NAACP Endorses LGBT Equality Act

Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s D.C. bureau.

While in theory they should have been allies for decades given their common enemies, particularly white Christofacsists who by a seeming large majority are also white supremacists, the LGBT and African-American communities have nor always been allies.  One of the main stumbling blocks has been "conservative" black pastors who have allowed themselves year after year to be rallied against LGBT rights by the very same Christofascist who in prior generations advocated for segregation and retention of the Jim Crow laws. Indeed, here in Virginia, The Family Foundation, the state's leading hate group, has played black pastors as fools  for many years.  Now, with the very transparent effort by the Legislative Black Caucus to throw Governor Ralph Northam - the most LGBT governor in Virginia history - under the bus in order to elevate Justin Fairfax to the position of governor,  relations between the some elements of the two communities are very strained (e.g., I will not be voting for my state senator and delegate in November who are members of the Legislative Black Caucus).  A piece in Metro Weekly looks at the NAACP's endorsement of the Equality Act which hopefully may help mend fences.  Here are excerpts:

The Equality Act got a big boost on Friday night after the NAACP, the nation’s oldest African-American civil rights organization, publicly endorsed the LGBTQ rights bill currently making its way through Congress.

“We support what it does — and we support it now,” Hilary Shelton, the director of the NAACP’s D.C. bureau, told NBC News. “It’s important that it gets through.”

Shelton added that the group had previously endorsed the bill in meetings with its two main sponsors, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.).

The organization’s support for the bill, which would add protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of characteristics protected under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is considered a significant victory for LGBTQ rights groups, who had been criticized for failing to obtain the support of prominent African-American organizations before introducing the act earlier this month.

By endorsing the act, the NAACP effectively shuts down one of the arguments — albeit specious — used to justify opposition to the legislation.

“We believe the same protections that we have worked for so hard over the 110 years of the NAACP should be extended to all Americans, particularly members of the LGBTQ community,” Shelton told NBC.

He also noted that the NAACP previously supported other pieces of legislation granting the LGBTQ community expanded protections, including the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, insurance nondiscrimination protections contained in the Affordable Care Act, and the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

The organization also expressed support for marriage equality in the run-up to 2012, and prior to the 2013 and 2015 Supreme Court decisions that, respectively, overturned Section 3 of DOMA and legalized same-sex marriages nationwide.

North Carolina Continues to Be Pummeled Over Anti-Gay HB 2

When not making disingenuous statements - lies is perhaps a more accurate description - in support of the heinous HB2, one has to wonder what North Carolina Republicans are really thinking. The list of those boycotting the state, cancelling conventions, Broadway performances, and now even a Bruce Springsteen concert continues to grow.  Add to this NAACP threats of massive sit ins if the law is not repealed.  Perhaps the most delicious fall out is that UVA's Larry Sabato has changed his projection on the gubernatorial race in November from "leans Republican" to "toss up" because of the furor HB2 has unleashed. Rarely does one find big business, liberal religious groups, minority groups, and many localities all coming together to oppose a piece of legislation.  Can the Christofascist vote which this law was designed to please overcome the huge uprising?  Gov. Pat McCrory my yet discover that self-prostitution to Christian zealots can carry a very high cost.  Here's a look at some of the latest developments, starting with Larry Sabato's revised projection:

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, one of the nation’s top campaign-rating organizations, on Thursday moved North Carolina’s gubernatorial election from “leans Republican” to “toss-up,” based on the state’s controversial nondiscrimination law and the impact on down-ballot races of having Sen. Ted Cruz or Donald Trump as the GOP presidential nominee.  He also nudges the U.S. Senate race from “likely Republican” to “leans Republican.”

“Gov. Pat McCrory (R) has generally had fairly weak approval numbers throughout his time in office, and he is now dealing with a challenge similar to the one (Indiana Gov. Gary) Pence faced last year: McCrory just signed a bill that bans cities from creating local policies dealing with gender-identity discrimination and forces transgender students in public schools to use the bathroom that corresponds with their birth gender. ...

