Voting suppression and its cousin, voting registration suppression is part a long ugly history of racism in this country.

In a 2001 Village Voice article, the author of the law that would create a lifetime ban of felons from voting said the law was to decrease black voting power.

The myriad ways in which racism has affected all Americans SINCE the passage of the Civil Rights Act is rarely spoken of.

Americans are so ignorant and misinformed of our own history. At the unveiling of the monument to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in SF a few teen agers were asked if they knew what the event was about. They kreponded that it was about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Surpirised, the questioner asked , "How do you know about it? " The reply, "We're from Europe."

Aside from the fact that Hillary is now swift-boatable for her Bosnia landing story and would lose the general election if nominated, WE NEED TO HAVE A RACE-ISSUE ELECTION in this country. There is not a more ideal setup than Obama vs. McCain. Young half-black against an old white and all the old white ideas.

We need to see the Republican right and its surrogate 527 groups running endless loops of "issue" ads using the Reverend Wright at his "worked-up-in-the-pulpit finest", and then we need to see voters (like with Cheney on the Iraq war) say "So?"

Then we need to elect the young half-black leader that will make us all proud we nationally overcame our prejudice.
This is a priceless opportunity for our country. Bring it on. There is nothing to politically fear from Reverend Wright, because the more they run him on TV, the madder a majority will get toward the bigots that buy those ads.

Even Rush Limbaugh knows this. That's why he wants Hillary.

In all my life, no speech has affected me so profoundly as Obama's march 18 speech. I can hardly believe it has been only two weeks since he gave it. I know why. It was the most courageous and honest step I have ever seen any politician take. Martin Luther King Jr gave bold inspiring speeches but he never had to risk a Presidency to do it. Obama was willing to risk a Presidency to do the right thing and that is who I want for President.

Kucinich did the right thing as mayor of Cleveland, knowing it would cost him his career and I didn't think I would never see another politician with integrity. Then Obama stepped forward. He could have done what Hillary says she would have done, denounce Wright and leave the church, but there would have been no integrity there.

I do have to say that while I think McCain is on the wacko side, at least he has more integrity than Hillary. Not enough for me, but at least more than her.

It seems to me that if the media is examining Obama's church with such intensity they should look at Hillary's and McCain's churches as well. Oops, those are off limits. I forgot.

kathyodat

Danial David, I think you're a little naive about racial issues in this country. Many young people think it's no big deal; older people feel differently.

That's not why Rush Limbaugh wants Hillary. She would bring the right wing to the voting booth like no one else in the race, including McCain.

kathyodat

I'm not defending Hillary here kathy but McCain has NO integrity whatsoever. Just being in the military doesn't give him a pass, in fact it makes him more culpable. He has no remorse for the things he did to the people of Viet Nam and still refers to them as gooks. People have a mistaken impression of McCain as a "straight talker" but take it from an Arizonan: he's full of shit. And very dangerous.

Kathyodat -

I don't want the media to look at Hillary's church, or McCain's church, or to fly speck through the speeches of Joe Lieberman's rabbi, or the collected homilies of John Kerry's parish priest. These things are "off limits" for very good reason.

As Barack Obama's masterful Philadelphia address reminded us, the founding fathers (yep, all white property owning males) basically punted the whole issue of human slavery down the road at the time our Constitution was drafted, basically agreeing it was such an inherently divisive issue that there was a gentlemen's agreement not to even talk about it for the next twenty years.

The founders however did not punt on the issue of separation of church and state, the second great inherently divisive issue of a multi-ethnic, pluralistic society of immigrants. They specifically, repeatedly and emphatically declared that no religious test could be imposed - anywhere at any time - to qualify for or to hold public office in the United States, or within any state of the new union. This was heavy, revolutionary, wise and radical stuff.

Name me one previous would be candidate for the US Presidency who first had to begin by declaring that he was not a madrassa educated Muslim who took his oath of office upon the Koran, and who then was compelled to reject and denounce the preachings of a specific Muslim cleric (Louis Farrakhan).

Name me one previous candidate for national office who got broad sided with selected passages, ripped entirely out of context, from several decades of sermons that had been preached from the pulpit of his or her family's usual house of worship - and was then forced by print or electronic interrogators to comment one way or the other on each and every quote.

Name me any other candidate for office in American history, other than Barack Obama, who was essentially forced to choose between publicly turning his back upon his church, or else publicly embracing the thoughts and words of a preacher's Sunday sermons, simply because the candidate was often part of the congregation, either sitting there silently or absent for - what reason?

