We Need A New John Brown

by C.A. Matthews

You never know what you’ll come across at your local library. I’m just surprised we didn’t come across this DVD earlier. You may have seen The Good Lord Bird, a mini-series of seven episodes based on the novel by James McBride of the same name. It played on Showtime about six years ago, but we hadn’t seen it, and it sounded like an interesting title.

As we watched the series, I started thinking about the state of things today and how it’s a good time to watch a show about an abolitionist who literally shook up a nation. John Brown is often credited with being one of the main catalysts that started the American Civil War. I think his experiences as an activist could teach us a lot.

Ethan Hawke gives a stunning performance as a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer when it came to doing whatever he deemed necessary to end slavery. A self-described “militant Christian,” Brown wasn’t afraid to use force if he felt it would gain the freedom of the enslaved. But was he as “crazy” and dangerously impulsive as he’s been described? We’ll never know for certain, but Brown was both revered and feared in equal measure throughout his lifetime—and even beyond—so much so that he often warrants only a short footnote in a high school history text.

It seems American activists who aren’t afraid to stand up to the immoral powers-that-be in Washington DC aren’t people we’re supposed to learn about. Funny that.

The Good Lord Bird is a fictionalized account of John Brown’s last days, but the show stealer is a precocious enslaved boy, Henry a.k.a. “Onion”, portrayed to perfection by Joshua Caleb Johnson. Somehow Henry is mistaken for a girl after his father is killed in one of Brown’s shoot outs with slave owners. Contrite, Brown “adopts Henrietta” as his own child. Henry is an excellent narrator of the saga, telling us all he experiences with innocence and passion. He follows the resolute John Brown and his sons, along with an “army” of a dozen or so whites, blacks, and even a Native American to their ultimate confrontation with the pro-slavery government troops at the Harpers Ferry federal armory.

Watching this story of John Brown’s life got me thinking: We really could use a “new John Brown” in the US. We need a compassionate and courageous leader who isn’t afraid to tell truth to power. It doesn’t have to be an middle-aged, white male, either. It could be a “Joanna Brown” or a person of any age, race, ethnicity, religion, or gender identity. And why settle for one when we could use dozens of John Browns spread across the country? Americans definitely need charismatic and decisive leaders who aren’t afraid to take their “troops” into battle against the evil foe of the oligarchy.

What characteristics should we look for in this new John Brown(s)? I say that one thing in activism that has been ignored in recent years is...

 

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Why Not Reparations?

 

 Why Not Reparations?

by C.A. Matthews 

In my continuing series honoring Black History Month this week I'm tackling another issue that is little understood and is mostly ignored by the mainstream of (white) American society, the topic of reparations. What are reparations and what good will they do if they ever come about? I learned US history from same poorly written/edited textbooks as the vast majority of American students. I confess that I knew next to nothing about reparations until I joined the Green Party.

 The Green Party is the only American political party that addresses reparations in their party platform. Here's what they have to say:

The development of the United States has been marked by conflict over questions of race. Our nation was formed only after Native Americans were displaced. The institution of slavery had as its underpinnings the belief in white supremacy, which we as Greens condemn. In slavery's aftermath, people of color have borne the brunt of violence and discrimination. The Green Party unequivocally condemns these evils, which continue to be a social problem of paramount significance.

 a.    The community of people of African ancestry whose family members were held in chattel slavery in what is now the United States of America have legitimate claims to reparations including monetary compensation for centuries of human rights violations, including the Transatlantic slave trade now recognized by the United Nations as a "crime against humanity." As our Nation has done in the past with respect to the Choctaw, the Lakota, the Lambuth, and more recently for Japanese Americans and the European Jewish community, reparations are now due to address the debt still owed to descendants of enslaved Africans.

b.    We commit to full and complete reparations to the African American community of this nation for the past four hundred plus years of genocide, slavery, land-loss, destruction of original identity and the stark disparities which haunt the present evidenced in unemployment statistics, substandard and inadequate education, higher levels of mortality including infant and maternal mortality and the practice of mass incarceration. We recognize that reparations are a debt (not charity) that is owed by our own and other nations and by the corporate institutions chartered under our laws to a collective of people. We believe that the leadership on the question of what our nation owes to this process of right ought to come from the African American community, whose right to self-determination and autonomy to chart the path to healing we fully recognize.

