The tree shakers
create opportunity for others because they bring the fruit--the fruit of
inclusion, the fruit of prosperity, the fruit of justice--within easy
reach of everybody.
WOMEN
AWAKEN!
WORDS WE SPEAK
- ENERGY
& INTIMACY
- GIBSON
AND GLOVER MAKE NEWS
- MOON
NAMES
- MELANIN
- VISUALIZING
LIGHT
- BLACK
THINK TANK RESULTS
- DRIVING
WHILE BLACK
- THE
STATE OF OUR SOULS
- DISTRESSED
BY STRESS?
- MONEY
AND SPIRIT
- DIVINE
CONVERSATION
- MANSHARING
- SEX
AND SKIN
- THINK
AND ACT
- Gullah-Geechee
Culture
- BLACKS
IN NAZI GERMANY
- THE
GIFT OF JAZZ
- WOMEN
AWAKEN
- CHILDREN
AND SEX
- BREATHE,
MY FRIEND!
- WOMEN
& MUSIC
- SINGLE
GRANDMOTHERS
- AIN'T
I A WOMAN?
- REPARATIONS
- MSG
KILLS
- MOTHERHOOD
- STAND
IN THE LIGHT
- FORGIVENESS
- COSBY SPEAKS
- TREE SHAKERS
PROBLEM
IN SUDAN
|
Life expectancy in Sudan
is just 58 years. In the United States, the average person can
expect to live to the age of 77. |
|
Of every 1,000 babies born
alive in Sudan, 94 will die before their fifth birthdays -- compared
to only 8 out of 1,000 in the United States. |
|
Safe water is accessible
to just 75% of the people of Sudan. Almost everyone in the United
States has access to safe water. |
|
Illiteracy is a major
problem in Africa, as is the disparity between men's and women's
education. In Sudan, 72% of the men and just 51% of the women are
literate. In the United States, nearly all adults -- 97% of both men
and women -- can read and write. |
|
Annual per capita income
in Sudan is $1,970 (real GDP per capita, ppp$). It is $34,320 in the
United States. |
Some
Solutions
|
Cynthia
McKinney
NCOBRA Convention
June 18, 2004
I began this day in Turin, Italy. And actually, today for me began
in your yesterday. I haven't had access to the internet for three
days. And I haven't been able to research and prepare the way I
normally would for remarks and an audience of this magnitude.
So, in advance, I ask you to please pardon me.
My son just graduated from the International School of Turin; that's what
took me to Italy. But with his graduation ceremony having been
accomplished, there was nothing that was going to keep me away from you
tonight. For in my estimation, NCOBRA is the preeminent activist
black organization of our day.
During the two years that I've been out of Congress, I've had the
opportunity to travel to places far and near. From Philadelphia, USA
to Berlin, Germany, a contingent of NCOBRA members has always been there
to greet me. Your engagement in every nook and cranny of America,
and globally, positions you for 21st Century leadership.
In Philadelphia, I asked the question, "What becomes of a community
when it has allowed all its tree shakers to be 'neutralized' and all the
fruit is gone?"
Just for the record, I cast my lot with the tree shakers, as I know you
do. Marcus Garvey; Malcolm X; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Fred Hampton;
all the Black Panthers murdered and incarcerated as a result of the FBI's
illegal and immoral activities during the COINTELPRO era were tree
shakers. This country has only lived up to its ideals when tree
shakers got busy doing what tree shakers do. John and Bobby Kennedy
were tree shakers, too. J. Edgar Hoover, George Herbert Walker Bush,
and George W. show us what our country can become when we don't field a
steady team of tree shakers. Patrice Lumumba and President Aristide
are reminders of what can happen to us when we fail to field a full team,
equipped with fresh replacements.
Our struggle is a relay race, not a marathon. It's not fair for us
to pass little progress on to the next generation. The tree shakers
create opportunity for others because they bring the fruit--the fruit of
inclusion, the fruit of prosperity, the fruit of justice--within easy
reach of everybody. The 14th and
15th Amendments are fruit--the
result of tree-shaking. Reconstruction is fruit--the result of
tree-shaking. Brown v. Board of
Education, the Civil Rights
Act, the
Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing
Act--all the results of massive
tree-shaking. Even Dred Scott and
Plessy v.
Ferguson--the results of
tree-shaking--were setbacks that let us know exactly where we stood with
our beloved America. They are the work of dedicated, activist tree
shakers like us. They taught us that tree shaking can take
place in law office suites as well as in ghetto streets. But one
thing is clear--tree shaking bears fruit.
But what else should be clear is that tree-shaking can also be dangerous.
Tree shakers have to agitate. And if they're not protected, they can
be picked off one by one.
Marcus Garvey shook the tree, the Garvey family paid the price.
Geronimo Pratt Ji Jaga shook the tree, Geronimo Ji Jaga paid the price.
But from the sacrifice of them all, I picked up the fruit, you picked up
the fruit. But also, Ward
Connerly, Condoleeza
Rice, Colin Powell,
Clarence Thomas picked up the fruit, too.
And that's the remarkable thing that's happening before our very eyes.
When you and I pick up the fruit, we make ourselves and our children
strong for the next round of tree-shaking, agitating, progress. But
when they pick up the fruit, the agitation ends and self-satisfaction
begins. The relay--the handoff to the next generation--gets weaker
rather than stronger. And now it seems there's more of them than
there are of us--unless we make our voices louder.
It seems that the court priests have proliferated on our watch. The
court priests are the COINTELPRO leaders who cry peace, peace when there
is no peace. The media tell us we should look up to the court
priests: they include many of our politicians and our organizations.
The court priests are the ones National Security Council Memorandum #46
referred to when it said that they would get "their" blacks
elected and appointed to office because they would be more loyal to the
system than to our community. And once we understand what has been
done to our leadership, then we can begin to understand why Martin Luther
King, Jr. Drive looks the same in almost any city in America.
Despite the ascent of thousands of blacks to public office, for far too
many the conditions remain abject: abject poverty, or abject abuse,
or abject injustice.
How else could Hull House in Chicago produce a report last year saying
that it would take black Chicagoans 200 years to close the black-white
quality-of-life gap? Or
United for a Fair Economy in its State of
the Dream 2004 Report informs us that the racial disparities on some
indices are worse now than when Dr. King was murdered. Or the 2004
National Urban League State of Black America report that reminds us that
at this country's inception we were counted as three-fifths of a white
person, but that over 200 years later, our "net equality" has
only grown by 13 percentage points. Or the Harvard University
symposium that found that even with money and insurance, black patients
receive a lower standard of health care. The recommendation?
Go to black doctors!
United for a Fair Economy tells us that it will take us a decade to close
the high school graduation gap; seven decades to close the college
graduation gap; 581 years to close the per capita income gap; and 1,664
years to close the homeownership gap. Our children sing "I
wanna lick you all over" and network television is the balm that
encourages us to laugh at ourselves rather than to change these
statistics.
While the black body politic is becoming comatose, the court priests tell
us all is well. In fewer than ten years after the glorious successes
of the 1960s, our body politic received its first blow: the Bakke
Decision that gave rise to the whole "quota" debate.
Subsequent Supreme Court decisions took turns delivering sustained and
effective blows: economic affirmative action in Croson and
Adarand;
political affirmative action in Shaw v. Reno
and my redistricting case,
the Johnson v. Miller case.
The end of the Second Reconstruction is nearly complete.
The black body politic has been invaded by COINTELPRO agents, rendering us
impotent and near dead. Our community didn't organize a defense when
the tree-shakers were targeted. Now the trees bear strange fruit.
A strange fruit, indeed with at least three 21st Century lynchings.
And so, with defenses down, you could say that the black body politic has
been invaded by a foreign, hostile agent. Thus, my question in
Philadelphia: What happens to a community when all the fruit is
gone?
The reason I've braved 15 hours in various airports today is because I
believe you are the doctor, the prescription, and the pharmacist.
You are the organization to bring the black community back to good health.
When a body gets cancer, nothing short of irradiation or extreme
chemotherapy is called for. Radical action is required to get at the
root of the problem. Sometimes even, the body is shocked by the
treatment. But the treatment heals the body and completely excises
the cancerous cells from it. You are here in Washington, DC to begin
the irradiation.
But the treatment cannot be local. This cancer has spread and
treatment must be administered to every extremity. In addition, in
order to be effective, the medication must be able to discern the healthy
cells from the cancerous ones. The medication has to call the bad
cells out! The medication, though severe, eliminates the problem and
the physician keeps watch over the patient to prevent any return of the
disease.
The answer to my question, then, is clear. Either the community that
loses all its tree shakers and its fruit dies or it is revived.
COINTELPRO was about the black body politic dying. Ever since J.
Edgar Hoover wrote, in 1919, that Marcus Garvey "excited the
Negroes," all it has taken to get targeted has been the ability to
"excite the Negroes." Let's get excited ya'll! Cause
that's when we're healthiest.
But, when a community's leadership is targeted by government action to
"neutralize" it; such that the community is unable to defend
itself against its intentional destruction; and when that destruction
comes at the hands of a government, then I call that genocide.
I ask that this conference not be considered an event, but a process.
Please include me as a part of your process. For I believe that you
are our last great hope before complete collapse.
Be bold, be brave, but be prepared.
Literally the whole world is watching and wishing us success.
Thank you.
Cynthia
McKinney
NCOBRA Convention
June 18, 2004
|
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
"I'm a hip hop Mom!"
Be sure to click her photo and view her video about Hip
Hop and Freedom of Speech!
Created 3 Hip Hop Power Shops featuring Tupac's Mom
Participated in Russell Simmons' Hip Hop Summit
First Congress Member to reveal a full-fledged Hip Hop
Platform
Georgia has a disproportionate rate of blacks in prison.
The State and the United States are practicing vote dilution and vote
denial.
WORDS
WE SPEAK
|