People Before Profit blog

Apocalypto is upon us

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 10:49:00 +0000

Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto,” a movie about human sacrifice among the ancient Maya, premiered Dec. 1 at Chickasaw Nation’s Riverwind Casino amidst Hollywood-style hoopla. Oklahoma Indian actors have been wooed by director Mel Gibson and are about to make a big splash on the big screen with the potential for even bigger and better roles for Natives in film.

I understand Gibson’s claim that the movie is about a society’s excesses and the costs of war (the movie has been billed as an antiwar film). I can stand with him on those aspects. But what message is “Apocalypto” really sending about the Native peoples of Mexico and Central America? This is but one thing we Indian people in the North must consider and question before we jump on Gibson’s bandwagon.

I have been to Central America. I have visited the Maya in their homes where I saw mountains of beautiful fruits and vegetables being grown, not for Mayan consumption, but for export, most likely to the United States. The Maya could not eat those fruits of their labor. They cannot afford to. In the village I visited, the Maya shared a communal kitchen where most days the women cooked meals of beans and tortillas because that is what the family’s hard labor in the fields affords them.

I heard the cries of women whose husbands had been “disappeared” and murdered by government troops or by paramilitaries. In Guatemala, they are struggling to recover after almost 40 years of civil war incited by the 1954 CIA overthrow of a democratic government, subsequently wiping from the face of the earth 140 Mayan villages. The Maya fled to bordering countries and some were held in death camps for removal, much like our own ancestors’ Trails of Tears. This is contemporary history.

The extreme, impoverished lives most Mayans live are not due to the “excesses of their ancestors,” as stated in a recent “20/20” special on ABC. It is due rather to the institutionalized racism of the church, military and government, which could not recognize our own Indian ancestors as human, justifying their wholesale slaughter, Christian conversion via boarding schools and the taking of our lands.

Before we rush to pat Gibson on the back, we should understand that the same religious, government, military and corporate institutions that systematically conspired to take our lands and destroy our culture here in the North also had a hand in the demise of the ancient and contemporary Maya people. When the Spaniards invaded Central America in the 16th century, ancient Maya texts were burned so that the people would forget their history and a new history, more palatable to Europeans, could replace it.

Because my community work gives me the opportunity to occasionally network with indigenous peoples from below the U.S.-imposed border with Mexico, I am aware that some Maya people are not happy with this film. This pretty much answers the question why Gibson chose to hire North American Indians, making it necessary to teach them a Mayan language. If the film was welcomed by the Maya, he could have hired Maya people, since the film was made in their territories.

How will a film which depicts the Maya as bloodthirsty primitives impact their work, their lives, their image and our perception of them? What impacts will that portrayal have on the people in power who have an obligation to make policy for the Maya in Mexico or Guatemala, or elsewhere in Central America, where most policy is implemented at the business end of a gun?

Because we have a genetic, cultural and historical relationship with all the peoples of Turtle Island, we have an obligation to view this film with discerning eyes and a critical mind. The movie opened nationally on Dec. 8. We can use this as an opportunity for raising consciousness and educating about our commonalities with the indigenous peoples from below the border.

For instance, do you know that in some of those countries indigenous peoples comprise 40 percent to 80 percent of the population? In the case of the Maya, a lot, if not most, speak Maya as their first language. The women still dress in the traditional huipil. In Chiapas, where the Maya communities are occupied by the Mexican government (with aid from the United States), a large part of the region’s resources are sucked out from under the Mayas’ feet to generate electrical power for the rest of the country while the Chiapas Maya live without running water or electricity.

We should remember that some of the brown people coming across the lower border as “illegals” are probably Maya, or descendants of other Native nations. To justify atrocities against Native peoples (and to manipulate the citizenry into looking the other way), the elite have historically sought ways to portray us as less than human.

Let’s make this an opportunity to learn more about contemporary Mayan struggles as well as the current struggles of Indian communities throughout the Americas. They are among the thousands of indigenous peoples who are going to the international community to seek redress for their grievances.

As we watch this new movie, we are obligated to do so with an informed mind. Our history is the Mayan history.

JoKay Dowell, Quapaw/Cherokee, is director of the Eagle and Condor Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance and lives in Tahlequah, Okla. This article originally appeared in Indian Country Today, www.indiancountry.com, and is reprinted by permission of the author.

Justice deported

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 10:37:00 +0000

In 1947, Woody Guthrie wrote a song about the crash of a plane carrying Mexican immigrant farm workers back to the border. In haunting lyrics he describes how it caught fire as it flew low over Los Gatos Canyon, near Coalinga at the edge of California’s San Joaquin Valley. Observers below saw people and belongings flung out of the aircraft before it hit the ground, falling like leaves, he wrote.

No record was kept of the workers’ identities. They were simply listed as “deportee,” and that became the name of the song. Far from being recognized as workers or even human beings, Guthrie lamented, the dead were treated as criminals. “They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.”

Some things haven’t changed much. When agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested over a thousand workers in six Swift and Company meatpacking plants this month, they too were called criminals. In Greeley, Colo., agents dressed in SWAT uniforms even carried a hundred handcuffs with them into the plant.

The workers, they said, were identity thieves. Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokesperson, told reporters outside the slaughterhouse there that “we have been investigating a large identity theft scheme that has victimized many U.S. citizens and lawful residents.” ICE head Julie Myers told other reporters in Washington, D.C., that “those who steal identities of U.S. citizens will not escape enforcement.”

Not everyone fell into the ICE chorus.

In Grand Island, Neb., site of another Swift plant, police chief Steve Lamken refused to help agents drag workers from the slaughterhouse. “When this is all over, we’re still here,” he told the local paper, “and if I have a significant part of my population that’s fearful and won’t call us, then that’s not good for our community.” In Greeley, hundreds of people, accompanied by the local priest, lined the street as their family members were brought out, shouting that they’d been guilty of nothing more than hard work.

ICE rhetoric would have you believe these deportees had been planning to apply for credit cards and charge expensive stereos or trips to the spa. The reality is that these meatpacking laborers had done what millions of people in this country do every year. They gave a Social Security number to their employer that either didn’t belong to them, or that didn’t exist. And they did it for a simple reason: to get a job in one of the dirtiest, hardest, most dangerous workplaces in America. Mostly, these borrowed numbers probably belong to other immigrants who’ve managed to get green cards. But regardless of who they are, the real owners of the Social Security numbers will benefit, not suffer.

Swift paid thousands of extra dollars into their Social Security accounts. The undocumented immigrants using the numbers will never be able to collect a dime in retirement pay for all their years of work on the killing floor. If anyone was cheated here, they were. But when ICE agents are calling the victims criminals in order to make their immigration raid sound like an action on behalf of upright citizens.

ICE has not, of course, accused the immigrant workers of the real crime for which they were arrested. That’s the crime of working.

Since passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, hiring an undocumented worker has been a violation of federal law. Don’t expect Swift executives to go to jail, however, or even to pay a fine. The real targets of this law are workers themselves, who become violators the minute they take a job.

Arresting people for holding a job, however, sounds a little inconsistent with the traditional values of hard work supported so strongly by the Bush administration. It makes better PR to accuse workers of a crime that sends shivers down the spines of middle-class newspaper readers, already maxing out their credit cards in the holiday rush.

The real motivation for these immigration raids is more cynical. The Swift action follows months of ICE pressuring employers to fire workers whose Social Security numbers don’t match the agency’s database. These no-match actions have been concentrated in workplaces where immigrants are organizing unions or standing up for their rights.

At the Cintas laundry chain, over 400 workers were terminated in November alone, as a result of no-match letters. Cintas is the target of the national organizing drive by Unite Here, the hotel and garment workers union.

In November also, hundreds walked out of the huge Smithfield pork processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., after the company fired 60 workers for Social Security discrepancies. That nonunion plant is not just the national organizing target for the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Smithfield has also been found guilty repeatedly of firing its employees for union activity, and threatening to use their immigration status against them.

When workers at Woodfin Suites in Emeryville, Calif., tried to enforce the city’s new living wage law, Measure C, they too were suddenly hit with a no-match check.

