The Myth of a Colorblind Society

A couple of days ago a Palm Beach, Florida policeman shot and killed Corey Jones.  The brother was trying to get help because his car broke down.  Why does this continue to happen over and over again?  Sometimes a writer can provide a pity explanation  packed with clarity.  At the end of an article written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Black Boy Interrupted" published in the Atlantic last year the brother offers the following observation about why the killing of black men will continue to happen over and over again: "...because our policy is colorblind, but our heritage isn't. An American courtroom claiming it can be colorblind denies its rightful inheritance.  An American courtroom claiming it can be colorblind is a drug addict claiming he can walk away after just one more hit.  Law and legacy are at war.  Legacy is winning."  The same observation holds for the entire American Criminal Justice System and especially law enforcement agencies across this nation.  Our country was built on racism, genocide, slavery, and Jim Crow segregation.  To think times have drastically changed just because a few signs came down is to be captured by systematic lies and illusions.  We have a long way to go to build a country based on the principles of democracy and equality.  I wanted to offer a few thoughts for the day before the non-stop party of Home Coming begins.

If you would like to read the Ta-Nehisi Coates article you can click on the link below:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/black-boy-interrupted/283881/

Fraudulent Discourse and American Presidential Politics!!

The following comments were written several years ago but I never hit the publish key.  The comments however are still applicable.
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What did Obama say to deserve all the shrill attacks? Of course poor and working class whites are angry and bitter about their circumstances given the way they have been manipulated by their so called leaders and public officials over the last four decades. As more than one commentator observed, if they are not angry and bitter they should be or something is wrong with them (SeeMary Lyon's comments on the Huffington Post). The comments of Nicholas von Hoffman in the April 28th issue of The Nation recount data from Steven Greenhouse's new book:, The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, "Since 1979, hourly earnings for 80 percent of American workers (those in private-sector, non-supervisory jobs) have risen by just 1%, after inflation. For male workers, the average hourly wage actually slid by 5 percent since 1979.... the nation's economic pie is growing, but corporations by and large have not given their workers a bigger piece."

A less charitable and more accurate analysis of this incident is offered by my former graduate school study group member, Taryn Trent:

[Obama…] has had to withstand quite an undeserved barrage of criticism over those common sense, quite empathetic, remarks that, if anything, removed the stigma of racism from those folk commonly thought to be racist, and attributed some of their more base instincts regarding immigrants and guns to economic conditions. And in being more charitable to some folks than they may deserve, he incurs their "no good deed goes unpunished" wrath.

This incident illustrates a critical problem in political discourse in America: you cannot speak painful truths or be candid and honest. Spin doctors and media masters looking to sell advertising and make money will turn an honest observation into an unnecessary controversy. Political opponents will twist your words, deliberately mis-interpret their meaning in an attempt to gain advantage. Hillary Clinton is now trotting out her history with guns and religion likes she is Annie Oakley and Tami Faye Baker.

Reality check people. White folk, especially "Reagan Democarats" and those "hard working Americans" or blue collar white workers Hillary keeps talking about, are the same people responsible for the right turn in American politics. These people need to be angry and bitter after at least twenty eitght years of false promises and consistently getting the shaft by national leaders. The Reagan, Bush and Clinton, free market fundamentalism guiding national policy has not and cannot deliver the goods for ordinary Americans. As they say in my neighborhood, the white working and middle class have been bamboozled and hoodwinked.

Conservative public policy was never meant to uplift ordinary Americans of any hue. The true elitists are the ones in charge of our political economy who use ideology to distract people from what is really going on. Bush, Cheney, Rove and their allies in the mainstream media are like the Wizard of Oz pulling the curtain over reality are making out like fat rats, while running the economy in the ground, sending jobs over seas, hiking up the price of gas, and starting foreign adventures costing untold billions in blood and treasure.

Over the last forty years of neo-conservative and neo-liberal trickle down economic theory, free trade, supply side economics (give more money to the rich), Reaganomics, tax cuts for corporations and filthy rich individuals (Warren Buffet made 46 million a year), shrink the government, get the government off our backs rhetoric and similar nonsense, did not improve the economic conditions on the ground for most Americans. In fact, conditions for too many have gotten progressively worse (see the reports on the growth of income inequality from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. To put the matter the way Ronald Reagan put it in the 1980 Presidential Campaign, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” My take on Reagan is a bit different: are you better off now than you were twenty eight years ago?

Instead of the mainstream media exposing the utter hypocrisy of national public policy over the last forty years, instead of aggressive investigative journalism exposing the putrid bag of lies sold to the American people, we are treated to the worst kind of journalistic incest. George the “golden boy” Stephanopoulos went so far as to take notes on what to ask the candidates from Sean Hanity of the notorious “unfair and unbalanced” Fox Network. To put the matter plainly, the mainstream American press is in bed with what ever administration holds the reigns of power. Under these circumstances, the truth about public policy can only emerge when it can no longer be hidden. Examples abound: the energy crisis and the price of gas, the collapse of the housing market, the inability of the “deregulated” airlines to get their act together, the continuing Katrina disaster, the phony war on terrorism, the phony war on drugs, the illegal and unconstitutional war in Iraq ($510 billion and counting, 4000 dead Americans, 30,000 wounded Americans, Iraq in chaos and Bin Laden and the Taliban enjoying a renaissance), the scandalous fiscal condition of the federal budget, national economy and national debt ($9.4 trillion), the rampant cronyism and the massive waste, fraud and abuse of federal contracts under the rubric of privatization.

Clearly the national government has been deliberately broken by successive waves of right wing fanatics and their neo-liberal collaborators. The neo-conservative, neo-liberal cabal running our government is having a field day looting the public trough and hiring all their incompetent friends and relatives. Under these conditions to say we need a change in government in Washington is like saying George Bush needs a brain and personality transplant. Both are obvious.

In my view, widespread disgust, frustration, anger and bitterness is fueling much of the current upsurge in electoral participation in America. Unless this new energy is translated into a solid movement to throw all the bums out and focus on real change in the American political economy, whomever is elected will not make a dimes worth of difference.

Greetings,

I have not used this resource but this Presidential election forces me to make some comments and observations.  There is so much non-sense being pushed out there on the public that as a political scientist and social activist the least I can do is make some informed observations from a black political scientist perspective on a regular basis.

So over the next few weeks I plan to share my observations about what is going in this presidential election, as well as, any thing else I think is worth sharing.  Stay tuned.

Peace and Justice,

Claude

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Claude W. Barnes, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate
Beloved Community Center
417 Arlington Street
Greensboro, NC 27406
claudeb@belovedcommunitycenter.org
http://www.belovedcommunitycenter.org
336-230-0001

Welcome to Politics and Justice

I am re-launching this blog to comment on current events in American National Politics.  In the next few months the blog will focus on the upcoming Presidential Election and provide analysis and commentary on the various candidates and their platforms.  Your comments, suggestions  and feedback are welcome.