racism


  • I MET JIM CROW AND SENATOR OBAMA IS LAYING HIM TO REST

    I was phoning somewhere in the American South for Obama the other day. What an education for me! There were simple, poor families that have been energized by the campaign, volunteering, excited. There were some angry independents, a completely nuts Nader person who hung up on me after screaming about women getting 93 cents on the dollar.

    And then there was “Jim Crow” himself, who I have always longed to meet. When I say “Jim Crow” I mean those people in the United States who have actively supported racial segregation their whole lives. They actively ensured through legislation in the late nineteenth century, referred to as the “Jim Crow Laws”, that blacks would remain segregated and unequal in the United States, in a steady reversal of the gains made by victory in the Civil War over slavery. The great President Woodrow Wilson was actually the first Southern Democrat to …

  • General Powell on Islam and Repentance

    A very moving article by Maureen Dowd on Powell’s performance on television. It really represents a turning point, in my opinion, in the history of conservative America. Powell has called out the haters in his own Republican political party. He asks the right question, finally, ‘what if Obama were a Muslim’? What difference should it make in democratic America. What does trouble me is that Powell falls into a trip that many conservatives around the world fall into, he bonds based on a sharing of war with other men. I understand that he bonded with this Muslim soldier, but I wish it was not over war and death. Here is the picture that Powell stared at for an hour and that led to his epiphany:…

  • A NEW AKKO, A NEW ISRAEL?

    Wonderful article by Avnery entitled “Is Akko Burning?”, with the usual insight. Only thing I would add to understanding the tragedy in Akko, as well as racial situations in America, is that intentionally or unintentionally, racism is always bred when an underprivileged wing of the dominant race or religious group, like the poor ethnic Jewish groups in Acre, or the poorer ethnic groups in America’s poor sections, always become the ‘front lines’ of the race war of a country, against some group that they can see as beneath even them. I have seen this in the ‘religious’ conflict in Belfast as well. Poor against poor, grievance against grievance. Cynically, the Mayor and others have pitted Jews who are bitter about Gaza, or about their financial condition, against the Arabs in Akko. Cynically, there are indeed Islamists and Arab politicians who have done the same, everyone using grievances, financial instability …

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