Disrespecting black history

One of the biggest mistakes we have made as a people is to inject black historical references in American politics. Recently when I heard the Hillary Clinton had made the following statement in regards to how the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is operated, I realized that we had truly reached a new low in how value black American history:

The House “has been run like a plantation, and you know what I’m talking about,” (more…)

The part that really got me was when she says “…and you know what I am talking about”, as if she has some experience as a black slave on a southern plantation. Then to add insult to injury, I find this:

ASSOCIATED PRESS

2:08 p.m. January 18, 2006

WASHINGTON – Sen. Barack Obama and other black Democrats are defending Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s description of the House of Representatives as a “plantation.” First lady Laura Bush says Clinton’s remark was “ridiculous.”

Clinton, D-N.Y., a potential presidential candidate for 2008, did not retreat from the “plantation” remark, telling reporters the term accurately describes the “top-down” way the GOP runs Congress.

The Illinois senator told CNN’s “American Morning” he believed that Clinton was merely expressing concern that special interests play such a large role in writing legislation that “the ordinary voter and even members of Congress who aren’t in the majority party don’t have much input.”

“There’s been a consolidation of power by the Republican Congress and this White House in which, if you are the ordinary voter, you don’t have access,” Obama said. “That should be a source of concern for all of us.”

New York Rep. Gregory Meeks also defended Clinton.

“There was no race card played here. If any card was played here it was a joker, because that’s who seems to be running the House right now if you look at the leadership,” said Meeks, a black Democrat. (more…)

We have taken some of the most painful parts of our history and reduced it into figurative lingo. Equating the horrors of Jim Crow or Slavery to a political disagreement slaps in the face of black American history itself.

Before I continue, I must point out a piece written by Ed Brown of VisionCircle that contains a listing of some of the same type-references made by black Conservatives (Click here).

Here are just some of the racist political cartoons that have come out recently aimed towards Dr. Condoleezza Rice (here, and here)

Janet Brown (here, and here)

Clarence Thomas (here, and here. Don’t forget this.

Mind you, many of the images that I have linked to came from The Black Commentator.

There were also plenty of racist comments made by white Liberals directed towards these individuals (comments too numerous to list in this posting). It was as though whites have been given the okay to engage in the very same verbal attacks that our parents, grandparents, etc. fought so hard against.

When I either see these hurtful images or read/hear someone’s stereotypical description of such individuals, I cannot help but notice that we are probably the only race here in America that uses hurtful events in our past to make a political point. When was the last time you heard…

a Jewish politician compare the rejection of a piece of legislation to the holocaust?

members of the Chinese-American population compare domestic policies to the days when they were invaded by the Japanese empire?

How about comparisons to things like England’s rule over India?

Is failed government policy the same as the horrors of slavery? I think not.

The reason why you will rarely hear such comparisons by other ethnic groups is because there is a level of respect they and others have for their past that quite frankly many of US do not have for our own. To these other ethnic groups, it would be absurd to draw a comparison between a difference of political opinion to something like a person being shoved into an oven in Nazi Germany. Today it has come to the point that even white politicians feel comfortable enough to make these same type of absurd comparisons with OUR history and with OUR blessing–all in the name of ….votes. Mind you, these same politicians wouldn’t even dare to do the same with the history of ethnic groups mentioned above.

Are Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell “House servants”?

This is the very question that I raised in a recent post. When blacks use this term, we actually mean “house niggahs”–those that would do the bidding of their master even if it meant putting down their own self image and culture.

This past weekend I took the liberty to actually find an account of an actual “house servant”. I wanted to see the comparisons between an actual “house servant” and Dr. Rice/Colin Powell. Here is the account I was able to find:

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Charity Anderson, 101 years old, lived near Mobile, Alabama at the time she was interviewed. She was born at Belle’s Landing, in Monroe County, Alabama. Her master operated a wood yard that supplied fuel to river boats. Anderson was a house slave. She recalls that her master treated all his slaves well, but she also remembered seeing slaves torn up by dogs and whipped unmercifully.

Aunt Charity with gingham dress, which had yards of material in the skirt, and her black and white checked apron, white head rag, be-speculated eyes, sitting in a rocking chair before a fire, sorting and folding clean rags, carried one back to the days of long ago, when she told of her happy life before the Civil War.

