Monroe Anderson

Mainstreaming Malcolm X

    I heard about Malcolm X's assassination while listening to the radio in my father's car. For the life of me, I can't remember much else. I can't remember whether I was driving or a passenger. I can't remember where I was going. What I do remember is the news report that he had been fatally shot by gunmen while giving a speech in Harlem.

    At the time, I knew little about Malcolm. I'd watched him on late-night talk shows that were forerunners to Common Ground, the one I'd find myself hosting three decades later.

    Before the year of his assassination had ended, I'd come to know much more. By Fall, I was a freshman at Indiana University. Jazz musician Charles Ellison, who was one of three black students on my dorm floor back then and to this day remains one of my closest friends, dropped by my room with a big book in hand.

    "Read this, It's the Bible," he said, showing me the newly published "The Autobiography of Malcolm X."

    It was. The book stirred my soul and fired up my political consciousness unlike anything the fading Civil Rights Movement had ever managed to do. By the time I'd finished reading Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King's nonviolence approach to combating racial discrimination seemed about as relevant as a "We like Ike" campaign button. A little more than a year after Malcolm's death, when Stokely Carmichael shouted "Black Power," I took to quoting the Black Muslim leader and embracing Black Nationalism.

   At that time, black Americans virtually had no power. The Civil Rights Act had become law just two years earlier, the Voting Rights Act a year after that. It would be another year before Carl Stokes and Richard G. Hatcher would be elected the first black mayors of Cleveland and Gary and Thurgood Marshall would become America's first black Supreme Court Justice.

    Today, of course, 45 years after Malcolm's death, blacks have power in America. We have black mayors in the nation's largest cities, black heads of Fortune 500 corporations, black governors and senators and Barack Obama. 

    That's not to say we still don't have a long way to go--just look at the unemployment and incarceration rates. There's still much work to do. But there are no longer any major obstacles that we can't overcome.

    In fact, from Hip-hop to fashion, African American influence at home is American influence throughout the world. We have power. 

    So, why was I so surprised to realize that even the very militant Malcolm has himself become mainstream in America? I don't know. But, after seeing this  MSN popular searches, I suspect he has now.

 

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                                 Search: Malcolm X assassination

Today marks the 45th anniversary of the assassination of a leader in the American civil rights movement: Malcolm X.

Lost too soon: Malcolm X (Birth name?) (Muslim name?) was only 39 when he was cut down while speaking here. Find speech transcripts and hear him talk.

Powerful presence: He was a charismatic speaker, and the media covered him extensively. See videos.

Lasting legacy: He was a member of this group before he founded an organization with this philosophy.

Intimidation: What troubling events occurred shortly before his death? What did his wife, Betty Shabazz, say days before his assassination?

Premonition? Malcolm X made this comment eight months before his killing.

The crime: Who were the shooters? They were convicted but didn't receive the death penalty. Where are they now?

Cover-up? Some don't believe that version of events. Conspiracy theories abound.

His family: Malcolm X left behind his wife and six daughters. Shabazz died tragically. How are the daughters doing?

The impact: He was mourned by many, and after his death he received this honor, among others.

Two giants: Malcolm X and this civil rights leader met only once and for just a brief moment (see photos).

The Impeach Obama movement's impeachable motives

 
 

    Barack Obama has been POTUS for less than a year and a month and already the wingnuts have launched a slew of wacky Impeach Obama campaigns.

In Wisconsin, an Impeach Obama billboard mysteriously appeared last week on U.S. 41 near the Oshkosh Correctional Institution. And what are the grounds for this call to remove our nation's first African American president? This punch line on the billboard explains it all: "America's small businesses are failing. Help us spread the message." Oh, sorry, that was no punch line, these sorry folks aren't joking. There's also the Impeach Obama Campaign.com website that claims to have "Over 100000 signatures and growing."  Go there and you'll be able to read the revealing reasons why America's legally elected head of state should be removed from office:

Radio-personality Tammy Bruce may have said it best: 

