#NeverForget the #4LittleGirls who were murdered at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on this day in 1963

#SayTheirNames

#CarolDeniseMcNair

#AddieMaeCollins

#CaroleRobertson

#CynthiaWesley

Funerals[edit]

Carole Rosamond Robertson was laid to rest in a private family funeral held on September 17, 1963.[47] Reportedly, Carole's mother, Alpha, had expressly requested her daughter be buried separately from the other victims due to her distress at a remark Martin Luther King had made in which he (King) said the mindset that had allowed the murder of the four girls was the "apathy and complacency" of black people in Alabama.[48]

The service for Carole Rosamond Robertson was held at St. John's African Methodist Episcopal Church. In attendance were 1,600 people. At this service, the Reverend C. E. Thomas addressed the congregation, informing them: "The greatest tribute you can pay to Carole is to be calm, be lovely, be kind, be innocent."[49] Carole Robertson was buried in a blue casket at Shadow Lawn Cemetery.[50]

On September 18, the funeral of the three other girls killed in the bombing was held at the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church. Although no city officials attended this service,[51]present at the girls' funerals were an estimated 800 clergymen of all races. Also present was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In a speech conducted before the burial of the girls, Dr. King addressed an estimated 3,300[52] mourners—including numerous white people—with a speech which included: "This tragic day may cause the white side to come to terms with its conscience. In spite of the darkness of this hour, we must not become bitter ... We must not lose faith in our white brothers. Life is hard. At times as hard as crucible steel, but, today, you do not walk alone."[53]

As the girls' coffins were led to their graves, Dr. King ordered that those present remain solemn and forbid any singing, shouting or demonstrations. These instructions were relayed to the crowd present by a single youth with a bullhorn.[54] At the time of the funerals, two of those critically injured in the bombing were still hospitalized, as was a 16-year-old white teenager named Dennis Robertson, who had been hit on the head with a brick thrown by a black youth as Robertson cycled home from his job.[47][55]

#WhiteTerror  #BlackPain 

Again, the reason I oppose the republican party has nothing to do with me being a democrat, and I don't oppose republicans just to support democrats. I oppose republicans because the people who perpetrated the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings and other terrorist acts joined the GOP.

#NeverForget Birmingham Sunday

Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley vs the KKK #BlackHistoryMonth2016

Forty Years ago this week, a democratic Attorney General in Sweet Home Alabama cared more about doing his job, than keeping his job.   That Democratic Attorney General was Bill Baxley.

In 1970, Bill Baxley became the youngest person in the United States to hold a state attorney generalship. Within one week of being sworn in as Attorney General of Alabama, 29-year-old Baxley reopened the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. “Now I could do what I had sworn to do,” he remembers thinking. “Within two months in office I had set one goal for myself: to solve that bombing case.”

 

As you can imagine the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) wasn't to happy with Bill Baxley.  Our rich southern history teaches us the worst thing you can do is stand up for the rights of black folks. 

 the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) dubbed Alabama’s then-attorney general an “honorary nigger” and basically threatened to kill him. 29-year-old AG Billy Baxley promptly issued his response on official State of Alabama letterhead: “kiss my ass.”

Former Democratic Attorney General Bill Baxley is one of the unsung heroes who need to be acknowledged for their contributions during #BlackHistoryMonth. Not only did he get justice for the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, he appointed the state's first African American assistant attorney general, Myron Thompson, who later became a U.S. District Judge.

Again

the reason I oppose the republican party has nothing to do with me being a democrat, and I don't oppose republicans just to support democrats. I oppose republicans because the people who perpetrated the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings and other terrorist acts joined the GOP.

RedEye

EYE Understand the Fear

Alabama is number one, y'all. Gov. Bentley was the first to step up and declare our great state the last place on earth the Syrian refugees are welcome.

Uh, would someone please tell these elected *cough cough* officials the Federal Government is the largest employer in the state of Alabama, and,  Sweet Home Alabama get's more FEDERAL dollars than any state in the UNION?  EYE mean, really, what are they thinking? Talking about biting off your nose to spite your face.

Congress should use the power of the purse to prevent the president from pursuing his plan to resettle Syrian refugees in the United States, Alabama's two Republican senators said Tuesday.

Maybe there is a method to their madness, but don't say anything when the President of the United States of America uses his executive power and his veto pen as the big payback. 

