The gift of an "empty box" -- Senate passes hollow apology for slavery and segregation (S.Con.Res.26)

Press release from the office of U.S. Representative Bobby L. Rush (IL-01), on the meaning of the Senate's passage of S. Con. Res. 26, "A concurrent resolution apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African Americans":

[T]hough today the U.S. Senate adopted a resolution offering a formal national apology for slavery and the era of “separate but equal” Jim Crow laws that followed, the legislation stops drastically short at helping to repair the “centuries of economic and social damage” to generations of African Americans.

Rush said because S.CON.RES. 26 does not include the force of law, the gesture may fall on deaf ears when so many African-Americans remain trapped in systemic poverty and suffer from acute health problems due to a lack of access of quality health care. “Blacks in this country have suffered centuries of economic and social exploitation and while this resolution is noted for the spirit in which it was drafted, it falls short in addressing the systemic issues impacting African American communities as a direct result of racial segregation and economic injustice due to racism.

“The resolution further adds insult to injury by including a disclaimer against reparations, “he said. “This can be likened to a child unwrapping Christmas present only to find an empty box.” The non-binding resolution, which does not have the force of law, includes a disclaimer stating that the measure does not authorize or support reparations for the descendants of African slaves brought to the United States before the Civil War.

Also, today, Congressman Rush released a letter to President Barack Obama days before the president will travel to Ghana in what will be his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa since being elected the nation’s highest officer. “I strongly encourage you to expand the commitment of the United States with Sub-Saharan Africa,” he wrote. “Our interest should far transcend the humanitarian concerns that have frequently underpinned U.S. engagement with the continent. Economic development, natural resource management, human security, capacity building and global stability as well as traditional humanitarian assistance are inextricably linked.”

Arizona legislators want unlawful presence to be a felony crime

From an interview with Jennifer Allen, executive director of Border Action Network, on legislative developments in Arizona.

Arizona’s ‘False Leadership’ on Immigration Policy - New American Media

What would the Illegal Aliens Enforcement and Trespassing bill entail?

It has two components to it. The first part is that the bill would prohibit any city, country or town of the state of Arizona to adopt any kind of policy that would limit the enforcement of federal immigration laws to the full extent permitted by federal law.

In the legislature, they’ve been talking about this as trying to attack these so-called sanctuary cities in the state of Arizona, of which there are none. At all. We have a couple of police departments around the state, Tucson, Phoenix, Chandler, that have police policies that provide protections to victims and witnesses of crimes, that if they are undocumented, immigration will not be called.

The other piece of the bill – I think it would be the first one in the country – would say that anyone who is on public or private land in the state of Arizona could be charged with a felony, with criminal trespass, if they cannot prove that they are in the country legally.

Essentially it would become this statewide racial profiling law, where law enforcement sees somebody who, completely based on their appearance, they think may not be in the country legally, they can go up and ask them to prove their lawful presence in the country. And if they can’t prove it, the state can then charge them with criminal trespass.

What are the arguments behind this bill?

There are two really disturbing and shameful statements. One is that Russell Pearce thinks that the Border Patrol is simply too effective. They pick people up, and then they’re so promptly deported that they never serve any time in the state of Arizona. So he wants people to be picked up and sent off to Joe Arpaio’s tent cities or other county or city jails, and then handed over to immigration. And last year, the Phoenix Police Officers’ Association had said that they liked this bill because it would give them “preventative police powers.”

SB 1175, as grossly unconstitutional as it seems -– I mean it kind of destroys the notion of probable cause for stopping and questioning people -- this bill is moving quickly through the legislature. It was heard in Committee on the 10th, and by the 15th it passed the entire Senate and was passed over to the House.

Economic crisis yields support for Legal Services funding -- but not for prisoners and undocumented immigrants

Legal Services Corporation Changes Introduced | OMB Watch

On March 26, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced the Civil Access to Justice Act of 2009 (S. 718) that ends the LSC restrictions on the use of non-federal funds, except those related to abortion litigation. "Lifting these restrictions allows individual states, cities and donors the ability to determine themselves how best to spend non-federal funds to ensure access to the courts," said Harkin. The bill also seeks to increase the LSC budget from $390 million to $750 million.

According to a Harkin  press release, the Civil Access to Justice Act would remove "many of the restrictions currently placed on legal tools that LSC-funded attorneys can use to represent their clients. [. . .] In the spirit of compromise, the bill does maintain the prohibition on abortion related litigation as well as many of the limits on whom LSC-funded programs can represent, including undocumented immigrants (with limited exceptions such as victims of domestic violence), prisoners challenging prison conditions and people charged with illegal drug possession in public housing eviction proceedings." The measure would also create a program to expand law school clinics.

On April 7, the Brennan Center for Justice released a fact sheet that shows how the LSC restrictions harm foreclosure prevention efforts. Homeowners who are losing their homes to foreclosure are in need of legal help, yet the legal services available to them are limited and underfunded. The fact sheet details accounts of ordinary Americans and how the LSC restrictions have impacted homeowners in their struggle to keep their homes.

During this time of economic recession, there appears to be strong public support for legal services.  Reportedly, two-thirds of those polled on behalf of the American Bar Association said they favor federal funding for people who need legal assistance.

A Washington Post editorial on March 14 went even further. It asked lawmakers to "unshackle Legal Services from congressionally-imposed restrictions that have kept it from working more efficiently and broadly." For example, unlike most others who represent plaintiffs, Legal Services lawyers who prevail in a civil case are prohibited from seeking legal fees from an opponent. The editorial also called for support of the Harkin bill.

Zionism, Manifest Destiny, and the stake of Black House Reps

Speaking of the woven projects of American Manifest Destiny and Israeli Zionism, the Black Agenda Report's Glen Ford takes note of where African Americans are situated in such obviously racist politics. Ford scrutinizes the roles played by Black Congressional Caucus members in the passing of a House resolution supporting Israeli's war in Gaza.
Glen Ford: Sullying Dr. King's Legacy

Could it be that Los Angeles Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Milwaukee's Gwen Moore are the only Black Caucus members who remember that Israel was racist South Africa's closest ally, the apartheid regime's hi-tech weapons quartermaster and godfather to its nuclear bomb project? Do the seven members that voted "present" - Donna Edwards (MD), Keith Ellison (MN), Hank Johnson (GA), Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI), Barbara Lee (CA), Donald Payne (NJ), Diane Watson (CA) - believe that by refusing to take a position on Israeli crimes against humanity in Gaza, they somehow salvage the Caucus's claim to be the "conscience of the Congress?"

Where has John Conyers' conscience disappeared to?

**** The Zionist ideology, and especially the chilling effect of Zionist power, is probably the second-greatest impediment to creation of a sustained American peace movement - the first obstacle being the ideology of American Manifest Destiny, which is in practice quite compatible with Zionism.

However, African Americans are least susceptible to the Manifest Destiny/Zionist Mythology combo. Both ideologies wreak of racism, and most Black people know it. The Congressional Black Caucus knows it, too, but they are terrified of offending Israel's innumerable political hit men.

Zionist power helped knock off two CBC members who refused to tow Tel Aviv's line, in 2002. Georgia's Cynthia McKinney and Alabama's Earl Hilliard found themselves heavily outspent and ultimately unseated by otherwise puny challengers in Democratic primary contests. AIPAC bragged of its ability to shut down independent-minded Black politicians who fail to understand that U.S. foreign policy is shaped by whatever is deemed good for Israel. Bullying works, especially against the meek. Except for Maxine Waters and Gwen Moore, the Congressional Black Caucus is out of the anti-war business.

That also goes for the Congressional Progressive Caucus which, with 71 members, claims to be the "single largest partisan caucus" in the U.S. House, but whose members voted overwhelmingly in support of Israeli barbarity. About two-thirds of the voting members of the Black Caucus also belong to the Progressive Caucus - meaning, they are members of two defunct organizations, and doubly useless to the cause of peace.

New Study Finds Race Not Deciding Factor on Prop. 8 same-sex marriage ban

via RaceWire... any interesting parsing of the Prop. 8 vote and subsequent uproar that people of color tipped the scale against the more egalitarian white communities of California. basically, the academics are saying it's not race, it's religion! this sounds obvious enough, if you care to look at how homophobic politics are propagated. unfortunately, a lot of disheartened folks chose not to look that deeply. challenging religious institutions, rather than blaming othered people of color, is a more unifying and pragmatic strategy.

New Study Finds Race Not Deciding Factor on Prop. 8 same-sex marriage ban | RaceWire

Terry Keleher
New Study Finds Race Not Deciding Factor on Prop. 8 same-sex marriage ban

A new study released this week finds that neither African Americans nor any other ethnicity were disproportionately in support of Proposition 8, which amended California’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

Some of the key findings of the study, co-authored by Patrick Eagan at New York University and Kenneth Sherill at Hunter College and released under the auspices of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute, include:

• The way someone voted on the ballot measure was influenced mostly by the person’s age, religiosity, party affiliation and general political ideology.

