The Matriculation of James Crow Esquire

"Racism still alive, they just be concealin' it". Kanye West said this back in 2004 on his debut album The College Dropout. Since then time and again both White and Black people will agree that there is still racism in the United States. However it has become more difficult for all people to see incidents of racism. Where one sees racism, another may see an individual's poor decision. Gone are the days where all reasonable people regardless of race could look at a situation objectively and collectively conclude the racism present. Today some see racism others see unfortunate happenstance.

The apparent evidence of this can be seen in the rebuilding of New Orleans. With the Superdome having hosted two seasons worth of NFL games, and the New Orleans Arena been the home for the 2008 NBA All-Star game, some may feel that the city is back up on its feet. However, if you look closely you will see that only a certain section of the city is doing well. A vast part of the residential sections including the Lower Ninth Ward is still in shambles and goes largely unmentioned by mainstream national press. Even still, nearly four years after the hurricane colleges still organize alternative spring break trips down to New Orleans to help rebuild the large parts of the city that is has been neglected. Many of the lower to moderate income African-American residents who moved to places like Atlanta and Houston have not come back. The city is repopulating with middle and upper income Whites.

This is racism for the 21st century. The United States no longer bears witness to Jim Crow. Instead the country watches his son James Crow Esquire run amok. This new racism can be seen across the country. In Jena, Louisiana six African-American boys faced adult charges after several fights involving both Black and White students. In one of the fights a White boy brought a gun into the fight. That student was disarmed and beaten yet the only charges stemming from that incident were levied against the Black boys. James Crow Esquire no longer needs racist cops to hose down African Americans in the street, he no longer props up governors who will stand in the doorway to the state colleges and universities. Instead James Crow Esquire uses the subjectivity of the criminal justice (or lack thereof) system and the stinging effects of gentrification.

Another masterful trick created by James Crow Esquire is that the racism present in the United States is no longer executed by individuals on a person to person basis. Rather this new racism is institutional. With this being institutional, people and groups of people are now allowed to absolve themselves from any wrongdoing because it is not them the individuals doing anything wrong. The best examples of this lie in the numbers.The national high school graduation rate is about 80%. White American graduate high school at a rate of about 82%. As of today only 53% of African-Americans graduate high school. That means nearly half the African American students in this country do not graduate high school. This number alone should appal people. Keeping in mind the United States is no longer a place that manufactures a lot of its products, people without education or skills training cannot be expected to provide for themselves. More evidence of James Crow Esquire at work is the research done by the Center for Responsible Lending. They found that African Americans with fair to good credit and middle to upper middle incomes were still more than 35% more likely to be subject to predatory lending than their White counterpart.

What we are finding here is that the United States is invariably tied to the subjective criminal justice system, the inconsistent and faulty education system and the subjective lending and financial institutions. Numbers show that these institutions are now carrying out the racism that individuals carried out decades ago. Sadly good hearted people with the best of intentions find themselves working in and for these institutions that are perpetrating these atrocities against Black and Brown people in the United States. Individually they may see themselves as simply doing their job, but their job is the product of James Crow Esquire. Here in the 21st century racism is indeed still alive and its legacy is being preserved by the more crafty intelligent son of Jim Crow, James Crow Esquire.

Please Pass the Pork

In my diet I tend to avoid pork at all times. I have nothing against those who enjoy it, it just is not for me. However pork in politics is a completely different animal. Recently with all the talk about appropriations bills, omnibus budgets and stimulus money, some people in the media have been making a big deal about something that is termed pork barrel spending. This generally references pet projects. This is basically spending on projects that are unique to the needs of a given municipality, city, county or state.

The thing that has me lost is why this is such a problem. On a recent taping of Meet the Press South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham found himself in a tough situation. He voted along party lines by voting against the appropriations bill claiming is was laden with pork. Graham however included in the bill $900k for work on a South Carolina convention center. Beyond the obvious hypocrisy of the situation, Graham should be proud to be bringing a bit of the money back to his home of South Carolina. People elect representatives to act on behalf of a constituents interest. I'm sure a convention center in South Carolina would do good things for the community. In the macro-economics level we can see that it will create work opportunities which will create workers. With workers you get more income that then becomes taxable increasing the national revenue for the government to create more opportunities and benefits for people struggling during these tough economic times.

There are many valuable and unique contributions that can be made by directing funds to specialized projects. As the stimulus package was being discussed in detail a main facet of the package was infrastructure improvements. This basically means rebuilding roads, schools, hospitals and making physical improvements to these types of places. These are all necessary to not only get people working again but to ensure that the infrastructure that is in place is working at its most optimal level. It would make no sense for the nation to try an judge on a macro level where and how to disperse of that money. That is why various congressional representatives try to include their districts needs at a time when stimulus money is being given out.

I understand that a study of mosquitoes in Utah may not impress the taxpayer in Florida. However when a Florida congressperson or senator brings huge subsidies for orange farmers the people of Florida are overwhelmed and as well they should be. When Iowa and Idaho congressional representatives direct federal funds to their districts for corn and potatoes respectively I have no problem with that. That is what they were elected to do. Their constituents want their voices heard at the national table. Pet projects show that the representatives are remembering their districts and bringing something back to the people there.

John McCain generated some deal of fame talking about earmarks and pork barrel spending. He made enough of a deal about it that others took on the fight against earmarks. However, in the essence of representative democracy earmarks is the representatives way of showing he or she intends to bring a slice of the federal pie back to his or her district. As we can also see these things also are much more useful than they are given credit for being. As long as the pet projects are pointed to a specific need of a district or community, I have no problem with it. Pass the Pork.

Criminally Minded

With Omar al-Bashir recently charged with crimes against humanity, I began to wonder when if ever former President George Bush was going to be charged with comparable crimes. Initially Bush supporters respond to this claiming that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were completely justified. Although there is a state of mind that says that even the Afghanistan war was unjustified, I'll just concentrate on the matter of the Iraq war. Beyond violating the sovereignty of that nation Bush entered the United States in a war of false pretense. The meaning behind the war continued to change. Initially there was a case made for the Al-Qaeda connection and despite then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claiming that he knew with a degree of certainty that the weapons were near Baghdad and Tikrit,that proved to be faulty. Then there was the Operation Iraqi freedom.

This premise was loaded with fallacies. The first thing you can find is the audacity of the United States to try to correct someone else's problems when the U.S. is (and at that time was) loaded with its own problems. Second you wonder what qualifies a nation's people to deserve to be "liberated". The atrocities suffered under Sadaam Hussein were awful. Then again so too were the ones observed in Rwanda, Tibet, Palestine and India where the United States has been unwilling to comment on let alone do anything about. That begs the question why the United States is so eager to "liberate" the people of Iraq. Then we are presented with the idea of spreading democracy. Interestingly enough one of the U.S.'s strongest allies in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia which has a history of denying women rights as well as being an existing monarchy that in no way supports democracy.

Thus far we are clearly able to establish at best lies and at worst war crimes. This is all done without addressing the way United States treated prisoners of war. A word that has been thrown around quite a bit without any substance or merit is the talk of torture. Human rights groups across the world and inside the United States have concluded that what the United States has done to enemy combatants can easily be called torture. Republican Senator John McCain even denouced the Bush administration for any torture they have done. This seems to be plenty of evidence for the International Criminal Court to pursue criminal charges. The good news is (in actuality it's bad news) that there are even United States laws that Bush violated. The past president's handling of the Justice Department, and its federal attorneys was simply deplorable.

At this moment the head of the House of Representatives Judiciary Chair is none other than John Conyers. Chairman Conyers is the same person who every session introduces a piece of legislation called H.R. 40. That bill calls for reparations for the African-American descendants of slaves. When asked why he continued to sponsor the legislation despite it having no chance of winning, Chairman Conyers replied because it was simply the right thing to do. With this type of narrow-minded determination and focus it should be anytime now that we can expect some legislation to come from the Judiciary committe bringing charges against Bush. Those who are in Chairman Conyers district should implore the Chairman to use his position to do what is not only fair but just.

The mainstream media has made much noise about Harriet Miers and Karl Rove testifying before a House panel, however this is not serious justice on the matter. It comes off as merely a bone to appease critics of Bush who showed how he was beyond immoral but unjust and blantatly illegal. House members (outside of Dennis Kuinich) have been either unwilling or too cowardly to bring about impeachment charges against Bush. Now that he is no longer in office we can only hope that members of the House will act on the courage of their convictions.

Change on the Continent

With the nation being in such dire economic conditions very few Americans take the time to observe the international world around them. Depending on how you look at the world though, one would think that economic crisis sums up the events of the world at large. This isn't exactly true, particularly when looking at the continent of Africa. There is a lot happening there and with the continent's abundant resources, many eyes will be on the United States to see how President Obama and his administration responds to the changing world and environments. Ironically (or perhaps not so considering the abundance of resources the land is blessed with) there are a good numbers of African markets that are doing more than merely surviving as the world around it flounders and fails. But at this moment we are better suited examining the politics on the continent.

We can first start by looking at the new head of the African Union which is Muammar al-Gaddafi. He has been vocal about the need for African nations to control their own resources, and be the ones who sell the goods created by those resources on the world market. He is also an advocate for socialism. Most recently upon being named head of the African Union he has promised to not waver in his quest for both one form of African currency and for a United States of Africa. Mr. Obama's relationship with figures across the continent like Mr. Gaddafi will tell whether or not a true change is coming to the United States and the world. Observers will be able to see this by examining the way the United States does business with Africa. One of the points Mr. Gaddafi touched on was the need for nations to control their own resources.

Right now, Ghana is in a modest debate as to whether or not to increase rice production domestically to avoid paying for a crop that could be grown at home. Mr. Obama needs to come out and adamantly encourage the West African nation to work to be self sufficient. In the U.S. many have made good points questioning why the United States should continue to spend money to import energy when it can be found or generated here in the United States. If it is good for the U.S. to be self reliant, it should also be good for Ghana to be. Another issue Mr. Obama needs to be pro-active on is supporting the peace sharing agreements taking place in Zimbabwe. He should instruct his ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to remain silent observers as the people of Zimbabwe settle their own conflicts. Both Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Tsangvari leave much to be desired but the hope is that they can both contribute their strengths to a well functioning government that serves the people of Zimbabwe free from Western influence.

Still Mr. Obama will have to act courageously on the criminalization of Omar al-Bashir. Although this may be years late in coming, Mr. Obama needs to ensure that all who were responsible for the atrocities in Darfur (both implicitly and explicitly) are held accountable and punished according to international law. In keeping with respect for international law and organziations, it is imperative that the President be not only vocal but supportive on the United Nations World Racism Conference. The President has said that the United States would not participate on account of language from the last conference that condemned Israel and came off anti-Semitic. However the UN's top human rights official called the boycotts and negative media unwarranted. Ironically, this is exactly what U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was calling for. A frank and earnest discussion about race. It seems though if truth is told about the U.S. and their allies on the matter of race; the U.S. doesn't want to hear it. Now is the time that Mr. Obama should break through the notion of false racial transcendence. He should send a delegation to the conference and allow all parties to truthfully speak their piece.

On November 4, 2008 the entire continent of Africa rejoiced because a native son was elected to the highest office in the strongest empire in the west. This brought with it great pride, but also an expectation that things would be different. An expectation that a native son would not allow capitalist interest to pillage the welfare of his homeland. With the awesome task of saving the U.S. form of capitalism already on his plate. Mr. Obama must also balance that with the responsibility to provide fair trade agreements for African nations as well as allow them the room to be self-sufficient, self determining people who can be PARTNERS WITH rather than PUPPETS TO the United States.