Black Code, Arizona

In the late 19th century, after President Andrew Johnson ended congressional reconstruction, former-Confederates like Bob McDonnell passed laws in the southern United States which limited the rights of newly emancipated and enfranchised black men and women “legally”.  They included literacy tests in order to vote, fees to attend public schools, and poll taxes.  Poor whites were allowed to circumvent these laws which applied to them, too, allowing them to feel like they were part of the wealthy majority culture by “grandfather clauses”:  if the person applying had a grandfather who’d voted, they were exempted from the tax or tests.  These laws were called Black Codes, because they were designed to stop black people from participating in the citizenship of the United States.

Welcome to Arizona.

The Arizona state legislature last week passed a law which makes it illegal to be undocumented.  That means that I as a black mexican american citizen of the United States couldn’t run to the car wash or the grocery store without my birth certificate, because I look “illegal”.  This Brown Code is a celebration of a whiter nation because it also requires government agencies to enforce racial profiling.  Michael J. Fox could walk through Arizona without a second glance, but he was once an illegal immigrant to the United States.  The difference between the two of us?  Melanin.  The law that is sitting on the governor’s desk today is the codification of racism, as were the Black Codes after the civil war.  Like the Confederates of old (then called Democrats) who sought legal redress for their military and ideological and moral losses, the neo-conservatives in Arizona (now called Republicans) are seeking legal security that the United States will continue to be a nation of European-descended and controlled dominance after what they perceive to be a racial loss to President Barack Obama.

The Black Codes danced in time with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which limited the number of immigrants that could come to the United States for employment from China.  They were the precursors of legalized segregation immortalized by the famous “separate but equal” Plessy v. Ferguson SCOTUS decision in 1896.  Legalized segregation gave birth to numerous avenues of discrimination and codified racism, none the least of which was the Bracero program which shipped immigrant labor from Mexico north when it was convenient and south when it was not.  And here we sit today with modern racists trying to sweep up and sweep out all the brown people under the guise of “immigration reform”.  This current legislation requires police to ascertain documents of citizenship from people without any reasonable suspicion except that they are darker skinned.  It is reminiscent of the pass laws which died with South African apartheid sixteen years ago, where black and brown citizens of that nation were required to carry papers but white ones were not.

It will be of some note whether Arizona Governor Jan Brewer decides to once again codify racism by signing the legislation into law, thereby putting her name down with Governor Wallace, or simply refuses to act and lets it “pass into law”, thereby washing her hands like Pontius Pilate.  Either way, much like the Black Codes and legalized segregation, this law will be struck down by those who have read the Constitution of the United States, and who believe that the ideals expressed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence are the providence of all citizens of this nation.

As President Obama recently stated, “the blessings of this country belong to every single American,” regardless of skin color.

Even in Black Code, Arizona.

An Unbroken Imperial Line

It is often said that Japan has an unbroken imperial lineage… what isn’t said is that for hundreds of years, the Emperor had no power.  Michael Steele would know a little about that.  The men who controlled Japan during its feudal period kept the figurehead around for religious and ceremonial reasons, but relegated him to the stands while they kept a tight reign on the game.  Nominally loyal to the Shogun, the military leaders known as daimyo fought amongst themselves for power, wealth, land and prestige.

Today’s Republican party echoes of that distant and disjointed past really loudly.  They keep Michael Steele around for show.  That’s how he got elected, his losses in almost every other contest he’s participated in notwithstanding.  He is the Emperor drawing the eye with his “hip hop” style and his “street wise” manner.  He’s trotted out to show the inclusion of the GOP, to give a dark face to the Tea Party, and to demonstrate inclusion.  But he has no power.  The money behind the elephant is going elsewhere.

And the lieutenants are squabbling.  The Daimyo that pledge their loyalty are shoving and shifting, fighting for billing and bank. Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Eric Cantor… all these have designs on the Shogun’s title, because the Shogun is weak and about to be cut from the herd (can you hear me, Senator McCain?)  They are smiling in each other’s faces, all taking swipes at President Obama, hoping to gain the loyalty of foot soldiers and soul merchants to make their run at the presidency.

