Author: blksista

It’s happening this weekend in D.C.  

In December 2003, a handful of leaders from the GLBT African-American community banded together to challenge support from African American religious and civil rights leaders for Republican-led efforts to amend the Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. Instead, this new group began raising money to place ads promoting marriage equality in the African American media.

Today, nearly two years later, the National Black Justice Coalition stands as the only national organization dedicated primarily to equality for gay African Americans.

D.C.’s Metro Weekly interviewed two of the D.C.-based group’s board members, H. Alexander Robinson, NBJC executive director and CEO, and Donna Payne, NBJC vice president.  They talked about a number of issues: linking with mainstream black groups like the Congressional Black Caucus (whose 35th conference coincides with the NBJC conference this year), racism and inclusion in the LGBT community, the controversy involving the comments of Reverend Willie Wilson, pastor of Union Temple Baptist Church about black gays and human rights, and Louis Farrakhan and his Millions More March on October 15 (commemorating his Million Man March 10 years ago).  What wasn’t said in the media was that the latter two issues–Wilson’s remarks and Farrakhan’s march–were related.

MW: Looking ahead to Oct. 15 and the Millions More Movement (MMM) 10-year commemoration of the Million Man March, how are things looking today? Your dialogue with Minister Louis Farrakhan, organizer of the event, seems to evolve weekly. Meanwhile, the wound caused by homophobic comments from the Rev. Willie Wilson, national executive director of the MMM commemoration, has yet to heal. All that seems certain is that NBJC has reserved Freedom Plaza to coincide with MMM events on National Mall.

PAYNE: One thing is for sure: We’re having a rally. We’re looking at it as a celebration no matter what. The celebration is that we are family — that is the theme. The whole message we’re trying to send is that whether or not we’re down there on the Mall, your whole family is here. We may be at Freedom Plaza, but we are part of your family. Perhaps we haven’t been invited to eat the barbeque, but we’re going to have potato salad. [Laughs.]

ROBINSON: There are some black gay and lesbian folks who are saying, ”Why are you begging these people to be a part of their thing? If they made it clear that they don’t want you, then you should just go away.”

My thing about that is, I’m not going to go away because we’ve always been there, and we’re going to continue to be there. We used to be there in silence, but we’re not going to suffer in silence anymore. If this is a movement about lifting up black Americans, then it’s a movement about me, and I’m going to insist on being there. Certainly, if there are openly gay and lesbian speakers on the platform, the mood will be a lot more affirming.

[Louis Farrakhan] is a master communicator. He has continued to communicate that [the MMM] is inclusive. By all reports, he has done that when he knows we’re in the room, and [when we are] not. That said, we’re not on the [MMM] executive committee. We’ve asked to address the executive committee. He did not say no to that, but he never said yes. And we don’t have a speaker on the platform yet. There is still an opportunity for his actions to match his rhetoric. But so far, the rhetoric has been at least better than it’s been [in the past]. It hasn’t been all the way there, but it’s certainly been better than some of the homophobic rhetoric we’ve heard from his associates in the past.

MW: Speaking of homophobic rhetoric, what role has Rev. Wilson played in steeling the resolve of the African-American GLBT community in regard to the MMM commemoration?

ROBINSON: I think we were there before Wilson. [His comments] certainly provided a lot more energy to the effort. People who might not have been paying attention to what we were saying about organizing, suddenly started paying attention because there was controversy. I certainly see it as being a catalyst for increased activity, but we would’ve been organizing anyway. It was always the intent to have some sort of pre-event gathering.

We’ve said that we want all of our lesbian and gay friends to come out and support us. This is being led by black gay and lesbian folks, but we want all our allies to come out and show their support. I don’t think we necessarily would’ve expanded in that way had it not been for the incident with Rev. Wilson.

PAYNE: [Wilson] abandoned his true self. He abandoned who he really was. The minister who we had known was very understanding and very caring. We don’t know what happened to him. We worry about him.

