Barack Obama did what most Democratic presidential nominees do when called upon to pick a vice presidential nominee:  he picked a "safe" white man.  White men are perceived as being inherently safe, while anyone who is not a white man is perceived as being inherently less safe simply by virtue of not being a white man.  That's what we're struggling against.  (At least SOME of us are, while the rest are viciously opposed to the concept that there ought to be demographic representation in government.)

From a substantive political justice standpoint, isn't it really outrageous not to have a woman on the ticket when women are 59% of voters and 53% of the country?  Doesn't an all-male ticket just throw demographic representation out the window?

From a tactical standpoint, when Barack Obama chose Biden, it might have seemed like it was reasonable not to try to change too much too fast.  But it was also foreseeable that the Republican response to an all-male Democratic ticket would be to nominate a woman and make the Democrats look like the party of patriarchy.  I wrote as much in an essay at July of 2006, before I had my own blog.

So, now it seems to me that Obama has lost some of the tactical advantage of being the Party of inclusion and "making history" and even of demographic change.  What he has left is being the representative of the party that has its head on straight with respect to Iraq, the economy, taxation of the rich, and everything else the Republicans have royally screwed up during the last eight years.

So McCain has nominated a woman Republican for vice president and upstaged the Democrats' change message to some degree. In 2006, I predicted that if the Democrats did not nominate a woman in 2008 then the Republicans would do so, if only for the tactical advantage it might provide.  Before I was banned from participation at DailyKos for failing to make a contribution there, I pointed it out in an essay at DailyKos on Friday, July 28, 2006 that if Hillary Clinton or another woman were not on the Democratic ticket, the Republicans would use the issue to upstage Democrats in 2008.  I said,

If the Democrats are indifferent or averse to the value of [women] "firsts", there is a significant political history suggesting that the Republicans might grab and claim this ground for women before the Democrats do, because they typically have arrived first in the past. The Republicans historically have been the first to elevate women. The first women in the US Senate, the US House of Representatives and the US Supreme Court were Republicans. "In 1917, Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, entered the U.S. House of Representatives, the first woman ever elected to Congress." In 1978, "Nancy Landon Kassebaum, a Kansas Republican, was elected to the United States Senate in her own right. In 1981, "Sandra Day O'Connor, a former Republican state legislator from Arizona who had served on a state appeals court, was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as the first woman ever to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court." Prior to the election of Nancy Kassebaum to the US Senate in 1978, all women who had ever served in the US Senate had succeeded their husbands in Congress or had first been appointed to fill out unexpired terms of somebody else." [ http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/... ]

So, if the Republicans have been first to elect women to the US Senate, the US House and to appoint a woman to the US Supreme Court, will the be the first to nominate and elect an woman President? I certainly hope not, because her name might be Condoleezza Rice. Yes, most Americans expect that US Senator Hillary Clinton will be nominated by the Democrats in 2008, but she is not then Condoleeza Rice or another Republican could become the first female president of the United States. [ http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/... ] That's something for Democrats to ponder as they weigh whether "firsts" have any remaining value in the post-Jackie Robinson age.

It is unfortunate that the only way that women could make strides into public office historically was when their husbands had held those offices first. Yet we must be grateful for those historic first because without them women might still be precluded, by custom if by nothing else, from participating at all. Certainly, our country should have been more "free" and it should be more free today. But, to lament and criticize the "husband route" is effectively to say that all-male leadership was and is preferable - a proposition that I hope few of us are yet ready to support. Criticism of the "husband route" has the damnable effect of supporting and advocating the sexist status quo.  DailyKos, July 28, 2006

I heard someone say with respect to Senator Joe Biden,  

The mere fact that people discuss "race" is not evidence that they are "racists".  

This topic of "race" is very convoluted , since we all agree that, as a biological matter, "race" doesn't exist in the first place. It's very difficult to have a meaningful discussion about something that we all agree does not exist. It's like asking, "How abominable is the abominable snow man?" If the abominable snow man does not exist, will we ever be able to reach general agreement about whether he is abominable or not? Since "race" does not exist, how can we know if any given person is a "racist"?  

