Today's Stories

September 25-7, 2009

Daniel Wolff
Speculating on Education

David Michael Green
Dumping Dubya

Ramzy Baroud
The Goldstone Report and Israeli Impunity

September 24, 2009

Steven Higgs
Even in Indiana, Doctors Support National Health Insurance

Christopher Brauchli
Death Pays

Marshall Auerback
The Shortfall at the FDIC

Stephanie Westbrook
Italy's Fallen Soldiers

Nadia Hijab
Know Your Dictator

Sen. Russell Feingold
Fixing the Patriot Act, Restoring the Constitution

David Macaray
Goodbye "Norma Rae"

Binoy Kampmark
Curry Bashings in Oz

Joe Allen
Dancing With the Hammer

Website of the Day
The Most Corrupt Members of Congress

September 23, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
The Economy is a Lie, Too

Gabriel Kolko
The United States in Afghanistan: Eight Years Later

Uri Avnery
The Waldorf-Astoria Summit

Shamus Cooke
The First Shots of the Trade War

Missy Beattie
The Sound of Money

Gareth Porter
Taliban Rising

Mark Weisbrot
How Much Repression Will Hillary Clinton Support in Honduras?

Dr. Susan Block
The Murder of Annie Le

Norm Kent
Pot and the Right to Pursue Happiness

Richard Neville
Apocalypse Porno

Website of the Day
In Carver Country

September 22, 2009

Franklin C. Spinney The Huge Hole in Gen. McChrystal's Afghan Counterinsurgency Strategy

Russell Mokhiber
Who's the Pimp?

Greg Grandin
Zelaya's Brazilian Gambit

Nikolas Kozloff
Salvaging Democracy in Honduras Will Be Tricky

John Ross
Mexico Convulsed by Paranoia

Ron Jacobs
Gen. McChrystal's Salespitch

Tariq Ali
The Afghan Folly

Dave Lindorff
NYT Trashes Single-Payer

Harvey Wasserman
Tom Friedman's Idiocy Atomique

Vijay Prashad
Is Anything Better Than Nothing?

Kareem Shora
After the CIA Torture Report

Website of the Day
Did a State Dept Official Sell Nuclear Secrets?

September 21, 2009

JoAnn Wypijewski
Will Trumka or the Steelworkers Push Labor Into Battle?

Carl Finamore
Backstage at the AFL-CIO Convention

Uri Avnery
Sliming Goldstone and His Report

Nikolas Kozloff
Joe Wilson's Immigration Hypocrisy

Paul Simpson, M.D.
Why Your Doctor May Have PTSD

Alan Nasser
New Deal Liberalism Writes Its Obituary

Ray McGovern
CIA Torturers Running Scared

Dave Lindorff
Thoughts on Saving an Old Barn

Lina Thorne
Women, War and Afghanistan

Jeb Sprague
Confronting the G20

Website of the Day
Petition: Save the Yellowstone Grizzly

September 18-20, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
When Gossip Came Back and Our Modern Age was Born

Russell Mokhiber
Meet the Real Death Panels

Mike Whitney
The Post-Bubble Malaise

David Michael Green
Can America be Salvaged?

Jonathan Cook
Boycott Derails Jerusalem Rail Line

Nadia Hijab
Sinking the Goldstone Report

Mark Weisbrot
Recession, Recovery and Reform: Will Anything Change?

Michael Winship
Let's Make a Deal, Beltway Edition

Michael Leonardi
The Nuclear Dump in the Mediterranean Sea

Andy Worthington
The Kuwaiti Who Met Bin Laden

Fred Gardner
The Prohibitionists' Manifesto

David Macaray
What Happens in Congress Stays in Congress

David Rosen
System Failure and the Garrido Case

Jason Mark
Hacking the Sky

Mike Ferner
In Praise of Senator Baucus

Farzana Versey
The Great Indian Rope Trick

Ron Jacobs
Dr. Guillotin and Dr. Faustus: an Interview with Marc Estrin

elin o'Hara slavick
Flags for Hiroshima: Artist's Statement

Gilad Aztmon
Vengeance, Barbarism and Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds

David Yearsley
Mendelssohn as Organ Maestro

Charles R. Larson
Darkness, Dignity and Hope in Liberia

Lorenzo Wolff
Dialing Up The Clash

Website of the Weekend
Meet Your Conservative Movement

September 17, 2009

Joshua Frank
Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler

Brenda Norrell
Cry Me a River: Uranium and Genocide in Indian Country

Robert Weissman
The Financial Crisis, One Year Later

Pam Martens
The Filmmakers vs. the Capitalists

Franklin Lamb
Palestinian Camps Are Ready to Erupt

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five: An Insult to Humanity

Jed Bickman
Drone War Over Pakistan

Alan Farago
The Mayor of Coconut Creek Gets Butterflies

Website of the Day
C.R.O.C.

