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All 61 comments by...

theloneous

    • 15 Aug 08
    • 3:12 pm

    Obama saying, “It doesn’t matter how much money we invest in our communities … or how many government programs we launch — none of it will make any difference if we don’t seize more responsibility in our own lives.” is no different than Farrakhan's mantra "Do For Self". I don't see how "black nationalist theorist and creator of Kwanzaa" Maulana Karenga could brush off Obama's personal responsibility remarks when that sentiment is the basis of an honest argument for Black nationalism. What I see happening is an acknowledgement in the Black community of the split between the schools of thought represented …

    Posted to Getting Messy With Jesse Helps Obama
    • 14 May 08
    • 10:23 am

    Whoever the next President is he will have to inflict a lot of pain on Americans of every income class because the bush administrations are guilty of gross neglect of all its governmental responsibilities. Its time for America to pay up in order to get up to speed with the rest of the world. Its should be obvious to all now that 9/11 and the wars were/are diversions, while bush picked our pockets. Plus, while we looked the other way the world left us behind, Americans are like tourist lost in a unfamiliar world, vulnerable and broke. Bitter, confused? Yeah. But …

    Posted to Winning the White Working Class
    • 15 May 08
    • 10:47 am

    Hi whattheheck, The next President, if he's able to resolve any of the numerous ailments afflicting this country, will be demonized by the very people he's helping. In real life there is no "spoon full of sugar to help the medicine go down", and congress needs to get behind well thought out long term solutions instead of the band-aid approach, the former being the awful, bad tasting medicine that's needed. You said, "My 42-year-old son does the same job I did back then and is even worse off than average. I made the same annual pay in 1975 that he makes …

    Posted to Winning the White Working Class
    • 10 Apr 08
    • 3:00 pm

    “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.”, “That particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront it, hard for us to talk about it and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today.” OMG, she IS Black. These are by far the most intelligent things I've heard of Ms. Rice saying since she came onto the national scene. I'm actually proud of her for having the guts to say it, especially in …

    Posted to A Speech Even Condi Could Love
    • 01 Apr 08
    • 10:24 am

    If the FOX mouthpieces find the contents of Rev. Wrights' sermons "controversial" they'd have a stroke if they had heard some of the sermons our pastor delivered when I was growing up in the late 60's/early 70's. Like Rev. Wright my pastor survived Jim Crow, the depression, was a Vet of the segregated military during WWII, attended theology school and was ordained but he also had a day job, as a foreman at a foundry. Quite often he used his experiences on the job to relate to parables in the Bible as the basis of his sermons and to drive home …

    Posted to Is Wright Right About Racism?
    • 02 Apr 08
    • 9:36 am

    wolf & whattheheck By "truth" I mean in more of a confessional way than as factual. Rev. Wright spoke honestly, from his heart, based on his life experiences, not necessarily from what he learned in school or what he thought his congregation wanted or needed to hear or what would be politically correct, but from his own unique perspective. I guess my point was that America seems offended when anyone expresses views on a matter without first taking into account what the prevailing media condoned perception might be, and then that person is bold enough to not be browbeat into conceding …

    Posted to Is Wright Right About Racism?
    • 25 Mar 08
    • 9:20 am

    Good question; why isn't the national debt a topic of discussion on the campaign trail? Maybe because its too damn depressing. I feel like slashing my wrist at the thought of $31K personal debt, especially with interest added. I filed chapter 7 in 1988 for $7K of unsecured debt but have kept my nose clean since then, but if the country files bankruptcy a judge can't tell our creditors to just eat it. America is headed for liquidation, receivership, garnishment, judgements and liens of and on public assets. Meet the repo man and welcome to the U S of Asia. …

    Posted to Debt: Our 9 Trillion Pound Gorilla
    • 08 Feb 08
    • 12:18 pm

    Hip hop and its association with the word "nigger" is disappointing to me because of the lack of creativity displayed by its continual use. It use to be that when white folks started to adopt or co-op or mainstream parts of our culture we'd change up so we could continue to talk amonst ourselves. Any decent spoken word artist worth his weight in salt can infer any variation of the contextually implied meaning of the term "nigga" for every listener he or she is communicating with, especially when coupled with a visual medium like a live performance or video. For instance, …

