Black and Jewish in America - Balancing Race and Religion

If the tone of my entries on this blog sometimes seem to take particular issue with the divisive politics of the right, it's only because their narrow-minded vision of America stands in complete contrast to my own upbringing.

For me, as an African-American growing up in Bethesda, Maryland in the suburbs of Washington, DC during the 70's and 80's, understanding my own sense of cultural identity was often a perplexing challenge. Being the only, or one of a few black students in schools that were overwhelmingly white was often a lonely experience.

So I was naturally drawn to David Matthews 2007 book Ace of Spades; an eye-opening non-fiction account of his being raised in Baltimore in the '80s as the son of a Jewish mother and liberal African-American journalist father. I felt a kinship with Matthews (pictured left) for wrestling with the strange sense of cultural "in between-ness" and his memoir, which I bought last Spring after hearing an interview with him on NPR, has helped me to re-examine my own childhood.

He's an interesting writer who uses language like a hammer and I kept a dictionary next to my bed to look up the many words I'd never heard of.

Though I grew up with Jewish friends and our next door neighbors were Jewish, I'd never really heard of black Jews until hearing news reports about Israel air-lifting Ethiopian Jews from famine-stricken Africa to Israel during Operation Moses in 1984 and Operation Solomon in 1991.

There are indeed populations of African-American Jews living here in America, in last Friday's New York Times, Trymaine Lee penned an interesting piece on a small population of black Jews who live in Brooklyn, New York; and their search for an identity that balances religion and race.

Their story, like Matthews, struck me as a timeless illustration of the ongoing struggle of people from so many different religions, races and nationalities to find their place in the changing landscape of America.

The Tea Party Conceals its True Nature While Frank Rich Exposes the Koch Brothers

While right-wing radio host and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck exhorted the thousands of the Tea Party faithful gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to reflect on God and pay tribute to the service men and women who've sacrificed for this nation, many people including myself were wondering where the real Tea Party was.

Frank Rich of the New York Times had an answer ready in the form of a must-read blistering critique of the Tea Party's three main billionaire backers; Rupert Murdoch and the highly controversial and mysterious Charles and David Koch.

Men whose extremist ideology stands in complete opposition to Dr. King's vision of racial equality, social justice and government responsibility for workers, the impoverished and those relegated to the margins of this society.

The anniversary and location of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech struck many in this nation as a peculiar place for a rally for a political movement financed in large part by the Koch brother's wealth.

To others, the Tea Party's presence on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and Becks self-righteous attempt to lay claim to a vision of America as a nation of faith was simply an insult and an affront to the ideals of the civil rights movement.

Veteran political reporter Taylor Marsh attended the rally and reported the crowd was not a diverse mix of different segments of America as Tea Party defenders try to present it; despite the appearance of Dr. King's anti-abortion advocate niece. No offense to Dr. King's relative but she's never been relevant to the national political dialog and she isn't now; just because she showed up on stage doesn't mean the Tea Party platform is somehow magically linked to the legacy of Dr. King.

In the end the sanitized public version of the Tea Party on display on Saturday for mainstream media will be a distant memory as the November elections heat up and the reality of Beck's lunatic right-wing ramblings reverts back to the same narrow-minded rhetoric we've become all too accustomed to.

Will history remember Beck's rally more than 40 years from now? Probably not. Cheap political stunts like that rarely stand the test of time. Dr. King's defining vision will forever symbolize America's hope to fulfill it's potential.

GOP Hatred: Ken Mehlman Stirs the Ghosts of the Southern Strategy

Ken Mehlman (pictured left) is out; and in more ways than one.

With the former Bush campaign manager and top GOP strategist's public admission in an Atlantic Monthly interview that he is gay, comes fresh insight and undeniable proof that the Republican party intentionally uses hate, prejudice and fear as the basis of their political strategy.

What is perhaps most shocking is not Mehlman's sexual orientation, but that for years he used the media to help engineer the manipulation of the evangelical Christian right to fan the flames of hostility against homosexuals to score votes.

Among other things revealed in The Atlantic interview, Mehlman admits that he helped to put anti-gay marriage initiatives on the ballots of at least eleven GOP-friendly states in an effort to boost votes for George Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and again as the RNC chair during 2006 congressional elections.

As if more proof was needed that the Republican party has declared 2010 the year of hate and intolerance, the TPM Website reports that GOP Louisiana Congressman John Fleming appeared before a Republican women's group and suggested that the upcoming November elections are a choice between America being a "Christian nation" or a "Godless society."

This one-dimensional, intellectually bankrupt "You're either with us, or against us" point of view cannot possibly co-exist in a nation as culturally diverse as America.

On Countdown with Keith Olberman last night, Olberman reminded viewers that the anti-gay GOP strategy is merely the latest version of the notorious "Southern Strategy" used by Republicans to capitalize on the racial fears of white, Christian voters during Richard M. Nixon's 1968 campaign.

What's unsettling here is that even Mehlman KNEW it was morally and politically wrong to race-bait voters - and the RNC chair admitted so in front of the NAACP National Convention in Milwaukee in 2005. Yet a year later he was using the same tactics against both homosexuals and illegal immigrants.

Only time will tell how this will impact restless American voters, but it does raise the question of whether the GOP actually intends to offer ANY new ideas to steer the country back out of the worst economy since the depression, or are they simply banking on stoking the fears of intolerance and prejudice as a means to win the hearts and minds of American voters.

What's happened to the voices of reason and principle in the GOP? When did it all become about marginalizing people and sewing the seeds of division?

I don't know whose party this is right now, but it sure ain't the party of Lincoln.

The Sovereign Citizen Movement Gains Traction

The fringe extremist front known as the sovereign citizen movement in the US rarely seems to pique the kind of mainstream media scrutiny that the proposed construction of a mosque near the site of the World Trade center in New York receives, but the threat they pose is real and their membership is growing.


