THE BORG QUEEN RENTS A NEGRO

THE BORG QUEEN AND HER RENTAL NEGRO

Y'all knew that the Borg Queen (aka Senator Hillary Clinton) wasn't going to take Sen. Barack Obama's stealth move in bringing out talk-show mogul Oprah Winfrey to campaign for him lying down.

I waited to see what she would do. At first, all it looked like she was going to do was throw down roundhouse punches at Obama's campaign, by digging up what the brotha wrote on his Kindergarten essay, then trying to play on American's fears by bringing up his full name, which his middle name is Hussein (y'all know where she tried to make that connection), and finally, enlisting the aid of Bill Shaheen, the husband of former New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen, to start talking about Barack's youthful indiscretion (cocaine use), and allegeging he was probably a drug dealer.

Obama a drug dealer? You can't make this stuff up.

But, not to my surprise, the Borg Queen came back with a lil' stealth move of her own.

Magic Johnson. Yes, that Magic Johnson (how many did you think there were?). He joined the Borg Queen on her campaign in Iowa, and instantly went from hero to Handkerchief Head Negro with sly digs and comments about Hillary's "experience" and how we didn't need an inexperienced person getting the White House.

To which, I say, "Negro, please!" As in "Please shut your friggin' mouth; you don't know jack about politics."

Now, this is painful for me to write, because I've always been a Magic Johnson fan. Long after his HIV status forced him to retire from the game. I remember when he made the announcement about his status, thinking, "If anyone can beat this, it's Magic Johnson."

But, to turn into a Handkerchief Head is hard for me to swallow, because Magic Johnson is the last African-American I'd care to pin that label on. Campaigning for the Borg Queen, after her husband goes on Charlie Rose's show and literally dissed an African-American for even daring to consider any other candidate except his wife, frosted my cookies in a huge way that I won't be forgetting too soon.

If Obama's candidacy shows anything to politicos, it should be this: YOU CAN'T CONTINUE TO TAKE AFRICAN-AMERICANS VOTES FOR GRANTED AND NOT HAVE IT COME BACK TO BITE YOU IN THE ASS. We are not a monolithic group - and we don't like African-Americans like Magic Johnson trying to lecture us on who we should elect as POTUS. Especially when the brotha's only foray into politics was a worthy one - stepping up legislative efforts on HIV research, education and prevention.

At least he's done better than Michael Jordan - Mike wants you to "be like him" when he's collecting his checks. Political forays into issues like, say, CIVIL RIGHTS, are alien to him and problematic when it comes to getting that check. Magic eschewed that and remade himself into a remarkable businessman, purchasing and running Starbuck establishments and his Magic Johnson theaters, where going to see a movie can be a really fun experience (he even employs people to throw out those who would talk at the screen non-stop during a movie, and he has good eating going on in there, too). Magic's even gone on to make some forays into Civil Rights issues as well, so going over to what I consider "The Dark Syde" is making me toss my breakfast this morning.

Now, you're probably saying I'm being too hard on Magic, by tagging him a Handkerchief Head for spewing Hillary's talking points about Obama. Even if he didn't mention Obama by name, we all knew who he was talking about. I thought Lawn Jockey was too strong - he didn't go that far off...yet. He should be able to endorse anyone he wants - everyone African-American doesn't have to get on board with Obama. And, you're right, because at this point in the game, this African-American woman is not on board the good ship Obama, because his vagueness on his political platform reminds me of John Kerry - whenever someone asked Kerry for specifics on his campaign promises, he'd tell you to "go to www.JohnKerry.com" for more information, when it's just easier to tell us what you got planned.

A gospel tour with Donnie McClurkin damned near gave the LGBT community apoplexy - I thought John Aravosis at Americablog was going to do more than lynch Obama on his blog. And sending white campaign workers to black hair salons to ask sistas getting perms or their weaves hooked up, what they thought about Obama, showed an inherent unfamiliarity with the demographics of the very base of voters Obama was trying to reach.

My friend Skeptical Brotha, cynically referred to this period of the Obama campaign as "Amateur Hour", and I couldn't have agreed with him more.

Obama appears to have corrected that - just as the Borg Queen begins her own fumbling of her front-runner status.

Should the Borg Queen win - will there be a Cabinet position for loyalist Negroes like Magic? Create a government agency that provides oversight of professional sports, perhaps? I want to know what's in it for African-Americans like Magic Johnson, or, for that matter, half of the Congressional Black Caucus that have hitched your wagons to Hillary Clinton's campaign. You need to review just what the Clinton Administration did for people of ethnic background during the 1990s:

• Gave us trade agreements that took your jobs out of the country (NAFTA & CAFTA);
• Increased taxes on the working and middle-class;
• Opened the door for media consolidation and monopoly (and probably gave birth to Pravda networks like Fox Network);
• Dismantled any and all gains made by Civil Rights and Affirmative Action with that "Mend it, don't end it" shyt;
• Refused to stand up like Harry S. Truman and further integrate the Armed Forces by allowing gay and lesbians to be open about their sexual identity, instead of hiding it with that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" shyt;
• Pushed through all legislation that the ReThugs wanted that would screw over anyone else through cutbacks in social policies and programs;
• Slung people like Joycelyn Elders and Lani Guinier under the bus because Oren Hatch whined about their positions on masturbation and affirmative action like a lil' byotch.

So, I want to know what's in it for you that support the Clintons when it's well documented that everytime he had the opportunity to do some real Field Negro stuff, he always choked and put away that honorary Negro card Toni Morrison gave him. Because his wife is no better on her track record either. You can find continuous votes to fund the mess in Iraq among her atrocities, and her recent attacks on Obama should wake all of us the hell up.

I'm on record about Obama - he has not articulated his policy platform well enough for me to co-sign. But whenever I see a brotha being attacked, as if, by virtue of being Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton, Hillary thinks she's entitled to the White House because she hitched her ambition wagon to Bill and suffered the public humiliation of being cheated on because her husband got a blow job in the Oval Office; well, what qualification for the job is that?

Magic Johnson - you can add him to the list of Rent-A-Negroes. I'm wondering who's going to be next, because you know, John Edwards is going to have to trot out a rental Negro, too.

JENA

This town is getting the same notoriety that its' neighbor over in Jasper, Texas, got seven years ago (James Byrd being dragged down the road behind a pickup truck for sport until he was decaptitated). And if it serves to embarass people into the 21st Century on issues of racism, I'm all for something good coming out of this mess.

The town's residents don't want to be known as a town full of bigots. Thanks to some high school students who were taught that bigotry, by residents of that town, well, Jena, you got the scarlett letter on your back now. 25, 000 African-Americans crowding your town to demand justice for six young African-Americans who are facing prison sentences meant for hard-core crimes (you know, like rape, murder, industrial-strength drug dealing, lying this country into a war) for getting into a school fight, earned you that Scarlett Letter of Bigoty.

Why don't bigots want to be publicly known as bigots? Saves people like me a lot of trouble and time trying to ID your behinds. Why do you need to hide behind a hood, robe and burning cross? Could it be, that maybe, just maybe, you know deep down in your hearts that you're supporting something morally wrong (like hating people because they don't look like YOU, perhaps?)

My father used to always say if he was given the chance of fighting a water mocassin and a rattlesnake, he'd take on the rattler every time, because the rattler lets you know he's going to fight back by rattling his tail. He used this analogy when talking about bigots, people.

Chopping down the tree where this fight got started doesn't eliminate that the local D.A., Reed Walters, went after those kids, now known as the Jena 6, for the wrong reasons, and that reason was race.

Some might compare this incident to the rape allegations against the Duke LaCrosse team made by an African-American stripper. I didn't think race should have played a role then - to me, it was a matter of a woman alleging she'd been gang raped by a bunch of athletes. Now, when you got the story, that racial epithets were hurled at the woman, that fact turned the incident racial, and rather than D.A. Mike Nifong looking for factual evidence he could take to build up an actual case against the Duke players, he used the racial aspect to ensure African-Americans re-elected him in droves, with the promise of continuing to vigorously prosecute this case.

Well, it worked. For a hot minute anyway. Wasn't long before his antics caught up with him, plus the fact that the Duke boys' parents had fat bank accounts to hire them serious legal representation. But, anyway...

Funny, how he (Nifong) used race to get re-elected, but the facts got him kicked out of office, out of a job, and out of his license to practice law elsewhere. But, the Jena 6 is different because race has been a direct factor from the outset. And while Reed Walters denies that fact, what's more important to note is that he's not doing anything to quiet down speculation about it being about nothing else than RACE.

Jena, Louisiana highlights, as did Jasper, Texas, that there are Americans who advanced to the 1960s and are still stuck there. It highlights that racism and bigotry is a taught science, and is passed down from generation to generation. Those of us born during the turbulent 60s are the generation who should have learned from mistakes made before we were born, and our parents taught us the determination not to repeat them. However, some were perfectly okay with training their children to be the next generation of Klansmen (ever see those film clips with babies in KKK hoods and robes? That should have been enough to scare you; those kids are in their late 30s and early 40s now, with spawn of their own)

Somewhere along the way, those lessons didn't get taught to a few white kids in Jena. But the lessons of bigotry did stick with them. That was where they got their motivation to hang a noose on that tree, after African-American kids decided to peacefull protest by sitting under that tree. Kinda like the kids did back in the 1960s at those lunch room counters at Woolworth's. And the Black kids got a noose to greet them for their trouble to protest bigotry.

The white kids thought hanging a damned noose is nothing more than a prank. Their parents probablly told them that. Tell that shyt to African-Americans who lived with those threats every damned day of their lives; despite laws being passed to outlaw such terrorism.

But you know what's worse than what's going on in Jena? The refusal of the so-called, "progressive" bloggers to give any time and space on their blogs to such a salient issue for African-Americans, for Latino Americans, for Asian Americans, for women, for the LGBT community, because just substitute "African-American" for any of the groups I've named here, and you have the same problem, if not worse. You have bigotry on a massive scale.

Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend called out her fellow progressive bloggers on their dereliction of duty in being the aspects of journalists we have been longing for, for the last 10 years. At best, DailyKos' MissLaura did a full post on Jena, today, but FireDogLake is mailing in the "Dog Ate My Homework" on their dereliction. HuffPo has been eerily silent as well.

My take on this - until "progressives" get their collective heads out of their asses on this one, you need to stop calling on us African-American bloggers to carry your water when it suits you to include us at the table. Until our issues are synonymous with your issues, (which means you don't get to pooh-pooh issues like the Jena 6, but we're expected to demonstrate outrage when Bill O'Reilly attacks you) you need to get that beam out of your eye before you tell me I have one in mine. Your silence tells me that my issues don't matter to you, so don't get upset if you come knocking on the door of Black Bloggers and we're not home.