Reality Check

A. Peter Bailey

1/24/08

 
Martin Luther King Jr., Much More Than a Dreamer

 There has been a concerted effort during the past 40 years to reduce Martin Luther King, Jr., to being some kind of ethereal dreamer.  It is much easier and more productive financially to focus on Dr. King, the Dreamer than on the Dr. King, the committed activist who led a successful campaign against brutal legal white supremacy, who disrupted whole cities and who became a pivotal force in the Anti-Vietnam War campaign. This Dr. King is clearly revealed, in his own words, in his last book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? The following are excerpts from that book which was published less than a year before he was assassinated:

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 “…We in this generation must do the work and in doing it stimulate our children to learn and acquire higher levels of skill and technique. It must become a crusade so vital that civil rights organizers do not repeatedly have to make personal calls to summon support. There must be a climate of social pressure in the Negro community that scorns (italics mine) the Negro who will not pick up his citizenship rights and add his strength enthusiastically and voluntarily to the accumulation of power for himself and his people. The past years have blown fresh winds through ghetto stagnation, but we are on the threshold of a significant change that demands a hundredfold acceleration.…”

 
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 “The hard truth is that neither Negro nor white has yet done enough to expect the dawn of a new day. While much has been done, it has been accomplished by too few and on a scale too limited for the breadth of the goal. Freedom is not won by a passive acceptance of suffering. Freedom is won by a struggle against suffering. By this measure, Negroes have not yet paid the full price for freedom, and whites have not yet faced the full cost of justice. The brunt of the Negro’s past battles was borne by a very small striking force. Thought millions of Negroes were ardent and passionate supporters, only a modest number were actively engaged, and these were relatively too few for a broad war against racism, poverty and discrimination. Negroes fought and won, but our engagements were skirmishes, not climactic battles.”

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“A second important step that the Negro must take is to work passionately for group identity. This does not mean group isolation or group exclusivity. It means the kind of group consciousness that Negroes need in order to participate more meaningfully at all levels of the life of our nation. Group unity necessarily involves group trust and reconciliation. One of the most serious effects of the Negro’s damaged ego has been his frequent loss of respect for himself and for other Negroes. He ends up with ambivalence toward his own kind.... This plea for unity is not a call for uniformity. There must always be healthy debate. There will be inevitable differences of opinion. The dilemma that the Negro confronts is so complex and monumental that its solution will of necessity involve a diversified approach. But Negroes can differ and still unite around common goals. 
(continued below)

Reality Check

A. Peter Bailey

1/10/08

 
Barack Obama and the Illusion of Transcending Race

  After winning in Iowa, Barack Obama was quoted as saying “If there’s any African American voter out there who still thinks Whites won’t vote for me, they just need to read the papers this morning and that should put that to rest.” Earlier his wife Michelle Obama in speaking about skeptical Blacks, was quoted as saying that she “understood that veil of impossibility that keeps us down and keeps our children down—keep us waiting and hoping for a turn that may never come. It’s the bitter legacy of racism and discrimination and oppression in this country, a legacy that hurts us all.” The sentiments expressed by the Obamas may accurately reflect the position of some Black folks, but a significant number of us refuse to get excited about a political candidate who can speak about every issue under the sun, except white supremacy, the issue which basically defines this country. We find it difficult to swoon over a candidate whom many White liberals and White conservatives are gushing over because he has “transcended race.” The Obama campaign takes me back to 1987 when Douglas Wilder was elected governor of Virginia and David Dinkins was elected mayor of New York City. My position at that time was that those elections would be a major blow to the development of a serious black political movement (not campaign) in this country since they would give an illusion of our having made significant political gains. That is exactly what happened. A few friends of the two men may have benefited from their elections but we as a group of group of people gained absolutely nothing.  Good old-fashioned common sense tells us that it is impossible to transcend race in a country in which white supremacy has been a prevailing ideology for its entire existence. Those same White liberals and White conservatives, backed by their Negro allies, use words such as “transcending race” the same way they use the words “politically correctness”--- that is as a weapon with which to attack those who refuse to downplay the role of white supremacy as an integral part of this country’s very core. To recognize this is not to succumb to despair, as implied by Michelle Obama, but to avoid the temptation of becoming the type of Black person who is ready to exult over any indication, no matter how small, that white supremacy is no longer a political, economic and cultural reality. Our position is not one of wallowing in despair but to urge our people, especially the younger ones, to remember that while white supremacy is alive and well, there is no justification for succumbing to it. Instead we must create and execute effective measures to out-think, out-plan and out-maneuver, those who practice it. White supremacists are not supermen and superwomen. Anyone seriously committed to organizing our people should read Chapter Fifteen, The Shape of Thing to Come: A Master Plan, in Chancellor Williams’ book, The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of the Race 2500 BC to 2000AD. The plan that he provides in his book for organizing our people will do more to promote and protect our economic, political and cultural interests than the election of anyone to any national political office that requires one to “transcend race” in a white supremacy-oriented society.

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A. Peter Bailey can be reached at apeterb@verizon.net
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(continued from Martin Luther King Jr., Much More Than a Dreamer above)

There are already structured forces in the Negro community that can serve as the basis for building a powerful united front – the Negro church, the Negro press, the Negro fraternities and sororities, and Negro professional associations. We must admit that these forces have never given their full resources to the cause of Negro liberation. There are still too many Negro churches that are so absorbed in a future good “over yonder” that they condition their members to adjust to the present evils “over here.” Too many Negro newspapers have veered away from their traditional role as protest organs agitating for social change, and have turned to the sensational and conservative in place of the substantive and the militant. Too many Negro social and professional groups have degenerated into snobbishness and a preoccupation with frivolities and trivial activity. But the failure of the past must not be an excuse for the inaction of the present and the future. These groups must be mobilized and motivated…. This form of group unity can do infinitely more to liberate the Negro than any actions of individuals. (Italics his) We have been oppressed as a group and we must overcome that oppression as a group.”

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 “….Black Power is also a call for the pooling of black financial resources to achieve economic security. While the ultimate answer to the Negroes’ economic dilemma will be found in a massive federal program for all the poor along the lines of A. Philip Randolph’s Freedom Budget, a kind of Marshall Plan for the disadvantaged, there is something that the Negro himself can do to throw off the shackles of poverty. Although the Negro is still at the bottom of the economic ladder, his collective annual income is upwards of $30 billion. This gives him a considerable buying power that can make the difference between profit and loss in many businesses. Through the pooling of such resources and the development of habits of thrift and techniques of wise investment, the Negro will be doing his share to grapple with his problem of economic deprivation. If Black Power means the development of this kind of strength within the Negro community, then it is a quest for basic, necessary, legitimate power.”

These are not the observations of an ethereal dreamer.

By Oni Adunni-  With Help From
Portions of U.S, National Archives & Records Administrations(USNARA)

www.archives.gov/federal register/electoral college
11/03/08

  First and foremost the Electoral College consists of 538 people who  formally select  the  President and Vice President of the United States.

       Words from the National Archives & Records Administration  states   “It is quite possible that a candidate who collects the most votes on a nation-wide basis will not win the electoral vote. This occurred in the 2000 presidential election where George W. Bush receive fewer popular votes than Al Gore but receive a majority of Electoral  College votes. “  The result? George W. Bush was elected President. It is indeed prudent  to know that these electoral votes come from the Electoral College  which allows states to get one  electoral vote for each of its Representatives in the House, and one Electoral vote for each of its two Senators. Since the entire State of California, for instance has 55 of these elected officials, California is allowed 55 votes in the Electoral College. A smaller state like Maine who has  4 elected officials has only 4 Electoral College votes. These Electoral College representatives, known as “ electors” are, according to (USNARA)  “often selected to recognized their service and dedication to their political party. They may be party leaders or persons who have a personal or political affiliation with the presidential candidate. “ It is extremely   unfortunate that  the  American public does not know the people who have the extreme power of electing the President because, according  to the (USNARA) “The electors names  may or may not appear on the ballot below the name of the candidate running for President.

       For this writing, the state of California ,and its power of 55 Electoral College votes  is used to  reflect the workings the Electoral College in all of the states.  The 55 elected officials of California are each charged with the responsibility of casting their individual vote for the Presidential candidate who wins the popular vote in their state. For example , if candidate “A” received a million votes  and candidate “B” received a million and one votes, the electors  should assume a “winner-take all” position by ignoring the million votes of candidate “A” and cast their individual vote for candidate “B”. If this was done, it should result in 55 Electoral College votes  allotted to  the state of California going toward the 270 Electoral College vote  count   from the other states  needed to certify a presidential candidate.

       THE NIGHTMARE  SCENARIO IS THIS!.   Once again, according to (USNAR)”There is no constitutional provision or federal law that requires electors to vote according to the result of the popular vote in their states.   With this   astounding  fact in place,  a voting travesty could occur where a  very popular  candidate “A”  with a potential vote count of 215 would  need 55 votes to allow him to arrived at the 270 votes to be selected President.  HOWEVER, and this is a big HOWEVER, If  2 of the California electors did not cast their vote for the states “winner-take all,”  and to reiterate, they are not bound by law to do so, then  the 55 votes allotted to California would only be 53. DO THE MATH!.....215+53 = 268….This  could allow candidate “B” who has vote rich Electoral College states  help him arrive at the 270. Worse yet, should each candidate happened to arrive at a  270 tie, a teeny tiny state with the power of  1 Electoral College vote could be the deciding  tie breaking factor of  271 votes…

Question? Who knows who has an Electoral College representative in their pocket to the point where they would not take a “winner- take all” position to cast their vote allotted to the state. Question? How can they dare not cast a “winner-take all “vote especially when a candidate has received millions of popular votes in the state.? Question? Why does the system allow potentially one hundred forty eight million votes to be cast for either candidate only for the purpose of two hundred and seventy  Electoral College   votes be the deciding factor for electing a President.  If all of this sounds confusing , join  the comments of Daniel P. Gregory in  Terms of American Government 4^th Edition who says “Of all governmental institutions and procedures that throw the public for a loop, the Electoral College tops the list. “(pg 113)  And finally, since this historical election is now over, let us hope that in obedience to “Change,” along with President-elect Barak Obama’s  administration doing  something about the  economy, the war,  schools, taxes  the poor and healthcare, they   would do something about the

Ways, Whys, and Woes of the Electoral College. After all, (USNARA) says “Public  opinion  polls have favored abolishing it……”

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Oni Adunni is a free lance Arts writer