Tag: Hillary Clinton

Why Donald Trump won the 1st presidential debate

This country is full of stupid white people who are moved by the ridiculously racist antics of Trump. The fact that he comported himself as a 5 year old that got left back in the terrible two’s stage of life (3 times) does not deter them from going to the polls in record numbers to vote him in. After all they do share his dominant worldview.  Hillary on the other hand did not have the benefit of such a low bar. She was tasked with winning over the higher minded voter. You know the not so racist person that actually reads, writes and has comprehensive skills beyond an 8th grade level? And while she did not do terrible she did not necessarily win over any new converts from that seemingly fleeting American demographic.

NAFTA and even the pending TPP deal is an obvious Achilles heel for her. She needs to stay humble on those topics and even evade them if she can (actually we know she can).  She also needs to stop touting her husbands legacy because even Donald is not that dumb that he can’t flip the negative reverberations from his legacy as he seamlessly did last night. He dinged her on trade deals and even criminal justice–even as he threw his rabidly racist rascals a bone with his law and order quips(code word for keep on killing the da blacks).

Hillary on the other hand only tacitly admitted that there’s a serious problem with the justice system. The Fraternal Order of Police has already come out in full force for Trump so she needs to rid her self of the propensity to straddle that fence. They are not fucking with her so she needs to stop trying to curry favor with them and the assholes that they serve, protect and coddle AND the assholes that look upon the injustices perpetrated against people as color as no big deal. If she is to win this race she needs to do away with her politics of yesteryear and tap into the “real talk” politics of today. The kind of real talk that Obama has sort of introduced and that Bernie Sanders has doubled down on. If I was advising Hillary’s campaign NWA’s Fuck The Police would be the new campaign theme song. In other words I would have her cease and desist her strategy of reaching out to the ignoble white male demographic and instead have her speak to the broader coalition of voters that have kept President Obama in office for the past 8 years. The Clintonian coalition that Slick Willie rode to two terms no longer exists and I’m not sure that she understand this fact.

S/N: Bernie Sanders would have cleaned his clock last night. If she loses to this asshole. Don’t blame Jill, don’t blame the Bernie Bros or none of the bullshit excuses that have been senselessly bantered about in the ether. Blame team #imwithher because the same polls that has her struggling with this arrested in adolescent development ass hat had him several points ahead in all of the swing states. who-really-lost

S/N2: WTF was up with all that damn sniffling Donald was doing last night? That dude was snorting snot like Tony Montana snorted coke. Yuck!

donald-on-coke

S/N3: Never trust a  Lester to do a mans job (or a woman’s)

lester-jordan

 

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Chess > Checkers: The case for the 3rd party black vote

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Chess is a thinking persons  game. It’s a long game–one in which you have to see past  your next several moves in order to stay ahead and eventually win. Politics just like chess is a long game and one that if it is to be played to win must involve an actual strategy. Voting for the lesser of two evils is not a strategy–not even in checkers. So in this political game of chess how are we going to ever win if we keep on employing a strategy that’s not even helpful in a lesser game?

It’s high time we abandon the failed strategies of the past and disabuse the kind of expedient measures that continue to net undesirable results. It really is okay to NOT be with her OR him.

A vote for Jill Stein knowing that she stands no chance of winning is not just an emotional response from progressive minded voters disenchanted with the Clinton Machine and the dubious at best democratic primary process. It’s also a strategy. It’s far from a guaranteed strategy   that will immediately pay dividends but if played correctly it’s a low risk high reward (even if it’s down the road) strategy that will only strengthen our collective hand in future elections and more importantly empower future generations that will be able to build on the strategic moves that we have in our power to make.

