Rev Wright has every reason to be angry

He was right. If you watched Bill Moyers last night and did not scream then maybe you bought the Kool aid about American history way into the 1940s.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html

I just ordered Douglas Blackmon's Slavery by Another Name.

I thought I understood the new prison industry but it's becoming even clearer by the day. Black men must not be free.

I cried as I watched that last evening. I know we as Americans have been terribly deluded by history as taught in our schools about the native Americans we murdered so we could steal their land and the slaves brought over here so our corporatist could build up our wealth on the backs of Africans brought to this country by the filthy, elite Fascists. I'm just amazed how well they have coped with so many years of utter brutality perpetrated on them by white Americans.

http://www.slaverybyanothername.com/index.php?action=view_image&id=68&module=imagegallerymodule&src=%40random47e2e6d383464&int=1

http://www.slaverybyanothername.com/files/imagegallerymodule/@random47e2e6d383464/gallery1/Spivak_P_30A.jpg

This one had me all teared up

After watching Moyers last night I was an emotional wreck and told my husband, who didn't watch, that people like Rev. Wright are understandably angry. He agreed to read the book. I'm going to buy 2 copies, one for my bigoted East Coast family and one for me to read, then I'll pass it around to Texas friends.

to watch. I haven't heard him so angry in ages as he was when the program ended and they were calling back.

nt

described themselves as christians.

I've become anti christian

they don't walk their talk

I'm an atheist

nt

Remember, it was Christians who formed the Underground Railroad and were the Abolitionists.

It was Christians who became Suffragists.

It was CHRISTIANS who were the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s.

Broad-brushing is what Whitie has done all these years with bigotry.

We must not go that route.

"Never Again!"

back then.

nothing stays the same, everything changes

with good discussion by intelligent men.

I believe this is why Moyers is such a superior journalist/interviewer, he asks good questions, then shuts up and actually listens instead of throwing in his own persona/opinions as the reason for the interview.

I also believe the so called "War Against Drugs" with the disproportionate number of minority prosecutions is the latest incarnation of this persecution, it should be no surprise that it started with the Reagen administration. I believe we should just "say no" to racism.

Thanks for the thread. malaise.:thumbsup:

the War on Drugs. I like your just 'say no' to racism.

Ooooops, Moyers is a Christian.

Maybe you want to rethink that?

but many of the slave owners claimed to be god fearing people.

"perhaps 'christian' is also a code word
I've become anti christian
they don't walk their talk"

"Duh. I'm an atheist."

You see, the broad-brushing goes both ways.

It's neither helpful from the White Supremicists, nor from "progressives".

Peace.

It's time.

I admit that I do get bothered when the board turns full-scale against Christians because of the actions of the other side of the coin.

I am a Christian and a Southerner. I'm not racist. I vote Democratic. I read what Jesus preached and realize it's not what these Fundies preach. I am against war. I am for equal rights. I don't judge other people on the basis of their race, religion, sexual orientation or creed (Heck, that's God's job - if there is any reason TO judge on that basis {I doubt there is} - and God certainly doesn't need my help - nor does He need the help of any human) I just happen to believe there is a God.

Virtually everyone from that era "claimed to be god fearing people."

The charge of hypocrisy only has meaning within the context of Christianity of course.

Does the behavior of the politicians from both parties who claim represent the United States, as they destroy every principle the upon which the country was founded, invalidate those principles?

You say "not all Christians are hypocrites," but that is true of all groups of people, so it is a backhanded and dishonest way to sneak your bigoted point back into the discussion. Would you ever say "not all Blacks are lazy?" and then claim that the way you phrased it made it OK, since you did not say that all Blacks are lazy? Of course not.

I would guess that virtually all slave owners claimed to be God fearing people, and I would also guess that almost every Christian has been hypocritical in one way or another, because that is true of all people everywhere at all times. You just provided us with an example, actually, of a person violating the very principles they are claiming to uphold by attacking others. Funny thing, isn't it, how when we start down the path of bigotry it can come back and bite us right in the ass?

That's why people flip like pancakes when he talks. Blackmon is fearless in the way he approaches his topic. :thumbsup:

On Juneteenth, I also watched a documentary "The Whispering of Angels" about the underground railroad. And get this -- it speaks to the whole flap about "black fathers", I know you'll get it. Of all the people who set out to escape, only about 5% made it. They were overwhelmingly YOUNG BLACK MEN because families got caught and traveling in groups was highly discouraged.

(This doc was also amazing. It told about the partnership of a young freeman and a rich white guy in Delaware -- which recieved a lot of "passengers" from the eastern shore and was the main line out of slavery. They never met each other and there was a large difference in their ages but, between them they helped thousands of people. Still, the young freeman, recorded EVERYTHING and hid his journals in a graveyard. After Emancipation (or after what passed for Emancipation), he published all of his material in one volume. If you search the title, there is a website. I know you'd really enjoy this video. :hi: )

http://www.whispersofangels.com/

Harriet Tubman.

The father problem is a residue of slavery. It's the same in the Caribbean.

El Salvador. The men go from plantation job to job, the women stay put and rear children. That's economics, plain and simple. With an icing of hypocritical judgment from the authoritarians.

Did you know that in NYC, fathers weren't allowed in shelters with their wives and children?

Not only that, they had to PAY to visit them in said shelters??

Oh yeah, and "progressives", when talking about homelessness, can seem to only think of one word... "Shelter."

And on and on it goes.....

They separated the men from the women and children - 2005.

Not that I am descended from James. James was 2nd cousin to one of my ancestors. Perhaps his great-grandfather was a slave trader as well. In fact, that seems likely, since his son who was my ancestor, died in the West Indies. Still, that's only one ancestor out of 256, and my nearer ancestors are civil war veterans for the North.

That couldn't have been easy. Good for them. :hi:

I do want to see the entire documentary.

The Slave Ship: A Human History.

http://www.amazon.com/Slave-Ship-Human-History/dp/0670018236/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214081442&sr=1-1

as the narrator points out, there are perhaps 500,000 descendants of Balthasar DeWolf. Many of them, like my siblings, nieces, uncles and first cousins are blissfully unaware of that association since we are not named DeWolf.

put in a friendly customs inspector in exchange for the DeWolf's support during his cammpaign?

Fatherhood comes with an abligation to support a family. If there are no JOBS...GOOD JOBS available, to young black men, they can easily become discouraged, and not be all that eager to marry and create a real family. The urges to procreate NEVER go away, but the ability to remain in a family unit RELY on the ability to support the family..

Young women keep searching for that "one guy" who will create a family with her, and so many of them just end up with several kids with different "fathers", and NO DAD..

Our society has infantalized black women, and will offer them assistance, as long as they are like children, with children. The minute they DO form an adult family relationship with a man, any assistance they still need, is cut off, so it's not surprising why so many do NOT marry. They are seeking ANY advantage they can, for their children. The men end up being treated like children too.. like naughty boys who must constantly be punished for being "bad".. Is it any wonder why so many of them act the way they do?

Of course the children still end up being raised in poverty, with no responsible male father-figure, so the cycle keeps going on..

have been torn away from their families for the last four hundred years on this continent, Cosby and anyone who proffers the argument that there is something wrong with black men just become shamefully embarrassing.

What a crock.

That's not to say that real people don't have choices but, more, to finally cop to the tsunami - sized pull that has been tearing these families apart in institutionalized ways for hundreds of years and with yet no end in sight -- oh, and WHILE we pretend it was over with the Emancipation Proclamation.

I prefer to know reality, not propaganda. I can get behind anyone who fosters and encourages these families. People who call them out or wag fingers can go straight to hell in their sheltered hand basket. The Cos or whoEVER.

because if African people across the diaspora wait for solutions from the establishment, the black family may already be wiped out. There are some problems we can solve for ourselves starting with abandoning the 'bling' culture and the denigration of women. When a young black male tells me he hates books, it is clear he has no understanding of history.

You don't empower people by shaming them. :shrug:

That serves for ALL oppressed groups, including homeless people.

Unless you object, I'm going to quote this!

In MANY MANY places in the US, there were whole towns/communities that "white people forgot about".. There were bustling towns that were all black.. there were doctors/lawyers/teachers/restauranteurs/shopkeepers...you name it..

These towns were prosperous, and the children in those towns SAW..every day.. that black families could succeed..and were succeeding..

As people moved away (to the supposedly higher wages in the north), these towns started to fail..and some of them failed due to sour grapes from the nearby poor-white community no-goodniks who set out to actually destroy the towns like "Rosewood"..


found this interview from 1998 with Toni Morrison

Many had their land stolen from them as well.

But those towns were in no way the norm.


Edit: I guess I don't understand your point. The fact of The Castro doesn't mean all gay people enjoy equal rights just as the very few all black townships didn't gain that for all black people. ?

