CW Political and Social Thought

Why and How the Media is Exaggerating the Black and Brown Divide

This election season has certainly brought many surprises; a former first lady who is banking on her husband and her name recognition in her bid for the White House, a once unknown politician who has become a household name and has sparked a movement, a Mormon from the Northeast who wants to win the hearts and minds of Republican evangelicals, and a 9/11 mayor who can't seem to find his voice. All in all, it is an election cycle for the record books, not just because it's presidential politics, but because the United States has never seen a field of candidates that is so diverse in terms of both physical and ideological attributes.

Unfortunately, given the uniqueness of this campaign season, the media are struggling to come to grips with how to frame questions and debates, summarize events for print and television, and present a candidate in light of their positions and not their gender, race or religion. I would say that on the latter point, they have largely failed. Newsweek presenting Mitt Romney on the December 2006 cover of their magazine with the title, "A Mormon's Journey" is just one attempt out of many for the media to put so much emphasis on Romney's religion as if to suggest that there is something wrong with electing or even considering a Mormon for the presidency. While, Clinton and Obama have faired better for their gender and race respectively, there is still an attempt on the part of the media to want to make a story where there really isn't any. I recently read an article on the Washington Post's website that said that if Barack Obama does not win South Carolina (which he has won) by double digits, he risks becoming a "Black candidate". Well, I think we all know that Barack Obama is a color-skinned man, so the claim that people will start noticing this and vote differently is a farce.

Of course, this will not be the last time that the media exaggerates a candidate's superficial qualities in order to get you to buy whatever they are selling. In fact, they are already beginning to tie Obama's race (the Black half) to a possible failure to garner Latino support. Everyone's talking about how Hispanics don't vote for Black candidates. Even using Clinton's overwhelming victory with Latino voters in the Nevada primary  (64%)  as an indication of how poorly a Black candidate does with Latino voters. Moreover, a highly questionable poll among Hispanics in Durham, North Carolina, "found that 59% of Latinos believed few or almost no blacks were hard-working, and a similar proportion reckoned few or almost none could be trusted. Fewer than one in ten whites felt the same way." [1] But this study has many problems. One,  it  means to suggest that  the 167  Hispanics in the  Durham area who were surveyed could in some way  translate  into  a meaningful treatment of Hispanic views elsewhere. The authors of the study too easily dismiss the role of social cues and expectations in their questioning. In fact, 93% of the Latino respondents were not born in the United States and might have taken the survey as a test of their patriotism. Again, not being born in the United States, one has a far greater challenge of determining American standards, especially concerning matters of race and especially when you are in the South.

No doubt, however, there are instances where Black and Brown populations may not get along, as in Los Angeles. Because of the sudden increase in the Hispanic population, racial strife and violence, mostly driven by gangs, have left the Black and Brown population is a struggle for space and power. But this is the exception, not the rule. Sure, one-third of Black workers may think immigrants take jobs from Americans, but this is in no way a personal attack on immigrants. After all, immigrants do take jobs from Americans. This is a fact. Employers hire them because they work for less. Black Americans realize that immigrants are not 'stealing' their jobs and that the shortage of work in some areas across the nation has less to do with the people who are hired to replace them, than the fact that many working class jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs are being shipped abroad. As well, Black Americans know that the current state of joblessness involves the lack of initiative on the part of the government. On the other hand, Hispanics do not generally think that Black Americans are shiftless, untrained, and untrustworthy. On the contrary, I assert that Hispanics, especially poor ones, more strongly identify with African Americans and look to African Americans for some ways to avoid pitfalls, advance their cause, and navigate the terrain of American political and social life. The great immigration demonstrations of 2007, in fact, seems like a political tool taken right out of the Civil Rights Movement handbook. Then, there are the ways that Brown and Black populations are learning to relate on very personal levels. My best friend of six years is Hispanic. My roommate's best friend is Hispanic. Whether on construction sites, in the service sector, or elsewhere, it would be dangerous to underestimate the importance that these relationship have on challenging racial stereotypes.

So when Earl Hutchinson in his new book "The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House" tries to  argue that there is a clear divide between the Brown and Black community, we should be very offended. I hope that his efforts to stereotype Latino voters will backfire because it is not the sort of race-baiting that our country needs. As an African American, his efforts can only be counterproductive in that he seemingly wants to distance himself from the Latino community. Hopefully, though, I think most people see his book for what it really is, another farce by the media on the Black and Brown divide.

Movie Review: The Great Debaters

 

Who is the judge?
The judge is God.
Why is he God?
Because he decides who wins or loses. Not my opponent.
Who is your opponent?
He does not exist.
Why does he not exist?
Because he is a mere dissenting voice of the truth I speak!

I recently saw the new film, The Great Debaters, which stars Academy Award winners Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker, as well as some up-and-coming African American stars like Kimberly Elise, Jurnee Smollett, and Nate Parker. The film is loosely based on the success of the all-Black Wiley College debate team in 1935. Despite the racial climate of the time and his own involvement with unionizing Texan sharecroppers, the coach, Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington) leads his team  to acclaimed success by not only beating the most prestigious Black colleges at the time, but also by triumphing over the University of Southern California, who were the national debate champions. Unfortunately, the film strays away from this fact by making the climatic moment of the film a debate between Wiley College and Harvard. But where the film embellishes with historical hyperboles and with emotional appeals to racism, as with the incidents involving the pig and the sheriff, the film undeniably makes a profound statement. [1]

What makes the film so relevant is how it seeks to reaffirm the genius and potential of Black students. Though, it should be noted that the the relative ease with which Henry Lowe (Nate Parker), Samantha Brooke (Jurnee Smollett) and James Farmer, Jr. (Denzel Whitaker) entered the debate team is easily overlooked since an all-Black college offered emotional security and the flexibility of identity. But unlike today, Black students often feel excluded from these more "intellectual" programs, especially when they are predominated by white students. As an example, when I entered the forensics program at my high school, it was well integrated, about half white and and half black. I can't say that I would have joined had it been all white or even all Black, being that my high school was racially well-balanced, so the eagerness of the students at Wiley can be very much appreciated. While they were faced with confronting their own fears about their abilities to take on white teams, as with Oklahoma City College, they always managed to rein in their anxieties and assert a certain confidence that enabled them to be intellectually strong and also emotionally present. Perhaps, the best example is when James Farmer, Jr., having finally had the chance to debate, argues with the Harvard debate team over a resolution involving the morality of civil disobedience. Before making his final argument, he seems to have lost his confidence. He struggles at the podium, hesitating to even speak a word while the audience sits silently in nervous anticipation, but then, he recalls  seeing a Black man being lynched by a white mob on the team's way to a competition. He uses that example to remark upon the immorality of the Jim Crow South for Black Americans and this wins the competition.

