2011 December « brotherpeacemaker

The Leave It To Perry Show

Rick Perry proudly defended Texas’ record with the death penalty. When asked if he ever had trouble sleeping knowing for a fact that the state of Texas puts to death more people than any other state if he ever wondered that anyone innocent was ever the victim of Texas state sanctioned death, to a roaring applause Mr. Perry said never. He said something to the effect that if people came to Texas and broke the laws then they should be prepared to pay the consequences. What’s good for the goose is more than applicable to acowboy boot wearing gander.

It was revealed this past weekend that Rick Perry, along with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and a few other conservative contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, failed to qualify for the state of Virginia’s primary ballot to be held in early March. The contenders had until Friday to submit the required signatures necessary to qualify. Mr. Perry’s solution to this problem is to sue the state of Virginia in federal court under the belief that his civil rights are being violated because he is being excluded from competing. In the words of Herman Cain, if you failed to submit the necessary paperwork to qualify for the Virginia state primary election then blame yourself.

It’s rather interesting the fact that a lot of people had their civil rights violated in the Texas death chambers. And instead of acknowledging the fact that mistakes happen, Mr. Perry is happy to keep the Texas murder machine running at peak efficiency. Texas has laws and when those laws are broken people need to pay. It is as plain and simple as the rock that sits at the side of the entrance to Mr. Perry’s old hunting grounds known by his family as Camp Niggerhead. And if the Texas Governor is ready to give a big ol’ Texas “yee-haw” to upholding Texas law, you’d think he’d understand people’s penchant in Virginia to uphold their own laws. So if Mr. Perry is thinking he can go to Virginia and do whatever he wants and give that state a big Texas middle finger, that just don’t seem right. In fact, I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that it sounds downright hypocritical.

People waiting for their turn in the Texas murder machine filed appeals with Governor Perry for leniency and Mr. Perry wouldn’t give a rat’s ass to help any of those people. Laws are laws and people need to follow them is his conservative mantra. But now Mr. Perry finds himself the victim of a Virginia state law that continues to give credence to the observation that Mr. Perry is unfit to be the next President of the United States and makes us scratch our heads and wonder how in the world was he able to convince the people of Texas to send him to the capital city not just once but five times.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot and Mr. Perry needs an intervention to restore his opportunity to further humiliate himself on the political stage, he wants to file a lawsuit in federal court to force Virginia to put him on the ballot despite the fact that he doesn’t deserve to be there and has not done what was necessary to get there. Another example of a conservative presidential candidate failing to live up to the very standards that they say are at the very root of what it means to be successful. Where is Mr. Perry’s belief in self reliance and his devotion to hard work, individual preparation, personal bootstrap pulling, and adherence to rules and the laws of the land?

Like many high profile conservatives, Mr. Perry has said that he wants the federal government out of our lives. As President he would eliminate so many federal agencies he can’t even name them all and various social programs and make the federal government as inconsequential as possible. But now he wants to use that same federal government to force Virginia to ignore its own laws because he failed to take the steps necessary to become President in the state of Virginia.

For just a moment, let’s pretend that we haven’t seen all the mistakes Mr. Perry made during his brief bid for the oval office. Let’s pretend we’ve seen nothing of his debate performances or his speeches. Let’s forget about the fact that he’s more than comfortable taking his family and friends to his Camp Niggerhead. Let’s forget all about his talk of Texas seceding from our Union. We can forget all of that. But how can we forget the fact come March, Mr. Perry won’t be on the primary ballot in Virginia when those people go to vote? If Mr. Perry is so irresponsible that he can’t be bothered to file the required paperwork to be President, what makes us think he’s ready to be President?

And one other thing, why would the Perry organization seek help from that overbearing, too big to help anyone, federal government that needs to stay out of all of our lives? This just goes to support my contention that even some of the most ardent of conservatives wants federal intervention when they need help. In other words, a lot of these people are simply hypocrites who refuse to acknowledge the fact that our federal government has a place in our lives. We might not need it today for ourselves, but it’s bound to be helping someone else. And who knows? We might just need it for something unexpected that might happen tomorrow. We would be wise to make sure we don’t do anything to prevent it from being there when and if we need it.

And just like most conservatives, I believe that people who are irresponsible and simply refuse to help themselves should not be given a handout. If the Perry people didn’t have the organization and structure to qualify for a primary ballot according to a state’s law then that’s between them and that state. Mr. Perry would use his Texas drawl to scream “tarnation” if somebody from Virginia went down to Texas and threw a monkey wrench into that world class killings machine that is so efficient at killing citizens legally, Mr. Perry should think twice about his supposed conservative values before he goes to Virginia and tries to throw their laws out the proverbial window.

