[Iowa-dx] 2 Articles about Cynthia McKinney

[Hart, Holly J]

http://media.www.brookhavencourier.com/media/storage/paper807/news/2008/02/=
18/News/Green.Party.Candidate.Speaks.About.Student.Debt.Elections.Immigrati=
on-3223647.shtml

Green Party candidate speaks about student debt, elections, immigration
By: Adam Asmar
Posted: 2/18/08
Presidential campaigning made a pit stop at Brookhaven College.
Former U.S. Representative and presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney
visited Brookhaven Feb. 11 to discuss her bid to become the nominee
for the Green Party.
McKinney said she saw a lot of student power within the ballot and
believes student issues are very important to her campaign. She said
she once met a college student who was $100,000 in debt and does not
believe there is any reason for this happening. She said working on
confronting the costs of education is important to her.
McKinney was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in
1992 as a democrat and the first black Congresswoman from Georgia. She
said she was elected with a total campaign budget of only $25,000.
She served until 2002 when she lost her seat to a republican.
She was re-elected in 2004 and lost again in 2006.
She said she left the Democratic Party in 2007 because she feels like
it did not represent the will of the people anymore and that the Green
Party had a lot of potential.
Joy Glatz, political science major, said she thought McKinney was a
woman of courage.
"She speaks on issues that affect Americans today," Glatz said. "She
is a true agent of change."
Glatz also said she was excited at the opportunity of having a woman
of color as a potential presidential candidate, citing how she felt
diversity was important in the political spectrum.
McKinney described Farmers Branch's moves against illegal immigrants
as, "Xenophobia gone mad."
Xenophobia is the fear or hatred of people from other countries. She
said she believes the solution to xenophobia is more education.
She also said she believes Americans must understand globalization.
"What we do in this country affects the lives of people in other
countries," McKinney said.
Fahmida Khatun, freshman economics major, said she hopes to see
McKinney go as far as she can.
"She needs to have her party known out there and not just be in the
grass roots movement," Khatun said. "I, for one, am tired of looking
at the two-party system."
McKinney has had a staunch anti-war record, not voting for the
authorization of the war, or any following funding bills.
She believes in an end to U.S. militarization around the world and
wants to bring all U.S. troops that are stationed abroad back home.
McKinney was also featured in a documentary titled "American Blackout."
The film chronicled her 2004 re-election bid and irregularities found
within voting machines.
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Voices: McKinney for a truly singular moment toward change!

by Dr. Jean Daniels

 http://www.capitalcityhues.com/022108Voices.html

    I recently received two interesting emails - one from a
teacher/community leader asking how to instill Black consciousness in
Black boys. The other was an article send by a friend in San
Francisco. I read the news article first and then replied to the
teacher/community leader.


    To the teacher/community leader I suggested that he or she make
time for these young Black boys - preferably in one-on-one sessions.
Listen to the story and then interpret that story for the benefit of
that child. There're books, I wrote. But the first step is to listen
to these Black boys, targets of a systematic effort to demoralize
their spirit. Prepping Black boys for use in the prison industrial
complex is part of a demoralizing process enabling the ineffectiveness
of this population within the Black community while securing bodies
for a new form of slavery.


    No Child Left Behind and fearful Whites promote a "realized"
racial equality leaving Black boys more at risk for the not-so-subtle
indoctrination of racial inferior. Classroom walls plastered with
Black historical figures can't combat the feeling that "my" particular
blackness is less than all the other "favored" children surrounding
me, all the other historical figures and authors mentioned in class
today. "I" am less than all the whiteness  surrounding me.

     I suggested that the child be made to recognize his humanity
first. Then through books, this child will come to recognize that
there isn't  anything in his heritage to be ashamed of - no more and
no less than any other racial group. As Martin Luther King said in his
"Our America" speech in 1967, it is criminal to make children think
otherwise.The teacher/community leader would make the child before him
understand that  his feeling of inferiority is evidence of this
demoralizing process and not evidence of his lack of human being-ness
or some inadequacy inherent  in his racial heritage.


Black people have contributed more than hip-hop to the world, and
Black history did not begin with the European conquest of Africa and
the Euro-American kidnapping of over 60 million Africans. Black
consciousness is socially and culturally feared, and it's economically
not profitable for a corporate-minded nation.


    That brings me to the second email - the attached article. The
article refers to the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner, Toni
Morrison's  recent endorsement of the presidential candidacy of
Senator Barack Obama. In the article, "Toni Morrison, who labeled Bill
Clinton '1st Black President,' Backs Barack Obama," there's a letter
Morrison addresses to Obama in which she states that a vote for him
would be a "vote for change." Morrison appreciates Obama's view of
this nation's citizens as "we" and not "they." She praises Obama's
"courage." Finally, Morrison states that "this is one of those
singular moments that nations ignore at their peril."


    The Talented Tenth continues to dictate to the masses of Blacks
who, as Professor Marc Lamont Hill writes, "remain consistently
assaulted by the forces [of] white supremacy" ("Not My Brand of
Hope"). In collusion with corporate power, the Talent Tenth works to
suppress the possibility of real change that can only come from the
poor, lower working class that consists of mainly Black, Latino/as and
Native Americans.

     As Hill writes, from on high, America announced its "transition
into a postracial moment." For many, this "postracial moment" is the
one singular moment that represents yet another cruel moment in the
history of this nation. To ignore the implications of this
"post-racial moment" is perilous indeed.


    In addition, Obama's "change" is in facial coloring only. As a
Black, he is the corporate media darling -- not subject to what Black
boys and young men experience as day-to-day life in America. Where is
his Black consciousness when he surrounds himself with ex-Lockheed
Martin personnel, "centrist market economists from Harvard and the
University of Chicago, and David Axelrod (ex-Exelon consultant) and
others of the same elk (Democracy Now! February 8, 2008)?


Obama "backed down on a bill that would have required nuclear plants
to disclose radio active releases" (DN and New York Times). Why?
Exelon is a major Obama donor, among others. Where is his Black
consciousness when he supports unilateral war campaigns? At an AIPAC
Policy Forum, March 2, 2007, Obama announced his commitment to work
"diligently" with AIPAC to secure Israel without reference to the
plight of the Palestinians. Is he too fearful to speak about the
plight of the poor, lower wage workers who are mostly Black,
Latino/as, Chicanos, and Native Americans? Has he listened to the
story of Black boys in America?

     Where's the courage?

     While I don't support the Green Party, former Georgia member of
Congress, Cynthia McKinney is running on the GP ticket for president.
She has no problems being human, honoring her Black heritage, and
standing up to corporate imperialism. To realize a truly singular
moment, think outside the Republicrat box!