Seemed to me it was all in 'fun'...

until blacks decided to thrown Bill under the bus.

But that's just me.

Another discussion for another day.

Than he deserves. As much damage as he did to the black community ...

"As much damage as he did to the black community" Care to explain what you mean?

If as a white american I cannot claim something deeper than an "at remove" kinship with our black brothers and sisters then yin must at last stop dancing with yang (and such a thing cannot happen, yes?). Clinton wasn't/isn't a black male, but he doesn't exist without black america any more than I do.

I really enjoyed that clip--Gregory came down from the mountain with that one, but his touche hits come with a sorrowful price, for me at least. My music does not exist without Africa and African Americans. My art does not exist without Africa, the Olympics do not exist, and on and on and on. I worked as an EMT down in Baldwin Village, and sat next to elderly African Americans as we transported them from nursing home to dialysis or the ER or whatever. It was just us, at the bottom of the world, and a few times, when someone was scared, we held hands the way children sometimes do. Tat tvam asi. Thou art that.

And just like a kid looking inside from the outside of the chain link playground, I hear the logic and the anger and the pain and the "otherness" that Gregory both intimates and enumerates, but this continuation of "otherness" cuts both ways. My white male perks, my north of Pico life are real but at the same time phony. I have no country without Africa, I have no culture without African Americans, and to be emphatically told again and again that I am on the outside of dark skin and not inside is a truth that continues the crime of separateness. I am born of the dark continent, of a mother who hasn't opened her eyes in a million years, yet still she sees me.

At bottom, I don't exist without Black America because I would be something utterly different had the venal and corrupt not forced its malevolent presence upon African people so long--and not so long--ago.

Awhile back, I realized that I wanted to let go of many things (physical, psychological, social baggage, etc.) in my life and somehow get past my own proscribed borders--an accompanying thought was that Black Americans, denied "the song of self" that validated their very existence--that they needed to embrace and love their skin and culture, just as I was trying to walk away from mine. I saw my walk as freedom, and I see the Black Pride and Power movements as attempts to own their own and celebrate through assertion and affirmation, but the price was they had to own "it" before they could walk away from "it." I don't want country clubs and champagne swimming pools and billboard fantasies--I'm way too middle class for all that. Swimming naked in the warm waters of the world is one of the most wonderful feelings I have ever had, and there was no entry fee.

And so I look into the black playground from outside and am told time and time again that I am eternally "other." I guess turnabout is fair play in this endless tragedy of slavery and its continued ramifications. Just remember: I don't exist without Black America. It may not be my address yet you would not find me without it.

++++

That clip of Gregory came up in an earlier thread, can't find it now, in a comment posted by someone as an example of an attack on the Clintons. I din't see it that way at all. By speaking the truth, Gregory relieved Bill - and Hillary - of a burden they could not ever bear, and an apellation from which Bill has always gently demurred.

I love Dick Gregory, always have. Don't 100% agree with him but I love him, because he speaks the truth plainly and is not afraid of the consequence. He has a good heart, and a love for all humankind.

What I heard him saying here was what he has said so many times, that the black community cannot look outside itself for the answers to its own problems, not the least of the reasons being that the power structure (in this country a white power structure) is not going to help poor people - of any color - and anyone who thinks that will just happen is a fool.

Malt liquor is a poison in the black community, as is crack and heroin and all the other behaviors that appear to the desperate as escape but are only worse entrapment. Why spend money on malt liquor, when that money flows out of the neighborhood, out of the community and into the hands of the (white) power structure?

We are all brothers and sisters under the skin, but some of us are so much better off than others in terms of opportunity it is sinful. There won't be social equality until there is equitability in economic opportunity, and that won't come to the black community through liquor or drugs or shooting up the 'hood, and it sure as hell isn't going to come from some random white man because he can half-assed play the saxaphone.

Nothing much good happened in this country for black people until they organized and started marching and sitting down and obstructing the normal course of business as usual, until they became enough of a pain in the ass of the wealthy that they had to be paid attention to, until the real horror of their existence could not be ignored, and that's what will have to happen to fix the rest of what's still wrong.

