50 rounds of ammo?

In general, I have a great deal of respect and admiration for police officers. There are not many jobs in the United States where the employee's number one goal for the day is to come home alive. In addition, they face an extremely stressful job in which they often deal with depraved and dangerous people. They need to make life or death decisions in a matter of seconds and may either die or go to prison if they make the wrong decision. In addition to all of that, their ability to do their jobs well becomes compromised when the few bad apples among them act up. Unlike many other people who have greatly stressful jobs, they don't get paid particularly well and work crazy hours.

But, every once in a while something crazy happens that I just can't understand at all. Like last week in New York City, when a group of young men, including a man who was going to be married later that day, were shot with approximately 50 rounds of ammunition by a team of undercover NYC police officers.

Let me repeat that. 50 rounds of ammunition.

Enough firepower to kill 50 individuals.

Used against three men. Unarmed men. Including at least one unarmed black men.

Does anyone see a problem here?

I don't know what happened and won't make assumptions at this point in time. All parties deserve to have their interests protected by a thorough and unbiased investigation.

But, 50 rounds?

It would be one thing if just seven years ago, the same police department hadn't killed another unarmed black man in a hail of gunfire that amounted to 41 rounds of ammunition. In this case, the victims had an average of 18 bullets fired at each person instead of Diallo's 41. That's still not my idea of progress.

Can you imagine any reason why 50 rounds of ammunition would be fired by police at anyone in any part of America who wasn't in the midst of firing back, holding hostages, or storming an airport? Any situation in which the person is unarmed?

I can't imagine it happening in a situation in which the victim is not a person of color.

A proposed thank-you note from the Democrats to the Republicans

During this season of giving and thanksgiving, it's important to acknowledge those who have given us much. During the past two years, the Republican Party has given the Democratic Party much indeed. By an amazing set of missteps, they've given the Dems both houses of Congress, the majority of the State Houses, control over judicial appointments, appropriations, taxes, and much more. It's only appropriate for the Dems to thank the Republicans for their generosity. Here's a draft thank-you note that they could send:

Dear GOP:

Two years ago, we were in a state of desperation. The nation had completely rejected our cornerstone issues of gay marriage, abortion on demand, devaluing support for the millitary, and raising taxes. We couldn't even beat you with the endless support from the mainstream media. We basically didn't have a leg to stand on. We were hopeless.

That's when you generously helped us by making the American people feel more anger toward you with every passing month. You committed blunders that we hadn't even thought of yet (though we might have committed them if we had). In just two years time, you made yourselves so repulsive in the hearts of the American people that they put us in office just to spite you. All of this even though we still don't have much of a plan and still stand for many of the moral issues that most Americans disagree with.

We just want to take a minute to say ... THANKS!!

Thank you for mismanaging the greatest natural disaster since the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. In Hurricane Katrina, we lost almost a half of the number of lives lost in 911. But, you continued to stand by the highest level officials involved in the response. And you convinced even more Americans that you weren't concerned about their lives. Not only by not actually visiting the city for a long period of time after the disaster, but by openly debating whether or not the city should be rebuilt. This really helped us a lot in terms of getting people mad at you. Again, thank you.

Thank you for having people more people in your party who were caught breaking the law than we've had in ours. Yes, we had a member videotaped taking a bribe and having cash in his freezer. But, you helped take the focus away from us by having one of your pillar members indicted, another important member imprisoned, and yet another on his way to prison. Also, a big thanks for failing to investigate a possible pedophile (we've had them in our party, too, but didn't think to cover it up). All of this, too, helped us out tremendously.

Although we still don't have any particular ideas about how to get out of Iraq, you made us look good in comparison by appearing to be somewhat unaware of the situation on the ground. As our casualties mount, you gave the public the impression that you were blind to the challenges our troops face and blindly loyal to leadership that wasn't working. All of this means more to us than words can ever express. All we really can say to state our gratitude is: "let's work together."