September 16, 2009

Ray McGovern
Torture and Accountability

Stephen Green
America's Strange Health Care Debate

Andy Worthington
Is Bagram Obama's New Secret Prison?

Dean Baker
Short Sellers: the Unsung Heroes of the Financial Crisis

Anthony DiMaggio
Killing the Messenger

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five: The Unheard Call

Benjamin Dangl
Justice Follows Direct Action

Robin Willoughby
The World Seed Conference: Good for Farmers?

Eric Walberg
EuroPeace, the Sounds of Silence

James Ridgeway
Bring That "Boy" Down

Website of the Day
Baucus' Bogus Bill

September 15, 2009

Mike Whitney
The Real Lesson of Lehman's Fall

Mutadhar al-Zaidi
The Story of My Shoe

Marshall Auerback
Government Spending is the Solution--Not the Problem

Afshin Rattansi
The Deal That Led to the Srebrenica Massacre: Former UN Spokeswoman Fingers Holbrooke and the Clinton Administration

Jonathan Cook
How US Tax Breaks Fund Israeli Settlers

Gareth Porter:
Niger Redux? IAEA Conceals Evidence Iran Nuke Docs Were Forged

Dave Lindorff
Congress Needs More Catcalls

Winslow T. Wheeler
Obama and Pentagon Pork

Franklin Spinney
Bin Laden's Latest Message and the Nuttiness of the War on Terror

Karen Korenoski /
Michael Yates
Up in Wood Smoke: Boulder's Dirty Little Secret

David Macaray
Government Cheese

Susie Day
President Mao-bama's Little Red Primer

Website of the Day
The Cotton Pickin' Truth: the Persistance of Slavery in Mississippi

September 14, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
The Health Care Deceit

M. G. Piety
The Danes Do It (Health Care) Better

Shamus Cooke
Wall Street Under Obama: Bigger and Riskier

Bouthaina Shaaban
Three Faces and a Homeland

Alvaro Huerta
In Defense of the Undocumented: Immigrants and Health Care

John Ross
Mexico Loses Its History

Harvey Wasserman
The Supreme Court and Corporate Money

Adam Federman
The Plight of the Bumblebee

Stephen Fleischman
The Federal Twist

Robert Jensen
Can Journalism Schools be Relevant in a World on the Brink?

Website of the Day
The Origin of Sex Offender Registries

September 11-13, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Big Speech: Math Trumps Rhetoric

JoAnn Wypijewski
Trumka Takes Over AFL-CIO

Carl Ginsburg
The Patient as Profit Center

Leonard Peltier
I am Barack Obama's Political Prisoner Now

Franklin Lamb
Ted Kennedy's Changing Take on Israel

Benjamin Dangl
Throwing Bullets at Failed Policies

Mike Whitney
How to Fight Deflation

John Berger
In Search of Antonello

Saul Landau
Watergate and Modern Scandals

Russell Mokhiber
Disgraceful Democrats

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Pryor's Judgment

Felice Pace
NPR's Linda Gradstein Has Done It Again on Gaza

Jordan Flaherty
The Battle Over Discriminatory Housing Laws in New Orleans

Ron Jacobs
It's Time to be Impolite About Afghanistan

David Macaray
The Utility of Boycotts

David Correia
Welcome to the Business-Friendly Carpenter's Union

Robert Bryce
Wind Turbines and Bird Kills

Christopher Brauchli
Defenders of the Classroom

Paul Krassner
Aha! A Few Words About the 9/11 Truth Movement

Charles R. Larson
Deracination

Kim Nicolini
"Extract:" An Exercise in Economic Realism

David Yearsley
Tall Buildings: the Sound and the Silence

Lorenzo Wolff
In Defense of the One Hit Wonder

Poets' Basement
McEnteer and Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Pizarchik: the Wrong Choice