    Posted to Nas: Whose Word Is This?
    • 16 Nov 07
    • 12:13 pm

    As a Southsider living among Black Chicagoans of various income levels, I can attest that Mr. Cosby has stereotyped low income people unfairly. Most low income people I KNOW (as opposed to read studies and reports about) are honest, hard working, tax paying citizens and dedicated parents whom I'm glad to have as neighbors. Mr. Cosby should redirect his criticism at those individuals who seek to gain at the expense of others, those people who want something for nothing, who feel entitled to certain benefits because of who they are. All communities have plenty of these types of people, not just …

    Posted to Come on People! Bill Cosby is Right
    • 16 Oct 07
    • 10:40 am

    Mr. Muwakkil, I agree," “the prison-industrial complex,” is the primary site of racial oppression today", and it underpins rual economies all over the country by providing decent paying jobs with benefits to mostly white prison employees and provide a tax base for the counties the prisons are located in. Without these Black lives lanquishing in prisons many rual communities would be abandoned waste land ghost towns. Equally disturbing is the "urban" contribution to the “school-to-jail pipeline.” where educated, unionized, middle class teachers, principals and school board employees, city, state and federal officials (many of whom are Black) and the legal profession …

    Posted to Jena and the Post-Civil Rights Fallacy
    • 21 Sep 07
    • 2:53 pm

    Afford another war? Hell, too many Americans can't afford to pay their house note much less finance another bonus for Haliburton and Black Water execs. bush should be more worried about so many Americans not being able to afford to go to the doctor or dentist, or the fact that the U S has a negative savings rate, that credit card debt has rendered people making as much as six figure incomes virtual indentured servants. bush ought to be more concerned that the dollar is on its way to not being worth much more than the Mexican peso and that the …

    Posted to Another War We Can't Afford
    • 02 Jul 07
    • 8:43 am

    Encore performance Salim? Anyway, doubt if any of averted attackers in England come close to the profile of these American "threats".

    Posted to Entrapping Inflated Threats
    • 28 Jun 07
    • 2:15 pm

    Thanks St. Ronnie for "the secret and illegal selling of weapons to our sworn enemy, Iran, to then fund the Contras" Yours truly, the thousands of American military killed and maimed by IED's smuggled into Iraq from Iran over the last four years.

    Posted to The Enduring Lies of Ronald Reagan
    • 08 Jun 07
    • 1:02 pm

    Based on the bush anit-terror efforts to date one would assume poor, easily misled Black men from Carribean nations are the biggest threat to national security and crooks looking to cut deals are our best intelligence sources. The conspiracy theorist in me says the US is laying the groundwork to justify lableing Carribean nations "terrorist states" so they can be invaded, as in Haiti minus Aristede. Sure, the US can bully little islands but gets its ass kicked everywhere else.

    Posted to Entrapping Inflated Threats
    • 25 May 07
    • 8:16 am

    Mr. Muwakkil, I enjoyed your debut radio show on WVON last Saturday and will continue to listen, congrats on the new gig. Regarding your commentary: hip hop culture and music is really nothing more than the progression of the same Black American cultural expression that was/is Gospel, Blues, Jazz, Rock, Soul, Funk etc...In fact, hip hops' first cousin "be bop" was just as villified because of its perceived association with drugs. The primary difference being "big business saw great profits", "and accelerated hip-hop’s profit potential." by pushing "sensationalized tales of drug dealing, sex seeking and gun play ", which "has distorted …

    Posted to Blaming Hip-Hop for Imus
    • 10 Apr 07
    • 9:54 am

    Judging from the tone of the post here its an understatement to say "race" is a touchy subject. And what seems to be an even more touchy subject is the issue of reparations. But this is a very small sampling of views here so I asked a former co-worker Rob (who's a 47 y/o white guy) to read this article (but not any of the posted comments) and give me his take on it. Rob said, "I don't feel any guilt about slavery because it seems to me Black people are doing alright, I mean, you don't seem to have been …

    Posted to Slavery and the State of Denial
    • 02 Mar 07
    • 2:23 pm

    I must say, Obama seems to be pushing all the right buttons. Even though his moves are becoming more obviously calculated they seem to be the right moves nonetheless. I think if he wins the nomination it will be because he and the people around him are just much smarter than their competition. And to piss off a bunch of entrenched DC ass kissers gives me a new found respect for Emil (ComEd rate hike) Jones.

