http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/12/mckinney.green.party
McKinney running for president as Green candidate
Story Highlights
Cynthia McKinney, ex-Georgia congresswoman, defeats three for nomination
Party spokesman: "Every vote that she gets helps the Green Party"
McKinney, a former Democrat, served six terms in Congress
(CNN) -- The liberal environmentalist Green Party nominated former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney as its presidential candidate Saturday.
McKinney, 53, held off three rivals to win the party's nomination during its convention in Chicago, Illinois. She picked journalist and activist Rosa Clemente as her running mate.
Green Party spokeswoman Scott McLarty acknowledged McKinney was a "long shot" for the White House, but said, "Every vote that she gets helps the Green Party."
"The United States needs an alternative party," McLarty said. "The narrow two-party system we have right now has not served us very well."
McKinney represented a suburban district of Atlanta, Georgia, as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives for six terms -- five consecutively.
First elected in 1992, she lost a primary challenge in 2002 after suggesting in a radio interview that members of the Bush administration stood to profit from the war that followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
In 2004 she ran again and won with a low-key campaign in which she largely avoided controversy. But voters ousted her again in 2006 after she was accused of a physical altercation with a U.S. Capitol Police officer who questioned her after failing to recognize her at a security checkpoint.
The most successful Green Party presidential candidate was consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who drew nearly 3 percent of the vote in 2000. Nader is running again this year, this time as an independent.
Earlier this year, the Libertarian Party nominated McKinney's onetime House colleague, ex-Republican congressman Bob Barr, as its presidential nominee. Barr also represented a district in the Atlanta suburbs during his four terms in Congress.
CNN's Brendan Gage contributed to this report.
Showing posts with label Cynthia McKinney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cynthia McKinney. Show all posts
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Obama Resigns From Black Nation
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=643
Obama Resigns From Black Nation
Wednesday, 04 June 2008
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
How far is Barack Obama willing to run from the very same Black nationalism that was fundamental to his victories in so many state Democratic primaries? The nominee-apparent is in pell-mell flight from everything that does not conform to his own "race-neutral" worldview. Obama's political contradictions compel him to reject his most fervent supporters, and apparently to reexamine his ties to the Black Church as an institution. The "journey" to Black identity that Obama describes in his book Dreams From My Father seems in conflict with the Road to the White House. Longtime friends - maybe Black people as a whole - are left by the wayside. Perhaps "Obama ought to just keep on steppin' out of Black America entirely."
Obama Resigns From Black Nation
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
"Obama's lurching exit from Trinity Church shows that he can't tolerate Black nationalism of any kind."
Having this weekend severed a 16-year relationship with Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, Barack Obama might as well let the final shoe drop and resign once and for all from Black America, a polity he refuses to recognize or respect despite garnering 90 percent of Black electoral support. Never in African American history have Black people's collective affections been so callously rebuffed by an individual Black recipient. The fact that Black people's "love" for the Illinois Senator is wholly unrequited is obvious to everyone except wishful Obamites - a pitiful spectacle to behold.
If there is a tie that binds more tightly and unthinkingly than the romantic urges of adolescents, it is the pull of nationalism. African Americans have the misfortune to be self-shackled to Obama by deep historical yearnings to wield power through their own racial representatives, as other "nations" of people do. The problem is, Black Americans find themselves trapped in a threesome, in which the object of their Black nationalist aspirations is hopelessly enamored of someone else: the mythical white American nation.
"Barack Obama is true-blue to the slaveholding forefathers and heroic blond mothers of the storybook U.S. of A."
"I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country," said Obama, in banishing Trinity's retiring senior pastor Jeremiah Wright from his inner circle, in April. Obama believes in One-Love - of the white fairy tale kind that despises the "use [of] incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation." Barack Obama is true-blue to the slaveholding forefathers and heroic blond mothers of the storybook U.S. of A. His intense (white) nationalist fealty to the Indian-killer and slave-whipper compels him to reject out of hand the African American version of U.S. and world history - to compulsively dismiss both the Black counter-narrative and narrators, like Rev. Wright. And if some stray white man in a clerical collar wanders in, assaulting white sensibilities with denunciations of white skin privilege and other unwelcome language, Obama can be counted on to slap the wayward priest down, forthwith.
