HOW DOES CARABOU BARBIE SLEEP?

Since this woman was plucked from obscurity to be John McCain’s Republican vice presidential running mate she has complained about the "lamestream media" relentlessly. I wonder if it has dawned on her that she might be lame. I suppose it is not her fault that she was woefully unprepared to be McCain’s nominee or knows much about any of the complex issues facing the rest of us who live in the real world.

However, it is her unwillingness to state the facts correctly, then or now, that astounds me. Her self-appointed grandiose as the darling of the “Tea Baggers” movement, and dare I say, an ideology that is just a step away from the Klan, that shocks me and her vision of reality is dangerous not to mention antiquated. The days of “Whites Only” signs may be alluring to some, but I have seen them and trust me there is nothing appealing about that sort of intimidation.

There use to be a worst than Jerry Springer Show on television many years ago hosted by this guy Morton Downey Jr. who use to call this kind of nonsense “PABLUM PUKE”. I’ll simply call it speaking with fork tongue. The reason that I am rendering this commentary is because of Barbie’s recent Palinesque backward thinking comments concerning follow Tea Bagger and Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul. She was asked this straightforward question put to her during a Fox interview that troubles me: Was Paul right or wrong in his view that the 1964 Civil Rights Act went too far in banning discrimination in private establishments?

She responded this way:"I think there is certainly a double standard at play here. When Rand Paul had anticipated that he'd be able to engage in a discussion, he being a libertarian-leaning constitutional conservative, being able to engage in a discussion with a TV character, a media personality, who perhaps had an agenda in asking the question and then interpreting his answer the way that she did, he wanted to talk about, evidently, some hypotheticals as it applies to impacts on the Civil Rights Act, as it impacts our Constitution. So he was given the opportunity finally to clarify, and unequivocally he has stated that he supports the Civil Rights Act."

I saw the chilling interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and other interviewers, and they did not ask Paul about "hypotheticals." They asked whether he supported prohibiting private business owners from keeping blacks off their premises. Paul said he "would have tried to modify" the public accommodations part of the law and that “when you blur the distinction between public and private ownership, there really is a problem.” Paul had every chance to clarify in real time and he didn't. Let me add, when any sane person living in this century questions the Civil Rights Act or suggest a return to “Jim Crow” - we should question their motives. By the way, if you did not know, the Klan was formed in Kentucky after the Civil War to retain that slavery like ideal, which might have something to do with it.

Then there was CARABOU BARBIE’s best defense concerning what I think is an untrue-offense response to questions about the oil spill in the Gulf to which the "drill, baby, drill" cheerleader suggests that the president is on the take from Big Oil:

"The oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign and are supportive of him now -- I don't know why the question isn't asked by the mainstream media and by others if there's any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration. If there's any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico."

Did she say “complexity”? The complex part - “complexity” - is that she actually had the nerve to say something like that considering her sorted history. The Obama remark is just one instances where she has said things that were untrue, not accurate, fictitious, or just plain lies. At least according to public campaign finance records that says; it was her camp who took more money from Big Oil. With respect to her response to Paul’s comment, when someone suggests returning to the days of “Bull Connor, Birmingham, or Selma – I just have to ask “how do they sleep at night”. Frankly, it sounds bigoted and racist to me.
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“The John T. Wills Chronicles” designed to be a potent source of empowering knowledge for the enhancement of community and to PROMOTE LITERACY. I will be using this online information source as the new home for my blog “Thought Provoking Perspectives”. http://johntwillschronicles.com

Press Release

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Contact: John T. Wills
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Introducing the “John T. Wills Chronicles”
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I am proud to announce the launch of a powerful information portal “The John T. Wills Chronicles” designed to be a potent source of empowering knowledge for the enhancement of community and the minds of mankind. I will be using this online information source as the new home for my blog “Thought Provoking Perspectives” to include its use as a vehicle for other contributors who share my passion for the written word. I am also extending an offer to all authors, writers, poets, and progressive thinkers to become a contributor as a way to promoter yourself, your skills, your work, and to benefit others with the enlightenment of your stories.

“The John T. Wills Chronicles” will also introduce an exciting new Blogtalkradio Show called “The Book Tree” hosted by the dynamic SILVER RAE FOX. Silver will be the Literary Ambassador during on-air conversations with authors, poets, and literary minds every Wednesday starting June 2, 2010 at 8:30 - 9:00 PM (est) http://www.blogtalkradio.com/john-t-willschronicles. Silver Rae Fox will also be one of the main voices for The Book Tree Literacy Project designed to promote literacy.

"The Book Tree Internet Radio Show" is intended to showcase authors, writers, wordsmiths, poets and other relevant content to empower the minds of a broad base community who are interested in a variety of genres. The show will serve as inspiration to those individuals who aspire to develop writing skills and have a desire to publish their material. A project soon to follow, "The Book Tree Literacy Project", will focus on the importance of literacy, as well to promote and advocate literacy for children and adults in every community.

These initiatives will be sponsored by “The John T. Wills Chronicles” and the hugely successful BLACK EMPOWERED MEN Radio Show. If interested, please contact John at author@justaseason.com or Silver at silverraefox@gmail.com or the BEM at hosts@blackempoweredmen.com for more information. We invite you to strongly support these literacy eradication initiatives and join this EMPOWERMENT REVOLUTION!!!

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Prelude to November – Perception is Reality

This is my political recap of the elections held Tuesday. With respect to the outcomes, the Democrats had every reason to smile and maybe, just maybe, the Republicans had every reason to shudder while the rest of us had cause for much concern. I am sure you’ve heard, and seen reports, from the Tea Baggers who stridently shouted “it’s time to take our country back”. In fact, this is what Rand Paul said at his victory party, "I have a message, a message from the Tea Party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words. We've come to take our government back." Whenever I hear that “Rebel Yell” I have to wonder; what are they talking about but I digress, and will get back to him later.