Pictured left, Joe Zane, 16, lies dead after he and his father, Jerry were shot by police officers shortly after the two sovereign citizens killed Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans, two West Memphis, Arkansas police officers on May 20th.

Sovereign citizen activists Jerry Kane and his 16 year-old son Joe were pulled over in a routine traffic stop by Paudert and Evans and minutes later were shot and killed by Joe when he jumped out of the passenger seat of their white minivan and opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle killing both officers.

NBC Nightly News ran a piece on the story and the story did make headlines across the country, but serious examination of the movement seems to have fizzled in the mainstream press.

The incident shed light on a group that lacks a central leadership, but boasts a growing membership organized into cells across the country. Who are sovereign citizens?

The FBI and the IRS have begun to monitor the sovereign citizen membership and their activities more closely.

The Anti-Defamation League Website describes the sovereign citizen movement as:
"...a loosely organized collection of groups and individuals who have adopted a right-wing anarchist ideology originating in the theories of a group called the Posse Comitatus in the 1970s. Its adherents believe that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and they seek to "restore" an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed."

In its fall 2010 intelligence Report the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) raises the alarm about the sovereign citizen movement, detailing the murders of the Arkansas police officers as well as the bizarre array of activities of sovereign citizens.

Sovereign citizens believe themselves to be members of separate sovereign entities and hence are not subject to state or federal laws. Some beliefs seem harmless, but in this post-911 era are actually extremely dangerous.

They don't think they should be required to carry drivers licenses, social security cards or identification of any kind. They hold "courts" where they issue arrest warrants for police officers and judges; and even sanction violence against members of government and private citizens.

Most famously, sovereign citizens believe they are not bound to pay taxes and have developed a strange array of seminars, court filings, letters and protests to avoid doing so. I'd never heard about sovereign citizens until actor Wesley Snipes emerged as a advocate of the groups beliefs and I blogged about it here on culturegeist.

I believe the Constitution gives all Americans the right to believe what they want and to protest; but any group that advocates the execution of law police officers is a danger to us all.

More on Sovereign Citizens

Welcome to the Kochtopus - The Koch Brothers Meet Mainstream Media

Why has it taken so long for credible main stream media to begin taking a closer look at Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who have quietly and almost single-handedly bankrolled the far-right Tea Party movement?

Are these guys (David and Charles Koch pictured left) really dangerous to Democracy?

New Yorker magazine reporter Jane Mayer pens a piece in the latest issue - but why so long for the Koch brother's names to be linked to the ultra right conservative causes they espouse? The Koch's certainly aren't invisible, they're the 9th richest people in the nation. No surprise that they oppose bigger taxes.

If you've bought Brawny paper towels, Dixie Cups, a Georgia-Pacific lumber product or used Stainmaster to clean your carpets you've done business with Koch Industries - regarded by some as the biggest debunkers of climate change data in the world. Why? Perhaps because Koch Industries is one of the biggest owners of oil pipelines in the country.

Back on December 9, 2009 the Think Progress Website Progress Report detailed how the Koch (pronounced like 'Coke') brothers have funneled millions (over $45 million to dozens of conservative groups since 1997) to oppose almost every agenda item from the Obama White House from the Stimulus Package to the health care bill.

Don't get me wrong, Charles and David Koch can spend the proceeds from their wealth any way they want. But it strikes me as odd that the same media that shows video clips from Tea Party events with 'outraged Americans' carrying signs depicting the President as a Nazi or a spreader of Socialism - never even mention Charles and David Koch, the guys who foot the bill to send 40 busloads of people to Tea Party events.

The Koch brothers are rich even by American standards. Their staggering wealth finances a wide range of politically conservative organizations and think tanks; including Americans for Progress (which might as well be called Tea Party Central)and The Heritage Foundation.

From "Obama isn't really an American Citizen", to "Obama is a Muslim" and the Glen Beckian "Obama is a racist", the squeakier wheels in the right-wing media movement have presented a strange tapestry of fabricated nonsense for their angry minions to flaunt - but what if it's all just a bunch of BS generated by a couple of hardcore right-wing conservative guys who own one of the largest private companies in America?

Is that First Amendment expression or media manipulation?

Let's see if Katie Couric or Brian Williams have the journalistic balls to introduce the heartland of America to the Koch brothers and the actual scope of their one-sided agenda. Now THAT would be a real Eye on America.

More About the Kochtopus!

The Growing Tolerance of Intolerance in America

Whatever happened to the idea of America as a melting pot?

If the tone and substance of the current conservative media message is any gauge, apparently we’ve got a lot of people taking issue with certain ingredients in the stew.

Used to be it was the Michelle Malkins, Ann Coutlters and Rush Limbaughs trying to couch bigotry in intellectual terms. No more.

Stirring up fear in the minds of those agonizing about what the fabric of this nation is going to look like in the future has become like a sport.

On truthdig.com Joe Conason reports that in family-friendly Seaside Heights New Jersey, hucksters at Lucky Leo's offered patrons a chance to take out their political frustrations by hurling objects at an offensive caricature of the President seen by some as racist.

Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch seem content with Glen Beck's use of his televised stage to pass off unsubstantiated rumor, opinionated nonsense and misrepresentation of fact as journalism.

According to MediaMatters.org Beck is now declaring his rants a religious mission, even suggesting the officials enacting policies in Washington are "enemies of God."

Is this a 1st Amendment free speech issue, or are people are listening?

Elias Ebuelazam was arrested as he tried to board a flight to Israel after the FBI pegged him as the suspected serial killer responsible for up to 20 stabbings in three states that were racially motivated - 18 of the victims were black, including a minister stabbed outside a church while smoking a cigarette last Saturday.

Intolerance hasn’t just gone mainstream, in some circles it’s become fashion. The button to push, the emotion to nudge; the pot to stir.

Views once considered marginalized are merging into the mainstream.

Or perhaps as Fordham University professor Mark Naison suggests, it was never really that marginalized to begin with.

Just quietly intolerant.

Glen Beck slips further from reality.

