White supremacy’s attacks on “Critical Race Theory” just keep on proving “Critical Race Theory”

"Reis Ipsa Loquitor” — the thing speaks for itself.

Last September, New Yorker writer, Jelani Cobb wrote — The Man Behind Critical Race Theory. It was an excellent piece on Professor Derrick Bell and what Critical Race Theory (C.R.T.) actually is. Given the advent of this already-tumultuous Black History Month — I’m glad I saved it.

Let’s explore it a little so we can, at least agree what it is, versus what the hayell is making so-called white folk in these divided states of America lose their damned minds today over teaching true history.

Cobb begins by introducing Derrick Bell, “a young attorney with the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in New York City,” who thought he was fighting a case for integration in a Harmony, MS public school system.

Turns out, that’s neither what the school, nor the formerly enslaved, Black community in which it stood, wanted. They wanted to be left the hell alone to educate their young, within, and by — the culture in which they’d been raised.

In a revealing, “don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good kind of way,” Bell’s subsequent victory in Hudson v. Leake County School Board was his first inclination that maybe, just maybe — he’d made a big mistake.

Why? Because, as Cobb wrote, “such rulings sparked white flight from the public schools and the creation of private “segregation academies,” which meant that Black students still attended institutions that were effectively separate.”

I must interject here, that in 1974, I graduated Valedictorian, while my brother skipped a grade saying, “You ain’t leaving me here by my damned self!” — graduating Salutatorian with me, from M. Rutledge Rivers High School in Charleston, SC — which was previously one of those private, “segregation academies.”

As such, I can attest to Bell’s misgivings — because white flight did happen, particularly after we became the second Black family to move into what I call our ”Movin’ On Up” neighborhood around the corner from the school. And, as Bell predicted — we ended up still attending an institution that was effectively separate (much to my heart’s delight as it turned out, cuz I’m certain had it not worked out that way, I would’ve never met, through my English teacher, Mrs. Alfreda Jenkins — the likes of Paul Robeson, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, W. E. B. Du Bois and many other greats).

Please read Millicent Brown’s not so -- Ruby Bridges story of integrating our, very own “segregation academy” that was Rivers High School on September 3, 1963 .  I was seven years old, sittin’ on that linoleum floor, at 94 Reid St., watching it happen on our little, Black & White, Zenith TV.

According to Cobb:

Bell spent the second half of his career as an academic and, over time, he came to recognize that other decisions in landmark civil-rights cases were of limited practical impact. He drew an unsettling conclusion: racism is so deeply rooted in the makeup of American society that it has been able to reassert itself after each successive wave of reform aimed at eliminating it. Racism, he began to argue, is permanent. (emphasis mine)

As unsettling as that conclusion was for Bell, think of the over-abundance of evidence that points to it being exactly true for us — even until today. Exhibit A would be that link up there, about the bomb threats to HBCUs made during the “advent of this already-tumultuous Black History Month.”

Bomb a church in Birmingham, killing four little Black girls, check. Threaten to bomb several schools that teach young, Black folk, including young girls, check (these Mofos are obsessed with bombing “colored folk” — at home and abroad, ain’t they??). {SMDH}

Think about it, Fam — we fought for the right to educate, as well as celebrate, our lived experiences in, and contributions to, this country thanks to Carter G. Woodson’s Negro History Week. And through a successive wave of reform, it became Black History Month. However, because as Bell asserted, “racism is so deeply rooted in the makeup of American society, it has been able to reassert itself” yet again with all of this crazed, vitriol against Critical Race Theory (C.R.T.) these folks have been spewing, just to make sure our stories can’t legally be taught in schools. Pretty much cancels out Black History Month, no?

Even though, as Cobb continues:

After more than a quarter of a century, there is an extensive academic field of literature cataloguing C.R.T.’s insights into the contradictions of anti-discrimination law and the complexities of legal advocacy for social justice. (emphasis mine)…

So-called “white folk” (more on that later) keep on lying that it’s being taught to their children in schools, K-12, to shame them and make them feel “uncomfortable.” Am I the only one that recognized the words “anti-discrimination LAW” and “LEGAL ADVOCACY” in C.R.T.’s insights? C.R.T. is teaching about LEGAL SYSTEMS of discrimination in LAW SCHOOLS!

But these fools want to paint our simply teaching and sharing our true history and contributions to America as C.R.T.’s assault against their children (somebody learned some new words somewhere.). Is Bell’s conclusion that “racism is permanent” on point? You tell me.

Cobb reminds us further:

For the past several months, however, conservatives have been waging war on a wide-ranging set of claims that they wrongly ascribe to critical race theory, while barely mentioning the body of scholarship behind it or even Bell’s name. As Christopher F. Rufo, an activist who launched the recent crusade, said on Twitter, the goal from the start was to distort the idea into an absurdist touchstone. “We have successfully frozen their brand — ‘critical race theory’ — into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category,” he wrote. Accordingly, C.R.T. has been defined as Black-supremacist racism, false history, and the terrible apotheosis of wokeness. (emphasis mine)

Ask yourself, Fam, have you EVER heard any of these fools either in Congress, or at school board meetings, mention Derrick Bell’s name in their racist psycho-babble? Save your breath, that’d be a Hayell No! And that’s because they don’t know it, or care to know it. Nor do they care to know that C.R.T. is a university-level academic discipline based on the idea that racism is embedded in U.S. legal and other structures. All they care about is continuing to dumb-down themselves and their poor children in the name of their waning white supremacy. It’s times like these that I keep hearing my departed Grandmama asking white Jesus to please, “take the wheel.”

James Baldwin spoke wa-a-ay more succinctly and eloquently than I ever could, about why so-called white folk are losing their damned minds today over race.

In his seminal, “On Being White and Other Lies,” he eviscerates whiteness and lays bare the weakness in white leadership under which we continue to labor — for our lives.

“No one was white before he/she came to America. It took generations, and a vast amount of coercion, before this became a white country.

It is probable that it is the Jewish community or more accurately, perhaps, its remnants — that in America has paid the highest and most extraordinary price for becoming white. For the Jews came here from countries where they were not white, and they came here, in part, because they were not white; and incontestably in the eyes of the Black American (and not only in those eyes) American Jews have opted to become white, and this is how they operate. (emphasis mine)

A side-note here, this is how the EGOT, Whoopie Goldberg, recently got got. Because the Jews became white and operated as such, Black folk see them as white people. Goldberg said the Holocaust wasn't about race — because, after paying the price of the ticket (becoming white), they operated as white people here in America. So, in her allyship, she uttered the words no Jew would entertain as true (though Whoopie and countless other Black Americans see how they operate as white folk) — the Holocaust was a “man’s inhumanity to man” thing, versus a race thing. And I agree with her, because even though the NAZIS deemed them as an inferior “race” — when they got here, they operated as white folk. Either it’s religious persecution or racial persecution, y’all gotta pick, or probably not, given “white” America’s fealty to them Benjamins (yeah I said it!).

