Bigotry and racism seems to be more open and vicious than ever.
Take that viral video of the University of Oklahoma fraternity idiots, dressed in tuxedos, singing a racist song. By any reasonable standard the song was crude and racist; and not just because of the liberal use of the N-word.
Some pundits tried to excuse the language because rappers use that heinous epithet. But that wasn’t the most vicious part of the racist song. It was this line:
“You can hang him from a tree, but he’ll never sign with me.”
Those young white male millennials might have thought the N-word was OK because they hear Blacks and rappers sing and say it. But, those SAE brothers and their guests haven’t been taught in their schools about the odiousness of Black lynchings in the American South.
They don’t understand the hateful nature of their words and the imagery it conveys, especially when sung to the tune of an innocent children’s song.
University of Oklahoma officials, especially President and former Senator David Boren, should be commended for their quick response, and the university’s community is to be lauded for publicly speaking out loud and clear condemning such mess.
In that vein, I only wish Republicans in the U.S. Senate had spoken out as strongly against that nincompoop junior Senator from Arkansas for his crude disrespect toward President Barack Obama.
Earlier this month, 47 Republican senators signed a letter, written by Senator Nincompoop, excuse me, I mean Tom Cotton, telling the Iranian leadership, in simpleton language, “don’t negotiate with our president, cause we’re gonna be in power soon and you’ll get a worse deal from us.”
This epistle is an unprecedented, reckless intrusion, by nearly half the Senate, into American foreign policy. An unheard of direct communication with a foreign power/leader.
During the isolationist era before Pearl Harbor, no member of Congress wrote to Adolf Hitler saying don’t talk to President Franklin Roosevelt, he doesn’t have the power, we do.
While many Democrats vehemently opposed President George W. Bush’s efforts to battle Saddam Hussein, Democrats didn’t write separate letters to the Iraqi dictator saying “you’ll find a friend in me, not him.”
Veteran Senators like John McCain, Orrin Hatch and Tom Coburn, who’ve been around, know better and understand the role of the Executive and Legislative branches of our government, unfortunately went along with the pack and signed the odious letter.
Fortunately, Indiana’s own Republican Senator Dan Coats, a former ambassador to Germany, exercised common sense and didn’t sign.
Last week, on our WTLC-AM (1310) Afternoons with Amos program, Sen. Joe Donnelly told me many of the Republicans who signed the letter are now regretting that decision. “They won’t say it publicly,” said Donnelly, “but they’re saying it privately.”
Republicans will have their chance at governing, if the American people on November 8, 2016 elect their candidate as America’s 45th President. Until then, while they have the right to disagree with President Obama’s foreign policy, they have no right to interfere with his conduct of that policy.
They didn’t do it with other Democratic Presidents. Why now?
Maybe like those Oklahoma fraternity boys thought it was OK to talk about lynching Blacks; Republicans think it’s OK to disrespect the president because he’s Black!
What I’m Hearing in the Streets
Last week, folks on Indiana’s State Board of Education (SBOE) voted to close a non-performing urban public school, while keeping open two non-performing urban charter schools.
According to the website Chalkbeat Indiana, SBOE member David Freitas, defended the decision to keep two Indianapolis area charters open saying, “These schools are not your typical charter schools. These schools are dealing with different populations. Many of these students, if they were not in one of these two charter schools, would be in our prison system.”
So who are these two schools? Options Charter in Noblesville and Hoosier Virtual Academy in Indy; both chartered by Ball State. The schools have been among the worst charters in Indiana from day one. Meanwhile, SBOE members voted to close Dunbar-Pulaski Middle School in Gary, an “F” rated school for just two years. A decision bitterly criticized by State Superintendent Glenda Ritz.
SBOE’s only African-American member, the unctuous Tony Walker, led the charge to close the Gary school, against the recommendation of Gary and state officials. This tells you how representative Walker is of African-Americans.
By now, you’ve deduced that Dunbar-Pulaski is a Black majority school. And the two charters whose students would be in prison without them? Options is 5.4 percent Black, 85.3 percent white; Hoosier Virtual is 9.9 percent Black; 79.0 percent white.
The deep anti-traditional urban public school bias of the majority of SBOE members once again comes to the forefront. Not to mention the gross ignorance of SBOE members in plainly mischaracterizing the charters’ student demographics.
Seems Rep. Marlin Stutzman wasn’t the only Indiana Republican Congressman to recognize the Selma 50th Anniversary. Congressman Todd Rokita’s office wrote to say he shared the statement from all House Republicans honoring Selma’s anniversary on Twitter and his Facebook page.
I should remind you that not only is 2015 the 50th anniversary of Selma and the Voting Rights Act, but the 10th Anniversary of the creation of Voter ID. The concept birthed in Indiana by Todd Rokita.
I mention that because we have forgotten that bit of voting rights history started in Indiana.
See ‘ya next week!
You can email Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
