Is this tea racist?

Many are starting to say that Bigelow is a racist tea company, but not because thy used to advertise on the Don Imus show. Rather, it is because they continue to use the word "plantation." What I find fascinating is that this word is considered a rather benign and slang term for a large monoculture farm outside of the United States. Language is fluid, with words changing within and among cultures.

I think we have reached or may soon reach the tipping point for this word to be used solely as a racially charged and insensitive word. It reflects greatly the amount of negative name calling and recalcitrant attitudes held by our political class. Our two party system does not lead to conducive and friendly debates on issues but relies on new and harsher name calling.

In the last few weeks Pat Buchanan used the word and so did  sports newscaster Bryant Gumbel. I have traced back the word to the usage by Hillary Clinton back in 2006  to describe the Republican congress, which naturally caused a lot of fuss. Now, I have witnessed liberals decrying the use of this word on tea calling for a boycott of Bigelow.

I am not going to argue that this is wrong. In fact, I would rather avoid the use of the word if it now has a negative connotation. What I am greatly curious about is when this change in meaning occurred. Did this occur quite recently or has this change been a slow process?

Most Americans do not know where there food comes from. They assume it comes from a grocery store and think nothing of the farms. In other countries, a plantation means a large monoculture farm of things like tea or trees. I believe some of the reason this word has a negative meaning is because the few Americans who think about where there food come from think only of farms. Some might even know about the existence of factory farms, which consume most of the food grown in this country to produce cheap meat products.

Since so few Americans are involved in the food industry, their only knowledge of plantations is that of history books. Therefore, this word conjures in many images of slavery and oppression. As Nicque Shaff puts it:

• "Plantation" calls to mind images of shameful subjugation -- enslavement and cultural exploitation faced by mostly brown people perpetrated by those who thought they had the right. From the Antebellum American South to Colonial India, Kenya and beyond plantations have been pure hell. This product naming may be careless oversight on the part of yet another company, but it's not acceptable.

I am curious about this issue and will update this post as I find more information. If you have a perspective then please post a reply!

Panel stresses urgency of closing achievement gap

Higher Ground Academy Founder-Director Bill Wilson  Credit: Shane of Necessary Exposure

by Charles Hallman
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 11/10/2010 

But shift in political winds could stall progress

Putting students first is among the most important things to be done if ever the Black-White student achievement gap is to be closed, several education professionals and advocates agreed at a recent public exchange of ideas on the subject. Higher Ground Academy Founder-Director Bill Wilson, St. Paul Public Schools Superintendent Valeria Silva, Minnesota State Representative Carlos Mariani (DFL-St. Paul), St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, and St. Paul Federation of Teachers President Mary Cathryn Ricker addressed the issue during a 90-minute education panel discussion November 3 at Macalester College.

Based on Minnesota statewide math and reading test scores, the educational achievement gap between Blacks and other students of color and Whites starts at around 30 percentage points as early as third grade and continues to widen the remainder of their school years. “We do well with many students,” but not with Black students, admitted Silva. “We have to start owning that our African American students are not achieving the gains they should be.”

Many Black children “cannot see the return on investment… They are discouraged” by school, noted Wilson, who added that more early childhood programs are needed. “The teaching of children must start at least at six months [of age and] then go forward.”

If the gap were reversed and White students performed academically poorer than Blacks, Mayor Coleman believes “there would be a riot.” 

Said Ricker, “I believe every student should have a high school diploma” no matter how long it takes.

“The achievement gap exists because of a disconnect between students and teachers,” believes Wilson. 

“I’m not an educator but a politician and policymaker,” said Mariani, executive director of the Minnesota Minority Education Partnership (MMEP), which since 2001 has annually tracked the academic progress of Blacks and other students of color.

The 2009 MMEP report noted that the chances of students of color “successfully graduating from high school…are not much improved from eight years ago.” 

Mariani agreed with Wilson that educators “making connections” with both students and their parents is “how you close the gap.”

“There’s no silver bullet,” said Coleman, adding that developing “out-of-school programs” at local libraries and parks is needed. Because the overall population in Minnesota is becoming “less White and more diverse,” closing the achievement gap is becoming increasingly important for Minnesota’s economy, whose workforce needs to be “highly educated,” Coleman said. To help close the gap, “It takes everyone [in the community] to take a role.” 

“This is an urgent matter,” Silva said, “but not just for us as educators. [It’s also urgent] for everybody that is working to improve the quality of life of students and families in the city.” 

The superintendent pointed out that education “is not a priority” nationwide as well as in Minnesota. “Education is not cool in America.” 

But last week’s panel might have been a “preaching to the choir” experience for many of the 150-175 persons in attendance, who were either students studying education or persons working in education. That’s how it looked to Macalester Humanities, Media and Cultural Studies Professor Leola Johnson 
“They [the panelists] are talking about things that people in the audience already agree with,” Johnson said. “What we actually need to do is to persuade people who don’t agree, but those people don’t show up at forums like this.”
Nonetheless, each participant on last week’s achievement gap panel “is clearly committed to doing their part [in] solving this problem,” noted Ricker. 

“We all came here saying, ‘This is what we all are doing to solve this problem,’ and we only got to scratch the surface on what we actually are doing. 

“If anything, this gave me the opportunity to continue the conversation with everyone here,” Ricker said. “We need to have the right conversation.” 
Wilson says he’d suggested further meetings with Silva, Mariani, Coleman, Ricker and others to work on solving the gap problems: “I am going to call the mayor and ask if he would host that meeting.” He also urged a closer look at area charter schools such as his Higher Ground Academy in St. Paul. 