---

"... ultimately, it comes down to... the fact that he seems to have, it seems to me, some malevolence toward this country, which is unabated."
Speaking of the best sayings of vitriolic, slime-spewing right-wing radio personalities, there's Michael Savage who demands that we "Impeach Obama now. Stop him before he kills this country."
Savage's padded-cell rants are kissing cousins to what's being sung by some jackleg rock group called Sleuth. If you're into poorly performed songs with poorly written propagandistic lyrics, then the group's Impeach Obama is the song for you.
And, of course, there's the Tea Baggers and the bumper stickers.
Why do a plurality of Republicans, according to a Daily Kos poll, want Obama impeached?  Why is there this wingnut zeal to topple America's freely elected leader? 
Has he been convicted of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors? Nope.
Has he lied to our citizens about WMDs so that we could invade and occupy an oil-rich, Muslim country in the Middle East? Au contraire.
Has he broken U.S. and International law by allowing POWs to be tortured in violation of the Geneva Conventions treaty? I don't think so.
Has he even been caught lying about getting some head in the Oval Office? No. No. No.
So why--just one-fourth through his presidential term--are these crusades to remove the Leader of the Free World out there? Keith Olbermann, my favorite cable TV host on the "whites only" MSNBC line-up, summed it all up in a special commentary, "Beware fear's racist temptation," on Countdown last  night. His commentary, I think, got to the heart of conservative America's thinking and to the soul of the Impeach Obama fantasy.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Apathy in America means that we're all potential victims

     

    My younger son, Kyle, still bears an ugly scar on his right eyelid from an attempted mugging on the CTA. 

In 2008, he was on his way home on the Green Line from his part-time job at Kennedy-King College as a City Colleges student when he was jumped by a gang of thugs out to relieve him of his Zune, his cell phone and the lonely and  solitary singles hanging out in his slim wallet.

After failing to beat Kyle down, the pack of muggers jumped off at the next L stop, vanishing into the rush hour crowd waiting to board the train. Their quick and vicious attack was witnessed, but neither interrupted nor protested, by the packed car of transit riders. It was only after the thugs had scurried away that one compassionate passenger provided Kyle with a handkerchief to wipe away the blood flowing from his open wounds.

Unfortunately, that's life in the big city. Citizens don't want to get involved in all-too-common outbreaks of violence for fear that they may themselves become unwitting victims. I think that kind of conduct is cowardice but I also understand it.

I don't understand, however, what went down late last month in Seattle, Washington. Four teenagers--a girl and three boys--attacked a 15-year-old girl in a Macy's department store. Seattle police reportedly witnessed the row and then ordered the teens to take it outside. 

The targeted girl retreated to bus tunnel at Westlake Station, purposefully standing by security guards, thinking she would be safe. 

She wasn't. 

The guards stood idly by and watched as she was allegedly (and I use this as an innocent until proven guilty phrase) badly beaten by the teenagers who had followed her out of the nearby department store.

It's one pathetic thing for citizens to watch and do nothing while an innocent victim is being beaten and mugged but it's something else altogether for hired hands to keep theirs in their pockets as they whistle while they work.

In Kyle's case, he fought off his offenders. They ended up hightailing it empty handed. The 15-year-old Seattle girl was not so fortunate. Her attackers stole her phone, her purse and her IPod, leaving her temporarily unconscious from a kick to the head.

I know the right-wingers aren't about to agree with me on this, but I'm hoping the trial lawyers help the teenage girl victim and her parents get as much as a Wall Street CEO's annual bonus in lawsuit judgments against the Seattle police department and the security company that failed to step up when regular citizens were afraid to do so.

Gary, Indiana's greatest? I write. You decide.

 

Big Mike started it.

I was at home, sitting in my library, MacBook Pro on my lap, HD flat broadcasting my daily dose of MSNBC cable, counting the most recent hypocrisies of our nation's Republican leaders on both my hands and feet when I got a call from my friend, Benny Jay.

"I think you should check out our blog. I had nothing to do with it."