Since I’d hate to waste nary a day of our only, 28-day celebration of Black History Month, I’d like to share a little Bryan Stevenson on Critical Race Theory — and some other powerful things:

 

As you listen, notice the same, damned “bomb threats” bullshit at the 2:48 time hack.  I'm tellin’ y’all — THEY ARE OBSESSED!

At the 4:12 time hack, we hear Brian Stevenson say:  “We just had the 20th anniversary of 9/11…We believe in memorializtion in this country.”

To which Pogue replies:  “But that’s different… It’s easier for Americans to memorialize something that was done to us, than it is to memorialize something we did to others.” (Mighty f*ckin Mitch McConnell of you there Pogue!)

Mr. Pogue, and I give you that respect, grudgingly — therein lies the rub, We(Black people of the United States) are Americans. These atrocities were/are committed against/done to “Americans”.

Cobb continues:

People who looked at the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and others and concluded that they were not anomalies but evidence that the system was functioning as it was designed to, were articulating the conclusion that Bell had drawn decades earlier.

Bell, who died in 2011, at the age of eighty, would have been less focussed on the fact that white politicians responded to that reckoning by curtailing discussions of race in public schools than that they did so in conjunction with a larger effort to shore up the political structures that disadvantage African Americans. Another irony is that C.R.T. has become a fixation of conservatives despite the fact that some of its sharpest critiques were directed at the ultimate failings of liberalism, beginning with Bell’s own early involvement with one of its most heralded achievements.“The gap between words and reality in the American project — that is what critical race theory is, where it lies,” Perry told me. The gap persists and, consequently, Bell’s perspective retains its relevance. Even after his death, it has been far easier to disagree with him than to prove him wrong.

Vinay Harpalani told me, “Someone asked him once, ‘What do you say about critical race theory?’ ” Bell first replied, “I don’t know what that is,” but then offered, “To me, it means telling the truth, even in the face of criticism.”

And isn’t that ALL it is, Fam? Just isn’t it?? White folk don’t want their children to learn what f*kin’ racists, white suptemacists, muderers, they’re ancestors have always been. Too late to be ashamed now Mofos — your children SEE YOU!

What’s really going on today in these divided states of America is Derrick Bell’s, “Critical Race Theory” writ large -- which I reiterate here: “Racism is so deeply rooted in the makeup of American society that it has been able to reassert itself after each successive wave of reform aimed at eliminating it. Racism is permanent.”

Ken Burns with Mr. James Baldwin on "Liberty"

 

Opinion: Ken Burns is an optimist. But he’s very worried about America.

ABC never-aired this 1979 Baldwin profile. Producer was told -- No one would be interested in a “queer, Black has-been”

Never Aired: Profile on James Baldwin ABC’s 20/20, 1979 from A Closer Look on Vimeo:

"Baldwin speaks frankly about outing himself to the general public with his 1956 novel Giovanni’s Room and about what it means to live as a Black man in a nation that has always favored its white citizens:

"The American sense of reality is dictated by what Americans are trying to avoid. And if you’re trying to avoid reality, how can you face it?" 

Nearly 35 years before Black Lives Matter’s formation, he tackles the issue of white fragility by telling Chase, “Look, I don’t mean it to you personally. I don’t even know you. I have nothing against you. I don’t know you personally, but I know you historically. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t swear to the freedom of all mankind and put me in chains.” 

The finished piece is a superb, 60 Minutes-style profile that covers a lot of ground, and yet, 20/20 chose not to air it. 

After the show ran Chase’s interview with Michael Jackson, producer Lovett inquired as to the delay and was told that no one would be interested in a “queer, Black has-been”:

I was stunned, I was absolutely stunned, because in my mind James Baldwin was no has-been. He was a classic American writer, translated into every language in the world, and would live on forever, and indeed he has. His courage and his eloquence continue to inspire us today."  (All emphasis mine)

Happy birthday Mr. James Baldwin!!!

James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley (1965)

"Strange Fruit" -- still just as low-hanging as we ever were

UPDATE: Take a listen as Mychal Denzel Smith from The Nation and former NYPD detective Graham Witherspoon talk some REAL truth to power on Democracy Now:

~#~

Family, Ms. Holiday is singing my heart's song tonight.  Not only is my heart past breaking, it is broken.  From Michael Brown's murderer not being indicted, to 12 year-old, Tamir Rice being murdered by a cop already deemed unfit, to now -- Eric Garner's murderer NOT being indicted (even with a video) -- it has been a soul-murdering week.

I am numbed by the grand jury's verdict in the Eric Garner case -- and enraged.

"Lynchings offer evidence of how defenseless blacks were,  for the defining characteristic of a lynching is that the murder takes place in public, so everyone knows who did it, yet the crime goes unpunished." (emphasis mine)

Lies My Teacher Told Me -- James Loewen

And we are still defenseless it seems.  Here's "A list of unarmed Blacks killed by police" to which we should pay attention.  Family, if you've not ever visited Abagond's blog, please do -- you'll learn a lot of shit!  If nothing else, it should get your minds clicking about the relevancy of Loewen's quote above.  "In public" and "unpunished" -- that's how they roll, because we continue to let them.

I linked to the video of Eric Garner's murder in my 12/01/14 post about the Michael Brown grand jury's, bullshit non-indictment, but I'm posting it now -- because, unless you're a white supremacist, or a "respectability politics" apologist,  there's no way one can look at it and not believe this cop should not have gone to jail:



And after they choked him to death -- they did nothing (WARNING:  You're viewing Mr. Garner's, already dead body in the video below):



Around the 3:20 click, you hear one of the cops ask, "Did anybody call an ambulance?"  Never mind NONE of those charged "to protect and serve," even attempted to perform CPR (Hey, Twitter-verse:  CLEARLY -- Black lives don't matter!).    At the 4:00 click, they're talking to him like he's faking (or covering their asses):  "Sir, EMS is here, answer their questions, Okay?" (so damned respectful -- after they'd all jumped the big, scary Black man and Pantoleo choked him to death, No?).  Then, at the 4:03 click we hear one of them saying, "He can't breathe."  I'm with Mr. Garner's wife -- at WHAT video was the grand jury looking???  Maybe that's why the prosecutors gave all the other officers involved, immunity before testifying.

And what kind of EMS personnel can Black folk expect to respond in NYC, or anywhere in this country for that matter (cute white ones with nice jewelry, it seems)???  From the 4:03 click to the 4:27 click, she's checking for a pulse, and then -- like the officers covering their asses, she talks to him!  "Sir, it's EMS.  C'mon, we're here to help alright.  We're here to help you (inaudible) alright?"  She gave up after that, and by the 5:15 click, Blacks and Browns in Blue standing around should've been ashamed of their damned selves.

