Ban the N-Word

Alice Walker - An Open Letter to Barack Obama

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:54:14 PST

Alice Walker: An Open Letter to Barack Obama

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters.... We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead.... From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.... I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain.... It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." ....finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies.

Barack Obama - Election Night Speech - 11/4/08

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:24:56 PST

President-Elect Barack Obama - November 4, 2008
Election Night Victory Speech: "This Time Must Be Different"

I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last sixteen years, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nation's next First Lady, Michelle Obama. Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much.... So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.... America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves - if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

[Full video and transcripts included]

BN-W eNewsletter #93

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:53:38 PST

Film(s) Monitored: Miracle at St. Anna; The Express; The Secret Life of Bees; W.; High School Musical 3: Senior Year

TOPICS: Election Information Special; Knowing Your Voting Rights-State By State fact brochure; What Not to Wear on Election Day; Video the Vote; and more...

BN-W eNewsletter #92

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:21:56 PST

Film(s) Monitored: The Longshots; Death Race; Traitor; Babylon AD; The Family That Preys; The Women; Lakeview Terrace

TOPICS: N-Word usage in last film for Bernie Mac/Isaac Hayes (Soul Men); Fela! A New Musical (Off Broadway); Documentaries: FLOW (For Love of Water), Disappearing Voices: The Decline of Black Radio, Banished; Zeitgeist - religion, 9/11, and the Federal Reserve system (privately owned bankers); NAACP's newest and youngest President/CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous; NAACP Upload to Uplift voter registration initiative; voter suppression tactics (including on foreclosed homeowners); Tim Wise on White Privilege; Alvin Ailey dancer Abdur-Rahim Jackson detained at Israeli airport/forced to dance for release; Free Gaza organization, Israeli apartheid/occupation, and difficulty in getting hearing aids to kids; and more...

Alton Maddox 8-21-08

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:09:49 PST

Alton Maddox: Obama Stands on Black History in Denver

While [Barack] Obama is clearly an upgrade over [John] McCain, both men are descendants of slaveholders. The political establishment is hedging its bet. McCain is a beneficiary of white supremacy. Obama is a victim of racial prejudice. The two terms are not synonymous, however. Given his experience, Obama is better suited to speak for the underdog.... After the assassination of Dr. [Martin Luther] King, the Civil Rights Movement was derailed. Racial hustlers stepped into the void and led Blacks away from the road to the “Promised Land.” Blacks are now en route to the White House. The “White House” is a euphemism for the “Big House.” These hustlers may achieve this objective in 2009 to the detriment of Dr. King’s vision.

Alton Maddox 8-14-08

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:05:16 PST

Alton Maddox: The Struggle Continues for Alton Maddox

The endless list of attorneys who were convicted of engaging in felonious conduct and who have been reinstated to the practice of law include Albert Pirro, husband of former Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro; Sol Wachtler, former Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals; and Michael Dowd, a friend of the Cuomo family.... Three of the four Black attorneys in the Central Park 6 were disbarred. The other attorney was suspended from the practice of law. Disbarred attorney Lynne Stewart was sentenced to prison. She represented the late Adam Abdul-Hakim and Sheik Abdel Rahman.

Alton Maddox 8-7-08

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:51:03 PST

Alton Maddox: The Meaning of Obama in the White House

The lesson to be learned is that any favorable overture to Blacks is disfavored in the United States. [Barack] Obama knows enough about presidential politics to realize that the fair treatment of Blacks is its third rail .U.S. presidents have always played the race card.... The ruling class, which is bent on maintaining the status quo, at best, has three tools in its arsenal to keep Obama in check — assassination, impeachment and disbarment. William McKinley was also assassinated in office and Andrew Johnson was impeached. The White House is the hot seat.... Even if Obama decides to flirt with being a sacrificial lamb for advancing Black rights, he will also have to sidestep the separation of powers doctrine and the states’ rights doctrine. Dixiecrats will insist on an expanded role for states’ rights. This is natural for people who love the acquisition of power.

Alton Maddox 7-31-08

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:25:43 PST

Alton Maddox: Connecting the Dots and Thinking Outside the Box

This country had to assassinate Malcolm X and Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. and it had to imprison Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. Louis Clayton Jones had to be “disbarred” and Amos Wilson had to be silenced. Rev. Jeremiah Wright had to be defrocked in a bill of attainder. Their critical analyses would militate against the dumbing down of a downtrodden people.... Before I was removed from the legal profession in 1990, the New York Post ran editorials demanding that I be disbarred. They argued that if I were left unchecked to do my thing, other Black attorneys would attempt to emulate me. Most Blacks still believe that my conflict with New York is personal. Whites know better. History guides them.