That's what I heard Dick Gregory say.

As much damage as he did to the black community …

Ummm Yeah...

break that down for me please.

Uhhh, willyjsimmons.

Obviously you were no where near a black community during the 1990's. Stop with the rise of the black middle class myth. While the top two income quintiles rose 3.4% those making between 15,000 and 49,999 decreased by 9.6%. So yeah the Clinton years were not great for the black community. But, here is a down and dirty explanation.

Top Three:

Three strikes and you're out.
Welfare to work.
Rwanda

You can read more here:

http://www.finalcall.com/national/incarc...

http://www.zeleza.com/blogging/u-s-affai...

http://thoughtmerchant.wordpress.com/200...

http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/clinton/clinton...

lambert sorry about the raw links, MJS I'll be back in a few.

X

Obviously you were no where near a black community during the 1990’s.

I'll let you figure out why that's funny on your own.

It is a gross oversimplification to lay the blame at the feet of Clinton for the current state of our military-industrial complex as it relates to the 'black community'.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

And it will certainly be interesting to re-examine whether or not a truly 'black president' would drastically alter the situation.

willyjsimmons - you funny. Laconic even.

Bill Clinton was either negligent or malevolent. It didn’t take hindsight to figure the commute for welfare to work – 4 hours out -8 hours work – 4 hours back, Kids, school, eat sleep, shit. Why? Because most welfare recipients are either rural whites or poor urban blacks. They were isolated from suburban and exurban flight communities by interstates and lack of public transportation. Those same communities happened to be where the “jobs” were. They don’t build malls in inner cities or trailer parks. Naw couldn’t have predicted that one, nope, not in a million years.

Hey Bill crack is cocaine, it’s addictive, it’s a disease, just ask your brother. Prison has never been a deterrent for addiction. 80% of felony cases were for drug possession. Three strikes – punishment as deterrent against addiction. Naw, couldn’t have seen that one coming either.

Rwanda – Hey there is a genocide over in Rwanda. Really? Let’s wait and see. Yup you were right.

Yeah willyjsimmons hindsight is a mother fucker.

i won't bore you with my Othersorrow; but i feel yours and know it's real.

the Clenis was the Clenis. good here, bad there. i'd take it over bush in a heartbeat. is there more to be said at this point, unless you're writing an historical work on the subject?

~8 years later, "where we are" is all on bush. let's try to remember that, shall we? and the Clintoris is not the same thing as the Clenis. never forget that, either. the woman in me mandates i emphasize a that oft-forgotten point.

Naw couldn’t have predicted that one, nope, not in a million years.

Which is why the focus of the reform bill was to shift policy to the states to tailor programs to better fit different socio-economic conditions.

Failure of Bill Clinton, Congress, the States...

the debate could go on.

80% of felony cases were for drug possession.

Couldn't Clinton have ended the 'War on Drugs'?

I strongly doubt the political climate at the time would have allowed for it.

Cali's 3 strikes law passed with nearly 75% support.

Yeah willyjsimmons hindsight is a mother fucker.

Rwanda was a mistake...one that Bill Clinton admits to.

Paul Gourevitch on the Clinton Administration apology:

And what I realized was how desperate they were for the acknowledgment of their ordeal by the very people who had ignored it, refused to acknowledge it, and essentially made it nonexistent while it was taking place; and that it was awfully late and awfully light or easy at this time to do it. And yet it mattered tremendously, because life goes on. And having one's reality acknowledged, it's never too late.

20/20.

And I am funny.

Point being. The Clinton Years were rough on Black folk.

that have been 'rough'.

But putting the onus directly onto Clinton (as opposed to maybe ourselves) seems to be an easy thing for Obama supporters to do (not saying that's you) at the moment.

Like I said originally...

it was all in 'fun' until it was time to throw Clinton under the bus to advance Obama.

Now suddenly all the chinks in Clinton's armor are indications of some deep seeded racism on his part? (not suggesting that's your contention)

No...the 'black community' has been in shambles for decades and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.