Jack & Jill Politics

Larry O on Reagan’s so-called ‘legacy’.

A new poll shows 65 percent of the country believe the president does have a mandate to raise taxes on the wealthy. But publicly Speaker Boehner is sticking to his guns. Will the GOP step up?  The Guardian’s Ana Marie Cox and Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post join Rev. Al Sharpton

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As you make it through the day, don’t forget JJP.

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And always, have a peaceful day.

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hat tips-The Obama Diary, 3CHICS:

First Lady Michelle Obama at the Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots campaign, which collects toys for needy children, at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, December 11

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As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

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Rachel Maddow on Michigan.

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More on the Labor fight in Michigan.

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Americans For Prosperity Fake an Attack On Their Tent at Michigan Right to Work Rally

By: Sarah JonesDecember 11th, 2012

Prepare to be confronted with yet another example of right wing deliberate deception. Today at the Right to Work protest in Michigan, an Americans for Prosperity tent came down with people inside of it. Naturally, Fox was there to capture the scene and AFP were quick to blame it on violent union supporters. Also, Breitbart had a video, naturally, blaming the tent falling on violent union supporters, with a video that doesn’t start until well after the melee (of course).

But as you have learned, all is not what it seems in Right Wing world.

A protester of the anti-union law passed today, Tom Duckworth, saw a man he’d spoken to earlier in the tent, wearing NRA garb, kick the tent poles from the inside of the tent. Duckworth thought they must be getting ready to leave, until he realized there were people inside the tent. So, basically, a person described by Duckworth as “clearly a member of Americans for Propserty” kicked the tent down and then AFP blamed it on the unions.

December 11, 2012: Tom Duckworth explains what he saw at the Americans for Prosperity tent earlier today. Watch here via ProgressMichigan:

Duckworth says that when the tent came down, people cheered, but nobody “rushed the tent” for about 30 seconds. Sure, they cheered – AFP are the people funding the death of a globally recognized human right. After about 30 seconds, the protesters did trample the fallen tent in their pleasure, cheering its demise

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This week, ColorOfChange launched a campaign demanding that NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) Chairman John Rhea grant immediate rent relief to storm-impacted public housing residents that were left to suffer — for up to three weeks — without essential services in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. An initial flat-footed response by NYCHA dragged out the weeks until power could be safely restored. But now, NYCHA expects full rent payments upfront for both November and December, acknowledging no responsibility for the serious health, safety and financial toll its negligence continues to take on residents. NYCHA should be working around the clock to abate the needless suffering it has caused residents — not taking steps to compound it.

Please join us in demanding Chairman John Rhea immediately suspend rent collection for storm-impacted NYCHA residents, and credit payments already made. Read the email we sent to our members after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

The President talking in Michigan today.

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In an about face, Gov. Rick Snyder says he’ll sign an anti-union “right to work” bill, despite public outcry. State Sen. Gretchen Whitmer and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich join Rev. Al Sharpton.

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The Human Oil Slick known as Charlie Crist switched to the Democratic Party. He talks with Tweety.

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The President and Orange Julius met one-on-one. Tweety discusses it.

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As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

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hat tip-The Obama Diary:

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As you go through your day, don’t forget JJP.

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And always, have a peaceful day.

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On Tuesday morning, busloads of protesters will descend on Lansing, Michigan, our state’s capitol, to let Gov. Rick Snyder and his fellow Republican legislators know just how much of a mistake he made when he did an about-face (thanks to massive pressure from the right wing who continues to boil over with rage at the re-election of President Barack Obama) and decided to endorse Right-to-Work legislation. For those who are unaware, this is legislation targeted specifically at unions to decimate their ranks even further and (re)create a workplace atmosphere that will more closely resemble a plantation.

Which brings us to why black folks should care about this issue, and not just us black folks in Michigan. The right wing fringe tried to strip away worker rights in Ohio, but the people wouldn’t let it happen.  In Wisconsin more than 100,000 protesters stormed the capitol, previewing what will happen here on Tuesday. The result in Wisconsin was mixed at best, and the attempt to recall Gov. Scott Walker failed, but then Wisconsin also lined up to re-elect President Barack Obama thanks in large part to those same protesters. If these anti-labor, anti-worker activities are allowed to succeed, the effect will be disproportionately negative on African Americans because those of us who still have a decent job (I have been out of work for over a year) depend very much on jobs where the power of collective bargaining makes all the difference in our quality of life. And our quality of life remains consistently below that of whites even during ‘good’ times.

