IMUS EXPOSES US, THE CONTENT OF CHARACTER

First

Just

Because . . . Ioan Gruffudd is Beautiful

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“I AM PAINFULLY CONSCIOUS OF MY imperfections,

THEREIN LIES ALL THE STRENGTH I POSSESS.”

Mahatma Gandhi

April 16, Oprah’s show was a response to the Imus mess following his two firings through recent use of “Nappy Headed Hos”. Her show’s topic was “What do we do next?” April 17 will air Part Two of this topic. Honestly Oprah said she had been avoiding discussing racism on her show, but that now she is. I request to broaden the discussion. And specifically to include the Native American Indian societal and institutionalized racism. And let's lose the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" requirement of gays in the military. For goodness' sake, they are over in Iraq putting their bodies in death's way and we can't stomach letting the gay service people live their lives in truth. What are we, if not bigots?

If we have cancer, we think of removing it. If we have a sickness, we make a move to be healed of the illness and feel better. If we spew hatred cloaked in the claimed right of freedom of speech, it still affects not only those who it is directed toward, but it affects the one who owns the words. In the movie “Amazing Grace” the minister says to William Wilberforce’s question “In what way are you trying to make the world better”, with “When you make the world better in one way, it becomes better in all ways.” What is thrown out into the universe affects the world as a whole. We make the world what it is. We color the world with our words, behavior and silence. If we hurt someone else, we can’t help but hurt ourselves. It may not be visible hurt or even apparent to the receiver as well as the giver, but we live with who we are. And you can’t say crap and not have it be part of your life.

“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.

The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”

Marcus Aurelius

BEAUTY

I am white, female, 58 years living, heterosexual and a human rights activist, although primarily regarding genocide, Darfur, Sudan, I also speak at speaking engagements, “letters to the editor” and write on my main blog, here, as well as my blog at tvguide.com, regarding “human dignity through human rights” for other groups. I have spoken up for the rights of girls, women, foster children, the poor, the Native American Indians, homosexual and bisexual human beings. I was a music teacher for 30 years. Although the April 16^th Oprah show was for the most part not seen due the east coast downed TV cable lines and the Virginia Tech murders’ two interruptions to the Oprah show – I did catch bits and pieces of the show. (An aside: George Worthless Bush says he will give support to Virginia Tech and the government stands ready to help. I laughed at him. Like he has been giving help and support to those victims of a hurricane called Katrina?)

The claim that “political correctness” is encouraged by firing Imus and the-like, misses the point. Claiming pretentious “political correctness” results when “We the People” speak out and say this kind of speech is anything but freeing dismisses Right for what sounds right. We must address wrongs, injustices and expose indecent behavior. This sick language and behavior that doesn’t have the light shone on it will simply find roots and continue to grow like weeds. This kind of language strangles the truth from all of us regardless of who the language is directed toward. It keeps us all down and from being free. Also, the point isn’t that having “freedom of speech” gives us the right to be condescending and dehumanizing to another of the human race. Not being denigrated is a civil rights issue. We have the inalienable right to be treated with decency. And I so agree with the mindset that says this is not a black woman’s issue, or even just a woman’s issue. This behavior and “talk” belittles all humankind, regardless of race or gender.

We have put up with this kind of behavior and language for too long. Let us look at ourselves and face who and what we are. We have a country built on racism. And it started even before the first African black slaves were shipped here as human cargo. The nation was built on land lived on by other societies before Europeans arrived on its shores. Even in the Declaration of Independence, the description of the Native North Americans, dubbed by the immigrants as “Indians” because they thought they were in India, comes from a place of ignorance, pomposity and illustrates dehumanizing language. The Declaration of Independence states “the inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an indistinguished Destruction of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions” indelibly imposes this unjustifiable description on the Native Americans, who were forced to fight to protect their established ways of life AND their land.

Genocide of the Indians was authorized by those that came to this land as immigrants. Do you suppose the Indians wished they had united and built a fence to keep out immigrants? Injustice is a one-word sum total of the treatment of the Indians by the government.

A class-action lawsuit, Cobell v. Norton was filed on June 10, 1996, in U.S. District Court to force the federal government to account for billions of dollars belonging to approximately 500,000 American Indians and their heirs, and held in trust since the late 19th century. This money is missing. The money has been lost by the very federal agencies that were responsible to care for the funds belonging to Indians. Through document discovery and courtroom testimony, the case has revealed mismanagement, ineptness, dishonesty and delay by federal officials. Leading U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth declared their conduct "fiscal and governmental irresponsibility in its purest form”. This case has not been resolved to this day.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down the request of the Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island to consider overturning the lower court ruling against them with the state of Rhode Island. It was over a smoke shop incident where state troopers went onto Indian Land and aggressively and violently overtook and arrested the unarmed Indians. We saw the video played over and over on the TV screens for weeks. It didn’t make the troopers look good. Apparently according to a treaty the Indian Tribe signed – their land legally is not sovereign land, as other Indians’ lands are. The history of broken treaties with the Indians and the United States government, from the beginning to this day is appalling. When the treaties were broken – it ALWAYS fell in the favor of the government and never the Indians.