The religious fundamentalist wing of the GOP orchestrated this witch hunt and their eating it up with a spoon. This sectarian swift boating is precisely the evil that the wall of separation between church and state was designed to guard against. It's indeed off limits Kathyodat, and for damn good reason.

If the same Barack Obama-style illegitimate test of religiosity had ever been applied to Governor Ronald Reagan, he would have flunked big time. In Ronnie's case, his church attendance was so spotty there would have been a mighty thin folder of sermons for scrutiny. Would that make the Gipper a non-believer? A hypocrite? These are questions regarding faith and religious practice that simply should never be asked.

Open that door, and the next thing you know, your partisan opponents will be falling all over themselves to declare how they and their children would never go anywhere near a church where people spoke like that.....

Bill from Saginaw

Dubya's daddy had a key to the White House for 12 of the previous 20 years for god's sake when he made the following comment during campaign 2000 "I'm not just another Washington insider like my opponent (Gore)."

The press gave the idiot manchurian candidate a free pass. I was shocked!

And Bush's grandpappy got rich doing business with Adolph Hitler for Christ's sake and they never brought that up either. What the bloody hell?

Let's see, what's worse? A fiery preacher who gets outta control sometimes or grandpa's war-profiteering in cahoots with history's most notorious genocidal maniac?

Why do I get my self upset over a media that is braindead?

william street you're right. My remark was out of line. Two wrongs don't make a right, although I am pissed that Obama is being singled out for such scrutiny. There was a time when personal lives of politicians were left alone unless they were caught in flagrante delicto with a prostitute.

Hillary is trying to make hay of it, saying Obama is unelectable, and the Republicans will hammer him over it (as if she hasn't). Hopefully the electorate will have more common sense.

kathyodat

Excellent comment, Bill from Saginaw.

There are a couple of other points to add:
1. When people on the "inside", including Chalmers Johnson refers to the fact that actions and policies have consequences, it's called "blowback." No problem. When Rev. Wright, speaking of the same truth, calls it "the chickens have come home to roost," he's somehow un-American. The only explanation I have for the difference in reactions is racism.

2. Since when are we supposed to be made comfortable by sermon content? How else are people to be challenged to understand what it REALLY means to call themselves followers of Christ? We're SUPPOSED to be made uncomfortable, and Rev. Wright does that masterfully.

How would Barack explain to his press groupies why he sat in a pew for 20 years as the Rev. Wright delivered racist rants against white America for our maligning of Fidel and Gadhafi, and inventing AIDS to infect and kill black people?

How would he justify not walking out as Wright spewed his venom about "the U.S. of K.K.K. America," and screamed, "God damn America!"

The answer; Barack would turn the tables.

Yes, Barack agreed, Wright's statements were "controversial," and "divisive," and "racially charged," reflecting a "distorted view of America."

But we must understand the man in full and the black experience out of which the Rev. Wright came: 350 years of slavery and segregation.

Barack then listed black grievances and informed us what white America must do to close the racial divide and heal the country.

The "white community," said Barack, must start "acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination -- and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past -- are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds ... ."

And what deeds must we perform to heal ourselves and our country?

The "white community" must invest more money in black schools and communities, enforce civil rights laws, ensure fairness in the criminal justice system and provide this generation of blacks with "ladders of opportunity" that were "unavailable" to Barack's and the Rev. Wright's generations.

What is wrong with Barack's prognosis and Barack's cure?

Only this; It's the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, "everybody but the rioters themselves."

Was "white racism" really responsible for those black men looting auto dealerships and liquor stores, and burning down their own communities, as Otto Kerner said

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Barack talks about new "ladders of opportunity" for blacks.

Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for "deserving" white kids.

Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.

Sorry, Barack, we've heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.

RoR, you're full of it. Ever heard of redlining? Steering? Death row? Profiling? Half the people in prison are Black men, but Black men, women and children comprise 13% of the population. If a Black and white kid commit the same crime the Black kid goes to prison and the white kid goes home.

Why don't you watch Boyz N the Hood and get your eyes opened.

Barack also addressed injustices experienced by whites, or did you not notice? Did you hear/read the entire speech or just the cherry picked version?

kathyodat

I am Caucasian-Amerikan, hear me RoR!

The White Man's Burden-- it never gets easier, does it?

Re: RoR's Rant
Who let Pat Buchanan off his meds again?

RoR

One question. Do you believe that black people are equal to white people? I don't mean "under the civil rights laws" equal. I mean do you RoR believe that blacks are capable of everything that the white Americans currently do?

If you believe this. Then being so super smart as you imagine yourself, you must agree that some cultural undercurrent or force is driving these normal, equal human beings down in a hole.

The question, unless you are a racist, should be "How can we help our African brothers out of this awful hole?"

andrew.herman
Of course black people can do everything that white and asian and hispanic and native americans can do. There are countless examples in every community of people persevering.

"you must agree that some cultural undercurrent or force is driving these normal, equal human beings down in a hole"

I don't know about a cultural undercurrent, past generations of black people exhibited a strong culture of pride, responsibility and self determination, but it seems to have slipped away somewhere along the journey.

Ask Bill Cosby or Colin Powell, or Thomas Sowell, or Walter Williams, or Ward Connerly or Dr. King.

... Bill Cosby or Colin Powell, or Thomas Sowell, or Walter Williams, or Ward Connerly or Dr. King
_______________________________________

Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong?

I might believe Bill Cosby, but not Thomas Sowell. They're not peas in a pod.

Also on the things Obama is being forced into that no other presidential candidate in history has, is having to defend his "patriotism" because he doesn't wear a flag pin! This will be a big issue should he end up the winning candidate. When the hell did wearing the flag become a must for a presidential contender?

Race and religion - historically, the two great All-American wedge issues (with socioeconomic class coming in third).

Where's the Anti-Defamation League or the National Council of Churches on the issue of attacking political candidates by attacking those who preach at the candidates' places of worship?

Where's Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee while the mainstream media piles on the Faux News bandwagon to make religious questions fair game for the campaign season?

Why aren't more white folks (make that more white public figures who help shape public opinion) speaking up about the double standard that's in play, pressing Barack Obama to speak out publicly about the easily demagogued issues of race and religion, while the white candidates get a free pass?

Small wonder people like RoR think there is an entitlement for those of more traditional, red-white-and-blue religious persuasion to compel Barack Obama to "explain" his family's choice of church pew, and "justify" the Obamas' decision not fold up, stalk off, and quietly mingle in with the rest of the contented Christian herd at the first sign of controversy that might offend the Caucasian majority's sensibilities.

Bill from Saginaw

Certainly a few "gifted" negros get out of that hole and are quickly propped up by the (at least subconsciously racist) conservative party. Successful blacks are invaluable yet "token" members of the GOP.

What about the vast majority? If you read or heard Obama's speech on race, then you would either agree or disagree that the past causes the present and that our current American tragedy is irreducibly connected to the sins of our past.

Jim Crow laws and systematic oppression (educational & financial) persisted in America until the 1960's. After only two decades of federal help, black Americans were being systematically and unapologetically ridiculed by the new conservative party (Rush Limbaugh Reaganists who despised political correctness) for failing to correct most of their problems. Not even one generation of black American families had gone through the cycle of education before the onslaught of venom and cultural backlash against them began and continues relentlessly.

For any subgroup in the world to succeed, they need a stable cultural system. In eduction we call it the peaceful hegemony of societal norms. Black American culture was destroyed by slavery and they have never recovered as a whole. Again, a few great ones here and there transcend the trouble of their subgroup, but the majority drifts without the anchor of a stable culture.

How can we help black America stabilize enough to get out of the hole this country helped dig?

Ridicule for failure is no strategy.

This behavior of America's right wing is not only pitiless it is pitiful.

Also, Rev Wright has some weird ideas, but overall, if you listen to the whole sermon, you might come away with a new point of view.

It wasn't that long ago that the US govt gave African Americans diseases to study the results. Also, the same Henry Kissinger who currently meets monthly with Cheney and Bush, suggested (1970s) that in the end days when resources grow thin, we may need to cull the weakest populations on the planet (Africans). In addition, millions of Africans die every year from curable diseases that we can easily cure, but the entire US Peace Corps' annual budget is comparable to a professional baseball player's annual contract. So when your precious rich-guys' club (GOP) starts talking about the sanctity of human life, is it really a stretch to consider that they secretly want the blacks to stay in the hole? How far fetched is it then for Pastor Wright to get upset about realities and suggest "conspiracy" theories. I don't agree with all of what he says but I don't smugly dismiss him or his sermons before I use my open-mind to investigate what he says.