“We have a population that is 85 percent East African, and we are making AYP [annual yearly progress] every year,” Wilson pointed out. “Let’s sit down and talk about what we are doing, and we’ll get some answers from others. If we’re really serious about that, I think that is going to be done.”

“There are so many issues here, but for me the primary issue was to really encourage this community to embrace the necessary competencies to build a great multi-racial community,” said Mariani. “Our inability to do that is one of the big things that are hurting our kids in our schools. They don’t feel a part of this system in so many ways.”

On the day after last week’s general elections, which resulted in a changeover of power from Democrat to Republican in both the Minnesota House and Senate, Mariani expressed concerns about future education funding. 

“While money shouldn’t be the total answer, it’s very difficult to do new things without the resources as well,” he said. “I think that the new majority has made it clear that not only will there not be any new resources, but actually there will be less.

“[It] wasn’t perfect under Democratic control either,” the DFL legislator noted, but he’s uncertain if “the new political realignment will further the discussion of multi-racial competency, equality and equity. I think it is going to be really tough.” 

“I think there is a real danger that [the achievement gap issue] will be pushed back” among legislative priorities, Johnson said. “We’ve got people who have come to power now who ran on getting rid of the Department of Education and who really would love to privatize everything. I think that there is a real possibility that, at the very best, what we are going to get is gridlock and stalemate.”

“I think if we put all of our ideas in one place, we really can accomplish a lot,” concluded Silva. “If there is any place in this country where we can close this achievement gap, it is in St. Paul. I really believe that.”

Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses to challman@spokesman-re corder.com.

No Racistino

BY Daniel Timp


Every year representatives of Canterbury Park engage the wider community in an attempt to gain casino machines, claiming that it would benefit the state of Minnesota. The state of Minnesota has a long history of avoiding open support of all types of gambling. The federal government granted Indian tribes the right to build casinos; unable to fight it, a state lottery and charitable gaming in bars soon followed.

The last time Canterbury Park pushed hard for a racino was while the brothers Ghermezian were trying to get the state Legislature to grant them the right to put a casino in the Mall of America. However, the issue is more complicated than Jennifer Selvig implies in her guest column, which is why the push to gain a casino at the MOA was abandoned.

Gambling addiction is a serious problem that the state of Minnesota has been hesitant to promote. The treatment of racehorses is not humane in all cases. Canterbury Park is not about to disappear, they merely see the potential profit to be had by installing video poker and slot machines.

I lived in Portland, Oregon and I know what it is like to have video poker in every bar and Keno in every gas station. Is this where we want Minnesota to go? I don’t. Would granting Canterbury Park the right to have slots and video poker necessarily result in a landslide of gambling machines across the state? Not if we granted Canterbury Park a monopoly, I suppose, but that would be more hypocritical than the state lotto.

Daniel Timp

Source

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13 Comments
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Sun, 04/19/2009 - 9:58pm — SMR (not verified)
Racinos a boon for Minnesota and the horse industry

U Student Daniel Timp submitted a commentary regarding Racinos. His perspective is limited to a tiny slice of not-so-recent history. Gambling bills before the Minnesota Legislature this year include video lottery terminals in bars and restaurants across Minnesota, a full casino at the Airport and a Racino bill proposed by the state's horsemen. Tim's assertion that the tracks just want to make money is short sighted and misses the big picture -- that's the one that effects farm owners and tax payers like myself.

The issue that should most concern the public is the massive amounts of money that metro casino operators are making without paying gaming taxes-- a benefit of sovereign immunity. That monopoly provides economic development opportunities outstate but generates great wealth to a very small population in the metro area. A little more than a decade ago, the billion dollar casinos that we all know now were simple bingo halls. Their expansion has been unchecked, unregulated and still provides no benefit to residents of Minnesota in the way of gaming revenue like the lottery and pari-mutuel racing do. Isn't it time for the state to benefit from people's enthusiastic participation in gaming? If the state approves alternatives to reservation casinos, the significant tax generated is voluntary and if your don't play, you don't pay!

The state must evaluate each gambling proposal on their respective merits and acknowledge that our society is a gaming society determined to play games as a form of entertainment (80% of Minnesotans claim to participate in some form of gambling as reflected in 2003 MPR/Pioneer Press and a 2003 Star Tribune Poll). The state cannot control compulsive gaming behavior anymore than the state could close all the bars to prevent alcoholism or close the malls to prevent compulsive shopping behaviors. Government cannot be the babysitter but legislation can require funds be set aside for responsible gaming programs should new gaming legislation be passed.

Unlke allowing slots in every bar, as many like Tim fear, the Racino legislation is modest in scale and big on benefits. The Racino initiative asks the state to allow the two horse racing tracks in the metro area to install the same casino games seen at existing casinos. The tracks are already highly regulated and overseen by the State Racing Commission. The tracks also employ thousands, and are the cornerstone for the racing industry in our state. The business of racing goes well beyond the racetracks. It is the business of hundreds of vets, farriers, hay and feed dealers, equipment vendors, farmers, shippers, trainers, grooms and others. And, don't forget, Racinos would generate $1/4 Billion in tax revenue every biennium -- that's a $1/4 Billion more than the existing casinos give back to our State!

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Mon, 04/20/2009 - 8:32am — Writ Dye (not verified)
Jebus that was long!

EOM

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Mon, 04/20/2009 - 9:09am — U grad and Scott County taxpayer (not verified)
That may have been long but

That may have been long but the writer addressed most of the relevant points in this debate.For all of the reasons expressed,I support the Racino concept.It also will eliminate hopefully the substantial amounts of money that the Tribes give to the DFL each year in hopes of preserving the state self imposed monopoly for the Tribes.Finally, it would eliminate the jobs of some of the 40 plus registered lobbyists at the state capitol who work for the Tribes.

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Mon, 04/20/2009 - 8:34am — Randy, concerned tax payer in Prior Lake (not verified)
Racinos good for Minnesota

As a Minnesota tax payer, I think Racino legislation is a fair deal. First of all it would not be a Canterbury monopoly. There are two race tracks in Minnesota, owned by different companies I believe. I am sick and tired of seeing the Mystic Lake, Grand Casino and Treasure Island casino grow bigger and bigger and knowing that the state does not get any money from their gaming. Adding other gaming options, Racinos and the race tracks, would increase competition and break the casino cartels current monopoly!

I like to visit a casino and gamble from time to time. I don’t do it in Minnesota though; I drive south to Diamond Jo, 2 miles south into Iowa. Talking to the people there they say that most of their customers are Minnesotans - over ¾ of them. That is gaming dollars and tax revenue that could and should be staying in here in Minnesota.

I support this plan, give the state some revenue! Give the tribes some fair competition, competition builds better business.

I have contacted both my state representative and my state senator to voice my support of this and they both told me that the Racino bill has little chance because the tribes donate millions of dollars to the DFL party. They told me that the DFL leadership will stand in the way of this in fear of losing campaign contributions. In spite of the common sense benefits for the state in a time when they need Billions for the budget, they are looking past the taxpayers and thinking of their own pockets. That is wrong, this is not Illinois! We need to do something about these multi Billion dollar non taxed businesses in the state, we need to save the racing in the state and bolster Minnesota’s equine industry.

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Tue, 04/21/2009 - 9:37am — Jim G (not verified)
Racino ...

Amen, I say to that !!! Adding poker machines at Canterbury would be a PLUS for the entire state !!! Our DFL compatriots (and the Indian casinos) are just yanking our chain !!! When are we, the common man, going to have some input as to our destiny ?? Pass the RACINO bill and BOOST the State's economy...

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Fri, 04/24/2009 - 9:49pm — Anonymous (not verified)
racinos

If you ever wondered why the state legislators have never passed the gamming bill and you haven't figured it out by now, their all probably on the take under the table from the local tribes.Next election comes around we'll remind them by not voting for them and remind them how they became state legislators and state senators.

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Mon, 04/20/2009 - 9:49am — Kelly - horse owner (not verified)
Racino bill

In a perfect world, no one would choose to gamble away their life savings, no one would drive drunk, no one would abuse tobacco or drugs. In a perfect world, there would be no unwanted horses. This is not a perfect world.
What Daniel fails to point out is the good that Racino legislation can bring. Setting aside 1% to non-racing horse industry apportions several million dollars to fund research, improved facilities and projects that can bring about a significant change to the horses of Minnesota. When does the good outweigh the bad? In this case it is pretty clear. Minnesota needs revenue and our horses need a boost to their health, well-being, value and very existence. I fully support this legislation being a horse owner and enthusiast (not in the racing community but the proud owner of horses "off the track".) who wants to see the lives of our horses and the support of our horse communities reap the benefit.

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Mon, 04/20/2009 - 11:25am — Anonymous Student (not verified)
Racino Bill.

The Racino proposal that is currently being discussed is, as someone already mentioned, modest. It is a very limited way for the state benefit from essentially no investment. There are already two ideal facilities to add gambling in a way that would benefit the state and the citizens of Minnesota. The Racino proposal would add hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs; there is already concern about the record deficit and unemployment rates - why not address that concern?

Minnesotans who want to avoid tax hikes and a loss of public services as we face looming budget cuts should voice their concerns to their state legislators. The voice of the citizens is what can help this bill to pass and prevent legislators from lining their own pockets as the tribes owning Mystic Lake, Grand Casino, and more try to avoid future competition and keep the revenues to themselves.

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Mon, 04/20/2009 - 1:23pm — Anonymous (not verified)
I think people need to

I think people need to educate themselves on all aspects before speaking about anything they don't know the ins and outs about. The state is facing a deficite and until you can find a better way to support the state then don't bash the efforts being put forth in an attempt to help everyone in MN.

I fully support the Racino. I am involved in the horse community here in MN...I do not gamble by choice but why not have some options instead of what we currently have? Why let the current casinos line the pockets of the representatives that are supposed to be working to better the state of MN and represent the demographic as a whole?

I have contacted my representatives and will continue to do so until a decision has been made.

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Mon, 04/20/2009 - 2:13pm — Stephanie Valberg (not verified)
Racino

The new Racino proposal would serve an all important role of replenishing diminishing funds for equine research at the U of M by providing at least 1% of proceeds to support the horse community and equine research. University of Minnesota Equine Center in collaboration with the state’s racing industry has been working together for more than 15 years to improve the health, well being and performance of the horse by supporting equine research at the U of M. Unfortunately our current source of research funding from the Minnesota Racing Commission using funds committed from on track betting at Canterbury Park Racetrack has declined due to the slowing economy. This partnership with the Racing Commission has been vital for equine research investigating colic, genetics, lameness, muscle disease, nutrition, and reproduction. Since 2001, a combined investment by the U of M and Minnesota Racing Commission of $387,400, provided enough preliminary information to obtain an additional $3,000,000 in support from state, federal and private foundations for further cutting-edge equine research. The Equine Center, its researchers, and clinical staff have dedicated themselves toward maximizing the health and well-being of horses. It is my personal belief, that the Racino bill is extremely important to support our goal of applying scientific research toward the prevention, treatment, and cure of injuries and diseases that afflict horses.

