Black Radicals Thread

[Does America deliberately try to protect its system of inequality?]

Does America deliberately try to protect its system of inequality?

Yes

No

[blk_reign]

The best thing going on the Dem ticket this year was John Edwards.  Lieberman may as well have been a Republican.  Clark was aiight, but not enough political prowess - he misspoke too much. 

The day Edwards pulled out of the primary I put a Kerry bumper sticker on my car.  A few days later, the motor died.  Coincidence?  I don't think so.

LOL

[Ladyday]

I'm here laughing at "fiscally conservative"....and the absolute value of the American dollar is at the lowest point it has been in over a century...the state of the economy evince its poorest showing in over 50...and and and...I could be long and trite on this point...


If fiscal matters truly concerned any voter "conservative democrat" this past election year (by the way..lmao @ the oxyomorons for real yo)then I assure you, the result was no proper indication.  
 

Who is this kid?

First, check yourself.

Second, I recognize that, I'm not referring just to this year's past election fo real yo. This past election was nothing but people voting out of fear and ignorance or sublime hatred.

[Elegua]

   glad you noticed...I however am not the one who introduced the fallacious reference as evidence in the first place...OVERRULED counselor!!

[Ladyday]

  glad you noticed...I however am not the one who introduced the fallacious reference as evidence in the first place...OVERRULED counselor!!

Hmmmmmm. Well..... It is NOT a fallacious reference, but u remind me of someone.....and if you are who I think u are 

[CaliToD.C.]

   
SWB..you are cali are cool. But yall need to graduate from college. Get a f-ing BA and come talk to me. 

I got my degree last semester so now whats up? 

[HBCU.EDU]

   
SWB..you are cali are cool. But yall need to graduate from college. Get a f-ing BA and come talk to me. 

I got my degree last semester so now whats up? 

You aint got no degree. YOu need to walk across the stage in May fool. Den come talk to me!

[CaliToD.C.]

Haiti’s coup regime slammed at World Social Forum in Brazil

by Haïti-Progrès

 
UN forces worked with the Haitian National Police to impose such tight “security” during the three-day Carnaval in Port-au-Prince last week that events were sparsely attended. Four policemen and six civilians were killed.
Photo: www.haitiprogres.com
Every winter, the world’s most powerful bourgeoisies and their underlings gather for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to debate and pontificate on the state of the world. Since 2000, progressive movements and individuals have gathered at the same time in Porto Alegre, Brazil, to hold a counter-meeting called the World Social Forum (WSF).

High on the agenda at this year’s WSF was Haiti’s on-going coup and foreign military occupation currently being administered for Washington by WSF host Brazil, whose president, erstwhile leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was widely heckled when he addressed the meeting.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was ecstatically and triumphantly received by WSF participants and declared in a Jan. 30 press conference that “the president of Haiti is Jean-Bertrand Aristide.” Chavez called President Aristide’s ouster a “kidnapping” similar to the one the Venezuelan president was temporarily victim of in April 2002.

But the Venezuelan people took to the streets and the army mobilized to reverse the Venezuelan coup. “In the case of Aristide,” Chavez said, “he had suppressed the army, responding to a condition imposed by the (U.S.) empire,” thus resulting in his current exile in South Africa.

Chavez said that “there is no solution in Haiti without Aristide” and asserted that most Latin American nations agreed on this.

“The solution is not in the hands of the United Nations or a group of presidents,” Chavez concluded. “It must be taken by the people of Haiti.”

Meanwhile, Porto Alegre participants set forth the following declaration and petition:

Porto Alegre Declaration on Haiti, launched at the World Social Forum, Jan. 26-31, 2005

WHEREAS, Haiti became the first Black Republic in 1804 when its enslaved people defeated Napoleon’s army, the most powerful of its day, and abolished slavery. Ever since, Haiti has stood for Black liberation and the liberation of oppressed people everywhere. Haiti offered Simon Bolivar refuge, guns and other supplies, and led the way for the abolition of slavery throughout the Americas. The colonial powers have punished Haiti ever since: among other things the U.S. led a 60-year political boycott, and France forced Haiti to pay the modern equivalent of $21 billion U.S. for its slave owners’ losses, which led to a crippling debt and the world’s first structural adjustment policy. From 1915-1934, the U.S. occupied Haiti, and an act of the U.S. Congress established the Haitian army;

