NAACP in HOUSTON

This week in Houston there was a big celebration called the NAACP Annual Convention. I framed the statement this way because there was an AG, VP, and a NUT who spoke at the gathering. There were cheers, jeers, and boo’s.

By all accounts the Vice President stole the show as he rallied support for the President before the nation's largest civil rights organization. Well the guy the Good Ol’ Boys are trying to get behind proclaimed he was the only one to do for African Americans what the president has failed to do for working families in the black community.

On the other hand, the VP a stand in for the Prez drew cheers as he credited Obama for championing a landmark health care law, launching the mission that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and stepping in to rescue the financial system and U.S. automakers General Motors and Chrysler. This was quite a contrast to the man with two faces who gave the impression he was in a friendly environment – talking about Willard!

I have to say, Willard showed guts by walking into the lion’s den, so to speak,  but he should have known that we don’t believe he will do more for African-Americans than Obama, the nation's first black president, and that’s when he was booed started! I would the few cheers that Willard got were from people who he either brought with him or they were bused in.

He made the statement that he'd repeal Obama's sweeping health care reform law and more boo's came. In the first place, he disrespected the audience when he called the most sweeping initiative of the president’s career – "Obamacare". Did he not know this was, to us, a code word that the bigots use to further take away things that benefits our community?

The AG was there the day before speaking about the travesty of voter suppression that is coming from Willard’s gang – you know the Tea Baggers and Good Ol’ Boy’s that fund and support him, whose agenda would hurt black families as it always has. Maybe I should put it this way – there are fundamental different visions of reality when you look at the two camps, which I believe this election will come down to character, conviction and vision and that would be Obama/Biden.

Obama did not speak to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People this year, appearing instead in a taped video message. In the brief remarks, Obama said: "I stand on your shoulders and at the NAACP you have always believed in the American promise." He reiterated many of the themes of his re-election campaign, saying the nation needs to "build an economy where everyone can have the confidence that the hard work will also pay off." The president said he was sorry he couldn't be there in person.

Black voters are a key part of Obama's re-election strategy, with about 95 percent supporting him in 2008. Polls have shown black voters supporting Obama at comparable levels this year but Romney could undercut the president in states such as North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and Florida, all of which have large black communities, if he can persuade some black voters to support him or if they stay home on Election Day. Dream on!

In Obama's absence, Biden offered a fiery defense of administration policies while warning of what a Romney presidency would bring to civil rights. He asked attendees to "imagine" what the Justice Department would be like under a Romney administration and "imagine when his senior adviser on the Constitution is Robert Bork," the Republican Supreme Court nominee who was defeated by Democrats in 1987. Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time.

Biden received sustained applause throughout his address. When he spoke about civil rights and administration efforts to expand voting rights and not diminish them, the crowd stood up and loudly cheered. When Biden said, "Did you think we'd be fighting these battles again?" People in the crowd answered in unison, "No."

I am not going to preach to the choir but I will say Willard’s speech was long on “BS” and as is his character short on substance. Mitt don’t you and the Klan know that people of color have seen what the republicans represent. They, the GOP, remind me of that gang of terrorists who carry burning crosses, wear white robes in the middle of the night, and call themselves the “real Americans”. Hmmm and that’s my Thought provoking Perspectives…

http://johntwills.com

Legacy – A New Season the sequel is now available on Kindle with the hard copy released July 20th. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008HJRPE0

The Obama Effect - Theatrical Trailer

Look in the Mirror

 I want to ask, you who are reading my words to look into the mirror and ask yourself: “Who am I?” This is important because you might, if honest, see a person that is the representative of your life. Let me explain, you say that you love a God who you have never seen; yet you do not love the man or woman who you can see.

You know you have prejudices that you were either taught or came to know though your experiences. White people in most cases are prejudice against blacks. Blacks are prejudice against whites, and blacks. Moreover, every nation on the face of the earth had a prejudice against someone mainly because they are different in some form. I might religion is often time a reason.

The Bible says, “The will be wars and rumors of wars”. This is very interesting because this speaks to the interest of those who have a vested interest in this brutality. I am going to be more specific and relate this to Pharaoh in the sense he was the entity that was in control of man; then came Mosses to set his people free with the promise of leading them to the promise land.

If you think about this and understand that your enemies have invested in your soul that old tried and true principle of divide and conquer. I say this specifically to address the issues that exist between the African American male and female. God created us (man and woman) to join in a union to live and to recreate in order to continue the species. Now, how is it that we have lost this simple teaching. The war against us is against all of us, both black men and women.

