Anderson@Large

Black Conservatives Shortchanged, Again

This piece in the Los Angeles Times is spot-on about blacks and the Republican Party:

Complaints among black pastors who had been courted by the White House — while less pronounced than those of Latino leaders — have been fueled by a tell-all book by former White House aide David Kuo.

The new book says that Bush, referring to pastors from one major African American denomination, once griped: “Money. All these guys care about is money. They want money (emphasis added).”

A White House spokeswoman said Friday that nobody there recalled hearing such a comment from the president.

The Rev. Eugene Rivers, a Boston Pentecostal minister and one of about two dozen black clergy invited to a series of White House meetings with Bush, said Friday that black leaders had been wooed with assurances that their social service groups would receive money from the president’s faith-based initiative. But, Rivers said, the bulk of the money had gone to white organizations, leaving black churches on the sidelines.

Rivers plans to send a letter early this week to the White House demanding to know how much social services money has been directed to black churches under the faith-based initiative, and requesting a “new conversation” with Bush.

”There’s a growing frustration and anger in the black religious community nationally as the Kuo book makes the rounds,” Rivers said. “Meetings at the White House show you the door, but they don’t necessarily open the door.”

Long before black evangelicals darkened the door of the White House, I sent a reality check about the GOP illusion of inclusion.

You can’t play an inside game with this bunch in the hope that they will grant you some chump change. If you do, they’ll make a chump out of you because they know that the only thing you bring to the table is your hand out.

Mexifornia

Today, I’m back on the Farm for Stanford’s alumni weekend.

I had hoped to meet with Dr. Victor Davis Hanson who coined the term “Mexifornia.”  Dr. Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, which is located on campus. Unfortunately, he has a speaking engagement at Harvard.

I was motivated to contact Dr. Hanson after I read his op-ed piece in the San Jose Mercury News in which he wrote:

Broad class considerations are now transcending particular party, racial and ethnic views of illegal immigration, pitting the well-off few against the less-fortunate many. Many of the more-privileged Americans who frequent fancy restaurants, stay in hotels and depend on hired help for lawn and pool maintenance, home repair and child care don't think illegal immigration is that big a deal.

Those in the higher-paid professions do not fear low-wage competition for their jobs in law, medicine, academia, the media or government. And many who have no problem with the present influx live in affluent communities with good schools insulated from the immediate budgetary consequences of meeting the needs of the offspring of the 11 million here illegally. These wealthier people aren’t so much liberal in their tolerance of illegal immigration as they are self-interested and cynical.

In the current issue of Focus magazine, published by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the premier black think tank, Dr. Steven J. Shulman of Colorado State University writes:

The questions that immigration inevitably raises—first and foremost about who we are, how many we are, and who has a claim on our resources—go to the heart of our national identity. That is nowhere more evident than in the debate about the impact of immigration on African Americans.

…

Nor is the immediately observable wage impact the only cause for concern. Carolyn Hoxby of Harvard University has shown that immigration reduces the probability of college graduation for African Americans (emphasis added); Julian Betts has shown the same for the probability of high school graduation. Schools with high immigrant shares of their student populations are forced to devote a rising fraction of their scarce resources solving the special problems of immigrant students. The result is the “educational crowding out” of African American students. The future consequences include slower wage growth for African Americans. Immigration thus harms their economic prospects in both the short term and the long term.

The future consequences also include fewer marriageable black men. Consider: There already are 500,000 more black women than black men who have graduated from college.

Yeah, happy homecoming.

It’s My Birthday

I’m taking the day off.  Among other things, I’m going to get my hair “dyed, fried and laid to the side” as I get ready for my trip to San Francisco tomorrow.

Speaking of hair laid to the side, I recently attended a colloquium on Josephine Baker at Columbia University.  That was one fierce sister who showed the world her derrière -- and lots of love as an activist with the French Resistance and the NAACP.  Ms. Baker's "Rainbow Tribe" of 12 multi-ethnic adopted children showed that her love knew no bounds.

OK, back to me.  It sure would be nice if some of you showed me some love.  And, no, I ain’t too proud to beg.

What's Next

I'm not a geek but I play one online (here and here).   So, I'm going to spend most of this weekend at various tech events, including WIRED NextFest, the world's fair of technology at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City.

If you're in NY and want to "experience the future," click here.

Illegals’ Razor Blade

By a vote of 283-138, the House of Representatives passed the “Secure Fence Act of 2006" (and here). The Federation for American Immigration Reform reports:

Today’s approval of H.R. 6061, The Secure Fence Act, is an important first step in regaining operational control over our borders and immigration policy, and we applaud the House leadership for bringing it to the floor, declared the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). H.R. 6061 requires the Department of Homeland Security to construct 700 miles of border fencing (FAIR advocates for 2,000 miles of fencing) and increase the use of technology at the border. After months of an immigration stand-off and attempts to link immigration enforcement with an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens, today’s passage of H.R.6061 marks the first mile in a marathon towards achieving true enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws.

It’s said that a drowning man will grab a razor blade. I was reminded of that truism when I received an old news story about how a border fence would allegedly “destroy endangered species and ecosystems:”

More border walls, militarization, low-level aircraft and roads would further damage already-stressed wildlife and places, such as the Cactus Pygmy Owl and Sonoran Pronghorn in Arizona, Flat-Tailed Horned Lizard and Peninsular Ranges Bighorn Sheep in California, Jaguar and Mexican Gray Wolves in New Mexico, and the Rio Grande River, Ocelot, and Big Bend National Park in Texas. Triple walls are harmful to wildlife, blocking migration corridors and destroying valuable habitat. The distance of the triple wall -- 370 miles -- is approximately the distance of the entire border in Arizona.

Question: What about endangered American middle-class taxpayers who are paying the high cost of the border invaders?

A Day of Reflection

In stark contrast to five years ago when there was not a cloud in the sky, the sky was crying in the nation’s capitol on the fifth anniversary of 9/11.

The heavens were crying over the tens of thousands of innocent lives that have been lost in President Bush’s senseless war in Iraq.  In the so-called “war on terror,” Bush’s lies have given birth to the next generation of terrorists.

As I walked around DC, I was saddened by the proliferation of security barricades around federal buildings.  These symbols of homeland security foster a climate of fear that Bush has used to gain partisan advantage (and here).  At the same, time, they are concrete evidence of Beltway bandits and war profiteers feeding at the homeland security trough.

I had planned to attend the commemoration at the U.S. Capitol.  On further reflection, I decided I’ve heard enough from members of Congress who swallowed Bush’s lies about Saddam Hussein’s ties to al-Qaeda.  Meanwhile, Osama Bin Laden’s trail has gone cold (and here).

I spent a good part of the day at the National Portrait Gallery.  I took comfort and reflected amid the portraits of giants, including Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Sojourner Truth, Cinqué, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Thurgood Marshall.

Now For Some Good News

Like all people of goodwill, I’m thankful that the British intelligence agencies foiled the alleged plot to blow up some U.S.-bound airplanes. Still, there is the lingering suspicion that Republicans are playing politics with the terrorist threat (here and here).

The London bomb threat lays bare the hollowness of President Bush’s claim (and here) that Iraq is the “central front” on the "war on terror," and “our Nation is safer than it was prior to September the 11th.”  If being bogged down in Iraq made us safer, I would be able to fix my face on my flight to Nashville tomorrow.

And it’s not just the 60 percent of Americans who oppose the war in Iraq who feel betrayed.  In his new book, Richard Viguerie, the "funding father" of the conservative movement, documents how Bush and Congressional Republicans have betrayed conservatives.  Even if you think it’s good news that the conservative movement was hijacked, you should pay attention to their guru.

I met Viguerie in June at the Media Giraffe conference.  He recounted how conservatives used direct mail to go around the mainstream media gatekeepers.  Viguerie said: “Without direct mail, there would be no conservative movement -- no Reagan, no Republican Revolution, no Bush.”

And I should add, no Karl Rove, who was a direct mail strategist in Austin, Tex., for 17 years before inflicting George Bush on the world.

To purchase Viguerie’s book, click here.