She said “Missy, peoples don’t live now, and niggers ain’t got no manners, and don’t know nothin’ about waitin’ on white folks. I kin remember de days when I was one of de house servants. Dere was six of us in de ol’ marster’s house, me, Sarai, Lou, Hester, Jerry and Joe. Us didn’t know nothin’ but good times den. My job was lookin’ a’ter de corner table whar nothin’ but de desserts sat. Jo and Jerry were de table boys, and dey ne’ber touched nothin’ wid dere hans’, dey used de waiter to pass things wid. My! dem was good ol’ days.

“My old Marster was a good man, he treated all his slaves kind, and took care of dem, he wanted to leave dem hisn chillun. It sho’ was hard for us older uns to keep de little cullered chillun out ob de dinin’ room whar ol marster ate, cause when dey would slip in and stan’ by his cheer, when he finished eatin’ he would fix a plate and gib dem and dey would set on de hearth and eat. (more…)

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My question is quite simple, “At what point either Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell reduce themselves to this level of ignorance where their own self-worth and their race was brought to the level as depicted in the excerpt above?”

Before you answer “figuratively“, consider something that I said recently in a comment:

On any managerial team (be it government or not), there are always going to be disagreements. Members from time to time have to go along with the program in order to maintain the continuity of the team. Again, this goes on everyday from the stockroom, to the corner office, the big office, white house, you name it. Both Condi and Powell already had a huge strike against them according to many in the black community simply because they are Republicans. To be “Black” and to actually agree with a Republican president (especially on such a sensitive topic as the war in the middle east), these individuals have been largely disowned by the black community. Both of these individuals are on record of disagreeing with the president on some issues, but all and all they agree on many issues–and black America doesn’t like that.

This goes right along with something else I said recently:

Anytime a black person reaches iconic status, he or she automatically becomes the official representative of the entire black race.

Although both Rice and Powell have reached iconic status in their political careers, all black America sees are two representatives of the entire black race–not two individuals with their own opinions.

Note to those with the moral authority to label someone as an “Uncle Tom”: Be consistent!

Critics of Rice and Powell who see them as “sell outs” on the grounds that they publicly agree with a Republican president show just how much they equate loyalty to race with politics when they fail to mention the following individuals who served in the Bill Clinton Cabinet:

Commerce Secretary Ron Brown

Enron’s association with the Clinton White House comes even closer to home when you consider the many corporate foreign trade trips paid for by your tax dollars. In 1994, Enron’s CEO Ken Lay surfaced on a list of attendees wishing to travel to Russia with Ron Brown.

One person who did make the trade trip to Russia was Roger Tamraz. Interpol then wanted Tamraz, a Lebanese oil financier, for embezzling nearly $80 million from a Middle Eastern bank. Tamraz, who made most of his money selling Libyan oil, would later give more than $300,000 to the DNC after having coffee with Bill Clinton in the White House.

Russia was not the only target of Enron wheeling-and-dealing with the Clinton administration. Enron execs traveled on a profitable trade trip to India with Ron Brown, landing a major contract for a power plant. The India power plant deal later fell apart with allegations of illegal payments and bribery. (more…)

and this…

Loral attorneys asserted to the House space subcommittee that the millions of dollars Schwartz gave to the DNC bought no special favors, and that Loral passed no military technology to China. Yet Loral’s own documentation clearly shows these statements to be false.

A 1994 Loral briefing memo given to then Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, which states that satellites such as Globalstar were “commercial applications of DoD technology,” disputes the claim that no military technology was exported.

In fact, the Loral documents given to Secretary Brown contain a list of high-tech weapons that Schwartz wanted to export. Some of the Loral equipment that Schwartz suggested should be made available includes “Airborne Reconnaissance Cameras,” “Weapon Delivery,” “Target Acquisition,” “Missile Guidance,” “IR” and “RF Jamming” devices.

Schwartz’s 1994 export wish list also included missiles then manufactured by Loral, such as the MLRS, AIM-9 Sidewinder and Chaparral surface-to-air missile.

Yet the key portion of Loral’s Globalstar plan was a requirement to launch its satellites from Chinese and Russian rockets. According to the Loral brief for Secretary Brown, “Continued U.S. leadership in satellites may depend on occasional use of Russian or Chinese rockets.” (more…)

and this…

Moreover, the Clinton administration, “which lauded Chairman Kenneth L. Lay as an exemplary ‘corporate citizen,’ granted about $200 million worth of insurance against political risks for nine Enron projects in such politically volatile areas as Argentina, Venezuela and the Gaza Strip, according to documents the agencies provided to the Senate Finance Committee.”