Thursday, December 29, 2011 Posted by brotherpeacemaker | Life, Thoughts | 1 Comment

What Goes Around Comes Around

Newt Gingrich has some nerve! Not too long ago, this is the man that threw baseless accusations of young people in the poor communities amongst us suffer from having role models wish the most deplorable work, moral, and ethical standards. Mr. Gingrich said that the public needed to respond to this “neighborhood wide lack of character” crisis by firing the majority of the janitors that work in schools and replace them with the poor students. That way, the students can learn what it means to go to work every day, follow the rules, and earn something that isn’t part of some criminal activity. Mr. Gingrich used this rhetoric to double-down on his suggestion that child labor laws should be revoked because they’re outdated and are keeping the country from being as economically competitive in the global market.

This man claimed to be so successful that he didn’t have to lobby for organizations that paid him seven figures to be a historian because he made sixty grand a lecture and business for him was booming. As far as he was concerned, his work ethics were just fine. He was the epitome of achievement and as America’s President he would serve the country with a discipline and maturity that nobody knew he was capable of.

But just this past weekend it was reported that Mr. Gingrich’s campaign, along with Texas Governor Rick Perry’s team, failed to qualify for the primary ballot to be held in Virginia, his adopted home state. Mr. Gingrich’s organization failed to produce the required number of signatures necessary to qualify by the December 23rd deadline. In response to this news, Mr. Gingrich’s organization made the suggestion that it was prepared to launch a write-in campaign. One has to wonder why anybody would want a man who couldn’t even organize his campaign enough to get on a voting ballot, much less run a country. What could be the marketing message? We know we screwed on a crucial task for Newt to become President by forgetting to do our homework so that Newt can be on the ballot so he can be elected but vote for Newt anyway because he’s the most qualified to do the work necessary to turn the country around.

Nevertheless, in Virginia write-in ballots aren’t legal in a primary. So in essence, Mr. Gingrich really screwed himself. Now, Mr. Gingrich says that it’s time to change the Virginia law so that he can be elected. In order to make up for the fact that he didn’t have a solid work ethic, because he didn’t show up when it was necessary and do the work that was required to get what he wants, Mr. Gingrich’s real work ethic manifests itself. It’s not the hard work that comes from doing a good job every day that has gotten Mr. Gingrich where he is today. It’s his ability to change the rules in his favor.

Mr. Gingrich has the nerve to say that poor people don’t know what it means to go to work as necessary and yet he can’t be bothered to turn in the paper work to become President in his home state. If he doesn’t want to follow the rules as they’re written in Virginia, what makes us think he will follow the rules as the commander-in-chief? At this point, any one of those janitors that gets up and goes to work each and every day to earn a living to support his or her self and the family looks like a much more responsible bet. Even one of the students from one of those poor neighborhoods void of people who go to work every day looks like a more responsible choice.

Rhetoric pointing a damning finger at entire neighborhoods, condemning entire swaths of poor people as unfit to be even considered a welcome part of our employed collective, is pretty easy to slap around. But one would think once such slander was made, the slanderer would then work to assure his or her personal work ethic would be kept well above reproach and out of public scrutiny.

Instead, we’re given another first class example of hypocrisy laced with blatant prejudice and racism to boot. Without anything to support the supposition, Mr. Gingrich is ready to label an entire group of people as nothing important and nothing that contributes anything to our national collective because they don’t have the capacity to earn their keep and follow the rules of success like the rest of us. But then he doesn’t think rules for being on a primary ballot in Virginia, the state he calls home, should apply to him because he believes he has the political muscle to have the rules thrown the rules out.

If Mr. Gingrich thought the rules were unfair he should’ve said something about them a long time ago. The only reason he’s making a case about it now is because he didn’t have enough personal responsibility, or political responsibility, to get the signatures required. That’s a pretty important detail to let slide. That’s like somebody trying to get a job but that person don’t have the sense to apply before a deadline. Nobody would say that the problem was the fact that they had a deadline. The problem was that I didn’t do what I needed to do to get my paperwork in by the deadline. The rules shouldn’t be changed just because Mr. Gingrich is a slacker.

