THANKS FOR YOUR CONCERN

One of the more disturbing ironies surrounding the aggressively senseless killing of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin is how vocal a large portion of white conservative ideologues are about the senseless killing of blacks in America by other blacks. The very crowd who used their First Amendment right to jump to a conclusion before the OJ Simpson case, the Long Island Railroad murder trial of Colin Ferguson, and the Central Park rape case are upset because another group of Americans used their First Amendment right to jump to a conclusion in George Zimmerman's shooting of the unarmed Trayvon Martin.

Those in the former crowd have been asking why the protesting supporters of the Martin family do not protest the black on black violence resulting in death. Although, on the surface, that may seem like a legitimate talking point, it clearly points out an amazing lack of concern for a segment of the population whom they have deliberately chosen to isolate themselves from. They clearly do not listen to, consume or digest any black-issues media whatsoever. If they did, they would know that the issue of black on black murders and gang violence has been a constant topic of concern. They would know that community organizers, church leaders and local black politicians are repeatedly coming together to address those very issues. And they would know, if they bothered to cover it, that the glaring light of the major media have been totally negligent in helping these communities solve this plague that threatens their fellow citizens.

When a young white child shoots up a school we are inundated with news coverage of his life, family and surroundings. We are told of how teams of psychiatrists and counselors have been assigned to talk to the children to help them cope and assuage their fears. And, through the miracle of broadcasting, the rest of us become privy to that particular tragedy by a host of doctors, lawyers, families of victims and anyone else the media think will make good and informative television. However, when it comes to our dire need to have counselors and psychiatrists talk to black and Latino adolescents and preteens about the negative effect that joining a gang, selling drugs and quitting school will have on their lives and their families, it becomes hindered by budget constraints.

One of the more insulting ironies is how these same media cameras and TV personalities always seem to find their way to the meetings, organizations and congregations "in the hood" when they are following a white politician who is looking to get elected or re-elected. When it comes to people of color in America, black people's problems are black people's problems. But when it comes to white folk's problems, they are America's problems.

For those of you who have used the killing of an unarmed young black man, who merely left the store to spend the evening with his dad, to tell us about the high rate of blacks murdered by other blacks, we appreciate your newfound concern. But please do not direct your comments to those black folks who were angered and protested about the killing of Trayvon Martin. They already know.

THE BAILOUT NOT SPOKEN

Is anyone in the media ever going to ask him, "How?" Mitt Romney repeatedly states, without explanation, that he knows how the economy works. Yet he is never challenged.

There is a raging misconception among his supporters that Romney's success in the private sector makes him eminently qualified to boost a lackluster American economy, create millions of jobs and balance the budget once he becomes president. However, absent from this reasoning were the glaring differences between being an executive in the private sector versus one in the public sector.

Take Michael Bloomberg for example, whose private sector fortune makes Mitt Romney look like a minimum wage worker. After 8 years in office, he was unable to save the New York City Off-Track Betting Corp. and the hundreds of jobs that went with it. In addition to having to close firehouses and downsizing the New York Police Department, New York City is still facing billion dollar deficits in the foreseeable future.

And therein lies the rub. As the CEO of Bain Capital, Mitt Romney was able to call all the shots. He could hire, fire, invest, divest, reopen and rebuild, or downsize and shutdown without opposition. At Bain Capital people had to answer to him. At the White House he has to answer to a legislature, federal courts and likely, a plethora of disapproving governors - not to mention an oppositon party that just might not see things his way. The Republican Romney continually campaigns on his ability to work with a Democrat majority when he was Governor of Massachusetts. But what happens when Massachusetts priorities conflict with those of Kansas , California, Mississippi or Ohio?

Throughout his Obama bashing campaign, Romney has failed to demonstrate a demeanor that can coalesce with almost certain obstruction from unlike-minded Democrats. His language suggests that he clearly believes being President of the United States is not unlike being CEO of Bain Capital. "I will fix... I will repeal... I will create..." and on and on. By the way, why would all those illegal immigrants "unable to find work" self-deport if Romney is going to create millions of jobs? At least Barack Obama was intelligent and humble enough, to say "Yes we can" - not "Yes I can!" What will Mitt Romney do when the we challenges his I? That is a situation he did not have to face while running Bain Capital.