Let me talk about some of the other races that meant something. Starting in western Pennsylvania in a district once represented by the late Jack Murtha a pro-gun, anti-abortion Democrat. Republican strategists used this district as a campaign laboratory, of sorts, to test the themes and techniques that could use in the fall to nationalize the elections. You know the themes socialism, healthcare reform, invoking the names Obama and Pelosi to terrify voters. It did not work. Democrat Mark Critz won handily over Republican Tim Burns in a district that voted for John McCain in 2008.

Also in Pennsylvania Representative Joe Sestak easily defeated Democrat and onetime Republican Arlen Specter in the state’s Democratic Senate primary. This was the marquee event in terms of media coverage because Specter was a familiar and prominent presence in Washington having occupied his Senate seat for 30 long years. There was just one problem: For all but one of those years, he was a Republican and voters did not buy the idea that seemed more like a calculation in principle to save his job choosing instead to vote for a real card-carrying Democrat.

In Arkansas, Sen. Blanche Lincoln's fate was only slightly more telling as she failed to win a majority of voters in the Democratic primary for a runoff against Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Halter’s strategy was to attack her from the left while the voters may have wanted to punish her for the way she stalled and equivocated on healthcare reform. But the final verdict on Lincoln won't be in for several weeks, which most pundits predict a losing effort.

Now, let me get back to the far more interesting victory or maybe ominous. There was a candidate, Rand Paul, who became a cult figure among libertarians and Tea Party activists, not unlike his father Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex) who are both known to march to a different beat. Rand is a Republican with little regard for the GOP party line and believes in a philosophy that might best be described as radical individual freedom and privatizing as many functions as possible to reduce government to its barest bones. If Paul wins the general election, he would probably vote sometimes as a Republicans, maybe few times as a Democrat but more than likely he will vote with the Whigs.

In an interview the day after his primary victory, Paul could not bring himself to endorse the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Civil Rights Act of 1964. "I think there's a lot to be desired in the Civil Rights Act... I haven't read all through it, because it was passed 40 years ago and hadn't been a real pressing issue on the campaign whether I'm going to vote for the Civil Rights Act" suggesting that he might not have voted for it if he was around. In addition, he continued with his view that businesses should not be forced by government to adopt anti-discrimination rules. He had to be dragged into recognizing some of the largest moral achievements of recent American history, while still suggesting that the country should go back to the days of old.

It's simply astonishing in this day and age that a major party nominee for the U.S. Senate would try to breathe life into the long discredited notion that the Constitution might protect an individual business owner's 'right' to exclude customers on the basis of race. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) was asked his thoughts about Paul's problems with the Civil Rights Act and its application to private businesses, to which he said, "Not being familiar with the context of his response or his questions I really can't opine as to his position."

Sometimes saying nothing is worst that saying what you really mean but I can hear what Cantor wasn’t saying. Whether he heard Paul's remarks in context or not, I think he could have expressed a firm commitment to the Civil Rights Act and the American ideals it upholds is perhaps more troubling than Paul's musings. This philosophy has the virtue of being easily explainable and the drawback of being impossible. Separate but equal is the remedy for what was not accomplished during the last eight years, I suppose is the message.

The current federal role did not grow primarily because of the statist ambitions of liberals; it grew in response to democratic choices and global challenges. Federal power advanced to rescue the elderly from penury, to enforce civil rights laws, to establish a stable regulatory framework for a modern economy, and to force by law a wicked system that was designed to suppress the helpless. I might add that these are the same people who benefit from these same government handouts.

Their commitment to individual freedom defined as the absence of external constraint is nearly absolute. Taxation for the purpose of redistribution is theft. The national security state does not defend liberty; it threatens it. American global commitments are just another form of big government. Paul, Tea Baggers, and other libertarians are not merely advocates of limited government; they are anti-government. Their objective is not the correction of error but the cultivation of contempt for government itself. There is a reason why movements such as this has never been, and probably will never be, a national political force: because too many would find its utopia a nightmare.

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I have launched an information portal “The John T. Wills Chronicles” that will be the new home of "Thought Provoking Perspectives". The sole purpose of the “The John T. Wills Chronicles” is to be a source of empowering knowledge for the enhancement of community and the minds of mankind. I am extending an offer to all authors, writers, poets, and progressive thinkers to become a contributor as a way to promoter yourself, your skills, your work, and to benefit others with your stories.

http://johntwillsChronicles.com

READING – WRITING - EXCITING

“The John T. Wills Chronicles” will also present an exciting new Blogtalkradio Show called “The Book Tree” hosted by the amazingly talented SILVER RAE FOX to further this effort. SILVER will be the Literary Ambassador during on-air conversations with authors, poets, and literary minds every Wednesday starting June 2, 2010 at 7:30 - 8:00 PM (est). Silver Rae Fox will be the main voice for the “The Book Tree Radio Show” and one of the main voices for The Book Tree Literacy Project designed to promote literacy.

Black Tea Partiers Opinion

As I watch the news coverage of the Tea Party phenomena I don’t see but one or two Blacks participating in any of the demonstrations. I suppose it is because they are easy to spot in the crowd of Caucasians. Regardless, it dumbfounds me to see African America’s supporting a cause that does not speak to the issues that affect our current state of America. With that said, I came across an article in “The Root” written by a Chicago-based writer Lynette Holloway who wrote a story that I felt the need to share and thought it was worth offering my “Thought Provoking Perspective”.

She wrote about two Tea Party Negro’s who are proud of their affiliation. Charles Butler, a black Chicago-based conservative talk show host often called a traitor to his race because of his affiliation with the largely white Tea Party movement. Lloyd Marcus, a black Orlando, Fla. based conservative folk singer who has been described as a minstrel, a buck dancer and a boot licker because he performs at Tea Party events, he admits.

Both said they are used to getting flak over their membership in the nascent grassroots Tea Party movement. Like all members of the movement they are raising vociferous opposition to issues they believe are stunting the growth of America like rising unemployment, expanding taxes, uncontrolled government spending, a mushrooming federal government and strict Constitutional adherence – yada, yada, yada.