The Tea Party: Who's Party is it Anyway?

Is the Tea Party an actual political party in the traditional sense of American politics?

Lately the Tea Party seems to be less about fair taxation than a platform for intolerance, religious persecution and even hatred. The growing flap over the proposed construction of a Mosque and Islamic cultural center near the World Trade Center site has sparked a bizarre backlash against even moderate Muslims across the US.

Today's New York Times reports that in late June a Tea Party group in Temecula, California took signs, dogs and anti-Muslim rhetoric to protest while Muslims were attending Friday prayers.

But it's not just Muslims the Tea Party seems opposed to.

In a July 20th Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson called for the Tea Party to purge what is now widely seen as racist elements within their ranks in the wake of the group severing ties with the Tea Party Express and one of their most outspoken leaders, former right-wing radio host Mark Williams after he posted a fictional letter from NAACP Ben Jealous to Abraham Lincoln that was so overtly racist that even members of the Tea Party demanded his ejection from the broader movement.

Is the Tea Party marginalizing itself in the lead up to the November elections? Slowly it seems to be morphing into an intellectual dumping ground for some of the deep-seated fear and mistrust that simmers just below the surface of the fabric of this nation.

Not convinced? Read the full text of Mark Williams letter for yourself.

Andrew Breitbart's Absence of Morality

An Open Letter to James Breitbart:

The Acorn stunt was sketchy enough in it's borderline entrapment stunt - and obviously racist to anyone who saw it.

You've clearly stepped into a whole new realm with this one and exposed yourself as a biased media clown intoxicated by your ability to manipulate the truth, saturate the media with your BS and then sit back and watch as Faux News and Limbaugh & Co. repeat it as fact until it in itself becomes a news item.

Problem is this time your clever video editing so obviously perverted the actual reality of what Ms. Sherrod was talking about, that you've ended up revealing that you are in fact, a complete racist desperate to pander to the most base elements of a Republican party that's been hijacked by intolerance, greed and a sickening contempt for the welfare of the common man.

Congratulations Andy! You are the secret police! You've tarnished a woman's career - the same woman who saved the farm of the people you claim she was being racist against.

So thank you for showing us who you are. And honestly if THAT''s all the GOP media machine has got, you guys are about to get crushed in November.

Your dim-witted high school video-stunt will actually be worth much more to Democrats in 3 months than all the empty hot air your sad excuse of a Website churns out on a constant basis.

And you've got the gall to not apologize to this woman? You gutless coward. Two words for you and your James O'Keefe-ian video crew. Man up.

Jeffrey Conroy Guilty in Long Island Anti-Immigrant Slaying

What makes a seemingly normal 17-year old high school student-athlete take a knife and stab an innocent Ecuadorian immigrant in a dark parking lot near the Long Island Railroad? Does anything make sense about that?

(Pictured, Jose Lucero, brother of victim Marcelo Lucero in the Suffolk County courtroom during the Jeffrey Conroy's indictment back in November 2008)

Two of many questions floating along the stream of NY media attention given to the case of the gruesome stabbing murder of 37 year-old Marcelo Lucero on a November night back in 2008.

Today's New York Times reports that a jury of seven men and five woman, ten of whom were white, decided the killing wasn't murder, but instead convicted Long Island teenager Jeffrey Conroy of manslaughter and hate crimes for the stabbing death of Marcelo Lucero in 2008.

Lucero was brutally killed near a Long Island Railroad parking lot when Conroy and five other boys out on the town for a night of "Beaner-Hopping" (LI teen lingo for finding and beating Hispanic people they believe to be immigrants) surrounded, attacked and eventually stabbed the Ecuadorian dry cleaning store employee for being Hispanic.

The conviction goes a long way in addressing the years of unsolved violence against Hispanic immigrants in some Long Island communities - and puts the spotlight on a Suffolk County Police department under investigation by the Justice Department for discrimination in policing.

Long Island resident's concerns about large numbers of undocumented Hispanic immigrants moving into their communities warranted? Sure, but they can't excuse violent physical attacks on innocent people. What's happening to civility in this country?

Bob Griese's Racist Taco Comment Raises Eyebrows

Viewers of Saturday's Ohio State-Minnesota football game got a lot more than game analysis from ESPN sports analyst/color commentator Bob Griese.

While reading a NASCAR promo graphic with photos of the top NASCAR drivers, Griese's partner commentator Chris Spielman asked why driver Juan Pablo Montoya wasn't shown. With a laugh Griese answered, "He's out getting a taco."

It was a remarkably one-dimensional comment to come from such a well-respected and normally eloquent broadcaster. The news comes at the same time ESPN just fired baseball analyst and former Mets GM Steve Phillips for having an affair with a twenty-two year-old ESPN intern named Brooke Hundley.

While the "Taco Comment" is far from the bizarre slip that got former CBS NFL Today commentator Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder fired back in 1988, the off-handed way Griese made the remark and the way he laughed made him come off as something of an insensitive bigot. He sounded more like a hick amused by simplistic stereotypes and lacking in basic understanding of Hispanic culture.

Montoya isn't Mexican he's Colombian and even if he WAS Mexican, it still doesn't mean he runs around eating tacos all the time.

Most football fans know Griese as the NFL Hall-of-Fame QB of the Miami Dolphins. A highly-respected college football color man, he was the former booth partner of former ABC broadcasting legend Keith Jackson, I never would have thought him the type to make such a comment, even in jest in privacy. To say nothing of an open mike on a nationally televised game.

What effect does a comment like that have on the minds of the thousands of young kids who were listening?

While Griese did apologize for the comment later on in the broadcast, his reputation is stained. Not so much for the comment itself, but the startling lack of awareness of the makeup of a multi-cultural society that finds such humor distasteful and offensive.

As Lord Jeffrey warned, "A good name, like good will is got by many actions and lost by one."

Cracker Barrel Attacker Troy Dale West, Jr. Indicted on Felony Charges

Excuse me is this 2009 or 1929?