As it has been demonstrated so many times before, Mr. Gingrich doesn’t have the discipline or the sense of responsibility to be President of the United States. Hopefully, a lot more people will take note of this little hiccup of his in some of the other states where he did remember to do his homework and get the necessary documentation in before any deadline. Mr. Gingrich doesn’t have whatever it takes for him to become President. Coincidentally, he probably doesn’t have the discipline to be a janitor either.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011 Posted by brotherpeacemaker | Life, Thoughts | Leave a Comment

Black People Will Only Make The Water Cloudy

This photo of a sign indicating a white only swimming pool wasn’t taken back in the day when the United States wore its racial discrimination proudly on its sleeve. According to the Time Magazine article, this photo was taken this past June in Ohio by the parents of a black teenage girl. The parents were staying at a duplex apartment with a pool when their daughter came for a visit and took a swim. Shortly thereafter, the landlord posted the sign. And shortly after that, the parents filed a racial discrimination complaint with the state’s civil rights commission.

The landlord, Jamie Hein, claimed that she only posted the sign to prevent the chemical products in the girl’s hair from making the water in the pool cloudy. But leave it to those dastardly bureaucrats at the commission to reject the poor landlord’s excuse and see the whole affair as something racially nefarious. According to the commission, the sign restricts the social interaction between Caucasian Americans and African Americans and reinforces actions of racial discrimination and the oppression of non whites. Of course Ms. Hein objects. When she filed for an appeal, Ms. Hein claimed that the sign was just an antique and was not meant to convey anything else. How in the world could anyone think that Ms. Hein was a racist? Who can blame her for thinking that all it took was a single swim from a black girl to turn chlorinated water unfit for white people’s usage?

According to a lot of people, many of which come here to visit my blog and point a damning finger at me as a relic of a less racially sensitive time, the racial bigotry and discrimination that was institutionalized across America from the first day of its inception were long ago ironed out as just a misunderstanding between people and now we are all living in a racially inclusive melting pot void of any racial prejudice. People like Ms. Hein are the rare exception and if we just ignore their racial intolerance we can move forward in our all race welcoming utopia.

However, the simple fact is that we are far from living in a country where racism is a thing of our past. We have politicians saying black people are just too brainwashed to think for themselves. Other politicians are saying that the urban poor have no work ethic unless it is for a criminal enterprise and child labor laws should be rewritten so that the children from these neighborhoods can be hired as janitors. It is in this environment that we find politicians who not only tolerate, but would actually pay their hard earned money to hunt and participate in activities at a place called Camp Niggerhead. And even Donald Chump will profess his good relationship with the blacks as he insinuates that the black President Barack Obama didn’t earn his way through life but received the benefit of a free pass because of the color of his skin. And even more politicians will say that Mr. Obama wants to develop a culture of entitlement and dependence for his people on a culture of big government because it worked out so well for him.

Some people hear the contempt and disdain some of our white political leaders express for the first African American President, they see the lack of respect and appreciation for all that went into the life experiences of the path that actually led to the first black man to become President of the United States with all of its history of racism, and they think to themselves if they don’t respect America’s first black President, why would I have respect for the average black joe next door, down the street, at the job, or the next black joe that crosses my path?

We hear politicians talk about people having the right to be racist and that property rights should trump the rights of people to be treated equally and talk about people should have the freedom to be bigots without any thing to fear from others. Nobody ever says that allowing a rapist to commit their crimes is an indication of how free and wonderful America is as a place to live. Crimes of racism and discrimination should be given the same importance.

These days, racism and bigotry is very much alive and well. Just keep it somewhat on the down low and you too can discriminate until the cows come home. But when put your fondness for racism out there and make it an irrefutable, undeniable fact, something so far beyond the grays of outright ignorance or beyond a poor, tasteless joke at black people’s expense, then you really do need to face the music and admit to your racial bigotry and prepare for the consequences. In the words of Herman Cain, if you are being prosecuted because you wanted to discriminate against people because of the color of their skin, blame yourself.

The sign was no antique and it wasn’t there to protect the pool water from becoming cloudy. It was a blatant sign of the times. It was bigotry. It was more than a sign. It was a symbolic representation of the backwards direction this country is taking with respect to race relations. People can pretend this is the exception. But this is becoming the norm for a lot of people. It is similar to the signs telling the President to go back to Kenya. It is indisputable proof that the black people are different and will not be accepted. If we don’t accept black people to be our President, why in the world would we think they can swim in our pools?