They are not completely alone in their march to the Tea Party movement. Scores of blacks and other people of color have joined, although just how many is unknown. Yet it's clear they are in the minority and according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll those who are members of the fledgling movement tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45.

Butler said he is a member because his hometown leader, President Barack Obama, is offering the wrong solutions to the nation's problems. He is very vocal about it on his show “The Other Side with Charles Butler,” which airs weekday evenings on Chicago's WVON, 1690-AM and has been on the air since 2007. Within the next several weeks, he plans to host a Tea Party on Chicago's South Side, Obama's old stomping grounds, which should be interesting.

Noticing that the Tea Party movement has flourished under Obama much like the militia did while Bill Clinton was President. The article referenced that some on the left have accused blacks like Butler and Marcus of being pawns in an odious, racist attempt to block the president's success. Indeed, racial animosity reared its ugly head when some people hurled racial epithets at black elected officials during a protest of health care reform.

Butler said during their interview that "I'm involved in the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party because I feel that people should be able to express themselves and their values without a filter of some other group, as if he were on air. "People call you a traitor. They call you all kinds of disparaging names. I couldn't care less about being called an Uncle Tom, because again, that leads to the Mis-Education of the Negro. Anyone who has read the book by Harriet Beecher Stowe would know that Uncle Tom was a hero. We have a lot of those fallacies going on in the community, like the Democratic Party has helped black folk. That is patently untrue."

Butler does not hesitate to turn racially charged rhetoric on other blacks. When a Tea Party protester tried to interrupt a meeting last year, which was attended by Michael Steele, chairman of the RNC: "I told him, 'We're not having any of this [N-word] [expletive] today”. Butler, who grew up middle-class in Pontiac, Mich. has been a political operative in the Republican Party for over 25 years and also canvassed for votes on campus for Richard M. Nixon's presidential campaign in 1972.

He said the Republican Party represents the core values of most blacks more so than the Democratic Party. "When it comes to black people and how we participate in the political and social practice, we're conservative,'' he said.”The myth of President John F. Kennedy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt is greatly exaggerated compared to Republican presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon, who I consider great civil rights leaders.''

He went on to say Dr. Martin Luther King had a number of things to say about JFK and his promise to use the signature of a pen to eliminate discrimination while appointing Southern segregationist judges to the federal bench for life. "Republicans have never gotten the credit they deserve for defending civil rights.'' Butler also said the Democratic social welfare policies of Roosevelt and Kennedy negatively affected black people then and continue to affect blacks today.
Lloyd Marcus, a longtime black conservative from Orlando, Fla., agrees. He said Democrats are focused on keeping blacks thinking they are victims and dependent on social welfare. "They should be upholding Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as shining examples of doing the right thing and working hard for their achievements.''

Marcus has attended 150 Tea Party Express events across the nation from Washington to California and was a fixture at events on Tax Day. He is best-known for his "Tea Party Anthem.'' The first stanza is: "Mr. President! Your stimulus is sure to bust/ It's just a socialist scheme/ The only thing it will do is kill the American Dream.'' The song and other performances have garnered fiery criticism from liberals and Democrats whose towering presence is hard to miss at the tea parties. He said many opponents have written him passionate hate mail. Yet, he continues to perform the anti-Obama song, which he wrote out of unmitigated disappointment.

"President Obama got 96 percent of the black vote,'' Marcus said.” I am convinced that most voted for him because he is black and didn't care what he was gonna do when he got into the Oval Office. That was a racist decision on their part. Now, simply because we are standing up and saying we don't want universal health care rammed down our throats, they are calling us racist. That is wrong.'' He believes more blacks will be drawn away from the Democratic Party, as Obama administration initiatives such as health care reform and "cap and trade" policies begin to negatively affect Americans.

"I have been interviewed all over the world and asked why there aren't a lot of blacks in the Tea Party,'' Marcus said, "And what it should do to attract more blacks and women. I tell them, 'What it's doing right now.' We don't need to pander to blacks or women. I think we have too much identity politics.” Wow!!!

This article was reported in the Root, written by Lynette Holloway a Chicago-based writer and a former New York Times reporter and associate editor for Ebony magazine. I found it interesting and decided to add my commentary to it for your informed reading pleasure.

Rarely am I at a loss for words. I understand that everyone has the right to think and believe whatever they want but Richard Pryor said it best when he titled one of his comedic albums. I would only ask what planet are they living on when they say the conservatives have help anyone but the rich and where were they from 2000 – 2008. Talk Mis-Educated Negro’s…

What Next???

I was once told that the definition of insanity is to continue to do what you have always done and expect a different result. This becomes obvious when it comes to matters of race. As sure as things change they remain the same. Every minority group has struggled to achieve the “American Dream” in its own distinctive way. I must say, and most would agree, that African Americans have endured the harshest treatment. Certainly, people of our hue have had to suffer these indignities longer than any other ethnic group. Having lived through the Jim Crow era I can't avoid hearing echoes of a horrible time that I had hoped was long gone. Through the use of Black Codes during that era the authors went to great lengths to try to keep "agitators" from awakening the Negro sense of pride and injustice, which brings me to the new laws in Arizona.

Recently, Arizona passed a law that said a certain ethnic group MUST carry papers to prove they are legal, which sounds a lot like the “Black Codes” from the days of slavery. Then, like now, those codes were meant to control the labor force and to separate one race from another. Although there was the general perception that the illegal immigrant was the “New Negro”, we don't have to pretend anymore. Arizona's passing of that, at best, mean spirited immigration law "breathing while Latino" wasn't about high-minded principle or the need to maintain public order. If I can keep it real, it was all about putting Latinos in their place in the same manner as it was designed to do long ago, but it didn’t end there.

