Manning Marable: Rest in Peace

The NYT did an obituary, but there is much more to be said and by people who actually knew from whence he came in life and intellectually. He was scheduled to be promoting his Malcolm X book today, the anniversary of Dr. King's assassination.

Prof. Charles Ogletree from Harvard sent me this note: "It breaks my heart.He was the quintessential scholar activist,and blazed a trail that we will faithfully follow. R I P. Tree"

A friend, Debra Robinson, said: "He did a lot with his time on earth. You were lucky to know him."

Face Time and Fried Chicken

Thanks to Facebook, I’ve reconnected with a few friends from my past. Here’s a note I received from a friend responding to a piece I did for The Root on IHOP’s “discovery” of fried chicken and waffles.

“IHOP should know that barnyard pimp has been wedded to a variety of foods. I personally have never had chicken and waffles. For years I had an aversion to fried chicken which stemed from eating it so much growing up. I had a distaste for it along with watermelon. So their aha moment with the waffles is a bit late. I am sure they will soon add other things that are already being served.

“When they serve fried spam with pancakes, etc or grits and salmon croquettes; I'm sure they will really rock and roll. Remember bisquits in brown bags that were greasy when we were in school? How we didn't want anyone to know we had bisquits? Tried our best to hide them and folks would see you anyway? We will kill for a bisquit now! Tails of oxen that were cheaper than dirt are now a much prized food along with neck bones, pig feet, chitterlings,pig ears. Theyr'e no longer a po' man's food. Might as well buy lobster.”

Happy Birthday to Ya!

Check this out from the NYT: This marks the anniversary of the map that laid out the street grid system made Manhattan. But, of course, like no one tells us that 125th Street in Harlem is on an earthquake fault line, nothing on this 200-year-old map indicated that life was worth acknowledging up town. We didn't make it onto the map when"Nieuw Haarlem" was "a suburb for the wealthy." As Sam Roberts reported in the NYT about what was then "Nieuw Haarlem": "No streets were initially laid out on the Heights North of Harlem because planners thought no one would build there for 'centuries to come'. It now holds some of Manhattan's densest neighborhoods."

Black Men Behaving Badly

Barry Bonds and steroids. Lawrence Taylor and sex with a minor. Neither is a role model despite their many accomplishments on the field.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

Give it up. Turn off the whole darn thing. So many actors seriously injured. Director fired. Choreographer fired. Ticket prices ridiculous. Save your $100 or so, my friends. Go to BAM in Brooklyn or uptown in Manhattan to Harlem (www.harlemonestop.com). Go to other plays on and off Broadway. Spider-Man is for folks who want to see disaster.

War in Libya

I don't get it, Mr. President. How many wars can we wage? "It is U. S. policy that Qaddafi has to go," you said yesterday. There are a whole lot of tyrrants out there, Mr. President. How do you pick and choose among them? I'd much prefer that you waged war on poverty and illiteracy here at home. Any way: here's an editorial in today's NYT.

R I P

Drew Hill, former pro football player in Atlanta.

J.T., found dead in my Fire Island neighborhood. My favorite bartender.

Why Are So Many Black New Moms Dying?

I came across a fascinating article in Women's eNews today. Apparently “black women for the past five decades have consistently suffered an almost four-times greater risk of death from pregnancy complications than have white women.” And, writes the author, Rita Henly Jensen: “Pregnant black women in New York City face nearly double the national risk.” The medical experts are still seeking plausible answers to the disparities. Today's article is the first in a series. Check it out.

Fried Chicken and Waffles

If you have not already done so, check out my piece for The Root on IHOP’s decision to tap into blackfolks’ fondness for this dish, as evidenced by the menus of many Southern or soul food restaurants around the country. The novelty of this dish on its menu may help improve IHOP’s bottom line, but what about the waistlines of its patrons, especially blacks? I wrote the article to focus on IHOP's "discovery" of this dish, but it does make me wonder about health consequences. What do you think? Follow the link to the article on The Root and add your comments.

Is Sarah Palin "Slumping"?

According to The Washington Post, she is. Its latest poll shows that the GOP’s once presumed 2012 leading contender is losing her runaway standing among Republicans and independents. I’m actually not all that convinced by the numbers, from a poll conducted between March 10 and 13.

