Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The Failure of the Black Political Class, Again

The Failure of the Black Political Class, Again
State of Florida v. George Zimmerman
They just can’t help themselves.  Upon learning of the Not Guilty verdict for George Zimmerman the Black Political Class started their engines and spewed out the same toxic fumes that makes their rhetoric so egregious.  The Hill Magazine on Jesse Jackson: “Rev. Jesse Jackson said Thursday that his Rainbow PUSH Coalition would consider boycotting Florida as "a kind of apartheid state" in the aftermath of the George Zimmerman not-guilty verdict last weekend.”  Shakespeare is needed here: “The (reverend) doth protest too much, methinks.”
Jackson and his most famous protégé Al Sharpton have both made a comfortable living out of race hustling and as a result have done more harm than good over the years.  The Martin - Zimmerman Trial is just one more example of the REVERENDS - R - US milking an already volatile situation.

Furthermore, Jamelle Bouie writes in the über liberal journal The American Prospect, “It’s absolutely true that ‘NYPD stats show that 96 percent of all shooting victims are black or Hispanic, and 97 percent of all shooters were black or Hispanic,’ but it’s also true that the number of black and Latino offenders is a small fraction of all blacks and Latinos. But stop and frisk turns all blacks and all Latinos into potential offenders—it erases individual consideration and imposes collective suspicion, (blacks deserve (t)he right to walk freely as an individual, and not as the member of a suspect class.”  I agree but there is a conundrum to this narrow view.

Kevin Jackson of The Black Sphere highlights that “3% of blacks are committing 50% of the crimes.”  This fact causes an innate response by blacks and whites to teenage black males.  

Well Reverend Jackson how does your rhetoric today square with your published views from 17 years ago?  “There is nothing more painful to me … than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

To make matters worse, the President of the United States has jumped into the pile imagining himself as just another brother from the hood.  Trayvon could have been my son now has become, Trayvon is me 35 years ago.  Actually Mr. President that is not true given that you are 50% white – indeed, you were raised by your white mother and white grandparents, and attended one of the country’s most prestigious preparatory schools, Punahou, founded in 1841.  The tuition is a cool $19,200.  Now that the record is set straight Mr. President, the truth is that you took a tragic situation and injected race into it for your own political benefit.  Shame on you.      

The facts in the case are as follows:
  1. The defense team did not invoke the Stand Your Ground law during the trial.
  2. The evidence showed that Zimmerman was viciously attacked by Trayvon Martin that fateful night.  There is unimpeachable photographic evidence. 
  3. The jury believed that Zimmerman was reasonably afraid for his life.
  4. A struggle over the gun pursued and Zimmerman prevailed.

What we have today is an attempt at Mob Rule – consider the placards saying “No Justice - No Peace.”  Really?  Indeed, there is a long history of recklessness exhibited by the black political class that is both disturbing and dangerous.  Loosely translated this attitude assumes that the actions of the government are ALWAYS racist and consequently blacks can say or do whatever they want – they are entitled to a special class of rhetorical freedom and action.  How else can you justify Jackson’s call for a boycott of Florida – in essence punishing nearly 20 million people because the reverend did not get his way in a jury trial?

Jackson is not alone.  Julianne Malveaux, Jesse with make-up and a PhD, blasted the exonerated Duke Lacrosse players after video evidence conclusively proved they had not raped Crystal Gail Mangum – (According to Dr. Malveaux) they were still: ‘hooligans,’ had lied, and that they ‘did not deserve an apology.’ ” Oratory propriety is for other folks - not black “folk”. 
 
A less flamboyant example of this recklessness was star witness and Martin friend Rachel Jeantel.  When Zimmerman defense counsel Don West cross-examined Miss Jeantel he asked her if this case was racial in nature.  She said yes.  Then West asked why and Jeantel had no answer – finally she said it was racial since her friend had called Zimmerman a Creepy-Ass Cracker.  “So, Trayvon made it about race asked West?  Jeantel, “No” - she went on to say that Creepy-Ass Cracker was not a racial epithet.  Translation, get real mister; blacks cannot be bigots, next question.

