At The Annual Seminar
of the
SAN FRANCISCO PATENT AND TRADEMARK LAW ASSOCIATION
In Maui, Hawaii May 6, 1987
1987 marks the 200th anniversary of the United States Constitution. A Commission has been established to coordinate the celebration. The official meetings, essay contests, and festivities have begun.
The planned commemoration will span three years, and I am told 1987 is "dedicated to the memory of the Founders and the document they drafted in Philadelphia." we are to "recall the achievements of our Founders and the knowledge and experience that inspired them, the nature of the government they established, its origins, its character, and its ends, and the rights and privileges of citizenship, as well as its attendant responsibilities."
Like many anniversary celebrations, the plan for 1987 takes particular events and holds them up as the source of all the very best that has followed. Patriotic feelings will surely swell, prompting proud proclamations of the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice shared by the Framers and reflected in a written document now yellowed with age.
This is unfortunate not the patriotism itself, but the tendency for the celebration to oversimplify, and overlook the many other events that have been instrumental to our achievements as a nation. The focus of this celebration invites a complacent belief that the vision of those who debated and compromised in Philadelphia yielded the "more perfect Union" it is said we now enjoy.
I cannot accept this invitation, for I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever "fixed" at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound.
To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite "The Constitution," they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago.
For a sense of the evolving nature of the Constitution we need look no further than the first three words of the document's preamble: 'We the People." When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind the majority of America's citizens. "We the People" included, in the words of the Framers, "the whole Number of free Persons."
On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example, Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for representational purposes at three fifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and thirty years. These omissions were intentional. The record of the Framers' debates on the slave question is especially clear: The Southern States acceded to the demands of the New England States for giving Congress broad power to regulate commerce, in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade.
The economic interests of the regions coalesced: New Englanders engaged in the "carrying trade" would profit from transporting slaves from Africa as well as goods produced in America by slave labor. The perpetuation of slavery ensured the primary source of wealth in the Southern States.
Despite this clear understanding of the role slavery would play in the new republic, use of the words "slaves" and "slavery" was carefully avoided in the original document. Political representation in the lower House of Congress was to be based on the population of "free Persons" in each State, plus three fifths of all "other Persons."
Moral principles against slavery, for those who had them, were compromised, with no explanation of the conflicting principles for which the American Revolutionary War had ostensibly been fought: the self evident truths "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
It was not the first such compromise. Even these ringing phrases from the Declaration of Independence are filled with irony, for an early draft of what became that Declaration assailed the King of England for suppressing legislative attempts to end the slave trade and for encouraging slave rebellions.
The final draft adopted in 1776 did not contain this criticism. And so again at the Constitutional Convention eloquent objections to the institution of slavery went unheeded, and its opponents eventually consented to a document which laid a foundation for the tragic events that were to follow.
Pennsylvania's Governor Morris provides an example. He opposed slavery and the counting of slaves in determining the basis for representation in Congress. At the Convention he objected that
"The inhabitant of Georgia [or] South Carolina who goes to the coast of Africa, and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections and damns them to the most cruel bondages, shall have more votes in a Government instituted for protection of the rights of mankind, than the Citizen of Pennsylvania or New Jersey who views with a laudable horror, so nefarious a Practice."
And yet Governor Morris eventually accepted the three fifths accommodation. In fact, he wrote the final draft of the Constitution, the very document the bicentennial will commemorate.
As a result of compromise, the right of the southern States to continue importing slaves was extended, officially, at least until 1808. We know that it actually lasted a good deal longer, as the Framers possessed no monopoly on the ability to trade moral principles for self interest. But they nevertheless set an unfortunate example. Slaves could be imported, if the commercial interests of the North were protected. To make the compromise even more palatable, customs duties would be imposed at up to ten dollars per slave as a means of raising public revenues.
No doubt it will be said, when the unpleasant truth of the history of slavery in America is mentioned during this bicentennial year, that the Constitution was a product of its times, and embodied a compromise which, under other circumstances, would not have been made. But the effects of the Framers' compromise have remained for generations. They arose from the contradiction between guaranteeing liberty and justice to all, and denying both to Negroes.
The original intent of the phrase, "We the People," was far too clear for any ameliorating construction. Writing for the Supreme Court in 1857, Chief Justice Taney penned the following passage in the Dred Scott case, on the issue whether, in the eyes of the Framers, slaves were "constituent members of the sovereignty," and were to be included among "We the People":
"We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included.... They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race...; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.... [A]ccordingly, a Negro of the African race was regarded ... as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such.... [N]o one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the time."
And so, nearly seven decades after the Constitutional Convention, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the prevailing opinion of the Framers regarding the rights of Negroes in America. It took a bloody civil war before the l3th Amendment could be adopted to abolish slavery, though not the consequences slavery would have for future Americans.
While the Union survived the civil war, the Constitution did not. In its place arose a new, more promising basis for justice and equality, the 14th Amendment, ensuring protection of the life, liberty, and property of all persons against deprivations without due process, and guaranteeing equal protection of the laws.
And yet almost another century would pass before any significant recognition was obtained of the rights of black Americans to share equally even in such basic opportunities as education, housing, and employment, and to have their votes counted, and counted equally. In the meantime, blacks joined America's military to fight its wars and invested untold hours working in its factories and on its farms, contributing to the development of this country's magnificent wealth and waiting to share in its prosperity.
What is striking is the role legal principles have played throughout America's history in determining the condition of Negroes. They were enslaved by law, emancipated by law, disenfranchised and segregated by law; and, finally, they have begun to win equality by law. Along the way, new constitutional principles have emerged to meet the challenges of a changing society. The progress has been dramatic, and it will continue.
The men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 could not have envisioned these changes. They could not have imagined, nor would they have accepted, that the document they were drafting would one day be construed by a Supreme Court to which had been appointed a woman and the descendant of an African slave. We the People" no longer enslave, but the credit does not belong to the Framers. It belongs to those who refused to acquiesce in outdated notions of "liberty," "justice," and "equality," and who strived to better them.
And so we must be careful, when focusing on the events which took place in Philadelphia two centuries ago, that we not overlook the momentous events which followed, and thereby lose our proper sense of perspective. Otherwise, the odds are that for many Americans the bicentennial celebration will be little more than a blind pilgrimage to the shrine of the original document now stored in a vault in the National Archives.
If we seek, instead, a sensitive understanding of the Constitution's inherent defects, and its promising evolution through 200 years of history, the celebration of the "Miracle at Philadelphia" will, in my view, be a far more meaningful and humbling experience. We will see that the true miracle was not the birth of the Constitution, but its life, a life nurtured through two turbulent centuries of our own making, and a life embodying much good fortune that was not.
Thus, in this bicentennial year, we may not all participate in the festivities with flag waving fervor. Some may more quietly commemorate the suffering, struggle, and sacrifice that has triumphed over much of what was wrong with the original document, and observe the anniversary with hopes not realized and promises not fulfilled. I plan to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution as a living document, including the Bill of Rights and the other amendments protecting individual freedoms and human rights.
Conclusion:
All that I can add is that the truth of Justice Marshall's comments, explain better than I ever could explain, why a black underclass persists in America 232 years later. The Constitution gave aid, vent and support to the legalized subjugation of black Americans by a white power elite and white-power institutions!
Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon
White supremacists in America, do not believe today that they are bound in any way to respect any rights of other colored and Third World nations of the world. I agree with U.S. Representative Barbara Lee (A Beautiful, Strong and Sagacious Lady), that what the world is fighting against is 'White Supremacy'. The U.S.A. is the champion of a 'white supremacist agenda', aka, 'the White Man's Burden'. Some are intent on doing nothing else but ruling the world!
Hitler was not the only white supremacist leader , neither was his government the only white (Aryan) supremacist government!
P.S. How many of you know that current U.S. Representative Barbara Lee supported, advocated for and worked in the campaign of former Representative Shirley Chisholm's bid to be President of the USA? I have listened to Representative speak on several occasions in conferences in Washington D.C..
I admire her forthrigtness, intelligence and integrity - she stood up for truth on occasions when practically every other Representative in Washington DC for political reasons, backed down. And now that I am back in California, I am certain that I will meet her shortly.
And having met former Representative Shirley Chisholm in the early 1980s and after hearing a riveting speech that she gave..., I was convinced that not only could a woman be President, one ought to be President. I suspect that they will do a better job than most male Presidents, with a little cooperation, have ever done! And they will do better, particularlu; any woman who was as erudite, caring and capable as Shirley Chisholm was.
A fellow man of the cloth challenged me on this point this past Sunday. I reminded him that once again as Essau did, men have once again 'sold their birthright' given their disobedience to God, singular focus on power, debauchery and salaciousness.
To those males who refer to Genesis as a justification, and to explain that it was God's plan for man to RULE over woman, I remind those men of the other RULE in scriptures. It reads: Whatsoever you would that others do unto you, do ye unto them.
God never intended for males to become 'household dictators'. Is it any wonder, given the treatment that too many women have received from dominating and cruel males over the history of the world, that so many have become so radicalized? We are reaping for what we as males have sown - it is an omen!
Go Hillary Clinton!
Mar 10, 2008
The Rev Erupts in The Washington Post Blog 3/10/2008
Poignancy!
Okay Plainfacto, break out the tissues and the violins. I am going to say
something that might bring tears to your eyes - blind patriots won't
understand what I am about to say.
There are some of us who love America too, perhaps more than those Americans who will allow America to slip down the proverbial slippery slope, and behave like an insane madman who is going about and shooting up the world, and who in the end will commit suicide (implode) himself.
Some of us would like to bring this nation to a moral center, where it can live up to those marvelous platitudes that were expressed when the nation was founded.
Since that time, if not before, all anyone has witnessed from the USA is duplicity and double-speak. Personally, I believe that those other nations of the world that we have been discussing, have the right 'not to be unjustly interfered' or dictated to by the United States of America.
A strong and fortified U.N. would have told the USA a long time ago, to stand down.
There are crimes going on in my community. If I were to decide to become a vigilante, get out my UAV go handle the matter myself, I would not be celebrated as a hero by the American government.
On the other hand I would be arrested - just as the USA should be arrested for its continued pursuit of power (even more of it) through class and military struggle.
If the USA won't be subject to the Rule-of-Law, how can it demand that any other nation be subject to the outlaw USA's Rule-of-Law? The US government cannot have it both ways.
Some American citizens have already admitted that with respect to social anomie and their own aberrant behavior, that they have only behaved as their own government has behaved and is behaving in and around the world.
I don't believe in blind patriotism. Some citizens of Austria and Germany apparently did so, and to the detriment of millions of innocent people who needlessly lost their lives.
Blind patriots just look the other way and say, LAWD have mercy, the government is right whatever it does - they are cowards in my book. For often time the government is wrong - just ask the average black American how blind a so-called color blind government can be! Ours took 200 years to see the light!
I believe in calling 'a spade a spade', and that is whether it is a white spade or a black one!
Al-Sadr and company are going to come out on top in this matter, in the world of court opinion. I take that back, they already have come out on top. The American approval rating, not just GB's, is somewhere down around 30 degrees Celsius. Or, is that Fahrenheit?
The only ones who agree with our jaundiced and unscrupulous leadership and foreign policy, represent about 2% of the world's population. How arrogant!
Did you see 'the ray gun' that the USA perfected? Our nation has two aims, and it appears to be to make money and kill people!
Posted by: The Rev | March 10, 2008 07:32 PM
Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon (the poignant Rev)
Okay Plainfacto, break out the tissues and the violins. I am going to say
something that might bring tears to your eyes - blind patriots won't
understand what I am about to say.
There are some of us who love America too, perhaps more than those Americans who will allow America to slip down the proverbial slippery slope, and behave like an insane madman who is going about and shooting up the world, and who in the end will commit suicide (implode) himself.
Some of us would like to bring this nation to a moral center, where it can live up to those marvelous platitudes that were expressed when the nation was founded.
Since that time, if not before, all anyone has witnessed from the USA is duplicity and double-speak. Personally, I believe that those other nations of the world that we have been discussing, have the right 'not to be unjustly interfered' or dictated to by the United States of America.
A strong and fortified U.N. would have told the USA a long time ago, to stand down.
There are crimes going on in my community. If I were to decide to become a vigilante, get out my UAV go handle the matter myself, I would not be celebrated as a hero by the American government.
On the other hand I would be arrested - just as the USA should be arrested for its continued pursuit of power (even more of it) through class and military struggle.
If the USA won't be subject to the Rule-of-Law, how can it demand that any other nation be subject to the outlaw USA's Rule-of-Law? The US government cannot have it both ways.
Some American citizens have already admitted that with respect to social anomie and their own aberrant behavior, that they have only behaved as their own government has behaved and is behaving in and around the world.
I don't believe in blind patriotism. Some citizens of Austria and Germany apparently did so, and to the detriment of millions of innocent people who needlessly lost their lives.
Blind patriots just look the other way and say, LAWD have mercy, the government is right whatever it does - they are cowards in my book. For often time the government is wrong - just ask the average black American how blind a so-called color blind government can be! Ours took 200 years to see the light!
I believe in calling 'a spade a spade', and that is whether it is a white spade or a black one!
Al-Sadr and company are going to come out on top in this matter, in the world of court opinion. I take that back, they already have come out on top. The American approval rating, not just GB's, is somewhere down around 30 degrees Celsius. Or, is that Fahrenheit?
The only ones who agree with our jaundiced and unscrupulous leadership and foreign policy, represent about 2% of the world's population. How arrogant!
Did you see 'the ray gun' that the USA perfected? Our nation has two aims, and it appears to be to make money and kill people!
Posted by: The Rev | March 10, 2008 07:32 PM
Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon (the poignant Rev)
Mar 7, 2008
Mutatismutandis: The Necessary Changes Have Been Made Part 6
Conclusion... What Needs To Be Done.
Other than the Lord returning to destroy the greedy, selfish and wicked in America who refuse to change (just as it was done when God caused the world to be destroyed before), there are a variety of things that need to be done in order to rescue America's permanent social, economic and political underclass. And please don't forget those other Americans of late, who are slipping into the ever-widening American economic abyss.
1. With respect to government, it needs to be refocused, if not reformed:
Government's primary focus ought to be on all of the citizens of America, and not primarily on a singular class of individuals in America or corporations (that ship jobs overseas in order to increase their bottom lines). The government should not be obsessed with satisfying the desires of lobbyists (300,000 registered ones at this time), foreign adventurism, or self-promotion and self-perpetuation by those who have made a career out of of government (dis)service. The latter always take care of themselves first, with respect to earnings, housing, healthcare and retirement benefits.
The late President Ronald Reagan who was curiously loved by many of the less informed, made no bones about his belief that government should support the elite and corporate class in America. That belief, in and of itself, should have been enough to have disqualified him from service. Clearly it was a violation of his oath, to protect the Constitution of the United States, and therefore all of America's citizens! His involvement in deceiving Congress, given the illegal weapons that were purchased via Iran during his term (Oliver North hiding in the basement of the White House), and given to the Contra's was another reason that he should have been impeached instead of celebrated.
Mr. Reagan, and I call him that in respect to his surviving familymembers, believed that the remainder of society should have been disposed to waiting for the eventual 'trickle down' that would eventually reach them as a result of the largess of the elite class. And folks Reagan's views were the epitome of elitism. Sadly, too many Americans bought into Reagan's non-sense, which ended in nothing more than corporate greed, green mail, leveraged corporate buyouts, debts that the next generation and Administration had to pay off, and finally the perpetuation of America's permanent underclass.
Scripturally, Reagan's views reminds one of the story of the poor man who begged for 'crumbs from the rich man's table', he apparently got tired of waiting for some of the crumbs to 'trickle down' - just as some Americans are tired of waiting for today's trickle down! My personal feelings about Mr. Reagan is that he was 'a crumb'. He could have helped the American people and to change conditions in America! However, like too many American presidents, past and present, his objective was to serve the needs of a powerful elite like himself. My personal opinion about too many Americans is that they were willingly duped!
Like most presidents and government officials before him (and some are with us today, unanimity or fairness were not a part of this man's lexicon. Yes, many of his minions and the likeminded are still with us today, they still believe in Reaganism and continue to push his debauched agenda. Why? Many of them either benefited from Reaganism or are in line to benefit as a result of his economic principles that President George Bush employs. And by the way, Mr. Bush estimated worth is around 27M, and Vice President Cheney's at an estimated 85M.
The wealth of both of these characters will quadruple once they are out of office. Oddly enough, many who believe in the Reagan Gospel, also claim that they believe in the words of Jesus Christ. Folks, what Jesus taught in comparison to what Reagan taught and the rest of these nuts subscribe to, the two were and are still 'mutually exclusive'.
American federal, state and local governments all need to engage in the proactive role that each area of government engaged in during the first two hundred years of America's existence, if not before in a defacto sense. Each area of government's primary objective ought to be to immediately eliminate the structural imbalances that still exist in American society without having to be told to do so.
What do we pay these guys to do folks? Answer: To protect the Constitution and to represent the people, and the latter is what all officials are sworn to do in a representative government. And why is it that government never does its job(s) when it comes to representing all of the citizens that it is was put there to represent?
Many of the structural imbalances that exist in American society today, are there because encoded into law and therefore into the psyches of the American people is a requisite and desultory understanding that certain classes, individuals and corporate classes ought to be treated differently. Many Americans believe that certain classes, and corporations ought to be given preferential treatment and have the advantage over certain other classes and sectors the within society.
The elite class of individuals and corporations believe that they have an inherent right to be advantaged. And what that does to members of the subordinate class is to force them to be beholden to the elite and corporate class that are the harbingers of American wealth, with the full support and approval of the United States government. Today, we are witnessing a trend in America where those individuals who once upon a time benefited from the double-standards, are feeling the pain.