If you live in a deep red state like Alabama or Arkansas theoretically you’re throwing your vote away by voting for anyone but Trump because nobody not named Donald J Trump is going to win those two states and other similar states where Neanderthals comprise the median voting demographic.  Similarly If you vote in a deep blue state like Connecticut, Maryland or Vermont you can as well afford to make more of a statement with a third party vote because if you vote for the only candidate that’s gonna win those respective states (Hillary) the exit polls will serve as consent for every policy initiative that comes across her desk.  Good, bad, ugly and down right evil .
Elections today are 24/7/365 so the minute Hillary takes the oath of office she will be campaigning for 2020. If her internal pollsters find  that the overwhelming majority of people in America who are not certified coons, jack asses or bigots (the typical Trump constituent) approve of not only her hawkish proclivities but also her her neo-liberal agenda  guess what? It will be full steam ahead with the enactment of them. That is not winning.  If on the other hand those exit polls reflect a sizable portion of the reliably democratic electorate that remains averse to her brand of politic she would be forced legislatively to the left in the same manner in which the Bernie Sanders run forced her campaign style to the left.

I get the fear of a Trump presidency. I’m in no way suggesting that everyone gamble on a Green party political novice to risk giving the white house to the greater evil (on paper and public perception wise). What I am suggesting is that you make your vote really count. As black people we are the most solid monolithic voting black in America yet we remain the most under represented sub groups in the country. That is primarily because we are not strategic in our voting or thinking.

We need and deserve a  #blacklivesmatter approved candidate. They don’t necessarily have to be black but their policy positions and worldview needs to be aligned with the movement.  The only way that we are ever going to see such a candidate like that see a viable route to a nomination is if we demand it. As a people we cannot throw 85 -90 percent of our vote to Hillary Clinton. That will in no way make her a better president and more importantly it will in no way improve the  state of Black America. If you live in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada or any other swing state by all means–be with her! Vote for Hillary. But if you live in the south where Hillary stands no chance it is not a gamble to vote third party. If you live in a deep blue state there is no harm in not allowing her to run up the numbers on Trump. At the end of the day it  is not about him so much as it is about keeping him out of office–but that can’t be the only goal and if it remains the only goal at best we are at a stalemate. At worst and more probable we lose.

denzel chess

STOP THE MADNESS: The mothers of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Jordan Davis and Dontre Hamilton are NOT the Mothers of the Movement

I’m probably gonna ruffle a few feathers with this one but someone has to do it. It has to  be said and overstated that The grieving mothers of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Jordan Davis,  Dontre Hamilton and Mike Brown are nothing close to being the mothers of any kind of movement and to label them as such for the express purpose of getting Hillary Clinton elected  president is as embarrassing as it is offensive. Offensive and embarrassing to the untold mothers who have had to bury their sons and daughters due to an encounter with an overzealous  non-empathetic cop and  offensive and embarrassing to the millions of people from all walks of life that have taken to the streets with myriad acts of civil defiance  seeking redress for the long standing and ongoing grievance of state, local and federal police officers abusing their authority and murdering innocent unarmed black people with impunity.

When Hillary was not on the chitterling circuit  with these mothers shoring up her southern  firewall (also known as the black vote) she was in the homes of the other half of her southern constituency (Dixicrats) raising funds and talking about “the issues”

The two diametrically opposed dispositions by Hillary Clinton in the last two videos is rivaled in galling political pivots only by the great feat that her husband pulled off in June of 1992 while he himself was on the stump. During Bill Clinton’s  first bid for the white house  he played the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show to illustrate how down he was with the blacks and ten days later at a Rainbow Coalition event using Jesse Jackson as a backdrop he conflated an  out of context a musing by Sister Souljah with some of the lyrics in one of her songs to build up a black radical  boogey monster  that he was there to destroy. He actually compared her to David Duke to an audience full of black people. Of course his true audience were not the black folks sitting in attendance.

bill plays the sax
June 3, 1992: Bill playing the sax on Arsenio Hall letting the good black voters of the 90’s know that he can shuck and jive with the best of them
bill clinton disses sister souljah
June 13, 1992: Bill Clinton using his invitation to a Rainbow Coalition Convention to assure the soccer moms and NASCAR dads of America that he is willing ready and able to put black folks in their place as Jesse Jackson looks on in bemusement.