We understand our culture of how ministers have treated GLBT people in the church. What they have said is, ”We love you. God loves you. But God don’t like this.”

What we’re saying is, ”No, we’re accepted and loved no matter what.” That’s the disconnect. In our culture, there has been this unsaid part, that you don’t talk about what you do — ”your biz-ness,” so to speak. You come to church and you’re part of the community, but don’t talk about sex. We’re saying that all of this is us. They don’t want to get that. But it’s out. We’re telling them that last piece needs to be public.

Wish I could nail Dubya to the wall to fess up to BS like Oprah did with Hermes.  Maybe she’s in training to eff him up anyway in one of her primetime specials:

Oprah Winfrey is not a diva. At all. No way. She is so adamant on that point that she brought the head of Hermès USA onto her talk show yesterday to admit it and apologize in front of a national audience.

“I would like to say we’re really sorry,” Robert Chavez, the chief executive officer of Hermès USA, said contritely. “You did meet up with one very, very rigid staff person.”

Ms. Winfrey corrected him. “Rigid or rude?” she asked with icy sweetness. He hastily assented. “Rigid and rude, I am sure.”

Hell, yeah.  This went all over the black community, with responding comments like:  “Even Oprah, with all that money?  Sheeiiittt.  That was foul.”  It proved to many, that race still clowned class.  It won brownie points for Oprah even before she and her caravan of supplies, food, John Travolta, Julia Roberts, and cameras arrived at the Katrina evacuee centers in Texas.
Even more, and I love this, too:

Most of all, [Oprah] said, she was hurt again when the Hermès company apologized in private, then released a statement that she said implied that “I was some diva trying to get in when the store was closed.” Ms. Winfrey explained that some shoppers were still in the store, and that she argued with the sales personnel only because a few members of her entourage had their hearts set on going in.

Ms. Winfrey turned to Mr. Chavez and requested a public apology. “Tell the people what you told me.”

Power is a wonderful thing, particularly when it can be used to punish a haughty French salesperson – or one of France’s most famous luxury goods companies. And it is not surprising that Mr. Chavez agreed to a televised walk of shame to make amends. After Ms. Winfrey discussed on a 1996 show whether mad cow disease could affect American beef, Texas cattlemen sued her, claiming that she had caused the price of beef futures to plummet. She won the case in 1998.

Ms. Winfrey was magnanimous in return, assuring Mr. Chavez that “you really did come correct.” And while she did not distribute Hermès scarves to her studio audience, she did lift the shopping fatwa, urging her fans to go ahead and buy a Birkin bag.

Maybe the unofficial buyers’ boycott and the accompanying bad publicity was screwing them mightily.

Why should this matter?  That only Oprah is rich enough to apply this kind of pressure, but poor and middle-class people cannot?  

I truly don’t believe that.

This kind of incident was not going to go away, period.

Especially if you call one of the most popular and famous broadcasters in the United States a liar and a diva. It was going to be a losing proposition in the long run.  

Perhaps many members of the black community cannot afford to even enter Hermès, but even so, they and the rest of them who can loathe having to countenance this kind of BS treatment in shops, malls and other places of business.  In other words, it is known as shopping while black.  Having doors shut on you; being followed around in malls by security as if you’re about to steal something; waiting forever to get assistance as a customer.  Sometimes it doesn’t rate to dress up, put on the warpaint, and look as if one is going to church rather than trying on the newest Timberland mukluks.

I heard something else too, that Hermès had had to put a stop to more African customers wandering into their stores (possibly the rich wives, girlfriends or mistresses of African or Caribbean Francophone elites).   Right.  You know that this is BS, too and racism at worst stemming from their anger at French departements allowing its citizens to migrate over there.  As long as the money is green in the hand, it shouldn’t even matter.  As for Oprah, the woman’s face is recognizable all over the world.  Even the littlest island nation knows who Oprah is.  