What should really trouble American voters is his explanation for not running for a second term as Governor of Massachusetts. While his claim that he wanted to get out and get back into the private sector repeatedly goes unchallenged, he continues to have aspirations for and seeks the presidency. It seems clear that President of the United States is something that Mitt Romney simply wants to add to his resume. Were the best interests of his fellow Americans at issue, he would have remained in Massachusetts and made an effort for a second gubernatorial term. He didn't. He quit. He bailed on the people of Massachusetts who supported and voted for him. Outside of his family and his faith, what is there in his public history that indicates that when things don't go Mitt Romney's way that he won't bail again?

THE RESIGNATION SPEECH

Thank you members of the press. I will be making a brief statement and at the conclusion of my statement I will not be taking any questions.

The past two weeks have been a very trying time for me and my family. My behavior has wrought an immeasurable degree of shame upon myself and the persons I care about and love the most. As some of my fellow Democratic elected officials in our nation's capitol have begun to call for my resignation, what has become equally painful has been watching my party, which has historically been totally devoid of shame, suddenly consider the importance of a man's character.

I belong to a party that turned a blind eye, and winked the other, when one of our members drove an innocent woman into a river and left her to die. Two members of our party sandwiched a restaurant waitress between them, and in their inebriated state, sexually assaulted her and were able to return to the Congress with pats on the back and an eventual run for the presidency. One of our members housed a pimp who ran a burgeoning house of prostitution right in the members home and was merely required to evict said pimp. Resignations were not demanded from any of these Democrats.

We have even had a major party member being sexually serviced by a female federal employee, during working hours, as the public paid for her time and his secretary's time who insured the occurrence of those rendezvous. That Democrat and his taxpayer paid concubine also lied and conspired to fix the outcome of a federal civil case. Other members of my party have grossly exceeded the alcoholic content level legally required to drive a motor vehicle and received a taxpayer paid ride home instead of a ride to jail.

My fellow Americans, as I make no excuses for the actions that has suddenly given Washington Democrats a moral conscience in calling for my resignation, it is incumbent upon you to demand that same and equal standard whenever their sleazy, inappropriate, felonious and other criminal behavior becomes apparent.

I will spend the next few weeks cleaning out my offices, writing letters of recommendations for my staff and then formally tender my resignation as part of the New York Delegation of the United States House of Representatives effective July 4, 2011. It is now clear to me that I can no longer be an effective spokesman and legislator in trying to serve my constituents and my country alongside the most magnificent lot of sanctimonious hypocrites ever to walk the halls of Congress and call themselves Democrats. And as for the swirling rumors that I have been approached by CNN to co-host a television show called WEINER-SPITZER - no comment.

PROFILING A HATE-FUL CRIME

Can a criminal act that inflicts extreme and emotional anguish on a person or persons based on their race or ethnicity, be considered a hate crime? Should it?

Apparently the Manhattan DA's office, charged with adjudicating the case of former New York weatherperson, Heidi Jones, for filing a false police report does not believe so. It has recently been reported that her attorney and the District Attorney's office is working out a "no jail" resolution for her crime.

Ms. Jones' creation of a fictitious "Hispanic" assailant was a conscious, deliberate choice which has serious implications that should not be ignored. We may not know how many NYPD man-hours were spent investigating her false accusation. And we may not know how many innocent Latino males were stopped, frisked, harassed or interrogated by the police before Ms. Jones' story began to fall apart. But we do know those numbers should have been zero. According to statistics, we also know that tens of thousands of innocent black and Latino males, young and old, are routinely stopped and frisked because they allegedly "fit the description," or is a "person of interest" in an ongoing police investigation. And this fictional attack against Ms. Jones in Central Park by this phantom "Hispanic male" feeds an ugly, neverending, convenient stereotype.

Hopefully we are over the days of white mobs burning down black communities and killing innocent black families over false allegations of white women accusing black men of rape. However, when white South Carolina mother, Susan Smith, murdered her two children and white Massachusetts husband, Charles Stuart murdered his wife, they both reported being carjacked - Smith claiming a black man drove off with her two children, Stuart claiming he and his wife were shot by a black man. When the news media inundated the airwaves with these stories, lost in their coverage was the havoc rained down upon innocent black men, as law enforcement searched for non-existent suspects, before the claims of the murderers began to unravel.

