On May 1st, Occupy Wall Street has called for a General Strike. We are calling on everyone who supports the cause of economic justice and true democracy to take part: No Work, No School, No Housework, No Shopping, No Banking - and most importantly, TAKE THE STREETS!

An Accumulation of Contradictions Represent Our Resistance By Dr. Lenore J. Daniels, PhD BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

I believe that if we understood ourselves better, we would damage ourselves less. But the barrier between oneself and one’s knowledge of oneself is high indeed. There are so many things one would rather not know! We become social creatures because, we cannot live any other way. But in order to become social, there are great many other things which we must not become, and we are frightened, all of us, of those forces within us which perpetually menace our precarious security. Yet, the forces are there, we cannot will them away. All we can do is learn to live with them. And we cannot learn this unless we are willing to tell the truth about ourselves, and the truth about us is always at variance with what we wish to be. -James Baldwin. “The Creative Process” We have enjoyed prosperity. You there in Africa, India…what…how do you manage to deal with all of the poverty? asks the BBC radio host. (What’s the matter with you people?). The respondent, the guest on the other end of the line in Nigeria or in Mumbai rarely if ever tells the truth. What if, one day, Western philosophers suddenly looked among themselves, conferred among themselves, repeating the same questions posed by the “great” European thinkers, while congratulating one another on the latest upgrade of the question to include technology or even women, women “universally” represented by European and North American women - what if these current thinkers stopped thinking and just looked? What if the question were limited to those Speakers who have continued to ask the question but who have posed as the universal voice of the masses of humanity? What is the question, who are we?, already excluding the enslaved, exterminated, marginalized, is directed specifically at the Europeans and their descendents who, having accrued a mass of “knowledge” about “humankind,” have yet to reached any nearer to understanding themselves? Who are we to have perceived ourselves as so righteous, moral, privileged - gifted with the ability to reason or blessed with divine wisdom? Who are we to deny the questions of the majority of humanity, creating the world in words as if it had never existed before, and by so doing, enabling generation after generation of our young to pontificate on every categorized subject except the subject we know least about or refuse to examine? The Poets, the ones that matter, describe how “everyone” has this certain “pain” that can now be cured - therapeutically or with a little pill. But that “specific” pain therapy can cure - is it not unique, not to “everyone,” but to those who, for centuries, following their “great” Greek and Roman Masters, have asked the question while enslaving, exterminating, and marginally almost “everyone” else - and yet never receiving a suitable answer from the accumulation of “knowledge.” Oh, there have been “answers” suitable for the market, but to truly shatter the market, to bring the global market to a complete halt, the answers to that “ancient” question posed by the Speaker could never appeal to the market. But the “pain,” as the wise ones know, is marketable, too. What is the alternative if the great mass of mimes among the majority, already incapable of asking their own questions, continue to promote and distribute the answers and mimic in their speech and actions those self-appointed Speakers with the task of asking the question? Is it possible to “retract” the “multiple” voices of the one similar to the respondent who cannot speak truth to the Speaker, who, in turn, cannot ask himself to respond to his question? Obama vows openly to stand by the U.S.’s friend Israel. Americans always stand with the underdog. Over three billion a year to the underdog! Over $509,722,678,219 to save the world from terrorists breeding in Afghanistan, and hardly anything saves American children from the deplorable education they receive in the public school system - except, of course, privatized education! The Palestinians are the great threat to Israel’s peace; however, Israel could not be more peaceful in their deployment of F-16s and tanks against the Palestinians with their rocks, their diminishing lands, and their Hamas. Underdogs, you see. The U.S. Empire does not sponsor terrorists. Only days ago, the “US administration offered to supply Israel with advanced bunker-busting bombs and long-range refueling planes” (AFP, March 9, 2012). “In return,Israel would agree to put off a possible attack on Iran till 2013, after the US elections in November.” The capitalist must drink Iranian blood next, must feed on Iranian flesh - but not untilafter the electoral process has been played out in the U.S. Stick with the usual diet of Palestinian women and children until then. It is no wonder that the white and Black