Yesterday, hundreds of supporters were on hand at the Clayton County Court in Georgia for the indictment of a 47 year-old white Georgia resident named Troy Dale West, Jr. on charges he viciously beat Tasha Hill, an African-American Army reservist, in front of her 7 year-old daughter.

The incident occurred outside of a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Morrow, Georgia at about 7:30pm on Wednesday September 9th. The case has been referred to the FBI's Civil Rights Division to determine whether or not the incident is a hate crime.

Witnesses and Atlanta television station WSBTV reported that West allegedly erupted when Hill asked him to "please be careful, that door almost hit my daughter" after he slammed the door open on his way out of the restaurant, nearly striking her daughter. In response to Hill's request, West simply exploded, using his fists to hit Hill in the face then throwing her to the ground and striking her in the head several times and kicking her in the body while repeatedly calling her a "fucking black nigger bitch".

Horrified witnesses watched as Hill's 7 year-old daughter desperately tried to get back through the glass doors to help her mother while the assault was taking place.

Click the link above, or click play on the upper right side of the page to hear Hill's account of what happened. Local Atlanta news reported that the Cracker Barrel employees were very cooperative in helping the victim and police/EMTs who arrived on the scene, so kudos to Cracker Barrel.

Given the realities of America's complex racial history, it's not a shock that the election of an African-American president has stirred deep-seated resentment by some Americans.

What IS shocking and repugnant to most people is to see people of any color, religion or race violently channel that resentment onto a mother and her 7 year-old child. The Clayton County DA was so incensed, she is prosecuting the case personally.

The anger, violence and hate displayed by West should concern ALL Americans, it's an unfortunate part of the fabric of our nation that's as much a threat as the economic crisis or terrorism - Troy Dale West, Jr. is the real terrorist.

W. Horace Carter - Courageous Newspaper Man Who Challenged the KKK Dies at 88

There was a time when the power of print newspapers and the men and women who published and wrote them wielded immense power and influence to shape America's cultural identity and define the nation's zeitgeist.

On Sunday the New York Times reported the passing of W. Horace Carter, an 88 year-old newspaper publisher who demonstrated moral courage and fierce determination in his efforts to confront the spread of the Ku Klux Klan and their violence in his North Carolina community in the 1950's.

Carter was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist/editor who generously gave back to his alma mater the University of North Carlina at Chapel Hill.

His passing might not make waves in today's mainstream media spotlight, but his contributions to America's cultural evolution and fight against racism will be forever felt. According to Carter's paper the Tabor-Loris Tribune, his Klan campaign resulted in the prosecution of 254 KKK members, 62 of whom were sentenced to prison.

There were many journalists who displayed extraordinary courage to report on the Civil Rights struggle in America at great risk to themselves and their families.

If you're interested in learning more about their heroic efforts, I'm still in the process of reading Hank Robert's and Gene Kilbanoff's Pulitzer Prize winning book The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation.

W. Horace Carter's lasting legacy will be his tireless efforts to open the nation's eyes to the realities of prejudice and racism, continuing the fight to bring the freedoms and rights contained in the Declaration of Independence to all Americans.

Conservative Attacks on ACORN - Part of a Broader GOP Agenda Against Low Income Families?

In the wake of film-makers James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles' video of ACORN members from different offices supposedly advising them, dressed/posing as a "couple", (O'Keefe dressed as a pimp and Giles as his prostitute looking to learn how to conceal cash earnings and hide underage sex slaves from foreign countries) has become the latest symbol of government waste and fraud on Capitol Hill.

But is it? Reality check.

O'Keefe and Giles will never be confused with Woodward & Bernstein and "the couple" were actually sent in to "set traps for ACORN to lie", according to Andrew Breitbart founder of the BigGovernment.com Website where the video first appeared.

In television interviews James O'Keefe claimed none of the ACORN offices he visited at any point kicked him out when he asked his staged questions. That's a lie.

O'Keefe's partner an "aspiring journalist" Hannah Giles is the daughter of right wing media Website columnist Doug Giles - she didn't bother showing up to a CNN television interview looking into the "couple's" self-described prostitution scandal.

According to MediaMatters.org, reps from both the Baltimore and Philadelphia ACORN offices not only asked O'Keefe and Giles to leave, they also filed police reports about the incidents.

In a recently posted video available on Youtube (or watch it by clicking play on the upper right of this blog) the Philadelphia office director for ACORN Katherine Conway Russell asserts that James O'Keefe lied about who he was in order to gain entrance to the ACORN office.

So why are so many Congressmen so fired up about ACORN?

In response to this questionable video evidence, yesterday a majority of House Democrats and Republicans moved to cut federal funding for ACORN by passing H.R. 3221 - a recently added rider to the bill would cut off ACORN's funding.

Why would a rider on ACORN funding be hidden inside a bill for student aid?

Save for the fact that Barack Obama was a community organizer for the embattled group early in his career (prompting the GOP to seize on it as ammunition to discredit him and ridicule his record) I doubt many Americans would even have heard of ACORN, if not for the GOP's media attacks and misinformation campaign.

The Website of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, describes it as a organizational platform centered around the needs of low-to-middle income families; but to hear some of the preachy Congressional rhetoric being tossed around recently, one might be led to think it's a cadre of satanists or some kind of socialist cult.

ACORN deals with a range of issues including affordable housing, living wages and affordable tax preparation services among other things.

ACORN started in the early 70's as a group seeking rights for welfare recipients. Their efforts to register voters during the 2008 presidential elections drew the ire of Republicans apparently disturbed at the thought of low and middle income American citizens exercising their right to vote.

Do sketchy contrived videos of undercover "journalists" strolling into ACORN store-front talking to a few members of a nationwide organization with thousands of volunteers automatically mean the entire organization is a fraud? Maybe not.

But the reality is that an organization is responsible for the people who work there; while ACORN has in fact done a lot to help economically disadvantaged people all over the country, the management should have done a better job training their employees and volunteers who staff their offices.

