Anderson@Large

Say It Loud -- I'm Black and I'm Proud

             






   
In loving memory of the Godfather of Soul (and here).  May he rest in peace.

Merry Christmas, Baby

It’s hard to believe there are only three days till Christmas.

I’m spending the holidays in Florida, where only some votes get counted and electronic voting machines lose votes (and here).

In Sarasota County, more than 18,000 votes were lost in the election to fill the congressional seat vacated by former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris.

After a Floriduh-style recount (and here), Vern Buchanan was declared the winner by 369 votes.

Earlier this week, the putative loser, Christine Jennings, asked Congress to refuse to seat Buchanan (and here).  Others are also calling for a revote (and here).

Yes, it makes me wanna holler but in the spirit of the season, I’ll just wish everyone a joyous and safe holiday.

Merry Christmas (and here). I’ll see you next year.

The Longest Day

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year.

For many Americans (here and here), the longest day will be Jan. 20, 2009, as they count down the hours until President Bush is out of office.

When he goes, there’ll be a surge of relief that this failed president is back on his ranch.

Swift Justice

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids of Swift & Co. meatpacking plants that rounded up more than 1,280 illegal immigrants were long overdue (and here).

Illegal aliens flout U.S. immigration laws when they sneak into this country so they think the rules don't apply to them, including the rule against stealing a person’s Social Security number.  What’s a little identity theft when you’re trying to feed your family? Um, illegal.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff made mincemeat of the claim that illegals are just doing the work that Americans don't want to do:

Violations of our immigration laws and privacy rights often go hand in hand. Enforcement actions like this one protect the privacy rights of innocent Americans while striking a blow against illegal immigration.

Similarly, ICE chief Julie Myers didn't mince her words:

This investigation has uncovered a disturbing front in the war against illegal immigration. We believe that the genuine identities of possibly hundreds of U.S. citizens are being stolen or hijacked by criminal organizations and sold to illegal aliens in order to gain unlawful employment in this country. Combating this burgeoning problem is one of ICE’s highest priorities.

It’s outrageous that illegal immigrant-advocates like Rebecca Smith, a director with the National Employment Law Project, apparently believes Americans should take a back seat to "nonstandard" (read: illegal) workers:

It really concerns me because identity theft connotes trying to take advantage of another person, trying to use their credit cards and do all sorts of things to steal from another person. Generally these are just workers trying to get a job.

Well, I'm sure those hard-working – law-abiding – Americans whose identities were stolen are really concerned they may have to explain to the IRS why they failed to pay their taxes.

Providence

I spent a couple of days in Providence last week.  From the Christmas tree at City Hall to the Bank of America Skating Center, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the little city that could.

While there, I checked out the RISD Museum of Art’s special exhibition, “Urban America, 1930-70,” which includes works by Jacob Lawrence and Gordon Parks Sr.

The museum’s permanent collection includes cut-paper silhouettes by Kara Walker.  A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Walker’s provocative silhouettes focus on slavery, race and sexual exploitation.

I became familiar with Walker’s work from her exploration of Hurricane Katrina, which was on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this year.  To view some of her images, click here.

March for Justice

Forty thousand demonstrators marched down Fifth Avenue on Saturday to denounce the police killing of an unarmed black man, Sean Bell, on his wedding day.

The march for justice was organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton who said:

We’re not coming to buy toys, we’re not coming to buy trinkets — we’re coming to shop for justice... Our presence is a bigger statement than anything we could ever say with our mouths.

"Al's Army" waved signs that read "March for Justice: Improve Police and Community Relations Now," "Stop Police Brutality" and "Please don’t shoot my son."

A young sister carried an accusatory albeit grammatically incorrect placard: "I am the 4 man."

The march stepped off in the shadow of the Plaza Hotel and wound its way down Fifth Avenue, past the Apple Store, Bergdorf Goodman, Trump Tower, DeBeers, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rockefeller Center, Sean John and the New York Public Library, where Patience and Fortitude stand guard.

For roughly 90 minutes the demonstrators, who marched in silent rebuke of police brutality, were the brightest lights on the avenue. Their quiet dignity was intermittently punctuated with chants of "no justice, no peace" and counts from one to 50 to mark the number of shots fired by undercover officers.

Hordes of holiday shoppers and tourists stared in puzzlement at the sea of black faces. I overheard snippets of complaints about their inability to cross at certain intersections. I thought: It's a black thing, you wouldn't understand.

The march ended at 34th Street and Seventh Avenue outside Macy’s, where I worked for three years during my undergraduate days.

While one can find just about everything at "the world’s largest store," activists now must shop for justice at the U.S. Department of Justice or the new Congress (and here).

Shopping for Justice

Tomorrow amid the holiday shoppers along bustling Fifth Avenue, the Rev. Al Sharpton will lead a march of New Yorkers who want answers as to why 50 shots were fired at three unarmed black men.

Rev. Sharpton said, “We’re going shopping for justice this Christmas.”

The New York Times reports:

But one after another, in conversations with Sergeant Kipp or Sergeant Wheeler, the men said they could not say how many shots they had fired. Two said they were unsure whether they had even fired at all, including a detective who investigators later learned had fired 31 shots, emptying his 9-millimeter Sig Sauer pistol, reloading and emptying it again during the frenzied barrage.

The accounts of the lieutenant and the two sergeants are included in the Police Department’s preliminary report of the shooting early on Nov. 25 that left the car’s driver, Sean Bell, 23, dead on his wedding day and two of his friends wounded, one seriously. The men were part of a larger group that had just attended Mr. Bell’s bachelor party in a strip club down the block.

The march will step off at Noon at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street. For more info, click here.