And perhaps that is a good thing. Why? When these individuals and families had the opportunity to insist on fairness, they ignored it and supported the nefarious scheme of America's nefaious power elite to invest in American corporations as well as in the power elite. And what did that power elite do given their support? The corporate power elite used the tax breaks and incentives that they benefitted from to line their own pockets (CEO's earning 300 times that of the average employee), and instead moved badly needed jobs offshore.
President Bush promised America several years ago that such a trend was good for the economy. And what does he have to say now that the economy is slipping in a recession (the permanent underclass is experiencing a depression already)? He is offering a stimulus package which he hopes will stimulate the economy and benefit the elite and corporate classes. He also boasts about the number of jobs that he created years ago, ignoring the fact that he took the economy into a recession when he first entered into office which resulted in a significant loss of jobs.
And what has he accomplished, he returned the economy to where it had been before and supplied the nation with jobs this time, that did not meet the needs of the average American individual or family.
Those permanent and sustained advantages and benefits that were codified into law, in particular over non-white Americans were resulted in the institutionalized and entrenched structural imbalances that have made it nearly impossible for a class of America's en masse to escape from their structurally and institutionally imposed dungeons. Government needs to reverse the damage that occurred as a result of its leadership role in granting preferential treatment to one segment of American society over the the past 200 years.
The government spent centuries 'legislating immorality', it is time that the government reverse not only its own immorality, it needs to raid the Federal Treasury and invest America's resources in its permanent and ever growing underclass. American resources would be better spent on saving humanity, rather than continuing to engage in the practice of subjugating and hurting other people around the world; just as America is doing, currently, in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and in Palestine.
It is amazing to know that our federal government is willing to spend in excess of 2B per week in order to kill foreign nationals, to take over other nations and engage in nation building, and the same federal government can never come up with resources, particularly equivalent resources to nation-build in its own backyard.
Clearly that is not the priority. America's ghettos, America's permanent underclass environs have only worsened, while the gap between the rich and the poor and others has widened. The next time you are in Washington D.C. do as I did, take a detour from the Capitol Mall, and tour the other Washington DC neighborhoods, and go over into Maryland. You won't have to drive but a few blocks from Capitol Hill to the New York Avenue area for example (crisscossing 2nd and 3rd street) to witness first hand, the other Washington DC.
Ask someone to direct you over to Ward 7 and 8, or to Suitland or Bladensburg Maryland. You will get a sense of what I mean when I explain that politicians in Washington will ignore what's right under there noses, and turnaround and invest America's resources in unwise ventures, and attack nations who have never bothered the United States. In fact, don't forget to take a drive up 6th street, or view the area that sits right behind the Washington Convention Center, there you will see how two nations that are world's apart co-exist.
Once Americans become more enlightened, particularly those who believed at one time that they had a change of obtaining the golden prize (many of them are slipping into the abyss today). I suspect that eventually when they feel the pain that they will join in helping to put pressure on the government. They will either help to restructure America in order that we might become one truly equal society where everyone is on an equal footing, or you know how they are - they will bring this nation down.
Come to think about it, perhaps some in that group simply needed to experience how others have lived and felt for centuries, and I suspect that they are many more like them who need to have the experience, permanently!
We need to, with the invention of a whole new government move towards becoming a single-classed society.
2. Religion: All religious organizations including the Church, need to reexamine their own policies, and their behaviors, particularly those organizations that have been in existence for over the past two hundred years, and the ones that existed prior to America becoming a nation. Many of our religious organizations were equally racist, and showed preferential treatment towards certain members of the society and members in their churches.
Often blacks were circumscribed in churches and were were forced to sit in the church balconies 'nigger heaven' I suppose, or in the churches belfry!
The Mormon Religion made no bones about their feelings. Simply put they said that blacks were cursed, and as a result blacks at one time could not be in the Priesthood, the Choir, the Congregation or inside of the church. Go to Salt Lake City, and spend some time there as I did, and visit the Mormon Tabernacle. If you are a non Mormon, you will be permitted to enter the old Mormon Tabernacle temple.
But more important than going into its old racist sanctuary, go and spend time at the Mormon museum like I did. Joseph Smith, and Brigham Young were typical American racists just like the rest, and just like America's politicians. Steve Young, former quarterback of the San Francisco 49'ers, bless his heart, does not believe like his ancestors once did.
And when you visit the city of Salt Lake, you will realize the deleterious effect that its religious racism had on the region. Other than the Utah Jazz basketball, you will have to look for black Americans in Salt Lake City. You will be safe, I stayed in a hotel there and no one bothered me. BTW, how many of you know that Senator Orrin Hatch, of Judge Thomas and Anita Hill hearing fame is a minister - he even preaches occasionally at black churches in the district!
The fact that he has been a Senator for so long will explain by and large, why the permanent underclass exists in America until this day. Had prominent religious leaders like the Reverend Billy Graham done their jobs and preached all of the gospel, they would have preached against racism from the onset. His refusal to preach at the March on Washington along with doctor King, tells you a lot about where his level of understanding, and where his character was at the time.
Thank God he has since repented for his behavior, but what are either he or son (given his current physical condition) doing to reverse the damage that Rev. Billy Graham could have helped to eliminate. Franklin spends most of his time crusading against the brown people of the Muslim faith, who the American government and American religious groups are currently discriminating against (led by Pat Robertson, John Hagee and others).
Have you ever heard or seen the Reverend Franklin crusade against the wrongs that have been done and are still being done to America's underclass? No, and you never will. One has to wonder how long will it take for Franklin, like his dad eventually did, to wake up and to realize what is going on right under his nose. One thing that the Grahams have never done and never will do is to spend their lives preaching and crusading against is American injustices!
All religious organizations should make it their primary aim to eliminate poverty in this nation within a reasonable timeframe, it should take just about one week. If they were to obey the scriptures and the writings that many of them purport to believe in, poverty in America would be eliminated in just about a week (For example read Acts chapter 4 where God's people shared everything.
verse 32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.
3. America's Institutions" All leaders of America's institutions need to take a hard look at themselves and the institutions that they preside over. They need to admit and work to reverse what the institutions that they preside over have done to contribute to the underprivileged in America.
Not only has preferential treatment by America's institutions given rise to the problem, the same institutions continue to sustatin, reify and to reenfoce the problem. Unfair hiring and preferential treatment practices, the greed-profit motive, excluding qualified students who are unable to afford from attending America's institutions of hire learning and other, contributes to a permanent underclass in America.
If the so-called religious individuals won't do the right thing, how can we expect the non-religious to do the right thing? All of America's institutions need to make a top down assessment of their institutional missions, and determine how they can reverse their past and current trends that contribute by and large to the problem.
4. The American People: The American people need to divorce themselves from the 'capitalist greed motive' that drives them, get in the real world and place the needs of their sisters and brothers above self interest. Americans are greedy and spoiled. Too many Americans think only about themselves.
Many individuals in American society, and in religious circles, have far more now than they will ever need or be able to use. Yet, those same Americans continue with conspicuous consumption of consumer goods. In the book of Malachi, chapter 3 vs 10, God promises to open the windows of heaven and pour out blessings that the would not have room to receive. I am often amazed at the number of Americans, particularly Christians ones who are still waiting for that promise to be fulfilled.
Wake up Christians, the promise for many of you has already been fulfilled. Many believers moved from their smaller 5-800 square foot homes into larger homes (some from 2 to 10,000 square feet) because they had insufficient space to store all the blessings that fell from heaven's windows. Their triple closets, attics, basements, cupboards, chest of drawers, dressers, hall closets, triple car garages and yards were overrun in their former domiciles. And some are finding that their larger edifices are still insufficient, so they have gone out to purchase storage units to boot.
I would ask of these Cain-spirited 'I AM NOT MY BROTHER's KEEPER' religious types, where are your brothers and sisters? For while you are living the good life, many ministers included, your undernourished brothers and sisters are year after year living in poverty and fear in dangerous neighborhoods. Many of your brothers and sisters are living in despair of the kind that you can help them to escape. When your cupboards were and are running over, did it occur to you that God provided you with extra in order to share, meaningfully, with those who are less unfortunate.
Many of the unfortunate members of America's underclass have not only been abandoned by the government, they have also been advantaged by their religious brothers and sisters who proclaim, I AM NOT MY BROTHER's KEEPER. And what do the well off say to their less fortunate brothers and sisters (many of whom represent the working poor)at the end of each service? They will say, praise the Lord brother and we will see you next week, and don't forget to bring your tithes and offerings. How dare you drive to the suburbs while your sisters and brothers return to the war torn and dangerous ghettos and communities that they cannot escape from?
I cite these areas of government, religious and individual human failure as areas of concern, because that is where the problem lies. It is the reason that most of the debauchery and neglect that has existed in this nation of wealth for so long still exists. And it proves that having wealth alone, Ronald Reagan's solution is not a solution at all.
From a scriptural perspective, if God's people who are called by his name were to simply turn from their wicked ways..., the land could be healed. Get it, if God's people, the lights of the world, were to do what they are supposed to do, the problem would be eliminated. However, one does not have to be a religious child of God in order to demonstrate a loving heart.
How many racists have there been in America that throughout the history of this nation have claimed to be Christians? And I am not just talking about the cowardly and schizophrenic Klansmen who invoke the name of Jesus and claim the cross, and still they hate Jews? Er herm schizophrenic Klansbrothers, Jesus was a Jew, however, you are also likely 'too dumb' to know realize that.
Many of America's so-called good people, many of them were and are ministers, remind me of many racists and segregationists in this country who have never been Klanspeople, yet, who at the same time also named the name of Jesus Christ. And, like the Klansman, instead of hating Jews, they hated blacks, while naming the name of Jesus. Many of these individuals are the ones who pastored churches and influenced government policy - some even served in the government, and others took their oath while laying their hand on the bible.
For many of them Judgment Day has already come and they have been exposed. On the other hand some of the most caring individuals in this nation and the world, interestingly enough are are agnostic, existential, secular and atheist. They are rightfully the number one critics, oftentimes, of religious hypocrisy and of religious hypocrites.
The members of these groups often fight harder for social justice and to deal with environmental issues than self-righteous Christians, particularly those who are members of America's Religious Right, and defacto moral majority. Judgment day again!
Hypocrisy in Christian America is apparent everyday, even TV Evangelist Reverend Kreflo Dollar explained on the Larry King show recently, that we will always have the poor among us. We don't have to have the poor among us Reverend Dollar, that is just an excuse!
Reverend Kreflo Dollar offered this explanation in order to justify his own excesses, and his own excessive lifestyle, on the syndicated Larry King Show recently. I can only imagine what Larry King, an atheist himself, thought as he sat and listened to a purported born again minister, attempt to justify his lavish lifestyle. And Kreflo has the verve and the nerve to do so while at the same time members of his congregation and the rest of the nation and the world are famished and impoverished.
Clearly Kreflo, and not only Kreflo, but ministers like him are not following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, no more than schizophrenic predecessors have done, or that his proteges are doing today. Wake up Kreflo, and stop building bigger barns, even when you claim to be doing so in the name of the Lord. You and others like you are not following the example of Jesus Christ.
A few pittances here and there is not what God required of his minister followers! You have been 'capitalized', and sucked into the spirit of American corporate and individual greed! Give Reverend Billy Graham credit for refusing to be receive an income over his years of ministry that exceeded the average salary of his parishioners! Kweflo, Jakes, Long and other white capitalist ministers, are guilty of emulating the behaviors of America's secular capitalist.
Reverend Kweflo was not about to sell all that he had and give it to the poor like the Rich Young Ruler that came to Jesus. And just like the Rich Young Ruler, the Rich Young Kweflo would and will not do so in spite of the fact he would have received even more wealth to distribute to the poor and to take care of his family needs by week's end. Get it, the rich have a steady stream of income. Whatever they give will be replaced in a few days - just like Kweflo the Rich Young Ruler missed the point. Greed!!!
Our ministers ought to lead the way in terms of the turnaround, however, if what I have witnessed sofar, from some of America's religious icons point of view, don't look for that to happen anytime soon. In addition to garnering wealth for themselves, too many of them are busy tearing down their old barns (homes and church edifices) in order to erect larger ones.
And year after year, new home after new home, new luxury car after new luxury car, new suit after new suit, new church building after new church building, members of these ministers congregations remain in the same social condition. And what do the members receive, promises of hope, while the ministers take their money in order to pay for their dreams right now!
America religious leaders are following the path of America's greedy capitalist entrepreneural classes - instead of enlightening and teaching them what should be done with profit and wealth.
There is much that can be done, and I suspect that the ones who will continue to try to implement change will be America's civil rights workers, and caring individuals. And ironically, the ones who have done the most and given the most are customarily labeled liberals, socialists, communists, anti-establishment and reckless. Don't forget that Jesus was crucified for the same reasons as demanded by the religious elite of his day, because he advocated for righteousness and justice for all people, and he even railed against 'that Fox', who was King over the local government(s) and the people!
All of us should ask, how come like Jesus, individuals like Dr. Martin Luther, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner and others have to do the work of the United States Government? Why were their families forced to suffer when paid government officials, federal, state and local failed to do their jobs (and all of us know that they never did their jobs just as they are failing many times to do their jobs today).
How come Rosa Parks had to engage in actions that 'paid government officials' were unwilling to engage in, yet they were paid to do what she did - fight for social justice? How hypocritical it was it when many of America's political elite, presidents included, showed up at the rotunda to pay their respects to Rosa Parks. They should send their salaries to her survivors. Many of these individuals were alive and involved in government when Rosa Parks took her stand and suffered for it.
Where were they at that time? How come Harriet Tubman had to work to free black Americans and to help black Americans to escape from servitude? Where was the failed racist United States Government then? Should her survivor family-members receive reparations from the American government and the American people? Had Harriet been like many Americans today, in government and out, she would have saved herself and forgotten about the rest, but instead, she went back over and over again risking her life and safety, in order to rescue other people!
Many blacks who have abandoned the American ghettoes and urban centers ought to think about her example. Why won't you go back and help? Even my own brother, why are you suddenly too good for your own people?
What needs to be done still has not been done, what was and is wrong will be evident every time an incident like Katrina occurs and exposes the depraved social conditions that persist among certain classes in America. We will know that what needs to be done hasn't been done as long as the wealth and resources that are needed to address the needs of a society are harbored by one segment of the society.
And today that segment of society is not only white, many individuals from other races who have made it, including our ministers, have joined in on conspicuous consumption, and they are also turning their backs on America's permanent underclass. I have heard black Americans even in my own family boast saying, I don't even want to go back down there (this family member was referring to the neighborhood that he grew up in).
There are many more just like him. It is amazing what happens to a person or person when they gain a few dollars. I never changed me thank God. I love people, all people, even the ignorant ones who cannot see any further than their noses. Jesus was like that, he loved the sinner but hated their sins and their venal ways. The new segregated class in America includes blacks and Spaniards.
Some of these same individuals who once languished in poverty suddenly feel that they are better than their counterparts. I often wonder just how many job opportunities have been created by America's black wealthy athletes and entertainers, Dekembe Matumbo, David Robinson and a few others being notable exceptions. Oftentimes, it would appear that the first thing that they do is to run off, purchase a big house or car and being to live the lifestyle of the Rich and Famous.
Karl Malone, a famous NBA player once from Utah no less (and I believe New Orleans) who was too poor to purchase a jacket that fit him when he was drafted into the NBA sought to play for the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team a few years ago, because he wanted the opportunity to win a championship ring.
The Los Angeles Lakers managment explained to Karl that they could not take on his 19million a year salary (that his then current team the Utah Jazz were willing to pay him if he reminaed). Karl told the Lakers, its okay I DON'T NEED ANY MORE MONEY - I just want a championship ring and you will be the vehicle by which I can garner a ring!
Now folks it was wonderful and commendable to hear someone finally say that I don't need any more money, and that I have enough to take care of my and my family's needs for the rest of our lives. The Chairman of Exxon didn't do that, despite his one year 450Million dollar earnings.
On the other hand Karl, instead of playing for a ring for the paltry 1M salary that you received, couldn't you have played for perhaps 3 or 4 more years, and used the money that you did not need to invest in creating jobs in black urban centers? My God, how many grandparents in urban centers who should have been retired years ago are still working in order to support themselves or their extended families.
What is wrong with people, even the blacks ones who were once members of American's permanent underlcass. On occasion when I would visit Portrero Hill in San Francisco, one of my sweeties having born and raised there I would enquire, what did O.J. Simpson do for the community. They responded, are you kidding, he would come by on occasion and visit or donate athletic equipment to the Community Center. Whoopee!!
Folks, Johnny Cochran who I was pleased to meet at professional basketball player Latrell Sprewell's press conference (Sprewell choked Warriors Coach PJ Carlessimo) at the Oakland Convention Center years ago, had to scramble to show where OJ Simpson had ever contributed any money to his own community. In fact, "I'm Just OJ", was practically ordered during his Trial by the Dream Team to donate money to Howard University.
They wanted to show that OJ was a caring philanthropist. Orenthal James donated a paltry five thousand dollars to his daughter's ala mater, Howard University. Er herm, that speaks for itself, there is no need to comment about this fallen hero.
In fact, he was not a philanthropist who put anything back into the community from which he sprang or elsewhere.
And unlike may other black entertainers and athletes have neglected to do, kudos go to the rappers. We criticize them for their lyrics and poetry, however, no other segment in the black community, with the exception of Comedian Bill Cosby, has given as heavily in terms of finances to the black community than they have done.
And how about Kobe Bryant? Kobe is another professional athlete who was apparently ring fixated. Does he have a right to purchase a diamond ring for his wife, estimated to have cost between 4 and 5M dollars, of course he did? However, I wonder just how many jo opportunities has Kobe created, from his wealth, for America's permanent underclass.
Isn't it interesting that members of America's permanent underclass take and give money to these wealthy individuals by purchasing their gear and attending sports events where they play at, however, when it is the members of America's underclass who need the money and a social lift? If these wealthy athletes cannot pool a portion of their resources in order to create jobs, help to provide credit and other services for America's cities we ought to ignore them, and at least stop celebrating them as if they were somehow American heroes.
