BLACK ELECTED LEADERHIP NOW MEANS NOTHING

The fact that Black elected leadership now means nothing in the face of a system whose choice has been made regarding us Black people. These officials are really powerless, but the fault is not with them, but the system itself. Even they know that their elections are a false hope that will inspire ill-informed Black folk to continue to have false confidence in the political system. In spite of all of the yahooing and the love-fest about "public service" there is only one reason to hold elected office and that is to exercise power. Our miss-elected officials in the Black community are really happy with nothing more than the perception that they are serious players at the table of power, yet cannot actually exercise any power. Every interest group, lobbyist, and other ethnic groups knows this, with the exception of us Black Americans. My perception of President Obama is what it has always been and always will be; a mediocre politician, and “centrist" creation of the moneyed elite and the useless Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC has never recognized or even believed in our legitimate Black interests. In reality, it sees the Democrats "ties" to us Blacks as being one of the main obstacles to getting Democrats elected, and re-elected. Its only goal is to collect enough votes from its traditional base (middle class white’s) to get its hand-picked people into office where they can join the Republicans in getting rich by being in cahoots with Wall street and the military and prison industrial complexes. You Black folk should not be surprised that our Mr. Obama has consistently exercised power for the benefit of everyone in the traditional power structure with the blinding exception of the Black community. In fact, his main "interactions" with us Blacks have either been in the form of waving, radio interviews, sneaking away, or taking evasive action when Blacks may be around, or using attacks on Black people to help him score points with his real friends on the mostly White right, and on Wall Street. There is no such thing as the lesser of two evils in the American political system. As Black people, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans, nor the so-called Tea Party is our friend. It is time to be daring and vocal, immediately start voting for the third, fourth, and fifth party candidates. It is also time to stop looking for some imaginary superhero to save us and to begin taking control of our own destiny. It is time to start looking outside of the red, white, and blue box which restricts our thoughts, and blinds many of us to the fact that the world outside of the United States is rapidly changing. We cannot continue to remain the powerless lawn jockeys of a fading system and hope for the best. That is not a good plan. As I now see, and you should too, the nation has made a choice, and it is one that threatens the long-term survival of Black people. The country’s public policies are now becoming the equivalent of weekly, random selections of Black people who would be taken to a secret place and shot. Black suffering and our permanent, worsening conditions we face are not an accident of fate or the result of outrageous patterns of Black behavior. No, they are intentional. They have become national policy. The nation has made its choice. We, however, seem to have also made ours. Our willingness to not break with our old tired ass ways, to not assume our own agenda, and to strongly advocate and implement our own alternatives, theoretically, practically and with an urgent degree of unison has resulted in our choice of going along and hoping for a brighter day.

Black Man to Black Woman..Your Questions are Answered

We Black men have unending sexual staying power. We Black men will let you down in a crunch. We Black men are selfish. We Black men don't know how to treat a woman. All the good Black men are taken. These are a few of the lies that have become the bedrock of our national consciousness. Inaccurate, they still continue to be the gospel on the Black man in America. With no hard facts, it's no wonder Black women are desperate to separate fact from fiction and are more than a little curious to discover the real secrets of the Black male. They feel they don’t have the nerve to ask. Well, I asked myself the questions. And here, in this piece, I open up about my fears, needs, and secrets about life, dating, love and sex. I share the things - sometimes startling, sometimes controversial, but always insightful - I say every Black woman who loves a Black man should know. In everything from employment to education, Black men are constantly being told we can't measure up. We are very sensitive to rejection because so many of us started off with a sense of inferiority. The world made us feel that we couldn’t measure up. So when it comes to our love life we can be hypersensitive. Given this reality, Black women need to be aware of the power of their words. We remember the negative comments a woman makes to us, as if they'd been branded on our brain. We are, in general, possessive about our women: No one's talking about the kind of man who goes crazy when another man speaks to his girlfriend at a party. When I’m being possessive, I’m saying: Don't touch my woman. She's mine and no one else's. And that's a from-the-gut expression most Black men feel about their woman. The bottom line; when it comes to romance, I want to be the only one in my woman's life. The reasons for my attitude, so many things have been taken away from us Black men; we feel this lady is the one thing we can hold on to and should be able to hold on to. Right or wrong, when I am in love with a woman, I am very territorial about her. It comes down to the fact that I want - and expect - her to be mine exclusively. For me, love and sex are separate issues: I can make love without loving, sometimes purely for the sake of physical release. Love does improve sex for me; I just wish women would understand that, for most Black men, sex can be purely physical. They shouldn't assume because a man wants to sleep with her, he wants to be with her all of the time or marry her. That single understanding would save a lot of misunderstandings, arguments and hurt feelings. To me, women who come on strong are usually a turn-off to me. A come-on takes the control from me. I don’t like women to display their romantic interest aggressively. When a woman comes on to me, I feel off balance, out of control. I know it shouldn't make me uncomfortable but it does, especially when she comes on strong. The funny thing is, if she's interested, I definitely want her to let me know it. But it's all in the way she does it. A glance and a smile are worth a thousand come-and-get-it come-ons. I want honesty and intelligence in a woman, but I also want a pretty face and a nice body. I ain’t talkin about fair; I’m talkin reality here, not justice. A fine Black woman will hit you like a sledgehammer. Let's face it. A fine Black woman is an ego trip and a turn-on. This ain’t about the length of her hair. It is to say that if I don’t find a woman physically appealing first, I won’t be interested enough to spend time discovering her inner qualities. A lot of brothers constantly tell me they want it all - beauty and brains. I love Black women who just love being ultra-feminine: It makes me feel totally masculine. It allows me to demonstrate my masculinity. And I don’t think Black women relish their femininity as much as they'd like. Sometimes, for me, I feel that the Black woman is not feminine enough. By feminine, I don't mean women who act fragile, weak and helpless every time they're around a man. The women I find so appealing to me are those who highlight or celebrate the differences between the Black man and Black woman; Black women who aren't embarrassed or defiant about being a women but instead love it intensely, that can mean anything from wearing a certain perfume and silk camisoles to making it clear they enjoy having their bags carried and their car doors opened. Wow, the way we Black men think!!

