BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Howling Winds

As I watched my son, dapper as they come, walk down
Our walkway and into manhood, what I remember most is
The rushing wind. I'd seen such winds before, but
Never like this--my old foe was pulling up trees by
The roots.

So I watched, but I watched alone.

As the winds raged on and the mighty palms bowed, a
Single leaf from our Winter bare Ficus Tree
Held tough against the ferocious storm; It fought
Valiantly against the angry gale, as though hanging
On just to witness the changing of the guard.

So I stood, but I stood alone.

Like that solitary leaf, all my life I've fought the
Ferocious winds, and now they've returned, this
Mighty foe, poised to seize the hopes and dreams of
My only son.

So I cringed, but I cringed alone.

But then, posterity glanced back and squared its
Shoulders, beat back hopelessness as it trudged
Through fields of ivy, then spread its wings and rode
Those howling winds over yonder mountaintop...

So I wept, but I wept with a crowd.

God Bless America.

Eric L. Wattree

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

President Barack Obama:

A Moment that was Meant to Be

I have no way of proving this, but I think some things are just meant to happen--like the day I walked into my mother's office as a 16-year old gangster and high school dropout. It was my intent to get money to buy drugs. But my mother was a step ahead of me, so I didn't get the money, but I did meet a 14-year old ghetto girl who was destined to change my life.

When I walked through that door I had the very worst intentions, but little did I know that once I crossed that threshold, my life would change forever. I only wish that I could have somehow known what was about to take place, and had been given the opportunity to appreciate the importance of that moment--the moment when I literally stumbled way from the very gates of Hell, right into the arms of one of God's most precious angles; an angel who was undoubtedly sent to Earth for the expressed purpose of saving my reckless young soul.

The moment I met her I knew there was something special about her. She was like no one I had ever met--no games, no hidden agendas. But she knew she didn't have to hide her agenda, because she had the confidence to know that once she decided upon a goal, there was no one who could stop her from reaching it. What I didn't know, however, was how I had become so lucky. It was like hitting the lottery--the moment she first looked at me I could see her eyes light up, and that light never flickered once until that night, when her job was done.   Read More »

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

EMERGENCE

I now stand firm. My dedication to the power of knowledge is the platform upon which my podium rests. I now stand firm, strong, and now free--free of anger, free of self-delusion, free of the folly of empty vanity, and free of the pernicious bane of meaningless pride without substance.   Read More »

OK EVERYONE!!!
Every race owned slaves during the slavery days. Yes it is true even african americans.
Native americans-

http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/SLAVE_RV.HTM

Jewish-
Only ten percent of the 150,000 American Jews at the time of the Civil War lived in the South. Southern Jews who owned slaves were overwhelmingly "smallholders" concentrated in cities, not in the plantation districts containing ninety percent of the enslaved population. For example, there were only four Jews - less than one-tenth of one percent - among the 11,000 Southerners who in 1830 owned fifty or more slaves.

Rabbi Bertram W. Korn, "Jews and Negro Slavery in the Old South, 1789-1865," in The Jewish Experience in America, ed. Abraham J. Karp (Waltham, MA: American Jewish Historical Society, 1969), Vol. 3, p. 180:

"[There were] Jewish owners of plantations, but altogether they constituted only a tiny proportion of the Southerners whose habits, opinions, and status were to become decisive for the entire section, and eventually for the entire country. . . . [Only one Jew] tried his hand as a plantation overseer even if only for a brief time."

Hispanics-

http://www.sgaus.org/book_6.htm

African Americans-

http://rhodesian.server101.com/free_blacks.htm


This was part of the society at the time and although one can say a majority of whites owned slaves the point is everyone did. Whites do and should not carry this burden alone.

Thanks everyone tonight was awsome I think we all learned something from each other. I enjoyed the great conversation and the lack of drama. I think we should do these more often it brings us closer and when that happens we are actually able to debate on issues and have a common goal.

I thought I would share one of many racism experiances I have dealt with in my life.
first I have to start with my race... I am half chiricahua Apache.. a quarter Mexican and a quarter white. If you want the beak down my grandmother was full blooded Apache my grandfather full blooded white so my mom was half and hald my father is Half Mexican and half Apache.
Anyways.... I grew up in and out of juvie and spent about 5 years in group homes. I struggled with substance abuse among other things. While living in my last group home the cook there who was very active in the native american community encouraged me to become part of it. I was in a new program that allowed some of the girls to go to a public school.... I went there (CEC) and they had a program called Indian Focus group. Most of these kids were straight from the rez.... allot of them were from pine ridge and rose bud. Anyways I found that just because I did not have a tribal regestration card my own people would not accept me. Because I had not grown up on the rez and did not have any well known people to vouch for me. Nomatter how hard I tried I kept being pushed away called wanna be, and posser. As those of you who are involved or part of the community know grass dancing is usually a mens only dance. I spent about 1 year learning to dance by just watching because nobody would teach me. I went to the indian center I rode the bus to every pow wow I could get to. I did this alone in allot of ways but also with the cook at my group home to help. I ended up dancing in the Denver March Pow Wow in 98 and after that I have not gone back. I danced just because I wanted to finish what I had started and because I wanted to show them they could not force me out just because I did not have a card.
My point for anyone asking is that racism is not always a black white thing and allot of times it can happen among your own people. I hold allot of values and beliefs close to my heart. I am proud of my blood at the same time it does not make me who I am. My grandmother raised me when I was little and she taught me that pride in my people. After she died I felt no more need to connect with the community. At the end of the day I am me and who I am has nothing to do with my race. I am me and my religion, my race, and my sexxuality do not define who I am. I hope everyone will think about what I have said. Please also know I mean no harm in this blog.

Few articles on Racism   Read More »

Ok here are some stats.... about voting rights



Women got voting rights in 1920 19th amendment. Before this it was not untill 1756 and only in few states could a women vote.
Lydia Chapin Taft was an early forerunner in Colonial America who was allowed to vote in three New England town meetings, beginning in 1756. American women were the first to fight for women’s suffrage.

In 1848, at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York, activists including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony began a seventy year struggle to secure the right to vote for women. Women's suffrage activists pointed out that blacks had been granted the franchise and had not been included in the language of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments (which gave people the right to vote regardless of their race). This, they contended, had been unjust. Early victories were won in the territories of Wyoming (1869)[15] and Utah (1870), although Utah women were disenfranchised by provisions of the federal Edmunds-Tucker Act enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1887. The push to grant Utah women's suffrage was at least partially fueled by the belief that, given the right to vote, Utah women would dispose of polygamy. It was only after Utah women exercised their suffrage rights in favor of polygamy that the U.S. Congress disenfranchised Utah women.[16] By the end of the nineteenth century, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming had enfranchised women after effort by the suffrage associations at the state level.

National women’s suffrage, however, did not exist until 1920. During the beginning of the twentieth century, as women's suffrage gained in popularity, suffragists were subject to arrests and many were jailed. Finally, President Woodrow Wilson urged Congress to pass what became, when it was ratified in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment. Today the Center for American Women and Politics keeps alive the push for more women to continue



1918 in the uk only some women could vote.

African american men recieved voting rights in 1965 (Voting rights act)
After the Freedom Rides, local black leaders in Mississippi such as Amzie Moore, Aaron Henry, Medgar Evers, and others asked SNCC to help register black voters and build community organizations that could win a share of political power in the state. Since Mississippi ratified its constitution in 1890, with provisions such as poll taxes, residency requirements, and literacy tests, it made registration more complicated and stripped blacks from the rolls. After so many years, the intent to stop blacks from voting had become part of the culture of white supremacy. In the fall of 1961, SNCC organizer Robert Moses began the first such project in McComb and the surrounding counties in the Southwest corner of the state. Their efforts were met with violent repression from state and local lawmen, White Citizens' Council, and Ku Klux Klan resulting in beatings, hundreds of arrests and the murder of voting activist Herbert Lee.[10]

White opposition to black voter registration was so intense in Mississippi that Freedom Movement activists concluded that all of the state's civil rights organizations had to unite in a coordinated effort to have any chance of success. In February of 1962, representatives of SNCC, CORE, and the NAACP formed the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). At a subsequent meeting in August, SCLC became part of COFO.[11]

In the Spring of 1962, with funds from the Voter Education Project, SNCC/COFO began voter registration organizing in the Mississippi Delta area around Greenwood, and the areas surrounding Hattiesburg, Laurel, and Holly Springs. As in McComb, their efforts were met with fierce opposition ��" arrests, beatings, shootings, arson, and murder. Registrars used the literacy test to keep blacks off the voting roles by creating standards that highly educated people could not meet. In addition, employers fired blacks who tried to register and landlords evicted them from their homes.[12] Over the following years, the black voter registration campaign spread across the state.

Similar voter registration campaigns ��" with similar responses ��" were begun by SNCC, CORE, and SCLC in Louisiana, Alabama, southwest Georgia, and South Carolina. By 1963, voter registration campaigns in the South were as integral to the Freedom Movement as desegregation efforts. After passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, protecting and facilitating voter registration despite state barriers became the main effort of the movement. It resulted in passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.






A little on Native American voting rights
Eighty years ago, with the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, 6 Native Americans were first granted U.S. citizenship and the corollary right to vote-54 years after African-American men were formally enfranchised with the 15th amendment (1870), and four years after women received the same right with the 19th Amendment (1920). 7

However, voting procedures are delegated to the states, and well past 1924 some states misused this power to continue to deny Native Americans the right to vote. For example, as late as 1962, New Mexico still overtly prohibited Native Americans from voting.

Legal obstacles. Historically, there were four major arguments used by states to justify their continued disenfranchisement of Native voters:

1) Indians were under federal guardianship, or were federal "wards," and therefore not independent and competent for voting;8

2) Indians living on reservation lands were residents of their reservation and not of the state (even though the Supreme Court declared all reservation Indians residents of their states in 1881); 9

3) Indians did not pay state taxes and, therefore, should not be able to affect revenue decisions;10 and

4) Indians were not "civilized," and their continued participation in their Tribal communities precluded participation in other elections.

Cultural obstacles. It was this last legal prohibition, the requirement that Native Americans be "civilized" before being granted the right to vote, that compounded the already complex and difficult issue of citizenship and civil participation for Natives. Many Indians had no interest in U.S. citizenship and even sought to reject it. Some believed that accepting citizenship with the very government that had oppressed one's community seemed tantamount to treason, or, at best, foolishness.

Past governmental efforts at registering or identifying community members had been for the purpose of taking land, relocating a community, or forcefully removing children to boarding schools. These experiences, ingrained in the collective memory of Native communities, are apparent in the ongoing resistance to "register" for a government ID, to "register" to vote, or, to "register" for any purpose with any governmental entity.

These concerns were only exacerbated by the requirement of many states, including Idaho, 11 Minnesota, 12 North Dakota, 13 and South Dakota,14 that Indians had to relinquish their tribal allegiances and become "civilized," according to the majority community's standards, before they were able to vote.15 The negative association between betrayal of their own community and voting has had long-lasting effects on current attitudes toward voting in the Native community.

Efforts at Full Enfranchisement

Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). In the 1950s and 1960s states slowly removed overt attempts at disenfranchising Native voters; this movement was reinforced by the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Largely enacted to protect the African-American community from systemic discriminatory voting practices, the VRA and its subsequent amendments have had significant positive impacts for the Native community as well. The VRA, among other things, prohibits any voting law or practice that "results" in discrimination on account of race, color, or language, and it has provided Native communities with a very powerful tool to ensure that the past practices of discrimination cease. Several key provisions of the VRA are up for reauthorization in August 2007.

National Voter Registration Act. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), also known as the "Motor Voter" act, has helped enhance voting opportunities for every American. The two major provisions in the act were the "motor voter" provision, which requires Departments of Motor Vehicles to offer to register citizens to vote, and the mail-in voter registration provision, which allows citizens to simply mail in their voter registration form.

Help America Vote Act (HAVA). In response to voting irregularities in the 2000 Presidential election, Congress passed HAVA. HAVA contains a number of provisions to enhance electoral participation, including funds to encourage states to upgrade their voting technology, the establishment of the Election Assistance Commission, the requirement of "provisional" ballots for voters, and the centralization of state voter registration systems. HAVA also contains new ID requirements for first-time voters, which many states have used to justify even more restrictive voter ID requirements.

Continuing Obstacles to Indian Voting

Even with all of the success resulting from recent legislative protections and litigation, a number of legal and cultural obstacles continue to hinder full enfranchisement of America's Native community. For example:

Vote dilution. Electoral systems continue to be designed in manners that result in diluting the strength of the Native voice. At-large and multi-member voting districts, discriminatory reapportionment plans, and staggered terms can all have a negative effect on the ability of Native communities to have their electoral voice heard.

Voter suppression tactics. Unfortunately, as the Native voting population turns out in larger numbers, attention to their voting influence can also attract efforts to discourage them on election day. One of the most common tactics employed in recent elections has been the challenging of Natives' voting status by poll watchers on election day.

Restrictive ID requirements. There have been a number of recent state efforts at restrictive ID requirements for voters. Many Indians do not have federal or state government IDs-some due to the historical concerns previously discussed, some due to cultural issues, and others because they have not previously had a need for one. For those who do have some form of official ID, that ID is often a tribal ID card, which many states still continue to reject as acceptable voting identification.

Linguistic barriers. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act provides for language protections for many Native communities. Efforts are made during each election cycle to ensure that language assistance is actually made available to Native voters.

Distant poll locations. Much of Indian Country is in very rural and remote locations. Limited state resources often place polling precincts over 60 miles from voters. With no public transportation on most reservations, limited resources for gas money, and often inhospitable weather in November, distant polls often mean disenfranchisement for Native Americans.

The recent increase in Native electoral engagement and voter participation, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of citizenship, is the result of a long legal battle and cultural discussion. While many obstacles have been removed to full enfranchisement, many others remain. This upcoming election will be the last national election before Congress begins considering reauthorization of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act that expire in 2007, and will help provide insight into necessary improvements and changes to continue the movement toward full enfranchisement for all Americans.

Now where would american history lessons be without talking about Irish Immigrant history lesson? Sometimes the movies just do not do it well enough. This is something I found online about it....



Anti-Irish racism in Victorian Britain and 19th century United States included the stereotyping of the Irish as alcoholics, and implications that they monopolized certain (usually low-paying) job markets. Similar to other immigrant populations, they were sometimes accused of cronyism, and subjected to misrepresentations of their religious and cultural beliefs. Catholics were particularly singled out, and indigenous folkloric and mythological beliefs and customs were ridiculed.[3] Nineteenth century Protestant American "Nativist" prejudice against Irish Catholics reached a peak in the mid-1850s with the Know Nothing Movement, which tried to oust Catholics from public office. Much of the opposition came from Irish Protestants, as in the 1831 riots in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[4] In rural areas in the 1830s riots broke out among rival labor teams from different parts of Ireland, and between Irish and "native" American work teams competing for construction jobs.It was common for Irish people to be discriminated against in social situations, and intermarriage between Catholics and Protestants was uncommon (and strongly discouraged by both ministers and priests). One response to this prejudice was the creation of a parochial school system, in addition to numerous colleges, that isolated about half the Irish youth from the public schools.[citation needed] After 1860 many Irish sang songs about signs reading "HELP WANTED - NO IRISH NEED APPLY"; these signs came to be known as "NINA signs." (This is sometimes written as "IRISH NEED NOT APPLY" and referred to as "INNA signs"). These songs had a deep impact on the Irish sense of discrimination The 1862 song, "No Irish Need Apply", was inspired by NINA signs in London. Later the song was adapted by Irish Americans to include their experiences as well. The issue of job discrimination against Irish immigrants to America is a hotly debated issue among historians, with some insisting that the "No Irish need apply" signs so familiar to the Irish in memory were myths, and others arguing that not only did the signs exist, but that the phrase was also seen in print ads and that the Irish continued to be discriminated against in various professions into the 20th century.[6]

Whether or not the signs ever existed in large numbers, many New Yorkers and other Americans harbored Nativist sentiment against the Irish Catholic poor in the post-Civil war period. Irish Americans were effectively barred from certain occupations. While the Irish dominated such occupations as domestic service, building, and factory work, they were not present in large numbers in the professions, finance, and other "white collar" businesses. Irish people are stereotyped for violence. Since many of the earliest late 19th century immigrant population was Irish, they received the first attacks and discrimination by Nativists and Protestants

In Highschool my crimminal justice class had us watch a vide it was called Violence in America. I wish for the life of me I could find it because I really liked it and I can't find it anywhere. It was recorded from history or A&E anyways.... they talked about children and how animal rights est in 1635 were in place before childrens rights. It was not until 1874 Mary Ellen Wilson who was 8 or 9 and being beaten everyday was taken from her parents that a movement started. I don't know why it has been about 13 years and I still remember that and it stuck with me. It bothers me and I think we need to know this because in the past our priorites have always been scewed by what we thought was best. At that time there was actually a group of people who thought it was better for children to not have their own set of rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_children%27s_rights_in_the_United_States

I thought I would post some links and talk about the different groups who have been persicuted in the US over the history..
I know allot about this one because the father of my children has grandparents who were put here as well as uncles who were actually born in Manzanar.
His family lost their farms and their homes. One set of his grandparents actually changed their names so they had american first names and japanese middle names just so the US would trust them. In the 90's most of his family got checks from the goverment. His grandmother got the most.... she donated it all to the community because she said it was not her as a person who suffered but the whole cummunity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
In

So I am very very excited that we will all be here to talk about race tonight. I guess I was posting to ask if EVERYONE could refrain from stomping mud holes into each other. Today has had allot of yukky energy and I really do not want that to go over to tonight because I think as a party we can all listen to each other and just educate each other. Do you guys think we can do that? If someone does go off maybe we just ignore them I donno.... what do you guys think?

