MLK's Dream Deferred : USA Apartheid and Democracy Now! "The New Jim Crow " by Michelle Alexander 1/2

 

What Would Jesus Do?

Topics of the day:
MLK Day & "The New Jim Crow " in America
Racist Republican Southern Strategy from President Ronald Reagan to the present
Kansas House Leader prays for Obama's death
Religious Right endorses Rick Santorum

A Dream Deferred By Langston Hughes


Langston Hughes - A Dream Deferred by poetictouch

Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in pictures and quotes



MLK's Dream Deferred : Democracy Now! "The New Jim Crow " by Michelle Alexander 1/2



MLK's Dream Deferred: Democracy Now! "The New Jim Crow" Michelle Alexander ,Part of 2 of 2.



President Obama given all his powers as president is able to engage in wars and secret military/CIA operations and to target for assassination so called enemies of America but yet is unable to make an impact on the racist judicial and penal system in America.
For instance as far as I know as president he can stop the government sanctioned execution of African Americans on death row awaiting execution. That is commuting their sentence to life in prison .
President Obama could grant freedom to those in prison for minor drug crimes.
President Obama could also insist that once someone serves their prison sentence that they have all their rights re-established once they are set free for instance the right to vote.
I can understand that conservative and racist members of the Democratic party and the Republican Party are in favor of massive incarceration and denial of rights after coming out of prison for African-Americans for various reasons such as decreasing the potential voting power of those released from prisons while keeping this new form of Jim Crow institutionalized.

Once again we see the more successful African Americans turning their backs on the less successful African Americans. This is t6o be expected in a racist and class based society. Wealthy blacks are like wealthy whites they see all working class, working poor and those in poverty etc. as not worth their while fretting about.

In this sense the Obama administration is no less racist than former US administrations.


If President Obama were realy following in the footsteps of Martin Luther King JR. should pass a new version of the Emancipation Proclomation
But President Obama being beholden to the 1% the rich and powerful he is not interested in making the USA into a more just society.

Michelle Alexander on her book "The New Jim Crow"

Today there are more African Americans under correctional control, whether in prison or jail, on probation or on parole, than there were enslaved in 1850. And more African-American men are disenfranchised now because of felon disenfranchisement laws than in 1870.


Report: Massive Movement Needed to Fix 'Perverse Concentration of Wealth'
Honoring Martin Luther King Jr. while perpetuating the racial divide - Common Dreams staff, January 13, 2012

Martin Luther King's dream of racial equality is far from reality.

...The non-partisan group United for a Fair Economy's (UFE) ninth annual MLK Day report, State of the Dream 2012: The Emerging Majority finds that racial economic divide will remain "disastrously large and will threaten the stability of the entire economy."

While the numbers of people of color in the nation surge, this fact alone is not enough to change the economic reality. From the report:

In the age of mass media and Citizens United, money buys influence, and the national income and wealth will remain over-whelmingly in the hands of Whites – a small group of Whites at that.
"The early 1980s marked a turning point in U.S. politics. Reagan sparked a 'me-first' ideological revolution in Washington, D.C. and beyond," says Brian Miller, Executive Director of UFE and a co-author of the report. "The policies since have done little for economic progress for people of color, which should raise great concern as these demographic shifts occur. Without a sea-change in public policy, racial inequality will devastate our economy as people of color become the population majority."

In order to abolish this inequality, the group contends, a massive movement is necessary:

"Eliminating racial inequality will require a powerful and sustained political movement, aligned not just along the lines of race, but also by economic interests. The renewed national debate about who benefits from the economic system, who doesn’t, and why–a debate inspired in large part by Occupy Wall Street–presents an opportunity to build such a movement. The perverse concentration of wealth and power in the U.S. is central to both Occupy Wall Street and efforts to close the racial economic divide."

Meanwhile another Christian leader prays for Obama's death. This is typical of American Christianity which has redefined Christianity as a get tough religion . Their view of Christ is a gun totting bigot who hates all non-Christians and even liberal Christians who adhere to the Social Gospel.

Kansas GOP House Speaker "Prays" That Obama's "Children Be Fatherless and His Wife a Widow" Think Progress by marie Diamond viaAlternet.org,January 14,2012

...ThinkProgress reported last week that Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal (R) was forced to apologize to First Lady Michelle Obama after forwarding an email to fellow lawmakers that called her “Mrs. YoMama” and compared her to the Grinch.

Earlier that same week, the Lawrence Journal-World was sent another email that O’Neal had forwarded to House Republicans that referred to President Obama and a Bible verse that says “Let his days be few” and calls for his children to be without a father and his wife to be widowed.

Nick Sementelli at Faith in Public Life notes that Psalm 109, which is a prayer for the death of a leader, became a popular conservative meme after Obama’s election. The “tongue-in-cheek” prayer for the president was seen on bumper stickers. The relevant part of the psalm reads:

Let his days be few; and let another take his office

May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.

May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.

May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.

May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.

Religious Right leaders Tony Perkins and Gary Bauer (-reconstructionists/dominionists )are endorsing Rick Santorum for Republican presidential Candidate.

Breaking: Religious Right Endorses Santorum; Aims to Stop Romney in South Carolina

At a weekend meeting in Texas of religious right leaders -- including Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association, and Gary Bauer of American Values -- participants agreed to coalesce behind former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in a bid to sway the largely evangelical base that will determine the outcome of the South Carolina presidential primary.

"The desire was not to repeat what took place in 2008," Perkins said on conference call with reporters, in answer to a question posed by Slate's David Weigel. What happened in the last presidential campaign was that the religious right failed to embrace former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (who believes in public schools and arts education), and they wound up with U.S. Sen. John McCain as the G.O.P. presidential candidate, whom they deemed to be a moderate.

Around 150 influentials in the religious right converged on the ranch of Paul Pressler, a retired justice of the Texas Court of Appeals and a director of the right-wing Salem Communications, to try to arrive at something close to a consensus on a candidate. It took three ballots to get to an agreement, if not a consensus, according to Perkins. The aim was to reach an agreement of two-thirds of those gathered at the Pressler ranch. Of 114 participants in the final ballot, 89 voted for Santorum, Perkins said.