The Great Debaters is part Roots, part teen melodrama, part anti-communist movie genre, part Sidney Poitier in Separate But Equal, but, all in all, a must see film.   For Black Americans, it provides a much needed image of Black young people. Its success is not so much its high profile celebrities, but in its delivery as a film that reignites the all-American belief in daring to dream.   

The Lynching of Mary Turner in My Hometown in 1918

"Her body was cut open and her infant fell to the ground with a little cry, to be crushed to death by the heel of one of the white men present."  - On the lynching of Mary Turner

For the last year or so, I have been researching my family's history in Virginia and southern Georgia. For the most part, this journey has been very rewarding, finding a newspaper article on my great, great, great grandfather who was born into slavery in the 1850s, discovering an extended relative who was one of the first Black principals in Central Virginia, and uncovering Native American ancestors. Unfortunately, I have also confronted the brutality and racism that defined the world in which they lived. Such was the case in Valdosta, GA in 1918.

Lynching has a long and a very depressing history, the history of which I can't even begin to describe in this entry. What I can say, however, is that experts have approximated that the number of African Americans who were lynched between the 1890s and 1930s averaged 103 per year and were often perpetuated by lynch mobs. As early as 1880, Brooks County, a county formed in 1858 from a portion of Valdosta, had developed a reputation for racial violence.

Brooks County, named after South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks, established a reputation second to none in Georgia for race violence. During the era of lynching, 1880-1930, the county established a ...reputation for mob violence on an unprecedented scale; there were at least twenty-four confirmed victims of lynchings. In December 1894, a mob lynched five men in a single incident. Lynchings were carried out on a regular basis, with mobs taking lives in August 1898, January 1901, July 1909, June 1911, March 1913, November 1917, and May 1918. There were more lynchings in Brooks than any county in Georgia; Fitzhugh Brundage has suggested that the county was the most mob-prone county in the entire South.( n10) It should come as no surprise, then, that the single lynching incident that claimed the most number of lives in Georgia, in May 1918, occurred in that county. ("Killing Them by the Wholesale" by Christopher Meyers)

It was in this historical context that Mary Turner, eight-months pregnant, became one of the most gruesome cases of lynching, racism and lawlessness in the United States. Responding to her husband's lynching, which supposedly involved his complicity with the murder of a white man, papers reported that Turner's statement about her husband's lynching being "unjust" "only inflamed" the white mob which had already claimed eight Black lives. Descriptions of Mary Turner's lynching are some of the hardest writings to stomach.

"The mob tied her ankles together and hung her to a tree head down and gasoline from automobiles was poured over her. Turner's clothing was burned off of her body. A member of the mob produced a sharp knife and her stomach was laid open; her unborn child fell to the ground. Hundreds of bullets were then fired into Turner until she was barely recognizable as a human being. Both Turner and her child were buried about ten feet from the tree, the grave marked by a whiskey bottle with a cigar placed in the neck." (Meyers)

"Mary Turner was pregnant and was hung by her feet. Gasoline was thrown on her clothing and it was set on fire. Her body was cut open and her infant fell to the ground with a little cry, to be crushed to death by the heel of one of the white men present. The mother's body was then riddled with bullets." [1]

The white residents of Valdosta, Georgia decided to teach her a lesson for being uppity enough to be vocal about her pain. A mob found her tied her upside down to a tree, doused her with gasoline and burned her alive. One of the crowd members took a knife and split her belly open letting the baby fall out. Another member of the crowd smashed the baby’s head with his foot. Then the crowd took out their guns and filled the burning body of Mary Turner with bullets. The Associated Press wrote that Mary Turner had made unwise remarks about the execution of her husband. [2]

"...a man stepped forward with a pocketknife and ripped open her abdomen in a crude Caesarean operation. 'Out tumbled the prematurely born child,'" White wrote. "'Two feeble cries it gave - and received for the answer the heel of a stalwart man, as life was ground out of the tiny form. [3]

Gladly, Valdosta has come a long way from Mary Turner, but unfortunately, two recent story coming out of Valdosta show me how far Valdosta still has to go.

Valdosta Court Refuses to Admit Muslim Woman for "Security Reasons"

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today criticized officials in the Valdosta, Georgia, municipal court for denying a Muslim woman entrance to the courtroom because she refused to remove her head scarf. 20-year-old Aniisa Karim had come to court to challenge a speeding ticket, but was denied entry on the basis of security concerns, security guards told her....Read More

White Students Hang Black Doll From Tree

Three white students painted a doll black and hanged it from a schoolyard tree, prompting calls from parents and the local NAACP that the FBI should investigate the act as a hate crime....Read More

The Oprah and Obama Question

"So to the question of what Oprah brings to Obama is, in a word, transcendence." -CW Political and Social Thought

There is a lot to be said about Oprah Winfrey's endorsement of Obama. Claims that she can only give him a slight bump in the polls or that she can't possibly translate her celebrity into sheer political influence are just speculation at best. It's speculation because Oprah has never engaged the public with politics on this scale. Surely, concerning television, books, her magazine, and product plugs and even charity organizations, she's a powerhouse, but what Oprah touches does not always turn to gold. Perhaps, Beloved is the best example to demonstrate her limitations. Setting aside highly unsubstantiated predictions about her potential influence in this race, the reasons that Oprah is entering the political arena are worthy of a second glance.

Today, Oprah made her first two stops in a series of stops throughout early primary and caucus states. In true Oprah style, Oprah's message was clear, full of conviction, and humor. She couched her message in terms of "dangerous times". It's not only the War in Iraq that concerns her, but the health care, educational, and economic crises at home. What seems to be the case is that Oprah does not understand these to be new issues. Rather, Oprah's personal relationship with Obama has deeply affected her to the extent that she is willing to take certain risks in her career. She, like Obama, is innately optimistic, hopeful, and visionary, not to mention that they both are able to transcend race, but at the same time embrace their Black identity.

