Barak Obama is all of the things you mentioned. This is why we are so
wrong in attacking the person rather than the position or the concept
being put forth. I am opposed to the Corporate Government of America
deciding who shall die by drone or assassination. Beating up on Barak
Obama will not change this practice. It is the same position as
George Bush adopted when serving the Empire. Certain people are
determined to be Evil, and are destroyed. But Evil still prowls our
streets and countryside.
While I also become involved in trashing some people, or at least
associating them with the policies they represent, it is not a winning
road to travel. In about a year and a half, Barak Obama will take his
family and head into history. Then we will focus on the next
pretender to the "Most Powerful Leader" role. And if we had any hope
for a better America, our hopes will be dashed very early on.
Probably with the first drone murder or the first boots on the ground
of some country that we promised our boots would never touch again. I
suspect that were I to have the wealth to live next door to the
Obamas, I would find them caring, friendly and interesting neighbors.
Despite what terrible acts which went on with Barak Obamas approval.
And despite things and actions in my past, which Barak Obama would
find offensive. So how do we get past the person and wrestle with
what is driving us all toward mass annihilation. What is it that is
driving the world leaders to put greed and personal control ahead of
the future of our species, and of our planet as we know it. If we
keep batting down one so called evil person after another, we will run
out of time before we solve the crisis.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/28/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
This morning I found the video of the speech that Obama gave at the church
in South Carolina. It was quite an experience to hear it. First, he clearly
identified himself as an African American Christian in the speech, actually
as a member of an A M E Church. He spoke in Christian metaphors. Second,
the
speech presented him as a gentle, intelligent, perceptive, and religious
person. That is absolutely the image that was projected. He even quoted
Marilyn Robinson,whom he says is his friend, and who is the author of the
three novels about two Christian ministers that I've recently struggled
through. He talked about gun control and racism, but the main portion of
the
speech, which was very religiousin tone, was the most impressive. At the
end, he began singing, "Precious Lord". He really has a good singing voice.
Through the whole thing, I kept asking myself how he could do it. How could
he sound so kind and perceptive and yet be the person who presides over a
weekly Tuesday meeting, the purpose of which is to choose whom to
assassinate that week? How can he be the person giving that religious
speech
and push through a trade deal which will dismantle protections for so many
people and rob us of even more jobs? How can this person, who clearly
understands how things work, tell the lies he tells about Russia? How can
he
press for more and more war when clearly, he has the capacity to see the
results? I suppose it's the question that those of us who voted for him in
2008 have been haunted with ever since we voted. Were all of the positives
that we thought we saw in this man just a mirage? An image cleverly
contrived by advertising firms?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2015 11:57 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: "It's Not Polite to Say Nigger in
Public...."
Scratching my memory a bit, I do recall that my grandmother Jarvis did not
put an R on the word. In casual conversation, she said, "Niggah".
But when trying to be proper, she said, "Neeggrah". And she referred to
her
Black Nanny as a Neegress. But all that is beside the point.
Grandma Jarvis absolutely knew that she, and her family, were superior to
"The Colored Folk", as she also referred to them. Grandma was not unkind
toward Black people, nor did she order them around like several of the old
ladies living near her. They would go shopping and seek out the Black
clerks just so they could prove how nasty they were.
Then they would all gather at one apartment or another and turn on the
radio
to the Pentecostal Preacher, get down on their knees, place their little
miracle healing cloth, that they'd all sent away for, on their upturned
faces, and begin wailing out their love for Jesus. And all the time they
were living in low income, subsidized housing. And to a person, they hated
the meddling Democratic Governor, Albert Rosellini, who had championed the
state's old age pension that they all existed on.
We are strange and complex animals.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/27/15, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The word used affectionately for each other by Black people is niggah.example.
The R sound is left off and those who use it are quite adamant about
that. However, it is clear that the word is derived from the same word
with the R pronounced and with or without the R sound if you are white
you had better avoid it. It is not uncommon that a group will take a
derogatory word for their group and use it acceptably among themselves
to take the sting out of it. A lot of gay people, for example, will
call each other faggot or queer. The point is that if a bigot calls
you something like a faggot you can answer, okay, I'm a faggot, so what.