So, I go to The Third City website and what do I see? Something silly. 

Big Mike is claiming that Milo is Gary, Indiana's greatest writer. And I thought the Third City guys were my friends. I'd come to admiringly think of them as the Three Musketeers, taking on day-to-day issues that other bloggers found too low rent and trivial to tackle, sort of the Seinfeld's of the internet.

Obviously, I was wrong. As it turns out, the Three Musketeers are not so much one for all and all for one as they are only one, Benny Jay, with the other two, Big Mike and Milo, jointly amounting to the Three Stooges. 

Benny Jay is a good friend. He read my unpublished, 500-page great epic novel, Sweetspeare's Sirens: The Tell-All Memoir by Pierce Trotter. Ben also read all 12 or whatever of Milo's unpublished novel attempts. Did I mention that Benny Jay is a very good friend to Milo?

Anyway, I went to The Third City website, only to read this:

My apologies to Monroe Anderson, but Milo Samardzija is Gary, Indiana’s greatest writer.

Benny Jay’s been leaning on Monroe for months now, trying to get him to become part of this Third City outfit. Between you and me, if Monroe does cave in and sign on, he’ll be Gary, Indiana’s greatest writer. Like I say, let’s keep this on the QT — there’s no need for us to ruffle Milo’s feathers. He has his moods, if you know what I mean.

Because there isn't an egotistical bone in my body, I was all set to let it go. I mean, I know how I roll and how I've rolled  as a writer while nobody knows whether Milo is still on training wheels or a tricycle when it comes to using words to move readers' hearts and minds. But while I was in my "be read and let be read" frame of mine,  my friend and fellow Garyite, Milo,  went all Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels on me by writing on The Third City blog:

Let me set the record straight. Monroe Anderson is a barely literate, no-talent hack. As a writer, he is in the same league as Benny Jay and Big Mike, which is to say they are all bush leaguers. I doubt Monroe is even from Gary. He probably grew up in Muncie or Fort Wayne, or some backwater in southern Indiana. He just says he’s from Gary to improve his social standing.

After receiving tens of thousands of man-up emails from the Monroe Anderson is Gary's Greatest Writer International Fan Club, I had to reply to Big Mike and Milo. If you want to read my letter to the editor, posted by Benny Jay on The Third City website, click here. 

If not, I understand, The Third City assertion that I'm not Gary's greatest is so third rate that it may not be worth your precious time as an intelligent reader who all too well knows what's what, who's who and why Gary, Indiana is so damn proud of me--and is wondering who is this Milo and why is he making this lame-brained, Sarah Palin-like claim?

And now for some upside-down, inside-out racial thinking

 

    In this pretend post-racial era, there are those who argue that Black History Month should be a thing of the past. Since we're all getting along so well in our newfound colorblind society, why muddle things by celebrating Black History with its taint of slavery, lynching, segregation and all that over negative stuff  when we've finally leveled the playing field?

Just yesterday, Lionel Canterbury posted a comment on a post entitled "Is Obama really the magic one?" that ran on this blog a year ago. His comment is deeply rooted in the same twisted thinking that rationalizes racial bigotry and discrimination. Click on Lionel's name if you want to read his comment or reply to what he wrote. To make it easy for you, I've cut and pasted it below. You can also reply or comment about it at the end of this post.

Here's Lionel's comment:

racism cannot be confined to prejudice and injustices by whites towards blacks. in the larger scope of things, it is not necessarily unnatural for any human whatever their race, to harbor some feelings of racism simply by being. Indeed, it seems plain to me that blacks are in general much more inclined to make decisions, form opinions, or take actions towards others based on their race than most other races do. perhaps they feel more threatened by race, perhaps they feel they are superior.

there will be a racism problem as long as blacks keep talking about. imo many blacks would lose a deep sense of purpose if they could no longer claim they were being discriminated against based on their race.

In case you're having trouble figuring out the point of the comment above, allow me to shorthand it for you: He's blaming the victim.

