Category Archives: Politics

René Préval

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René Préval, who served as President of Haiti from 1996-2001 and 2006-2011, is perhaps the greatest democratic survivor of Haitian politics. He managed to both receive and turn over presidential powers peacefully and democratically, twice over.

He weathered food riots, a dysfunctional government, frequent turnover of prime ministers, and the Haitian earthquake of 2010 where his own presidential residence was destroyed and left his family homeless. Yet, he never led or encountered a coup, unlike his democratic predecessor Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who suffered two coups. He did not have his own death squad, did not exceed his own presidential mandate.

Since independence in 1804, Préval is only the first elected Haitian president to serve his full term and voluntarily retire (and only the second overall after Nissage Saget, who had taken power by coup in 1867 but left office voluntarily after five years), and the first to be elected in non-consecutive terms. No other head of state in Haiti’s history can claim to have had a similar experience as René Préval.

“We are twice as likely to have a firearm in our homes as black Americans and Hispanics, yet significantly less of us die by gunshot. White people represent 65 percent of the population but just 25 percent of gun homicides. Black people represent 13 percent of the population yet a disturbing 55 percent of gun homicides.

Our gun obsession is simply fueled by the fact that the odds are in our favor. Black and brown kids in Chicago, Baltimore and Miami die by bullets at a much greater rate than our children in Montana, Idaho and Wisconsin.

The color of our skin makes up most of the Republican Party, a party twice as likely to own guns at home than the Democratic Party.

People who look like me are ultimately responsible that a third of all Americans with children under 18 at home have a gun in their household, including 34 percent of families with children younger than 12.

We make up 80 percent of Congress. The majority of white lawmakers refuse to make it legally harder to buy firearms, even AR-15 assault rifles that no respectable hunter would ever use to bag a 12-point buck.”

Source: America’s nostalgic gun culture defies logic and common sense – The Undefeated

Lack of Self-Respect Among Black Republicans

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He told the New Times that he had hopes of helping the Trump campaign avoid the mistakes that Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) made in his failed presidential run in 2012. Romney, said Jackson, waited until too late in his campaign to start outreach to nonwhite voters.

“I have been saying repeatedly that you cannot go into black community in the 9th hour of a campaign and ask them to vote for a GOP candidate,” he said. “The party has done a piss poor job of courting the black vote over 50 years. So you have to have more vested interest in time and in your financial effort for the whole campaign, not just in the last 100 days.”

Source: Head of Trump’s black outreach in Florida says ‘piss poor’ campaign doesn’t care about blacks – Raw Story

Thinking about it, I can understand an immigrant from Haiti like Rep. Mia Love of Utah becoming a GOP politician. Because she is an immigrant, she gains from the “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps because we’re a nation of immigrants who sought a better life here” doctrine. I don’t find it strange that she follows through on that, first as mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah and later as a House rep from Utah. She doesn’t even need the Congressional Black Caucus because she rhetorically hates its very existence, despite joining it after joining Congress in 2015 (oops).

But what do African-Americans of antebellum slave descent gain from joining the GOP at this moment of political history? The prevailing consensus in the GOP is that our history is an inconvenience to be glossed over (even glamorized) and not “focused upon”; that our contributions are to be honored but not the trauma which produced those contributions; that our current plight, only 2 adult generations out from the end of Jim Crow, is a result of our “personal lifestyle choices” and not of systemic origin; that we should ditch the Mexicans in order to make more room for (everyone else but) us in the low-skill, high-labor jobs of agriculture, mining, manufacturing and even service industries (which may or may even not be “real jobs worthy of a living minimum wage”); that we should ditch LGBT people and Planned Parenthood clinics in order to make our divorce rate drop, men return to their wives, children have more children, and women stop being so liberated as to make informed choices for their bodies; and other insults to our intelligence.

None of that is appealing to me. None of this makes sense. Maybe if I got into a car accident, got a bad case of amnesia, adopted a new name and identity as a Nigerian immigrant from Lagos, integrated myself into the Nigerian American community like Rachel Dolezal did with African-Americans in Spokane, became religious, set up a business and then decided to go into politics as a moderate Republican Congressperson from Atlanta, this message would be a bit more appealing for me to campaign on and live by. A bit.

Then I would be lauded by those who don’t know any better as another rare Black politician who “never slaved on the Democratic plantation” and joined the party of Lincoln “bcuz freedom.” And Fox News, Breitbart and the National Review would love me for every word I publicly utter.

