The Death Of Jim Crow

Ever since the first European waded ashore on this continent, leading a black African by a chain around his neck, race has been the central scar tissue of American culture. Slavery, once universal, became divisive when the commercial/industrial North found it as unproductive as the agrarian South found it necessary. The North, with its everyman view of human worth, was plunging into the future of the industrial revolution, and the South was clinging to a reactionary system where a landed gentry lorded over peasants and slaves; the new American way, versus the old European.

Though masters of compromise, our founding fathers were unable to find a middle ground about slavery and the conventions that produced the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States ignored the subject, deferring it to future generations. This rickety non compromise of independent states propped up over time by short term arrangements, finally collapsed into the tragedy of the Civil War and with the blood of more than 600,000 dead Americans, tempered us into a new nation.

Much has been written about the reconstructed South and how “Jim Crow” emerged as a racial caste system to keep the former slaves at the low end of our society. That “Jim Crow” worked was due entirely to race. In other slave dependant cultures, such as the Roman Empire, race was not a determining factor; anyone could be demoted to slavery and any slave could be promoted to freedom. But in America skin color became a “Mark of Cain” that set former slaves aside. A foreign peasant could immigrate to this country, work hard, acquire an education, change his name if need be, and he and his progeny could prosper and be assimilated into the American system. Not so for former slaves. No matter the effort, the education achieved, despite any homogenous name, according to “Jim Crow”, if you were black, or any part black, you were a lesser human.

The Twentieth Century brought African contributions to our letters and arts which along with the Civil Rights movement produced the voting rights acts of the 1960’s. When President Johnson signed those new laws he’s reported to have told the Speaker of the House and fellow Southern Democrat, Sam Rayburn, “Well Sam we just lost the South for two generations.” Johnson was overly optimistic; the proof that “Jim Crow” still lives is the South, previously a Democratic stronghold, has been almost solid Republican for the succeeding three generations.

With the end of segregation laws and the laws against miscegenation, we now find ourselves with black and part black icons in our culture. Whether it’s the music of Duke Ellington or Ray Charles, the writings of Langston Hughes or Toni Morrison, the films of Spike Lee and Denzel Washington, the super star status of Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, the leadership of Thurgood Marshall and Dr. King, and now the presidential campaign of Barrack Obama, it’s clear we at a watershed moment in our history.

The question is, are we to be held back by those who won’t vote for Obama, not because of his politics, but just because he’s black? Or are we to excel and usher in a new even more enlightened America by seizing the moment to plunge into a promising new future and, in doing so, finally put “Jim Crow” to death?

Chicken Little

In a recent speech before the National Press Club, Newt Gingrich once again told us the world is a dangerous place and we need to be afraid. I’ve tried very hard to let this pass; but I can’t. To Newt - The Fear Monger - I say no, Chicken Little, the sky is not falling; the Bogie Man is not hiding in the closet to get you while you sleep.

In 1838, Abraham Lincoln, in a speech before the House of Representatives noted that "All the armies of Europe and Asia, with a Bonaparte to lead them, could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. If destruction is to be our lot, we ourselves must be its authors." Mr. Lincoln is as right today as he was then.

Yes it is true; there are people in the world who don’t like us. So what? If you open a history book you’ll see that’s hardly news. When has it been different?

The real threat to our liberty, as Lincoln so apply said, is from the fear mongers within our midst. The people who would have you surrender your freedoms for what they say is security, and in the process give them control over the country and your lives. Be afraid, they say, you gotta be afraid!

I’m not afraid. Even on 911 I wasn’t afraid. I was pissed off – yes – but not afraid. I’m a natural born citizen of the United States of America, and as such, I not only have no fear - no coward like Newt Gingrich or his neo-con control freaks are gonna scare me. Not now…not ever!

The Art of Losing Gracefully.

The Democratic Party’s dilemma is that while they desperately need Hillary to gracefully bow out of the race; the Clintons are incapable of seeing themselves as losers. However, no matter how she couches the situation, Hillary’s chances of winning the nomination are as likely as flying pigs.

Oh I know the cable TV taking heads fill the dead air between commercials with seemingly serious discussions of what if she wins Indiana and somehow manages to keep North Carolina and Oregon close; she can claim the most popular vote total. So what? The decision is decided by the delegate count and there is no way, even by the most twisted math, for her to beat Obama in that way.