“Republicans have long recognized the threat that Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) presents to McCrory, and both sides are gearing up for an expensive, nasty race. Because of incumbency, we were giving McCrory the benefit of the doubt. But no longer . . .

Very fun suff in my view - especially since McCrory's damage is self-inflicted.  Even South Carolina's Nikki Haley has suggested she would veto such a bill if it reached her desk.

Then there's the NAACP threat to join the protests against HB2.  Here are excerpts from The State:

N.C. NAACP president William Barber says his group will hold a “mass sit-in” at the legislature if a controversial LGBT law isn’t repealed by April 21.

Barber, whose Forward Together Moral Movement has organized numerous Moral Monday protests and acts of civil disobedience, plans to announce more details about the event at a news conference Saturday morning.

“We cannot be silent in the face of this race-based, class-based, homophobic and transphobic attack on wage earners, civil rights, and the LGBTQ community,” Barber said in a news release. “Together with our many allies, we will coordinate a campaign of nonviolent direct action along with other forms of nonviolent protest that will instruct our legislators with respect to the rights of all people.”

The N.C. General Assembly isn’t scheduled to return until April 25, so it would have to hold a special session if it wanted to repeal House Bill 2 earlier. Republican leaders have said they aren’t willing to repeal the law . . . Barber’s organization is among several groups planning rallies on both sides of the House Bill 2 issue. 

Last but least, Bruce Springsteen has announced that he is cancelling his concert scheduled for Greensboro due to HB 2.   Here are highlights from Springsteen's Facebook statement:

As you, my fans, know I’m scheduled to play in Greensboro, North Carolina this Sunday. As we also know, North Carolina has just passed HB2, which the media are referring to as the “bathroom” law. HB2 — known officially as the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act — dictates which bathrooms transgender people are permitted to use. Just as important, the law also attacks the rights of LGBT citizens to sue when their human rights are violated in the workplace. No other group of North Carolinians faces such a burden. To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress. Right now, there are many groups, businesses, and individuals in North Carolina working to oppose and overcome these negative developments. Taking all of this into account, I feel that this is a time for me and the band to show solidarity for those freedom fighters. As a result, and with deepest apologies to our dedicated fans in Greensboro, we have canceled our show scheduled for Sunday, April 10th. Some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them.

Colorado NAACP Office Bombed

Lost in the coverage of the Paris massacre and the search for the lost AirAsia flight is the bombing of a NAACP office in Boulder, Colorado.  Fortunately, no one was killed or seriously injured, but the act shows the same kind of hate and contempt for others that underlie the Paris attack.  With white supremacists increasingly welcomed with open arms in today's Republican Party, one has to wonder if the person(s) behind the bombing felt emboldened.  Moreover, I cannot help but wonder if the perpetrator(s) claim to be "godly Christian(s)" like so many of the segregationists of the past.  Think Progress has details on the bombing.  Here are highlights:

In what appears to be an attack on a well-known civil rights organization, an “improvised explosive device” detonated on Tuesday at the headquarters of the Colorado Springs, Colorado NAACP, according to a statement by the FBI. No one was killed or injured in the explosion, and there was “only minimal surface charring to the exterior wall of the building,” which also includes a hair salon. 

The explosion could have been much worse, however, as the explosive device was placed next to a gasoline can in an apparent attempt to increase the force of the explosion. The gasoline did not ignite.

The FBI statement adds that a “potential person of interest in this investigation is a Caucasian male, approximately 40 years of age, and balding. He may be driving a 2000 or older model dirty, white pick-up truck with paneling, a dark colored bed liner, open tailgate, and a missing or covered license plate.”

Although the apparent bomber’s motives are not yet known, bombings were a common terrorist tactic during the Jim Crow era.

According to The Gazette, the chapter remains undeterred:

[Henry] Allen [president of the chapter] said he is hesitant to call the explosion a hate crime without further information from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies investigating but said the organization "will not be deterred."

