Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Fwd: This wouldn't happen in a rich, white community

Amen

---------- Forwarded message --------

Race Is in the Air We Breathe and the Water We Drink
by Jim Wallis

How would you feel if you realized your children's water was being poisoned, and your government didn't seem to care? That's the story of the parents of 8,000 mostly poor and black children in Flint, Mich., (which means most all of the children in urban Flint) that has finally hit our media front pages. The evening news I am watching as I write warns the parents of Flint not to bathe their young children in city water.

But the fact that most Americans realize this would never happen in affluent white Michigan suburbs (or any other white affluent communities in our country), still doesn't penetrate our very souls. This fundamental contrast between black and white experiences in Michigan, just north of my home town of Detroit, points to the structural racism that is still the primary moral contradiction of American life. The news about Flint is just the most recent consequence of America's Original Sin, the title of the new book we have just launched.

The poisoning of the majority-black population of the city is a product of a system failing the people of Flint on many levels over a long period of time. To really start unpacking the historical roots of the crisis, you have to go back to slavery itself, which debased the humanity and devalued the lives of black people from well before our nation's founding; followed by the Jim Crow era of legal segregation, discrimination, and violence against black Americans, which resulted in early 20th century migrations of black people from the segregated south to urban manufacturing centers of the northern United States. When they got there, they found cities without legal segregation, yet with de facto segregation and discrimination alive and well in both white attitudes and systems. The arrival and growth of black populations in northern cities was followed shortly thereafter by white flight to the suburbs, aided by discriminatory housing policies that effectively prevented the vast majority of black people from joining them and blocked the financing of black homes even in the cities.

As manufacturing jobs left cities like Detroit and Flint over the years, unemployment soared, property values declined, and the people who remained found themselves trapped in poverty in cities whose tax revenue was eclipsed by the services these cities are responsible for providing for their citizens. The result? Drastically inferior employment prospects, inferior education, both leading to higher crime, and inferior health outcomes for people of color in many urban centers across the country. Racial ghettos, it must be said and understood, have never been an accident, but are the results of public policy. This is a necessarily short but accurate explanation for a very complex confluence of systems that together represent structural racism. In my new book, I explain in greater depth how some of this came to be, the history behind it, and the moral challenge it presents especially to people of faith.

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How the Nation Responds to 'America's Original Sin' (by Jim Wallis)

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Friday, January 22, 2016

Folder Contents

Making Mondragon (Open Library)

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1547300M/Making_Mondragon

From Mondragon To America: Experiments In Community Economic Development

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Quote from The future of fundraising: Three keys to engaging millennials - The Globe and Mail

"millennial generation is different – no doubt about it. They're always connected and in constant feedback loops with friends, family and the community at large. However, this connectedness is achieved through technology, which is why charities find it so difficult to reach millennials using traditional channels and donation options. While boomers continue to be a generous group, millennials will soon begin to fill their donation shoes as they move into their prime earning years. To take advantage of the rising spending power of this tech savvy demographic, charities must evolve and adapt to the latest innovations and trends."

From: The future of fundraising: Three keys to engaging millennials - The Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/leadership-lab/the-future-of-fundraising-three-keys-to-engaging-millennials/article28110896/

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Bernie Sanders and Reparations - The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/bernie-sanders-reparations/424602/

The Atlantic

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Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations?

The Vermont senator's political imagination is active against plutocracy, but why is it so limited against white supremacy?

Bernie Sanders speaking at the Iowa Black and Brown Forum on January 11, 2016Aaron P. Bernstein / Reuters

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TA-NEHISI COATES JAN 19, 2016 POLITICS

Last week Bernie Sanders was asked whether he was in favor of "reparations for slavery." It is worth considering Sanders's response in full:

No, I don't think so. First of all, its likelihood of getting through Congress is nil. Second of all, I think it would be very divisive. The real issue is when we look at the poverty rate among the African American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African American community, we have a lot of work to do.

So I think what we should be talking about is making massive investments in rebuilding our cities, in creating millions of decent paying jobs, in making public colleges and universities tuition-free, basically targeting our federal resources to the areas where it is needed the most and where it is needed the most is in impoverished communities, often African American and Latino.