To be clear the movement that they are referring to as being the progeny of these women is the #blacklivesmatter movement. And to be even more clear it is a movement  that the murders of the children of these women no doubt helped buoy and embolden. For that these women should be recognized for as having paid the ultimate sacrifice. No mother should have to endure what Sybrina Fulton, (mother Trayvon Martin), Lucia McBath,  (mother of Jordan Davis), Geneva Reed-Veal, (mother of Sandra Bland), Gwen Carr, (mother of Eric Garner), Maria Hamilton( mother of Dontre Hamilton) Samaria Rice (mother of Tamir Rice) or Lesley McSpadden (mother of Mike Brown) have had to endure. All of these women are inextricably linked to the movement due to their involuntarily blood sacrifice, but to call these grieving mothers the mothers of the actual movement is to deeply discount the millions of black mothers before them that have lost their children to state sanctioned and/or white vigilante violence. Before these women there was Mammy Till, mother or Emmit Till, Eloise Glover, mother of Clifford Glover, Kaddiatou Diallo, mother of Amadou Diallo, Valarie Bell, mother of Sean Bell and hundreds and even thousands of other mothers in the last decade alone that walked the same precarious walk that these mothers have had to. For these women to sell out their share of the movement for the perks and pittance that only a Super Pack with tons of dark money can afford is unconscionable. And no, I don’t have proof that this group of grieving mothers were paid for their less than logical endorsement but I’m pretty sure that they were.

The true irony in  the Stockholm like love that Hillary is getting from the “Mothers of the Movement” and the millions of other less than enlightened black politicos, pundits and voters that have her well on the way to the democratic presidential nomination is that she has successfully  latched herself on to a movement created to abate a problem that she and her husband greatly exacerbated while Bill Clinton was president and she was the first lady touting his “tough on crime” legislative goals.

Mike Browns mother Lesley McSppaden encapsulates the kind of incongruity inherent in the logic of these mothers “I’m with her” proclamation with this ringing yet confusing endorsement.

Since August 9, 2014, I have wondered where do we go from here? I have made it this far by my faith, but we need more than faith. Our criminal justice system is broken and damaged, and it left broken hearts and damage in our communities. Fixing this will require time and commitment of someone who wants to make things better for us all. I want a leader who is willing to take the steps to reform a justice system that dehumanized my son. I want a leader who will now honor my son’s life and fights for our children’s futures. I want a justice system that is fundamentally based on fairness for everyone…This election season, we are at battle for the soul of our nation…if we want to continue to build on the progress made by our country, we need a president who is ready to lead–and I trust Hillary” ~ Lesley McSppaden

Ms. McSppaden seems to have a solid grasp on the kind of cultural construct in law enforcement that deems it prudent to dehumanize and over criminalize black people to justify their lethal method of policing but she seems totally oblivious to the not so hidden political forces that empower them. For every 100 police officers that have said “I feared for my life” or “he reached for my gun” to explain away them shooting to death an unarmed African-American there’s at least that many politicians on the local, state and national level pushing the kind of hyper-criminalized trope to create the space for these men to continue to get away with murder. It’s no coincidence that the super predator trope was used by Darren Wilson to escape justice after he murdered her son in cold blood. I mean he did not come out and call Mike Brown a Super Predator but you’d be hard pressed to argue that he was not inferring as much after reading the following quotes of his to the grand jury that ultimatley decided that he was justified in killing McSppaden’s son.

Darren Wilson on the initial confrontation at his car:

DW: I see them walking down the middle of the street. And first thing that struck me was they’re walking in the middle of the street. I had already seen a couple cars trying to pass, but they couldn’t have traffic normal because they were in the middle, so one had to stop to let the car go around and then another car would come. And the next thing I noticed was the size of the individuals because either the first one was really small or the second one was really big...

