DISQUS

I agree this is a good idea, and I hope he will do something about the DNC's 50-state Jim Crow all-white state blogger pool.


I know that Barack Obama has won by reaching out to and valuing Black people and whites and Latinos around the country, so I don't believe he will tolerate a 50-state blogger program at the Convention that has 53 whites and MAYBE two people who are not white.



Or maybe he'll just create a parallel program that institutionalizes the participation of Black blog in the same way that the 50-state program floor blog program institutionalizes the participation of 55 virtually all-white blogs.



Anyway, this is a great time in American history for those of us who have always wanted to see the end of the 43-term white male monopoly of the presidency.

Well, we know that although they only have two links to Black blogs our of a hundred over at MyDD, still they insist that they are color-blind. Yeah, they're color-blind: they only see white! But, in this presidential election, White Bloggers' Ignorance Isn't Hillary's Bliss!

Correction: The AfroSpear in the News widget now puts links to Jack and Jill Politics' latest two CNN appearances on the side bars of 69 AfroSpear and other blogs.


The more that blogs adopt this AfroSpear in the News widget, the more access Black people, the news media and government will have to your appearances on CNN, today and even years afterward, through the archives of AfroSpear in the News.

Great work, folks! It was only one sentence but it summed up the problem: the war will never end unless we elect a Democrat in the fall, and if the war doesn't end then the cost of the war taxes the American people every day of the week.


I'm going to put links to these articles in AfroSpear in the News, whose widgets will put these links on the homepages of a couple dozen blogs, at least until another AfroSpear blogger hits the mainstream media.



It's great to see that Black folks finally have some representation on these news shows. I was always pleased to see Jesse Jackson on the news, but it's nice to demonstrate that Black people have a much deeper bench than just one politician.



Thanks again for the support with the Day of Blogging for Voter Justice and the "Concede Now, Hillary!" petition!

I think the point Black bloggers have wanted to emphasize is that we DO NOT SUPPORT Hillary Clinton. The why's of it have been misrepresented, but the super-delegates know that no Democratic nominee can win in the fall without a dramatic turnout by Black voters.


Black bloggers are telling - warning - the super-delegates, that Hillary Clinton cannot and will not get that necessary Black turnout, because, in spite of what the CBC is doing, Black VOTERS no longer want Hillary Clinton to be president.



The CBC can say whatever it wants on CNN, but the media and the super-delegates know that the CBC members are only going to cast 40 votes among millions in November. If the narrative is that Blacks oppose Hillary Clinton, then we have achieved our objective, even if the reason for our opposition is misrepresented, as we almost always ARE misrepresented on television.



The CBC had better watch out in future elections. We Blacks understand that CBC members are in the minority in the US Congress and so they can't change the world all by themselves.



However, CBC super-delegates have a lot of power in the selection of the Democratic nominee. If they use this power in a way that most Blacks perceive as being contrary to our interests, this may well catalyze a movement against CBC members more than any other obscure vote they could have taken. And CNN won't be able to save their butts come election time. Black voters are NOT going to forget the super-delegates who support Hillary Clinton against Barack Obama.

Great post, and I just sent something similar as an action alert to everyone I know in the afrosphere. Let's all write to Donna Brazile to thank her for taking a position against Hillary's scorched Black earth politics.


Specifically, Hillary was criticizing Pastor Jeremiah Wright and saying that Obama should have disowned his pastor, so then Donna Brazile pointed out that the Black pastors, including Wright, who met with Clinton in the White House during the impeachment proceedings didn't disavow Bill Clinton over his marital infidelity and oral sex in the Oval Office. So, the Clintons ought not be so quick and disloyal to abandon Pastor Wright now.



As someone said of the Clintons, they're right there for you when they need you!



Since Donna Brazile's an uncommitted super-delegate, the Clintons are not at liberty to dismiss her, the way they dismiss all other Black voters. So, let's write to Donna Brazile ( info@brazileassociates.com ) and thank her for defending Black people and the Black church. And let's ask her to take a more public role in favor of the candidate who has the most earned delegates, the most popular vote and the most states won, and who can best bring the country together to win Republican states and the presidency: Barack Obama.



