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President Obama,
I sincerely appreciate the diversity in your cabinet. I think it demonstrates the various cultures of our country, and one of the main strengths of our democracy. I do think that most are very credible; but others do seem to be solely for the purpose of sensationalism. It is a very pragmatic step; however, I must take issue with the lack of African American's in high-level posts.
With all respect to you and all other communities, I think it's important to remind you and your team, how African Americans helped you make history. Please do not take us for granted:
* In South Carolina, when you were being belittled by the Clintons and chastised by Edwards; African Americans saw through the minuta andd gave you the benefit of a doubt. We demonstrated solidarity and gave you a game changing victory.
* Remember who delivered you the Democratic primaries in Georgia; Mississippi, Illnois, North Carolina, Texas, Missouri and Florida. This was all made possible by the historic grass roots efforts by the people that gave you that necessary edge.
* As proof of my previous assertions, voter turn-out among African Americans was greater now than ever in history. African Americans voted who had never voted before. Evidence of this is the number of elderly-centurians which you have personally given thanks.
* Finally, the monetary sacrifice made by African Americans like myself. We gave whenever we could and constantly pestered our friends and family to give as well. In a lagging economy where African Americans are often the first laid-off; we put our faith in you despite our current woes.
I want these sacrifices and contributions to be respected and acknowledged not only by words, but with the appointments of our brightest and best. Now is the time to show our excellance. I held my tongue with the appointment of Clinton, Gates. But now I believe the latest appointments seem to be more for sensationalism and undo Clintonian influence. If hommage is being given in this manner, then African American's deserve more of a say. By no means am I asking for token representation. Excellence and Competence are the mantras that should be exhibited and is the driving value of such appointees.
Where are the posts for General Honore', Dr. Ben Carson, Richard Parsons, AMA President Ronald Davis, Collin Powell, Henry Louis Gates, Mae Jemison, and Clifton Wharton. I think that at least 3 more African American high-level appointments are in order. Now in this historic time, a more deliberate effort should be made to highlight the extraordinary professionals produced by the African American community. This is your duty and obligation to those who fought the struggle for you to be where you are today. Acknowledge these efforts and openly show appreciation for the sacrifice and support by which you have benefited. In summary, I simply ask that you do right by us and give us a seat at the table.
Click
Back on January 25, 2008, I received a phone call from my mother telling me that her closest and dearest friend and mentor—and my “Nana”—had passed away. Her friend, Mattie P. Harris died the day Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary. She was one month shy of her 106th birthday. She had witnessed more history than most of us can imagine. The minute Mama said that Nana was gone, I immediately uttered that Barack would win South Carolina. Mama asked me what I had just said, and I repeated the statement. “Are you all right?” Mama asked. “Yeah, it was just a thought,” I answered. It felt extremely weird to have that sensation. I am not one to believe in a lot of hocus-pocus; I have no real superstitions. I do believe, however, in ancestral signs.
This past week I took my mother to the dentist. A retired school teacher and early childhood specialist, at 87 years of age and with two mild strokes behind her, I do not expect my mother to be spry. She has always been a busy body with a keen wit and fierce independence, only recently acquiescing to my demand that she have a housekeeper come to clean up her house. Yet she looked extremely frail to me this week. As an only child, I worry much more than I care to admit. My mother admitted to me that she forgot my phone number the other day, but she has always managed to find her Barack Obama buttons when we are headed out for the day. When I took my mother to vote a month ago, I heard an elderly black man say that he was voting early for Barack Obama just in case he “kicked the bucket before November 4th.” Everyone laughed, but the statement worried me.
Back during the Democratic convention, my cousin Billie, an 83-year-old director, actor, and drama coach called me as if to reinforce how historic and unbelievable this moment in time was. She talked about how she never dreamed she would see such a day. This was coming from a woman who has not only performed with the very best actors of any era, but who has trained some of the best that Hollywood and Broadway have to offer. I worry about her health in almost the same way as I worry about my mother’s health. She admitted that she had endured some recent health problems but was seeing a nutritionist that had prescribed a diet that had improved her overall well-being. She sounded good on the phone, so I worried less. Yet I still worry. In addition to being a supremely talented director, actor, and drama coach, she is a skilled diplomat and when necessary, a gifted liar (smile)—all great actors are! I have heard her skirt around the truth to deter me from worrying. Sometimes it works; sometimes it does not.
