Update~ Free Your Mind Friday, Facing an "Inconvenient Truth" #BlackHistoryMonth2016

As Super Tuesday draws near EYE have to face an inconvenient truth. Regular readers know EYE am conflicted about which democratic candidate will get my vote in the primary.  To be honest, at one time EYE considered not voting in the primary and supporting the winner in the general.  But that would be the cowardly thing to do.  EYE can't ask our elected officials and others to be brave when EYE am not willing to do the same.  So, EYE am facing my fears and voting with my gut. Despite some (not to be confused with all) of his supporters, EYE will vote for Bernie Sanders.

Who/What helped me come to this decision? The actions of a brave young activist named Ashley Williams 



And the tragic death of an activist named Viola Liuzzo.



Ironically EYE made this decision on the anniversary of the murder of Trayvon Martin.  The reason police shoot first and ask questions later is because they see black men/women/children as Predators/Thugs.  The 1996 Crime Prevention Bill created the environment of today.

“She said that ‘We need to bring them to heel.'” Williams said. “And in this quote she is pathologizing and demonizing and also criminalizing black youth and other youth of color in terms of how they participate in criminal activity or how they are involved in criminal activity. I found these comments really racist and inappropriate. And also untrue.

Let me be clear, my decision to vote for Bernie Sanders is not a vote against Hillary Clinton. EYE trust her, and if she is the democratic nominee I will support her %100, but on Tuesday, EYE must stand with the young people who are our HOPE for a FUTURE we can believe in.

"So all these folks now want to apologize for the role they played in making us the most criminalized population on earth. "

 The new generation of civil rights activists never accepted "trickle-down economics" from conservatives. Today they are rejecting "trickle-down justice" from the liberals" .~Van Jones on CNN

Ashley Williams demonstrated the power, not only of Black Lives Matter, but also individual acts of courage. With social media, a single voice can trigger an avalanche.

RedEye

Why we must fight like hell to protect the right to vote today.

 

H/T Ivan Ivanovich Renko via Jack and Jill Politics

Getting a check cashed is not a right.
Driving a car is not a right.
Getting into the club is not a right.
Buying a mojito is not a right.

When there appears to be the very least chance of interference with their 2nd amendment rights, wingnuts go pluperfect crazy.  Why the hell shouldn't we raise hell to protect our more fundamental rights--THE fundamental rights--of citizens of this republic?

This is why we must fight to protect our vote today.

This is why we must fight to protect our vote tomorrow.

This is why we must protect the right to vote forever!

Today's Must Read

The right to vote today.  The right to vote tomorrow.  The right to vote forever.

Change Will Not Be Televised

Does this look like hundreds of marchers to you?  Me either.  I 'll bet if it were a bunch of TeaBaggers calling President Obama a Socialist, yelling they were going to take their country back, the Alabama media would be all over this important story.  But no. They choose to minimize and marginalize the story, out of sight out of mind.

Organized by Reverend Al Sharpton, thousands of marchers crossed the  Edmund Pettus bridge  in protest of archaic immigration and voter suppression laws passed by James Crow, Jr. Esq. and Company.

Forty Seven years ago, Civil Rights activist Viola Luzzio said "We're going to change the world", little did she know, we are still marching, still fighting, still being smeared, for trying to change the world.

Unfortunately,  Change will not be televised.  But it will be written about.

March for America Crosses Historic Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma

The White Elephant in the Alabama Democratic Tent

Allow me to give you a history lesson of the Alabama Democratic Party in the words of someone who not only lived the overt racism of a political party that refused to accept blacks as members, but continues to work tirelessly to make sure marginalized voices are heard in the body politic of Alabama. H/T RevJZ

Back in 1966, after an election in which, having won voting rights after the
1965 Selma to Montgomery March, in which I lost two dear friend, Rev Jim
Reeb and Viola Liuzzo, blacks rushed to register to vote and to run for office, most considered themselves to be Democrats . Gov Wallace (a democrat) refused to allow them to run for office as Democrats. To combat the continuing absolute racism of the Alabama Democratic Party, some of us created another Democratic Party, the National Democratic Party of Alabama (NDPA), went through a difficult struggle, and elected the first blacks to office in Alabama as Democrats! But the ADP fought as a fully segregated party for almost 10 years as the NDPA came to hold over 100 elected offices,more than any other state!!! Then and only then did the ADP want us, and we forgivingly moved into the ADP. But of course its leadership remained fully racist and we have been struggling to change that ever since. But racists continued to run for and hold office as Democrats. It never fully changed. That makes it clear why people are still very suspicious of attitudes in the ADP.

It was the party of George Wallace then, it's the party of George Wallace now.The question is, will it be the party of George Wallace forever?

Links for clarity;
Viola Luizzo

Rev. James Reeb

Voting Rights Act 1965

Selma to Montgomery March

George C. Wallace

"We were living in terrible times. We were fighting for the right to breath"

African American Alabama democrats are still fighting for the right to be members of the ADP because everyone tiptoes around the big white elephant standing in the middle of the Alabama Democratic Party Tent.

In the end we will not remember the words of enemies, but the silence of our friends.~Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Emancipation Sunday

January 1, 2011 marked the 148th anniversary of President Lincoln signing an Executive Order ending Slavery and freeing 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with the rest freed as Union armies advanced.

This act by President Lincoln probably cost him his life. In the 148 ensuing years since the signage of the Emancipation Proclamation, there are some who would argue African Americans still aren't free. And, there are some who still try and deny African Americans the equality and freedom promised by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Although African Americans make up 25% of the population, they make up 75% of the prison population. Does that mean African Americans commit more crimes? No, it means African Americans are accused and convicted of crimes more than white Americans. An African American male is more likely to go to prison than to college in America.

There are no second chances for African Americans as evidenced by Swanson Food Heir and Talking TeeVee Pundit Head Tucker Carlson saying Michael Vick should be executed because he funded Cousin Pooky nem's dog fighting enterprise. Never mind the fact Vick paid for his crime. Compare that to the slap on the wrist white, conservative, activist James O'Keefe received for attempting to tamper with Senator Mary Landrieu phone lines, AFTER he posed as a pimp and selectively edited videos of his infiltration of ACCORN offices.

Then there are those who tell African Americans they should get over Slavery but celebrate the Confederacy every chance they get.

I grew up in the South, I know how white folks feel about the days of mint juleps, swinging parasols, and darkies in the fields. They swallow that garbage like a black man in the RNC swallows his pride. Gulp.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not characterizing all white people as racist. I know from personal and professional experience all white people don't fit the racist stereotype. From the early abolitionist to the Freedom Riders and Viola Luzzio whites have fought along side blacks for equal rights and social justice.

White people publicly standing up against racism AWESOME!!

Accountability and White Anti-racist Organizing lights the path for White anti-racist activists to become effective in their work and build sustainability as a collective. Accountability is the key to building cross racial relationships in the movement to undo racism and create a more just society.

Is it going to take another Civil War, or another 148 years before we all are free and freedom rings from every mountaintop and every valley? We need more white Americans to step out of their postition of privilege and stand up against racism. People of color live with racism every day, we can't "opt out".