How many jobs have they created, and what have they done with their purses to lift America's permanent underclass? What did Mike Tyson, a man who earned over 300M dollars prize-fighting? And how about Leon Spinks, the former heavyweight champion of the world became bartender do? What did these two intellectual giants do, who between them earned an aggregate half-billion dollars, for the community? Both of these nuts are broke! Leon said, well, I partied! That comment does not deserve a
Let's all give a shout out to Warrick Dunn, the former Atlanta Falcons football running back who created the Dunn Foundation in 1997. Dunn's Foundation made it possible for singles mothers to experience home ownership. Warren create a foundation that assisted single mothers to make down payments so that they could purchase homes.
Let's move on? We will know that what needs to be done is not being done as long as a segment of American populace cannot acquire healthcare in a nation that has the most trained physicians and service providers in the world, (and certain individuals cannot garner services simply because they cannot afford it). Criticize what does and what does not work in other nations that provide healthcare for their citizens, however, America cannot continue to use that as an excuse to do nothing.
And with regard to America's Corporate class or companies and organizations that America's federal government has continue to provide with numerous tax breaks and other considerations, you need to share your largese with the American workers. How dare you move jobs offshore in order to increase your own bottom line as well as personal options at the expense of Americans. Greed, greed and more greed!
We will continue to know that what needs to be done is still not being done as long as the federal government spends more time meeting the needs of lobbyists and corporations and other organizations that our federal officials meet with daily, than seeing to the needs of the American people! It is any wonder that Jesus came to bring a sword and not peace? Jesus hated injustice, and so do I!
peace & grace
Rev. C. Solomon
sealofabraham.blogspot.com
to be continued...., I'm not finished
Addenda: Also when you visit Washington DC particularly Capitol Hill, ask to be taken underground - that is if they will permit you to go underground. In addition to the underground submway system which not too many Americans knows that even exists, visit the barbershops, swimming pools, credit union and other recreational areas that are underneath the Capitol - after all you paid for it.
You will witness a sample of the perks that are hard=working legislators enjoy, while a stone's throw from the Capitol, drive up North Capitol or South Capitol Drive and you will see, while others exist in poverty. You won't believe Anacostia. And you get there by crossing the decrepid William Frederick Douglas, or is it the Malcolm X Bridge.
These folks have taken care of themselves and corporate lobbyists, it is the American people who have done nothing. Would the Congressional Black Caucus or the Spanish Caucus do anything about the plight of undeservered Americans? Many have tried, however, frankly, they do not have a sufficient number of votes to change in thing in America.
Having said that, enough in the moral majority are considering a black male who has different ideas about elitism, perhaps he or Hillary will be able to turn things around someday, albeit, Hillary is my first choise. She has earned the right to be President first!
She might not get everything that the people need, for there is still Congress to deal with, however, she will fight for what is truly needed in this country - however, I believe that it will take females to turn this nation around!
Other than the Lord returning to destroy the greedy, selfish and wicked in America who refuse to change (just as it was done when God caused the world to be destroyed before), there are a variety of things that need to be done in order to rescue America's permanent social, economic and political underclass. And please don't forget those other Americans of late, who are slipping into the ever-widening American economic abyss.
1. With respect to government, it needs to be refocused, if not reformed:
Government's primary focus ought to be on all of the citizens of America, and not primarily on a singular class of individuals in America or corporations (that ship jobs overseas in order to increase their bottom lines). The government should not be obsessed with satisfying the desires of lobbyists (300,000 registered ones at this time), foreign adventurism, or self-promotion and self-perpetuation by those who have made a career out of of government (dis)service. The latter always take care of themselves first, with respect to earnings, housing, healthcare and retirement benefits.
The late President Ronald Reagan who was curiously loved by many of the less informed, made no bones about his belief that government should support the elite and corporate class in America. That belief, in and of itself, should have been enough to have disqualified him from service. Clearly it was a violation of his oath, to protect the Constitution of the United States, and therefore all of America's citizens! His involvement in deceiving Congress, given the illegal weapons that were purchased via Iran during his term (Oliver North hiding in the basement of the White House), and given to the Contra's was another reason that he should have been impeached instead of celebrated.
Mr. Reagan, and I call him that in respect to his surviving familymembers, believed that the remainder of society should have been disposed to waiting for the eventual 'trickle down' that would eventually reach them as a result of the largess of the elite class. And folks Reagan's views were the epitome of elitism. Sadly, too many Americans bought into Reagan's non-sense, which ended in nothing more than corporate greed, green mail, leveraged corporate buyouts, debts that the next generation and Administration had to pay off, and finally the perpetuation of America's permanent underclass.
Scripturally, Reagan's views reminds one of the story of the poor man who begged for 'crumbs from the rich man's table', he apparently got tired of waiting for some of the crumbs to 'trickle down' - just as some Americans are tired of waiting for today's trickle down! My personal feelings about Mr. Reagan is that he was 'a crumb'. He could have helped the American people and to change conditions in America! However, like too many American presidents, past and present, his objective was to serve the needs of a powerful elite like himself. My personal opinion about too many Americans is that they were willingly duped!
Like most presidents and government officials before him (and some are with us today, unanimity or fairness were not a part of this man's lexicon. Yes, many of his minions and the likeminded are still with us today, they still believe in Reaganism and continue to push his debauched agenda. Why? Many of them either benefited from Reaganism or are in line to benefit as a result of his economic principles that President George Bush employs. And by the way, Mr. Bush estimated worth is around 27M, and Vice President Cheney's at an estimated 85M.
The wealth of both of these characters will quadruple once they are out of office. Oddly enough, many who believe in the Reagan Gospel, also claim that they believe in the words of Jesus Christ. Folks, what Jesus taught in comparison to what Reagan taught and the rest of these nuts subscribe to, the two were and are still 'mutually exclusive'.
American federal, state and local governments all need to engage in the proactive role that each area of government engaged in during the first two hundred years of America's existence, if not before in a defacto sense. Each area of government's primary objective ought to be to immediately eliminate the structural imbalances that still exist in American society without having to be told to do so.
What do we pay these guys to do folks? Answer: To protect the Constitution and to represent the people, and the latter is what all officials are sworn to do in a representative government. And why is it that government never does its job(s) when it comes to representing all of the citizens that it is was put there to represent?
Many of the structural imbalances that exist in American society today, are there because encoded into law and therefore into the psyches of the American people is a requisite and desultory understanding that certain classes, individuals and corporate classes ought to be treated differently. Many Americans believe that certain classes, and corporations ought to be given preferential treatment and have the advantage over certain other classes and sectors the within society.
The elite class of individuals and corporations believe that they have an inherent right to be advantaged. And what that does to members of the subordinate class is to force them to be beholden to the elite and corporate class that are the harbingers of American wealth, with the full support and approval of the United States government. Today, we are witnessing a trend in America where those individuals who once upon a time benefited from the double-standards, are feeling the pain.
And perhaps that is a good thing. Why? When these individuals and families had the opportunity to insist on fairness, they ignored it and supported the nefarious scheme of America's nefaious power elite to invest in American corporations as well as in the power elite. And what did that power elite do given their support? The corporate power elite used the tax breaks and incentives that they benefitted from to line their own pockets (CEO's earning 300 times that of the average employee), and instead moved badly needed jobs offshore.
President Bush promised America several years ago that such a trend was good for the economy. And what does he have to say now that the economy is slipping in a recession (the permanent underclass is experiencing a depression already)? He is offering a stimulus package which he hopes will stimulate the economy and benefit the elite and corporate classes. He also boasts about the number of jobs that he created years ago, ignoring the fact that he took the economy into a recession when he first entered into office which resulted in a significant loss of jobs.
And what has he accomplished, he returned the economy to where it had been before and supplied the nation with jobs this time, that did not meet the needs of the average American individual or family.
Those permanent and sustained advantages and benefits that were codified into law, in particular over non-white Americans were resulted in the institutionalized and entrenched structural imbalances that have made it nearly impossible for a class of America's en masse to escape from their structurally and institutionally imposed dungeons. Government needs to reverse the damage that occurred as a result of its leadership role in granting preferential treatment to one segment of American society over the the past 200 years.
The government spent centuries 'legislating immorality', it is time that the government reverse not only its own immorality, it needs to raid the Federal Treasury and invest America's resources in its permanent and ever growing underclass. American resources would be better spent on saving humanity, rather than continuing to engage in the practice of subjugating and hurting other people around the world; just as America is doing, currently, in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and in Palestine.
It is amazing to know that our federal government is willing to spend in excess of 2B per week in order to kill foreign nationals, to take over other nations and engage in nation building, and the same federal government can never come up with resources, particularly equivalent resources to nation-build in its own backyard.
Clearly that is not the priority. America's ghettos, America's permanent underclass environs have only worsened, while the gap between the rich and the poor and others has widened. The next time you are in Washington D.C. do as I did, take a detour from the Capitol Mall, and tour the other Washington DC neighborhoods, and go over into Maryland. You won't have to drive but a few blocks from Capitol Hill to the New York Avenue area for example (crisscossing 2nd and 3rd street) to witness first hand, the other Washington DC.
Ask someone to direct you over to Ward 7 and 8, or to Suitland or Bladensburg Maryland. You will get a sense of what I mean when I explain that politicians in Washington will ignore what's right under there noses, and turnaround and invest America's resources in unwise ventures, and attack nations who have never bothered the United States. In fact, don't forget to take a drive up 6th street, or view the area that sits right behind the Washington Convention Center, there you will see how two nations that are world's apart co-exist.
Once Americans become more enlightened, particularly those who believed at one time that they had a change of obtaining the golden prize (many of them are slipping into the abyss today). I suspect that eventually when they feel the pain that they will join in helping to put pressure on the government. They will either help to restructure America in order that we might become one truly equal society where everyone is on an equal footing, or you know how they are - they will bring this nation down.
Come to think about it, perhaps some in that group simply needed to experience how others have lived and felt for centuries, and I suspect that they are many more like them who need to have the experience, permanently!
We need to, with the invention of a whole new government move towards becoming a single-classed society.
2. Religion: All religious organizations including the Church, need to reexamine their own policies, and their behaviors, particularly those organizations that have been in existence for over the past two hundred years, and the ones that existed prior to America becoming a nation. Many of our religious organizations were equally racist, and showed preferential treatment towards certain members of the society and members in their churches.
Often blacks were circumscribed in churches and were were forced to sit in the church balconies 'nigger heaven' I suppose, or in the churches belfry!
The Mormon Religion made no bones about their feelings. Simply put they said that blacks were cursed, and as a result blacks at one time could not be in the Priesthood, the Choir, the Congregation or inside of the church. Go to Salt Lake City, and spend some time there as I did, and visit the Mormon Tabernacle. If you are a non Mormon, you will be permitted to enter the old Mormon Tabernacle temple.
But more important than going into its old racist sanctuary, go and spend time at the Mormon museum like I did. Joseph Smith, and Brigham Young were typical American racists just like the rest, and just like America's politicians. Steve Young, former quarterback of the San Francisco 49'ers, bless his heart, does not believe like his ancestors once did.
And when you visit the city of Salt Lake, you will realize the deleterious effect that its religious racism had on the region. Other than the Utah Jazz basketball, you will have to look for black Americans in Salt Lake City. You will be safe, I stayed in a hotel there and no one bothered me. BTW, how many of you know that Senator Orrin Hatch, of Judge Thomas and Anita Hill hearing fame is a minister - he even preaches occasionally at black churches in the district!
The fact that he has been a Senator for so long will explain by and large, why the permanent underclass exists in America until this day. Had prominent religious leaders like the Reverend Billy Graham done their jobs and preached all of the gospel, they would have preached against racism from the onset. His refusal to preach at the March on Washington along with doctor King, tells you a lot about where his level of understanding, and where his character was at the time.
Thank God he has since repented for his behavior, but what are either he or son (given his current physical condition) doing to reverse the damage that Rev. Billy Graham could have helped to eliminate. Franklin spends most of his time crusading against the brown people of the Muslim faith, who the American government and American religious groups are currently discriminating against (led by Pat Robertson, John Hagee and others).
Have you ever heard or seen the Reverend Franklin crusade against the wrongs that have been done and are still being done to America's underclass? No, and you never will. One has to wonder how long will it take for Franklin, like his dad eventually did, to wake up and to realize what is going on right under his nose. One thing that the Grahams have never done and never will do is to spend their lives preaching and crusading against is American injustices!
All religious organizations should make it their primary aim to eliminate poverty in this nation within a reasonable timeframe, it should take just about one week. If they were to obey the scriptures and the writings that many of them purport to believe in, poverty in America would be eliminated in just about a week (For example read Acts chapter 4 where God's people shared everything.
verse 32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.
3. America's Institutions" All leaders of America's institutions need to take a hard look at themselves and the institutions that they preside over. They need to admit and work to reverse what the institutions that they preside over have done to contribute to the underprivileged in America.
Not only has preferential treatment by America's institutions given rise to the problem, the same institutions continue to sustatin, reify and to reenfoce the problem. Unfair hiring and preferential treatment practices, the greed-profit motive, excluding qualified students who are unable to afford from attending America's institutions of hire learning and other, contributes to a permanent underclass in America.
If the so-called religious individuals won't do the right thing, how can we expect the non-religious to do the right thing? All of America's institutions need to make a top down assessment of their institutional missions, and determine how they can reverse their past and current trends that contribute by and large to the problem.
4. The American People: The American people need to divorce themselves from the 'capitalist greed motive' that drives them, get in the real world and place the needs of their sisters and brothers above self interest. Americans are greedy and spoiled. Too many Americans think only about themselves.
Many individuals in American society, and in religious circles, have far more now than they will ever need or be able to use. Yet, those same Americans continue with conspicuous consumption of consumer goods. In the book of Malachi, chapter 3 vs 10, God promises to open the windows of heaven and pour out blessings that the would not have room to receive. I am often amazed at the number of Americans, particularly Christians ones who are still waiting for that promise to be fulfilled.
Wake up Christians, the promise for many of you has already been fulfilled. Many believers moved from their smaller 5-800 square foot homes into larger homes (some from 2 to 10,000 square feet) because they had insufficient space to store all the blessings that fell from heaven's windows. Their triple closets, attics, basements, cupboards, chest of drawers, dressers, hall closets, triple car garages and yards were overrun in their former domiciles. And some are finding that their larger edifices are still insufficient, so they have gone out to purchase storage units to boot.
I would ask of these Cain-spirited 'I AM NOT MY BROTHER's KEEPER' religious types, where are your brothers and sisters? For while you are living the good life, many ministers included, your undernourished brothers and sisters are year after year living in poverty and fear in dangerous neighborhoods. Many of your brothers and sisters are living in despair of the kind that you can help them to escape. When your cupboards were and are running over, did it occur to you that God provided you with extra in order to share, meaningfully, with those who are less unfortunate.
Many of the unfortunate members of America's underclass have not only been abandoned by the government, they have also been advantaged by their religious brothers and sisters who proclaim, I AM NOT MY BROTHER's KEEPER. And what do the well off say to their less fortunate brothers and sisters (many of whom represent the working poor)at the end of each service? They will say, praise the Lord brother and we will see you next week, and don't forget to bring your tithes and offerings. How dare you drive to the suburbs while your sisters and brothers return to the war torn and dangerous ghettos and communities that they cannot escape from?
I cite these areas of government, religious and individual human failure as areas of concern, because that is where the problem lies. It is the reason that most of the debauchery and neglect that has existed in this nation of wealth for so long still exists. And it proves that having wealth alone, Ronald Reagan's solution is not a solution at all.
From a scriptural perspective, if God's people who are called by his name were to simply turn from their wicked ways..., the land could be healed. Get it, if God's people, the lights of the world, were to do what they are supposed to do, the problem would be eliminated. However, one does not have to be a religious child of God in order to demonstrate a loving heart.
How many racists have there been in America that throughout the history of this nation have claimed to be Christians? And I am not just talking about the cowardly and schizophrenic Klansmen who invoke the name of Jesus and claim the cross, and still they hate Jews? Er herm schizophrenic Klansbrothers, Jesus was a Jew, however, you are also likely 'too dumb' to know realize that.
Many of America's so-called good people, many of them were and are ministers, remind me of many racists and segregationists in this country who have never been Klanspeople, yet, who at the same time also named the name of Jesus Christ. And, like the Klansman, instead of hating Jews, they hated blacks, while naming the name of Jesus. Many of these individuals are the ones who pastored churches and influenced government policy - some even served in the government, and others took their oath while laying their hand on the bible.
For many of them Judgment Day has already come and they have been exposed. On the other hand some of the most caring individuals in this nation and the world, interestingly enough are are agnostic, existential, secular and atheist. They are rightfully the number one critics, oftentimes, of religious hypocrisy and of religious hypocrites.
The members of these groups often fight harder for social justice and to deal with environmental issues than self-righteous Christians, particularly those who are members of America's Religious Right, and defacto moral majority. Judgment day again!
Hypocrisy in Christian America is apparent everyday, even TV Evangelist Reverend Kreflo Dollar explained on the Larry King show recently, that we will always have the poor among us. We don't have to have the poor among us Reverend Dollar, that is just an excuse!
Reverend Kreflo Dollar offered this explanation in order to justify his own excesses, and his own excessive lifestyle, on the syndicated Larry King Show recently. I can only imagine what Larry King, an atheist himself, thought as he sat and listened to a purported born again minister, attempt to justify his lavish lifestyle. And Kreflo has the verve and the nerve to do so while at the same time members of his congregation and the rest of the nation and the world are famished and impoverished.
Clearly Kreflo, and not only Kreflo, but ministers like him are not following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, no more than schizophrenic predecessors have done, or that his proteges are doing today. Wake up Kreflo, and stop building bigger barns, even when you claim to be doing so in the name of the Lord. You and others like you are not following the example of Jesus Christ.