It seems clear that Trayvon Martin thought he was being racially profiled and in his mind concluded, “I don’t have to put up with this junk.  In his mind Reverends Jackson and Sharpton, and Professors (Law) Obama and Malveaux had given him the green light to teach this cracker a lesson he’ll never forget.”  This is why Martin recklessly threw the first sucker-punch and then jumped on Zimmerman – Martin assumed he would have immunity from public criticism.  Unfortunately for this teenager, he paid for his recklessness with his life – and now Reverend Jackson is planning civil unrest in the form of a boycott of Florida.  Trayvon is dead and Jesse Jackson keeps on making money from these tragedies.

As long as the black political class allows Reverends Jackson and Sharpton along with other demagogues to speak for black Americans, the racial acrimony will continue to the detriment of all especially young black males who remain adrift in the sea of fatherless children. (Words: 927)

Geoffrey G. Fisher is a federally designated Highly Qualified state-certified history teacher living in southwest Florida.  He holds a BA in History from the University of Connecticut and a MA in Public Policy from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.  In addition to teaching he is a former elected official and speechwriter.  Mr. Fisher now writes the political blog: THE THINKING CAP at  

Friday, July 19, 2013

THE VERTIGO OF SOLEDAD O’BRIEN, The New Racism of the Left


THE VERTIGO OF SOLEDAD O’BRIEN
The New Racism of the Left
By
GEOFFREY GRISWOLD FISHER

The old one-drop rule of the Jim Crow south has been dusted off and this time applied by the new left – if you think you have one drop of sub-Saharan African blood then brother, you’re black.

How else can you explain this giddy statement from CNN’s Soledad O’Brien?

I'm on the phone with a confused reporter, and I'm confused too. She keeps asking me why I "count myself as black... And why does Barack Obama?" My answer (for President Obama, at least) is "have you seen him?" But she won't let it go. "Is your father annoyed that you deny him?" My dad is white. I interject. "Let's conference him in," I say. "Listen, he married a black woman, he has six black children. He'd be the first person to tell you I'm black."

The questions, to me, reveal more about the asker. This reporter surely doesn't know a lot of black people, or she wouldn't be struggling so hard. She'd know black people come in all hues.
 
O'Brien's parents married in 1958 in Washington, D.C. Her father Edward, an Australian (from Toowoomba, Queensland) of Irish descent, was a mechanical engineering professor. Her mother, Estella, who is Afro-Cuban, was a French and English teacher. O'Brien is the fifth of six children, who all graduated from Harvard University;


So what would make a Harvard educated woman who is ¼ black or to put it more succinctly, ¾ white, chastise a female reporter for suggesting the obvious – namely, that Soledad is primarily Caucasian.  Remember that Cuba was conquered and settled by white Spanish Conquistadors.  Further, one look at Ms. O’Brien would hammer home the obvious, that she is a woman of European descent with a mixture of other cultural traits.  What would make her deny the obvious?  A pandemic of Hypodescent Fever.

Now it appears that Ms. O’Brien is not faking it.  Obviously, Time Warner, the current owners of CNN have a similar mindset - they hired Soledad O’Brien to host of all things the CNN series Black in America.  Ms. O’Brien’s dismissive posture and righteousness on this topic seems Orwellian.  Indeed, her full name is María de la Soledad Teresa O'Brien.  Soledad and her white husband Brad Raymond have four beautiful children – only a severe case of Hypodescent Fever could lead any mother to decide that they are black – that is, to ignore their full heritage. 

Of course due to the pervasiveness of political correctness in the national media, no one at CNN or at the other cable news outlets have called her out on this point or even question the wisdom of having a predominately Caucasian woman hosting Black in America.  It is just like having an able body actor playing the role of a wheel-bound character – it only works with the willing suspension of disbelief.  And just to complete the vertigo nature of Soledad O’Brien, CNN is touting “Journalist Soledad O’Brien, (as) the host of the two-part CNN documentary “Latino in America,” premiering Oct. 21, (2009.)  I do not question the book smarts of either the producers at CNN or Ms. O’Brien herself, but book smarts combined with arrogance and hubris will produce foolish pronoucements. 
  
THE NEW LEFT EMBRACES THE ONE DROP RULE
Soledad O’Brien might as well be the poster girl for the New Racism of the Left – namely, Hypodescent Fever.  Even Mr. Orwell would be scratching his head.  That doesn’t matter to the new left ravaged by Hypodescent Fever.  Non Sequiturs are the norm rather than the exception.

So CNN is practicing a non sequitur when it trying to satisfy a diversity policy vis-à-vis race by hiring a Caucasian with only 25% black heritage to host “Black in America.”  The most hate filled racist from 1850 Atlanta, Georgia (home of CNN today) would have shouted “bravo – one drop of black blood makes Soledad and her children black – let’s put that filly and her children on the auction block.”