liberal media hosts are clearing their throats and crossing out whatever they have gleaned in the “Obama years.” No different from the Bush years, they shouted just last year - after their voices rang out three cheers for difference in 2008, after the bailout and the troop increase in Afghanistan, afterthe Arab Spring began, after September 2011 in Liberty Park, New York, and afterthe Occupy Movement protesters and organizers would not go away were they finally asked, what’s the matter with you people? Now, once again, the liberal media is adjusting the narrative: it is Barrack Obama vs. the capitalists, corporate greed and corruption. Obama is the people’s interests! Obama, suppress the peoples’ questions, suppress the peoples’ outrage - never! Obama is the 99%! Turn the coin over. The organization for the advancement of the colored, otherwise known as the NAACP, runs crying to the UN: Our votes have been suppressed! We want our votes to count! Please, Master, we vote! The advanced colored are no less mimes than their counterparts in the white liberal camp. Like the latter, they do not want to know just how far they have sunk, how the flesh, long rotted, reveals them for no more than those whites bones they wave about as they Vote! The fanatical racists, the warmongers, are over there in the “Republican” Party. Vote for the “Democratic” Party. Look at the white bones as they mouth the words to “We shall overcome” and point to Pettis Bridge. We will hear that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy is Obama, (what a dream), again. (Note: It is never Malcolm!). Democrats versus Republicans - again! The electoral process, again! The noise is so loud we can barely hear “we are the 99%.” We can barely remember the tear gassed and the handcuffed protesters from New York to California. It would seem that the Chief Mime in the White House would like us to keep our questions and objections to ourselves. Stay in our individual cubby holes and continue drinking the Kool-aid. The purchase of Obama from the auction block by the rulers of the U.S. Empire did not come about because the already enslaved Obama admired the trinkets and power of the system over and above freedom. The rulers had and still have plenty of such creatures among the advanced colored people who are just so happy to be enslaved to the fullest as long as they can wear the Chief Mime’s jacket and shake hands with the other Chief Mimes of “ally” countries and corporate CEOs. Obama is a little of this and a little of that, totaling up to a whole bunch of nothingness - an accumulation of contradictions that makes for a supreme mime, one incapable of recognizing kinship in any direction , a kinship that might trigger an historical reference, a consciousness. He is just the perfect entity to throw before the white liberals and the advanced colored who quibbled inaudibly among themselves but who dared to question the rulers. The Chief Mime, the white liberals, and the advanced colored would prefer we forgetTunisia and the Arab Spring. We should not identify and take note of the courage of the Greeks, the Spaniards, the Icelanders, and the Irish people standing together against the imposition of austerity measures while the global bankers wine and dine at their expense. The mimes would have us believe that Haiti is in good hands with the UN and U.S. corporate rulers. The Chief Mime knows best what is good for Haiti. We should vote Obama for four more years… The Chief Mime, the white liberals and advanced colored people were never committed to destruction of imperialism and the dismantling of the economic system they have come to depend on for their prosperity even while that same system is responsible for the yearly increase in poverty throughout the world. How many did you kill today, Empire, directly or by proxy? How many more are impoverished today? The mimes are lifeless! Can anyone expect these servants of the U.S. Empire to ask these questions, particularly not while they are out in full force taking care of the Master’s business? Remember who we are, a great democracy. Americans vote! To hell with the 99%! The ELECTION is serious business! Remember who you are! And we do! They think we are not asking your questions! But we are. On May 1st, Occupy Wall Street has called for a General Strike. We are calling on everyone who supports the cause of economic justice and true democracy to take part: No Work, No School, No Housework, No Shopping, No Banking - and most importantly, TAKE THE STREETS! ---because you are not full of lies; you are not deceived by the skin color of the man in the Oval Office who does not care about the U.S.-inflicted deaths of children in Palestinian or Afghanistan or Iran or down the street in Washington D.C. And because the knowledge you have amassed tells you that the government of Democrats and Republicans is a government created by the corporate rulers for the corporateinterests. You are not an accumulation of contradictions! BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Lenore Jean Daniels, PhD, has a Doctorate in Modern American Literature/Cultural Theory. Click here to contact Dr. Daniels.

