IT’S SO DISHONEST!

 just finished reading a lengthy article in The Wall Street Journal ( June 9, 2010) by editorial staff writer Dorothy Rabinowitz in which she seemed to criticize President Barack Obama for removing the bust of Winston Churchill from the White House and returning it to the British government. And she wrote, “A cloudlet of mystery has surrounded the subject ever since.” She is so dishonest! What the British did in Kenya, the president’s father’s home, before, during and after Winston Churchill’s reign was so horrible and so contrary to anything approaching current or historical concerns about human rights that even the British spent years trying to hide records of its torture and deadly and systematic abuse of an entire people with women and children suffering the same fate as male warriors and non-warriors alike. What the British did to the Kenyans closely parallels much of what Hitler did to European Jews and it is a shame that Rabinowitz would write an article (which may or may not be justly critical of Obama’s response to current events) that includes such a gross distortion. If Rabinowitz really doesn’t understand Obama’s motive for removing Churchill’s bust from the White House (and I don’t for a minute believe she doesn’t), she should read “History of the Hanged” by David Anderson and “Imperial Reckoning” by Caroline Elkins and then, after filling in the holes in her own education, spend some time educating the public about Britain’s well documented history of barbarity against Kenyans and about Obama’s measured and incredibly graceful symbolic message to the Brits (Churchill’s bust) that he will remain their friend but not forget their history.

 

ARE THE PUNDITS NUTS!

o, President Barack Obama is responsible for the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Interesting! 

 

ARE THE PUNDITS NUTS!

o, President Barack Obama hasn’t demonstrated enough emotional outrage over the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Interesting!

ARE THE PUNDITS NUTS!

o, President Barack Obama has been too cerebral in his response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Interesting!

 

ARE THE PUNDITS NUTS!

o, President Barack Obama is to be condemned for not taking over control of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from BP. Interesting!

 

ARE THE PUNDITS NUTS!

o the pants President Barack Obama wore on his recent visit to the oil spill in the Gulf were too “fancy.” Interesting!

 

ARE THE PUNDITS NUTS!

o, Barack Obama is the blame for not getting out the story of his splendid response to the Gulf oil spill. Interesting!

 

ARE THE PUNDITS NUTS!

resident Obama, stay cool, stay cerebral and hold BP accountable before and after the oil spill crisis in the gulf has ebbed! And, keep up the good work and ignore the pundits who insist upon reporting on the trivial and then blaming you for not getting the story out. As you know, the minute you show the same degree of emotion that has been shown by past presidents during crises, these same pundits, who are demanding that you become emotional and less rational, will brand you with their racially stereotypical claim that Black folks are too emotional and in the next election they will nail you to the proverbial cross. 

 

BILL O’REILLY: AT LEAST HE’S HONEST!

ntellectually honest people understand that Obama had nothing to do with the (Gulf oil) spill, and even with all the power the United States has, there’s no gizmo to fix the problem and its aftermath. For anti-Obama people, the fact that the president is getting slimed by the slick is karma. For pro-Obama folks, it’s very bad luck.

       There comes a time when fate can determine success or failure. Obama is a man who is used to controlling his environment. But this environmental disaster in the Gulf is out of everybody’s control. And Obama knows it.”  (Bill O’Reilly, The Boston Herald, June 7, 2010)

 

THE ONLY SAFE APPROACH IS TO NOT BREAK THE LAW!

hy 20 members of the Congressional Black Caucus would try to turn back the clock on Congressional ethics rules that have resulted in investigations against five of its members, including the venerable Charlie Rangel, who has been forced to step down from his chairmanship of the powerful Senate Ways and Means Committee, is beyond me. With South Carolina House of Representatives Whip, James Clyburn, taking the lead, the 42-member Black Caucus rejected the foolish move. We assume that level headed Clyburn and those who voted with him to stymie the effort agree with our position that abstaining from unethical and illegal behavior is the best approach.

 

BUT, RANGEL’S LOSS COULD BE CONGRESSMAN NEAL’S WIN

s quiet as it has been kept, Springfield’s Congressman Richard Neal is making a mighty grab for the chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee that New York’s Charlie Rangel recently vacated under the cloud of an ethics investigation. And, according to The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald (which also published an editorial critical of Neal’s recent $5,000 a person fundraiser on Cape Cod), he has a real chance to win!

 

CHECK YOUR CAR DEALER OUT!

ederal Reserve reviews of car loans revealed that car dealers consistently charge higher interest rates to women, people of color, senior citizens and soldiers.

 

RENTAL MARKET WIRED FOR DISCRIMINATION

he Boston Herald (June 1, 2010) reported on a study by two university professors that showed that Craig’s list landlords discriminated against Black renters based upon their names. People responding to rental housing ads with Anglo names were more likely to get a positive response than those with Black-sounding or Hispanic-sounding names. The only thing new in their findings is that the discrimination long found in housing ads in newspapers and other media also exists on the web.

 

MORE FOLKS ARE MARRYING ANYBODY

n 1961, the year Barack Obama’s mixed-race parents were married, less than one in 1,000 Black folks’ marriages were mixed. In 1980 one in 150 Black marriages were mixed and by 2008 one in 60 were mixed.   Among the 3.8 million adults married in 2008, 9% of all Whites, 16% of all Blacks, 26% of all Hispanics and 31% of all Asians married outside of their race or ethnic group. In all, 14.6% of all new marriages in the U.S. are mixed, six times as many as in 1960.

 

WHAT FATE AWAITS THOSE WHO DID NOT PASS?

 suppose we should feel good about the fact that 95% of graduating students passed the Massachusetts’ MCAS exam this year. But, what fate awaits the 3,000 who were denied a high school diploma because they did not pass? Another 2,649, who fulfilled every other graduation requirement, were denied diplomas last year. 51% of the total were minorities, who make up only 27% of seniors statewide, 43% were low income and 58% came from urban school districts. The real kicker is that 144,000 Massachusetts students who attend private and religious schools can graduate without having to take the MCAS test. We agree with the mayor of New Bedford who proposed in a Boston Globe editorial (June 8, 2010) that two separate diplomas should be awarded to public school students who take the MCAS, one called an “MCAS high school diploma” for those who pass and the other a “high school diploma” for those who meet every other graduation requirement but who do not pass the MCAS thus putting the latter group on an equal footing with those 144,000 private school students who will be awarded diplomas if they meet all other graduation requirements without taking the MCAS at all.   n