    Posted to Obamas Base: Broader Than Black
    • 14 Feb 07
    • 3:38 pm

    The bush administrations' attempts to have god-like control over these victim/prisoners shows they are truly satanic. Chavez is right, bush is the devil.

    Posted to Interrogations Behind Barbed Wire
    • 02 Feb 07
    • 9:59 am

    Initially I thought maybe it was just me but after doing a small poll of relatives, friends and co-workers, I came to the conclusion that the idea that “Many blacks wonder if mainstream whites love Obama because of his lack of history as a slave, which elicits no feelings of historical guilt.” is not only untrue but absurd. My feeling was surprise that any Blacks were wondering anything about why white people like Obama, it never occurred to me to give it a thought. The most observant comment I got on this subject was from one of my next door neighbors, …

    Posted to Baracks Black Dilemma
    • 06 Feb 07
    • 9:12 am

    maximus07 omg! you copy/pasted my whole post and completely missed the main point of it, which was "Black folks don’t really care what white people think" about us. The point in quoting some of my relatives, friends and co-workers was to show that while Mr. Muwakkil would have you (white people) believe many Blacks sit around wondering what your opinion of us is, many other Blacks wouldn't offer a bent rusted penny for your thoughts on the subject. And "Wow", why are you sooo surprised that some Black people don't hold white people in high esteem, that some Blacks have a …

    Posted to Baracks Black Dilemma
    • 06 Feb 07
    • 9:30 am

    wolf I know.

    Posted to Baracks Black Dilemma
    • 17 Jan 07
    • 2:18 pm

    "Inmates working for UNICOR are paid between 23 cents and $1.15 per hour. In 2005 the company recorded $64.5 million in profits." What's the difference between the US and China?

    Posted to Americas Slave Labor
    • 26 Dec 06
    • 10:59 am

    The Caracas Consensus, South-South integration, Petrosouth, Resolution of Abuja, resource nationalism, attempts at African-South American-Caribbean-African American unity; Mr. Chavez gets my vote as man of the year. As hard as it seems to be for some people to grasp, pro-Black does not equal anti-white, unless you benefit from the exploitation of Black people and their land.

    Posted to The Caracas Consensus
    • 26 Dec 06
    • 11:17 am

    blondemike: Why so hateful? Are you afraid of the ideas conveyed in Mr. Muwakkil's commentary? The future of "blond" looking rather "dark"? lol LOL LOL!!! BOO LOL!!!

    Posted to The Caracas Consensus
    • 26 Dec 06
    • 3:59 pm

    blondemike: You can't even bring yourself to refer to me by my name, how can I take anything you say serious. That's why I laugh at your stupid a##, you're a joke. I won't be responding to anymore of your bullsh*t.

    Posted to The Caracas Consensus
    • 22 Nov 06
    • 11:30 am

    Good stuff, I needed that.

    Posted to All Praises to the Pause
    • 16 Nov 06
    • 11:43 am

    Mr. Muwakkil I'm disappointed you feel that, "Through an artful combination of outrageous rhetoric and mollifying gestures, Farrakhan has managed to maintain his radical base without undermining his mainstream credibility. " While I don't agree with everything Farrakhan, he's much more than "outrageous rhetoric and mollifying gestures". I found this comentary to be condescending toward Min. Farrakhan and the NOI. Are you trying to maintain "mainstream credibility" by mocking Farrakhan?

    Posted to Farrakhan Steps Back
    • 17 Nov 06
    • 8:46 am

    Redhorse: Shortsigted amerikan culture tends to trash everything when its shelf life appears over, as is the case with Mr. Muwakkil regarding Min. Farrakhan in this commentary. Either by habit or ignorance, the amerikan mindset wants to kick the elders to the curb as if there's no room on the bus, not realizing they've already encountered every fork in the road on lifes' highways. Dualism implies some sense of balance and racist corporate amerikan capitalism is the antithisis of anything resembling balanced. Black nationalism would necessarily counter amerika and force it to at least acknowledge non-white autonomy as a possibility, ie...white …

    Posted to Farrakhan Steps Back
    • 18 Oct 06
    • 3:19 pm

    Any candidate for Mayor of Chicago that can come up with an economic development agenda that doesn't rely on tourism and can create jobs other than low end service sector "Big Box" types can probably knock Daley off. If that candidate can also figure out a way to enforce "quality of life" ordinances without being punitive to the very citizens they're supposed to help would win on the first ballot.

    Posted to Year of the Black Candidate
    • 10 Oct 06
    • 1:30 pm

    Economic equality is the goal of a socialist society not of capitalism. Race has always been used in America as a litmus test for entry into the capitalist class. This whole discussion is better suited for Cuba than the U S.

    Posted to Is Diversity Enough?
    • 10 Oct 06
    • 2:43 pm

    By definition, money is a by-product of capitalistic endeavors. Capital is profit derived from the marketing of raw materials made more valuable by use of labor and equipment. With a few exceptions, white people control the delivery and distribution of value added raw materials (not to be confused with consumer goods) to the marketplace. It appears to me whiteness is the most common trait among capitalist.

    Posted to Is Diversity Enough?
    • 11 Oct 06
    • 9:43 am

    Why would you draw a line from my thoughts on whiteness and capitalism to Blackness and poverty? A more logical line of reasoning would be to question my assertion compared to how capital is acquired in a non-capitalist economy (China), an autocratic monarchy (Saudi Arabia) or a multi-ethnic/multi-cultural democracy (Brazil). Each of these economies avail value added raw materials to the marketplace. To that I would argue that the primary difference between U S/European (read: white) capitalism and those examples previously listed is that from an historic perspective, the ultimate goal of white capitalism appears not to be just profit but …

    Posted to Is Diversity Enough?
    • 23 Aug 06
    • 10:58 am

    Mr. Muwakkil: Excellent commentary, as always. It really doesn't matter what white Americans think regarding reparations, the issue is between governments that sponsored and supported slavery/Jim Crow, their clients, the corporate economy that was the primary beneficiary of stolen Black capital vs. the progeny of those it was stolen from. The federal government refuses to establish the commission that passage of Rep. Conyers bill would initiate because it first calls for a study of the effects of slavery/Jim Crow on current day Black Americans and would then recommend remedies if deemed necessay. If congress commissioned this study the U S government …

    Posted to The Reparations Bandwagon
    • 07 Aug 06
    • 1:54 pm

    Mr. Muwakkil: This is the most compelling argument I've read yet supporting reparations for decendents of enslaved Africans in America. Thanks and keep up the good works.

    Posted to Police Torture and the Need for Repair
    • 14 Jul 06
    • 10:37 am

    "Like the white “nigger lover” in the segregationist South, many white Americans see Lindh as a traitor to his culture.", "The power of this tribal sentiment is manifest in Lindh’s continued imprisonment and the government’s spiteful prohibition of Arabic." Its ironic that Spike Lees "Malcolm X movie inspired young Mr. Lindh to convert to Islam and reject his white priviledge, Malcolms' autobiography with Alex Haley has been a shining light for young Black minds since it was published some 40 years ago. Excellent piece of writing and analysis Mr. Muwakkil, keep it coming.

    Posted to The Persecution of the American Taliban?
    • 21 Jun 06
    • 12:05 pm

    That a new school, prototype Black political "paradigm" would evolve before the demise of the old school civil rights era Black politicians makes sense and is in step with the overall retreat of "the people's" influence in the U S political process. Whether and how long they can co-exist is another matter.