His logic, if you want to call it that, goes something like this: It's natural for human beings to be racist and naturally black people are more racist than others. And, without pointing out racism when it happens, black people wouldn't have anything else better to do with their lives.

Well, at the risk of seeming both racist and purposeless in Lionel's mind, I'd like to rant about the photoshopped picture at the top of this post. IMO, a photo with the POTUS shining the shoes of a half-term Alaskan governor is racist--should he happen to be black and she happen to be white.

This racist little photo ran on Sarah Palin's Facebook page. It speaks volumes about those who are so enraptured with what she doesn't have to say and what she does represent.

I don't know if Lionel is a wingnut, a racist, an idiot or all three, but I do know that contrary to what he thinks, it's very much the duty of black folks to call out this stupid, ugly behavior--during Black History Month in particular and during the other 11 months in general.

Come to think of it, we're not so much in a post-racial era are we're in a neo-racial era.  The N-word is now considered too gauche in polite society so code words have replaced it. Instead of publicly calling him the nigger president, Barack Obama is monumentally magical in the wingnut definition of him, code-worded as the socialist-fascist-racist-tyrannical-punk-shoeshine boy-illegal immigrant POTUS.

All this tortured thinking from the far right immediately brings to mind what Malcolm X had to say nearly half a century ago. Check him out:

This column was also published on the African American Opinion.com website.

Poor management takes CTA to the Poorhouse

 
 

    Just days before the 2008 Summer Olympics, Richard M. Daley, Chicago's Mayor-For-Life, was in China taking test rides on Beijing's new state-of-the art subway. 

With dreams of the 2016 Chicago games dancing in his head, Mayor Daley wanted to have a first-hand look-see at the modern marvel of the Beijing subway lines so he could augment his planned plea for help from Washington to rehabilitate his city's century-old creaking and cranky transit system.

As it turned out, the day after I'd watched TV reports about the mayor's magical transit train trip 7,000 miles away from home, I happened to be downtown, descending into the Chicago Avenue station at the early end of the evening rush hour. I had barely cleared the bottom step before I bumped into a mob of CTA passengers lined up as they waited to feed the transit card machines.

"What's going on?" I asked one of the 15 riders ahead of me in my line.

The woman I stood directly behind shrugged. I looked at the machines. Out of the six, four had out-of-order stickers slapped on them in the area where the money should have been going.  I stood there puzzled, slowly shuffling forward, fighting that feeling I get when I'm stuck in traffic on the toll way braking my way towards the booth for those without an I-Pass, when a uniformed CTA employee showed up within earshot.

"Why are so many of the machines broken?" I asked.

"They're not broke," he said, stopping and approaching me with a body language that said he loved taking on customers with a beef.

"They're not." I said in a questioning sort of way.

"No. They're full. They can't accept any more cash."

"What?"

"These people they got in charge don't know what they're doing. They come in from out of town thinking they're so smart, ha."
Listening to the rumble of the Red Line train having come and now going while I was still waiting in line left me missing the humor of it all.

"Gas is up to four bucks a gallon. It cost too much to drive so everybody's taking the train," he said. "The geniuses in charge haven't figured that out yet, so they only send a collector once a day. They ought to be sending somebody out here twice a day to get the money."

"I see," I said. 

So that was it. The always broke and begging Chicago Transit Authority was so incompetently managed that it wasn't bothering to collect the money it needed so that it could be sure it collected more of the money it needed. On Friday, I was reminded of my up close and personal observation of the CTA management's business acumen when Mayor Daley made a failing attempt to broker an agreement between his CTA officials and labor union leaders.

Obviously, the CTA's union leader knows the same thing the Chicago station CTA employee knew. After the mayor's futile effort, this is what Darrell Jefferson, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, local 241 had to say about CTA bosses: "Outside of Enron, they probably have mismanaged themselves more than any corporation in America." 

To the casual observer like myself, Jefferson's pronouncement applies to small things such as the rehab of the Armitage Avenue L station where the track platform was extended to allow longer trains while the outdoor heater was left some distance away from the new boarding area. But it also applies to much more important things such as the 13 L derailments in the past five years. That grand sum amounts to more accidents than the New York City subway and Washington Metro combined during the same time period. 