c.    We understand that until significant steps are taken to reverse the ongoing abuses; to end the criminalization of the Black and Brown communities, to eradicate poverty, to invest in education, health care and the restoration and protection of human rights, that it will be impossible to repair the continuing damage wrought by the ideology of white supremacy which permeates the governing institutions of our nation.

d.    While consensus is still evolving on what would constitute full and complete reparations, we support the following initial steps:

o    We support the creation of a claim of action and a right to recover inherited wealth and other profits accumulated from the slave trade for the benefit of a reparations trust fund.
o    We will initiate the repeal of the slave clauses that survive today in the U.S. Constitution.
o    We will work to restore lands stolen through a variety of tactics including: violence, terrorism and the discriminatory access to operating capital that together has robbed black farmers and the broader community of their lands.
o    We support the release of all political prisoners held by the USA. It is time that the political frame-ups, the prosecutorial misconduct and the racist application of police power that pass for justice in our country be buried and those victimized by these abuses of state power be given their lives back.
o    We will support existing Historically Black Colleges and Universities, as well as new and existing Education and Development Funds.

e.    We support efforts to overcome the effects of over 200 years of racial discrimination.

f.    We call for an end to official support for any remaining symbols of slavery and specifically call for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from all government buildings.

g.    We condemn the practice of racial profiling by law enforcement agencies, which are guilty of stopping motorists, harassing individuals, or using unwarranted violence against suspects with no other justification than race or ethnic background.

h.    We favor strong measures to combat official racism in the forms of police brutality directed against people of color.

i.    We support effective enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, including language access to voting.

j.    We oppose discriminatory English-only pressure groups. We call for a national language policy that would encourage all citizens to be fluent in at least two languages.

k.    We strongly support the vigorous enforcement of civil-rights laws, the aggressive prosecution of hate crimes, and the strengthening of legal services for the poor.

This platform plank paints a very concise picture of what reparations would entail when a Green majority is elected to high office. I agree wholeheartedly with it. I also think that the Green Party platform plank on instituting single-payer universal health care for all would go a long way to help make up for past and present discrimination against African Americans and other minorities as well.

So the question in 2022 is, "Why not reparations?" What has been holding Americans back from at least attempting to make amends to the descendants of enslaved peoples? Of course, the most common answers the majority of Americans will give is that reparations aren't economically feasible and that they would give an unfair advantage to one group over another.

In simpler terms: "We enjoy our white privilege too much. We are afraid what could happen to us if we had to admit that we've acted as racist opportunists for far too long and had to pay back all that we stole."

I think that answer is the very reason why reparations are desperately needed. Like the South African reconciliation project achieved after the fall of the apartheid state, Americans need to enter into a process in which we can heal from our collective past sins. We need to make a clean breast of things so life can improve for all human beings on the planet. Ignoring or trying to forget the crimes of the past doesn't aid corporate healing. Old wounds are still festering in this country, and young lives are at stake every time a cop enacts a "no-knock warrant" and takes another innocent African American life.

It's long past time to make amends and end the hate and violence. We must talk seriously about reparations instead of tip-toeing around the subject. Americans can't keep bleeding out what remains of our goodwill and hope things will get better. We won't endure as a nation or as a people for much longer if we don't start to make reparations now.

Related links:

First in the series, What's It Like to be 3/5 of a Person? https://bernie2016.blogspot.com/2022/02/whats-it-like-to-be-35-of-person.html

https://www.gp.org/tags/reparations

https://www.gp.org/social_justice#Reparations 

https://www.gp.org/single_payer 

https://scheerpost.com/2022/02/14/voting-rights-remain-the-critical-barrier-to-racial-equality/

 How a bank robbed former slaves:  https://youtu.be/qO2HJAk4xSU 

 

***

Say No to War with Russia! 

photos by C.A. Matthews

The peace demonstration returns...

The honks were plentiful.

The demonstrators stood tall in the cold and snow.

And they were proud to say "Give peace a chance."

***

 

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The damage that the U.S. government is now doing to Afghanistan may end up killing more people than 20 years of war and occupation.

Only 2 percent of the people in Afghanistan have enough food. Millions of kids are suffering malnutrition right now. Afghanistan has surpassed Yemen as the worst place on Earth to be a human being.

Email Congress and the White House here.

The problem is U.S. sanctions. As Mark Weisbrot has written: "The biggest and most destructive sanction currently facing Afghanistan is the seizure of more than $7 billion of the country's assets that are held at the U.S. Federal Reserve. This is equivalent to about 40 percent of Afghanistan’s economy, and about 14 months of the country's imports – which include food, medicine, and infrastructure needs that are vital to public health."

