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When I first heard about Spike Lee’s documentary on the Katrina disaster, I expected it to be this anti-Bush bashing Michael Moore esk propaganda attack flick blaming whitey, I’ll admit, it was none of that.
The good thing was that Lee was virtually invisible throughout the program because the pictures and the testimonials is all that was needed to tell the story.
No fancy graphics, no music, no parade of leftist pretending to give a shit about black folks. His 100 interviews of subjects exploring the tragedy of the event was honest and rivetingly.
Make no mistake, what happened was off the charts fucked up for a number of reasons.
This disaster illustrated the colossal failures of big government and more than adequately displayed why big government is almost always doomed to failure.
This is a program everyone must see, there are some powerful images, but what I came away with was just how broken black America has become.
As sad as the images were I could not help to feel angry at how black America was portrayed.
Black folks were portrayed as weak, inferior, helpless and ignorant. This was not about strong, proud resilient folks, the type of individual traits that were from generations past.
All of the struggles suffered by Black Americans through slavery, segregation and constant and consistent racism many in this documentary kept asking the question, “where was OUR government.” I’m thinking you people already thought the government was racist and corrupt, what made them think they would be coming to their rescue?
More than that, black folks from around the country watched as events unfolded, I’m thinking during this documentary, where were these peoples families, their friends, their churches.
If we are going to look at this documentary as an indictment on America we as black folks sure as hell should be looking in the mirror.
Forget the government for a moment, I concede they screwed up, I’ll even take Nigga Nagin off the hook for his utter stupidity and lack of leadership, and I’ll take idiot Governor Blanco off the hook.
But back in the day, when black folks got in trouble, black folks rallied on their own to help their own.
Lets put the spotlight on just where the aid did not come from and why NOLA still looks like shit today despite more than $100 billion in aid sent to the area.
Who are some of our wealthiest athletes and some yearly earnings, keep in mind this is a little dated: Tiger Woods $76,673,413,  Shaquille O’Neal, $40,517,858, LeBron James  $39,018,920, Kevin Garnett, $36,000,000, Kobe Bryant Basketball L.A. Lakers $25,498,000.
What about some net worth for some hip hop artists and entertainers P. Diddy $346 Million, Jay-Z $340 Million, Russell Simmons $325 Million, Dr. Dre $150 Million
Ice Cube $145 Million, 50 Cent $100 Million, Nelly $60 Million.  
What about some wealthy black Women: Sheila Crump Johnson 1.5 Billion BET; Doris Fisher $1.4 billion Gap Inc.; Marian Illitch $1.3 billion Lil Caesar’s Pizza Inc.; Oprah Winfrey $1.0 billion Harpo Productions Inc.; Meg Whitman $800 million E-Bay Inc.; Marcey Carsey $610 million Carsey-Werner Marion Sandler and $550 million Golden West Financial.

There are thousands of people not on this listing of course. Not to mention the absence of groups like the NEW Black Panthers, The Urban League, NAACP, the Christian Leadership Conference, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, all of the black newspapers, Magazines, media stars and headliners.  

