The face of American excellence

This is the story of Stephen Stafford.  Ever heard of him?  I’m willing to bet the farm (if I had a farm to bet) that you have not.  Stephen Stafford is a remarkable young man, and his is a tale that should be lauded and aired on nightly news shows ad nauseam.  Sadly, for reasons that are painfully too clear, it is not.

The story of young Mr. Stafford was written by Dr. Boyce Watkins last year, but few people knew it.  Stephen is now a 14-year old student at Morehouse College right here in Atlanta, Georgia.  Yes, I said 14.  Stephen is a triple major at one of America’s foremost institutions of higher learning.  He juggles the rigorous demands of his pre-med, math, and computer science concentrations, maintaining a 4.0 grade point average.  It is truly astounding, and clearly a story that should be well publicized.  Why is it not?

Young Stephen began his college career as an 11 year old, after being home schooled by his mother.  His accomplishments at such a young age are amazing, and they typify the strength of will and dedication of the forgotten segment of young men and women– who strive to achieve amidst the detritus our society seems to prize.

If one is troubled by the disintegration of societal mores– and the weakening of our educational system– you need go no further than understanding what is praised and trumpeted by various media outlets.  Ask yourself:  Why would a rap video, or the entrance and exit of a celebrity from prison, be promoted more widely than the academic achievements of successful American students?  Why is it more important to cover a superstar athlete’s whirlwind press tour for, than a young man’s knowledge of wind power as an alternative energy source?

We focus much too easily on celebrity–praising athletic prowess, while ignoring the fact that only a tiny percentage of people could ever become elite enough to star professionally.

The reality is, there are many more young men–and women–like Stephen Stafford.  Young black men and women are not all part of some thugocracy, despite what those in mass media will have you believe.  They are not all waiting to plot and scheme and victimize.  Some are achieving at high levels, and they deserve the same respect and promotion as someone who catches passes or drains three point shots.

We do have a crisis in this nation.  Our educational foundations are cracking, straining under the weight of mismanagement, underfunding, poor teachers, and uninvolved parents.  Students are not taking their studies seriously, and are therefore bringing an undisciplined laziness to their work.  The black community suffers from these negative attributes more than most.  So it is critical to laud excellence when we’re witness to it.

All of us should know Stephen Stafford.  He is the American dream– the epitome of success earned from hard work, perseverance and intelligence.  It’s a pity most  of us do not know his name.

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I’ve wondered often what the word racist means to some folks–black and white.  What weight does it carry today, given the notion that most intolerant white people refuse its  label, even in the face of broad bigoted theology.  Here’s a stark illustration of a woman rejecting the slur, and invariably turning it on its head by labeling “colored people” as ungrateful.

H/T Adam Sewer

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In honor of what true American spirit looks like– and what real struggle and sacrifice embody– here is the “I Have a Dream Speech,” by Martin Luther King Jr. in it’s entirety.

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The sheer number of manufactured controversies by the media this year has been nothing short of astonishing.  Rachel Maddow manages to shed light on them as part of a bigger narrative–  The white fear meme:

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• Maddow: Fox News Made Me Cover Mosque Story, ‘Maybe’ I’ll Get Married (huffingtonpost.com)

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Is Glenn Beck’s obsession with The Tides Foundation encouraging some of his listeners to resort to violence?  Media Matters has excerpts of a Washington Post column by Dana Milbank.  The column details Beck’s fascination with demozining the foundation– and the subsequent response to Byron Williams’ attempted murder of Tides Foundation leaders:

It’s not fair to blame Beck for violence committed by people who watch his show. Yet Williams isn’t the only such character with a seeming affinity for the Fox News host. In April 2009, a man allegedly armed with an AK-47, a .22-caliber rifle and a handgun was charged with killing three cops in Pittsburgh. The Anti-Defamation League reported that the accused killer had, as part of a pattern of activities involving far-right conspiracy theories, posted a link on a neo-Nazi Web site to a video of Beck talking about the possibility that FEMA was operating concentration camps in Wyoming. The killings came after Beck told Fox viewers that he “can’t debunk” the notion that FEMA was operating such camps — but before he finally acknowledged that the conspiracy wasn’t real.

Beck has at times spoken against violence, but he more often forecasts it, warning that “it is only a matter of time before an actual crazy person really does something stupid.” Most every broadcast has some violent imagery: “The clock is ticking. . . . The war is just beginning. . . . Shoot me in the head if you try to change our government. . . . You have to be prepared to take rocks to the head. . . . The other side is attacking. . . . There is a coup going on. . . . Grab a torch!. . . . Drive a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers. . . . They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered. . . . They are putting a gun to America’s head. . . . Hold these people responsible.”

h/t: media matters

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Before I delve into the minute details of Jeffrey Lord’s intellectual dishonesty, and general all around ignorance, I must first say that the only way something like this is even in print, is because the current climate allows for this type of venomous discourse.  It’s bred from callous indignation, and utter contempt for the suffering and pain blacks felt during America’s racist past.  The type of gall it takes to concoct this type of Hitchcockian bullshit is beyond the pail.  But it stands not just as one conservative’s discredited rebuttal to Mrs. Sherrod’s life story, but as lead story on top of the American Spectator’s site.  With that said:

It’s possible that Ms. Sherrod simply doesn’t know the truth…

It’s also possible that she knew the truth and chose to embellish it, changing a brutal and fatal beating to a lynching. Anyone who has lived in the American South (as my family once did) and is familiar with American history knows well the dread behind stories of lynch mobs and the Klan. What difference is there between a savage murder by fist and blackjack — and by dangling rope? Obviously, in the practical sense, none. But in the heyday — a very long time — of the Klan, there were frequent (and failed) attempts to pass federal anti-lynching laws. None to pass federal “anti-black jack” or “anti-fisticuffs” laws. Lynching had a peculiar, one is tempted to say grotesque, solitary status as part of the romantic image of the Klan, of the crazed racist. The image stirred by the image of the noosed rope in the hands of a racist lynch mob was, to say the least, frighteningly chilling. Did Ms. Sherrod deliberately concoct this story in search of a piece of that ugly romance to add “glamour” to a family story that is gut-wrenchingly horrendous already?

Again, I have no idea.

Are you kidding me?  What Jefferey Lord’s unbelievably arrogant and short-sighted piece suggests is that Mrs. Sherrod lied when she spoke of her father’s death by lynching.  I would suggest to Mr. Lord that he Google the word lynch.  Lynch simply means to execute by mob.  It can be associated with hanging, but more often than not, lynching was executed by mass mob– mainly to instill fear in the black populace.

Lord’s also wrong about federal anti-lynch laws.  The first major anti-lynching law was the Dwyer bill in 1918, followed by the more famous Costigan-Wagner anti-lynching bill.  Neither bill passed, but both would have held local law enforcement responsible for mob murders of any kind–including murders involving blackjacks and fists.

I cannot imagine a more despicable column, simply because it disputes the indisputable–that Mrs. Sherrod’s father died a most violent, race-fueled death–and it inflames needlessly by inverting the race narrative.  Lord implies Mrs. Sherrod’s wrong to lie about her past, and she does it simply to rile black anger toward whites for no reason.

Lord purports to know the dread in the implication of using a word like lynching,  because his family lived in the south. I’m sure Mrs. Sherrod’s intent in telling her story was not to spare the sensitivities of Mr. Lord, and his pristine memories of white southern hospitality.  Lord’s column is callous, ignorant, and outrageous–and it’s typical of race frame-flippers who deem it necessary to blame the victims rather than the aggressor.

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…Yet the country passed the old white/black divide years ago. We are a racially diverse society of Asians, blacks, Hispanics, whites, and mixtures of all that and more. In a world of conservative Cubans and liberal whites, race is no longer necessarily a guide to politics…

America has largely moved beyond race. Tragically, our president and a host of his supportive special interests have not.

Since Barack Hussein Obama’s been in the national spotlight, American conservatives have levied a barrage of verbal assaults at him, calling him everything from a welfare thug,  to a Muslim, to a racist–who not only has a deep-seated hatred for white people and white culture–but whose policies favor the black person. He’s been referred to as uppity by a GOP congressman, and called a boy.  Obama has been caricatured as a witch doctor, and surrounded by fried chicken and watermelon on food stamps created by a California republican group.  Michelle Obama has been referred to as a monkey by a South Carolina conservative activist.  At campaign events during the presidential election of 2008, Obama was frequently mocked as a monkey, and openly castigated for his race.

A closer look is in order here.  There exists a virulent strain of racism in every segment, every industry, every pillar of American life.  Following this logic, one cannot doubt that inside this Tea Party movement–which is just a cleverly disguised republican party clique–lies a strand of racism.

Andrew Breitbart– while quick in his attempt to expose the racists embedded in the NAACP– failed to recognize the possibility that the TPM hides bigots.  You cannot say progressives harbor racists while denying conservatives do–and vice versa.  The most damaging thought here is the irrelevance some on the right see in terms of their own racial animus.  Let’s deny every filthy incident we’ve ever subjected President Obama to, because we did not do it out of racial intolerance.  It’s an effort that is part of  a new coda,  where some conservatives are proclaiming blacks themselves suffer from racism toward whites–an inverted racism as Ta-nehisi Coates suggests.  The harm it causes is significant.