The fiscal cliff is important, sure. But you’d best believe this issue is equally important, if not more so, and the effects will have a much more direct and immediate impact on peoples’ lives than that cliff we keep hearing about. This effort to destroy unions here in Michigan is being hugely funded by the Koch brothers, and they have made it plain that just because Obama got re-elected doesn’t mean they are fading away. To the contrary it looks like they are just getting started. What they weren’t able to accomplish in the presidential election they are determined to accomplish at the local level in cities and states around the country. And thanks to Citizens United, they have the green light to unleash all the cash they need to achieve their goal.

It took people power and community organizing on a massive scale to defeat the money of the right wing crazies during the 2012 elections. If all it took was money then we should have lost by a landslide. But instead the exact opposite happened. Now we need for all of us to realize that Obama’s re-election wasn’t the final score. This ain’t no time to be doing the end zone dance. Because they’re coming, and they’re coming on strong.

Organize.

This is being cross-posted in Black Liberal Boomer

Over the last few years, we have started several traditions with our kids during the holidays. It is our hope that they will carry these traditions into their adult lives. First and foremost, we want our kids to really understand the true meaning of the season. The ultimate gift of life was given to us on December 25th, and this is what we celebrate. We want our kids to know that the season is not about receiving gifts and toys. Rather, it is about love, peace, and joy.

To reinforce these principles, we started several traditions. For instance, each year our kids pick a service project to do during the holiday season. While we participate in service projects all throughout the year, it is especially important that they participant during the holidays. The gratification that we all feel after giving back during the holidays is priceless.

The kids and I also do crafts during the holidays. Crafty moms out there might say: “So what, that’s no big deal.” Oh but it is! We make ornaments; we sip hot tea with lemon, sing Christmas carols, and make memories that last a lifetime. Yes, our crafts look like a hot mess (thanks to their non-crafty mom), but the time I’m spending with the kids is perfect!

And thanks to being a member of the Moms Clean Air Force, I have added another tradition to our list. I am going to take every opportunity to teach the kids about the environment during their holiday break.

Here are 5 things I plan to do to pique my kids’ interests in the environment over the holidays:

1. Read Books About The Environment: One of the best ways to teach the kids about the environment is through reading books. Checkout these 5 Powerful Clean Air Children’s Books that teach kids about pollution. Consider reading them to your kids, and/or purchasing them as gifts for family and friends. You can also check them out at your local library.

2. Recycle And Reuse:  The kids will be in charge of recycling the wrapping paper and any other recyclables during the holiday. Additionally, we’re going through the house and identifying all the items that can be donated to charity or recycled. The folks over atRecyclenow provide a variety of ideas in this post: 12 Days of Recycling this Christmas.

3. Let the Kids Be In charge: The kids love it when they get the opportunity to boss mommy and daddy around. They are going to be the energy police this season. They can remind mommy and daddy to cut off lights, and turn off TV’s and computer monitors to conserve energy.

4. Play Games With The Kids: I devised a game where each person in the family will start off with 5 tokens at the start of the holiday break. If you are caught wasting energy, you have to give up a token to the person that caught you. At the end of the break, the person with the most tokens wins. But I have not figured out what they are going to win yet! For more great game ideas, check out Ecokids.

5. Visit Kids Environmental Websites: I found a list of kid-friendly environmental websites to visit during their time away from school. Since the kids are definitely going to spend time visiting their favorite sites…why not introduce them to a few environmental sites where they can learn and have fun at the same time?

Believe it or not, as mothers, we have more influence over our kids than even their peers. The things that we do and say while our kids are young will leave lasting impressions. I want my kids to grow up knowing the true meaning of Christmas, knowing that they have a responsibility to be of service to the community, knowing how much you can be blessed just by being a blessing to someone else…and knowing that we can’t take anything for granted, not even the clean air that we breathe.

Please join me and thousands of other other moms and dads who have joined the MOMS CLEAN AIR FORCE. Find out the multiple ways you can TAKE ACTION and hold our politicians accountable for decisions that would prevent the EPA from protecting our children’s future.

Happy Holidays!