BTW 1 hour right????
I see everyone has started LOL just wanted to double check tho

My contribution to this Friday's Forum on Race will be mostly be in the form of book recommendations. Click here to see my first recommendation, The Hip-hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African Amerian Culture, and Click Here to see my second recommendation, 2 Great Books by 2 Great Rappers.

In this next recommendation, I would like to suggest a book that incorporates contemporary feminism and ethnic studies into a coherent single vision - celebrated author June Jordan's Affirmative Acts:

In this collection of short essays, June Jordan reflects on the connections between gender and ethnicity, and posits questions that deal with topics as varied as politics, race relations, the intersections between activism and passion, women's health care, and affirmative-action debates.

I highly recommend this book if you are interested in reading about these many issues and how they connect with each other. This book is really for people who are not uncomfortable discussing gay rights, sexuality, race, and religion all at the same time. Jordan's writing will swing from subjects like Mike Tyson and OJ Simpson, to passionate, sometimes unexpected, and often irreverent debates on gay rights. Above all else, this book is most certainly informative on the topic of race and I guarantee you will be surprised at how she connects race with gender and sexuality.

My contribution to this Friday's Forum on Race will be mostly be in the form of book recommendations. Click here to see my first recommendation, The Hip-hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture

In this next set of books, I would like to recommend to completely different books with wildly different perspectives. What makes me pair them together? They are written by two of the most prolific and seminal rappers of our time: Fight the Power, Rap, Race and Reality, by Chuck D from Public Enemy - and Ruminations by KRS-One.

Each book goes into the very personal and interesting background stories of each of these artists, but while their individual experiences may be similar in ways, their prescriptions for the future could not be more different.

For example, Chuck D devotes a chapter to the notion of reparations and comes out in favor of the idea (and even provides some math to illustrate how much such a thing might cost), while KRS-One also devotes a chapter to reparations but speaks out against the idea - and you might be surprised at the reasons why.... (but I can't give that part away, you have to read it yourself to see why).

I highly recommend both these books for anyone interested in the topic of race, politics, and our cultural landscape in america. I especially recommend reading these two books as a way of informing yourselves about the very different perspectives, and the debate on the issue of reparations from within the black community.

My primary contribution to this Friday's Forum on Race will be in the form of book recommendations.

Like the saying goes, never discuss politics at the dinner table, the same could be said of discussing race in politics.

But today is about breaking those taboos and - I hope - creating a safe environment where people can express their views frankly, and in a spirit of unity. We need to be sure that we are on the same page when discussing these issues.

That said, the books I am going to recommend I have read myself and found both illuminating and surprising. If the topic of race and politics in America is interesting to you - for negative OR positive reasons - then I believe you owe it to yourself and to the people you engage with to be informed in as many ways as you can about the topic.

The first book I would like to recommend is The Hip-hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture, by Bakari Kitwana.

In recent debates here on Partybuilder, I have often seen references to "young blacks" and "hip-hoppers." This book delves into the public policies and cultural psychologies of those born between 1965 and 1985.

In this book, author Bakari Kitwana does a brilliant job of laying out compelling and well-researched evidence of racially biased laws, as well as looking frankly at cultural issues like misogyny and self-perception.

Kitwana has also done extensive research on underground economies, and generational differences between those who grew up under the banner of Civil Rights, and those people who grew up in a post civil rights generation.

The book concludes with an eye-opening discussion on the changing forms of activism in a post-civil rights era, and devotes the final chapter to showcasing Hip-hop generation activists and the novel approaches they are using to help our culture progress.

This is en eye-opening book, and may change the way you look at everything from republicans to crack cocaine. It is a must-read for anyone interested in how youth culture - and hip-hop culture in particular - factor into larger cultural issues of economics, class, gender, and race.

Just a reminder tonight at 8pm eastern 7pm central 6pm mountain 5 pm west coast we will have another discussion forum and the topic will be "Bigotry in Human Society with a Focus on Race Issues in America."
Thanks arius..... um I would really like to try to have mature discussion this seems to really be a hot topic and emotions run wild. Please everyone just make sure you are really hearing what everyone has to say. I look forward to tonight all and hope everyone can be there!!!