I think anyone who uses the word "race", regardless of the skin color of the person who does so, is a proponent of or an enabler of the idea that humans can be divided neatly up into meaningful biological groups based on the color of our skin. Among the most "racist" people alive are those who keep "racism" alive by ostensibly fighting against "racism" while continuing to use linguistic terms that presume the disproved existence of "race" itself.  

"Race" does not exist. It is the most debated biological concept that has no basis in biology. Why not divide us by height or eye color, hair color or distance between our eyes? Fact is, biological "race" is a fallacious and arbitrary concept that has no meaning except in the proponents' minds, and I call those proponents "racists", regardless of what their color is. In my opinion, if you believe in socialism you are a "socialist"; If you believe in "race", you are a "racist."  

Now, some Black people and whites readily admit that "race" doesn't exist as a biological matter, but they nonetheless insist on using the word to refer to a political concept, insisting that Americans are intelligent enough to know the difference, and to make the distinction in the context of any given conversation. Since when have Americans been so intelligent?  

This to me, is like insisting that I can call my wife "my bitch" in a positive way, and everyone will be intelligent enough to know that I am using the word in a loving rather than derogatory way. And therefore, because I use the phrase "my bitch" in a positive way, I can know with certainty that I will not give license, political and linguistic cover to those who regularly use the term in a negative way.  

The truth is that if I called my wife "my bitch" for any reason, I would be giving cover to those who use the word in a derogatory fashion for the purposes of denigrating all women, particularly Black women. And so, like the word "race", I can't afford to use the term "my bitch" at all, for any reason. The social, political and linguistic costs are just too high.  

Similarly, if I use the word "race" for ANY REASON, I give cover to those who use the word to propagate the belief that human beings can be divided into meaningful biological groups based on skin color. So, if you hate hearing the phrase "my bitch", then you should also consider abandoning the phrase "my race," regardless of what your own skin color is.  

Now, when Biden makes statements that are clearly referencing people's skin color and/or ethnicity, there can be no doubt but that those statements are aroused by his perception of others skin color and /or ethnicity, as well as his learned ideation, emotion and behavior aroused by the perception of others' skin color or ethnicity.  Therefore, Mr. Biden has demonstrated that he has ideation, emotion and verbal behavior that is aroused by skin color and ethnicity.  He also has a nearly perfect voting record on civil rights issues.

"Paul G. Kirk, Jr. (69 year-old white man) and Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr. (a 68 year-old white man), both co-chairmen of the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), have announced the moderators for the 2008 general election presidential debates:

1.  Jim Lehrer [74 year-old white man];
2.  Tom Brokaw [68 year-old white man]; and
3.  Bob Schieffer [71 year-old white man].

In announcing the moderators, they might well have said, "we thought it was important that each of the moderators be a retirement age white man."

How did they decide that all of the moderators of presidential debates should be white men beyond retirement age? Were they trying to make John McCain feel more comfortable about being older than 88% of America's population? The Commission on Presidential Debates really cannot be said to be "non-partisan" since it clearly represents the O.W.M.P (Old White Men's Party).

We should call these the "Founding Father Debates" since all of the moderators are old enough, white enough and male enough to have been present at the first Constitutional Conventions!

There's nothing wrong with being an old white man, but is it really fair that, at all three successive debates, Barack Obama will be faced by John McCain and a moderator who looks just like John McCain in every demographic respect?

Is this not a subtle way of erroneously telling America that only old white men are responsible and wise enough to hold positions of responsibility?  That certainly would be a crazy and counter-productive message for Democrats to send right before a presidential election in which their nominee is a Black man. So, this is yet another example of old white men valuing exclusionary politics over broader Party self-interest.

We all love and respect Brokaw, Lehrer and Schieffer. Each of them is like our best image of a grandfather or great-grandfather?  But we also have great respect for (that old white lady who fucked the Black senator from Massachusetts), as well as (the old Black man who was an anchor at CNN) and (the Black guy who was on television as an anchor).

At the Saddleback Faith Forum, Barack Obama twice states that he has at the basis of his Christian faith commitment to "the least of these", which is a biblical reference to people who are poor.

I think America's greatest failing in my lifetime has been that that we still don't abide by that basic precept in Mathew that, 'whatever we do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.'  That notion of, that basic principle applies to poverty; it applies to racism and sexism; it applies to not having, not thinking about providing ladders to get into the middle class.   There's a basic sense that this county, as wealthy and powerful as we are, still does not spend enough time thinking about "the least of these."