TELL EPA TO SET STRONGER LIMITS ON SOOT POLLUTION NOW

Melissa Harris-Perry and her daughter Parker with Gabby Douglas.

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Melissa Harris-Perry on the Kansas City Murder-Suicide and other gun violence.

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Our fiscal policy is under attack by amoral cyborgs.

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Good Afternoon.

As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

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Outplayed, outsmarted, outlasted, the GOP is in an ever weakening position and while the adults in the party seem to recognize it, the hysterics and the cake eaters, i.e. the Tea Party, don’t. This way lies madness. The GOP is trapped. It is a position they could correct given two cycles 2014 and 2016, if they reacted now and moved in the correct way. But their inability to even grasp what is happening to them limits their ability to recover.

Let me point out that only four Presidents in modern history, the 20th and 21st centuries, have won two elections with more than 50% of the vote: FDR, Eisenhower, Reagan, and Obama. Mandate anyone?

The GOP could embrace this reality, stop getting high on their own supply of crazy, and get on board. But they won’t, and that is why they are doomed. The President is a party ender for the GOP. That is because of race, a race toward ignorance and the hate filled passions of a fraction of the GOP.

In 2006, before President Obama announced he was running, when there were just rumbles and sightings of him raising money for Dems all over the country, an idea started to gestate in my brain. “Could the GOP actually be done at the national level?”

It was a foolish question. Political parties don’t die in America Right? The last to do so was the Whig Party, a holdover from the colonial and revolutionary days of George Washington and John Adams. Political parties simply are. They are immutable and immovable and indestructible.

Except they aren’t. Sure they have infrastructure and they look all powerful, especially given the political proclivities of the modern American. More and more we see ourselves as Red or Blue. We talk about ourselves in those terms, and we function as though we are required to be those things. In this way, the death of one party or the other seems impossible. I’m here to tell you it is not. They can die. It just takes a Party Ending Event, consistent bad judgment, and the inability, for ideological or racial reasons, to act as a political party.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a love letter to Third Way, a bunch of misguided ignoramuses masquerading as a politically relevant movement. Is anyone surprised how many of Third Way are Republicans by the way? No, this is a cautionary tale about the hubris of one party, the aligning of interests that spawned the modern version of it, and the fallacy of hate triumphing over love. It never does. It is ultimately self-defeating.

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And some Official White House Photos: hat tip-The Obama Diary:

I love this one because of the way he’s standing there, waiting for her. This was their last rally together at his last campaign. What they both must have been thinking looking at one another. I have to believe that part of them was like – ” I really couldn’t have believed this would be the end, when it all began.” That they were back in Iowa, the place where it all began for them…I think this is a very poignant pic.

Des Moines International Airport, Nov. 5 (Pete Souza)

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As you begin a new week, don’t forget JJP.

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And always, have a peaceful day.

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I wrote this essay on colorism some time back in the mid-nineties. It was published in both a magazine I edited in Atlanta and in the national Evergreen Review magazine. I wrote the piece during a mayoral campaign in Atlanta, hence my using it as a sort of jumping off point. I thought about what I’d written, of course, after watching Soledad O’Brien’s very fine “Black in America” special earlier tonight. No, I’m not surprised the essay is still relevant. A problem remains a problem until you solve the darn thing.

It was probably just a matter of time before the issue of the high-yella black person reared its head in the Atlanta mayoral race. Let no one be disillusioned; it was being talked about anyway, quietly, which in the black world means among friends or close associates or at least far away from white people.

An inside joke had it that Marvin Arrington said that if he won the political contest (and I write this days before the outcome), he would become Atlanta’s first black mayor. Get it? It’s a reference to the light hues of the three African Americans who have served as the city’s mayors–Maynard Jackson, Andy Young and, Arrington’s runoff opponent, Bill Campbell.

And in now what has become very public because it was said during a radio debate, Arrington accused Jackson, a Campbell supporter, of spending his civil rights movement days in Cleveland “passing.” But when Campbell accused his opponent of playing the color card (it is easier for the masses to imagine light blacks selling out, for reasons I probably don’t have to explain), Arrington backed up and said he meant passing out encyclopedias. The damage, of course, had already been done, whatever he really meant.