On Tuesday, the Governor signed a measure making it illegal for any course taught in the public schools to "advocate ethnic solidarity." Arizona's top education official, Tom Horne, fought for the new law as a weapon against a program in Tucson that teaches Mexican American students about their history and culture that he claimed was to teach "ethnic chauvinism." He has complained that young Mexican Americans are falsely being led to believe that they belong to an oppressed minority. History tells us the same claim was made during slavery and segregation when they said, “Negro’s love the Master”. Therefore, they felt the way to dispel that notion was to pass oppressive new legislation aimed squarely at Mexican Americans. That'll teach the kids a lesson, all right: We have power. You don't.

The education bill begins with a bizarre piece of nonsense, making it illegal for public or charter schools to offer courses that "promote the overthrow of the United States government." Then it shifts from weird to offensive, prohibiting classes that "promote resentment toward a race or class of people," that "are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group," and that "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." If you think about this language – we all should be concerned.

I am going to overlook whether it can apply to any other ethnic group – for a moment. Let’s just look at the intended targets. More than half the students in the Tucson Unified School District are Latino, the great majority of them Mexican American. The land that is now Arizona once belonged to Mexico. Might teaching that fact "promote resentment" among students of Mexican descent? Or does this mean they do not want to teach basic history? What about a class that taught students how activists fought to end discrimination against Latinos in Arizona and other Western states? Would that illegally encourage students to resent the way their parents and grandparents were treated? Ok, I’ll digress. There was no history concerning Negro’s presented or taught until about 1900.

Let say the Mexican American students should not be taught to be proud of their heritage. The good “citizen’s councils” of Arizona do know that about 30 percent of the state's population is Latino, and that number continues to rise. As a result, I would argue that this demographic shift has induced culture shock among some Arizonans who see the old Anglo power structure losing control. It is evidently threatening to some people that Mexican Americans would see themselves as a group with common interests and grievances. Or even more threatening that they might see themselves as distant heirs to the men and women who lived in Arizona long before the first Anglos arrived. Therefore, any sense of solidarity among Mexican Americans must be delegitimized. This ethnic group has to be taught to see itself as a population of unaffiliated individuals.

It's important to distinguish between Arizona officials' legitimate concerns and their illegitimate ones. The state does have a real problem with illegal immigration, and the federal government has ignored its responsibility to enact comprehensive reform that would make the border more secure. To which I believe is the fault of the “Party of No”. But Arizona is lashing out with measures that will not just punish the undocumented but it will negatively affect Mexican American citizens whose local roots are generations deep. Mexican Americans are inevitably going to feel proud of who they are and where they came from; even if acknowledging and encouraging such pride in the classroom is against the law, which is simply absurd.

It was once proclaimed by a great man that injustice any where is injustice everywhere or was it injustice to anyone is an injustice to everyone. I said that to say this, in 1896 there was a landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson where the US Supreme Court decided in the jurisprudence of the United States upholding the constitutionality of racial segregation in public accommodations (particularly railroads), which established the doctrine of "separate but equal” that was the law of the land for a half century. Less we not forget…

"The Horne" - Elegance and Grace Personified

Lena Horne the electrifying beauty and uncompromising performer who shattered racial boundaries by changing the way Hollywood presented black women for six-decades through a singing career on stage, television and in films, died Sunday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She is best described in her own words saying “my identity was clear because I no longer have to be a 'credit,' I don't have to be a 'symbol' to anybody. I don't have to be a 'first' to anybody. I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become. I'm me, and I'm like nobody else.”

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was born June 30, 1917, in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her father was a civil servant and gambler who largely abandoned the family, although Ms. Horne reconnected with him in the late 1930’s. Her mother, an actress, was largely absent from Ms. Horne's early life because of work on the black theater circuit. Shifted at first among friends and relatives, Ms. Horne was raised mostly by her maternal grandmother, a stern social worker and suffragette in Bedford-Stuyvesant, then a middle-class Brooklyn neighborhood. Ms. Horne said she was influenced by her grandmother's "polite ferocity."

In 1933, when she was 16, Ms. Horne was reunited with her mother and new stepfather, a white Cuban. It was the peak of the Depression, and they lived on relief in Harlem. Ms. Horne was pushed into a job at the Cotton Club by her mother, who knew the Harlem nightclub's choreographer. The segregated club attracted white clientele who liked to watch the top black entertainers of the day, such as Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, surrounded by what was promoted as a "tall, tan and terrific" chorus of girls.

The Horne, as she was endearing called because of her striking beauty and voice, was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world came to the attention of Hollywood in 1942. She was the first black woman to sign a meaningful long-term contract with a major studio, a contract that said she would never have to play a maid. This single act transformed the image of the African American woman in Hollywood. As film historian Donald Bogle said, "Movies are a powerful medium and always depicted African American women before Lena Horne as hefty, mammy-like maids who were ditzy and giggling… Lena Horne becomes the first one the studios begin to look at differently... Really just by being there, being composed and onscreen with her dignity intact paved the way for a new day" for black actresses.

In Hollywood, Ms. Horne received previously unheard-of star treatment for a black actor. Her reputation in Hollywood rested on a handful of classic musical films. Among the best were two all-black musicals from 1943: "Cabin in the Sky," as a small-town temptress who pursues Eddie "Rochester" Anderson; and "Stormy Weather," in which she played a career-obsessed singer opposite Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. She shared billing with hugely famous white entertainers such as Gene Kelly, Lucille Ball, Mickey Rooney and Red Skelton but was segregated onscreen so producers could clip out her singing when the movies ran in the South. "Mississippi wanted its movies without me," she once told the New York.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer studios featured Ms. Horne in movies and advertisements as glamorously as white beauties including Hedy Lamarr, Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable. James Gavin, who has written a biography of Ms. Horne, said: "Given the horrible restrictions of the time, MGM bent over backward to do everything they could. After MGM, she was an international star, and that made her later career possible, made her a superstar." Ms. Horne appeared on television and at major concerts halls in New York, London and Paris. She starred on Broadway twice, and her 1981 revue, "Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music," set the standard for the one-person musical show, reviewers said. The performance also netted her a special Tony Award and two Grammy Awards. She was formidable and the first black cabaret star for white society.