It’s no accident that workers belong to unions in five of the six Swift meatpacking plants where this month’s raids took place. ICE’s pressure campaign recalls the history of immigration enforcement during previous periods when anti-immigration bills were debated the U.S. Congress, as they were this year.

Before 1986, the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service conducted months of high-profile workplace raids, called Operation Jobs. INS used the raids to produce public support for the employer sanctions provision later written into the 1986 immigration law.

In 1998, the INS mounted a huge enforcement action in Nebraska, also targeting meatpacking workers, called Operation Vanguard. Mark Reed, then INS district director in Dallas, was open about its purpose — to get industry and Congress to support new bracero-type contract labor programs. “That’s where we’re going,” he said in an interview at the time. “We depend on foreign labor. If we don’t have illegal immigration anymore, we’ll have the political support for guest workers.”

Today, ICE and the Bush administration also have an immigration program they want Congress to approve. Once again they want new guest-worker schemes, along with increased enforcement of employer sanctions.

This fall, appealing to right-wing Republicans, the administration proposed new regulations to require employers to fire workers listed in a no-match letter who can’t resolve the discrepancy in their Social Security numbers. Employers like Cintas and Smithfield now claim anti-union firings are simply an effort to comply with Bush’s new regulation, although it hasn’t yet been issued.

At Swift, the administration is sending a message to employers, and especially to unions: Support its program for immigration reform, or face a new wave of raids. “The significance is that we’re serious about work site enforcement,” threatened ICE chief Myers.

After six years in office, ICE’s choice of this moment to begin their campaign is more than suspect. It is designed to force the new Democratic congressional majority to make a choice. The administration is confident that Democrats will endorse workplace raids in order to appear “tough on illegal immigration” in preparation for the 2008 presidential elections. In doing so, they will have to attack two of the major groups who produced the votes that changed Congress in November — labor and Latinos.

Since 1999, however, the AFL-CIO has called for the repeal of employer sanctions, along with the legalization of the 12 million people living in the United States without documents. One reason is that sanctions are used to punish workers for speaking out for better wages and conditions. Unions serious about organizing immigrants (and that’s a lot of unions nowadays) have seen sanctions used repeatedly to smash their campaigns.

But unions today also include many immigrant members. They want the organizations to which they pay their dues to stand up and fight when government agents bring handcuffs into the plant.

The United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents workers at Swift, did go into court on the day of the raid, asking for an injunction to stop the deportations and to guarantee workers their rights to habeas corpus and legal representation.

But labor will need to do more than that. Unions and immigrants both need a bill that would mandate what they’ve advocated since 1999 — the repeal of employer sanctions. Workers without visas would still be subject to deportation, but enforcement wouldn’t take place in the workplace, where sanctions deny basic labor rights to millions.

The administration and Republicans in Congress wouldn’t like that, nor would conservative Democrats. Reps. Rahm Emanuel and Silvestre Reyes even want sanctions beefed up. But Democrats and labor must make a choice. They can defend the workers, unions and immigrant families who gave them victory in November (voting Democratic 7 out of 10.) Or Democrats can, as they have so often done, turn their back in another triangulation sacrificing their base.

They can join the government’s chorus calling these workers criminals. Or they can recognize them as the human beings they are.

David Bacon is a photojournalist. His latest book, “Communities Without Borders,” documents indigenous immigrant communities, including those of meatpacking workers employed in the Swift plant in Omaha.

EDITORIAL: Naughty and nice

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 10:25:00 +0000

In a back room of the People’s Weekly World is a group of elf computer wizards, wearing green tights and caps with bells. They’ve just finished a project that has befuddled humankind for centuries. They’ve hacked into the top secret Naughty and Nice List compiled by the head elf, an undocumented worker who regularly crosses our borders without papers, making deliveries on Dec. 25 — Santa Claus.

The wizard elves wisked the list over to our editorial desk and said we could tell you a few of the names.

Topping the Nice List is the U.S. working class. In the notes section, Claus highlighted the solidarity at Smithfield Meats and the courage of thousands of moms and dads who are janitors and hotel workers joining the union.

And in big gold letters, Claus wrote, “Oh, those 2006 elections and what workers, and in particular African American, Latino, women and young workers, did! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Santorum crash and burn live on CNN and then the rest of those scoundrels go up in the smoke of workers’ ballots.”

Next on the list is the immigrant rights movement. The parchment was tear stained where Claus had penned, “My invisible brothers and sisters who work so hard for their families, working some of the worst jobs, only to be hunted down, subjected to racism, jailed or left to die in the desert — hundreds of thousands marched in city after city, proud, unafraid, standing up, their children with them — that was a true May Day.”

With so many wonderful, courageous folks on the Nice List, it’s just too long for us to mention everyone.

Topping the Naughty List are George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and all their minions. Claus put one-way tickets home in their stockings.

Next is Goodyear. “Forcing 15,000 skilled tire makers, members of the USW, out on strike because the world’s largest tire and rubber products corporation isn’t making enough profit — criminal, that’s what it is, criminal,” the not-so-jolly Santa wrote.

Also on the list are racist police like those who fired 50 bullets at Sean Bell, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who rounded up Swift workers, leaving spouses and children weeping. Wal-Mart, greedy mine owners and Katrina profiteers are there too.

But you, our terrific readers, who help fund, promote and write for this paper, you’re all on the Nice List. Happy holidays to all of you.

Thousands shop for justice in N.Y. police killing

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 06:22:00 +0000

NEW YORK — Tens of thousands marched down Fifth Avenue here Dec. 16 protesting the killing of 23-year-old Sean Bell on his wedding day by New York City undercover police.

Called “Shopping for Justice,” the outpouring filled block after block of Manhattan’s famed avenue during the height of holiday shopping and tourist sightseeing. The Rev. Al Sharpton led the march, pushing the wheelchair of Bell’s friend and fellow shooting victim Trent Benefield, 23, along with Bell’s fiancée Nicole Paultre Bell. Other dignitaries included Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers.

The third shooting victim, Joseph Guzman, 31, is still in rehabilitation.

“Today is my daughter’s birthday,” Paultre Bell said at an earlier rally in Harlem, “and instead of shopping with Daddy, we’re going to be shopping for justice.”

Some crowd estimates were as high as 50,000. Labor unions joined with church, civil rights and peace groups. Many of the marchers were unaffiliated with any organization but felt compelled to march by their deep anguish at another unarmed, young Black male gunned down by the New York City police.

Many were fathers with their young sons. One father said he hoped this was the only time he would have to bring his 7-year-old son to an event like this. There were mothers with their daughters, church people with their pastors, several people in wheelchairs and people with canes.

The mostly silent march was sporadically interrupted with the chant “1, 2, 3 … 50,” representing the number of bullets fired on the car in which the young men were driving.

Bell, Benefield and Guzman had left a Queens nightclub about 4 a.m., Nov. 25, when they were confronted by police. Five officers fired 50 rounds on Bell’s car, which had struck an undercover officer and an unmarked police van. All three men were unarmed.

During the march, one officer was asked how he dealt with policing a demonstration “against them.” He said it was part of his job, and if police were not there, there would be confusion.

As it turned out, the crowd grew so large the march took up all five lanes on Fifth Avenue instead of the two lanes police had planned.

Many of those lined up along the sidewalk were American and foreign tourists. Many marchers explained the protest and what counting to 50 meant.

Marchers expressed anger, pain and puzzlement. One woman kept asking out loud, and to the police she passed on the route, how they could shoot a man who was unarmed. What made them reload? she asked. Couldn’t they see that the men were not shooting back?

Unlike a previous demonstration on Dec. 9, there were very few calls for firing Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

The shooting is under investigation by Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, who will present evidence to a grand jury. Many have called for a special investigator, which Brown has rejected. Sharpton called for congressional hearings, a federal review of police training, a special office in the Justice Department to prosecute police crimes, and alcohol testing for undercover officers.

The march ended peacefully in front of Macy’s, “the world’s largest department store.” Many participants said this was a beginning, not an end.

“Marches are not designed to solve a problem, marches are designed to expose a problem,” Sharpton said. On one of the most famous streets in the world, this was definitely done.

Conyers calls for new American agenda

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 06:19:00 +0000

DETROIT — At a packed town hall meeting here last week, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) called for a “new American agenda” and declared the new congressional session, set to begin Jan. 4, a “brand new start after 12 years” of disastrous Republican rule.