Hypodescent Fever does allow us, however, greater insight into the history of race relations in this country.  Consider the controversy surrounding Sally Hemings vis-à-vis Thomas Jefferson, arguably the greatest founding father after George Washington.

So when we look into the eyes of Soledad O’Brien we’re looking into the eyes of Sally Hemings.  Both women in 1790 Virginia would have been considered slaves even though both were ¾ white.  The only difference is that Soledad O’Brien would have had her hand in the air saying, “That’s right, I’m black.”  The problem with that type of bluster becomes apparent during Miss Hemings’ time – Brad and Soledad’s lily-white children would have been sold into slavery, just like the freckled face, red headed children of Miss Hemings.  Octoroons were 7/8th white and 1/8th black and as slaves fetched the highest price at the slave auction, especially the girls for obvious reasons.

If Ms. O’Brien acknowledged her full racial heritage as a facet of who she is rather than picking one aspect of her racial background and making it her sole identify she might restore some balance to her life – that is, eliminate her current racial vertigo.  Think about it, Soledad and her five siblings ALL were admitted to Harvard University.  I wonder what racial box Soledad check.  By “passing” as a black woman Soledad was able to ensure that her first rate mind would be given every consideration at both Harvard and at CNN.

Hypodescent is insidious for many reasons.  Corporate American is now able to present men and women of mixed races as black even thought they project Caucasian features because this type of advertising claims diversity while marginalizing blacks with African features.  Think of Hollywood’s use of Halle Barry, and Venessa Williams, a former Miss America.  Corporate America also uses people like Rochelle Oliver a Florida producer, Don Lemon of CNN, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, radical progressive thinker,  Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP, and Melissa Harris-Perry, a product of a black father, William M. Harris Sr. and a white mother, Diana Gray.  Despite the genetic proof, Mrs. Harris-Perry states: “I’ve never thought of myself as biracial,” Harris-Perry says. “I’m black.  Even President Obama is embraced by the new-left as black, our first black president.  Passing as black today has its benefits and so the hypodescent filter is employed every day.
Yet, the one-drop rule was wrong in 1850 Atlanta and it is still wrong in 2013 America.  Listen to the following words from a man of God from 50 years ago and you’ll feel the power of our greatest national motto: E Pluribus Unum – Out of Many, One.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”       
                            Delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
   Washington, DC, Wednesday, August 28, 1963

Thanks in large part by the collaborative efforts of academia, Wall Street and Hollywood, that day is still in our collective future.  Word total: 1165

Geoffrey G. Fisher is a federally designated Highly Qualified state-certified history teacher living in southwest Florida.  He holds a BA in History from the University of Connecticut and a MA in Public Policy from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.  In addition to teaching he is a former elected official and speechwriter.  Mr. Fisher now writes the political blog: THE THINKING CAP at  

READY FOR PILLORY – CORKSCREW HILLARY RETURNS

READY FOR PILLORY
CORKSCREW HILLARY RETURNS

Her sycophants are at it again.  They have launched a new fundraising website - READY FOR HILLARY.  They are ready for her coronation to be the 45th President of the United States but are we ready for her?

