Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

The Sellouts Strike Back

Well I know it's been a while since I posted but a couple of things I've stumbled across has made me have to comment. Just in time for Black History Month, Black Conservatives have come out swinging to gain more mindshare among African-Americans. the LA Times has an article entitled "recasting Republicans as The Party of Civil Rights"

quote:

Condoleezza Rice took the oath Friday as the first black woman to be secretary of State, then immediately reached back into history to invoke the legacy of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

Her words were the latest example of President Bush and his top aides citing the Republican Party's often-forgotten 19th century antislavery roots — a strategy that GOP leaders believe will help them make inroads among black voters in the 21st century.

And if it reminds voters that the Democrats once embraced slavery, that's not such a bad byproduct, strategists say.

Bush, who keeps a bust of Lincoln prominently displayed in the Oval Office, is making Civil War references a staple of his speeches promoting democracy overseas and policy changes at home. And a glossy, GOP-produced "2005 Republican Freedom Calendar," spotlighting key moments in the party's civil rights history, has been distributed to party officials nationwide.

"We started our party with the express intent of protecting the American people from the Democrats' pro-slavery policies that expressly made people inferior to the state," Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) wrote in a letter printed on the calendar.

The letter continued: "Today, the animating spirit of the Republican Party is exactly the same as it was then: free people, free minds, free markets, free expression, and unlimited individual opportunity."

The push also was evident during last year's presidential campaign in the crucial state of Florida.

A Palm Beach Republican group paid for a newspaper ad that listed a raft of black Republican officeholders during the 19th century and said, "Throughout the history of America, the Republican Party has been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights."

ahhhhh yes... The Party of Lincoln. I never bought that whole Abraham Lincoln as savior mentality that took hold on so many black minds, but I never imagined that it such a thing would find itself at the cutting edge of Republican propaganda. Poor thought on my part. The sad thing about this propaganda is that much of it is technically true. Void of any real analysis, such propaganda will play well to younger blacks who, by and large are not well informed on Black History on either side of the Atlantic, and woefully mis-informed about much of US history. For example, while Radical Republicans may well have been at the forefront of Civil Rights at the end of the Civil War, it should be noted that when the Democratic Party took on Civil Rights in the 50's and 60's the result was all the "racists' in the Democratic Party bolted for the Republican party. See Conservatism for them meant "keeping niggers in their place." In fact much of the rise of Republicanism, and Conservatism is one great big white backlash against Civil Rights Legislation, Affirmative Action and many social programs of the 'Great Society."

However; as we all know, Democrats, having locked the Black vote eventually took Blacks for granted. Thus instead of Jimmy Carter or Clinton giving us the first black Secretary of State we get Republicans doing so (even if we don't care for the choice).

What is most troubling, and indeed is something I warned about last year, is the cooption of ideologies and personalities that have traditionaly been the bedrock of "Black Nationalists" such as Frederick Douglass. We should expect to see more co-option in the future

The next article that got my attention was entitled GOP Sees a Future in Black Churches

quote:

The effort will be visible today at the Crenshaw Christian Center, one of Los Angeles' biggest black churches, headed by televangelist Frederick K.C. Price. More than 100 African American ministers are to gather in the first of several regional summits to build support for banning same-sex marriage — a signature issue that drew socially conservative blacks to the Republican column last year.

Before the meeting, one prominent minister plans to unveil a "Black Contract With America on Moral Values," a call for Bible-based action by government and churches to promote conservative priorities. It is patterned loosely on the "Contract With America" that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich used 10 years ago to inaugurate an era of GOP dominance in Congress.

A separate group with ties to Gingrich will announce a similar "Mayflower Compact for Black America" later this month in Washington, which includes plans to organize in key states ahead of the 2006 and 2008 elections. And at the end of the month, the Heritage Foundation will cosponsor a gathering of black conservatives in Washington designed to counter dominance of the "America-hating black liberal leadership" and to focus African American voters on moral issues.

I want to focus on the "Bible based action by government to promotye conservative priorities." This is a serious problem and I'm appalled that blacks are actually participating in this. But I am not surprised. I have long said that black Christians are some of the most bigoted people in America. There is no worse combination than Christianity and Self Hate. Apparently this group has taken no consideration for the vast numbers of Blacks who are non-Christian. Well I'm wrong, they have considered them and their position is that we do not matter, we should be converted or see damnation. Period. I won't blame the leadership entirely though. This kind of behavior could not happen without the cooperation and financing by members of their congregations. They could not do what they do without the silent approval of those who may disagree but say nothing.

Speaking of silent approval, the NY Times ran an article today about how teachers are dealing with pressure to not teach the Theory of Evolution. The article entitled: Evolution Takes a Back Seat in U.S. Classes

Quote:
In districts around the country, even when evolution is in the curriculum it may not be in the classroom, according to researchers who follow the issue.

Teaching guides and textbooks may meet the approval of biologists, but superintendents or principals discourage teachers from discussing it. Or teachers themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests from fundamentalists in their communities.

"The most common remark I've heard from teachers was that the chapter on evolution was assigned as reading but that virtually no discussion in class was taken," said Dr. John R. Christy, a climatologist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, an evangelical Christian and a member of Alabama's curriculum review board who advocates the teaching of evolution. Teachers are afraid to raise the issue, he said in an e-mail message, and they are afraid to discuss the issue in public.

Dr. Frandsen, former chairman of the committee on science and public policy of the Alabama Academy of Science, said in an interview that this fear made it impossible to say precisely how many teachers avoid the topic.

"You're not going to hear about it," he said. "And for political reasons nobody will do a survey among randomly selected public school children and parents to ask just what is being taught in science classes."

But he said he believed the practice of avoiding the topic was widespread, particularly in districts where many people adhere to fundamentalist faiths.

This is a serious problem. Why are people who are in the right simply balling up and allowing themselves to be rolled over? I'll tell you why: So called "liberals" have refused to fund their platforms. Fundamenatalists and Cobservatives have set up a vast network of institutions and foundations to fund thier agendas. Liberals are the epitome of "divided we fall." Each teacher, each professor, each student simply "does what he can" and they all get beat. Why haven't these teachers, these educators, put their money where their mouths are and fund thier own defense? Perhaps it's because some believe it's just that one subject. It's not:

quote:
He said the teaching of evolution was portrayed not as scientific instruction but as "an assault of the secular elite on the values of God-fearing people." As a result, he said, politicians don't want to touch it. "Everybody discovers the wisdom of federalism here very quickly," he said. "Leave it at the state or the local level."

But several experts say scientists are feeling increasing pressure to make their case, in part, Dr. Miller said, because scriptural literalists are moving beyond evolution to challenge the teaching of geology and physics on issues like the age of the earth and the origin of the universe.

"They have now decided the Big Bang has to be wrong," he said. "There are now a lot of people who are insisting that that be called only a theory without evidence and so on, and now the physicists are getting mad about this."

Expansion, the very heart of Christianity. It does not stop. By it's nature, by it's design it is meant to expand and consume(just like Capitalism). These people will not go away and they will not compromise unless forced to by an equally or greater organized movement. Better get a move on.

Links:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-slavery29jan29,1,4432752,print.story?ctrack=1&cset=true


http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-pastors1feb01,1,4630381.story?ctrack=2&cset=true

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/01/science/01evo.html?oref=login