Thanks for leading the way forward on this, Baratunde!

Thanks for your participation and collaboration, Baratunde, Jill . . . Like Obama said once, Hillary's a determined fighter and it's going to take a knock-out to get her out of the ring. That knock-out may well come from super-delegates, as they realize that party members like us simply are not going to co-sign Hillary's bull-crap - now or in November.


I'm going to say what I've learned over the past couple of days: Hillary Clinton has repeatedly told a bold-faced lie about her trip to Bosnia, inventing false dangers overseas to convince us that only she can protect us.



Who does that sound like? What other lies would Clinton tell in an effort to build political support for herself? What other lies would we discover only afterward to be complete fabrications for the purpose of manipulating the public?



I've learned some things about Hillary Clinton in the last three months that I never though I'd learn. The manipulative politics that I thought she'd only use against the Republicans are becoming the guns that she has turned against the most loyal members of her own party.



Unlike her husband's administration, Hillary doesn't seem to understand the difference between creative spin based on real facts that can be verified, versus absurd and embarrassing fabrications that anyone can disprove (Bosnia arrival) just by reading Hillary's own schedule or viewing the news footage. She done!



Hillary would make a good presidential candidate for the Republican Party, with her Willie Horton tactics and her lies that create foreign dangers (Bosnia tarmac) out of whole-cloth. (She might even join Lieberman now, and run as a (Republican) Independent at some time in the future, like Lieberman did when he was beaten for the Democratic nomination.) But Clinton can never and is never going to make a Democratic president of the United States.

If you're sick and tired of Billary & Co., and their demeaning attitude toward Obama and all Blacks, then sign the "Concede Now, Hillary!" petition and blog about this on the "Day of Blogging for Voter Justice", on Tuesday, March 25.


Also, please consider putting a powerful "Concede Now, Hillary!" widget on your blog, to direct people to the "Concede Now, Hillary!" petition.



This is the campaign being organized by the Afrosphere Action Committee that produced the Jena March. We need your participation, to show that Blacks are not going to take this lying down.

I'm stunned by what Ferraro said. It seems like something one would read in a white nationalist magazine rather than hear from a Democratic Party leader.

Great discussion! I'm tired of and disappointed with Hillary's act as well.


I must admit that I do feel sorry for her, because I know how hard she has worked to get herself to this point, in spite of the systemic barriers. But she has cross what for me is a bright line in terms of her treatment of what was actually her most loyal constituency. She's forfeited an indispensable part of her base.



I hope that she and all American politicians learn a new lesson from this experience. We're doing a noble job when we help them to learn that lesson, even if it's a hard one for her this time around.

"when you use social capitol as a black person to legitimize the use of race and racism to derail a black candidate, you disgrace yourself."


I agree it's time for people who do this to retire or be retired. It's time for a new era Black leadership that understands more clearly what Black people want today, as opposed to what we were compelled to accept yesterday.

I agree that Obama should reject public financing and let the donors decide how much money will be available for his campaign. I just don't want to see him handicapped, and I know that the Republicans will spending millions to defeat him through 527's and other methods.


Just the overwhelming predominance of white men as commentators on talk shows, for example, serves as an indirect corporate subsidy for the white male supremacy paradigm from which John McCain will benefit as the candidate of the paradigm. It subtly shapes people's perceptions of who "should" be involved in political discourse and Barack Obama must change those perceptions to be successful politically.



Considering that Obama is running against an unbroken 43-term string of white male presidencies and vice presidencies, there will never be a truly level playing field in this election and so he has to maintain every asset he can possibly have in his favor.

I've decided to vote for Barack Obama for a number of very strenuously considered reasons:


1) If I don't vote for Obama, then the forces of white male supremacy may convince the Clintons to put Edwards on the ticket instead of Obama, even though the public has expressed ten times more desire to have Obama in the Oval Office government than Edwards.