A few pittances here and there is not what God required of his minister followers! You have been 'capitalized', and sucked into the spirit of American corporate and individual greed! Give Reverend Billy Graham credit for refusing to be receive an income over his years of ministry that exceeded the average salary of his parishioners! Kweflo, Jakes, Long and other white capitalist ministers, are guilty of emulating the behaviors of America's secular capitalist.
Reverend Kweflo was not about to sell all that he had and give it to the poor like the Rich Young Ruler that came to Jesus. And just like the Rich Young Ruler, the Rich Young Kweflo would and will not do so in spite of the fact he would have received even more wealth to distribute to the poor and to take care of his family needs by week's end. Get it, the rich have a steady stream of income. Whatever they give will be replaced in a few days - just like Kweflo the Rich Young Ruler missed the point. Greed!!!
Our ministers ought to lead the way in terms of the turnaround, however, if what I have witnessed sofar, from some of America's religious icons point of view, don't look for that to happen anytime soon. In addition to garnering wealth for themselves, too many of them are busy tearing down their old barns (homes and church edifices) in order to erect larger ones.
And year after year, new home after new home, new luxury car after new luxury car, new suit after new suit, new church building after new church building, members of these ministers congregations remain in the same social condition. And what do the members receive, promises of hope, while the ministers take their money in order to pay for their dreams right now!
America religious leaders are following the path of America's greedy capitalist entrepreneural classes - instead of enlightening and teaching them what should be done with profit and wealth.
There is much that can be done, and I suspect that the ones who will continue to try to implement change will be America's civil rights workers, and caring individuals. And ironically, the ones who have done the most and given the most are customarily labeled liberals, socialists, communists, anti-establishment and reckless. Don't forget that Jesus was crucified for the same reasons as demanded by the religious elite of his day, because he advocated for righteousness and justice for all people, and he even railed against 'that Fox', who was King over the local government(s) and the people!
All of us should ask, how come like Jesus, individuals like Dr. Martin Luther, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner and others have to do the work of the United States Government? Why were their families forced to suffer when paid government officials, federal, state and local failed to do their jobs (and all of us know that they never did their jobs just as they are failing many times to do their jobs today).
How come Rosa Parks had to engage in actions that 'paid government officials' were unwilling to engage in, yet they were paid to do what she did - fight for social justice? How hypocritical it was it when many of America's political elite, presidents included, showed up at the rotunda to pay their respects to Rosa Parks. They should send their salaries to her survivors. Many of these individuals were alive and involved in government when Rosa Parks took her stand and suffered for it.
Where were they at that time? How come Harriet Tubman had to work to free black Americans and to help black Americans to escape from servitude? Where was the failed racist United States Government then? Should her survivor family-members receive reparations from the American government and the American people? Had Harriet been like many Americans today, in government and out, she would have saved herself and forgotten about the rest, but instead, she went back over and over again risking her life and safety, in order to rescue other people!
Many blacks who have abandoned the American ghettoes and urban centers ought to think about her example. Why won't you go back and help? Even my own brother, why are you suddenly too good for your own people?
What needs to be done still has not been done, what was and is wrong will be evident every time an incident like Katrina occurs and exposes the depraved social conditions that persist among certain classes in America. We will know that what needs to be done hasn't been done as long as the wealth and resources that are needed to address the needs of a society are harbored by one segment of the society.
And today that segment of society is not only white, many individuals from other races who have made it, including our ministers, have joined in on conspicuous consumption, and they are also turning their backs on America's permanent underclass. I have heard black Americans even in my own family boast saying, I don't even want to go back down there (this family member was referring to the neighborhood that he grew up in).
There are many more just like him. It is amazing what happens to a person or person when they gain a few dollars. I never changed me thank God. I love people, all people, even the ignorant ones who cannot see any further than their noses. Jesus was like that, he loved the sinner but hated their sins and their venal ways. The new segregated class in America includes blacks and Spaniards.
Some of these same individuals who once languished in poverty suddenly feel that they are better than their counterparts. I often wonder just how many job opportunities have been created by America's black wealthy athletes and entertainers, Dekembe Matumbo, David Robinson and a few others being notable exceptions. Oftentimes, it would appear that the first thing that they do is to run off, purchase a big house or car and being to live the lifestyle of the Rich and Famous.
Karl Malone, a famous NBA player once from Utah no less (and I believe New Orleans) who was too poor to purchase a jacket that fit him when he was drafted into the NBA sought to play for the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team a few years ago, because he wanted the opportunity to win a championship ring.
The Los Angeles Lakers managment explained to Karl that they could not take on his 19million a year salary (that his then current team the Utah Jazz were willing to pay him if he reminaed). Karl told the Lakers, its okay I DON'T NEED ANY MORE MONEY - I just want a championship ring and you will be the vehicle by which I can garner a ring!
Now folks it was wonderful and commendable to hear someone finally say that I don't need any more money, and that I have enough to take care of my and my family's needs for the rest of our lives. The Chairman of Exxon didn't do that, despite his one year 450Million dollar earnings.
On the other hand Karl, instead of playing for a ring for the paltry 1M salary that you received, couldn't you have played for perhaps 3 or 4 more years, and used the money that you did not need to invest in creating jobs in black urban centers? My God, how many grandparents in urban centers who should have been retired years ago are still working in order to support themselves or their extended families.
What is wrong with people, even the blacks ones who were once members of American's permanent underlcass. On occasion when I would visit Portrero Hill in San Francisco, one of my sweeties having born and raised there I would enquire, what did O.J. Simpson do for the community. They responded, are you kidding, he would come by on occasion and visit or donate athletic equipment to the Community Center. Whoopee!!
Folks, Johnny Cochran who I was pleased to meet at professional basketball player Latrell Sprewell's press conference (Sprewell choked Warriors Coach PJ Carlessimo) at the Oakland Convention Center years ago, had to scramble to show where OJ Simpson had ever contributed any money to his own community. In fact, "I'm Just OJ", was practically ordered during his Trial by the Dream Team to donate money to Howard University.
They wanted to show that OJ was a caring philanthropist. Orenthal James donated a paltry five thousand dollars to his daughter's ala mater, Howard University. Er herm, that speaks for itself, there is no need to comment about this fallen hero.
In fact, he was not a philanthropist who put anything back into the community from which he sprang or elsewhere.
And unlike may other black entertainers and athletes have neglected to do, kudos go to the rappers. We criticize them for their lyrics and poetry, however, no other segment in the black community, with the exception of Comedian Bill Cosby, has given as heavily in terms of finances to the black community than they have done.
And how about Kobe Bryant? Kobe is another professional athlete who was apparently ring fixated. Does he have a right to purchase a diamond ring for his wife, estimated to have cost between 4 and 5M dollars, of course he did? However, I wonder just how many jo opportunities has Kobe created, from his wealth, for America's permanent underclass.
Isn't it interesting that members of America's permanent underclass take and give money to these wealthy individuals by purchasing their gear and attending sports events where they play at, however, when it is the members of America's underclass who need the money and a social lift? If these wealthy athletes cannot pool a portion of their resources in order to create jobs, help to provide credit and other services for America's cities we ought to ignore them, and at least stop celebrating them as if they were somehow American heroes.
How many jobs have they created, and what have they done with their purses to lift America's permanent underclass? What did Mike Tyson, a man who earned over 300M dollars prize-fighting? And how about Leon Spinks, the former heavyweight champion of the world became bartender do? What did these two intellectual giants do, who between them earned an aggregate half-billion dollars, for the community? Both of these nuts are broke! Leon said, well, I partied! That comment does not deserve a
Let's all give a shout out to Warrick Dunn, the former Atlanta Falcons football running back who created the Dunn Foundation in 1997. Dunn's Foundation made it possible for singles mothers to experience home ownership. Warren create a foundation that assisted single mothers to make down payments so that they could purchase homes.
Let's move on? We will know that what needs to be done is not being done as long as a segment of American populace cannot acquire healthcare in a nation that has the most trained physicians and service providers in the world, (and certain individuals cannot garner services simply because they cannot afford it). Criticize what does and what does not work in other nations that provide healthcare for their citizens, however, America cannot continue to use that as an excuse to do nothing.
And with regard to America's Corporate class or companies and organizations that America's federal government has continue to provide with numerous tax breaks and other considerations, you need to share your largese with the American workers. How dare you move jobs offshore in order to increase your own bottom line as well as personal options at the expense of Americans. Greed, greed and more greed!
We will continue to know that what needs to be done is still not being done as long as the federal government spends more time meeting the needs of lobbyists and corporations and other organizations that our federal officials meet with daily, than seeing to the needs of the American people! It is any wonder that Jesus came to bring a sword and not peace? Jesus hated injustice, and so do I!
peace & grace
Rev. C. Solomon
sealofabraham.blogspot.com
to be continued...., I'm not finished
Addenda: Also when you visit Washington DC particularly Capitol Hill, ask to be taken underground - that is if they will permit you to go underground. In addition to the underground submway system which not too many Americans knows that even exists, visit the barbershops, swimming pools, credit union and other recreational areas that are underneath the Capitol - after all you paid for it.
You will witness a sample of the perks that are hard=working legislators enjoy, while a stone's throw from the Capitol, drive up North Capitol or South Capitol Drive and you will see, while others exist in poverty. You won't believe Anacostia. And you get there by crossing the decrepid William Frederick Douglas, or is it the Malcolm X Bridge.
These folks have taken care of themselves and corporate lobbyists, it is the American people who have done nothing. Would the Congressional Black Caucus or the Spanish Caucus do anything about the plight of undeservered Americans? Many have tried, however, frankly, they do not have a sufficient number of votes to change in thing in America.
Having said that, enough in the moral majority are considering a black male who has different ideas about elitism, perhaps he or Hillary will be able to turn things around someday, albeit, Hillary is my first choise. She has earned the right to be President first!
She might not get everything that the people need, for there is still Congress to deal with, however, she will fight for what is truly needed in this country - however, I believe that it will take females to turn this nation around!
Mar 5, 2008
Mutatismutandis The Necessary Changes Have Been Made Part 3
Chapter 4. To The Extent That There Has Been Any Improvement At All - What Caused It and Which Individuals And Organizations Were Responsible for those changes?
There is little evidence to show that the Federal, State or Local governments ever did anything, voluntarily, to change the atmosphere, status or social conditions of non-white Americans? There isn't any evidence that I know of that will show where the government ever acted to do anything about race relations in America without being forced into action . But thank God for, 'truth on the scaffold, even though wrong has been on the throne'!
President Abraham Lincoln appeared to be initially motivated more by his love of the Union (which he did not wish to see split apart under his watch), than any real love for non-white human beings or altruism. In geographical regions all over America, it was those courageous individuals of all races (not only blacks and whites), who began to break down the walls of racial separation and the American Apartheid system.
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry West Virginia (go and see it for yourself as I did), resulted in his loosing his life in order to save the Union. Many whites think of him as an American traitor. And what did he do to service the title traitor, he tried to free other human beings from the gross injustices that they were victims of in the land of the free and the home of the slave!
The Pinkerton's assisted Harriet Tubman to secretly transporting black slaves to the north where they could be free. With respect to the black slave revolts, men like Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey gave their lives to liberate American blacks. Freedom fighters like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas and many others risked life and limb to secure the rights and freedoms of black Americans. And what did the government do? It did nothing, without being forced into action!
Separate But Not Equal:
Even before 'separate but equal was codified into law' given the famous Supreme Court Decision Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), which upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation even in public accommodations (eventually overturned in 1954). Separate but equal which in the minds of many whites was a blessing to blacks, proved not to be so equal after all.
The separate part worked (keeping the races apart for the most part), however, the equal part did not. However, separate but equal was the indefensible law of the land. Blacks continued to be the recipients of disproportionality, which included being banned from land ownership, access to public accommodations, fair employment, decent housing, equal education under the law, not to mention equal treatment and protections by its America's federal, state and local governments, et al.
Black Americans who were called Negroes at the time, had the worst housing, attended the most inferior schools, received the lowest pay (when they could find work), were not permitted to live in the better neighborhoods with whites, even when they could afford it; or to be fairly compensated for their hard work. All of the best in the American apartheid system was reserved for white Americans.
All 3 branches of the federal government conspired to ensure that the white majority retained every advantage. By the end of the 19th century, some blacks found their way into Freedom Schools and occasionally into other educational institutions where they were often trained as teachers. A few other blacks acquired skills that permitted them to work for a time in various semi-skilled and skilled trades and occupations. Free at last?
The latter occurred as a result of the Freedman's Bureau Act at the cessation of the American Civil War. Missionaries and other progressive whites sought to undo the damage that was done by the historical American apartheid system. These individuals believed that education was the solution. We know today that it took more than education, given that you can have the best education and still be denied access into a career. Besides, the wrong people were being educated.
White Americans should have been forced to attend Freedman's schools in place of blacks who attended these schools. Why? Because it was the sick minds of the majority culture that was causing all of the problems in America in the first place. For example, for roughly two centuries it had been against the law for black Americans to learn to read or write or in many instances to be educated in primary, secondary, or post-secondary institutions of higher learning. What sick minds came up with idea?
It was the same sick minded individuals who wanted a headstart and the preeminence in every aspect of American life. These same individuals also believed that non-whites should not be equally compensated for their labor (if they were compensated at all), or be equal in anyway to white racist majority culture. Now get this, these guiding lights were not arguing that blacks could not be educated (albeit some believed it), they were simply threatened at the prospects of a black intellectual class existing and living alongside them in America.
And folks, these individuals who did not want an educated black class in America, were not intellectual giants themselves by any stretch. The literacy rate for white Americans hovered somewhere at around 20%! Massa himself was often as illiterate as he was morally bankrupt!
A small minority of blacks, by the turn of the 20th century succeeded in earning college degrees anyway, including my late grandmother Mrs. Ila Luster formerly of Oxford Mississippi. She will forever remain as one of our our family heroes. She managed to graduate from Rusk College, a Freedman's School in southern Mississippi. Grandma became a teacher, and later a school principal - she served the majority of her life as an educator in the racist Mississippi School System.
Other blacks went on to earn advanced degrees. W.E.B. Dubois, was the first black to graduate from Harvard University. Carter Godwin Woodson, the Father of Black History, followed suit. He received a Ph.D. in History from Harvard University and is responsible for starting black history day, and later black history month in America.
Blacks again began developing their own trade unions, newspapers, churches and other businesses. And as a result, some blacks began to enjoy a lifestyle that rivaled their white counterparts. But for the most part, whether north or south, blacks still remained disproportionately a part of America's permanent underclass.
Chapter 4. The Industrial Military Periods in America:
American factories began to appear and burgeon in the north long before the beginning of WWII, and by the end of WWII most factories were mass producing goods at an alarming pace. By the time the war ended women and some blacks had been hired and placed in low-skilled jobs in factories mostly in the north.
Women of all races and racial minorities were also being accepted in the United States armed services, there they were expected to work in menial tasks and in assistant roles. After the war, American factories shifted back to non-military post-war production. The insatiable desire for consumer goods had to be satisfied and the drive to hire workers began at full blast.
Many black Americans, having just returned from the War relocated to the north in order to find work in America's factories. Some women, who were pressed into factory work during the war refused to return to their former domestic roles. And other blacks who were hired during the war were also retained in low paying jobs.
Even though the best jobs were reserved for white males, finally, a black middle-class began to emerge given the ability of blacks to find jobs in northern centers. Blacks were then viewed as a viable labor pool for those positions that were unwanted by whites. Many black Americans began to enjoy the good life. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) A. Phillip Randolph was its President became one of the most formidable and powerful trade unions in America.
It was A. Phillip Randolph who came up with the idea of having black Americans march en masse to Washington DC. In 1963, with the support of America's new and powerful civil rights organization,his idea came into fruition.
Given the newly organized black elite in America, and because of the constant pressure that they brought upon the government, as well as the changes that they forced through their Unions, changes began to be made for black civilians, as well as for blacks who were service connected. This represented one of the majority cultures greatest fears, organized blacks. The majority culture made sure up until then that the likelihood of organized black associations (not even churches) would never happen.
Why? Because organizations represent power - and blacks were never supposed to have any power in the American apartheid system. And did I fail to mention that the American government, Federal, Local and State, did nothing to change the conditions of blacks, without having to be forced into doing so. I just thought that point bore repeating over and over again. Of course the American government owes retribution to black Americans, in the form of compensation and more, given its own egregious failures to uphold black American's civil rights.
It is shameful to think that black Americans had to march on Washington, the seat of the Federal Government, because government officials and all 3 branches of government, along with state and local governments, failed to enforce the Amended Constitution of the United States of America (land of the free and home of the slave).
Race, Money and Politics: Who would argue that the three are not extricably tied together in America. It used to be believed in America that having money was the reward for hard work. Some however ignored the fact that their economic gains were a direct result, not of hard work, but a result of inherited and at the same time stolen wealth.
And where did the inherited stolen wealth come from, that has been passed down intergenerationally? Oftentimes it came from the uncompensated work of the majority of black Americans. By the mid-nineteen fifties, mainstream Americans that historically had been left out in the past, realized that politics was the means to protect their newly earned wealth.
By this time both women and blacks had 'the right to vote' and they were utilizing the vote whenever possible to secure their financial well-being, as well as to procure and secure their Constitutionally guaranteed rights. But not so fast, for it would be necessary for more laws to be passed in order to counter the illegal and preventive measures that whites were taking in order to keep blacks and women from voting. Poll taxes, grandfather clauses and blatant refusals to permit blacks to vote, were common in the south in particular.
Voting rights acts which were to later be enacted into law, were passed as late as the 1970s, given white resistance to blacks who tried to exercise their franchise. Even in the beginning of the 21st century, we have witnessed the callousness of white Americans both north and south in states like Ohio in the north, and Florida and North Carolina where systematic fraudulent efforts were made to prevent blacks from voting.
Oh and by the way, what did our federal, state or local governments do about it? As usual, nothing?