By the 5:59 click, they all knew he was dead, trying to get him up on the stretcher.  "Strange Fruit -- Reloaded."

At the 6:35 click, you hear one of them ask, "Why nobody's doing CPR?"  And white bread in the aviator, "I'm a cop" glasses answers, "Because he's breathing (I'm sure he was one of them that got immunity).

Yes, Brother "Sylon R," -- "That's what the f*ck they do."  I'm tired of being low-hanging fruit, Family.  I've raised two sons who look like me -- and I fear for their lives everyday.

The Medical Examiner ruled Eric Garner's death a "HOMICIDE."  Chokeholds have been banned from the NYPD SOP -- and still, this grand jury let this cop evade indictment.  They, and the grand jury in Ferguson, have literally given cops a license to murder us (as if they needed one).

Screw milk dud-head, Charles Barkley, et al!  When will WE  get, that the White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy will never make any bones about erasing us after having used us TO BUILD THIS DAMNED COUNTRY???

My beloved ancestor, Mr. James Baldwin addresses it here for me...



Related:
- The Not So Strange Fruit of Racial Murder
- The System That Failed Eric Garner and Michael Brown Cannot Be Reformed
- When the System Provides No Remedies to Torture, You Must Overthrow It
- Tamir Rice
- Can We Stop Police From Shooting Our Boys?
- Protesters decry Eric Garner grand jury vote LIVE UPDATES
- Man That Filmed NYPD Executing Eric Garner Arrested On Gun Possession Charges 
  (hmmmm)

From one Black revolutionary to another...

As we spoke about Assata Shakur in the comments on the previous post, Sister Carolyn reminded me of my most favorite, literary Hero's letter to another of my Sheroes -- Angela Davis.  I just had to post it (all boldface mine -- because there are so many messages to be heard):

~#~

An Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Davis

James Baldwin
November 19, 1970

Dear Sister:

One might have hoped that, by this hour, the very sight of chains on black flesh, or the very sight of chains, would be so intolerable a sight for the American people, and so unbearable a memory, that they would themselves spontaneously rise up and strike off the manacles. But, no, they appear to glory in their chains; now, more than ever, they appear to measure their safety in chains and corpses. And so, Newsweek, civilized defender of the indefensible, attempts to drown you in a sea of crocodile tears (“it remained to be seen what sort of personal liberation she had achieved”) and puts you on its cover, chained.

You look exceedingly alone—as alone, say, as the Jewish housewife in the boxcar headed for Dachau, or as any one of our ancestors, chained together in the name of Jesus, headed for a Christian land.

Well. Since we live in an age in which silence is not only criminal but suicidal, I have been making as much noise as I can, here in Europe, on radio and television—in fact, have just returned from a land, Germany, which was made notorious by a silent majority not so very long ago. I was asked to speak on the case of Miss Angela Davis, and did so. Very probably an exercise in futility, but one must let no opportunity slide.

I am something like twenty years older than you, of that generation, therefore, of which George Jackson ventures that “there are no healthy brothers—none at all.”  I am in no way equipped to dispute this speculation (not, anyway, without descending into what, at the moment, would be irrelevant subtleties) for I know too well what he means.  My own state of health is certainly precarious enough. In considering you, and Huey, and George and (especially) Jonathan Jackson, I began to apprehend what you may have had in mind when you spoke of the uses to which we could put the experience of the slave.  What has happened, it seems to me, and to put it far too simply, is that a whole new generation of people have assessed and absorbed their history, and, in that tremendous action, have freed themselves of it and will never be victims again.  This may seem an odd, indefensibly impertinent and insensitive thing to say to a sister in prison, battling for her life—for all our lives.  Yet, I dare to say, for I think that you will perhaps not misunderstand me, and I do not say it, after all, from the position of a spectator.

I am trying to suggest that you—for example—do not appear to be your father’s daughter in the same way that I am my father’s son.  At bottom, my father’s expectations and mine were the same, the expectations of his generation and mine were the same; and neither the immense difference in our ages nor the move from the South to the North could alter these expectations or make our lives more viable.  For, in fact, to use the brutal parlance of that hour, the interior language of that despair, he was just a nigger—a nigger laborer preacher, and so was I.  I jumped the track but that’s of no more importance here, in itself, than the fact that some poor Spaniards become rich bull fighters, or that some poor black boys become rich—boxers, for example.  That’s rarely, if ever, afforded the people more than a great emotional catharsis, though I don’t mean to be condescending about that, either.  But when Cassius Clay became Muhammed Ali and refused to put on that uniform (and sacrificed all that money!) a very different impact was made on the people and a very different kind of instruction had begun.

The American triumph—in which the American tragedy has always been implicit—was to make black people despise themselves.  When I was little I despised myself, I did not know any better. And this meant, albeit unconsciously, or against my will, or in great pain, that I also despised my father.  And my mother.  And my brothers.  And my sisters. Black people were killing each other every Saturday night out on Lenox Avenue, when I was growing up; and no one explained to them, or to me, that it was intended that they should; that they were penned where they were, like animals, in order that they should consider themselves no better than animals. Everything supported this sense of reality, nothing denied it: and so one was ready, when it came time to go to work, to be treated as a slave.  So one was ready, when human terrors came, to bow before a white God and beg Jesus for salvation—this same white God who was unable to raise a finger to do so little as to help you pay your rent, unable to be awakened in time to help you save your child!

There is always, of course, more to any picture than can speedily be perceived and in all of this—groaning and moaning, watching, calculating, clowning, surviving, and outwitting, some tremendous strength was nevertheless being forged, which is part of our legacy today.  But that particular aspect of our journey now begins to be behind us.  The secret is out: we are men!

But the blunt, open articulation of this secret has frightened the nation to death.  I wish I could say, “to life,” but that is much to demand of a disparate collection of displaced people still cowering in their wagon trains and singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” The nation, if America is a nation, is not in the least prepared for this day.  It is a day which the Americans never expected or desired to see, however piously they may declare their belief in “progress and democracy.”  These words, now, on American lips, have become a kind of universal obscenity: for this most unhappy people, strong believers in arithmetic, never expected to be confronted with the algebra of their history.

One way of gauging a nation’s health, or of discerning what it really considers to be its interests—or to what extent it can be considered as a nation as distinguished from a coalition of special interests—is to examine those people it elects to represent or protect it.  One glance at the American leaders (or figure-heads) conveys that America is on the edge of absolute chaos, and also suggests the future to which American interests, if not the bulk of the American people, appear willing to consign the blacks.  (Indeed, one look at our past conveys that.) It is clear that for the bulk of our (nominal) countrymen, we are all expendable. And Messrs. Nixon, Agnew, Mitchell, and Hoover, to say nothing, of course, of the Kings’ Row basket case, the winning Ronnie Reagan, will not hesitate for an instant to carry out what they insist is the will of the people.

But what, in America, is the will of the people? And who, for the above-named, are the people? The people, whoever they may be, know as much about the forces which have placed the above-named gentlemen in power as they do about the forces responsible for the slaughter in Vietnam.  The will of the people, in America, has always been at the mercy of an ignorance not merely phenomenal, but sacred, and sacredly cultivated: the better to be used by a carnivorous economy which democratically slaughters and victimizes whites and blacks alike.  But most white Americans do not dare admit this (though they suspect it) and this fact contains mortal danger for the blacks and tragedy for the nation.

Or, to put it another way, as long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness—for so long as they are unable to walk out of this most monstrous of traps—they will allow millions of people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into and surrender themselves to what they will think of—and justify—as a racial war.  They will never, so long as their whiteness puts so sinister a distance between themselves and their own experience and the experience of others, feel themselves sufficiently human, sufficiently worthwhile, to become responsible for themselves, their leaders, their country, their children, or their fate.  They will perish (as we once put it in our black church) in their sins—that is, in their delusions.  And this is happening, needless to say, already, all around us.

Only a handful of the millions of people in this vast place are aware that the fate intended for you, Sister Angela, and for George Jackson, and for the numberless prisoners in our concentration camps—for that is what they are—is a fate which is about to engulf them, too. White lives, for the forces which rule in this country, are no more sacred than black ones, as many and many a student is discovering, as the white American corpses in Vietnam prove.  If the American people are unable to contend with their elected leaders for the redemption of their own honor and the lives of their own children, we, the blacks, the most rejected of the Western children, can expect very little help at their hands: which, after all, is nothing new.  What the Americans do not realize is that a war between brothers, in the same cities, on the same soil, is not a racial war but a civil war.  But the American delusion is not only that their brothers all are white but that the whites are all their brothers.

So be it. We cannot awaken this sleeper, and God knows we have tried.  We must do what we can do, and fortify and save each other—we are not drowning in an apathetic self-contempt, we do feel ourselves sufficiently worthwhile to contend even with inexorable forces in order to change our fate and the fate of our children and the condition of the world!  We know that a man is not a thing and is not to be placed at the mercy of things.  We know that air and water belong to all mankind and not merely to industrialists.  We know that a baby does not come into the world merely to be the instrument of someone else’s profit.  We know that democracy does not mean the coercion of all into a deadly—and, finally, wicked—mediocrity but the liberty for all to aspire to the best that is in him, or that has ever been.

We know that we, the blacks, and not only we, the blacks, have been, and are, the victims of a system whose only fuel is greed, whose only god is profit. We know that the fruits of this system have been ignorance, despair, and death, and we know that the system is doomed because the world can no longer afford it—if, indeed, it ever could have. And we know that, for the perpetuation of this system, we have all been mercilessly brutalized, and have been told nothing but lies, lies about ourselves and our kinsmen and our past, and about love, life, and death, so that both soul and body have been bound in hell.

The enormous revolution in black consciousness which has occurred in your generation, my dear sister, means the beginning or the end of America.  Some of us, white and black, know how great a price has already been paid to bring into existence a new consciousness, a new people, an unprecedented nation.  If we know, and do nothing, we are worse than the murderers hired in our name.

If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own—which it is—and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber.  For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.

Therefore: peace.
Brother James

(I just love how we saw, and looked after, one another back then!)

The timeless and prescient -- Mr. James Baldwin

The Newtown massacre: crocodile tears, a culture of violence, the hierarchy of human life and -- possible politricks

"People who treat other people as less than human, must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned."

James Baldwin

It's amazing how Mr. Baldwin's words, always succinctly capture what I'm thinking.  No matter which meme blanketing the internet into which you buy, the real reasons for the undoubtedly disturbing shootings in Connecticut will, most definitely relate to Baldwin's words.  More disturbing though, were the Changeling's words on Friday (delivered while wiping away tears that I, at least, could not see), along with his follow-up, hypocritical "performance,"  in Newton on Sunday.  And what stellar performances they both were (I won't bother posting the videos.  I'm sure the whole world's seen them both)!

I've been trying to write this post on the shootings since Saturday, but for some reason, I just couldn't get through it (too many glaringly, contrasting thoughts running through my head).  But I was reading about it all, voraciously -- so much so that, rather than y'all listening to my droning, I've been able to knit together an expression of exactly how I feel, through what I've read.  Here's what I came up with:

Lucinda Marshall's,  "A Culture That Condones The Killing Of Children And Teaches Children To Kill:

"The Sandy Hook massacre isn’t just about the need for gun control laws, it is about a culture that condones the killing of children and teaches children that killing is okay."

Ye-e-e-p, she's right on the money there.  I stumbled upon a six-part series on You Tube awhile ago entitled, "Violence:  An American Tradition."  It shows, quite uncompromisingly, how this country's culture of violence -- since its founding -- absolutely confirms Ms. Marshall's statement.  I'm only posting Part 1 - but as the disclaimer says on each part, "Caution:  Contains scenes that may be disturbing to young or sensitive viewers" -- because it, and the other four parts linked here -- are not for the faint of heart!:



Arthur Silber's, God Damn You, America, and Your White, Privileged Grief is one of the closest renditions of my thought, ever.  While there's one section of his post, with which I totally disagree, I can't, not post this:

We've had Cool Obama, and No Drama Obama. Now we have Weeping Obama. Does Weeping Obama "meet privately" with the families of those he has ordered murdered in Pakistan, or Somalia, or Yemen? Does he even acknowledge those murders -- murders that he himself ordered? Does the "nation reel" in response to these regular, systematic murders of innocent human beings -- many of them children? Does the "nation reel" in response to the Obama administration's repeated public announcements of its Kill List and its Murder Program, a program which intentionally, repeatedly murders innocent people? Does America react with horror to the fact that Obama and his administration claim the "right" to murder anyone they want, anywhere in the world, for any reason they choose or invent out of nothing? (emphasis mine)

I'll save my one point of disagreement with Arthur for a later post, because for me -- it requires a "writing about," all its own (and I won't even tell you what part it is right now).  That said, he knocks it out of the damned park on everything else IMO.

This, "Child Casualties as a Result of U.S. Drone Attacks" video, embedded in Glenn Greenwald's, Newtown kids v Yemenis and Pakistanis: what explains the disparate reactions? -- is a stark reminder of the "hierachy of human life" being practiced by many, if not most, of my countrymen:

There's just no denying that many of the same people understandably expressing such grief and horror over the children who were killed in Newtown steadfastly overlook, if not outright support, the equally violent killing of Yemeni and Pakistani children. Consider this irony: Monday was the three-year anniversary of President Obama's cruise missile and cluster-bomb attack on al-Majala in Southern Yemen that ended the lives of 14 women and 21 children: one more child than was killed by the Newtown gunman. In the US, that mass slaughter received not even a small fraction of the attention commanded by Newtown, and prompted almost no objections (in predominantly Muslim nations, by contrast, it received ample attention and anger).