For those of us interested in how the left prioritizes its various radicalisms, Sanders's answer is illuminating. The spectacle of a socialist candidate opposing reparations as "divisive" (there are few political labels more divisive in the minds of Americans than socialist) is only rivaled by the implausibility of Sanders posing as a pragmatist. Sanders says the chance of getting reparations through Congress is "nil," a correct observation which could just as well apply to much of the Vermont senator's own platform. The chances of a President Sanders coaxing a Republican Congress to pass a $1 trillion jobs and infrastructure bill are also nil. Considering Sanders's proposal for single-payer health care, Paul Krugman asks, "Is there any realistic prospect that a drastic overhaul could be enacted any time soon—say, in the next eight years? No."

RELATED STORY

The Case for Reparations

Sanders is a lot of things, many of them good. But he is not the candidate of moderation and unification, so much as the candidate of partisanship and radicalism. There is neither insult nor accolade in this. John Brown was radical and divisive. So was Eric Robert Rudolph. Our current sprawling megapolis of prisons was a bipartisan achievement. Obamacare was not. Sometimes the moral course lies within the politically possible, and sometimes the moral course lies outside of the politically possible. One of the great functions of radical candidates is to war against equivocators and opportunists who conflate these two things. Radicals expand the political imagination and, hopefully, prevent incrementalism from becoming a virtue.

Unfortunately, Sanders's radicalism has failed in the ancient fight against white supremacy. What he proposes in lieu of reparations—job creation, investment in cities, and free higher education—is well within the Overton window, and hisplatform on race echoes Democratic orthodoxy. The calls for community policing, body cameras, and a voting-rights bill with pre-clearance restored— all are things that Hillary Clinton agrees with. And those positions with which she might not agree address black people not so much as a class specifically injured by white supremacy, but rather, as a group which magically suffers from disproportionate poverty.

This is the "class first" approach, originating in the myth that racism and socialism are necessarily incompatible. But raising the minimum wage doesn't really address the fact that black men without criminal records have about the same shot at low-wage work as white men with them; nor can making college free address the wage gap between black and white graduates. Housing discrimination, historical and present, may well be the fulcrum of white supremacy. Affirmative action is one of the most disputed issues of the day. Neither are addressed in the "racial justice" section of Sanders platform.

Sanders's anti-racist moderation points to a candidate who is not merely against reparations, but one who doesn't actually understand the argument. To briefly restate it, from 1619 until at least the late 1960s, American institutions, businesses, associations, and governments—federal, state, and local—repeatedly plundered black communities. Their methods included everything from land-theft, to red-lining, to disenfranchisement, to convict-lease labor, to lynching, to enslavement, to the vending of children. So large was this plunder that America, as we know it today, is simply unimaginable without it. Its great universities were founded on it. Its early economy was built by it. Its suburbs were financed by it.Its deadliest war was the result of it.

One can't evade these facts by changing the subject. Some months ago, black radicals in the Black Lives Matters movement protested Sanders. They were, in the main, jeered by the white left for their efforts. But judged by his platform, Sanders should be directly confronted and asked why his political imagination is so active against plutocracy, but so limited against white supremacy. Jim Crow and its legacy were not merely problems of disproportionate poverty. Why should black voters support a candidate who does not recognize this?

Reparations is not one possible tool against white supremacy. It is the indispensable tool against white supremacy.

If not even an avowed socialist can be bothered to grapple with reparations, if the question really is that far beyond the pale, if Bernie Sanders truly believes that victims of the Tulsa pogrom deserved nothing, that the victims of contract lending deserve nothing, that the victims of debt peonage deserve nothing, that that political plunder of black communities entitle them to nothing, if this is the candidate of the radical left—then expect white supremacy in America to endure well beyond our lifetimes and lifetimes of our children. Reparations is not one possible tool against white supremacy. It is the indispensable tool against white supremacy. One cannot propose to plunder a people, incur a moral and monetary debt, propose to never pay it back, and then claim to be seriously engaging in the fight against white supremacy.