My point is all of the people that want to point the finger at whitey for screwing those poor black folks stood around and let them do it. Well to do black folks could have come together and helped the situation before and after.
Some rich nigga could have sent a plane down there to get those people out. Shit they have no problem flying their entourages around on gambling, shopping and hoe fest parties.
You mean not one rich nigga who either lived, was from, or had ties to NOLA could not shell out some dollars to provide vehicles and busses to get those people out.
All of these black churches around the nation nobody was willing to step up to the plate and say “what do you need mayor”. Remember THEY HAD MORE THAN A WEEK TO PREPARE!    
If any of you, watched the events of Katrina unfold and stared at the pictures and sat on your ass and kept yelling at the TV saying “where is the government”, well you obviously wanted someone else to take responsibility for those poor souls.
Liberal Democrats following the disaster cried racism, but nobody has been down there to see the progress or lack thereof since.
How come Hilliary, Kennedy, Jessie, Sharpton, Dean or any other Democrat have not been making regular trips to right the wrongs of the evil racist Republicans.
Former Presidents Bush 41 and Clinton did not immediately have some crusade for the victims, but then why should they, those are white guys, why would they give a fuck about some poor ignorant black folks.
But even more than that, the one dude who was interviewed who had to leave the body of his dead mother behind, where the fuck was his family?
If my mother lived in NOLA and I had MORE THAN A WEEKS NOTICE that a hurricane was coming, I’m down there getting my family and friends the fuck out of there.
When hurricane Ivan was coming towards Alabama, my brother flew from California and I drove from Kansas, secured the house, gathered their important papers, box some other items of importance, got my mother and grandmother to a shelter, the local church was prepared with a weeks worth of food and supplies, while my brother and I took watch at the house.
Where were the churches, any damm denomination, to come to the aid of those people?
Those people were not just let down by the government and whitey, they were fucked by a selfish society and selfish negros, and when your guilt got to you, folks started pointing fingers at the easiest scapegoat, the president and the government.
The other weakness of the documentary was not explaining that there was an evacuation plan, that hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars were sent to Louisiana over the years and those levees looked like they were constructed by some third world nation.
What the fuck did Louisiana do with OUR money?
All of the elected officials who have served in NOLA and the state of Louisiana over the past 35-40 years, (many of them black, including the crook congressman William “ice box” Jefferson knew of the pending doom and knew that the federal monies dedicated to the wetlands and the levee systems were being diverted to other uses, that is the tragedy. Niggas and rednecks were both complicit in the deception and corruption.
So while you might shed tears at the horrors depicted in Spike’s documentary, remember every damm body failed those people. And in true American style some people (black and white) will profit on the suffering of others.
Spike says someone should go to jail, shit, we don’t have enough jail space for all the folks who are guilty of wrongdoing. The politicians, the media, the families, city, county, state and federal governments, but neglectful families, friends, churches and the niggas with the dollars that could have come to the aid of those people.
But in today’s world it’s every nigga for themselves, just blame whitey. “I’ve gots to get my hair did.”  Niggas on rooftops can wait.

African-American voters in Ohio, Pa. and Md. being asked to rethink Democratic allegiances
By Jill Lawrence
USA TODAY

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Two years after the 2004 presidential election, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell still faces accusations that he made it hard for Democrats to vote. Here at a public housing community center, however, black ministers — many of them Democrats — are showering him with applause, laughter and amens.
The Republican candidate for governor, an imposing 6-foot-4 in this small, packed room, is sharing his experiences as a black person in America. His father was a meatpacker, he says. He grew up in public housing, selling peanuts and helping at a funeral home. He worked in the civil rights movement, and he challenged the lending practices of white bankers in Cincinnati.
He did not, he says, try to suppress minority turnout in 2004. (“Do you think Mrs. Blackwell raised a dumb child? Why would I suppress the black vote when I understood how well I do in the African-American community?”) In fact, he says, a record number of blacks voted in Ohio in 2004.
When he’s done, several Democratic pastors say they might vote for Blackwell for governor this fall over Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland. Henry McNeil, pastor of Alpha & Omega First Baptist Church, says Blackwell closed the sale. “I didn’t come with a made-up mind. It was made while he spoke,” says McNeil, who backed Democrat John Kerry for president in 2004.
Voters like these are making Democrats edgy this year. In Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland, some African-Americans are rethinking their party loyalties in light of black Republicans running for high office.

Black support for Republicans is normally so low that the GOP declared victory when President Bush won 16% of the black vote in Ohio in 2004 (5 percentage points above his national share). Now, three black Republican contenders could scramble the usual patterns:

•Michael Steele, 47, Maryland’s lieutenant governor and a former international investment lawyer, is running for an open U.S. Senate seat in a heavily Democratic state.

•Lynn Swann, 52, a broadcaster and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, is trying to oust Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.

•Blackwell, 58, a former Cincinnati mayor, diplomat, Cabinet undersecretary, state treasurer and two-time Ohio secretary of State, is up against Strickland.