The U.S. refusal to release these funds upon supposedly ending its war on Afghanistan has led directly to an extreme scarcity of food, and an inability of businesses to pay workers, exactly as was widely predicted nearly six months ago. Yet the U.S. government has persisted in this deadly policy and exacerbated it by pressing other governments to cut off Afghanistan as well.

World BEYOND War is part of a huge coalition urging Congress and the Biden administration to:

• End the Freeze on Afghanistan central bank funds to inject liquidity into the collapsing Afghan economy.
• Lift sanctions to mitigate the chilling effect of restrictions on foreign banks and businesses while offering Afghan banks access to their overseas holdings and the global financial system.
• Pledge additional emergency funding toward the United Nations' 2022 humanitarian aid appeal, and dedicate the necessary diplomatic capital to encourage Western partners to contribute their fair share.
• End practices that block international and humanitarian aid to Afghans.
• Increase assistance to Afghan refugees and increase the capacity of the resettlement program here in the United States.

Click here to email Congress and the White House.

This is the most severe immediate humanitarian crisis in the world, where your activism can do the most good.

Please take these steps:

1. Email Congress and the White House.

2. Share this effort far and wide. Please share this link with friends, and share on Facebook and Twitter.

3. Register for a Valentine's Day webinar with Kathy Kelly and Phyllis Bennis on ending sanctions on Afghanistan.

4. Take part in actions around the United States on Valentine's Day.

Thanks for all you do!
--World BEYOND War

Background:
>> Counterpunch: Mark Weisbrot: "U.S. Sanctions on Afghanistan May Kill More Than 20 Years of War"

***

ICE Was Just Accused of Illegally Deporting Asylum-Seekers. Demand an Investigation Now!

Sign Now

U.S. federal law stipulates that, if you enter the country and express a fear of returning to your country of origin, you cannot legally be deported until you've first had an interview with an asylum officer. You also cannot be deported while an appeal is pending or under review. This is the law of the land, regardless of what xenophobic fear-mongerers want to believe. But one civil rights group is claiming that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is knowingly breaking that law. In fact, an attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described the situation as so dire, she had "never seen anything like it before."   According to the SPLC, ICE has apparently been deporting refugees without conducting interviews, before asylum-seekers have had a hearing before a judge, and even while refugees' files are still under review. This includes deporting asylum-seekers who allegedly had already suffered political violence in their countries of origin. If these allegations are true, thousands of innocent people who are attempting to migrate to protect their health and safety may be in danger. As immigration reform activists have pointed out time and time again, the U.S. is a nation founded by immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security must take claims of illegal, inhumane, and unethical behavior within ICE seriously. Sign the petition to tell the Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties it must conduct a thorough investigation into these horrific allegations!

Thank you, Miranda Care2 Petitions Team

P.S. The Southern Poverty Law Center is accusing ICE of deporting asylum-seekers in a way that violates their legal rights. Sign the petition to demand accountability.

 

What's It Like To Be 3/5 of a Person?

What's It Like To Be 3/5 of a Person?

by C.A. Matthews

February is Black History Month. I thought I'd explore topics linked to the African American experience. One thing that's always been a puzzle to me as a mostly white person born in the 20th century is what it was like to be considered 3/5 of a person.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, read this short article. It might come as a surprise to many Americans that while enslaved people weren't entitled to vote, own land or even their own bodies they were considered 3/5 of a person when it came to the population census. This meant that the South had way more representation in the US House of Representatives than it had voters. This is one reason why slavery was allowed to grow and spread across the country in spite of reservations held by other Americans.

Now, before you object and say something like, "Well, women and children couldn't vote, either, so things were pretty fair representation-wise for voting males between the North and South," just listen to yourself. You're assuming that only African Americans males couldn't vote, and you'd be wrong. Before 1920, most white women and children at least had some legal rights, but at that time Asian immigrants and Native Americans didn't even count as persons at all.

Zip. Nada. Native Americans obtained citizenship and voting rights in 1924. Indigenous peoples are often the very last to have any legal standing in white settler-colonial societies, but Asian-Americans couldn't vote until 1948. Blows your mind doesn't it?

Do you feel super awkward in saying the pledge with the phrase "with liberty and justice for all" now? Do you feel extra stupid for ever thinking the United States of America is now and has always been a "democracy" where all human beings are treated equally? You should.

So, what's it like to be considered a partial person (or not even a person) without any legal standing? I think the closest any modern American can come to empathizing with how demoralized enslaved people must have felt is when a person finds out he/she can't afford badly needed health care.

Consider this scenario: You're deathly sick or in great pain. You go to a local medical facility, and once there you are forced to plead for assistance to ease your suffering. Hours later, you're finally told, "Sorry. You don't have any private health insurance we can bill. You don’t have enough savings in the bank to cover the costs of the treatment. We can't do anything for you. Have a nice day."

In your agony as you crawl away, you realize all hope is lost. You might look like a person, but you aren't really a person, are you? You have no legal rights or protections under the law not to suffer and die needlessly because of your lack of money or health insurance status. You're very much an object that can work a job, pay taxes, pay rent, pay off student loan debt, etc., but let's face it. If you don't have any health insurance or a personal fortune and you become ill and need medical treatment in the US you simply don't exist legally.

You simply don't exist. Just like Native Americans, enslaved Africans, Chinese laborers, and so many others on this continent have experienced over the last half-millennia, you are here but you're also not here at the same time. Perhaps we should call an individual caught in this horrible state of affairs a Schrödinger’s Person after the famous thought experiment involving a cat.

That's about as close as I can get to what being considered 3/5 of person must have been like for enslaved people. And what did it feel like for them once the Emancipation Proclamation declared they were no longer enslaved? Eventually African American males would be considered a "whole person" as a voter. I suppose on paper it sounded wonderful, but Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, and other devious ways soon prevented African Americans from voting. These racist actions prevented "whole personhood" from ever fully taking. Some of these tactics continue on to this very day under the guise of gerrymandering districts, strict voter ID laws, and preventing ex-felons from being able to vote again.

Potential Black voters exist and don't exist at the same time. Sound familiar?

The saddest thing about the 14th Amendment granting personhood to African Americans is that corporations used it to argue (and win) the right to be considered "persons" in their own right. This travesty led to recent Supreme Court rulings such as Citizens United, which equates money with free speech. 

Corporations have never suffered the evils of discrimination like African Americans and others have, but they possess all the legal rights of personhood. Corporations have "free speech" through spending large sums of money to purchase politicians' cooperation at all levels of government. Bought-off politicos gladly do their corporate masters' bidding by relaxing worker protections and environmental regulations. Corporations force their workers to increase productivity but share little of the company's profits with them, thus creating the "wage slaves" of the 21st century.

Are you starting to grasp now what being 3/5 of a person really meant and continues to mean to all Americans to this day?

Isn't it time we emancipated ourselves from the tyranny of our corporate slave masters? Isn't it time to consider an Earth Day General Strike?

Happy Black History Month. Never forget that you are a whole person with legal rights. Never let the corporations take them away from you!

Related Articles:

Black History Month: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month

Three-fifths Compromise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_Compromise

Democracy in America? https://www.rsn.org/001/democracy-in-america.html 

Democrats Renew Title 42, Trump's Racist Border Policy https://www.directleft.com/p/democrats-renew-title-42-trumps-racist 

ICE Jail Accused of Abusing Black Immigrants https://truthout.org/articles/democrats-demand-biden-close-ice-jail-accused-of-abusing-black-immigrants/

US Border Patrol Hiding Information https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/community-voices-project/story/2022-01-28/opinion-u-s-border-patrol-hiding-information

State Standards Misteach the Meaning of Reconstruction https://popularresistance.org/how-state-standards-misteach-the-meaning-of-one-of-the-united-states-most-important-eras/

Seen on Twitter:

The Biden Boom of maintaining slave wages during inflation is par for the course for this slave driver as nothing fundamentally changes. pic.twitter.com/3YkThAeutU

— #Immediatist, because I hate slavery (@Lvld_Up) February 4, 2022

This worker abuse is fucking ridiculous. pic.twitter.com/7alCW5PpbF

— ☭ 🇨🇺 jσєуաrecκ'ˢ Ɗуѕтσριαη Ƒυтυяє 🇰🇵 🙃 (@joeywreck) February 4, 2022

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Photo: Jon Krieg/AFSC Diplomacy, not weapons, in Ukraine TAKE ACTION As tensions escalate between the U.S. and Russia, Congress is debating sending even more weapons into the region.  Tell Congress: Stop the military escalation in Ukraine. Peaceful ends can only be achieved through peaceful means. Flooding the region with more weapons and military financing is not the answer. The U.S. has over-invested in the military and under-invested in diplomacy and international cooperation. Additional military funding will only increase tensions and further enrich defense contractors. Urge policymakers to say NO to more weapons and invest in diplomacy and international cooperation instead. Now is the time to engage in talks to protect human lives and dignity. Please join us in urging Congress to invest in our shared security through nonviolent means.     In peace, Aura Kanegis Director, Office of Public Policy and Advocacy, American Friends Service Committee TAKE ACTION