The fact that many black Americans and women were participants to some degree in the American economic and political process (and at the same time enjoying their share of the American pie), inspired them not only to be politically active but seek office themselves.
Because minorities tended to vote in blocks, there has been continued white resistance to blacks voting in the south, and in trade unions in the north particularly where blacks and whites to some extent worked at the same trade. Blacks, like women continued to receive less pay for doing the same or similar work as their non-white counterparts.
My dad was for years a member of the United Rubber Workers. In the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company plant that he worked in during the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's, blacks were relegated to working in occupations with the lowest pay scales. The highest paying factory wage-earners were tire builders. The company refused, as late as the early 1960's to allow blacks to build tires.
The blacks however finally forced the URW union, the same union that they paid monthly dues, to make the necessary changes - and it worked. To the anger and chagrin of many of their white co-workers, blacks began to build tires alongside them. In fact, black productivity was so high that the white tire builders began to complain that they would have to worker harder in order to sustain their accustomed rate of pay.
And this was true given that tire builders for the most part were paid 'a piece rate'. In other words, they were paid for each tire that they built. Once blacks began building more tires per shift, management lowered the pay scales, which meant that white tire builders who were coasting, had to work harder. That fact of fact resulted in animosity between white and black tire workers.
I began working at Firestone myself while I was still attending high school. I worked in a cooperative education program, which meant that I went to school for half day, and I worked at the Electronic Data Processing for 4 hours each nigh. After graduation, I became a full-time employee at Firestone. By the second year I decided that I wanted to try something else. I had an excellent record and therefore I was granted a promotion.
I transferred to the Statistical Quality Control department at Firestone, where I became an SQC technician. My job was to extract samples, periodically, from the production pool of tires that were built in Plant 1 in Akron Ohio. I weighed, examined and evaluated a sample of tires each day, and compiled a statistical report. The white workers clearly had not seen too many blacks walking around the plant in a shirt and tie before.
Many of the white workers had never experienced having a black man in a shirt and tie tell them what to do either, particularly one who was in his early 20's and attending college. The white workers quickly named me 'Boston Blacky'. Someone even scribbled my new name on a poster board just outside of the factory lunchroom. Another first, a black manager was hired in Final.
Final Inspection was the last stop for cured tires, prior to being shipped off to warehouses. My friend was not only subject to the same kind of indignities that I was often subjected to by resistant white laborers, they actually took a bucket of black tar and poured it over his white leather jacket that hung unlocked in his locker.
I will never forget the white worker who I told to get a wheelbarrow and to pick up a tire and return it to the builder, because of its poor craftsmanship. It was also my job to mark any green tires, show where the deficencies were and to have them returned to the builder when I noticed shoddy workmanship. Man, these fellas didn't like me at all. Well, in fairness some of them did, black and white. We have come a long way baby, or have we?
The behavior of some whites began to change when they learned that my dad was a tirebuilder. He worked on a floor just above my testing station. Dad was proud to have his son in the plant, where before I left I was highly regarded. His only complaint was son, please take that bible off of your plant desk. Yes, I kept one of my Scofield bibles down at my workstation. It was not there for protection, I often read it while I waited to extract samples from the production line. Dad didn't like that!
Blacks exercised their right to vote in civil as well as union elections in order to break down the walls of discrimination and separation. The right to vote also helped to address disparate and unequal pay structures that existed in factories across the land. Blacks also used their newly found voting power in order to acquire white collar positions in those same factories. I was not in the union (white-collared staff were not allowed to join the union at the time), however, I was a beneficiary, given the actions taken by the URW union.
In fact parity among wage earners in certain trades and factories became commonplace around the late 1970s. Civil Rights workers like Dr. Martin King joined in the fight to help bring about economic justice in terms of hiring and fair pay, his march with Sanitation Workers in Alabama was most notable. The black middle class in America began to burgeon, and soon after blacks went beyond, seeking to vote. Many blacks decided that they could do more by running for office, many began to run for offices like precinct captain, town and city councilperson, mayor, US Representative and even for the office of president of the United States of America.
The late Shirley Chisholm (whom I was honored to meet) and to garner an autographc which I gave to my niece. And since Representative Shirley Chisholm's run for the office of President, so have the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton, and most recently Senator Obama made a serious run for the office of President of the United States of America.
Shirley Chisholm, in my mind was proof that a female could do a better job of leading this nation than most males have done - God bless her soul. She is one of the reasons that I am voting for Hillary Clinton, she will do a better job than any of the men who are running for office today, on either side of the aisle!
Chapter 5. Progress and What Still Needs to Be Done if Anything:
Resistance borne out of fear persisted. Many whites were more and more afraid of the power that blacks began to accrue, and the walls of resistance in many instances were fortified, however, more progressive individuals began to see that blacks and whites in certain classes had much in common.
Blacks like whites cared about the rising cost of living. The black economy in America during the 1990's was equal to that of the 8th largest nations in the world like Australia and Canada. Factory wage-earners whose income was practically equal saw that the black vote could be useful in helping them to win wedge issues and even to defeat their white counterparts in some instances. Blacks and whites began to openly cooperate and to pool their votes and resources.
Presidential contenders like Harry Truman and others began to experience the need to pursue the black vote. Soon after the walls of separation began to diminish and certain neighborhoods began to open up to people of all colors. Lower-middle class blacks began to move into lower-middle class neighborhoods. Middle and upper middle class blacks began to move into neighborhoods with whites who were proportionately in the same income earning brackets as they were.
Some wealthy blacks, were even permitted to move in the neighborhoods of upper middle-class blacks and occasionally the wealthy. However, the Walls Came Tumbling Down - Only To Be Resurrected: Ronald Reagan and most Americans proudly proclaim America's contribution to WWII. These Americans are also proud of America's decades of toil to bring down the wall that separated east and west Germany.
What is so amazing is that while America would send its military off to fight against those leaders and nations who discriminated against or sought to Lord over their own people, America was busily engaging in the same behavior at home. As a result of the efforts by determined civil rights workers, both modern-day workers, and workers of the past - the walls would periodically crumble, usually only to be refortified by some separatist white group or by the Federal, State or Local government itself.
As the walls kept tumbling down, and black and white youngsters begin to attend the same schools, there soon came about the actual mixing between the races. Whites and blacks not only dated, but more and more black and white marriages became more common place. The mood in the country shifted to the extent that blacks and whites not only joined together in famous marches like The March on Washington, where blacks and whites joined and worked together to strike down the discriminatory laws that remained on the books.
Did it work? Well, not really. Today many once segregated white schools districts are now segregated black school districts given 'white flight'! Recently we have had two high-level blacks serving in two of the highest offices in the land, and interestingly they serve and have served in the Republican Party (the Party which the majority of black Americans considers to be the anti-black party. Secretary of State Colin Powell has since been let go, however. Dr. Condoleeza Rice continues to serve - she took over as Secretary of State.
As some blacks began to prosper and to move up the political and economic ladder, many of these blacks have found that they have more in common with their cross-cultural counterparts. Many blacks have begun to take 'flight' from the communities that they were raised in. Some blacks have done everything possible to move away from, and not be identified with the black culture.
Becoming more and more like their white counterparts, many blacks who 'have arrived', share the same disdain or sense of superiority to their black sisters and brothers, as do their elitist white counterparts. Neither of the latter want to live with blacks from the lower-economic, less educated social strata. Some of the newly arrived and upscale blacks prefer white culture, including its music, its mainstream religious denominations, its art forms, its style of dress and its vacation and travel destinations.
Conclusion. A New Form of Discrimination Has Evolved where some blacks hate to see their once fellow blacks coming around or attending the upscale and predominantly white parishes where they attend. And this is in deference to the number of other black and whites, customarily in the middle and lower classes that worship now together in multi-cultural churches. Many of the up-scale blacks have advanced degrees and prefer and participate in a social structure that they believe is superior to their lesser counterparts.
There is no longer that caring 'consciousness of kind' among elitist and some 'new money blacks'. Well, there is a conscious desire to stay as far as they can away from their own kind. Some who have arrived, even speak in terms that were once in the domain of racist whites. Now some blacks that you would not expect to are saying no, there is nothing else to be done!
For now I would remind Bob Novak and others like him of an old saying, 'if you can do no good, do no harm'! And for the life of me, I cannot see where Bob and those of his ilk are doing the nation any good! There is a lot more that needs to be done to eliminate the structural barriers and to reverse the trends that have led to the subjugation of the human spirit among black Americans, particularly those who are still trapped in Ghettos and that are a part of America's permanent underclass.
Peace & Grace
Reverend C. Solomon
www.sealofabraham.blogspot.com
There is little evidence to show that the Federal, State or Local governments ever did anything, voluntarily, to change the atmosphere, status or social conditions of non-white Americans? There isn't any evidence that I know of that will show where the government ever acted to do anything about race relations in America without being forced into action . But thank God for, 'truth on the scaffold, even though wrong has been on the throne'!
President Abraham Lincoln appeared to be initially motivated more by his love of the Union (which he did not wish to see split apart under his watch), than any real love for non-white human beings or altruism. In geographical regions all over America, it was those courageous individuals of all races (not only blacks and whites), who began to break down the walls of racial separation and the American Apartheid system.
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry West Virginia (go and see it for yourself as I did), resulted in his loosing his life in order to save the Union. Many whites think of him as an American traitor. And what did he do to service the title traitor, he tried to free other human beings from the gross injustices that they were victims of in the land of the free and the home of the slave!
The Pinkerton's assisted Harriet Tubman to secretly transporting black slaves to the north where they could be free. With respect to the black slave revolts, men like Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey gave their lives to liberate American blacks. Freedom fighters like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas and many others risked life and limb to secure the rights and freedoms of black Americans. And what did the government do? It did nothing, without being forced into action!
Separate But Not Equal:
Even before 'separate but equal was codified into law' given the famous Supreme Court Decision Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), which upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation even in public accommodations (eventually overturned in 1954). Separate but equal which in the minds of many whites was a blessing to blacks, proved not to be so equal after all.
The separate part worked (keeping the races apart for the most part), however, the equal part did not. However, separate but equal was the indefensible law of the land. Blacks continued to be the recipients of disproportionality, which included being banned from land ownership, access to public accommodations, fair employment, decent housing, equal education under the law, not to mention equal treatment and protections by its America's federal, state and local governments, et al.
Black Americans who were called Negroes at the time, had the worst housing, attended the most inferior schools, received the lowest pay (when they could find work), were not permitted to live in the better neighborhoods with whites, even when they could afford it; or to be fairly compensated for their hard work. All of the best in the American apartheid system was reserved for white Americans.
All 3 branches of the federal government conspired to ensure that the white majority retained every advantage. By the end of the 19th century, some blacks found their way into Freedom Schools and occasionally into other educational institutions where they were often trained as teachers. A few other blacks acquired skills that permitted them to work for a time in various semi-skilled and skilled trades and occupations. Free at last?
The latter occurred as a result of the Freedman's Bureau Act at the cessation of the American Civil War. Missionaries and other progressive whites sought to undo the damage that was done by the historical American apartheid system. These individuals believed that education was the solution. We know today that it took more than education, given that you can have the best education and still be denied access into a career. Besides, the wrong people were being educated.
White Americans should have been forced to attend Freedman's schools in place of blacks who attended these schools. Why? Because it was the sick minds of the majority culture that was causing all of the problems in America in the first place. For example, for roughly two centuries it had been against the law for black Americans to learn to read or write or in many instances to be educated in primary, secondary, or post-secondary institutions of higher learning. What sick minds came up with idea?
It was the same sick minded individuals who wanted a headstart and the preeminence in every aspect of American life. These same individuals also believed that non-whites should not be equally compensated for their labor (if they were compensated at all), or be equal in anyway to white racist majority culture. Now get this, these guiding lights were not arguing that blacks could not be educated (albeit some believed it), they were simply threatened at the prospects of a black intellectual class existing and living alongside them in America.
And folks, these individuals who did not want an educated black class in America, were not intellectual giants themselves by any stretch. The literacy rate for white Americans hovered somewhere at around 20%! Massa himself was often as illiterate as he was morally bankrupt!
A small minority of blacks, by the turn of the 20th century succeeded in earning college degrees anyway, including my late grandmother Mrs. Ila Luster formerly of Oxford Mississippi. She will forever remain as one of our our family heroes. She managed to graduate from Rusk College, a Freedman's School in southern Mississippi. Grandma became a teacher, and later a school principal - she served the majority of her life as an educator in the racist Mississippi School System.
Other blacks went on to earn advanced degrees. W.E.B. Dubois, was the first black to graduate from Harvard University. Carter Godwin Woodson, the Father of Black History, followed suit. He received a Ph.D. in History from Harvard University and is responsible for starting black history day, and later black history month in America.
Blacks again began developing their own trade unions, newspapers, churches and other businesses. And as a result, some blacks began to enjoy a lifestyle that rivaled their white counterparts. But for the most part, whether north or south, blacks still remained disproportionately a part of America's permanent underclass.
Chapter 4. The Industrial Military Periods in America:
American factories began to appear and burgeon in the north long before the beginning of WWII, and by the end of WWII most factories were mass producing goods at an alarming pace. By the time the war ended women and some blacks had been hired and placed in low-skilled jobs in factories mostly in the north.
Women of all races and racial minorities were also being accepted in the United States armed services, there they were expected to work in menial tasks and in assistant roles. After the war, American factories shifted back to non-military post-war production. The insatiable desire for consumer goods had to be satisfied and the drive to hire workers began at full blast.
Many black Americans, having just returned from the War relocated to the north in order to find work in America's factories. Some women, who were pressed into factory work during the war refused to return to their former domestic roles. And other blacks who were hired during the war were also retained in low paying jobs.
Even though the best jobs were reserved for white males, finally, a black middle-class began to emerge given the ability of blacks to find jobs in northern centers. Blacks were then viewed as a viable labor pool for those positions that were unwanted by whites. Many black Americans began to enjoy the good life. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) A. Phillip Randolph was its President became one of the most formidable and powerful trade unions in America.
It was A. Phillip Randolph who came up with the idea of having black Americans march en masse to Washington DC. In 1963, with the support of America's new and powerful civil rights organization,his idea came into fruition.
Given the newly organized black elite in America, and because of the constant pressure that they brought upon the government, as well as the changes that they forced through their Unions, changes began to be made for black civilians, as well as for blacks who were service connected. This represented one of the majority cultures greatest fears, organized blacks. The majority culture made sure up until then that the likelihood of organized black associations (not even churches) would never happen.
Why? Because organizations represent power - and blacks were never supposed to have any power in the American apartheid system. And did I fail to mention that the American government, Federal, Local and State, did nothing to change the conditions of blacks, without having to be forced into doing so. I just thought that point bore repeating over and over again. Of course the American government owes retribution to black Americans, in the form of compensation and more, given its own egregious failures to uphold black American's civil rights.
It is shameful to think that black Americans had to march on Washington, the seat of the Federal Government, because government officials and all 3 branches of government, along with state and local governments, failed to enforce the Amended Constitution of the United States of America (land of the free and home of the slave).
Race, Money and Politics: Who would argue that the three are not extricably tied together in America. It used to be believed in America that having money was the reward for hard work. Some however ignored the fact that their economic gains were a direct result, not of hard work, but a result of inherited and at the same time stolen wealth.
And where did the inherited stolen wealth come from, that has been passed down intergenerationally? Oftentimes it came from the uncompensated work of the majority of black Americans. By the mid-nineteen fifties, mainstream Americans that historically had been left out in the past, realized that politics was the means to protect their newly earned wealth.
By this time both women and blacks had 'the right to vote' and they were utilizing the vote whenever possible to secure their financial well-being, as well as to procure and secure their Constitutionally guaranteed rights. But not so fast, for it would be necessary for more laws to be passed in order to counter the illegal and preventive measures that whites were taking in order to keep blacks and women from voting. Poll taxes, grandfather clauses and blatant refusals to permit blacks to vote, were common in the south in particular.
Voting rights acts which were to later be enacted into law, were passed as late as the 1970s, given white resistance to blacks who tried to exercise their franchise. Even in the beginning of the 21st century, we have witnessed the callousness of white Americans both north and south in states like Ohio in the north, and Florida and North Carolina where systematic fraudulent efforts were made to prevent blacks from voting.
Oh and by the way, what did our federal, state or local governments do about it? As usual, nothing?
The fact that many black Americans and women were participants to some degree in the American economic and political process (and at the same time enjoying their share of the American pie), inspired them not only to be politically active but seek office themselves.
Because minorities tended to vote in blocks, there has been continued white resistance to blacks voting in the south, and in trade unions in the north particularly where blacks and whites to some extent worked at the same trade. Blacks, like women continued to receive less pay for doing the same or similar work as their non-white counterparts.
My dad was for years a member of the United Rubber Workers. In the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company plant that he worked in during the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's, blacks were relegated to working in occupations with the lowest pay scales. The highest paying factory wage-earners were tire builders. The company refused, as late as the early 1960's to allow blacks to build tires.
The blacks however finally forced the URW union, the same union that they paid monthly dues, to make the necessary changes - and it worked. To the anger and chagrin of many of their white co-workers, blacks began to build tires alongside them. In fact, black productivity was so high that the white tire builders began to complain that they would have to worker harder in order to sustain their accustomed rate of pay.
And this was true given that tire builders for the most part were paid 'a piece rate'. In other words, they were paid for each tire that they built. Once blacks began building more tires per shift, management lowered the pay scales, which meant that white tire builders who were coasting, had to work harder. That fact of fact resulted in animosity between white and black tire workers.
I began working at Firestone myself while I was still attending high school. I worked in a cooperative education program, which meant that I went to school for half day, and I worked at the Electronic Data Processing for 4 hours each nigh. After graduation, I became a full-time employee at Firestone. By the second year I decided that I wanted to try something else. I had an excellent record and therefore I was granted a promotion.
