Shankar Vedantam can’t use the terms white supremacy or white skin privilege although they are clearly the subjects of his article. Vedantam, a Niemen fellow at Harvard University likely knows what white supremacy and white skin privilege are. He just can’t write them. In the end, that says more to me than any of the facts or pieces of evidence in his article. We are left trying to unravel this maze of oppression and suffering inflicted on some and unearned privileges and rewards gifted to others without the linguistic benefit of being able to say what we are actually talking about: the historical advantage of humans of European descent. Gained militarily and sustained with centuries of military, economic, biological and psychological warfare.

Discussing the effects and results of centuries of racial oppression in terms that obscure the realities of the problem is not a step forward. Terms like colorism and multiculturalism operate mostly in the service of confusing the discussion and any efforts to move from discussion to action. This false conversation on race serves as a distraction and obfuscation while allowing whites and lighter-skinned elites of various ethnicity who are accepted as honorary whites, to feel as if they are working in service of progressive politics when they are really just defending white supremacy and skin privilege at a moment when rapidly shifting demographics and economic disaster has the future of the West’s global dominance in serious question.

It isn’t that no one is directly indicting the systems of white supremacy and white skin privilege. It just can’t be done within liberal institutions like the New York Times and Harvard University, white company.

Vedantam and other social and pundits present quite a challenge. To dismantle centuries long reign of white supremacy and white skin privilege without mentioning them. A plan built to fail.

What will this mean politically? The white elites of Cousins Properties and the white men down in the Loudermilk Bldg still control Atlanta. Reed, like mayor Shirley Franklin and before her Bill Campbell, will have to have to answer to these rich whites. But in keeping Norwood, and the white frenzy that made her viable, out, Black Atlanta on some fronts managed to dodge one of the bullets of white supremacy. Again, being that Reed is no progressive, there isn’t much positives to look for in his candidacy. This was more about what we avoided. Still there are lessons here.

First thing. Every activist or politically minded person in Atlanta is aware that white progressives and Black progressives don’t really work together. The coalition aspect of work is what is instead emphasized. It has been almost 40 years since a white candidate had a real shot at being mayor of Atlanta. When Norwood, a self-proclaimed political independent, appeared as a candidate, white Republicans within the city limits raced to her side. They got there just a split second ahead of progressive Obama-whites who also sprinted over to support her. In a bipartisan psychic cry they all yelled, ‘Finally, a white mayor!’.

So the first and most important lesson from this election is that the racial coalition between white and Black progressive Atlanta, isn’t. It’s a fraud. This election will stand historically as the evidence.

Second lesson. On August 17th Kasim Reed polled at 8%. The Wall Street Journal reported on the polling. Less than three and a half months later he is the new mayor. He mounted an astonishing comeback. No, not really. Lesson number two is that Atlanta’s political polls/surveys are fake.

The final lesson from this election shouldn’t be a lesson at all, really. And that is that the people of Atlanta are a ways away from having the strength, the people power, to make anything happen from the grassroots. The reasons for this are many but this election is the evidence. As in the presidential election in 2008, the people are left to vote for a corporate candidate that appears or sounds minutely better than the other corporate candidate. Boooo…not good.

Oh one more thing that was obvious in this election but that we certainly should know by now. The blogosphere is really the whitosphere. To read websites and blogs one would have easily assumed that Norwood had the mayor’s office locked. Of course it was just white bloggers keyboarding to themselves and to their white readers mostly. December 1st delivered to them all a reality check. Even their most eloquent (or nasty) blog post ain’t got shit on reality.

Peace love and hairgrease.

Neither the Army Times or the AJC mention that the appearance of this note warning of a Fort Hood repeat occurred on the same day as the School of the Americas Watch protest at Fort Benning, GA, the largest annual protest of a US military establishment in the country.

This isn’t an error in journalism. The note is a fake. The reporting is a fake. Fort Hood is a massive US Army base. You would think, in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings that this might be national news. It isn’t. And because this isn’t being reported widely at CNN and other national outlets, the usual ratcheting up of public fear doesn’t seem to be the play here.

The SOAW protest is the target, which last year brought 20,000 people to the bases gates. Look for something unbecoming to perhaps happen this year. Looking out my hotel window I see flashing lights whizzing by and cops pulling people off of Columbus streets left and right.

The timing of this news story is such that it won’t discourage protestors from attending the event. It came out to late. Maybe the fake note was meant for something else.

Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges.
Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.
The heroic act of brother Nidal also shows the dilemma of the Muslim American community. Increasingly they are being cornered into taking stances that would either make them betray Islam or betray their nation. Many amongst them are choosing the former. The Muslim organizations in America came out in a pitiful chorus condemning Nidal’s operation.
The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right -rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims. The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason against the Muslim Ummah and have fallen into hypocrisy.
Allah(swt) says: Give tidings to the hypocrites that there is for them a painful punishment –
Those who take disbelievers as allies instead of the believers. Do they seek with them honor [through power]? But indeed, honor belongs to Allah entirely. (al-Nisa 136-137)
The inconsistency of being a Muslim today and living in America and the West in general reveals the wisdom behind the opinions that call for migration from the West. It is becoming more and more difficult to hold on to Islam in an environment that is becoming more hostile towards Muslims.
May Allah grant our brother Nidal patience, perseverance and steadfastness and we ask Allah to accept from him his great heroic act. Ameen

For the cached version on google, here.