THE ACCEPTANCE OF OUR NEW BLACK REALITY

It is must be understood that package and presentation are paramount in this county. Style, image, and symbolism mean a lot. The Wall-Streeter’s and the moneyed interests know this fact. The political circus we call campaigning and elections are rooted in package and presentation. That is why the media talking heads are always commenting on how Presidential a candidate looks. When you place the Obama package next to the Michelle Bachman and Herman Cain package for example, it is a no brainer who wins that contest. The problem is that we get so wrapped around style, image, and symbolism, and completely miss the dynamics that drive the imagery that we see all the time. Black folks have a real bad case of the Stockholm syndrome (you are in love with your oppressor). Now that there is a Black man in the White House we have gotten so full of ourselves, and started using the twisted logic to think and believe that him being there means that we somehow have arrived, (The question I want to ask is arrived from where to where)? The reality that surrounds us says everything but that; we are still looked at with disgust, disrespect, still despised, displaced, and disowned. How in the hell can you conclude anything other than that is beyond me! It is a clear sign that we are tap dancing in the twilight zone and or skipping down the yellow brick road to the land of delusion. Last time I checked the prison industrial complex is still rolling along culling Black males/females like there is no tomorrow. Last time I looked, Black unemployment is still through the roof and moving to outer-space. Since the housing bubble burst, the damage is still being felt from sea to shining sea. And lest we not forget that Black home owners (who by the way were the primary targets of all those subprime loans, you know the ones that blew up the housing bubble), have been smashed with no help in sight. Yes, it is nice to see Black folks in the high places of power and influence, but if their being in those positions doesn’t manifest into actions that improve the lives of our people, then that admiration is greatly misunderstood and misplaced. We need to break out of this abusive relationship with the current Black elected officials and stop trippin on all the symbolism that it represents. Package and presentation is like eye candy, it’s good to look at, but is it good for you, much less good to you? Symbolism is like virtual-reality, it recreates mental imagery that looks good and titillates the senses but in the end it is only a distraction/diversion from the real world that you live in. The few of us fighters/activist who have gotten the message are now ready for a new message of what to do with what we have now accepted as the truth; our new reality. I for one am tired of being told that Obama is a nice person. I already know that, and am waiting for any creative ideas that Him or you may have as to how we can save ourselves. Secondly, it ain't that Obama is or is not a nice person. What we have here is a systemic and institutional problem, which in the end can only be solved by replacing those people, systems, and institutions with something more humane and human. This brings me to the third thing; solutions, what we can do. The answer is, carve out some time from your family and survival obligations to help organize your neighbors, friends, co-workers, fellow students, or whoever you circulate among to demand and work for a better deal for all of us. Pick an area of concern to struggle over, pick some friends and associates, and pick a damn fight, become vocal! This is almost becoming too depressing for me, because it seems like there's no way out. And that's exactly what they want. If we join together, we can do anything (sadly said quite a bit in our circles). And I don't mean join together in voting, I mean doing something that actually works. The joining together I’m mentioning is right in front of us. We have to create some form of a instant hyper- connection to all Black people, people like myself who are not wealthy, all the working class, all of the working poor, and desperately poor Black people of this country. In 2008, we saw an African American run for the Presidency as a viable contender, and at the same time also witnessed a truly remarkable silence. While there were millions of words written about the political ascent of one Black man, there was virtually nothing about the descent of Black leadership into ineffectiveness. Barack Obama’s personal itinerary was mapped to the minutest detail. The larger itinerary of African Americans was mostly ignored, and is still being ignored. Let us now create our Itinerary.

THE CBC NOW HAS DEMANDS ?

By Phil Norton

One of my closest friends regularly reminds me of the need to widen my perspective, and she, of course is correct. But now my laser-like focus right now is the do-nothing Congressional Black Caucus. The Jennie is out of the bottle. They have steadily narrowed the scope of Black possibilities in our communities, while getting paid. Their weapons of choice have been the bullshit smile, sarcasm and ridicule, the forgetting of facts, and their ever present love affair with the President. They are our supposed Black leaders and they have tried to empty Black politics of its truths. Their thought for the last three years is that there is no Black America, no Black agenda and no need for either. Their message to the masses of Black people in our downtrodden inner-cities is “get it together.” Theirs is the political theory of the dominated, the weak, and the clueless. The racial justice struggle among Black folk in America is at an all time low, as evidenced in their loss of memory, a lack of vision, a lack of program, and a lack of nerve. The descent is rooted in the politics of collaboration with our enemies about the tone, tenor, and scope of the struggle for racial justice. White power is playing the musical tune and far too many of the Congressional Black Caucus members are doing the dancing. The mind-blowing rise of Obama blinded, deluded, and distracted the Congressional Black Caucus and they in turn bamboozled the whole Black community. It is a song from a poet and songwriter titled “Send in the Clowns.” In one phrase he concludes, “Don’t bother. They are already here.” We now have the laughable Congressional Black Caucus “Job Fair/Town Hall” tour. “We want Obama to know that from this day forward. . . we’ve had it,” said the Dean of the Caucus, Michigan Rep. John Conyers. Note to Conyers: Negro, please. You and the Congressional Black Caucus scare nobody, especially Obama. The Congressional Black Caucus has kept its mouth shut, all but for a lil bit of quiet grumbling sprinkled in for show. You've shown over the decades that your bark is worst than your bite. All these years, and you guys don't have a third of the scare/influence factor of the Zionist. If you've had it, your asses would have went off big time during the budget political show. Obama spent his time meeting with the Teapublicans about the phony deficit crises. Where was the Congressional Black Caucus in raising hell to demand to be players in these meetings? Did you call press conferences; rally your constituents to demand hands off of Social Security, Medicare, and other social programs? Will you call out Obama on your jobs tour and provide your mainstream media retarded constituents with the real 411, or will you spend all your time blaming the right wingers for all that's wrong in DC? Shelia Jackson Lee, she never met a microphone she didn't like: Another waste of space in DC. Even those Congressional Black Caucus members who voted against Obama’s hateful bills don't deserve too many shout outs. Mr. Muslim, Keith Ellison was cheerleading for the Libyan war, er, "non-war." Did they call for protests in front of White House a la Egypt and Wisconsin? No! Some of these jokers like Conyers and Waters have been in DC longer than God and don't even have the clout to get a street light fixed, much less make the President give them the time of day. While Obama meets with Republicans to figure out a jobs program, the so-called liberal/progressive Democrats will be nowhere to be found. Just watch these punk asses next year as they join Shelia Jackson Lee in circling the wagons in support of Obama’s re-election. And what's up with Bobby Rush? I thought he used to be a Black Panther. I guess that militant shit went out of style. Like those former hippies, turned corporatist yuppies, Rush found out the grass was greener kissing "the man's" ass. I think we should just sit out this election. Don't vote for any of these losers. I'm five minutes away from suggesting a voter DE-registration campaign. I bet we could get more accomplished by letting these maggots know that they can't get shit from us without addressing our needs. We should spend the bulk of our time campaigning and create an agenda. Run it at whoever wins good cop or bad cop. I’m Phillip Norton, and I’m mad as hell

Crazy Ass Republican Marriage Pledge

I took a long look at the GOP-Tea Party-Republican Marriage Vow and here it is in short form: The document implies that children born to slaves during the pre-civil war era were a lot better off since they had two parents? It seems to me and a lot of other Black folk that these racist red necks need a history lesson again or they are attempting to re-write history once more! Children born to slaves were not recognized as legitimate, since marriages between slaves were not recognized as valid marriages. Slaves had no rights, no legal marriages and certainly their children all grew up illegitimate in the eyes of their masters. Women slaves who were RAPED by their slave owners and bore children were not with their fathers, because they were abandoned by their rapists. Children born of slavery were raised by one parent in dirty, dingy, nasty huts and out buildings, and none were actually “married”, so this marriage pledge is absolutely incorrect historically but morally corrupt as well. You probably wonder what slave children have to do with a marriage vow in 2011? In all reality, the Tea Party, and especially Michelle Bachman want a return to slavery! She utters something almost daily about slavery! Under no circumstances can ANY white person or any other person state that children born in this era were better off. How ignorant is the writer of this pledge, that no one but two ignorant and dumb suckers will sign it (Michelle Bachman, Rick Santorum). After this silly ass document came out, a day or so later the references to slave children was removed entirely, but the total sum of this pact is intolerance of others. The Republican establishment does not have the control of the party it once did and the radical right appears have taken over the asylum. In short, this Republican Marriage Pledge represents the repression of minorities, and incites intolerance of anyone who is not white. This party is now running on social issues in the midst of the greatest recession (Black Depression), since the First Great Depression. The whole Republican Marriage Pledge concept makes me depressed just reading it; you feel like you’re being indoctrinated by some religious cult. Seriously, the Republican Party is now the party of the delusional right. It has become a religion, not a political party. The GOP still ain’t got nothin on Obama. Basically the document is a Pledge to do away with: 1. Social programs that bolster Blacks, 2. Gays, 3. Pro-Choice, 4.Pornography, and, 5) Muslims. Do you finally believe now? I’m Phillip Norton and I’m out!