• Though post-election media reporting pegged African American support for Prop. 8 as high as 70 percent, this study found the actual number to be between 57 and 59 percent.

• The level of support for the initiative by African Americans exceeded that of white and Asian American voters, but the study attributes this to religiousity more than race because 57 percent of African Americans attend church at least once a week, compared with 42 percent of whites and 40 percent of Asian Americans.

The study may take some of the edge off of the racial wedge, but it doesn’t lessen the necessary work that lies ahead for building a lot more bridges across LGBT, racial and religious communities--starting especially with where these communities already intersect.

In response to the study, the Chicago Tribute reports that the Rev. Mark Wilson, of Oakland, a former pastor of Berkeley's McGee Avenue Baptist Church and currently the outreach coordinator for the African-American activist group And Marriage for All said it's time to "redouble our work with people of faith" and suggests building long-term relationships between African-American churches and the LGBT community.

Download the Egan-Sherrill study

Blaming people of color instead of multinational financiers

Pundits (Coulter, Cavuto, Dobbs, etc.) have been pointing the public's attention away from banks and financiers as the US and world economies continue to flounder. they have targeted the Community Reinvestment Act (1977) as the point of origin for the mortgage crisis and are blaming everyone from Barack Obama to work-a-day folks who "have[] a good jump shot" (Ann Coulter's words...). wonder what she was coding there!

these conservative free-marketeer pundits have a lot in common with the financial experts and advisors who have run the 'developing world' into massive, generational debt. if the favored financial system is ruining a country, they seem to suggest, then blame the poor dark-skinned people, not the financiers.

Ed Morales, at The Progressive, answers back:


Bailout blame game unfairly targets minorities

But that line of thinking is extremely flawed.

First, since the Community Reinvestment Act was crafted over 30 years ago, why is it that only now subprime mortgages have created a crisis?

Second, most of the disastrous subprime loans were made by mortgage brokers and disreputable lenders unregulated by the Community Reinvestment Act.

Third, white and affluent borrowers took out 58 percent of higher-cost loans, with blacks and Latinos accounting for 18 percent each, according to data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act

Terror watchlist "upgrade" is "imploding," legislator says

Need another reason to oppose "watchlists," besides racial profiling? The Bush Admin has bungled everything from the administration to the coding. Caught this on slashdot, sourcing from ars technica:

Terror watchlist "upgrade" is "imploding," legislator says
By Julian Sanchez
| Published: August 25, 2008 - 12:03PM CT

The database used to produce the government's terror watch lists is "crippled by technical flaws," according to the chairman of a House technology oversight subcommittee—and the system designed to replace it may be even worse.

In a letter to the inspector general at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence last week, Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) complained that the National Counterterrorism Center's "Railhead" initiative, designed to upgrade the government's master database of suspected terrorists, "if actually deployed will leave our country more vulnerable than the existing yet flawed system in operation today."

Miller, who chairs the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee, cited "severe technical troubles, poor contractor management, and weak government oversight," which he said had brought the Railhead program to the "verge of collapse."

The NCTC's Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, established pursuant to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, is the government's centralized master database of people with suspected terror links. Containing some half a million names, it is used to create more specific watchlists used by other government agencies, such as the Transportation Security Administration's much-derided "no-fly" list.

LA Gov. Jindal Won't Renew Non-Discrimination Ban

GLAAD: Louisiana Gov. Won't Renew Non-Discrimination Ban

Louisiana’s Governor Bobby Jindal announced that he will not renew Louisiana’s anti-discrimination law, enacted in 2004 by executive order by former Governor Kathleen Blanco. The order banned discrimination in government employment, providing government services and in government contracts with private companies. Under the order, private businesses contracting with the state also needed inclusive non-discrimination policies. Blanco’s executive order added sexual orientation to the categories race, religion, gender, national origin, political affiliation, and disability.

The comrades over at PassTheRoti posted a succinct response: "How do you spell a$$hole? J-I-N-D-A-L."

Tell your Congressperson to cosponsor the Paid Family Leave Bill!

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1768/t/5365/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25313

Tell your Congressperson to cosponsor the Paid Family Leave Bill!