Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor
The Blackwoman has come to a conclusion. Obama’s got a thing about Ole Honest Abe.
After listening to his speech tonight I think I understand why. They really do have much in common and if Mr. Obama is modeling himself after our 16th President, then I am clearer about who he is. I find myself lessening my resistance to Mr. Lincoln watching him through Obama’s eyes. They share much.
Pragmatist. Both.
One overcame the impulses of his childhood and did the right thing. When he did, he did so as a practical matter. It wasn’t that he hated slavery as much as he loved his country. I have always liked to think that he was smart enough to understand slavery almost cost America the Unity in the United States. I’m almost certain Mr. Lincoln could not have foreseen or envisioned our 44th President. As a practical matter.
The other refused to allow his race to excuse him from the life he dreamed of. He is black enough for other blacks to embrace and too smart for whites to ignore. He is the black man who transcends the stereotype. As a practical matter. He had to.
Mr. Obama bought the American dream and now is attempting to sell it to Americans. The irony is inescapable.
Lincoln was the American dream. Born poor, educating himself and rising to lead the Republic at a time when its survival as a Republic was at stake. Hence the original meaning of being a Republican. That today Mr. Lincoln’s party is filled with men who have neither love for the Republic nor brains to govern is sad. Almost Greek tragedy sad. Almost.
Both Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Obama pulled themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps.
Both articulate and both more than able to pen a page.
One fought and the other fights for the soul of this country.
Both held an understanding that you must choose carefully your battles. And that you don’t have to win them all to win the war. Forgiveness and charity strong in them both.
Time will tell whether or not Mr. Obama will be remembered for more than being the first Black Man to hold the office of the Presidency.
I kinda think he will. It is a dream embedded in his Presidency. Along with hope. And as a practical matter, why take a job if you can’t do a bang up job?
When he finished giving his speech tonight, the first line of a poem in heavy circulation last year at this time repeated itself in my head. I halfway expected Keith and Howard Fineman to say it out loud.
"Barack Obama’ the poet begins ‘you pretty motherf**ker."
Now, run and tell that.
Commentary
StormBear, Black Kos Editor
The Greensboro sit-ins were an instrumental action in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, leading to increased national sentiment at a crucial period in American history.
On February 1, 1960, four African American students – Ezell A. Blair Jr. (now known as Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain – from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a historically black college/university, sat at a segregated lunch counter in the Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth’s store. This lunch counter only had chairs/stools for whites, while blacks had to stand and eat. Although they were refused service, they were allowed to stay at the counter. The next day there was a total of 28 students at the Woolworth lunch counter for the sit in. On the third day, there were 300 activists, and later, around 1000. .......More
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POLITICS
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At 100, NAACP fights to keep struggle alive.
The bookends of the NAACP's century testify to the change it has wrought.
In 1908, a race riot in Springfield, Ill., left at least seven people dead and led to the birth of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 2008, Barack Obama, who had launched his campaign just blocks from where Springfield's blood once spilled, became the first African-American president.
In between, wielding legal arguments and moral suasion in equal measure, the NAACP demanded that America provide liberty and justice not only for blacks, but for all. Now, its very achievements have created a daunting modern challenge as the NAACP turns 100 on Thursday: convincing people that the struggle continues.
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This is what happens to sad dudes who hang out with Sean Hannity they start talking stupid. Juan Williams' Hot Water.
The Buzz is really starting to worry about Fox News commentator and NPR analyst Juan Williams. As if his unfounded criticism of Gwen Ifill's Obama book last fall weren't bad enough, he shocked us again with his comments on Faux News about Our Belle Michelle: "Michelle Obama, you know, she's got this Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going."
What shining paragon of black womanhood will Williams defile next? Oprah?
Hundreds of listeners have been writing to NPR complaining about him crossing the line. The NPR ombudsman wrote that the station had debated "whether giving its listeners the benefit of Williams' voice is worth the cost of annoying some listeners for his work on Fox."The radio network decided to ask Williams to remove his NPR identification whenever he is on O'Reilly. As if that will help!
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CULTURE
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Travel and learn during Black History Month.
Communities around the country are marking Black History Month with celebrations and exhibitions that honor and explore blacks in U.S. history. The cities on the left are just a few places you can visit and learn more about the contributions of blacks.
