I began this piece the other day and should have posted it then. I’m late tothe party. I was responding to a commenter who wrote:
It’s really sad how much the talk circles around race.
It’s a constant reminder how far we haven’t come.
Even though I knew that to be true, this campaign is just a daily reminder.
The comment was in response to me quoting Thomas Schaller. The irony is that much as I liked what Schaller had to say the other day I’m highly ambivalent about him. I’ve been railing against his Whistling Past Dixie plea for Democrats to abandon the South and turn Southern racism into a (p.18) “burdensome stone to hang around the Republicans’ neck” for a very long time.
Democrats are too quick to hang that racist label on Republicans, and tactical ideas like Schaller’s miss the point don’t they? Back when Schaller wrote his book I was advocating that we should instead address our own racist past as highlighted by Republican Bruce Bartlett in, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past, and redouble our efforts to fight racism whenever and wherever we find it.
You’ve got to wonder if Hillary’s not getting away with her nonsense now — party bigwigs, where are you? — because of our own record of putting strategy before substance! (Speaking of which, I can only hope Ms. Genardo is wrong about John Edwards not endorsing because he’s holding out for a Cabinet position.)
Now I’m no expert on demographic shifts and voting patterns but these days events seem to be taking on a life of their own. And I’m left wondering if, hoping even, that with Blacks having moved back to the South, this religious, rural, evangelized, conservative Southern region that flipped from Democrat to Republican might surprise everybody and just as quickly flip right back.
— Democrats cast nearly 53 percent of the 2,007,544 ballots counted on Feb. 5.
— Within the Democratic primary, African-Americans cast 55 percent of the vote. This is the first time that’s happened. White voters made up just a tad less than 40 percent of the Democratic vote.
— White voters made up 96 percent of the Republican presidential primary vote.
— African-Americans cast 30 percent of all votes on Feb. 5. In November 2006, with gubernatorial candidate Mark Taylor at the top of the Democratic ticket, black voters cast only 24 percent of all ballots. This is the number causing Republicans to lose sleep.
— In addition to juicing turnout among black voters, the Feb. 5 primary showed signs of a shift in party preference among the state’s youngest voters. You read above that Democratic voters accounted for 53 percent of all ballots.
But 61 percent of voters 24 and under picked up a Democratic ballot.
— Young voters are notoriously unreliable, but young African-American voters — 24 and under — had a voter turnout rate of 26 percent. That’s remarkably strong. Turnout among young white voters was 22 percent — again, not too shabby.
Obama’s speaking.He won NC. Indiana’s too close to call. No upsets. Best case scenario for her, status quo ante.
With that, Hillary remains mathematically challenged. Doomed even. He wins.
So why have we been talking about white working-class males? Schaller suggests Hillary botched the black vote:
Though a majority of black voters may inevitably have gone for Obama, nothing precluded the wife of the so-called first black president from keeping Obama’s margins among blacks significantly narrower — say, losing to him by 4-to-1 or even 3-to-1, rather than the devastating 9-to-1 margins by which Obama has often won African-American Democrats. “The Clinton campaign has been focused on Barack Obama’s performance with white working-class voters in a few states, but they fail to mention Senator Clinton’s abysmal performance with black voters all over the country,” says political consultant and Obama supporter Jamal Simmons. “She has gone from leading among black voters to losing them 90 percent to 10 percent in Pennsylvania. One would expect Obama to win these voters, but 90-10 is a total collapse that Obama is not experiencing among any constituency. Simply put, Hillary Clinton has a black problem.” […]
To understand the power of the black vote thus far in the 2008 Democratic primary, consider the fate of the two candidates in their own home states, both of which voted on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5.
Unsurprisingly, a whopping 93 percent of African-Americans in Illinois supported Obama. And even though New York was and surely will remain his low-water mark for black support, 61 percent of black New Yorkers still voted for him. […]
What might the situation look like now if Clinton had managed to keep Obama’s 90 percent black support just to 80 percent? It’s impossible to know for certain, because it depends on where specifically — in which states and districts — she garnered those extra black votes. But NBC News political director and delegate math expert Chuck Todd ventured a conservative, back-of-the-napkin estimate. “I’m not sure how many more delegates she would have gotten at 20 percent performance, but I’d guess roughly 25 to 30,” Todd told me. “That may not seem like a lot, but it would have swung the net delegate margin by 50 to 60, or about a third of his current pledged delegate lead.”