Obviously no one wants to be branded a racist.  So in an effort to confront racist behavior, conservatives have created a new strain of racism that codifies blacks, but excludes them.  It seeks to root out black bigots to tamp down the appearance of their own racists.  How else to justify Tea Party bigotry and some of their own bigoted malfeasance?

The civil rights movement succeeded in part by shaming some white folks into changing their behavior, and condemning race-based atrocities.  By shaming blacks into denying racism and its instances, white conservatives have effectively doubled down on their inversion strategy.  Proving black racism– despite evidence to the contrary in most cases– lends credence to it.  Even if  Barack Obama had not one shred of evidence pointing to any bigoted incidents in his past– any gesture or statement remotely considered to be controversial by him,  is enough to condemn him– and reaffirm his black racism.  It is now paranoia and deniability that shapes the narrative on their part.  Racial polarization in political discourse has subverted partisan politics, and its consequences will be significant.

These issues are indicative of one thing:  America has not moved beyond race, as Victor Hanson put it.  Not even close.  A good portion of Americans are uncomfortable with black people, and the election of a black man has seemingly lifted the lid on that bubbling cauldron.

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Watch this clip on the Bill Maher Show from 2009.   Take seriously Breitbart’s dismissive tone of any mention of racism, or implied racism.  To me, that shows his lack of depth and ignorance on the subject.  If you’re ignorant of a subject, how can you debate it?  Surely at some point he has to recognize there are strains of bigotry filtering through American discourse doesn’t he?  Put in the proper context, Andrew Breitbart is an ideologue and provocateur.  And with this Shirley Sherrod fiasco– he’s now a fabricator, race-baiter, and fear-mongerer.  He is a scary individual.

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Dear Rush:

First let me say that I admire your dogmatic approach to defending the lies, half-truths, and other space age theories of your fellow conservatives.  You are to be commended on your willingness to get down in the muck and the mud– and sling it far and wide hoping it tags someone.  It usually does.  Wonderful tactic.  And when you couple that with an absolute lack of knowledge about anything, you’ve got a winning combination.  It’s no wonder folks at the EIV pay you the big bucks.  See Rush, only in America could a dullard with a God complex become successful.  But let me stay on task here.

I’d like to  address your recent comments about me, and this nightmarish recession all Americans dealing with.  Your claim about me causing this terrible calamity to punish white people is correct.   And now that you’ve finally figured out my masterstroke, I’d like to try and explain what my thinking is.

I don’t like white people.  Yes.  I can freely admit that to you now.  You have figured out my secret.  Yes I know I am half white, but nothing good has ever come from my white half– therefore I am compelled to reject it and all the deviousness that comes from it.  You say black people were oppressed for centuries, and I am here to right those evil wrongs.  I humbly submit to you that your assertion is totally rooted in truth.  I am the president Rush.  Me.  A black man.  Do you know what it feels like to tell a white man to fetch me an apple?  Or a delicious double cheese from Hell Burger? Oh the irony is rich my friend.

Everyday I drink it in, as Michelle and I throw darts at a nude David Axelrod.  White comeuppance is here at last, and all it took was for the rubes in the heartland to appeal to their white guilt, and cast a ballot for a son of Kenya/Indonesia/ Hawaii– that fake American state.  My mother always told me I was fiendishly clever.  Then again, I never put much stock into what she said–she being white and all.

I never expected anyone to find out I was a foreign national born in an Indonesian jungle.  The Hawaii ruse was as elaborately crafted as any conspiracy plot ever devised.  Even more clever than the Trig Palin-Sarah Palin son-mother hoax (And that my friend is saying something).  Think Rush.  Think about how long it took to inject this phony I’m an American sentiment into my bloodstream.  It has taken years to develop this plot, and the stress and logistical challenge of involving the state of Hawaii, Illinois, the entire continent of Africa, the Democratic party, the FBI, CIA, and the American people was unimaginable.  Wow!  And I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for your keen intellect and big microphone.  But there is one other thing you should know…

(to be continued…)

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Fabricating a racial attack to elicit sympathy, or bring attention to antisemitism is destructive and viciously evil. It harkens back to the scandalous Tawana Brawley incident in the 1980′s. Worse yet, it lessens the impact real antisemitism has on its victims and perpetrators.

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