"I am deeply disappointed in Father [Michael] Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric," said Obama, appalled at the effrontery of a man whose parishioners call a practitioner of "blue-eyed black soul," who mocked a Hillary Clinton character bawling that "a black man" was "stealing my show." Pfleger, pastor of predominantly Black St. Sabina Catholic Church since 1981, has been described in the corporate press as "Chicago's renegade priest." He was invited to Trinity Church specifically to expose "white entitlement and supremacy wherever it raises its head." Otis Moss III, the 37-year-old "hip-hop pastor" who took over from Rev. Wright, seemed thoroughly pleased with 59-year-old Father Pfleger's performance, as were the knee-slapping deacons arrayed behind him. Nevertheless, Father Pfleger found it necessary to make a blanket apology for his joyful exuberance, and to specifically beg the pardon of Barack Obama for mixing the presidential frontrunner's name into the skit.
"My words are inconsistent with Senator Obama's life and message," said Pfleger. He was right. Obama's life and message have nothing to do with Black liberation, of the theological or secular variety. Both Reverends Pfleger and Wright support in practice African American political self-determination and general Black nationalist aspirations - goals that are repugnant to Obama, who behaves as if on constant guard against perceived insults to white folks' (and America's) sacred honor.
"Obama's life and message have nothing to do with Black liberation."
Rev. Wright was also correct a month ago in characterizing the shameless corporate media attacks on his liberationist teachings as an "attack on the Black church." Obama pulled his family out of the 8,000 member congregation because, in his words, "our relations with Trinity have been strained by the divisive statements of Reverend Wright, which sharply conflict with our own view." But Wright had already retired. Clearly, Obama is not comfortable with the youthful new minister, Rev. Moss, either, or with the congregation that supports him, or with Trinity's political ties to the radical Catholic priest, Rev. Pfleger - who until a few weeks ago was actively working on Obama's campaign. Obama is distraught with the whole Black church scene - which seems to attract trouble with white people. As the Washington Post reported on Sunday:
"Obama acknowledged that joining another black church, where ‘there's a different religious tradition or a worshiping style' might be equally problematic as his membership in Trinity. He said he probably will not make a decision about a new church until January."
By all rights, Obama ought to just keep on steppin' out of Black America entirely, since his real problem lies with the two-edged sword of Black nationalism. The great irony of the Obama phenomenon is, his fundamental strength in the Democratic primaries - near-universal Black support - is based on an ideology that is a nightmare to white voters and to Obama, himself: Black nationalism. As cunning and cynical as Obama may be, he cannot tame the nationalist impulses of his Black supporters and thus lives in terror that they will spoil his game among white voters.
Of course, Obama constantly claims that most Black folks are as politically deracinated - rootless - as he is, but that's never been true. Black nationalism has always been pervasive in Black America, and Obama can no more wish it away than he can pretend white racism out of existence. As the late, great historian Herbert Aptheker noted in his 1971 volume Afro-American History: The Modern Era, in a chapter titled Consciousness of Afro-American Nationality: "No other people" express this concept of nationalism so consistently "over 200 years." Arch enemies Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois at the turn of the 20th Century both spoke in Black nationalist terms. Dubois referred to African Americans as "a nation," while Washington described southern Blacks as "a nation within a nation." Even the politically passive pre-Revolutionary poetess Phillis Wheatley remarked in 1772 how pleased she was that "so many of my nation" [Blacks] were embracing Christianity.
"Obama is distraught with the whole Black church scene."
Black nationalism is everywhere that African Americans exist. It's the bond that makes perfectly sane people collectively embarrassed by the antics of Michael Jackson. In 2008, it causes millions of normally sober African Americans to binge on Obama'laide, to drink constantly to the political health of a man who gives not a damn about them, and who actually flees from their presence like a plague.
Black nationalism has scared Obama at least temporarily out of The Church!
In his ceaseless attempts to meld Black realities and white illusions, Obama tries to marginalize Rev. Wright by calling Wright's belief system "generational" - another word for outdated - only to have Wright replaced in the pulpit by a "hip hop pastor" whose politics is perfectly compatible with Wright's, and with the radical white clerical elder, Rev. Pfleger. At that point, Obama must head for the door, family in tow, never to return.
University of Chicago Black political scientist Michael Dawson writes that "the black movement that is developing in support of [Obama's] campaign has some of the markings of black nationalism." Specifically, Obama is buoyed by a "middle-class" type of Black nationalism - the kind that is more common in politicized Black Christian churches and professional groupings than Nation of Islam circles. Obama's lurching exit from Trinity Church shows that he can't tolerate Black nationalism of any kind, if it gets in the way of white outreach.
In the end, Black people's one-sided love affair with Barack Obama can never be consummated. He recoils at every stage, answering love with unconcealed revulsion. One day soon, we'll take the hint.
Of course, the real deal is former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, presidential candidate for the Green Party ticket. McKinney reports she's leading in the Greens' delegate count. Unlike Obama, whose politics is substantially to the Right of most Blacks, Cynthia McKinney loves you back.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
Obama Resigns From Black Nation
Wednesday, 04 June 2008
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
How far is Barack Obama willing to run from the very same Black nationalism that was fundamental to his victories in so many state Democratic primaries? The nominee-apparent is in pell-mell flight from everything that does not conform to his own "race-neutral" worldview. Obama's political contradictions compel him to reject his most fervent supporters, and apparently to reexamine his ties to the Black Church as an institution. The "journey" to Black identity that Obama describes in his book Dreams From My Father seems in conflict with the Road to the White House. Longtime friends - maybe Black people as a whole - are left by the wayside. Perhaps "Obama ought to just keep on steppin' out of Black America entirely."
Obama Resigns From Black Nation
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
"Obama's lurching exit from Trinity Church shows that he can't tolerate Black nationalism of any kind."
Having this weekend severed a 16-year relationship with Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, Barack Obama might as well let the final shoe drop and resign once and for all from Black America, a polity he refuses to recognize or respect despite garnering 90 percent of Black electoral support. Never in African American history have Black people's collective affections been so callously rebuffed by an individual Black recipient. The fact that Black people's "love" for the Illinois Senator is wholly unrequited is obvious to everyone except wishful Obamites - a pitiful spectacle to behold.
If there is a tie that binds more tightly and unthinkingly than the romantic urges of adolescents, it is the pull of nationalism. African Americans have the misfortune to be self-shackled to Obama by deep historical yearnings to wield power through their own racial representatives, as other "nations" of people do. The problem is, Black Americans find themselves trapped in a threesome, in which the object of their Black nationalist aspirations is hopelessly enamored of someone else: the mythical white American nation.
"Barack Obama is true-blue to the slaveholding forefathers and heroic blond mothers of the storybook U.S. of A."
"I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country," said Obama, in banishing Trinity's retiring senior pastor Jeremiah Wright from his inner circle, in April. Obama believes in One-Love - of the white fairy tale kind that despises the "use [of] incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation." Barack Obama is true-blue to the slaveholding forefathers and heroic blond mothers of the storybook U.S. of A. His intense (white) nationalist fealty to the Indian-killer and slave-whipper compels him to reject out of hand the African American version of U.S. and world history - to compulsively dismiss both the Black counter-narrative and narrators, like Rev. Wright. And if some stray white man in a clerical collar wanders in, assaulting white sensibilities with denunciations of white skin privilege and other unwelcome language, Obama can be counted on to slap the wayward priest down, forthwith.