Also, thanks for the little things that you did that meant so much in this election. Thanks for ticking off black voters even more (we didn't think you could) by stalling on renewing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and by having almost half of your Senators refuse to condemn lynching (we were really worried after conservative blacks in Ohio and Florida helped Bush win in 2004, but you helped keep the trend from spreading :-)) And thanks for having a number of people who preached family values but lived very much to the contrary. And your members of Congress have added so many pork-barrel earmarks to bills that you've actually made us look like the fiscally conservative party. Wow! Much thanks also for stalling Autism research and preventing a Flight 93 memorial from being built. Through these gestures and more, you essentially gave us the House. Also, cheers to Rush Limbaugh for changing the human embreyonic stem cell debate into a discussion about his cruel comments about Michael J. Fox. How did you know that we wanted the Missouri Senate seat?

We don't know what we did do deserve this kindness from you (or what we did to deserve to get elected). But, we just want to express how much this means. Thank you for giving us both houses of congress, and, just because the public was completely turned off by everything Republican, you even threw in the governorships. Don't worry, we will return the favor at some point soon.

P.S. Thank you for the Virginia Seat. We weren't expecting that.


Sincerely,
The Democrats

Why the Republicans can't win the black vote.

Here's a sad situation if you are a GOP supporter. All the GOP had to do to keep control of the Senate this year - even with Iraq, Mark Foley, Abramoff and other corruption scandals and the "Macaca" comment in Virginia - was to win about 35% of the African American vote in Maryland. Their candidate was Michael Steele, who was a great candidate and an even better campaigner, not to mention the fact that he was an African American from the state's largest majority black jurisdiction. He had a wide range of local government, ministerial and even celebrity endorsements. They needed just 35% of the black vote. They couldn't even get that. And now they are the minority party in the Senate.

The level of estrangement that has developed between the black community and the GOP is almost beyond description. It started in 1960, when many blacks still considered themselves republicans. Two weeks before the election, Martin Luther King was given a bogus sentence of four months in prison for learing a sit-in; his wife Corretta, who was six months pregnant with their third child, feared that her husband would be killed while in prison. Nixon, the sitting Vice President, who was supposedly a friend of King's, refused to get involved (he probably wanted to win the south); John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby used their political contacts to get King out of prison the next day. Although King's Father, Martin Luther King Sr., had publically been supporting Nixon for President, he was so grateful that Kennedy cared enough to get involved and presumably angry enough that the Vice President sat by and did nothing that he switched his support to Kennedy and promised to bring millions of black voters along with him. In his autobiography, King described Nixon as a "moral coward."

From there, the GOP opened its doors wide open to the former Dixiecrats, the disaffected southern racists who used to be Democrats but were turned off by the Democratic party's inclusion of more and more blacks. And for most of the past 45 years, the GOP has attempted to win power by appealing to the "inner Confederate" of some of their supporters. The south has been the key to the GOP strategy since the mid 1960's. And for a long time, it worked beautifully for them. The only Democrats to win the White House since Richard Nixon won it in 1968 were two popular southern governors. The GOP has tolerated racism in some of its popular rainmakers in exchange for the electoral votes that they bring to the table. It worked for a long time.

November 7th, 2006 showed that this era has come to an end. With the Democrats now running conservative candidates, the Southern Strategy no longer guarantees victory. And now the GOP's long standing rejection of the African American community has come back to haunt them and cost them. If they could have gotten a measly 35% of the black vote in Maryland, they would continue to run the Senate, despite having shot themselves in the foot in almost every way imaginable. But they couldn't. The years of Republican rejection of black voters and embracing of bigots was the final wave that swept them out of power.

The resentment in the black community against the GOP is so great that most black voters in Maryland wouldn't even consider voting for a great candidate who happened to be black because he also happened to be a Republican. Steele won in almost every jurisdiction in the state - except for the counties with the largest percentages of African Americans. The dream of having a second black U.S. Senator paled in comparison with the nightmare of having another Republican, in the minds of black voters.