EYE understand the politics of fear and loathing. 

Really EYE do.

 EYE... live with it every day of my life.

Welcome to  my

 World

We are seeing black people killed everyday now.

#WhiteTerror #BlackPain #SayTheirNames #CarolRoberston #DeniseMcNair #CynthiaWesely #AddieMaeCollins

Denise McNair, Carol Robinson, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley Resting in Heavenly Peace

Again, the reason I oppose the republican party has nothing to do with me being a democrat, and I don't oppose republicans just to support democrats. I oppose republicans because the people who perpetrated the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings and other terrorist acts joined the GOP.

Does this sound familiar?

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.

Prior to the the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Nixons' Southern Strategy, these people were loyal democrats, then the Democratic Party split along sectional lines in the aftermath and the republicans reached out to the disaffected Southern Democrats, encouraging them to join the GOP. The party did not change the Dixiecrats, the Dixiecrats changed the party.

When Lyndon Johnson signed the 1965 voting Rights Act, he said “there goes the Democratic Party in the South.” How right he was."What ever political party draws it's strength from these people is the party I'm going to work to defeat. " 

Are you with us, or are you with them?

That is the question.

What Looks Like a Media Enabled False Equivalency on an Ordinary Day in #SweetHomeAlabama

Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck marched with over 20,000 supporters Saturday through the streets of Birmingham. The "All Lives Matter" march started at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and ended at the BJCC where Beck is holding a Restoring Unity Rally. (Joe Songer/jsonger@al.com).

Fresh off of what looks like Stupid on an ordinary day in Bama comes what looks like fake activism in Bama, thanks to Glen Beck, Chuck Norris, with Alveda King and Bishop Jim Lowe  thrown in for *cough cough*... color.

Led by conservative activist and talk show host Glenn Beck, more than 20,000 people chanting "All Lives Matter" marched the historic civil rights route from Kelly Ingram Park to Birmingham City Hall this morning.

"It's about taking our church out in the streets," Beck said. He said marchers came from as far away as China, Dubai and the Netherlands.

Actor Chuck Norris, a conservative activist known for his martial arts, action movies and TV show "Walker, Texas Ranger," marched about two rows behind Beck. Alveda King, a niece of civil rights activist the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., marched in the front row. Bishop Jim Lowe, pastor of the predominantly black Guiding Light Church in Birmingham, co-organized the march with Beck and marched with him at the front. As a child, Lowe attended Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where the march started, a headquarters church for the civil rights movement in Birmingham. Lowe and his sisters were in the church when a KKK bomb blew up the church and killed four little girls on Sept. 15, 1963.

Translation (H/T TRM), Links inserted for emphasis

They mocked a movement (Black lives Matter), they capitalized on the civil rights struggle concerning the desegregation of the Birmingham schools (with the screening of Woodlawn), they brought in thousands of people from around the country while keeping this a secret from the very people that live here, they disrespected the present leaders in our communities of color by not including them AND they make it a fundraiser! What could be worse than that? The fundraiser was NOT for our public schools or even the particular school that the movie was about (Woodlawn). nor was it about raising money for programs to help break the cycle of poverty (America has the highest childhood poverty rate of all developed countries) and it wasn't about improving race relations....no...the fundraiser was to rescue Christians in the middle east. Yup. All of this was a fundraiser to save the Christians from the Muslims in the middle east.

What's the matter with Alabama? 

We protest not to affirm the worth of our lives, but to expose the depth of the evil we face.

— deray mckesson (@deray) August 29, 2015

RedEye's "Back to the future" Rundown

The Freedom Riders Then and Now

As a survivor of the domestic terrorism of the Civil Rights Movement, EYE think America is going back to the future.  EYE don't know if the election of the first president who is black 
bought out the worst in some (not to be confused with all) white people, but if this is the result EYE fear Barack Hussein Obama will be the first and last president who is black of these United States of America.

 Today, a large part of the population remains willfully racist, [TEA PARTY] and by extension, a great number of people have also become unconsciously so, buying implicitly into stereotypes about Black Americans as dependent and lazy [MITT ROMNEY]; and thus determined to stop social programs [CRUZ] and limit the federal government’s influence [PAUL] — even if it is not to their own benefit. In a sense, much of the middle class population has been HOODWINKED into voting for the interests of the top one percent GOP because of their own unconscious prejudices.