Let’s be clear: the 3 strikes crime bill being proposed for Massachusetts has nothing to do with the stopping or reduction of crime

The Massachusetts 3 Strikes Crime Bill
By Dr. James Jennings, PhD
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

 

 

Let’s be clear: the 3 strikes crime bill being proposed for Massachusetts has nothing to do with the stopping or reduction of crime.  If not for the kind of long-enduring negative impacts on people and families, and communities, the proposal could be described as silly.  We cannot describe it as silly, however, because there is a proven history of destruction of lives and communities associated with 3 strikes provisions in other states, at the same time that it has proven worthless in the reduction of crime.  Enactment of this kind of legislation will only lead to potential increase in the state’s prison population and unfairly burden impoverished people, but especially Black and Latino people, and especially young people.   It is a proposal that contradicts recent and widespread efforts to reform the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI), a system that is being acknowledged as a failure by increasing numbers of people and legislators in Massachusetts. 

A report issued by the Justice Policy Institute, Three Strikes and You’re Out, reports that such legislation has led to many people being incarcerated for relatively minor crimes.  In California, two-thirds of all persons imprisoned under its 3-Strikes law, committed nonviolent crimes.  Based on FBI crime rates reported, it was found that between 1993 and 2002, violent crime in 3-Strike states fell by 33%; in non 3-Strike states, however, crime decreased by 34.3%.  In lieu of the failure of the 3-Strikes approach as crime prevention, why are our state legislators considering a strategy that has been discarded by many organizations and professionals involved with designing anti-crime strategies?   And, why are our state legislators so anxious to adopt legislation that will have the effect of increasing racial divisions in the state?  The adoption of this kind of law will doubtless be ‘colorblind’.  But in its implementation it will adversely affect communities of color which tend to have significantly greater numbers of people without the resources to pay for defending themselves, or their children, in response to accusations of crime.  And, let’s be honest here: or have the resources to change or challenge, or even delete records of crime. 

This is not a game.  It is irresponsible at worst and goblin at best, to propose that - just like in baseball - when a hitter has three strikes he is out.  What a seductive but dangerous analogy, and arbitrary template, for the administration of justice and fairness. 

Acknowledgement: This article first appeared in a special issue published in Boston’sBlackstonian, “Say No to 3 Strikes Law in Massachusetts” (February/March 2012).

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member Dr. James Jennings, PhD is a Professor of urban and environmental policy and planning at Tufts University. Click here to contact Dr. Jennings.

 

[T]he contrast between what is being said about education in our country, and what is actually happening on the ground, serves to illustrate the galling amount of flim-flam and hypocrisy that characterizes today’s public discussion of the nation’s schools from kindergarten to the university level. Since Duncan took up his post, somewhere in the vicinity of 270,000 teachers and other public school employees have lost their jobs because state and local education budgets have been slashed. “The teachers who have not been laid off have also been deeply affected by the economic downturn: class sizes are larger, after-school and arts enrichment programs have been cut, and an increasing number of their students are relying on safety net sources for health services and other basic needs,” observed the New York Times March 7.

Another Educational “Reform” Proposal Misses the Mark Left Margin By Carl Bloice BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

On the same day a national task force warned that the country’s security and economic prosperity are at risk if America’s schools don’t improve, California State University system said it would shut out thousands of mid-year applicants for spring terms starting in January. According to the Oakland Tribune, only eight of the system’s 23 campuses will accept transfer students for the spring 2013 term, and none will accept new freshmen. “The decision will leave thousands of community-college students with an unenviable choice: Spend the time and money taking unnecessary community-college classes for an extra semester or drop out and try to make ends meet until Cal State reopens its doors,” wrote Matt Krupnick. “The dominant power of the 21st century will depend on human capital,” the 30-member task force, led by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Joel Klein, the former chancellor of New York City’s school, declared this week. “The failure to produce that capital will undermine American security.” This statement came shortly after U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told a Howard University gathering, “President Obama has challenged all of us to lead the world with college graduates by 2020. But we cannot reach that goal unless educational opportunities are extended to everyone fairly and accurately.” Regrettably, the contrast between what is being said about education in our country, and what is actually happening on the ground, serves to illustrate the galling amount of flim-flam and hypocrisy that characterizes today’s public discussion of the nation’s schools from kindergarten to the university level. Since Duncan took up his post, somewhere in the vicinity of 270,000 teachers and other public school employees have lost their jobs because state and local education budgets have been slashed. “The teachers who have not been laid off have also been deeply affected by the economic downturn: class sizes are larger, after-school and arts enrichment programs have been cut, and an increasing number of their students are relying on safety net sources for health services and other basic needs,” observed the New York Times March 7. In California alone, the number of full-time teachers has decreased by 32,000 statewide over the past four years. It’s not Duncan’s fault or the Administration’s. The crisis has arisen in part because of the economic recession and the responses to it. The problem is however lofty the proclamations are about the value of education, the schools, teachers and students are still getting the short end of the austerity stick. Regrettably, the task of conducting a struggle to improve the schools – or at least to prevent their further decimation -- has fallen largely upon the teachers, instructors and professors, a task not made any easier by the incessant attacks upon them. When President Obama met with the nation’s governors last month he said, “Too many states are making cuts that I think are too big. Budgets are by choice, so today I’m calling on all of you: invest more in education, invest more in our children.” “California public schools are in crisis - and they are getting worse,” educator Duane Campbell wrote recently. “This is a direct result of massive budget cuts imposed by the legislature and the governor in the last four years. Total per pupil expenditure is down by over $1,000 per student. The result: massive class size increases. Students are often in classes too large for quality learning. Supplementary services such as tutoring and art classes have been eliminated. Over 14,000 teachers have been dismissed, and thousands more face layoffs this fall.” “California schools are now 47th in the nation in per pupil expenditure and 49th in class size,” continued Campbell, a Professor (emeritus) of Bilingual/Multicultural Education at CSU-Sacramento and the area chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. “Our low achievement scores on national tests reflect this severe underfunding.” I had to laugh out loud last Sunday when the New York Times Thomas Friedman indignantly decried Egypt’s “deficit of modern education.” “Our response should have been to shift our aid money from military equipment to building science-and-technology high schools and community colleges across Egypt,” he wrote. I’m certainly for assistance to Egyptian education, and $1.3 billion in aid to the Egypt’s hardly-pro-democracy military serves no useful purpose. Still, why couldn’t some of our country’s bloated military budget be directed toward building science-and-technology high schools and community colleges across the U.S? After all, Rice, Klein and their panel say it’s a matter of national security. Media reports on the Rice-Klein panel’s conclusions have emphasized its recommendations having to do with the usual litany of educational “reforms,” including school choice and vouchers - “so many students aren’t stuck in underperforming schools.” According to the Associated Press, the report does, however, add a new element to the debate, a “national security readiness audit” that “can be used to judge whether schools are meeting national expectations in education” especially as regards a “common core initiative to include skill sets critical to national security such as science, technology and foreign languages.” Evidently, some people think that it’s a good idea to posit