Our hope rests within us – not in what is inserted into us by an enemy. So black women, you’ve been had, hoodwinked, when you distance yourself for the black man. There is a biblical passage that says “you will reap what you sow”. You have a convent with the black man by virtue of your birth - your children need him and so do you.

Black men, you too must be that man you were created to be. The children you create - need you; that woman needs you. Being black, you know that we mean nothing to those of the other hue – I say it time to mean something to each other. I will not judge either, just saying, while I will remind you that scripture says, “Judge not lest you be in danger of being judged”. The ghosts of the greats who sacrificed their lives for you are watching!

It is time for you/me/us to think differently and make a change – and the time is now! And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective on this day of resurrection…

http://johntwills.com

Brown v Board of Education – Changed the Face of America

On May 17, 1954, the Warren Court’s unanimous (9-0) decision stated that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” This was the day that the landmark Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision changed the face of America unlike any other decision before or since. It was the cornerstone that laid the foundation for all of the civil rights African American’s know today, just as the late Thurgood Marshall, who brilliantly argued and won this case envisioned. It is also very appropriate to recognize the skillful talent of Justice Marshall for his more than fifty victories before the Supreme Court, more than any other attorney in history.

The Brown case, as it is known, was not the first such case regarding civil rights argued before the Supreme Court. It was just the most significant of what some would say was the final battle in the courts that had been fought by African American parents since 1849, which started with Roberts v. City of Boston, Massachusetts. It is also important to note that Kansas was the site of eleven such cases spanning from 1881 to 1949.

The case was named after Oliver Brown one of 200 plaintiffs. The Brown case was initiated and organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) leadership who recruited African American parents in Topeka, Kansas for a class action suit against the local school board. The Supreme Court combined five cases under the heading Brown v. Board of Education: Delaware, Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The ultimate goal sought by the NAACP was to end the practice of “separate but equal” throughout every segment of society, including public transportation, dining facilities, public schools and all forms of public accommodations.

The Brown Supreme Court ruling determined racial segregation in public education was unconstitutional in Brown I, the first opinion. The court’s implementation mandated "with all deliberate speed" in 1955 known as Brown II. In 1979, twenty five years later, there was a Brown III because Topeka was not living up to the earlier Supreme Court ruling, which resulted in Topeka Public Schools building three magnet schools to comply with the court's findings.

As had been the case since Homer Plessy, the subject in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 when the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a Louisiana law mandating separate but equal accommodations for blacks and whites on intrastate railroads was constitutional. This decision provided the legal foundation to justify many other actions by state and local governments to socially separate blacks and whites.

Now that I have provided some history related to the case let me add my commentary. It has been said that as sure as things change they remain the same. First, it took 60 year to overturn Plessy with Brown and it took “with all deliberate speed” 13 years for integration to begin fully. During this period of time from 1954 to 1967, governors blocked school entrances and actually closed schools rather than comply with the law of the land. I am not going to touch on the violence that caused Presidents to send the US Army and National Guard troops to schools in order to protect the safety of those the ruling was intended benefit as a result of the Brown decision.

Since then, and over time, many scams have been devised to disenfranchise minorities, and African Americans in particular. I need only remind you of “No Child Left Behind” where we see persistent patterns of underachievement for lower-income students on standardized test scores. These standardized tests serve as gatekeepers to a child's academic future, which I don’t believe was the spirit of the Brown case.

This brings us to where we are today concerning the inequity that still exists. For example in Washington DC the capital of the free world with its minority public school student population of about 95% (all minorities included) suggests that schools are equally as segregated, poorly funded, and there dilapidated facilities equate to pre Brown V Board era schools. The police presence that exists today unlike then serves to save, often times, the students from themselves. About three-fourths of elementary students are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. The dropout rate averages 2 to 1. These are just a few issues that by any measure of academic standards or common sense suggest failure.

The Quality Counts Report, a publication from Editorial Projects in Education, which publishes the trade magazine Education Week, rated the 50 states and the District in six areas of educational performance and policy. Washington schools were ranked 51st in the report, but the lead researcher said that Washington is more comparable to large cities than to states, which have a mix of struggling urban and higher-performing suburban and rural schools. Like school districts in most large cities, Washington schools are severely challenged with daunting problems with the most serious being a large population of students from poor families living in troubled neighborhoods.