"I am deeply disappointed in Father [Michael] Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric," said Obama, appalled at the effrontery of a man whose parishioners call a practitioner of "blue-eyed black soul," who mocked a Hillary Clinton character bawling that "a black man" was "stealing my show." Pfleger, pastor of predominantly Black St. Sabina Catholic Church since 1981, has been described in the corporate press as "Chicago's renegade priest." He was invited to Trinity Church specifically to expose "white entitlement and supremacy wherever it raises its head." Otis Moss III, the 37-year-old "hip-hop pastor" who took over from Rev. Wright, seemed thoroughly pleased with 59-year-old Father Pfleger's performance, as were the knee-slapping deacons arrayed behind him. Nevertheless, Father Pfleger found it necessary to make a blanket apology for his joyful exuberance, and to specifically beg the pardon of Barack Obama for mixing the presidential frontrunner's name into the skit.
"My words are inconsistent with Senator Obama's life and message," said Pfleger. He was right. Obama's life and message have nothing to do with Black liberation, of the theological or secular variety. Both Reverends Pfleger and Wright support in practice African American political self-determination and general Black nationalist aspirations - goals that are repugnant to Obama, who behaves as if on constant guard against perceived insults to white folks' (and America's) sacred honor.
"Obama's life and message have nothing to do with Black liberation."
Rev. Wright was also correct a month ago in characterizing the shameless corporate media attacks on his liberationist teachings as an "attack on the Black church." Obama pulled his family out of the 8,000 member congregation because, in his words, "our relations with Trinity have been strained by the divisive statements of Reverend Wright, which sharply conflict with our own view." But Wright had already retired. Clearly, Obama is not comfortable with the youthful new minister, Rev. Moss, either, or with the congregation that supports him, or with Trinity's political ties to the radical Catholic priest, Rev. Pfleger - who until a few weeks ago was actively working on Obama's campaign. Obama is distraught with the whole Black church scene - which seems to attract trouble with white people. As the Washington Post reported on Sunday:
"Obama acknowledged that joining another black church, where ‘there's a different religious tradition or a worshiping style' might be equally problematic as his membership in Trinity. He said he probably will not make a decision about a new church until January."
By all rights, Obama ought to just keep on steppin' out of Black America entirely, since his real problem lies with the two-edged sword of Black nationalism. The great irony of the Obama phenomenon is, his fundamental strength in the Democratic primaries - near-universal Black support - is based on an ideology that is a nightmare to white voters and to Obama, himself: Black nationalism. As cunning and cynical as Obama may be, he cannot tame the nationalist impulses of his Black supporters and thus lives in terror that they will spoil his game among white voters.
Of course, Obama constantly claims that most Black folks are as politically deracinated - rootless - as he is, but that's never been true. Black nationalism has always been pervasive in Black America, and Obama can no more wish it away than he can pretend white racism out of existence. As the late, great historian Herbert Aptheker noted in his 1971 volume Afro-American History: The Modern Era, in a chapter titled Consciousness of Afro-American Nationality: "No other people" express this concept of nationalism so consistently "over 200 years." Arch enemies Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois at the turn of the 20th Century both spoke in Black nationalist terms. Dubois referred to African Americans as "a nation," while Washington described southern Blacks as "a nation within a nation." Even the politically passive pre-Revolutionary poetess Phillis Wheatley remarked in 1772 how pleased she was that "so many of my nation" [Blacks] were embracing Christianity.
"Obama is distraught with the whole Black church scene."
Black nationalism is everywhere that African Americans exist. It's the bond that makes perfectly sane people collectively embarrassed by the antics of Michael Jackson. In 2008, it causes millions of normally sober African Americans to binge on Obama'laide, to drink constantly to the political health of a man who gives not a damn about them, and who actually flees from their presence like a plague.
Black nationalism has scared Obama at least temporarily out of The Church!