To supplement Todd’s delegate estimates, I looked at something much easier to compute: the extra popular votes Clinton would have amassed in 13 primary states with significant black populations — Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin — had she won just 20 percent of the black voters in those states. […]
And the difference it would have made is striking: In those 13 other states, had she drawn just 20 percent of the African-American vote, Clinton would have shifted more than 270,000 votes from Obama to herself, a net swing of more than half a million votes. Which, by the way, is roughly the amount by which she trails Obama in the overall national popular vote right now.
LATER: Hillary is speaking, “…Tonight we’ve come from behind, we’ve broken the tie, and thanks to you it’s full speed on to the White House!”
Joe, the fact that you have to ask answers the question — yes, Limbaugh had an impact. But a marginal one that doesn’t weaken anyone. To engage is good. Kind of pathetic don’t you think that the Grand Old Party is reduced to that?
“Why is it such a struggle for Obama to get elected? The question of Blacks in the United States is the best kept secret in the American family. Forty years after President Johnson’s great campaign for civil rights, much about race relations has changed, but not the essence: the semi-condescending, semi-frightened, mostly disguised fear of African Americans by the White majority.”
In summing up what’s at stake in the Democratic primary race, Maurice writes:
“The outbreak of race in the debate lends itself to a rational argument about the fragility of the Black candidate. In the mind, these unspeakable racial divisions secretly lurk, and mark the campaign with a strong emotional impact. The debate constitutes a profound test for both Democratic candidates.”
By Antoine Maurice
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
May 3, 2008
Tribune de Geneve - Switzerland - Original Article (French)
Why is it such a struggle for Obama to get elected? The question of Blacks in the United States is the best kept secret in the American family. Forty years after President Johnson’s great campaign for civil rights, much about race relations has changed, but not the essence: the semi-condescending, semi-frightened, mostly disguised fear of African Americans by the White majority.
The Black community has been shaped largely by a series of dramatic episodes, and it will soon commemorate the 50th anniversary of some of these events: The death of Martin Luther King, last great advocate for Black integration [40 years ago]; the assassination of two Kennedys [John and Robert - 40 years ago], the dawn of the campaign for civil rights, the birth of a Black middle class, the growth of inter-racial marriage, the advent of minority studies (Black history) in academia and minority participation in the arts.
In short, African Americans, who have built their unity based mostly on the way others view them, have experienced unprecedented economic and civic progress.
Barack Obama serves as an indicator of this spectacular progress, while at the same time he is confronting - despite himself - its incompleteness. His strategy thus far has been not to play the race card, but to present himself as the promoter of change in America, more committed to redressing income inequalities than the burden of racial inequity.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. elections.
King believed in nonviolent, direct confrontation. And thus when we come marching through the town, we are trying to expose inequality and expose violence. And if you practice nonviolent confrontation, you morally shame your opponent toward moral suasion. And when you shame them toward moral suasion, it’s not to defeat your opponent, but to reunite with your opponent… [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright sees himself in that tradition. King was very much in the tradition of the African-American jeremiad. And that is where he would call out the sins of the nation so the nation would live up to its ideals and its promises… On April 4, 1967, King stood in front of the Riverside Church and said that if America does not change its ways, America, if you continue to be so prideful, God will tear down this nation, and rise up another nation that doesn’t even know my name… It was his God damn America moment. And the Sunday after King was assassinated, do you know what King was scheduled to preach that Sunday morning? His sermon title was “Why America May Go to Hell.”
It puts the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in such a different context. In King’s day we were fighting for freedom and justice and liberty for all. Now we’ve moved to a far more narrower notion of “tolerance” and with that move comes the right to be intolerant of anyone who does not meet our high standard of tolerance. Wright’s “anger” prevents him from meeting that high standard so we are free to pile on. And pile on we all do!
Much of the commentary on Wright’s various speeches has cast them either in terms of the Oedipal relationship with the candidate or the tactical impact on the campaign. And so we do not have to address Wright’s essential concern: the legacy of racial inequality in America.
Oh. Right. Obama’s promise is post-racial. And, Sully says, post-boomer. He’s transformational. He’s rebranding America. He transcends race.
All along, below the radar of contesting Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama has been matched up with her husband in a battle of both substance and style that reflects generational differences.
