Today, in Milwaukee, President Barack Obama delivered a powerful speech on the economy. Below is a small portion of his speech. For the full speech, click this C-Span link. The President announced his plan to rebuild American's transportation infrastructure. Over the next six years, under the $50 billion stimulus plan, Obama will rebuild 150,000 miles of roads, lay and maintain 4,000 miles of railways and restore 150 miles of airport runways. The goals of the plan include creating jobs, stimulate the economy and building the world's best infrastructure.
Obama's post-partisan campaign rhetoric is long gone. Thank goodness! The gloves are off and the fight is on! It was refreshing to hear President Obama challenge the Republicans' obstructionism and failed economic ideas. Obama asserted, "When it comes to just about everything that we've done to strengthen our middle class and rebuild our economy, almost every Republican in Congress says no...If I said the sky is blue, they would say no. If I said fish live in the sea, they would say no...They think it is better to score political points than to solve problems....Their slogan is No We Can't...." Quoting the late U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy, Obama asked, "What is it about working men and women that they [Republicans] find so offensive?" He went on to diss U.S. Rep. John Boehner as "the Republican who thinks he is going to take over as Speaker." Obama blasted the Bush tax cuts and the Republicans' "you're on your own" philosophy.
The President's speech was totally awesome. However, results are more important. Despite the passage of the first stimulus plan, the unemployment rate remains high at 9.6 percent. For African Americans, the unemployment rate is much higher. Hopefully, this new proposal will be successful.
When humanity has the necessary vision and determination, we can transform the impossible into a tangible reality. Africans were enslaved in America and considered chattel property. After slavery, African Americans were subjected to the brutal oppression of the Jim Crow era. Today, the most powerful man of earth is an African American named President Barack Obama. In the 1990s, Apartheid ended and political prisoner Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa. For the most part, the conflict in Ireland has ended and peace reigns. The Berlin Wall came tumbling down. The Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War has ended. Recently, combat troops left Iraq. Similarly, there can and must be peace in Palestine and Israel. In the words of John Lennon, we must "give peace a chance". Failure cannot be an option.
This past weekend marked the 47th anniversary of the great 1963 March on Washington where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech. The Nation’s Capitol hosted two major demonstrations, Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally and Rev. Al Sharpton’s Reclaim the Dream March.
Glenn Beck held his Restoring Honor rally on the Washington mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the same location where King gave his famous I Have a Dream speech. For the most part, there were no political signs, no political speeches, and no guns. However, I noticed a few “Don’t Tread on Me” flags. Making a thinly veiled swipe at the Obama Administration, Sarah Palin voiced opposition to efforts to "fundamentally transform" America. The rally was a strange mix of extreme patriotism and evangelical revivalism. To create the illusion of diversity, there were quite a few token African American speakers and singers. However, the overwhelming majority of the participants were white.
Despite Beck’s efforts to describe the date as a coincidence, according to Salt Lake City Tribune writer Leonard Pitts’s article titled Memo to Glenn Beck, Beck said, on this radio program three months ago,
“This is a moment that I think we reclaim the civil rights movement. It has been so distorted and so turned upside down. ... We are on the right side of history. We are on the side of individual freedoms and liberties and damn it, we will reclaim the civil rights moment. We will take that movement, because we were the people that did it in the first place!”
Consequently, Beck’s rally has generated a lot of controversy. The date and location are peculiar because Beck and his Tea Party comrades are opposed to most of aims and objectives of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. King sought to unite all people regardless of race. Beck, Palin and other Tea Party public figures divide the people with their vitriolic rhetoric and incessant race baiting. For instance, Beck described President Obama as someone who has “a deep seated hatred for white people.” He also described America during this Obama era as “Planet of the Apes”. Sarah Palin has been at the forefront of the racist, Islamophobic opposition to the building of a Muslim cultural center two blocks away from ground zero. After Dr. Laura Schlissinger’s racist “N” word rant, Sarah Palin advised Schlissinger via Twitter “don’t retreat…reload!”
Dr. King urged the federal government to actively address the problems of racism and poverty. Beck and friends advocate for a limited government and support tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. During his interview on Fox News Sunday, Glenn Beck acknowledged that he opposes the Civil Rights Movement’s economic agenda. Dr. King was a man of peace who opposed American imperialism and militarism. Beck and friends romanticize militarism and drape it in the garb of exaggerated patriotism. Dr. King advocated progressive liberation theology. Beck condemns such theology.
If King, Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph and the other prominent 1963 March on Washington organizers were alive today, Beck and Palin would call them Marxists and socialists. As others have said, such civil rights heroes would be on Beck’s conspiracy chalk board.
