Tuesday, March 17, 2009

S.C. 80% Black Town has 24% Unemployment Rate

Well it's clear that SC Gov Sanford is 'playing race card' not only regarding unemployment benefits but childrens education as well. Now he is responding to President Obama. H/T to Kombiz at the DNC for the link, regarding the plight of Allendale, S.C. You see, Ronnie Jackson – the mayor of Allendale, SC – was on MSNBC today talking about the important role the economic recover funds SC Gov. Sanford wants to reject could have on economic recovery efforts in his community. While Governor Sanford is playing 2012 politics South Carolinians are suffering with unemployment rate as high as 24%.

   South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford
Tom Gralish / MCT

The segment is a really good view of what's going on in South Carolina while Sanford tries to grandstand for neo-hooverites in the Republican party.

Photobucket


AAPP: I'm glad that the
SC Legislature is moving to overide Gov. Sanford on Stimulus Funds.
yes, South Carolina's Republican-controlled General Assembly is poised to rebuff Sanford and seek the stimulus money on its own.

There is more, as reported by LIVE5 News, Sanford wrote a letter to the President last week, asking for permission to use the money to pay off debt. That money has been earmarked for education and job creation. Read the letter Sanford wrote to President Obama here.

Sanford has criticized the $787 billion stimulus plan, saying it will lead to higher taxes and debt.

Click here to read the letter sent to Sanford from 40 mayors who oppose using the stimulus to pay down state debt. More HERE

I can see why President Barack Obama has rejected SC governor's plan to pay debt with stimulus funds.

There is a big question to whether states can circumvent Anti-Stimulus Guvs? I guess we will soon find out.

Ok, back to Allendale. Here is more about Allendale

Estimated median household income in 2007: $19,262 (it was $16,632 in 2000)
Allendale: $19,262
South Carolina: $43,329

Estimated median house or condo value in 2007: $69,352 (it was $43,700 in 2000)
Allendale: $69,352
South Carolina: $133,900

Mean prices in 2007: All housing units: $92,156; Detached houses: $98,667; In 2-unit structures: $136,563; In 5-or-more-unit structures: $133,102; Mobile homes: $30,430

Races in Allendale:


  • Black (80.0%)
  • White Non-Hispanic (17.8%)
  • Hispanic (2.2%)
  • Other race (1.0%)

For population 25 years and over in Allendale


  • High school or higher: 54.9%
  • Bachelor's degree or higher: 10.7%
  • Graduate or professional degree: 2.7%

Is it clear yet, that SC Gov Sanford is 'playing race card' ?


Cross posted on African American Political Pundit.com

Sunday, March 15, 2009

World Conference on Racism, Slavery Reparations and Obama

Berlin - Germany may boycott a UN conference on racism, over concerns that a preparatory document is singularly critical of Israel, daily Berliner Zeitung reported Saturday. At the same time, a German organisation promoting ties with the Jewish state...

File this under, Can't we just get along! There seems to be a lot of commentary on the planned World Conference on racism.

Get this, first the US withdraws from 2nd World Conference against Racism, now word is, Germany may boycott UN racism talks critical of Israel. The Folks at Monsters and Critics are reporting on how Germany may boycott a UN conference on racism, over concerns that a preparatory document is singularly critical of Israel, daily Berliner Zeitung reported Saturday. As reported by the The NY TImes, The United States will not attend the second World Conference Against Racism in Geneva unless the conference’s main document improves, according to a State Department official, though the Obama administration sent a delegation to preparatory talks in Geneva.

The NY TImes, reports the long, unwieldy document seeks to ban criticism of religion, calls for slave reparations and attacks Israel as racist. Israel and some American Jewish groups urged a boycott of the April conference, and several close American allies, including Canada, said they would not go. The United States walked out of the first Conference Against Racism, in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, as a protest against an effort to compare Zionism to racism. More HERE

At the same time, reports Monsters and Critics a German organization promoting ties with the Jewish state is appealing for Germans to moderate their criticism of Israel's role in the Middle-East conflict.

'Germany should not yield to a UN conference that wants to accuse Israel unilaterally,' German Human Rights commissioner Guenther Nooke said of the anti-racism talks, due to take place late April in Geneva.

'We should initially try everything to change the text of the final document,' Nooke told the newspaper. 'But there will be no participation at all cost,' he added.

Several countries have criticised the fact the preparatory document specifically accuses Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territories.

Other misdeeds, such as the atrocities committed in the Darfur conflict, are not specifically named.