Virginian Pilot: Make Gay Marriage Legal

I nearly fainted when I saw the lead editorial in today's Virginian Pilot which called for Virginia and the federal government to make same sex marriage legal.  Moreover, the column takes both Republicans and Democrats - but more so Republicans - in Virginia for the anti-gay discrimination that is the hallmark of this state.  And yes, "Slideshow" Bob Marshall gets slammed by name.  As do "Christians" who for centuries used the Bible as justification for slavery and later segregation.  Not surprisingly, in the comments left on the editorial some of the local Christofascsists and Kool-Aid drinkers are shrieking and claiming that they, not gays, are the ones being persecuted.  Obviously, these folks are not only liars and hypocrites but they also need to extricate their heads out of their asses.  Here are excerpts from the column:

Democrats and Republicans joined in Virginia to pass a law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Democrats and Republicans together decided to put the civil rights of homosexuals to a popular vote. And Virginians - Democrats and Republicans - voted to marginalize their gay neighbors in 2006.  It was clear, even then, that history would judge such "defense of marriage" measures harshly - and not only because they do nothing to defend marriage. Popular opinion has been moving inexorably toward tolerance for gay unions.

Still, state lawmakers this month rejected a judicial candidate because of his sexual orientation. That gave his chief detractor, the author of Virginia's constitutional amendment on marriage, the opportunity to explain.  Del. Bob Marshall denounced the notion that gay people struggling for marriage rights have any parallel in history: "Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks never took an oath of office that they broke," he said on CNN. "Sodomy is not a civil right. It's not the same as the civil rights movement."

One of the nation's most forceful civil rights organizations pointedly repudiated thinking like Marshall's: "(T)he NAACP has opposed and will continue to oppose any national, state, local policy or legislative initiative that seeks to codify discrimination or hatred into the law or to remove the Constitutional rights of LGBT citizens," read the organization's statement. "We support marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the 14th Amendment. ..."

Virginians seemed to recoil immediately at the legislature's vote on the judicial candidate and at Marshall's explanation, seeing both for what they are: embarrassments.  The vote and explanation also represent compelling arguments for why anything short of marriage equality will continue to provide cover for such bigotry and argument.

The federal government once deferred to states on mixed-race marriages, for example, and most passed laws barring it. The avowed purpose, to quote the U.S. Supreme Court, was "an endorsement of the doctrine of white supremacy."  The high court cited 14th Amendment freedoms when it settled the issue for the nation in the 1967 case that pitted Mildred and Richard Loving against Virginia: "To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law."

Civil life and laws aren't fixed to religious doctrine, nor should they be in a secular society.  Churches supported and resisted the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century. But the legislation that ended institutional bigotry arose from America's foundation in equality, belated though its application might have been.

To deny marriage to any couple solely on the basis of the way they are born makes a mockery of America's bedrock principles. To refuse marriage to gay people based on tradition or cultural norms elevates both above human rights.  It gives government too much authority over the most intimate relationship in an adult's life without sufficient civil justification. If the NAACP and Obama's endorsements were overdue, so is this one: Gay marriage should be legal across America, and it should be legal now.

A Cynical Look at Obama's and the NAACP's"Evolution" on Gay Marriage

Sometimes even if the end result may be beneficial, it still is galling that (1) the result took so long to achieve and (2) the real motives for the result remain open to question.  Such is the case with the recent embrace of same sex marriage by Barack Obama and the NAACP among others.  Why the change in attitude now?  Was a sense in a change in the wind direction finally enough to convince the cynical that it was finally safe to do the right thing?  Or was there a fear that by not "evolving" the political price might be too high?  These are the questions raised in a piece in Salon that looks at black homophobia and the political gyrations that have transpired over the last few weeks.  The piece also looks at the very real damage that black homophobia wreaks on the black community as black pastors continue to all too often act as willing water carriers for anti-black white Christianist organizations such as The Family Foundation here in Virginia.  Yes, there's snark in the column, but also a lot of truth.  Here are highlights:

I still believe that President Barack Obama, for his ubiquitous campaign promises of “hope” and “change,” publicly came out for same-sex marriage too late in his presidency — the time to do the right thing is (almost) always right now — and I still believe that Obama publicly came out for same-sex marriage only after he’d calculated that it was politically safe to do so (and maybe even only after he’d calculated that it was politically harmful to continue not to do so).

And I certainly don’t want to be told that I should be thankful that Obama politically went out on a limb for my fellow non-heterosexuals and otherwise non-gender-conforming individuals when, in fact, we helped put him in the Oval Office, and when, in fact, our equal human and civil rights always have been and always will be far more important than is one politician.

All of that said, Obama’s belated pro-same-sex-marriage proclamation seems to be having benefits that perhaps even he didn’t foresee.  Not only have leaders within the black community such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton proclaimed that they support same-sex marriage — Jackson not long ago enough was adamant that same-sex marriage is not about civil rights – but the NAACP yesterday announced its support of same-sex marriage, calling same-sex marriage a civil right.

[T]he good news is that old bigots do die, that they have fewer days ahead of them than they have behind them. And as today’s younger bigots grow older and their bigotry becomes less and less acceptable, at least they increasingly will keep their stupid fucking mouths shut and keep their ignorance and hatred to their miserable selves.

Given that blacks have been the one racial group in the United States most opposed to equality for non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals, having the likes of Obama and Jealous and Jackson and Sharpton now proclaiming that the black community should share the civil rights pie already with non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals should, within a few years, I surmise, put a fairly solid majority of Americans (say, at least 55 percent of them) in favor of equality for all.

Saletan’s article even indicates that perhaps black homophobia helped get George W. Bush a second term in 2004:

A report from the pro-gay National Black Justice Coalition attributes President Bush’s 2004 re-election in part to the near-doubling of his percentage of the black vote in Ohio, which he achieved “by appealing to black churchgoers on the issue of marriage equality.” This year, blacks in California were targeted the same way.

Saletan then goes, at some length, into the black homophobes’ “mutability”/“immutability” “argument,” which I just don’t fucking buy. (Who chooses to be a member of an historically reviled and oppressed minority group? Fucking duh.) I still surmise, as I wrote recently, that most homophobic blacks remain homophobic primarily because (1) they want to remain, in the national story, the only victims of prejudice and discrimination and oppression, because their identity is wrapped up in race-based victimhood, real or imagined/fabricated, and (2) because they want there to be one minority group that even they still can shit and piss upon, because it’s better to be near the bottom of the sociological dog-pile that is the United States of America than it is to be at the very bottom, isn’t it?

This is cruelty and hypocrisy, of course, to demand equality for one’s own minority group but to continue to shit and piss upon the members of another historically oppressed minority group.

And, of course, homophobia within the black community doesn’t just hurt gay whites like me.  .  .  .  . The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in fact, reports:

African Americans face the most severe burden of HIV of all racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Despite representing only 14 percent of the US population in 2009, African Americans accounted for 44 percent of all new HIV infections in that year. Compared with members of other races and ethnicities, African Americans account for a higher proportion of HIV infections at all stages of disease — from new infections to deaths.

Black homophobia — and its attendant ignorance and fear and stunning lack of education and enlightenment – probably is the No. 1 reason for those grim statistics, and, of course, heterosexual black women are less likely to contract HIV and other STDs if their black male sexual partners who actually are homosexual or bisexual don’t feel pressured to lead double lives in order to give the appearance of heterosexuality in order to please the homophobic bigots in their lives.

And, of course, it’s much easier for me and other non-heterosexuals and non-gender-conforming individuals to be supportive of the members of the black community if we have the same love and respect from them that they want from us. With equal human and civil rights for everyone, everyone wins.