By not doing so, they've simply given conservatives an opportunity to mock and deride sincere community-based efforts to assist low and middle income Americans already on the periphery of our society.

Joe Wilson Isn't Going Away

As she has in the past, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd struck the tone for the week with a Saturday September 12th column exploring the meaning behind Joe Wilson's recent outburst against President Obama on the floor of the US Capitol.

Wilson's initial brush-off of demands to personally apologize to the House of Representatives and the President have evaporated with the growing controversy over allegations that his boorish behavior is representative of many Americans who simply don't accept Obama as President because of his skin color.

Former President Jimmy Carter went further, suggesting at a speech at the Carter Center that Wilson's comments "were based on racism".

The charge prompted Wilson's oldest son Alan (a candidate for State Attorney General) to dispute charges that his father was a racist.

Slowly the media seems to be giving more serious examination of how race impacts the way people see the president and his policies and what role racist beliefs might have on policy issues on the government's plate.

The House (both Democrats and Republicans alike) voted to demand an apology from the embattled South Carolina Congressman, but it's not just politicians.

I listened to a number of listener calls to NPR answering the question of why the issue won't go away. The vast majority expressed the feeling that not only was accusing the President of lying wrong, but also indicative that the US public has had enough of the juvenile character attacks on the President from Republicans who seem less interested in solutions for the American people than slandering Barack Obama and torpedoing his political agenda.

I don't hate Joe Wilson but it's hard to listen to his insistence that he's not a racist when, as Dowd pointed out, he was a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans who defended flying the Confederate flag over the South Carolina state capitol.

If there's an upside to this episode it's that the media spotlight and the attention of many Americans is now focused on the realities of our nation and how race impacts our perception; Joe Wilson's comment shows that it does.

Geraldo Weighs in on Immigration Fear Tactics and More

The Leonard Lopate show had an interesting Monday afternoon conversation/interview with always media-friendly Geraldo Rivera, who's latest focus is illegal immigration.

The Fox News contributor (and discoverer of Al Capone's secret safe...) was on to promote his latest book The Great Progression: How Hispanics Will Lead America to a New Era of Prosperity.

He had some interesting observations on race in America today and the prejudice that underlies much of the extreme anti-immigrant hysteria in America. While there were a number of anti-Geraldo comments posted on the Leonard Lopate Show/WNYC.org Website, Geraldo actually raised a few interesting points.

I give him credit for being one of the few media personalities to offer commentary on how Obama's race is impacting the political opposition he's facing on health care legislation, mainstream media only seems offer up cursory analysis on the issue.

He also pointed out the fact that the many who are sympathetic to the quasi racist Minute Man militia movement, responsible for a growing number of murders in the US, rally around the need to defend America from a terrorist attack from the Mexican border.

He noted that there have never been terrorist attacks from the Mexican border. But (according to him) there have been more than 20 terrorist associated infiltrations from the Canadian border, so how come Minute Man groups don't seem to be killing Canadians?

Have there been terrorist attacks or incursions from Canada against the US? I'm not saying there haven't been, but I can't recall hearing about them.

Interesting that a man who used the last name Rivers in college changes his name to Rivera and eventually writes a book on Hispanics in America.

"Liar!" South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson Shocks Congress in Front of Millions

Republican anger over the impending health care bill spilled onto the floor of the packed Senate chamber during last night's Presidential address to both houses of Congress.

Joe Wilson, a 62 year-old Republican representative from South Carolina left attendees and millions of television viewers speechless when he yelled out "Liar" or "You lie!" after President Obama debunked an oft-repeated but false accusation that the new health care bill would grant illegal immigrants access to government health benefits.

The FactCheck.org Website has already dismissed the illegal immigrant health care access charge as a myth.

Wilson's tactless emotional outburst prompted a rapid-fire reaction from online media and the soon-to-be embattled Congressman's official Website was "Down for maintenance" soon after he was identified as the heckler du jour.

I was watching the speech live on NBC and both Vice-President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi looked shocked, Pelosi appeared to examine a seating chart after the comment in an effort to identify who said it.

The crude posters depicting Obama as a Nazi seen in health care rallies across America pale in comparison to Wilson's outburst, which seriously calls into question Republican's desire for honest and meaningful debate on the health care issue and will likely threaten Wilson's Congressional seat.

History buffs will recall that emotionally unstable politicians aren't new to South Carolina. Back in 1856 it was Preston Brooks a Democratic Congressman from South Carolina famously used a thick Gutta-Percha walking stick with a gold tip to viciously beat Senator Charles Sumner unconscious and bloody after taking offense at a speech Sumner made attacking Southern politicians (including President Franklin Pierce and Brook's relative, Senator Andrew Butler) for sympathizing with slavery advocates supporting bloody pro-slavery rioters in Kansas.

GOP supporters and right-wing fringe media blowhards like Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin will deny the comments had anything to do with Obama being an African-American, but I can't recall ever seeing a politician call a sitting US president a liar in front of the House and Senate and millions of television viewers.

Democratic Obama supporters didn't waste time crying about it and Republicans still seem to ignore the power and reach of Internet media: A viral message urging supporters to visit the ActBlue Website to donate to the campaign of Democrat Rob Miller who is running against Joe Wilson in South Carolina's 2nd District reached my e-mail inbox about 12:58am EST.

As of 3:30am about six and a half hours after the conclusion of Obama's speech the site has raised over $40,000 for Miller under the banner of "defeating the man who yelled 'liar". Joe's gotta go.

Credit Checks -Information or Employer Discrimination?

Back in June I joined the ranks of the millions of Americans laid off from jobs in the wake of the Great Recession. As I labor through the search for a new job I wonder: Shouldn't my professional experience and ability be the deciding factor in getting hired for a new job rather than my credit score?

ABC News recently explored the question of how bad credit might stop you from getting a job.

According to an interview segment on NPR's "Tell Me More" yesterday, some employers may be using credit checks to unfairly discriminate against job applicants.