He then grabs my door again and shuts my door. At that time is when I saw him coming into my vehicle. His head was higher than the top of my car. And I see him ducking and as he is ducking, his hands are up and he is coming in my vehicle.

I had shielded myself in this type of manner and kind of locked away, so I don’t remember seeing him come at me, but I was hit right in the side of the face with a fist. I don’t think it was a full-on swing, I think it was a full-on swing, but not a full shot. I think my arm deflected some of it, but there was still a significant amount of contact that was made to my face.

And when I grabbed him, the only way I can describe it is I felt like a five-year-old holding onto Hulk Hogan.

prosecutor/defense attorney*: Holding onto a what?

DW:Hulk Hogan, that’s just how big he felt and how small I felt just from grasping his arm.

Prosecutor/defense attorney*: And it was your opinion that you needed to pull out your weapon because why did you feel that way, I don’t want to put words in your mouth?

I felt that another one of those punches in my face could knock me out or worse. I mean it was, he’s obviously bigger than I was and stronger and the, I’ve already taken two to the face I didn’t think I would, the third one could be fatal if he hit me right.

He grabs my gun, says, “You are too much of a pussy to shoot me.” The gun goes down into my hip and at that point I thought I was getting shot. I can feel his fingers try to get inside the trigger guard with my finger and I distinctly remember envisioning a bullet going into my leg. I thought that was the next step.

Like I said, I was just so focused on getting the gun out of me. When I did get it up to this point, he is still holding onto it and I pulled the trigger and nothing happens, it just clicked. I pull it again, it just clicked again.

At this point I’m like why isn’t this working, this guy is going to kill me if he gets a hold of this gun. I pulled it a third time, it goes off. When it went off, it shot through my door panel and my window was down and glass flew out of my door panel. I think that kind of startled him and me at the same time.

Darren Wilson on what happened once he exited his vehicle:

DW: The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked. He comes back towards me again with his hands up.

When I look up after that, I see him start to run and I see a cloud of dust behind him. I then get out of my car. As I’m getting out of the car I tell dispatch, “shots fired, send me more cars.”

We start running, kind of the same direction that Johnson had pointed. Across the street like a diagonal towards this, kind of like where the parking lot came in for Copper Creek Court and Canfield, right at that intersection. And there is a light pole right there, I remember him running towards the light pole.

So when he stopped, I stopped. And then he starts to turn around, I tell him to get on the ground, get on the ground.

He turns, and when he looked at me, he made like a grunting, like aggravated sound and he starts, he turns and he’s coming back towards me. His first step is coming towards me, he kind of does like a stutter step to start running. When he does that, his left hand goes in a fist and goes to his side, his right one goes under his shirt in his waistband and he starts running at me.

At this point it looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I’m shooting at him.

And the face that he had was looking straight through me, like I wasn’t even there, I wasn’t even anything in his way.

And when he gets about that 8 to 10 feet away, I look down, I remember looking at my sites and firing, all I see is his head and that’s what I shot.

I don’t know how many, I know at least once because I saw the last one go into him. And then when it went into him, the demeanor on his face went blank, the aggression was gone, it was gone, I mean I knew he stopped, the threat was stopped.

 

Again he did not call Mike Brown a super predator but he sure did describe him as such. He actually got away with telling a jury of HIS peers that Mike Brown who was unarmed and already wounded by at least one round from his .40 caliber pistol grunted at him and charged him head on before having to be put down for good with what was left in his clip. If only Mike Brown’s mother and the mothers of the other well chronicled victims of police abuse were enlightened enough to connect the dots they would know that Hillary is neither a leader or a visionary when in comes to truly understanding and rectifying the problem of our broken criminal justice system.

Hillary did not invent the Super Predator bathos and neither did Bill Clinton. They both however used it in the most insidious and political expedient ways to justify their means to an end. These mothers have every right to endorse who they wish but I don’t think that it’s too much to ask them to leave the movement out of such a dubious decision.  They certainly cannot lay claim to the “Mothers of the Movement” moniker while bestowing undue praise on the very same  people who helped necessitate the movement in the first place.