So, why doesn't the GOP get it? They need to appeal to every voter and win every vote across racial lines. What do they do after getting pounded into the sand on Election Day and losing the Senate by one vote? The go ahead and appoint Trent Lott to be the second highest ranking Republican Leader. Earlier this year, they were refusing to renew the Voting Rights Act. Last year, about 20 GOP Senators (almost half of the Republicans in the Senate) refused to participate in a statement of condemnation of America's history of lynching (Who doesn't condemn lynching?) Now they're saying that Trent Lott, with all his baggage of accusations of racial intolerance, should be in the senior leadership again. It's bad enough that they've alienated black voters for most of the past 45 years ... they're continuing to take in water.

Black people in America are at least as much socially conservative as we are liberal, meaning that there are a high number of social conservatives and evangelicals in the community. Blacks and Hispanics are perhaps the only largely conservative groups in the country who consistently vote for the more liberal party. Why? Why do you think that white evangelicals overwhelmingly vote for the Republicans but black evangelicals, who often hold the same views on moral issues, overwhelmingly vote for the Democrats?

Many more blacks would vote for the GOP if we could get the images of Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Conrad Burns, and Trent Lott out of our minds. But with this party, it's almost like for every old Confederate soldier who fades away, a new one pops up to take his place. First it was Barry Goldwater. Then Strom Thurmond. Then Jesse Helms, Conrad Burns, Trent Lott, etc. If they could clear these types of folks out, they would get a windfall of new support.

The GOP has highly paid strategists who presumably have triple-digit IQs. At some point, shouldn't they be asking themselves why every single ethnic minority group (African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Jewish Americans, Muslim Americans, etc.) prefers the Democrats to them? They're clearly doing something wrong and if they want power in the future, they need to fix it. They can't get by just winning over white conservative voters anymore - the math doesn't support it. They can't afford to alienate entire ethnic groups, as they have done for much of the past 45 years. At least they can stop taking in more water and putting themselves further in the hole.

Bush has tried to some degree. He's appointed two black Secretaries of State and made other gestures toward the black community (although he missed five years worth of NAACP conferences). But the Congress has been out of control.

This is NOT just about Affirmative Action. Good people can disagree about Affirmative Action. But on a broader level, the GOP has been putting out signals of racial intolerance for decades now (remember Jesse Helms, who "whistled Dixie" when in the Senate elevator with black Senator Carole Mosely-Braun?). They booed Colin Powell during his speech during the 1996 Convention. They refuse to reign in the "good ol' boy" faction of the party.

Now it's cost them and the shifting demographics of this country will make it harder and harder to win when an entire ethnic group votes against you. My question is, what will it take for them to finally get it?

The n-word: a simple answer to the eternal mystery of why you can't racially attack someone of another race

I've heard over and over this week - on talk radio and on message boards - people who seem baffled why it's wrong for a white person like Michael Richards to use "the n-word" - especially when it's in open use by so many black people. Yes, the mysteries of life are deep indeed. Although I can't explain why God made spiders or whether or not He allows animals to go to Heaven, I feel comfortable enough to take a crack at this baffling mystery that seems to befuddle so many people who struggle with racism.

You can't racially attack people of another race because ... are you ready? ... you are not a member of that ethnic group. It's actually that simple.

It's not that deep. It's similar to how it could be funny when Jerry Seinfeld tells a joke that involves Jewish customs but it would be deeply offensive if Chris Rock tried to tell it. Similar to how it could be funny when commedianne Margaret Cho imitates her Korean mother's accent during her routine but it wouldn't be such a good idea for Billy Crystal to put that in his line-up. George Lopez uses racial humor involving Hispanics, but I don't think he hates people from Mexico.

The Richards routine would have been offensive whether he uttered the "n-word" or not. That word was perhaps only one of many offensive parts of his tirade. He spoke of Lynching and brutalizing the lyching victim. He said it's not wrong for a white person to call an n-word the n-word. He went ballistic and showed pure rage toward blacks - far more than just the usage of one word. Even though, usage of the word would have been bad enough all by itself. But the prolonged racial attack that incorporated the n-word and much, much more is what sets this one apart. Those of you who are still confused, please pay attention.