education as a national security imperative rather than what it should be – an indispensible element of a functioning democratic society. It sounds a lot like a desire to produce graduates fit for military service rather than scientifically, culturally and technologically equipped citizens. “I don’t think people have really thought about the national security implications and the inability to have people who speak the requisite languages who can staff a volunteer military, the kind of morale and human conviction you need to hold a country together. I don’t think people have thought about it in those terms,” Klein told AP. There will probably be a measure on the California ballot in November that would provide new funding for the schools and somewhat lessen the impact of the current crisis. If it fails, as many as 25,000 qualified applicants could to be turned away by the CSU system next year. “The California economy needs to invest in roads, bridges, telephone lines, communications systems, clean energy and quality education,” writes Campbell. “These are the down payments that make prosperity possible.” Conservative opposition to any new tax ignores the undeniable, historic fact that prosperity depends upon having a viable educational system and a well functioning infrastructure. Rather than invest in something that pays itself back many times over, the Republicans have led the effort to starve public education of desperately needed revenue.” “The good news is polling consistently shows that the California voters are willing to pay for a quality public education system. The hurdle to putting these poll numbers to the test has been getting such a historic choice and opportunity onto the ballot. It appears that this November Californians just may finally have a chance to make their voices heard.” “The American people are right to be concerned about our education system,” writes Diana Epstein, senior education policy analyst at the Center for American Progress. “The United States suffers from persistent achievement gaps between groups of students defined by race or family income. And our students also rank well behind those in economically competitive countries on international academic-achievement tests. Racial and income achievement gaps run counter to America’s founding ideals of an equal and just society. Further, lower levels of achievement are also associated with poorer health, lower earnings, and higher levels of incarceration.” Noting that federal education spending is projected to be reduced by 8 percent or 9 percent next year, Epstein writes, “Cuts of this magnitude will make it far more difficult for schools to provide the education that our students need in order to grow our economy and rebuild the middle class. Deeper cuts would put our students even further behind where they need to be.” Taking aim at the education cuts contained in the budget proposals of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, Epstein continues: the cuts “are shortsighted and harmful for a number of reasons. First of all, continued investment in education is critical in order to put our economy on the path to sustained growth. Second, a reduction in federal support would take resources away from critically important programs at a time when states are also making significant cuts to education. Third, federal education programs provide more equitable resources for students who need it most - without federal support, many hard-fought gains would erode for children living in poverty.” “To achieve desired levels of economic growth and live up to our founding ideals, theUnited States must increase the overall level of achievement of students in the K-12 education system and close both international achievement gaps and the persistent achievement gaps between groups of American children defined by ethnicity or family income. Simply put, the House budget plan is a huge step in the wrong direction.” What are needed now are big steps in the right direction, something missing from the much discussed proposals emanating from either the conservative or the liberal reformers. What the Rice-Klein panel’s recommendations do not include is adequate warning about the harm being currently inflicted on the nation’s schools, or the crying need to call a halt to the funding cutbacks and teacher layoffs. Thus it avoids what I think is the question at the heart of the situation: why do there have to be “underperforming schools” and why is it that the richest and most powerful country on the planet appears to be unwilling or unable to afford to adequately educate its younger generations? BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Carl Bloice is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for a healthcare union. Click here to contact Mr. Bloice.

Political Cartoon Florida's "Stand Your Ground Law" By Mr. Fish, Philadelplhia PA

The young Black male always ends up the one dead, and the conservative commentators act as if whites are the victims. The shooter, Zimmerman, lied to local police investigating the incident - and they took his word for it. No background check. No alcohol sobriety tests (on the shooter), but the police did conduct drug tests on the corpse of Trayvon Martin! What part of justice is that? It’s the routine part of justice that causes Blacks to distrust any form of policing and bureaucratic investigation.