As a songstress her repertoire consisted of sophisticated ballads of Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Frank Loesser and Billy Strayhorn. She loved the music but also said she liked surprising the white audience who expected black entertainers to sing hot jazz or blues and dance wildly. In her singing, Ms. Horne showed great range and could convincingly shift between jazz, blues and cabaret ballads. New Yorker jazz writer Whitney Balliett praised her "sense of dynamics that allowed her to whisper and wheedle and shout."

She told the New York Times in 1981, "I thought, 'How can I sing about a penthouse in the sky, when with the housing restrictions the way they are, I wouldn't be allowed to rent the place?" In the late 1940’s and 1950’s, she chose to focus on quietly defying segregation policies at upscale hotels in Miami Beach and Las Vegas where she performed. At the time, it was customary for black entertainers to stay in black neighborhoods, but Ms. Horne successfully insisted that she and her musicians be allowed to stay wherever she entertained. One Las Vegas establishment reportedly had its chambermaids burn Ms. Horne's sheets.

In 1963, Ms. Horne appeared at the civil rights March on Washington with Harry Belafonte and Dick Gregory and was part of a group, which included authors James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry that met with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to urge a more active approach to desegregation. Ms. Horne also used her celebrity to rally front-line civil rights activists in the South and was a fundraiser for civil right groups including the NAACP and the National Council of Negro Women.

Working closely with NAACP Executive Secretary Walter White, Ms. Horne said she wanted to "try to establish a different kind of image for Negro women." They successfully challenged the casting system that had long marginalized black performers onscreen by having them portray servants, minstrels or jungle natives. To Ms. Horne's surprise, her efforts to overcome servile screen parts was resented by many black actors who viewed her as a threat more than a pioneer. She said she was perceived as a danger to the system of informal "captains" in the black acting community who worked as liaisons with film producers when they needed "natives" for the latest Tarzan picture.

After the triumph of her 1981 Broadway show, she led an increasingly isolated life in her Manhattan apartment. Over my lifetime I have seen and known giants who have illuminated the world. None shined brighter then “The Horne”. A life rich in wonder that now belong to the ages. Rest In Peace Ms. Horne as you take your rest among the ghost of the great.

Arizona on my Mind

I am of the opinion that something’s are right and something’s are wrong. Then there are something’s that I’ve witnessed and something’s I know. As an African American, I can report that I was once Negro, Colored, or worst; so I know mean spirited inhumane laws. The draconian immigration law passed last week in Arizona, directed at a particular group of people, seems like the modern day version of “Separate but equal” or Jim Crow raising like a Phoenix for the “wing nuts", which brings me to Arizona.

In light of what we know, Arizona has passed and signed a law that directs the police to stop anyone under the guise of “reasonable suspicion” to verify that they are not in the state illegally. I guess the real question is how are the police supposed to decide whom they view as a "reasonable suspect" for being in the country illegally? Since the great majority of undocumented immigrants in Arizona are from Mexico, aggressive enforcement of the law would seem to require demanding identification from anybody who looks kind of Mexican. Or maybe just hassling those who are brown and poor. So the state of Arizona wants us to believe that this law is not ripe for abuse. We have been down this road before and know all too well its impact.

This law is appalling, in my opinion, and on so many levels. It stinks of racism; it’s arbitrary, oppressive, and frankly bad policy. It invites racial profiling because it compels police to search for undocumented immigrants based on an ill-defined "reasonable suspicion" of illegality. This means local police will use skin color, accent or limited proficiency in English as the basis for suspicion. There already are many cities in Arizona that have been widely and credibly accused of doing just this in hundreds of lawsuits. When you consider that the police lack any sure fire method for spotting illegal immigrants based on "reasonable suspicion," Arizona police will inevitably target the legal sort as well, in blatant violation of their civil liberties.

Now here comes the insanity. The law allows any citizen to sue local police for failing to enforce immigration law. This means police will be distracted and diverted from other priorities. It is compounded by the threat of fines of up to $5,000 per day for police agencies that fail to enforce the law. It also poisons police relations with immigrant communities. By fomenting the justified fear among immigrants that any contact with law enforcement agencies will lead to questions about their status. The law makes it increasingly unlikely that immigrants will not report crimes, cooperate as witnesses or provide tips to police. Not to mention is it preempts federal law. Federal law treats illegal immigration as a civil violation; Arizona law criminalizes it by using the legally dubious mechanism of equating the mere presence of undocumented immigrants with trespassing.

Now let’s revisit some recent history that speaks to overzealous police actions and we have seen the video’s of what happens. Let’s go back the infamous Rodney King beating, for example, we saw the video and they tried to convince us that we didn’t see what we saw. We must also remember that the cops involved were acquitted at the first trial. You know the “Blue Shield” - protect their own will also happen here. Then there was the young man in New Orleans who was shot in the back multiple times as he ran across a bridge when police said he was charging and shooting at them. Or the bachelor about to be married was murdered leaving a party in New York the day before his wedding.

More recently, there was a situation where a student at the University of Maryland was attached and beaten unmercifully by three officers, who falsified (lied) in the official charging documents. If not for a video surfacing their crime would not have been known. I think it is worth mentioning that this victim was “white”. In Prince George’s County Maryland, it is common knowledge that an interaction with that police force could likely be a death sentence, or a beating for sure, and there history proves this to be true. These are just a few examples to remember in light of this new law. Oh, does anyone remember Professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr., B.A., Ph.D. arrested for being in his own home. I don’t have enough paper to list the many occurrences.