 

the real mothers of the movement
Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi are the creators of the #blacklivesmatter hashtag. A hashtag that has helped galvanize and inspire millions to fight back. If there is a mother to the movement these three women are it.

 The 4 Block Buster deadline Trades That No One Is Talking About

The NBA trade deadline came and left last week  with little to no hoopla, fanfare, or late breaking news of any kind of three team swap changing the predictable balance of power in either conference. It’s been something of a downer for us fans of the game that like just a little bit of drama to go with our hoops. However, in lieu of Kevin Love not becoming a Celtic, Laker or Clipper; despite Carmelo having a no trade clause in his contract and irrespective of the fact that Dwight Howard & James Harden are married at the hip for at least the remainder of the season there still  were some really block busting trades consummated at the 11th hour of last weeks NBA’s trade deadline. The NBA NRA (National Racial Association) quietly announced four huge trades.

The Fine Print

The NBA collective bargaining agreement states that in every trade the two parties being traded must be within 125% of each other salary wise. Since the NRA does not track the salaries of those on the trading block the formula that they  use to remain in compliance with the collective bargaining agreement are the professions (or lack there of) of their trade prospects. So for an example if  I was the sole arbiter of what was and was not a fair trade I would gladly trade Dr. Ben Carson for the Puppy Monkey Baby. Only problem with that is the fact that Dr. Ben Carson is a world renowned neurosurgeon and the Puppy Monkey baby a prop from a Super Bowl commercial. The Puppy Monkey Baby maybe a bit more cogent and capable of carrying on an adult conversation but it’s hardly enough to compete with a guy that has on his resume the separation of Siamese twins  conjoined by the noggin-even if that guy is a certified loon.  So it  goes without saying that such a trade would not be approved by the Association. So much to the chagrin of the Black delegation Dr. Carson will remain a part of the black community for the foreseeable future. The good news for the black delegation however is they did find trading partners for four other blacks that have long been considered  to overstayed their welcome in the community and in need of having their respective black cards revoked. I’m certain that most would agree with the following deals that were most recently agreed upon before the trade deadline.

NRA Trade Number One: Stacy Dash for Gary Owens

gary-owen-stacey-dash

You don’t have to be the GM of the Lakers or  Celtics or be the next coming of Jerry West for this deal to have been your brain child. This particular trade comes straight out of No Brainerville. Two B-C rated actors that are already comfortable in the others skin (figuratively and literally) and seamlessly able to traverse cultures and code switch their way right up into the family. Stacy Dash went from being a video vixen extraordinaire  serving as eye candy to inner city generation X’ers with hip-hop proclivities to Fox News’s resident coonologist and eye candy for angry white ammo-sexual baby boomers. She’s been on the trading block since at least 2012at least 2012. Her decision to resurrect her  faint relevance as one of the resident Fox News Coontributors specifically hired to assuage the  guilt and placate the fragile feelings of the Networks Salty white Tear dripping viewership.  Just did not sit well with the home team. The straw that broke the camels back though was her latest viral diatribe  after being invited on the Fox & Freinds to opine on the #oscarssowhite controversy

STEVE DOOCY: What do you think about this?

STACEY DASH: I think it’s ludicrous.

STEVE DOOCY: Why??

STACEY DASH: We have to make up our minds. Either we want to have segregation or integration. And if we don’t want segregation, then we need to get rid of channels like BET and the BET Awards and the Image Awards where you’re only awarded if you’re black. If it were the other way around, we would be up in arms. It’s a double standard.

STEVE DOOCY (HOST): So you say there shouldn’t be a BET channel?

DASH: No, I don’t think so. No. Just like there shouldn’t be a Black History Month. You know? We’re Americans. Period. That’s it.

DOOCY: Are you saying there shouldn’t be a Black History Month because there isn’t a white history month?

DASH: Exactly. Exactly.