Of course, for the irregular CTA rider like me, tomorrow's bus route eliminations and schedule cutbacks is no great big deal. But it will be for the 1,100 CTA employees who will be laid off to cover the systems $95 million budget shortfall.

There is, however, more than one sign of hope.  Out of curiosity, I went underground Saturday afternoon at the Chicago Avenue station for a reality check. Only two of the six cash collecting machines had out-of-order stickers slapped on them.

This column was cross-posted on the Huffingtonpost.com and Newsvine websites.

In Search of Intelligence in the Multiverse--Not in the minds of the GOP

 
  

    Whether it's Sarah Palin, Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence, Michael Steele or Rush Limbaugh, you can almost always count on Republican leadership to say something stupid.

In some cases--take Palin for example--the simple-minded statements come from an uniformed mind. In other cases--take Limbaugh this time--it's a matter of fabrications, deceptions and out-right lies.

In the end it really doesn't matter rather it's an imbecile stuck on stupid or a madman on a misinformation mission: there are low-information Americans out there soaking it all up.  They all seem to be conservative and think they alone have ownership of all things American. Even so, I was shocked to find out how many Americans who call themselves Republicans know so little about so many things--or are just plain mad as a hatter.

And with that, I give you--

The 2010 Comprehensive Daily Kos/Research 2000 Poll of Self-Identified Republicans

OBAMA and AMERICA

Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not?

Yes 39 
No 32 
Not Sure 29

For what? Who the heck knows. Who needs high crimes or misdemeanors when...

Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?

Yes 63 
No 21 
Not Sure 16

That's the power of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, after one year of relentlessly claiming Obama is the second coming of Lenin ... and Hitler!

Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?

Yes 42 
No 36 
Not Sure 22

We still have over a half of Republicans who don't think Obama was born in the US or think it's a matter open to debate.

Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?

Yes 24 
No 43 
Not Sure 33

Not just a quarter of Republicans believe this ludicrous premise, but another third think it's a matter open to debate. How do you negotiate with a party whose rank and file are that divorced from reality? And speaking of divorced from reality...

Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?

Yes 21 
No 24 
Not Sure 55

One in five Republicans think ACORN is so powerful as to magically make 10 million votes appear. Another55 are open to the theory. In other words, just 24 percent of Republicans have an even passing relationship with reality.

Do you believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama?

Yes 53 
No 14 
Not Sure 33

Sigh...

Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people?

Yes 31 
No 36 
Not Sure 33

I bet more people think Obama is racist, but were too afraid to tell a live operator the truth.

Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?

Yes 23 
No 58 
Not Sure 19

42 percent of Republicans aren't really patriotic. They pretend to love America only when they approve of the president. These traitors don't believe in democracy, in our nation's founding ideals, or in our flag. To them, those colors run. They are cowards.

Note, secession sentiment is MUCH stronger in the South than elsewhere -- 33 percent want out, compared to just 52 percent who want to stay. In the Northeast, "just" 10 percent want out, in the Midwest, its 18 percent, and in the West, it's 16 percent. Can we cram them all into the Texas Panhandle, create the state of Dumbfuckistan, and build a wall around them to keep them from coming into America illegally?

The comments following the polling numbers came with the Daily Kos report. To read more--and weep or laugh depending on your mood--click here.

I'm assuming the more extreme moronic thoughts belong to the Tea-baggers and wing-nuts. Other than that, what can I say? I could paraphrase Moma Gump with a "Stupid is as stupid thinks." Or I could point out that this proves the current axiom "Garbage in, garbage out?" 

But mainly it informs us that the GOP may not so much be the Party of No as it is the Party of Know Nothings.

 

 This column was cross-posted on the AgoraVox and UK Progressive websites.