WHEREAS, in 1990 a massive grassroots effort broke Haiti’s history of coups and corrupt U.S.-backed dictatorships. Lavalas means “flash flood” in Haitian Creole and was the name given to the movement that swept Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the presidency, with the support of the 80 percent of Haitians who are poor. President Aristide, a former Catholic priest and liberation theologian, was elected to tackle Haiti’s grinding poverty and discrimination and to redistribute resources to Haiti’s most neglected;

WHEREAS, on Sept. 30, 1991, eight months after his inauguration, President Aristide was overthrown by a CIA-backed coup. After pressure from the Haitian resistance and Black elected officials and others in the U.S., along with the arrival of huge numbers of Haitian refugees in the U.S., the U.S. “allowed” President Aristide to return to Haiti. But President Aristide’s continued firm stand with Haiti’s poor made him yet again an enemy of the U.S. and other colonial powers. North America and Europe imposed an embargo on financial assistance from international financial institutions to Haiti’s elected governments while pouring money into NGOs that played a crucial role in the opposition to the movement led by President Aristide;

WHEREAS, on Feb. 29, 2004, U.S. soldiers forced President Aristide onto a plane and into exile. The elected Lavalas government was replaced with an unelected puppet regime. This unconstitutional regime, backed by the U.S., France and Canada, using members of Haiti’s former army, has waged a war against the Lavalas movement: thousands have been killed in violence against protestors, organized workers and grassroots groups; at least 700 political prisoners sit in Haitian jails, and rape is routinely used against grassroots women and girls as a weapon of repression;

WHEREAS, the Lavalas party had many successes in the fight against poverty and isolation during its 10 years of democratic governance. Among other things, Haiti tripled the number of elementary and secondary schools, many built for the first time in rural areas, made great advances in literacy, developed a new university and teaching hospital for students from poor families and a social housing program, welcomed Cuban doctors and teachers, successfully prosecuted many serious human rights cases, abolished the hated army, opened the doors of the presidential palace to children and the poor, and consistently ensured the grassroots movement a place at the decision-making table;

WHEREAS, as the puppet regime gives tax breaks to the wealthy and pays former soldiers wages for attacking the resistance, while cutting education, healthcare and food programs for the poor, life for the Haitian people, already the poorest in the hemisphere, has reached a breaking point; and

WHEREAS, the so-called UN stabilization mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), led by Brazil with large contingents from Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, was requested and used by the U.S. What is not widely known is that rather than being the “peace-keepers” described by a biased corporate media, this UN force has been part of the repression of the Lavalas movement, with deadly raids on poor neighborhoods, illegal arrests of political dissidents and support for illegal operations by the puppet government’s police and the former soldiers.

WE THE UNDERSIGNED THEREFORE MAKE THE FOLLOWING DEMANDS:

1. Return President Aristide and the democratic process to Haiti. President Aristide must be allowed to complete his term after which free and fair elections would be held according to Haiti’s Constitution.

2. End the occupation of Haiti. Use the money and other resources now used in the war against Haiti’s poor for the fight against poverty in Haiti.

3. UN “stabilization forces” must cease all illegal arrests, indiscriminate raids on poor neighborhoods and support for illegal activities by the puppet regime’s police force and members of the former army.

4. Political prisoners must be freed, politically-motivated persecution must end.

5. Governments and intergovernmental organizations must refuse to recognize Haiti’s illegitimate puppet regime, and must demand an investigation into the circumstances of President Aristide’s removal from office.

6. Refugees fleeing political persecution in Haiti must be given asylum, internally displaced refugees in Haiti must be given protection and financial assistance.

7. U.S. hands off Latin America and the Caribbean. We stand in solidarity with the government and people of Venezuela and Cuba, countries struggling against a process of destabilization not unlike the one that resulted in the overthrow of President Aristide.

We invite people and organizations throughout the world to join us in this Declaration.

[CaliToD.C.]