Progressives need to take note.  This kind of feet-to- the-fire pressure is exactly the kind of thing we need to promote issues (Iraq, Katrina, whathaveyou) as well as competent spokespeople (Cindy Sheehan, Congressional Black Caucus, whathaveyou).  2006 is not that far away.  Against all polls, opinion and sentiment, BushCo wants to sweep Katrina and Iraq under the rug.  

Like Oprah, we shouldn’t let him.

Like Oprah, we should make him sweat.

We should get Repubs voted out in 2006 and 2008.

And like Oprah, we should keep up the pressure.

Original cross-posted at Daily Kos.

Galloway is just as he is on TV: a medium-sized, but big-voiced Scots-Irishman.  He was applauded on almost every point, and was brought back to bigger applause after he concluded his remarks.

And that makes him all the more attractive and dangerous depending on who is looking at him, because some of Galloway’s past actions have been pretty controversial.  Yet one could not not like him.  

Look, I have already heard it all about how we shouldn’t be there in Iraq; I really know the drill.

However, the difference, I believe, is that Galloway tonight called for the anti-war movements in both Britain and the United States to unite, starting with the big anti-war rally in D.C. next weekend.
I had hoped Galloway would say something about how Katrina also impacts national policy in the U.S.  But that wasn’t his job last night, although he has on other occasions spoken at length on the catastrophe.  Fresh from his debate with Christopher Hitchens several days ago, Galloway said the longer we tarry in Iraq, the worse it is going to get.  The very worst scenario he foresees: a Sunni-Shiite war to the teeth that will suck in every Muslim country in the Mideast, and will plunge the rest of the world in economic and environmental chaos.

Here is a video link to the Hitchens-Galloway dustup, called The Grapple in the Apple:  http://play.rbn.com/?url.demnow/demnow/demand/2005/sept/video/grapple.rm

According to the Telegraph.co.uk, Galloway descended to the lowest common denominator sparring with Hitchens.  Gary Younge from the Guardian said:

If there was light amid all this heat it shone not from their well-rehearsed and familiar arguments, but from their mis-steps. Galloway learned the hard way that four years after the attacks on the twin towers there are still some things you cannot say about September 11 that are common currency in Britain just a few months after the July 7 bombings.

“You may believe they came out of a clear blue sky,” he said to a chorus of boos and single-finger gestures. “But they came out of a swamp of hatred created by us.” Hitchens replied: “You picked the wrong city to say that in, and the wrong month.”

But it was Hitchens who made the greater gaffe when he implied, to howls of disbelief, that race played no part in those who perished in Hurricane Katrina, and that George Bush could not have helped the victims because he was obstructed by state officials. At this point he might have taken his cue from [Sonny] Liston, who spat out his mouthpiece as the bell tolled for the seventh round against Muhammad Ali, declaring “That’s it”. But he soldiered on. Having lost the audience he then turned on them. “I’m just reminding you that you’re on telly,” he said. “I just hope your friends and relatives aren’t watching.”

Galloway won on points. Sadly, by the end of the night, few could remember what the point was.

Greg Palast, however, had some questions of his own to ask of Galloway:

So if we add it up, Mr. Galloway, while you were railing about medicines denied Iraqis by Messrs. Bush and Blair, you were taking money skimmed from the program earmarked to pay for those medicines. And other moneys donated for medicine for Iraqis you and your group also skimmed off for “legitimate expenses” of yours, is that correct?

George Bush took money from unnamed Persian Gulf sources, as you apparently have. Should I question him, or simply ask him if his purposes were “legitimate” or an “emergency”?

And might I have a copy of the financial records of your “charity”? You promised to make them public but the records now seemed to have disappeared into Jordan. Would you mind retrieving those?

Ahem!  Bring out the sawdust, there’s blood on the floor again…

Yes, there is a smell to Galloway; he keeps playing it fast and loose, but so far, no one has been able to finger him and make the accusations stick.  See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway#Corruption_allegations

I wish the wingnuttery didn’t have to find some way to be in the audience but they were, as well as outside the Union.  One particular fiend tried to disrupt a couple of times, but Galloway has the chops to either engage or drown him out.  And Jane Fonda, scheduled to introduce Galloway, could not attend due to her recovery from hip surgery, which probably disappointed them even more.