September 10, 2009

Joshua Frank
Inside Hanford's B Reactor: a Tour of the World's Most Toxic Nuclear Site

Dean Baker
Bernanke's Bad Money

Brian M. Downing
The State of U.S. National Security

Franklin C. Spinney
Portrait of an Afghan Firefight: Up Close and Personal

Andy Worthington
No Escape From Guantánamo

Chase Madar
Samantha Power and the Weaponization of Human Rights

Farzana Versey
A Tale of Two Slums

Ronnie Cummins
Whole Foods, Fair Trade and Organics

Binoy Kampmark
Health Care, Obama and the System

Timothy Lebrón
The Conservative Case for Health Care Reform

Charles R. Larson
A Solution to the Health Care Dilemma

Website of the Day
The Debtor's Revolt Begins!

September 9, 2009

Richard Neville
Trigger-Happy in Afghanistan

Melissa Checker
Double Jeopardy: Carbon Offsets and Human Rights Abuses

Nadia Hijab
Settling for ... Settlements?

Robert Weissman
The Stakes at the Supreme Court

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Arabs Call for General Strike

Russell Mokhiber
Pollan, Mackey, Whole Foods and Single Payer

James Ridgeway
The Dotty Factor: Will Demented Geezers Wreck the Economy?

Richard W. Behan
Obama's Imperative in Afghanistan

James McEnteer
The Photo and the Secretary: How to Appall Robert Gates

Martha Rosenberg
Hatchery Horrors

Website of the Day
Belmondo Verité

September 8, 2009

Henry A. Giroux
The Corporate Stranglehold on Education

Stephen Soldz
Psychologist Accused of War Crimes Opposes Investigations

John Ross
Rituals of the Absurd

Jeff Leys
Health Care vs. Warfare: the Future of the Afghan War

Mike Whitney Ashcroft: Repugnant to the Constitution

Shamus Cooke
Obama's Empty Labor Day Speech

Ellen Brown
Did Lehman Brothers Fall or Was It Pushed?

Norman Solomon Men With Guns: In Kabul and Washington

Deepak Tripathi
The Axis of Evil and the Great Satan

Laray Polk
Personality Cults, Indoctrination and Inculcation

Charles R. Larson
Just Who Does He Think He Is?

Website of the Day
The President is Not a Guidance Counselor

September 7, 2009

Vicente Navarro
Obama's Mistakes in Health Care Reform

Bouthaina Shaaban
In Praise of Admiral Mullen

David Macaray
Obama's Labor Day Report Card

Paul Craig Roberts
Indefensible Nation

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Ads Warn Against Marrying Non-Jews

Conn Hallinan
Brazil Flexes Its Muscles

Walter Brasch
The Origins of Labor Day, the Unknown Holiday

Mark Weisbrot
IMF Gives Honduran Government $175 Million

Carl Finamore
China's Birthday Stimulation

C. G. Estabrook
Advance Text of Obama's Big Speech

Website of the Day
One Down, 20,000 to Go

September 4-6, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Deeper Into the Tunnel

Carl Ginsburg
Saving New Orleans' Charity Hospital

Jonathan Cook
The Missing Link in Israeli Organ Theft?

George Wuerthner
The Unintended Consequences of Wolf Hunting

Marc Levy
The Bling They Curse and Carry

Ray McGovern
Holbrooke's Afghan Benchmark

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
It Happened in Miami

Joe Paff
Organizing the Mission

Gareth Porter
Taliban's Tank-Killing Bombs Came From CIA, Not Iran

Devin Beaulieu
Scaremongering About Bolivia and Islam

Anthony Papa
Why Leslie Crocker Snyder Should Not Become New York City's New DA

David Ker Thomson
Love and Dekes in Utopia

Don Fitz
The Case of the Biodevastation 7: What the Police Won't Apologize For

Lee Sustar /
S. Sepehri
The Fallout From Iran's Elections

Jim Goodman
Why Honor Organized Labor?

