Gov. David Paterson Plays the Race Card

Governor David Paterson of NY has had a tough ride as the Governor of New York for a number of reasons – not the least of which was the fumbled handoff after Hillary Clinton resigned as Senator to become Secretary of State resulting in the political crucifixion of Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the most beloved Democrat President in the last 60 years. And that was just one of a dozen missteps…

NY Governor David A. Paterson

In a radio interview Friday –

Gov. David A. Paterson lashed out on Friday at critics who say he should not run for election, and he suggested that he was being undermined by an orchestrated, racially biased effort by the media to force him to step aside.

The governor, on a morning radio talk show, said that Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, the only other African-American governor, was suffering similar treatment, and he predicted that President Obama would, too.

“We’re not in the postracial period,” he told Errol Louis, a columnist for The Daily News and the host of the radio program, on WWRL-AM. “My feeling is it’s being orchestrated, it’s a game, and people who pay attention know that,” he added.

“We don’t have the kind of forces in the community that we had before,” he said. “In other words, our black media outlets, save your program and a few others, are the only ways we have access, and even our own reporters from our own community buy the public line, which is, ‘We’re going to get rid of David Paterson.’ ”

“The reality is that the next victim on the list is President Barack Obama, who did nothing more than try to reform a health care system” that, he said, constitutes 10 percent of the gross domestic product. It is “only because he’s trying to make change,” Mr. Paterson said.

The governor declined to be interviewed by The New York Times about his remarks. But several people who had spoken to him said that he and his aides saw racial overtones in everything from the searing depictions of him on “Saturday Night Live” to small turns of phrase, like New York magazine’s reference to his freewheeling style as “jazz government.”

Well, I don’t mean to be cold blooded here, Governor Paterson, but when you screw over the only living descendant of what is effectively America’s Royalty – folks aren’t really looking at whether you are black or white.

When you fail to control your own Party in the State Senate and House resulting in a 6 week gridlock, making the state the laughing stock of the whole nation – it ain’t about whether you are black or white.

Yes, there are going to be a percentage of people, including those in the media who can’t get past your race. However, every single successful black person in the media, government, or corporate world in America deals with that – and dealing with that is an integral part of why they are successful.

And yes, there are unreconstructed confederate racists who didn’t get the message in 1964, of which we see ample evidence in the conservative sphere in Town Halls, Militias, and right wing publications and think tanks…

But as a politician, specifically a black politician – that’s the war you signed on for.

Some of us out here, including this blog cheered your efforts to drop the hammer on the dysfunctional NY Senate and appointment of a Lt. Governor (which didn’t work out). NY politics has been a bruising exercise in hand-to-hand combat since the days of Tammany Hall. Not much different than Chicago’s infamous politics.

Governor Paterson – not even a majority of black people in your state support you anymore, and the hallways are noticeably empty of folks willing to rally behind your race card.

You want to whine – go becme a professional-victim black conservative. Whining about their perceived mistreatment is, after all, their stock in trade.

Otherwise, STFU and get the job done – and those poll numbers will take care of themselves.

And so will President Obama and Deval Patrick.

 

Tim Wise… Yeah, It IS About Race and Racism

Tim Wise, as usual – nails it.

The vehemence and vitrol of the anti-Health Care Reformers has nothing to do with the issue on the table.

It is all about race, racism,  fear on the part of the white middle class, and outright pandering to racism on the part of their leaders.

 

The New Jim Crow – At Least It Wasn’t Coors…

At the White House Beer/Love Fest last night –

Gates was the only one who drank a fully American beer, opting for a Sam Adams light. Obama drank Bud Lite, made by a Belgian company(Anheuser-Busch InBev), Biden had nonalcoholic Buckler (made by Heineken), brewed by Dutch Heineken, and Crowley chose Blue Moon, from Canadian Molson.

Well…at least one guy (Gates) was drinking a real American beer.

Expensive... But worth it!

And I gotta believe the guys over at Anheuser-Busch InBev, are licking their chops at this one. Interesting fodder for the Bud-Lite/Miller Lite advertising battle.

Why not Coors?

 

Teen Pregnacy and STDs Rise During Bush Administration

Another in a long list of conservative failures –

A Time Magazine Cover from 1985 covering the epidemic in Teen Age pregnancy. After years of turning this around, it's on the rise again, along with the rate of deadly STDs among children because of policies of the Bush Administration.

Teenage pregnancies and syphilis have risen sharply among a generation of American school girls who were urged to avoid sex before marriage under George Bush’s evangelically-driven education policy, according to a new report by the US’s major public health body.

 

Maddow Rips The New Jim Crow – “White men built America”

This one comes courtesy of Tafaraji, in reponse to my post Rachel Maddow Rips Pat Buchanan Over Sotomayor Racism. It is too juicy not to make a post.

The list of contributions, right on down to the original framework for the Constitution, by folks of color in this country are too long to list. That Pat would somehow feel these folks had little to do with the country we are today, is sick…

And racist.

 

Stop the Racial Politics

Senator Leahey slams Senator Session on the Republian Party’s racial politics –

 

New Jim Crow – Conservatives Try to “Disappear” Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall From History Books

More racism from conservatives, this time in an effort which could result in the removal of mention of Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez from the history books utilized not only in Texas – but in schools throughout the country…

Cesar Chavez i 1969 Led Farm Workers Movement

Texas Could Remove Cesar Chavez, Thurgood Marshall from Public School Studies

The Texas State Board of Education is moving toward removing Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall from the social studies curriculum taught to its 4.7 million public school students. According to one of the six “expert reviewers” revising the 1997 curriculum, Chavez “lacks the stature, impact and overall contributions of so many others; and his open affiliation with Saul Alinsky’s movements certainly makes dubious that he is praiseworthy.” Another reviewer concluded that Marshall, a Supreme Court justice who as an attorney argued the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case, is “not an appropriate example as a historical figure of influence.” These are not the rantings of powerless and fringe people; they are statements from those recommending a new curriculum to the full Board. And so during a week in which an African-American President’s appointee of the first Latino to the Supreme Court dominates the news, we have Texas – whose Governor spoke of “secession” earlier this year – trying to turn back social and racial progress.

Before Appointment ot the Supreme Court by President Johnson, Marshall won 29 of the 32 cases he tried before the Supreme Court

Texas has an elected 15-member Board of Education, seven of which are viewed as social conservatives. The Board’s panel of experts to recommend new curriculum standards reflects this conservative perspective, which could soon result in a social studies classroom in which Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall are ignored but the motivational role of the Bible in the nation’s founding is highlighted.

So how does this impact schools outside of Texas?

 

Senator Boxer Accused of Race Politics by Race Pimp Harry C. Alford

Harry C. Alford plays the race card here in questioning by Barbara Boxer.

Our boy Harry wears his victim card very well here.

You see, Harry is a self identified black Republican. He was trotted out before the committee by Republicans to show that black folks also don’t support the climate change bill. Why Harry would allow himself to be used as  such (especially in light of his claims in the link above) is mind numbing.

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Now – Barbara Boxer isn’t my favorite Democrat. She is indeed a limousine liberal as conservatives like to paint her.  However she isn’t off-base here.

 

Rachel Maddow Rips Pat Buchanan Over Sotomayor Racism

Maddow rips Republican Pat Buchanan a new one!

According to Pat Buchanan – “White men built this country”.

That is, they built everything except the roads, the canals, the farms, the railroads, and the economy which was based on slave labor…

The issue here isn’t Pat’s racism, of which there are ample examples – the issue is why this has any currency in the mainstream anymore. Pat is identifying the Republican Party as the “White People’s Party” in opposition to the “Mud People’s Party” AKA – the Democrats.

Pat is a true conservative.

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Pat’s sob story for white guys would be touching, except for a question Maddow doesn’t ask. If white guys feel disadvantaged by the appointment of Sotomayor as one of 9 Justices on the Supreme Court…

Exactly how do black and brown people feel about a court dominated by conservative racists like Roberts, Scalia, Alito, and Uncle Clarence?

I mean – as a black person I know there isn’t a freaking prayer of getting a fair trial from a conservative appointed judge. That is part of the “Black Tax” of being a citizen of this country – and it doesn’t really matter whether you are appearing before the Court in a criminal or Civil case.  If you are a businessman, part of the “Black Tax” is the fact that you have less of a chance in winning a Patent Infringement or Contract Dispute against a white owned corporation – for no other reason than your color…

Simply because of those conservative, white, male Judges – regardless of the merit of your case.

And that doesn’t even get into a Jury Trial.

So what Pat is really saying, is racism and discrimination only count if it is against white men – even if, as in this case, the only evidence against Justice Sotomayor is the fact she isn’t a white male.

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The New Jim Crow – Conservatism and the War on Crime

The United States, supposedly a Democracy incarcerates a larger portion of it’s population than any other nation in the world… Even dictatorships and communist countries.

World's Largest Number of People in Prison - The US

Incarceration in the United States is not really a tool for crime prevention – it is a methodology to control poor and minority populations. A lot has been written about how disparate drug laws, disparate enforcement, and disparate conviction rates impact minority communities.  The simplest way to understand it is to say that if sentencing matched for drugs like Meth and Heroin versus crack – the color of the already massive prison population in the United States would change from black and brown to white virtually overnight. Toss in prescription meds, and you’d need 4 times the Stimulus package President Obama proposed…

Just to build prisons.

 

The New Jim Crow – Plessy vs. Ricci

Not groundbreaking – but a solid talk about race in America in view of the recent Ricci New Jim Crow, justifying racial discrimination, by the Supreme Court 5 – Thugs in Robes. Professor Robert Jensen on The color of the race problem  is white.

If one was looking to hire a History Teacher, you could indeed design a test asking questions about certain events or figures in History. If such test included a requirement to name 5 Emperors of the Han Dynasty, or 5 Shoguns in feudal Japan – it would indeed test the knowledge of history beyond the standard Western European History taught in the US. A well studied American college graduate could answer the question – however, so could a Chinese born or Japanese born individual who had studied grade school or high school equivalent national history as part of their primary education in their native country. Ergo, if one were to pick a random group of 50 American born college graduates with History Degrees, and 50 Chinese or Japanese born people who had completed High school equivalent education in their birth countries – it is likely the Chinese or Japanese born applicants would test as more “qualified” than their higher educated American competitors. Despite the lack of college degrees.

 

President Obama on Affirmative Action, Post Supreme Court 5-4 Ricci Decision

President Obama tries to be politic about the recent 5-4 Supreme Court abortion on Ricci today in an AP Interview –

This is how then future President Obama responded to George Stephanopolos last year –

Obviously the Ricci decision was politically motivated, making law from the bench – instead of a narrow reading of the Constitutional Law as it applied to the case.The issue here isn’t what should have been done relative to Ricci and the other 19 firefighters – the issue here is how the court attempted to make law by making that decision relevant to other cases.

The New Jim Crow… Indeed.