 

She could not be any more clearer about want g out off of Team Blackness with that mindless missive. Not since Latrell Spreewell choked PJ Carlisimo in practice way back in 1997 has a player been so undisguised about wanting to be traded.

For Gary’s part he celebrated being traded to the black community just as you would expect a black person to do. He took to the Gram…

Welcome to the fam G!
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NRA Trade Number Two:Jason Whitlock  for Dave Zirin

 

With such a huge dearth in black journalism and the black perspective being bantered in the ether to compete with and combat mainstream media bias and mind manipulation it’s a shame that we have to put one of the more successful and widely read and regarded black sports writers on the market. But when the opinions you posit present more poison to the problematic nature of post Fairness Doctrine specious and pernicious journalism as opposed to being an elixir to such a societal malady then you really have worn out your welcome and need to cease being a Journalist in Black Face. We are better off with you being on another team because a black face postulating white supremacist thoughts and codifying the inexplicable angst of a large swath of AmeriKKKa is actually worse than it is coming from your typical AM side of the dial angry white talk show host.  . As a sports writer Jason Whitlock has  been largely able to fly under the radar as it pertains to offering an opinion on the germane issues of the day. But on those rare occasions that he’s asked or tasked with taking on issues of equality, intersectionality,  and/or oppression nine times out of ten he’s going to offer a convoluted quip that Ted Nugent would be proud to re-tweet.

Dave Zirin on the other hand has long used his pen as a sword for social  justice and equality. Not just for black people but all oppressed, neglected and disaffected people around the globe. He’s penned several books that delve deep into the heart of the pertinent issues of the day from a high minded and holistic perspective. The John Carlos Story and Game Over are just two of the many books that he’s authored that I recommend as a great reads…


More recently these two contemporary sports writers had the prime opportunity to opine on the same issue tackling intersectionality in a sports related kind of way and their opinions  could not have been any more divergent. By now everyone is aware of Beyonce’s Super Bowl Performance where homage was paid to The Black Panther Party, victims of police brutality and mis-conduct as well as the LGBT community. The overall message was one that was about love and they went to great lengths to say as much.

But…

Pepsi Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show

…that obviously was not universally interpreted and understood and our latest trading partners could not have crystallized any better how differently the message in the music of the Super Bowl Half-Time show has been conveyed.

Jason Whitlock on Beyonce’s performance:

 

Beyonce, why are you bringing this rebellion to a sporting event? This is an event that all of America comes together, 100 million people around America and throw Super Bowl parties, we come together across economic and racial lines and it’s all just one good time and the players … represent all these great things in America. … Probably not appropriate for the Super Bowl. It’s just not that type of event.

If you want to send a message, if you want to pander to social media and Twitter, if you want to extend your brand by involving yourself in controversy, [then] what Beyonce did was absolutely brilliant. You listen to the song’s lyrics, there’s no real rebellion in it. None.

“So I can see how the NFL got fooled by this. They listened to the song, and there’s nothing to it. There’s no tribute to the Black Panther party or any real shots at Hurricane Katrina or anything like that in the actual lyrics of the song. You have to watch the video to get the rebellion. She didn’t release the video until the day before the Super Bowl. So I could see how the NFL got caught off-guard.

When you tie the whole thing together, Beyonce snuck in some subversiveness that has put her in the center of controversy and has enhance her and Jay-Z’s brand. They had been getting beaten up in social media by the Black Lives Matter movement, that ‘You don’t support us,’ ‘You’re not down with this movement,’ blah blah blah . . . Beyonce pulls off this publicity stunt and now she’s all good with the social-media crowd and the people involved with Black Lives Matters.

