RACISM

[See speech]

"The pain of discrimination is still felt in America."

Barack Obama

U.S. President Barack Obama has told America's oldest civil rights organization that African Americans should take charge of their own lives.

He told the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) there were "no excuses" for minority children not to succeed.

Mr. Obama's comments came in a speech at a dinner marking the 100th anniversary of the NAACP.

It is his first speech focusing on race since he became U.S. president.

The BBC's Jon Donnison in Washington says the tone of the speech was passionate, even preacher-like.

"Make no mistake: The pain of discrimination is still felt in America," Mr. Obama told the NAACP members gathered for the anniversary dinner in New York.

He said discrimination was still felt by minorities in the US, including African Americans, Latinos, Muslim Americans and gay people.

But he told the NAACP members they had to take responsibility for their lives and their communities.

"No one has written your destiny for you - your destiny is in your hands."

Barack Obama

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8155077.stm

Source: Campaign for Migrants Rights (C-M-R) Send By : Abdul-Ganiu O. Cole, Founder/Global Coordinator Motto: Freedom For All! E-mail: campaignformigrantsrights@yahoo.com

RESPONSE FROM SUZANNE BROOKS:

This is an odd message from someone who considers himself Black. After 600 years of chattel slavery, which continues to this day in the U.S. as well as in other parts of the world, followed by racial segregation which included the lynching and denial of human and civil rights, followed by de facto segregation which maintains people of color in impoverished, underserved ghettos to this very moment, and including hate-crimes based on race, gender, gender and gender orientation, along with every conceivable kind of discrimination in education, employment, housing, and medical care -- none of this carried out by Black people or other people of color in this country, all if it implemented by the beneficiaries of all these forms of oppression, how can it be our responsibility to fix the problems that have been institutionalized for centuries to benefit the perpetrators and their descendents? 

When is President Obama going to address them? 

When is President Obama going into White neighborhoods and to White organizations to point out all the benefits they have received through the American social system and system of government, which has given "equality" to whites, mostly white males, and inequality to the rest of us. 

Is President Obama now going to go to women's shelters and blame victims of rape and domestic violence for what has happened to them? 

Is he going to hold women accountable for the crimes committed by men? 

To those who thought that Clarence Thomas' development and implementation of the absurd concept of "reverse discrimination", which, according to the currently seated U.S. Supreme Court now means that any effort to redress the history of discrimination for those lucky enough to still be alive is unconstitutional because it deprives Whites from their entitlement to all of the opportunities and resources of the nation and only if there is anything left after Whites get all they can utilize can any remnants be given to discrimination victims. In other words, White American men are entitled to everything; the rest of us are entitled to nothing and any attempt to secure a fair and representative portion of anything -- education, housing, jobs, medical care -- is to be considered depriving White males of their entitlement to be the first and only people considered in the distribution of all that the country has.

Condolezza Rice on Racism

Forget Rev. Wright: Rice talks tough about race in America

Sen. Barack Obama has called for a national discussion on race in America, and one of the folks who sure didn't hold back when asked was Secretary of State Condolezza Rice. In a discussion with the editorial board of the Washington Times on Thursday, Rice called racism a 'birth defect' of America, and said that black Americans have loved the nation even when it didn't love us.

The Times reported:

'Black Americans were a founding population,' she said. 'Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together - Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That's not a very pretty reality of our founding.'

'As a result, Miss Rice told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, 'descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that.'

'That particular birth defect makes it hard for U.S. to confront it, hard for U.S. to talk about it, and hard for U.S. to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today,' she said.

Rice later said: 'America doesn't have an easy time dealing with race,' Miss Rice said, adding that members of her family have 'endured terrible humiliations.'

'What I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them - and that's our legacy,' she said. Wow, was all I could say to that.

What was even more stunning was the relative lack of coverage on this issue. I was told CNN's 'The Situation Room' did a piece on her comments Friday. But when I surfed the Net to see follow-up stories in other papers, it has pretty much been ignored, except for some briefs.

Why would the mainstream media be so dismissive of Rice's comments? Imagine if Rev. Al Sharpton or Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. said such a thing. Do you think they would have gotten ripped?

The fact of the matter is that Rice was right on the money with her comments, and should be commended. She spoke honestly and openly about the issue, and deserves credit for speaking the truth.

I just wish my colleagues in the media would do a better job at advancing the issue of race in America and our sordid history.

We went bonkers about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but when Rice, the nation's chief diplomat, spoke truthfully, it barely made a ripple.

Roland S. Martin, CNN Contributor www.rolandsmartin.com

'Never allow someone to be your Priority, while allowing yourself to be their Option.'

Also, see #77 - BLACK & WHITE

No one could have imagined that any doctrine worse than "reverse discrimination" could be developed and implemented, but President Obama has done just that. Now, victims of discrimination are not only to be deprived of equality and justice in every case where any White male claims the house, job, education or anything else as his own, but in addition, the victims of discrimination are to be derided, demeaned, insulted, and blamed for the discrimination, including the institutional oppression implemented by the White elite power structures that keep on raping and robbing everyone not in their elite, often Ivy League educated-group. That such an unthinking, hostile, backward mentality is being espoused by the first president of the U.S. with African heritage makes clearer with each day that President Obama has grasped only a few surface issues related to people of color in the U.S. 

Worst of all, his view is completely out of real connection with the lives of people of color in this country, especially African Americans. Astonishingly, he has adapted stereotypical views, which perpetuate a racist, scapegoating mentality, which inhibits him from contacts with the grassroots, working class, except in a few instances of people he apparently believes will never make waves. This means he ignores the reality in which the survival of Black and other people of color in this country did not result solely or primarily from the Whites in the Underground Railroad or the writing of Uncle Tom's Cabin, but overwhelmingly from the efforts of the enslaved themselves. Just as the Indigenous people of the Americas were not beaten down by Cortez and a few Spaniards but by alliances of many tribes against the Mayans, so too this repetition of false stories about African Americans and other people of color must be exposed for its dishonesty and for the role it plays in establishing caste systems by which masses of people can be controlled through a network of dishonest, self-serving individuals who willingly assist the oppression of their own people for money and the opportunity to function as the overseers, who implement sadism against their own people.

Clearly, by urging "Black" people to develop a new mindset, President Obama is distinguishing himself from the rest of us. We should accept his making that distinction because he is surely the only one who can accurately say he is not one of us. Now, he cannot accuse us of not accepting him. This presents an optimal opportunity for us to urge him to develop a new mindset in which he begins to communicate with those of us  who are the Black people that he sees himself as different from. Then, we can educate him on the millions of people who have survived because of the great work through the centuries by our grassroots, working class people who have all the intelligence and talent he claims for himself and who are equally well educated, experienced and skillful as he is in many areas and more in some. 

We can and must help him to learn that we, African Americans and other people of color in the U.S., throughout the African Diaspora and in many other non-European derived cultures are the people who have changed this nation and much of the world. The more he works in building a caste system in which starving, homeless, undereducated people are subjected to propaganda, telling us to enjoy seeing Obama and his associates eating and living well, as if this will keep us alive; the greater will be his fall from the pinnacle of glory he might have achieved. There is a point of abandoning the people who loved, supported and elected him from which he will find himself abandoned. It seems there is no one around him to help him face reality. 

So, like King Midas in the old fairy tale or Shakespeare's King Lear, he seems destined to reap what he sows. How sad when a leader allows himself to be controlled by appeals to his own ego and not by loyalty to those he supposedly represents and who once would have died for him. Gifts given from the heart which are trivialized then thrown away when taken for granted are not given again.

Suzanne Brooks, CEO Justice 4 All Includes Women of Color

"CNN" White in America Part 1

Wake up, America, stop playin'!

Wesley Snipes got three years jail sentence for owing taxes on $38 million. There are white people in America who make more money than that in a day who have tax shelters that protect them from paying taxes at all.

Black people have permitted themselves to be used and abused in America for over 400+ years. 

When are they going to begin to live by the adage that you must give people permission to abuse you?

Likewise, white Americans walk around with the attitude that they make the laws but do not have to be judged by the laws.

Huph! We all need to take into account that what goes around comes around. Chickens do come home to roost. Malcolm X said it. Farrakhan said it. Reverend Wright said it. Now, the Secretary of State, Rice is saying.

Please, let the games come to an  end.

Truth is Light!

COMPLETE TEXT

President Obama's
speech to the NAACP

[New York, June16, 2009]

It is an honor to be here, in the city where the NAACP was formed, to mark its centennial. What we celebrate tonight is not simply the journey the NAACP has traveled, but the journey that we, as Americans, have traveled over the past one hundred years.

It is a journey that takes us back to a time before most of us were born, long before the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and Brown v. Board of Education; back to an America just a generation past slavery. It was a time when Jim Crow was a way of life; when lynchings were all too common; and when race riots were shaking cities across a segregated land.

It was in this America where an Atlanta scholar named W. E. B. DuBois, a man of towering intellect and a fierce passion for justice, sparked what became known as the Niagara movement; where reformers united, not by color but cause; and where an association was born that would, as its charter says, promote equality and eradicate prejudice among citizens of the United States.

From the beginning, Du Bois understood how change would come -- just as King and all the civil rights giants did later. They understood that unjust laws needed to be overturned; that legislation needed to be passed; and that Presidents needed to be pressured into action. They knew that the stain of slavery and the sin of segregation had to be lifted in the courtroom and in the legislature.

But they also knew that here, in America, change would have to come from the people. It would come from people protesting lynching, rallying against violence, and walking instead of taking the bus. It would come from men and women -- of every age and faith, race and region -- taking Greyhounds on Freedom Rides; taking seats at Greensboro lunch counters; and registering voters in rural Mississippi, knowing they would be harassed, knowing they would be beaten, knowing that they might never return.

Because of what they did, we are a more perfect union. Because Jim Crow laws were overturned, black CEOs today run Fortune 500 companies. Because civil rights laws were passed, black mayors, governors, and Members of Congress serve in places where they might once have been unable to vote. And because ordinary people made the civil rights movement their own, I made a trip to Springfield a couple years ago -- where Lincoln once lived, and race riots once raged -- and began the journey that has led me here tonight as the 44th President of the United States of America.

And yet, even as we celebrate the remarkable achievements of the past one hundred years; even as we inherit extraordinary progress that cannot be denied; even as we marvel at the courage and determination of so many plain folks -- we know that too many barriers still remain.

We know that even as our economic crisis batters Americans of all races, African Americans are out of work more than just about anyone else -- a gap that's widening here in New York City, as detailed in a report this week by Comptroller Bill Thompson.

We know that even as spiraling health care costs crush families of all races, African Americans are more likely to suffer from a host of diseases but less likely to own health insurance than just about anyone else.

We know that even as we imprison more people of all races than any nation in the world, an African-American child is roughly five times as likely as a white child to see the inside of a jail.

And we know that even as the scourge of HIV/AIDS devastates nations abroad, particularly in Africa, it is devastating the African- American community here at home with disproportionate force.

These are some of the barriers of our time. They're very different from the barriers faced by earlier generations. They're very different from the ones faced when fire hoses and dogs were being turned on young marchers; when Charles Hamilton Houston and a group of young Howard lawyers were dismantling segregation.

But what is required to overcome today's barriers is the same as was needed then. The same commitment. The same sense of urgency. The same sense of sacrifice. The same willingness to do our part for ourselves and one another that has always defined America at its best.

The question, then, is where do we direct our efforts? What steps do we take to overcome these barriers? How do we move forward in the next one hundred years?

The first thing we need to do is make real the words of your charter and eradicate prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination among citizens of the United States. I understand there may be a temptation among some to think that discrimination is no longer a problem in 2009. And I believe that overall, there's probably never been less discrimination in America than there is today.

But make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.

On the 45th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, discrimination must not stand. Not on account of color or gender; how you worship or who you love. Prejudice has no place in the United States of America.

But we also know that prejudice and discrimination are not even the steepest barriers to opportunity today. The most difficult barriers include structural inequalities that our nation's legacy of discrimination has left behind; inequalities still plaguing too many communities and too often the object of national neglect.

These are barriers we are beginning to tear down by rewarding work with an expanded tax credit; making housing more affordable; and giving ex-offenders a second chance. These are barriers that we are targeting through our White House Office on Urban Affairs, and through Promise Neighborhoods that build on Geoffrey Canada's success with the Harlem Children's Zone; and that foster a comprehensive approach to ending poverty by putting all children on a pathway to college, and giving them the schooling and support to get there.

But our task of reducing these structural inequalities has been made more difficult by the state, and structure, of the broader economy; an economy fueled by a cycle of boom and bust; an economy built not on a rock, but sand. That is why my administration is working so hard not only to create and save jobs in the short-term, not only to extend unemployment insurance and help for people who have lost their health care, not only to stem this immediate economic crisis, but to lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity that will put opportunity within reach not just for African Americans, but for all Americans.

One pillar of this new foundation is health insurance reform that cuts costs, makes quality health coverage affordable for all, and closes health care disparities in the process. Another pillar is energy reform that makes clean energy profitable, freeing America from the grip of foreign oil, putting people to work upgrading low-income homes, and creating jobs that cannot be outsourced. And another pillar is financial reform with consumer protections to crack down on mortgage fraud and stop predatory lenders from targeting our poor communities.

All these things will make America stronger and more competitive. They will drive innovation, create jobs, and provide families more security. Still, even if we do it all, the African-American community will fall behind in the United States and the United States will fall behind in the world unless we do a far better job than we have been doing of educating our sons and daughters. In the 21st century -- when so many jobs will require a bachelor's degree or more, when countries that out-educate us today will outcompete us tomorrow -- a world-class education is a prerequisite for success.

You know what I'm talking about. There's a reason the story of the civil rights movement was written in our schools. There's a reason Thurgood Marshall took up the cause of Linda Brown. There's a reason the Little Rock Nine defied a governor and a mob. It's because there is no stronger weapon against inequality and no better path to opportunity than an education that can unlock a child's God-given potential.

Yet, more than a half century after Brown v. Board of Education, the dream of a world-class education is still being deferred all across this country. African-American students are lagging behind white classmates in reading and math -- an achievement gap that is growing in states that once led the way on civil rights. Over half of all African-American students are dropping out of school in some places. There are overcrowded classrooms, crumbling schools, and corridors of shame in America filled with poor children -- black, brown, and white alike.

The state of our schools is not an African-American problem; it's an American problem. And if Al Sharpton, Mike Bloomberg, and Newt Gingrich can agree that we need to solve it, then all of us can agree on that. All of us can agree that we need to offer every child in this country the best education the world has to offer from the cradle through a career.

That is our responsibility as the United States of America. And we, all of us in government, are working to do our part by not only offering more resources, but demanding more reform.

OBAMA FAMILY IN GHANA 2009

Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

TOP OF PAGE - #65 - #73 - #77

WORDS WE SPEAK