Personally, I hate "the n-word" no matter who says it. I am black and I don't say it. I cringe even when I hear other black people say it. I hate the fact that a whole generation of kids are hearing the word being used over and over again in music lyrics. It bothers me that some black people choose to say this word.

But, still, the key word in that last statement is black people. The word is tasteless and I hate to hear it, but I don't think that Chris Rock hates black people when I hear him say it. He probably doesn't hate a group that he's a part of. I would think differently if someone other than an African American said it. I would not just think that the person had bad taste, as I think when Chris Rock says it. I would suspect far more.

In the same way, we Americans as a whole can talk about our government and leaders and make jokes about ourselves. However, all of us were deeply offended when Hugo Chavez verbally attacked our President in front of the U.N. We can criticize our leaders, but when someone else does it in such a vitriolic manner, it's perceived as an attack on all Americans.

It's unfortunate that the "n-word" lives on in 2006. No one should use the word. But the fact that some black people do doesn't give whites the right to use the word. It remains among the deepest and most hurtful forms of insult in our language.

Reasons why Michael Richards should be grateful today

Not even a week ago, actor Michael Richards of Seinfeld fame ruined his good name and his career by launching off into a four minute racial tirade worthy of Mark Fuhrman or Bull Connor. He has rightfully been condemned by people of all races for what seemed to be an outpouring from the heart of rage toward African Americans, a rant which was immediately directed against two black club patrons (who denied that they were even heckling him). Even after such a bad week, Mr. Richards still has a lot to be grateful for. In case he is having trouble counting his blessings after such a rough week, I will attempt to help him out.

• He should be grateful that the crowd was too shocked and surprised, not to mention civilized, to react to his tirade in a more unfortunate manner. A different crowd might have pulled him off the stage and he might have been giving his Letterman "apology" from a recovery unit at a local hospital.
• He should be grateful that he's not the only high profile person to attack an entire race while in a state of rage. The shock of Mel Gibson's outrageous comments probably softened the blow for Mr. Richards a bit. Come to think of it, I'm sure that Mr. Gibson is grateful today that Mr. Richards matched or eclipsed the hatefulness of his tirade against Jewish people. Mr. Gibson is probably happy he's no longer the only high-profile Hollywood racist who has infuriated millions of people this year.
• Richards should be grateful that this truly is a nation that protects free speech. He will rightfully suffer career-threatening consequences for his Hitleresque tirade. However, he was not arrested. He was not fined. He even returned to the same stage the very next night and was allowed to perform his routine again (this time without the talk about lynching, apparrently). In fact, if he chose, he could today walk onto the streets of Baltimore, Washington, Detroit or even New York and spout out the same hatred if he chose (by the way, Mr. Richards is also blessed in that even he is probably not crazy or out of control enough to take that option).
• "Kramer" should be grateful that, unlike most of us who need to work for a living, he has already earned such a fortune that he can live comfortably for the rest of his life even if he never works again. Most of us face the prospect that if we commit a major enough blunder, we will lose our jobs and struggle to get gainful employment again. But, Mr. Richards can give thanks for the fact that to him, it ultimately doesn't matter whether or not America or its African American citizens decide to forgive him or not. He can slide into retirement just as gracefully as he slid into Jerry's apartment door one way or the other.
• He should be grateful that this is a generally forgiving nation with a relatively short memory. The most heinous acts can often be put behind someone with the passage of a few years time, a few appearances on Larry King Live or a book that talks about the inner demons that drove one to commit an evil act. In the past few years, we've had a well-known Hollywood director who assaulted a child receiving an Oscar award and a standing ovation from the moral standard-bearers in tinseltown, the "heart of America" (he accepted in abstentia because he'd be arrested if he entered the country). We've had a high profile Senator who spoke longingly about a segregationist Presidential candidate being returned to power. To top it off, the incoming President Pro Tempore of the Senate is a former Klan recruiter. Ah ... the sound of redemption. So, Michael Richards has hope that eventually America will forget what he the actor really thinks and will accept whatever excuse he and his handlers find for his behavior. Most importantly, he has the realistic hope that sooner rather than later, someone famous will do something even more outrageous and make him look good by comparison. So, he truly has much to be thankful for.