“You are now being addressed by Chairman John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee,” Conyers told an overflowing audience at the University of Detroit Mercy Dec. 15. He promised to use his authority and influence to help reverse the lack of congressional oversight of the president on issues such as the Iraq war and abuse of civil liberties. Congress has the duty to “cut back Bush’s power grab,” he said.

He called for hearings on the “concealments, misstatements and exaggerations” that pushed America to war with Iraq, a “misbegotten war that should never have been started” and that has distracted from global efforts to stop terrorism.

The Nov. 7 election, Conyers noted, was a referendum on the Bush administration and the Republican Party’s ideas, policies, and methods of leadership. He called for a national dialogue on a new American agenda and said he plans to hold more public forums in Michigan and across the country.

Conyers, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, listed a number of major issues that he intends to address from his new position in Congress. He cited D.C. statehood as one of the first items on the list.

Rejecting the Republicans’ handling of the immigration issue, Conyers said, “You really have got to be short of ideas if you can only come up with a wall to keep people out of the United States.” Immigration policy that does not address employers’ abuses of both workers and the system will not work, he said.

Conyers chastised the Bush administration for its hostility to international law and treaties. Citing White House efforts to undermine the Geneva Conventions, its refusal to comply with treaties signed by the U.S. regarding nuclear disarmament, and its mishandling of “genocide issues,” he argued, “Without international law the planet can not go on, and we cannot make an attempt to address and control war and divisions that exist in the world today.”

On the Iraq war, Conyers said, “One of the most important things on our agenda is getting out of Iraq as quickly and as intelligently as possible.”

“We can’t stay the course,” he said. “Our presence there continues and exacerbates the war.”

Conyers rejected Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) call for increasing troop numbers in Iraq. He pointed out that there is no military solution to the violence in Iraq and urged regional diplomacy and replacement of U.S. forces with UN peacekeepers. Conyers also rejected proposals in the Iraq Study Group report to privatize Iraq’s oil industry.

He called for talks with regional powers in the Middle East, and with North Korea and China, rather than confrontation, and said the U.S. should “take the lead on disarmament.” He also backed actions to address global warming.

Commenting on the 2008 presidential race, Conyers congratulated Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) on his announced intention to run for the Democratic nomination, saying Kucinich would be the “most progressive candidate” in the field. Conyers also expressed support for the potential candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), noting, “Here’s a chance for a person of color to seriously run for president. And that has got to be given serious consideration.”

Turning to America’s health care crisis, Conyers noted that the U.S. has the most expensive health care system in the world while 47 million people go without coverage and 30 or 40 million more lack adequate coverage for necessary care. “It’s time we had a universal single-payer health care plan,” Conyers said.

Conyers plans to reintroduce his “health care for all” National Healthcare Insurance Act (HR 676), and called on the American people to pressure Congress to pass it. “It’s up to all of us to create a movement to bring universal health care to America,” he said. Funding for a national health care program and for treating and finding a cure for HIV/AIDS has to come out of the military budget, he added.

With states like Michigan ravaged by massive layoffs in auto and other industries, Conyers said policymakers are responsible for returning the U.S. to a full employment economy. He endorsed the ideas behind the Humphrey-Hawkins Jobs and Balanced Growth Act of the 1970s, which requires the federal government to develop employment programs for people who can’t find work in the private sector.

Conyers announced he will introduce a bankruptcy law reform bill with Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) that would give greater protection to consumers. The bill would also require major multinational corporations who use bankruptcy claims to break union contracts to show their international as well as domestic financial records to the bankruptcy judge.

Responding to questions about impeachment of Bush, Conyers said it was not on the agenda, and would require much more popular support, a bipartisan effort in Congress, and a stronger Democratic majority.

What is on the to-do list, he said, is “a people’s agenda” that provides “jobs, justice and peace.”

jwendland @ politicalaffairs.net

Fortresses of working-class power

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 10:43:00 +0000

A nightmare for progressives leading up to the Nov. 7 elections was that Maryland voters would go against the grain and elect Republican Michael Steele, an African American, to the U.S. Senate seat held by retiring Democrat Paul Sarbanes.

That outcome would have preserved Republican control of the Senate by one seat, with Black voters the improbable key to Republican victory.

Steele, the incumbent lieutenant governor, ran a slick, lavishly funded campaign straight out of the Karl Rove playbook. One TV ad showed Steele holding a puppy, a “gentler, kinder” politician. He concealed his close ties to George W. Bush and the Republican right. He posted big lawn signs reading “Michael Steele Democrat.”

The Democratic candidate, Ben Cardin, a methodical lawmaker, hammered at the basic issues and characterized Steele as an unwavering Bush Republican. Cardin’s voting record in the House of Representatives was solidly pro-labor. He played a big role in fighting Bush’s drive to privatize Social Security and voted against the resolution authorizing Bush to invade Iraq.

While Democrats in Maryland enjoy a two-to-one majority, the party was in a shambles after Republican Robert Ehrlich was elected governor in 2002. Steele’s strategy was to cut deeply into the Black vote while winning big in the suburban and rural parts of the state. Several prominent African Americans endorsed Steele, such as former Judge Billy Murphy whose family publishes the Baltimore Afro-American. The Republicans accused the Democrats of “taking Black voters for granted.”

The charge resonated because the Democrats’ statewide ticket had only one African American, Anthony Brown, running for lieutenant governor. Brown, an Iraq war veteran, is a member of the General Assembly representing Prince George’s County.

Members of my Baltimore club, the Northeast Community Club, Communist Party USA, were not bystanders. Every Saturday we joined the AFL-CIO’s Working America campaign going door to door to get out the vote. Mostly, we visited union households in Baltimore County. Sundays we distributed the People’s Weekly World and the party’s brochure, “A Call to Action: Defend Democracy, Change Congress.” We distributed well over 4,000 copies of that brochure at the two farmers’markets in downtown Baltimore. They were very well received.

How did all this play out on Election Day? Both Steele and Ehrlich were trounced. And who provided the Democrats’ margin of victory? African American voters!

Voters in Prince George’s County, 63 percent African American, voted 154,798 for Cardin and 49,484 for Steele, a better than three-to-one margin for the Democrat. Voters in the city of Baltimore, 64 percent Black, voted 112,805 for Cardin, 35,185 for Steele, also more than three-to-one. Voters in majority white Montgomery County voted 205,264 for Cardin, 96,616 for Steele, a more than two-to-one margin for Cardin. Voters in Baltimore County voted 145,262 for Cardin, 131,291 for Steele. Cardin also narrowly carried Howard County. Steele won a majority in every other county.

It was the “fortresses” of multiracial working-class power — Prince George’s County, Baltimore City and Montgomery County — that crushed Steele and Ehrlich.

All that doorbell ringing in Baltimore County paid off. The Democrats carried this mostly white, working-class suburban county by a 14,000-vote margin. It is now the biggest “swing” county in the state.

The battle in the suburbs and exurbs reflected the Democrats’ “50-state strategy” of challenging the Republican right everywhere including all those so-called “red states.” Rep. Harold Ford’s race for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee was a dramatic example of that approach. With backing of the Memphis local of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Ford nearly became the first Black U.S. senator from the South since Reconstruction. The strategy produced deep, new splits in the Republican base and proved that these voters can be won to the side of multiracial unity.

As for the African American vote, it was awesome. Black voters cast their ballots 89 percent against the Republicans. They saw right through the fakery of the Republicans putting up African American candidates like Steele and gubernatorial candidates Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania and Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio. Black voters evidently viewed this GOP scam as an insult to their intelligence. They hit back hard when they went into the voting booths.

Overwhelmingly working class, African Americans voted their class allegiance, not their race. When we ponder the message voters sent Nov. 7, one is a clear rejection of the Republican right’s use of new forms of racism, including the use of African American candidates to hide a white supremacist agenda. On this issue too, voters clearly are looking for change.

Tim Wheeler (greenerpastures21212 @ yahoo.com), a longtime Baltimore resident, is national political correspondent for the People’s Weekly World.

Gulf Coast Update

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 08:12:00 +0000

Labor steps up for ‘young men of color’

Job training and job opportunities for young African American men will be provided under a new program announced last month by the AFL-CIO. The nationwide initiative will begin in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, a city with a majority African American population.