Financial consultant Alvin Hall is a regular guest on economic issues and he raised some concerns that trouble me as an unemployed African-American. Hall asserts that credit checks have become an even more important tool that employers use to make hiring decisions as available jobs have become more scarce.

So for example, I was fired unexpectedly from a job back in 2002 and my credit card debt grew in the months I was unemployed and used my cards to charge things and for high interest cash withdrawals. It's depressing to think that a potential employer might look twice at me because of that, even though I worked steadily from 2004 until June of this year for the same company AND worked to pay off a significant chunk of my credit card debt.

Credit card debt affects all Americans but the reality is that bad credit is more likely to adversely impact people of color in this nation because black and Hispanic people in the US on average tend to have less capital and disposable income.

Is it fair to rate someone's ability to do a job based on their credit score?

Visit the NPR Website and listen to Michel Martin's interview broadcast Tuesday afternoon August 11th.

Holocaust Museum Attacker von Brunn Closely Linked to Neo-Nazi Leaders

The dark legacy of the Third Reich cast a violent shadow in the nation's capital this afternoon.

At about 12:50pm EST James Wenneker von Brunn (click to see a picture) an 89 year-old man from the Eastern Shore of Maryland walked into the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC (pictured at left) produced a rifle and proceeded to open fire on two museum guards before he himself was shot and wounded.

There is no question that von Brunn has numerous ties to known white supremacists in the US according to the Southern Poverty Law Center Hatewatch blog.

SPLC reports von Brunn was active in the Holocaust denial movement and was the author of an anti-Semitic/racist book entitled "Kill the Best Gentiles" published in 1999.

He has interesting web of connections to the American neo-Nazi movement. Von Brunn was also close with well-known white supremacist Willis Carto, one of the architects and biggest supporters of the modern American Holocaust denial media movement.

The SPLC reports that von Brunn was once employed by Carto's Noontide press which published various Holocaust denial books. Carto recruited William Luther Pierce, the author of the fictional account of a futuristic race war called "The Turner Diaries" - the book which helped inspire Timothy McVeigh to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City.

Listen to an excerpt of a 2007 radio interview with Willis Carto - ironically, he is being interviewed by white supremacist radio talk show host Michael Collins Piper in Washington DC.

With Holocaust Museum guard Stephen Tyrone Johns succumbing to his wounds we can only hope the mainstream press devotes more analysis of the neo-Nazi movement in the US. If there's any place where we assume we'd be safe from violent extremists it's at a Federal museum devoted to millions of innocent victims of the Holocaust.

Right Wing Political Gains in Europe: A Signal of Hate or Economics?

Downturns in the economy are traditionally boom-times for extremist hate organizations nowhere is that demonstrated more clearly than in Western Europe.

The recent election of British National Party leader Nick Griffin (pictured at left) to the European Parliament is just the latest sign of the political pendulum in Europe swinging to the right, ushering facists, neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists into political office as representatives of a European Union population of over 491 million people.

We need not look far for proof. In the US, membership in the Ku Klux Klan soared to an all-time high in the late 1920's before the onset of the Great Depression - just as the National Socialist Party was setting the stage for the Nazis rise to power in Germany.

Hate groups boost their numbers and garner sympathy to their cause by playing on the fears and insecurities that arise when unemployment is high, wages are low and costs soar.

Unfortunately for immigrants, minorities and members of some religious groups, extremists always have some marginalized group of people to blame for what's wrong with the world; but the cause isn't always just hatred.

The UK, the Labour party in particular, are still reeling from a slew of cabinet-level resignations in the wake of a widespread campaign finance scandal that has rocked Prime Minister Gordon Brown's political support.

The eroded support for Brown's Labour Party and dissatisfaction with the handling of the economic crisis were some of the factors that paved the way for Griffin to become the EU Parliament representative from England's North West region and fellow BNP politician Andrew Brons to represent Yorkshire and Humber.

What's the whites-only BNP about?

According to Wikipedia the BNP constitution describes their mission as being "committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948"

The UK Guardian reports that Nick Griffin was chased from a BNP press conference today after protesters calling him a Nazi pelted him with eggs before he fled the scene.

Europeans are growing alarmed at an increasing faction of right wing political parties, each of which opposes immigration to the point of violence and openly embrace neo-Nazi ideology. But it's not just in the UK.

Who's who in Europe?

The Front National, or FN in France was founded in 1972 by Jean-Marie LePen. In addition to Holocaust denial, the party supports a range of anti-immigration platforms and neo-facist politics.

In Germany the NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) like the FN, has minimal representation in the German version of the state representative body. NDP leader Udo Voigt campaigns for white supremacy, "ethnic pride" and the ouster of "non-Germans" among other things. This rugged goose-stepper also predictably idolizes numerous figures from the Third Reich including Rudolph Hess and Adolph Hitler.

According to Wikipedia in 2008 in a document entitled "Africa Conquers the White House" the NDP claimed the election of President Barack Obama was the result of an "American alliance of Jews and Negroes."

It also suggested the wide-spread support for Obama within Germany was the result of an "African tropical disease."

In Italy, Forza Nuova is echoing the rings of Mussolini's facist state with calls for violence against non-Italian immigrants, laws against inter-racial sex and draconian nationalistic calls for ethnic and racial supremacy.

This trend warrants more mainstream media attention in the US than I've seen or read lately, even with America involved in two wars, a growing diplomatic problem in North Korea and global efforts to turn the tide of the economic crisis.

Nick Griffin speaks at a rally with ex-Klan leader David Duke.

Obama's Efforts to Recast America in the Eyes of the Muslim World Move Forward

Addressing tensions between the US and the Muslim world have been a clear priority for the Obama administration since day one, but the Cairo Speech signals a major step forward and underscores the seriousness of this administration to heal rifts with the the Muslim world.

In the latest step towards addressing the mistrust, fear and anger that characterize US relations with many in the Muslim world, the signaled a desire to overhaul American perceptions of Islam and challenged Muslim's to do the same.