Hillary’s supporters, a combination of third-wave feminists (since 1992), and liberal Democratic activists, are excited and confident that their gal will prevail.  After all they point out “40 years” of political experience, including eight years as a U.S. Senator representing New York, and four years as the Secretary of State.  The girl-power spittle is flying as they look forward to the first woman president.
After all Hillary Clinton fashions herself as a modern woman breaking all types of barriers.  Just listen to part of her June 8, 2008 concession speech after loosing the Democratic nomination to the junior senator from Illinois:
"Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it…(a)nd the light is shining through like NEVER before…”
“When I was asked what it means to be a woman running for president, I always gave the same answer: that I was proud to be running as a woman but I was running because I thought I'd be the BEST president.” 
Planet earth calling Hillary Rodham Clinton - let’s review the facts.  40 years ago you were a newly minted law school graduate, and the following year you were the proverbial potted plant with aviator glasses at the Watergate Hearings and when you became a partner in the Rose Law Firm your husband was Governor of Arkansas.  Admit the obvious, a powerful man provided coattails for you and you had no political experience. 
As first lady of the United States your tenure was ruined with the collapse of the 1993 Clinton health care plan - a plan that you were appointed to manage.  Senator Kennedy tried to rehabilitate your reputation with passage of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in 1997.  Your advocacy was only taken seriously on issues dealing with children because you were married to the president.  Indeed, in 1999 you decided to run for the U.S. Senate from New York despite having never lived in New York and having never been elected to any office.  With the help of the (Bill) Clinton machine, you were elected U.S. Senator – a remarkable feat for your husband rather than you.
Yet Mrs. Clinton and her gang tout this race as some feminist milestone rather than an extension of the Bill Clinton machine going into overdrive.  And of course Mrs. Clinton’s stint as Secretary of State was an appointment by another powerful man this time to mollify Hillary’s disappointed feminist supporters – a move that worked and put Barack Obama in the White House – it’s called quid pro quo and not foreign policy experience.
Mrs. Clinton’s refusal to acknowledge the role of powerful men in her advancement is both dishonest and it makes her look childish – indeed, it makes her a first-rate phony NOT READY for the presidency.
Mrs. Clinton even plugged her years of First Lady the United States as evidence of her VAST political experience.  In 2007 this claim was too juicy for candidate Barack Obama to ignore.  Michelle Malkin reported: “Ever since Barack Obama suggested Hillary Clinton’s eight years as first lady were a glorified tea party a few days back, she’s looked for an opening to strike back.  On Saturday night in Dubuque, Iowa she pounced, arguing she risked her life on White House MISSIONS in the 1990s, including a hair-raising flight into Bosnia that ended in a “CORKSCREW” landing and a sprint off the tarmac to DODGE snipers.  ‘I don’t remember anyone offering me tea,’ she quipped.  The dictum around the Oval Office in the ’90s, she added, was: ‘If a place was TOO DANGEROUS, too poor or too small, send the first lady.’ ” and if she was busy - send Rambo.
This episode showed Hillary Clinton delivering a whopper of a lie with the finesse of a middle-school girl trying to impress her friends.  She then embellished this lie by adding, "I remember landing under sniper fire…(t)here was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but INSTEAD we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."  Mrs. Clinton was so rattled by Mr. Obama’s comment that she took several days to think out this colossal lie – what would she do if presented with a real emergency if elected president.  Would she reach for the nuclear football because someone unnerved her?
Alas, a video of the episode was found a few days later that “shows Hillary and her daughter Chelsea CASUALLY strolling off of an airplane, all smiles.  Country singer Sheryl Crow and comedian Sinbad, who were on the flight as part of a USO tour to entertain the troops, recall no threat at all. The video clearly confirms this, showing a …lengthy discussion with a LITTLE Bosnian girl, who gave Mrs. Clinton a hug, a kiss and a BOUQUET of FLOWERS.”  This is a shameful episode that demonstrates Mrs. Clinton’s pathological need to promote herself as a modern day Joan of Arc.  The adulation of her sycophants is so intoxicating it clouds the judgment of this Wellesley graduate.
Mrs. Clinton did not think anyone would check on her Wonder Woman moment or she just didn’t care.  Corkscrew Hillary lied trying to claim experience for being prepared to be president.  This incident alone disqualifies her from being president.  She does not have the metal nor the coolness to be chief executive.  She also had the gall to say later that she simply misspoke – another lie from Corkscrew Hillary.
Now juxtapose Mrs. Clinton’s reckless lying compared to John F. Kennedy who was saddled with being the son of a rich man who was “buying” the presidency.  Rather than lie about his privileged upbringing, JFK used humor to acknowledge the obvious and then he diffused the issue.  This quote is from a 1960 press briefing:I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy; Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide.”
Liberal columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times summarized the real Mrs. Clinton when she wrote in September of 2007, “Without nepotism, Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar.”
In 1996, New York Times Columnist William Safire penned “Blizzard of Lies” – “Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our First Lady -- a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation -- is a congenital liar.”  Yikes – now that’s hitting the nail on the head.
Safire continued: “(Federal) Investigators believe that damning records from the Rose Law Firm, wrongfully kept in Vincent Foster's White House office, were spirited out in the dead of night and hidden from the law for TWO years…The records show Hillary Clinton was lying when she denied actively representing a criminal enterprise known as the Madison S. & L…By concealing the Madison billing records two days beyond the statute of limitations, Hillary evaded a civil suit by bamboozled bank regulators.” 
Even Carl Bernstein grappled with the subject of Hillary’s truthfulness in his biography on the former first lady: “Since her Arkansas years, Hillary Rodham Clinton has ALWAYS had a DIFFICULT relationship with the truth.”
An additional liability for the would-be president is her temperament.  In 1992 Mrs. Clinton exposed her feminist venom when she spewed: “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas…You know, I'm not sitting here like some little woman standing by my man, like Tammy Wynette.  This bravado coming from a modern day Victorian wife trying to block out her husband’s infidelities.
In 1993 Hillary was caught in a telling Freudian slip: “I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through OUR papers.  WE are the president.” 
Hillary’s tendency to be unnerved and rattled was seen in its full force four years ago in the Congo when a student speaking through a translator, innocently asked her what “the president” thought about a Chinese trade deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The translator substituted Mr. Clinton for the president.  “You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?” (Hillary) replied, clearly irked by the thought of being her husband Bill’s spokeswoman.  “My husband is not secretary of state, I am,” she replied.  The incident showed how Hillary is easily rattled and as a consequence her behavior only reinforces the stereotype of the emotional woman.  The end result is Mrs. Clinton came across as churlish and silly.
Mrs. Clinton is always ready to attack when anyone mentions her hair or her clothes.  Yet, Mrs. Clinton is infamous for having 27 different hairstyles.  She even hired her own hairstylist, Isabelle Goetz to accompany her on her overseas travels.
“A woman’s haircut does not portend how she’ll run her country. And we need to stop talking about them as if they do” wrote an incensed Amanda Hess of Slate Magazine, THE XX FACTOR.  Amanda Hess at 41 is a perfect example of a third-wave feminist eking out a living as a grievance commentator.  Well Amanda, don’t put 27 different hairstyles in front of the public and then cry wolf when the public reacts.