Writer Alice Walker has a name for this intra-racial struggle. She calls it “colorism.” She says it’s a major problem in the black community–so much so that just as DuBois predicted that color would be America’s main problem of the 20th century, Walker believes this insider struggle of different hues would be black folk’s chief burden of the 21st century. To give an example of colorism’s power, Walker points out that, in matters of what she calls black black women wondering if prominent black men will chose one of them, “it is sometimes everything we think about,” she says.

I remember a girl in my high school—still today, one of the most attractive females I’ve ever seen–who was also very, very dark. A dark popular guy said he would “ask her for the go” because she was obviously fine, but you know he also had that dark thing to contend with, especially the combination of both being nearly literally black. I don’t think I’d ever seen someone wrestle so hard about anything. You would have thought he had a legitimate dilemma.

This colorism is perhaps the dirtiest of black people’s soiled laundry, dirtier than black-on-black crime, which is hardly on the down-low anymore, although reasons implicating the majority society certainly are; the color game is the dirty laundry black people really don’t want whites to know about. It’s embarrassing, for one thing. Here you are complaining that whites assume certain privileges because of the lightness of their skin, and you’re doing the same thing in your black world. It also questions–dramatically–the Movement assumption that blacks are morally superior to other, read that white, people. Black people take their morality business seriously when engaged in struggle with whites. They could use it, for example, to explain why blacks can take so much punishment from white folks. Anybody can hit somebody back, but a man, in a kind of revisionist definition of the species, is bigger than that, the assumption goes. It was a moral one-up-manship that, thanks to all those television cameras showing how law enforcement officers abused black demonstrators, played a large role in shaming America into passing civil rights laws.

Blacks could wallow in that aspect of morality without having to answer another aspect of their struggle that smacked of immorality, and that is the game of color they played among each other.

Clarence Thomas is a traitor, true; that’s easy to call. But have you ever heard his stories from back-in-the-day in Savannah (yes, the traitor is technically a homeboy) when he was disparagingly called ABC–America’s Blackest Child–by other blacks? It may be hard for some to picture this now, but it was pretty much standard fare to say it was very possible to be too black, the same way it was a kind of compliment to say someone was dark but pretty, or a pretty black girl. Many blacks wondered about the fashion sense–if not the mental state–of a black black person, and especially a black black woman, who wore too much white. She was also to avoid dark red, light red, yellow, black, and, come to think of it, I don’t think I ever heard what color she was supposed to wear.

Black communities in Southern cities especially–like New Orleans, Charleston and, my old stomping ground, Savannah–built little societies around color. In Savannah during the turn of the century, to give you an idea of how bad the situation was, there were allegedly two Episcopalian churches for African Americans–one for light African Americans and the other for dark African Americans.

A high-yella women was supposed to marry a high yella man, of course, but exceptions could be made if the man was very successful. And they had to be very careful about the exceptions because there was always the matter of wondering what kind of hair the children would have.

Whites profess ignorance or confusion about this black phenom, and they probably are confused on one level since they see blacks primarily as blacks, whatever their literal color. White enmity, however, is not that democratic. To the contrary, whites play an integral role in determining the black color-caste system. If the lighter you were as a black the better your chances for gaining employment, guess who, as a byproduct of running the country, was doing most of that hiring? And a great deal of the black color-caste fell into the white blood-is-thicker-than-mud department since most of the high yellas were the offspring of white men who, while not looking out for them as they would their white children, still looked out for the yellas on some level. Many of these men, for example, built several of what we now call black colleges –then called “colored colleges”– for their mulatto offspring, according to Atlanta historian Skip Mason. A black historian in Savannah–a man who also runs one of the funeral businesses in town–said that, in a weird kind of exchange program, white fathers in Savannah would often send their mulatto offspring to Charleston for friends to sort of look out for, and vice versa. Four years ago, I was taking a smoke outside the hotel where Campbell was holding his victory party after winning that election. Two white smokers stood behind a post that blocked me from their view. “Well, at least he’s white looking,” one told the other.

