It's interesting that a request based on factual evidence, i.e. the NAACP's request that the Tea Party repudiate (not 'refudiate' as one prominent idiot said) the racist elements in its organization, ends up getting a black woman fired.
More interesting still is, unlike those who doctored her comments, she wants to evolve in her racial stance. She wants to see beyond black and white. But, like the BP spill, right wingers are throwing stones to hide their hands (thank you, Michael Jackson). The media is focused on the White House, the USDA, the NAACP's action and apology, Shirley Sherrod, "black racism," and any and everything but the "fact" that the story was a Fox News staple -- a lie.
In fact, in the last Fox News story I could stand, the liar, Andrew Breitbart, was still calling Sherrod a racist, despite even the supposed victim -- a white guy -- saying the woman was his friend and no racist.
7.21.2010
7.05.2010
An obvious health care fix
One of the concerns with Health Care Reform is that waits in emergency rooms will increase because traditional users of the ER are not the uninsured, according to an AP report, but Medicaid users. Projections are that 16 million more people will be enrolled in Medicaid when Health Care Reform is fully operational.
The bottleneck, observers say, is that there is a shortage of ER doctors that will be exacerbated by increase patient loads.
For many years I've advocated that medical schools knock off the elitist scam they've perpetrated for years. I believe there are many more than enough highly intelligent African American young people who could be physicians but are priced out/discouraged away from/ignored by the medicial school industry and the American educational system.
An anecdote: A well-known chiropractic college founder brought back the curriculum for teaching chiropracty early in the 20th century and that curriculum lasted all of 6 months in his honest opinion. What did he do? He stretched it out to four years so he could create a college and charge four years worth of tuition.
That is the medical school industry in a nutshell. But when does its role as gatekeeper start treading on the common good? The medical school industry has already reached out to white women. The ranks of female medical students all across America has spiked. At the University of Minnesota, for example, women outnumber men. So, the industry can and has sought out specific demographics. In the case of actively seeking out qualified African American medical students, it has fallen far short.
Two years ago, the American Medical Association issued a formal apology to African American physicians for its history of racial discrimination. That history of discrimination was so blatant that African Americans had to form their own medical association, the National Medical Association, because of the racism of existing groups such as the AMA.
Disparity in health outcomes can be traced to inferior care in the African American community and that inferior care can be further traced to the paucity of African American physicians. Only three to four percent of all doctors in the U.S. are African American, despite the group being nearly 14% of the population.
A good starting point would be for the medical school industry to make a goal of educating 20,000 African American physicians in the next decade -- 2,000 a year -- and sticking to it.
That would create a sea change not just in health outcomes, but in the economic condition of the African American community.
The bottleneck, observers say, is that there is a shortage of ER doctors that will be exacerbated by increase patient loads.
For many years I've advocated that medical schools knock off the elitist scam they've perpetrated for years. I believe there are many more than enough highly intelligent African American young people who could be physicians but are priced out/discouraged away from/ignored by the medicial school industry and the American educational system.
An anecdote: A well-known chiropractic college founder brought back the curriculum for teaching chiropracty early in the 20th century and that curriculum lasted all of 6 months in his honest opinion. What did he do? He stretched it out to four years so he could create a college and charge four years worth of tuition.
That is the medical school industry in a nutshell. But when does its role as gatekeeper start treading on the common good? The medical school industry has already reached out to white women. The ranks of female medical students all across America has spiked. At the University of Minnesota, for example, women outnumber men. So, the industry can and has sought out specific demographics. In the case of actively seeking out qualified African American medical students, it has fallen far short.
Two years ago, the American Medical Association issued a formal apology to African American physicians for its history of racial discrimination. That history of discrimination was so blatant that African Americans had to form their own medical association, the National Medical Association, because of the racism of existing groups such as the AMA.
Disparity in health outcomes can be traced to inferior care in the African American community and that inferior care can be further traced to the paucity of African American physicians. Only three to four percent of all doctors in the U.S. are African American, despite the group being nearly 14% of the population.
A good starting point would be for the medical school industry to make a goal of educating 20,000 African American physicians in the next decade -- 2,000 a year -- and sticking to it.
That would create a sea change not just in health outcomes, but in the economic condition of the African American community.