Let me take you back to another act of unconsciousness concerning the history of this place in the desert. They were the last state to consider or honor the Martin Luther King Birthday, after it became a federal holiday. The state was boycotted and when the loss of revenue began to hurt, they reluctantly agreed to recognize it. Then there was the guy who ran for president, who was staunchly against the holiday and like then he supports this too. He calls himself a maverick, but said last week he is not a maverick, never called himself a maverick. Dude there is video. However, he proclaims to be a practitioner of “straight talk”. Could this be described as xenophobic or unprincipled?

It sounds like the people who are responsible for this law probably only had contact with those Hispanics who trim their lawns. This is what I know!!! The law requires police to question anyone they "reasonably suspect" of being an undocumented immigrant. It is a mandate for racial profiling on a massive scale. Legal immigrants will be required to carry papers proving that they have a right to be in the United States. Those without documentation can be charged with the crime of trespassing, jailed, or deported.

Don't forget, these were the same types of sanctions imposed upon “Negro” not very long ago. This could very well be what the comedic genius Richard Pryor meant when he famously said, “America got them some new Nigger’s”.

JUST A SEASON

The Matriarch of Civil Rights - Dorothy Irene Height

Dorothy Irene Height, (March 24, 1912 – April 20, 2010), the Matriarch of the civil rights movement passed away early Tuesday of natural causes in a Washington hospital. Dr. Height established a national reputation as a graceful insistent voice for civil rights and women's rights. She was regarded as the “Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement” and a tireless crusader for racial justice and gender equality spanned more than six decades.

Dr. Height was born in Richmond, Virginia. She moved with her family to Rankin, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh early in her life where she attended racially integrated schools. She was admitted to Barnard College in 1929, but upon her arrival she was denied entrance because the school had an unwritten policy of admitting only two black students. She pursued studies instead at New York University earning a degree in 1932 and a master's degree in educational psychology the following year.

Dr. Height served on the advisory council of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the National Advisory Council on Aging. Her awards included 36 honorary doctorates from colleges and universities, including Harvard and Princeton. In addition, Dr. Height was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and on her 92nd birthday, she received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest decoration Congress can bestow.

Dr. Height was among a coalition of African American leaders who pushed civil rights to the forefront of the American political stage after World War II. She was instrumental, and a key figure, in the struggles for school desegregation, voting rights, employment opportunities and public accommodations in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Dr Height was president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, relinquishing the title at the age of 95.

National Council of Negro Women is a four million member advocacy group consisting of 34 national and 250 community based organizations. It was founded in 1935 by educator Mary McLeod Bethune, who was one of Height's mentors. Dr. Height was a civil rights activist who participated in protests in Harlem during the 1930’s. In the 1940’s, she lobbied first lady Eleanor Roosevelt on behalf of civil rights causes and in the 1950’s she prodded President Dwight D. Eisenhower to move more aggressively on school desegregation issues.

President Obama issued an official statement White House that reads as follows: Dr. Height was "a hero to so many Americans… Dr. Height devoted her life to those struggling for equality . . . witnessing every march and milestone along the way… And even in the final weeks of her life -- a time when anyone else would have enjoyed their well-earned rest Dr. Height continued her fight to make our nation a more open and inclusive place for people of every race, gender, background and faith."

As a young woman, Dr. Height made money through jobs such as ironing entertainer Eddie Cantor's shirts and proofreading Marcus Garvey's newspaper, the Negro World. She went nightclubbing in Harlem with composer W.C. Handy. Dr Height began her professional career as a caseworker for the New York City welfare department. She got her start as a civil rights activist through the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and from the pastor's son, the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who later represented Harlem in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the 1940’s, Dr. Height came to Washington as chief of the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA branch. She joined the staff of the national YWCA board in 1944 through 1975. She remained on that staff with a variety of responsibilities, including leadership training and interracial and ecumenical education. In 1965, she organized and became the director of the YWCA's Center for Racial Justice, and she held that position until retiring from the YWCA board in 1975.

Dr. Height became national president of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority in 1947holding that position until 1957 when she became the fourth president of the National Council of Negro Women. She was a visiting professor at the Delhi School of Social Work in India, and she directed studies around the world on issues involving human rights.

During the turmoil of the civil rights struggles in the 1960’s, Dr. Height helped orchestrate strategies with major civil rights leaders including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, Whitney Young, James Farmer, Bayard Rustin and John Lewis, who later served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia. Congressman John Lewis said when Dr. Height announced her retirement as president of the National Council of Negro Women - "At every major effort for social progressive change, Dorothy Height has been there." She was also energetic in her efforts to overcome gender bias, and much of that work predated the women's rights movement.

Dr. Height was the most influential woman at the top levels of civil rights leadership, but she never drew the major media attention that conferred celebrity and instant recognition on some of the other civil rights leaders of her time. In August 1963, Dr. Height was on the platform with King when he delivered his "I have a dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Less than a month later, at King's request, she went to Birmingham, Ala. to minister to the families of four black girls who had died in a church bombing linked to the racial strife that had engulfed the city.

In 1995, Dr. Height was among the few women to speak at the Million Man March on the Mall, which was led by Louis Farrakhan, the chief minister of the Nation of Islam. "I am here because you are here," she declared. Two years later, at 85, she sat at the podium all day in the whipping wind and chill rain at the Million Woman March in Philadelphia.

She would often remark, "Stop worrying about whose name gets in the paper and start doing something about rats, and day care and low wages. . . . We must try to take our task more seriously and ourselves more lightly." She also famously said, "If the times aren't ripe, you have to ripen the times". It was important to dress well she said, "I came up at a time when young women wore hats, and they wore gloves. Too many people in my generation fought for the right for us to be dressed up and not put down."

"She was a dynamic woman with a resilient spirit, who was a role model for women and men of all faiths, races and perspectives. For her, it wasn't about the many years of her life, but what she did with them," said former U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman. Dr. Height is a national treasure who lived life abundantly and for the abundance of others. She will be greatly missed, not only by those of us who knew her well, but by the countless beneficiaries of her enduring legacy.

In my novel “Just a Season”, I talked about a “Dash” that will be place on our final marker between the years of one's birth and death that will represent the whole of a person’s life. I said that to say, this tiny little dash on Dr. Height's marker will not adequately give enough credit for her outstanding life’s work. It should have an inscription that says - “Servant of God, Well Done."

Just a Season

The Mothership is Lost!!!

I opened the Washington Post newspaper this morning and on the front page I found an article by Staff Writer Chris Richards “The Mothership, lost in space”, adding that this is not just a story about a UFO or at least not just any UFO - but “The Mothership”. I am sure many of you, “Funk-a-teers”, are well aware of what I am talking about.

It is probably the most creative stage prop in the history of American music that belonged to funk legends Parliament-Funkadelic. The famed aluminum flying saucer launched in during the group’s heyday in the 70’s was about 20 feet in diameter and decked out with a fantastical display of dazzling lights.

It’s missing!!! Frankly, I was perplexed to see this story on the front page about where it was or that anyone was trying to find it, as if it was a real crime drama. Here are some of the facts: the Mothership was last spotted on stage in Detroit in 1981, belching dry ice fumes and flashing kaleidoscopic lights. Promoters brought it to the DC area “where it vanished in Prince George's County in 1982, rumors of its whereabouts have mutated into local lore. It burned in a fire. It was disassembled. It was stolen. Scrapped. Kidnapped. Thrown in the woods. Chained to a truck by a drug dealer and dragged to funk-knows-where. The band's most devoted followers say it flew off into space.” REALLY!!!

The reporter talked to people connected to the mystery, including George Clinton, front man for the group and the promoter, but all that was revealed was “it wasn't in Detroit. It was in a junkyard in Seat Pleasant and the promoter was the last person to see it because he threw the Mothership away, which Clinton thought that was pretty stupid". At this point in the story I began to wonder if maybe it’s time for the president to bring in the FBI, CIA, or maybe the military because this was beginning to sound like a national emergency.

Here is what was revealed: “It was the spring of 1982 and Parliament-Funkadelic frontman George Clinton and his bandmates were battling debt, drug addiction and each other. Brooks, who ran the group's Washington-based tour production company, says the only way he could pay the band's debts was to pawn its gear. With no place to store a spacecraft, he dumped the Mothership in a junkyard behind a Shell station ... But 28 years later, its final resting place remains a mystery.” Ok, I know you are making faces with puzzled looks or maybe a few laughs but this was on the front page of the Washington Post.

Here is the backdrop to the story: Throughout the 70’s, Clinton and his bandmates blurred the line between escapism and empowerment with a glut of albums that have been endlessly sampled, imitated and analyzed. Look at the decades of funk, rock, techno, go-go, Prince hits and jam bands that came in P-Funk's imaginative wake -- "influential" doesn't quite cut it. Maybe without Parliament-Funkadelic, Lady Gaga would not wear ridiculous outfits and hip-hop might not exist.

Onstage, the band was a living, breathing, panting comic book. Clinton in his stringy blond wigs, bassist Bootsy Collins in his star-shaped shades, Garry Shider in nothing but angel wings, combat boots and Pampers. "They were celebrating the intellectual breadth of the black experience and giving people a grand space to celebrate all that they had become," says California author and funk historian Rickey Vincent. "Sly Stone said, 'I Want to Take You Higher.' George Clinton said, 'Yeah, and I got the Mothership to take you there.' In a sense, he was doing what black folks had wanted to do for generations: Take themselves up."

Before the Mothership was built, it was a concept, says 68-year-old Clinton. Parliament released "Mothership Connection" in 1975, an album with a title track about hitchhiking to cosmic transcendence: "Swing down, sweet chariot. Stop and let me ride." Clinton started dreaming up a tour to match. After watching the Who's 1969 rock opera "Tommy," he asked himself: "How do you do a funk opera? What about [black people] in space?" The Mothership was assembled in Manhattan and made its first descent in New Orleans from the rafters of Municipal Auditorium on Oct. 27, 1976 and minds were blown.

Washingtonians greeted the Mothership with unparalleled fervor. The nation's capital had long been a stronghold for the band and in 1975, Parliament released the "Chocolate City" album, a supremely funky mash note that popularized the nickname Washington had earned for its majority-black population. Most people, actually nobody, had never seen anything like it. "Here's a guy coming out of a Mothership with a mink coat and platform shoes,… And a cane? And a fur hat? C'mon, man. Black folks been down so long. . . It was jubilation… The audience went crazy… the Mothership in all its glory.”

Going down with the ship. In the case of Parliament-Funkadelic, the ship went down with the band. "The volatility of the record industry at that time -- the disco crash, they called it -- made it really hard to subsidize that big touring group," says funk historian Vincent of the band's early-80’s collapse. "They ran out of juice and they ran out of money."

The band would later reform as the P-Funk All-Stars, and a second, less impressive Mothership would be built in the 90’s, but the group never eclipsed the highs of the late 70’s. Bernie Worrell rattles off the factors that dragged Parliament-Funkadelic down: "Discontent. Tired of all the unfairness. Being owed money. Lack of respect within the group. The management. Learning that money was stolen."

Some of Worrell's keyboards were sold to a young Trouble Funk, cementing P-Funk's role in go-go's creation myth. Too bad go-go didn't need a spaceship. Today, the group's feelings are mixed citing massive expenses racked up from touring with an extensive entourage, elaborate costumes and a gigantic metal spacecraft. "I was glad it was gone," he says. "With the Mothership came no money."

Thomas Stanley, an assistant professor at George Mason University claims that he's recently seen the wreckage of the Mothership -- touched it. Stanley is a true funk scholar and author of the book "George Clinton and P-Funk: An Oral History." He also penned articles for Uncut Funk, Mills's Parliament-Funkadelic fanzine. But he doesn't want to give up the location.