You can see the Galloway-Hitchens debate on C-Span on their BookTV webpage.  Check the C-Span website or your local listings for repeats.  Galloway’s tour schedule is at http://www.mrgallowaygoestowashington.com/.

See Newsday

“The city is bankrupt, the last payroll was the last cash we had,” said Nagin, looking and sounding exhausted. “We have no money. … I can’t even make payroll for my police and fire [personnnel].

Nagin, who met with President George W. Bush earlier in the day, told the assemblage of state, city and school elected leaders that he hoped to find a way to pay all municipal employees through the end of the calendar year, but didn’t know how.

“Technically, today we are out of cash. By hook or by crook, we are going to pay our employees until the end of the year,” he said. “Then we are going to try to figure out what we can afford. That’s the intention.”

Yeah, but what are the intentions of those faceless ‘city fathers’ and heads of businesses and industries?  The death of old New Orleans and a new New Orleans we won’t recognize.  Only the beginning.

Cops in the U.S. and Britain continue to target blacks, Latinos and Middle Eastern types as potential criminals or terrorists.  A few have already ended up as dead as Jean Charles de Menezes, who ironically in his home country of Brazil would have been considered a white man.  In view of the scandal, Kim Zetter thinks that in view of the de Menezes case, it’s high time law enforcement started looking not at dark skin but strange behavior.  This isn’t anything new.  Too bad the idea that racial profiling doesn’t work comes too late for de Menezes, who may have been brutally iced in the London Underground not by the London cops, but by UK special forces.  Seems these guys have got 007’s old directive: a license to kill.
Says Zetter:

[…] In 1986, Murphy was a 32-year-old hotel chambermaid from Dublin, Ireland, who was six months pregnant and on her way to marry her fiancé in Israel. Authorities discovered a bomb in her carry-on bag as she boarded a plane in London on her way to Tel Aviv.

Kozo Okamoto didn’t fit the profile of a terrorist, either. In 1972, he and two other Japanese passengers had just arrived in Tel Aviv on a flight from Puerto Rico when they retrieved guns from their checked bags and opened fire in the arrival terminal at Ben Gurion International Airport, killing more than two dozen people and injuring nearly 80.

Zetter cites how Israel was stymied in its efforts to nab terrorists before they blew up a jetliner or a bus, until they finally changed tactics.  Why?  Because their security forces had to accept the idea that the threat could come from white or light-skinned people, and not the traditional profile of dark-skinned, Arabic-speaking people–the Palestinians.  Zetter goes on to name “Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma City bomber), Eric Rudolph (the abortion clinic bomber), and Richard Reid (the ponytailed British-Jamaican who tried to bring down an American Airlines jet with his shoe)” and the notorious Saudis who crashed the jetliners into the World Trade Center to show the diversity of the terrorist threat, foreign and domestic.

In the same article, David Harris, professor of law and values at the University of Toledo College of Law in Ohio, and author of the new book, “Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work,” says:

[F]ocusing on specific ethnic groups alienates the very people authorities need to help them catch terrorists. “By the time the threat is at the subway or airport, we’re down to the last line of defense,” Harris says. “You really want to catch these people before they go to the subway.”

Most of all, he believes, law enforcement needs to gain the confidence and cooperation from residents who might live near a sleeper cell, and who may have noticed new neighbors, inordinate activity, and who seem to be flush with money but are unemployed.

Furthermore, Harris insists that when police continue to use race or ethnicity as a tool, their accuracy in catching the right culprit(s) decreases, thus heightening the possibility of mistaken identity and accidental, or as it has been darkly posed in the case of de Menezes, revenge deaths.  As an example, Harris cited the ‘stop and frisk’ program during the Guiliani era that was instigated to reduce street crime.  Understandably, tensions rose in the black and Latino neighborhoods where the program was implemented, because residents believed that they were being targeted, not crime.  Said Harris:

“They’re focusing on appearance when they should be focusing on behavior,” he says. “When they’re not distracted by race, they’re actually doing a more accurate job” of picking out the right people.

