In 1965-66, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the single most significant civil rights youth group of the 1960’s, created the first all-Black political party, the Lowndes County Freedom Party, to showcase SNCC’s belief that where Black folk were in the population majority, they should be the majority of the elected representatives. Numbers count in politics. However, according to SNCC’s calculation, organized numbers count even more.
Category: Opinion
Posted inCounting the Cost
Policing the police
Except for the Good Lord, everybody has someone or something to “check” him or her. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama has an unresponsive Congress to check him, and Supreme Court to do the same. Elected officials are checked by voters (when they vote), and the Securities and Exchange Commission usually checks corporate crooks
Posted inCounting the Cost
Dogs get more respect than Michael Brown
It doesn’t matter if you are a state legislator or an alderman, a journalist or a local leader. If you are in Ferguson, Mo., you won’t get any respect. You can be the uncle of a victim whose body was left to lie on the street for several hours and you will not be allowed to cover your young nephew. Not many would let a dog lay uncovered for several hours. Young Black Michael Brown apparently got less consideration than a dog.
Posted inPractical Politics
The politics of Africa on the world stage
The obvious theme of this week’s column could be and maybe should be the vicissitudes of the Michael Brown killing. But I’m not an obvious kind of writer.
Posted inCounting the Cost
Working at taking a vacation
I don’t do vacations well. I have to be pushed and prodded, just about guilt-tripped, into taking time off. Sure, I’ll take an hour here, an evening there, to read a book or play word games. But it just about takes an act of God to get me to go play.
Posted inOpinion
Paulette Brown named president of American Bar Association
National Bar Association (NBA) past president Paulette Brown was sworn in Tuesday as president- elect of the American Bar Association becoming the first African American woman to assume the role.
Posted inPractical Politics
The politics of judging the character of a man
Daily we are assaulted in the media with opinionated judgements regarding President Barack Obama and other political leaders, ostensibly offering up evaluations of some aspect of the president’s character. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those evaluations are nothing more than vapid vituperations based on hot air and gusty emotions. Messy and relevant facts controverting these blowheart opinions are readily ignored or merely denied in passing.
Posted inCounting the Cost
Economic growth is up; will it trickle down?
Last quarter’s rate of economic growth is good news, especially after the economy stalled, losing momentum in the first quarter of 2014. Many said it was an aberration caused by bad weather, especially since economic growth in the last half of 2013 was more than three percent.
Posted inPractical Politics
The politics of media name-calling
We are all aware that once the media, in one form or another, labels something or someone, and that label sticks, it’s relatively impossible to uncork that particular genie. Truth and facts have nothing to do with it.
Posted inCounting the Cost
Dogs eat better than 1 million children
The South African charity Feed A Child (http://www.feedachild.co.za/) chose to highlight child poverty in South Africa by portraying a little Black boy being fed like a dog by a seemingly affluent White woman. In the ad, the boy has his head on the woman’s lap, he’s kneeling at her feet, on his knees, and licking off her fingers. The point, they say? According to the ad’s tagline “The average dog eats better than millions of children.”