I find it much more satisfying to imagine this sacred artifact bound firmly in the bosom of the strong black communities that straddle the D.C. line. This was always the heart of P-Funk's base of support in Chocolate City," he writes. "It is very important, I think, that we not seek truth at expense of myth. Music and Myth are, after all, P-Funk's most enduring legacy." So is it really out there? Does it really matter? Perhaps there's no grand cosmic truth to be found in the wilds of Prince George's County. Just myth. But Stanley swears the Mothership is still out there -- rusted, rotted out and funkier than ever.

I found this article very interesting in that - for all the problems we face this was one of only six stories to make the front page – WOW!!! It was, however, an entertaining way to start the day. Maybe I would not be so sarcastic if there was a reward. Let me thank and give credit to the reporter, Chris Richards, because his article and detective work was the source of my writing.

Whistling Dixie – Same Old Tune!!!

I like to think of myself as a historical junky, not that I know all things about everything, but I do know most political issues have an agenda that contains a subliminal messages designed to alter reality. Thought Provoking Perspectives is a vehicle that provides me a forum to express a point of view and this issue is one that begs commentary. The new Conservative Republican Virginia Governor, Robert F. McDonnell, this week issued a proclamation proclaiming April as Confederate History Month. However, he excluded any mention of that “little thing” called slavery, which was the primary reason the war was fought.

As a result, an immediate a barrage of nationwide criticism came for the exclusion causing the Governor to modify the proclamation conceding that it was "a major omission” acknowledging the states complicated past. I must admit, my first reaction to the initial proclamation was, this was just another veiled attempt to rewrite history like what is being done in Texas where the Conservatives are rewriting text books about history to fit their agenda? I am not opposed to rewriting history but I am not a proponent of HIS-story, which is what this was designed to do.

McDonnell said he left out any reference to slavery in the original proclamation because he wanted to include issues he thought were most "significant" to Virginia. He also said the seven paragraph document was designed to promote tourism in the state because next year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. In the first paragraph of the proclamation it says "the people of Virginia" joined the Confederacy in a war "for independence” and "fought for their homes and communities and Commonwealth." The proclamation urged reflection on their "sacrifices" because it was too bad they were "ultimately overwhelmed" by the North's "insurmountable" resources.

How does one, anyone, interpret this statement or his decision to declare April Confederate History Month? Was he referring to the, nearly 50% of Virginia’s population at the time, who were owned and held in bondage as beasts of burden, raped, beaten, starved or taken away from their families and sold? Or maybe he though being a slave was an honorable duty. How could he not realized the insensitivity of this action would cause a firestorm as national media, and rightly so, to descend upon Richmond as Democrats and African Americans accusing the new governor of ignoring the state's role in slavery. After all it was the home of the Confederate Capital.

As the usual suspects were paraded out to voice their displeasure concerning the governor’s position he issued a mea culpa for the document's exclusion of slavery. "The proclamation issued by this Office designating April as Confederate History Month contained a major omission. The failure to include any reference to slavery was a mistake, and for that I apologize to any fellow Virginian who has been offended or disappointed." He didn't quite say it explicitly but it sure sounded like the same old racist position of state’s rights. There is no other way to interpret it.

To that point: "There was a right side and a wrong side in the late war, which no sentiment ought to cause us to forget." -- Frederick Douglass, 1878.

I wondered; does he really believe his original position or was he furthering the conservative’s mission as to what Virginia's Republican Party stands for when it comes to the state's African American and other minority citizens. Was this a formal admission that effectively endorsed the South's cause in the Civil War with the suggesting that it will rise again? Nowhere did the original statement did it condemn or even acknowledge the fact that the South was fighting primarily to defend a society based on slavery, as the Confederacy's own leaders said at the time.

To Donnell’s credit, he did admits to the lack of any reference to slavery was a "major omission." He did amend the proclamation to say that "the institution of slavery led to this war, and was an evil and inhumane practice." It must be stated that he only modified the original proclamation under severe pressure from almost all quarters when he added a vital new paragraph clarifying his original proclamation for the Confederate History Month, which in reality was treason as a result of their succession.

It is crucial that we not, from my perspective, afford any admiration to the Confederacy with the explicit admission that it fought for a repugnant cause. Here's a historic parallel. I'd say that during Hitler’s rein the holocaust was the worst crime administered by an abhorrent government and one of the worst crimes known to man. In my opinion, the Confederacy ranks a few notches down from Nazism in the hierarchy of immoral regimes and dare I say crimes against humanity.

It's important to keep in mind that, for many Virginia conservatives, tea bagger, and wingnut today's struggles against or acceptance of a Black Man as President of the union they succeeded from is really a continuation of the efforts by Jefferson Davis and other secessionists. In a Washington Post interview the first lieutenant commander of the Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which lobbied McDonnell to issue the proclamation said, "They were fighting for the same things that people in the 'tea party' are fighting for now."

The modern day Rebel also said, “he'd favor seceding again and tonight is not soon enough" -- because of high taxes, illegal immigration and energy legislation. He called today’s government as a "War of Northern Aggression". This is pretty far out particularly when he stated that the Confederacy and slavery was a "tired old argument" regardless of the historical facts. This is a pretty good indication that one would consider this as a group's on the political fringe with talk of secession.

I would just remind him of this vivid account provided by the Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens in 1861. He said, the Confederate government's "foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural . . . condition." Quotes like that make me wonder whether it's ever justified to honor the Confederate "heritage” at all particularly as I know the KKK was born from this linage.

"Governor McDonnell's decision to designate April as Confederate History Month without condemning or even acknowledging, the pernicious stain of slavery or its role in the war disregards history. It is insensitive to the extraordinary efforts of Americans who died trying to eliminate slavery and bind the nation's wounds, and offends millions of Americans of all races in all parts of our nation” - not to mention all sane reasonable thinking human beings.

It is a matter of truth that a full accounting of the era must include a discussion of slavery and its lingering effects. So for all those who think this is now a post racial society and that racism no long exists – think again.

Introducing The “John T. Wills Chronicles – Black in America”
“The Unspoken Truth”

JUST A SEASON
Book Trailer