FBI warning of of white supremacist infiltrating law enforcement nearly forgotten.   EYE wonder why?  Snark

In near prophetic fashion, after the FBI’s warning, white supremacy extremism in the U.S. increased, exponentially. From 2008 to 2014, the number of white supremacist groups, reportedly, grew from 149 to nearly a thousand, with no apparent abatement in their infiltration of law enforcement.

From the files of SWB (Shopping While Black) in Sweet Home Alabama. 

Real Housewives of Atlanta star Claudia Jordan recently had a run-in with a mall security guard in Opelika, Ala., and is claiming she was racially profiled. On Friday, Jordan was in Opelika to see Ginuwine perform, but both Jordan and Ginuwine were thrown out of the Auburn Mall because she wouldn’t remove her sunglasses, she says.

Meanwhile, there is some Strange Fruit in Georgia.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I hear stories like the recent one about Roosevelt Champion, I get a little nervous.   
"A black man who'd recently been questioned in connection with the death of a white woman was found dead hanging from a tree Monday morning in rural Greensboro, Georgia, police said. Local and state investigators said there was nothing to immediately suggest foul play.

Adventures in double standards #Baltimore edition,  Because black folks.....

Riots led by largely white participants over largely innocuous things (your favorite sports team lost, your favorite sports team won, your favorite event just ended, you're drunk, others are drunk so let's tear sh*t up) are never treated with the racial disdain that the highly uncommon riots that occur in black communities receive.
There's no condemnation of white Americans as a whole, nor are there any calls for the Caucasian community to restrain itself and seek non-violent means of expressing itself. They're not denigrated as "thugs," accused of being "out of control" or used as fodder for unreconstructed fantasies of putting them back in their rightful place. Even the language becomes different - these are "disturbances," not "riots."  They're not "thugs," but "young party goers" and "revelers" who just happen to be "over-exuberant."

So much for HOPE for CHANGE we can believe in.

RedEye

Who knew Shaq O'Neal was #14 on the list of 100 Most Influential African-American Republicans?

For the record, a black person being a republican is like a Turkey being for Thanksgiving IMHO.  Never the less, there are some who just can't help themselves as evidenced by the list of the 100 most influential African-American Republicans, according to Newsmax.

"Probably the biggest comment they have on the (website is) 'You mean there are 100 of them,"

Most on the list were the usual suspects Herman Cain, Artur Davis, Tim Scott, Condolezza Rice, Alan Keys, Colin Powell, and of course Ben Carson.  But there were some surprises too,  Who knew L.L. Cool J, James Earl Jones, and Shaq O'Neal were Sellouts, I mean among the 100 Most Influential Black Republicans?  My first clue should have been when Shaq endorsed Chris Christie for Governor.



Have They No Shame?

 Again, the  reason I oppose the republican party has nothing to do with me being a democrat, and I don't oppose republicans just to support democrats.  I oppose republicans because the people who perpetrated the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings and other terrorist acts joined the GOP.

Do You Know the Four Little Girls Names?

I'm looking at you 100 Influential African American Republicans.

I wonder why some white Alabamians are having a hard time separating fact from fiction in #Selma the movie?

No, I have not seen #Selma yet.  Am I going to see the movie?  I haven't decided.  As someone who lived through those dark difficult days I'm not anxious to relive them.  Yes, I know it's fiction based on factual history, but I don't know If I can relive the horror, the fear, the terrorism, the injustice, and the brutality all over again.  It's just to painful, and I don't want to be bitter, for lack of a better word. 

Evidently some (not to be confused with all) white Alabamians are finding the movie hard to watch too.  Poor George Wallace Jr., and Cecil Williamson, Selma City Council Vice-President are in a state of denial and can't separate fact from fiction.  According them the movie is full of inaccuracies and Oprah Winfrey and Brad Pitt needlessly changed history in order to tell what was an already compelling story in "Selma."

What inaccuracies are they talking about?  They are the ones, enabled by the white male dominated media,  trying to rewrite history. 

Here is a reminder of the shock and shame of Alabama history for those who were there, and a lesson for those who weren't there. Watch, read, listen, and learn.

"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it"  Edmund Burke

"Democrats" are waging a War on Whites? Who knew?