In his new book, A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited about Obama and Why He Can't Win, Shelby Steele has his own explanation for Oprah and Obama's wide appeal. According to his rather constipated and narrow-minded thinking, he thinks that Oprah and Obama are bargainers, which is defined by a willing to trust whites with the mutual expectation that the bargainer and "bargainee" won't engage in racially charged or racially based presuppositions or actions. And in the case of Oprah and Obama, they would be "iconic Negroes", which I won't bother delving into because his language seems so anachronistic and angry.

But while the question of race can't be glossed over as if white racism and Black oppression never existed in the United States, it seems counterproductive to reduce Obama and Oprah to being strategic Black people, who have to somehow learn how to deal with white people. So to the question of what Oprah brings to Obama is, in a word, transcendence.  Since Oprah first came to the public stage in the 1980s, she has had an uncanny ability to transcend not only television, but what seems to be the superficiality of our values. Sure, her "Favorite Things" shows are some of her most popular, but she never fails to make a moral point. In this case, she thinks that it is better to give than to receive. Lady 'O', as she is known in various media, is a moral leader who has the vision to see pass the convenience of politics or the sometimey-ness of American popular thought. Her philosophy is basically humanistic, that when it comes down to it, humans just want love, security, stability, and acceptance. 

Her long-term vision was certainly conveyed in a speech that was on CNN, in which she raised questions about the sustainability of our foreign policy and the morality of our social policy. As she says, she's trying to get Americans "to think" more broadly, which in politics, is a big no-no. The whole point of politics is to take advantage of issues, real or not, big or small, that can be used against one's opponent, not to pontificate about a non-partisan American vision, but this is exactly what Oprah is trying to do. She began her speech by saying that she has voted nearly equally for Republicans and Democrats, so she is clearly trying to transcend politics, even making statements about how experience in Washington is no longer sufficient to meet to the needs of the nation.  Much like transcending  television, Oprah wants to transcend politics, which is a perfect match for Obama, a candidate running on opposing "business as usual".

Article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Before Plymouth or Jamestown or Even Roanoke Island, There Was San Miguel de Guadalupe

In his book, Black Indians, William Loren Katz, claims that the first foreign colony on 'U.S.' soil was neither Jamestown, nor Roanoke Island. More interestingly, he asserts that while Europeans left the colony several months later in 1526 because of harsh weather, a labor storage, and inadequate shelter, "Africans remained to build their own society with Native Americans." For reasons which he believes are related to a belief that "U.S. life began with the arrival of English-speaking Anglo Saxons" and its challenge to "white U.S. heritage", the story of San Miguel de Guadalupe, which was settled near what became Georgetown, South Carolina, garners very little attention in terms of pre-British, pre-United States North American history.

The story of San Miguel de Guadalupe begins when Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, a wealthy Spanish official in the Spanish colony of Hispaniola sent an expedition in 1520 to canvass the North American mainland to establish a colony. Though, according to Katz, Ayllon wanted to build "friendly relations with the local inhabitants," Ayllon's men, among whom was a slave-hunter, captured seventy Native Americans. One of these natives, Chicorana, would help Ayllon persuade the Spanish king  to permit a settlement on the mainland of the U.S.  "The  king's  orders  forbade  enslavement of the Indians, and added 'you be very careful about the treatment of the Indians," but this had little effect as "one hundred enslaved Africans", along with Spanish men and women, were on the crew headed for San Miguel de Guadalupe.

Though dogged by Indian desertions, Ayllon and his crew resolved to settle the land in hopes of exploiting African labor and nature's land. This would be short-lived. In a matter of time, "disease and starvation ravaged their colony and internal disputes tore it apart," culminating in a slave revolt, in which slaves fled to the Indians and the departure of the surviving Spanish settlers.  In a series of events, "African began  setting  fires and Native Americans (who also hated slavery) sided with the slaves and made trouble."

What was left of this was a mixed community of Africans and Native Americans and the "first settlement of any permanence on these shores to include people from overseas." The frequency with which Blacks and Indians established familial ties of interdependency and mutual respect throughout American settlements suggests that San Miguel de Guadalupe being described as the "first colony on this continent to practice the belief that all people -newcomer and native- are created equal and are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"  is likely accurate.  We may never know the exact nature of Black and Indian life in San Miguel de Guadalupe, as the story still remains ignored and understudied, but what San Miguel de Guadalupe clearly foreshadows is how Indians and Blacks would learn how to consolidate their power to overcome a common enemy. Much of the lessons of San Miguel de Guadalupe is about adaption, except in this story the enemy did not permanently stay, as the rest of American history would fold out, but slithered away like a snake.       

Benjamin Banneker: Beyond What We Think We Know

If you are like me, then what you learned about Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806) in secondary school  is probably summed up by this passage from my high school history book, which I've managed to keep a copy of after all these years.

"Under such circumstances, most free black remained poor laborers or tenant farmers. However, even under such extreme disadvantages, some free blacks became landowners or skilled artisans. One who achieved considerable fame was Benjamin Banneker of Maryland, a self-taught mathematician and astronomer. Later, in 1789, he served on the commission that designed Washington, D.C. and after 1791 he published a series of almanacs."

Of course, what this passage does not capture is Banneker's remarkable brilliance and even his missed potential, a brilliance that "brought him international fame in his time" and a potential that would have undoubtedly made him "a far more important figure in early American science than merely as the first black man of science" save for the limitations...of the burgeoning American Dream" for Blacks, free or not.

In a time in which the free Blacks "were confined by racism to low-paying jobs...and...(to live in) cellars or shanties on narrow streets," Blacks had to petition their government to no avail for education dollars equal to that given to white students, the right to testify in court, to have equal trading rights as white artisans, etc, so limiting Benjamin Banneker to a mathematician or astronomer, while worthwhile, does not place Banneker in an important historical context.