The national labor federation was the first to respond to a new report, “A Way Out: Creating Partners for Our Nation’s Prosperity by Expanding Life Paths of Young Men of Color,” which was written by a commission chaired by Oakland Mayor-elect Ron Dellums. The Health Policy Institute (HPI) of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies commissioned the report.

The AFL-CIO announcement was an “amazing moment,” said Gail Christopher, HPI director, with labor’s leaders agreeing with the commission that “we have to take our country back and it starts with young men of color.”

Helen Kanovsky, chief operating officer of the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, said the labor federation is equally excited about the new initiative. The commission “talked with a large number of corporations as well, but it was labor that stepped up first” and said “we’ve read your report, we agree and we’re here to help,” Kanovsky said.

Two court wins for Katrina survivors

A federal judge last month ordered FEMA to resume payments to thousands who lost homes to Hurricane Katrina, calling the agency’s policies confusing, unconstitutional and “Kafkaesque.”

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon found that the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed earlier this year to explain to aid recipients why they suddenly had to reapply or were no longer eligible for emergency assistance. He ordered FEMA to resume payments until it either allows evacuees to appeal or better explains its actions.

Charles Jackson, a spokesman for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which filed the lawsuit, said the ruling would affect up to 11,000 families.

In a second win for Katrina evacuees that week, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled Nov. 27 that homeowners might be entitled to more insurance reimbursement for flood damage because some policies excluding water damage were ambiguous.

Government to raze public housing

While nearly 100,000 people displaced by Hurricane Katrina spent Thanksgiving in FEMA trailers, public housing officials decided Dec. 7 to proceed with the demolition of more than 4,500 government-owned apartments in New Orleans.

Residents and public housing advocates argued strongly against demolition at a recent housing authority meeting in New Orleans.

“The day you decide to destroy our homes, you will break a lot of hearts,” said Sharon Pierce Jackson, who lived in one of the now-closed projects slated to be razed. “We are people. We are not animals.”

Stephanie Mingo, who had been a 43-year resident of the now-closed St. Bernard project, blinked back angry tears as she spoke during her allotted three minutes. “You are hurting people. You are killing people,” she said. “I don’t know how y’all can sleep at night.”

To repair the hurricane damage at the four largest complexes in question would cost only $130 million. Residents say that that many units could be reoccupied with a little cleaning or minor renovation.

Gulf Coast Update is compiled by Terrie Albano (talbano@pww.org).

James and Esther Jackson: shapers of history

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 07:26:00 +0000

The symposium “James and Esther Jackson, the American Left and the Origins of the Modern Civil Rights Movement” at the Tamiment Library of New York University on Oct. 28 was an event of singular enlightenment and emotional impact. Three panels of academics and activists delivered papers illuminating the little-known lives of the Jacksons, their co-workers and the struggles in which they participated that helped shape developments in our country from the late 1930s to the present. The symposium announced the opening of the Jacksons’ papers.

Angela Davis keynoted the event with an appreciation of the Jacksons, whom she knew from her teen years. Her mother Sallye Davis was a co-worker of the Jacksons in the Southern Negro Youth Congress from the late 1930s through the mid-1940s.

David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of W.E.B. Du Bois, delivered a paper on the role of the Southern Negro Youth Congress, the Jacksons and Du Bois.

Some 250 students, historians, academics, colleagues and political leaders packed the library’s hall. Sam Webb, Communist Party USA national chair, and national board members and longtime friends of the Jacksons, Debbie Amis Bell and this writer, represented the CPUSA.

Percy Sutton, former Manhattan borough president, took the floor and spoke of his long association with and appreciation of the Jacksons. This began in Texas where Sutton grew up in a family of 12, half of whom became Communists.

Pete Seeger also talked of his great appreciation for the Jacksons’ contributions. He then taught the audience a new political song.

One of the academics who worked on the Jacksons’ papers read from the daily letters exchanged between James and Esther during World War II. James was stationed in Burma. They were poignant letters of love and political commentary on the world and domestic situation.

Michael Nash, Tamiment Library director, and others presented papers on the key role the Jacksons and other notables from the Young Communist League and CPUSA played in establishing and organizing the Youth Congress. The Jacksons’ co-workers included Louis and Dorothy Burnham, Edward and Augusta Strong, Grace Bassett and Chris Alston. The Youth Congress grew to 100,000 members throughout the South. They did voter registration and organized tobacco and other workers into unions. These pioneers were active in fighting every violation of civil rights, at great risk to their personal safety.

The Youth Congress and other movements, like the International Labor Defense headed by Joseph Brodsky and William L. Patterson, were forerunners of the movement around the 1954 Supreme Court school desegregation decision, the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956, and the civil rights revolution that began in 1960.

Jean Carey Bond, former associate editor of Freedomways, told of Esther Jackson’s role as its managing editor for 25 years, and of Du Bois in its founding, as well as how the magazine, during and after the civil rights revolution, was a political and cultural voice of the movement.

Former New York Times book review editor Michael Anderson delivered a paper about Lorraine Hansberry and her days as an editor, working under Louis Burnham, on Freedom, the newspaper Paul Robeson published. Later Hansberry was associate editor of New Challenge, the magazine of the Young Communist League. She became the great playwright of the freedom movement.

Maurice Jackson, Georgetown University history professor and longtime friend of the Jacksons, and Timothy Johnson, NYU librarian and former co-worker of James Jackson, both chaired panel discussions.

Charlene Mitchell, longtime co-worker and friend of the Jacksons and co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, presented the final paper. This paper defended the role of the Communist Party in relation to the Black Panther Party. While disagreeing with the Panthers on important ideological and political points, the Communist Party always defended them against the government’s attacks, a point now disputed by some on the left.

Aspects of the Jacksons’ lives mentioned only briefly or not at all included James Jackson’s role as CPUSA Southern Affairs secretary. At that time Jackson worked in close association with Rosa Parks, a relationship which had begun in the days of the Youth Congress and continued during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. As The Worker’s editor, Jackson worked with a number of the leaders of the civil rights revolution.

Another interesting aspect was when Esther Jackson headed the Civil Rights Congress in Detroit and James Jackson was educational director of the party’s Ford autoworkers section, which had hundreds of members. The Jacksons forged a lifelong friendship with autoworker and several-term mayor of Detroit Coleman Young.

James Jackson produced much theoretical work on the strategy for African American equality and on many other subjects while heading the education work of the Communist Party. He produced two books of political writings and served as CPUSA International Department head. He played an important role in world and U.S. peace and solidarity movements. He interviewed Ho Chi Minh shortly before the Vietnamese leader’s death. Jackson, along with then-CPUSA National Chair Henry Winston, played an important part in helping the South African Communist Party in its struggle for freedom.

The symposium was a special event honoring the lives of two individuals who demonstrated great conviction, dedication, heroism and excellence in the struggle for equality, peace, democracy, progress and socialism. Their lives could not help but inspire many others.

Steelworkers launch campaign for Goodyear strikers

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 07:05:00 +0000

The United Steelworkers union has announced a massive solidarity campaign to support the 15,000 striking Goodyear workers and their families. The campaign begins with a National Day of Action Dec. 16, with 100 demonstrations in 100 cities at Goodyear facilities across the nation.

“Goodyear picked the wrong fight with the wrong union at the wrong time and we’re going to kick their ass!” Steelworkers President Leo Gerard told a cheering crowd at the AFL-CIO organizing summit Dec. 9.

After 10 weeks on the picket line, the union is pushing forward, not backing up. Gerard’s statement indicated the union is gearing up for the long haul. The strike is costing the company $50 million a week, according to Gerard. “Goodyear went to Wall Street and got $1 billion in financing to help them bust the union,” he recounted.

At the same time, the strike is costing the 850,000-member union $2 million a week. “There’ll come a time this spring when we’ll call a special convention of the USW and ask our members for $5 a week for a special fund which will allow us to double what we’re putting into our strike fund,” Gerard predicted. “Then it will be a bad year for Goodyear.”

