AFAMNewsbits February
2004
WELL,
I GUESS SHE DID!
“Activist
regrets choice of words” was the title of an article in The Republican on Sheila McElwaine, the
White activist who said, “We’re just
another bunch of niggers” in response to her group being shut out of a
Springfield Museum Association meeting.
(See related story, “My Point of View,” page 21).
SURPRISE! RACIAL PROFILING IN POLITICS
Who
among us didn’t know that Al Sharpton’s meager presidential campaign spending
would be scrutinized by the mainstream press?
The man has raised only 284,000 dollars and will be lucky if he doubles
it by the end of primary season. He is
being criticized for spending $12,000.00 on two luxury hotel stays and a
limousine. In contrast, John Dean’s
fundraising is already at 40 million dollars and rising and the President’s is
above 100 million. You can bet they
won’t be spending that money on budget motels and bus transportation. Both can be expected to spend all of their
campaign money on all kinds of lavish nonsense, including big parties and jumbo
jet rides, and, you can bet, many luxury hotel rooms and limousines for
themselves and their huge campaign staffs.
You can also bet that their spending will not be scrutinized for their
excesses. Racial profiling is everywhere, even in politics.
WHERE
IS DR. BURKE
What
has Springfield School Superintendent Joseph Burke had to say now that MCAS
test results have shown that he was wrong in his public assertions that former
Liberty Street School Principal, Nealon Jaynes-Lewis, was not performing well
in bringing her students up to the new testing standards? Based upon his premature evaluation of
Jaynes-Lewis, who is Black, Dr. Burke transferred her out of her position. In contrast Dr. Burke recently protected the
reputation of an under- performing White administrator by quietly demoting him
while publicly praising him. Maybe if
Nealon Jaynes-Lewis is lucky, Dr. Burke will reverse the unfair attack on her
reputation with a public apology.
A
THIRST FOR SIMPLE JUSTICE
Not
only did the cop who broke the jaw of a White Harvard student get indicted, but
he was also tried, convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. The jury convicted officer Harry Byrne of
civil rights violations and trying to coerce four fellow officers to lie. It’s the kind of simple American justice that
Black folks just thirst for!!
HOW
TO BEAT TIGER WOODS
Time
magazine (December 8, 2003) gave the perfect explanation of how Black golf
phenom, Tiger Woods, met his beautiful, former model fiancée, who was the au
pair (nanny) for a fellow golfer. Time
reported that when fellow golfers heard from Tiger’s father that a wife could
sometimes hurt a player’s golf game, Wood’s rivals all raced to fix him up with
the hottest nanny they could find.
TO
EDUCATE OR DEMOTE?
Well,
the Sudbury Massachusetts school system has developed a unique model for
dealing with under-performing METCO students.
Encountered with a seven year old Black second grader who was
experiencing academic difficulties, the White suburban district simply demoted
her to the first grade without her parents permission. Her parents have filed a suit for injunctive
relief in Suffolk Superior Court.
Accomplished
Black people especially understand Rush Limbaugh’s unfair analysis of the
skills of Philadelphia Eagles’ Black quarterback, Donovan McNabb, whose
excellent statistics belie Limbaugh’s comment that the injured McNabb’s skills
were overrated because people so badly wanted to see a Black as
quarterback. During his next five games,
after his injured thumb healed, McNabb completed 65 percent of his passes while
throwing for six touchdowns and only one interception. Limbaugh carries the banner for bringing back
open bias in America, which includes the right to express the unfair standard
of absolute perfection that Black Americans are often held to--even as he
recovers from his own addiction to illegal drugs and asks America for its
continued support and understanding.
OF
COURSE BLACK PEOPLE SUPPORT MICHAEL JACKSON!
If you
are wondering why so many Black people support Michael Jackson, read Jessie
Jackson’s speech to the National Democratic Convention where, to the surprise
of many who considered his ideas too radical, he won thirty percent of the
delegates. Jackson said, “The items I
have struggled for are in the mainstream of this country’s interest. You cannot name one where I am not in the
center of the stream.” Many of those who
believe Michael Jackson is guilty might recognize the mainstream legal
principal that Black people apply to his case, which is the principal that, in
America, a person is innocent until proven guilty. It is Black people who are “in the center of
the stream” on this one. When a White
man in Boston killed his wife, he claimed a Black man did it and the media and
the police believed him. When a White
woman killed her kids by sinking them with her car into the river, she claimed
a Black man carjacked them with the car and many believed her. These unsophisticated people, and many like
them, falsely accuse Black people for their own crimes because they know that
when a Black person is a suspect in a crime, the person is routinely considered
guilty until proven innocent. We’re
followed around by store detectives, stopped by police for “driving while
Black,” profiled in the mainstream press as thieves, drug addicts and murderers
and tried before all-White juries whose mindsets have been formed by these
ever-present negative profiles. We Black
people in America, more than anyone else, believe that Michael Jackson is
innocent until proven guilty, and find it personally disturbing, though not
surprising, that so many, led by Fox News, have judged otherwise.
EVEN
THE GUILTY DESERVE JUSTICE
Have you heard about the two 51 year old Black Pentagon executives in charge of minority contracting who took one million dollars in kickbacks from contractors whom they helped win twenty-one million dollars in contracts? Each was sentenced to 24-½ years in federal prison, a virtual life sentence. The lesson to be learned is that Black men stealing big bucks will not receive the same slap on the wrist received by White men who steal far bigger bucks--hundreds of millions of dollars at the Pentagon, on Wall Street, in the Board Rooms of large corporations and in war-torn Iraq, where a civil investigation is underway to determine if Halliburton should be required to repay 61 million dollars in gasoline overcharges.n