It is well worth asking what accounts for this radically different reaction to the killing of children and other innocents. Relatedly, why is the US media so devoted to covering in depth every last detail of the children killed in the Newtown attack, but so indifferent to the children killed by its own government? (emphasis mine)

If these strikes are as precise, as surgical, as targeted, as the voices of both Panetta and the Changeling adamantly proclaim in the background, what does that say about them, seeing there's more than ample evidence to the contrary?  I don't know about you, but I say they're both -- bald-faced liars.

Next, Khadija Patel of South Africa's, Daily Maverick gave me one helluva V-8 moment about "hierarchy of human life" here, in her, From Gaza to the Congo: Whose blood is more worthy of attention? (do click on her name and read her mini-bio -- gotta love it!):

Three years on, I no longer lay claim to sanity – I sleep too little to qualify – but these same niggling questions about a jaundiced media focus are spilling out in heated verbiage across the world. And it says something about our collective failure as a world that three years on we’re once more talking about Gaza and Goma. These things really do go on and on and on.

On Sunday, British columnist Ian Birrell noted that coverage of the recent conflict in Gaza had eclipsed another deadly conflict happening simultaneously in the eastern Congo.

Birrell described the Democratic Republic of Congo as a “scene of massacres, of mass rape, of children forced to fight, of families fleeing in fear again and again, so many sordid events that rarely make the headlines.”

“It can seem a conflict of crushing complexity rooted in thorny issues of identity and race, involving murderous militias with an alphabet of acronyms and savagely exploited by grasping outsiders. But consider one simple fact: right now, there is the risk of another round breaking out in the deadliest conflict since the Second World War,” he wrote.

Birrell is not alone in his sombre assessment. Others describe the situation in eastern Congo as “the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today.” The charge of a lack of media attention is also not unfounded. Since 1999, when Doctors without Borders first began issuing its top 10 underreported humanitarian crises in the world, the DRC has featured nearly every year.

Just over one week of bombing in Gaza and everybody was up in arms. There were rallies and protests right across the world. In the media, pages and pages of reportage, analyses and testimony. Hundreds of journalists made the trip into Gaza to record first-hand the death and destruction. Together with them, the reports of ordinary Palestinians on social media lent us some clues of the scale of human tragedy unfolding in the homes, the media offices and the refugee camps in Gaza.

And then there’s the Congo...

Two of my friends are currently tramping around Goma wielding recorders and cameras, doing their bit to bring the crisis there to the attention of the world. It’s not that what’s happening there is going altogether unreported. All the major wires carry updates on the situation several times a day. The crisis is certainly not being ignored. It just is not exciting the same kind of fevered attention that Gaza did.

When superstorm Sandy ripped through the Caribbean and then the east coast of the US last month, many media analysts complained that coverage of the hurricane was overwhelmingly skewed in favour of how it affected Americans. No matter that people in Cuba and Haiti as equal citizens of the world also braced the hurricane and also suffered loss and a disruption to their lives, it was the effect of the storm on the US that filled the world’s media. Some analysts and observers of American dominance on the rest of us meek creatures used the asymmetry in media coverage of the storm in the US and outside as the US as proof of the warped focus of global media. (emphasis mine)

It is important that I own my own complicity in not talking about what's happening to people who look like me in the DRC.  All of my writing, with the exception of my limited coverage of Cote d'Ivoire, and the Marikana massacres, have had nothing to do with Congo.  But I have written about pseudo-sister, Susan Rice, so I don't feel too bad. The one statement Rice made, as Slick Willy's Under Secretary of State for African Affairs which forever rests in the nether reaches of my consciousness, is one Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report nails right here:

“We say hands off Ambassador Susan Rice!” Dr. Ron Daniels’ Institute of the Black World, a proudly Afro-centric organization, would do better to demand that Rice and the rest of the Obama administration keep their bloody hands off Africa. Republicans are “hypocrites “ who “have no moral or political authority to stand in judgment of Ambassador Susan Rice!” One can make that argument, but the Institute of the Black World and the rest of us certainly have the right and obligation to stand in judgment of a political operative and ideologue who, according to an article by Michael Hirsch in the Ethiopian Review, cavalierly dismissed the Rwanda/Uganda-sponsored M23 rebel group’s murderous rampages in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “It’s the eastern DRC. If it’s not M23, it’s going to be some other group.”  Rice delayed for months publication of a United Nations panel of experts report documenting M23 as a front group for Congo’s neighbors, who have all but annexed the mineral-rich eastern part of the country since invading in 1996, leaving 6 million dead in their wake, half of them below the age of five. Rice and her then boss, Bill Clinton, supplied the money, arms and political cover. As Under Secretary of State for African Affairs, Rice left it up to Washington’s Rwandan and Ugandan puppets to safeguard against genocide. “They know how to deal with that,” Rice is quoted as saying. “The only thing we have to do is look the other way.”

Rice’s African American boosters also choose to look the other way. They shame us all." (emphasis mine)

'Nuf said.

H/T to Sis Carolyn over at Perspectives -- Another Way to View for this great piece by Sikhvu Hutchinson -- Nice White Boys Next Door and Mass Murder:

“Standing in line at the California Science Center the day of the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary school, my students wondered aloud about the race of the shooter. More than likely he was white,” they agreed. As the only people of color waiting to be admitted to the exhibit, their open question about race elicited visible unease from a group of elderly white women across the line from us.

In high school when my friends and I found ourselves at the business end of Inglewood PD officers’ rifles because someone in our car “looked” like a burglary suspect, it was a rite of passage initiation...

But contrary to the rap stereotype of Glock-toting men of color, an overwhelming majority of people of color are pro-gun control, while the majority of the white electorate is not. The high school assailants in the Littleton, Colorado, the Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Santee, California shootings were steeped in a NRA besotted gun culture that fetishizes readily available firearms as the ultimate medium for violent white masculinity.

However, these youth were instantly transformed into symbols of troubled, tragically “misunderstood” teens. National conversations about the perils of bullying dominated the airwaves. It was accepted that these tragic figures were “our boys,” our recklessly wasted youth. It was conventional wisdom that preventive mental health resources could have minimized their inner turmoil. As the bloggers Three Sonorans note in their piece, “White Privilege and Mass Murder in America,” “whenever white men commit mass murders it is just a freak isolated incident, but when we look at other crime statistics for minorities the reason given is that it is something innate to their culture, to their family. It is those people.”

With Columbine there was tacit understanding that these boys’ acts were symptomatic of a potentially imperiled national heritage. Conversely, any time violence erupts in a black or Latino context it’s a racial indictment, an indictment of a community, not a reflection on the rogue acts of lost boys from salt of the earth homes.

