Trying to negotiate with Jell-O.

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As of the writing of this post, the American government is still officially shutdown. 

Both sides are pointing the fingers and playing the blame game, but I think that Stevie Wonder can see who is at fault here. Of course it's the man who says that he is the greatest deal- maker of all time.

His deal making skills clearly leaves a lot to be desired, because those in his own party have no clue what he wants, and those on the other side of the table declared that dealing with him is like trying to negotiate with Jell-O.  Let's face it, all trump knows how to do is play us versus them, and demonize his opponents.

The latest example of this is the trump campaign ad being played around the shutdown. Instead of coming to the table with dems and trying to find real solutions, the president is running a misleading ad that implies that democrats are complicit in murders committed by illegal immigrants.

Go figure, it's the latest in a long line of political scare tactics that is used by republicans and those on the right to scare their mostly white base into voting for them. As if somehow their tougher laws will shield white Americans from the black and brown bogeymen out there. 

The sad part about all of this is that the facts and statistics speak to a totally different reality:

Trump has repeatedly sought to paint immigrants as dangerous, talking about transnational gangs, such as MS-13, and implementing a travel ban on travelers from some countries in the Middle East and Africa over what he said were concerns about terrorism.

But some studies have shown that immigrants, including those here illegally, commit crimes at lower rates than do native-born Americans.

For example, a March 2017 study by the pro-immigration Cato Institute found that “all immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than natives relative to their shares of the population” and that “even illegal immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans.”

As The Washington Post’s Fact Checker reported in 2015, one study showed that between 1990 and 2013, “the foreign-born share of the U.S. population grew from 7.9 percent to 13.1 percent and the number of unauthorized immigrants more than tripled from 3.5 million to 11.2 million.

“During the same period, FBI data indicate that the violent crime rate declined 48 percent – which included falling rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder. Likewise, the property crime rate fell 41 percent, including declining rates of motor vehicle theft, larceny/robbery, and burglary,” according to the American Immigration Council.

The violent crime rate was cut nearly by half during a period in which unauthorized immigrants tripled, according to the council."

Facts are wonderful things. It's a shame that they are antithetical to our president and his minions.

(Dear white people living in America, you are more likely to be hit by a meteorite than you are to be attacked by a MS-13 gang member.) 

I am almost finished with my post and the government is still shutdown. I feel bad for the folks who will be affected by this, and I hope that the politricksters in Washington can work something out in a reasonable manner.

Wait, did I just say that? Sorry folks, for just a minute there I forgot that Donald trump is the president of these divided states of America.  Reasonable and that guy just does not go together. 
 





 

Is it only "Black American Lives" that matter?

The Field Negro education series continues.

The following essay is important, because here in America folks need to realize that there is a big world out there. 

"Let's be honest: When people say "Black Lives Matter," what they really mean is that Black American Lives Matter.

Not Afro-Brazilian lives, not South Sudanese lives and certainly not Congolese lives. Just black American lives.

In July, as outrage over the police shooting of Alton Sterling dominated the news -- propelling black protesters across the world to the streets, much as Black Lives Matter protesters shut down London City Airport on Tuesday -- 300 people were killed in Juba, South Sudan.

That same week, an estimated 8,500 people were also killed in Congo, Africa's largest Sub-Saharan country, where proxy wars over control of its mineral resources that go into our mobile phones killed more than estimated 5.4 million between 1998 and 2008 -- and continue to claim 1,500 lives, with 1,100 women and young girls reportedly raped each day.

Yet, as with most killings in Africa, there wasn't any international protest within black communities in the diasporas to defend the humanity of these black people.

I cannot help thinking about this paradox: our preoccupation with the killing of black people in the United States versus our almost overt disregard for the killing of black people in Africa.

Why do we feel strongly enough to take to the streets over the killing of black people in Baltimore, Ferguson, Missouri, or Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but remain silent about killing in the Congo, Brazil or South Sudan?

Is it because Staten Island, Ferguson and Baton Rouge were flooded with media reporters from almost every major news outlet, with vigorous editorial discussion in the morning, noon and evening for viewers around the globe, while crises in the Congo and across Africa barely receive any airtime?

Is it because victims in the United States are black and their killers are white, whereas in places such as the Congo both the victims and perpetrators are black?

Or, perhaps, is it because we still see black people in Africa as primitive, not as fellow humans?

Whichever way you look at it, it cannot be right that our indignation arrives only when black people are killed in the United States.

Friends of mine have offered a predictable rebuttal: Black Lives Matter, I have heard it argued, must remain a US-focused campaign because of the impunity with which white police officers (even in the relatively enlightened 21st century) disproportionately kill black people for, in the words of James Baldwin, no other reason than simply being black: a painful reminder of the compromised existence black people have had in America since 1619.

My answer to this is simple. Police killing of black people in the United States is a symptom of a structural and systemic problem -- so far omitted from conversations -- that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called white supremacy: the ideology that inspired Nazi Germany, the Berlin Conference, the slave trade, apartheid South Africa, Jim Crow South, the Ku Klux Klan, white privilege, white power and the West's love affair with Africa's strongmen.

This problem doesn't just trouble America. Every black person lives in constant menace of it -- on both a personal and societal level.

According to popular culture, to paraphrase Muhammad Ali, Jesus is white, angels are white and Snow White is white. Outside of popular culture all synonyms for "blackness" in the dictionary are nasty and negative, while every synonym for "whiteness" is positive and beautiful.

In Brazil, it is a fact that Afro-Brazilians -- people who self-identify as black or brown and who make up 53% of Brazil's population -- are poor, marginalized and almost three times more likely to get killed than their white counterparts, according to the UN Children's Fund.

At the United Nations, it goes much further. The Rwandan genocide in 1994 is perhaps the most consequential example. At the height of the killing, the UN Security Council decided to reduce its peacekeepers from the meager 2,500 trying to prevent the killing to merely 270, while at the same time sending an additional 6,500 troops to strengthen the already 24,000 UN troops deployed to save lives in Bosnia, where the victims were white.

Understanding this (for this generation and for generations to come) is so crucial and critical that it must be emphasized. Police killing of black people in the United States and the West's support for regimes responsible for mass killing in places such as the Congo are practically inextricable. They both kill black people.

And if our protests in US and UK streets and across the globe on social media are a reflection of our moral outrage, then surely killings in Juba, Congo or Brazil must also be a priority. This means expanding Black Lives Matter from a social policy issue to a foreign policy test in the United States, UK and across the globe. Otherwise our protest looks like a sham and hypocrisy, thinly disguised as moral outrage." [Source]

*Pic from blacklivesmatter.com

Revisiting the porch and patio Negroes, and the fear merchants are working overtime.

As you all know I like to keep tabs on all the house Negroes in America. I often list some of the most noteworthy ones from time to time just to give you an idea of the type of Negro that we all need to be careful of.





There are some other  Negroes who we need to keep an eye on as  well. These Negroes aren't necessarily house Negroes but they are getting close. I suppose that these Negros could be referred to as porch (or patio) Negroes, since they aren't quite in the house as yet, but they sure as hell aren't out here in the fields with the rest of us.





So anyway, without further ado, here is a list of 10 Negroes who the Drop Squad has under surveillance.





1. Lester Holt.
2. Michael Strahan.
3. Nelly.
4. Russell Simmons.
5. Juan Williams.
6. Debra Lee.
7. DL  Hughley.
8. Kanye West.
9. *Key & Peele.
10. Cory Booker.





Honorable mention to Zoe Saldana, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Capt. Ronald C. Johnson, and Deval  Patrick.


Finally, as the Ebola hysteria continues in America, it is important to note (as one of my twitter fam stated) that Kim Kardashian has married more people than have died from Ebola in this country.


In New Jersey two poor little children are being kept from school because our unenlightened fellow Americans are in a state of panic.


Turns out the children are from Africa, and, as we all know; Africa and Ebola go hand in hand. (Sarcasm off.)


"Two elementary school children are being kept from attending Howard Yocum Elementary School in New Jersey because they recently moved to the U.S. from Rwanda, prompting Ebola fears from other parents — even though Rwanda is 2,600 miles from the west African region afflicted by the Ebola outbreak.

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The school informed teachers of the two children who were set to start school today, but word got out and parents objected. The family has “elected” to keep their children home for the twenty-one day potential incubation period.


As Fox 29 pointed out, Rwanda is as far from the Ebola outbreak as Seattle is from Philadelphia. That didn’t stop the parents of Yocum Elementary from saying the following on record:

“I don’t feel comfortable sending my daughter to school with people who could be infected with Ebola.” 

“Really concerns me. I don’t want to keep my boy out of school.”
“Tell us when we come into the door. Don’t smile in my face and have a secret like that.”

Anybody from that area should just stay there until all this stuff is resolved. There’s nobody affected here; let’s just keep it that way.” 

“I think for another couple weeks. I don’t think it would hurt, I mean you have a lot of children that are involved, so I don’t think it would hurt.” [Source]

I suppose that these poor people shouldn't be blamed for their ignorance and fear. When you have elected politicians playing politics with the disease and creating panic for political gain, this is the type of response that is to be expected from the parents of elementary school children.




"Is the working poor and working middle class weak-minded, willfully ignorant, easily scared, or simply gullible? The politics of deception is not new. What is new is how easily the deception works.
How did we get here? How can the country that built the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, the Interstate Highway System, and voyaged to the moon and back degenerate into a dysfunctional semblance of a super power? How is it possible that Americans may potentially put those who will continue pilfering them in power after the 2014 election?


It is the systematic manipulation of the minds of enough Americans that is responsible. The well-established American plutocracy continues to fuel the machine of deception. What’s most amazing is how long-lived this manipulation has been." [Source]


Hang on, there will be more to come. The fear merchants are just getting started.