Monday, December 19, 2011 Posted by brotherpeacemaker | African Americans, Black Community, Black Culture, Black People, Life, Racism, Thoughts | 1 Comment

Perceptions Of Poorness

This morning I was reminded of how easy it is for people from all walks of life to give poor black young people advice on what exactly they need to do to succeed in the United States. According to some white billionaire somewhere, all black youths need to do is get a computer and work hard and apply for opportunities. According to the billionaire, success really isn’t that complicated at all. If black people would just do better they would do better. This morning, this was one of the topics of discussion on MSNBC’s Up With Chris Hayes.

Social conservative Jonathan McWhorter was on the show and he argued that the only problem with the statement was the fact that it came from a wealthy white fat cat. The same message was said by Bill Crosby and other black people who feel that the social condition that finds the black community at the bottom end of every measure of success in this country is the sole responsibility of people in the black community. These people point at the few exceptions of black people doing exceedingly well as proof that any black body can make it if they are talented and/or work hard to overcome any obstacles that someone might perceive as an inhibitor to black people’s success.

It should be noted that the statement that black people should practice individual responsibility is a very true statement. It is just as true as the statement that white people should practice individual responsibility or anyone else for that matter. The difference is that we seem to point to this statement as the primary solution to all the ills that have perpetually plagued the black community since black people were part of this collective.

Black people practice individual responsibility just as much as anyone else. Yes there are exceptions. There are black people whose personal work ethic is lacking. But the same is true for any broad slice of the population. There are white people who have a poor ethics. But somehow, the few white people who are the exception to the rule don’t define the white community the way the exceptions in the black community become the iconic definition of what it means to be black in America.

Just before the bombastic column advising black people to work hard, we have a conservative presidential candidate make the suggestion that poor people don’t have a work ethic and therefore child labor laws should be eradicated or at the very least modified so that children can become the janitors of their schools in order to learn what it means to work for a living without resorting to prostitution, dealing in drugs, and/or some other illicit activity. People who support the presidential candidate that made this outrageous contention applaud this man as a visionary with bold new ideas to lead the country back to prosperity. But there is nothing bold or new about entrenched concepts of prejudice that sustain concepts of discrimination.

Yes it is true that young black people should work hard to overcome their obstacles. But when there is evidence that the unemployment rate of black people with a college education is higher than white people with criminal records it should become clear that simply working harder isn’t going to overcome the inherent racism and systemic discrimination that has forever haunted this country and continues to permeate our politics, hiring practices, business practices, enforcement of our justice and legal systems, educational system, medical system, and so many other components and categories that constitute our general culture.

Despite what some people see before all of our very lives, some of us continue to believe that we live in a culture where discrimination is something that is long into our past and if black people would just do better everything would be better. The only reason worth mentioning as a cause for such a large segment of our population not doing well is because of their common propensity to not work hard enough because they are too ignorant of the rules of give and take and are too dependent on a welfare entitlement mentality and are just sitting around expecting the proverbial handout.

I would imagine that the language used today to describe the urban poor is quite similar to the language used to describe the enslaved people back in the day when institutionalized slavery was such an important factor in the development of the country’s economy. Those people don’t have a very good work ethic which is why they don’t have anything and you have to crack a whip to motivate them. Make these people suffer and you’ll get results.

The mentality that some of the less fortunate amongst us deserve their lot because they are not like the rest of us is a social theory based on willful ignorance fueled by racism. Rich white people know nothing about what it is like to deal with the inherent bigotry that comes from dealing with racism. When you are poor, even when you have a work ethic from watching all the people around you going to work day in and day out, somebody is quick to dismiss the inequality that you are subjected to on a daily basis as nothing more than your own lack of character to do better for yourself because of the neighborhood you come from.

The problem is not the fact that some poor people come from neighborhoods where nobody has a work ethic. The problem is that there is a perception from people who can control the conversation and influence public opinion that are so engrained in their prejudice against poor people that they are willing to believe that these people do not have a work ethic despite anything and everything around us that supports the contrary.