As my students and I left the Science center, bracing for more news about the scope of the attack, it was clear that the tragedy would dominate the news for weeks to come. The senseless slaughter of children from the “perfect” town may finally prompt serious bipartisan legislation to curb the barbaric gun lobby. But it will not prompt analysis of the violent masculinity at the heart of whiteness. And if any of these nice white boy shooters had been black the national sentiment would have echoed the biting comment made by my student Jamion: “Send those niggers back to Africa.” (emphasis mine)

Biting is right, and totally on-point IMHO.

On a final note, as I talked to my youngest about the shootings during "family dinner time" last Sunday,  he told me about this -- Libor scandal grows as the fathers of two mass murderers were to testify:

One interesting connection to the tragedy that took place at the Sandy Hook school is that the father of Adam Lanza has a connection to the theater shootings that took place in Aurora earlier this year by James Holmes.

Both fathers of the shooters were allegedly expected to testify in the Libor scandal that rocked the banking world in June.

The father of Newtown Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza is Peter Lanza who is a VP and Tax Director at GE Financial. The father of Aurora Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes is Robert Holmes, the lead scientist for the credit score company FICO. Both men were to testify before the US Sentate in the ongoing LIBOR scandal. The London Interbank Offered Rate, known as Libor, is the average interest rate at which banks can borrow from each other. 16 international banks have been implicated in this ongoing scandal, accused of rigging contracts worth trillions of dollars. HSBC has already been fined $1.9 billion and three of their low level traders arrested. (emphasis and interior link on HSBC mine)

While I knew about the Libor scandal, I wasn't aware of any connection whatsoever to either the Aurora or Newton massacres (funny how you think your kids aren't really paying attention to what's going on in the world in which they live -- but they are).  I told him I knew there was a reason I couldn't get this post finished, and this unknown information was probably why!

This story hasn't been officially investigated -- and why would it, if it is, in fact true? After all, the Changeling's appointment of GE's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt to lead his new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness would certainly nip any meaningful digging by the MSM in the bud, no?

I just have to say that I don't believe in coincidences.  And while I still haven't found any smoking guns, the fact that Nancy Lanza had also been previously employed -- on Wall Street, coupled with this, most interesting fact pointed out by commenter, Peter Hyoguchi in the afore-linked piece that:

"Three of Peter Lanza's financial associates from GE Capitol headed to prison because of this fraud. Why would Peter Lanza not be called to testify? James Holmes' father designed the software that assesses national credit scores which is the focus of this Federal trial so why would he not be called to testify? It's unlikely just a coincidence."

Adding to that -- there were, in fact, hearings scheduled (and had) in Congress regarding America's involvement in the Libor scandal (neither Holmes, nor Lanza mentioned, far as I can see)!  Hell, despite the fact that it all may sound circumstantial,  it's certainly enough to have me scratching my head about the murders in both, Aurora and Newton.

Yes, the Changeling has quite a few things regarding human life about which he needs to sincerely squeeze out a tear or two, but I won't hold my breath that he will.  Why?  Because he's a perfectly cast, risk-averse, deus ex machina who always sticks to the dog-whistling, photo-op script he's been given.

Related:
- UBS Libor-rigging settlement exposes pervasive bank fraud
- In the US, mass child killings are tragedies. In Pakistan, mere bug splats
- Sen. Boxer Proposes Putting National Guard Troops in Schools
- Mayor wants cops in North Charleston elementary schools
- Gun rights advocates: Arm our teachers to help stop school shootings
- Gun sales surge after Connecticut massacre

Lincoln, the resolute white supremacist -- the Changeling's "homeboy"?

Back, when I was younger, "homeboy" didn't only refer to someone who came from the same place as you.  It was someone of that place, someone with whom you shared a collection of innate life experiences, or, as Baldwin put it below -- a "system of reality":



Whether one wants to own the "system" Baldwin described, or not (and there are many who do not), most of us cannot disown the skin color by which white supremacy judges, attacks and devalues our worth.

During the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas Debates on slavery, The Changeling's "homeboy" made quite clear there was a different "system of reality" at play between Blacks and himself.  In an excerpt from the first debate held in Ottowa, IL (interesting name, given so many slaves escaped American terrorism via the Underground Railroad to Canada, only to "meet the enemy" there as well), he said:

"Now, gentlemen...This is the whole of it, and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse. [Laughter.] I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.  I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. [Great applause.] (emphasis mine)

I guess if you consider him your "homeboy" -- you just ignore the lasting, soul-murdering effects of Lincoln's positioning us as socially, politically, morally, intellectually and physically unequal to white men,in favor of praising his pragmatic arguments against "the institution" (which itself, was fully formed as a result of all those things you ignore).

Was he clear in his white supremacist beliefs?  I sure think so. Was he consistent in those beliefs?  Here's an excerpt from the fourth debate held in Charleston, IL -- you be the judge:

While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. [Great Laughter.] While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. (emphasis mine)

Seems pretty consistent and mighty white of him to me.  I might've even said, "At least he was honest!" -- except for the level of manipulation, guilt-tripping and dishonesty described in Rick Beard's recent New York Times piece, Lincoln's Panama Plan; a plan devised to get as many of our Black asses out of their, United States as he could (as if Sierra Leone and Liberia weren't enough).

I went back and forth on whether to link to, or post in its entirety, Lincoln's address, whose arguments were, according to Beard -- "...so audacious that they,retain the ability to shock a reader 150 years later."  After reading it, I thought its "homeboy" impact would be much better felt if readers saw it all at once, in his own words (with my own commentary interspersed, of course). So, here it is:

"Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes"
Abraham Lincoln
August 14, 1862

This afternoon the President of the United States gave audience to a Committee of colored men at the White House. They were introduced by the Rev. J. Mitchell, Commissioner of Emigration. E. M. Thomas, the Chairman, remarked that they were there by invitation to hear what the Executive had to say to them. Having all been seated, the President, after a few preliminary observations, informed them that a sum of money had been appropriated by Congress, and placed at his disposition for the purpose of aiding the colonization in some country of the people, or a portion of them, of African descent, thereby making it his duty, as it had for a long time been his inclination, to favor that cause; and why, he asked, should the people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. You here are freemen I suppose.

A VOICE: Yes, sir. (emphasis mine)

Per Beard's piece, "It was the first time African Americans had been invited to the White House on a policy matter." That in itself, in 1862 was enough to impress them I'm sure (all we need do is consider the behavior of some Black folk who today, were first-time invitees to the Big House after the Changeling was selected).  And Lincoln wasted no time in flashing some cash in return for their complicity in his colonization "scheme" (hm-m-m-m, sounds like reparations if we'd just get the hell out of Dodge, right?  See footnote 1 of the address for how much they were willing to pay in 1862 dollars; She-e-e-t, back then, I might've been inclined to take that damned cash!).