The speech, delivered at Cairo University on June 4th, has prompted a mixed global reaction from different sides of the media representing those in both the Western and Muslim worlds the speech was clearly directed to.

The pro-Israel HonestReporting.com Website, which monitors and offers analysis on media coverage of Israel, was generally supportive of Obama's calls in the speech to confront the Holocaust denial rheoric that is increasingly found in the Mid-East.

But they side-stepped Obama's criticism of the Israeli settlement expansion policies in disputed areas of West Bank and other parts of Israel.

According to the BBC.com Republican House Minority leader John Boehner suggested in an interview that the speech portrayed the United States as weak based on Iran's support of Hamas and Obama's willingness to sit down and negotiate directly with Iranian political leaders.

Some conservative bloggers in the US, perhaps frustrated over Obama's broad high-profile media appeal, complained that the Cairo Speech lacked real substance and echoed the similar-sounding and usually factually abstract complaint that the speech made America seem "weak" in the eyes of the world.

Did it? Aren't compassion and understanding essential components for respect and therefore strength?

The conventional wisdom and spin on the speech shared on the al Jazeera Website suggests that millions of Muslims who watched the speech closely felt otherwise.

al Jazeera's Muqtedar Kahn described the speech as "truly transformative in intent and affect" and opined that "Never has an American President spoken with such eloquence, compassion, understanding and empathy to the Muslim World. There is no doubt that Obama gets the Muslim World."

That's a big philosophical shift for many Americans used to the Bush administration's rigid, one-dimensional post-911 casting of millions of Muslims as willing supporters of the 'Axis of Evil' rather than as individual citizens from different nations with a wide range of views on America.

For decades many Muslims have viewed America from the standpoint of a nation that destabilized a democratically-elected government in Iran to help install the Shah of Iran into power.

Many Americans from all walks of life have tended to view Islam from the perspective of angry Iranians holding American hostages captive in Tehran in 1979 and the terrorist attacks on US citizens that culminated with 911.

Obama's Cairo speech seems to lay out a willingness to engage in dialog that identifies common ground and a desire to move past thinking rooted in stereotypes and prejudice rather than truth and understanding.

Finding ways to push cultural respect and understanding forward is a sign of strength, living in fear of that is a sign of weakness.

Lee Tucker Deemed Competent to Stand Trial in Beating of Rabbi Moskowitz

As if the media doesn't already have a slanted-enough view of African-American/Jewish relations...

A judge has deemed a 38 year-old African-American man from Lakewood, New Jersey named Lee Tucker (pictured left) competent to stand trial on attempted murder charges after allegedly using a baseball bat to severely beat Rabbi Mordechai Moskowitz in October, 2007.

The then 53 year old Rabbi, a third grade teacher, was walking to synagogue to pray.

The attack has unsettled many in the Jewish e-media communities, including the Yeshiva World.com Website where I go to try and get a pulse on the orthodox community here in New York.

I blog about a lot of strange and sometimes senseless violent hate attacks here. But I must admit, this one just leaves me confused and saddened. Wondering, why?

One of the reasons I began this blog was to try and find some kind of creative outlet to explore the obstacles to racial and cultural tolerance that have so often confounded me during the course of my life.

Growing up as an African-American in a predominantly white suburban enclave was, in some ways, culturally isolating. But it also taught me respect of and appreciation for people of many races and backgrounds.

On the street I lived on were families from Bangladesh, Australia and there were white families who were devout Catholics or Protestants and some who were quietly non-denominational. Our next door neighbors were Jewish and our families were close.

My mother baked bread for them on Jewish holidays, when they went on vacation they gave me their house key to water their plants. Lee Tucker's actions make absolutely no sense to me.

It feels similar to how I felt trying to wrap my brain around the violence of the Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn, New York in 1991, partly because of the Dinkins Administration allowing the conflict to rage for three days, but also because it was such a stark contrast to the way I'd grown up.

Perhaps I was just a sheltered suburban child. Or maybe, there were thousands of people in the Crown Heights community on all sides of the issue who were similarly sheltered inside hatred and fear and ignorance. It's a matter of perspective.

But then there are the Lee Tuckers. What can you make of beating anyone with a bat, let alone a religious leader and teacher? Was Tucker trying to get his wallet, or just pissed off? Was he insane? Look at his photo above, he looks scared, but not crazy to me.

If Tucker is guilty I'm not sure it can be passed off simply as schizophrenia or insanity as the defense lawyers have tried to suggest.

Perhaps there are times when we have to just close our eyes and try really hard to remained focused on a vision of a world where unity, tolerance and respect are the norm rather than mindless brutality and violence fueled by hate.

Guys like Lee Tucker are branded by the hate and resentment, perhaps it's better if his lawyers just stop trying to cop insanity pleas for him so he can go to jail and think about the fact that he attacked a 53 year-old Rabbi and 3rd grade teacher with a bat when he was on the way to pray.

Lee Tucker is most definitely NOT Baracking, but he's not a reflection of evolved perspective. He's content to be sheltered by hate.

Arizona State: Obama Doesn't Rate

“We have to learn how to communicate and teach between all ethnic and cultural perspectives. Not with a dominant cultural perspective and marginal alternative cultural perspectives, but across all of these. We have not figured out how to do this. We need to embrace cultural diversification in America and change the culture of the university as a critical first step.”

ASU President Michael M. Crow
(remarks delivered at the 2004 Educating for a Diverse
America: A Summit and Symposium, Austin, TX)

Perhaps Arizona State University Michael Crow forgot his own remarks excerpted from ASU's "Diversity Plan" when he decided the vice-minister of China was more accomplished than the 44th President of the United States.

Seriously though, was it a mistake? Perhaps an oversight? Or is a former US Senator who was recently elected to the most powerful position in the free world honestly not yet accomplished enough to receive an honorary diploma from Arizona State University?