He was after all a Black man in 18th century United States. Before Banneker published his first edition of his almanac, of which there would be twenty-eight, he sent Thomas Jefferson, then secretary of state, a letter, which shows Banneker injecting himself into one of the most contentious and certainly most moral issues of his day. With the Constitutional Convention of 1787 having firmly given way to pro-slavery forces, Banneker challenged Jefferson on the question of slavery and American hypocrisy.  Written in the sort of gentlemanly style of the day and widely distributed, along with the exchange of letters, Banneker asserts an audacious confidence.

Benjamin Banneker, Letter to Thomas Jefferson
August 19, 1791

"I suppose it is a truth too well attested to you, to need a proof here, that we are a race of Beings who have long labored under the abuse and censure of the world, that we have been looked upon with an eye of contempt, and that we have long considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental endowment."

"...that one universal Father hath given being to us all, and that he hath not only made us all of one flesh, but that he hath also without partiality afforded us all the Same Sensations, and [endowed] us all with the same faculties, and that however variable we may be in Society or religion, however diversified in Situation or color, we are all of the Same Family, and Stand in the Same relation to him."

"Sir, Suffer me to recall to your mind that time in which the Arms and tyranny of the British Crown were exerted with every powerful effort in order to reduce you to a State of Servitude...This, Sir, was a time when you clearly saw into the injustice of a State of Slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition. [I]t was now Sir, that your abhorrence thereof was so excited that you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine...that all men are created equal...but Sir how pitiable is it to reflect, that altho you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of those rights and privileges...that you should at the Same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the Same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in other, with respect to yourselves."

No doubt, Banneker sees the tragedy in American democracy, that the American democratic experiment, though revolutionary in spirit and rhetoric, never was intended for such a revolution to take place. "The Constitution, then,...serves the interests of a wealthy elite" to control its population," from the race-based anger of Blacks and Indians and the economic-based anger of poor and landless whites both groups of which frequently rose in small-scale and large-scale rebellions against what was clearly the making of a  classist and racist society.

But there is still one last unresolved question, "How does Jefferson reply, since he obviously is interested in maintaining the status quo of slavery and subjugation?"

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Benjamin Banneker
August 30, 1791

"I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 19th. instant and for the Almanac it contained. no body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colours of men, & that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa & America. I can add with truth that no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body & mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecillity (sic) of their present existence, and other circumstance which cannot be neglected, will admit....

Note that Jefferson assumes for the sake of argument that his assumptions about Black inferiority are linked only to the slave condition that Blacks find themselves in. Also note that despite his seeming concern for the "body and mind" of Blacks that he evades the question of emancipation, as he, like all slave owners, tied emancipation to their own wealth. To free even one slave, in his mentality, would be like burning money. 

So part of the success in Banneker's letter is his appeal to Enlightenment thinking, but in Jefferson's response surfaces one challenge that Banneker omits altogether. It is a practical one, not a moral one or even an Enlightenment one. It is a question of how to loosen the tie between a practice that is utterly immoral and a practice that is utterly prosperous. This is not just an 18th century question either.

Credits:
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Voices of a People's History by Howard Zinn
African American Lives by Gates and Higginbotham
The Enduring Vision by multiple authors
Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett, Jr.

Everyday Prejudice/ Racialism v Racism

After an Asian-American friend told me that her Korean parents would disown her for marrying a Black man, though they perhaps would not be averse to her marrying a white man, that got me to thinking, "What are some of these social rules, norms, and perceptions that govern race relations and serve as a barrier to racial peace?" I scoured the Internet to find out.

Against Chinese Americans

"One in four Americans has "strong negative attitudes" toward Chinese Americans, would feel uncomfortable voting for an Asian American for president of the United States, and would disapprove of a family member marrying someone of Asian descent, according to a landmark national survey." [1]

Against Black Americans

"Here is a list of reasons why we should discriminate against Blacks, starting with the most obvious down to the least obvious. Blacks hate us. Every Asian who has ever come across them knows that they take almost every opportunity to hurl racist remarks at us....Contrary to media depictions, I would argue that Blacks are weak-willed. They are the only race that has been enslaved for 300 years. It's unbelieveable that it took them that long to fight back. Blacks are easy to coerce. This is proven by the fact that so many of them, including Al Sharpton, tend to be Christians..Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Christianity the religion whites forced upon them? [Kenneth Eng, Asian Week National, 2]

Against White Americans

That white perceptions of the extent of racial bias are rooted in a stupendous miasma of ignorance is made clear by a number of salient facts. First, as will be shown below, there is the statistical evidence indicating that equal opportunity is the stuff of fiction, not documentary; and secondly, the simple truth that white perceptions of racism's salience have always been splendidly naive. Indeed, as far back as 1963, before there was a Civil Rights Act to outlaw even the most blatant racial discrimination, 60 percent of whites said that blacks were treated equally in their communities. In 1962, only 8 years after the Brown decision outlawed segregation in the nation's schools (but well before schools had actually moved to integrate their classrooms), a stunning 84 percent of whites were convinced that blacks had equal educational opportunity. In other words, white denial of the racism problem is nothing new: it was firmly entrenched even when this nation operated under a formal system of apartheid [3]

Against Asian Women and White Men

"Interracial marriages between Asian women and white men is still predatory, purely paternalistic, if not outright capitalistic. Few white men are initially attracted to an Asian woman because they are beautiful by definition, nor because they know them personally and wish to know them better. They are specifically attracted to them because of the supposed stereotypes, cultural, sexual, anatomical—which is incredulously outrageous—regardless if these stereotypes are viewed as negative or positive. In the Asian community, especially among college students and young professionals, this subject is probably the most contentious. Both sides argue for and against, but in my opinion as an Asian male, the reasons for white males to "score" with Asian women is the reason why the practice should actually fall under the protection of federal Civil Rights Laws. Bottom line: If the white male's perspective regarding Asian women were to be totally publicized, it would be found objectionable to all—except maybe to themselves, of course." [4] 

Against Hispanic Americans

"A substantial and growing portion of the population gets more in goods and services from the government than it pays in taxes. When considered on top of the economic problem the cultural and political problems outlined by Huntington become even more serious. We can not afford - either economically or culturally - to continue on the current path on immigration policy. We need to deport the illegals, stop Hispanic immigration, and put both the need to maintain the existing culture and the advantage of much higher skilled and talented immigrants as key factors in determining who is eligible to immigrate to the United States." [5]