It is the lack of graciousness that envelopes Mrs. Clinton temperament and the inability to maintain a cool head when she receives a public jab.  Compare Mrs. Clinton to First Lady Jackie Kennedy who calmly climbed onto the trunk of the presidential limousine wearing high heels to recover part of her husband’s brain during the 1963 assassination of the president in Dallas.  Indeed, look at the steely resolve of Margaret Thatcher during the Falkland War in 1982.  The list of strong women goes on with Benazir Bhutto, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir and former Prime Minister and über liberal Julia Gillard of Australia.  It is simply unpresidential to have a hissy fit every time things get difficult Mrs. Clinton.  Your antics only reinforce chauvinistic attitudes that women are incapable of leadership roles.

Left-leaning Democrats and political commentators don’t care about the many faults of Hillary Rodham Clinton.  Like Barack Obama she is an empty (pant) suit that fulfills their desire to break social and cultural barriers rather than nominating a qualified candidate to lead our great nation. 

Her eventually undoing may be linked to her stint as Secretary of State.  With her propensity to lie, there is a reasonable chance that she sullied the truth vis-à-vis Benghazi.  If that proves to be the case then her remarks before a recent Senate committee: "Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they’d go kill some Americans," Clinton said. "What difference – at this point, what difference does it make?" audibly pounding the committee table with clutched fists, a gesture eerily similar to her husband audibly banging his finger on a podium while saying, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” January 28, 1998

While banging a table or a podium does not necessarily convey perjury, with Bill and Hillary Clinton one has to wonder.  And by the way Mrs. Clinton, Charles Woods, the father of Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, one of those “dead Americans” said, “I would say, what difference does it make? CREDIBILITY, because in a courtroom situation we have a rule that says if a person’s testimony is proven to be false in any part, the rest of their testimony is to be disregarded on that subject.”
To date Mrs. Clinton has not been interviewed by the president’s ARB (Accountability Review Board) on Benghazi.  So what happen in Tripoli when a C-130 rescue plane and airmen were told to stand down during the attack?  This is just one point that needs to see the light of day.  Mrs. Clinton, you see the truth DOES matter to all of us including the families of the four Americans who were needlessly and viciously killed on your watch.  (Word Total: 2032)

Geoffrey G. Fisher is a federally designated Highly Qualified state-certified history teacher living in southwest Florida.  He holds a BA in History from the University of Connecticut and a MA in Public Policy from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.  In addition to teaching he is a former elected official and speechwriter.  Mr. Fisher now writes the political blog: THE THINKING CAP at  
            www.theamericanthinkingcap.blogspot.com