Even conservative political analyst David Gergen (who served in the Nixon and Reagan White House) called it an "Embarrassment" to the University and to the people of Arizona. Play the interview to the right and listen for yourself.

In an act that has left many people of all races scratching their heads, Arizona State University, not exactly the intellectual/academic hub of US colleges, has come under scrutiny by mainstream media and the Blogosphere by deciding NOT to bestow an honorary degree upon President Barack Obama when he delivered the commencement address there on May 13th.

With the thoughtful laid back perspective that made him such an appealing candidate, the 44th President shrugged off the controversy and delivered a rousing send off to the 9,000 ASU grads in front of a crowd of 63,000 at Sun Devil Stadium.

University spokeswoman Sharon Keeler was quoted as saying "His body of work is yet to come. That's why we're not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency," after the school's student newspaper first reported the decision.

Was race a factor? ASU gave the vice-minister of education in China an honorary degree on his visit there - think about it. Some ASU grads have called for university president Michael Crow to resign his position.

Regardless the decision has backfired for ASU. The media, as well as many ordinary citizens were left puzzled and many, outraged. One her return to the SNL Newsdesk on Saturday night, Amy Pohler ripped ASU in a blistering editorial commentary that mocked ASU's long-held reputation as a 2nd rate Pac-Ten university and a destination for partiers rather than scholars.

Among the biggest critics of the ASU - decision, ASU grads, hundreds of e-mails and letters from outraged Sun Devil grads have poured into Websites and newspapers around the country; some grads mailed their ASU diplomas to the president, many embarrassed that their school decided to withhold the diploma.

The snub raises deeper questions in the minds of many who recall that Arizona was one of the few states to openly OPPOSE making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a paid holiday to appease it's ultra-conservative voter base; same state that sent Barry Goldwater, known as "Mr. Conservative" to the US Senate.

Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) opposed the legislation to make MLK Day a holiday in support of Governor Even Meachem's staunch opposition to the bill - which was signed into law by the first President Bush.

Ronald Reagan, former North Carolina Senator and pro-segregationist/openly racist Jesse Helms also led opposition to the bill - some forget that the US was rife with protests over Arizona's reluctance to endorse the holiday in the late 1980's and earl 90's.

Arizona's tourist industry suffered and the NFL moved the 1990 Super Bowl XXVII from Tempe to Pasadena in protest of the states opposition and the underlying meaning.

Sadly, ASU officials decided to make a completely pointless policy gesture rather than stand up and help rehabilitate the state of Arizona's legacy as a region of intolerance and right-wing conservatism by suggesting that the 44th President of the United States, former US Senator and former president of the Harvard Law Review was not qualified to receive the same recognition given to other US presidents.

In all fairness to Arizona residents, I think ASU's decision does NOT reflect the state's zeitgeist - the decision did far more harm to Arizona's image and frankly, in the wake of the media wash; they came out looking pretty ignorant.

Go Sun Devils!

Essence & Vibe Expand Multi-Media Offerings

With a growing segment of professional media-savvy African-Americans in the US, a couple different magazines that target black Americans are preparing to launch multi-media ventures that will direct their content to compete with more mainstream media company offerings.

Monday's Media Daily News Website reports that Essence Magazine, HLN and CNN will partner to produce a weekly television series on CNN that address current topics affecting African-Americans.

In 2008 CNN produced "Black in America", a multi-part series exploring different aspects of the reality of life in the US for African-American's in today's society; CNN will produce "Black in America 2" this year as well.

I thought it was a positive sign to see these issues explored in a mainstream news setting in a primetime slot, making it accessible to all Americans.

Celebrity gossip magazines/Websites are hot and Hip-Hop culture magazine Vibe is jumping in too. Defying the current slide in print revenue and the migration of content online, Vibe is jumping into the celebrity/gossip market with the launch of The Most.

According to Folio.com, the bi-annual print title will roll out in June and an accompanying Website, themostmag.com will go up two weeks later.

The Road to Heaven: John Demjanjuk's Alledged Role in the Sad Story of Sobibor

Mainstream news media organizations from the BBC-News to the New York Times reported on a frail 89 year-old resident of Seven Hills, Ohio named John Demjanjuk (pictured left)being deported to Germany to face charges that he was one of the Nazi SS guards who took part in the killing of over 250,000 Jews in the concentration camp known as Sobibor (pictured, top) over an 18 month period in 1942-1943.

In our 24-7 media-saturated world the here and now often seems to take precedent over the lessons of the past; stories that are 40-minutes old can be considered old news let alone a story that begins more than 40 years ago.

What will become of the past in the future?

With the rapid migration of news to electronic platforms and a seemingly ceaseless demand for faster delivery of information, will future generations remember Sobibor and the other extermination and labor camps constructed by the Third Reich to exterminate human beings?

Sobibor was constructed in the forests of Poland and completed in 1942. by May the facility was gassing large numbers of Jews using carbon monoxide from the exhaust of tanks according to Wikipedia.org.

After arriving at a railway platform, prisoners were marched along a 100-meter stretch of road through woods to their deaths. The road is known as the Himmelstrasse, or Road to Heaven.

Nicholas Kulish of the New York Times notes that sadly, so many years have passed since WWII that fewer and fewer first-hand witnesses with accurate memories of the camp survive; so Demjanuk's trial may be one of the last major court prosecutions of former-Nazis accused of taking part in mass extermination.

Will our current media consumption habits preserve those memories, or bury them?

Neo-Nazis are intoxicated with portraying the Holocaust as a myth and yet cloak themselves in the Nazi flag and idolize Adolph Hitler.

The only thing more horrific than the Holocaust is the thought that it could occur again because people forgot that it ever happened.

Sobibor was the site of one of the very few successful uprisings in German concentration camps - after it happened Henrich Himmler ordered the camp closed and trees planted where thousands of innocent people were gassed because of their religion.

Let's hope that our thirst for "data" never obscures the trees that line the Road to Heaven. Or that time never dims the light of justice.

Is John Demjanjuk really too old for prison? You decide.