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HEALTH
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To mark Black AIDS Awareness Day, The Root.Com is partnering with the Black AIDS Institute to publish an exhaustive analysis of the epidemic—and what can be done about it.The State of AIDS in Black America
he young senator was just a few months away from launching his improbable bid to become the 44th president of the United States, and he needed to demonstrate his ability to walk on the global stage. So he’d chosen to swing through Africa as his first major diplomatic foray, with a grand return to his father’s homeland as the highlight. And it was there, in Kenya, that he offered up his family as a deeply personal example of leadership in the fight against HIV.
"One of the reasons that we’re here today," Obama began, having quieted the thousands that gathered around him at a tiny mobile clinic, "is because HIV and AIDS have ravaged the community." He explained that he and Michelle were about to take HIV tests together—and if they could do it, so could everyone else present. "I am so happy now because I know [our] status," Obama declared after the test. "We are both negative, and I can take control of my family and all tasks that lie ahead of me."
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INTERNATIONAL
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Zimbabwe: Mugabe Swears in His Rival
Morgan Tsvangirai, opposition leader in Zimbabwe, was sworn in as prime minister by his nemesis, President Robert Mugabe, on Wednesday. The new prime minister, who in June ran against Mugabe for president, leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Will Zimbabwe's democratic tide ever take over?
Mugabe, who has been quoted as saying "Zimbabwe is mine," stood face to face with his rival as the opposition leader raised his right hand and gave an oath to "well and truly serve Zimbabwe in the office of prime minister."
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Twenty million children in West Africa are expected to be vaccinated during the next three days in a major effort to eradicate polio.
Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have been mobilised in eight countries to help administer the oral vaccine.
The United Nations Children's Fund is working with the various health ministries to try to rid Africa of the highly contagious and incurable virus.
It spreads easily in densely populated countries with poor sanitation.
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South Africa's President Kgalema Motlanthe has announced that general elections will take place on 22 April.
The elections are set to be the most interesting since Nelson Mandela became president in 1994, ending white minority rule.
African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma is the favourite to become president but he is beset by charges of corruption, which he denies.
A group of disillusioned ANC members left and formed a rival party in 2008.
The party was deeply divided between supporters of Mr Zuma and former President Thabo Mbeki.
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The New Brazil, coming to grips with race - finally.
It is hard to go to Brazil and not feel an intense connection with the country. It seems like you are truly at home everywhere you go. I remember arriving to the northeastern state of Maranhão as a graduate student and feeling a type of culture deja-vu. After cramming in a year of Portuguese into a semester-long course my Portuguese felt awkward in the US, but somehow once I arrived in Brazil it all seemed to make sense. Sitting on the front step of a house in an Afro-Brazilian quilombo or maroon community, I was suddenly transformed to the stoop of my grand parents’ home in southern Virginia. The cadence of speech, gestures, and the topics of discussion were so familiar, yet I was so far from home. The connections and similarities inform us of where we are truly from and how we can be connected through a common history and experience as black people. In Bahia, sometimes referred to as "Black Athens," African spirituality is so authentic that scholars from around the world – including the Continent – come here to study the ancient traditions of our ancestors.
Africa is also in unexpected corners of Brazil. Like the German restaurant in Joinville that has an Afro-Brazilian head chef, or the soccer game I watched in a restaurant near Curitiba with a crowd of excited predominantly white Brazilian fans playing out complex rhythmical beats on their tables with the exact same timing that was used by young men in my inner-city junior high school in Philly. With an African descendent population second only to Nigeria, Brazil has the largest black population in the Hemisphere and the influence of Afro-Brazilian cultural is absolutely everywhere.
We clearly have much in common with these sisters and brothers to the South, and unfortunately that includes a legacy of slavery that has left persistent racial discrimination. Despite the attempts to whitewash the country throughout its history, the strong history of Afro-Brazilian resistance is reaping major policy rewards that we should consider and perhaps even advocate and duplicate right here in the U.S.
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DIARIES OF NOTE
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Lot's of diaries asking this question
Time to get rid of Black History Month? by The Sheeping of America
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Man apologizes to Cong. Lewis for 1961 attack. update x 3 by vc2
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UPDATE 4: 12 yr old girl beaten by police; mistaken for a prostitute. by ecostar
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Sexuality and the Black Church: Book Review by dirkster42
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Plessy & Ferguson, Together Again for the Best Time by Crashing Vor