I transferred to the Statistical Quality Control department at Firestone, where I became an SQC technician. My job was to extract samples, periodically, from the production pool of tires that were built in Plant 1 in Akron Ohio. I weighed, examined and evaluated a sample of tires each day, and compiled a statistical report. The white workers clearly had not seen too many blacks walking around the plant in a shirt and tie before.
Many of the white workers had never experienced having a black man in a shirt and tie tell them what to do either, particularly one who was in his early 20's and attending college. The white workers quickly named me 'Boston Blacky'. Someone even scribbled my new name on a poster board just outside of the factory lunchroom. Another first, a black manager was hired in Final.
Final Inspection was the last stop for cured tires, prior to being shipped off to warehouses. My friend was not only subject to the same kind of indignities that I was often subjected to by resistant white laborers, they actually took a bucket of black tar and poured it over his white leather jacket that hung unlocked in his locker.
I will never forget the white worker who I told to get a wheelbarrow and to pick up a tire and return it to the builder, because of its poor craftsmanship. It was also my job to mark any green tires, show where the deficencies were and to have them returned to the builder when I noticed shoddy workmanship. Man, these fellas didn't like me at all. Well, in fairness some of them did, black and white. We have come a long way baby, or have we?
The behavior of some whites began to change when they learned that my dad was a tirebuilder. He worked on a floor just above my testing station. Dad was proud to have his son in the plant, where before I left I was highly regarded. His only complaint was son, please take that bible off of your plant desk. Yes, I kept one of my Scofield bibles down at my workstation. It was not there for protection, I often read it while I waited to extract samples from the production line. Dad didn't like that!
Blacks exercised their right to vote in civil as well as union elections in order to break down the walls of discrimination and separation. The right to vote also helped to address disparate and unequal pay structures that existed in factories across the land. Blacks also used their newly found voting power in order to acquire white collar positions in those same factories. I was not in the union (white-collared staff were not allowed to join the union at the time), however, I was a beneficiary, given the actions taken by the URW union.
In fact parity among wage earners in certain trades and factories became commonplace around the late 1970s. Civil Rights workers like Dr. Martin King joined in the fight to help bring about economic justice in terms of hiring and fair pay, his march with Sanitation Workers in Alabama was most notable. The black middle class in America began to burgeon, and soon after blacks went beyond, seeking to vote. Many blacks decided that they could do more by running for office, many began to run for offices like precinct captain, town and city councilperson, mayor, US Representative and even for the office of president of the United States of America.
The late Shirley Chisholm (whom I was honored to meet) and to garner an autographc which I gave to my niece. And since Representative Shirley Chisholm's run for the office of President, so have the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton, and most recently Senator Obama made a serious run for the office of President of the United States of America.
Shirley Chisholm, in my mind was proof that a female could do a better job of leading this nation than most males have done - God bless her soul. She is one of the reasons that I am voting for Hillary Clinton, she will do a better job than any of the men who are running for office today, on either side of the aisle!
Chapter 5. Progress and What Still Needs to Be Done if Anything:
Resistance borne out of fear persisted. Many whites were more and more afraid of the power that blacks began to accrue, and the walls of resistance in many instances were fortified, however, more progressive individuals began to see that blacks and whites in certain classes had much in common.
Blacks like whites cared about the rising cost of living. The black economy in America during the 1990's was equal to that of the 8th largest nations in the world like Australia and Canada. Factory wage-earners whose income was practically equal saw that the black vote could be useful in helping them to win wedge issues and even to defeat their white counterparts in some instances. Blacks and whites began to openly cooperate and to pool their votes and resources.
Presidential contenders like Harry Truman and others began to experience the need to pursue the black vote. Soon after the walls of separation began to diminish and certain neighborhoods began to open up to people of all colors. Lower-middle class blacks began to move into lower-middle class neighborhoods. Middle and upper middle class blacks began to move into neighborhoods with whites who were proportionately in the same income earning brackets as they were.
Some wealthy blacks, were even permitted to move in the neighborhoods of upper middle-class blacks and occasionally the wealthy. However, the Walls Came Tumbling Down - Only To Be Resurrected: Ronald Reagan and most Americans proudly proclaim America's contribution to WWII. These Americans are also proud of America's decades of toil to bring down the wall that separated east and west Germany.
What is so amazing is that while America would send its military off to fight against those leaders and nations who discriminated against or sought to Lord over their own people, America was busily engaging in the same behavior at home. As a result of the efforts by determined civil rights workers, both modern-day workers, and workers of the past - the walls would periodically crumble, usually only to be refortified by some separatist white group or by the Federal, State or Local government itself.
As the walls kept tumbling down, and black and white youngsters begin to attend the same schools, there soon came about the actual mixing between the races. Whites and blacks not only dated, but more and more black and white marriages became more common place. The mood in the country shifted to the extent that blacks and whites not only joined together in famous marches like The March on Washington, where blacks and whites joined and worked together to strike down the discriminatory laws that remained on the books.
Did it work? Well, not really. Today many once segregated white schools districts are now segregated black school districts given 'white flight'! Recently we have had two high-level blacks serving in two of the highest offices in the land, and interestingly they serve and have served in the Republican Party (the Party which the majority of black Americans considers to be the anti-black party. Secretary of State Colin Powell has since been let go, however. Dr. Condoleeza Rice continues to serve - she took over as Secretary of State.
As some blacks began to prosper and to move up the political and economic ladder, many of these blacks have found that they have more in common with their cross-cultural counterparts. Many blacks have begun to take 'flight' from the communities that they were raised in. Some blacks have done everything possible to move away from, and not be identified with the black culture.
Becoming more and more like their white counterparts, many blacks who 'have arrived', share the same disdain or sense of superiority to their black sisters and brothers, as do their elitist white counterparts. Neither of the latter want to live with blacks from the lower-economic, less educated social strata. Some of the newly arrived and upscale blacks prefer white culture, including its music, its mainstream religious denominations, its art forms, its style of dress and its vacation and travel destinations.
Conclusion. A New Form of Discrimination Has Evolved where some blacks hate to see their once fellow blacks coming around or attending the upscale and predominantly white parishes where they attend. And this is in deference to the number of other black and whites, customarily in the middle and lower classes that worship now together in multi-cultural churches. Many of the up-scale blacks have advanced degrees and prefer and participate in a social structure that they believe is superior to their lesser counterparts.
There is no longer that caring 'consciousness of kind' among elitist and some 'new money blacks'. Well, there is a conscious desire to stay as far as they can away from their own kind. Some who have arrived, even speak in terms that were once in the domain of racist whites. Now some blacks that you would not expect to are saying no, there is nothing else to be done!
For now I would remind Bob Novak and others like him of an old saying, 'if you can do no good, do no harm'! And for the life of me, I cannot see where Bob and those of his ilk are doing the nation any good! There is a lot more that needs to be done to eliminate the structural barriers and to reverse the trends that have led to the subjugation of the human spirit among black Americans, particularly those who are still trapped in Ghettos and that are a part of America's permanent underclass.
Peace & Grace
Reverend C. Solomon
www.sealofabraham.blogspot.com
Mutatismutandis The Neccessary Changes Have Been Made Part 2
Chapter 3. A Condensed History:
When the colonists, early settlers to the new world embarked upon nation building in the New World, one of their most egregious errors was to have encoded into law that citizenship in nascent America was an exclusive right of 'white male landowners'. If you were an owner of land and you happened to be native American, black or female, you were banned from being a citizen in the exclusive all white male landholding and voters club of America.
Even those Americans who were expected to work and as a result, contribute to the tax base, the same individuals were not entitled to any of the protections under the law, in deference to their contribution to the society. Today, many Americans still do not realize that approximately 600,000 citizens in the District of Columbia (mostly blacks) are still forced to pay taxes, although they do not have any official government representatives.
In Washington DC today you have a majority black American district, where the citizens are being denied their right to have official government representatives. The scenario in Washington DC also reminds you of the failure of the government today to ensure the rights of black citizens, just as it has failed to do for the two centuries past. Eleanor Holmes Norton is a delegate who can only vote in Committee - she cannot vote on the floor of the House. DC's shadow senator is merely an observer in the senate, he does not have any actual power either.
And what is the government doing about it? The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court expressed his personal opinion about it. He said, I believe that it is unfair that the citizens of the District, do not have Congressional Representatives. However, he added that it would be up to Congress to correct this indiscretion. Many individuals, surprisingly former President Richard Nixon, Judge Kenneth Starr and other Conservatives have expressed that this is an American outrage.
During my 6-year stay in Washington DC-metro, I worked with groups like DC Vote that were trying to do something about this outrage. These folks remind me of black civil rights organizations that have had to historically do the job that our officials have been paid to do. And what does our current president have to say about it. Last year he promised to veto a bill that was a few votes short of passing in the Senate, that would have given the people of the District of Columbia a Congressional Representative.
In a compromise bid, headed up by Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, along with delegate Eleanore Holmes Norton, the state of Utah was to be given one more Congressional Representative, in exchange for the citizens of Washington DC receiving an official Congressional Representatives. After years of trying, it appeared that the work of several interest groups in the District were about to pay out.
The fact is that Bush did not did not have to veto the bill, Senator John McCain made sure that the bill was voted down in the Senate, he and another Senator voted it down. Private citizens should not have to raise or fight for these kind of issues (their Constitutional Rights), for that is what we are paying the government officials who are supposed to be representing us to do. They never come through, well, unless you have to be a member of the privileged majority.
The fact that the majority of the citizens of Washington DC are black, explains many of our government officials are having. The fact that the district voters are 3/4 democratic is the other dilemma that our officials are having today. Now in fairness let me add this, that when democrats were were in control of the House and Senate for just over a 20 year stretch, a period in which we even had Presidents from the Democratic Party, the citizens of the district were still unable to secure an official Congressional representative.
I was speaking with someone last year, a black American no less, who was tearing down black civil rights leaders (something that has become very fashionable of late). I asked, how come you never complain about government officials who have failed American citizens on a daily basis, and instead you single out the black civil rights workers who are doing far more to help to lift up America's downtrodden.
Folks, had it not been for the civil rights workers, this country would still be as polarizing as it had been for over a 300-year period. Many of the civil rights workers have worked hard to bring about positive and progressive social change. And again, the people who were being paid to initiate policies that would ensure the rights of all Americans, did nothing.
Some Americans prefer pointing out the moral failures of some black civil rights leaders, and the same individuals at the same time overlook the repeated failings of the representatives in government were put there to serve the interests of all of the people of the United States.
Again, hats off to all of the American civil rights workers who did the jobs that our public officials, federal, state and local, failed to you, you deserve to have those officials passed over to you and your families. Dr. Martin Luther King, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, H. Rap Brown, Kwame Ture, Roy Innis, Huey Newton ..., William Frederick Douglas, William Edward Burghardt Dubois...Sojourner, Harriet Tubman, Dorothy Height, Mary McLeod Bethune, Angela Davis and millions more, this nation owes you more than a debt of gratitude.
Is is shameful when you consider just how poor many of these individuals were, and how they departed from this earth with no more than a whisper. Perhaps one day we will consider strategically placing statutes in memory of all of those who are departed around the perimeter of the Washington DC Mall. And perhaps someday, we will remove the statues of those celebrated leaders who filled to honor their oaths, and represent the needs of all of the people or to defend the Constitution.
As this nation evolved from its early inception onward, the pernicious stratification of the races evolved right along with it (particularly as more and more conscripted Africans were brought to America (north, central and south) shores by way of the middle passage). Blacks were being brought to the new world in order to labor without being compensated for their labor. In states like South Carolina for example, the population of black slaves exploded, and rivaled the number of whites who were in the state.
If you are ever in Washington DC, just stop by Mt. Vernon for a day, and you will get a birdseye view of what it was like back then. Mt. Vernon is the home of America's first slave President. It sits on the Potomac River. Its massive acreages, buildings, mills, gardens, and farmland is throwback to a period when whites owned everything, however, blacks were forced to make everything work for whites.
The first stop on the tour, appropriately so, is at one of the remaining dark and dank slave quarters. While massa George and his family enjoyed the 'big house', that was built by the slaves, the slaves existed in squalor. In fact George Washington, benefited from his army of about 380 slaves, and in fact he took his black personal slave with him to serve him everywhere that he went.
In addition to Mt. Vernon, at Fredericksburg (his other home), I was able to understand even more what this man was really like. In fact my opinion has changed altogether about this man. The more sanitized version that we were taught about in school, does not in any way reflect this man's true nature. And for those who ask, how can you judge him so harshly. Believe, the word of God will judge both me and George. And I can assure you that my record is far superior from a divine perspective than his was.
After you visit Mt. Vernon, take the 50 mile trip down to Fredericksburg, and visit the slave auction block, just a block or two off of the main drag. There you will witness where he and others purchased their slaves. A rock to mark its place, remains there today. Shame on this man! And shame on America for electing him to be a president.
Just as in modern parlance today, a person who did what he did and owned other people and forced them to work and he kept all of the money was and is referred to as a pimp. Folks, the man lived off of the labor of other people. Both he and his family enjoyed the finest, even ordering his tailormade clothing from the old country, which he later fought to free himself from.
And what did the individuals that he pimped receive for their labor? They received two changes of substandard clothing per year and an allotment of food, food which they raised by the way. I asked the docent, well just how many white folks were there that lived on this vast plantation at any given time? He embarrassingly replied, on average 4 to 8. Folks, make all of the excuses you want for former President George and those like him, however, his actions speak louder than anything that you could say.
However, we all make our individual choices, and he made the choice which came out of his heart. That massive but now condensed plantation had sufficient land, that had it been divided up properly, every individual on that place, all 380 or slaves could have owned a piece of land, and worked to care for their own families, not just for a man who was too lazy to work. And I hear late President Tom Jefferson saying in the background that 'God's Justice Won't Sleep Forever'?
These fellas knew that what they were doing was wrong, they lacked the fortitude or the moral courage to stand up and to do something about it. George's promise to free his slaves upon death, said nothing about his willingness to keep other human beings enslaved during the scores of years that he was alive. Can you believe that these men even prayed, when they constructed the Articles of Incorporation and the Constitution of the United States, knowing that what much of what was written violated in any real sense - the laws of human decency?
Is it any wonder that late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marsall wrote that the American Constitution was flawed from the outset, and it was. The men who wrote it were seriously flawed themselves. Our American founders, some who later became presidents and other government officials were slaveowners, child-molesters, murderers, rapists, kidnappers and landgrabbers, etal.
And they were getting their share of ( ), you fill in the blanks, from America's black female slave population (many of the females were underage girls folks). However, that did not stop these pimpdaddies from engaging in such immoral and reckless behavior. Any flaws by American civil rights workers pale in comparison to what the flawed knuckleheads, many of whom started this country! Can they ever know the pain that they caused for so many people, a pain which has for nearly two centuries since they have been gone.
The Bible, that most of them often referred to, insisted that a man and woman be married in order before they could be sexually involved. Those pimp daddies were not only not married (to those that they raped, had sex with and sired children by), they refused in many instances to permit many of the blacks that they owned to marry. Again, what a bunch of sick people. And that any of them were voted into any kind of official office, said a lot about the heart of too many of the individuals who once who populated this land.
Recently, one of America's major financial institutions, the Wachovia bank, apologized for its participation in the American slave trade. The Wachovia Bank once engaged in financing the purchase of American slaves for America's slavemasters. and underwrote the cost of the vessels and crews that transported slave cargo to America.
The State of Virginia, former home state of the Confederate capitol in Richmond, even apologized for its systemic failure to uphold the rights of American blacks and for the states participation in trafficking human beings. New Jersey will soon follow suit, and God knows that before you know it, even former Senate Leader Trent Lott (of we should have listened to racist senator Strom Thurmond) and the State of Mississippi might apologize. Folks, perhaps there is still hope.
At the cessation of the American Civil War when General Robert Emerald Lee surrendered at Appomatox, however, regardless of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and General Lee's surrender, America continued to be a bifurcated nation.
Oh and in fairness to George Washington, Thom Jefferson and other American Presidents and officials, America's Arlington National Cemetery, former property and home of defeated General Robert E. Lee, was also segregated. Only white American troops could even be buried there, and black Americans who lived in the 'black Freedomtown', directly behind the Arlington Cemetery (some lived in slave quarters on the plantation) were responsible for maintaining the cemetery
It was the responsibility of blacks to dig the graves where white only could be buried. And why not? If you are segregated in life, you might as well be segregated in death. Blacks had to be buried elsewhere. How in the world the black slaves managed to be buried at Mt. Vernon, approximately 90 of them, we will never know.
The majority of America's domestic policies always had a racial component to them, for that matter much of its foreign policy also has a racial component to it. The domestics policies of race determined where you lived, worked, attended school and voted. The politics of race determined who you could or could not marry (once blacks were permitted to marry. The politics of race determined ones earnings and what role the government, federal, state and local, in terms of constitutional protections a white or non-white citizen would receive.
After many of America's laws were ruled to be unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court, many of its learned practices that had been codified into law remained. Folks, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually found that many of America's laws were unconstitutional, however, a higher court recognized that America itself and its egregious behaviors were unconstitutional from the onset.
Non-white Americans, particularly black Americans, continued to be discriminated against in the areas of housing, transportation, credit, healthcare, civil services, the military, education, voting, employment et al. The earnings of black Americans in 2008 is still only 73% of that of white Americans. And what is the one variable that is responsible for economic disparity? The answer is simple, it is because of one's race.
Reactionary white America's argument is that the reason that blacks have not achieved commensurate success if because they are lazy, shiftless and not as bright as their white counterparts. Ironically, books like 'the Bell Curve' disproved that. Infamous court cases like Duke v. Griggs Power Company proved that racial tests in employment were discriminatory. In other words, blacks were being systemically discriminated in jobs that they did not require one to have a PhD.
In other words in many of the semi-skilled and labor positions that blacks worked in, they were still discriminated against in spite of their high level of productivity. The fact is that certain white collar jobs were reserved for non-whites. And because most blacks, who lacked the capital to start their own businesses, had to rely on white industry, the majority of non-whites, including blacks, had to work at the most menial positions.