Now, at the end of Jeremiah Wright Week, as Obama is out there doing TV interviews to stop his slide in the polls, the contrasts with Bill Clinton are coming into sharper focus.
In his speech on race in Philadelphia, Obama tried to put the Wright YouTube clips into context–an admirable trait in a president but treacherous for a candidate, as it soon proved to be.
Contrast this with Bill Clinton’s Sister Souljah moment in 1992. Granted, Clinton had no previous connection with her, but, after her inflammatory rhetoric about white people after the Los Angeles riots, he didn’t hesitate to make political points by condemning her for black racism at a meeting of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition.
That’s what politicians do. But Obama, by trying to address the issue of race seriously before Wright’s antics forced his hand, has been politically wounded by not throwing his pastor to the media wolves as soon as the issue surfaced.
The politician was doing what he had to do, but Barack Obama’s personal pain yesterday was palpable as he cut his ties to Jeremiah Wright.
“Whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this,” Obama said. “I don’t think that he showed much concern for me.”
Behind the politician’s voice was the anger and disappointment of a man who barely knew his own father but wrote a book about him, bearing a title inspired by a paternal figure who had now betrayed him.
Searching for substitute fathers has been common for a long time now in an era of mobility, psychological desertion and divorce. Throughout his life, Obama has found more than one, not only Wright and the disreputable Tony Rezko but, among others, two figures from the Kennedy era, Abner Mikva and Newt Minow, who helped and advised him along the way.
The Wright psychodrama, and how Obama handles it, will almost certainly be a turning point in this campaign and beyond. Yesterday he seemed dazed and hurt in making the break.
“The fact that Reverend Wright would think that somehow it was appropriate to command the stage for three or four consecutive days in the midst of this major debate is something that not only makes me angry, but also saddens me,” he said in dealing with his pain publicly.
The coming days will be a test of his capacity for recovery and renewal.
Said Stewart after having his good fun, “Let me tell you something, Jeremiah Wright is not the one running for president. He’s the guy who used to talk at the church of one of the guys who is running…”
Stewart’s guest tonight will be Newt Gingrich, who was on both “Good Morning America” and “The View” today presenting pro-Hillary talking points. How much do you want to bet that Stewart doesn’t let Newt get away with that tonight?
The Austin American-Statesman is reporting a white secret service agent has been placed on leave after an African American employee reported finding a noose hanging at the service’s main training facility outside Washington D.C.
Making matters worse:
The alleged incident happened as U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson is expected to decide next month whether to sanction the service for failing to turn over evidence in a long-running lawsuit alleging that the service created a racially hostile atmosphere that tolerated discrimination.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Atlanta native Reginald G. Moore, alleges that the Secret Service routinely discriminates against black agents seeking promotion in favor of white agents who scored lower on promotional exams.
Nearly 60 black agents have submitted sworn statements to the court in support of the lawsuit’s allegations.
Robinson has already sanctioned the service three times since the discovery process of the lawsuit began 3 1/2 years ago.
Via Joe Sudbay (DC) at AMERICAblog, “We’re supposed to believe the Secret Service is the best of the best when it comes to law enforcement. Instead, it sounds like it’s rampant with racism.”
Bill Moyers did his best last night on PBS to put Barack Obama’s controversial pastor into perspective. He succeeded in showing the man’s brilliance but created unease in an observer who, by taste and temperament, is not attracted to apocalyptic preaching about the human condition.
From the interview, it’s easy to see what Obama found in Jeremiah Wright and his church that gave a new dimension to his secular desire to help the poor and dispossessed during his early days in Chicago.
Wright’s church apparently did and does good work in uplifting its community, but the social benefits come with a moral price–the preacher’s selective view of good and evil in the political world.
Consider Wright’s use of Martin Luther King to justify his own history. “Dr. King, of course, was vilified,” he told Moyers, asserting that, after King talked about racism, militarism and capitalism, he was “ostracized not only by the majority of Americans in the press; he got vilified by his own community. They thought he had overstepped his bounds…He was vilified by all of the Negro leaders who felt he’d overstepped his bounds talking about an unjust war.”
Martin Luther King’s opposition to the war made him unpopular with Lyndon Johnson but not the rest of America, least of all African-Americans and, unlike Wright, he did not use it to condemn all of American history, from the mistreatment of Native Americans to plotting drug addiction in black communities.
The Rev. Wright’s need to “damn” America leads him to a peculiar view of history. He goes back centuries to mine our national past for evil but, when asked about Louis Farrakhan’s racist and anti-Semitic speech, dismisses it with “That was twenty years ago” and praises him for getting African-Americans off drugs and giving them self-respect.
Perhaps most troubling of all is his smiling intimation that Barack Obama is only distancing himself from his views for political expedience: “(W)hat happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the sound bites, he responded as a politician. But he did not disown me because I’m a pastor.”
If Hillary doesn’t win big in Pennsylvania tonight, will she have the good sense to withdraw?
Pierre Rousselin writes for France’s Le Figaro, “She needs a win that is vivid enough to reverse the course of the election … otherwise all that will remain is for her to drop out or, through reckless calculation, be dislodged against her will, which will prolong a fratricidal duel that can only undermine the chances for Democrats to return to the White House.”
April 15th, 2008 by DAVID SCHRAUB, Assistant Editor
If Democrats nominate Clinton, young voters will permanently be disenchanted with the Democratic Party and cripple our election prospects for decades (and don’t get me started on the Black vote). But if Democrats nominate Obama, frustrated women may stay home and likewise severely hamper Democratic efforts in the general and subsequent elections.
Tomorrow night’s debate in Philadelphia could be the turning point. If he is the masterful politician he seems to be, Barack Obama will seize the moment to rise above the squabbling and bickering to define himself for American voters.
Just as he broadened the Jeremiah Wright brouhaha into a statement about race in America in that same hall, Obama can use his “small town” misstep to address directly the doubts that exist and are being exacerbated about him and re-frame the issue of his trustworthiness.
In response, he can acknowledge understandable skepticism on the part of Americans who were told eight years ago that George W. Bush was a compassionate conservative who would not embark on nation-building, only to get a president with no empathy for their needs, a radical agenda to enrich the richest and a reckless foreign policy that would destroy another nation and squander our blood, treasure and reputation in the world trying to put it back together again.
Voters, Obama can point out, thought they were making a safe choice in selecting a familiar name and reassuring promises from a comforting source. Now they are being asked to give their trust to a dark-skinned man with an odd name and exotic roots who, they are being told, is “elitist” and “out of touch” with them.
But which is the greater gamble at this low point of Americans’ confidence in their future? More of the same or trusting someone whose judgment has thus far turned out to be sound and whose promise of change is not encumbered with a history of business-as-usual in Washington?
Playing it safe, Obama can truthfully tell Americans, is the biggest gamble of all.
April 14th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
From the report given in the New York Times’ lively The Caucus blog, Kentucky Republicans were having a blast, ridiculing the Democrats as political non-realists and, overall, as an almost madcap lot.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had some fun going after the Demmies…and then it was the turn of Congressman Geoff Davis to continue the celebration of how Republicans are superior to Democrats. It was his turn to take it up (or down) to another level.
And he did:
Congressman Geoff Davis, took the criticisms of Mr. Obama a few steps further, likening the change slogan to the pitch of a “snake oil salesman.” He then relayed to the audience that he had taken party in a “highly classified, national security simulation” with Obama.
“I’m going to tell you something: That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button,” Mr. Davis said. “He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country.”
What happened next was predictable: the Internet picked it up (alas, TMV is late, so accept our apologies), and the Obama campaign issued a response.
“It’s hard to tell what is more outrageous - Representative Davis’s condescending and personal attack, or his absurd and offensive claim that Barack Obama is not prepared to defend America. Geoff Davis may hide behind offensive tough talk, but he has marched in lock-step with Bush-McCain policies that have devastated our national security, while Barack Obama has stood up against a misguided war in Iraq and worked with respected Republicans like Dick Lugar and Chuck Hagel to secure loose weapons and nuclear materials from terrorists,” Bill Burton, the campaign spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Davis apologized to Obama for a “poor choice of words” — and Republicans expect that will be accepted.
But wait: hasn’t Obama just said when he said small towners were “bitter” it was a poor choice of words? So that means Republicans won’t join Hillary Clinton in hammering Obama on the issue?
But this tale of political types having fun with zingers has a bit more.
What would a fun event like this be without taking a quick-laugh swipe at Hillary Clinton?
Back at the dinner, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton didn’t escape the men’s attention either. While saying her candidacy seemed to be teetering on the brink, he [McConnell] added “I hear she hasn’t been this worried since a new Hooters opened” near her home with former President Bill Clinton.