    Posted to Black Politics Paradigm Paradox
    • 02 Jun 06
    • 3:07 pm

    Sounds entertaining. Don't have cable so I'll have to wait this comes out on DVD and pay for it with my non-tax payer derived income.

    Posted to Pow! Shazaam! Its ғMinoriteam!
    • 30 May 06
    • 11:05 am

    Funny If Ken Lay was Black; all pictures of him would have been "darkened" the word "alleged" would not have qualified his charges Media would have done a thorough "background check" and cast doubt on every (if any) redeeming quality anyone ever said he possessed we would have heard more of the stories from the people (especially little old white ladies that have to keep working now instead of retiring) that Ken Lay ripped off length of sentence and possible prison destinations would have been speculated on before the case went to jury If Ken Lay was Black there would have …

    Posted to If Ken Lay Was Black
    • 31 May 06
    • 8:57 am

    tina1: If the eight victims in this story had been white and the murderer Black this story would have been followed nationally. http://www.pjstar.com/stories/053006/TRI_B9VFL15T.NW1.shtml

    Posted to If Ken Lay Was Black
    • 17 May 06
    • 11:51 am

    Ms. Goldberg says, "Our democracy is eroding and some of our rights are disappearing, but for most people, including those most opposed to the Christian nationalist agenda, life will most likely go on pretty much as normal for the foreseeable future." So then, it stands to reason that our democracy and rights aren't real anyway. Ms. Goldberg says, "Historically, totalitarian movements have been able to seize state power only when existing authorities prove unable to deal with catastrophic challenges—economic meltdown, security failures, military defeat—and people lose their faith in the legitimacy of the system." She must mean "another totalitarian movement" because …

    Posted to Saving Secular Society
    • 19 May 06
    • 10:27 am

    sequ0yah: I'm happy to have "made a light go on" for you, my comments are usually described as cryptic and cynical. I can see the wheels turning in your head as you ponder ideas and connect them with what you know from both study and personal experience. I think thats important because it seems people these days are inclined to "hoard" information without ever making any effort to make use of it, arresting "information" short of its potential to become "knowledge". Possibly this is one of the "bumps in the road" on the information highway. I also noticed your moniker, some …

    Posted to Saving Secular Society
    • 19 May 06
    • 10:47 am

    sequ0yah: You said, "I have heard that the military was waiting in the wings to" take control of the American government. Don't get "the military" confused with the U S Military. Any military take over would be executed by a "contract military", a professional corporate militia, such as what seized control of New Orleans in the Katrina aftermath. “So then, it stands to reason that our democracy and rights aren’t real anyway.” —Theloneous How often have you heard this concept of freedom and democracy referred to as "the American dream"? Are dreams real or are they merely figments of our imagination? …

    Posted to Saving Secular Society
    • 01 May 06
    • 3:05 pm

    Mr. Muwakkil: I can relate to your frustration and understand why you come back to the issue of Black men in America. What I can't appreciate is your referencing articles published in the NY Times. My concern is why nobody ever ask Black men why we're in the situation we're in, and specifically why nobody ever ask those Black men these studies portray why they are in the situation they're in. To a man you'd probably find that somewhere along the line they made a decision or were affected by a decision that another Black man made that steered their life …

    Posted to Black Men: The Crisis Continues
    • 12 Jun 06
    • 8:18 am

    blacktown: I'm bragging about having been raised by a strong Black father, I'm proud that I had two strong Black grandfathers and proudest that I'm keeping the tradition alive. My 85 year old dad survived Jim Crow, the depression, WWII and raised eight kids none of whom are in jail or on drugs with six graduating college and three of his grandchildren currently in college. Not saying our family is perfect even with the presence of strong Black men providing and nuturing but we're out here and unless you live in an all-white area and get all your information from white …

    Posted to Black Men: The Crisis Continues
    • 25 Apr 06
    • 12:40 pm

    Laura: I'm sure your Mom realized through her friendship with Hispanic women that Hispanics in general and Mexicans in particular are not exactly pro-Black. That some in their community are " objecting to the embrace of Mexican blackness." says it all. If you think "pols must convince the people that it is in their urgent interest to resist the divisive race-baiting propagated by the powers that be.", then they need to find current real-time common ground rather than a distant historical encounter.

