When Will the International Community Hear the Screams of Congolese Rape Victims?

Livingstone Bubusa, the chief of Luvungi, a village in the Congo that recently was subjected to mass rapes. (Source: nation.co.ke)

In a different world, the international community would have heard the screams.  Screams that since late July have only gotten louder, more desperate, more regular.  Screams cutting into the atmosphere from eastern Congo.  Screams from rape victims—more than 500 of them, according to a recently released United Nations report.

In response, 750 troops mobilized in early September to track down the perpetrators.  At least 27 people have surrendered and four more have been arrested. But I am sure the screams will continue because the environment that produced the rapists and made Congolese women vulnerable remains.

There are several outsider-engineered sites of perpetual violence and suffering. The largest and possibly worst on Earth is the Democratic Republic of the Congo where armed bands of troops battle for control over the country.

The most powerful people and organizations in the world today—multinational corporations—need the riches of the Congo to continue to enrich themselves at the expense of Congolese people.

The Congo is the world’s largest producer of cobalt ore, used in alloys, batteries, and coloring devices.  It also contains 30 percent of the world’s diamond reserves and 70 percent of the world’s deposits of coltan, a necessary ingredient of most the world’s most used and profitable electronic products, including cell phones, DVD players, video game systems, and computers. But few of these riches find their way back into the pockets of the people.

Instead of receiving profits from their country’s wealth, an increasing number of Congolese women are forced to receive the horrors of social and political instability. It is an instability that benefits the multinational corporations; an instability that I do not believe they will try to change.  Why would they?  In a stable Congo, there would be a strong central government that would undercut their profits and a well organized and unified local business community that would trim their profits, specifically if it chose to nationalize all of the mines, industrialize and only sell manufactured goods to the international community.

Instead the multinational corporations and their state agents have either deliberately stoked and continues to stoke a Congolese Civil War or it has chosen and continues to choose not to intervene—not to end the African horror in the heart of the continent. Sending a few thousand troops is not intervention. How many troops are in Afghanistan?

Since 2008, there have been well over 30,000 rapes reported in the Congo, according to U .N. Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Atul Khare.  If 30,000 were reported, I wonder how many have actually occurred. 60,000? 90,000? 100,000?!

Possibly 60,000 rapes and we still have not heard their cries, their screams. I wonder if this was happening in Italy or Spain or Sweden what the response would be. No, there is no need to wonder. We both know every news station in the Western world would allow us to hear their screams. We know that a five-digit peace-keeping force, if necessary, would have been mobilized.

But then again, I do not need the corporate media to hear their screams. I can hear them myself. I can hear them. My humanity forces me to hear them. Do you hear them? When will the rest of the world hear them?

USDA’s Shirley Sherrod, Consumer Rudeness, and the Conundrum of Blacks in Power

Shirley Sherrod (Source: cltnetwork.org)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently forced its Georgia director of rural development, Shirley Sherrod to resign for her supposed racism.

On Monday, a conservative blogger published a two-minute, 38-second video clip of a March 27 NAACP banquet. In the video, Sherrod apparently says she was in a position to come to aid a white farmer in keeping his land. But, she did not “give him the full force of what” she could do because the white farmer, who has come forward to defend Sherrod, was acting “superior.” The conservative blogger describes the story as a “racist tale.”  

There is a national debate spreading through America as to whether Sherrod should keep her job and whether the story revealed racism. 

Personally, I think the cause of Sherrod’s action (or lack thereof) for the farmer is less about race and more about consumer ignorance. I am sure that the vast majority of Americans screaming racism and calling on the USDA to keep her away would not serve a client or consumer with the “full force” of their effort, if that client or consumer was acting rude, belligerent, arrogant, or nasty to them. It just so happens, that the white farmer’s nastiness as a consumer was cloaked in race, as most blacks can not stand arrogant whites who walk around like they own everything and everyone, know everything and everyone, and are better than everything and everyone. Similarly, women do not like male clients who continually sexualize them in the marketplace, and probably hold back some of their help.

Is it right to hold back help to a client that is harassing you socially or sexually (or any other way for that matter)? In a perfect world, we would treat all of our clients—no matter their level of offensiveness—equally. But then again, in a perfect world, none of our clients would offend us.

I can not fault Sherrod for not having super-human consumer relationship skills. If anyone tries to make the claim that they treat all of their face-to-face clients equally, then they are lying. It is impossible, as consumer rudeness is one of the causes of that unequal treatment. But we do live in a world with people who have been taught to think people can be objective and unbiased, so I am sure some people think the impossible is possible.

This situation not only stokes a discussion about consumer rudeness and its effects, but also the conundrum that blacks in power face.

We live in a nation in which who you know is more important than what you know. That goes not only for securing jobs, but securing high levels of customer service. Black powerbrokers, particularly those who have not forsaken their black identity and not disconnected themselves from the black community, are constantly and consistently being watched by some of their white colleagues to see if they are “helping their own” or hindering whites. The over-the-shoulder dynamic is a diabolical feature of black leadership in America.

Why is this dynamic so prevalent? Why are some whites (and even blacks) looking to see if blacks are aiding other “unqualified” blacks? Why are some whites looking to see if blacks are discriminating against whites?

Well, for the same reason liars are always thinking someone is lying to them; the same reason cheaters constantly think they are being cheated; the same reason killers are always looking over their shoulders thinking someone is targeting them—the same reason. I am sure you know where I am going with this (The statistics on white pipelines and racism in the workplace have been well documented).

But that is only one half of the conundrum of black powerbrokers. The other more gruesome half is not what other people see, but what they see. They see those white pipelines flooding their offices with white workers. They see their colleagues discriminating against black workers. They see this stuff regularly—infuriating them and causing them to consider replicating it.

If some whites use their positions of power to advance white society at the detriment of blacks (and other groups), I must use my position of power to do the same or blacks will continue to be behind, some black powerbrokers reason. Whites are already ahead in certain aspects of America’s race life race they are cheating to boost their lead, so how will blacks ever catch up if we don’t cheat, some ask themselves.

Some, possibly most, take a moral stand and do not create black pipelines to counteract the white pipelines. Some choose to not consciously hold back for whites, like they see some of their white colleagues holding back for blacks.

It is a conundrum. I suspect aspects of this conundrum affects Sherrod and other blacks like her in positions of power. 

What can they do to resolve it?  

I suspect most blacks resolve this conundrum through helping out blacks when it is close and undetectable, even as some whites do not. They also block the views of whites looking over their shoulders for what’s becoming a prominent phrase: “reverse racism.” Like Sherrod, when they come across racist whites, they use that as an opportunity to do what they see their white colleagues doing.

But at the end of the day, they still feel bad, like Sherrod did, as her so-called “racist tale” was really a story of redemption, a story of what she should not be doing.

Yet, should they feel bad? When baseball players earlier in this decade saw their peers pumped with steroids excelling past them, did they feel bad when they started taking it to compete. Was it right? Technically, it was not right. But if they see everyone else doing it, is it still wrong? Concepts of rights and wrong must always be contextualized.

Socially responsible black powerbrokers have a conundrum on their hands. Do they take the moral high ground and watch the gap widen? Or do they use their positions to make sure blacks can at least reasonably compete, like other races are doing?

It is a conundrum.

Rev. Jesse Jackson: Cleveland Cavs Owner Views Lebron James as a “Runaway Slave”

Lebron James and Cavaliers Owner Dan Gilbert (Source: gossiponthis.com)

As a die-hard fan of the New York Knicks, I was devastated when Lebron James announced Thursday night to 10 million people he was not coming to New York, but instead going to South Beach to play for the Miami Heat. I was unnerved that James did not want to accept the challenge of reviving one of the most storied franchises in sports on the world’s greatest basketball stage–Madison Square Garden. Many fans and team officials in Cleveland, Chicago, New Jersey, and Los Angeles who lost out on the Lebron James sweepstakes were upset. But the person who seemed the most upset of all was undoutably Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. 

In an open letter to Cavs fans after James’ decision (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5365704), he crushed the character, personal and professional, of Lebron James. It was the most viscious rhetorical assualt I have ever heard from an owner to a player in the two decades I have been watching American sports. He acted like an immature teenager lashing out at a girlfriend who just left him. His arrogance, his rich and White arrogance, was teeming off of the letter, as he had the audacity to say that the Cavs would become champions before James’ Miami dream team.

The racial connotations of Gilbert’s scathing letter were slick and obvious, but I have been too upset at Lebron to address them. But they need to be discussed, and I am happy that the Rev. Jesse Jackson recently released a statement today examining the racial character of Gilbert’s immature letter. Rev. Jackson’s statement, courtesy of the Rainbow Push Coalition webist, is below.

Mr. Dan Gilbert’s accusations, expressed in an open letter to LeBron James after his announcement that he will play next year’s NBA season for the Miami Heat, have legal and social implications for the league, its union and the character of LeBron James. By saying that he has gotten a free pass and that people have covered for him way too long, Gilbert suggests that LeBron has done something illegal or illicit.

He speaks as an owner of LeBron and not the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers. His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality. He sees LeBron as a runaway slave. This is an owner employee relationship–between business partners–and LeBron honored his contract.

He must know the Curt Flood suit, which changed plantation rules and created free agency; and the Spencer Haywood suit that changed eligibility rules.

If he believes that LeBron quit in games 2, 4, 5 and 6 of the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals, then, why did he fire the coach? If he believes that LeBron intentionally quit, determining the outcome of those games, why did he pursue him and offer him and additional $120 million to stay in Cleveland?

These accusations endanger LeBron. His jersey is being burned in effigy, and he is being projected as a betrayer by the owner.

When players or coaches speak disrespectfully to or about referees, they are fined. If Mr. Gilbert cannot prove that LeBron changed games by quitting, he defames his character. He should have to face a challenge by the NBA and the players association. LeBron has every right to an apology.

Other players cannot just watch this as if it is LeBron’s personal problem. This is an attack upon players in general.

LeBron is not a child, nor is he bound to play on Gilbert’s plantation and be demeaned. He has been a model citizen and has inspired the children of Akron, Cleveland, the State of Ohio and the United States.

He has conducted camps for children, helped to win a gold medal for our nation and his public deportment has been excellent.

Mr. Gilbert’s statement is mean, arrogant and presumptuous.

I hope that LeBron will speak up and speak out clearly and forcefully.

One point I will add to Rev. Jackson’s analysis is why the “runaway slave” analogy is so perfect. Dan Gilbert is acting like he is upset right now because of James’ disloyalty when in reality he is angry because of the economic loss that his franchise will face due to James departure. The Cavs are going from one of the most lucratic NBA franchises with James as its face to a relative economic ruin. Who knows how many millions of dollars James took out of Gilbert’s pocket when he boarded a flight to Miami. But Gilbert is not talking about this, as the cause of his rage. He’s only referring to the supposed betrayal.

Similarly, when slaves ran away, owners would rarely speak about the economic loss to their plantations and instead would emphasize the disloyalty shown by their slaves through running away. They would emphasize, like Gilbert did in his letter, how well they treated the slaves, and how only an amoral, disloyal slave would leave the confines of their glorious plantation. They made betrayal the public face of their ire. But when they went back to their big houses, into their offices, and started doing some calculations, the true cause of their rage was revealed.

Right now, Dan Gilbert is doing those calculations in his big house in private, and that is why he is reacting so vehemently against Lebron James “running away.” The attack on James character was a clever cover, just as it was for centuries by slave owners.

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Oakland Outrage: Oscar Grant’s Mother Speaks, Slamming System that “Let Us Down”

Any Black Man Can Become the Next Oscar Grant

Thousands of people demonstrated and some violently rebelled Thursday evening after an all-White jury in Los Angeles convicted transit officer Johannes Mehserle of just involuntary manuslaughter, even though his obvious execution of the 22-year-old, unarmed Oscar Grant on New Yer’s Day in 2009 was caught on video. Grant was lying on his back, face down on a train platform when Mehserle became the latest White cop to assassinate an unarmed Black male. Still, Mehserle was acquitted of the more serious charges of second-degree murder and volutary manslaughter and may only serve TWO years in jail. 

After the verdict, Wanda Johnson, Grant’s mother surrounded by her family and friends, gave a riveting speech, which inspired the demonstrators that evening.

Here is an excerpt from the speech:

That the system has let us down but God will never ever let us down. Though the system has failed us, though we fight continually, but you know what, one thing I know, that the race is not given to the swift nor to the strong but to the one who endures till the end. And as a family and as a nation of African-American people, we will continue to fight for our equal rights in this society.  

The Scripture tells us that the rich bribed the judges and certainly we have seen the judges be bribed. Certainly we have seen how this judicial system has worked on such a case as this. We couldn’t even get six hours of deliberation. And we have a new juror who came in who had not probably even reviewed the evidence with the other jurors. But the jury had already had their minds tainted.  

I still remember what Dr. King said that he had a dream. I believe that one day as a nation of people, that you guys will not look at us according to the color or content of our skin, but that we will be treated right as a people. And my son was murdered. 

He was murdered! 

He was murdered! 

He was murdered! 

My son was murdered! 

And the law has not held the officer accountable the way that he should have been held accountable. And I look at this, and I just say like my brother said to any other family who goes through this, do not give up. Do not give up. Even though the system will fail us and let us down, God will never fail us nor will he let us down. And I will trust in him until I die. 

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What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?

Source: rochesterliving.com

The extraordinary orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass uttered the famous words below into history on July 5, 1852 in Rochester, New York. The name of the speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” is one of the most moving and distinguished speeches in human history. It is the greatest speech of one of the greatest American speakers. Here are some excerpts from this famous speech that is still relevant today.

Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin!

Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to bum their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is past.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

For a full copy of this speech, go to http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=162

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Supreme Court’s Handgun Decision and American Band-Aid Politics

Source: ldjackson.net

Americans are upset about the Supreme Court decision to declare unconstitutional Chicago’s ban on the ownership of handguns, just as it did to a similar ban in Washington D.C. a few years ago. The paper of record, the New York Times lambasted the court’s decision to “subvert Chicago’s entirely sensible ban on handgun ownership.”

“The arguments that led to Monday’s decision undermining Chicago’s law were infuriatingly abstract, but the results will be all too real and bloody,” the New York Times editorialized. “Rather than acknowledging Chicago’s — and the nation’s — need to end an epidemic of gun violence, the justices spent scores of pages in the decision analyzing which legal theory should bind the Second Amendment to the states.”

The problem, solution, and reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision to undermine the solution in this case once again reveal another nasty plague few are talking about—American band-aid politics.

In American band-aid politics, there is a social problem. 

Problem: There is an epidemic of gun violence in Chicago, as there are in many places in the United States. About 10,000 Americans died by handgun violence in the four months the Supreme Court debated the Chicago gun ban case, and 258 public school students were shot last year in Chicago (32 died), according to the New York Times.

Instead of seeking solutions to pull up and kill the root causes of the social problem, policymakers usually conjure up a band-aid solution, a reform that may reduce the egregious level of the social ill but has no possibility of eliminating it. 

Solution: Ban the ownership of handguns in urban settings like Chicago and Washington D.C. where most of this violence occurs. The ban would reduce the number of handguns and concomitantly reduce the preponderance of their tragic use.

Then, there is a massive public relations campaign to compel Americans (the majority of whom cry for change, but when change comes around the corner, they get nervous) to accept this solution, this reform. In the midst of this debate, this small band-aid solution seemingly becomes something massive, something large, something drastic as Americans unpack and discuss it. Next, the Supreme Court or some other regulatory body strikes it down, as in this case (or approves it usually after reducing the size of the band-aid).

If the band-aid solution is approved, policymakers and the solution’s supporters feel delighted. There are able to apply the band-aid, reducing the blood flow or ameliorating the social problem, while at the same time the social gash, the social bruise, is withdrawn from public view. But unlike with a human body, the bruise does not heal, can not heal on its own, so it stays and the blood continues to flow.

If the band-aid solution is struck down, then a furious debate ensues.

Reaction: The Supreme Court’s decision in Chicago and Washington D.C. earlier will lead to more death. This solution to the epidemic of gun violence is just and logical. Dogmatic proponents of the second amendment and conservative gun rights activists are insensitive to the blood that continues to spill in America.

The focus, the intellectual drive, the effort in the reactionary debate centers on the incompetence of the regulatory body in not allowing the use of the band-aid. The bruise is once again shown to Americans (the epidemic of gun violence). The blood is yet again ushered into the mainstream (the victims of gun violence). The cries for the band-aids are loud.

Can you hear them? I can hear them, like a person crying for a band-aid instead of benzoyl peroxide. People do not want to utilize the benzoyl peroxide because it hurts, it is not easy, it does not look good. People do not want to hear their peers and mentors talk about the need for them to change their lifestyle in order to avoid future bruises. Just hand over the band-aids, they demand. 

Creating band-aids and using all of your political and intellectual might to enact solutions to social ailments in a society that can not heal itself without benzoyl peroxide or a social device to address the bruise and not just its bloody effects, and without a clear plan to eliminate future bruises, is band-aid politics. Americans should be tired of living in this American political environment, watching liberals pluck from their bag of band-aids with rhetoric of healing social ills.

The band-aid ban of owning handguns is at best a small temporary solution to the pandemic of inner city gun violence. The real solutions, the solutions that can heal the bruises, the solutions that can stop societal falls that cause the bruises—the infusion of millions of well paying inner city jobs, the elevation of inner city educational resources to equate to their suburban counterparts, the reformation of prisons from holding apparatuses into rehabilitation facilities, to name a few—these solutions are what we need to be debating. These are the solutions that should be in our political radar. Not whether the Supreme upholds or strikes down a gun ownership ban.

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My Top 10 Malcolm X Quotes on His 85th Birthday

1. “You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you’re making progress.”

2. “If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.”

3. “I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”

4. “If you’re not ready to die for it, take the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.”

5. “I don’t see any American dream–I see an American nightmare.”

6. “I’m not a Democrat. I’m not a Republican. I’m not even an American. I’m one of the 22 million Black victims of the Democrats. I’m one of the 22 million Black victims of the Republicans. I’m one of the 22 million Black victims of Americanism.”

7. “I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.”

8. “I don’t even call it violence when it’s in self defense; I call it intelligence.”

9. “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.”

10. “It’s just like wen you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep.”

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