In New York, black Hip-Hop artists have been jailed, or are awaiting jail terms for illegal gun possession. Former NY Giant Wide Receiver, Plaxico Burress, currently in jail for gun possession drew high profile calls for his incarceration - one by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to show that celebrities do not get special treatment. However, the wife of television anchorman, Lou Dobbs, and entertainer Harry Connick Jr. did not receive similar public disdain, or jail time, for their New York gun possession charge. Apparently, it is black celebrities that do not get special treatment in New York.

Now the New York justice system is poised to continue its very long tradition of race-based special treatment. Heidi Jones' crime has a long and storied American history. It has spawned hatred and violence against innocent victims. It has cost lives and reputations - and it is a crime that needs to be more appropriately and severely punished. This heralded young woman was a news personality for a major market television affiliate of a major American communications corporation. This Heidi is not some curly-topped, orphaned Shirley Temple that should be sent home to live with her grandfather. She should be sent to jail.

SOFT SPEAKING, BIG STICKS and SHEDDING BLOOD

As the world watches events unfold in much of northern Africa, AKA the Middle East, cries of revolution and democracy flood every worldwide vehicle of communication. The pontificating politicos and the prognosticating punditry are virtually manic in their assessment of what America should do and/or what our President should say. And they are disturbed by the violence and bloodshed perpetrated against the otherwise peaceful protestors seeking independence from tyranny.

Blinded by the extremely cantankerous, but bloodless, spectacle of the 2000 Bush v. Gore election, we shine a self-congratulatory light on the greatness of our democracy. But it wasn't always that way. We conveniently ignore all the blood shed to get us to those 36 days after that infamous November 2000 Election Day. Those 56 signers of a very specific, accusatory 1776 document would have certainly been pleased had King George simply packed up the British military and said, "Fine. It's yours!" But, having pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, it was clear that there was no expectation of a regal capitulation.

In fact, they specifically fashioned a 2nd Amendment to their founding document in the sincere belief that bloodshed will often be a necessary defense against tyranny. And they were right. Their new nation has involved itself in several wars since its independence - including a major domestic conflict less than 100 years after its founding, lasting 4 years and costing over 500,000 lives and untold gallons of blood. We have also expended blood and lives abroad battling tyranny against others. Why should we expect countries steeped in centuries of oligarchies be any different! Why the outrage when tyrants and despots kill and maim the protesting lovers of freedom in order to protect their fiefdoms! Such outrage is a sign of our abject ignorance of history.

Our own recent history has seen blood spilled at the teeth of police dogs and fire hoses, baseball bats and arson, firebombs and via the end of a hangman's noose - all in defiance of freedom and democracy and all in the name of state's rights. And, all under the watchful eyes of American dictators. Only our tyrants were titled Director J. Edgar Hoover, Gov. George Wallace, Gov. Orval Faubus, and Sheriff Bull Conner just to name a few. More than 20 years after the 1954 Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education, American children and their parents were attacked and beaten simply for taking their offspring to school. And in 1968, after a relatively peaceful protest march in Memphis, Tennessee, a single gunshot aimed at the balcony of the Lorraine Motel set off a violent, nationwide, chain of events that would have lasting repercussions.

We are watching today's events of some of our own American history being played out worldwide. It is folly to believe that despotism will just walk away and die a quiet death. Freedom is never free. To quote abolitionist, and former slave, Frederick Douglass, "Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will." And one of the universal certainties in escaping the iron fist of British kings or Libyan Colonels is that there will be blood.

PLESSY LIVES!!!

THE NEW JIM CROW

A book review

In the face of overwhelming racially disparate statistics, the 1954 US Supreme Court reversed the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson decision in rendering Brown v. Board of Education. By concluding that "separate is inherently unequal," the high court legally erased hundreds of years of the time honored American tradition of segregation based on race. OR DID THEY?