School districts shortchange students of color

SFUSD spends over $200,000 less to teach each student in mostly Black and Latino high schools

 
If these children go on to a predominantly Black and Latino high school in San Francisco, more than $200,000 less will be spent to teach each of them in four years than a student in a whiter school.
Oakland – A new report released Tuesday by the Education Trust-West identifies for the first time huge per-pupil spending gaps in California public schools currently masked by the state’s accounting methods. The report finds that money spent on teacher salaries, which make up the lion’s share of education dollars, varies widely from school to school within districts.

According to the report, “California’s Hidden Teacher Spending Gap: How State and District Budgeting Practices Shortchange Poor and Minority Students and Their Schools,” the hidden funding gaps are primarily driven by significant discrepancies in teachers’ salaries between schools within the same district that serve a high percentage of poor and minority students and those serving higher-income and white students.

“What we don’t know can – and is – hurting us,” said Russlynn Ali, executive director of the Education Trust-West. “The state’s current methodology in calculating school expenditures masks huge gaps in per-pupil spending within California’s school districts. This blind spot is especially troubling given the importance of quality instruction at a time when federal and state policies are increasingly pushing for all students to achieve high academic standards.”

Public Advocates Managing Attorney John Affeldt has been one of the lead counsel for plaintiffs and the attorney responsible for addressing issues of teacher quality disparities in Williams v. California, the statewide, educational equity class action settled with Gov. Schwarzenegger last August.

“We’ve known for years that poor and minority students receive the lowest quality teachers and have the lowest test scores,” Affeldt said in response to the Education Trust-West report. “For the first time we see how shocking an under-investment in instructional dollars the teacher gap means for the neediest students.

“Teachers are the most important factor in improving student learning. We can hardly expect low-performing students to tackle California’s world-class standards without ensuring all students have effective, experienced teachers.

“As part of the Williams settlement,” Affeldt noted, “the state committed to providing all students ‘highly qualified’ teachers by the end of the 2006 school year. This report confirms that a systemic response is needed to create the environments at low-performing schools to attract and retain high quality teachers.”

The report’s findings make a strong case for the importance of measuring school-level data on teacher salary and distributing quality teachers equitably. Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) are two districts that have developed strategies that begin to address the inequitable distribution of teaching resources.

LAUSD has been implementing a plan to place more experienced teachers in their higher poverty schools and provide additional professional development to new teachers in those schools. In fact, teachers in LAUSD high poverty schools actually earn more than the average teacher in the district.

Oakland has implemented “Results Based Budgeting,” wherein funding is allocated to schools based on the number and type of students, and school budgets incorporate the actual cost of staff members’ salaries, rather than the district average.

Though some school districts have made concerted efforts to address the problem of inequitable distribution of teaching resources, many districts have a long way to go in ensuring that such resources are fairly distributed. “Despite consensus that California needs to do more to close student achievement gaps, the reality often does not match the rhetoric when it comes to teacher quality, the single largest contributor to student success,” said Ali.

“Even within the very same district, we spend significantly less on teachers in the highest-poverty and highest-minority schools than we do in the wealthiest and whitest schools,” Ali continued. “But in order to spend fairly, ensuring a fair distribution of teacher talent, we need to lift the veil and collect accurate and complete information.”

Key findings from the report include:

§ There are significant funding gaps among individual schools within the same school districts in California. These gaps are primarily driven by differences in teachers’ salaries, which make up the lion’s share of education dollars. In San Francisco, the average teacher salary gap is $2,247 in low-income schools and $5,958 in high-minority schools. Over the course of a four-year high school career, a student in a high-poverty school in SFUSD is taught by teachers paid a combined $91,440 less than those teaching her peers in a low-poverty high school in SFUSD. Over the course of a four-year high school career, a student in a high-minority school in SFUSD is taught by teachers paid a combined $200,520 less than those teaching her peers in a low-minority high school in SFUSD. These figures are based on the assumption that an average high school student has six teachers a day.

§ The state’s current methodology in calculating school expenditures masks huge gaps in per-pupil spending within California’s school districts. While California provides data on funding gaps between school districts, the state has failed to provide the public with even basic information on the distribution of funding and of quality teaching within California’s school districts.