A witness to history would suggest that in their battles to gain prominence, they are damaging themselves and their “allies” because the worst in each of their characters is revealed.  At the end of the day, the Emperor sits there, a voyeur to the squabbling with absolutely no impact, and hence, no import.  That’s why they let him stay.  He draws the eye and is a useful distraction.  His continued reign over the GOP will allow them to say, in much the same tones used to reference Japan’s unbroken imperial line, that Republicans are diverse and inclusive, too.

The South Fails Again

And what he didn’t say . . .the North won the Civil War.  Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election.  Democrats in Congress won the Health Care Reform battle, and are poised to do the same on energy.  Duke won the NCAA Championship this year, as did UConn.  While these are all facts, there are literally thousands of people who are not happy about them.  Stanford fans are frustrated that their team held UConn to 12 points in the first have but couldn’t win the game.  Butler fans are gluing their hair back in from that last desperate half-court miss.  Congressional Republicans are planning to “Repeal and Replace” the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  John McCain and Sarah Palin are still out on the campaign trail.  And Governor Robert McDonnell of Virginia has proclaimed April to be Confederate History Month in his state.

Lee surrenders at Appomattox.

While it is not for me to dismiss the history and family pride of those who’s forebears believed that this was a nation for white people to own and black people to work, I heartily disagree.  And while it is not for me to say that the ideas of states’ rights which were tied to the battle of grey-suited warriors to free themselves from Republican tyranny and federal oppression is wrong, I agree much more with John Jay’s assessment that “Nothing is more certain than the indispensible [sic] necessity of government; and it is equally undeniable that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights, in order to vest it with requisite powers.”  I must, as a mature student of history, acquiesce to the fact that the story of the Confederacy is someone’s grandfather’s or grandmother’s story, and while they disagree (or don’t) with those views, they have a right to represent their history the same way I have the right to represent mine; to find those pieces with which they agree and find pride and cherish and celebrate them.

However, Gov. McDonnell is a one-sided celebrant, and herein lies the problem.  He makes no mention of the enslaved victims of the Confederacy, those on whom the burden of states’ rights onerously fell like a crushing weight.  He neglects, then, my grandparents in a way which has historically sought to invalidate their humanity by rendering them, as Ralph Ellison so eloquently denounced, invisible.  It is this racism of blindness which continues to trouble us in 2010.

Telling only part of the story is a lie of omission which perpetuates and exacerbates many of the current political and social ills of our day.  We saw this with the health care debate; we see it with Sarah Palin’s continued uttering; we see this with the Tea Party movement, both in its displays and its coverage; we see it with the stimulus package; on a daily basis, telling only the part of the story that helps us is the accepted norm.  Governor McDonnell, though, has just said something very different to the black people in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  He has just said that they don’t exist, by not including their participation in the Confederacy.  Though most of that participation was bad, and should serve as a reminder of the democratic ideals on which this nation was founded, there were black men, enslaved men, who fought in the Confederate army.  Are they not worthy of recognition?  There were black men and women who greeted the defeat of the Confederacy as liberation, as an entrance into full citizenship and the beginning of their acquisition of the natural rights they’d been denied.  McDonnell has said by his omission that the Confederate ideology of chattel slavery of African Americans wasn’t “significant for Virginia.”

Flying the Confederate flag for many southerners is an honoring of their ancestors, a reading of their historical maps as they make their own journeys. But just as Congressional Republicans won’t be able to repeal health care reform, Palin and McCain are going to lose again; Butler can’t take one more shot; Stanford can’t make one more block; and cheering the Confederacy while denying black folks won’t help the South rise again.