The way that education factored in the overall equations had to do with racial politics and the matter of who benefited from American-style racism. Non-whites, including blacks, often attended the worst schools. The striking down of separate but equal education clauses proved that. Why? For long before blacks were permitted to integrate the public schools systems, it was proven that the black schools were receiving the worst textbooks, and not to mention a disproportionate share of public school funds.
When it came to post and secondary education, many blacks were prevented from enrolling outright, and in other instances they were prevented from enrolling as a result of intending inferior public school systems. Today, education is vital in order to find work in America's high technology sectors. And given all of the jobs that have been lost in today's global economy, coupled with the immigration industry in America, many of the unskilled and semi-skilled occupations that were the domain of black Americans have been conscripted.
Foreign nationals and many white Americans are vying for these positions. I spent a fair amount of time visiting and cruising the streets of Baltimore Maryland. Of all of the ghettos that I have visited in Ohio, Louisiana, Chicago, California elsewhere, I experienced in Baltimore's ghetto what I had not sensed anywhere else sofar. There the concrete domiciles that warehoused human beings reminded me of large crypts, of the kind that are in many of America's cemeteries today.
In most of their ghettos it would appear, 1 out of 3 of the neighborhood concrete boxes, were not boarded up, but cemented. In many ghetto towns where there urban blight exists, the city will eventually move in and board up the openings with plywood. In Baltimore, the city comes in and places concrete cinder blocks in the openings, giving the concrete house the appearance of a crypt or burial vault. And where do the kids play. In many of these concrete jungles, you do not see any landscape. In other grass and play areas simply do not exist.
Once a child walks out the door of his porchless domicile, he or she descends down two to three steps onto the sidewalk. If they were to take another step, they would be in the street. The sidewalk is their playground, and I witnessed numerous children playing on that limited space. The tenements in Chicago, that towered 15 and 16 stories into the air had their own understandable problems. The smell of urine in the hallways and drug-dealers in the hallways are just a portion of what residents had to experience each and everyday.
And the high-rise public housing buildings like those in the former Cabrini Green area (remember the former Good Times sitcom?), and the same-style high rise tenement's on the west side of Chicago had their own unique problems. Have I visited the old Cabrini Greens, yes on more than one occasion.
Each of these areas with their unique constructions had something in common, these were places built to warehouse members of America's permanent underclass. In Baltimore it would appear that the citizens who have given into a sense of despair have already been buried alive!.
It is a fact that America had and has sufficient disposable wealth that to eliminate poverty within this nation. And it would not require handouts in order to do so. What is required essentially is a redistribution of wealth and a change of heart by greedy Americans who hoard the wealth of this nation. I suspect that a dose of Democratic Socialism is what America needs.
America's aim ought to be to divide its wealth among all of its citizens, by providing adequate employment with commensurate pay to all of its citizens who are willing and able to work. Most of all Americans need to drop all of the excuses that they employ in order to justify their desire to hoard wealth, while other Americans suffer. In the early church, see Acts chapter 4, the believers divided up their wealth among each other. Zacchaeus offered to give half of what he owned to the poor. However, the Rich Ruler decided that giving all that he had to the poor was too much.
Folks, with his income source, his coffers would have begun to be refilled by week's end. The Rich Ruler reminds me of too many Americans, past and present.
When greed, among many of America's elite, ceases all Americans will have more than adequate housing, food, clothing, and healthcare. America's greedy racists have also mutated into greedy Americans, those who were not greed-driven already. Some Americans boast now that there is nothing wrong with greed, Tony Blankley, editor of the Washington Times being one of them. And unfortunately, a disproportionate majority of America's permanent underclass are the victims of American greed.
Many Americans attribute the health-care problem in America to the failure of Americans to have adequate insurance coverage. The solution that some Americans propose is provide health insurance for all Americans. I would rather see us get to the heart of the problem. The American health problem is not an insurance problem, it is an American greed problem. The same problem that we see in the housing sector, American industry, the pharmaceutical industry, in education and elsewhere.
Let's take healthcare for example. The United States has an adequate number of medical schools and an adequate number of well-trained medical personnel and service providers, from top to bottom. The United States has hospitals and medications, a sufficient number to meet the needs of all Americans. So why is that some Americans do not have adequate health care, particularly America's permanent underclass? The answer is simple, they cannot afford it. Not only can they not afford health care, more and more many Americans can not afford health insurance.
Well, let's back up. If you have the services available, with more than an adequate number of hospitals, physicians, care providers and medicines then what is the problem? The real problem is that the cost of health care is out of reach. And the reason for it is simple, it is because greedy Americans have driven the cost of only health care and while we are on this topic (housing, education and other commodities completely out of reach for the average American.
Those who benefit the most and are in control are the wealthy, they have more money than the average America could have if we were to live 100 of their lifetimes - and yet they keep driving the prices up. Why? To satisfy their greedy board members, and oftentimes they are the members of the board and to continue to line their products. Donald Trump has said before, I have enough money to last me for the rest of my life.
He then goes on to say, however, it is the fun of making money that drives me now. And many other American corporate executives think just like 'the Donald'. If you were paid a staggering salary of 450M a year, just like the CEO at Exxon was paid, wouldn't that be enough? First of all, if one were to accept that kind of payout, what human being in his right mind would accept it? These folks are of the same mindset of the greedy individuals who founded this country in the first place.
They individuals continue to play the game of confiscate, exploit and force other individuals to do the work as they accumulate all of the wealth. Who I ask again that was in his right would accept all of that money, knowing that their employees could barely afford to live? Wouldn't a reasonable person say that to give such a staggering sum to one individual is outrageous. The mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg is worth 5B.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, bless his heart for giving the money back, earns in the 50B a year range, and according to Ralph Nader, Gate's net worth is the equivalent of 100 million Americans. Folks, that represents one third of the nation. In a nation of 300 million, Gates net worth is the equivalent of 1/3 of the people of the United States.
The President of Disney Land extracts $100B per annum by exploiting America's children at Disney parks and when they watch Disney movies. Man, neither kids nor their parents get a break. The WalMart family extracts roughly 60B in profits each year from the WalMart Company, their family owned business. Well let's look at it another way, suppose you kept your 45B or 60B earnings for one year, isn't that enough.
Couldn't you invest all future profits into your country. Who can with good conscience any more money in the future? Who, the average American, that's who. His love of money, and his spirit of greed has turned him or her away from their more sensitive side.
My Point: In this sea of wealth, America' permanent, historically mostly black (but more and more whites are falling into the unable to keep up catchment), are struggling and falling completely out of the system. Some are falling to the streets while some with the same spirit of America's founders, the greed spirit, continue to flourish!
Does this suggest in any way that the necessary changes have been made? This nation began with color-greed, and class conscious-greed is a major factor in American society today. During my 6-year stay in Washington I spent a lot of time learning about our nation's capitol and how big government really operate.
Our government officials we all know are insured up the kazoo. In addition to the perks that most of them receive, they are allowed to receive a certain amount of money for speaking engagements. On top of that most of them have already made deals with the over 300,000 lobbyists' organizations, so that once they leave office, they have very lucrative positions waiting for them.
Many of Washington DC's elected officials receive kickbacks given 'earmarks' and other legislation that they vote for that favor construction, pharmaceutical, insurance, energy, health, transportation...companies. As the nation's citizens get poorer the rich are getting wealthier. The average American CEO earns 200 to 300 times what the rank and file worker earns. And keep in mind each year he collects his multiplied wage again, and again and again.
Even if he or she fails, up front gurantees ensure that many of them will still get their golden parachutes, when the rank and file employees are led out of the door due to downsizing - given the failures of the overpaid CEOs. Go to Washington, or read about all of the lobbyists organizations and independent lobbyists who have offices on 'K' Street in Washington DC. These individuals have the ears of government official to whom they make sizable contributions to their campaigns. The officials take care of them first.
The pursuit of power through class struggle and the ownership of property is alive and well in America. More and more the permanent underclass is burgeoning. Some formerly obnoxious non-whites are beginning to see the light. I have seen more and more Americans going to free clinics in order to obtain services that are being provided by volunteer medical staff - the ones who are not greedy. Like me, most Americans can remember when you could afford to go to a doctor or dentist, and be served.
And when your appointment was over, you simply wrote a check and paid for your services. You didn't need health insurance, health care was affordable. Today, greedy medical corporations and physicians want their slice of the pie, and they are willing to allow the health of individuals in this nation to decline, in spite of the fact that some of them already have more than they will ever need!
Again the housing industry is no different. The average price of a home in American grown exponentially just over the past decade. The median price of a home in the San Francisco Bay region is 600,000, depending on where you live. In San Francisco and cities like Palo Alto, Hillsborough, Burlingame, Atherton, don't ask. And that is just a few cities in Northern California. And what do you get for 600K, perhaps a 1200 square foot crackerbox with minimal land.
And where are the members of the permanent underclass residing? Answer, wherever they can. Some are living under bridges, in cardboard boxes, in city parks, in garages, on the sidewalks, in shelters, and one gentleman, Sweet Wine, was living under the hedges at the public library in one of America's finest cities. Sweet Wine, a brother with a bachelor's degree living underneath hedges with all of his worldly possession stored in a borrowed grocery store shopping cart. God help us!!
(to be corrected and continued)
Peace & Grace?
Rev. C. Solomon
www.sealofabraham.blogspot.com
When the colonists, early settlers to the new world embarked upon nation building in the New World, one of their most egregious errors was to have encoded into law that citizenship in nascent America was an exclusive right of 'white male landowners'. If you were an owner of land and you happened to be native American, black or female, you were banned from being a citizen in the exclusive all white male landholding and voters club of America.
Even those Americans who were expected to work and as a result, contribute to the tax base, the same individuals were not entitled to any of the protections under the law, in deference to their contribution to the society. Today, many Americans still do not realize that approximately 600,000 citizens in the District of Columbia (mostly blacks) are still forced to pay taxes, although they do not have any official government representatives.
In Washington DC today you have a majority black American district, where the citizens are being denied their right to have official government representatives. The scenario in Washington DC also reminds you of the failure of the government today to ensure the rights of black citizens, just as it has failed to do for the two centuries past. Eleanor Holmes Norton is a delegate who can only vote in Committee - she cannot vote on the floor of the House. DC's shadow senator is merely an observer in the senate, he does not have any actual power either.
And what is the government doing about it? The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court expressed his personal opinion about it. He said, I believe that it is unfair that the citizens of the District, do not have Congressional Representatives. However, he added that it would be up to Congress to correct this indiscretion. Many individuals, surprisingly former President Richard Nixon, Judge Kenneth Starr and other Conservatives have expressed that this is an American outrage.
During my 6-year stay in Washington DC-metro, I worked with groups like DC Vote that were trying to do something about this outrage. These folks remind me of black civil rights organizations that have had to historically do the job that our officials have been paid to do. And what does our current president have to say about it. Last year he promised to veto a bill that was a few votes short of passing in the Senate, that would have given the people of the District of Columbia a Congressional Representative.
In a compromise bid, headed up by Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, along with delegate Eleanore Holmes Norton, the state of Utah was to be given one more Congressional Representative, in exchange for the citizens of Washington DC receiving an official Congressional Representatives. After years of trying, it appeared that the work of several interest groups in the District were about to pay out.
The fact is that Bush did not did not have to veto the bill, Senator John McCain made sure that the bill was voted down in the Senate, he and another Senator voted it down. Private citizens should not have to raise or fight for these kind of issues (their Constitutional Rights), for that is what we are paying the government officials who are supposed to be representing us to do. They never come through, well, unless you have to be a member of the privileged majority.
The fact that the majority of the citizens of Washington DC are black, explains many of our government officials are having. The fact that the district voters are 3/4 democratic is the other dilemma that our officials are having today. Now in fairness let me add this, that when democrats were were in control of the House and Senate for just over a 20 year stretch, a period in which we even had Presidents from the Democratic Party, the citizens of the district were still unable to secure an official Congressional representative.
I was speaking with someone last year, a black American no less, who was tearing down black civil rights leaders (something that has become very fashionable of late). I asked, how come you never complain about government officials who have failed American citizens on a daily basis, and instead you single out the black civil rights workers who are doing far more to help to lift up America's downtrodden.
Folks, had it not been for the civil rights workers, this country would still be as polarizing as it had been for over a 300-year period. Many of the civil rights workers have worked hard to bring about positive and progressive social change. And again, the people who were being paid to initiate policies that would ensure the rights of all Americans, did nothing.
Some Americans prefer pointing out the moral failures of some black civil rights leaders, and the same individuals at the same time overlook the repeated failings of the representatives in government were put there to serve the interests of all of the people of the United States.
Again, hats off to all of the American civil rights workers who did the jobs that our public officials, federal, state and local, failed to you, you deserve to have those officials passed over to you and your families. Dr. Martin Luther King, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, H. Rap Brown, Kwame Ture, Roy Innis, Huey Newton ..., William Frederick Douglas, William Edward Burghardt Dubois...Sojourner, Harriet Tubman, Dorothy Height, Mary McLeod Bethune, Angela Davis and millions more, this nation owes you more than a debt of gratitude.
Is is shameful when you consider just how poor many of these individuals were, and how they departed from this earth with no more than a whisper. Perhaps one day we will consider strategically placing statutes in memory of all of those who are departed around the perimeter of the Washington DC Mall. And perhaps someday, we will remove the statues of those celebrated leaders who filled to honor their oaths, and represent the needs of all of the people or to defend the Constitution.
As this nation evolved from its early inception onward, the pernicious stratification of the races evolved right along with it (particularly as more and more conscripted Africans were brought to America (north, central and south) shores by way of the middle passage). Blacks were being brought to the new world in order to labor without being compensated for their labor. In states like South Carolina for example, the population of black slaves exploded, and rivaled the number of whites who were in the state.
If you are ever in Washington DC, just stop by Mt. Vernon for a day, and you will get a birdseye view of what it was like back then. Mt. Vernon is the home of America's first slave President. It sits on the Potomac River. Its massive acreages, buildings, mills, gardens, and farmland is throwback to a period when whites owned everything, however, blacks were forced to make everything work for whites.
The first stop on the tour, appropriately so, is at one of the remaining dark and dank slave quarters. While massa George and his family enjoyed the 'big house', that was built by the slaves, the slaves existed in squalor. In fact George Washington, benefited from his army of about 380 slaves, and in fact he took his black personal slave with him to serve him everywhere that he went.
In addition to Mt. Vernon, at Fredericksburg (his other home), I was able to understand even more what this man was really like. In fact my opinion has changed altogether about this man. The more sanitized version that we were taught about in school, does not in any way reflect this man's true nature. And for those who ask, how can you judge him so harshly. Believe, the word of God will judge both me and George. And I can assure you that my record is far superior from a divine perspective than his was.
After you visit Mt. Vernon, take the 50 mile trip down to Fredericksburg, and visit the slave auction block, just a block or two off of the main drag. There you will witness where he and others purchased their slaves. A rock to mark its place, remains there today. Shame on this man! And shame on America for electing him to be a president.
Just as in modern parlance today, a person who did what he did and owned other people and forced them to work and he kept all of the money was and is referred to as a pimp. Folks, the man lived off of the labor of other people. Both he and his family enjoyed the finest, even ordering his tailormade clothing from the old country, which he later fought to free himself from.
And what did the individuals that he pimped receive for their labor? They received two changes of substandard clothing per year and an allotment of food, food which they raised by the way. I asked the docent, well just how many white folks were there that lived on this vast plantation at any given time? He embarrassingly replied, on average 4 to 8. Folks, make all of the excuses you want for former President George and those like him, however, his actions speak louder than anything that you could say.
However, we all make our individual choices, and he made the choice which came out of his heart. That massive but now condensed plantation had sufficient land, that had it been divided up properly, every individual on that place, all 380 or slaves could have owned a piece of land, and worked to care for their own families, not just for a man who was too lazy to work. And I hear late President Tom Jefferson saying in the background that 'God's Justice Won't Sleep Forever'?
These fellas knew that what they were doing was wrong, they lacked the fortitude or the moral courage to stand up and to do something about it. George's promise to free his slaves upon death, said nothing about his willingness to keep other human beings enslaved during the scores of years that he was alive. Can you believe that these men even prayed, when they constructed the Articles of Incorporation and the Constitution of the United States, knowing that what much of what was written violated in any real sense - the laws of human decency?
Is it any wonder that late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marsall wrote that the American Constitution was flawed from the outset, and it was. The men who wrote it were seriously flawed themselves. Our American founders, some who later became presidents and other government officials were slaveowners, child-molesters, murderers, rapists, kidnappers and landgrabbers, etal.
And they were getting their share of ( ), you fill in the blanks, from America's black female slave population (many of the females were underage girls folks). However, that did not stop these pimpdaddies from engaging in such immoral and reckless behavior. Any flaws by American civil rights workers pale in comparison to what the flawed knuckleheads, many of whom started this country! Can they ever know the pain that they caused for so many people, a pain which has for nearly two centuries since they have been gone.
The Bible, that most of them often referred to, insisted that a man and woman be married in order before they could be sexually involved. Those pimp daddies were not only not married (to those that they raped, had sex with and sired children by), they refused in many instances to permit many of the blacks that they owned to marry. Again, what a bunch of sick people. And that any of them were voted into any kind of official office, said a lot about the heart of too many of the individuals who once who populated this land.
Recently, one of America's major financial institutions, the Wachovia bank, apologized for its participation in the American slave trade. The Wachovia Bank once engaged in financing the purchase of American slaves for America's slavemasters. and underwrote the cost of the vessels and crews that transported slave cargo to America.
The State of Virginia, former home state of the Confederate capitol in Richmond, even apologized for its systemic failure to uphold the rights of American blacks and for the states participation in trafficking human beings. New Jersey will soon follow suit, and God knows that before you know it, even former Senate Leader Trent Lott (of we should have listened to racist senator Strom Thurmond) and the State of Mississippi might apologize. Folks, perhaps there is still hope.