5.28.2010
Why Black Conservatives Are Stupid
Know why I think black conservatives are stupid? Because in an America and a world where more and more people are seeing the benefits of commonalities and collectivism, they are neanderthals who go against history and nature.
A common thread of black conservatives -- from what I've read of Condi Rice and Clarence Thomas to what I've heard from friends and associates -- is that they believe the individual should shoulder the burden and that the "black community" is worse off because of their solidarity.
Interesting.
Because from my seat in the bleachers I see all kinds of communities coalescing to help their collective selves - lesbians in Hollywood, Jews on Wall Street, Texas Good Ol' Boys, female athletes, bike riders, Hispanics.
Why then do conservatives bad mouth the rest of us for our own collectivism. I've been told I'm a sheep, that I'm not thinking for myself, even that there is no real "black community."
After years of politely holding my tongue, I have to make an assessment: they're full of shit.
Individual achievement can exist within the framework of a collective. Hell, that's what the family unit is about. Community is just "family" writ large. What bothers me is the tone deafness they must have to even posit such bullshit.
In an era when Rand Paul is calling into the question the Civil Rights Amendment and Tea Partiers are working the hell out of the race card, they honestly think we don't need each other? I look around and I thank God for Pres. Obama, A.G. Holder, Michelle Obama, Oprah, Michael Jordan and any other family members I see.
And, when I hear that I'm stupid for voting Democratic, I ask myself how sick I would have to be to vote for a party -- the GOP -- that actively hates my community. It has accused me and mine of crimes uncommitted and abused my rights as an American. It is a party that defends and extols the memory of a terrorist state -- the Confederacy -- that is dearest to racists.
I'm talking the modern GOP, which is the one black conservatives support -- not the Abraham Lincoln party. The party that black conservatives support is the one that's built on a foundation of racism called the Southern Strategy. If they want to get back to the values represented by Lincoln, they'd have to be Democrats.
5.21.2010
All Rand Paul, all the time. Here are the words of the latest Teabag Superstar. But, don't forget, they insist they're not racist. It's about states' rights, remember.
"What I think would happen -- what I'm saying is, is that I don't believe in any discrimination. I don't believe in any private property should discriminate either. And I wouldn't attend, wouldn't support, wouldn't go to. But what you have to answer when you answer this point of view, which is an abstract, obscure conversation from 1964 that you want to bring up. But if you want to answer, you have to say then that you decide the rules for all restaurants and then you decide that you want to allow them to carry weapons into restaurants."
According to Mr. Paul, my being black is analagous to my having a gun. Paul is basically an anarchist, who is fine with racism, corporate greed, environmental disasters... so long as it doesn't cost him money.
"What I think would happen -- what I'm saying is, is that I don't believe in any discrimination. I don't believe in any private property should discriminate either. And I wouldn't attend, wouldn't support, wouldn't go to. But what you have to answer when you answer this point of view, which is an abstract, obscure conversation from 1964 that you want to bring up. But if you want to answer, you have to say then that you decide the rules for all restaurants and then you decide that you want to allow them to carry weapons into restaurants."
According to Mr. Paul, my being black is analagous to my having a gun. Paul is basically an anarchist, who is fine with racism, corporate greed, environmental disasters... so long as it doesn't cost him money.
On ABC's "Good Morning America" on Friday, Rand Paul called out President Obama for criticizing BP too harshly in public. [Emphasis mine]
Here's the latest discussion from our newest public racist, Rand Paul:
"What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP. I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen."
Just the guy I want repping me - somebody who believes in profits above individuals or, you know, the environment.
Accidents? Really? Hey Mr. Paul, check out this list of "accidents" perpetrated by BP. This is from propublica.org:
BP, the global oil giant responsible for the fast-spreading spill in the Gulf of Mexico that will soon make landfall, is no stranger to major accidents.
In fact, the company has found itself at the center of several of the nation's worst oil and gas–related disasters in the last five years.
In March 2005, a massive explosion ripped through a tower at BP's refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 workers and injuring 170 others. Investigators later determined that the company had ignored its own protocols on operating the tower, which was filled with gasoline, and that a warning system had been disabled.