CAN and do organize themselves into prosperous ventures, and without destructive interference, they can and DO succeed....and they impart that knowledge and experience into their children and grandchildren. Those children grow up SEEING others "like them", succeeding, and failure is NOT an option for them.. But once there is interference and destruction of that culture, a devastation occurs, and once the positive role model are gone from the scene, children will still learn what they live..

:)

carelessly. That's Cr@P! and it deforms our real history as well as how we can go about doing better. :)

One of the points made last night was that the courts were used to further the interests of the powerful at that time (not much has changed). Many laws facilitated that process. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word towns because often they were swindled out of family holdings and farm lands in small villages.

and not in the Colonial period but in the 1920s. Our history books tend to paint mist around these facts but, there they are.

It never works and is never morally defensible to blame the people for their conditions, when they are the very ones with the least amount of control over the conditions. It is also completely at odds with every traditional principle and ideal of the Democratic party, and defends and promotes the pernicious libertarian doctrine of anti-social selfishness. It reinforces a racist stereotype.

I believe that successful Black men say these things to pander to whites, perhaps not even consciously but to get along in the world of successful white people and pander for support from whites for their careers, and I think it is shameful and destructive.

What happens when a young white male tells you that he hates books? Does that tell you that HE has no understanding of history? What does it have to do with the person being Black? You are suggesting that the descendants of slaves carry a higher burden in your mind - you think they should "understand history" - than the descendants of the privileged class who supported and benefited from slavery carry, are you not?

I simply remind him that his ancestors' owners did not allow them to even access books because they feared the acquisition of knowledge. I think all young people should read, but if one understands the role of reading in achieving social mobility from the cane piece or cotton fields as well as the ways in which those with power tried their best to keep Africans across the diaspora in ignorance, then yes it is very important for me to ensure that my own relatives and those I encounter on a daily basis understand the value of an education. I don't see this as a burden - it is my responsibility.

reasonable and responsible individual. Even though I am quite grateful to have found the Episcopal Church many years ago, I grew up as a Southern Baptist. My church had a wonderful and kind man with a Phd in religion as our pastor. It was amazing to see this gentle giant speaking with such fervor on a Sunday morning...even sometimes a little fire and brimstone thrown in. Many ministers rail from the pulpit. In the Episcopal Church the railing is more liberal and more soft-spoken, but nonetheless heartfelt. We must not let the GOPers, who are often Evangelicals or even more often those wooing the Evangelicals, demean the religion of anyone or the lack of it.

Fundie preachers. Too many people are informed by the agents of disinformation.

I like him more than I like Obama.

I bookmarked it.

from the incarceration of blacks through the same discriminatory legal maneuvers and power relationships. Rather than using blacks for free labor, the prison industrial complex makes what, a thousand bucks a year, five thousand?, from the state coffers for every one that they lock up in their prisons. And the underclass, both black and white (and Native American and Hispanic and so on) but especially black, are the easiest to victimize. The same effect on families and the same effect on both black and white cultures.

That was a great and revealing program and the research behind the book was very important. I knew that something of that sort had been going on, but didn't really grasp the significance before watching that Moyers program. I urge any who missed it to watch the online version.

I did think about the continuity of Neo-slavery via the prison industry.

innocent men thrown in prison and forced to perform free labor. It's still a form of slavery.

I am reading it slowly as it is harrowing. There really are no words that I can say that can express my horror, sadness and shame at what this nation has done to African-Americans. Really, I do believe that some form of reparations are truly in order. Black folk have literally built this nation with their blood.

Imagine the thousands of cases just like this one that were never documented or were covered up, especially in the early 1900s.

Who do I talk to about this limitation?

:hi:

I appreciate that you posted it. Thanks!

voters and letting mccain into the white house is not going to help our or Wright's cause.

Criticizing prophets continues the cycle.

Wright has a right to his opinions, and most of them if not the truth are very close. Good example would be AIDS was created or used against black people( i may be misinterpreting this though). While i may disagree about it being created for use against blacks, it sure is a truth that it was ignored for a very long time because it was a disease that affected gays, black, and drug users. It's also true that certain shadow groups in the U.S. intelligence agency flooded black areas with cocaine, because they didn't want it in their 'hoods.

I found Wright refreshing for the most part. I also detest the way he gets vilified for his leanings, and beliefs. The truth often hurts, and many can't stand to hear it, what a shame.

One reason i've never really been proud to be American is some of the shitty things we have done to our own. It's not just blacks, but also native americans (of which i am 1/2), asians, etc, and even poor whites.

so they could loot their resources and steal their land.