Moreover, right wing conservatives like Glenn Beck have revised history to suit their political purposes. They have reduced Dr. King and the Movement down to a single phrase, “judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” The Right has attempted to neuter and, in the words of Cornel West, Santa Clausify Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Under the guise of creating a color blind society, some conservatives have used that "content of character" phrase to eviserate everything that King stood for. In their upside down bizarre world, white men are the victims and African Americans are the racists. Affirmative action and other measures designed to promote racial diversity are viewed as reverse discrimination.
Unfortunately, the Restoring Honor rally will legitimize Glenn Beck and the far right Tea Party movement. The crowd size speaks volumes. Apparently, hundreds of thousands of people participated in the Restoring Honor rally. Like rapper Jay Z says, “man lie, women lie, numbers don’t.”
Now, to end on a more positive note, I also watched Rev. Al Sharpton’s “Reclaim the Dream” rally. The central theme was: “We have made progress but we have not arrived yet.” Other speakers included National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial, NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous, U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C. Adrian Fenty, Warren Ballantine , Black Farmers Association leader John Boyd, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan and others.
The “Reclaim the Dream” speakers addressed a wide array of pertinent issues including poverty, inner city violence, mass incarceration, unemployment, educational and D.C. statehood. During the rally, John Boyd pointed out how approximately 80,000 black farmers filed race discrimination complaints against the United States Department of Agriculture and no one was fired. However, Shirley Sherrod was fired on the spot based on half-truths and distortions. Mr. Ballantine summed up my view the rally when said, “A dream without a plan is nothing more than a wish.” As Sharpton stated during his speech, the Reclaim the Dream rally cannot just be a one day event.
Judging by the size of Beck's crowd, they are apparently ready and organized to “take the country back.” Commemorations are great, but the real question is “are we ready and sufficiently organized to move this country forward”?
The proposed construction of a Muslim community center two long blocks away from ground zero has exposed and unleashed a rabid new wave of anti-Muslim hatred. Without doubt, the opposition to the mosque is rooted in prejudice and hate. Essentially, the opposition views all Muslims as terrorists or potential terrorists. That is primary reason why they oppose building a mosque near ground zero.
The opposition to building mosques is not confined to the area near ground zero. For instance, as noted in the New York Times article by Laurie Goodstein titled Across the Nation, Mosque Projects Meet Opposition,
In Murfreesboro, Tenn., Republican candidates have denounced plans for a large Muslim center proposed near a subdivision, and hundreds of protesters have turned out for a march and a county meeting.
In late June, in Temecula, Calif., members of a local Tea Party group took dogs and picket signs to Friday prayers at a mosque that is seeking to build a new worship center on a vacant lot nearby.
In Sheboygan, Wis., a few Christian ministers led a noisy fight against a Muslim group that sought permission to open a mosque in a former health food store bought by a Muslim doctor.
In addition to protests against the building of mosques, there are other examples of anti-Muslim hatred. For example, one church plans to hold a Quranburning ceremony on September 11, 2010. Moreover, as pointed out on the Rachel Maddow Show, the hate group Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE) seeks to outlaw Islam in America.
This hatred is also reflected in polls. According to TIME magazine’s poll,
61% of respondents oppose the construction of the Park51/Cordoba House project, compared with 26% who support it. More than 70% concur with the premise that proceeding with the plan would be an insult to the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Twenty-eight percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Nearly one-third of the country thinks adherents of Islam should be barred from running for President....
The discussion centering around President Obama’s faith is another example of anti-Muslim hatred. Many view being a Muslim as a blot on one's character. For instance, President Obama has been forced to repeatedly explain that he is a Christian and not a Muslim. Nonetheless, many Americans remain unconvinced. Shortly after the President voiced support for building a mosque near ground zero, the Pew Research Center released the results of a national survey. According to the survey,
[N]early one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. Only about one-third of adults (34%) say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48% in 2009. Fully 43% say they do not know what Obama’s religion is. The survey was completed in early August, before Obama’s recent comments about the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center. The view that Obama is a Muslim is more widespread among his political opponents than among his backers. Roughly a third of conservative Republicans (34%) say Obama is a Muslim, as do 30% of those who disapprove of Obama’s job performance. But even among many of his supporters and allies, less than half now say Obama is a Christian. Among Democrats, for instance, 46% say Obama is a Christian, down from 55%in March 2009.
Frankly, as Muslim, I find this anti-Muslim trend to be frightening because it is not just coming from the lunatic fringe. Mainstream politician politicians such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Republican Governor Sarah Palin and Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio joined the hateful chorus. Newt Gingrich compared Muslims to Nazis. Some hypocritical politicians like Republican New York gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio are actually pimping the 9/11 tragedy to score political points. Under pressure from the anti-Muslim right, feeble Democrats such as U.S. Senator Harry Reid and former Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean have capitulated and now oppose the building of the Muslim community center.
It is particularly disturbing to see victims of discrimination embrace this new form of antisemitism. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has a long and distinguished history of fighting discrimination. Yet, ADL issued a press statement opposing construction of the Muslim community center. I was shocked to learn that even some prominent black bloggers have jumped on the hate Muslims bandwagon.