My hope was to talk to Sanders directly, before writing this article. I reached out repeatedly to his campaign over the past three days. The Sanders campaign did not respond.

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Fwd: Ta-Nehisi Coates Reparations is not one possible tool against white supremacy. It is the indispensable tool against white supremacy.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Ta-Nehisi Coates | The Atlantic <noreply+feedproxy@google.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 6:16 AM
Subject: Ta-Nehisi Coates
To: <brianlbanks@gmail.com>

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations?

Posted: 19 Jan 2016 04:16 PM PST

Bernie Sanders speaking at the Iowa Black and Brown Forum on January 11, 2016 Aaron P. Bernstein / Reuters

Last week Bernie Sanders was asked whether he was in favor of "reparations for slavery." It is worth considering Sanders's response in full:

No, I don't think so. First of all, its likelihood of getting through Congress is nil. Second of all, I think it would be very divisive. The real issue is when we look at the poverty rate among the African American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African American community, we have a lot of work to do.

So I think what we should be talking about is making massive investments in rebuilding our cities, in creating millions of decent paying jobs, in making public colleges and universities tuition-free, basically targeting our federal resources to the areas where it is needed the most and where it is needed the most is in impoverished communities, often African American and Latino.

For those of us interested in how the left prioritizes its various radicalisms, Sanders's answer is illuminating. The spectacle of a socialist candidate opposing reparations as "divisive" (there are few political labels more divisive in the minds of Americans than socialist) is only rivaled by the implausibility of Sanders posing as a pragmatist. Sanders says the chance of getting reparations through Congress is "nil," a correct observation which could just as well apply to much of the Vermont senator's own platform. The chances of a President Sanders coaxing a Republican Congress to pass a $1 trillion jobs and infrastructure bill are also nil. Considering Sanders's proposal for single-payer health-care, Paul Krugman asks, "Is there any realistic prospect that a drastic overhaul could be enacted any time soon—say, in the next eight years? No."

Unfortunately, Sanders's radicalism has failed in the ancient fight against white supremacy. What he proposes in lieu of reparations—job creation, investment in cities, and free higher education—is well within the Overton window, and his platform on race echoes Democratic orthodoxy. The calls for community policing, body-cameras, and a voting-rights bill with pre-clearance restored— all are things that Hillary Clinton agrees with. And those positions with which she might not agree address black people not so much as a class specifically injured by white supremacy, but rather, as a group which magically suffers from disproportionate poverty.

Sanders's anti-racist moderation points to a candidate who is not merely against reparations, but one who doesn't actually understand the argument. To briefly restate it, from 1619 until at least the late 1960s, American institutions, businesses, associations, and governments—federal, state and local—repeatedly plundered black communities. Their methods included everything from land-theft, to red-lining, to disenfranchisement, to convict-lease labor, to lynching, to enslavement, to the vending of children. So large was this plunder that America, as we know it today, is simply unimaginable without it. Its great universities were founded on it. Its early economy was built by it. Its suburbs were financed by it. Its deadliest war was the result of it.

Reparations is not one possible tool against white supremacy. It is the indispensable tool against white supremacy.

My hope was to talk to Sanders directly, before writing this article. I reached out repeatedly to his campaign over the past three days. The Sanders campaign did not respond.

You are subscribed to email updates from Ta-Nehisi Coates \| The Atlantic. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Whites killed MLK. Now we honor him: Column

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/01/17/race-us-slavery-oppression-discrimination-mlk-day-racial-relations-column/78315390/

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Whites killed MLK. Now we honor him: Column

Oliver Thomas6:04 p.m. EST January 17, 2016

Centuries of kidnapping, torture, murder, rape. What white person can understand black lives? Not me.

(Photo: AP)

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My dad called Martin Luther King an "agitator." I bet a lot of white dads did. Seems like every time Dr. King showed up somewhere, things got torn up or burned up.

So we killed him. Not me, of course. I'm not a racist. But who thinks he is?

So we tried to fix it. Made his birthday a national holiday. Put him on a pedestal. Where we can honor him. And he can't poke us in the eye.