What's at stake in the Steele vs. Cardin fight

There's lots of talk in the African American community about the consequences of voting one way or another in the Maryland Senatorial battle. Before you go to the polls, I want to chime in my own thoughts on the subject.

What won't change if Cardin wins:

• President Bush will still be the President of the United States. Cardin doesn't have a message and thus has tried to make the election into a contest between him and Bush. Bush will still be the President of the United States until noon on January 20, 2009. If Clinton was able to withstand six years of the Republicans trying to get him, Bush and Karl Rove can withstand two years of the Democrats, with a much smaller majority should they win, trying to make trouble for him. If you don't like Bush, you'll have another two years to not like him one way or another.
• Abortion will continue to be an epidemic well into the next century. Cardin has a 100% approval rating from NARAL and if made a Senator, will undoubtedly have a "litmus test" for judicial appointments: declare your undying loyalty to Roe or hit the road. It will continue to be an epidemic that particularly ravishes the black community. As of today, for every two black babies born, one unborn black baby is aborted. At least a third of black pregnancies end in abortion. But, our "friends" in the Democratic Party (both black and white politicians) , who are "looking out for us," are advocating a policy that is literally ripping an entire race out of the womb. And don't believe the hype about how if the Democrats get in charge, economic conditions will improve and the rates will go down. These numbers have stayed basically constant for many years.
• We will continue to be in Iraq. The war stinks and it was a terrible mistake to go and invade. However, the Democrats conveniently forget that many of them voted for the war, and many others, including Ben Cardin, voted at some point in time to fund the war and to pass a bill that states that the world is better off without Sadaam. It's nice to have it both ways. It's even nicer to be able to criticize a complete spaghetti mess like the war in Iraq and promise that if you get elected, you'll fix it. Those types of promises are easy to make. However, they're extremely difficult to carry out, as Richard Nixon discovered when he won office in 1968 based on voter discontent with Vietnam. But, we were there for five more years!! Problems like this aren't fixed overnight - ever. Leaving immediately at this point isn't an intelligent option and neither is the idiotic "stay the course" policy that some Republicans have been advocating. Why don't we know the real answer? Because no one in either Party knows how to fix it. Trust me, if the Cardin wins, we'll be in the war for just as long as we will be if Steele wins. Steele has actually had the guts to publicly criticize the civilian leadership. Who do you think would be more influential in persuading the President to make changes? A Democratic Senator who criticizes everything the other side does or a Republican Senator who breaks with his party to criticize from within?
• The Maryland Democratic Party will have learned again that all they have to do to have the complete loyalty of black voters is to pull out the Republican bogeyman. They will continue to ignore black candidates and pay lip service to issues in the black community because they know that they can. They'll know that no matter what they do, we will continue to vote for them regardless of their message or lack of one. That's a dangerous thing for any group of politicians to realize.

Steele will bring a fresh voice to the Senate and some much needed diversity (both in terms of ethnic background and perspective - he wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth) to the Republican Party, which will hopefully result in having two parties with more diversity and sensitivity to all voters. The Democratic Party didn't start to change from being the redneck party of Woodrow Wilson until it started to look like America.

Why this African American didn't vote for Ben Cardin

In the spring of 2005, as the drama of Terri Schiavo played out, I was praying that she wouldn't suffer the way she did - death from starvation and dehyrdration. Her family was both willing and able to take care of her and her actual wishes had never been documented in any way. Her ex-husband, still her legal spouse but having started a family with another woman, claimed that Schiavo adamantly stated never wanted to be in a coma (how many people in their mid-20's actually talked about that kind of what-if scenario before this case came to light?). The day after the House voted on whether or not to intervene on behalf of this helpless woman, I looked up how all of the Maryland representatives voted.