In THE NEW JIM CROW: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander rips the blindfold from the face of Lady Justice and exposes her uneven scales negatively weighted against the lives, fortunes and futures of black Americans. Alexander provides stunning and disturbing examples of law enforcement run amok with the aid and comfort of all three branches of government, without regard to the "separate and unequal" rise in the prison population based primarily on the so-called WAR ON DRUGS.

Huge financial incentives have caused police departments to divert manpower and resources away from serious, violent crime toward arresting and incarcerating non-serious, non-violent drug users in predominately non-white neighborhoods. And the incentives don't stop there. The overall construction and privatization of prisons have been a constant money making venture even in today's poor economic times.

Ms. Alexander clearly articulates the total disenfranchisement of those labeled "felons" for minor drug possession, their isolation in predominately white, prison dependent communities, the trauma inflicted on their families, and the persistent doors slammed in their face upon returning to society - all while the drug use of their white counterparts is ignored or often charged as minor misdemeanors.

In reading THE NEW JIM CROW, it becomes painfully clear that a racial caste system has been allowed to proliferate, in the name of the law, as the US Supreme Court has virtually rubber stamped the infliction of racial biases by prosecutors. The high court has ruled that the overwhelming statistical evidence of arrests, felony prosecutions, unfavorable plea offers and incarcerations directed toward non-white suspects, as opposed to white lawbreakers of similar drug crimes, is not germain to the process and not a consideration upon appeal. Alexander describes those decisions as "absurd." I would characterize them as insane.

The so-called WAR ON DRUGS in America is not being waged by law enforcement as an altruistic endeavor to seriously rid our society or save it from the scourge of illegal drugs. Possessors of marijuana have received harsher prison sentences than murderers, rapists, and armed robbers. This war has been used to mitigate and marginalize the few decades of freedom and liberty that black people in America have fought and died for. And anyone who doubts this conclusion, or finds it absurd or insane, is invited to read THE NEW JIM CROW and make their case. Michelle Alexander has certainly made hers.

"ZERO"ing in on the MOSQUE

Exactly how close is too close? Dust and ash from the Sept. 11th destruction of the World Trade Center towers travelled well north of the target. Should the Islamic center on West Broadway, located just a few blocks north of the proposed Park Place center location, be forced to pack up and move - or is it far enough away?


The alleged thoughtful and considerate opponents of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque claim to recognize the rights of the buyer, seller and builder to construct the facility at the agreed upon site. That should be the end of it. But those highly vocal detractors have used excuses ranging from "provocative" to "insensitive" to voice their opposition to the building of the mosque at that location. However, to prevent Muslims from building this particular mosque by using excuses like insulting, insensitive and provocative is an insult in and of itself.


Major League Baseball, the National Football League and a plethora of high schools and colleges have team names and images of this country's indigenous natives that are so crass that it would cause the comically fictional Indians of F TROOP to start another Little Big Horn. Provocative and insensitive are terms rarely considered when we celebrate each Oct. 12th to commemorate Christopher Columbus who began the decimation of those natives from the time of his arrival in the New World up until the time that Americans were encouraged to "Go west, young man!" And at any given baseball time you might see the Atlanta Braves on national television with their fans collectively bellowing Hollywood's version of an Indian war-chant as a means of rallying their home team.


Provocative, insulting and insensitive are also hardly ever used to describe the states that continue to fly the Confederate flag. The proponents of the rebel flag insist that it is not a symbol of slavery but a show of pride in the southern way of life. Yet the confederacy fought the Civil War under that flag precisely to preserve the enslavement of dark-skinned peoples, the rape of those women, the sale of their own children, the lynching of black folks without trial, the all out assaults and burning of black enclaves, and the general denial of the most basic human rights. That was the southern way of life under the Confederate flag - proffered under the guise of Christianity.


Those of our rights that have not yet been usurped by fiat or force should be cherished and respected even when their exercise may cause us some emotional discomfort. This is America. It is not Eden or the wonderful Wizard's Land of Oz. At times we have all experienced, as well as rendered, insults and insensitivity. Just one of America's great debates is that the education and rearing of our children is not preparing them for the real world and how sorrow and disappointments are a part of life. And that one's ability to forge ahead despite the pitfalls of everyday life is a sign of strength and character, or lack thereof. Sadly, far too many of America's children are not getting the message. Sadder still, we cannot teach them what we have yet to learn.