There is some controversy within the gay community about whether that
should be done though. Other times the attempt to turn a derogatory
term into a neutral word is not completed and the word niggah is an
If a white person calls you by that word it is not acceptable. Someamong.
other ethnic groups do the same thing. People of Hungarian descent
often jokingly call each other hunkies, but it is not so easily
accepted if someone else uses the word.
On 6/27/2015 8:19 AM, abdulah aga wrote:
HI
Carle and other folks on list
Now I have question what I couldn't understand sins I cam in USA!
why black people say mostly ich other in joke like what's up my
nigger, but if some body als told them who is not black then is problem?
-----Original Message----- From: Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, June 27, 2015 12:10 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: "It's Not Polite to Say Nigger in
Public...."
First of all, I'd been thinking for some time now that Pat Boone was
dead. I had to quickly resurrect him. Born June 1, 1934, Boone is
about 11 and a half months older than me. But we are millions of
light years apart. The difference between his wealth and mine would
be enough. But that is not the million of light years I am referring
to. It is the difference in how each of us see our fellow human
beings.
But that's not what I set out to talk about. Pat Boone can talk for
himself.
I want to focus on our strange habit of creating a bunch of symbols,
declaring that they have a certain meaning and then keep changing
what that meaning really means.
Take the word Gay, for example. My mother loved her gay coat. It
was a multicolored cloth coat. Mother took good care of her things,
having been a young mother during the Great Depression. So that coat
lasted her for many years. But she was greatly disturbed when she
mentioned to some friends that she was wearing her Gay Coat. They
quietly advised her not to say that word. "Gay?" mother asked.
"What's wrong with Gay?"
Tinker Bell was a little Fairy. Enough said about that. A fagot
referred to a young boy who gathered fire sticks in the forests of
Europe. Later the word was shortened to Fag, meaning a cigarette.
Sort of a short fire stick.
But when I was teaching Braille, one of my students, a young Lesbian,
objected violently to the word Fag in her Braille lesson book.
Naturally, knowing her to be a bright and understanding person, I
believed I could explain the meaning of the word back when the
Braille lesson book was put together. 1960. But it would not do.
So I took my handy Braille eraser and she and I rubbed out one
Braille dot from the "F", turning it into a "B", and the word became,
Bag. I did not tell my student that in the storage room I had an
entire shelf of the identical Braille books.
For me, the hardest word to push out of my mouth was, "Fuck". Four
letters succinctly defining a very fundamental activity. But we
decided that Fuck was a dirty word, while copulate was much "nicer".
Both describe the same activity. But although I write the word here,
I would most likely never say it in a presentation before a mixed
audience.
Nigger is a word that was part of the language of the Old South. That
Old South still exists in many places, and not all of them South of
the Border. But I have to tell you, I am damned sick and fucking
tired of saying, "The N Word". As if that makes it just hunky Dorey.
We used to say, Negroes. But we changed to Blacks as the word of
choice by Negroes. I have no idea if that's true or not. My grandma
Jarvis, born in Missouri back in 1874, said, "Niggrah". She talked
about her "Colored wet nurse". And the Black Mammy who cooked for
the family. And the little Pica ninnies, the little children who
lived on the plantation. Did I mention that my grandma Jarvis was
raised on a plantation? And her father had two or three slaves prior
to the Civil War. My own great grandfather Tom Hickman. Judged to
be a fair and kind man, by his family and the other white neighbors.
But no one ever wrote down what his slaves thought him to be. He
owned other human beings, for Gods Sake! And yet, my grandma adored
her dad. She followed him about the plantation, avoiding the Women's
work inside the house. Grandma ended up living on an old age
pension, but always believed she was better than the Niggrahs she lived
The word Niggrah was not what made my grandma think the way she did.
Force her to say, "Black People", and she would continue to think of
them as she had been trained to think of them back in the 1880's as a
young girl.
I know blind folk who avoid the word, "blind". But you know what?
They are just as blind as if they used the word. And the entire
world sees them as blind.
While I do not believe we can easily change people's attitudes, that
is the place we must work. And if stopping our use of certain words
or tearing down old rags of Confederate dogma helps, let's do it. But
only as a starting place.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/26/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Boardman writes: "An unintendedly brilliant example of self-induced
moral blindness to racist behavior comes from Pat Boone, the
octogenarian multi-millionaire musician whose fortune was built on
racist exploitation of black music in a racist music industry
devoted to catering to America's white racism."