Stephanie Valberg DVM PhD

Director of the University of Minnesota Equine Center

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Mon, 04/20/2009 - 4:51pm — anonymous (not verified)
Voluntary tax could equal huge revenues for Minnesota!

In light of Minnesota's looming budget deficit how can our Legislature blatantly disregard a revenue source that could contribute one-quarter of a billion dollars to the State per biennium? I've met with our elected Legislators and heard them say "it's only $250,000,000.00". I'm wondering if they truly listened to their constituents who took the time to share their concerns at the Town Hall meetings and Legislative Road Shows held throughout Minnesota? I was there. I heard parents pleading that their disabled child's medical benefits not be cut. These meeting rooms were filled with people who were passionately sharing their stories, their concerns and their needs. I would like to hear these same Legislators tell their constituents, the individuals marking the ballot come election time, that "it's only $250,000,000.00". I'm sure there are many programs and services that could be saved with even a small portion of that $250,000,00.00.

Gambling at a racino would be a voluntary tax. If you want to gamble, you contribute. Gambling's not your thing? No problem, you aren't being forced to contribute. Quite unlike an increase in property taxes or other increases that don't give you an option of paying or not. People in Minnesota gamble. Whether it's at tribal casinos, on the internet or across our state borders. A racino would simply give people another choice - contribute to Minnesota or contribute to the tribes, our neighboring states or some anonymous entity on the internet.

Racinos will save an industry; allow owners, breeder and trainers to continue supporting Minnesota's agricultural economy; create and maintain jobs; and create $250,000,000.00 in revenue for the State of Minnesota.

Yes it is "only $250,000,000.00", but it's the only moderate proposal out there that is offering our Legislature any help in balancing the budget. If you have a better idea, that can accomplish all of the things the racino proposal can, I'd love to hear it!

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Tue, 04/21/2009 - 9:27am — Ron Oliver (not verified)
best option out there

I think Mr. Timp is missing the point. Yes gambling addiction is a serious problem, but the addition of slots at Canterbury and Running Aces would do little to add to the problem. They already offer several types of gaming as it is. On top of that there are already well over a dozen casinos operating in the state. the real issue is money, the state needs it the tracks are willing to give it. The tribal casinos in the state generate billions of dollars in revenue each year, almost all of it is untaxed. The tracks however would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue which would help provide funding for services that are in danger of being cut. Add to that the thousands of jobs that Racino would provide and the money that those jobs add to the economy and the additional tax revenue that spending generates is an additional benefit. Heck the tracks are willing to build casinos and give up hundreds of millions of dollars and they are not asking the state for a dime of assistance unlike our beloved Vikings and Twins. If anyone out there has a better idea lets hear it!

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Tue, 04/21/2009 - 3:24pm — Democrat (not verified)
DON'T KID YOURSELF

Racino is a no- brainer! The Indian casinos attract thousands of people everyday, just look at their parking lots...filled with 150K dollar RV's. Does anybody really think that if that camper decides to take in a day at the races, enjoy the outdoors at Canterbury and possibly slip $10.00 into a slot machine inbetween races that the Indians are going to lose business? Come on. We are supposed to be an educated state.

Yep, I'm a 'horse person', but even non horse people have to recognize the relief that the taxable money generated will provide. Infra structure, education, keep open the state parks, JOBS. It goes on and on.

I would love to have our Gov. call two or three of the existing Racino state Governors and ask them how they balanced their budget and how much the Racino contributes to them!

Heck, any legislator, senator and the Gov. would be a flippin HERO if they passed this. Which would probably create local support for anyother 'races" they may be planning on running for!

Building a Movement for REAL Change

By LARRY PINKNEY


Something magnificent and truly extraordinary happened at the 2008, Green Party Presidential Convention in Chicago, Illinois. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente; two dynamic, highly intelligent, experienced, and politically committed women of color were chosen by the Green Party of this nation to be its nominees for President and Vice President respectively, of the United States of America. Former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney who demonstrated the guts and integrity to leave the politically opportunist and bankrupt Democratic Party has, for quite some time now been yet again demonstrating her guts and integrity by crisscrossing this nation and informing people in every nook and cranny about the "Power To The People" Campaign. Now Sister McKinney has been joined by Puerto Rican people's grass root activist / journalist / and intellectual hip hop artist Sister Rosa Clemente in this ever growing campaign and people's movement and struggle. Indeed, something extraordinary has happened and there is yet more to come.

While CNN, ABC, C-SPAN, etc. did give some limited coverage of and to this incredibly momentous event; none of the pundits of these so-called "main stream news" media outlets dared elucidate to the "American" people the enormous present-day and historical significance and opportunities of what just happened in Chicago. None of these pundits dared explain and emphasize the revolutionary aspect of what had just happened in Chicago: That the Green Party and the Reconstruction Movement this past weekend, in selecting Cynthia McKinney as their primary standard bearer, is a stinging rejection and rebuke of the Democratic and Republican Parties [i.e. the Republicrats] with their putrid, hypocritical, corporate / military apparatus-fueled politics of dishonesty, subterfuge, smoke & mirrors, and unending wars abroad and increasing economic disparity and social misery at home. The sleeping dragon, consisting of the rank and file, everyday woman, man, and child in this nation, has finally begun to awaken once again.