Larry Cohen, head of the 700,000-member Communication Workers Union and a founder of Jobs with Justice, described the Dec. 16 action at Goodyear outlets: “We’re going to turn out at those stores Saturday morning. If anyone gets in, it’ll be us and we’ll have a lot of questions about the tires. After we’ve gotten answers to all those questions, we’ll have one more: ‘I heard there’s a strike going on — I don’t want those tires.’ And then the next one of us will step up.”

The union charges that Goodyear is attempting to wash its hands of its health care obligation to current and future retirees, many of whom face medical conditions directly related to their jobs. “That just plain ain’t gonna happen,” said Gerard.

The solidarity campaign is picking up steam as the holiday season is upon us. The USW has held a series of solidarity rallies, and just announced a strike bonus to go to all strikers for the holidays.

Tim Waters, who heads the union’s Rapid Response team, said that the team’s mobilizing network will be getting into the Goodyear fight. The union will also demand that every politician take a position to support Goodyear retirees.

Goodyear posted its highest profits in seven years and gave top executives large bonuses last year, but this year announced the closing of its Tyler, Texas, plant. Workers from 15 facilities across the U.S. and Canada walked off the job Oct. 5 to protest the company’s unjust contract proposals, the union said.

Striker morale is solid, said strike leader David Prentice. “It’s we, the workers, that made this company,” he said. “We are not about to sacrifice our retirees on the altar of corporate greed. We’ll be there one day longer than Goodyear!”

John Edwards, former senator and vice presidential candidate, addressed an Akron, Ohio, solidarity rally just before the November elections. “My mother and father and brother and sister all have health care because of the union,” Edwards told the crowd. “And I was able to go to school because of the union.” Edwards added that it was the workers who made Goodyear what it is. “Now it’s time for Goodyear to do the right thing, and we’re here to make sure they do!”

The USW is encouraging unionists, friends and social justice activists to join the solidarity campaign. For more information, call the union’s toll free hotline at (877) 511-8792 or e-mail solidarity@usw.org.

bruce161 @ centurytel.net

Ask the Communists

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 08:42:00 +0000

Q: Can the Communist Party have an influence in America?

A: There is still a significant amount of anti-communism in the U.S., though much less than there used to be. We have waged and continue to wage battles both legal and public to defend our right to be a legal political party and to fully participate in the political life of our country.

The biggest obstacle is our small size. Even though we are small, we think we play an important role now — in being consistent fighters for workers’ rights, for unity, for internationalism, for peace, and against corporate control of the media and politics. We help point out the connections between today’s struggles to defend democracy and for progressive reforms, and the longer-range goal of socialism. We help create and build links between movements and organizations due to our involvement as activists in many different struggles. And we advocate building the broadest unity against Bush and the ultra-right. With more members, we would be able to play a larger role in helping to advance the political struggle.

We believe that in the long run, building a broad working-class-based electoral party is necessary. At the same time we believe that it is vital to have a Marxist party like ours that analyzes the path of struggle and links together many forces that ultimately are fighting the same enemy and that share a common vision of a better life for our people.

We invite readers to submit questions about the Communist Party USA, its basic policies, and a Marxist viewpoint on current social issues. The answers are provided by Marc Brodine, chair of the Washington State Communist Party. Questions can be sent to cpusa @ cpusa.org.

How Arizona defeated the hatemongers

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 08:23:00 +0000

Arizona made history Nov. 7 when its voters became the first in the nation to reject a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Why Arizona? How come voters in more liberal states have voted for similar hateful laws while conservative Arizona voted no?

If you were to believe the pundits in the corporate-owned press, our rejection of Prop. 107 was due to the western libertarian traditions, the spirit of Barry Goldwater — you know them, those right-wing Republicans who are against government interference in our personal business and our bedroom.

According to these pundits, credit should be given to the party of George Bush and Jon Kyl instead of the hard work of thousands of working class Arizonans, gay and straight, who volunteered their time and hard-earned money.

But a quick check of election returns would have demonstrated to these so-called pundits that Prop. 107 was defeated in working-class and liberal university precincts while passing in Goldwater Republican precincts. In suburban Tucson precincts, the vote for 107 corresponded closely with the vote for the ultra-right, anti-immigrant GOP congressional candidate Randy Graf.

So how did we do it? The answer is: educating, organizing and mobilizing.

As soon as proponents started circulating petitions to put 107 on the ballot, opponents brought out their own clipboards, signing up thousands of volunteers. Arizona Together emerged as the campaign committee, chaired by progressive state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema.

If passed, Prop. 107 proposed to outlaw same-sex marriage as well as nullify domestic partnership laws and registries which covered a majority of Arizona municipal and county workers. Since same-sex marriages are already not legal in Arizona, Arizona Together organizers realized that this was a stealth campaign to play on peoples’ prejudices and turn out Republican voters, and before anybody noticed thousands of unmarried couples would lose their health and other benefits.

Arizona Together called their bluff. It concentrated its educational campaign on the harm 107 would unleash on tens of thousands of working families.

The campaign enlisted the support of Mayors Phil Gordon of Phoenix and Bob Walkup of Tucson. These are Arizona’s two biggest cities, both of which have domestic partnership provisions for their employees. The state AFL-CIO joined the campaign with especially strong support from public employee unions. Tireless educational work eventually won the editorial support of all major Arizona newspapers.

Most important was the grassroots work. More than 18,000 volunteers spent countless hours on education and outreach. Volunteers mailed out over 1 million pieces of literature, more than 100,000 pieces were distributed door to door and tens of thousands of phone calls were made to voters. Money left over was used for three weeks of TV educational ads.

Congressman Raul Grijalva appeared on radio ads calling Prop. 107 an attack on working families. The Grijalva campaign worked closely with Arizona Together, using its literature in their extensive door-to-door canvassing. Also collaborating was the campaign of Gabrielle Gifford, who defeated Graf for an open congressional seat. I didn’t see any of those Goldwater Republicans handing out “No on 107” literature.

Arizona Together lived up to its name. It was able to defeat 107 because its educational campaign showed working-class Arizonans that this was an attack on working people. Almost every working person knows — or is him- or herself one-half of — an unmarried couple, often with children. They are our friends, co-workers, relatives, and they are us. When working people learned that 107 was an attack on all working people, they responded with a resounding “no.”

Joe Bernick (pwwinaz @ webtv.net) is director of Salt of the Earth Labor College in Tucson, Ariz.

Bush might flunk the new citizenship test

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 08:19:00 +0000

With a flourish, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services revealed its new test for naturalization last week. If it is implemented nationally in 2008 as planned, it will raise the bar a little higher for immigrants wishing to become U.S. citizens.

And George W. Bush probably could not pass it.

Up to now, to become a U.S. citizen, you had to be a legal resident immigrant for five years (or three if you served in the armed forces), not be convicted of a serious crime, fill out the N-400 form, pay some fees and pass a test showing that you can read and speak English and know a bit about U.S. history and government.

For several years, the government has been talking about giving the citizenship test greater “academic integrity.” Now, as an educator, I am all for academic integrity, but moral integrity is more important for citizenship. Older people and people who did not have the opportunity to go to college have some problems with the existing test. Yet does this mean that they should not have any political rights?

There are 144 questions on the new test list (you will only be asked a few, but you don’t know which). Most are things that it would be good to know. Media commentators immediately remarked that many native-born citizens would not be able to answer them. Here are a few of the proposed questions:

“12. What type of economic system does the U.S. have?” The suggested correct answers are: “Capitalist economy, free market, market economy.” But what if an immigrant says “plutocratic oligarchy” or even “neo-liberal imperialism”? These things are true too. Will the inspector flunk the applicant?

“25. Who does a U.S. senator represent?” The answer is supposed to be: “All citizens in that senator’s state.” But many would say he or she should represent all residents in the state, not only citizens. And what if a literal-minded immigrant were to answer “wealthy special interests”? That’s often true, isn’t it? But I bet they would flunk her.

“74. What are ‘inalienable rights’?” Answer: “Individual rights that people are born with. Wrong. “Inalienable” means “cannot be alienated,” i.e. taken away, not merely “present at birth.” And this is important, because our present government sits up all night thinking of ways to take away our birthrights as citizens. A couple of years ago, the Ashcroft Injustice Department even cooked up a proposed law (dubbed Patriot Act II) whereby U.S. citizens, born here, could be stripped of their citizenship without due process of law and permanently dumped in some God-forsaken desert (this was not enacted by Congress — yet). The umbilical cord is “present at birth” and is taken away immediately with a snip of the obstetrician’s or midwife’s scissors. Let us take care that this does not happen to our “inalienable rights” also.

“30. Name one example of checks and balances.” Possible answers: “The president vetoes a bill; Congress can confirm or not confirm a president’s nominee; Congress approves the president’s budget; or the Supreme Court strikes down a law.” What if the applicant says, “Congress overrides the president’s veto,” or “Congress impeaches and convicts the president”? Will they flunk him? Would this not perhaps depend on the political opinions, or level of knowledge, of the examiner? And could George W. Bush pass this question, given that the entire course of his presidency has been one long assault on the whole concept of checks and balances?

I don’t think we should be putting more obstacles in the path of naturalization and full participation of everybody in our society. A more difficult process is especially likely to disqualify working-class applicants whose formal education has been limited by lack of opportunity. Planned fee increases will have the same effect. And making it harder to get U.S. citizenship ensures that more working-class, low-income and minority immigrants will be denied the right to vote in the future. Furthermore, since the immigration “reform” laws of 1996, the rights of “legal” immigrants, i.e. permanent residents, have been severely curtailed. It is now not just a matter of whether you can vote or run for president, but whether you have basic due process rights or instead can be whisked away at the government’s whim.

I would be tempted to say that this “improved” test is being imposed now in response to the huge immigrant rights movement that filled our streets with marchers this year. But I know for a fact that this has been in the works for two or three years. Anyhow, we should be working to make the test, if there has to be one, simpler and easier, the fees lower and the wait for processing, which is unconscionably long (especially if you are an Arab or Muslim), much shorter. There’s another objective for the immigrant rights movement in 2007.

Emile Schepers is an immigrant rights activist.

EDITORIAL: Good riddance, John Bolton

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 07:54:00 +0000

John Bolton delivered the Bush administration’s bellicose, arrogant war-first policy to the UN, and U.S. voters took him out.

For a year Democrats and even some Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee blocked confirmation of Bush’s controversial appointment to the UN. Bolton was so disliked Bush had to appoint him during a Senate recess.

In the wake of the voters’ Nov. 7 uprising, Bolton withdrew his name from the confirmation process, even though the president made his confirmation a priority for the lame duck Congress. That may reflect some reality-based thinking by Bolton, as opposed to Bush who still seems to be clueless. Bush finds himself alone in his assessment that Bolton was the man for the job: “I think he deserved to be confirmed. The reason I think he deserved to be confirmed is that I think he did a fabulous job for the country,” Bush said.

That depends on your definition of fabulous, Mr. President. In November, Americans made a strong statement against your foreign policies. Bolton was part of the problem, and you need to come to grips with that.

Even though it’s goodbye to bad rubbish, there is another challenge. Former CIA Director Robert Gates is now confirmed as the new defense secretary.

With the voters’ mandate to get out of Iraq and take responsibility for a country the U.S. government destroyed, why fast track a possible Rumsfeld-lite?

Gates may be the clean-up guy but his record does not auger well. A player in the Iran-Contra scandal and a bagman for multi-national corporations profiting mightily from no-bid contracts, Gates is carrying heavy baggage. Recycling murderers and crooks from two decades ago does not reflect the voters’ decision, no matter how he comes packaged.

A Pioneer of Black Radio, Bernie Hayes: Ive always been on the peoples side

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 07:38:00 +0000

Bernie Hayes’ career as a radio disc jockey has spanned over 50 years. As an African American radio pioneer, he has participated in historic civil rights and union battles to break down racism within the industry. He is the author of “The Death of Black Radio” and is a media and communications professor at Webster University in St. Louis.

First tell us a little about yourself and your history in the radio industry.

I started while I was in the service on Air Force Radio. I always had a desire to be a radio announcer. I went to the University of Illinois and then into the Air Force where I was able to continue my studies. In 1956 I got my first radio job in Alexandria, La., as a disc jockey and news announcer. In 1958 I went to New York, where I worked at WINS. From there I went back to Chicago in 1959. It has been a wonderful trip since then.

What about the history of African Americans in the radio industry?

The first African American radio broadcaster was Jack L. Cooper in Chicago in 1929. He was the reason why I got into radio. Black disc jockeys had been around for many, many years. We didn’t have much airtime though. We had to buy time; maybe 15 minutes, usually on a gospel station in the South.

But Jack L. Cooper and Bob Roberts, in 1929 on WEBC, were still on the air when I was young. And I would listen to them as I grew up. The genre spread, mostly into the South. And though I wasn’t one of the first, I am considered a pioneer.

In terms of being an African American radio pioneer, what was it like in the fifties?

It was horrible. I had a degree in journalism and still had to act like a fool while on the radio. They didn’t think Black folks had any intelligence. They thought we weren’t intelligent enough to do anything other than be buffoons and clowns.

The industry was very segregated, as it is now. Being Black in America is the same as being Black on the radio: it is such a closed, limited industry. So it was pretty tough just to get a job. The Black radio stations were under-financed, their staff underpaid. But if you loved it, you stayed.

While a white disc jockey was making $200, maybe $250 dollars a week, we were making $40 if that much. And we had to purchase airtime from the white owners. You had to find someone who would sell you time. So, in effect, they weren’t paying us anything. They were just giving us commission on what we sold.

We would go out and buy airtime and sell it to Coca-Cola. They’d pay us perhaps $50 for a week’s worth of commercials. Out of $50 we would have to take back perhaps 15 percent to the station owner. We had to buy that time from the station owner. It was called “brokerage.”

To be a staff announcer was very difficult also. You were still paid less than your white counterparts. That’s what happened in 1956, in Alexandria. I was the only African American at the station. I was getting paid about 10 percent of what the white disc jockey was getting paid. It didn’t get much better until the late sixties and seventies.

You’ve led strikes against racism at local radio stations here in St. Louis. Could you talk about that?

I was involved in four strikes here in St. Louis. I led each one of them.

In 1977 at radio station KKSS, Allen Eisenberg was the station manager and I was the program director. Everybody in the metro area was listening to KKSS at the time.

Scott St. James, a white disc jockey, came over from KMOX. I found out that Eisenberg wanted to put St. James above me, all the while he was being paid more than me. I asked Eisenberg why a disc jockey subservient to my position was being paid more than me. He said, with all seriousness, “white people are used to making more than Black people.” And that was the general, overall attitude of most white owners of the time.

I filed EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] charges. They came in and found that it was true, that I was being paid less. They fined the station, which paid me a minimal settlement. They were fined, and the FCC and the EEOC certainly reprimanded them.

The community, especially the African American community, was really behind me. They rallied, marched, picketed and put pressure on the owners. Some papers and community leaders started calling the radio station “KKK-SS.”

Were other unions supportive?

In Black radio, very few people, even in larger markets, belong to unions. The engineers will belong to a union. Management doesn’t want Black disc jockeys in the union. Then their salaries would increase.

I was a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Announcers and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

In 1965 when I came here from San Francisco, we were only making $100 to $200 a week. The average salary in the industry was from $300 to $400 a week. So I tried to organize our disc jockeys, the Black jocks at KETZ. We tried to get our salaries increased. While this was going on, they got rid of me because I was the organizer. And after I left, they convinced the disc jockeys to drop the union. They threatened them. And I’m sure the jockeys thought keeping their jobs was the best they could do.

At the different radio stations that you worked at, how did management try to keep you from having a voice?

It was always the threat of being fired. You are always being threatened. The owners would say, “We are allowing you to work here, you should be grateful.” And that was the attitude of most Black disc jockeys of the time.

I’m sad to say that it is still the attitude of most disc jockeys today. To work in radio, most people think is a privilege, but really it is a profession and we have a responsibility to the people that we broadcast to. The station has a responsibility to the community that it serves. If I saw something that wasn’t right, I tried to do the right thing. Each time I did anything, took any action, the community backed me up.

Why do you think people have connected with you so much? Why has your message resonated?

Well, because I’ve connected with them. I’ve been on their side. I’ve tried to strive for right, to do the right thing, to be a voice for them. People in the St. Louis area right now don’t have a voice. They have no one to speak for them, to promote their interests, to give their side. I try to be a spokesperson. If there is an issue that needs to be discussed or revealed, I try to be that voice. And the people have recognized me for that and support me.

What effect has corporate control of the media had on community radio?

When Reagan and his regime deregulated the FCC rules and regulations, everything went downhill. The big business interests, the conglomerates, bought up all of the radio stations. They bought the newspapers. They bought the TV stations. So now they control everything. So everything that you hear is something that they decide to allow you to hear.

The Black radio industry, even the “Black-owned” radio stations, are owned by out-of-state companies. Very seldom will we see someone running a local Black-owned radio station. So they don’t have any desire or will to promote anything local or community-oriented.

Is that what you mean by the title of your book, “The Death of Black Radio”?

At one time Black disc jockeys were the voice of the community. They dispensed the information, the information that was perhaps life-saving to some people. They would tell you how to get food, how to get shelter. They would tell you about medical care and the different programs. They would tell you about the community meetings. This is what they did. And they were among the community. They would attend meetings. They would go to events. They would be seen in the community, almost like icons, because they were known and cared about the community.

But today it is nothing like that. Then Black disc jockeys cared about where they came from. Disc jockeys today don’t even know where they come from. So it’s not only the death of Black radio. It is the death of Black radio’s commitment to the community.

Is there a direct relationship, an intrinsic relationship, between a democratic media and a democratic society?

I would say so. The media industry is a racist industry. It always has been. It’s part of capitalism. Slavery is a part of capitalism. The reason they want to own all of the newspapers and radio and TV stations is part of capitalism. If you are a capitalist, you can buy it. And if you can buy it, you can control it. It goes hand in hand.

If the conglomerates control everything, all the information, how can working-class people make it? Look at Katrina. Look what happened there. Black and white working-class people suffered. All of this was done by capitalism. The only way we are going to make any change is to involve the community. You have to reach the people. It has to be for the people. It has to be democratic.

In the past 5-10 years we’ve seen an upsurge of what is being called the independent media movement. What is your take on that?

When it comes to anything economic, the African American community is usually 10-20 years behind. We can’t get financing. We can’t get the money. The new technology that is out now, that is evolving in the media industry, like the Internet, Black folks don’t have access to. Let me tell you this. Only 40 percent, maybe 50 percent of Black families own computers. Does that answer the question?

How can Black media activists network? Most people in the Black community don’t have access to the Internet. They have to go to the public library. The schools are trying to be upgraded. But the African American community and African American children in school are far behind. Black schools don’t have the money. They can’t get the technology into every classroom. The democratizing effects of the Internet really aren’t affecting the Black community in the same way because we don’t have access to it.

What about the cultural aspect of community radio?

Well, the most important thing I try to do is show people their history. Black history is very important to Black people. White people don’t realize that. They don’t know our culture, our history. I was trying to reveal that and revive our history. I would play “Lift Every Voice,” which is the African American national anthem. It is a song we started our days with, in school, in church. Somehow the Black community has gotten away from that because it wasn’t heard on the radio. I revived that. It was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.

When I would play encouraging songs, like “Lift Every Voice,” the white owners and white management didn’t see the significance of that because it didn’t touch them. But it touched Black people. Black culture and Black history has not been very important to white people. That is why they took away our names during slavery. That is why they sold slaves downtown at the old courthouse. Their culture and history is important to them. But Black history and culture isn’t important to them. Black radio isn’t important to them. You can’t find archives of Black radio stations. But we need to preserve it.

Tony Pecinovsky (tonypec @ cpusa.org) is on the staff of the Missouri/Kansas Communist Party.

Equal education, not segregation: Marchers tell high court to uphold school integration

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 06:12:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Dec. 4 on two lawsuits seeking to terminate voluntary desegregation programs in public schools, a thousand protesters, mostly Black, Latino and white college students, marched outside chanting “Equal education, not segregation” and “They say Jim Crow, we say hell no!”

Ted Shaw, chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, told reporters gathered on the court building’s steps that a favorable ruling on the lawsuits by a few disgruntled parents in Louisville and Seattle would dangerously undermine the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing school segregation. “We will be witnessing a reversal of historic proportions,” he said.

Marching on the picket line was Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. “This is a day for all of us, Black and white, to stand up against segregation,” she told the World. “The residents and educators in these districts sought to create a school system where girls and boys of all races learn together.”

Will the Supreme Court “turn back the clock on decades of progress?” Gandy asked.

Tanya Nahman, a Harvard University graduate student, came with a busload of fellow students from Cambridge, Mass. “They have been chipping away at the Brown ruling for years,” she told the World. “A decision in favor of these two lawsuits will be the last nail in the coffin.”

A good quality education, Nahman added, “is a racially integrated education. Students who go to integrated schools have more compassion for other races and cultures. We need a more tolerant society.”

The protesters’ anger was directed at the new ultra-right Supreme Court bloc that includes Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito — both appointed by President George W. Bush — and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Civil rights defenders had feared the court would veer sharply to the right after Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement.

In the questions from the bench, the ultra-right justices hid their racism beneath a “color blind” veneer, insinuating that the remedies in the Seattle and Louisville plans are unconstitutional because they are race conscious. The Justice Department’s solicitor general argued for the Bush administration in favor of overturning the desegregation plans.

Seattle attorney Michael Madden eloquently argued the merits of Seattle’s voluntary plan that assigns students to achieve racial balance. Roberts retorted, “But because they were assigned to those seats on the basis of race, it violated equal protection.”

Replied Madden, “Because segregation is harmful.”

Unmoved, Roberts continued, “It’s an assignment on the basis of race, correct?”

Mary Myers, who is African American, and Amy Metz, who is white, both with children in Louisville schools, flew in at their own expense to join the picket line. They are members of the executive board of the Parent-Teacher Association of Jefferson County, Ky., which includes Louisville. Myers told the World that the 6-million-member national PTA strongly supports the Louisville and Seattle plans.

“A ruling in support of these lawsuits would definitely be a roll-back to segregation,” Myers said. “We want the justices to turn them down and maintain what we have. My children, one in the sixth grade, the other in the 11th grade, attend integrated schools. We don’t want to be segregated. Separate is not equal!”

Metz interjected, “It is not just Black parents. There are white parents who feel very strongly about the importance of racial integration and that is why we are here today.”

The lawsuits, she added, “were brought by a few parents who did not get the school they wanted. Our children must work and learn together. It dispels racial stereotypes.”

Nadonya Muslim, a high school teacher from Detroit, marched with 20 of her students. Muslim, who is also secretary of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, said, “This is hands-on experience. My students read about the Supreme Court and the Brown decision in their history books. But we all have to fight for our own rights and they are here doing just that. It is going to affect them a lot more than it affects me if Brown is overturned.”

One of her students, a sophomore at Detroit’s Southeastern High School, said, “The court should uphold Brown. If we lose it, it would push back our right to an equal education.”

A friend-of-the-court brief in support of the lawsuits was filed by the right-wing extremist Center for Individual Rights (CIR) whose president, Terry Pell, denounced the Seattle and Louisville plans as “racial mixing” and “state-mandated tinkering with race.”

In a statement passed out at in front of the Supreme Court, CIR boasted that it has filed lawsuits against affirmative action in Texas and Michigan and has filed several lawsuits to counter efforts by civil rights groups to block implementation of the misnamed “Michigan Civil Rights Initiative” approved in the Nov. 7 election.

Alona Sistrunk, a sociology major at Howard University, was one of hundreds of Howard students who marched from their Washington, D.C., campus to join the picket line. “I think there is hidden racism in these lawsuits,” she told the World. “They push the ideology that we want to take something away from their children. That is simply not the case. Equality helps everyone.”

greenerpastures21212 @ yahoo.com

EDITORIAL: Racism is still a threat

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 09:12:00 +0000

A majority of voters rejected Karl Rove’s use of “wedge issues” to split and weaken the movement against the Republican right in the Nov. 7 elections. And this week, our lead article reports that Smithfield workers in Tarheel, N.C., also rejected racism and xenophobia, walking out to fight an anti-immigrant witch-hunt against some of the workers. They too won a resounding victory.