Alton Maddox 7-24-08

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:07:17 PST

Alton Maddox: Blacks: Good Character and A Bad Reputation

The public use of the word “nigger” to describe descendants of enslaved Africans constitutes a constitutional tort. “Nigger”is a badge of slavery and its use is subject to vindication under the Thirteenth Amendment. No other group was enslaved in the United States at the time of the Civil War and, therefore, no other group is constitutionally entitled to be free of the badges of slavery.... Because our reputation is at an all-time low in this country, every Black person is a sitting duck and a walking target. Our homes have been reduced to slave quarters. Police raids have become routine. White mobs are also attacking Blacks on their property. This was the problem in Money, Miss., on August 28, 1955. It happened again in Suffolk ounty, N.Y., but with a different result.

BN-W eNewsletter #91

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:44:56 PST

Film(s) Monitored: Sex and the City; Get Smart; Wanted; Hancock; Meet Dave; The Dark Knight

TOPICS: Jasiri X "Hancock" Black superhero analysis; CNN's Black In America special report; American Medical Association's admission and apology of racism and segregation in medicine for more than 100 years; JAMA report on "African American Physicians and Organized Medicine: 1846-1968: Origins of a Racial Divide"; Cheikh Anta Diop International Conference 20th Anniversary; New Yorker magazine militant/terrorist cover of Barack and Michelle Obama; Cynthia McKinney, Rosa Clemente, and the Green Party; Jesse Jackson (FOX News), Whoopi Goldber/Sherri Shepherd (The View), and the N-word; Barack Obama and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) speech; Sumner Redstone, Shari Redstone, and Viacom (CBS, BET, MTV, Paramount); and more...

Alton Maddox 7-17-08

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:48:58 PST

Alton Maddox: Thurmond and Wallace Will Be Smiling in 2009

The New Yorker magazine has upped the ante. Its current cover exploits racial and religious stereotypes under the guise of political satire. [Barack] Obama and his wife, Michelle, are depicted as terrorists. [John] McCain must remain low-key since his family earned its fortune off the backs of enslaved Africans in Mississippi. The magazine will become McCain’s “plumbers.”

Lloyd Williams - New Yorker Obama Cover

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:37:29 PST

Lloyd Williams: New Yorker Cover Depicts the Obamas as Terrorists

The closer Barack Obama gets to winning the White House, the more determined his adversaries have become to derail his campaign by any means necessary....on the cover of the July 21^st issue of the New Yorker Magazine....Barack is depicted in Arab garb complete with turban, and looking suspiciously like Osama bin Laden whose portrait has replaced that of a prior president on the wall. The not so subtle suggestion being made here is that a vote for Obama is a vote for an Islamic radical terrorist. Meanwhile, Michelle is attacked in a different way, being drawn with a big afro and a machine gun slung over shoulder in front of a fireplace with a United States flag burning in it. These images are designed to imply that she’s a Sixties-style black militant who hates her country and advocates a violent revolution.

Alton Maddox 7-10-08

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:23:15 PST

Alton Maddox: Police Courts in New York

Twenty years after Brawley fingered a “white cop, ”the Brawley file is still intact in the state’s vault. I had to defend myself in Dutchess County Supreme Court with virtually no discovery and with my hands tied behind my back while I was also beating back a Fifth Column.... Gov. David Paterson has buried his head in the sand while he knows—or should know—that the hidden Brawley file will prove not only my innocence but also that I was framed and railroaded. It will also prove that Tawana Brawley was the victim of state-sponsored defamation.