This week I found out that Barack Obama’s grandmother Madelyn Dunham was in declining health. The fact that Barack’s grandmother is a year younger than my mother Syble, and only a few years older than my cousin Billie made me a bit more anxious. I am not worried about Barack’s ability to win the Whitehouse or his ability to chart a new course for this nation. I do admit, however, to worrying that there might be some people who might not be around to see it.
I want Obama to win, not simply for myself, and all of us who have made phone calls, donated money and time, but for all of those old folks who never thought such a day would happen. My older relatives have seen this nation at its absolute worst. They remember having to keep silent as they endured the insults of racist whites; they remember being beaten and jailed for looking in the wrong direction or for staring at some white man's ugly cousin. And, too many Black women remember a time when any attractive Black female had to be cautious around white men. Rape was often the payback to a black woman who had spurned the attention of any white man. There was not likely to be any trial, and if so, there would be no conviction of the rapists. These Black elders, male and female, have waited their entire lives for a moment like the one we will see in less than a week. As an African-American, I have heard all the varied responses to a potential Obama presidency. I even heard one misguided white woman admit that she feared Blacks would retaliate against white Americans for past grievances. Oh well.
I do not know any black person who wants to settle two-hundred-year-old plus scores. All that I, and they, wish is to see Barack Obama win this election, and then strut himself, and his wonderful, brilliant wife and two daughters into that Big House on Pennsylvania Avenue. I personally wish this for my country and my elders who have paid the fullest measure for this moment in time!!
Peace and Love!
YES, WE SHALL!!
Copyright © 2008 by Leslye J Allen
This is one of the best speeches made by anyone on the delicate subject of race and racism in this current presidential campaign. Below is the transcript of AFL-CIO's Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka. Enjoy the piece.
Peace,
Leslye J Allen
There's only one really bad reason to vote against him: because he's not white.
And I want to talk about that because I saw that for myself during the Pennsylvania primary.
I went back home to vote in Nemacolin and I ran into a woman I'd known for years. She was active in Democratic politics when I was still in grade school.
We got to talking and I asked if she'd made up her mind who she was supporting and she said: 'Oh absolutely, I'm voting for Hillary, there's no way I'd ever vote for Obama.'
Well, why's that? 'Because he's a Muslim.'
I told her, 'That's not true -- he's as much a Christian as you and me, so what if he's muslim.'
Then she shook her head and said, 'He won't wear an American flag pin.'
I don't have one on and neither do you.
But, 'C'mon, he wears one plenty of times. He just says it takes more than wearing a flag pin to be patriotic.'
'Well, I just don't trust him.'
Why is that?
Her voice dropped just a bit: 'Because he's black.'
I said, 'Look around. Nemacolin's a dying town. There're no jobs here. Kids are moving away because there's no future here. And here's a man, Barack Obama, who's going to fight for people like us and you won't vote for him because of the color of his skin.'
Brothers and sisters, we can't tap dance around the fact that there are a lot of folks out there just like that woman.
A lot of them are good union people; they just can't get past this idea that there's something wrong with voting for a black man. Well, those of us who know better can't afford to look the other way.
I'm not one for quoting dead philosophers, but back in the 1700s, Edmund Burke said: 'All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.' Well, there's no evil that's inflicted more pain and more suffering than racism -- and it's something we in the labor movement have a special responsibility to challenge.
It's our special responsibility because we know, better than anyone else, how racism is used to divide working people.
We've seen how companies set worker against worker -- how they throw whites a few extra crumbs off the table and how we all end up losing.
But we've seen something else, too. We've seen that when we cross that color line and stand together no one can keep us down.
That's why the CIO was created. That's why industrial unions were the first to stand up against lynching and segregation. People need to know that it was the Steel Workers Organizing Committee -- this union -- that was founded on the principal of organizing all workers without regard to race. That's why the labor movement -- imperfect as we are -- is the most integrated institution in American life.
I don't think we should be out there pointing fingers in peoples' faces and calling them racist; instead we need to educate them that if they care about holding on to their jobs, their health care, their pensions, and their homes -- if they care about creating good jobs with clean energy, child care, pay equity for women workers -- there's only going to be one candidate on the ballot this fall who's on their side... only one candidate who's going to stand up for their families... only one candidate who's earned their votes... and his name is Barack Obama!
And come November we are going to elect him president.
And after he's elected we are going to hit the ground running so that, years from now, we're going to be able to tell our grandchildren that 2008 was the year this country finally turned its back on men like George Bush and Dick Cheney and John McCain.
We're going to be able to say that 2008 was the year we started ending the war in Iraq so we could use that money to create new jobs building wind generators, solar collectors, clean coal technology and retrofitting millions of buildings all across this country
We're going to be able to look back and say that 2008 was the year the tide began to turn against the Rush Limbaughs, the Bill O'Reillys, the Ann Coulters and the right wing hate machine."
Watch him at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QIGJTHdH50&eurl=http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/1/22234/6599/102/617219
Back in August 1963, Washington, D.C. closed all of its liquor stores and prohibited the sale of alcohol in the belief that over 100,000 crazy Black folks were going to descend on the district, get drunk and create all kinds of mayhem. Police officers were equipped with riot gear. White women were warned that because so many Black men were coming to town, they needed to be cautious about possibly being raped. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was not seen as the love fest that we see it as now. It was viewed as a recipe for disaster and mayhem. Importantly, most major newspapers did not mention Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. At that time, that speech was not seen as particularly exceptional. Time has aged it and the nation well. I was approximately two years and eight months old; Barack Obama was exactly two years old. We are the first generation of Black Americans who would be one part witness, and one part recipient of the kind of opportunities that M. L envisioned for peoples of color. Time does bring about change.
As Barack gave his monumental address, I thought about Fannie Lou Hamer again. Hamer was a Black woman from Mississippi who organized the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party that arrived with its own legally elected delegates at the Democratic Party’s 1964 convention. A few years earlier in 1962, Hamer was arrested after registering to vote, taken to a jail cell, and beaten so severely there that she suffered permanent kidney damage. So disfigured from her torture, for weeks she would not even allow members of her own family to see her out of the fear that one of them would become so angry they would retaliate against her captors and subsequently get themselves killed. She made the decision to organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party after meeting young black college students (who made up a majority of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s membership) traveling throughout the South spent their summer vacations educating Black citizens about their voting rights.
Hamer recognized that many counties in Mississippi held a Black majority. She believed that even she, a sharecropper with a sixth grade education, could make a difference. Hamer’s testimony on August 22, 1964 before the Democratic Conventions’ Credentials Committees was so emotional that news networks made the decision to cut away from it. Fortunately, her voice and words are preserved for future generations in numerous biographies and sound archives. (Visit: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fannielouhamercredentialscommittee.htm to hear her statement in its entirety.) When Hamer spoke to the DNC’s Credentials Committee about why the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegates should be seated, I was three years and eight months old; a few weeks earlier Barack Obama had celebrated his third birthday.
I have made references to how old we were for a reason. It has been during our lifetimes that these epic changes have occurred. In a span of less than fifty years Black Americans have gone from being beaten and killed for daring to register to vote to a moment when one Black man has become a nominee for President of the United States. As I listened to Barack’s speech this past Thursday August 28, 2008, he invoked a rather forgotten section of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech when he said that, “we cannot turn back.” I am glad that Barack chose that section to highlight.
What we have witnessed has been earned. Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and countless others are not here in the flesh to see this moment. Yet they made the down payment on this moment. It was never their speeches and statements that mattered most, but rather their willingness to go to jail, risk being shot at, bombed, fired from their jobs, along with their efforts to politically organize their neighbors that made what we witnessed on August 28, 2008 possible. They literally gave their lives. It is my sincere hope that none of the folks younger than I will ever have to endure what those who have gone before them have endured. But it is also my sincere hope that none of those who are younger than myself ever forget that they too may be called to extreme moments of sacrifice, particularly in the next few months before November 4, 2008. May we all remember that “we cannot turn back,” and “we cannot walk alone.”
Does he "owe" the black community anything?
(click the link, read the story BEFORE commenting...)
I happened upon an article tonight that is one with which I can relate, having had a white roommate (with a Spanish surname) for a roommate for my first semester at UCLA.
It makes me wonder if black Americans and white Americans will EVER be able to co-exist without division due to race.
The mother of Michelle Obama's roommate at Princeton says in the article, "Now she (the roommate, Catherine Donnelly) wishes she had reached across racial lines at Princeton.
The article's author says, "...Donnelly has worked and socialized with African-Americans. Yet she hasn't grown close to any of them. "I've just never had an opportunity," [Donnelly] says, "to have a good friend who was black."
I wonder if Donnelly has any African-American neighbors. Since working and socializing with African-Americans doesn't allow (most) whites to 'grow close' to us - on an individual basis - what would it take? I would love to see that wall brought down. It is as real as the Berlin wall was, but somehow it seems to be many times more impenetrable.