But in his never-wavering white supremacy, he made sure to keep them "in their place" by reminding them of our "physical difference" (which I think disguises their mortal fear of us) and the fact that our mere presence caused suffering among the white race (like we asked to come here via the Black Holocaust of slavery). Hell, how much could they have been "suffering" or "disadvantaged, given they'd worked us like the animals they felt we were, to -- clear land; farm, in order to feed them and make profits; build roads, homes and striking edifices in which they still "govern" (and I use that word loosely); be wet nurses to their damned children; clean their houses; wash and iron their clothes; cook their meals; milk their cows; raise their chickens and gather their eggs, etc., etc.?  Suffering?  Please!

The President---Perhaps you have long been free, or all your lives. Your race are suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. You are cut off from many of the advantages which the other race enjoy. The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent, not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours. Go where you are treated the best, and the ban is still upon you. (emphasis mine)

So-o-o, he sees "the greatest wrong inflicted," but still can't see Blacks as equal to whites.  Then, he uses his faux, give-a-shit to try to convince them that it was best for us to get the hell out. Clearly our existence among "those particular angels, angels who, nevertheless, are always willing to give you a helping hand" -- had to come second. The Doctrine of "Divine Right" said so. {smdh}

I do not propose to discuss this, but to present it as a fact with which we have to deal. I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact, about which we all think and feel alike, I and you. We look to our condition, owing to the existence of the two races on this continent. I need not recount to you the effects upon white men, growing out of the institution of Slavery. I believe in its general evil effects on the white race. See our present condition---the country engaged in war!---our white men cutting one another's throats, none knowing how far it will extend; and then consider what we know to be the truth. But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other. Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of Slavery and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have an existence. (emphasis mine)

The Changeling's "homeboy" is pretty patriarchal with his "I'm not discussing this" attitude.  Doesn't  seem to matter much to him what they might be thinking.  And, "I cannot alter it if I would" sounds like pretty resolute, white supremacy to me.  And then, the guilt-tripping begins in earnest, blaming slavery (the capitalist enterprise into which white men willfully and gleefully plunged for profit) -- not only for "white men cutting one another's throats," but for the war as well (for all you deniers out there).  Way to take NO agency at all in white folks's absolute barbarity against us, AND one another there Abe.  Yeah, this institution y'all needed so badly caused white folk to act like, horror of horrors -- savages!

It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated. I know that there are free men among you, who even if they could better their condition are not as much inclined to go out of the country as those, who being slaves could obtain their freedom on this condition. I suppose one of the principal difficulties in the way of colonization is that the free colored man cannot see that his comfort would be advanced by it. You may believe you can live in Washington or elsewhere in the United States the remainder of your life [as easily], perhaps more so than you can in any foreign country, and hence you may come to the conclusion that you have nothing to do with the idea of going to a foreign country. This is (I speak in no unkind sense) an extremely selfish view of the case.

But you ought to do something to help those who are not so fortunate as yourselves. There is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh as it may be, for you free colored people to remain with us. Now, if you could give a start to white people, you would open a wide door for many to be made free. If we deal with those who are not free at the beginning, and whose intellects are clouded by Slavery, we have very poor materials to start with. If intelligent colored men, such as are before me, would move in this matter, much might be accomplished. It is exceedingly important that we have men at the beginning capable of thinking as white men, and not those who have been systematically oppressed. (emphasis mine)

His "...we should be separated" grand solution is funny.  What would America have looked like had we all left back then?  Accusing them (in no unkind sense, mind you) of being extremely selfish is guilting.  And so is his paternalistically telling these men what they ought to do (all the while keeping at the forefront, how much white folk don't want to deal with Black folk).

Among the many egregious statements made by the "Great Emancipator" in this address, I find these to be among the rankest:  1) Black men, "should give a start" to these barbarians in order for the rest of us to be free?  What kind of shit is that?  The onus should be put on US, to make them act like human beings??  2) Those minds, "clouded by Slavery," are "poor materials to start with?"  Pitting the House Negro's alleged superior thinking against the Field Negro's alleged inferior thinking is so par for white supremacy's course.  3) And this, especially, is the pinnacle of that course, which is still working like a champ to this day -- "It is exceedingly important that we have men at the beginning capable of thinking as white men, and not those who have been systematically oppressed."

O-h-h-h, given the Changeling's craven idolatry of the guy, were he around today, he would certainly give his little, brown-faced "homeboy" a hearty pat on the head for his performance to date!  I have no particular love for Rev. Jesse Jackson but, the predominantly white, MSM's heyday notwithstanding, he certainly should have stood by his open-mike comment about the Changeling back in 2008 (Okay, maybe not the "nuts" part) -- because he was right about him "talking down to Black folk," mirroring Lincoln's encouragement to these Black men.

There is much to encourage you. For the sake of your race you should sacrifice something of your present comfort for the purpose of being as grand in that respect as the white people. It is a cheering thought throughout life that something can be done to ameliorate the condition of those who have been subject to the hard usage of the world. It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself, and claims kindred to the great God who made him. In the American Revolutionary war sacrifices were made by men engaged in it; but they were cheered by the future. Gen. Washington himself endured greater physical hardships than if he had remained a British subject. Yet he was a happy man, because he was engaged in benefiting his race---something for the children of his neighbors, having none of his own. (emphasis mine)

"For the sake of your race..."  Okay,  I'm getting plenty weary of the guilt-tripping, aren't you?  And even more, I'm sick of him telling Black folk to be, "as grand in that respect as the white people."  And what exactly does Washington's "commitment" have to do with anything?  He was considered white, just like them.

The colony of Liberia has been in existence a long time.  In a certain sense it is a success. The old President of Liberia, Roberts, has just been with me---the first time I ever saw him. He says they have within the bounds of that colony between 300,000 and 400,000 people, or more than in some of our old States, such as Rhode Island or Delaware, or in some of our newer States, and less than in some of our larger ones. They are not all American colonists, or their descendants. Something less than 12,000 have been sent thither from this country. Many of the original settlers have died, yet, like people elsewhere, their offspring outnumber those deceased.

The question is if the colored people are persuaded to go anywhere, why not there? One reason for an unwillingness to do so is that some of you would rather remain within reach of the country of your nativity. I do not know how much attachment you may have toward our race. It does not strike me that you have the greatest reason to love them. But still you are attached to them at all events. (emphasis mine)

First, he tells these men, "in a certain sense," that Liberia is a success.  Yet, he talks about meeting the "old president of Liberia" for the first time.  In a certain sense,  I don't think he knew a damned thing about the successfulness of Liberia (or didn't want to admit how much success had been made as relayed during that first-time visit).

The place I am thinking about having for a colony is in Central America. It is nearer to us than Liberia---not much more than one-fourth as far as Liberia, and within seven days' run by steamers. Unlike Liberia it is on a great line of travel---it is a highway. The country is a very excellent one for any people, and with great natural resources and advantages, and especially because of the similarity of climate with your native land---thus being suited to your physical condition.