CNN discusses President Obama's use of the N-word. (photo: CNN)
"It's Not Polite to Say Nigger in Public...."
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
26 June 15
"Racism, we are not cured of it. And, and, and it's not just a
matter of, uh, it not being polite to say nigger in public. That's
not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just
a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't, overnight,
completely erase everything that happened two to three hundred years
prior."
- President Obama, June 22,
on Marc Maron podcast
This piece will end with a brief personal experience I had recently,
an experience that illuminates what the President is saying and
raises the question of whether it's polite to say "nigger" in
private. My experience underscores that what the President is saying
is obviously and profoundly true, and has been since long before he
was born. And my recent experience illustrates the abiding armor of
denial and determined ignorance that allows people to enjoy the
advantages of a racist society without having to acknowledge that it
exists.
An unintendedly brilliant example of self-induced moral blindness to
racist behavior comes from Pat Boone, the octogenarian
multi-millionaire musician whose fortune was built on racist
exploitation of black music in a racist music industry devoted to
catering to America's white racism. Boone's fundamentalist Christian
self-delusions about race appeared on WND (aka WorldNetDaily),
self-described as "an independent news company dedicated to
uncompromising journalism, seeking truth and justice and
revitalizing the role of the free press as a guardian of liberty."
According to Boone, it's President Obama's fault for not preaching
that "racial divides and prejudice had greatly diminished and that
our society was truly becoming colorblind." Having said that, Boone
provided a white racist analysis of the killing of two black
children, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, unarmed and shot by
reckless white men. As for Charleston, where an avowed white racist
killed nine black people in church in hope of starting a race war,
Boone explains it away as having a "racist element,"
but being "inspired by Satan"! While blaming Obama for "erasing" God
from public life, Boone pleads for a return to America as a
Christian nation - but he does not mention that American
Christianity was a powerful defender of American slavery.
This mode of thinking, or rather this mode of avoiding real thought,
is endemic to a large section of the American population and has
been, in one form or another, since before there was a United
States. How else do you get a Constitution in which slaves don't get
to vote, but do get counted as three-fifths of a person in order to
inflate Congressional representation of slave owners? Orwell called
it Doublethink in "1984," but it's a much older American tradition.
One form of denial is feigned shock that "Obama said the N-word!"
Assorted television babble-heads on CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, Fox and
elsewhere got all a-twitter over the President's saying "nigger,"
which they sanitized to "the N-word" with such characterizations as
"extremely direct language"
and "shock value" and "jarring comment" and "electric" and "one of
the most charged racial slurs in the English language" - all of
which are projections of the commentators' subjectivity. They are
not at all accurate descriptions of what the President said, which
was detached, measured, analytical, and precisely accurate. But who
wants to hear that on TV? As Wolf Blitzer put it on CNN, "Many
people may find this offensive." CNN's black legal analyst said the
word should never be used. In sharp disagreement, CNN black anchor
Don Lemon articulately defended adult conversation about difficult
issues on television (for example, on Democracy NOW).
By paying attention only to the President's use of the word "nigger"
and not to his much broader context, television's purveyors of
conventional wisdom manage to deny the relevance of the President's
larger point: that racism has been endemic to American (and
pre-American) culture for some 300 years and that racist thinking
remains alive and well in many forms.
Focusing on
the President's use of "nigger" as an excuse not to talk about
racism in America is, arguably, just another form of racism in America.
Larry Wilmore on The Nightly Show reduced the TV babble to its
ultimate Fox-accusing absurdity, President Obama saying "nigger" in
a State of the Union speech. Wilmore also played clips of other
presidents saying "nigger,"
albeit in a less thoughtful way than Obama:
. Nixon: "Our niggers are better than their niggers"
. LBJ: "there's more niggers voting there than white folks"
Wilmore also indicated that, while there's apparently no record of
presidents like Washington or Jefferson saying "nigger," they did
own one or more.
Another effect of all the empty blather about the President saying
"nigger"
is to distract from the empty gestures about various Confederate flags.