Wajahat Ali
Domestic Crusaders: Making Muslim American Theater

Ron Jacobs
Agitator Journalism: Remembering Ramparts

Helen Redmond
The Lion Sleeps Tonight: the Crimes and Misdemeanors of Teddy Kennedy

John V. Walsh
Obama to Cindy Sheehan: Get Lost

Charles R. Larson
Mandanipour's Masterpiece: Censoring an Iranian Love Story

Mark Scaramella
Ho-Bleeping-Hum: a Few Well-Chosen Words About Valerie Plame's Book

David Yearsley
Cameron Carpenter's Amazing Organ Transplants

Ben Sonnenberg
Hooking, Breaking Friendships, Cross-Dressing and, Above All, Delphine Seyrig

Poets' Basement
Davies, Orloski and Bready

Website of the Weekend
Architectural Semiotics with Glenn Beck

September 3, 2009

Marcus Rediker
Inside Auburn Prison

Ron Jacobs
Embedded With the Taliban

Mike Whitney
How Bad Will It Get?

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Untold Story of the Cuban Five: Indictment À La Carte

Saul Landau
Moby Dick and Asian Typhoons

Anat Matar
Israeli Academics Must Pay a Price to End Occupation

Tanya Golash-Boza
How Immigration Enforcement is Weakening National Security

Dave Lindorff
Which Side Are You On?

Andy Worthington
The Story of Gitmo's Two Syrians

Website of the Day
Plundering Appalachia

September 2, 2009

John Ross
Mexico's Plagues

Vijay Prashad
Hey Ram, the Things the Financial Times Group Does!

Rev. Jim Rigby
Why is Universal Health Care "Un-American"?

Joanne Mariner
What the Inspector General Found

Missy Beattie
Hejira: At Martha's Vineyard with Cindy Sheehan

Soren Ambrose
Multilateral Money

Diane Farsetta
Water: the Newest Wave of Corporate "Social Responsibility"

Nadia Hijab
Mulling Mullen's Message

Shamus Cooke
How to Lower the Deficit Without Killing Social Security

Charles R. Larson
Is Dick Cheney Running Scared?

Website of the Day
Inside the Egg Hatchery

September 1, 2009

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Wolf at Trout Creek

Paul Craig Roberts
Why Not Sanctions for Israel?

Mark T. Harris
The Whole Foods Boycott: It's About More Than CEO Hypocrisy

Dean Baker
Bank Profits Are Up: Did You Hear Anyone Say, "Thank You"?

Jeffrey Buchanan
Ending the Human Rights Crisis in KatrinaRitaVille

Robin Mittenthal
A Sea of Monocrops: Old MacDonald Never Had a Farm Like This

Ellen Brown
Mercury Mischief

Martha Rosenberg
Vytorin Marketing is Back

Website of the Day
Crazy Town Hall Protester Interviews

Weekend Edition
September 25-7, 2009

The Gates Case Revisited

How "White Magic" Makes the Ism of Race Disappear

By Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS

Cambridge police sergeant James M. Crowley’s arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for “disorderly conduct” in his own home triggered an intense, momentary national conversation on “race.”  Not on racism.  “White magic” has made racism largely disappear from American society.  But out of sight out of mind is not foolproof.  A white police officer’s blatant abuse of power and a preeminent black scholar’s alleging “racist cop” and, handcuffed on his front porch, yelling, “This is how black men are treated in America!,” threatened to make the ism in “race” reappear.  Thus a heavy dose of “white magic” has been administered to camouflage the ism and protect the illusion of a “post-racial” America.  An understanding of the “white magic” employed can contribute to the continuing struggle for “a more perfect union.”

A Boston Globe story was headlined, “Gates case strikes nerve, stirs racial debate.”  The piece, creating a “dialogue about race,” reported that the “volatile affair” produced “a range of recent interviews indicat[ing] that personal opinions on the Gates case fall overwhelmingly along the familiar fault line of race.”  That is, “For the most part, minorities said Gates would not have been arrested if he were white, and police probably would never have been called to begin with.”  And, “Whites . . . tended to play down race as a factor and said tempers and egos, not skin color, caused the situation to get out of hand.” (July 26, 2009)

The national “talk about race” headed South.  A Miami Herald editorial, called “It’s time for our nation to talk about race,” began, “Let’s have [an] honest national encounter on racial progress.”  According to the editorial, “racial progress” is strictly an individual matter:

We can start by everyone—white, black, brown—admitting that America’s ugly racist history has left scars, and that racism (drawing conclusions about others based on their race) is practiced by individuals of every ethnic or racial group. . . . Let’s not miss this opportunity as a nation to talk—and listen—honestly about race, how far America has come and still how much more we have to go. (July 28, 2009)

The “racially charged debate” moved Westward.  The Tulsa World carried a story titled, “The moment is beer:  Obama, Gates, Crowley to chat,” which began, “Offering cold beer and careful words, President Barrack Obama is trying to bury a political distraction and show the U.S. how conversation can help ease racial conflict.”  The story’s “conversation” continues, “For now, his stated agenda is simply to allow for a good, productive conversation among the three men.  The hope, in turn, is that people in communities across the U.S. will see the meeting as a model for how to solve differences—more listening, less shooting from the lip.”  The story quotes “Kelly McBride, a specialist in ethics at the Poynter Institute journalism center,” who stresses the individual nature of President Obama’s so-called “Beer Summit” with Sargeant Crowley and Professor Gates:

Everybody can walk out of the meeting thinking exactly what they thought walking in, and that would be fine. . . . But I would hope they would understand the others’ positions.  If they get that far, it could be a model for what we should be doing when things like this happen again.  Because it’s going to happen again.” (By Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer, July 30, 2009).

The “eye-opening dialogue on race” appeared in the Southwest.  The power of interracial “dialogue” to create understanding and “change” is the bottom line of a story in the Austin Statesman on “Harvard prof, arresting policeman to talk again.”  A quoted Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney is given the piece’s last word:

Politics aside, the most important thing that should come out of today is that two people sat down and talked to one another. . . . That is how real change happens, when people are willing to challenge their own biases by talking to people who are different from themselves. (By Philip Elliott, Associated Press writer, July 31, 2009)

The “ongoing discussion over race in America” reached the West Coast.  A Los Angeles Times story on “Obama cheers a ‘teachable moment’ over beer with Gates, Crowley,” and illustrated with a photo of the three and Vice President Joe Biden drinking beer in the Rose Garden, reported that the talk will continue: “For the two men who raised their mugs with the president and vice president . . . the discussion on race and policing will go on.  Sgt. Crowley,” the story added, “said afterward that he and African American studies scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. had made plans to talk further in a more private setting.” (July 31, 2009)

The white-controlled media’s emphasis on a “national debate on race” serves to redefine America’s historic, institutionalized racial inequities as individual and interpersonal rather than institutional and governmental issues.  The heralding of a “racial debate” automatically assumes an equality between white and black persons and other people of color that does not exist—an equality of responsibility for the nation’s ingrained racial inequities and of power to resolve them.  In fact, the institutionalized inequities are made invisible by trumpeting a “colorblind” society.  Such assumed equity may be called the racism of equality, as it denies and diverts attention from the nation’s inequitable status quo.

Presto!  In a flash of “white magic,” the USA’s defining, institutionalized white-controlled hierarchy of access to power and security vanishes.  The ism is made to disappear from “race”—and to reappear in the form of individual behavior and interpersonal relationships.

Similar to talk, the “white magic” of systemic racism uses code words to make America’s inequitable racial hierarchy disappear.  Code words are a subtle way by which to remove the ism from “race.”  Mainstream media especially employ code words to reinterpret racism as an interpersonal matter between individuals not an institutional and policy issue.  This disappearing act is performed by the dominant press’s constant use of the word “race” and avoidance of “racism” as much as possible.

Thus, as previously quoted, the “confrontation . . . between” Officer Crowley/Professor Gates is filled with code words:  “An Encounter That Provoked A Talk on Race;” “a heated national debate on race;” “Gates’ case strikes nerve, stirs racial debate;” “fault line of race;” “whites tended to play down race as a factor . . . tempers and egos, not skin color, caused the situation to get out of hand;” “ugly racial history;” “inflamed tensions,” “issues of race;” “racism . . .is practiced by individuals of every ethnic or racial group;” “talk-and-listen honestly about race;” “racial conflict,” “a model for how to share differences;” “understand the others’ positions;” “the most important thing . . . is that two people sat down and talked to one another;” “the discussion of race and policing will go on. . . in a more private setting.” [italics added].