I believe that United we will stand, but DIVIDED WE (the U.S.) WILL (ultimately) FALL.
I invite white Americans of good will to give their input on what they think can work the miracle of racial reconciliation and harmony.
Here's the web address for the article about Michelle Obama's Princeton roommate:
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/04/12/roommate_0413.html
(Suggested draft speech fragments for Senator Obama)
(The country may not be ready for this yet, but here goes…)
Americans are often put in groups and classified as White-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and many other kinds of hyphenated Americans. Our individual ancestries contribute to a great national strength made possible only through diversity. But our diversity can be used against us by those who benefit from division and confrontation.
Those who profit from division do not want us to work together. Those who profit from division want us to be suspicious of each other. Those who profit from division do not want us to learn from each other. Being proud of your ancestry should not prevent you from working with others. Being proud of your ancestry should not prevent you from wanting to improve the lives of all Americans.
This campaign is about rejecting those who want to divide us. This campaign is about changing the policies of the past and building a country we can all be proud of. This campaign is about building a country where all of us want to turn those hyphenated names around and call ourselves Americans of European descent, Americans of African descent, Americans of Hispanic descent, or yes, just Americans. Yes we can.
The Importance of Obama Being at the State of the Black Union Forum
I heard today that Barack Obama has declined to attend the State of the Black Union Forum, to be hosted by Tavis Smiley in New Orleans next week, and I have to say, that I do feel disappointed. In fact, my heart dropped to me feet. By way of background, I am a Black female; born and raised in Washington, D.C.; inner city, then subsequently, private schooling; top of my class; co-president of the Columbia-Barnard black student union; Columbia University graduate; law school attendee; former university official; aggressive activist in K-16 and community and economic development; disaster readiness and planning official; aged 55, four children – three adult boys, one "tween" girl. I have campaigned for Barack, voted for Barack, convinced others to vote for Barack, and believe and hold every hope that Barack is the right one. I am thoroughly convinced that none of the other candidates is right for America or right for Black people. That is what Tavis will not say.
When I ask myself why I feel such deep disappointment, this is what I think I know.
I do share a sense that Tavis tends to express, even extreme caution about Barack, and if he were to listen to all of his radio discourses on Barack, he would hear a clear correlation between how many times he has called for accountability in Barack, specifically, versus a more mild pronouncement with respect to Hillary. I might do that too, to some extent, because our very survival is on the line and we cannot afford to continue to be passed over as if our minimal representation in the mainstream - our relative poverty, the decimation of our communities, the demonization of our race, even our moral decline are simply the result of some deficiency in ourselves. To some extent, we contribute to the problems, because we have imitated social constructs that are not good for us and we keep listening to and buying into the negative characterizations of ourselves. However, we absolutely did not cause the problems. There has been a long standing, calculated, psychological and physical, effort to render us immobile and irrelevant, and no reader of history, politics, economics, or cultural anthropology can deny that. We have relied on, but have been misled, fooled, under-funded, too many times, by people of all races and ethnicities - and that is the basis on which I believe Tavis proceeds. Time has run out – for the nation, and particularly for Black people.
We cannot continue to be an aside on the policy platform – as in, oh, by the way, Black people will benefit too. I read Barack’s letter to Tavis, and it seemed more to focus on Katrina, the continuing need for relief and recovery, and his already having acknowledged and taken to heart, that fact. The State of the Black Union is not about Katrina, New Orleans, or Louisiana, in and of themselves, albeit Katrina brought to light the grave inability or unwillingness of our nation to maximally invest in and protect its citizens – socially, economically, and politically – pre- or post disaster. Indeed, as citizens, we put the work in and we put the money up. Where’s the return?
Specifically, Barack states in his letter that he speaks to the voters "about the causes that are at the heart of my campaign and the State of the Black Union forum such as affordable healthcare, housing, economic opportunity, civil rights and foreign policy." But there needs to be more than generic attention to these as they affect Black people. An approach like that works only when all people have all along enjoyed the same opportunity for access, privileges, and rewards but by dint of some unexpected, universal failings in that society, people suffer. It only works when all have sat at the table, have been listened to with respect, have had their specific concerns discussed with agreed upon solutions and investment in those solutions made. When you have a society where a specific people have born the brunt of racism, hate, brutality, murder, genocide, educational dis-investment, economic disenfranchisement, almost total denial – special attention is required. Whether you like it or not. Whether some people will be uncomfortable facing that fact or not.