But because black was discovered to be beautiful in the mid-60s on, those attitudes changed. Or at least people have enough sense to not verbalize them. Of course, you would never guess that in Atlanta, a municipality in which you hear guys still saying things about looking for “redbones.” But then, this town on a hill does other things as if the Black Power struggle never found its way up here, or that if it did, tired out from the metaphorical climb, or got the heck out of Dodge, er, Atlanta, after running into these reactionary cultural altitudes. But there were always the nasty reminders, even outside this city. People saw on TV that the love interests of those brother singers in the videos were almost always light, even if they weren’t pretty, or fine, which was, after all, supposed to be the point. Successful men still married, for the most part, women who were lighter than them. Alice Walker’s informal survey during the ’70s revealed that even the most militant of the black power guys (even Marcus Garvey) had light mates. She contends that Malcolm X, a high yella brother, although closer to the dirty-red variety, is so loved by black women because he married a black black woman.

Anyway, with all this mess of a history, is it any wonder why blacks still harm each other day in and day out; those brothers who actually kill each other are simply the extreme of an ongoing larger, but not as literally murderous, self-hate.

So what to do about all this? There’s probably very little to be done unless material conditions are changed—that is, when blacks appear to be winning. No, make that when blacks are winning, or getting back what they lost when brought over here and other parts of the Western Hemisphere as free laborers—when they return to controlling the space they occupy. I think it was Clarence Thomas who said that, as a youth, he saw blacks as being such chumps, and that is why he did not wish to associate with them. We’re always on the outside begging folks who have historically kept us out to let us in, he said.

It’s easy to see how he could see that, although the sentiment hardly forgives the life he has chosen to lead as an adult. It is as if folks have to come up with a new set of rules to deal with us, and we with them, when in actuality we don’t. (As in what’s with all the civil rights bills when you’ve got a Constitution?)

It’s probably cool that Malcolm cooled out a lot of sisters with his marital decision, but his greatest achievement is that he elevated the black struggle to a human struggle. You don’t want any special treatment, he said. Nor should your oppressors receive any. He said handle your business, or your struggle, as anyone else would in your circumstances. It wasn’t going to be easy and you may be surprised what you have to do.

But he guaranteed us this. You won’t have time to play skin–or any other kind of–games.

Football – BEST.SPORT.EVER.

Good Morning.

As you spend this weekend with family and friends, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And always, have a peaceful day.

In case you hadn’t heard, CNN is going there again. Beginning this Sun at 8pm  & 11pm EST/PST, Soledad O’Brien’s Black in America series goes deep inside colorism within our community. Black gets abstract – the One Drop Rule and the Paper Bag Test both get deconstructed. Please consider this post an Open Thread so we can discuss as a community your reactions to the special and to the reality of colorism in America.

Soledad O’Brien and other people profiled in the special ask the questions:

• Who is Black?
• What is Black?
• Who Decides? You – or Society?
• Is Black big enough to cover all shades?

A young woman profiled in Who Is Black in America?, Nayo Jones, who is bi-racial says she’s often asked: “Girl you are so pretty! What are you?”

Sound familiar? It might – whether you have been the asker or the receiver. This special explores all the emotions and history surrounding Americans’ continuing need to define one another via skin color.

I think this particular special is relevant for all black folks whether you are high yellow or deep black. As someone who is light-skinned and comes from a family with a wide range of skin tones, I dealt with this question early. So did Soledad O’Brien as it turns out. Soledad and I sat down earlier this week to chat about the special and its themes.

I asked Soledad – who is bi-racial like Nayo and light-skinned – whether this special had any personal resonance for her. Here’s what she had to say about Who is Black in America?

“I look at Nayo who is tortured and squirming in her chair about her identity. The question is: Is it you who decides you are black or society?

I have a similar background but my parents were clear and articulate. My experience was almost the opposite of hers. Growing up: we were black!

I’m grateful that my parents helped us form an identity – they gave it to us. They helped us to navigate society.

I never thought bi-racial was an identity. My identity is black. I thought (the fact that one parent was white and another was black) that it was a math equation of how I came to be.

Both girls (profiled in the documentary) would say I get to decide (what I am). But the fact is that the decision has been made for them.

Our documentary isn’t there to give you the answers. We want to raise the questions about how we value and judge each other on skin color. We’re not post-racial and there is a real penalty – the data shows – for skin color. Yet some people still don’t believe that.”

A lot of that resonated with me. Even though my family is mixed-race genetically, everyone in my extended family no matter their skin tone was always proud to be identify as black. Yet how would my great-grandmothers who were Native American feel about their contribution to my identity being tossed aside, I sometimes wonder? The One Drop Rule doesn’t apply to Indians.

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