Except, perhaps, for the members of the right wing, who have opposed equal human and civil rights, who have opposed liberty and justice for all, forever.  That so many blacks have shared that trait with the white wingnuts is nothing short of tragic.

 I suspect some will not like some of these opinions, but that fact doesn't make them any less true.  Even more in the black community need to wake up to the reality of our common enemy.

NAACP Endorses Same-Sex Marriage

In a move that will cause spittle to be flying by the bucketful in the thinly veiled white supremacist "family values" organizations like Family Research Council ("FRC") and The Family Foundation ("TFF") here in Virginia, the NAACP has officially endorsed marriage equality.  One can just imaging the shrieking that must be going on in the halls of FRC, TFF and similar anti-gay hate organizations.  Given that sexual orientation is innate and not changeable regardless of the lies spread by Christianists, it only make sense that gays be allowed to marry and have the same financial stability and legal protections that straight couples - many of whom are childless, I might add, thus debunking the marriage is for procreation blather of the Christianists - enjoy.  Tellingly, in announcing its new position on marriage, the NAACP noted that the far right conservatives were no friends to civil rights for all.  The Washington Post reports on this significant step.  Here are highlights:

The NAACP’s board of directors voted Saturday to endorse same-sex marriage rights – adding the influential voice of the country’s leading black civil rights organization to a debate that has divided the African-American community.

The decision has political implications for President Obama, who needs an enthusiastic turnout from black voters to help him win reelection in November but angered some African-American church pastors with his announcement this month that he believes gays and lesbians should have the right to marry.

The NAACP now presents itself as a counterbalance to the influence of the traditionally socially conservative black church. It can also help establish closer ties between blacks and gays, two of Obama’s most loyal constituencies.

“Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law,” NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous said in a statement released Saturday. “The NAACP’s support for marriage equality is deeply rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and equal protection of all people. The well-funded right wing organizations who are attempting to split our communities are no friend to civil rights, and they will not succeed.”

 The resolution approved Saturday states: “The NAACP Constitution affirmatively states our objective to ensure the ‘political, education, social and economic equality’ of all people. Therefore, the NAACP has opposed and will continue to oppose any national, state, local policy or legislative initiative that seeks to codify discrimination or hatred into the law or to remove the Constitutional rights of LGBT citizens. We support marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Further, we strongly affirm the religious freedoms of all people as protected by the First Amendment. “

Senator Jim Webb - A Neo-Confederate and Closet Racist?

My post the other day on this blog and later on The Bilerico Project resulted in several interesting e-mails and comments. It's unfortunate that some of the information I received did not get wider press coverage during Webb's campaign against George Allen. It seems in many ways that Webb and Allen are both cut out of the same cloth. Indeed, but for Allen's "Macaca moment" and other distractions, voters might have released that Allen was not the only racist running for office. One e-mail cited Webb's comments at a Confederate Memorial. Another provided a link to a book entitled Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction. A third referred me to a 2008 Politico article. The picture revealed of Webb is not exactly positive- especially if one believes in equal rights for all citizens, not just whites and heterosexuals. It seems that Webb can properly be described as a Neo-Confederate with all the negative connotations that attach. As a result, it is not a surprise that the Virginia NAACP has demanded a meeting with Webb in the wake of his anti-affirmative action op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. First, there are these highlights from Politico:
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Edward H. Sebesta, co-author of the forthcoming “Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction” (University of Texas Press), said Webb’s views express an unhealthy regard for a political system that propped up and defended slavery. His book, in fact, will cite Webb as an example of the mainstreaming of neo-Confederacy ideas into politics, said Sebesta, a widely cited independent historical researcher and author of the Anti-Neo-Confederate blog. “I don’t think people have thought through the implications of how his ideas have racial overtones, even if they are inadvertent,” Sebesta said.
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In a different context, Webb’s record might very well have made a bigger splash. But it was largely overshadowed by other developments. At the time, it was widely perceived that Webb had more damaging exposure from his 1979 Washingtonian magazine article titled “Women Can’t Fight,” in which Webb, an ex-Marine, described one of the Naval Academy’s coed dorms as “a horny woman’s dream” and argued against allowing women to take combat roles.
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Webb generally remained silent during Allen’s Confederacy controversy, focusing instead on the Republican’s support for the Iraq war and other issues. Three months later, Allen’s caught-on-video reference to a Webb campaign volunteer as “macaca” took center stage and set in place a campaign narrative that dominated media coverage until his narrow defeat. Webb won overwhelming support from black voters — 85 percent — who accounted for 16 percent of all voters, according to exit polls.
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Obviously, had blacks known more about Webb's true beliefs and his near worship of the Confederacy, they might well have stayed home and Webb might not have been elected. Now, here are some highlights from the introduction to the above referenced book by Sebesta that explain Neo-Confederate beliefs:
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The New Dixie Manifesto was a clarion call to arms in which Hill and Fleming described themselves as representing "a new group of Southerners . . . calling for nothing more revolutionary than home rule for the states established by the U.S. Constitution." Comparing "American Southerners" to, amongst others, Scots and Ukrainians, the manifesto charged that the United States had treated "American Southerners" with "exploitation and contempt," and that a "renewed South" was both necessary and achievable. Among its specific points, the manifesto espoused the following: (i) home rule for "Southerners", (ii) states' rights and devolved political power, (iii) local control over schooling, in opposition to federal desegregation decrees, (iv) removal of federal funding and initiatives from Southern states, (v) a Christian tradition in opposition to modernity, and (vi) support for Confederate symbols.
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National Public Radio's Weekend Edition broadcast an interview with Southern League president and manifesto co-author Michael Hill. In response to Diane Roberts's questions about democracy, Hill said: You know, the South has never bought into the Jacobin notion of equality. The South has always preferred a natural hierarchy. You're always going to have some violations of people's rights, for whatever reason, but we just believe that a natural social order left to evolve organically on its own would be better for everyone.
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Hill's position, as we review in Chapter 4, is consistent with not only neo-Confederacy, but a nineteenth-century notion of social Darwinism. Explaining the neo-Confederate movement in London's Guardian newspaper, Roberts later wrote: The Southern League [is] a burgeoning organisation of mostly middle-class, often academic, certainly angry, white men. . . . Their mission is to alert like-minded "neo-Confederates" to "heritage violations." . . . The Southern League's agenda is, as their board members describe it, "paleo-conservative." They want the South to return to the "order" it once had before the "disruption" of the Civil Rights Movement.
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Richard Shumate, writing in Southern Voice in 1994, warned that "some of the people who are leading the charge to preserve Confederate heritage, known collectively as the neo-Confederate movement, are often openly, and passionately, homophobic." Citing the overlapping interests of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), Georgia's state representatives, and outspoken conservative leaders such as Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan, Shumate explained that "while neo-Confederates leaders labor long and hard to veil any racist sentiments among their members (though in many cases, the veil wears pretty thin), disdain for gays and lesbians is, in contrast, often expressed openly and boldly."
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Our research was first published in 2000, when Sebesta's essay in Scottish Affairs argued:

Neo-Confederacy is a reactionary movement with an ideology against modernity conceiving its ideas and politics within a historical framework of the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) and the history of the American South. This includes more than a states' rights ideology in opposition to civil rights for African-Americans, other ethnic minorities, women and gays, though it certainly includes all these things. Opposition to civil rights is just a part of a world view desiring a hierarchical society, opposed to egalitarianism and modern democracy. Later that year the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization well known for its monitoring of, and legal contests with, militia, patriot, and other racial supremacy groups, identified the League of the South as a "hate group."
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In this volume, contributors draw on documents published by neo-Confederate activists to explore how neo-Confederate ideology constructs a worldview that we contend is patriarchal, ethnocentric, intolerant, and racist, but a worldview that operates utilizing a complex discourse, a language that at face value appears to laud cultural rights and freedoms, heritage preservation and celebration, local control over institutions, and Christianity.
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In light of Webb's homophobia which he has boldly evidenced by his failure to support DADT repeal and now his announced aversion to affirmative action programs, many are beginning to question exactly who we have representing Virginia in the U. S. Senate. As noted, the Virginia NAACP is up in arms and rightfully so. Here are highlights from Richmond's Channel 12:
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The Executive Director of the Virginia State Conference of the NAACP explained today his rationale for lashing out at Senator Jim Webb. King Salim Khalfani wrote a letter to Webb expressing his anger over an op-ed the Senator wrote for the Wall Street Journal on diversity programs like Affirmative Action.
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Khalfani chose not to back down from the inflammatory language. In fact he embraced it. “If they think this doesn’t affect people, well it affects our everyday lives,” said Khalfani. “Yeah, I’m angry.” And he doesn’t plan to back down. “We don’t hope to meet with him,” he said. “We demand it. He works for us, we don’t work for him We elected him.”
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In a year when Democrats need all elements of the Party's base motivated, Webb has deliberately alienated the LGBT vote and now he's basically flipped the bird to blacks. Is he deliberately trying to see Democrats defeated this November? It's a question Democratic Party officials - and Jello-spined Barack Obama - need be forcefully asking Webb. I have my own Confederate ancestors tracing back to New Orleans. That, however, doesn't cause me to secretly long for the return of segregation and white supremacy in the manner that seems to be attractive to Mr. Webb.

What This White House Is Missing; GOP Racism

It seems at times that the White House doesn't "get" much of anything when it comes to issues important to the Democratic base. Are the President and his advisers brain dead, deaf, or just indifferent to those who put Barack Obama in office. Indeed, since taking office, Obama seems to have paid more significant attention to kissing up to Bible thumpers like Rick Warren and obstructionist Republicans who will die before supporting him than he has to minding the store so to speak with moderates and Democrats. His circle of advisers all too frequently seem to - bluntly put - have their heads up their asses and are doling out just plain bad advice. That, combined with Obama's refusal to be a leader, has lead to all kinds of missteps and mistakes. Maureen Dowd sees the Shirley Sherrod debacle as yet another example of the president refusing to surround himself with advisers in touch with both the party base and objective reality in terms of GOP racism. Here are highlights from her column in today's New York Times:
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The Obama White House is too white. It has Barack Obama, raised in the Hawaiian hood and Indonesia, and Valerie Jarrett, who spent her early years in Iran. . . . Obama lacks advisers who are descended from the central African-American experience, ones who understand “the slave thing,” as a top black Democrat dryly puts it. The first black president should expand beyond his campaign security blanket, the smug cordon of overprotective white guys surrounding him . . . .
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The West Wing white guys who pushed to ditch Shirley Sherrod before Glenn Beck could pounce not only didn’t bother to Google, they weren’t familiar enough with civil rights history to recognize the name Sherrod. And they didn’t return the calls and e-mail of prominent blacks who tried to alert them that something was wrong.
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Charles Sherrod, Shirley’s husband, was a Freedom Rider who, along with the civil rights hero John Lewis, was a key member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of the ‘60s. As Lewis, the longtime Georgia congressman, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he knew immediately that something was amiss with the distorted video clip of Sherrod talking to the N.A.A.C.P.
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[W]e may have a West Wing of cowards on race. The president appears completely comfortable in his own skin, but it seems he feels that he and Michelle are such a huge change for the nation to absorb that he can be overly cautious about pushing for other societal changes for blacks and gays. At some level, he acts like the election was enough; he shouldn’t have to deal with race further. But he does.
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His closest advisers — some of the same ones who urged him not to make the race speech after the Rev. Jeremiah Wright issue exploded — are so terrified that Fox and the Tea Party will paint Obama as doing more for blacks that they tiptoe around and do less. “Who knew that the first black president would make it even harder on black people?” asked a top black Democratic official.
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Frank Rich likewise laid into the White House and others on the Sherrod fiasco in his column (he should have slammed the laziness of the MSM harder in my opinion):
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This country was rightly elated when it elected its first African-American president more than 20 months ago. That high was destined to abate, but we reached a new low last week. What does it say about America now, and where it is heading, that a racial provocateur, wielding a deceptively edited video, could not only smear an innocent woman but make every national institution that touched the story look bad? The White House, the N.A.A.C.P. and the news media were all soiled by this episode. Meanwhile, the majority of Americans, who believe in fundamental fairness for all, grapple with the poisonous residue left behind by the many powerful people of all stripes who served as accessories to a high-tech lynching.
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The smear might well have stuck if the white octogenarian farmer saved by Sherrod 24 years ago was no longer alive and if he didn’t look like a Norman Rockwell archetype. Only his and his wife’s testimony to her good deeds on CNN could halt the lynching party.
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[O]ne thing was certain: the N.A.A.C.P. was wrong to demand that the Tea Party disown its racist fringe. It should have made that demand of the G.O.P. instead.
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The Tea Party Express fronted by Williams is an indisputable Republican subsidiary. It was created by prominent G.O.P. political consultants in California and raises money for G.O.P. candidates, including Sharron Angle, Harry Reid’s Senate opponent in Nevada. But Republican leaders, presiding over a Congressional delegation with no blacks and a party that nearly mirrors it, remain in hiding whenever racial controversies break out under their tent. “I am not interested in getting into that debate,” said Mitch McConnell last week.
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The pace is set by right-wing stars like Glenn Beck, who on Fox branded Barack Obama a racist with “a deep-seated hatred for white people,” and the ever-opportunistic Newt Gingrich, who on Twitter maligned Sonia Sotomayor as a “Latina woman racist.”
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While America’s progress on race has been epic since the days when Sherrod’s father could be murdered with impunity, we have been going backward since Election Day 2008.