The bulk of the remaining uncommitted super delegates are standing mute, not because they see the contest as still in doubt, but rather because they know that the votes of those white - over forty - females, so wholly committed to Hillary, will be needed in the fall and can’t afford to alienate them. Arguments for the good of the party make no headway with the Clintons and it’s clear they’ll continue as long as their money holds out. That being the case, Obama’s best move is to behave as though it’s over and discount Hillary by directing his campaign against Senator McCain.

Losing gracefully is not an acquired skill. It is strong character blended with selflessness and common sense. Hillary needs to understand that exercising selfless character now will pay her future dividends that going down in flames won’t.

Then, falling pig poop once again unlikely, it’ll be safe to go out bareheaded.

Black man or white woman?

Every time I hear a TV talking head ask the ridiculously rhetorical question, “Why can’t Obama close the deal?” I lean toward the screen and shout, “Duh? He’s black!” They never ask why Hillary, with all she had going for her just a year ago, couldn’t put Obama away on “Super Tuesday”. If they did I’d yell, “Duh? She’s a woman!”

The answer to both questions was partially supplied by Nora Ephron in her Huffington Post column when she asked, “Do white men hate blacks more than they do women?” Personally, I would restate Ms. Ephron’s question to ask, “Do white men fear blacks more than they fear women?”

A woman or a black man as president would be an enormous change for our country. White men have been at the top of our country from its inception and now with their preeminence being threatened their natural reaction is fear not hate; though clearly hate is an expression of fear. The primal fear, fear of the unknown, is at the root of conservatism, which by definition is resistance to change.

Never forget that our culture is derivative of the old British colonial system that not only gave us the enslavement of other races, but allowed a man to beat his wife to death as long as he didn’t use a stick bigger around than his thumb. It’s a long fall from that pinnacle of power to having to stand when a woman or a black man enters a room.

Regardless of today’s Pennsylvania primary election results, it seems that Obama is going to be the Democratic candidate in the fall. It’s clear that the white male vote is going to be decisive, and so far it appears to be split down the middle. In the fall we will find out then whether or not there are enough fearless white men in this country for us to make a leap into a bright new future or take a fall back into the dismal past.

From Bill Moyers' acceptance speech for the The Ridenhour Courage Prize.

“Temptation to co-option is the original sin of journalism, and we're always finding fig leaves to cover it: economics, ideology, awe of authority, secrecy, the claims of empire. In the buildup to the invasion of Iraq we were reminded of what the late great reporter A.J. Liebling meant when he said the press is "the weak slat under the bed of democracy." The slat broke after the invasion and some strange bedfellows fell to the floor: establishment journalists, neo-con polemicists, beltway pundits, right-wing warmongers flying the skull and bones of the ‘balanced and fair brigade,’ administration flacks whose classified leaks were manufactured lies -- all romping on the same mattress in the foreplay to disaster.
Five years, thousands of casualties, and hundreds of billion dollars later, most of the media co-conspirators caught in flagrante delicto are still prominent, still celebrated, and still holding forth with no more contrition than a weathercaster who made a wrong prediction as to the next day's temperature. The biblical injunction, "Go and sin no more," is the one we most frequently forget in the press. Collectively, we don't seem to learn that all it takes to transform an ordinary politician and a braying ass into the modern incarnation of Zeus and the oracle of Delphi is an oath on the Bible, a flag in the lapel, and the invocation of national security.”

THE SUNSHINE BOY

Hidden by blunted dreams,
deep in a man,
the Sunshine Boy schemes.

The maker of seeds,
he makes a plan,
to do the good deeds.

It’s he who chooses,
to down the sham,
and sooth the bruises.

He quiets the spites,
avoids the scam,
to reject the fights.

Despite the dark night,
Sunshine Boy’s élan,
enlightens the right.

The economy.

Every dollar spent in Iraq is a dollar we don’t have to spend here, not only repairing our own bridges, roads, and water and sewage systems, but also to give Americans access to health insurance and children access to good schools, fully funding Social Security and Medicare, investing in non-carbon based energy sources and green technologies, and borrowing less from abroad.

The real economic cost of the Iraqi War doesn’t show in the business cycle, and it's not responsible for the current recession. The real economic cost will show up years from now in a standard of living that most Americans will find significantly lower than they might otherwise have enjoyed.