Against Middle Easterners

After the September 11th attacks, I have found myself paying much closer attention to fine details. Surveying my surroundings as if it's not only my responsibility, but a natural instinct. Some would say that it's racism, and others would say it's merely a reaction to a tragic event in American history. I must admit that I pay no more attention to Middle Easterners during my daily life than I do any other, but when it comes to suspicious activity, my level of awareness sky rockets, and I immediately feel a sense of urgency [6]

****************************************************

Racialism versus Racism

What is racialism? And how does it differ from racism? Many people may wonder what I mean in the header of this page by "racialist". Racialism and racism do share similar assumptions, namely that generalizing groups of people is valuable to understand the nature of racial relations and the inequality within the American context, however racialists fundamentally believe that race and racism are solely the product of social engineering, not of inherent qualities of people. In other words, in commenting on active and passive white supremacy and white male privilege, this is not an attack on white inferiority in that whites are heartless human beings who can't see pass their own white identity. Instead, in suggesting that white supremacy underlies social rules and norms, I hope to capture the extent to which contemporary Americans are victims of a prior social order that depended on placing races within a hierarchy. Moreover, our actions, specifically in terms of political representation, media representation, and employment, often mimic these traditions. In some respects, we are oblivious to the ways that we continue to pass the torch of white privilege, but in other respects, we consciously take on the spirit of this anachronistic practice. For instance, political parties often deliberately overlook women and minorities in canvassing for a party candidate because those individuals may pose a threat to the overall success of the  party in a particular district.  Since  white men were the traditional ruling class, and in some ways still is, people often struggle with their own prejudices with a female or minority candidate even for female and minority voters, but  notice this approach assumes that the rules of a prior social order are somehow pertinent to political success today. And of course, the rules are. So the best way to excite change is to cast doubt on the assumptions about the old social order that are blatantly racist and sexist. This is in no way saying that all white men are evil or that there is a conspiracy against women and minorities, only that institutions and rules that were established in a prior period continues to gain ground within the current American milieu, despite the growing resolve to try to undermine the prior order. In essence, racialists don't just hammer at the wall, they want to shake the ground on which it rests.

 

We Can No Longer Ignore the Issue of Race

I talk a lot about racism on my website, but never did I think that someone could be tortured, held in captivity, sexually abused, humiliated, and be forced to eat dog and rat feces all because they were black. In commenting on Megan Williams' ordeal in West Virginia authorities are saying this...

"At one point, an assailant cut the woman's ankle with a knife and used the N-word in telling her she was victimized because she is black, authorities said. They said the young was also forced to eat dog feces..."

"Her captors, all of them white, choked her with a cable cord and stabbed her in the leg while calling her a racial slur, poured hot water over her and made her drink from a toilet, according to criminal complaints."

I have said time and time again that the white population in this country does not want to talk about race because they are afraid of what they might see in the mirror. Whites like to think and would like for everyone else to think that the United States is the freest nation in the world, but it is the freest nation in the world if you are Caucasian. If you are Black, even educated, you face a lifetime struggle in fighting for your rights to be heard, represented, and respected. I can't say that I am altogether surprised by what happened to Megan Williams, though the manner in which she was treated was comparable to being a slave in the deepest part of the Deep South.

As long as whites treat the issue of race as being a 'Black problem', they will never truly understand democracy, humanity, and freedom because in order for their freedom, humanity, and justice to be realized they must release themselves of their own white supremacy and hatred against everyone who is not white.

I am not just talking about the more overt forms as with Megan Williams, but I am talking about the subtle forms, like using affirmative action as a scapegoat for their own desire to preserve the greatest gifts of this country for whites. Affirmative action is not an automatic ticket to higher education or employment, nor should it be, but the mere use of race as one factor is being manipulated to mean that minorities can't even get into a college without allegations of not working hard enough, being smart enough, or deserving enough. Whites also have a way of ignoring minorities in how they contribute to the character of this nation.

They don't care much about Black history or culture, neither does their ignorance excite them to put up a book, or watch a movie, or start a conversation with a person of color. I once discussed this issue with a white student who was entering into the teaching field with a focus on American history. In encouraging him to read various books on minority history, he dismissed my gesture by saying that he does not have have time being that he's a new teacher, but as soon as he's comfortable in his subject matter, he'll "look into it". This is the nature of being white in America. 

Whites are so secured in their notion that this nation belongs to them that any other groups' attempt to claim ownership is disposable, sneered at, and ridiculed.

To them, the notion that Blacks have made an indelible mark on this country seems fabricated, if not down right stupid. If my remarks seem hyperbolic, then just a white person, "What does it feel like to be white."  More than likely they will look confounded, but deep inside they will know that whiteness in this country is power: power to dominate, power to inflict, and power to conquer.

It is with this power that  those white West Virginians virtually enslaved Megan Williams.

Here are the facts as reported in various news stories

1. 20-year-old Charleston, W.Va., resident Megan Williams, a black woman, was allegedly abducted, held captive for at least a week and tortured by six white individuals from Logan County, W.Va. Black Missing

2. A prosecutor said police are investigating the possibility that the victim was lured to the house where she was attacked by a man she met on the internet, but Carmen Williams insisted that wasn’t the case. “This wasn’t from the Internet,” she said. ABC NEWS

3. On September 12, 2007 six white residents of Logan County were arrested and charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding, and battery against Megan Williams, who is Black and Mentally Challenged. It is also reported that the defendants allegedly repeatedly used racial slurs while forcing Megan to eat human feces, rat feces, and drink urine while trapped at the Logan County, West Virginia residence. Send 2  Press

4. Frankie Brewster, 49, and her son Bobby Brewster, 24, are accused of kidnapping, sexual assault and malicious wounding. Karen Burton, 46, George Messer, 27, Alisha Burton, 23 and Danny Combs, 20, are charged with sexual assault and malicious wounding. SKY.COM

5. Authorities say they held a 20-year-old black woman for about a week at their mobile home, where she was tortured, sexually assaulted and forced to eat rat droppings. Court TV

I'll Take on the Whole United States If I Have To

We have frequently printed the word Democracy, yet I cannot too often repeat that it is a word the real gist of which still sleeps, quite unawakened, notwithstanding the resonance and the many angry tempests out of which its syllables have come, from pen or tongue. It is a great word, whose history I suppose, remains unwritten, because that history has yet to be enacted.
~Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas (1871)

To be an Afro-American, or an American black, is to be in the situation, intolerably exaggerated, of all those who have ever found themselves part of a civilization which they could in no wise honorably defend-which they were compelled, indeed, endlessly to attack and condemn-and who yet spoke out of the most passionate love, hoping to make the kingdom new, to make it honorably and worthy of life.
~James Baldwin, No Name in the Street (1972)

I have been regularly contributing to a forum on possible constitutional amendments. Here is my latest post.

The last gentleman's comment illustrates my point. He does not want to see the importance of race because doing so would challenge his privileged status as a (presumably) white male. Moreover, how dare he use Oprah and Bill Cosby as indicators that Black people have somehow overcome! He has no clue what it means to be minority in this country. Even for minorities like myself who graduated in the top of their class in high school, attended a prestigious university, and managed to overcome the odds, we are subjected to the white supremacist notions that our people are never good enough and that white folks are always a "little bit" better. Though I took more A.P. courses than any other kid in my class, my white peers in high school gossiped behind my back and said that I was only admitted to U.Va. because I was black. This is the reality of being a minority. We constantly have to break people's stereotypes of who they assume we are. I make a concerted effort not to let my hair grow too long, my pants be too low, or my speech too 'black' for fear that someone may stereotype me. White supremacist ideology has gone unchecked for much too long. We can't even imagine the damage that has been done and the millions of Americans, white and Black alike, who have bought into this.

Related Links
My Posts on A More Perfect Constitution

In the Ghetto

I have had Elvis Presley's In the Ghetto in my ipod for many years, so I was glad to see that Lisa Marie Presley used this song for her newest single, which so happens to be the first song she's ever released with her father. Unfortunately, her version wasn't available on YouTube, so here is the King himself.

As the snow flies
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin'
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto
And his mama cries
'cause if there's one thing that she don't need
it's another hungry mouth to feed
In the ghetto

People, don't you understand
the child needs a helping hand
or he'll grow to be an angry young man some day
Take a look at you and me,
are we too blind to see,
do we simply turn our heads
and look the other way

Well the world turns
and a hungry little boy with a runny nose
plays in the street as the cold wind blows
In the ghetto

And his hunger burns
so he starts to roam the streets at night
and he learns how to steal
and he learns how to fight
In the ghetto

Then one night in desperation
a young man breaks away
He buys a gun, steals a car,
tries to run, but he don't get far
And his mama cries

As a crowd gathers 'round an angry young man
face down on the street with a gun in his hand
In the ghetto

As her young man dies,
on a cold and gray Chicago mornin',
another little baby child is born
In the ghetto

The Ghetto Has Not Always Been Urban

Bayou Bourbeaux Plantation operated by Bayou Bourbeaux Farmstead Association, a cooperative established through the cooperation of FSA; Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, August 1940.

 

Children of sharecropper, near West Memphis, Arkansas, 1935

A 12-year-old boy and his 6-year-old sister picking cotton; the former worked 12, the latter 8 hours a day.

Black family living in crowded quarters, Chicago, Illinois, April 1941.

What Would Be Your Constitutional Amendment?

Professor Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia is leading an effort to generate discussion for calling a constitutional convention. In his latest book, A More Perfect Constitution, he is advancing 23 proposals that will "consider the very real possibility: that the failure of the nation to update the Constitution and the structure of government it originally bequeathed to is is at the root of our current political dysfunction."  I challenged him on one glaring omission in an e-mail I sent to him and he encouraged me to make that correspondence public.

September 27th, 7:03 p.m.

Professor Sabato,
I can't say how excited I am that the Center for Politics is calling for a constitutional convention. I have discussed this issue many times with my peers and my professors since I came to U.Va. On the issue of the number of representatives in Congress, I am so baffled that the world's third largest nation has less national representatives than France, Britain, and many other western democracies. A professor of mine, who actually teaches American constitutionalism, in fact justified these numbers by saying that adding more representatives would lead to more instability or turnover, but my question is, "What is so bad about forcing those in power to share power?" And if we were willing to continually expand the size of Congress well into the twentieth century, why should we stop now given how diverse and complex our nation has become? This is one of many important issues that I am glad that you are addressing.

But I have to say this Professor Sabato, I am troubled by the absence of any clear message about race in your proposals. For Americans and white Americans especially, race has always have been the pink elephant in the room that no one is willing to talk about and when we do, it's explosive, divisive, and sometimes very violent. Here I am thinking about: the Founding Father's compromise on slavery, the denial, which only in the recent past began to abate, that Blacks were negatively impacted by slavery and the support for the theory that slavery in fact 'modernized' African Americans, the idea that race is not as important in the post Civil Rights era, so on and so forth. Will we continue to pretend that the United States is a just and equal society for all when Black kids, and sadly now Hispanic kids suffer immensely and disproportionately from unequal education, unequal access, unequal chance, and, dare I say, unequal citizenship. I believe it was Al Sharpton who put it best, "When America catches a cold, Black America gets the flu."

It is to the white majority's advantage to not bring up race, so I am not really surprised that your proposals make no explicit statement in this regard. It is to the advantage of minorities and particularly African Americans, whose ancestors by and large did not choose to immigrate to the United States, why this question of race still must be kept on the table, because honestly Professor Sabato it's not just about the racial bias of our justice system, our educational system, or our political system. It is about the totality of being a minority in this country, from the small things like all the white male statues in Charlottesville to Hurricane Katrina. Moreover, American society does not accept African Americans on their own terms. When American history is taught there is no effort to define African Americans independently of their relationship to whites. There is no talk of the culture that my enslaved ancestors created; the music, the institutions, and the religion.  Instead we hear of the "master" and his objectified 'slave'. I have a picture of one of my great, great, great grandfathers who was born into slavery in the 1850s and who lived well into his 90s. I would never call him a slave. Though his society thought that he was an object to be traded, I believe that he was a human being who never deserved to be treated like chattel. I prefer the term enslaved person because this captures his humanity and his dignity.