“It’s all just a game and a fun marketing tool for Beyonce. They’ll make more money out of this and enhance their brand. But they’ve also set off some divisiveness in America, and that’s what’s disappointing to me.” ~ Jason Whitlock

One thing we know for sure the homie Jason Whitlock has no qualms about telling us how he really feels. On the flipside neither does Dave Zirin as he penned a piece entitled In Defense of Beyonces Black Panther Tribute At the Super Bowl for The Nation. In it he goes on to say:

A whole hell of a lot of people on Fox News and in the right-wing sewers of the Internet have lost their damn minds. I am not going to link to the statements, ranging from the historically ignorant to the unabashedly racist, because that’s their game. But I will say that if you are comparing the Black Panthers to the KKK, like one police sergeant did on Facebook, you are only proving that the extent of your historical knowledge is what some asshole said on Twitter. It’s like “comparing Adolf Hitler to Richard Pryor because they both had mustaches.”

Yet despite the right-wing noise, Beyoncé’s performance has created space for a real conversation about the Black Panthers, beyond the caricature. It is a chance to get people to see the recent Stanley Nelson PBS documentaryVanguard of the Revolution or read The Black Panthers Speak or Seize The Time or any number of books. Just to give one example, the most illustrative, politically textured Panther memoir in my humble opinion is My People Are Rising by Seattle Black Panther Party founder Aaron Dixon. When Dixon’s book was released in 2012, I pushed people to read it on social media and among friends and was met with a tepid response. After Beyoncé’s performance, I went back and recommended it again. The reaction was off the chain.

Being in the Bay Area this week has also opened my eyes to another part of what made Beyoncé’s halftime performance matter. There are people here who have dedicated their lives to fighting police brutality—most recently in the form of the killing of Mario Woods—and for the rights of the homeless to not be treated like collateral damage of gentrification. They wanted the Super Bowl to be an opportunity to spotlight these issues for the country. Instead, they were met with a smothering police presence, indifferent media, and an NFL occupation that made swaths of their city resemble the Green Zone in Iraq. ~ Dave Zirin

It’s pretty clear from reading the thoughts of these two sports journalist that hearing more of the latter and less (a whole lot less) of the former would be sort of a good thing.

NRA Trade Number Three:Darnell Earley for Tim Wise

 

Most people don’t know who Darnell Earley is but I’m certain that they know his work.  Darnell Earley is the Emergency City Manager that was put in place by Governor Rick Snyder to run the city of Flint. There’s really not much else to say about this son of a bitch ass coon. He played a major part in poisoning the drinking water of an entire city full of lower middle class, poor black, brown and white people. He was then promoted to head the Detroit Public Schools to put the final nails on that coffin  before his previous dastardly deeds came back to haunt him and he was forced to resign due to the mess that he co-created in Flint. He was essentially a black face hired to push a white supremacist agenda and he did a stellar job at it.

Tim Wise on the other hand has been one of the more formidable and unabashed white voices against racism and prejudice in American society for the last 10 years. He’s nothing short of an ally in the fight against white supremacy so this one again was pretty much a no brainer.

NRA Trade number four:The Congressional Black Caucus for the Congressional Progressive Caucus

The CBC’s recent endorsement of Hillary for the democratic nomination over the much more progressive (and trustworthy) Bernie Sanders was rather disappointing. It however was not enough of a reason to put the CBC who has long been known as the conscience of the Congress on the trading block . The unconscionable and inexplicable reasons that the leadership gave for their endorsement is actually why they have been offered up for the kinder, gentler and much more socially aware  Congressional Progressive Caucus. It’s hard to begrudge Congressmen John Lewis and Congressman James Clyburn for endorsing a person who has helped their PERSONAL ambitions in maintaining their congressional seats by allowing some of the unmitigated and untraceable big money that flows through their coffers to trickle into their own respective campaign war chests. However when they conflate someone being able to help them personally with actually doing the same for the black community, the masses the have supported them for the last 40 years have every right to take umbrage with their reckless word choice on their already questionable endorsement.