From the article:
“In one sense, the poll still finds Palin near the top of a list of eight potential contenders for the GOP nomination. The former vice presidential candidate scores a 58 percent favorable rating, close to the 61 percent for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and 60 percent for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and better than the 55 percent that onetime House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) received.
“But Palin’s unfavorable numbers are significantly higher than they are for any of these possible competitors. Fully 37 percent of all Republicans and GOP-leaning independents now hold a negative view of her, a new high.
“In another first, fewer than 50 percent of Republican-leaning independents — 47 percent — hold favorable views of Palin.”

If the poll is correct, her standing restores my faith in the ultimate ability of Americans to come to their senses even after periods of illogical exuberance.

The Future of Black Publications

Shouldn't we just get real? Remember the saying about when certain powerful people and institutions catch a cold, blackfolks get the flu? Well, it's flu-time in America when it comes to everything from magazines like Ebony and Jet to newspapers as close as the one in your neighborhood.

I think it's time to chuck the paper and make the dissemination of information an online product. It's not as if blackfolks don't have access to the Internet.

Infants Who Disappear Right Before Our Eyes

Have you been following the Carlina White story -- the baby who was kidnapped from Harlem Hospital in 1987 and re-surfaced as an adult just weeks ago? Please read the piece I wrote for The Root:

http://www.theroot.com/views/carlina-white-abduction-could-it-happen-today?page=0,0

Why is this day so different from other federal holidays?

Twenty-five years after the establishment of the MLK Jr. Holiday, so many people remain hostile to it, seeing it as a boon to “a special interest,” namely the millions of people of color, people of faith, people who believe in America. The last state to actually recognize the day was New Hampshire – in 1999. That was 16 years after President Reagan, the godfather of modern Republicanism, signed a bill creating the holiday.

In the latest display of this hostility and, frankly, ignorance Maine’s governor, who obviously does not see the Tea Party movement as one of special interests even when many of his fellow Republicans do, said that the NAACP could “kiss my butt” when questioned about his intent to skip events marking the holiday. Only after a raft of criticism did Gov. Paul LePage attend a breakfast hosted by a Rotary Club chapter and a senior citizens group. I'm guessing that the NAACP did not accept his booty call.

Before giving a keynote address at the event he chose to grace, a black preacher, the Rev. Effie McClain, said: “Don’t beat the man continually for something that’s been said.” Maybe not “continually,” but he should not be let off the hook so easily, saying something offensive but meaningful for his core constituents and then having his press office issue statements that are less vitriolic and more civil.

Maine is not the most chocolate state in the Union, but the King holiday was never meant to be a federal version of such traditional black celebrations as Emancipation Day or Juneteenth. It was intended to focus attention on the principles King stood for – and that presumably the nation strives for. Even those Tea Baggers who probably drink coffee in the comfort of their homes and trucks. Reagan said: ”So each year on Martin Luther King Day, let us not only recall Dr. King, but rededicate ourselves to the Commandments he believed in and sought to live every day: Thou shall love thy God with all thy heart, and thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. And I just have to believe that all of us—if all of us, young and old, Republicans and Democrats, do all we can to live up to those Commandments, then we will see the day when Dr. King's dream comes true…”

To make the day palatable to some holdouts, including Arizona (which has flip-flopped over the years), it has become a day for renewing commitment to community service. In 1993, the federal government established the Corporation for National and Community Service to, among other things, coordinate King Day volunteerism opportunities across the country. The day is now the MLK Day of Service. Even the Obamas have taken a prominent role in promoting that aspect of the holiday. This year they volunteered to help fix up a public school building.

Now, I have no problem with that. King was not big on parties and accolades to mark his birthdate, which is actually January 15 but is observed as a federal holiday the third Monday in January. But this is my question, especially to the LePages of this country: Why aren’t Americans expected to volunteer to do good on Presidents Day or Memorial Day or Labor Day or Columbus Day? Why is this day so different from other federal holidays?

"Freedom" for the Scott Sisters

The Scott sisters are being released from a Mississippi prison today, Jan. 7, and with the assistance of the NAACP be transported to Florida, where they will be, shall we say, in watch care by Florida corrections officials. We must remain vigilant in our support for these women and for others who have been mishandled by the criminal justice system.

Just say "NO"?

The GOP is returning to power in the U.S. House of Representatives and rather than talking about reaching out to Democrats, they are continuing – and even upping – their campaign to effectively end Barack Obama’s once-promising presidency.

Check out this article:

http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/72-72/4492-republicans-aim-info-war-at-obama

Since 2008, the GOP has pursued a just-say-no campaign to Obama. Now that they are in leadership in the House, they still haven’t given us anything to say “yes” to when it comes to fixing all that’s broke in our economy, health system, criminal justice system, public school system and on and on. And there is all this kinda sorta racism among the vocal GOPers and the Tea Party folk that the President and the Democratic Party have not shown the courage to address.