The company pleaded guilty to federal felony charges and was fined more than $50 million by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Almost a year after the refinery explosion, technicians discovered that some 4,800 barrels of oil had spread into the Alaskan snow through a tiny hole in the company's pipeline in Prudhoe Bay. BP had been warned [1] to check the pipeline in 2002, but hadn't, according to a report in Fortune. When it did inspect it, four years later, it found that a six-mile length of pipeline was corroded.Yeah, Randy, this is one of those times when the President is just too harsh... darn President... looking out for those damn voter types.
Good luck with this guy, Teabaggers. I think you got what you paid for.
Here's the latest discussion from our newest public racist, Rand Paul:
"What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP. I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen."
Just the guy I want repping me - somebody who believes in profits above individuals or, you know, the environment.
Accidents? Really? Hey Mr. Paul, check out this list of "accidents" perpetrated by BP. This is from propublica.org:
BP, the global oil giant responsible for the fast-spreading spill in the Gulf of Mexico that will soon make landfall, is no stranger to major accidents.
In fact, the company has found itself at the center of several of the nation's worst oil and gas–related disasters in the last five years.
In March 2005, a massive explosion ripped through a tower at BP's refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 workers and injuring 170 others. Investigators later determined that the company had ignored its own protocols on operating the tower, which was filled with gasoline, and that a warning system had been disabled.
The company pleaded guilty to federal felony charges and was fined more than $50 million by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Almost a year after the refinery explosion, technicians discovered that some 4,800 barrels of oil had spread into the Alaskan snow through a tiny hole in the company's pipeline in Prudhoe Bay. BP had been warned [1] to check the pipeline in 2002, but hadn't, according to a report in Fortune. When it did inspect it, four years later, it found that a six-mile length of pipeline was corroded.Yeah, Randy, this is one of those times when the President is just too harsh... darn President... looking out for those damn voter types.
Good luck with this guy, Teabaggers. I think you got what you paid for.
5.12.2010
Neo-Reconstruction
While thinking long and hard a name popped in my head: Hiram Revels. He was the first African American man elected to the U.S. Senate during the Post Civil War Reconstruction. It was a time when white people were a minority in the nation.
Check for yourself, African Americans, Hispanics and American Indians comprised a larger population, so voters typically had to be landholding white males, which was a way to keep minority power until European immigration bolstered their numbers.
Because the Civil War had defeated the Southern Terrorists, African Americans were by law able to participate in the government of their nation and Revels took full advantage of the opportunity.
Here's a Wiki synopsis: "The election of Revels was met with opposition from Southern conservative Democrats who cited the Dred Scott Decision which was considered by many to have been a central cause of the American Civil War. They argued that no black man was a citizen before the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Because election to the Senate required nine years' prior citizenship, opponents of Revels claimed he could not be seated, having been a citizen by law for only two years."
So, here's how I understand their argument; the Civil War -- which modern day racists say was not about slavery but states' rights -- gave people like Revels full-citizenship only after the South lost and despite being born here and having families that had been here for generations, they were foreigners in the only nation they ever knew.
Sounds about as fair as Arizona's "Mummy Governor" Jan Brewer deciding that Ethnic Studies is "racial chauvinism" that must be banned because it portrays white people in a poor light.
Hmmm.
We MUST be re-doing Reconstruction because never in all my years have I seen so many white people overtly trying to tear down African American and other communities of color.
This Neo-Reconstruction is everywhere: TV and the movies have become lillywhite. Heck, one program, Saturday Night Live, would rather portray the President in blackface than hire a black actor.
Politicians such as Brewer, Barbour, Pawlenty and on and on are emboldened by fringe elements to act in as racist a manner as possible. And, what I despise about them is they don't even have the strength of their convictions to say, "Hell, yeah! I'm racist." It's a nod and a wink and coded language. Say what you will about the Honorable Min. Louis Farrakahn, but he speaks his mind without the hypocrisy.
Jan Brewer is a snake, just like Beck, Palin, Bachmann, Barbour and much of the Teabag/GOP. They are dumbfounded that people of color don't vote for them, but don't see that their policies are racist.
Why in hell would I vote for someone like Gov. Perry who suggested Texas might secede after the nation elected Pres. Obama? How in the hell is that NOT racist? Why would an Hispanic vote for Brewer who sees a comprehensive study of the history of Mexican/U.S. relations as picking on white people?
Hey lady, Mexico didn't lose the Southwest in a card game. Native Americans didn't give up the deed to the land so they could space travel. They were cheated and killed and terrorized.