American devotion to the Confederate flag is, literally, insane or
dishonest or hypocritical, or all three, or pick your word. Why? All
Confederate flags are symbols of treason against the United States
of America, and somehow it's OK to celebrate them and merchandise
them and pretend they're something they never were. The Confederacy
committed treason as defined by the Constitution and too many people
would do it all over again, for the same racist reasons.
What does one young South Carolinian tell us about America today?
So here's the personal experience I mentioned. Over the weekend of
June 20-21, I was at a family wedding in northern Maryland. The
Sunday before Obama's podcast became public, I was at a post-wedding
cookout with maybe 20 people of various ages, many in their
twenties. It was a definitely non-political social gathering.
One young man in his mid-twenties was there as the new beau of the
bride's sister. He was pleasant, attractive, well-spoken, polite,
and had grown up in South Carolina. During our first conversation
with several other people in the kitchen, David (not his real name)
spoke enthusiastically of his work with horses and Brahma cattle. He
described a roping gone wrong when he was forced to jump his horse
over a fallen Brahma cow, whose horn scored his horse's underbelly.
He seemed comfortable and at ease as the conversation shifted from
person to person. He gave no hint of any socially disruptive
opinions or behavior. But he was drinking.
Some time later I wandered into a conversation David was having with
the bride's mother on the screen porch. This conversation was
already political.
David was complaining about Jon Stewart on The Daily Show for
calling out Charleston for having streets named after Civil War
generals and otherwise ridiculing South Carolina's history. Stewart
was about to start a race war, David argued, without mentioning
Dylann Roof killing nine people. David said he was concerned about a
race war because someone had already shot at the Confederate flag at
the Capitol. David said we should just let history be history, and
besides some people treated their slaves well.
By the time our hostess came into this conversation, David was
talking about Obama being Kenyan and like that. Our hostess told him
firmly not to talk like that in her house. When he didn't seem to
get the point, I leaned in and suggested that maybe we should both
be quiet. He admitted he'd been drinking, but throughout this
conversation he remained polite, friendly, quiet, apparently sincere
in beliefs he didn't seem to think anyone would find unusual. He
came across as a basically sweet kid.
The last thing he said to me, before others took him swimming, he
said with the same earnest pleasantness. He said, "I don't hate
niggers."
________________________________________
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine,
and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference
not valid.
CNN discusses President Obama's use of the N-word. (photo: CNN)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
"It's Not Polite to Say Nigger in Public...."
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
26 June 15
"Racism, we are not cured of it. And, and, and it's not just a
matter of, uh, it not being polite to say nigger in public. That's
not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just
a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't, overnight,
completely erase everything that happened two to three hundred years
prior."
- President Obama, June 22,
on Marc Maron podcast
his piece will end with a brief personal experience I had recently,
an experience that illuminates what the President is saying and
raises the question of whether it's polite to say "nigger" in
private. My experience underscores that what the President is saying
is obviously and profoundly true, and has been since long before he
was born. And my recent experience illustrates the abiding armor of
denial and determined ignorance that allows people to enjoy the
advantages of a racist society without having to acknowledge that it
exists.
An unintendedly brilliant example of self-induced moral blindness to
racist behavior comes from Pat Boone, the octogenarian
multi-millionaire musician whose fortune was built on racist
exploitation of black music in a racist music industry devoted to
catering to America's white racism. Boone's fundamentalist Christian
self-delusions about race appeared on WND (aka WorldNetDaily),
self-described as "an independent news company dedicated to
uncompromising journalism, seeking truth and justice and
revitalizing the role of the free press as a guardian of liberty."
According to Boone, it's President Obama's fault for not preaching
that "racial divides and prejudice had greatly diminished and that
our society was truly becoming colorblind." Having said that, Boone
provided a white racist analysis of the killing of two black
children, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, unarmed and shot by
reckless white men. As for Charleston, where an avowed white racist
killed nine black people in church in hope of starting a race war,
Boone explains it away as having a "racist element,"
but being "inspired by Satan"! While blaming Obama for "erasing" God
from public life, Boone pleads for a return to America as a
Christian nation - but he does not mention that American
Christianity was a powerful defender of American slavery.
This mode of thinking, or rather this mode of avoiding real thought,
is endemic to a large section of the American population and has
been, in one form or another, since before there was a United
States. How else do you get a Constitution in which slaves don't get
to vote, but do get counted as three-fifths of a person in order to
inflate Congressional representation of slave owners? Orwell called
it Doublethink in "1984," but it's a much older American tradition.