In his ceaseless attempts to meld Black realities and white illusions, Obama tries to marginalize Rev. Wright by calling Wright's belief system "generational" - another word for outdated - only to have Wright replaced in the pulpit by a "hip hop pastor" whose politics is perfectly compatible with Wright's, and with the radical white clerical elder, Rev. Pfleger. At that point, Obama must head for the door, family in tow, never to return.
University of Chicago Black political scientist Michael Dawson writes that "the black movement that is developing in support of [Obama's] campaign has some of the markings of black nationalism." Specifically, Obama is buoyed by a "middle-class" type of Black nationalism - the kind that is more common in politicized Black Christian churches and professional groupings than Nation of Islam circles. Obama's lurching exit from Trinity Church shows that he can't tolerate Black nationalism of any kind, if it gets in the way of white outreach.
In the end, Black people's one-sided love affair with Barack Obama can never be consummated. He recoils at every stage, answering love with unconcealed revulsion. One day soon, we'll take the hint.
Of course, the real deal is former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, presidential candidate for the Green Party ticket. McKinney reports she's leading in the Greens' delegate count. Unlike Obama, whose politics is substantially to the Right of most Blacks, Cynthia McKinney loves you back.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Bell Verdict Shows Dred Scott Reality
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=606&Itemid=1
Cynthia McKinney: Bell Verdict Shows Dred Scott Reality
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
The Sean Bell verdict reminds former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of the 1857 Dred Scott Decision, which declared that Blacks have no rights that a white man is bound to respect. In this case, three New York City cops failed to respect Bell's right to life; he died in a fusillade of 50 shots that also wounded two of his friends. All were unarmed. "The prospects are that black and brown men and women will continue to be murdered by police officers who, fundamentally, seem scared of black people." McKinney fought for legislation that would "deny federal funds and the use of federal equipment to any law enforcement unit found to have violated the civil rights of the people."
"[T]he legislation and histories of the time, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument. . . . [A]ltogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
And with that, the United States Supreme Court ensured that the 20th Century would be defined, as W.E.B. DuBois wrote, by the color line. So, while we might be outraged at the Sean Bell decision itself, it comes directly from the flawed jurisprudence that gave us the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Bakke in 1978, Croson in 1989, Adarand in 1995, Gratz in 2003, and all of the Ward Connerly-inspired attacks on the very same affirmative action hard won by students facing water hoses and dogs; men and women facing jail, lynch mobs, and death.
Interestingly, according to Attorney Roger Wareham of the December 12th Movement's International Secretariat, the criminal justice system in this country "always finds a rationale for letting off cops who kill black and brown people." Indeed, police officers seem to know that they can kill certain people with impunity.
Just in New York City alone, Wareham rattles off the murders that have defined police-"communities of color" relations over two generations:
Clifford Glover, 1972
Louis Baez, 1978 shot (22 times)
Randolph Evans, 1979
Eleanor Bumpers, 1985 (a grandmother)
Amadou Diallo, 1999
Patrick Dorismond, 2003
Sean Bell, 2006
Sadly, New York City isn't the only city, with this plague. In 2001, the Dayton Daily News reported that Cincinnati topped the list of police killings of Blacks, having had 22 people shot, 13 fatally. All black men. Three unarmed. Plus two additional deaths due to police use of chemical irritants.
The 2001 "Cincinnati Intifada" lasted for three nights after a white police officer murdered an unarmed black teenager. Timothy Thomas was the fifteenth black male killed by Cincinnati police over a six-year period. I traveled with Ron Daniels and others to Cincinnati to support the call by black residents, including Reverend Damon Lynch III and 36 other ministers, for a boycott of that city. Still reeling from the effects of the boycott, Cincinnati made headlines again in 2003 when the world watched as one black and five white police officers repeatedly beat Nathaniel Jones with batons and then left him in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant, only to be pronounced dead later at the hospital.
"The criminal justice system in this country always finds a rationale for letting off cops who kill black and brown people."