Just like Haley Barbour who thinks mentioning slavery when talking about the confederacy is silly, she is communicating with racists who hate that we have a black president and a diverse nation.
These Neo Reconstructionists walk a thin line because they want to agitate white people not in the fringe movement to see fault with darker citizens. It's Cecile B. DeMille (bastard) all over again. They are trying to redefine white and exclude, exclude, exclude.
But, because the nation HAS changed their message is starting to be seen for what it is. Pres. Obama didn't win a majority of white voters, but he still won by 10 million votes. The nation's demographics are making this ugly pasttime of theirs an obvious exercise in hypocritical, power-grabbing, race-baiting evil.
Follow at your own peril.
Check for yourself, African Americans, Hispanics and American Indians comprised a larger population, so voters typically had to be landholding white males, which was a way to keep minority power until European immigration bolstered their numbers.
Because the Civil War had defeated the Southern Terrorists, African Americans were by law able to participate in the government of their nation and Revels took full advantage of the opportunity.
Here's a Wiki synopsis: "The election of Revels was met with opposition from Southern conservative Democrats who cited the Dred Scott Decision which was considered by many to have been a central cause of the American Civil War. They argued that no black man was a citizen before the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Because election to the Senate required nine years' prior citizenship, opponents of Revels claimed he could not be seated, having been a citizen by law for only two years."
So, here's how I understand their argument; the Civil War -- which modern day racists say was not about slavery but states' rights -- gave people like Revels full-citizenship only after the South lost and despite being born here and having families that had been here for generations, they were foreigners in the only nation they ever knew.
Sounds about as fair as Arizona's "Mummy Governor" Jan Brewer deciding that Ethnic Studies is "racial chauvinism" that must be banned because it portrays white people in a poor light.
Hmmm.
We MUST be re-doing Reconstruction because never in all my years have I seen so many white people overtly trying to tear down African American and other communities of color.
This Neo-Reconstruction is everywhere: TV and the movies have become lillywhite. Heck, one program, Saturday Night Live, would rather portray the President in blackface than hire a black actor.
Politicians such as Brewer, Barbour, Pawlenty and on and on are emboldened by fringe elements to act in as racist a manner as possible. And, what I despise about them is they don't even have the strength of their convictions to say, "Hell, yeah! I'm racist." It's a nod and a wink and coded language. Say what you will about the Honorable Min. Louis Farrakahn, but he speaks his mind without the hypocrisy.
Jan Brewer is a snake, just like Beck, Palin, Bachmann, Barbour and much of the Teabag/GOP. They are dumbfounded that people of color don't vote for them, but don't see that their policies are racist.
Why in hell would I vote for someone like Gov. Perry who suggested Texas might secede after the nation elected Pres. Obama? How in the hell is that NOT racist? Why would an Hispanic vote for Brewer who sees a comprehensive study of the history of Mexican/U.S. relations as picking on white people?
Hey lady, Mexico didn't lose the Southwest in a card game. Native Americans didn't give up the deed to the land so they could space travel. They were cheated and killed and terrorized.
Just like Haley Barbour who thinks mentioning slavery when talking about the confederacy is silly, she is communicating with racists who hate that we have a black president and a diverse nation.
These Neo Reconstructionists walk a thin line because they want to agitate white people not in the fringe movement to see fault with darker citizens. It's Cecile B. DeMille (bastard) all over again. They are trying to redefine white and exclude, exclude, exclude.
But, because the nation HAS changed their message is starting to be seen for what it is. Pres. Obama didn't win a majority of white voters, but he still won by 10 million votes. The nation's demographics are making this ugly pasttime of theirs an obvious exercise in hypocritical, power-grabbing, race-baiting evil.
Follow at your own peril.
4.29.2010
Getting Past the Censors
Thanks to Kay, a great friend, I am able to post blogs again. My previous blogger posts wouldn't allow me to post anymore. It's been a year since I posted and man! Do I have a lot to say!:
Teabaggers, a competent president, improving national fortunes, overt racism on the rise...
It's a mad, mad world and I'm going to critique it.
Look for me, babies!
Teabaggers, a competent president, improving national fortunes, overt racism on the rise...
It's a mad, mad world and I'm going to critique it.
Look for me, babies!
4.28.2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)