Focusing on appearance produces a lot of false positives. And “every time you introduce a false positive, you take resources away from your ability to focus on people who are really of interest — those who are behaving suspiciously,” Harris says. “If it’s a question of finding a needle in a haystack … don’t put more hay on the top.”

What does work in preventing terrorism, Harris says, is behavior profiling. “If you’re going to catch people who mean to put bombs on your subway trains or in airplanes, you don’t actually care [if they’re] young Muslim men … You care about [keeping] anyone from boarding the airplane who is going to behave like a terrorist.”

As I said earlier, this is nothing new. American blacks have complained about this treatment for decades, and yet law enforcement resists changing and persists in pursuing the profile, even as others–whites–are actually perpetrating the crime. To this very hour, it still doesn’t matter whether people of color are being trailed in a department store, being stopped while driving their own Lexus or Escalade or being at the wrong place at the wrong time as Jean de Menezes (or Amadou Diallo) was.  People of color will continue bear the brunt of suspicion and rage until people finally decide that the cost of killing an innocent in pursuit of the guilty is altogether too expensive.

(See updates with links below.)
from Raw Story via Taegan Goddard.  And transcripts are said to be available.  Like from the New York Post, Pataki’s usual rah-rah screed.  I guess this was too good to pass up:

CONVERSATION 5
Doherty later discusses the DMV problem with D’Amato.

Doherty: You want to hear this one?

D’Amato: Yeah.

Doherty: He’s a guy from Peekskill. He’s the No. 2 guy at DMV. I go through the whole thing. Why this man is wanted, you know. A big lift?

D’Amato: Did you ask him how the hell he got his job?

Doherty: I laughed at that point. I got off the phone, and everybody in the office said, “What did he say?” I said, “It’s a big lift.” They go, “How did we get here?” … I said, “Thank you.”

D’Amato: Stupid ass.

Doherty: Stupid bastard is what he is.

Ain’t that right.  Amazing what gets said on the Governor’s phone instead of serious business.  Such as the following…
More tales from the potty mouths and the preening mirror:

CONVERSATION 1
First Lady Libby Pataki complains to Pataki aide Thomas Doherty that she’s overworked and not getting enough publicity – compared with Mayor Giuliani’s then-wife, Donna.

Doherty: I see you all over [but] I don’t see your picture in the paper. I don’t see you on TV. I don’t hear you on the radio. So what the hell are you doing out there?

Libby Pataki: Exactly. They have me running around for so much damn stuff.

Doherty: Bulls— stuff.

Libby Pataki: Exactly. Take your mothers to day work (sic) [apparently referring to the Take Your Daughters to Work Day program]. I spent seven hours running from here to there, and there was not one sentence … There were pictures of Donna Giuliani all over the papers. It’s not that I’m not photogenic … I said, “George, I’m running around like an idiot. I’d rather be doing major, big events and not be doing all this bulls— crap, so that when I do have to go out six nights in a row, let them get something out of it. I’m not getting paid for this crap. I don’t have to do a damn thing if I don’t want to.”

Nixon must be rolling in his grave.  I guess he’s got a contender above ground for taped potty mouth. And Pataki wants a Cabinet post or run for prez? He, d’Amato, his wife and the rest of the clowns taped ought to join the Mafia.
Update [2005-8-22 22:16:28 by blksista]: Link to Newsday article: Pataki wants a Federal probe regarding why and how he was bugged–http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-sttape0823,0,240299.story?coll=ny-top-headlines
Update [2005-8-22 22:16:28 by blksista]: How the tapes got to the Post, via Capitol News 9–http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=145906

Link found on BlackFeminism.org

In March, Spartanburg Public Safety officials said that they had identified a “person of interest” in the case. At the time, investigators said the man, a former bank robber, was related to a Spartanburg apartment building where authorities found traces of Huston’s blood in January.