§ Forty-two of the 50 largest school districts in California spend significantly more to teach students in their low-minority schools than they spend on teachers in schools serving the most Latino and African-American students.

§ The spending gap has a dramatic impact on a student’s academic career. A student attending the highest-poverty schools from the time of kindergarten through high school will have an estimated total of $135,654 less spent on all of her teachers, K-12, than is spent on the K-12 teachers serving the most affluent students. A student attending the schools serving the highest numbers of Latino and African-American students from the time of kindergarten through high school will have an estimated total of $172,626 less spent on all of his teachers, K-12, than is spent on the K-12 teachers in schools with the fewest Latino and African-American students.

The Education Trust-West is the West Coast partner of the national policy organization the Education Trust. The organization works for the high academic achievement of all students at all levels, kindergarten through college with an emphasis on serving low-income, Latino, African American and Native American students. To learn more, visit www.edtrustwest.org.

‘Campaign for Higher Expectations for Oakland Public Schools’ kicks off Wednesday

Oakland - A coalition of community leaders and the Oakland Education Association will be launching a proactive campaign to reform and strengthen Oakland schools at a community meeting of 200 leaders at Cox Elementary School at 4:30 on Wednesday afternoon.

The campaign, titled “Higher Expectations for Oakland Public Schools,” is based on four principles: Genuine democratic control of Oakland schools, providing necessary building blocks for the quality education of our children, getting the governor to fully fund public education in California and keeping the Oakland school district unified. The coalition represents every element of the Oakland community, including student and parent organizations, labor unions, interfaith leaders and civil rights organizations.

Oakland’s schools are in crisis, and this campaign offers solutions. The state, which is supervising the operation of Oakland Unified, wants to close schools in Oakland’s poorest neighborhoods, which will keep students in large, overcrowded schools. In addition, eight Oakland schools face the potentially negative impact – under rules of the federal No Child Left Behind Act – of being privatized into charter schools.
 

[CaliToD.C.]

WARNING: Joining the military is hazardous

Stop military recruitment in our schools at the School Board meeting Tuesday, Feb. 22, 7pm, 555 Franklin St., SF

 
Recruiters are salespeople with a quota to meet. If students are learning about the military from recruiters alone, they’re getting only part of the story.
Military recruiters tour the country selling a dangerous product with glamorous ads, just like tobacco companies or drug pushers. The ads promise opportunity and adventure – but don’t believe the hype.

1. Joining the military is hazardous to your education.

The military isn’t a generous financial aid institution, and it isn’t concerned with helping you pay for school. Two-thirds of all recruits never get any college funding from the military. Only 15 percent graduated with a four-year degree.

What about going to school while you’re in? Many GIs report that military life leaves them too busy and exhausted – and doesn’t really make time for them to go to class.

2. Joining the military is hazardous to your future.

Joining the military is a dead end. After you’ve spent a few years in the military, you’re 2 to 5 times more likely to be homeless than your friends who never joined. And, according to the VA, you’ll probably earn less too. The skills you learn in the military will be geared to military jobs, not civilian careers; when you come out, many employers will tell you to go back to school and get some real training. As former Secretary of Defense Cheney declared, ‘The reason to have a military is to be prepared to fight and win wars ... it’s not a jobs program.’

3. Joining the military is hazardous to people of color.

During the Gulf War, over 50 percent of front-line troops were people of color. Overall, over 30 percent of enlisted personnel but only 12 percent of officers are people of color, who are then disciplined and discharged under other than honorable conditions at a much higher rate than whites. When recent studies showed a slight dip in young African-Americans’ (disproportionately high) interest in the military, the Pentagon reacted with a new ad campaign. They’re targeting Latino youth with special Spanish-language ads. The recruiters’ lethal result: tracking high achieving young people in communities of color into a dead-end, deadly occupation.

4. Joining the military is hazardous to women.

Sexual harassment and assault are a daily reality for the overwhelming majority of women in the armed forces. The VA’s own figures show 90 percent of recent women veterans reporting harassment – a third of whom were raped. Despite the glossy brochures that advertise ‘opportunities for women,’ the military’s inherent sexism is evident from sergeants shouting ‘girl!’ at trainees who don’t ‘measure up,’ to the intimidation of women who speak out about harassment and discrimination – not to mention military men’s sexual abuse of civilian women in base communities.

5. Joining the military is hazardous to your civil rights.

If you aren’t willing to give up your rights, the military isn’t for you. Once you enlist, you become military property: you lose your right to come and go freely, you’re ordered around 24 hours a day, and you can be punished by your command without trial or jury. Free speech rights are severely limited in the military. You can be punished for being honest about being lesbian, gay or bisexual. Worst of all, even if you hate your job, you can’t quit.

6. Joining the military is hazardous to your health.

The military can’t guarantee you’ll be alive at the end of your eight-year commitment: they can’t even promise you won’t be desperately ill from ‘mystery illnesses’ like those of the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars. Whether it’s atomic testing in the 1950s, Agent Orange during the war against Vietnam, or experimental vaccines and toxic weapons in the Persian Gulf, the military shamelessly destroys the health of its personnel – and then does its best to downplay and ignore their suffering.

7. Joining the military is hazardous to the environment.

The U.S. military is the single largest and worst polluter in the world, from toxins at bases to nuclear-tipped missiles to the destruction of ecosystems from South Vietnam to the Persian Gulf. And in today’s military, the tanks and weapons are coated with depleted uranium from toxic nuclear waste!

8. Joining the military is hazardous to our lives.

The ‘adventure’ in the commercials is code for war, the ‘discipline’ code for violence. The military trains recruits to employ deadly force, yet recruiters rarely discuss the dehumanizing process of basic training, the psychological costs of killing or the horrors of war.

The ads lie because the product is lethal -- not just to you, but to all of us.

For more information, contact or write: Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, 630 20th St. #302, Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 465-1617, fax (510) 465-2459, or 1515 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102, (215) 563-8787, fax (215) 567-2096.

This story, originally published at www.objector.org, can be found, along with much other info worth checking out, at Paris’ website, www.guerrillafunk.com.

Stop military recruiting in our schools!

San Francisco passed Proposition N in November by 63 percent. It called for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq.

But San Francisco high school students are being actively recruited by the U.S. military on campus through direct recruitment and through the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) program. Many recent City graduates are currently serving in Iraq.

This must end. Schools must not be used to recruit youngsters to kill or be killed in this illegal, immoral war!

Speak out at the San Francisco Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 22, 7 p.m., at 555 Franklin St., second floor, near Golden Gate, to stop military recruitment in our schools. To sign up to speak at the meeting, call (415) 241-6427 on Friday, Feb. 18, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., or Tuesday, Feb. 22, between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Just say you want to speak at the meeting Feb. 22 and give your name.

The School Board will be considering this draft resolution:

Cut Ties with the Military

WHEREAS, the United States military is actively recruiting high school students into the military to fight in Iraq; and

WHEREAS, many young San Francisco high school alumni are presently serving in military units fighting in Iraq; and

WHEREAS, it is San Francisco City policy by virtue of Proposition N, to bring all U.S. troops home from Iraq now; and

WHEREAS, over 1,448 U.S. soldiers and approximately 100,000 Iraqis have been killed in this war and over 10,000 U.S. soldiers and unknown thousands of Iraqis have been wounded; and

WHEREAS, the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the war have robbed our children of resources that should be spent on education and other human needs; and

WHEREAS, military presence in our schools legitimizes the message that violence is acceptable; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

It shall be the policy of the San Francisco Board of Education to support cutting all ties with the United States military, including, but not limited to: Ending military recruitment on campuses; ending the Junior Reserved Officer Training Corps (JROTC); and guaranteeing that all students and parents are informed of their right to deny military recruiters access to their names, addresses and telephone numbers.

 

[F05HOPEFUL]

Thanks in advance for your honest opinions.  I'm a pretty liberal white guy.  I see that there is an amount of discrimination in America today.  I honestly, however, am not clear on the African American agenda.  Could someone please post a summary/list of your reasonable political goals.  Please be considerate, I'm asking for your voice, do come at me with sarcasm or ridiculous demands.  I am honestly curious.  Thanks.