I’m Tired, Too

For two years of the presidential campaign, from 2007-2008, I lived and breathed politics.  Though I didn’t begin Spreading the Word until early 2008, I was reading and talking about the candidates long before then (think 2004 Democratic National Convention’s keynote speech).  With the election of Barack Obama, it seemed that I’d be able to go back to my day job, teaching, and be able to leave the day-to-day political awareness and direction of the nation to my elected representatives.

I was wrong.

The election of Barack Obama angered many Republicans, scared some people who are “bitter, clinging to their guns and religion”, gave birth to the Tea Party movement, and generally ginned up even more opposition than I believed possible.  I’m not sure why I thought his opponents would understand they LOST THE ELECTION and be a little quieter.  But John Boehner and Eric Cantor continue to lie and scream about the president; Lindsey Graham is sitting on Meet The Press complimenting the President on his parenting style while blasting a series of untruths that the President is “governing as an American liberal in a center-right nation” and that the President hasn’t done any “heavy lifting” on legislation; Mitch McConnell is saying that Republicans are going to run in November on “Repeal and Replace”; and Sarah Palin is helping John McCain run further and further into the weeds on the right side of the political spectrum.

While I know politics isn’t flag football, I don’t expect it to be Celebrity Death Match, either.  It seems, though, that implementing an agenda which speaks to the best in the American ideals and meets the goals stated in the Constitution is going to be a continuous engagement, because the opponents are galvanized.

We have to continue to participate - to write, to speak, to think, to act, to vote.

I know.  I’m tired, too.  But if not us, then who?

What We’ve Done

I’m tired of listening to John Boehner and all the “we used to be in office” critics of the President talk about how he hasn’t accomplished anything yet.  I’m tired of listening to Chuck Todd and David Gregory spinning narratives about whether President Obama’s presidency hinges on the pending health care reform legislation being voted on today.  A quick glance at the White House website has a comprehensive list of the legislation signed by the President in the last fourteen months (excerpted below with links).  It has even more Executive Orders signed by the President, and Presidential Memoranda issued.  From the tax breaks for donations to Haiti to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, this President is, to quote DNC Chairman Tim Kaine on Meet The Press this morning, “doing the heavy lifting.”

I titled this post What We’ve Done because we helped put this man in office.  We elected a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.  And the changes are getting made.  To listen to the mainstream media, which needs a narrative to spin because they don’t think people will pay attention to the actual machinations of government, each day is a referendum.  They have to set up a straw man of inaction, to fuel the fire.  They need to put a microphone in front of John Boehner, Mike Pence, Michael Steele and other merchants of misinformation because “we won’t watch” if there isn’t blood in the water.

When Health Care reform legislation passes today and is passed in the Senate using reconciliation (which is a vote on the legislation which means more Senators have to vote for it than against it – shocking concept) and the President signs it into law, we’ll add this to the list of changes and keep stepping.  UPDATE: H.R.3590 The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (health care reform!) passed the House of Representatives March 21, 2010 by a margin of 219-212. Since the Senate passed the same legislation Christmas Eve, 2009, President Obama will sign into law this week.

As our attention shifts from what has passed, from what is past, to what is to come, let’s approach it with a firm grasp of the recent history of our president, and of our country.  There’s a reason his approval ratings just jumped almost ten points. He’s doing a good job.  And we’re the ones who put him there.

Look what we’ve done.

Featured Legislation (from whitehouse.gov)

• Signed on March 18, 2010

The HIRE Act

• Signed on January 27, 2010
  S. 2949 -Emergency Aid to American Survivors of the Haiti Earthquake Act
• Signed on January 22, 2010
  2009 Tax Breaks for Haiti Donations
• Signed on October 30, 2009
  Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009
• Signed on October 28, 2009
  National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010
• Signed on October 22, 2009
  Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act

• Signed on August 06, 2009
  Cash For Clunkers Extension

• Signed on June 22, 2009
  Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act
• Signed on May 22, 2009
  Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009
• Signed on May 22, 2009
  Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act
• Signed on May 20, 2009
  Helping Families Save Their Homes Act

• Signed on May 20, 2009
  Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act
• Signed on April 21, 2009
  Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act
• Signed on March 30, 2009
  Omnibus Public Lands Management Act
• Signed on March 20, 2009
  Small Business Act Temporary Extension
• Signed on February 17, 2009
  American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

• Signed on February 11, 2009
  DTV Delay Act

• Signed on February 04, 2009
  Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act

• Signed on January 29, 2009
  Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

Boots on the Ground

If you watch the nightly news, you may have forgotten . . . Haiti was hit by an earthquake eight weeks ago.  Our “it bleeds it leads” media has gone from pimping the images of poor black folk wandering the streets of Port au Prince ala Hurricane Katrina to not reporting about the continuing struggle to get aid to the people, to rebuild the structure and infrastructure of the government, to bury the dead with dignity.

The earthquake didn’t go away, the buildings didn’t spring back up when the American media decided it wasn’t sexy to watch people crying and dying anymore.

Oh, wait . . . there are always the looters in Vinha del Mar, Chile.  Since my in-laws live in the north of Chile, and we found out in the wee hours of the morning that they were all accounted for and healthy, we’ve been keeping up with the news via Facebook and email.  Eleven days after the 8.8 earthquake shook the earth off its axis, the nightly news has forgotten.  We haven’t forgotten.  My cousin who’s cousin is still missing hasn’t forgotten.  But I can’t find out what is happening on the tv, or the radio around here.

In the United States, we are a provincial people to be sure. If it didn’t happen in my city, it’s not that important.  If it isn’t happening in Washington, it’s not that important.  If it doesn’t affect us directly, we just don’t care.  That’s not the way it should be, but it seems like that’s the way it is.

I gave money when the quake hit Haiti.  I bought the new We Are the World to give more money.  Tomorrow, there will be Chilenos in my living room figuring out how to organize and get supplies to family, friends and loved ones who’ve been shaken.

Where is the world?  No, that’s not my question.  Where are we, the supposed “last, best hope of mankind”?  Giving money seems to mean that we as Americans can forget about other nation’s problems.  It’s this parochial mentality that has Liz Cheney calling the United States’ Department of Justice the “Department of Jihad”, and people in the United States arguing whether we should take steps to combat global warming.

There needs to be an American mission that forces us to travel and help other people who really don’t have healthcare.  All the money donated doesn’t in fact help citizens of the United States appreciate the ideals embodied in the documents written by the founders or the blessings bestowed upon us by providence.

Instead, we have “missionaries” trying to steal children, and soundbites saying that people looking for food in the wake of unimaginable disasters are looters, showing their arrests as the lead in to the news but not talking about (or showing) what people are doing to recover.

Each of us needs to put boots on the ground.  Maybe then our conversations will be substantive instead of verbal wrangling and games of acquisition and maintenance of privilege.

The Rights of the Many

Yesterday’s meeting at Blair House did one thing for me: it elucidated the difference between Democrats and Republicans.  It wasn’t the “blank sheet of paper” versus “we’ve got a few things in common” line, though.  It was the fundamental philosophical difference between Democrats and Republicans about the first sentence in the Constitution of the United States.

“We the People, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The Democratic Party appeared to be pushing an interpretation that “we the people” does indeed include all citizens and legal residents of the United States.  The Republican Party, however, appeared not to have such an inclusive interpretation.  While their conversation and Congressman Joe Wilson’s infamous outburst make clear their feelings about illegal immigrants, they also appear to have shifted their definition from individual citizens to individual (which includes corporations, thanks to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling) donors to their campaigns.  Unfortunately, the poor and uninsured don’t tend to rank among rank and file Republicans, so their interests do not coincide.

Further down the preamble, beyond the clause to “establish justice” by making healthcare available and affordable; beyond the clause to “insure domestic tranquility” by making sure that end of life counseling is provided for terminal patients and their families and not mischaracterized as “death panels” by insurance lobbyists and elected representatives; beyond even the clause to “provide for the common defense” by making sure each individual has as much protection from biological ruin, catastrophic illness, economic pillaging, or health-insurer abandonment as is possible; Democrats began and ended the summit standing firmly on the clause which says that the government of the United States has a responsibility to “promote the general welfare.”