Edwards said, "It's amazing being the white man . . . because I can go anywhere in America and compete . . . " Well, I reject that kind of thinking and I don't want that kind of thinking to determine who the president is or who the vice president is. That thinking is a perfect example of the white male supremacy paradigm.



I have to vote for Obama to show support for him in his struggle against the white male supremacy paradigm, and to make sure that if he doesn't win the presidency he will get the consideration he deserves for the vice presidency.



2) A vote for Hillary is a vote for color-aroused campaigns against Black elected officials who seek higher office. As much as I respect Bill and Hill, they must not be rewarded for appealing to color-aroused stereotypes in the efforts to win the nomination.



If Bill and Hillary win then the nation will conclude that color-aroused appeals still work against Blacks in elections. If they lose, then people will say that color-aroused appeals are dead, which might become a self-fulfilling prophecy.



3) I know that the Clintons could do a good job in many ways, but Obama might do a much better job in ways that we don't even suspect yet. Based on his history and the Clinton's history, Barack would be less likely to put more Blacks in jail in an attempt to appeal to white color-antagonistic voters.



In general, Barack Obama's election might do more to put color-aroused thinking and behavior to bed than would the nomination of a hundred Black Clinton appointees in a Clinton Administration.



The Black Clinton appointees and would-be who know the Clintons the best are supporting Obama, like Deval Patrick Lani Guenier.



4) If Clinton cannot win the election without color-aroused appeals (and she seems to think she can't) then she doesn't deserve to win at all.Billary & Co's Color-Aroused Stereotyping Angers and Alienates Democrats



However, I believe it might take both Clinton and Obama on the Democratic ticket to beat the Republicans in the fall. Clinton and/or Obama will be running in the fall not against individual Republican opponents but against the whole white male supremacy paradigm. That fight will require an united front among the Democrats, if only to assure that Democrats frustrated in the primaries don't flee to the Republican ticket.

Very few people are talking about Obama's "Blackness" and everyone is talking about his "race". Do these words mean the same thing, or does one of these words put Obama at a disadvantage? Although focus groups have been gathered to study whether "Hillary Rodham Clinton" or "Hillary Clinton" is a better name, I don't know if anyone has bothered to question whether referring to Obama's "race" or his "color" most helps or hurts his campaign.


NYT: Women's Rights vs. Blacks' Rights: An Improbable Collision Course in 2008



NYT Asks: "Will the White Male Monopoly End in 2008?"



I, too, am really annoyed by the Clintons' suggestion that this row is caused by Obama. It's not. Clinton surrogates are using Obama's color and America's color-arousal against Obama, and that's very dirty pool, especially reprehensible coming from fellow Democrats rather than Republicans.



I realize that the Clintons have to say SOMETHING in this battle against Obama, but by kicking us in the groin as their first fight technique they make it harder for us to walk beside them later on.



The best solution is for Clinton and Obama to share the ticket, with whomever wins selecting the other as the running mate.



Some people are too rapped up in the battle of the moment to see the logic of this solution, but if Clinton wins the nomination she will HAVE to choose a running mate. As the last other candidate standing, Obama will have earned that position.



But if Obama wins the nomination, then certainly the same will be true of Clinton. As the last candidate standing besides the nominee, she will have earned a right to a place on the ticket - not a white male who has received less or no votes and who has done NOTHING to earn a place on the ticket.



There is strength in unity and we have to look right now to how we are going to unify the Party for Novemeber. The way to unify the Party is simply to have both Hillary and Obama on the ticket. Swallow that pill.

I'm disgusted with Clinton's position on mandatory minimums. That and her criticism of Obama for favoring single payer national health care have pretty much pushed me into the Obama camp.

During the era when the Second Amendment was written, Blacks couldn't even give testimony in courts of law against whites.