The "Benton Harbor, Michigan Intifada of 2003" lasted two nights after the murder of an unarmed black motorcyclist by white police officers. Adding insult to injury, the residents of majority-black Benton Harbor are reeling under an attempted takeover of the last "undeveloped" beachfront property on Lake Michigan. The residents are under attack by the Whirlpool Corporation, that wants to develop "Benton Shores" and move all of the residents completely out of the town. The purported goal of the development is to turn Benton Harbor into one of the "hottest vacation destinations in the country," to include a members-only indoor water park, and a Jack Nicklaus golf course. According to Reverend Edward Pinkney, the valiant leader who is trying to save Benton Harbor for the people, Harbor Shores will result in a complete takeover of Benton Harbor, a city that is 96% Black. Reverend Pinkney has been in jail since December 14, 2007 on trumped-up charges including violation of probation, for writing an article calling the chief judge racist. Mrs. Pinkney called the Office of Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee to ask for justice for the residents of Benton Harbor and for her husband. Shockingly, Chairman Conyers refused Mrs. Pinkney's plea to get involved in this heroic struggle of a 96% Black community in his own state. When I visited Benton Harbor, it was clear to me that Reverend Pinkney has the full support of the area's residents, black and white, as they struggle to maintain the character of their community. Reverend Pinkney is recognized by the people as true hero and occupies a jail cell because of it.
Finally, however, someone broke the silence and admitted it. Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper wrote in his book, "Breaking Rank," that white police officers are afraid of Black men. He develops this theory in a chapter of the book entitled, "Why White Cops Kill Black Men." Finally: a hint of truth coming from the other side. In a June 16, 2005 interview with the Looking Glass News, Stamper says that he personally believes "that white cops are scared of black men. The bigger or darker the man, the more frightened the white cop. I can't shake that; it's a belief I will take to the grave."
So while the corporate press would have us believe that reporting on what a former Vice Presidential nominee says about a Presidential candidate is a discussion of race, the prospects are that black and brown men and women will continue to be murdered by police officers who, fundamentally, seem scared of black people. That fear apparently extends to the larger community because juries construct ways to let murderous police officers escape just punishment.
Roger Wareham, and the December 12th Movement International Secretariat raise, inside the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, the details of the type of police abuse in which a 92-year old grandmother, Kathryn Johnston, is murdered by police in Atlanta, Georgia and her family still has not seen justice or been made whole. Or where a young black male, also in Atlanta, can be sitting in his mother's car and is murdered because the police presume that the car is stolen.
The December 12th Movement has asked for United Nations Rapporteurs to come to the U.S. on fact-finding missions so that the U.S. can finally be listed as a major human rights abuser and a Rapporteur assigned to this country. Already, the Special Rapporteur on Racism and Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance is coming to the U.S. from May 18 - June 6 and will be in New York City on May 21st and 22nd. The December 12th Movement is scheduled to have a hearing for him at the Schomberg Center where the issue of police killings will be raised. The Rapporteur is also scheduled to visit DC, Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, and San Juan.
"The prospects are that black and brown men and women will continue to be murdered by police officers who, fundamentally, seem scared of black people."
The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Summary and Arbitrary Executions, Mr. Phillip Alston, is conducting a Mission to the U.S. in June. The Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is also interested in reports of police abuse. If a consistent and systemic pattern of abuse exists (which it clearly does in the United States), the United Nations General Assembly can pass a resolution which helps creates international public opinion and perhaps the political will to stop it.
Certainly, doing the same thing - a cycle of protest without punishment - will net the same results. Something different must be done. That's why I authored legislation to deny federal funds and the use of federal equipment to any law enforcement unit found to have violated the civil rights of the people it is organized to protect and serve. Imagine if we had the laws on the books and the apparatus of enforcement. Imagine if juries wouldn't grant impunity to killer cops.
Some of you have written to me suggesting that we do something different: perhaps a full-scale boycott. Perhaps a full-scale, all-out political response - something many in this generation have never done before.
Bobby Kennedy always said, "Some men dream of things that are and say why. I dream of things that never were and say why not."