Meanwhile, the President of the German-Israeli Society Johannes Gerster has appealed for Germans to show greater solidarity towards Israel, in the face of the continuing Mid-East crisis. More HERE

AAPP says: I guess the Obama administration will have to decide whether it's stands against color aroused bigotry and racism or will it stand with Israel, Canada and Italy who have announced they will boycott the forum in Geneva.

The first conference, held in Durban in 2001, ended up with the US and Israel walking out, upset over statements of some delegates.

Maybe, just maybe, William Reed is right, when he wrote in EUR web recently, "Reparations for slavery is a proposal that some type of compensation be provided to descendants of enslaved people in consideration of the labor provided for free over several centuries, which has been a substantive and influential factor in the nation's development. The prospect of payment is not new." William Reed goes on to say:

In 1865, General William Tecumseh Sherman issued Special Field Orders, No. 15 granting each freed family forty acres of tillable land in the Georgia Sea Islands and around Charleston, South Carolina for the exclusive use of black people who had been enslaved. The army gave mules to settlers. President Andrew Johnson reversed the order after Lincoln was assassinated and the land was returned to its previous owners.

Black slaves built America for free, including the nation's Capitol and the White House. It's important that the nation's 44th President do what the 17th President did not do to properly atone for the ills of slavery - A system that gave rise to poverty, landlessness, underdevelopment, as well as to the crushing of culture and language, loss of identity, inculcation of inferiority among blacks, and the indoctrination of whites into a racist mindset - all of which continue to this day to affect the prospects and quality of Black People's lives.

America, and its companies, were "unjustly enriched" by a system that enslaved and exploited blacks. The Wall Street banks, and its investors, that the nation is writing checks to built America's infrastructure on the backs of blacks. The number of legal claimants for compensation is undetermined, but Obama could consider a $10,000 annual "slavery tax credit" to Americans who can show themselves descendents of slaves. Some two dozen members of Congress are co-sponsors of legislation to create a commission that would study reparations - that is, payments and programs to make up for the damage done by slavery.

The bill, US House of Representative Resolution 40 "Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act" should be addressed so that such a commission will address who, what and how much is due. The NAACP supports the legislation. Cities around the country, including Obama's home of Chicago, have endorsed the idea, and so has a major union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The old dog-eared adage that "the nation couldn't afford to pay" has been eliminated with the Wall Street buyouts.

If Obama has the confidence to think outside the box, he'll realize what economic stimulus reparations payments would be. The question has always been about how America would raise money to pay reparations, but if they can bailout the infrastructure's entrepreneurs to save America, what about bailing out the people who built it? Article HERE


Cross Posted on African American Political Pundit.com

Friday, March 6, 2009

Color of Change Petition Demands Repub. Gov's Distribute Obama's Increased Unemployment Benefits

Dear Readers:

Please sign the Color of Change Petition demanding that Republican governors accept the increased unemployment benefits that President Obama is offering.

The country is in real trouble right now, with unemployment spiraling out of control. President Obama's stimulus plan provides money to expand unemployment assistance. But a group of Republican governors, led by Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, is trying to score political points by blocking that assistance from reaching the people who need it. It's cynical and disgusting.

These governors are playing with people's lives. They're trying to further their political ambitions while showing they could care less about the fate of everyday folks--even in their own state.

Please join me in calling them out and forcing the media spotlight on them. I just signed ColorOfChange.org's open letter demanding they do the right thing. Together, we can help make sure that in times of hardship folks get the assistance they need. It only takes a moment:

http://www.colorofchange.org/govs/?id=1780-175369

It's incredible. President Obama's stimulus package provides money for states to extend unemployment benefits for people in dire need of help, but a handful of Republican governors--Bob Riley of Alabama, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Rick Perry of Texas, Sarah Palin of Alaska, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana--are putting politics over people.

All six governors have threatened to turn down these funds. Four are 2012 presidential contenders, and they all have a vested interest in seeing Obama fail. They're attacking the President's policies to increase their own profile and cozy up to the most die-hard conservatives. They also claim that taking the stimulus money would leave their states in debt when it runs out in three years. But that argument rings hollow--state legislatures could reduce benefits to pre-stimulus levels at that point.

While these governors posture, Black folks suffer the most. In all of these states, Black unemployment is at least twice that of Whites--and in Louisiana and Mississippi, the two Blackest states in the Union, the unemployment rate among Black people approaches three times that of their White neighbors.

Please join me in telling these Republican governors to stop putting their personal and political interests above the good of all their states' citizens. Demand that they accept all of the stimulus money designated for unemployment benefits. And please ask your friends and family to do the same by passing this message on.

http://www.colorofchange.org/govs/?id=1780-175369

Thanks.