“These projects obviously were a tremendous benefit to Enron’s operations,” Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking minority member of the committee, told the Times. The Reagan and Bush administrations approved not a single loan for Enron between 1985 and 1992 and provided insurance for only one Enron power project in Guatemala in 1992, he noted.

On the other hand, the Clinton administration made three loans between 1994 and 1998 to the now-defunct Dabhol power project in India. Ron Brown, Clinton’s commerce secretary, bragged about the approval of the Dabhol loans during a trade mission to India in 1995, while Lay stood by his side. (more…)

Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy

Espy Resigns to Spare Clinton Embarrassment

By Sara Fritz and David Lauter

Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON

Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy resigned abruptly Monday, hoping to spare President Clinton the embarrassment likely to be caused by an independent counsel’s investigation of allegations that Espy abused the perquisites of office and improperly accepted sports tickets and trips from agricultural businesses.

Espy’s surprise decision to step down by Dec. 31 ended prematurely the once-promising tenure of the Clinton administration’s youngest Cabinet appointee and the first black to serve as Agriculture secretary. With the departure of Defense Secretary Les Aspin, Espy becomes the second Clinton Cabinet official to resign. (more…)

Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary

“Last month NBC News reported that Mr. Clinton’s controversial first Secretary of Energy, Hazel O’Leary, allegedly used her office to shakedown a big-time Democratic contributor. The contributor in question, Johnny Chung, told Tom Brokaw that Mrs. O’Leary and her staff demanded — and received — a $25,000 gift in exchange for granting a half-hour meeting with her to one of his clients, the president of China Petro-Chemical Corporation.” (more…)

More info on the same issue…

During her term as Secretary of Energy, she was often accused of travelling too frequently and spending lavishly on her accommodations. She apologized to Congressional committees in 1996 for spending which exceeded limits on the funds appropriated for travel and resigned in January 1997. Some also made the accusation that these trips, which according to a GAO report sometimes paid expenses for businessmen, were used to pay back Democratic Party contributers.

It was later revealed that Chinagate scandal figure John Chung claimed that O’Leary met with Chinese oil officials after Chung had donated $25,000 to O’Leary’s favorite charity Africare. Janet Reno refused to authorize an investigation of this charge, however. It was later revealed that FBI director Louis Freeh had advised Reno that the circumstances surrounding the donations were “extraordinarily suspicious”. (more…)

All three of the individuals mentioned above in some way, shape, or form knew of the proven cases of corruption that surrounded the Clinton administration, yet they “went along with the program”. So much so that they themselves suffered politically. Using the same logic that is used by those who want to label Rice and Powell as “house niggahs” that are too afraid to speak their minds, the three individuals above would also be considered “house niggahs”.

But they weren’t. Black America just looked over the whole thing.

Do I see Brown, Espy, and O’Leary as “house niggahs”? No. They are/were (in Brown’s case) individuals who made bad political decisions. That’s it. Because being a member of the Democratic party has become synonymous with blackness, their “sins” have been forgotten by the black community. As long as Rice and Powell are Republicans that agree with Bush, they will never afforded the same luxury from black America.

In the first half of this post, I mention the fact that both black Liberals and Conservatives have been guilty of using these painful memories of our history in a figurative manner to score political points. By doing so, we belittle the actual pain and suffering many of our forefathers had to endure. Black history becomes nothing more than cheap political talk that serves as that much needed emotional kick for a potential candidate for office.

We must hold our history as sacred–all of it.

Many black Americans of today hold this strange belief that we can just pick and choose the forefathers in our linage. When we want to emphasize our strength as a people, we will point out that we are the descendants of kings and queens. When we want white America to feel guilt, we we emphasize that we are the descendants of slaves. If the truth be told, black Americans are more closely related to the people we deem as sell outs, Uncle Toms, boot lickers, house niggahs, field niggahs than any Egyptian king or queen. Their blood flows through our veins as well.

For every black slave that had to say “yessa boss”, there is a doctor or lawyer that came forth, for every plantation, there is a black community who is learning to take ownership. For every house niggah, there is black family out there today who would not be here except for the heart-breaking sacrifices of this individual. Was I a little dramatic in those last two sentences? Perhaps. But consider the following: Unless we learn to respect the depth of these historical references, the respect for our history will become non-existent–especially amongst our own people.