You see, the Second Amendment to the Constitution was never conceived as a law that would give Blacks the right to defend themselves against whites. Whites know this so instinctively and intuitively that they are not even concerned that the First Amendment could give Blacks the right to keep and bear arms. They KNOW that the Second Amendment doesn't apply to us, and no court will decide that it does.

"Bill and Hillary may be making the calculation that they are in a desperate position; that they have to do something; that the virtually all-white Iowans and New Hampsherites will not be offended by the stereotypes; and that once Clinton has the nomination sewed up in Iowa and New Hampshire, she will be able to mend fences with Black people and get us back in her corner during the nine months following the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primaries.


( . . . )



I have a lot of admiration for Hillary and Bill Clinton and their aspirations for America. I think it's of the greatest importance that we elect a Democratic White House in 2008.



But, if Hillary and Bill appeal to stereotypes about Blacks in this election, then I hope they sink like a stone, taking President Bill Clinton's legacy along with them. IF< IF if that is who they really are, then nobody will miss them."

This election is going to have an historical impact because, whether its Hillary or Barack, Democrats are going to nominate someone who is NOT a white man and this will be a tremendous break with the rules of the white male supremacy paradigm. So, I expect to be cheering when the results of Iowa and New Hampshire become know regardless of who wins these primaries, whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.


However, I the may not last long if it's Barack Obama. I'm afraid that the Republicans will take him apart like a Christmas turkey. He has no experience battling at the level that they're going to attack him, and the attack is going to last ten long months.



If a Black person rapes someone white, the Republicans are going to ask Barack Obama to personally disavow the rapist and agree that he should receive the death penalty. If he refuses on either of these points, they will say that he's soft on crime and can't defend white people because he's beholden to Black people . . .



Meanwhile, the will rename Barack Obama "Sadaam Obama" and they will continually call him this until America is so tired of hearing this name that they just want the problem to go away.



They would attack Hillary Clinton in the same ways, but remember that Bill Clinton had a 70% approval rating at the end of his presidency, even after the Republicans had tried to impeach him. So, the Clintons know what it feels like in the Republican oven.



Obama is a student of American history and he's not ignorant of what the Republicans will do. But he's never had personal experience combating it. He's like a person who has seen baseball but never played.



I won't cry for Hillary if Barack is the nominee. But I'm afraid that I'll eventually cry for Barack.

I, too, have been asking myself if the "drug dealer" question raised would not have greater force against Barack Obama than against another candidate? Would it have greater force if against Obama if it was asked whether he had ever been a pimp? Of course it would, because it plays into well-worn stereotypes.


And yet the stereoytpes that have kept Black men and women from succeeding in politics don't seem to have succeeded against Barack Obama thus far. Maybe voters will just ignore questions about what Barack Obama did 20 years ago? Or maybe they will identify with him more strongly?



Effectively, George W. Bush admitted that he used illegal drugs when he refused to answer the question whether he did or not, back in 2000.



The reasons I believe that Clinton is more likely to win the nomination AND the presidency is that:



a) Clinton is more able at undercutting opponents strategically, and



b) Clinton has more experience at fending off attacks against her.



Although some people say they will never vote for Clinton, I know one case in which they surely would: If Barack Obama were her vice presidential running mate.

I'd like to end the 43-term white-male monopoly of the presidency in 2008, and the latest poll from the new Joint Center study says that most Black people agree with me. Most Blacks prefer Clinton over Obama, and are not considering Edwards at all.


At the same time, African American Political Pundit has started a new Black Accountability Project to keep an eye on Black organizations. What will that project do to make sure that AfroSpear advocacy in the presidential race reflects the views of most Black people as concerns Clinton and Obama?



Are we preparing to do over the next months that which most Black people want us to do? Or does our advocacy reflect what we want as individuals, and without regard to what most Black people want?



If history is any guide, Blacks will support the Democrat over the Republican in 2008 by a margin of 90% to 10%. That would seem to reflect a strong and uniform distaste for having a Republican elected.



