CA: On Open Letter to Greens about the Gates controversy from Alex Walker

Dear Green Friends,

I have not written about the Gates "controversy" on my blog because, frankly, compared to the total breakdown of democratic governance here in California, compared to the story of millions of African-Americans whose lives have been ruined by the "drug war," or even compared to what happened to our own Diane White in Pennsylvania, this incident with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates is, frankly, trivial.

I do not think it is a "teaching moment" because it has already degenerated into the predictable soap opera of most mainstream media "conversations" about race. First, "liberals" cry racism. Then, "conservatives" praise the cops. Eventually Somebody is trotted out like poor Rodney King in L.A. to say: "Can't we all get along?" and "conservative" intellectuals get another opportunity to preach about the alleged "pathology" and "paranoia" of "Those People."

Moreover, it grieves me to say this is another example of the intellectual confusion within what's supposed to be "The Left" in the United States. For over a year, "The Left" has complained that Barack Obama has not spoken out about "race" issues. Now "The Left" not only complains that Mr. Obama has spoken out about his friend Skip Gates, we've taken his speaking out as an opportunity to trash Gates and Obama as "house slaves" who think they're better than "real Blacks."

Stanley Fish, brought Prof. Gates to Duke University.20Fish writes a nice little op-ed piece relating a story about what happened when Gates bought a big house in North Carolina: "The message was unmistakable: What was a black man doing living in a place like this?"

Alas, this innocuous statement is parsed for "political correctness" and declared an offensive to Black Women. For Stanley Fish the lesson of this "teaching moment" will be: next time shut up, turn your head, and pretend you don't see like all the other "White folks."

Having said all that, I say that if we deal with this incident at all we should use to strengthen the case for Blacks in the Green Party.

(1) Remind everyone that Cambridge, Massachusetts is a supposedly "ultra-liberal" One-Party Democratic town, as is the entire Boston area. This Officer Crowley evidently went through all the liberal "sensitivity" training and still behaved inappropriately. If Democratic Party "sensitivity" liberalism doesn't work in Cambridge, Massachusetts then it can't work anywhere. This is not surprising to anyone familiar with police-community relations in the Berkeley - Oakland area of California or even in that portion of Mr. Obama's Southside neighborhood around the University of Chicago.

(2) Remind everyone about the case of Boston Green Party City Councilor Chuck Turner, who was entrapped in a petty "sting" operation by the F.B.I. last year. Mr. Turner has been hassled in Cambridge for his o utspoken advocacy of Harvard divestment from companies in Israel. And don't forget that Cynthia McKinney, herself, had a run-in with the Capitol Police while serving as an elected member of Congress. Cops have a problem with all Blacks, but It seems they have a special problem with those expressing "disorderly" political views. I am pleased to note that even some Republican-leaning libertarians have said that if a man can't say "Is this how you treat a Black man in America?" in his own home, then what good is "free speech" in America?

(3) Reach out to Gates? Here is a simple test: submit a no-holds-bared partisan commentary praising Cynthia McKinney, Rosa Clemente, Chuck Turner, Malik Rahim, Cliff Thorton, Asa Gordon, Diane White, and the Green Party to "The Root" and see what happens.

If Gates refuses to publish a no-holds-bared partisan Green commentary (and I suspect he will), then we can say he's just another "liberal" hack. I browsed "The Root" just now and there's nothing up there but the usual tired clichés. If this is going to be a "teaching moment" it should be a moment to teach how our 10 Key Values are superior to tired 40-year-old "liberal" clichés.


Alex Walker
Los Angeles Greens

Livestream - GPUS National Meeting

Over the weekend there will be speeches, workshops, and forums:

On Saturday afternoon at 3:00 pm, Cynthia McKinney will speak about her recent efforts, with the Free Gaza Movement and Viva Palestina, to bring medical and other supplies to Gaza in the wake of Israel's brutal invasion.

Ms. McKinney and other Free Gaza human rights activists were aboard the Spirit of Humanity when it was seized by Israeli gunboats.

The 'Free Gaza 21,' including Ms. McKinney, were held in a prison in Ramla, Israel, until their release last week http://gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=234;

The Green Party will present a public forum on the need for a single-Payer health care funding system on Friday, July 24 from 3:30-4:30 pm

http://gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=236;

Green candidates and officeholders will be speaking, like former Green Party presidential candidate Jesse Johnson, who will be presenting a film "Coal Country" addressing the horrors of mountaintop removal in coal mining.

Go to http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus, and stay tuned in all weekend!

More at gp.org, http://www.ncgreenparty.org/2009-ANM.html,
& http://gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=234

Workshops detailed @ http://www.ncgreenparty.org/2009-ANM WORKSHOPS.html

NC: A Green Evening with the North Carolina Green Party

Join us on Saturday, July 25th for: A Green Evening with the North Carolina Green Party

When: 8:30 - 10:30 PM (George Friday's birthday party follows from 10:30 until closing)

Where: The Marvell Event Center <http://www.themarvell.com/>. 119 W Main Street, Durham, NC.

With: Catering by Vimala Rajendren, light fare and Cash Bar. Local Entertainment:

Youth are welcome, Proof of age required to purchase alcohol.

Tickets: $15.00 in advance, $17.00 at the door. Ticket sales limited to 125.

Get your ticket in advance online!!

<https://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/175/t/2758/l/eng/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=13285>.

Directions and registration here <https://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/175/t/2758/l/eng/p/salsa/event/common/public/?event_KEY=13285>.

For more information, call Wayne Turner at 919 491 3186

IN PA, "Whites only" pool in 2009?

Condemn discrimination at the Valley Club in Pennsylvania Two weeks ago outside Philadelphia, sixty-five children from a summer camp tried to go swimming at a club their camp had a contract to use. Evidently, the club didn't know the kids were largely Black. When the campers entered the pool, White parents took their kids out of the water, and the swimming club's staff asked the campers to leave. The next day, the club told the summer camp that their membership would be canceled and that they would refund their money. When asked why, the club's leader said the "kids would change the complexion ... and the atmosphere of the club."1 Please join us in condemning the Valley Swim Club's blatant discrimination and calling on the Justice Department to investigate whether they violated civil rights laws. And please ask your friends and family to do the same... The rest of the story http://www.keystoneprogress.org/page/s/pawhitesonly

In DC, Asa Gordon to teach class on “Democratizing the Electoral College”

Asa Gordon is Chair of the D.C Statehood Green Party Electoral College Task Force; a member of the Green Party Black Caucus Organizing Committee; and is the founder and Executive Director of the Douglass Institute of Government (DIG).

Asa Gordon will be presenting the class “Democratizing the Electoral College” on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 6:45 pm through the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists (SALSA) of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington, DC. The class description at the SALSA website is: here.

"...“Winner take All” is not required by the constitution, and in nearly half of the states where it is applied, it is not even based on state law. This lecture will provide a historical context and report on recent developments in a Civil Action to reform and “Democratize the Electoral College”..."

The rest of the story...

No Regrets for a "choice of words".

by Asa Gordon

Washington DC -We may be certain that due to their rich experience of privilege and denial, white male pundits, be they of liberal or conservative persuasion, will never regret or even acknowledge their own racist "choice of words" when commenting on Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor's 2001 speech.

As a case in point, take the opening paragraph of the front-page Washington Post article headlined "Obama Says Judge Regrets Wording" (Saturday, May 30, 2009). The article's biased "choice of words" presents the phrase "wise Latina" out of the context of Sotomayor's caveat "I would hope" and places the word "often" out of the context of Sotomayor's caveat "more often then not." This provides the pretext for "white male" pundits to charge that Sotomayor's "choice of words" is racist, when in reality the term "racist" better describes their own "choice of words."

A racist would not provide caveats when expounding on racial superiority. A racist does not simply "hope" to make better decisions than would another race. It is presumed that such is the case. For a racist, "a better conclusion" would not be rendered "more often then not." It would be the unavoidable outcome of racial superiority. The institutionalized racism in media reports represents the irrational bias of "white male" pundits that has prevailed over the rational "choice of words" in Sotomayor's 2001 speech.

The Washington Post's selective paraphrase reads as follows:

"President Obama said yesterday that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor regrets her choice of words in a 2001 speech in which she said a "wise Latina" judge would often make better decisions than a white male."

Sotomayor's "choice of words" in context reads:

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

It is the ultimate sexism to assert that the experience of women does not offer better insight into the problems of women then does the experience of men, particularly when the statement is qualified by the phrase "more often then not." Similarly, it is the ultimate racism to assert that it is racist to suggest that the experience of the victims of white supremacy, in a nation founded on white male supremacy, may "more often then not" provide better insights into the nature of racism in America and "reach a better conclusion" then what is provided from the experience of being a white male. It is the ultimate racist and sexist mentality to insist that the white male's intellect is so superior that his racially privileged experience is no handicap in rendering justice and that there is no advantage in the experience of women and non-whites when rendering judgments on the issues of sexism or racism in our society. To the white male, any consideration of gender or racial "diversity" is reverse sexism and reverse racism. The political power of this fanciful and irrational racial assault by white male pundits has actually pressured an African-American President to declare that his Latina Supreme Court nominee regrets her "choice of words."

The controversy over the role that life experience offers to judicial insight arose a few years ago over the nomination of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts. The self-righteous, bi-partisan liberal and conservative media pundits rebuked veteran Civil Rights leaders John Lewis and Wade Henderson for their characterization of the "indisputably qualified conservative" Roberts as a pre- Brown v Board of Education Justice. The media reaction at the time made it clear that many white male pundits, regardless of political persuasion, just didn't get it. Their paternalistic rebukes represented a belief in a race so inherently rational that fairness was assumed even where prejudice was evident. It was such a faith that moved "liberal" Senators Patrick J. Leahy, Herb Kohl, and Russell Feingold to vote for Roberts on "hope" and won the endorsement of the "liberal" Washington Post. Is there any wonder that Plessy v. Ferguson's 1896 ruling ("[I]t is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it") remains this nation's ageless judgment of racial conflict. Yes, media pundits, the pre-Brown/Plessey justices that made the decision to provide judicial cover for legal apartheid in America were all "indisputably qualified conservative" justices who knew they were not racist, that their judgment was not racist, and that the criticism of the blacks of their day was emotionalism.

However, Thurgood Marshal posed a caveat, with respect to Justice Clearence Thomas, as to the danger in giving unwarranted weight to identity "experience" in order to judge a favorable "empathy" in considering the justifiable need for diversity on the Supreme Court. I am concerned that Sotomayor's experience as a prosecutor and corporate lawyer may embody an "empathy" that may prove to be as hostile to the Latina-American community as Justice Thomas proved to be for the African-American community. But in that my experience is that of a African- American, I will rely on the "experience" of the Latina-American community and "hope" they "reach a better conclusion" then we did.

Asa Gordon is the Executive Director of the Douglas Institute of Government in Washington, DC and the Chair of the DC Statehood Green Party Electoral College Task Force.

Belinda's Petition

http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=48372


http://harryallen.info/?p=3020

In 1782, Belinda, an African on the Ten Hills Plantation in Medford Massachusetts, petitioned the state legislature for reparations for her 50 years of captivity and unpaid labor by her former owner, Isaac Royall. Royall had fled to Canada shortly after the American Revolution since he was a "Loyalist" to Britain and feared for his life and his own captivity what would become the United States. This story of her captivity, enslavement and liberation is an incredible tale of resilience during a time when Africans in America were seen as something a little more valuable than livestock.

Belinda's Petition is but one in a long history of the reparations struggle that is sewn in the fabric of African history for the past 550 years. This concise story of the reparations struggle is meant to provide a "view from the bridge" on the ongoing struggle of Africans throughout the world in obtaining justice for the most heinous crime of the past millennium --- the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Whether you support or oppose reparations is unimportant; what Belinda's Petition will show you is that the western world is built upon 500 years of the unpaid labor of millions of enslaved Africans whose call for justice has been conscious, courageous and consistent since they were first captured in 1441 by Europeans.

Elaine Brown on New Age Racism

Race debate in Irving follows comments by Attorney General Eric Holder | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Columnist Norma Adams-Wade | Dallas-Fort Worth News

Race debate in Irving follows comments by Attorney General Eric Holder | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Columnist Norma Adams-Wade | Dallas-Fort Worth News:
08:15 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 6, 2009