What has Obama "flipped on" over the years?  He says,

I think that a good example would be the issue of welfare reform, where I was always believed that welfare had to be changed.  I was much more concerned ten years ago when President Clinton initially signed the bill that this could have disastrous results. I worked in the Illinois legislature to make sure that we were providing child care, health care, other support services  for the women who were gonna be kicked off of the rolls after a certain time.  It worked better than a lot of people anticipated.

One of the things I am absolutely convinced of is that we have to have work as a centerpiece of any social policy.  Not only because ultimately people who work are going to get more income, but the intrinsic dignity of work, the sense of purpose, the sense that you are part of the community because you are making a contribution, no matter how small, to the country as a whole.  That's something I think Democrats generally have made a significant shift on.

What does it mean to be a Christian?

The expectations that God has for us, and that means thinking about "the least of these" . . .

Although some of us may disagree with what Obama says about poverty, none of us ought to deny that he has addressed it.  He addressed it clearly in the above debate, by saying that he believes the primary thrust of his faith is the obligation to treat the least of our brothers with the same consideration that we would give to  Jesus Christ himself.

Say what you will about the way in which Obama addresses poverty, but clearly he has expressed a very definite commitment to addressing it.

"Howard Witt is the Southwest Bureau Chief of the Chicago Tribune, based in Houston, Texas. He joined the paper as a summer intern in 1982 and during his 25-year career has been a national correspondent, foreign correspondent and editor . . . Among many stories of international significance, he covered the Lockerbie crash, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the ouster of Ceausescu, the release of Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid and the Moscow coups in 1991 and 1993 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union." Chicago Tribube 

In the YouTube interview above, Howard Witt describes the importance and interrelatedness of afrosphere Black bloggers -  "the power of these blogs to organize people and to become activists based on information from the mainstream media."  

Witt says,

I orginally assumed in this kind of attitude that I think a lot of mainstream journalists have about blogs:  I was really dismissive of them, I thought they were these narcissistic exercises.  I still think that to a large extent with regard to what you would call, quote, unquote "white blogs", the liberal blogs like DailyKos and Huffington Post and some of these . . .  Those blogs, as far as I'm concerned, are pretty boring.  They're pretty much people expostulating about what they've seen in the New York Times . . .

But, what I found in the ethnic blogs, in the African American blogs in particular, and to an additional extent Hispanic blogs and Asian blogs, is that those bloggers are organized around much more visceral community issues, around real problems.  They're writing about real issues and uncovering issues um, that effect peoples lives.  And they're organizing around them and creating activism around them.

It's hard to think about the last time the DailyKos actually did something, created something, changed something, whereas the Black blogs can claim to have freed a fourteen year-old girl from prison; they can claim to have drawn 20,000 people to the town of Jena; and that's an incredible power that they are learning to harness and exploit.  So, I have incredible respect for these blogs now, and in fact I view them as essential ways to help distribute the stories I write in the mainstream media.  

Well, I think maybe Howard's onto something.

AfroSpear DNC Blogger Seriously Injured in Car Accident.
Still to Report on Historic Nomination of Barack Obama in Denver

Felicia, Daughter of AfroSpear Blogger L.N. Rock,
AKA"African American Political Pundit",
Will Be Youth Blogger to the Democratic National Convention
In Spite of Major Injuries Suffered in Car Accident.

The youngest daughter of AfroSpear member and Democratic National Convention blogger L.N. Rock, AKA ,African American Political Pundit, has been involved in a major auto accident, with serious injuries resulting.  Felicia, 19, was a passenger in a car in which the driver fell asleep on Route 495 in Maryland, crossed the divider through the oncoming traffic lanes and flipped over twice to land in a ditch. Felicia is credentialed through the African American Political Pundit blog to cover the Democratic National Convention, August 25-28, as a youth reporter.

In a conversation over MSN, L.N. Rock reported, after speaking with his daughter and the driver of the car,

The car landed in a ditch, where Felicia was pinned in and had to be taken out by fire department professionals, with what I understand were the jaws of life.

She was awake and was pinned in. When the fire department arrived she told them that she could not get out, was pinned in, could not move.  A blanket was placed over her face as they began to tear open the door.

Felicia was taken to Suburban Hospital in Bethesda Maryland and admitted.  There was no alcohol or drugs involved in the accident and the driver was unharmed.

In spite of the accident, says L. N. Rock, Felicia "plans to struggle to be with her dad, to videograph the Democratic National Convention, and report on the AAPP blog in a planned youth section".

Felicia says,

Barack Obama has won my "heart and mind" and I want to be there to witness history. I can only read about Martin Luther King, Jr., but I plan to be there to see Barack Obama nominated for president, even if I have to go in a wheel chair.

Felicia will begin college this year, with offers of admission from Howard University in Washington DC and Montgomery College in Maryland.

L.N. Rock says, "Her girlfriend went to sleep at the wheel." "It was a very serious accident, but Felicia will recover. She now has a full brace of her back and chest", but "she'll be home today from the hospital".

She is still determned to cover the Democratic National Convention for the AfroSpear as a youth blogger, witnessing and reporting on the historic nomination of Barack Obama.

With Felicia's medical injuries, travel expenses for the convention will be even higher than previously expected. To make a contribution, visit this site: http://www.chipin.com/mypages/edit/id/a8b7b4102bc0135d

Francis L. Holland, Esq.
http://francislholland.blogspot.com
55 (73) 3288-1716

L.N. Rock, African American Political Pundit
http://africanamericanpoliticalpundit.co m/
africanamericanpoliticalpundit@gmail.com

Cross-posted in the AfroSpear.

America's Glock, Smith and Wesson chickens are coming home to roost once again, with the shooting death of the chairman of the Arkansas State Democratic Party, Bill Gwatney.

Witnesses said the gunman entered the party offices shortly before noon and said he wanted to see Gwatney about volunteering. Party officials said the man forced his way into Gwatney's office and fired three shots, then fled in a blue truck.

House Majority Leader Steve Harrelson was at the state Capitol for a news conference on crime and that he didn't know of anyone who would want to harm Gwatney.

"You never think of something like this happening here in Arkansas," Harrelson said. Yahoo News

Some of the United States' culture just doesn't make any damned sense, and the results speak for themselves.  One such aspect of American culture is the belief that you can never have too many guns, and that any disadvantage that comes from having guns in the hands of those who are mentally unstable, hooked on crime and/or drugs is balanced by the warm and reassuring knowledge that every one of our neighbors has at least two guns in his house, maybe three.

So, although we are endangered by the massive firepower in the hands of lunatics, the lunatics wouldn't dare use that fire power because so many good and decent people are also armed to the teeth.  Yeah, right.  As it says in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous,

This brave philosophy, wherein each man plays God, sounds  good in the speaking, but it still has to meet the acid test: how well does it  actually work?  One good look in the mirror ought to be answer enough . . .  Step Three, AA's Twelve Steps

Well, today America looks in the mirror and sees that a leader of the Democratic Party has fallen and there's blood all over the floor.  The National Rifle Association says that even more guns is the answer, but we already have more guns than any other nation in the world, and we also have higher murder rates, as well as rates of many other types of crimes.

Some of us continue to insist that the Founding Fathers were not criminally insane when they barred women and Blacks from the Constitutional Conventions, and then enshrined in our Constitution the right to each "keep and bear" as many arms as they had hands, feet, arms and fingers.  And more.

One of my chief arguments against the Second Amendment is that, although the right is supposedly fundamental, it's a right that Blacks have NEVER been thought to have in equal measure or really any measure at all.  How many times have we heard police say that they shot a Black man dead because they thought he had a gun?  Well, if the Second Amendment guarantees the right to "keep and bear" guns, then why should being perceived as having a gun be an instant and wholly justified death sentence for Black men? (Careful.  Any answer you give may support the proposition that the protections of the Constitution only apply to white people.)

Fact is, as a practical matter, white men have the right to keep and bear arms while women mostly don't want to do so, except to defend themselves, and Black people are killed on sight when they are found to be doing so, or merely purportedly perceived to perhaps have been doing so.

Meanwhile, Bill Gwatney is dead and that is part of the mean legacy of the clearly Foundering Fathers.