Now is the time to reach out to your senators and representatives. Tell them what’s on your mind. And in addition to regular e-mail, make use of Facebook and Twitter and talk radio and any other medium to which you have access. http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt

The Scott Sisters As Political Fanfare

Please read my piece on The Root (www.theroot.com) at: http://www.theroot.com/views/scott-sisters-freed

Political Snow Blowing

New Yorkers, let’s not become part of the nation of whiners or of “wussies”, as Pennsylvania’s governor calls we 21^st century all or nothng at all, give it to me instantly Americans. Yes, Mayor Bloomberg over promised and under delivered. But who among New Yorkers, real New Yorkers, expected that with the wave of a wand this snow would disappear?

A Huffington Post whiner, FHTB, wrote: “Why do Mayors or Governors forget that snow removal is an absolute minimal requirement of cities during blizzards. ..excuses are never acceptable in such circumstances, no matter whether it is a holiday weekend or whether there are high winds, not enough equipment, or too many cars on the streets.” FHTB, you left out downsizing of the sanitation department over the last few years to meet budgetary demands. Whine. Whine. Whine.

But real New Yorkers understand reality. Heck, we can even get over the shellacking our Giants got in that historic loss a few weeks ago.

I am not heartless and, thus, feel for those who lost loved ones during the storm and its aftermath. But I also think of all those who, as evidenced in so many of our historic cemeteries, died in childbirth in the 1800s and all those who died during the flu epidemic in 1919 and all those who died of AIDS or AIDS-related complexes in the 1980s. Many of us believe that, as the Scripture says, “joy comes in the morning” after an extended night of sorrow. To everything there is a season. This is winter and often in the winter there is death.

This was a serious blizzard. Side streets are still not cleared. But many more of us should get off our butts and grab shovels rather than kvetching via the Internet or jumping in front of the cameras of television stations. This is what New Yorkers do: “We roll up our sleeves and fix it,” Mayor Bloomberg said Thursday. The “it” is deployment of equipment; use of personnel; communications with the public. This is no time for unions to say, “I told you so” regarding layoffs. The city – heck, the whole nation from bottom to top – has to learn to do more with less money from government.

Some elected officials have won (Jane Byrne, Chicago, 1980) or lost (Adrian Fenty, Washington, 2010) after badly-handled snow storms. Our own Mayor John Lindsay lost the GOP primary in 1969 because of snow removal and snow fatality issues; but he was ultimately re-elected. Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t have to worry about the politics of it all unless he plans to run for an unprecedented fourth term. Assuming he is not, he’s free to thoroughly investigate what went right and what went wrong during the blizzard of 2010 and to fix whatever was broken. As I see it, though, this was Mother Nature doing her thing -- and we are foolish to think we can control that.

August 28, 2010

“This is our day, and we ain’t giving it away,” Rev. Al Sharpton declared Saturday at a rally and march that his National Action Network sponsored in Washington. Also prominent were leaders of the NAACP, the National Urban League, labor unions, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the National Council of Negro Women, Martin Luther King III and many of the usual allies on these occasions.

I heard no oratory that came even close to that heard at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963 – 47 years ago, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., dissatisfied with the reception to his prepared speech, riffed the “I Have a Dream” portion for which he and the day are known.

Not far from Sharpton’s rally at the nation’s oldest public high school, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, or where the marchers ended up, at the site of the proposed King Memorial, the conservative, Tea Party, TV and radio huckster, Glen Beck, was making a fool of himself and, as I saw it, of the thousands who came to join him at the Lincoln Memorial to “restore” America. What they heard – if they listened – was a lot of hot air about God and love. As if his and Sarah Palin’s Christian followers (yes, she was a keynote speaker and, yes, they specifically made this a Christian event rather than an interfaith one) have a monopoly on that. Theirs was essentially an evangelical revival meeting without the communion sacrament and the passing of the collection baskets. “America today begins to turn back to God,” Beck declared. “God is not done with you yet, and He’s not done with man’s freedom yet.” In many ways his rambling, unfocused “sermon” at what also was clearly a politically-motivated power play, reminded me of Louis Farrakhan’s during the Million Man March – but Farrakhan did pass the collection baskets.