The Empire, including its Democratic and Republican Party surrogates, has been put on notice by politically conscious Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and White peoples of this nation of who are sick and tired of being hoodwinked, manipulated, and politically blood sucked. What happened this past week end in Chicago is a wake up call to all persons of good will: Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow!

By supporting the candidacies of Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente we are supporting a people's movement -- our movement for real, fundamental, "systemic" change, not mealy-mouth meaningless / feel good rhetoric. We are self-actualizing our hopes and dreams, not allowing others to pimp and manipulate us by playing on those hopes and dreams. We are supporting the very best in ourselves. We are laying the foundation in 21st Century "America" for a genuine and ongoing people's movement that says NO to the corporate / military / prison apparatus of the U.S. Empire at home and abroad.

We are supporting so much more than only candidates for political office -- we are supporting our commitment to the building of an uncompromising, unswerving, people's movement that is unhindered by this system's Democratic and Republican [i.e. Republicratic] Party election time lines and political machine. We are refusing to collaborate with this Empire's system of oppression. Rather, we are working to dismantle it and build a fundamentally and systemically different system that addresses human needs, not human greed. We are emphatically stating that we will not sit back and allow principled, intelligent, revolutionary / politically progressive, honest, and for-real women to be by-passed and ignored any longer by this system in "America."

By supporting the Cynthia McKinney / Rosa Clemente "Power To The People" Campaign we are making it crystal clear that we will intensify the struggle the dignity and human rights of all people: women, men, and children -- Black, Brown, Red, White, and Yellow -- all peoples.

To be sure, the U.S. Empire's corrupt and biased news media disinformation machine can be expected to go into high gear in an effort to discredit and neutralize the McKinney / Clemente ticket and the "Power To The People" Campaign. Indeed, these slimy tactics have already begun. However, such tactics merely confirm the absolute importance of what we are committed to and what this movement is all about.

For those who may not have seen and heard Cynthia McKinney's acceptance speech on C-SPAN at the Green Party Convention this past July 13, 2008; it is urged that you turn on your computer's speakers, view her presentation, and hear her remarks and those of Rosa Clemente on the internet at C-SPAN.org under the heading Green Party Presidential Convention (July 13, 2008).

The "Power To The People" Campaign is the only one to boldly and seriously address not only the issues of militarism, economic disparity, social and environmental inequities, single payer health care, government malfeasance and neglect, corporate greed, equal opportunity and education, racism, reparations, gender parity, and homelessness, etc; but just as importantly, this campaign is about building an ongoing movement to fundamentally address the root causes of these pressing concerns. The twin demons of the Empire, i.e. the Democratic and Republican Parties [increasingly known as the Republicrats] and their accomplices, are in opposition to any real systemic change. Thus, every conceivable means will be utilized to deter this campaign, its ultimate movement, and objectives.

We must get out into our towns, cities, and municipalities of all kinds with one fundamental objective: Getting and putting the "Power To The People" Cynthia McKinney / Rosa Clemente Green Party ticket on the ballot in high numbers in every viable state of this nation, while simultaneously building and nurturing this people's movement. Let us start voting right now by organizing to support Cynthia and Rosa in the streets, the back woods, the schools, on the reservations, in the barrios, ghettos, and every possible nook and cranny and community of this nation. WE ARE NOT COLLABORATORS AND WE WILL NOT COLLABORATE WITH THE EMPIRE IN OUR OWN OPPRESSION OR THAT OF OTHERS. Organize, organize, and organize some more!

We are the people and it is WE ourselves who are the essence of, and motivation for, real change. Let us call out to our sisters and brothers in Haiti, in Venezuela, in Bolivia, in Cuba, in Palestine, in Myanmar, in the Congo and throughout the entire world. Let us send them a message of comradely greetings and let them know that we are reawakening from slumber here in the belly of the Empire. We have seen their examples and are emulating them for the mutual betterment of all our peoples.

We must build coalitions that serve the interests of the people. We must pry open the systemic, strangling, amoral death grip that the Democrats and Republican Parties [i.e. the Republicrats] have around our proverbial necks and minds. We must work together with the Reconstruction Movement which began around the despicable U.S. Government criminality of both the Republicans and Democratic Parties re hurricane Katrina (and subsequently hurricane Rita). Being Green is just the beginning. We must keep in mind that there are also other progressive peoples out there in parties such as the Peace & Freedom Party, and we must work together with them to the mutual advantage of the people's movement. We must remember that "no one of us is as smart or as strong as all of us."

We must remember our sister and brother political prisoners, liberation fighters, and exiles such as Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Reverend Edward Pinkney [no relation], the San Francisco 8, Assata Shakur and so very, very many more. We must remember why we are waging this struggle. This is about more than votes. This is about our very survival and that of Mother Earth - this planet.

This is about saying NO to the Empire and its collaborators, and YES to a NEW DAY a NEW SOCIETY, a NEW WORLD. This is about struggling to be that NEW PERSON who self-actualizes and addresses human needs, not human greed, lies, and hypocrisy.

Viva Cynthia McKinney! Viva Rosa Clememte! Long live "The Power To The People' Campaign! Let's get busy brothers and sisters. "Each one reach one". There is much work to be done!

Onward then

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BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker , by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book). Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.