It is not impossible for us to have justice. We don't have to lose any more people to police abuse, brutality, or murder. But, in order to change things, we're going to have to do some things we've never done before in order to have some things we've never had before.
Are you willing to entertain that idea? Today? Right now? If we demand more of our elected representatives, I'm convinced we will get it. And it should be clear exactly what is needed if we don't get what we demand.
Cynthia McKinney is a former Democratic congresswoman from Georgia and current candidate for the presidential slot on the Green Party ticket. She is also an organizer for the Reconcstruction Party. To read more of her writings, please visit www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com.
Cynthia McKinney: Bell Verdict Shows Dred Scott Reality
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
The Sean Bell verdict reminds former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of the 1857 Dred Scott Decision, which declared that Blacks have no rights that a white man is bound to respect. In this case, three New York City cops failed to respect Bell's right to life; he died in a fusillade of 50 shots that also wounded two of his friends. All were unarmed. "The prospects are that black and brown men and women will continue to be murdered by police officers who, fundamentally, seem scared of black people." McKinney fought for legislation that would "deny federal funds and the use of federal equipment to any law enforcement unit found to have violated the civil rights of the people."
"[T]he legislation and histories of the time, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument. . . . [A]ltogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
And with that, the United States Supreme Court ensured that the 20th Century would be defined, as W.E.B. DuBois wrote, by the color line. So, while we might be outraged at the Sean Bell decision itself, it comes directly from the flawed jurisprudence that gave us the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Bakke in 1978, Croson in 1989, Adarand in 1995, Gratz in 2003, and all of the Ward Connerly-inspired attacks on the very same affirmative action hard won by students facing water hoses and dogs; men and women facing jail, lynch mobs, and death.
Interestingly, according to Attorney Roger Wareham of the December 12th Movement's International Secretariat, the criminal justice system in this country "always finds a rationale for letting off cops who kill black and brown people." Indeed, police officers seem to know that they can kill certain people with impunity.
Just in New York City alone, Wareham rattles off the murders that have defined police-"communities of color" relations over two generations:
Clifford Glover, 1972
Louis Baez, 1978 shot (22 times)
Randolph Evans, 1979
Eleanor Bumpers, 1985 (a grandmother)
Amadou Diallo, 1999
Patrick Dorismond, 2003
Sean Bell, 2006
Sadly, New York City isn't the only city, with this plague. In 2001, the Dayton Daily News reported that Cincinnati topped the list of police killings of Blacks, having had 22 people shot, 13 fatally. All black men. Three unarmed. Plus two additional deaths due to police use of chemical irritants.
The 2001 "Cincinnati Intifada" lasted for three nights after a white police officer murdered an unarmed black teenager. Timothy Thomas was the fifteenth black male killed by Cincinnati police over a six-year period. I traveled with Ron Daniels and others to Cincinnati to support the call by black residents, including Reverend Damon Lynch III and 36 other ministers, for a boycott of that city. Still reeling from the effects of the boycott, Cincinnati made headlines again in 2003 when the world watched as one black and five white police officers repeatedly beat Nathaniel Jones with batons and then left him in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant, only to be pronounced dead later at the hospital.
"The criminal justice system in this country always finds a rationale for letting off cops who kill black and brown people."
The "Benton Harbor, Michigan Intifada of 2003" lasted two nights after the murder of an unarmed black motorcyclist by white police officers. Adding insult to injury, the residents of majority-black Benton Harbor are reeling under an attempted takeover of the last "undeveloped" beachfront property on Lake Michigan. The residents are under attack by the Whirlpool Corporation, that wants to develop "Benton Shores" and move all of the residents completely out of the town. The purported goal of the development is to turn Benton Harbor into one of the "hottest vacation destinations in the country," to include a members-only indoor water park, and a Jack Nicklaus golf course. According to Reverend Edward Pinkney, the valiant leader who is trying to save Benton Harbor for the people, Harbor Shores will result in a complete takeover of Benton Harbor, a city that is 96% Black. Reverend Pinkney has been in jail since December 14, 2007 on trumped-up charges including violation of probation, for writing an article calling the chief judge racist. Mrs. Pinkney called the Office of Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee to ask for justice for the residents of Benton Harbor and for her husband. Shockingly, Chairman Conyers refused Mrs. Pinkney's plea to get involved in this heroic struggle of a 96% Black community in his own state. When I visited Benton Harbor, it was clear to me that Reverend Pinkney has the full support of the area's residents, black and white, as they struggle to maintain the character of their community. Reverend Pinkney is recognized by the people as true hero and occupies a jail cell because of it.