But the fact that even now we treat Black folks who were victims of that good ole American institution as just people who did as they were told and that's it, shows me that we still got a long way to go. The greatest two moments of revelation came to me when a white friend of mine, who graduated from college, had no clue who Frederick Douglas was and when a Black friend of mine didn't know if Clarence Thomas or 'that other Black judge' was the 'Republican, like the conservative one'. I believe that calling a constitutional convention is a very good idea, but I believe that now is our opportunity for us to get it right.  Racial inequality and injustice will not be tolerated and we must make every effort to raise African Americans and all minorities, their history, their culture, and importance to a level that is honorable and just.

Respectfully Yours,
CW

September 27th, 7:10 p.m. A reply to Professor Sabato's reply.

Professor Sabato,
The constitutional amendment that I have in mind would spell out our values in terms of racial equality. I know that constitutional amendments tend to be rather short and sometimes vague, but I think that Virginia's resolution on slavery is what I have in mind, especially the message of reconciliation. I don't understand why we must think so technically on this issue. It's our constitution for God's sake! I think that such an amendment should assert a commitment to making sure that no one race is left in the cold or sleeps near the fire. That all Americans, poor, rich, Black, White and everything in between deserve a society that is just and equal, not just in terms of rules, which themselves have yet to be realized, but in terms of intangibles. Racial minorities deserve the same right to claim ownership of American history, culture, and politics, as well as the right to believe in the U.S.'s commitment to our foundational principles. As such, racial minorities must be given representation and recognition in ways that are politically, educationally, and culturally proportionate.

Professor Sabato, if the United States could say this I would be very proud to be an African American, but I know that as long as people like a white liberal friend of mine, believe that this is a 'white country', we can't close the books on what W.E.B. DuBois called 'double consciousness'.

Being Black on the Opposite Side of the Color Line

"If you live in an AP world, you live out of reality"
~Black teacher, Little Rock Central

"Central is no longer segregated, but is not integrated"
~Brandon, Little Rock Central

Tonight, HBO premiered Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later, which delved into that school's segregated reputation as being "two schools under one building." Like many racially mixed schools around the country,  white students made up the vast majority of the students in advanced programs, while African Americans constituted the majority in regular and remedial classes. Despite Central High being lauded as one of the top twenty-five high schools in the country, there is a stark contrast between the level of achievement between these two groups, even more so because the white students generally come from highly affluent families. On the other hand, African American students faced the inherent challenges of poverty, violence in their families and communities, high teen pregnancy, and broken homes. 

Unfortunately, Central represents the rule rather than the exception. Even my high school, which was was mostly a 'middle-class high school' in Lynchburg, VA, experienced unequal distribution among whites and minorities. It was very common for me to be one of a handful of Blacks in my advanced classes, especially as high school became more challenging with Advanced Placement opportunities. I often noticed this difference, but I attributed it to a lack of motivation on the part of these students who I deemed underachievers. If I could deal with my home situation, which involved at times not having a bathroom, heat, hot water, or food, I concluded then that these students certainly did not have any reason for not taking advantage of the classes that were being offered. I found myself on the opposite side of the color line, looking outward I did not understand that my isolation from the peer pressure and their shared experiences, eased my ability to thrive in a predominately white world.

It's a shame to say now, but I did not know many Black students in my high school. Not that I thought that I was too good for them, but I was afraid that attitudes about being average would somehow influence me.  Besides, to them, I was 'proper' and 'acted white.' I was accepted in my advanced world, even loved. When I came out to my friends in twelfth grade, all my friends were instantly more interested in me. They wanted to know what it was like to be gay and when had I known I was gay. I felt that Black folks, who had not even known about my sexuality, found me to be threatening, especially Black males. Every time I was called 'faggot' or 'sissy' it was usually hurled by a Black male. Ultimately, it did not bothered me that much, because I did graduate top in my class with the class record for having taken the most A.P. courses, but it did force me to separate myself more from Black students who were not in my classes.

However, what I have learned while in college is that students who don't succeed are not just influenced by their own ambitions, but are shut out purposefully by institutional racism that assumes that they are 'regular' until proven otherwise. In other words, white students are often given the benefit of the doubt, but in order for Black students to be placed on an advanced track, they have to show exceptional potential. Black students, who don't come from wealthy homes or even moderately wealthy homes, are assumed to be less  ambitious and less talented.  They are often  not encouraged to apply to college, to take rigorous course loads, and to want to make something better of themselves. Sadly, if they are, it is often related to athletics. I don't want to say that Black achievement does not exist in high schools, but that achievement takes on a different meaning for African Americans. The dominant culture for African American students emphasize sports over academics, studying playbooks over studying textbooks.

Part of this has to do with this whole racist sports culture that we have in the United States, with Black athletics and even rap artists being the models of success for young Black men, particularly today. When I grew up I remember watching the Cosby Show. Theo was never praised for being an outstanding quarterback; Theo was praised for doing well in school, going to college, and be an respectable young adult. You never saw Theo wearing his pants below his buttocks, or flaunting his athleticism as his ticket to freedom.  I consider myself a part of the Cosby generation. Not because I believed that the Cosby Show was the reality for Black families, but because the Cosby Show was an ideal that I wanted to emulate as the child I was, the father I wanted to be, and the family I wanted to created. Black kids don't have these positive images today and again part of that has to do with institutional racism. Though BET is advertised as a channel for Black teens, there is nothing juvenile about that channel. Everything from the rap videos that  parade  half naked women across the screen to sexually overt humor on ComicView, the fact remains is that we as a society do not value our Black youth enough to expect any better.   

Inverting World History

The eurocentric leanings of our collective conscious denies Black people a place in world history, besides being the unassuming victim of white imperialism, slavery, and exploitation. Never has one work captured the African diaspora as the subject more than Lerone Bennett's Before the Mayflower. Here are some powerful excerpts.

"For a long time, in fact, the only people on the scene were Africans. For some 600,000 years Africa and Africans led the world...Civilization started in the great river valleys of Africa and Asia, in the Fertile Crescent in the Near East and along the narrow ribbon of the Nile in Africa. In the Nile Valley that beginning was an African as well as an Asian achievement. Blacks, or people who we would consider blacks today, were among the first people to use tools, paint pictures, plant seeds, and worship gods.