So, what's the AfroSpear going to do about that? As a group, is it enough to just watch from the sidelines and hope that a Republican is not elected, or do we have to take affirmative steps to make sure that doesn't happen? If we have to take affirmative steps, what should those steps be? What are the demands of political accountability for the AfroSpear in the 2008 primaries and the final election?

Once we acknowledge that Blacks are not a separate "race" genetically at all, but that we are actually a separate "social group" that is defined primarily by its skin color, it makes perfect sense that there would be separate sub-groups and sub-cultures within our social group. Why wouldn't there be? Because "all Blacks are alike?"


The use of the word "race" at all leads to all sorts of absurd assumptions. As much as we may insist that we are beyond believing that we are part of a "race" defined by inherent genetic differences, yet the discussions we have are defined precisely by the belief that we DO have inherent genetically-based differences from whites, rather than sociological and cultural differences based on our historical and present role and position in American society.



Garbage in, garbage out. Any discussion that starts from the belief in the existence of "race" is bound to become hopelessly stuck in disagreements that can never be resolved, because "race" itself does not exist. What does exist in America is denigration, subjugation and exploitation based on skin color, but not all Blacks are subjugated and exploited in the precisely the same ways. Some of us suffer color-based traffic profiling while driving old Honda Civics while others of us suffer color-based traffic profiling while driving new Rolls Royces.



Anyway, this article from Juan Williams convinces me of two things: 1) We have many more Black spokespeople in the mainstream media than ever before, and 2) We are much freer and more empowered than ever before to tell them that we think they're full of crap.

Today is September 21, the day after the historic Afrosphere March on Jena, La. I'm very weepy today as I look back at how far we Black bloggers have come in seven months. We have achieved things to which the whitosphere does not even aspire, like getting 60,000 supporters to "Noose High School" in Louisiana. What makes this possible?


- Solidarity



- Sharing



- Rejecting selfish whitosphere capitalist blog monopoly culture in favor of socialistic sharing of articles, information, readers and advocacy;



- Selflessness;



- Mutual respect and consideration (hat tipping, information sharing, encouragement . . .



- Diligence



- Damned smart people and excellent writers with an acutely well-tuned sense of what's important to Black people . . . . . . . . . .



I salute you, my kinfolk!4. You've come a long way and every one of you is making your mark on the battlefield.

Speaking of the military, did you know that Markos Moulitsas (DailyKos) wrote an editorial opposing gays' service in the military. In an editorial entitled "Military Might," Markos said,


"the demands and pressures of military life are incompatible with allowing integration with homosexuals."



If you don't think someone so bigoted can be trusted to lead progressives, then please help me to spread the word.



I don't trust Markos Moulitsas to protect gay rights, women's rights or, least of all, Blacks' rights. THAT'S why I oppose Markos Moulitsas and the role he seeks in the Democratic Party.

Speaking of blogs, if you think that it would be dangerous to Blacks for a "states' rights" Democrat to take over the Democratic Party, then you should definitely read the new research about him Markos Moulitsas, and see why he isn't who has claimed to be: The Secret "Family Business" of Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga is Uncovered.


If you never knew that Markos' family received millions from the US Government and is connected to international environmental polluters, then you might want to post a diary about this at your blog.

Oh Lord, I'll tell you the truth! I am SO glad not to live in the United States and be subject to this daily drumbeat of anti-Black propaganda. I'll admit it: I have a delicate psyche. I'm one of those "weak" Black men who could easily be hurt psychologically by being ridiculed and pilloried day after day, every day of my life.


Judging by the suicide rate in Philadelphia (otherwise known as "Black on Black crime"), there are a lot of other Black men who are just as "weak" as I am.



And so, I've chosen to get the hell away from people who have that Black-pillorying mindset, just like I would leave a relationship with an emotionally abusive spouse. Life is too short and God didn't put me on this planet to suck the organ of white people's insults every day.



Please have a look at "Do Women Have Hysterical Ovaries"? Do Blacks Have 'Race'?