Should France Payback Haiti's "Independence Debt?"

Battle scene of the Haitian RevolutionWhen Haiti was a French colony it was France's most wealthy and productive colony. So wealthy that when the former slaves staged a successful revolt and defeated Napoleon's army in 1804, the former French landowners demanded that the government of France "compensate" them for their losses. In other words, they wanted the slaves who'd self-emancipated to pay for their own freedom. A tax on their own right of self-determination. This, despite the fact when the debt was demanded in 1825 slavery was already illegal in France.

More after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Dr. Laura Wants To Know Why She Can't Use the N-Word

Dr. Laura SchlessingerSo some woman with a syndicated radio show who I didn't realize still had a radio show because she is that inconsequential to me said the "N-word" six times on the radio. She was frustrated because some poor woman looking for advice claimed that she was in an interracial marriage and wanted to know what she could do about her husband's friends and family being racially insensitive. Apparently, they liked to use the N-word and such around her and Dr. Laura got all kinds of "get over it" because that's just what you're supposed to expect if you marry outside your race. You DESERVE all the racist hell relatives unleash on you (according to Dr. Laura). You're asking for it and just like wearing a miniskirt is an invitation for rape: White people can't help but be racist towards you. You're black! (Per Dr. Laura) So why so serious? Why on Earth would she find a racially loaded pejorative so inflammatory? It was almost like she expected people to respect her as a human being.

Black people, I swear. What's with this whole "demanding respect" thing? That is so racist. Why are you black people always pointing out that foot on your neck? It's just trying to give you a massage! Ungrateful!

More after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Black Farmers Get the Shaft Again

Black farmers rally in Washington, D.C.A famous scarecrow once sang, "You can't win. You can't break even. And you can't get out of the game." Obviously, that was coming from the personal experience of being a scarecrow on a black-owned farm.

Last week, amidst all the Shirley Sherrod drama there was another victim -- Black farmers who found their $1.25 billion discrimination settlement, announced by President Barack Obama earlier this year, stripped from a war funding bill after Congress refused to authorize the money.

More after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Shirley Sherrod Suing Andrew Breitbart

Who saw this coming? Shirley Sherrod, who got caught up in the matrix last week, announced to the National Association of Black Journalists that she will be suing conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart for his release of an edited piece of video that made it appear as if Sherrod had willfully discriminated against a white farmer. After the video popped up online via Breitbart and was played on FOX News, Sherrod claims she was forced to resign from her position with the USDA.

More after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Shots Fired! Sherrod Calls FOX News Racist

Shirley SherrodWell. All they did was smear a good woman's name in the pursuit of ratings and "Reverse Racist" shame the NAACP and the White House into piling on. But, bump that! Former USDA employee Shirley Sherrod isn't going away without a fight!

From Media Matters via Plum Line:

She said Fox showed no professionalism in continuing to bother her for an interview, but failing to correct their coverage.

"I think they should but they won't. They intended exactly what they did. "They were looking for the result they got yesterday," she said of Fox. "I am just a pawn. I was just here. They are after a bigger thing, they would love to take us back to where we were many years ago. Back to where black people were looking down, not looking white folks in the face, not being able to compete for a job out there and not be a whole person."

NAACP, White House, Pundits, et al, Get "Snookered" By FOX News

Yet all they did was end up with egg on their face. It was Shirley Sherrod who lost her job, was blasted as a racist online and on TV and was used as a political football between the Right Wing and the NAACP. Yesterday was just another day in knee jerk, reactionary 24-hour-news cycle. Where your career can end due to some poorly edited tape.

More after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Paint the Tea Party Black

Washington Post PostPartisan blogger Jonathan Capehart brought up a widely spread column by anti-racist writer/activist Tim Wise from April today, rehashing Wise's question of "What If the Tea Party Black?" in Wise's post "Imagine: Protest, Insurgency and the Workings of White Privilege." In the essay, Wise illustrates the nature of White Privilege when it comes to fringe movements. How one persons' anti-government, homemade sign party is another person's dangerous hoods and radicals.

More after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Condemn This, NAACP!

In light of the NAACP coming out against racist elements in the Tea Party I began to wonder: if the NAACP is going the reactionary, Catholic League route for fighting injustice, why haven't they spoken out on the many other frivolous things that annoy black people? After all, a lot of things annoy me and as a black person I insist they consider the following worthless, symbolic resolutions. The N-word isn't the only thing that needs to metaphorically die!

More after the jump.

Click to read more ...

NAACP Pushes Back Against Thing That Doesn't Affect You That Much But Is Still Annoying Anyway

The NAACP is voting on a resolution today to condemn racist elements in the Tea Party Movement. I wonder if they're also going to condemn my last five places of employment for having me as their sole black employee? Or if they're going to condemn my old college and public school district for the occasional racist person I had to deal with who worked there or attended my classes? Are they going to denounce the guy who shouted "niggers" at my family when we were driving to Northwest Plaza that one time? Meaning ... dude? Really? I didn't think they could top the uselessness of holding funerals for the N-word, but condemning someone's racist grandma who thinks the President is a secret Kenyan Socialist Muslim makes about as much sense as drafting "Rush Limbaugh really gets on my nerves" amendments.

More after the jump.

Click to read more ...