Plus, now we've squared everything. The Civil Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act. Come on, we've even elected a black president! That's why people who look like me have a hard time understanding why so many black people are still angry while others have given up on America altogether.

I'll let Ta-Nehisi Coates boil it down for you. White society was not achieved through "wine tastings and ice cream socials, but rather through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor and land." In short, through three centuries of kidnapping, torture, murder and rape. Broken teeth, broken bones and broken spirits. Families ripped apart. Children taken from their parents. Men humiliated in front of their wives. Women brutalized within earshot of their husbands. Lash after bloody lash on bare backs. Then, sleep on a bare wooden floor. No doctor, no dentist, no nothing. Just non-stop misery with a few hymns on Sunday.

We built an entire society on these bruised and broken backs. That and countless Native Americans driven off their land. Then, after the house of horrors fell, and the sin was purged by the blood of more than a half-million young mostly white men, white America still did not relent. Despite passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, states found ways to disenfranchise blacks. We took back the vote, cordoned blacks off in the most undesirable parts of our cities, forced them into inferior schools and denied them opportunities. Few blacks owned their homes. Many could not read and write. Thousands were lynched. That's Southern for murdered without a trial. Imagine if that's what black men had done to Robert De Niro or David Bowie for marrying black women.

USA TODAY

Now women need to seek those combat jobs: Column

When the Supreme Court — at the goading of America's greatest black lawyer — finally struck down "separate but equal," we dragged our feet for up to 10 years in some states before we would integrate our schools. Even then, thousands of white parents simply placed their children in private schools. Later, when progressive whites were able to enact some modest corrective measures to offset centuries of state-sponsored terrorism, a Supreme Court — composed of eight privileged whites and only one African American — struck them down as reverse discrimination. Checkmate. It is as if after cheating for seven innings and being caught in the eighth, the umpire could make no adjustment to the score because that would not be fair.

Now comes a phone call. I have been asked to speak at a Martin Luther King Day event. Me, a white preacher, speaking to a predominantly black audience filled with gifted preachers.

USA TODAY

Supreme Court can help defeat educational inequality: Richard Riordan

POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media

Well, here's the message. No white person understands the black experience. Not Bill Clinton. Not Bernie Sanders. Not me. Not anybody. We can't understand the black experience any more than I can understand how it feels to be a woman.

Where does this leave us? Are whites and blacks condemned to live only parallel lives with a great chasm forever separating us? Not necessarily. White people could rise to the occasion. We could perform the first and more fundamental act of love.

We could listen.

Oliver Thomas is a minister, lawyer and member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors.To read more columns like this, go to the Opinion front page.

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Thursday, January 14, 2016

Bagman says he handed over $557,000 in bribes at lunches - Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/redlight/ct-red-light-cameras-trial-met-0114-20160113-story.html

The Chicago way!

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

New Media Ventures -New Media Ventures - http://www.newmediaventures.org/ (Share from CM Browser)

Obama struggling to get attention for the State of the Union - POLITICO http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/state-of-the-union-obama-preview-217595 (Share from CM Browser)

Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music with Robert Marovich | Events | Chicago Public Library

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Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music with Robert Marovich

Tuesday, January 12, 2016 (6:00PM – 8:00PM)

Harold Washington Library Center

Description

Gospel music historian and radio host Robert Marovich will discuss his book A City Called Heaven, which charts the humble origins of a majestic musical genre and its close ties to the city where it found its voice. A gospel choir will perform. Sponsored by the Society of Midland Authors .

Seating in the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium is first come, first served, limit of 385. Books will be available for sale, and the author will sign books at the conclusion of the program.

This program is presented as part of One Book, One Chicago's 2015-2016 season, exploring the theme of "Chicago: The City That Gives."

Program:One Book, One ChicagoSuitable for:Adults
Type:Author Events
Language:English

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UPCOMING EVENTS ATHAROLD WASHINGTON LIBRARY CENTER

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Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music with RobertMarovich

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Tuesday, January 12, 2016

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Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music with RobertMarovich

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Wednesday, January 13, 2016

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Thursday, January 14, 2016

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Saturday, January 16, 2016

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Giving and Donating: Being Smart with YourSupport

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