Everybody laughed, according to Ryan Alessi, political reporter for the Herald-Leader.
Thoughtful American political discussion…at its best.
FOOTNOTE:One commenter on a site has noticed several references popping up (most assuredly from people who don’t support or like Obama) as a “boy.”
CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this post we attributed the “Hooters” joke to Davis in brackets. The joke was actually told by McConnell. The correction has been made. TMV regrets the error.
There was a good bit of chatter over the weekend concerning rumors that Secretary of State Condi Rice might be actively seeking the VP slot on John McCain’s presidential ticket. This is certainly not a new idea. If you traveled the blogs in the Right side of the sphere last year you probably saw numerous “Draft Condi!” buttons exhorting her fans to push the Secretary into a run for president. But how receptive would the movers and shakers of the Republican party be to the idea of Vice President Condi under President McCain? We can get a pretty good feel for this from The Weekly Standard’s Richelieu.
He is clearly dubious about the prospect, citing several reasons why Ms. Rice would not be a wise choice for the Arizona Senator’s ticket. These include (correctly, in my opinion) Condi’s background as more of a policy wonk than a politician, her inability to pull any swing states, (she’s from California which is not in play) and the fact that she would remind voters of shortcomings in the Bush administration’s early Iraq strategy. However, he also lists this telling complaint.
She would pull exactly 14 black votes away from Barack Obama.
I’m not sure if Richilieu has a specific list of 14 people or if that’s just a generalization, but it certainly has the ring of truth. In the modern era the popularity of the GOP among black Americans has been spotty, to put it generously. I’ve spoken to a number of Republican pundits who worry over this and sincerely wish that they could build a bigger tent for their party, but inroads seem hard to come by. Why is this?
First, let’s take a look at the list of currently seated black Republicans in Congress.
(Insert here the sound of crickets chirping softly in the evening.)
Ok… now that we’re done with that, perhaps we can move on to who is getting nominated for President. (Take a peek at this photograph of the ten candidates who started this race to refresh your memory.) This is a classic shot - as one Democratic friend of mine likes to say - of a stable of ROWGs. (She pronounces it “rogues” but it stands for Rich Old White Guys.) In contrast, a look at the Democratic slate tells much of this story. Read the rest of this entry »
If I could point out one must read column in the media today it would have to be the latest from John Kass at the Chicago Tribune. The initial thrust of the column is the perceived damage to Barack Obama’s presidential aspirations done by his association with Rev. Wright. But after that, Kass settles down and attempts to tackle the problems we face in dealing with the issues this story brought to public attention. One of the key problems, in the author’s view, is that we spend too much time “talking about talking about race” rather than digging into the tougher issues which lie beneath.
Actually, we don’t talk about race. Instead, we talk about talking about race, which is easy. TV does it best. Slap an angry Wright up on the screen and a reasonable Obama, and then go find some tape of an angry white guy and you’re home for supper.
But if we really talked about race, we’d really talk about unfair racial preferences in college and graduate school admissions, in hiring and on tax-subsidized public contracts. We’d talk about the horrendous drop-out rate in big city high school systems run by political bosses who, year after year after year, use minority school children as cash cows to cement their power.
Why does Kass think it’s so hard to for us to address these questions?
It’s been so corrosive for so long, black resentment over white bigotry and white resentment over racial preferences (which is, in effect, institutionalized racism); and the abandonment of minority schools, generation after generation dropping out, left behind.
We can’t talk about it. It gets too loud and too angry too fast.
Perhaps tackling this problem is the first step toward actually working on residual race issues. We’re probably all familiar with the breakdown in such public discussions. If you are a person of color and bristle at inequity of opportunity, racial profiling or remaining bouts of open hatred and bigotry left over from the era of the civil rights movement, you can quickly find yourself labeled an “angry black man” or “stuck in the past complaining about slavery” which is generations behind us. Potentially valid complaints you raise will then be framed in the lens of that portrait.
Should a white person grumble about minority set-aside contracts, racial quotas for college admissions or some aspects of hate crime legislation then it may quickly be assumed that you have a closet full of evening wear made from white sheets. You are, in short, a racist and any input you may have had for the discussion is discounted out of hand as simple bigotry.
But are there not valid complaints regarding situations in America here and now - not just locked away in the distant past of chains and plantations - which are valid from both sides? And if we can’t get past the automatic defensive reactions posited above, will we ever be able to reach solutions to these complaints and move forward? John Kass raises a very valid question but leaves it to us to find an answer. I’m sure that I am far from smart enough to come up with it, though.
The impact that Martin Luther King had in the United States is well-known to us. The effect he had on the rest of the world less-so.
Referring to the 1958 Montgomery Bus Boycott boycott, Enrique Dussel writes for Mexico’s La Jornada, “It was a routine ‘event’ that would launch Martin Luther [King] into history. Such ‘events’ are always of humble origin, but resonate strongly with the public. As with the ‘water war’ or the ‘gas war’ that ended up toppling two Bolivian governments, what began small ended up having a huge impact. … Dr. King became involved in the boycott and led demonstrations … and was was transformed into a leader of Afro-American multitudes who had already begun mobilizing.
In describing his growth into a global leader, Dussel writes, “Martin Luther began to discover other forms of oppression. So his discourses began to include all of the poor of the United States, from the urban working poor, Hispanic farm laborers and the marginalized, to the jobless. And after 1964, he began using his leadership to oppose the Vietnam War. In that year he received the Nobel Peace Prize. … But there is more. His discoveries led him to accuse his own country of being the cause of misery to other peoples. In 1967 he led the ‘Poor People’s March,’ which lifted the issues of racial and economic injustice to the national and global level. He reached out beyond the poor of the U.S. to those of Africa, where the slaves originated, and to Asia and Latin America.”
Dussel concludes, “It seems as though he had overstepped the limits of allowable criticism. … And so on April 4, 1968 (the same year as the May unrest in Paris and Berkeley, and the October Massacre in Tlatelolco), the life of Martin Luther King was cut short.”
By Enrique Dussel*
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
April 4, 2008
Mexico - La Jornada - Original Article (Spanish)
Forty years ago on April 4th, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis! It’s an anniversary that provides food for thought.
Martin Luther, an Afro-American from a Baptist community, was born in the midst of economic depression in 1929. As his father was a pastor and having obtained a doctorate in Boston [Boston University, in systematic theology], he took charge of a community of believers in Atlanta, Georgia [actually, it was in Montgomery, Alabama; the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church]. The struggle for the civil rights was picking up, but it was a routine “event” that would launch Martin Luther into history.
Such “events” are always of humble origin, but resonate strongly with the public. As with the “water war” or the “gas war” in Bolivia, what began small ended up toppling two Bolivian governments. One shouldn’t dismiss “events” that could develop into storms - an issue exposed by Alain Badiou in his “Being and Event,” and which Walter Benjamin referred to as “now-time” in regard to the arrival of the messiah.
In this case, the “event” was the simple fact that an Afro-American woman, tired after finishing work, refused to give up her bus seat to a White person who wanted to take it, as the established custom and the discriminatory laws of the south dictated. The woman preferred to have the bus stopped. The police were summoned and a full-blown confrontation ensued. But the best part is that the other Afro-Americans on the bus not only got off, but they declared a boycott of the bus company. The controversy spread. The local pastor, Dr. Martin Luther King, became involved in the boycott and led demonstrations. Meanwhile, every Afro-American in Atlanta began to walk to work, sometimes over long distances and for days or even weeks.
The bus company sued the movement because it went into bankruptcy. King was accused in a court of law and found guilty of causing economic damage the company by holding the boycott and had to suffer incarceration. All this had the effect of raising the social pressure, and the young, 26-year-old pastor was transformed into a leader of Afro-American multitudes who had already begun mobilizing across the country for the fight against racial discrimination.
In 1956, a law was decreed to end racial segregation in the United States (which is not the same as making it a reality), and slowly but surely, Afro-Americans began accruing political clout. Martin Luther’s leadership continues to inspire, not only in his native state, but across the country. Reflecting on Mahatma Gandhi’s doctrine of “non-violence” (which was inspired by the ancient Jain school of Indian thought), he began a true strategic struggle against racism in the United States, a phenomenon as old as slavery, which was established in the 17th century. Martin Luther was arrested again several times. While “non-violence” isn’t a universal principle, it’s a strategy that works in a country that respects the rule of law (for the powerful, of course, not for the poor).
It was August 28, 1968 when he delivered his most famous speech before 200 000 people in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
Gradually, the Atlanta preacher [Alabama, actually] began to realize that that Afro-American people had been discriminated against since the dawn of modernity; since the onset of European slavery that involved over 15 million Africans. It was a terrible kind of oppression, and yet it was an oppression that went unnoticed by French Revolutionary and Enlightenment thinking. Then Martin Luther began to discover other forms of oppression. So his discourses began to include all of the poor of the United States, from the urban working poor, Hispanic farm laborers and the marginalized, to the jobless. And after 1964, he began using his leadership to oppose the Vietnam War. In that year he received the Nobel Peace Prize.
He knew he was going to die. Before Martin Luther King was shot and killed on the balcony of a Memphis motel forty years ago tomorrow, he went to see his parents to prepare them.
“The reports are that they are out to get me,” he told them. “I have to go on with my work, I’m too deeply involved now to get out, it’s all too important. Sometimes I want to stop. Just go away somewhere and have some quiet days, finally, a quiet life with Coretta and the children. But it’s too late for that now. I have my path before me. I know what I have to do.”
The hatred came from many directions, not only from white racists but, as we now know from FBI files, from J. Edgar Hoover, the Director, who had agents bug his hotel rooms and send him anonymous threatening letters, urging him to commit suicide.
Unbeknownst to most Americans, the perceived wrongful exercise of the death penalty in the United States is a burning issue around the world. A few days ago, the 1982 death sentence of a former broadcaster and member of the Black Panther Party, Mumia Abu-Jamal, was overturned by a Philadelphia court panel, as evidence has emerged showing that black jurors were improperly excluded from the trial. Both here and abroad, the decision has given new hope to opponents of the death penalty. Pierre Laurent writes for France’s L’Humanite, “Enough can never be done to expand this struggle. But now one thing is certain: To all of those who question our opposition to fatalism and resignation, Mumia’s stunning struggle brings a scathing denial. Our humanity warrants all the battles.”
Editorial by Pierre Laurent
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
March 28, 2008
France - l’Humanite - Original Article (French)
At 4:15pm yesterday, the AFP dispatch appeared on our screens. We didn’t dare believe it: Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence has been overturned by Philadelphia’s Federal Appeals court! What a victory! The Black American activist, who has proclaimed his innocence since his conviction for the murder of a police officer in 1982, will no longer haunt the corridors of death row as he has for more than 25 years, Read the rest of this entry »
With cries for change sweeping the United States and even the ‘hermetically-sealed totalitarian regime’ of the Castro brothers, some in Venezuela are sounding downright envious. Fernando Luis Egaña writes for Venezuela’s Correo del Caroni, “Both in the United States and its hemispheric polar opposite Cuba, there are growing expectations of political, economic and social change. … The oldest democracy and the longest dictatorship on the Continent are preparing for change. May long-suffering Venezuela not be left behind.”
By Fernando Luis Egaña
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
March 25, 2008
Venezuela - Correo del Caroni - Home Page (Spanish)
Both in the United States and its hemispheric polar opposite Cuba, there are growing expectations of political, economic and social change. Domestic and global reasons have resulted in this push for new directions.
No one knows if Barack Obama will in the end obtain the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, and even if he does - whether he’ll manage to defeat Republican John McCain. But much of this feat has already been accomplished. Read the rest of this entry »
Global reaction to Barack Obama’s speech continues to pour in. In this op-ed article from France’s Le Monde, Daniel Vernet writes, ‘The senator from Illinois put himself in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers of the United States. … Obama’s leitmotif is marked with a seal of hope and optimism in a union that can be ‘perfected.’ It is not perfect. It never has been. … The Philadelphia Convention, which proclaimed independence and drafted the Constitution, drew on a political philosophy that was a mixture of Christian faith and the spirit of the Enlightenment. It nevertheless accepted the continuation of slavery.’ Vernet concludes, “Obama’s speech in Philadelphia is a mix of political aptitude and candor. Expressed by a man of color who has succeeded, his faith in America is particularly suited to rallying those who thrive along with those who hope; White, Black or immigrant.”
By Daniel Vernet
Translated By Kate Davis
March 25, 2008
France - Le Monde - Original Article (French)
In order to escape a dangerous association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ, a man who married him and baptized his children, on March 18 Barack Obama delivered a speech on the relationship between the races in the United States. It is a speech that has generated attention, admiration and controversy. Read the rest of this entry »
![[Guardian Unlimited]](http://worldmeets.us/images/obamakkk_guardian.gif)