But that ain’t happening in this timeline of reality. I’d have to shut part of my brain off to join the present GOP even if I were a descendant of antebellum slaves who was anti-immigrant, anti-choice, anti-LGBT, anti-welfare or at least just pro-free-market. I’d have to shut off part of my brain to vote for the real estate developer or anyone who endorses him. And most Black Republican descended from antebellum slaves, except for Rep. Mia Love, don’t even sound original to me in their adoption of GOP talking points, especially when those talking points emanate from some angle of gratuitous anti-Blackness and class bigotry. Maybe they’re honest, but not original or nuanced.

We’re looking for empowerment for our families’ and neighbors’ lives that we didn’t have when “things were simpler” and “Black businesses were better” under Jim Crow. The GOP’s austerity and anti-civil rights policies simply don’t provide empowerment for most African-Americans, and they seem to be harming the Euro-American community across the country, too (see Kansas under Brownback, Indiana under Pence, Wisconsin under Walker, Michigan under Snyder and North Carolina under McCrory). The latter may get tired of it soon enough, if they can jump off the nativist train first.

MLK’s description of the 1964 Republican campaign of Barry Goldwater applies just as much to this year and the subsequent landslide that is about to happen against the GOP nominee.

Again.

 

Black America Measured as the Next U.S. State

Politics, Uncategorized, , , ,

I remember reading this article from The Atlantic from a while back which thoroughly measured the economy and infrastructure of Black America as its own nation-state.

However, I don’t know if anyone has ever thought about if Black America were its own state within the Union – a majority-minority state demographically dominated but never self-governed at the state level by people of African descent.

But what if it were? What would be the prevailing politics of this state?

Let’s call it the 52nd state in the Union – the State of New Afrika. The 51st would be Puerto Rico.

In the State of New Afrika, how would Black Democrats govern and represent their districts? How would Black Republicans?

What would be the state of law enforcement in New Afrika? How much control would the majority-Black state government have over its majority-Black cities?

State governments have perhaps more control over the function of cities and their residents than the federal government does. The provision of funding for public schools, for law enforcement, for prisons (public or private), for water resources, for roads, for recreation, for environmental protections and so on. No city in the United States except for the District of Columbia (subject to Congress) has such a broad control over their infrastructure. The federal government is also hobbled in its ability to reach cities because of state government control.

So if Black America lopsidedly dwells in metropolitan areas, but these metropolitan areas’ statuses are ultimately determined at the state level where the majority of leaders are not of the same economic, ethnocultural or regional background, what does that say about how much control we actually have over our local communities and our welfare?

 

For Those Who Still Don’t Have a Choice

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Thinking about The Movement for Black Lives’ Vision for Black Lives manifesto and its inclusion of a pro-Dreamer/anti-Deportation plank.

One can argue this:

The ancestors of most slave-descended African-Americans did not choose to come here willingly. Legally, neither did Dreamers who were brought here as children.

I understand that Dreamers can more readily identify their country of ancestry. But their entire memory has been cultivated here in this country.

I understand that Dreamers have more of an opportunity to go back to their country of origin. But forcefully deporting someone who did not choose to come to this country is gratuitously cutting someone off from their de facto adoptive country.

The 14th Amendment was crafted to apply citizenship to people who didn’t end up here “the right way”, the most privileged way. It established birthright citizenship, which has now become a feature of naturalization for most countries in the Americas.

Some would want to eliminate or curtail birthright citizenship. I think it should be expanded to automatically naturalizing those who arrived in the U.S. as minors and have spent at least 5-10 years of their lives here.

That is the humane thing to do. #Vision4BlackLives

Larry Sanders Tearfully Casts Vote for Brother Bernie Sanders at DNC 2016

Factoid:

Larry Sanders, a social worker and academic who is a citizen of the UK and the U.S., is a member of both the Green Party of England and Wales and the U.S. Democratic Party. He has served as a Member of the Oxfordshire County Council (2005-2013) and ran for a seat in Parliament in 2015 on the Green ticket, coming in fifth to the Conservative winner. Larry’s son Jacob has also served on the Oxford City Council and ran in 2005 for Parliament as a Green.

I am very glad that Larry, who is 82, has lived long enough to cast this vote. I also feel that Larry is more free in the UK to vote his conscience than he is here in the US.

Looking Forward After the DNC

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I will continue to be proud of the work I did and the vote I cast for Bernie Sanders, but I look forward to what we can do under a Clinton presidency and a better-run Democratic Party. I’m proud of the work that David Smith has done on behalf of the Sanders campaign in Columbus and as a Sanders delegate to the DNC. I’m glad that Sanders delegates on the platform committee were able to make progressive lemonade out of what could have been a very moderate, weak lemon for the next four years.