Sunday, December 18, 2011 Posted by brotherpeacemaker | African Americans, Black Community, Black Culture, Black Men, Black People, Life, Racism, Thoughts | 1 Comment

Not Romney

Saturday, December 17, 2011 Posted by brotherpeacemaker | Life, Thoughts | Leave a Comment

Newt Gingrich’s Take On The Poor Amongst Us

“Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits for working and have nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash’ unless it’s illegal.” – Newt Gingrich

Not too long ago, Newt Gingrich made the comment that he thought child labor laws were truly stupid and should be dropped. To support his contention, he gave an example that schools with kids from poor families should fire all but one member of the unionized janitorial staff and hire the students to work as assistant janitors cleaning bathrooms and mopping school floors. Recently, when asked why he would make such a statement, Mr. Gingrich tried to defend his suggestion by making a grotesquely unfair and seriously over generalized comment that poor kids live in areas where nobody works and therefore have no way to learn day to day work ethics nor do they have any way to learn to endeavor for pay unless it is something illegal.

This is just one of the latest examples of how some of our conservative politicians advocate asinine concepts about poor people and poor neighborhoods. In Mr. Gingrich’s own example he talks about firing janitors. Now, chances are the janitor isn’t raking in serious cash. More than likely people working as janitors are at the lower end of the school system’s pay scale. I’ll go out on a limb and say that a janitor is one of the lowest paid jobs in a school system, along with cafeteria workers and school bus drivers. These people aren’t living large on luxurious spreads out in the suburbs. I’m willing to bet that the janitors are actually people in poorer neighborhoods, who get up early every Monday that the school is intended to be open. So that talk about nobody in the poor neighborhood knows anything about working unless it’s something illegal is just more rhetorical bullshit.

But Mr. Gingrich wants to fire these people. He wants to actually increase the unemployment rate in the poor neighborhoods in order to teach children the importance of working for a living and the benefit of an honest day’s pay. Instead, the children in these poor neighborhoods will see just the opposite. People in the poor neighborhoods who witnessed firsthand all the janitors lose their jobs will actually learn that working for the man doesn’t mean shit. You go to work, you do your job, and some dumbass politician somewhere will fire you because nobody in a poor neighborhood works. You will fire the man or woman trying to support him or herself to teach children how to support their selves by giving them a job people like Mr. Gingrich obviously don’t appreciate.

I doubt if Mr. Gingrich has ever spent any time in a poor neighborhood. His ideas about the poor are built on a foundation of conjecture, stereotypes, ignorance, and totally false assumptions. He has already said that as President he will support firing the poor from their jobs and is open to the idea of adding children to the labor force. Let’s add poor kids on top of all the people already on the unemployed rolls. He’s ready to take it upon himself to teach poor children work ethics by potentially firing their parents or any poor adults in the child’s life. And then he wonders why the children from these poor neighborhoods don’t see the value in working for a living.

If a school had a problem trying to get people to work as janitors, I could understand opening the job up to children. But instead of hiring children to work mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms under some pretense that we are trying to teach work ethics, such chores should be assigned as punishment for breaking school rules. Children in schools already have jobs. Their job is to learn. They need to focus on that.

This comes from a man who is supposed to be appealing to the people of the country to become the next President of the United States. Anybody who works as a janitor should be concerned about this man’s thinking. Anybody who works in a job that has a stereotypical reputation as menial should be concerned about the conservative signals this man is sending. Janitors do more than just mop floors and clean bathrooms. They help keep our work environments safe and clean. They help monitor the condition of our school buildings. They perform minor repairs to keep our schools functioning properly. They keep maintenance records. And in their own way they teach our children the dignity of having a job and doing it well. They are not disposable and to be tossed simply because some politician thinks they are less than the rest of us.

This is just more evidence of the brainwashing that keeps many of us from putting our hopes in the conservative way of seeing the world. People like Mr. Gingrich, people who get paid seven figures to teach history and earn five figures just to give a heavily rhetoric laden speech, have no idea what happens in poor communities. This man has a serious disconnect with a large portion of the populace struggling with poverty or trying to stay out of poverty. Mr. Gingrich’s denunciation of poor people ranks right up there with Herman Cain’s suggestion that poor people should blame themselves for their lack of financial success.

And Mr. Gingrich’s comment that the only work ethic that matters in poor communities is one that is associated with illegal activity is totally without merit. The unemployment rate in the poor community is not 100%. Not everyone in the poor community is a criminal. It is grotesquely unfair for this man to label poor people this way. As President, he would be more than happy to lead the country down this path of class separation. Unfortunately, too many conservatives are attracted to that kind of talk. Hopefully, the majority of us will find his narrow mindedness disgusting.

Friday, December 2, 2011 Posted by brotherpeacemaker | African Americans, Black Community, Black Culture, Black People, Life, Racism, Thoughts | Newt Gingrich | 8 Comments