it wants.
The problem with Prof. Cobb's assessment is that it's the same assessment made after Counter Reconstruction. The argument that racism didn't hold former slaves and their descendants back, it was: their unfamiliarity with freedom; their inferior morality and intelligence. Sound familiar? Booker T Washington played Bill Cosby's roll then, arguing that black only had to concentrate on personal responsibility and economic education, and the future would be theirs. It was a lie then. It's a lie now. White America has been saying for over a century that racism isn't as bad as African Americans make it out to be. When are we finally gonna stop acting like that may be true. Since when did anyone trust those privileged by an unjust system to really call the system what it is? So why do we trust white America's assessment now?
If Obama success signaled a death nail for America's original sin, he wouldn't be roundly praised by white corporate media outlets for repeating to African Americans something we hear every Sunday as though he was saying something black folks just don't say to ourselves. If his success were anything for white America to hail, the dap his wife Michelle gave him wouldn't have made national news. He wouldn't have to beat back lies about his religion and true intentions. Michelle wouldn't face questions about her patriotism. Faux News wouldn't describe Michelle as Obama's "baby mama" then wonder why so many black women are "angry."
Let's just suffice it to say if racism wasn't an issue that Obama's facing during this election, much less something everyday African Americans face daily, he could be "black enough" without worrying about how many votes it would cost him. I'm going to write a post on this soon, but let me just say here that the politics of grievance will only be over when the grievance stops. It continues.
The truest thing Prof. Cobb says is, "If the Democrats manage to win in November, however, the full potential of their victory will be realized only if they can walk the fine line between celebrating a truly momentous achievement as an emotional springboard toward other such accomplishments and allowing that celebration to degenerate into an orgy of self-congratulation that has precisely the opposite effect."
But let's remember, the aim of the Civil Rights Movement and many black activists today isn't just to put black and brown faces in places of high position in the same ole Euro-centric, white privileged system. The goal was and is to radically change the system to end all kinds of injustice, race and gender as well as economic injustice.
Cause Lord I 'clare, the more things change, the more the stay the same.
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