Now don’t get me wrong. Someone simply doing what was right in 1963 or whatever year it was that Bernie Sanders marched for equality or was arrested at a sit in does not automatically earn the black vote in 2016. However dismissing his involvement in the Civil Rights movement because you are supporting someone was on the opposite end of the historical and  ongoing fight for justice is rather dubious.Take for instance John Lewis’s response to a reporter asking him about Bernie Sanders well documented dalliance with the Civil Rights movement during his college years:

Well, to be very frank, I’m going to cut you off, but I never saw him, I never met him. I’m a chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for three years, from 1963 to 1966. I was involved in the sit-ins, the freedom rides, the March on Washington, the march from Selma to Montgomery, and directed their voter education project for six years. But I met Hillary Clinton. I met President Clinton.”~ Congressman John Lewis

 

Lets parse that statement real quick. He is implying one of two things both of which are nonsensical.

A: he’s either implying that he knew Hillary and Bill from being supporters of Civil Rights some 50 years ago.

OR

He’s implying that he’s never in his life met Bernie Sanders. Both  statements are patently false. His statement was a conflation of facts. When you have to resort to that kind of double speak to justify endorsing a person then you deserve all the back lash that comes your way (as it did) to force you to eat your errant word play (which he did). Quite naturally he took a lot of criticism from corners of the political and social movement world that are in most cases reticent when it comes to critiquing elders from the civil rights time period. Predictably he was compelled to walk back his aggressive response to the innocuous query:

I was responding to a reporter’s question who asked me to assess Sen. Sanders’ civil rights record. I said that when I was leading and was at the center of pivotal actions within the Civil Rights Movement, I did not meet Sen. Bernie Sanders at any time. The fact that I did not meet him in the movement does not mean I doubted that Sen. Sanders participated in the Civil Rights Movement, neither was I attempting to disparage his activism. Thousands sacrificed in the 1960s whose names we will never know, and I have always given honor to their contribution…If you take a look at a transcript of my statement, you will find I did not say that I met Hillary and Bill Clinton when I was chairman of SNCC in the 1960s. My point was that when I was doing the work of civil rights, led the Voter Education Project and organized voter registration in the South in the 1970s, I did cross paths with Hillary and Bill Clinton in the field. They were working in politics, and Bill Clinton became attorney general of Arkansas in the 1970s as well. That began a relationship with them that has lasted until today~ John Lewis (mea culpa)

The double speak did not end there. Both he and congressman Clyburn both denounced the idea of free college. They said that such a thing sends the wrong message. Here are two men particularly in the case of John Lewis that purport to carry the torch of Dr. Martin Luther King and his fight for economic equality sounding like Paul Ryan when it comes to evening the playing field in a most fundamental way. It was only 8 years ago that Clyburn was denouncing the race baiting of Bill and Hillary in their nomination fight against Obama. Now he can’t stop extolling her virtues. Collegiality over conviction is what that amounts to. It’s certainly not egregious enough of an offense for an individual trade so both John Lewis, James Clyburn and every other member of the CBC (not named Mia Love or Tim Scott) are all on Team Blackness for life but as an organization in congress boasting the teams color and logo it’s time that we trade them in for a more forward leaning body in the House and Senate.  Even before the CBC bet their black card on Hillary Clinton they have been slowly but surely losing their way and subsequently the right to be called the Conscience of the Congress.  Just to illustrate a few of their more incorrigible misdeeds as a caucus the following list serves as exhibit A.

  1. In 2014 Rep Alan Grayson (of the Congressional Progressive Caucus) introduced a Bill to put an end to the Pentagon siphoning their military grade weapons and equipment off to America’s already overzealous police forces. The measure failed and only 7 of 41 members of the CBC voted to for it.
  2. They have in increasing numbers started to capitulate to the Wall Streets demands on regulating their blood sucking hood predators like Pay Day Loan and Rent-to-Own companies
  3. In 2008 the CBC Foundation which had raised over $55 million dollars from 2004-2008 spent more on a lavish banquet for ($700,000) than they did in scholarships that they awarded.

Again. As individuals the CBC members have little to worry about as far as being traded but as a collective the Black Delegation can do much better so…