    Posted to Solidarity from Barrio to Barbershop
    • 07 Apr 06
    • 12:35 pm

    Very interesting Ms. Chaudhry. Your discussion of acting black, white, where "when it’s their turn to solicit advice, the African-American Sparks family politely declines. “I already know how to adapt and get along with white people. … Black culture has to conform to white society," took me back to the 60's and how my parents taught us of the same duality, their world and ours. We didn't mind being “bilingual,” as Chappelle calls it, because it allowed us to "signify" around white folks, which I think kept our sense of unity and community in tact. That's not the same as the …

    Posted to Acting Your Race
    • 30 Mar 06
    • 1:37 pm

    Excellent work Mr. Muwakkil. Chicago Police had issues with recognition of the Haymarket riot a couple years ago and the labor riots at the steel mills in South Chicago. I guess we're to believe they're beyond reproach even though they have to torture suspects into "confessing", rely heavily on paid informants instead of doing real investigative work, solve less than half of the murders committed in the city, include known (by them and everyone else) drug dealers and addicts, drunks, slum lords, gang bangers, thieves, racist and rapist among their ranks. They're also about the most ignorant, unprofessional, physically unfit police …

    Posted to The Battle for Fred Hampton Way
    • 13 Mar 06
    • 3:14 pm

    Very interesting interview, I certainly plan to read the book. As a Black man in America I've always known that racism had to be some kind of a mental illness. European pursuit of "The systematic dehumanization" of non-Europeans world wide is surely the worst kind of crazy so the victim of this craziness can't help but develop as many if not more mental health issues trying to make any sense of it.

    Posted to Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome
    • 10 Feb 06
    • 2:11 pm

    Allowing nutcases like the bush people to control access to the populations' vital statistics is a step closer to their ability to identify any and everybody they want to isolate as "terrorist". As far as media access to vital information, some outlets will have full access while others won't. I'm sure most writers published by ITT are in the "won't" column. ITT has given us fair warning, its time to vacate the U S.

    Posted to Information Is Power
    • 31 Jan 06
    • 10:35 am

    Thanks Salim, great article

    Posted to Black History Month Matters
    • 19 Jan 06
    • 10:30 pm

    As a violent crime victim and resident of a gang plagued neighborhood, I didn't shed any tears over Tookie's execution, even though I doubt he was guilty of the murders they convicted him for. What Williams was guilty of was being what America wanted him to be. America created Tookie Williams, a destructive life taking monster. As long as Williams and the crips were destroying Black lives America put up with his murdering. As long as Williams led the crips to dump tons of dope in Black communities he was alright with America. As long as Williams acted the stereotype gangsta …

    Posted to Reflections on Tookie's Execution
    • 20 Jan 06
    • 11:10 am

    g-love: Yes America created Tookie Williams and his ilk. America created the environment, mindset and perceived options. Williams decided to pursue options that, whether he knew it or not, advanced America's domestic policies of exploitation, oppression and ethnic cleansing of America's Black population. I'm one of those "millions of people from the same disadvantaged and economic class" as Williams and have incarcerated relatives and in-laws and I tell them and anybody else that believes the hype, including Snoop, that they've been played and are merely puppets helping to excute the beast agenda. If you want to feed a starving man you …

    Posted to Reflections on Tookie's Execution
    • 25 Jan 06
    • 8:22 pm

    cabdriverinchicago You say, "crime actually helps the right-wing cause by demoralizing minorities and society in general." Agreed, I said pretty much the same thing a couple days ago only I believe this whole street gang culture was created and is promoted by old uncle sam and that they silenced Tookie Williams because he was starting to diminish their contol over gangs with his new non-violence/anti drug writings. What I don't understand about practically every post on every blog is why everything is broken down into these simple minded dem/repub, conserv/leberal, facist/commie, arguments when in reality each perspective overlaps others that they …

    Posted to Reflections on Tookie's Execution
    • 16 Jan 06
    • 12:14 am

    The "whatever dude" estrangement from the bizarre reality of America's unjustified destruction of Iraqi culture and society is consistent with the degree of "detachment" bush types display to whats going on in the rest of the world. South America is disassociating itself from everything bush, Asia is positioning itself to take over after the bush fallout, Africa is just trying to ride out the storm while Europeans pray they aren't sucked into the black hole America's bunker bombs created in the Middle East. American military personnel know they're on the wrong side of history but they act like they're in denial, …

    Posted to Postcards From the Front
    • 16 Jan 06
    • 12:25 am

    "what if slavery were the real secret of our success?" If?