I was in the Peace COrps in Africa. I taught AIDS Awareness village to village and school to school. When I first arrived at the peak of AIDS transmission, there was nothing at all being done by the French who still control(led) exploitation of all the natural wealth! (Gabon is an ex-French colony). There were no condoms on the shelves and no books in the schools or libraries. All the PR about helping these poor Africans was a sham. They "help" them by propping up corrupt dictators who then become trained consumers of our most expensive goods. Nothing changes, but we still give our corrupt pet puppet his allowance, so long as he lets us rip off the world's poorest. The dark side is real RoR. Turn away from the dark side.

No one can say we are good unless we make a real effort to change this. "What you do to (or don't do for) the least of mine, you do to (don't do for) me."

"the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear (from the years of slavery and segregation) have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years."

GOOD. Nothing has changed in core Beastius Americanus. Nothing. Redlining, a Prison Industrial Complex built on criminalizing the Black & Brown populations, deliberate flooding of Black & Brown neighborhoods with drugs, pawnshops and liquor stores, along with systematic exclusion and misdirection in health care have done their work.

In 2008, Black high school GRADUATES have a 30% HIGHER unemployment rate than white DROP OUTS. White people haven't fooled anybody but themselves. We are the same unrepentant, genocidal, Aryan Slave Empire we always were. We're killing the planet from our core model of life.

Any person of color should make themselves aware that white people are becoming a numeric minority in the country they stole through deliberate genocide and built, as you well know, from racialized forced human labor. We never lost the taste for human blood, as you can readily see from any of our MSM.

Take it to heart. Ask yourself a question. What does a psychotic do when in the grip of terminal panic? Does the psychotic kill everyone they can get their hands on? Can you follow the pretzel "logic": "That somehow by killing everyone else they will be allowed to continue as they are."

Yeah, its really bug bats crazy. That's what we're all up against. Sorry. America said "NO" to economic and social justice. They said it 40 years ago. They said it with a bullet. Actually, they said it with an immense arsenal of bullets, State, Local, & Federal. Kill'em all, then tell everyone "they made you do it", kill anybody who disagrees with the story. Sound familiar? 40+ years. Absent Friends.

Peace.

RoR--"First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. "

What an ignorant schmuck. Another wingnut let loose on the boards, we need to suffer this for a while.

I dont understand why people get so bent out of shape about Wright and his sermons. The problem is he is absolutely right on most of the issues and i agree with him on most of the things he said.

What happened to treating everyone as individuals, rather than simply a member of a racial or ethnic "sub-group"? Some injustices against black people remain, no-body should deny that. But does giving all black people a "helping hand" help the situation? No. It just creates a sense of victimhood amongst white people.

Who benefits most from affirmative action overall? White women.
Who suffers most from affirmative action in college? Not whites, but asians.

But the biggest effect is to reinforce racism, the message that is sent out is that black people can not compete on an equal footing. This reinforces a sense of inferiority amongst blacks, and resentment amongst whites. AA simply creates more divisions, a white person who misses a job, a college place, a promotion or a contract to a black person will feel aggrieved - whether it was affirmative action or not - simply because they will perceive it being due to AA. They won't think "good for him, black people need a helping hand because of the crimes of my long-dead ancestors who may or may not have had slaves."

The only way to end racism is to stop viewing people on the basis of their skin. Treating everyone as an individual is the best solution to remaining problems of lingering racial prejudices. Committing to post-racialism is the only way to rid society of racism for good. Irish and Italian Americans are no longer discriminated against in society, this was not achieved through affirmative action and quotas for Irish and Italians.

It is true that blacks make up a far greater percentage of the prison population than 13% but this does not prove that the justice system is inherently racist. Yes, there is evidence that black people receive harsher sentences, but this is not even half of the story. Working class people (and the 'underclass') of all skin colours (white, yellow, black, brown, polka dot) are treated more harshly by the justice system than the middle and upper classes.

Part of the reason is that black people do indeed commit more crime per head of population. Why is that? It is not because they are poor. They are not raping, murdering and selling drugs to other black people because they are poor. Or because "whitey" is oppressing them.

There is a "cultural undercurrent" responsible for the problems of the black community, namely the decline... nay... a dissolution... of the black family. A 70% illegitimacy rate, millions of children growing up without fathers as role models. Little wonder these kids get into gangs.

Parenthood is hard enough with two parents. Single parenthood is incredibly difficult. It is not possible, as a single parent, to give children the role models they need or the time and attention that they deserve. Study after study after study affirms the importance of the family in society, of growing up with both parents.

Treating people as individuals, colourblind, supporting the family and education, this is the way out of poverty for all communities.