In the beginning, then, and for a long time afterwards, black people marched in the front ranks of the emerging human procession. They founded empires and states. They extended the boundaries of the possible. They made some of the critical discoveries and contributions that led to the modern world.

Looking back on that age from our own, one is struck by what seems to be an absence of color counsciousness. Back there, in the beginning, blackness did not seem to be an occasion for obloquy. In fact, the reverse seems to have been true, for whites were sometimes ridiculed for "the unnatural whiteness of their skin."

During this critical period in the evolution of man, blacks were known and honored throughout the ancient world. Ancient Ethiopia, a vaguely defined territory somewhere south of Egypt, was hailed as a place fit for the vacation of the gods. Homer praised Memnon, king of Ethiopia, and black Eurybates:

Of visage solemn, sad but sable hue
Short, wooly curls, o'erfleeced his bending head...
Eurybates, in whose large soul alone,
Ulysses viewed an image of his own.

Homer, Herodotus, Phily, Diodorus and other classical writers repeatedly praised the Ethiopians. "The annals of all  the great early nations of  Asia Minor are full of them," Flora Louisa Lugard wrote. "The Mosaic records allude to them frquently; but while they are described as the most powerful, the most just, and the most beautiful of the human race, they are constantly spoken of as black, and there seems to be no other conclusion to be drawn, than that at that remote period of history the leading race of the Western world was a black race."

(I)t is established beyond doubt that blacks from somewhere were an important element among the people who fathered Egyptian civilization. Badarian culture proves that blacks camped on the banks of the Nile thousands of years before the Egypt of the Pharaohs . Bodies were excavated at El Badari amid artifacts suggesting a date of about eight thousand B.C.  In the intestines of these bodies were husks of barley  which indicated that the dark-skinned Badarians had learned to cultivate cereals.  The beautifully fashioned Badarian pottery was never surpassed, not even in Eygpt's days of greatest glory....

During the early Christian era, black were scattered to the four corners of the world. For many centuries black merchants traded with India, China, and Europe. Other blacks were sold as slaves in Europe and Asia. By the beginning of the Islamic era, blacks -as merchants and merchandise- had integrated Europe, Asia, and the Far East. By that time Blacks were well known in Venice in Europe and in the deserts of Arabia. Perhaps the best known of the Arabic blacks was Antar, the impassioned lover-warrior-poet....

In the same period (as Islam was spreading into Europe) three powerful states- Ghana, Mali, and Songhay- emerged in the western Sudan. The extent of (Muslim) influence is debatable, but it seems probable that the upper classes and leaders, especially in the large cities, were black (Muslims).

As political entities, Ghana, Mali, and Songhay do not suffer in comparison with their European contemporaries. In several areas, in fact, the Sudanese empires were clearly superior. "It would be interesting to know," Basil Davidson wrote, "what the Normans might have thought of Ghana. Anglo-Saxon England could easily have seemed a poor and lowly place beside it." ...The economic life of these states revolved around agriculture, manufacturing, and international trade. Rulers wielded power through provincial governors and viceroys, and maintained large standing armies..."

BUY THE BOOK, BEFORE THE MAYFLOWER by Lerone Bennett Jr.

White Men Are Not Going Down Without a Fight

Don't get me wrong; I love my white brothers, but white men will not give up their privileged position in society without a fight. No one can challenge the idea that white men are the embodiment of power in this country because everywhere you turn they are overrepresented (media, politics, academia especially higher education, share of the economy, etc) and overexposed even, though ironically, within the gay community. So it comes as no surprise that they don't want to see the advancement of women and minorities if that means they have to lose out on the perks of being a white man in America. They have been extremely clever in making sure that they hold onto their power by creating rules and by delineating issues that assure that they remain in power. Take affirmative action for example. Basically, affirmative action is a means of redressing the severe limitation placed on women and minorities, in particular, and promotes the philosophy that these underrepresented groups must be given a seat at the table. But when Allan Bakke challenged this policy (vis-a-vis Regents of the University of California v Bakke), he gave every White male a rallying cry by coining the term 'reverse discrimination', which basically boils down to this.

White men don't want women and minorities to get  preferential treatment at the expense of stripping them of their undeserved and universal status as the most powerful group. Unfortunately, too many people, white women and minorities included, have been persuaded by their rhetoric because these groups can't imagine any other way. They can't construct a picture of what a pluralist society looks like because they have become accustomed to and dependent on white men running things. I feel that Black folks are all too susceptible to this. Look at the lukewarm reception that Barrack Obama is being given by the Black community. You would think that Black folks would support Obama, being that he is the closet shot that we have ever had to the presidency, but Black folks have a hard time reconciling their hate of white men with their love for him. They hate him because he represents the greatest challenge to racial equality, but they love him because they can always use him as a scapegoat. If Black folks were to gain their proper share of political and economic influence, the tenuous assumptions about 'Black identity' would be lost or necessitate fundamental restructuring. Even so, that day will not arrive until the institution itself allows for that possibility. With states having the sole authority to redraw congressional and state districts that are invulnerable to real competition, an abatement of white male privilege seems nearly impossible. But this represents  one of the  less obvious ways that white men have handicapped the democratic and inclusive policy that  resulted from the Civil Rights Movement. On a more individual level, white men have taken upon themselves to act as deputies, such as with the case of Jeremiah Munsen, 18 and his 16 year old cohort who were recently arrested for hanging nooses on the back of the truck during the protests in Jena, Louisiana on September 21st.

Video Credit: Keith Boykin

A Man Who Brought a Nation to Its Knees

As we prepare for a permanent King memorial on the National Mall, I recollect January 15, 1992, Dr King's birthday and holiday, when I recited  "I Have a Dream"  in front of my whole elementary school. I was seven years-old, loquacious, and gregarious. In fact, the only thing I worried about was whether my energy level would go over well with the audience. I said my speech clearly and passionately, as if I were King himself. When I finished, the audience cheered loudly and gave me a standing ovation. I'll never forget  that day.....just as I'll never forget the man to whom I owe so much.

And when this happens, When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

But No One Can Say It Like Dr King

This Makes Me Cry Every Time!

Photos from the 'Dream Concert', which was held on September 18th at Radio City Music Hall

Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds

The Queen of Soul

India Arie and Stevie Wonder

CREDITS: MLKMemorial