    Posted to The Northern Slave Trade
    • 26 Jan 06
    • 1:20 pm

    johnnyincentx You say, "The idea that ALL white Southerners benefited from slavery is asinine and absurd," This article was about the history of slavery in New York. What do white Southerners have to do with that? Detailing the history of slavery in New York and its economic impact is not "trying to beat your allies over the head and demand they shoulder guilt for crimes they did not commit." This is just information. Why such an emotional reaction? You wonder "Does any of these guilt-trippers ever stop to ask the question what percentage of Americans descended from people who immigrated to …

    Posted to The Northern Slave Trade
    • 26 Jan 06
    • 4:41 pm

    johnnyincentx My questions regarding European immigration were rhetorical, their story is relatively well documented and the American educational system actually devotes a chapter or two to it in its function of indoctrinating American children. Lerone Bennet Jr.'s They Came Before The Mayflower is one of my sources for historical perspective regarding the economics of class, race, culture and gender division during 1600 and 1700's Americas. What's intriguing to me about your comments are how this article and my post brought to your mind comments like, "the guilt if any for the crime of slavery does NOT belong on the backs of …

    Posted to The Northern Slave Trade
    • 19 Nov 05
    • 9:12 pm

    Mr. Muwakkil, I agree that "De-emphasizing the event’s racial focus failed to attract non-blacks but also seemed to dampen the black attendance." and that Minister Farrakhans' "separatist prescriptions", "make many progressives wince." Obviously Blacks (Black men in particular) and progressives have completely different agendas. Blacks want autonomous dominion within America. I'm not sure exactly what the progressive vision is but I can't imagine it looks much different than the status quo as far as Blacks Americans are concerned. If Farrakhan continues to move away from promoting "separatist prescriptions" he won't be able to fill a storefront church for the 10th anniversary …

    Posted to Jump-Starting a Movement
    • 24 Oct 05
    • 10:29 am

    The perceptions created of Blacks in New Orleans as looters, rapist and criminals appears to be the primary role of U S corporate media; to substantiate and justify the rationale for white supremacy. If this distorted view of Black Americans had not been promoted, corporate media would have been accused of not reporting the full Katrina "story" because white folks "just knew" this would happen the way it was reported and can now skirt any remote sense of responsibility and justify their lack of remorse by saying to themselves "those niggers deserved to suffer". In reality white folks all over the …

    Posted to The Subject Supposed to Loot and Rape
    • 25 Oct 05
    • 8:41 am

    geebee says: "70% of black children born in US are born to unmarried women (and girls). Many live in a culture of inter-generational poverty, a kind of poverty that is spiritual and moral more than material and financial.". The operative phrase in this flawed premise is "culture of inter-generational poverty". Such a culture is not derived or driven by spiritual or moral values but by perceived options for survival while maintaining a little dignity. Cosby implies that the culture he berates is a drag on the progression of Blacks in America but I don't think he would argue people are spiritually …

    Posted to The Subject Supposed to Loot and Rape
    • 19 Oct 05
    • 3:20 pm

    Mr. Muwakkil is correct, there is an obvious and growing divide between Blacks in this country, it appears to me to be a cultural divide and its not new. Numerous and various elements have always been present in our communities, the biggest difference now is some of those elements have been left behind economically. I'm a 45 year old born and raised South Sider and can attest that people had all kinds of ways of making money back in the day, whether it was legal and/or orthodox or not wasn't that big of an issue because everybody understood we were all …

    Posted to Katrina, Cosby and Class Divisions