Investigators said a set of keys found in Huston’s car led them to the apartment building.

Friday afternoon, Public Safety Director Tony Fisher said that Christopher Lemont Hampton, 25, has been charged with murder. Fisher said recently uncovered forensic evidence indicated that Hampton was responsible for Huston’s death.

Court documents show police found brass knuckles, traces of Huston’s blood and keys matching Huston’s inside Hampton’s apartment.

I still have to wonder whether they would have found Hampton quicker if she had been young, middle-class white and blonde and featured on Nancy Grace/CNN/MS-NBC.
Remember?

While the cases of Laci Peterson, Lori Hocking, Natalee Holloway and other young white women dominated cable news networks, Huston got almost no national attention for nearly a year after she went missing. When her case finally got significant coverage, the stories were mostly about the national media’s lack of interest, compared to cases involving young white women.

No, not just young white women. Upper/middle-class to rich young white women.

Additionally:

The arrest may also have led to the discovery of Huston’s body Friday. The Spartanburg Herald-Journal reported Saturday that at some point in the day Friday police were led by Hampton to some woods in the area where human remains were found. The newspaper said authorities hope to positively identify the remains, which may be Huston’s, by Monday.

I guess when it is black on black crime, people don’t pay much attention.  But what if it was your child?  Murder is murder, no matter what color the assailant or the victim.  But it makes for better press for that woman in peril…

At least Tamika’s poor mother will find some release. But it is her–as with any mother’s–worst fears realized.

Huston’s aunt, Rebekah Howard, is spokeswoman for the missing woman’s family. She said Friday the family feels some relief after Hampton’s arrest but feels “as if we’re only halfway there. We still don’t know where Tamika is and we know it will be a lengthy process before he’s ever convicted.”

The last confirmed sighting of Huston was May 27, 2004 in Spartanburg. Family and friends became concerned several days later when they realized she hadn’t been to her apartment for some time. Huston’s dog, Macy, had given birth to puppies in the apartment and it was clear no one had been there for the births or to care for the animals.

Rebekah Howard, in passing, is the white in-law of Tamika Huston.  A public relations professional, she knows what it means to wear out phones and trying to get people to tell your story.  

Now, one might think that with a white or light-skinned spokesperson representing a concerned mostly black family, that doors might open more easily, and opportunities might be forthcoming.

Not on your life.

Howard related recently on NBC’s Sunday newsmagazine, Dateline, that most, if not all of the national and local news outlets–electronic and print–weren’t interested. Including Dateline.  This interview, of course, had to include NBC News’ chief Neil Shapiro’s disclaimer:

“Our mission is to try to cover America,” Shapiro said. “And that means all facets of America … and when our coverage doesn’t reflect that, it distresses me. That said, I think it’s important that people in the industry talk about it. I think the fact that Dateline NBC is devoting airtime to it (Tamika Huston case) means we take it seriously.”

Yeah, right.  It took that long for you to take it seriously.  And frankly, Shapiro, America is NOT JUST WHITE.  Until people started to talk about the media’s double standard of spotlighting middle-class young white girls in distress, you weren’t interested.  

Do you know what the reality is regarding missing persons?

The stories also noted that young white women are by no means the “typical” missing persons: Slightly more than half of missing adults are men and nearly 30% are black, even though blacks account for just 13% of the U.S. population. The FBI has nearly 50,000 active cases involving missing adults.

Makes me wonder whether lynching has gone underground.

Now, where is LaToyia Figueroa?

I heard about her hospitalization yesterday, but waited to hear something a little more definite:

King was admitted to Piedmont Hospital on Tuesday, and the family issued a statement Wednesday saying she was resting comfortably. It expressed thanks for the “outpouring of care and support that’s being sent from around the world.”

Hospital spokeswoman Diana Lewis and the family wouldn’t discuss her illness, but the Rev. Joseph Lowery said King had suffered a stroke and was having trouble speaking.

King had canceled some recent public appearances, raising concerns about her health. Quoting unidentified friends, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday that she was diagnosed with a heart malady this spring and has had several small strokes since then before the more serious one Tuesday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5216428,00.html

She’s 78, people.  It won’t be long now.

Why is this news of particular portent, beyond the fact that this is the widow of Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Coretta Scott King has gone on public record as being for the legal, if not the human enfranchisement of gay people.  Those gay people also include black gays.  Black people.

Coretta King did not have to make this stand.  However, it is clearly in step with what she believed he would have done at this time, despite his having to renounce the counsel and public connections with Bayard Rustin during his lifetime. She has also made principled stands regarding the First Gulf War and this current quagmire in Iraq.  This is what I believe is the King legacy.

King’s sons, Dexter and Martin III, however, cannot be said to share their mother’s feelings. They have both said some pretty homophobic remarks in years past and been forced to apologize for them. Their sister Bernice King, who led a recent march against gay marriage, is the only one of the children who became a minister in the Baptist Church. The loss of their mother, however, will effectively make them leaders and promoters of their mother and father’s legacy and memory.  And this is what make me very afraid.

The King family has been criticized in recent years for going strictly for the money in selling their famous relative’s likeness and legacy, presumably to any, if not the highest bidder.  For example, Stanford University has most of King’s papers.  Remember the commercial ad that showed King alone at the Lincoln Memorial, reading off the “I Had a Dream” speech?  I seem to recall the consternation about how Martin King was being used after his death, with accompanying balanced commentary about how it was reasonable for the Kings to try to make money after years of being without it (and Martin’s fatherhood and his being a husband) during the civil rights era.  While people understand that King died broke, the way he is being used for commercial purposes rankles them, because he is viewed as close as an American saint as nnyone in recent memory.  And in the commercial use, I see the hands of the children pressuring, if not just Coretta.  

I have a feeling that they are not doing much except be the children of Martin Luther King, Jr.  His shadow must be  really long and hard from which to emerge.  Differing with him cold in the ground may upset things further in the years to come, not only in the family but in the public forum.  I think Coretta acted as a curb, not much of one in some areas, but at least a curb to some of their feelings and actions.  That will soon be gone.

So with these thoughts in mind, I am going to be very, very sorry when Coretta finally leaves us to go with Martin Luther King, Jr.  She deserves the rest, but frankly I keep praying that we see both her and him again, as soon as humanly possible.

When I left New York last month for Madison, WI, I went via Amtrak.  No, not Delta or United.  Amtrak.
I had researched my getaway, which would occur after the culmination of several weeks’ preparation for a cross-country move.  I knew I would be fagged out physically, if not emotionally, and mentally and getting away from New York would mean that I would have to prepare myself for the new world of the Midwest and Wisconsin.  I felt that I needed rest and time for that.

Jets and airports don’t give you that kind of space while traveling. While the trip might take to an hour or two on average, it takes an additional two or three more hours to get to the airport and to stand in line with the rest of man- and womankind.  There are crowds at the ticket counters.  You’re moved along almost like cattle.  Everyone’s luggage now looks the same color–black–no matter what size, so there’s more of a possibility that someone will take your bag by mistake and play tug of war with you if your name isn’t on it or if you haven’t devised some secret tag or code for it.  You’re practically frisked upon check-in in some areas, especially if you have a one-way ticket.  It may be quicker to fly, but I remember how harried and worn-out I felt after every trip.  And on a trip this important to me, I didn’t want feel that way, but fresh and expectant.

Besides, getting there via rail seemed more straightforward and less expensive.  I tracked the online ticket prices for weeks, and they came down to $125 for a one way ticket the week I finally made a reservation.  By comparison, online air ticket brokers were charging upwards to nearly $400 for a one-way ticket that wasn’t a one-stop but in one case was a three-stop journey. All I had to do was make a reservation, and pick up my ticket at a ticket machine (on the day I left, there were only two people at the machines while everyone was crowded at the ticket counters at Penn Station.)  I could even check in my suitcase with a Red Cap.

My train would wend its way to Chicago after making several stops, and then I would transfer to a connecting bus (on the same ticket) that would take me to the University of Wisconsin student union in three hours.  I would see a lot of scenery, have my feet up while resting, have reading and listening to music time, and have breakfast and dinner served to me.  I was sold.

I have to admit that I’ve always liked trains.  I took commuter trains to work in the Peninsula and San Francisco when I did not have a car.  Much earlier, I took my first train ride to California from New Orleans in 1961 with my pregnant mother and her father-in-law. That was when vendors got on trains to sell sandwiches, comic books and candy, and waiters came to your train car with a gong or bell to announce lunch.  It was a long three days and two nights for my mother, made even longer when I sat on her Fifties style sunglasses.

Blacks had always used trains to get out of the South: to Harlem, to Kansas City, to Chicago, and at that time, to work in the defense and automobile industries in the West.  I don’t know how cheap it was then to get a ticket, but it allowed thousands to get out of the stifling rural serfdom to which they were assigned and for many, to make some real money.  

Well, times have changed.  Some blacks are returning to the South.  The Cold War has effectively ended, but in its stead, there’s the so-called war on terror.  The old passenger rail companies collapsed when more and more people came to rely more on cars and planes, but Amtrak is their heir and possibly, last descendant.  These days, it appears, people are looking for alternatives to the madness of traffic and check-in lines, just like I am.  And still, Red States are isolated when it comes to travel; it still takes hours to get to the nearest airport to go on vacations and business trips.  What remains are state-run or local bus lines, Greyhound or Trailways, or Amtrak.

But Bush wants to kill Amtrak.  

Now they say that if Amtrak gets rid of meals or sleepers on the trains, they will be able to survive.  However, meals are an important part of travel.  The meals served were hot, fairly good and well balanced, plus you could have dessert.  If you are traveling as a mother with small children, imagine what this means: it means a child’s plate geared to their palates, and food for adults.  It’s better than going to Burger King and have them ping-ponging for hours on sugar.  I didn’t have to worry about being car sick, either. Plus well-to-do as well as poor are forced to break bread with each other if there is a lack of seating in the dining car.  People are on their best behavior.  It’s not like going to a snack bar, with its glooey sandwiches and weak coffee.

And sleepers?  I think they are needed, especially for families with babies and toddlers and individuals who just want to be left alone on cross-country trips.  I liked watching the sun go down along the Hudson River and its strange `forts,’ I enjoyed having my feet up and reading and dozing.  But I had a seat mate who couldn’t find a window seat and shoved herself on me by saying imperiously that I had to make room for her. Then, to add insult to injury, she was restless and kept hitting me in her sleep, waking me several times.  The next time that I use Amtrak, I hope that I can get a sleeper, but they are over three hundred dollars more.  If they were half that amount, I think more people would use them.

And that’s what I think is the problem. Americans support Amtrak by riding the trains.  The coaches were full and the passengers were patient.  Yet Bush wants to kill the system by denying the basics of rail travel, calling them luxuries.  Despite travelers waiting one, two or three hours for enough coaches or coaches that work or being delayed because the right engineer hasn’t shown up.  Despite seats that can’t rise and locked bathrooms that are past repair–Americans support Amtrak.  I don’t doubt that if Amtrak had the money, it would be able to compete with the airline and with automobile travel industries.  Besides, there’s a smoking booth for those addicts who need to light up on a nonsmoking train.  This is just like the breakup of the phone system to me.  Some monopolies do work; and rail travel does do its job; if not for a bigger bang for a buck.

Bush wants to kill Amtrak by September.   Write or call your reps, especially you folks in Red States.  Don’t allow it to happen.

Straight from Reuters, about two hours ago:

I thought the guy had died long ago.  But he hadn’t.  His sunny assessments about Vietnam troop strength and objectives have some resonance today.  He thought more and more troops would have won the war; the Busheviki think fewer troops will win, and this without a draft, too.

Same kind of lying and self-duping, though.  Comments?