Blackwell points out that of the three, only he has repeatedly won statewide office on his own. He does acknowledge a certain kinship, though: “We’re all in this historical moment, in a position to have breakthrough candidacies.”
That’s not to say they are shoo-ins. Swann in particular has a tough climb; recent polls show him 10 to 20 points behind Rendell. Even so, “I don’t want people thinking I’m only doing this to make the Republican Party look like it’s diverse,” he says. “My intent is to win.”
Blackwell is contending with a difficult climate for Republicans in Ohio, where GOP Gov. Bob Taft was convicted of four violations of state ethics laws, and the biggest public corruption probe in state history has ensnared other prominent GOP figures.
Though their candidates are leading in all three states, Democrats are stepping up outreach efforts and showcasing black candidates elsewhere on the ballot — among them nominees for state auditor and state Supreme Court in Ohio and a lieutenant governor hopeful in Maryland.
Political observers view the three GOP campaigns — win or lose — as a watershed. Republican outreach to minorities, a priority for national party Chairman Ken Mehlman, “has gone a good bit beyond just tokenism,” says John Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron.
Green says black candidates perceive opportunity in the GOP, and the party sees them as potential winners. Parts of the growing black middle class “find the Republican Party congenial,” he says, as do black voters who have conservative religious or moral views.
Blackwell opposes abortion and gay marriage, says he wants to cut taxes and government spending, talks up the power of the free market to help the black community, and vows to defeat the “social, cultural and political forces that have tried to run God and faith and religion out of the public square.”
A University of Cincinnati poll on May 25 had Blackwell 6 points behind Strickland and pulling one-third of the black vote. The poll’s margin of error was +/-4 percentage points.
Steele faces token opposition in Maryland’s primary Sept. 12. Polls show Rep. Ben Cardin is ahead in the Democratic nomination race and does best against Steele. But Kweisi Mfume, a black former congressman and NAACP head, is also running. An Mfume loss could alienate black Democrats.
If that happens, “it’s going to be very dicey because blacks are going to have to choose between a white candidate and Steele,” says Ron Walters, director of the University of Maryland’s African American Leadership Institute. Blacks make up about a quarter of the electorate in Maryland.
A March poll for Maryland Democrats found that 22% of black voters supported “Republican Michael Steele” against “a Democrat,” and a majority of black voters were “open” to backing Steele.
Steele’s goal is 20%-25% of the black vote, and he’s going after it aggressively. He was a guest on a syndicated radio show hosted by former Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton. He even showed up at a fundraiser for a black Democratic congressman, his “good friend” Albert Wynn, to prospect for votes. “I turned a few heads,” Steele says, laughing.
A former state GOP chairman, Steele says he has been trying for years to ease “strained” relations between Republicans and African-Americans. “Sometimes you run into a great deal of resistance,” he says, but blacks are beginning to respond to the party’s focus on opportunity and ownership because “they are looking for those things.”
In Pennsylvania, Swann says of black voters that “you can’t win them if you don’t start talking to them.” Even so, he is running the most traditional GOP campaign of the three so far. “He is more likely to be seen at a chamber of commerce than an urban African-American church,” says political scientist Christopher Borick, director of Pennsylvania’s Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.
Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., says Swann’s rise from humble beginnings and opposition to abortion and gay marriage could appeal to black voters.
“Many of us are surprised that he’s not put on a full-court press,” Madonna says.
Swann spokesman Lenny Alcivar says that full-court press is “about to happen” after a period of intensive fundraising. He says Swann recently hired a deputy campaign manager for outreach and plans to “hit very hard” on black radio, visit black communities and speakmore about education and crime.
Here at the community center in Ohio, Blackwell is putting his own full-court press on three dozen black ministers. He speaks of new jobs, the promise of ethanol, the importance of two-parent families, homeownership and black-owned businesses. He appeals to them as leaders — “you have not been sideline sitters” — who deserve two parties competing for their votes.
“I have never, ever asked someone to vote for me just because of the color of my skin,” Blackwell says. “This is about performance. This is about who can best respond to your interests.”
Democratic candidate Strickland says Blackwell is not that person. “Ken Blackwell was purposefully involved in efforts to suppress the vote” in 2004, he says, and should let someone else supervise this fall’s election. He also says Blackwell’s support for mandated restrictions on state spending would cripple investment in areas such as education.
“I have great confidence,” Strickland says, that when African-Americans weigh his agenda against Blackwell’s ideas, “they’re going to do as they most often do, and that’s vote for the Democrat.”
In this room, some Democrats aren’t so sure. Tarone Claybrook, pastor of Heartreach Ministries, says he votes “about 70% Democratic,” but Blackwell is “the top possibility for me. I like his passion. I like his direction.” Carolyn O’Neil, associate minister of Tabernacle Baptist Church, says she’s impressed by Blackwell and his ideas about “how to get the black community into the economic race.”
Some of the Democrats may vote for Strickland in the end, but Blackwell has achieved his preliminary goal of getting them to think about their choices. “I’m still undecided,” says Democrat Robin Woodberry, youth pastor at New Bethel Baptist Church. “I will be in prayer.”

What a moment for the Congressional Black Caucus to make a stand.

By Rich Lowry - National Review

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has been outed. After a long and honorable career in public service, the truth has been revealed. She is motivated by racial animus.

That’s the conclusion we’re supposed to draw from her request that a Democratic congressman caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in bribes from an FBI informant should give up a plum committee assignment. The congressman in question is the infamous Rep. William Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat who was discovered by the FBI to be keeping $90,000 in hard cash in his freezer along with his ice cream and TV dinners.

Ordinarily it would be unremarkable that a congressman stinking of bribery would earn such a rebuke. But Jefferson is black. So his allies naturally turn to the race card to defend him, even if it means playing it against Pelosi, about whom many critical things can be said — but not that she’s a racist.

Jefferson has said that her request is “discriminatory.” Many members of the Congressional Black Caucus — always a sucker for self-defeating race-based appeals — are backing Jefferson. A CBC aide summarized the sentiment thusly: “Congresswoman Pelosi, by pre-emption without any legal justification, has now created a new precedent for how members are going to be treated. Unfortunately, she’s chosen to single out an African-American for this honor.”

The suggestion is that, if only a white Democrat had been secreting tens of thousands of dollars in cash in his house, Pelosi would be looking the other way. What a disgusting slur. While it is true that usually members have to be indicted to be removed from committees, if common sense ever dictated an exception, this is it. Nonetheless, black-caucus members are murmuring that their voters are tired of being taken for granted by the Democrats, in a spectacularly bizarre ordering of priorities.

Rotten public schools are cheating black kids out of an education, but Democrats don’t want to do anything fundamental to fix them. The breakdown of the two-parent family is the gravest crisis facing urban black communities, but Democrats barely speak of it. The Democrats are pushing a liberal agenda on gay marriage and other cultural issues that runs counter to most blacks’ social conservatism. All of that, the CBC is happy to swallow. But discipline one of its members for a gross ethical lapse, and they aren’t going to take it anymore.

This puts the supposed GOP-fostered “culture of corruption” in Congress — a favorite Democratic campaign theme — in a different light. One place where you find literally a culture of corruption, in the sense of a deeply ingrained pattern of corrupt practices, is in black urban politics. That is so partly because it is tolerated. There apparently has never been a black politician in America accused of corruption who isn’t the victim of racism, according to civil-rights groups and other black politicians.

This is a profoundly enabling attitude, and the people hurt by it are generally poor blacks, who suffer from the resulting degraded governance. Jefferson says he won’t step aside because New Orleans, which he represents, needs him at this time of rebuilding. As if the residents of the Ninth Ward can be ably served only by a congressman venal enough to traffic in tens of thousands of dollars in cash and stupid enough to get caught.

Given the awful history involved, it is understandable that black politics sometimes is characterized by a prickly pride and an easily roused defensiveness. But those feelings should be properly channeled into a swift and angry rejection of unethical black politicians like Jefferson, as unworthy of the struggles that made black representation in Congress possible and of the black constituents who so need and deserve good leadership.

It is telling that Tom DeLay, the supposed poster boy for Republican corruption, is out of Congress without having ever gotten near a bundle of cash. Maybe the GOP caucus has higher standards, or maybe it just doesn’t like white people.