Minnesota 5CD GP Statement against Midtown Burner

In support of the Philips, Powderhorn, and Longfellow neighborhoods,
the Fifth Congressional District Green Party opposes development of
the Midtown Eco Energy power plant. Members of the Fifth Congressional
District Green Party are concerned with potential negative effects
from the proposed development as well as existing neighborhood
pollution levels.

The proposed development is within the East Phillips Neighborhood, an
area which is already one of the most polluted areas in Hennepin
county. This area was recently named an EPA "Superfund" site due to
Arsenic contamination, and has a high proportion of residents that
suffer from asthma. Locating this power plant in such a highly
polluted area raises questions of environmental justice and
constitutes a form of environmental racism.

###

Press contacts:
Kevin Chavis
612-729-0330
KevinChavis AT mngreens DOT org

Dan Dittmann
952-454-2377
DanDittmann AT mngreens.org

Minnesota's Sesquicentennial

Protesters decry 'shameful history'

By TOM MEERSMAN

About two dozen protesters, many of them Dakota Indians, blocked the Minnesota Sesquicentennial Wagon Train for about an hour Saturday afternoon as it reached Historic Fort Snelling.

The protesters said Minnesota's 150th birthday this weekend is no cause for celebration among Indian people, whose lands were stolen from them and who endured injustice, broken treaties and imprisonment before and after Minnesota became a state.

Officials planning the sesquicentennial and historians have ignored the state's "shameful history," said Chris Mato Nunpa, who just retired as associate professor of indigenous nations and Dakota studies at Southwest Minnesota State University. "We're engaged in truth telling," he said.

He said the early history of Minnesota's settlement by whites included bounties on Indian scalps, a mass execution in Mankato, and a "concentration camp" of Dakota women, children and the elderly at Fort Snelling during the winter of 1862-63.

"We honor those people who passed away, and we also grieve for them," said Allan Henderson, another of the protesters. "It's very emotional for us."

The protesters carried signs in the rain, burned sage and beat on drums while singing, and two of them lay on the wet asphalt in front of horses pulling the first of several dozen wagons on their way from Cannon Falls to the Sesquicentennial celebration in St. Paul today.

Escorting the wagon train were about a dozen Dakota County deputies on horses, who were joined by several squads from the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office and the airport police.

Joe Dalby of Bemidji, riding a mule at the front of the wagon train procession, watched as Hennepin officers arrested five adults and two adolescents and ushered them to squad cars. "I certainly appreciate their passion, but it's too bad it has to end this way," Dalby said.

After the arrests, deputies formed a line across the road and walked through the remaining protesters, allowing the wagons to pass so they could reach a special campground a few hundred yards away.

The Indian group is planning a march from Mounds Park in St. Paul to the Capitol today, where it may meet the wagon train again.

Watching the event Saturday was Heather Koop of the Minnesota Historical Society, who said that she's sympathetic to the issues being raised. "What this protest is really about is the power of place," she said.

Bob Dalbec of Bloomington saw the police cars from the highway, exited and parked to see what was going on. "Indians have a right to protest and to show their feelings," he said. "I'm with them 100 percent."

After checking the identifications of the arrested and holding them for less than an hour, authorities released them with warning tickets.

Tom Meersman

© 2008 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

Outspoken War Critic Poised for Green Party Run

By Matthew Cardinale

ATLANTA - With media attention focused almost exclusively on the dramatic contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, millions of U.S. voters probably have no inkling that there is a ballot option beyond the Democratic and Republican Parties.

“There needs to be room for a lot of policy threads in American discourse. But the corporate media is not informing the people,” Cynthia McKinney, the front-runner for the Green Party presidential nomination, told IPS during a rare 90-minute interview.

Founded in 2001 as the successor of the Association of State Green Parties, the party’s platform revolves around environmentalism, non-violence, social justice and grassroots organising. It has slightly more than 300,000 registered voters nationwide, and a standing ballot line in 20 states plus Washington, DC. In other states, the party must circulate petitions to get its candidates on the ballot.

McKinney, a former congressional representative from Georgia, abandoned the Democratic Party last year in disgust at its failure to end the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, and is now poised for a presidential run on the Green Party ticket.

She has won Green Party primaries in Arkansas, Illinois, and Washington, DC. Ralph Nader, who gave the party national stature as its candidate in 2000, won in California and Massachusetts, prior to announcing he is running as an Independent instead.

McKinney also won the Green state caucuses in Wisconsin and Rhode Island, and has a total of 71 delegates. Trailing candidates include Kent Mesplay (10 delegates), Howie Hawkins (8), Jesse Johnson (2) and Kat Swift (2).

The likelihood of McKinney winning the nomination at the party’s national convention in Chicago this summer is “very high”, Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, told IPS, although he added that the Green Party will have a “one in a million” chance of winning the presidency this November.

“This country, even though it claims to be such a model, is one of the least democratic countries because election laws, campaign finance laws, and laws around debates openly discriminate against all parties except two parties [Republican and Democrat],” Winger said.

“In other countries, there is one set of [ballot access] laws,” instead of 51 sets governing the 50 states and the capital, he said. “This is the only country that exempts the two biggest parties from having to qualify.”

Scott McLarty, the national Green Party spokesperson, told IPS, “We would like to see our presidential ticket get five percent of the vote.”

Despite the fact that winning is pretty much out of the question, many party activists are excited by the prospect of McKinney’s campaign inspiring a “Black-Brown-Green Coalition”.

“Of course you’ve got the situation that the Green Party is basically a party of whites. So they are extremely aware of that fact, except in Massachusetts and DC where they merged with the Rainbow Party. You have a little more people of colour in those two states,” McKinney, who is African American, told IPS.

“There is a real need of the values of the Green Party to be known among all people of the country, not just a few,” she said.

The Green Party admits this problem. “That’s true except in certain locations. In DC, the Green Party membership is mostly black. Among leaders, there’s a lot of diversity,” said McLarty.

“Over the past couple decades, there has been a belief that the environmental movement is a white phenomenon and the Green Party has been associated with the environment even though we cover other things like health care and the war,” he told IPS.

“On top of that, a lot of black voters have felt a very strong loyalty to the Democratic Party. When people feel strong loyalty to one party, they are less likely to support start-up parties,” McLarty said.

“It’s always been true of minor parties in U.S. You’d think African Americans would have been angry enough to leave the two major parties. Tradition goes back 100 years ago that African Americans are not interested in other parties,” Winger said.

McKinney, McLarty, and Winger each have different ideas of how the Green Party should approach its political development.

“I asked for candidate recruitment because the purpose of a political party is to win office. They have successfully recruited more than 500 candidates,” McKinney said.

However, the fact that the Green Party is not on the ballot in McKinney’s home state “looks weak”, Winger pointed out. Georgians will need to collect over 40,000 signatures by July to get McKinney on the ballot, Winger said, and they’ve only collected about 3,000.

“Some people have been out of the political system for a very long time,” McKinney noted. “They made a choice to not be involved in the political process. After a series of disappointments, people made a rational choice. Unfortunately, the U.S. participation rates are well below that of other countries.”

In recent years, Green parties have been racking up electoral successes around the world, particularly in Europe.

“The Green Party participated in the coalition that led in Germany and in Ireland and in the Kenyan Parliament,” McKinney said. “The Green Party is international.”

“We have a winner-take-all system in the U.S. that pushes conformity,” she added. “Regressive ballot access laws in Georgia [and other states] prevent candidates from getting on the ballot.”

“The Green Party is a political entity that deserves to be built,” she said.

© 2008 Inter Press Service

source: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/23/8468/

Lest We Forget: An open letter to my sisters who are brave.

By Alice Walker | TheRoot.com

The author argues that we must build alliances not on ethnicity or gender, but on truth.

I HAVE COME home from a long stay in Mexico to find – because of the presidential campaign, and especially because of the Obama/Clinton race for the Democratic nomination - a new country existing alongside the old. On any given day we, collectively, become the Goddess of the Three Directions and can look back into the past, look at ourselves just where we are, and take a glance, as well, into the future. It is a space with which I am familiar.

When I was born in 1944 my parents lived on a middle Georgia plantation that was owned by a white distant relative, Miss May Montgomery. (During my childhood it was necessary to address all white girls as "Miss" when they reached the age of twelve.) She would never admit to this relationship, of course, except to mock it. Told by my parents that several of their children would not eat chicken skin she responded that of course they would not. No Montgomerys would.

My parents and older siblings did everything imaginable for Miss May. They planted and raised her cotton and corn, fed and killed and processed her cattle and hogs, painted her house, patched her roof, ran her dairy, and, among countless other duties and responsibilities my father was her chauffeur, taking her anywhere she wanted to go at any hour of the day or night. She lived in a large white house with green shutters and a green, luxuriant lawn: not quite as large as Tara of Gone With the Wind fame, but in the same style.

We lived in a shack without electricity or running water, under a rusty tin roof that let in wind and rain. Miss May went to school as a girl. The school my parents and their neighbors built for us was burned to the ground by local racists who wanted to keep ignorant their competitors in tenant farming. During the Depression, desperate to feed his hardworking family, my father asked for a raise from ten dollars a month to twelve. Miss May responded that she would not pay that amount to a white man and she certainly wouldn't pay it to a nigger. That before she'd pay a nigger that much money she'd milk the dairy cows herself.

When I look back, this is part of what I see. I see the school bus carrying white children, boys and girls, right past me, and my brothers, as we trudge on foot five miles to school. Later, I see my parents struggling to build a school out of discarded army barracks while white students, girls and boys, enjoy a building made of brick. We had no books; we inherited the cast off books that "Jane" and "Dick" had previously used in the all-white school that we were not, as black children, permitted to enter.

The year I turned fifty, one of my relatives told me she had started reading my books for children in the library in my home town. I had had no idea – so kept from black people it had been – that such a place existed. To this day knowing my presence was not wanted in the public library when I was a child I am highly uncomfortable in libraries and will rarely, unless I am there to help build, repair, refurbish or raise money to keep them open, enter their doors.

When I joined the freedom movement in Mississippi in my early twenties it was to come to the aid of sharecroppers, like my parents, who had been thrown off the land they'd always known, the plantations, because they attempted to exercise their "democratic" right to vote. I wish I could say white women treated me and other black people a lot better than the men did, but I cannot. It seemed to me then and it seems to me now that white women have copied, all too often, the behavior of their fathers and their brothers, and in the South, especially in Mississippi, and before that, when I worked to register voters in Georgia, the broken bottles thrown at my head were gender free.

I made my first white women friends in college; they were women who loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered. That, for instance, at Sarah Lawrence, where I was speedily inducted into the Board of Trustees practically as soon as I graduated, I made my way to the campus for meetings by train, subway and foot, while the other trustees, women and men, all white, made their way by limo. Because, in our country, with its painful history of unspeakable inequality, this is part of what whiteness means. I loved my school for trying to make me feel I mattered to it, but because of my relative poverty I knew I could not.