Black History Month is still not history

 

    Besides holding down her job as my wife and mother of my two sons, Scott and Kyle, Joyce Owens is an artist and a professor and curator at Chicago State University. When she's not eyeballs deep in one of those five jobs, she takes time out to curate an exhibition for Sapphire & Crystals, a collective of African American women artists here in Chicago.

Without fail, this is the time of the year when the S & C's can bank on an exhibition somewhere. Black History Month really is predictable. And without fail, this is the time of the year when I was a captive sounding board, forced to hear Joyce complain about how this was the only time of the year that it occurred to white galleries, universities and community centers that showing art by black women is a good thing to do.

I understand all too well.

Although I'm available year round, my best speaking engagement in 2009 was a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr./President Barack Obama Celebration for the City of Chicago Height, Illinois. Of course, Obama's Inauguration was a true historical moment. The King Holiday and Black History Month, on the other hand, have become as regular as a Gregorian Calendar.  The two African American observation's have sort of blended into Black History Season, which begins the day after Christmas for Kwanza and rolls on through the end of February. As for the rest of the year--forget about us.

I was reminded of this peculiarity when I read the latest post of my friend Jack White, Buckwheat's Black History Month Tour, on the Washington Post's black website, The Root. This visit to "the Home of Retired Racial Stereotypes" is a funny as Jack's drop in last April. Check it out and then tell me--if you can--why Black History Month shouldn't be integrated into American history, 24/7/52?

Here's Jack's post:

Buckwheat’s Black History Month Tour

By: Jack White

Posted: February 1, 2010 at 6:38 AM

Forget all the black public intellectuals. The Our Gang character has a few things to get off his chest. I came across Buckwheat packing a Kente cloth suitcase in his suite at the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes. He was softly humming, “On the Road Again.”   

"Going somewhere?” I inquired.

“Course I is, White,” squeaked the famous Our Gang character. “It’s Feb’rary and that means it’s time for my annual Black His’try Month speakin’ tour.”

“Your what?” I responded. 

“My annual Black His’try Month speakin’ tour!” said my diminutive friend in a high-pitched voice as he carefully folded a colorful dashiki and placed it in the valise. 

“This the month when black public in-tee-leck-shals like me rakes in ‘nuf speakin’ fees to pay the bills the rest of the year when nobody wants to hear nothin’ we got to say,” said Buckwheat. “It’s kinda like bears eatin’ ‘nuf salmon durin’ the spawnin’ run to get them through the winter.”

“I never thought of it like that,” I observed.

“Where will you be chowing down … I meant, speaking?” “Oh, I’m booked solid,” said Buckwheat proudly. “I’m as pop’lar as Henry Louis Gates, Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Melissa Harris-Lacewell and Clarence Page put together. I got a Black His’try road show with a bus and everythin’! ”

“But how could you possibly compete with such a gallery of brilliant minds?” I asked, skeptically.

“All of them just talks ‘bout black his’try,” he ranted, his voice rising into higher and higher registers.

“I lives it. I don’t just talk about racial stereotypes—I IS one! Nobody can say ‘Here I is’ or ‘Otay’ like me! Those are MY trademarks!!! I is an icon!! I is an original!!! WHEN YOU SAY BUCKWHEAT, YOU SAY BLACK HIS’TRY!!!!!”

His tiny fists were pumping in the air, and he was shrieking at such a high pitch it fractured the crystal glasses in the dining room.

“Is that so,” I remarked.

“Yeah, and I got a book comin’ out to prove it. It’s called The Negro Squeaks of Rivers,” Buckwheat boasted. “PBS is plannin’ a 19-part series based on it. They think it could be bigger than Roots.”

Just then, I heard the growl of an engine and an enormous red, black and green touring bus pulled up at the door. It looked like the Kingfish was at the wheel.

“That’s my ride! Gotta go get paid!” shouted Buckwheat, lugging the bulging suitcase toward the door. “So long, White. Be seein’ you in March!”

I waved goodbye, shook my head and closed the door.

Jack White is a regular contributor to The Root.

This column has also been cross-posted on the African American Opinion.com website.