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Racist Suspect Watch


free your mind!

Cress Welsing: The Definition of Racism White Supremacy

Dr. Blynd: The Definition of Racism

Anon: What is Racism/White Supremacy?

Dr. Bobby Wright: The Psychopathic Racial Personality

The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism (White Supremacy)

What is the First Step in Counter Racism?

Genocide: a system of white survival

The Creation of the Negro

The Mysteries of Melanin

'Racism is a behavioral system for survival'

Fear of annihilation drives white racism

Dr. Blynd: The Definition of Caucasian

Where are all the Black Jurors? 

The War Against Black Males: Black on Black Violence Caused by White Supremacy/Racism

Brazen Police Officers and the Forfeiture of Freedom

White Domination, Black Criminality

Fear of a Colored Planet Fuels Racism: Global White Population Shrinking, Less than 10%

Race is Not Real but Racism is

The True Size of Africa

What is a Nigger? 

MLK and Imaginary Freedom: Chains, Plantations, Segregation, No Longer Necessary ['Our Condition is Getting Worse']

Chomsky on "Reserving the Right to Bomb Niggers." 

A Goal of the Media is to Make White Dominance and Control Over Everything Seem Natural

"TV is reversing the evolution of the human brain." Propaganda: How You Are Being Mind Controlled And Don't Know It.

Spike Lee's Mike Tyson and Don King

"Zapsters" - Keeping what real? "Non-white People are Actors. The Most Unrealistic People on the Planet"

Black Power in a White Supremacy System

Neely Fuller Jr.: "If you don't understand racism/white supremacy, everything else that you think you understand will only confuse you"

The Image and the Christian Concept of God as a White Man

'In order for this system to work, We have to feel most free and independent when we are most enslaved, in fact we have to take our enslavement as the ultimate sign of freedom'

Why do White Americans need to criminalize significant segments of the African American population?

Who Told You that you were Black or Latino or Hispanic or Asian? White People Did

Malcolm X: "We Have a Common Enemy"

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Deeper than Atlantis
« When will Blacks address themselves on January 20? | Main | Greg Palast: OAF OF OFFICE »
Saturday
Jan222005

Cynthia Tucker: Bishop Long marches past real issues

  • Originally Published on: 12/22/04 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution [here]

Bishop Eddie Long is confused about the decline of marriage.

Like many conservative Christians, he blames gays for the problems facing the institution, fearing that their desire to marry would somehow undermine heterosexual unions. On Dec. 11, Long — pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a DeKalb County megachurch that claims 25,000 members — assembled thousands to march in support of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning same-sex unions.

The bishop is wrong about gay marriage, of course. Heterosexuals have undermined matrimony all by themselves — and nowhere is that more true than in black America, where 70 percent of children are born to unmarried parents, where divorce is rampant and where unemployment, incarceration and drug abuse further reduce the pool of eligible males.

Marriage is virtually disappearing among black people. Two-thirds of white and Latino men between the ages of 35 and 39 are married; only 43 percent of black men in that age group are married.

If the bishop were genuinely concerned about changing those statistics, he and his followers might have marched to protest the murder rate among black men. It is far more destructive to families than gay marriage could ever be.

In 2002, the nation had 14,054 homicides, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report. Of those in which a suspect was identified, black men were likely perpetrators in more than 40 percent. That's a damning statistic for a group that accounts for only about 6 percent of the population.

Black men are also the group most vulnerable to violent crime. In 2002, they accounted for nearly 40 percent of the nation's homicide victims. In other words, black men pose the greatest threat to one another.

Just two weeks ago, Carl Walker, 27, was gunned down while delivering The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in Avondale Estates. He left a grief-stricken family, including his widow, DeVona, who had known him since junior high school, and his 7-year-old son, TyeRelle. The four suspects, like the victim, are all young black men, according to DeKalb County police department spokesman Dale Davis.

Last month, Lonneil Octavis Wade, 20, was shot dead as he walked home from work in Powder Springs, the victim of an apparent random attack. Police have arrested four men, including 17-year-old Alvin High Jr., the alleged gunman; all of the suspects, like the victim, are black. If they are guilty, they will make poor prospects for marriage.

While black men who murder belong in prison for long stretches, nonviolent offenders don't. If Long were genuinely concerned about black marriage, he might have called a march to protest the high rates of incarceration of black men for nonviolent drug crimes.

Prison hardly improves a man's marriage prospects. When they are finally released, drug felons have a record that makes most employers run the other way. They also leave prison less able to form stable relationships and, often, more prone to violence.

And if Long really wanted to help restore marriage among blacks, he might have marched to call attention to one of the greatest threats to the community: the spread of AIDS. Black Americans represent less than 13 percent of the population but account for more than half of all new HIV infections. But the bishop's homophobia will only exacerbate that problem, discouraging gays and lesbians from coming out of the closet or even from being tested for the disease.

Perhaps restoring marriage wasn't really Long's goal. Perhaps he was really after public acclaim. After all, if he marched to protest divorce, he'd likely infuriate more than a few members of his congregation. (Long himself remarried after a divorce.) If he marched to denounce black murderers, he'd risk the opprobrium of those who still can't admit that a pathology stalks black America.

How much easier it is to pander to a popular prejudice.

  • Greg Fuller Responds: Another great piece , Ms Tucker , toss in a little plug for sensible gun measures and you would have touched another issue vital to the Black community's survival . Thugs with guns have degraded our communities for years . Just as we are witnessing in Iraq with the insurgency , weapons in the wrong hands make our communities untenable , unstable and are a requisite precursor and facilitator for the deaths from robberies and the drug trade.
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