Finally, however, someone broke the silence and admitted it. Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper wrote in his book, "Breaking Rank," that white police officers are afraid of Black men. He develops this theory in a chapter of the book entitled, "Why White Cops Kill Black Men." Finally: a hint of truth coming from the other side. In a June 16, 2005 interview with the Looking Glass News, Stamper says that he personally believes "that white cops are scared of black men. The bigger or darker the man, the more frightened the white cop. I can't shake that; it's a belief I will take to the grave."
So while the corporate press would have us believe that reporting on what a former Vice Presidential nominee says about a Presidential candidate is a discussion of race, the prospects are that black and brown men and women will continue to be murdered by police officers who, fundamentally, seem scared of black people. That fear apparently extends to the larger community because juries construct ways to let murderous police officers escape just punishment.
Roger Wareham, and the December 12th Movement International Secretariat raise, inside the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, the details of the type of police abuse in which a 92-year old grandmother, Kathryn Johnston, is murdered by police in Atlanta, Georgia and her family still has not seen justice or been made whole. Or where a young black male, also in Atlanta, can be sitting in his mother's car and is murdered because the police presume that the car is stolen.
The December 12th Movement has asked for United Nations Rapporteurs to come to the U.S. on fact-finding missions so that the U.S. can finally be listed as a major human rights abuser and a Rapporteur assigned to this country. Already, the Special Rapporteur on Racism and Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance is coming to the U.S. from May 18 - June 6 and will be in New York City on May 21st and 22nd. The December 12th Movement is scheduled to have a hearing for him at the Schomberg Center where the issue of police killings will be raised. The Rapporteur is also scheduled to visit DC, Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, and San Juan.
"The prospects are that black and brown men and women will continue to be murdered by police officers who, fundamentally, seem scared of black people."
The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Summary and Arbitrary Executions, Mr. Phillip Alston, is conducting a Mission to the U.S. in June. The Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is also interested in reports of police abuse. If a consistent and systemic pattern of abuse exists (which it clearly does in the United States), the United Nations General Assembly can pass a resolution which helps creates international public opinion and perhaps the political will to stop it.
Certainly, doing the same thing - a cycle of protest without punishment - will net the same results. Something different must be done. That's why I authored legislation to deny federal funds and the use of federal equipment to any law enforcement unit found to have violated the civil rights of the people it is organized to protect and serve. Imagine if we had the laws on the books and the apparatus of enforcement. Imagine if juries wouldn't grant impunity to killer cops.
Some of you have written to me suggesting that we do something different: perhaps a full-scale boycott. Perhaps a full-scale, all-out political response - something many in this generation have never done before.
Bobby Kennedy always said, "Some men dream of things that are and say why. I dream of things that never were and say why not."
It is not impossible for us to have justice. We don't have to lose any more people to police abuse, brutality, or murder. But, in order to change things, we're going to have to do some things we've never done before in order to have some things we've never had before.
Are you willing to entertain that idea? Today? Right now? If we demand more of our elected representatives, I'm convinced we will get it. And it should be clear exactly what is needed if we don't get what we demand.
Cynthia McKinney is a former Democratic congresswoman from Georgia and current candidate for the presidential slot on the Green Party ticket. She is also an organizer for the Reconcstruction Party. To read more of her writings, please visit www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