The Democratic Party, in this instance, is basing its approach to healthcare as a basic right guaranteed to each citizen and legal resident by the Constitution of the United States.  This doesn’t mean that the government is everyone’s doctor.  This means that, as the President noted yesterday, “we have meat inspectors to make sure the food is good,” the government has a responsibility to make sure everyone has access to health care.  The Republican Party, in this instance, is arguing the opposite.  For them, healthcare is a privilege (that they can afford, so why bother?)  They are, then, not attempting to “form a more perfect union,” because they aren’t worried about their fellows.

My healthcare is just fine.  My family is covered, and thank God those members of my extended family who don’t have it are covered by those who do.  But the larger picture is that it’s not just about me and mine, as the Republican argument has developed.  “Promoting the general welfare” means that I am concerned about the needs of other people, too.

Healthcare, like a good education, isn’t a privilege you’re entitled to only if you can pay for it.  It’s a right written right into the first sentence of the document that governs our country.  It’s nice to know that some people who work on Pennsylvania Avenue know that.

To repeat, the CBO found that premiums go down under health-reform

Obama to GOP: It’s Over

WH and Dems Should Send the Message: Health Means Life; Health Means Freedom

Statements about Health Care

Health-Care Summit Starts With Discussion of Facts, Not Policy

Let’s hope health summit wasn’t a fraud

A Bad Taste In My Mouth

President Obama met today with the Dalai Lama, over the strenuous objections of the People’s Republic of China.  Then he put out a weak statement that said in part “The President stated his strong support for the preservation of Tibet’s unique religious, cultural and linguistic identity and the protection of human rights for Tibetans in the People’s Republic of China.”  At once, he asserted the United States’ moral standing by acknowledging the oppression in Tibet, and acquiesced to China’s emerging financial dominance and their role in global affairs on the UN Security Council and beyond.

How does crow taste?

There is no way to directly approach China’s human rights violations or its invasion of Tibet while Guantanamo Bay is still open and we still have armed forces in Iraq.  There isn’t a way to meet with the Dalai Lama and still play nice with the boot on his people’s neck.  This is another place where the moral high ground has been eroded, where the ideals that we espouse have become whispers, where the mountain of debt that we’ve created as a nation is crushing the values upon which we’re built.

Yes, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney left a nation confused and angered, bewildered and bedeviled.  But in these small moments are where Change is supposed to occur.  Acknowledging “Tibetans in the People’s Republic of China” is the have your cake and eat it too approach to diplomacy.  Unfortunately, that cake tastes like oppression, tastes like moral ambiguity, tastes like betrayal.

President Obama, it tastes like Bush.

Obama meets with Dalai Lama despite Chinese objections

Statement from the Press Secretary on the President’s Meeting with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama

Getting the JOB done

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is literally one year old today.  Despite the crowing of @johnboehner and House Republicans, or Senator John Cornyn who speaks out of both sides of his mouth, “it is not hypocritical for members of his party to tout projects funded by the federal stimulus project,“ the stimulation of the economy has and is continuing to work.

As I drive through Los Angeles, I see lots of the signs, “This project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”  Those are jobs, people getting up and going to work funded by the stimulus.  Listening to the President this morning, and the governor of Wisconsin afterwards, there are millions of people who are working today that wouldn’t be if the ARRA hadn’t been passed.

It’s one thing to interpret the numbers.  It’s quite another to lie about the effectiveness of legislation because you don’t like it.  The President has a job, and he’s doing it.  The Recovery Act shows that Congress can do its job, or at least it has in the recent past.  And there are millions of other people who’s jobs depend on them both continuing in that pattern.

Cornyn: It’s not hypocritical to tout stimulus

Stimulus Bill Worked

Judging Stimulus by Job Data Reveals Success