Cardin was one of the members who in effect voted to let Schiavo die (wasn't just a Democrat thing; some other liberal Democrats voted differently out of a sense of compassion for Mrs. Schiavo). I then looked up Cardin's overall record. He has a 100% approval rating from NARAL, the organization that supports the abortion industry. He voted against making it a crime to harm an unborn baby while committing a crime against a pregnant mother. He supports human cloning. I called his office to state my opposition to his vote. The tone of voice which his staff members held while talking to me for those few moments made me feel as if they were totally dismissing me. I stated that if Cardin ever sought statewide office, he would not have my vote.

It's amazing to me that Cardin has any shot at all. He may be a nice guy, but he seems to have no personality. More importantly, he doesn't seem to have any message. Having been bombarded with ads on television and radio, as well as reading the print political ads known as Washington Post news stories, I have yet to see one reason that has been articulated for voting FOR Mr. Cardin. The essence of his campaign is, Steele is with Bush. Tired of Bush? Vote for me and show Mr. Bush. That's pretty much the executive summary of his entire campaign.

He has been in elected politics since Lyndon Johnson was President, all of it in the state of Maryland. Yet, he did not know about a billion dollar local issue involving the expansion of the Metro system. He misspoke during a recent debate and said that he was not in Congress at the time the Patriot act was passed, even though he has been in the House since 1986. He seems to have not been really prepared to make the case to the people of Maryland that he deserves to be in office. He seems to believe that he should automatically go from the House to the Senate, just like he went from law school to the State House to the U.S. House - on the strength of his good family name.

He has not made the case for why he deserves to be elected (he has tried to make the case of why Steele doesn't - but the only point he's made to that degree is that Steele is a Republican). And his social values are those of the ultra-liberal wing of the Democratic Party. I oppose the following positions of Mr. Cardin (http://www.ontheissues.org/House/Benjamin_Cardin.htm):

Voted YES on allowing human embryonic stem cell research. (May 2005)
Voted NO on restricting interstate transport of minors to get abortions. (Apr 2005)
Voted NO on making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime. (Feb 2004)
Voted NO on banning partial-birth abortion except to save mother’s life. (Oct 2003)
Voted NO on forbidding human cloning for reproduction & medical research. (Feb 2003)
Voted NO on funding for health providers who don't provide abortion info. (Sep 2002)
Voted NO on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad. (May 2001)
Voted NO on federal crime to harm fetus while committing other crimes. (Apr 2001)
Voted NO on banning partial-birth abortions. (Apr 2000)
Voted NO on barring transporting minors to get an abortion. (Jun 1999)
Voted NO on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. (Sep 2004)
Voted NO on protecting the Pledge of Allegiance. (Sep 2004)
Voted NO on banning gay adoptions in DC. (Jul 1999)
Voted YES on making federal death penalty appeals harder. (Feb 1995)
Voted NO on military border patrols to battle drugs & terrorism. (Sep 2001)
Voted NO on prohibiting needle exchange & medical marijuana in DC. (Oct 1999)
Voted NO on subjecting federal employees to random drug tests. (Sep 1998)
Voted NO on allowing school prayer during the War on Terror. (Nov 2001)
Voted NO on reducing Marriage Tax by $399B over 10 years. (Mar 2001)
Voted NO on limited prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients. (Nov 2003)
Voted NO on allowing reimportation of prescription drugs. (Jul 2003)
Voted NO on small business associations for buying health insurance. (Jun 2003)
Voted NO on banning physician-assisted suicide. (Oct 1999)
Voted NO on establishing tax-exempt Medical Savings Accounts. (Oct 1999)

He looks like a nice guy and I'm sure he is. I wouldn't mind getting a cup of coffee with him or having a neighborly chat with him when he leaves politics. But, his values, as expressed over his votes of the past twenty years, are almost as far from mine as is possible. Steele is a much closer match.