Same Actors, Different Stage The Other Side of the Tracks By Perry Redd BlackCommentator.com Columnist

I’d like to ignore this one, act like it never happened… but it did… a murder at the hands of the self-righteous. Facts, unfounded. Another young brother, dead. Case closed. But then again, we cannot allow the same production to speak to how this story ends… for Trayvon Martin’s sake, as well as America’s own. In late February (Black History Month), a young Black man, Trayvon Martin, was shot and killed by a Hispanic white male, George Zimmerman. So the facts played out as yet another sad and unjust tragedy in the legacy of American criminal justice - or injustice as it stands. You see, the same actors - young Black man accused of being “the” fully loaded fireman and a dismissive policing agency - bring this production to life. But once again, this is not an act, this is real life. The young Black male always ends up the one dead, and the conservative commentators act as if whites are the victims. The shooter, Zimmerman, lied to local police investigating the incident - and they took his word for it. No background check. No alcohol sobriety tests (on the shooter), but the police did conduct drug tests on the corpse of Trayvon Martin! What part of justice is that? It’s the routine part of justice that causes Blacks to distrust any form of policing and bureaucratic investigation. Martin has been dead since February 26th, but after Sanford, Florida’s Black community organized - even calling in the oft-maligned, Rev. Al Sharpton, now real investigations might take place. Why does it take being affronted (Black victims) and outed (white-run investigative agencies) before the latter respects due process rights and laws. Shouldn’t this be police protocol? Of course, it should, but as outlined in my forthcoming book, As a Condition of Your Freedom, America is undergoing a digression from its Civil Rights strides: Despite a mistaken perception, too many in power believe that Blacks have gained too much voice in calling for an “end” to the Civil Rights battle. With this country’s sordid history of racial injustice, elected officials continue to devise ways and means to undermine those strides for equality under the law. From Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul’s call for repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to the current challenge to the federal Affirmative Action law (that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear this Fall 2012), any exertion by Blacks to make their offenders accountable is portrayed as a criminal act. I’m saying “no more;” these maneuvers to shirk accountability must stop. A former slave state, Florida, is steeped in racial injustice. From Zora Neal Hurston’s accounts of “strange fruit,” to more contemporary cases, such as Lionel Tate’s (the 9-year-old tried and convicted as an adult for accidentally killing his friend while imitating a wrestling move), we know as Americans what racism looks like. We also know what motivates racist acts: fear and hatred. Fear is the underlying element in violence. What someone might do will cause one to stoop to the lowest levels of human behavior… thus, we stand here at this juncture… at this time… Trayvon Martinlies victim to Zimmerman’s fear and hatred. We should also be aware that the shooter, George Zimmerman, isn’t the only one who should be arrested, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned. The lawmakers who passed the “Stand Your Ground” law are just as guilty - if guilty only of escalating an already unstable racial dynamic in the constituent communities they represent. The “Stand Your Ground” law says a person who feels threatened has no duty to retreat and, in return, may respond with force - deadly force. You see, Zimmerman was empowered by the law, even more than by the firearm. It appears that “law-abiding” white males have a greater propensity for causing mayhem and carnage than other demographic groups of the American populace. In early March, two people were shot dead at a psychiatric clinic in Pittsburgh. It wouldn’t take long to ascertain the race of the shooter, but I digress. A more recent incident is that of an Iraqi mother of five, fatally beaten in herCalifornia home. A note calling the family terrorists was found near her body. I seriously doubt this homicide was an Iraqi-on-Iraqi crime or one where the murderer was of some other ethnic minority. We stand on the sidelines as 12 states continue on paths to allowing their residents to own handguns - with NO permits! What I know is that thousands of Black males, warehoused in prisons across America for owning handguns - without permits, haven’t killed a soul. Why is that, you think? Race. It’s a simple case of racial injustice… under the law. It is time, due season, for us to get off the sidelines, and get busy - busy un-electing irresponsible lawmakers who kowtow to the lobbying money of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Gun Owners of America (GOA). The attack on Black men is prevalent, present and active. I’ve documented far too many cases to count of race-based injustice (see www.stopattackingblackmen.com). (We know documentation doesn’t stop murderers from murdering.) We must “out” the bad guys - including police departments that undermine due process and rule of law. We must take to the streets and demand justice. We must dispel our apathy of the electoral process, if we are to thrive in this country. Notice, I did not say live, survive, or definitely did I notsay walk on egg shells. Our ancestors paid a heavy price for a stake in the American process. We cannot squander centuries of blood, sweat and tears, hoping for violent men to become peaceable. The United States brand of justice is admirable in theory, but deplorable in practice. The integrity of that brand - the U.S. stage on which its racial dynamics unfold - shall never change with the same actors. BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Perry Redd, is the former Executive Director of the workers rights advocacy, Sincere Seven, and author of the on-line commentary, “The Other Side of the Tracks.” He is the host of the internet-based talk radio show,Socially Speaking in Washington, DC. Click here to contact Mr. Redd.