Susana et al at the DNC who are aggrieved by the conduct of the contest and its result, the next four years present an opportunity for you. Take a cue from Ronald Reagan: when his candidate Goldwater lost in a landslide to Johnson in 1964, he and several other party activists – including Richard Viguerie, who used Goldwater’s direct mail list for years to come to support conservative causes of the day – fought to clear out the moderates – along with Nixon and Ford – and make the party into a hardcore, free-market, religious-conservative force. Reagan used this to win the governorship of California and then mount three candidacies for president.

If Clinton’s win is the last straw for you, then continue the work that Sanders fought for. Make Sanders’ platform viable on the downballot. Speak for harder-left progressive politics across the country. Fight for those values in places where single payer and public options have not penetrated the public mind. Appeal to those who have something they want to protect and serve. Change county party leadership. Distribute pamphlets, free booklets, direct mail and email newsletters to your friends – be they urban or rural – which explain your case for a progressive America. Change moderates and liberals into progressives and Democratic socialists.

Sanders awakened a progressive energy which was dormant for the time that President Obama has been in office. But that energy must now be flexed to change America for the foreseeable future. Our lives, our quality of life, our peace, our social justice, and our environment depend on what we do after this convention.

Let’s do the work.

Just thought about this:

Ethics are definitely an issue post-#DNCleak but there is no previous code of conduct that I can find to suppress perceived bias among party strategists and activists toward candidates, campaign staff and elected officials.

Rhetoric and ill intent among the top activists of the party during a nomination contest is what everyone’s rightfully angry about. But there is no prior standard for party activist behavior to measure these emails up against, so the resignation of DWS is simply a sop to both media and in-party activists after the fact. How do we measure (im)partiality?

DNC activists need an activist code of ethics/code of conduct to measure future perceptions of bias or outright (non-illegal) misconduct. Is anyone even advocating for this at #DNCinPhilly/ #DNCinPHL?

Or what about ya’ll? What do you think should go into a DNC (or any party’s) code of ethics?

Hold Fire on Donna Brazile

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Bernie supporters are already coming for #DonnaBrazile for saying that she’ll “cuss out” Sanders personally in the emails. Because of this, she’s now being called “corrupt”.

So because Donna uses curse words, Bernie supporters are mad at her? But her apology to Sanders for the “stupidity” in the #DNCleaks is not accepted?

You know who else is coming for Donna Brazile? Trump supporters on Twitter, with their “fat black woman” and “affirmative action” comments and “MOLON LABE/MAGA” in their profile.

Can’t please everyone. But it now smacks of racism, misogyny and hurt feelings over “classiness”. And the reaction against Brazile is typical of the flimsy definition of the word “corruption”.

Bernie got the scalp he explicitly wanted: that of DWS. The emails don’t show Brazile conspiring to undermine Sanders’ campaign, even in her personal mild disdain for the campaign.

Bernie people, “Basta”. This is embarrassing. We have a better DNC chair. Let’s move on.

Donna Brazile

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Donna Brazile should stay as long-term chair, IMO. Her resume without ever having held elected office:

  • Lobbied heavily to get MLK Day recognized as a federal holiday
  • Volunteered for Carter-Mondale in 1976 and 1980 as a teenager
  • first African-American woman to manage a major party presidential campaign (Al Gore, 2000)
  • Served as Chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Voting Rights Institute (2001-2009)
  • Previously interimed as chair between Kaine and Wasserman-Schultz in 2011
  • DNC Vice Chair of Voter Registration and Participation since 2009
  • Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government
  • Adjunct Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Georgetown University
  • Second African-American to serve in a chairship capacity since the late Ron Brown (1989-1993)
  • Brought up the issue of George H.W. Bush’s alleged extramarital affair which got her fired from Dukakis’ campaign in 1988, but which was later used by Bill Clinton (irony?) against the elder Bush in 1992.
  • Was instrumental in penalizing Florida and Michigan’s Democratic parties for moving their primaries against DNC rules in 2008.
  • Member of the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Recovery Authority under Governor Blanco (2005-2009)
  • Says what she feels: “Look, I’m a woman, so I like Hillary. I’m black; I like Obama. But I’m also grumpy, so I like John McCain.” (2008)
  • Arguably the most powerful woman in the DNC for years.
  • NOT A POLITICIAN. HELLO?!