At the cessation of the American Civil War when General Robert Emerald Lee surrendered at Appomatox, however, regardless of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and General Lee's surrender, America continued to be a bifurcated nation.
Oh and in fairness to George Washington, Thom Jefferson and other American Presidents and officials, America's Arlington National Cemetery, former property and home of defeated General Robert E. Lee, was also segregated. Only white American troops could even be buried there, and black Americans who lived in the 'black Freedomtown', directly behind the Arlington Cemetery (some lived in slave quarters on the plantation) were responsible for maintaining the cemetery
It was the responsibility of blacks to dig the graves where white only could be buried. And why not? If you are segregated in life, you might as well be segregated in death. Blacks had to be buried elsewhere. How in the world the black slaves managed to be buried at Mt. Vernon, approximately 90 of them, we will never know.
The majority of America's domestic policies always had a racial component to them, for that matter much of its foreign policy also has a racial component to it. The domestics policies of race determined where you lived, worked, attended school and voted. The politics of race determined who you could or could not marry (once blacks were permitted to marry. The politics of race determined ones earnings and what role the government, federal, state and local, in terms of constitutional protections a white or non-white citizen would receive.
After many of America's laws were ruled to be unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court, many of its learned practices that had been codified into law remained. Folks, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually found that many of America's laws were unconstitutional, however, a higher court recognized that America itself and its egregious behaviors were unconstitutional from the onset.
Non-white Americans, particularly black Americans, continued to be discriminated against in the areas of housing, transportation, credit, healthcare, civil services, the military, education, voting, employment et al. The earnings of black Americans in 2008 is still only 73% of that of white Americans. And what is the one variable that is responsible for economic disparity? The answer is simple, it is because of one's race.
Reactionary white America's argument is that the reason that blacks have not achieved commensurate success if because they are lazy, shiftless and not as bright as their white counterparts. Ironically, books like 'the Bell Curve' disproved that. Infamous court cases like Duke v. Griggs Power Company proved that racial tests in employment were discriminatory. In other words, blacks were being systemically discriminated in jobs that they did not require one to have a PhD.
In other words in many of the semi-skilled and labor positions that blacks worked in, they were still discriminated against in spite of their high level of productivity. The fact is that certain white collar jobs were reserved for non-whites. And because most blacks, who lacked the capital to start their own businesses, had to rely on white industry, the majority of non-whites, including blacks, had to work at the most menial positions.
The way that education factored in the overall equations had to do with racial politics and the matter of who benefited from American-style racism. Non-whites, including blacks, often attended the worst schools. The striking down of separate but equal education clauses proved that. Why? For long before blacks were permitted to integrate the public schools systems, it was proven that the black schools were receiving the worst textbooks, and not to mention a disproportionate share of public school funds.
When it came to post and secondary education, many blacks were prevented from enrolling outright, and in other instances they were prevented from enrolling as a result of intending inferior public school systems. Today, education is vital in order to find work in America's high technology sectors. And given all of the jobs that have been lost in today's global economy, coupled with the immigration industry in America, many of the unskilled and semi-skilled occupations that were the domain of black Americans have been conscripted.
Foreign nationals and many white Americans are vying for these positions. I spent a fair amount of time visiting and cruising the streets of Baltimore Maryland. Of all of the ghettos that I have visited in Ohio, Louisiana, Chicago, California elsewhere, I experienced in Baltimore's ghetto what I had not sensed anywhere else sofar. There the concrete domiciles that warehoused human beings reminded me of large crypts, of the kind that are in many of America's cemeteries today.
In most of their ghettos it would appear, 1 out of 3 of the neighborhood concrete boxes, were not boarded up, but cemented. In many ghetto towns where there urban blight exists, the city will eventually move in and board up the openings with plywood. In Baltimore, the city comes in and places concrete cinder blocks in the openings, giving the concrete house the appearance of a crypt or burial vault. And where do the kids play. In many of these concrete jungles, you do not see any landscape. In other grass and play areas simply do not exist.
Once a child walks out the door of his porchless domicile, he or she descends down two to three steps onto the sidewalk. If they were to take another step, they would be in the street. The sidewalk is their playground, and I witnessed numerous children playing on that limited space. The tenements in Chicago, that towered 15 and 16 stories into the air had their own understandable problems. The smell of urine in the hallways and drug-dealers in the hallways are just a portion of what residents had to experience each and everyday.
And the high-rise public housing buildings like those in the former Cabrini Green area (remember the former Good Times sitcom?), and the same-style high rise tenement's on the west side of Chicago had their own unique problems. Have I visited the old Cabrini Greens, yes on more than one occasion.
Each of these areas with their unique constructions had something in common, these were places built to warehouse members of America's permanent underclass. In Baltimore it would appear that the citizens who have given into a sense of despair have already been buried alive!.
It is a fact that America had and has sufficient disposable wealth that to eliminate poverty within this nation. And it would not require handouts in order to do so. What is required essentially is a redistribution of wealth and a change of heart by greedy Americans who hoard the wealth of this nation. I suspect that a dose of Democratic Socialism is what America needs.
America's aim ought to be to divide its wealth among all of its citizens, by providing adequate employment with commensurate pay to all of its citizens who are willing and able to work. Most of all Americans need to drop all of the excuses that they employ in order to justify their desire to hoard wealth, while other Americans suffer. In the early church, see Acts chapter 4, the believers divided up their wealth among each other. Zacchaeus offered to give half of what he owned to the poor. However, the Rich Ruler decided that giving all that he had to the poor was too much.
Folks, with his income source, his coffers would have begun to be refilled by week's end. The Rich Ruler reminds me of too many Americans, past and present.
When greed, among many of America's elite, ceases all Americans will have more than adequate housing, food, clothing, and healthcare. America's greedy racists have also mutated into greedy Americans, those who were not greed-driven already. Some Americans boast now that there is nothing wrong with greed, Tony Blankley, editor of the Washington Times being one of them. And unfortunately, a disproportionate majority of America's permanent underclass are the victims of American greed.
Many Americans attribute the health-care problem in America to the failure of Americans to have adequate insurance coverage. The solution that some Americans propose is provide health insurance for all Americans. I would rather see us get to the heart of the problem. The American health problem is not an insurance problem, it is an American greed problem. The same problem that we see in the housing sector, American industry, the pharmaceutical industry, in education and elsewhere.
Let's take healthcare for example. The United States has an adequate number of medical schools and an adequate number of well-trained medical personnel and service providers, from top to bottom. The United States has hospitals and medications, a sufficient number to meet the needs of all Americans. So why is that some Americans do not have adequate health care, particularly America's permanent underclass? The answer is simple, they cannot afford it. Not only can they not afford health care, more and more many Americans can not afford health insurance.
Well, let's back up. If you have the services available, with more than an adequate number of hospitals, physicians, care providers and medicines then what is the problem? The real problem is that the cost of health care is out of reach. And the reason for it is simple, it is because greedy Americans have driven the cost of only health care and while we are on this topic (housing, education and other commodities completely out of reach for the average American.
Those who benefit the most and are in control are the wealthy, they have more money than the average America could have if we were to live 100 of their lifetimes - and yet they keep driving the prices up. Why? To satisfy their greedy board members, and oftentimes they are the members of the board and to continue to line their products. Donald Trump has said before, I have enough money to last me for the rest of my life.
He then goes on to say, however, it is the fun of making money that drives me now. And many other American corporate executives think just like 'the Donald'. If you were paid a staggering salary of 450M a year, just like the CEO at Exxon was paid, wouldn't that be enough? First of all, if one were to accept that kind of payout, what human being in his right mind would accept it? These folks are of the same mindset of the greedy individuals who founded this country in the first place.
They individuals continue to play the game of confiscate, exploit and force other individuals to do the work as they accumulate all of the wealth. Who I ask again that was in his right would accept all of that money, knowing that their employees could barely afford to live? Wouldn't a reasonable person say that to give such a staggering sum to one individual is outrageous. The mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg is worth 5B.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, bless his heart for giving the money back, earns in the 50B a year range, and according to Ralph Nader, Gate's net worth is the equivalent of 100 million Americans. Folks, that represents one third of the nation. In a nation of 300 million, Gates net worth is the equivalent of 1/3 of the people of the United States.
The President of Disney Land extracts $100B per annum by exploiting America's children at Disney parks and when they watch Disney movies. Man, neither kids nor their parents get a break. The WalMart family extracts roughly 60B in profits each year from the WalMart Company, their family owned business. Well let's look at it another way, suppose you kept your 45B or 60B earnings for one year, isn't that enough.
Couldn't you invest all future profits into your country. Who can with good conscience any more money in the future? Who, the average American, that's who. His love of money, and his spirit of greed has turned him or her away from their more sensitive side.
My Point: In this sea of wealth, America' permanent, historically mostly black (but more and more whites are falling into the unable to keep up catchment), are struggling and falling completely out of the system. Some are falling to the streets while some with the same spirit of America's founders, the greed spirit, continue to flourish!
Does this suggest in any way that the necessary changes have been made? This nation began with color-greed, and class conscious-greed is a major factor in American society today. During my 6-year stay in Washington I spent a lot of time learning about our nation's capitol and how big government really operate.
Our government officials we all know are insured up the kazoo. In addition to the perks that most of them receive, they are allowed to receive a certain amount of money for speaking engagements. On top of that most of them have already made deals with the over 300,000 lobbyists' organizations, so that once they leave office, they have very lucrative positions waiting for them.
Many of Washington DC's elected officials receive kickbacks given 'earmarks' and other legislation that they vote for that favor construction, pharmaceutical, insurance, energy, health, transportation...companies. As the nation's citizens get poorer the rich are getting wealthier. The average American CEO earns 200 to 300 times what the rank and file worker earns. And keep in mind each year he collects his multiplied wage again, and again and again.
Even if he or she fails, up front gurantees ensure that many of them will still get their golden parachutes, when the rank and file employees are led out of the door due to downsizing - given the failures of the overpaid CEOs. Go to Washington, or read about all of the lobbyists organizations and independent lobbyists who have offices on 'K' Street in Washington DC. These individuals have the ears of government official to whom they make sizable contributions to their campaigns. The officials take care of them first.
The pursuit of power through class struggle and the ownership of property is alive and well in America. More and more the permanent underclass is burgeoning. Some formerly obnoxious non-whites are beginning to see the light. I have seen more and more Americans going to free clinics in order to obtain services that are being provided by volunteer medical staff - the ones who are not greedy. Like me, most Americans can remember when you could afford to go to a doctor or dentist, and be served.
And when your appointment was over, you simply wrote a check and paid for your services. You didn't need health insurance, health care was affordable. Today, greedy medical corporations and physicians want their slice of the pie, and they are willing to allow the health of individuals in this nation to decline, in spite of the fact that some of them already have more than they will ever need!
Again the housing industry is no different. The average price of a home in American grown exponentially just over the past decade. The median price of a home in the San Francisco Bay region is 600,000, depending on where you live. In San Francisco and cities like Palo Alto, Hillsborough, Burlingame, Atherton, don't ask. And that is just a few cities in Northern California. And what do you get for 600K, perhaps a 1200 square foot crackerbox with minimal land.
And where are the members of the permanent underclass residing? Answer, wherever they can. Some are living under bridges, in cardboard boxes, in city parks, in garages, on the sidewalks, in shelters, and one gentleman, Sweet Wine, was living under the hedges at the public library in one of America's finest cities. Sweet Wine, a brother with a bachelor's degree living underneath hedges with all of his worldly possession stored in a borrowed grocery store shopping cart. God help us!!
(to be corrected and continued)
Peace & Grace?
Rev. C. Solomon
www.sealofabraham.blogspot.com
Mar 4, 2008
The Rev's Response to the Washington Post Blog 03/04/2008
The Rev Replied to Scooter
What is truly amazing is that we did not and do not have an existing legally sanctioned international organization that would have confronted, or will confront the U.S.A. with regard to its 200 year of duplicity, misbehavior, adventurism, manipulation of the world's market and terrorism (against its own citizens as well as other nations of the world)?
The U.S.A. has repeatedly violated the will of the United Nations itself and most nations of the world, even when it invaded Iraq.
The U.S.A. also has the luxury of being one of the 5 permanent members of the UNSC, its resolutions and positions that the U.S.A. does not agree with (that will inhibit its misbehaviors), it vetoes. Iraq, like many other nations does not and did not have that luxury!
Had a strong U.N. existed in the early 20th century, perhaps they would have demanded that the U.S.A. destroy its nuclear weapons! And I can assure you that the United States would not have complied. The U.S.A. would have ignored the U.N., just as it has been doing since its inception.
The world needs a strong international organization to do the following with regard to the U.S.A.
1. Battle the ideology of international American terrorism ((in other nations around the world).
2. Expose the corruption of American policies, and to prove that it is in no way contained within its own borders.
3. To show that the U.S.A. continues to maintain and expand its nuclear arsenal while inveigling the U.N. in preventing other nations of the world from ever attaining an equivalent or superior nuclear advantage over the United States!
4. To force the U.S.A. to live up to its international obligation of minding its own business, and to cease from interfering in the internal affairs of other nations of the world, violating arms treaties itself, usurping WTO regulations, manipulating the world-wide global market and economy...!
5. Creating strawmen, so that the U.S.A. can force its will upon Arab, Muslim nations and nations in the America, under the guise of fighting against a real, imagined or exaggerated terrorist enemy.
6. To expose its most blatant lie that we simply want other nations of the world to be free ala democratic nations. Just ask the Palestinians whether or not America believes in democracy for other nations or people!
7. To confront America's past and present ability to defy the world's and its allies demands that pertains to the U.S.A. (for over a decade and more).
8. To point out the hypocrisy of a nation that claims to be a free nation, that for the first time in its white supremacist dictatorial existence (232 years) a black man is being seriously considered for the office of President of the "United States of Global Hegemony".
Why Obama wants to be President I don't know, however, hopefully, if he is elected he can turn this nation - for the little good that it would do!
I will never be able to change your mind given your blind patriotism and your apparent willingness to overlook America's misdeeds, duplicity, injustices, venal policies and corrupt behavior, however, if any other nation or confederation of nations on this planet were to have behaved, or behave now as the United States is doing, you and others like you would be screaming bloody murder!
Go back and apply an objective analysis to American misbehavior, and you will find that the nations that U.S.A. has injected itself into (on 3 or 4 fronts), their misbehaviors have paled by comparison. And, if those nations should be confronted, so should the United States of America!
Finally, if we are ever going to help to solve the world problem, we have to solve the American problem first. The American problem inspires much of what is going wrong in the world, and the reactionary violence that is associated with what is going wrong in the world.
We will never help solve any problems by pointing out the real or imagined failures of other nations, and ignoring the endemic and real problems that are inherent within American!
peace & grace
Reverend C. Solomon
What is truly amazing is that we did not and do not have an existing legally sanctioned international organization that would have confronted, or will confront the U.S.A. with regard to its 200 year of duplicity, misbehavior, adventurism, manipulation of the world's market and terrorism (against its own citizens as well as other nations of the world)?
The U.S.A. has repeatedly violated the will of the United Nations itself and most nations of the world, even when it invaded Iraq.
The U.S.A. also has the luxury of being one of the 5 permanent members of the UNSC, its resolutions and positions that the U.S.A. does not agree with (that will inhibit its misbehaviors), it vetoes. Iraq, like many other nations does not and did not have that luxury!
Had a strong U.N. existed in the early 20th century, perhaps they would have demanded that the U.S.A. destroy its nuclear weapons! And I can assure you that the United States would not have complied. The U.S.A. would have ignored the U.N., just as it has been doing since its inception.
The world needs a strong international organization to do the following with regard to the U.S.A.
1. Battle the ideology of international American terrorism ((in other nations around the world).
2. Expose the corruption of American policies, and to prove that it is in no way contained within its own borders.
3. To show that the U.S.A. continues to maintain and expand its nuclear arsenal while inveigling the U.N. in preventing other nations of the world from ever attaining an equivalent or superior nuclear advantage over the United States!
4. To force the U.S.A. to live up to its international obligation of minding its own business, and to cease from interfering in the internal affairs of other nations of the world, violating arms treaties itself, usurping WTO regulations, manipulating the world-wide global market and economy...!
5. Creating strawmen, so that the U.S.A. can force its will upon Arab, Muslim nations and nations in the America, under the guise of fighting against a real, imagined or exaggerated terrorist enemy.
6. To expose its most blatant lie that we simply want other nations of the world to be free ala democratic nations. Just ask the Palestinians whether or not America believes in democracy for other nations or people!
7. To confront America's past and present ability to defy the world's and its allies demands that pertains to the U.S.A. (for over a decade and more).
8. To point out the hypocrisy of a nation that claims to be a free nation, that for the first time in its white supremacist dictatorial existence (232 years) a black man is being seriously considered for the office of President of the "United States of Global Hegemony".
Why Obama wants to be President I don't know, however, hopefully, if he is elected he can turn this nation - for the little good that it would do!
I will never be able to change your mind given your blind patriotism and your apparent willingness to overlook America's misdeeds, duplicity, injustices, venal policies and corrupt behavior, however, if any other nation or confederation of nations on this planet were to have behaved, or behave now as the United States is doing, you and others like you would be screaming bloody murder!
Go back and apply an objective analysis to American misbehavior, and you will find that the nations that U.S.A. has injected itself into (on 3 or 4 fronts), their misbehaviors have paled by comparison. And, if those nations should be confronted, so should the United States of America!
Finally, if we are ever going to help to solve the world problem, we have to solve the American problem first. The American problem inspires much of what is going wrong in the world, and the reactionary violence that is associated with what is going wrong in the world.
We will never help solve any problems by pointing out the real or imagined failures of other nations, and ignoring the endemic and real problems that are inherent within American!
peace & grace
Reverend C. Solomon
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