I am a supporter of Obama because I believe he is the right person to lead the country at this time. He offers a rare opportunity for the country and the world to start over, and to do better. It is a deep sadness to me that many of my feminist white women friends cannot see him. Cannot see what he carries in his being. Cannot hear the fresh choices toward Movement he offers. That they can believe that millions of Americans –black, white, yellow, red and brown - choose Obama over Clinton only because he is a man, and black, feels tragic to me.

When I have supported white people, men and women, it was because I thought them the best possible people to do whatever the job required. Nothing else would have occurred to me. If Obama were in any sense mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like Mandela is. We look at him, as we looked at them, and are glad to be of our species. He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill. The change America must have if we are to convince the rest of the world that we care about people other than our (white) selves.

True to my inner Goddess of the Three Directions however, this does not mean I agree with everything Obama stands for. We differ on important points probably because I am older than he is, I am a woman and person of three colors, (African, Native American, European), I was born and raised in the American South, and when I look at the earth's people, after sixty-four years of life, there is not one person I wish to see suffer, no matter what they have done to me or to anyone else; though I understand quite well the place of suffering, often, in human growth.

I want a grown-up attitude toward Cuba, for instance, a country and a people I love; I want an end to the embargo that has harmed my friends and their children, children who, when I visit Cuba, trustingly turn their faces up for me to kiss. I agree with a teacher of mine, Howard Zinn, that war is as objectionable as cannibalism and slavery; it is beyond obsolete as a means of improving life. I want an end to the on-going war immediately and I want the soldiers to be encouraged to destroy their weapons and to drive themselves out of Iraq.

I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behavior towards the Palestinians, and I want the people of the United States to cease acting like they don't understand what is going on. All colonization, all occupation, all repression basically looks the same, whoever is doing it. Here our heads cannot remain stuck in the sand; our future depends of our ability to study, to learn, to understand what is in the records and what is before our eyes. But most of all I want someone with the self-confidence to talk to anyone, "enemy" or "friend," and this Obama has shown he can do. It is difficult to understand how one could vote for a person who is afraid to sit and talk to another human being. When you vote you are making someone a proxy for yourself; they are to speak when, and in places, you cannot. But if they find talking to someone else, who looks just like them, human, impossible, then what good is your vote?

It is hard to relate what it feels like to see Mrs. Clinton (I wish she felt self-assured enough to use her own name) referred to as "a woman" while Barack Obama is always referred to as "a black man." One would think she is just any woman, colorless, race-less, past-less, but she is not. She carries all the history of white womanhood in America in her person; it would be a miracle if we, and the world, did not react to this fact. How dishonest it is, to attempt to make her innocent of her racial inheritance.

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking, person to person, with any leader, woman, man, child or common person, in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks. I cannot see the same scenario with Mrs. Clinton who would drag into Twenty-First Century American leadership the same image of white privilege and distance from the reality of others' lives that has so marred our country's contacts with the rest of the world.

And yes, I would adore having a woman president of the United States. My choice would be Representative Barbara Lee, who alone voted in Congress five years ago not to make war on Iraq. That to me is leadership, morality, and courage; if she had been white I would have cheered just as hard. But she is not running for the highest office in the land, Mrs. Clinton is. And because Mrs. Clinton is a woman and because she may be very good at what she does, many people, including some younger women in my own family, originally favored her over Obama. I understand this, almost. It is because, in my own nieces' case, there is little memory, apparently, of the foundational inequities that still plague people of color and poor whites in this country. Why, even though our family has been here longer than most North American families – and only partly due to the fact that we have Native American genes – we very recently, in my lifetime, secured the right to vote, and only after numbers of people suffered and died for it.

When I offered the word "Womanism" many years ago, it was to give us a tool to use, as feminist women of color, in times like these. These are the moments we can see clearly, and must honor devotedly, our singular path as women of color in the United States. We are not white women and this truth has been ground into us for centuries, often in brutal ways. But neither are we inclined to follow a black person, man or woman, unless they demonstrate considerable courage, intelligence, compassion and substance. I am delighted that so many women of color support Barack Obama -and genuinely proud of the many young and old white women and men who do.

Imagine, if he wins the presidency we will have not one but three black women in the White House; one tall, two somewhat shorter; none of them carrying the washing in and out of the back door. The bottom line for most of us is: With whom do we have a better chance of surviving the madness and fear we are presently enduring, and with whom do we wish to set off on a journey of new possibility? In other words, as the Hopi elders would say: Who do we want in the boat with us as we head for the rapids? Who is likely to know how best to share the meager garden produce and water? We are advised by the Hopi elders to celebrate this time, whatever its adversities.

We have come a long way, Sisters, and we are up to the challenges of our time. One of which is to build alliances based not on race, ethnicity, color, nationality, sexual preference or gender, but on Truth. Celebrate our journey. Enjoy the miracle we are witnessing. Do not stress over its outcome. Even if Obama becomes president, our country is in such ruin it may well be beyond his power to lead us toward rehabilitation. If he is elected however, we must, individually and collectively, as citizens of the planet, insist on helping him do the best job that can be done; more, we must insist that he demand this of us. It is a blessing that our mothers taught us not to fear hard work. Know, as the Hopi elders declare: The river has its destination. And remember, as poet June Jordan and Sweet Honey in the Rock never tired of telling us: We are the ones we have been waiting for.

Namaste;

And with all my love,

Alice Walker

Cazul

Northern California

First Day of Spring

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: 'A More Perfect Union'

Philadelphia, PA | March 18, 2008
As Prepared for Delivery

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.