The new millenium white supremacist look

It’s a stunning headline: American Wins Men’s NYC Marathon For First Time Since ’82. Unfortunately, it’s not as good as it sounds. Meb Keflezighi, who won yesterday in New York, is technically American by virtue of him becoming a citizen in 1998, but the fact that he’s not American-born takes away from the magnitude of the achievement the headline implies.

Sigh…it’s a difficult thing. How to be gracious and ego-stroking enough so that white readers will hang around long enough to hear what needs to be said balanced against being able to tell the truth.

Columnist for CNBC, Darren Rovell made an interesting observation about the hoopla over the first American winner of the NY Marathon in 27 years: he’s not white enough.

Like other liberal or conservative white-thinking folks when it comes to race, he didn’t say, literally, what he meant. He graced us with proper racial coding, definitely understood by anyone with two brain cells but enough to guarantee his continued employment at a major news network in Amerikkka.

The New York Times reports today that Atlanta may see its first white mayor in more than a generation in Mary Norwood. The article is accompanied by many empty-headed slogans, from Black mouths of course, about it meaning nothing for a politician’s race to be Black. This is a slick move that distracts from the point of their article which is discussing a white mayor. Not meaning as much, or anything at all as some would say, that a mayor be Black is a very different thing than having a white mayor. Inductive reasoning perhaps is not required to become a Times writer. Or maybe the ability to manipulate faulty induction to build an upside down argument IS a prerequisite.

Mary Norwood comes from Buckhead the whitest and richest white neighborhood in Atlanta. The political pundits who get their salaries paid by the advertising dollars flowing out of Buckhead won’t talk about her background much. And if you go looking for details and background info over at her Wiki page you’ll be left wanting. These are coincidences.

Anyone familiar with US politics beyond the superficial coding understands the role played by race and that there is a communication grid that operates just beneath the surface of all political talk. As a good auto mechanic would say, Norwood’s recent ad is hitting on all cylinders. As racist as this country and city are it is not your father’s racism and Norwood’s team understands it can’t win the mayor’s office yelling nigger. The operative phrases are crime, accountability and public safety. That’s nigger, 2009 style.

• Crime is out of control = Black field negros are out of control. Of course with the implication that she will, finally, do some controlling.
• City Hall is run poorly = Black politicians are corrupt. Duh. Of course they are. And who do they work for? The white men that graduated Emory with Norwood.
• Everyone should be able to feel safe = White folks and house negros, it’s okay for you to come back into the city. Things are in good hands. Again. Kathryn Johnston types fiend for yourselves.

To be sure, all of the major candidates for mayor of Atlanta are business lackeys. And I don’t advocate for any of them but I do understand the particular threat posed by Mary Norwood, 1) she will give new confidence to white racism and white supremacy and 2) the increased difficulty field negros will have in protecting our civil liberties under a white mayor that does point 1.

Even Atlanta’s white progressives (whatever that means to them) are showing their true colors. The very first time a white mayor is viable in four decades, they are getting behind that campaign. Which doesn’t do much besides illustrate clearly to others what we already knew. When it comes down to it a white that calls himself liberal isn’t much different than a white that calls himself conservative. When it really comes down to it. He or she might not call me a nigger even behind closed doors but she’ll vote with the people who do.

If things keep moving in the direction we’re told they’re moving in (Norwood is supposedly the frontrunner) Black ATL will get to understand this truism up close and personal. And whites will get to turn the ATL back into Atlanta.

To be clear, everyone except out and out fascists understands that one day the US Armed Forces will leave Afghanistan. So when we say we argue for withdrawal, without a timetable it is an ‘argument’ without meaning. That is what the colonel offered. And that is what the white antiwar left as a whole is increasingly offering. Alternet, a news organization whose self-proclaimed mission is to inspire action and advocacy for human rights and social justice, is promoting, via one of its senior editors, Joshua Holland, a more sophisticated version of what Col Ann Wright described-the quagmire.

A quagmire is a situation from which it is difficult to extricate oneself. That, according to people like Josh Holland, Ann Wright, Medea Benjamin (CodePINK founder) and increasing numbers of the white antiwar left are calling the US occupation of Afghanistan. But take a second and think about what a quagmire is in contrast to the former antiwar demand of immediate withdrawal.

Immediate withdrawal, unlike withdrawal, is not confusing or ambiguous and shrugs off any kind of leeching quagmire analysis. Immediate withdrawal is just that. And quagmire can have nothing to do with immediate withdrawal. But immediate withdrawal increasingly, is not what the white antiwar left is calling for. And as they become more in line with Obama’s liberal/conservative consensus, they are getting attaboys from people like Ralph Lopez, who argue for prolonged backdoor Afghan occupation-we must save Afghan women from the Taliban. Lopez who runs a website called Jobs For Afghans and is a popular blogger at the website that claims to exist to get Democrats elected, DailyKos, writes about how the white peace movement has ‘grows up’. Specifically, grows up means CodePink founder Medea Benjamin is no longer calling for immediate withdrawal but something more sensible that acknowledges our responsibility to the women of Afghanistan under siege by the Taliban. Has anyone forgot about Iraq and how the US Armed Thugs are raping and murdering imprisoned women and children????? Apparently. Lopez is claiming that we need to create jobs in Afghanistan!! Haha, what does he think this is, really?? He refers to the position of immediate withdrawal as anti-imperialist flap.

Lopez and those who agree with him are stooges for Obama and before him, Bush. Lopez may or may not understand this but it doesn’t matter. The position speaks for itself. The corporations making billions off the war and the US planners that need the regional control all want to prolong the military occupation of the region. And this Ralph Lopez-Ann Wright-Medea Benjamin wing of the white antiwar movement has grown up and want to stay as well.

Back to the quagmire. The notion of a quagmire says, it implies rather, that one is caught between a rock and a hard place. Between completing a mission on the one hand and abandoning the mission and leaving on the other. Since when did the white antiwar movement believe the US Armed Thugs actually had a valid mission to complete in Afghanistan? It really has matured, I guess.

And the timing of this maturity couldn’t be better. Obama, this man of peace, this feminist, and also mature, is about to increase the troop levels of US Armed Thugs in Afghanistan. This will allow us to defeat the Taliban/Al Qaeda, kill Bin Laden and save the women. Then we can leave. Morally. Responsibly. Right?

Rush Limbaugh knew this deal would fall through, as it has. And this scheme fits right in perfectly with the way the ruling class handles the right wing populace of the United States. Constant victimization by liberals/nonwhites/feminists, you get the picture. Limbaugh knew this would be shot down and then he would turn around and… Well, he doesn’t have to actually say anything much. The right wing impulse to search for an angle of victimization runs deep enough that the script already runs inside their heads. This kind of stirring up of the right wing base is what the endless so-called fight to end abortion is all about, the ten commandments in public buildings and things like that. Fights that will last forever and keep alive the idea of being oppressed and victimized by various groups even as the right wing consolidates more and more national and international power. Forever a victim.

I see this as a particularly dangerous moment. Perhaps not but it does seem to signal a shift in the scale of gimmicks and tactics employed by the right wing in stirring up their people. Sports is a very large stage for sociopolitical messaging. And the NFL is the largest of the Big 3 pro sports messaging vehicles. I guess we will see how this continues to unfold but it doesn’t add up to me that this was a misstep by Limbaugh, that he didn’t predict the pushback and striking down of this effort. These things were certainties.

White supremacy, always the prime political mover in this country, has been on the upswing in the United States since the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama gained momentum. It continues to arc upwards and this Limbaugh stunt just appears to be another episode in what may turn out to be a particularly sordid, and maybe violent, chapter in this country’s white supremacist history.

Do you know how much MARTA costs? I know how much it costs. I live in Atlanta and use the service everyday. Let’s assume you, like me, know how much a bus ride costs in Atlanta. Mary Norwood does not know how much a MARTA bus fare costs.

Doesn't ride MARTA or read about it apparently

There is a difference between me and you and Mary Norwood not knowing this bit of information. A big one. There is an election coming up soon here in Atlanta. In 20 days, in fact. And according to polls, if that election were today, of us three, the one of us that doesn’t know how much it costs for transit-dependent Atlantans to catch a bus would be the mayor of Atlanta. MARTA stands for Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. It also known as ‘moving Africans rapidly through Atlanta’ due to the highly skewed racial demographic of the ridership.

What is going on inside Mary Norwood’s campaign for mayor? What is going on inside Mary Norwood’s head? How is it possible that mayoral candidate could be ignorant about such an important piece of policy at such a critical time for MARTA and for its cash-strapped, mostly Black ridership?

I view this foot in mouth incident as a sneak-peek into what a Norwood administration might be like for people like myself who rely on something like MARTA. She doesn’t care and doesn’t seem to see it as a problem not caring. Every other candidate attempted to answer the question of the cost of a MARTA fare. Norwood simply said she didn’t know, making it appear that she doesn’t even care that she doesn’t know. It also appears that she and/or her campaign don’t think it matters much that she doesn’t know. All of these things are worrisome to me and they should be worrisome for Norwood. That they don’t seem to be is even more worrisome for me.

Many people have expressed concern about this majority Black city, with its sordid history and present-day white racism problems, having a white mayor. This clear and present expression of either dullness, disdain or disinterest does nothing to allay the concern and much to validate it. Shame on you, Mary.

http://www.examiner.com/a-2168305~Amtrak_suspending_Pittsburgh_service_for_G_20.html