To address these issues Mayor Adrian Fenty appointed Chancellor Michelle Rhee in 2007 to be the seventh person to lead the District of Columbia Public Schools System in a decade. This is a school district serving more than 47,000 students in 123 schools. Chancellor Rhee has made great strides in overcoming a combination of a low-performing schools and a system with an unimpressive history of policymaking that has generally not received better than a D-plus.

Under the leadership of Chancellor Rhee, the public school system has made some progress in addressing these issues. But here tenure not unlike her predecessor’s has been marked with much adversity. I choose this school district as an example but I dare say must school districts with predominately minority populations endure the same daunting challenges, which begs the question as sure as thing change they remain the same.

After fifty-five years, it is not unreasonable to seek and ask that the spirit of Brown rest in the city where the decision was rendered into law. I understand that public education was not created to develop minds rather it was intended to simply teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. It was created to maintain a permanent underclass. Much like it was then, a travesty, in many ways it remains a travesty for the children in most Urban Public School System’s particularly in the city that is supposed to be the beacon of freedom around the world.

I, like Dr. King believe in the dream but we have unfinished business and as it stands - it is a dream deferred. That’s why it is imperative for us to celebrate this milestone and continue the struggle as the ghosts of so many greats who died for this principle: “education is the single most important ingredient necessary to neutralize those forces that breed poverty and despair”.



JUST A SEASON
TWITTER
Just a Season book trailer

Brown v Board of Education - fifty five years later

This year we will celebrate the fifty fifth anniversary of the landmark Brown v Board of Education case successfully argued before Supreme Court of the United States. It is also very appropriate at this time to also take this opportunity to recognize the skill of the late great Thurgood Marshall who brilliantly won this case and more than fifty other cases before the Supreme Court - winning all of them.

This case changed the face of America in away unlike any other decision. The Brown case, as it is known, was not the first such case regarding civil rights argued before the court it is worth mentioning. It was just the most significant of what some would say was the final battle in the courts that had been fought by African American parents since 1849, which started with Roberts v. City of Boston, Massachusetts. It is also important to note that Kansas was the site of eleven such cases spanning from 1881 to 1949.

The case was named after Oliver Brown one of 200 plaintiffs. The Brown case was initiated and organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) leadership who recruited African American parents in Topeka, Kansas for a class action suit against the local school board. The Supreme Court combined five cases under the heading of Brown v. Board of Education: Delaware, Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The ultimate goal sought by the NAACP was to end the practice of “separate but equal” throughout every segment of society, including public transportation, dining facilities, public schools and all forms of public accommodations.

The Brown Supreme Court ruling determined racial segregation in public education was unconstitutional in Brown I, the first opinion. The court’s implementation mandate of "with all deliberate speed" in 1955 is known as Brown II. In 1979, twenty five years later, there was a Brown III because Topeka was not living up to the earlier Supreme Court ruling, which resulted in Topeka Public Schools building three magnet schools to comply with the court's findings. As had been the case since Homer Plessy, the subject in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 when the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a Louisiana law mandating separate but equal accommodations for blacks and whites on intrastate railroads was constitutional. This decision provided the legal foundation to justify many other actions by state and local governments to socially separate blacks and whites.

Now that I have provided some history related to the case let me add my commentary. It has been said that as sure as things change they remain the same. First, it took 60 year to overturn Plessy with Brown and it took “with all deliberate speed” 13 years for integration to begin fully. During this period of time from 1954 to 1967 Governors blocked school entrances and actually closed schools rather than comply with the law of the land. I am not going to touch on the violence that caused President’s to send the US Army and National Guard troops to schools in order to protect the safety of those the ruling was intended benefit as a result of the Brown decision.

Since then and over time many scams have been devised to disenfranchise minorities and African Americans in particular – need I only remind you of “No Child Left Behind”. This brings us to where we are today. Schools are equally as segregated, poorly funded, dilapidated facilities, and a police presence to save, often times, the kids from themselves. The dropout rate averages 2 to 1. These are just a few issues and by any measure of academic standards or common sense – is a failure.

Let’s make sure we understand that public education was not created to develop minds rather it was intended to simply teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. It was created to maintain a permanent underclass. Now maybe the word “class” is the operative word in all of this – the haves have and the have not’s will have not. So as sure as things change they remain the same. That is why it is imperative for us to celebrate this milestone and continue to the struggle as the ghosts of so many who died for the principle that “education is the single most important ingredient necessary to neutralize those forces that breed poverty and despair”.

JUST A SEASON