The phenomena of a huge swath of the nation empathizing with Trayvon means that something similar is going on and has been going on for a long time everywhere. This engagement with Trayvon’s case will have its greatest impact to the degree that we trace that emotional knot (of fear, disgust, frustration, and urgency) that arose because of the circumstances of Trayvon’s killing to those similar circumstances in our own lives and in our own community - the existence of which has “allowed” us to empathize with Trayvon in the first place.

I Am Trayvon Martin; Who Are You? By Wilson Riles BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator

As a 65 year old African American male, I identify with Trayvon Martin, the 17 year old youth that was killed in Sanford, Florida, on February 26. Despite the age difference, I visualize myself in his shoes, walking down the dark street near a gated community, talking to a girlfriend on the phone, and discovering that I am being followed by a man in a truck who turns out to be a person like George Zimmerman. Who else, among us, can truly identify with this young man? President Obama, who only had daughters as I did, identifies with Trayvon a bit more distantly: as if Trayvonwere his son. I guess that as an American child in Indonesia, Obama safely and successfully negotiated this genre of cultural boundaries, but he realizes and identifies with the fact that there are more lethal dangers with such crossings for young black males living in the US. The extent of one’s identification – which is somewhat like the degree that one empathizes with something – ranges from no identification at all to that degree of identification that another 17 year old African American male in Florida might bring to the case. Out of this sense of empathy or identity, interlaced with the emotions of fear, disgust, frustration, and urgency, some people have been moved to take action as this cause is reverberating through the public media. Political and governmental procedure is such that there is little of great impact that can be done to help bring justice to Trayvon’s specific case. The Police Chief of Sanford has suspended himself after a “no confidence” vote of the Sanford City Council; the Florida State Attorney General is investigating; and the Federal Justice Department is investigating as to whether there has been a Civil Rights violation. The outpouring of testimony and heated demonstrations across the country will have little effect at this point on the availability of justice for Trayvon and his family. However, this degree of pre-“occupation” of the public “spaces,” this amount of moral recoil, this amount of disturbance in our emotional “sea” deserves a broad correction that goes beyond Sanford and Florida. The phenomena of a huge swath of the nation empathizing with Trayvon means that something similar is going on and has been going on for a long time everywhere. This engagement with Trayvon’s case will have its greatest impact to the degree that we trace that emotional knot (of fear, disgust, frustration, and urgency) that arose because of the circumstances of Trayvon’s killing to those similar circumstances in our own lives and in our own community - the existence of which has “allowed” us to empathize with Trayvon in the first place. If we then take that knowing and turn it in to action, that is grace, that is co-creation most powerfully. The crosscutting forces of social systems, economic systems, political systems, and the criminal justice system, either advantages us or targets us for certain “treatment.” First, stipulating that systems are existentially collections of people, what we identify with and how we are identified, are the arbiters of every systemic response. Blind, ignorant, and self deceiving people may think that if you simply behave “right” and “work hard,” you have nothing to fear. These non-empathetic people are wrong. A corollary of that thinking is that true Floridians or true“Americans” act in a particular way and, when they do, they are “blessed” “Americans.” These blind believers are wrong. Trayvon’s case and many, many, many others put the lie to these deceptions. Other deceivers believe that if we would only stop talking about racial and other differences, in an effort to reach a color-blind society, the result would be the disappearance of individual and systemic biases. This is a self delusion; no human behavioral phenomenon has ever disappeared when we stopped talking about it. Frightfully, this delusion is also dangerous. In this conception, the incidence of violations will be hidden and the norm becomes a bland (white) stance that is very boring and unattractive; it is absolutely unrealistic and will not happen and should not be attempted. So the questions remain: where are we headed and what effective action can a person take no matter one’s gender or skin color, or where in the country we are? I think the first step is to accept the truth that the elements for similar injustice exist in every community in the country to some degree. Step two is to accept that we all– to some degree or other – receive advantages from the biases of our social, economic, political, and criminal justice systems; and we all – to some degree or other – are targets of these systems and the individuals that exercise these systems. Clearly exercising the system’s logic does not necessarily mean that one is officially an agent of the system, a la Mr. George Zimmerman. However, we are all both positively and negatively impacted at some time, in some way. At this moment, there is no need to have a competition on the rankings of oppressive practices or to acknowledge with whose oppression we identify the most. The social psychological dynamics are the same even if the historical evolution of the syndromes is different. We can all only move from our unique collection of identities – howsoever those identities harmonize or not. It is that identity harmonizing pattern that is unique to humans and that displays integrity and rationality. Who are you? Take action in your community by exposing injustices at their roots, by facilitating the opportunities for empathy for all humans, and by correcting the insensitive, unjust laws and processes that are taking place just around the corner. The salient injustices associated with the Trayvon Martin case are race and the crookedness of the criminal justice system but injustices of class, gender, ability, age, academic status, richness or poverty, sexual identity, nationality, and language-facility work in similar ways. Let’s break down those dynamics for each situation and that will have an impact on eliminating those dynamics everywhere. An injustice anywhere opens the doors for injustice everywhere. Social science tells us that we are a multiplicity of identities. Instead of seeing ourselves as a single personality, we all consist of multiple characters or micro-personalities, each one with its own viewpoint, emotions and ambitions. The mother who feeds breakfast to her children, for example, has quite different concerns and opinions from the woman taking part in a boardroom discussion two hours later, and from the woman she will be with her husband that night. Yet all three may share the same body, and none is any more “authentic” than another. I am of African, Native American, and European ancestry. I used to speak a little German as well as “American” English. I am male, a father, a husband, a politician, an administrator, a former football player, a teacher, and a community organizer. The most important step that we can take is to realize that other human beings – all other human beings – are also a multiplicity of identities and we can always be empathetic with all of them to some degree. Remember that empathy is not the same thing as sympathy; many people can have more sympathy for a dog or a seal pup than they have for other humans. Realize that we can – by many degrees – have our best empathy with another human being and within the human family. In today’s world, our ability to switch from one micro-personality to another, according to what is demanded of us, is a huge strength. It is a strength provided that one’s various micro-personalities work together in harmony rather than against each other or through confusion. The grounding of personality is in beliefs, values, and our artistry of presence. If your bed rock beliefs and values are split or are in conflict, no artistry can for long present a display that has integrity or rationality. Too much identification with imperfect systems – like the rapacious Global Capitalist economic system, like the racist Criminal Justice system, like the oligarchic political system, etc. – leads to uncorrected injustices, insanity, self blindness, and self deception. Rather, it is both personal harmony and community harmony that are all of ourgoals. I am Tryvon Martin; I affirm his life and rededicate mine to bring about harmony in my community. BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, Wilson Riles, is a former Oakland, CA City Council Member. Click here to contact Mr. Riles.

Here’s the cold, indifferent yet highly predictable company line, coming out of “the Right” via its official, authentic voice - Redneck Radio, concerning the cold-blooded murder of Treyvon Martin at the hands of an angry, paranoid, hostile White man: “What’s the big deal here, a few-dozen Black boys die on the streets of LA, Dallas, Chicago, Detroit, Boston Houston and Philly every Friday n’ Saturday nights across America...at the hands of other young Black men and there’s no outcry, no demand for justice.”

Open Season on Ni**ers Sharp n' Blunt By Desi Cortez BlackCommentator.com Columnist

Here’s the cold, indifferent yet highly predictable company line, coming out of “the Right” via its official, authentic voice - Redneck Radio, concerning the cold-blooded murder of Treyvon Martin at the hands of an angry, paranoid, hostile White man: “What’s the big deal here, a few-dozen Black boys die on the streets of LA, Dallas, Chicago, Detroit, Boston Houston and Philly every Friday n’ Saturday nights across America...at the hands of other young Black men and there’s no outcry, no demand for justice.” There are a number of rebuttals to such a simple-minded observation, but they start with US History 101 and the White man’s documented propensity to randomly kill Black folks on a whim... The desire to declare “Open Season on Ni**ers” is an age old, All-American concept. But let look at this from all-sides. An internal family conflict is one thing - the   brothers can call each other all kinds of names - beat the hell out of each other - but let the Spaneilli family or the Pagona brothers call little Billy O’Leary a cheat and a liar... that’s another different kind of thing all together, and that’s merely human nature. Can you say the Hatfields and the McCoys... internal conflict? I do not need to draw with the written word a picture depicting the Black mothers who beg for peace in the ghetto. The community activist, politicians and preachers operating “this program” or funding “that project” achieve only feeble results in attempting to slow the internal self-destruction we Blacks wage upon ourselves. No one, not even angry White folks, can tell me there’s no effort by Black folks to halt the murders of Black boys by Black men, nonetheless we face millions of Black boys who were born into a contrived, make-believe world where they’ve been painted n’ tainted by the White majority as inherently inferior, as well as violent, war-like, and extremely over-sexed... and a sorry but significant portion lower themselves to such gutter-low expectations. “If you can control a man’s thinking, you don’t have to worry about his actions. If you can determine what a man thinks you do not have worry about what he will do. If you can make a man believe that he is inferior, you don’t have to compel him to seek an inferior status, he will do so without being told and if you can make a man believe that he is justly an outcast, you don’t have to order him to the back door, he will go to the back door on his own and if there is no back door, the very nature of the man will demand that you build one.” - Carter G. Woodson On top of the brainwashing, there’s no debating we live in a designed-to trickle-down-society, where the folks at the bottom are there by design, not coincidence nor happenstance, and purposely divided along lines of color, class, gender and religion, left to fight over the crumbs and make our collective / individual conquering a coldly calculated given. And my God, Black folks have been stuck at the bottom now for four hundred years. Scores of us have been mentally, emotionally, financially and physically pushed and shoved, beaten down into believing, accepting the value placed on our Black lives by White folks - which is zero, absolutely nothing, the same identical value the Sanford Florida police force placed on young Mr. Martin. It is accurate and true; we don’t think much of ourselves, by design. It’s no secret that there is an elite power base in America which endeavors to make sure the condition of Black America is critical by out-pricing quality health care, undermining the funding of public education, and making a concerted effort to mark and tag from birth Black males as “thugs.” It starts with the tip-top establishment, from the Heritage Foundation to the Koch brothers and the Coors family, sexist and racist elitists who underwrite politicians who, in turn, write more laws than create US jobs - laws which authorize the building of more prisons than preschools. Insert Ronnie “666” Ray-Gun’s Revolution and specifically the Iran-Contra-Compton-Crackgate, which upped the ante, put AK 47s and Uzis on the streets ushered in this latest era of gangster warfare being waged by young, mildly educated and very desperate Black men who see the “underworld” as the only world in which they are equipped to prosper... and you’ve got a wild, wild west frontier mentality enveloping Black America. Need I pull out Chuck-the-Chalkboard and graphically illustrate in Black n’ White how the deliberate, coordinated economic evacuation of the US industrial and manufacturing base, the strategic exodus of urban Breadwinner gigs eroded any slim chance held by Black workers at achieving the American Dream? The transference of jobs to India created drug dealers and hustlers in the Gary and Peoria Indianas all across the land. Please, it doesn’t take genius to recognize the Blue-blood aristocrats and their butt-kissing wanna’ be sidekicks - those in the investor class. They have, in a calculating, Vulcan-like manner, sold out the American worker, and specifically the Black worker, tactically pulling the floor from beneath the American worker. The last hired... very first fired. Please note: today it is the haves, the have mores, the have every damn thing there is folks who sit-back and sip wine, openly marveling at the barbaric measures the little people will take to survive. Ain’t that a... Every night, hundreds of White men beat their wives, and I mean beat the hell out of them, and despite the anger management programs out there and the shelters for abused women, White men continue to beat women. White men with degrees from Ivy League schools, military academies, noted private religious institutions, from some of the best homes in the best of neighborhoods... And some of those same credentialed White men steal retirement funds, knowing they hurt working class people of all colors with real dreams of college or retirement. So-called “White collar” crimes also damage. But before I allow card-carrying John Birch Society members to take some high n’ mighty moral high road, presenting themselves as innocent spectators in American violence, I must ask the obvious: Why do White men on Wall Street pimp n’ exploit, loot and pillage poor White women on “Main Street?” Why do minor league investors allow the undercutting of 90% of the American work force so that they can buy another German made car or purchase another vacation home in Cabo? What about the molestation which takes place in the Catholic Church... Dysfunctionalism reigns free in US society, and no racial group, no “tribe” has a monopoly. No racial group has cornered the market on Neanderthal behavior detrimental to our overall good. Why do the vast, overwhelming majority of White folks sit silently as half the country cries out for justice? Is it because this silent-majority believes Black people, as a whole, are little more than criminals and drug addicts? Expectations are that low? If they do sit as mutes, and millions do, it only verifies that today’s Republican TEA Party member sees Americans of Color just as his father did, and his father before that, and his father before him. Yes, we’re just Niggers, Injuns, Spics and Chinks. We don’t love our children, we don’t have morals, values, character nad goals - we just want to make little brown people and have White folks foot the bill. I don’t know. I don’t have a easy answer why Black boys kill each other. Why did all Euro-American immigrant groups spend a few decades mired in organized crime before being permitted to drift into mainstream America – to assimilate and be absorbed. Oh, what do you say - Black folks aren't welcome in Mainstream USA? That’s what White Flight translates into. This is where I get lost. Have Black folks forgotten recent US History? No! The last two generations, those born into a post-apartheid America seemingly, apparently never learned it. BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Desi Cortez, was hatched in the heart of Dixie, circa 1961, at the dawning of the age of Aquarius, the by-product of four dynamic individuals, Raised in South-Central LA, the 213, at age 14 transplanted to the base of the Rockies, Denver. Still a Mile-Hi. Sat at the feet of scholars for many, many moons, emerging with a desire and direction… if not a sheep-skin. Meandered thru life; gone a-lot places, done a-lot of things, raised a man-cub into a good, strong man, produced a beautiful baby-girl with my lover/woman/soul-mate… aired my mind on the airwaves and wrote some stuff along the way. Click here to contact Desi.