Alton Maddox 7-3-08

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:58:05 PST

Alton Maddox: The Second Amendment, Dred Scott and Blacks

To be sure, the Supremes gave the right construction to the 27 words in the Second Amendment. In a secret meeting to write a Bill of Rights, the “Founding Fathers” were preoccupied with rebellious Africans and government tyranny. The right to bear arms gave whites the tools to defend themselves against these Africans. There was also a fear of a standing army. The Founding Fathers had no intention of subjecting whites to rebellious Blacks without giving them the right to possess “equalizers.” Whites had already experienced many African uprisings before the ratification of the Second Amendment, including, but not limited to, rebellions in New York in 1712 and 1741 and the Stono Rebellion near Charleston, S.C. in 1739.... In a historical context, this meaning was disputed in South Carolina after Denmark Vesey was fingered by enslaved Africans for plotting a slave revolt in 1822. The Citadel, a military academy, was established after the exposure of Vesey’s plot, in 1822, to institutionalize the war on Blacks. A similar reaction happened in Virginia after Nat Turner, in 1831, led an army of Blacks, killing every white person in sight. Whites convened an emergency session of the Virginia General Assembly and, within five votes, nearly emancipated every enslaved African in Virginia. By 1839,Virginia had established the Virginia Military Institute. VMI is the oldest state-sponsored military institution in the country. White boys would learn how to apply military science to slave insurrections. Whites recognized that enslaved Africans posed a real threat to national security. Today, it is still an imaginary threat.... During our 400 years in this country, we have gone from involuntary servitude to voluntary slavery. This has happened because we have insisted on only securing partial rights under the First Amendment and no rights under the Second and Ninth amendments. This is called political suicide.

Alton Maddox 6-26-08

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:45:38 PST

Alton Maddox: White Prosecutors Destroying Black Life

Same-sex advocates argue that the struggle for same-sex marriages has a kinship with the civil rights struggle. Wrong! There may be parallels in the two struggles, but there are different rationales. Moreover, many same-sex couples are racist to the core. Enslaved Africans were unable to marry anyone. They had no rights and certainly no opportunity to choose a non-traditional lifestyle. Gov. David Paterson got it wrong when he sought to connect the struggle for same-sex marriages with Brown v. Board of Education. Even after New York passed its gradual emancipation statute in 1799, Africans were still not permitted to marry. Interracial marriages were not given guarantees under the Constitution until 1967. An interracial marriage is still the likely subject of a cross burning. Thus, freedom and emancipation are not synonyms. Similarly, citizenship and freedom are not synonyms.

Happy Juneteenth Day 2008

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:33:47 PST

Happy Juneteenth Day!

Alton Maddox 6-19-08

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:36:17 PST

Alton Maddox: Martial Law Creeping Up I-95

The New York Police Department is seeking to hide its stop and frisk data from the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights among others, even though it had no problem providing the same data to the RAND Corp. which, after receiving a hefty municipal grant, proposed the police use of Tasers in response to the assassination of Sean Bell—despite a jury’s ruling in a products liability case that Tasers are deadly weapons. A white racist or a self-hating Negro coupled with a high-powered, semiautomatic gun and a badge is a recipe for murder. Racism and self-hatred were the farthest things from RAND’s study, but those ingredients were present in the assassination of Sean Bell. The Queens prosecutor’s office laid the foundation for a cover-up in People v. Oliver et al.

Alton Maddox 6-12-08

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:56:03 PST

Alton Maddox: Childhood Development of Barack Obama

[Barack] Obama has become an Israel hardliner before he has been given an opportunity to express any views about police terrorism in the United States or his American foreign policy toward the Caribbean or Africa. While Obama has been reluctant to don an American flag lapel pin, he proudly wore a joint U.S.-Israel pin. At the beginning of his speech, Obama harkened back to his childhood. When he was 11 years of age, he met an American Jew who was his camp counselor. Oddly, Obama was introduced to Zionism before he had any knowledge of his African roots. Pan-Africanism never arrived.... The key is the presumptive “First Lady.” I prefer Michelle. She is Obama’s moral compass....Leaders of AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] understand the importance of establishing and implementing political policy. So did Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. Obama will spill American blood over Israel’s security, but he will spill no blood over police terrorism because Black leaders have failed to formulate any policy for our survival.

Alton Maddox 6-5-08

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:44:04 PST

Alton Maddox: Sweeping Powers of Gov. Paterson

[David] Paterson is skating on thin ice. He is sitting on exculpatory evidence which will bust the [Tawana] Brawley case wide open and implicate Mario Cuomo, Robert Abrams, Rudolph Giuliani and Eliot Spitzer. Instead, Paterson has chosen to be the gatekeeper. Since the Brawley case is supposed to be a “hoax,” what is the reason for hiding the file? This is a major contradiction. Because of fear, no one will publicly defend Tawana. For Blacks, New York is worse than Saudi Arabia.

BN-W 4th Year Anniversary

Thu, 29 May 2008 10:18:47 PST

BN-W 4th Year Anniversary - 5/29/08 [TOPICS: Scholars John Henrik Clarke, Cheikh Anta Diop, John G. Jackson, Joy DeGruy Leary, Adelaide Sanford, Ivan Van Sertima, Chancellor Williams; Sam Greenlee's film - "The Spook Who Sat By The Door"; KemMiou Video; H. Lewis Smith - Black America Under Siege: Without and Within; and more...]