In his New York Times Op-Ed titled Too Long Ignored, Bob Herbert writes:
The Schott Foundation for Public Education tells us in a new report that the on-time high school graduation rate for black males in 2008 was an abysmal 47 percent, and even worse in several major urban areas — for example, 28 percent in New York City.
The astronomical jobless rates for black men in inner-city neighborhoods are both mind-boggling and heartbreaking. There are many areas where virtually no one has a legitimate job.
More than 70 percent of black children are born to unwed mothers. And I’ve been hearing more and more lately from community leaders in poor areas that moms are absent for one reason or another and the children are being raised by a grandparent or some other relative — or they end up in foster care.
Black men, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, have nearly a one-third chance of being incarcerated at some point in their lives. By the time they hit their mid-30s, a solid majority of black men without a high school diploma have spent time in prison.
Homicide is the leading cause of death for young black men, with the murderous wounds in most cases inflicted by other young black men.
White families are typically five times as wealthy as black families. More than a third of all black children are growing up in poverty. In Ohio, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty, the percentage is more than half.
The aspect of this crisis that is probably the most important and simultaneously the most difficult to recognize is that the heroic efforts needed to alleviate it will not come from the government or the wider American society. This is a job that will require a campaign on the scale of the civil rights movement, and it will have to be initiated by the black community.
During the Civil Rights Movement, the problem was easier to identify and target. Through sustained demonstrations, litigation and legislation, we were able to break the chains of the oppressive Jim Crow era. Similarly, today, it is easy to demonstrate against high profile incidents of police brutality. It is easy to boycott or condemn modern manifestations of blatant racism such as the rantings of Don Imus, Glenn Beck or Dr. Laura Schlissinger.
However, Bob Herbert's call to action is a far greater challenge. Every weekend, I hear about another shooting in Baltimore. Such violence is the norm in Baltimore, D.C., Detroit, Philadelphia, Newark, Chicago, Gary and other major inner cities. The other weekend, 12 young African Americans were shot by other African Americans in Baltimore. We can march in the streets until our feet fall off. Will that stop the drugs and guns from flooding the inner cities? Will marches and prayer vigils ever stop young brothers and sisters from shooting and killing each other? Will lawsuits increase the black high school graduation rates? Will legislation force fathers to raise and guide their own children? Of course not.
To address these problems, some activists have advocated for more mentoring programs. Others have urged religious institutions to play a more significant role in community. Unfortunately, such efforts alone will not remedy our myriad of problems. Such problems stem from entrenched, institutionalized racism and structural inequality.
Yesterday, Dr. Laura Schlissinger announced on Larry King Live that she is ending her radio show because she "wants to regain her First Amendment rights." Dr. Laura said that she wants to be able to say what is on her mind and in her heart without someone getting angry and attacking her affiliates and sponsors. She went on to whine about how her First Amendment rights are being usurped by angry groups that want to eliminate and not debate. Although she acknowledged that she was wrong for repeatedly using the "n" word, Dr. Laura attempted to justify her actions by claiming that she "wasn't dissing anyone".
During the show, Dr. Laura admitted that her sponsors Netflix, Motel 6, Onstar and Advance Auto Parts withdrew their support from the program following her "n" word rant. However, she claimed that her program gained sponsors as well. Who are they?
It is worth noting that renown African American linguist and conservative John McWhorter essentially supports Dr. Laura. In his article on the Root, he actually wishes that Dr. Laura did not apologize. Mr. McWhorter contends that Dr. Laura's African American critics failed to make the distinction between an assertion and a quotation. Contrary to Mr. McWhorter's claims, Dr. Laura was not simply quoting the "n" word. She said the "n" word over 11 times. Her racial insensitivity was on full display. Throughout her conversation with the caller, Dr. Laura repeatedly and dismissively described African Americans as "hypersensitive". She went on to say that maybe such "hypersensitive" people should not marry outside of their own race. She further asserted that African Americans voted for Barack Obama solely based on his race and not based on the issues. Clearly, she was expressing racial animus.
For those reasons, I salute Media Matters for launching the boycott. I commend Dr. Laura's sponsors for pulling from the program. Although Dr. Laura has a First Amendment right to use offensive and racist words, her critics have the same First Amendment right and responsibility to express their outrage. Good riddance Dr. Laura! At least for now.
Today, in Milwaukee, President Barack Obama delivered a powerful speech on the economy. Below is a small portion of his speech. For the full speech, click this C-Span link. The President announced his plan to rebuild American's transportation infrastructure. Over the next six years, under the $50 billion stimulus plan, Obama will rebuild 150,000 miles of roads, lay and maintain 4,000 miles of railways and restore 150 miles of airport runways. The goals of the plan include creating jobs, stimulate the economy and building the world's best infrastructure.