Before an overwhelmingly white gathering, blacks were featured as singers and prayer deliverers and – shamelessly – a niece of Dr. King gave her own “I have a Dream” speech, mixing her uncle’s cadences and various scriptural references. Alveda King, whom some apparently thought was King’s daughter, said: “I have a dream that one day soon God’s agape love will transcend skin color and economic status and cause us to turn from moral turpitude. I have a dream that America will repent of the sin of racism and return to honor. I have a dream that white privilege will become human privilege and that people of every ethnic blend will receive everyone as brothers and sisters in the love of God. I have a dream that America will pray and God will forgive us our sins and revive us our land. On that day we will all be able to lift every voice and sing of the love and honor that God desires for all his children.”

At his rally, Sharpton said of Beck’s gathering: “They may have the Mall, but we’ve got the message. They may have the platform, but we have the dream.” Actually Alveda King’s dream seems to differ mainly with that of Sharpton and others of the traditional civil rights coalition on abortion rights, gay marriage and prayer in schools. She’s against the first two; for the last.

While the Beckians were talking of taking back America, Tamika Mallory, the executive director of the National Action Network, was urging her audience to “take back our communities one by one.”

“We must not wait for others to do for us what we can absolutely do for ourselves,” she said. Tea Party supporters would not disagree with that.

In his last book, Dr. King asked: “Where do we go from here: chaos or community?” August 28, 2010, seems to answer: both. One group was “Restoring Honor”; the other’s aim was to “Reclaim the Dream.” Both groups were motivated to get off their butts and do something. But obviously, with leaders whose motives and messages can be questioned by people from all political spectrums, there is a great desire to build “community” – whether around God or a Tea Party movement or what’s left of the old civil rights coalition – but getting there without recognition of that fact is chaotic and probably doomed to failure.

Where Is The Silent Majority?

A growing minority of ignorant people are convinced that President Obama is a Muslim with a self-serving motive in supporting the right of Muslims to build a cultural center in downtown Manhattan not any closer to the “hallowed” World Trade Center site than strip clubs and at least two existing mosques. A lot of these pea-brains – many of them no doubt Tea Party supplicants – insist that he is not an American and should not be president. Of course, they mean that he is black and should not be president. Some unionized construction workers, who long have had a history of thwarting the attempts of blacks to join their ranks, are soliciting pledges from fellow workers to turn down any offers to work on the Islamic cultural center site.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg has been a strong defender of freedom of religion in this paroxysm of ethnic and religious bigotry and political demagoguery. In a speech on Governor's Island, within the hearing of the Statue of Liberty, he said earlier this month: "It is my hope that the mosque will help to bring our city even closer together, and help repudiate the false and repugnant idea that the attacks of 9/11 were in any way consistent with Islam. Muslims are as much a part of our city and our country as the people of any faith - and they are as welcome to worship in lower Manhattan as any other group."

This has become a national issue among the ill-informed, especially after President Obama stood up for the rights of all, including Muslims, to practice their religion and construct their institutions wherever they want so long as they follow local zoning laws.

Gov. David Paterson is trying to come up with some sort of Solomonic solution, but so far neither the proponents nor the opponents of the center are paying much attention.

Don’t be among the ignorati. Do your own research on this issue and contact your representatives in the City Council, in Albany and in Congress. And contact your own religious leaders to convince them to weigh in. This article from Salon.com might be a good starting point.

To Rangel Opponents: Who's Got Game?

A rather footloose Charles Rangel glowed in the best wishes of some 800 people, most of whom presumably paid the advertised ticket price of $250 to $2500 for his birthday at the famed Plaza Hotel. “He has fought for New York through thick and thin,” Sen. Charles Schumer told the throng of Rangel supporters. “We are so grateful and thankful for that.” And Andrew Cuomo, the state Attorney General who is the Democrats’ nominee for governor said: "His voice has always been a powerful voice for the forgotten people and the forgotten places of this nation. That's why we're here tonight to say Happy Birthday Congressman Charles Rangel."

The day before Rangel had offered an unexpected – and rambling – account of his side of the 13 ethics charges pending against him in the U. S. House of Representatives. He took to the floor of the House chamber for more than a half hour, against the wishes of his legal and political advisers, demanding an expedited trial so he can get on with his re-election bid. The New York primary is Sept. 14.

“This damn sure ain’t no funeral, is it?” Rangel commented as he looked out over the Plaza gathering. It was not. But if they have game, now is the time for his opponents to step it up. They should know this is going to take more than talk to depose Rangel when one of his buddies, the ever genteel (publicly at least ) former Mayor David Dinkins, gives the finger to a heckler as he enters the celebration.