David Greenberg’s Riot Act – The last century’s racial disturbances have a common cause: police brutality [Slate.com] provides a good discussion of the past century of riots by black citizens and its links to the white supremacist corruption of the police department and justice system. On the other hand, it has a lingering problem: it attempts to cast all race riots as black people rioting and attacking white people. This neglects the truly vicious white supremacist assaults on blacks in towns such as Tulsa and St. Louis. The article even tries to lump the 1919 Chicago white supremacist riot as a black-initiated race riot similar to Watts, L.A., or Cincinatti.

Yes, I know the article is an attempt to show how the rioters were provoked by massive police brutality and that oppressive police treatment of blacks has got to stop if we want to end the violence. But it has a subtle effect in reinforcing a few dangerous premises. It reinforces the conviction that racial problems mean black problems, and don’t have anything to do with the active brutality of whites. And similarly, it makes it seem as though racial violence is something that blacks initiate, even if we see that initiation as justified. In the vicious race riots of the early 20th century, that simply was not the case. All of this leads to a continuing view of blacks as a problem to be solved, as the (Greenberg’s words) the violent and the lawless element of a race riot.; What about the white thugs in Tulsa who dropped dynamite on black ghettoes from airplanes? What about the white St. Louis rioters who raped and tortured black women and men by the thousands? Blacks are not the only racial troublemakersof the twentieth century.

A coalition of stakeholders has joined forces to ensure communication and coordination between seven of the organizations that voted No Confidence in the Board of Trustees recently. This is one of the most positive developments I’ve seen in a long time. Hear Hear! award goes to Martin Olliff: When you speak with a united voice … people aren’t able to say it’s just a few malcontents. Indeed. Building a powerful network of information and self-defense between University shareholders, is the only way that the Board is ever going to be taken down.

Four gay activists visiting the Florida state capitol in Tallahassee were told by a veteran lawmaker that the country has lost a lot because of gay and lesbian activities and that their lifestyle is at odds with Christian principles. I told them I disagree with what they’re doing and I think they’re headed in the wrong direction, said Rep. Allen Trovillion, a Winter Park, Fla., Republican and World War II veteran. [Daily news 04/11/01 on Advocate.com]

What a flaming jackass!

Paul H. Rosenberg posted an excellent article to the L.A. Independent Media Center which both puncture’s David Horowitz’s hollow martyr pose and makes a strong case against his claims about reparations in the "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks – and Racist Too" ad. Among other choice tidbits, Rosenberg points out:

Of course, Horowitz himself is an old hand at silencing people he disagrees with. In the late 1980s he spearheaded the campaign to shut down the news program "South Africa Now," carried on many PBS stations. His rationale? It was "communist propaganda," because its producers worked with members of Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, which included communists in its ranks. (Southern segregationists in the 50s and 60s used the same tactics against Martin Luther King.)

Just in case you don’t have enough reasons for hating Ford Motor Company yet, three women workers have charged Ford with liability for sexual harassment over a period of nearly three years.