The Narragansett Indians had a proposal to build a casino on the ballot last November. But the voters of Rhode Island voted it down. We have gambling in Rhode Island, actually right where I live, but for some reason Rhode Islanders didn’t want the Indians to have this.

Putting myself in the shoes of the Indians, I would feel betrayed by a government that stands on the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal …with certain unalienable Rights . . .”

History would indicate that the reason the treaty between the State of Rhode Island and the Tribe, in regard to Narragansett Indians’ Smoke Shop, was upheld in court and NOT broken - is because to do so, favored the government and NOT the Indians.

I propose that the strength of a country is evidenced by the willingness to face and acknowledge the errors of its ways. It is time for admitting the injustices that we as a nation and a state have done and still do to the Americans who were here first. It would provide a turning point where the healing could begin. The Indians should not continue to be held hostage by racism institutionalized by law.

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Winds -by Mauro

“so you killed me...
I knew you would”

I respectfully request that the discussion that found attention through a prominent white man’s utterance of “nappy headed hos” be broadened to more than racism of black Americans and sexism, let’s open up the scourge of racism to include our first sin regarding racism against the Native American Indians. When I was considering moving to Indian Country in New Mexico, my partner was black and I asked the real estate agent if there was racism in the area and his answer was “No. Except for the Indians.” I found this to be true as I was in a shop one day that I thought sold Indians' art work. The white man behind the counter, brazenly and ignorantly told me the people ruining the sale of the goods in his store were the Indians. I was confounded. Here I was in his store because I wanted to buy Indian-made jewelry and pots and he said if Indian jewelry and pots were made by the Indians it was no good. He told me his things were made by white people.

I hear comments from members of my own family that are racist and they would not imagine that they are racist. My brother referred to my past partner who was black. He said he didn’t think of Mark as black. I said Mark considers himself black. My uncle said of the people in New Orleans pictured on TV after hurricane Katrina that were doing what he considered to be unacceptable behavior … “I hate to say it, but you look on TV and they’re all black.” My sister the day after hurricane Katrina hit said that the hurricane happened because ALL of the people in New Orleans were heathens and sinners. I asked her, “ALL of them?” And she said, “Yes”. These relatives are ignorant racists. But take out the word ignorant of that sentence and you still have a racist, don’t’ you?

When I was eleven years old I met a black boy at church camp and had a deep crush on him and he on me. My father quietly leaned into my ear while waiting for the bus one morning and said that my children would be striped and polka dotted. My mother secretly destroyed my two love letters from Eddie and the two pictures of us together. She never told me that she did it. But I know. And I never put her on the spot and asked her why. My mother cringed when she sat on a bus once in Florida with other people who were obviously not her kind, white. I learned that my dad’s family dog's name was “nigger”. I grew up in an all-white towns. During the 1960’s there was never a mention in our home about the civil rights marches and the murders of Edgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr. During this time, my father’s father said once on the way home from church while I was a young child that “they ought to go back to Africa”.

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Emily faces racism.

When I was 36 years young, I thought I was in love. His name was the same as my father’s, Mark. We met in Bermuda. He was black. And since I was living in New England and my parents lived in Indiana they hadn’t met him yet. My mother and father were visiting me in Rhode Island and my mother made a comment how upset my dad was if Mark was a negro, as she put it. I don’t know why I was accused of making dad unhappy and not her, other than she disapproved and she found it easier to totally put it all on dad. As enlightened as I am, I make an effort to consider if I am racist. I try to see everyone as individuals and judge them for the content of their character.

“If nearness kills love what hope is there for humanity?"

Sudborough

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GLOBAL DAYS FOR DARFUR
April 23-30, 2007
Find an event in your area and attend or better yet, organize one
http://www.savedarfur.org
has the ideas on the website and you can find events in your area

We must not be complicit

regarding human to human hatred, bigotry, mass crimes or genocide

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Join the "Fidelity Out of Sudan" Campaign
www.FidelityOutOfSudan.com

http://www.sudandivestment.org/

http://www.genocideintervention.net
http://www.ajws.org

http://grassroots.amnestyusa.org/

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PLEASE, sign the petition of Amazing Changes Campaign
http://www.theamazingchange.com/abolish.html

Zach Hunter is a fifteen year old, who wants to put an end to world-wide slavery
Zach’s website:
http://www.myspace.com/amazingchange

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www.amazinggracemovie.com

Starring Ioan Gruffudd

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“By arguing on the ‘force of circumstances,’ we have argued all force from ourselves; and stand lashed together, uniform in dress and movement, like the rowers of some boundless galley. Practically considered, our creed is Fatalism; and, free in hand and foot, we are shackled in heart and soul with far straighter than feudal chains.” Thomas Carlyle

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