Racism

Read more about the article Lucky to be Black

Lucky to be Black

I really am trying to lower my political caloric intake right now — and, for the most part, have, thanks to a hectic few days of dealing with the adventures of buying a house — but the events of the past week have simply been unavoidable and difficult to let go unremarked upon. The posts I haven’t written this week would have reflected negatively on my chosen candidate, blistered your eyeballs and, in a few cases, possibly even ended casual friendships with a few Clinton supporters who are otherwise wonderful, rational people.

In a situation like this, you hope someone else will put what you’re thinking into more palatable words, and earlier this week, Keith Olbermann did exactly that.  Today, it’s RJ Esko over at the Huffington Post, responding to Clinton supporters who send him hate mail “every time I criticize the Clinton campaign strategy.”

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Read more about the article Go see Liberty City

Go see Liberty City

Liberty CityI went to see Liberty City last night, April Yvette Thompson’s multi-layered, one-person account of her upbringing in the infamous Miami neighborhood during the chaotic 70s, told against a backdrop of the rise and fall of the Black Power movement, the Crack epidemic and the Liberty City Riots that led to Miami being declared a disaster area, literally and figuratively. Co-written and directed by an old friend of mine, Jessica Blank (The Exonerated; Almost Home), I went mainly to support her work but came away amazed by Thompson’s acting prowess.

I’ve seen a handful of one-person shows over the years — real ones by real actors, not the self-indulgent features-on-steroids many poets have put together* — and am always impressed by an actor’s ability to believably portray multiple characters with a minimum of props and costume changes, but in Liberty City, Thompson pulls off six major characters (and a few minor ones) without making a single addition to or subtraction from her attire to delineate them, relying soley on vocal inflections, body language and an amazingly expressive face that ages, de-ages and changes genders without ever missing a beat. Her story is a riveting one that weaves her family history with that of Libery City‘s into a 90-minute, intermission-less collection of increasingly emotional (though impressively restrained) anecdotes that lead to a conclusion that is simultaneously heart-breaking and hopeful, and more than a little bit timely.

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Read more about the article About the Farrakhan moment

About the Farrakhan moment

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=nJkU1e-_r3w]

The lowlight of tonight’s debate was, without question I think, when Tim Russert referenced Louis Farrakhan’s “endorsement” of Barack Obama this past weekend, asking if he accepted his support, and after Obama clearly and completely denounced Farrakhan’s past statements about Jews and Judaism as “unacceptable and reprehensible” and defended his own record on Jewish issues and U.S.-Israel relations, Hillary Clinton managed to sink beneath her husband’s worst “dogwhistle” moments in South Carolina and finally and effectively guarantee that I will never cast a vote for her ever again, in any election of any kind.

Referencing her first Senate run in 2000, she jumped into the discussion just as it seemed to be ending, noting with a straight face that she had “faced a similar situation” and, for a moment, I thought maybe she was going to do the honorable thing and defend Obama against a valid question that Russert was belaboring after 5 minutes, but instead she decides to attempt to score a cheap point by playing semantics:

“One of the parties at the time, the Independence Party, was under the control of people who were anti-semitic, anti-Israel, and I made it very clear I did not want their support, I rejected it. I thought it was more important to stand on principle…

You asked specifically if he would reject it and there’s a difference between denouncing and rejecting. I just think we’ve got to be even stronger.”

(Transcription via Ben Smith)

Mind you, the Independence Party carries very little weight in a statewide race here in New York and, once Rudy Giuliani was forced to drop out because of his battle with prostate cancer, Clinton coasted to a relatively easy victory, so claiming that her rejection of their support was some principled stand as opposed to little more than a grandstanding pander bear moment for the Jewish community is simply disingenuous. Further, equating the formal support of a political party, no matter how small, with that of a singular, though controversial, individual is extremely disingenuous.

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Read more about the article When politics gets personal for Latinos

When politics gets personal for Latinos

In reality, politics are without question a very personal matter but, partly due to the media’s focus on the horserace aspect of elections and partly due to the candidates often allowing themselves to be defined by labels (or at the least, trying to marginalize their opponents with them), most political debate occurs from a safe, impersonal distance. It’s what I think made John Edwards such an intriguing but ultimately flawed candidate this time around as he was undeniably the most passionate of the bunch but was significantly hampered by the combination of his problematic track record as a Senator and the inherent discordance of a filthy rich trial lawyer attempting to present himself as a champion of the downtrodden, no matter how sincere he seemed to be about his chosen cause.

As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to battle it out for the Democratic nomination that was not-too-long ago assumed to be going to be handed to her on February 5th, the admittedly minimal daylight between them on the actual issues are (hopefully) going to get a bit more scrutiny from voters and the media alike, and it’s going to be the most personal issues that will sway voters one way or the other.

Two issues of particular interest to Latinos are immigration reform and U.S. relations with Cuba and Latin America, the latter of which is greatly affected by a combination of the first two. Like Health Care, there’s not a huge disparity between them on the surface, but there are distinct differences in both their approach and tone that stand out for me.

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Read more about the article Random Thought on Race

Random Thought on Race

Barack Obama is half black, half white and was raised mostly in Hawaii and Indonesia, but is considered by most to be the "black" candidate. I'm half Puerto Rican and, depending on who's telling the story, probably a quarter black and a quarter white, and was raised in and around New York City. If I ran for President, I wonder how they would label me, especially considering I don't speak Spanish?

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Read more about the article Processing South Carolina

Processing South Carolina

In my most optimistic guesses about tonight’s result, I wasn’t expecting anything close to the 2-1 thumping Obama gave Clinton tonight. The Clintons are already trying to characterize it as a black thing (Bill goes so far as to invoke Jesse Jackson) but it is so very clearly much more than that. To put it in perspective, Obama got more votes tonight than were cast for all of the candidates in the 2004 Democratic primary, and they weren’t all cast by black voters.

The best part about tonight was Obama’s victory speech, that didn’t quite hit the inspirational heights of his Iowa speech but delivered a clean gut punch to the Clinton’s strategy of “experience” and their embracing of typical Republican tactics, without ever mentioning them by name.

We are up against the idea that it’s acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. We know that this is exactly what’s wrong with our politics; this is why people don’t believe what their leaders say anymore; this is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again… 

The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white.

It’s about the past versus the future.

It’s about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense, and innovation – a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iVAPH_EcmQ]

If Iowa was the call, South Carolina was the response, and the next 10 days leading up to February 5th are going to be very, very interesting.

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Read more about the article Ten OTHER Things Martin Luther King Said

Ten OTHER Things Martin Luther King Said

From Ill Doctrine (with a hat tip to Maria Jackson via Facebook). Side note: The fact that so many people in major corporations have to work today, a NATIONAL HOLIDAY, says a whole lot about how ready for change we may or may not be. Interestingly, South Carolina was the last state to recognize it as a holiday, back in 2000.

Continue ReadingTen OTHER Things Martin Luther King Said

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