NAACP Calls for Overturning of Proposition 8

The Advocate is reporting that the The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ("NAACP") announced support on Monday for California's supreme court to invalidate Proposition 8. The announcement was made by NAACP CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous (pictured at left) in a letter to legislative leaders. This is a welcomed development and may help heal some of the fractures caused when exit polls purportedly showed that nearly 70% of California blacks voted in support of Proposition 8. I suspect that a number of extremely homophobic black ministers in this area will be none too pleased with the NAACP - even though these same ministers refuse to see that they are being cynically manipulated by anti-black Christianists like Tony Perkins and James Dobson to further the agenda of those who supported the Jim Crow laws. Here are some story highlights:

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The civil-rights group not only wants the court to overturn Prop. 8 -- they want California's legislature to go on record against Prop. 8 as well.

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"The NAACP's mission is to help create a society where all Americans have equal protection and opportunity under the law," wrote NAACP CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous (pictured) in a letter to legislative leaders. "Our mission statement calls for the 'quality of rights of all persons.' Prop. 8 strips same-sex couples of a fundamental freedom, as defined by the California state supreme court. In so doing, it poses a serious threat to all Americans. Prop. 8 is a discriminatory, unprecedented change to the California constitution that, if allowed to stand, would undermine the very purpose of a constitution and courts -- assuring equal protection and opportunity for all and safeguarding minorities from the tyranny of the majority."

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The NAACP has long opposed any proposal that would alter the federal or state constitutions for the purpose of excluding any groups or individuals from guarantees of equal protections," said NAACP chairman Julian Bond in a press release. "We urge the legislature to declare that Proposition 8 did not follow the proper protective process and should be overturned as an invalid alteration that vitiated crucial constitutional safeguards and fundamental American values, threatening civil rights and all vulnerable minorities."

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I can already hear the shrieking and wailing of the professional Christian set over this development. Hopefully, the black community is waking up to the fact that these demagogues are NOT friends to the black community or to equality for all.