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A small-town Mississippi library is facing tremendous financial pressure from its mayor after putting up a display featuring pro-LGBTQ books -- and he's citing his conservative Christian faith as the reason why, even though several of the books are by Christian authors.

The display includes memoirs by a transgender pastor and a survivor of gay conversion therapy, as well as a collection of essays titled "The Queer Bible."

Now, Ridgeland Mayor Gene McGee is using his personal religious beliefs to justify withholding $110,000 from the library, even though he lacks the legal authority to do so. The mayor says he won't release the badly needed funds until the library agrees to remove the books.  

McGee's anti-LGBTQ bigotry doesn't reflect the Christian values of love, dignity, and equality. Let's make sure he hears from a nationwide movement of Christians who are sick of seeing our faith hijacked to censor books and exclude LGBTQ people.

Tell Mayor McGee: Blocking library funds over LGBTQ books is not Christian

In an interview with the local newspaper, Madison County library director Tonja Johnson said the mayor told her the books "went against his Christian beliefs, and that he would not release the money as the long as the materials were there."

In a stunning display of Christian nationalism -- abusing his office to merge personal religion with government -- Mayor McGee even told the library director that "the library can serve whoever we wanted, but that he only serves the great Lord above."

McGee is not only turning his back on Madison County's LGBTQ and non-Christian residents; he is also attacking the religious freedom of all pro-LGBTQ Christians. He should listen to Johnson, the library director, who gave this beautiful quote to the Mississippi Free Press about why LGBTQ books matter to the whole community:

"Those books are for all of us: whether we can see ourselves reflected in those materials or so that we can develop understanding, empathy and respect for someone else... We all live in this world together. We sit next to people in church, we work with people, we live next door to people, our children go to school with children who don't look like us and don't have the same experiences. 

"If we're going to be together, we have to at least understand each other's stories."

Tell Mayor McGee: Stop withholding library funds and censoring pro-LGBTQ books >>

Thank you for everything you do to love your neighbor and honor the image of God in LGBTQ people.

In peace,
- Guthrie, Rev. Nathan, Karli, and the Faithful America team

 

"The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice." - Proverbs 12:15

	***
One glaring sign of how inhumanely immigration is being handled right now: the backlog of cases in the U.S. immigration court is now over 1.6 million – that’s the size of the city of Philadelphia!  This backlog – including children, families, people in desperate need for safety – is a damning indictment of a broken system that prefers spending BILLIONS on militarized border security to treat migrants as criminals over supporting families with caseworkers to get people to safety. You know what’s cheaper than a deportation flight? A hearing in court.  One person who can fix this problem is Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Will you join us to demand he does everything in his power to restart processing so families can at last reach safety in the U.S.? take actioN NOW The immigration system that currently exists in the U.S. is flat-out dangerous for people seeking safety.  It completely denies children and families access to safety by either deporting them through Trump-era policies, like Title 42, or by putting them in the racist Remain in Mexico program where they are forced to wait for months, sometimes years, in border cities where they are disproportionately targeted for extortion and violence.  That’s why restarting and speeding up processing is so important: the faster families are processed, the quicker they are out of danger and into safety.  This is about families’ humanity, but it’s also just common sense – like actual cents. Instead of spending $330 billion over the last 20 years on border enforcement and detention centers, we could be investing in caseworkers and judges that could help families get to safety.  But instead of providing adequate safety and certainty, which would provide legal processes and order, our current immigration system almost entirely skews towards detention centers and deportation, which delivers cruelty and chaos. This is not how we should be as a country. Will you demand DHS Secretary Mayorkas do everything in his power to restart and speed up processing to make certain the United States is a country that welcomes all people seeking safety with dignity and compassion? take actioN NOW Our government must end its cruel treatment of children, families, and adults to swiftly and safely admit people seeking the refuge they need. Policies that block, expel, or jail those seeking the right to protection in the U.S. have no place here.  Thanks for taking action, Erin Mazursky | Organizing Director Families Belong Together