The particular place I have in view is to be a great highway from the Atlantic or Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and this particular place has all the advantages for a colony. On both sides there are harbors among the finest in the world. Again, there is evidence of very rich coal mines. A certain amount of coal is valuable in any country, and there may be more than enough for the wants of the country. Why I attach so much importance to coal is, it will afford an opportunity to the inhabitants for immediate employment till they get ready to settle permanently in their homes.

If you take colonists where there is no good landing, there is a bad show; and so where there is nothing to cultivate, and of which to make a farm. But if something is started so that you can get your daily bread as soon as you reach there, it is a great advantage. Coal land is the best thing I know of with which to commence an enterprise.

To return, you have been talked to upon this subject, and told that a speculation is intended by gentlemen, who have an interest in the country, including the coal mines. We have been mistaken all our lives if we do not know whites as well as blacks look to their self-interest. Unless among those deficient of intellect everybody you trade with makes something. You meet with these things here as elsewhere.

If such persons have what will be an advantage to them, the question is whether it cannot be made of advantage to you. You are intelligent, and know that success does not as much depend on external help as on self-reliance. Much, therefore, depends upon yourselves. As to the coal mines, I think I see the means available for your self-reliance.

I shall, if I get a sufficient number of you engaged, have provisions made that you shall not be wronged. If you will engage in the enterprise I will spend some of the money intrusted to me. I am not sure you will succeed. The Government may lose the money, but we cannot succeed unless we try; but we think, with care, we can succeed. (emphasis mine)

Now did he think the "similarity of climate" to our "native land" thing was a deal-maker?  Hell, all of the Deep South has that kind of climate (one of the main reasons they brought us here to clear land, prepare fields and grow cotton and rice, among other cash crops)!  And ole Abe was just being totally dishonest about the whole, "rich coal mines" nonsense.  As it turns out, it was merely another, flashing-of-cash-to-come, setting-folk-up-to-fail exercise.  According to Beard's piece, "The Chiriquí venture was, in retrospect, doomed from the start. Ambrose Thompson’s title to the coal lands proved questionable, and a report by the Smithsonian Institution’s Joseph Henry found that the Chiriquí coal was almost worthless as fuel."

The political affairs in Central America are not in quite as satisfactory condition as I wish. There are contending factions in that quarter; but it is true all the factions are agreed alike on the subject of colonization, and want it, and are more generous than we are here. To your colored race they have no objection. Besides, I would endeavor to have you made equals, and have the best assurance that you should be the equals of the best. (emphasis mine)

Another outright lie, as indicated in the last paragraph of footnote 1:  "A letter of authority from Lincoln to Pomeroy was prepared for Lincoln's signature, probably by the State Department, under date of September 10, 1862, but remains unsigned in duplicate copies in the Lincoln Papers. The project was abandoned when first Honduras and later Nicaragua and Costa Rica protested the scheme and hinted that force might be used to prevent the settlement."

Besides lying on Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, can somebody please tell me how he could have us made equals -- in Central America?  By throwing some money around to foment rebellion between the "contending factions "like his "homeboy" does today?  And even if that would have worked, it wouldn't have made us "equal" -- just gone (which is all he wanted anyway).

The practical thing I want to ascertain is whether I can get a number of able-bodied men, with their wives and children, who are willing to go, when I present evidence of encouragement and protection. Could I get a hundred tolerably intelligent men, with their wives and children, to ``cut their own fodder,'' so to speak? Can I have fifty? If I could find twenty-five able-bodied men, with a mixture of women and children, good things in the family relation, I think I could make a successful commencement. (emphasis mine)

Sounds like an auctioneer doesn't he?

I want you to let me know whether this can be done or not. This is the practical part of my wish to see you. These are subjects of very great importance, worthy of a month's study, [instead] of a speech delivered in an hour. I ask you then to consider seriously not pertaining to yourselves merely, nor for your race, and ours, for the present time, but as one of the things, if successfully managed, for the good of mankind---not confined to the present generation, but as

"From age to age descends the lay,

To millions yet to be,

Till far its echoes roll away,

Into eternity."

The above is merely given as the substance of the President's remarks.

The Chairman of the delegation briefly replied that "they would hold a consultation and in a short time give an answer." The President said: "Take your full time---no hurry at all."

The delegation then withdrew. (emphasis mine)

"For the good of mankind." Now that just warrants nothin' but this:

 

And, going back to Beard's piece, there were better men than Lincoln who agree:

Nevertheless, the publication of Lincoln’s remarks at the meeting generated a furious response from all corners of the anti-slavery world. To Senator John P. Hale, a Radical Republican from New Hampshire, “The idea of removing the whole colored population from this country is one of the most absurd ideas that ever entered into the head of man or woman.” Lincoln’s treasury secretary, Salmon P. Chase, wrote in his diary, “How much better would be a manly protest against prejudice against color! — and a wise effort to give freemen homes in America!” On Aug. 22 William Lloyd Garrison editorialized that “the nation’s four million slaves are as much the natives of this country as any of their oppressors,” and two weeks later The Pacific Appeal noted that Lincoln’s words “made it evident that he, his cabinet, and most of the people, care but little for justice to the negro.” And Frederick Douglass said that “the President of the United States seems to possess an ever increasing passion for making himself appear silly and ridiculous, if nothing worse.” (emphasis mine)

Unlike Mr. Beard, I experienced no "shock" at all in reading Lincoln's machinations toward these free Black men.  Maybe because, I long ago abandoned the whole "Lincoln-freed-the-slaves" meme as some humanitarian gesture on his part (h-m-m-m-m, his "homeboy," uses that word, "humanitarian" a lot too -- right before he joins the "usual suspects" in some land-grabbing, imperialist, regime changing inhumanity) -- because it was not.  It was merely a focused military strategy to "save the Union," which didn't even apply to those slaves in border states or those in southern states already under Union control.

So let's just be clear -- Lincoln's concern was neither for us, nor our well-being.  His aim was to keep this country as white as he possibly could, which is why he's no "homeboy" of mine.  And while I agree with William Lloyd Garrison above, there are days when this comment I read and saved long ago, makes more and more sense to me:

"Stay where you are celebrated, reconsider where you are tolerated, and flee where you are persecuted."

-- commenter Alex Raventhorne on "....and yet they wonder why POC emigrate"

Related:
-"Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream"/ Lerone Bennett, Jr. (video)
- A Separate Peace
- Emancipation’s Price
- Thomas concedes that ‘we the people’ didn’t include blacks
-Was the Civil War actually about Slavery?
- I'm Black Really. Just Read My Book
- The incredible nothingness of "whiteness"... (you can listen to the entire October 26, 1965, Baldwin v Buckley debate at Cambridge from which the first video was taken here)
- Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from His Native Land (Randall Robinson interview begins at the 28:27 click)