Code words allow the subject to be referred to as “race,” “race relations.”  The problem may then be identified as “inflamed tensions,” “volatile affair.”  If the subject and problem are presented as individual and interpersonal, the solution naturally follows: “Talk-and-listen-honestly about race and ethnicity;” “Talk to one another . . .  That is how real change happens.”  It is about reconciliation not restitution.  Here the ism is taken out of “race” by being removed from its historical roots and institutional branches and redefined as an interpersonal issue between individuals.

Shazam!  In a printed stroke of “white magic,” America’s embedded, structurally maintained racial inequities disappear.  In a flash, for example, the National Urban League’s 288-page “State of Black America 2009: Message to the President” is gone.  Gone is the finding that “even as an African American man holds the highest office [in] the country, African Americans remain twice as likely as whites to be unemployed, three times more likely to live in poverty and more than six times as likely to be incarcerated.”

Gone is the National Urban League report’s finding that the “2009 Equality Index, a statistical measurement of the status of blacks compared with whites, . . . stands at 71.1% . . . a general continuation of the status quo,” with “economics remain[ing] the area with the greatest degree of inequality, followed by social justice, health, education and civic engagement.” (“Executive Summary”)

Gone are the National Urban League’s 31 specific recommendations, including:

• Ensure that the stimulus package’s green job creation includes poor urban communities.
   
• Increase funding for job training and placement for disadvantaged workers.
  
• Guarantee full-day schooling for all 3 and 4 year olds.
   
• Expand the school day to account for working parents and families without nearby relatives to help with after-school care.
  
• Fund mortgage counseling and education programs for minorities.
   
• Implement universal health care and a “comprehensive” system to provide blacks with health education (“Urban League asks Obama to address black issues,” Black Politics on the Web, Mar. 25, 2009)

Hocus Pocus!  With mainstream media talking up a code words punctuated “national dialogue about race,” the deep-seated disparities contained in the United for a Fair Economy’s 70-page report will not see the full light of day.  Called “State of the Dream 2009: The Silent Depression,” the report studied the silent, unacknowledged economic depression of people of color and found:

Many American Blacks today are already experiencing a silent economic depression that, in terms of unemployment, equals or exceeds the Great Depression of 1929.  Almost 12% of Blacks are unemployed; this is expected to increase to nearly 20% by 2010. . . . People of color are disproportionately poor in the United States.  Black and Latinos have poverty rates of 24% and 21% respectively, compared to 10% poverty rate for whites. (www.faireconomy.org/dream)

The “State of the Dream 2009: The Silent Depression” report, released on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s 80th birthday anniversary, was apparently not well received and covered by America’s white-controlled, let’s “talk about race” media.  Especially the report’s findings:

In the corporate world, we are seeing the highest executive pay and the biggest bailouts in history.  CEO pay is 344 times that of the average worker.  The riches of the few mask the deepening recession in the working class and the depression in communities of color.  . . .

Our nation’s economic policies have enabled the top 10% to accumulate 68% of the wealth, while sheltering the wealthy from sharing the nation’s risks.  The children of the wealthy are not marching off to war because their economic alternatives are bleak.  The rising cost of medical care does not require America’s millionaires and billionaires to cut back on food in order to pay medical bills.  Thousands of additional layoffs will not harm the financial security of those in the owning class.

Nor would America’s mainstream press adequately publicize and editorialize about the “State of the Dream 2009: The Silent Depression” report’s proposed solutions;

• The US Census Bureau should change its measurement of poverty in time for the 2010 census.  The current method underestimates the numbers of the most marginalized.  These gaps give policymakers an inaccurate view of the scope of the problems of poverty.
  
• The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) should integrate into its indicators of recession measures for wealth inequality, asset accumulation, income inequality, employer-based benefits versus employee-based benefits, and the various types of unemployment.  Together, such simple measurement changes will help bring economic problems to the forefront and end the crisis of silence about the true state of the dream of racial equality. (Ibid) 

“The State of the Dream 2009: The Silent Depression” report addresses the denial and diversion of a “national debate on race”:

Sadly the nation at large took the civil rights work of the 1960’s and reduced its holistic comprehensive analysis to a simplistic notion of personal and individual racism [italics added].  The civil rights movement, and civil rights efforts since the founding of the country, recognized that inequity is rooted in societal institutions, aided and abetted by personal forms of racism.  Institutional racism is embedded in the structures (i.e., cultural, organizational, governmental and academic, etc.) of our society and manifests itself in the distribution, implementation and access to resources and opportunities. . . .