One form of denial is feigned shock that "Obama said the N-word!"
Assorted television babble-heads on CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, Fox and
elsewhere got all a-twitter over the President's saying "nigger,"
which they sanitized to "the N-word" with such characterizations as
"extremely direct language"
and "shock value" and "jarring comment" and "electric" and "one of
the most charged racial slurs in the English language" - all of
which are projections of the commentators' subjectivity. They are
not at all accurate descriptions of what the President said, which
was detached, measured, analytical, and precisely accurate. But who
wants to hear that on TV? As Wolf Blitzer put it on CNN, "Many
people may find this offensive." CNN's black legal analyst said the
word should never be used. In sharp disagreement, CNN black anchor
Don Lemon articulately defended adult conversation about difficult
issues on television (for example, on Democracy NOW).
By paying attention only to the President's use of the word "nigger"
and not to his much broader context, television's purveyors of
conventional wisdom manage to deny the relevance of the President's
larger point: that racism has been endemic to American (and
pre-American) culture for some 300 years and that racist thinking
remains alive and well in many forms.
Focusing on
the President's use of "nigger" as an excuse not to talk about
racism in America is, arguably, just another form of racism in America.
Larry Wilmore on The Nightly Show reduced the TV babble to its
ultimate Fox-accusing absurdity, President Obama saying "nigger" in
a State of the Union speech. Wilmore also played clips of other
presidents saying "nigger,"
albeit in a less thoughtful way than Obama:
. Nixon: "Our niggers are better than their niggers"
. LBJ: "there's more niggers voting there than white folks"
Wilmore also indicated that, while there's apparently no record of
presidents like Washington or Jefferson saying "nigger," they did
own one or more.
Another effect of all the empty blather about the President saying
"nigger"
is to distract from the empty gestures about various Confederate flags.
American devotion to the Confederate flag is, literally, insane or
dishonest or hypocritical, or all three, or pick your word. Why? All
Confederate flags are symbols of treason against the United States
of America, and somehow it's OK to celebrate them and merchandise
them and pretend they're something they never were. The Confederacy
committed treason as defined by the Constitution and too many people
would do it all over again, for the same racist reasons.
What does one young South Carolinian tell us about America today?
So here's the personal experience I mentioned. Over the weekend of
June 20-21, I was at a family wedding in northern Maryland. The
Sunday before Obama's podcast became public, I was at a post-wedding
cookout with maybe 20 people of various ages, many in their
twenties. It was a definitely non-political social gathering.
One young man in his mid-twenties was there as the new beau of the
bride's sister. He was pleasant, attractive, well-spoken, polite,
and had grown up in South Carolina. During our first conversation
with several other people in the kitchen, David (not his real name)
spoke enthusiastically of his work with horses and Brahma cattle. He
described a roping gone wrong when he was forced to jump his horse
over a fallen Brahma cow, whose horn scored his horse's underbelly.
He seemed comfortable and at ease as the conversation shifted from
person to person. He gave no hint of any socially disruptive
opinions or behavior. But he was drinking.
Some time later I wandered into a conversation David was having with
the bride's mother on the screen porch. This conversation was
already political.
David was complaining about Jon Stewart on The Daily Show for
calling out Charleston for having streets named after Civil War
generals and otherwise ridiculing South Carolina's history. Stewart
was about to start a race war, David argued, without mentioning
Dylann Roof killing nine people. David said he was concerned about a
race war because someone had already shot at the Confederate flag at
the Capitol. David said we should just let history be history, and
besides some people treated their slaves well.
By the time our hostess came into this conversation, David was
talking about Obama being Kenyan and like that. Our hostess told him
firmly not to talk like that in her house. When he didn't seem to
get the point, I leaned in and suggested that maybe we should both
be quiet. He admitted he'd been drinking, but throughout this
conversation he remained polite, friendly, quiet, apparently sincere
in beliefs he didn't seem to think anyone would find unusual. He
came across as a basically sweet kid.
The last thing he said to me, before others took him swimming, he
said with the same earnest pleasantness. He said, "I don't hate
niggers."
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio,
TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the
Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of
America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine,
and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