H/T Left in Alabama

Finally a war I can support!  Just kidding. Those who know me know I am anti-war/anti-violence of any kind. My weapons of choice are words and the ballot box, but I got to thinking....what if democrats did wage a war on white folks?  Maybe if Democrats had waged a war on white folks we wouldn't be in this mess.  By mess I am referring to sending our troops to war based on dead wrong intelligence, raiding the surplus to give the rich a tax cut, spying on the American people without a warrant, outing CIA  agents,  massive unemployment, record foreclosures, failing public schools and infrastructure, and the list goes on and on, like the Energizer Bunny.

Before we jump into Congressman Mo Brooks (r. AL 05) #WarOnWhites we must decode his code words.  First, democrats are code for black folks, African Americans, Negroes, coloreds, and whatever else you want to call people of color, not to be confused with them their illegals, which is code for Mexicans, Hispanics, anyone else from south of the border.  So when Congressman Brooks says democrats are waging war on white folks, he's really saying black folks are waging war on white folks, because everybody knows the democratic party panders to black voters at the expense of white voters.  Now, this is not true, but this is the perception held by some, not to be confused with all, white folks.

A generation ago, the Alabama Democratic Party’s black caucus had to fight for representation on the party’s executive committee, but today the party and that caucus, the Alabama Democratic Conference, overlap so much they are nearly synonymous.

Under a 25-year-old consent decree, ADC can select at-large executive committee members to make the committee racially proportionate to the party’s electorate. But it has exercised that power only in terms of black and white. Hispanics and other minority groups are not represented well, if at all, on the committee.

The ADC’s power has put its president, Joe Reed, squarely in the party driver’s seat and has made him a divisive figure. Last year, a spat with then-party chairman Mark Kennedy ended with Kennedy resigning his position and creating a new political group, the Alabama Democratic Majority, which some in the party hoped could reform or replace the state executive committee. At the time, Kennedy denied that was its purpose, but the message was clear: For at least part of the leadership, Alabama’s Democratic party had become too dysfunctional to be salvageable.

What Kennedy and his allies left behind was a smattering of white faces in a mostly black crowd.

I tried to tell them instead of creating their own separate and unequal party to get rid of Joe Reed and his bunch, they should have been joining Joe Reed and his bunch.  But did they listen to me?  Naaaaah. So here we are 3 months before the election and democrats in the fifth congressional district have a choice between Mo Brooks and Mo Brooks Lite.  My only hope is Mo Brooks Lite has the decency not to publicly disrespect the President of the United States of America, and if elected he will put his republican past behind him, and put people over party.  But I digress.

Before we return to the #WarOnWhites, there is one more word we have to define, and that word is psychological projection.

Psychological projection is a theory in psychology in which humans defend themselves against unpleasant impulses by denying their existence in themselves, while attributing them to others.^[1] For example, a person who is rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude.

So, when Congressman Mo Brooks accuses democrats (blacks) of waging war on whites, he really means republicans (whites) are waging war on democrats (blacks).

Alabama has an ugly racial past that has taken decades to overcome. Still, for many outside the state, Alabama is remembered for Bloody Sunday in Selma and Bull Connor's fire hoses turned on peaceful protesters in Birmingham. Those images belong in the past in the wake of the civil rights movement, but Brooks' comments will only reinforce those images.The irony in Brooks' comments is he accuses Democrats of "... launching this war (by) claiming that whites hate everybody else." Really? With our first African-American president in his second term, is it he and his party fomenting hate? No.Brooks embodies all that is wrong with the contemporary Republican Party. He's too far right to understand ordinary people's problems, and he won't engage with Democrats to craft legislation — such as immigration — that has long needed to be addressed. He is mired in political theory and ideology, refusing to accept that others, even in his own party, have something to bring to the table. That is arrogance.Sadly, Brooks will find a willing audience for his incendiary views in a state and a nation increasingly divided against themselves.

Whites are waging a war on blacks, and the opening salvo was the certification of the 2000 election. 

Addendum

The real reason that I oppose the Republican Party has nothing to do with my being a Democrat. I'm not. I'm an independent, with no political party. I don't oppose the Republicans in order to support the Democrats, I oppose the Republicans because the kind of people who perpetrated the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing have joined the GOP. Prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Nixon's Southern Strategy, these people were loyal Democrats, partly because of the New Deal but mostly because of Reconstruction and the Civil War. When the Democratic Party split along sectional lines in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act, the Republicans reached out to the disaffected Southern Democrats, encouraged them to join the GOP. The party did not change the Dixiecrats, the Dixiecrats changed the party.

Whatever political party draws its strength from these people is the party I'm going to work to defeat
Whatever political party draws its strength from these people is the party I'm going to work to defeat.

The End.

Voter suppression is not something made up by paranoid African Americans

African Americans are constantly told that voter suppression is some made up pipe-dream by-election stealing African American voters.

We are told we are "stupid" and there is no such thing as voter suppression.

Except clearly there is.  The Washington Post Aaron Blake writes this:

Black voters played a huge role in delivering Barack Obama to the White House in 2008 and 2012. And in 2014, they will play a huge role in determining whether the president's party can stop Republicans from taking the Senate.

So I guess we are supposed to believe it's a coincidence the first things red, republican controlled state legislatures did when they became the majority is enacted strict Voter ID laws under the guise of combating almost nonexistent "voter fraud." ?

Despite the GOP’s avowal to reach out to new constituencies following the 2012 election, Republican state legislators have continued to support new voting restrictions in 2013. According to a report by Project Vote, fifty-five new voting restrictions have been introduced in thirty states so far this year. “The 2013 legislative season has once again brought an onslaught of bills to restrict access to the ballot, including proposals to undercut important election laws that have recently opened the electorate to more voters,” writes Erin Ferns Lee. These measures include “strict photo ID policies…voter registration restrictions; voter purges; [felon] disenfranchisement; and policies to cut back or revoke voting laws that have made voting more convenient.” By my count, 235 new voting restrictions have been introduced in forty-four states over the past three years.

And where does the majority of the outcry of voter fraud come from?  It comes from republicans and sore losers who don't think African-Americans should have the right (pun intended) to vote unless they are voting for republicans of course.

So here we are, 3 months before a primary and we will have the usual jokers out moaning that Voter ID laws will suppress turnout in the black community. From the President Barack Obama tore into state voter ID laws Friday when speaking to the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, accusing Republicans of trying to block minorities, women and seniors from voting and calling the laws a fraud.
But the reality is much better than this, it will suppress illegal turnout in the black community.

Just so you know Radio Boy, there is no illegal turnout in the black community.  The right to vote is scared to the black community.  It is steeped in blood, sweat, tears, courage, and sacrifice.  It is the only weapon we have to protect the very freedoms you hate us for having.

That's why we don't think Voter Suppression with the State Seal of Approval is funny. It's why we shake our heads at the tough Voter ID Laws enacted by red republican state legislatures. It's why we get weep silently when real voter fraud/suppression gets a slap on the wrist, and the imagined voter fraud is prosecuted to the full extent of the law. It's like  1965 all over again.

America.gov

Today's Must Read
Why Obama and the Left Are Hated

Racial Profiling in the Name of the Lord. Let the church say Amen.

A screenshot taken from a viral video involving officers of the Huntsville Police Department

Here we go again.

You know the drill.

Young black men stalked, profiled, arrested (if lucky) for walking, shopping, seeking help, going to church, while black.

Neighborhood watch,  police (on or off duty) acted appropriately.

The latest case of racial profiling happened in  Huntsville, Alabama, nicknamed the Rocket City because of it's close association with the U.S. military and NASA.  Huntsville is also known for its abundance of churches.  A friend once described the city to a Canadian saying if you see something tall and it has a cross on it, it's a church, if it doesn't it's a rocket.

The Church pictured above is First Baptist Church,  it is a beautiful edifice not only on the outside but inside as well.  According to the Huntsville Police Department and reported by the media,  Joshua Chukwuedozie Ude, 23, was arrested in the parking lot of the church, located at 600 Governors Drive, after Huntsville police said he was questioned about disruptive behavior during a service inside. Police said he became uncooperative and refused to leave. 

According to a statement on the First Baptist Church website that is not what happened.  The young men were taking pictures of the outside of the church (no crime), an usher invited them to attend service, initially they declined (should have followed their first instinct), decided to take him up on the invitation to see inside, walked down to the front row, sat down, took some pictures, and left. Unfortunately, their appearance inside the sanctuary made some members nervous and they alerted HPD and that's when all hell broke out in the parking lot.

Why did the young men make some members nervous and HPD react they way they did?  For the answer, we have to look no further than THE  ATTACK MACHINE, who says "people  in Huntsville are giving benefit of doubt to a guy screaming he was arrested for going to church when you know that wasn't what he was stopped for."

What we know:

• These guys appeared at the church, took video, alarmed people.
• This guy was under arrest
• He is fighting them from the minute the video starts
• They were not going to let him go.
• He kicks them

Here is what we can assume:

• The cops were alerted to this incident, they did not just spawn out of nowhere
• The cops told this guy he was under arrest
• He was combatitve (sic)
• They were not there to “go to church”
• This guy will get a check.

Amazingly if this guy puts a bullet in these cops, the same people whining about this would be the first grieving for a fallen officer.

"This guy" didn't have a gun, he had a camera (thank God).  The only ones with guns were the police.  You know, the people who are trained to protect and serve?  Amazingly if these young men had run the police probably would have shot them and been acquitted.

Let's go back to the: These guys appeared at the church, took video, alarmed people declaratory statement. Why did these guys appearing at a church alarm people? Could it be the media enabled racial stereotype of the dangerous black man?  I could understand their fear if black men had a documented history of violence towards whites, you know like slavery, lynchings, and bombing churches.  

If there is any race of people who should fear another race of people and wonder if they are friend or foe,  it's black people.  What if black people automatically assumed every white person was a member of the KKK and wanted to bring back Slavery? 

"There is a mean spirit on the loose, not only in Alabama, but America, and that's what makes this election so important". Alabama State Senator Hank Sanders (D. Selma)

RedEye's Week in Review

"What's too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget", these lyrics from Barbra Streisand's Memories come to mind when I look back on the white washed commemoration of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, in which 4 little girls and 2 forgotten little boys were murdered.  Lot's of photo ops, no substance.

 The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Black folks are still being marginalized  today, tomorrow, and probably will be forever as long as  republicans control, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, and the Mainstream Media.

"Let not your heart be troubled."

You should not be troubled that George Zimmerman "got away" with the killing of Trayvon Martin, you should be troubled that you live in a country that ensures that Trayvon Martin will happen. Trayvon Martin is happening again in Florida. Right now:

If there is anything black people can understand it's the loss of life without justice.

"For those of you who are tired of hearing about racism, imagine how much more tired we are constantly experiencing it." - Barbara Smith

Know Justice. Know Peace. No Justice. No Peace. A RedEye Rant

 

jobsanger: Justice ?

Warning.  I'm one pi$$ed off Liberal today so this rant will probably pi$$ some (not be be confused with all) of y'all off.  

I am pi$$ed off because the mainstream media must think we the people suffer from a severe case of amnesia and are stuck on stupid.  I know for a FACT the church where former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's father was the pastor is 2.6 miles from the 16th Street Baptist Church, not two blocks.  I also know for a fact, her family was not involved in the Civil Rights Movement.  It really pi$$es me off that she is being paraded out as if she is not a republican, while the like Angela Davis and others who were actually there,  involved, suffered, and sacrificed, are ignored.  Civil Rights Justice on the Cheap indeed.

Birmingham’s black-majority city government knew it had to sell the yearlong commemoration of 1963 as a big economic boon and named a co-chairwoman highly palatable to the business establishment, the native daughter Condoleezza Rice.

 Here we go again, 24 year old Johnathan Ferrell,  another young male killed because of prejudiced and over zealousness.

Our men cannot run to the police for help, because most police aren’t capable of aiding them. Our men may not run from the police in fear, for a Black man with his back turned is no less dangerous. Our men can’t hold arms akimbo or search for their IDs or cell phones or freedom papers to prove that they are, in fact, worthy of NOT BEING KILLED FOR EXISTING.

 Sororities investigating segregation allegations at University of Alabama. Oh, OK. What's wrong with this picture?  Isn't that like the Fox investigating the Hen House?  I mean, really?

In case you missed the report in UA’s student newspaper, The Crimson White, reporters Abbey Crain and Matt Ford (both of whom I’d hire today if I ran a newspaper) tracked down multiple sorority members who confirmed that the granddaughter of UA trustee and former Alabama Supreme Court justice John England Jr. was being denied a pledge to white sororities based solely on the color of her skin.
Those sorority members, from three different sororities, knew England’s granddaughter was being denied based on skin color because there were no other reasons to keep her out.
She has a sparkling grade point average. She was the salutatorian of her graduating class. The England family is one of the most successful and respected in the state, and certainly so on the UA campus. She also had all the support you could want from the white members of those white sororities.
So, how could she not get in?
Alumni members and advisers, that’s how.
At three different white sororities, either alumnae members or advisers inserted themselves into the selection process, according to current members quoted by the Crimson White, and blocked either one or two qualified black candidates.

 Ain't gonna let nobody turn us round, we're going to keep on a walking, keep on a talking, walking up to Freedom land.

RedEye Rant Over and Out.  For Now.

"For those of you who are tired of hearing about racism, imagine how much more tired we are constantly experiencing it." - Barbara Smith

"Civil Rights Justice on the Cheap"

 

NY Times Sunday Review by Diane McWhorter

This anniversary year could have been an opportunity for Birmingham to practice some rigorous truth and painful reconciliation. It has ended up being a balkanized, largely ceremonial affair. The city’s Empowerment Week, an underpublicized festival of imported panelists and celebrities concluding today, exemplified the crux of the mission’s flaw: why is it so difficult to extend the notion of empowerment to include the powerless? We are more comfortable devoting civic resources to media events and monuments, like the life-size sculpture of the girls unveiled in Birmingham this week, than addressing the persistent casualties of the history being commemorated.

 Modern-day Americans seem loath to do the right thing unless it’s also the smart thing — even “compassionate release” has to be touted for its cost-saving virtues. Birmingham’s black-majority city government knew it had to sell the yearlong commemoration of 1963 as a big economic boon and named a co-chairwoman highly palatable to the business establishment, the native daughter Condoleezza Rice.

 Federal judge orders Chris McNair be released from prison.

McNair is the father of Denise McNair, one of the four little girls killed in the KKK's bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 1963.

Why do they still hate us so much?

Texas congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson said progress is being made but vigilance is needed.
"There is nothing we can take for granted," she said. "There is not a person in this room that says they don't want equality, but when you start breaking down what equality is, things change, people differ."

All that blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice wiped away with a 5-4 vote.

"For those of you who are tired of hearing about racism, imagine how much more tired we are constantly experiencing it." - Barbara Smith

"They hate us for our freedom"

 

Dedicated to the family, friends, and supporters of liberty and justice and for all, in loving memory of Trayvon Benjamin Martin, Oscar Grant, Jordan Russell, Sean Bell,  Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley


This is the second Sunday since the 100% female, 0% African American jury proved that racism is alive and well in America when they acquitted George Zimmerman for the murder of an unarmed African American teen, then tried to blame it on the law, which they didn't follow, and the real race hustlers and their media enablers, blaming  Trayvon Martin and so called black culture for the injustice.

If it's not racism, what is it?

  

So stop wearing your hate with pride. Stop celebrating your anti-science, anti-math ignorance. Stop using code words to mask your bigotry like "family values", especially when you hate my family and when you stand on the same stage as a guy who has had three marriages or if you share a seat in the Senate with a guy who cheated on his wife with hookers while wearing diapers. You should be ashamed. I know that you are just doing this to motivate your misinformed hate cult base because if they actually knew that your ideas will make them poorer than they are now, they would never vote for you. You are doing your best to impoverish your countrymen so rich people can get bigger tax breaks and you can keep on delivering corporate welfare to the special interests who have bribed you, and I am disgusted by the way you gleefully parade your hatred with aplomb. I don't think you do love America. At least, not as much as you hate everyone in America who isn't exactly like you.
You should think about that, and maybe get some help.

And for the record, I do not hate you. I am embarrassed by you and nauseated by your cruel and thoughtless behavior and your all consuming greed, but I do not hate you. I forgive you and I hope you can change someday, but I don't hate you. You have enough hate in you for the rest of us as it is.

All that blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice, wiped away with a 5-4 vote

Fumbling Toward Divinity: Remembering Four Little Black Girl

On Sunday, 15th September, 1963, a white man was seen getting out of a white and turquoise Chevrolet car and placing a box under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Soon afterwards, at 10.22 a.m., the bomb exploded killing Denise McNair (11), Addie Mae Collins (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Cynthia Wesley (14). The four girls had been attending Sunday school classes at the church. Twenty-three other people were also hurt by the blast.

Civil rights activists blamed George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, for the killings. Only a week before the bombing he had told the New York Times that to stop integration Alabama needed a "few first-class funerals."

 Again, the  reason I oppose the republican party has nothing to do with me being a democrat, and I don't oppose republicans just to support democrats.  I oppose republicans because the people who perpetrated the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings and other terrorist acts joined the GOP.

I oppose the Alabama Democratic Majority because they believe the Alabama Democratic Party is the black man's party, like that's a bad thing.

Does this sound familiar?

Prior to the the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Nixons Southern Strategy, these people were loyal democrats, then the Democratic Party split along sectional lines in the aftermath and the republicans reached out to the disaffected Southern Democrats, encouraging them to join the GOP.  The party did not change the Dixiecrats, the Dixiecrats changed the party. 

When Lyndon Johnson signed the 1965 voting Rights Act, he said “there goes the Democratic Party in the South.” How right he was.

"What ever political party draws it's strength from these people is the party I'm going to work to defeat. "

Are you with us, or are you with them?

That is the question.

Here we go again, It must have been "the tone and tenor" of something I said.

 

First I was banned from the AL.com forum because I opposed George W. Bush's policies, especially the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Then I was banned from Left in Alabama because I didn't support Artur Davis for Governor of Alabama.

 Next I was banned from The Attack Machine for defending the feckless leader of a failed party.  Now I've been "un" friended (yes I know that's not a word)  by a friend on face book and removed from their Yahoo group because I stood up for Dr. Joe Reed and Nancy Worley. Sigh

The funny thing is it's OK for them to attack  Reed and Worley and accuse them of corruption, racism,  bigotry and everything else under the sun, but when I defend or rebut the charges  made against them I'm attacking democrats and being divisive.

There is a lot of misinformation being spread that needs to be cleared up.  The Alabama Democratic Party isn't in debt because Joe Reed is borrowing and spending money like there is no tomorrow.  Most of the debt stemmed from elections before Kennedy’s tenure and from former Gov. Don Siegelman’s failed drive for a state lottery in 1999.

It's not true no one wants to lead the Alabama Democratic Party because they don't want to bow down to Joe Reed.

 Birmingham attorney Ed Gentle had sought the chairmanship, but Worley said Gentle decided not to take the post on a judge’s advice because of his work as a special master in a couple of cases involving politics.

It's not true  donors won't contribute to the ADP as long as Joe Reed is in control with no accountability.

“I can tell you we are broke, but today I’ll remove two of the brokes,” Worley said.
Worley said some donors stepped up "to keep the doors open for the party" and the rent is now paid through June at the party headquarters in Montgomery.
“We are working the bills down as we can get money,” Worley said.
Worley said about half of the party's $500,000 debt dates back to the 1999 lottery referendum when the party spent considerable funds on get out the vote efforts.

I could care less about being banned from the AL.com forum and The Attack Machine because I expect them to close their eyes, ears, and mind, to people who don't agree with them, and you would think I would learn by now real  friends respect each others opinions and treat them as  equals. 

 I've discovered a disturbing pattern in all of this...don't like what I'm saying, ,on't  want to heari it.........shut me out   and maybe I will go away.  If that doesn't work.....  shut you down, or worse. 

I still believe we should test the theory that all will magically be right (pun intended) and white men will flock back to the party, a new generation of leaders will emerge, candidates will run for office, and donors will dig deep into their pockets  if the Alabama Democratic Party got rid of Joe Reed and his bunch.

While the ADP is destroying it's on the Roberts Court is poised to strike down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. I'm going to say as an African American I feel like I'm under attack not only by the republicans, but the democrats too.   Republicans don't want us to vote,  and some democrats (not confused with all) don't want us to have any power.  What to do and where to go?

In any event I'm through with the ADP vs ADM psycho drama and moving on to something important.
Black leaders plan caravan in support of Voting Rights Act.

The National Coalition of Leaders to Save Section 5 announced on Tuesday that Farrakhan would join them for a June 14 caravan and pilgrimage that will stop at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, at the Shelby County courthouse in Columbiana, at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and conclude with a 4 p.m. event at the state Capitol in Montgomery.

The caravan will start at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama  where four little girls were killed when a bomb exploded during Sunday school class, in the state where their killer died after serving 6 months in prison, and the 85 year old father of one of those girls is serving time in prison convicted of bribery and conspiracy in 2007 for his role in the Jefferson County sewer scandal.

I wouldn't want to see/hear/think about stuff like this either.

RedEye tiptoeing away from the computer to 'Comfort the disturbed, disturb the comfortable' one blog post at a time.