Finally, we need to reconnect ourselves, via policy and our unified voices to affirmative action.  We need recognition of and apology for the U.S.’s centuries of slavery and segregation.  We need a commitment to acknowledge and repudiate the institutional and individual racism—epitomized by today’s Black depression—that still pervades our society. (Introduction: Beyond Recession, Executive Summary, Ibid.)

An earlier and classic example of the use of talk and code words to manage not mitigate America’s ongoing, and now recession-deepening “racial divide” is former President Bill Clinton’s 15-month long national “conversation about race.”  Initiated in June 1997, Clinton’s so-called “honest dialogue on race,” like today’s, assumed an equality of power and responsibility for racism between white and black persons and other people of color that does not exist.  An analysis of the coverage of the “honest dialogue” by an accommodating print media (The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe) concluded that Clinton’s long national “dialogue on race” did not close the “nation’s lingering racial divide,” but served to redefine and thus control it. (See William E. Alberts, Research Report, “Taking the “ism” Out of Racism in the 21st Century: A Study of the Print Media’s Coverage of President Clinton’s National “Dialogue on Race,” published by The William Monroe Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Winter 2002, 116 pages.

The “white magic” employed by mainstream media, and others, to take the ism out of “race” is cited by University of Maryland Professor of Government and Politics Ron Walters.  Obviously not impressed with Sgt. Crowley’s media-applauded teaching of cultural diversity to police trainees, Walters writes,

Sgt. Crowley’s subjective judgement to arrest Gates was more likely to have been made on the traditional racist grounds of using his power to silence a black man, no matter how important, in order to confirm the ultimate authority, of white power in society.

Citing his book, The Price of Racial Reconciliation (The Politics of Race and Ethnicity), Professor Walters zeroes in on the critical issue of who has the powerful last word:

The voice of the victim of racism has been devalued and the voice of the perpetrators of racism is elevated because of the power they hold over the interpretation and treatment of racial events.  This is the curious way in which whites, who by every study I have seen experience racism far, far less than blacks, end up having the dominant interpretation over events. They control the power over the voice that interprets events and control over the resources dedicated—or not dedicated—to resolve them.

The consequences of this unequal power distribution in racial affairs is that there cannot be a “frank discussion” that can meaningfully resolve such issues because, in the power equation, the President must “calibrate” such events from the side of the dominant class. . . . because he has to get elected and to govern with the assent of the majority.

President Obama, Professor Gates and Sgt. Crowley will have their beer in the White House, but it will only be a symbolic gesture, lacking the force to confront the monumental crime of racial profiling by the police perpetrators that has locked up tens of thousands of blacks in American prisons. (“Race, Power and the Gates Affair,” The Black Commentator, July 30, 2009).

“A more perfect union” is not about “bringing the races together” but about bringing equal access to economic and political power to the races.  It is not about “individuals of every ethnic or racial group” getting along better but about them getting by better.  It is not about the “inflamed tensions” of interracial group dynamics but about human potential and hope turned into ashes by group discrimination.  It is not about an “honest dialogue on race” but about an honest diagnosis of America’s racial inequities.  It is not about making the ism disappear from “race” but about removing racism from America’s institutions.  It is not about being “colorblind” but about being colorful.  It is about making America’s white-controlled hierarchy of access disappear.  It is about every person’s right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain and a diplomate in the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy.  Both a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he has written research reports, essays and articles on racism, war, politics and religion.  He can be reached at william.alberts@bmc.org.

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Spell Albuquerque:
Memoir of a
"Difficult Student"
By Tennessee Reed

Waiting for Lightning
to Strike:
The Fundamentals
of Black Politics
Kevin Alexander Gray

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The Inside Story of the Shannon Five's Smashing Victory Over the
Bush War Machine
By Harry Browne

Born Under a Bad Sky:
Notes from the Dark Side
of the Earth
By Jeffrey St. Clair

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Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont