As frequent readers of this blog already know, I have long held that our inability to openly discuss and resolve racial issues limits what Americans will do for each other even as we claim the common, seemingly unifying objective of wanting our country to be as prosperous and as ideal a place that it could possibly be. Despite what we say we want, the blight crushing most inner city and poor rural schools and the often horrifying state of social services available for poor children and families exist in screaming …

***UPDATE 3/31 – NAACP RESPONDS

That old adage about speaking truth to power means doing so even when that power is an ally. For more than a week black bloggers have circulated a digital letter that calls for action against the NAACP and Al Sharpton’s National Action Network for the alarming and wrong choice they’ve made to support the gang rapists and sexual torturers involved in the Dunbar Village case.

That’s the way love is
Ten City

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke out about America’s state of race. And as you’ll see there’s not a lot of daylight between her and Barack Obama on this issue.
“Black Americans were a founding population,” she said. “Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together — Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That’s not a very pretty reality of our founding.”
As a result, Miss Rice told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, “descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I …

As the presidential candidates clamor for the return of living wage jobs now outsourced to other countries, AT&T seeks to bring back 5,000 customer service jobs from India. And you know what? They are having a hard time finding Americans with the skills and education needed to fill those jobs.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) – The head of the top U.S. phone company AT&T Inc (T.N) said on Wednesday it was having trouble finding enough skilled workers to fill all the 5,000 customer service jobs it promised to return to the …

To listen to audio from the show – CLICK HERE.

Once again I had the opportunity to mix it up with two other bloggers on NPR’s “News and Notes” program. Host Farai Chideya put us through our paces and we enjoyed a particularly thoughtful discussion.

Just a question. If the best the US government can do to enforce its borders is after the fact deportation which is expensive and wholly ineffective, why doesn’t ICE start in the jails and the prisons? Deport violent criminals and drug dealers (we don’t need more than we’ve homegrown) first and let working people work. Why are there any raids going on at all at businesses that process food? Why are there any raids at all going on in private homes in the middle of the night? How is that …

Contributor Andrew Padula has been in situations throughout his life where he’s felt compelled to address racial issues from his unusual perspective. Andrew is a white, politically conservative, blues musician who’s been teaching and touring the U.S. and Europe since 1993. He can be seen with blues legend Bobby Parker on B.E.T. Jazz Central as well as on Carlos Santana’s recent DVD release “Montreux Blues Summit”. His point of view adds plenty to our discussion, so I welcome Andrew and his column The Topsoil to Allaboutrace.com. As Andrew says, “You …

Optimistic
Sounds of Blackness

“I know of storms and strife
I been around them all of life
Just think ahead and you’ll be inspired
To reach higher and higher.”
Whew. I needed that.

Pastor Rod Parsley yells at the top of his lungs protesting “black genocide.”

Whooo. Can you imagine the Fox news loop if Jeremiah Wright had spoken this sermon in the exact same way?
Big Thanks to n-2-me-i-c for passing this on to us!

UPDATE 3/31 – Read More – The Brute Caricature, The Jim Crow Museum
Basketball star Lebron James will grace Vogue’s April cover. He’s only the third man to ever do so.
Here it is:

What the hell??!??
Can you just imagine the impact on unsuspecting passersby of dozens of these magazines on display side by side? A casual glance could easily leave you with an impression that the nice, fresh faced, young lady in the photo was in some kind of a physical struggle. It kind of looks like Gisele Bundchen is …

Religion sure makes for unexpected allies.

(Huckabee starts at 3:39)

You can’t hold the candidate responsible for everything that people around him may say or do,” Huckabee says. “It’s interesting to me that there are some people on the left who are having to be very uncomfortable with what … Wright said, when they all were all over a Jerry Falwell, or anyone on the right who said things that they found very awkward and uncomfortable, years ago. Many times those were statements lifted out of the context of a larger sermon. …

I urge you to watch this speech in its entirety. You will be moved.

We the people of America cannot settle for racial politics as usual. Not this time.

Here is the text of his speech “A More Perfect Union”:
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across …

How’s he going to do it? How will Barack Obama reconcile the off-putting excerpts of Jeremiah Wright’s fire breathing oratory with his own peaceful, easy feeling vision of bringing our country together beyond the barriers that have existed since Plymouth Rock?
I think it’s impossible.
Barack Obama’s initial wishy-washy and overly parsed response to Wright’s most incendiary comments placed Obama right back in the box with the other presidential candidates. And that’s the campaign killer as I see it.
It is ironic that Obama until recently was called the “post-racial candidate.” I …

I’ve been away from the keyboard, but I have to address the Jeremiah Wright situation. I should have a post by late day.
What a maddening mess.