But other headline news proves that racism is alive and continues to pose a grave threat to that unity.

• New York City police opened fire on a group of unarmed young African American men as they left a night club, killing 23-year-old Sean Bell on his wedding day. Two of his companions were wounded, one struck by 11 bullets. Police fired at least 50 shots, nine more than the police fusillade that murdered unarmed Amadou Diallo in 1999.

• Atlanta police broke down the door of Kathryn Johnston, 88, in a “no knock” raid in a crime-ridden African American neighborhood. Terrified, she opened fire with a revolver. They then shot her to death.

• A video posted on the web in November shows Los Angeles police savagely beating a Latino man, William Cardenas, before his arrest last Aug. 11, reminiscent of the LAPD beating of Rodney King in 1992, also caught on videotape.

• Comedian Michael Richards of TV’s hit show “Seinfeld” went on a two-and-a-half-minute racist rant when a Black person in his audience heckled him. Richards has been apologizing ever since. But there have been too many racist outbursts by politicians and media personalities followed by mea culpas. (Remember Sen. George Allen’s slur against an Asian man whom he called a “macaca.”)

Our body politic is saturated with racism and bigotry covered up with a thin veneer of “color blindness.” African Americans, Latinos, Arabs, Asians and other people of color, Muslims, immigrants, women, gays — indeed any group that can be singled out for purposes of divide and conquer is targeted.

We must demand answers, holding police, politicians and the media accountable. We won too big a victory over racism and xenophobia Nov. 7 to allow the racists to win by default after the votes were counted.

Dj vu as anger rises over Florida vote tally

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 06:51:00 +0000

Anger is spreading across Florida that once again, as in the 2000 election, vote theft has put the wrong candidate in office in Washington.

Wealthy Republican businessman Vern Buchanan has been certified as winner over Democrat Christine Jennings in the race for Florida’s 13th Congressional District. Buchanan’s margin of victory was less than 400 votes, clouded by the disappearance of 18,000 “under-votes,” mainly in Sarasota where Jennings expected to win by a wide margin.

An analysis by the Orlando Sun showed that the under-vote ballots were marked overwhelmingly for the Democrats running for statewide office. Many voters complained after voting Nov. 7 that Jennings’ name did not appear on their ballots.

Tony Fransetta, president of the 117,000-member Florida Alliance of Retired Americans, told the World in a phone interview, “Those 18,000 under-votes proves there is legitimacy to our demand for a verifiable paper trail on all voting machines.”

Republicans benefit from these so-called “computer glitches” that sharply reduce Democratic vote totals. “That’s why the Republican governor and Republican-controlled Legislature has yet to do anything about these under-votes,” Fransetta said. “They position themselves on the side of ‘every vote counts,’ but they don’t practice it. Those 18,000 missing votes in Katherine Harris’ old district prove it. She is the one who ordered a halt to counting the votes in 2000. She put Bush in the White House.”

As Florida’s secretary of state in 2000, Harris ordered a halt to the vote count, handing the presidency to George W. Bush. She gave up the 13th CD House seat she won two years ago to run against incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. Nelson trounced her in the Nov. 7 election.

Jennings has filed a lawsuit against the outcome. But the electronic voting machines manufactured by Election Systems and Software (ESS) produce no verifiable paper trail, making it difficult for Jennings to prove that she was the real winner.

Bev Harris, founder of the ballot protection group Black Box Voting, based in Renton, Wash., reacted angrily to the case. “Call this by the proper name,” she told the World. “It was not a ‘computer glitch.’ It was disenfranchisement of 18,000 Florida voters, plain and simple. Whether it was intentional or not, that is unacceptable.”

She said Black Box Voting has tracked similar cases involving ESS machines during the midterm elections in Texas and Arkansas.

Fransetta and two Palm Beach County commissioners filed a lawsuit asking the court to order that all voting machines in the county provide a paper trail of the vote results. The former Palm Beach County elections supervisor, Theresa LaPore, won notoriety for certifying Bush as winner of Palm Beach County in the stolen 2000 election.

Even so, the progressive movement in Florida is celebrating Harris’ defeat and the ouster of Republican Reps. E. Clay Shaw (defeated by Democrat Ron Klein) and Mark Foley (replaced by liberal Democrat Tim Mahoney).

“We are concentrating on winning passage of the Medicare for All bill in the new Congress,” Fransetta said. “We are seeking the endorsement of this bill by every Democrat in the Florida delegation. It just makes sense: take an existing health care program and extend it to cover everyone.”

greenerpastures21212 @ yahoo.com

Deval Patrick win makes civil rights history

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 06:41:00 +0000

BOSTON — Newspapers headlines throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts unanimously proclaimed the Nov. 7 electoral victory of Deval Patrick as “historic.” And right they were. Patrick, a former assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration, became only the second African American elected governor of a U.S. state.

The hopes that Patrick represents motivated an upsurge in voter participation. About 30 heavily African American Boston precincts ran out of ballots, worsening already long lines. According to MassVotes.org, the 11 communities in the city with the largest increase in voter turnout were neighborhoods with African American, Hispanic and Asian majorities.

Nevertheless, Patrick’s appeal was so broad that he would have won without minority voters. After the elections, Patrick said this dispelled the notion that Massachusetts is a racist state — a reputation stemming from anti-desegregation battles in Boston in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

With Patrick’s victory, Massachusetts also put an end to 16 years of Republican governorships.

Patrick defeated Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healy, independent Christy Mihos and Green-Rainbow candidate Grace Ross. All candidates participated in all the debates.

Patrick ran against the Republicans on a “take back our government” program calling for funding for cities and towns, affordable housing, ecologically sustainable jobs, affordable and accessible health care, and support for public schools and affordable university education.

Most commentators here are calling the election an overwhelming defeat for the Republican Party. The GOP fielded fewer candidates for statewide offices than the Green-Rainbow Party, and won none.

The results showed strong support for independent politics in races where there was no danger of a right-wing candidate winning. Where there were no Republican opponents, the Green-Rainbow candidate won 15 to 19 percent of the vote. The Working Families Party candidate for state auditor, longtime labor activist Rand Wilson, received 20 percent. This guarantees ballot status for both Green-Rainbow and Working Families parties.

The Patrick victory is widely seen here as not just a reaction against the state’s Mitt Romney-Kerry Healy administration, but also against Bush administration policies. This sentiment could be seen in the antiwar initiatives on the ballot in 139 cities and towns in the state, almost all of which won.

But two progressive initiatives, one giving home day care workers who accept state-subsidized clients the right to organize a union, and another permitting cross-endorsement of candidates, failed.

Patrick’s campaign galvanized grassroots Democrats to take part in the caucuses last January, many of them for the first time. This resulted in the convention giving Patrick its nomination, and he then went on to win the September primary with almost half the votes in a field of three candidates.

Patrick’s Nov. 7 victory was the result of a grassroots effort that began almost two years ago. At the time he was unknown to most voters despite his high-profile career in the Clinton administration, and as an attorney for the NAACP and corporate counsel for a number of giant corporations.

During the campaign Patrick moved away from some of his more centrist positions to the left.

He had been criticized by some progressive activists for being a lawyer for Coca-Cola, Ameriquest Mortgage Company and United Airlines. Although he had defended Coca-Cola in court, Patrick said during the campaign that he had an agreement from the company’s CEO to fund an independent investigation into the killing of union leaders and activists organizing Coca-Cola bottling workers in Colombia. Patrick said he quit Coca-Cola after the company reneged on conducting an investigation.

In response to criticism for serving on Ameriquest’s board of directors, Patrick said he had worked against predatory lending practices for 20 years and that he had been asked to serve on the board because the corporation was trying to turn itself around. Ameriquest paid $325 million to settle a class action suit early this year.

Gay activists attacked Patrick for serving on the United Airlines board when that corporation fought a San Francisco domestic partners benefits ordinance. Patrick said he convinced the airline to cover domestic partners, becoming the first airline to do so.

Douglas Wilder, elected governor of Virginia in 1990, was the nation’s first elected African American governor. In 1872, during Reconstruction, Louisiana Lt. Gov. P.B.S. Pinchback became the first African American governor of a U.S. state when Gov. Henry Clay Warmoth was impeached.

jacruz @ pww.org