Motley Moose – Archive

Basic Facts:  When junior colleges grow into 4-year colleges, and 4-year colleges grow into universities, there is a chance to consider name and perhaps mascot changes.  

More Basic Facts:  Utah is not monolithic.  The Legislature has a Republican supermajority.  Utah is 62.2% LDS.  .  

One More Basic Fact:  I, and most people I know, cannot move from where we live right now.  There are economic, social/family and legal constraints.  Please do not bring this up.  

I am interested in solutions, education, and exploring the issue.  I am not open to Utah nor LDS bashing.  

Inmate from the documentary “The House I Live In”

The War on Drugs, a label we inherited from Richard Nixon, is a lie. It is simply a war on people, and has had the most dire effect on people of color, whether inside the borders of the U.S, or as a part of destabilizing military interventions in other countries.

If you have not yet watched the documentary film The House I Live In, it is a must see. It was the winner of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-Documentary.  

I have asked many many people if they have heard of Irena Sendler.  I have not gotten any “yes” answers.  That’s a shame.  People should know about her.

Irena Sendler died on May 23, 2008.  She was 98.  During the Holocaust, in Poland, she saved Jews.  A lot of Jews.  Probably more than the better known Oscar Schindler.  We need a Thomas Kenneally or a Steven Spielberg to tell her story, too.

originally in orange

More below the fold

40 years to Justice: the Wilmington 10

It’s hard to believe that 40 years have passed since the conviction of the Wilmington 10, in 1972 for trumped up charges relating to a firebombing in the city of Wilmington in 1971. At the time I was editing the newspaper for the Black Panther Party Revolutionary People’s Communication Network, and we not only covered the trial and convictions, but corresponded with Ben Chavis, the alleged leader of the “conspiracy” while he was in jail.

Let me share with you a brief moment. I don’t know how many Mooq have followed the story of Stephen Lawrence, the 19 year old student who was randomly and viciously murdered by a  gang 19 years ago, in a famously racist part of South London, waiting at a bus stop, not far from where I used to live, and also close to the fascist  BNP headquarters in Eltham.

For many people, his murder, and the failure to prosecute his killers, was a seminal moment in race relations in the UK – and an acceptance of the double standard Black Britons face when it comes to receiving justice.

But above all, his parents campaigned for justice for their murdered son.

Well, this week, after three abortive trials and the Macpherson Report that concluded that Stephen’s killers were never brought to justice in the UK because of ‘institutional racism’ in the Metropolitan Police, a cold case investigation found conclusive evidence that linked two of the gang to the murder, and they were sentenced to the maximum sentence (still under review) for juveniles – as they were at the time.

But this is not why I am writing this diary. Our poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, who is not only the first woman poet officially appointed by the Queen to talk to the nation, and the first Scot, but also the first openly gay poet in that role, has just written this beautiful and moving tribute. I’ve always wondered how on earth any poet worth their salt could be paid to celebrate official birthdays and jubilees. But Carol Ann Duffy has restored in this brief lyric, the whole idea of the engaged public poet.

I’ve leaving a respectful place below the squiggle for you to enjoy. And grieve. And weep.  

When Barack Obama was elected President of the United States in 2008, it opened up a new dialogue on race in this country. Suddenly, something had happened  that many thought was impossible. An African-American had been elected to the highest office in the country. Many Americans felt a sense of pride in their country on the day Obama took the oath of office. There was even talk of a new post-racial America. Now, only two and a half years later, those feelings seem foolish and utopian. Americans are now wondering if, instead of a step forward, the election was actually a step backwards.

There is no doubt that President Obama has faced a racial backlash. He has even had to deal with that backlash from within his own party, as clearly shown during the DNC Rules Committee meeting in May, 2008. That backlash did not come as a surprise for those who had paid attention to racial tensions in this country, although the ferocity of that backlash has shocked just about everyone.

The 2008 Democratic Party campaign was historic in that the two front-runners were a woman and an African-American male. Both candidacies inspired passionate supporters. A rift developed between the two camps. That rift was never fully healed and has led to strident opposition to the winner that is rarely seen within a victorious party. That opposition continues to play out in the online world of political blogging. Subtle and not so subtle racism and sexism finds its way into online discussions. When added to the overt racism from the right, this in-party opposition creates a toxic environment for any discussion about race in America.

Or “Wherein Sricki Fesses to a Shameful Level of Ignorance.”

Whatever title works for you. I’m good with either.

We’ve been talking a lot about race on the blogs lately. I freely admitted in a comment the other night that I totally don’t “get it” when it comes to understanding racism and oppression. But there’s so much I don’t get, and the more I learn, the more clueless and out of touch I feel. Am I about to embarrass myself trying to talk about race? Maybe, but I can’t say that my personal sense of humiliation and shame about all this makes it any less true or noteworthy.

(cross-posted to Daily Kos under Barriers and Bridges)

I’ve been thinking about how white privilege has affected my life. I look at all the breaks I caught in my life as cute smart white smileycreek and wonder…what if I had been born cute smart black smileycreek?  How would it all have turned out?

I can’t really know, of course, but please try to understand as I work my way through the possibilities.

This is part of a series of suggested essays from Dkos exploring the issues set out in Denise Oliver Velez’s diary this Sunday Race and Racism: Barriers and Bridges.

One of the joys of returning after a week’s absence is to see that the issue of racism on this site and further afield has come into sharper focus. As I explained in my boycott diary, race is not everything, but anti-racism has been key to my political awakening and adult life.

But enough of that. In this diary I’m writing as a straight middle aged white man, and I want to explore what it’s like – as a straight middle aged white man – to be called a racist.

This is something the majority of commenters on Kos must have feared, experienced and witnessed – and a bit of self analysis on our reaction to that is probably overdue.

For those new to the Moose you might not know but, in the three years it’s been on four legs, we’ve developed a set of self-moderating guidelines that mean we generally forebear talking at length about other progressive blogs, and I don’t think there has been one diary on them.

There’s are several good reasons for this: it’s generally bad to talk behind other people’s backs, and also dangerous, as slagging off someone here can come back and bite you at other places. Generally meta discussions are also tediously dull to the uninitiated, the blog equivalent of psephology. At worst, meta is like gerrymandering, changing the rules or the boundaries in order to game a result. At best, it is like talking about electoral mechanisms and voting machines. Dull, dull, dull and usually irrelevant.

I say ‘usually’ because of course gerrymandering districts is a huge slow problem in US politics, leading to the polarisation we see now, and electoral voting mechanisms were rather important in Florida in 2000.

In terms of the left blogosphere, I think the story below is important, and can’t really be ignored. But I’m open to being convinced otherwise, and will delete this diary if it causes too much offence. I’ve stripped out the links in my diary too, for obvious reasons if you read the piece, though I have left one in which precipitated this boycott. If you agree with the boycott, please try not to log in when you read the link.

I don’t know how this will resolve itself. The worst thing that can happen (for you guys) is that I’ll devote all my blogging energies to the Moose from now on. Whatever happens, last night, as dozens of diaries were published with the ‘boycott’ tag and hundreds of previously silent commenters came forward to voice support, was a tremendous moment for me of the power of solidarity. You don’t feel scared that you’ll be punished for speaking out with so many others there to support you. You also don’t care if you will be banished, because all the other great people seem to have down tools too.

So have at it. Please feel free to ignore this diary and its contents. I won’t make a comment if no-one else does. I definitely won’t FP this either.

UPDATE TODAY: Bkos diary is up for 15 minutes before deletion. It consists of this

And then in the comments this statement

As the Black Kos managing editor, I have decided to support this boycott.  I felt it was important and necessary to state why we are doing so, in my own words. During the past several months the atmosphere at Daily Kos has become poisoned to the point where there is no longer any meaningful discourse occurring.  What was needed was for cooler heads to prevail, and for a more civil tone to be established. Instead, the poisonous atmosphere was allowed to fester and grow until I saw a number of tough sanctions handed out. In my opinion the distribution of these sanctions were neither fair nor even handed. It had a disproportionate effect on members of this community.  This unfair distribution is what lead to the calls for the boycott that we support. Justice requires fairness and equity. My criticism of Markos’ decision is based on his tardiness in stepping up and dealing with this situation, until he was forced to use a crude instrument, rather than any personal animosity, ill will, or accusations against him. Waiting as long as he did allowed the rhetoric to get overheated.  But when finally responding in anger, Markos labeled many of these people with personal epithets that are close to slander. Daily Kos is his blog in more ways than one.

Black Kos has always strived to be an area for civil discourse on issues that not only directly affect race, but also on its intersections. The intersections of race and gender, of race and sexuality, and yes- race and politics.  We have also strived to be Black Kos and not Obama Kos. For example, during the long drawn out Democratic primary we didn’t endorse then Senator Obama until nearly the end, and welcomed Hillary supporters, but we also recognized the historic nature of his run. But history and the Democratic Party also carries a number of heavy ugly stains. Race has divided this party and it’s allies. Race has in the past divided labor movements. Race has divided elections. Race has divided each feminist wave. And yes folks race has divided this blog.

We hope that in our absence people will take time to do some self examination and ask “why are we all here?” I’m here to build a movement. But any movement large enough to be capable of making changes in a country as large and diverse as ours requires being in a coalition that makes you uncomfortable. But your willingness to be able to learn to navigate in a group large enough to make you uncomfortable, is directly related to your commitment to that coalition.

State your case and opinions with passion, express your frustrations with vigor, but always do so with respect.  The internet is a medium for communication, but the greatest fallacy in any communication is that communication has in fact occurred. We hope that our in our absence folks ponder that fact.

David aka dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor