Black and Bible-Beautiful

US Citizenship: a political hand-out

2006-05-15T20:47:00.000-05:00

The key word for president Bush in illegal immigration is " these are decent hard working people", which is both troubling and beside the point. The point is the US Constitution, upholding it. The President spoke tonite sounding like an apologist for illegality rather than as the nation's chief law enforcement officer, and by the end of his speech, US citizenship as a political hand-out had advanced that much further down the slippery slope of political correctness.

About those 11-20 million illegals in the US. Yes I agree with the president that it is not wise or practical to think in terms of deporting them. Where illegality has reached this magnitutde, remedying the situation must take into consideration restoring the law's integrity. Which will not happen without also addressing among other things, the lawbreaking behavior of employers who hire illegals.

Right now I want to focus on the illegal immigrant since that was the president's focus tonite. The long and the short of my opinion is that the president's proposal to allow illegals to qualifiy for citizenship is an amnesty that not only undermines the rule of law, but more specifically, it cheapens and debases US citizenship.

Frankly this is a sordid moment in representational government, when the president and the congress are content to carry on this discussion as a matter of "immigration" when the issue involves instantly absorbing 11-20 million foriegn nationals...

We are speaking here of an exponential impact on the American electorate, where the very notion of government by the people is inverted by legislative fiat into the perversity of American democracy built on: "people of the government, for the government, and by the government". Perish the thought.

All this being said, very few people in America can say they don't have some contact with someone who qualifies as an illegal immigrant, people we know by name and hold dear as friends, family members and co-workers. Therefore I agree wholeheartedly with the president's call for civility in pursuing these issues that are core, soul-deep concerns of the American way.
vashti

United 93: O say does that banner yet wave?

2006-04-30T20:26:00.000-05:00

I'm just getting back from seeing "United 93", and one of the first things I heard when I turned my radio on is the so-called Spanish language version of the National Anthem. What a crock, this is not about the "star-spangled banner" that Francis Scot Keys saw that morning. This is about "immigrants without borders", a strike at the heart of American soveriegnty as a nation. The passengers on board United 93 have given us an updated vision of the stars & stripes still waving, and the political philosophies behind the illegal immigrant rights movement are just as anithethical to American freedom as the terrorist were on United 93. Meeting this threat will require the same kind of sacrifice they displayed.
vashti

Confiscatory Immigration Policy

2006-04-26T09:49:00.000-05:00

Confiscatory immigration policy, a betrayal of representative government. The terms of citizenship in the US should be no less than the conditions under which we the people consent to be governed. Citizenship of the people, by the people and for the people. Otherwise our consent to be governed is undermined altogether, and through manipulation of citizenship rules, a political elite is able to change our form of government. Right now we are seeing American democracy diluted into demogogued democracy, banana republic style.
vashti

CONFISCATORY COMPASSION, (Constitutional reflections... of, for, & by the people...)

2006-04-26T00:29:00.000-05:00

“Confiscatory compassion”, that’s what I think about as I follow the illegal immigration debate.
“I know this is an emotional debate …but we’re talking about human beings, decent human beings. Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic. It’s not going to work.” President Bush, Irving California business group on illegal workers in USA. (4/24/06)

In the process, the US Constitution, is also being commodified, its principles of governance & citzenship treated on the basis of mere convenience.

Commodity- A thing that is of use or advantage. (American College Dictionary [1963]).

Unfortunately for its’ illegal immigrant community, the same complaint cannot be said where Mexico’s constitution is concerned.

See Mexico’s constitution and the principles of limited dignity it accords the immigrant community there.
http://www.ilstu.edu/class

Pity the human souls that find themselves traversing Mexico’s sovereign soil undocumented. Theirs is a nightmare of rape, pillaging, and sometimes murder at the hands of Mexico’s border authorities. According to the Associated Press:

MEXICO HARSH TO UNDOCUMENTED MIGRANTS

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/18/ap/world/mainD8H2M7100.shtml

True compassion, worthy of statesmen would extend to these ones. Otherwise the emperor hath no clothes, up and down the ladder, from the president down through the ranks of both democrats and republicans alike.

And the president’s performance on this issue is profoundly mediocre, and out of line with the strength and character he showed making the decision to go to war in Iraq. That was a moment of statesmanship, going against the currents of short-term political convenience in the interest of the nation.

Today is a moment of squandered opportunity to lead the American people in serious reflection over what our Constitution means to our way of life.

While the blood of our sons and daughters consecrate the soil of dictatorships around the world in the name of government of, for and by the people, we’ve been willing to trust this president, finding comfort and reassurance in the knowledge that ours is a freedom worth dying for.

Is this not a time to require of ourselves, and those who would make claims upon the goodness and character of this nation, a similar spirit of gravity and sacrifice in behalf of America’s founding principles?

Honoring the sacredness of the rule of law in this debate, making sure that it comes through undiminished, we the people of America feeling well-served by the principles of representative democracy--these are the pre-imminent values. In the eyes of everyday Americans the partisanship & special interest politics driving the Congressional and White House response is dismaying.

Therefore making American citizens at this time and in the context of the profoundness of the political discrepancies swirling throughout this crisis will prove to be prodigiously unwise, and destabilizing over the long-term where America’s body politic is concerned.

Deporting 11 million illegals is indeed unworkable, and our choices need not be so stark or hysterical in tone.

But the idea of dealing with 11 million people who are here illegally, in any definitive way in the near future remains fool-hearted & unwise. This problem did not come about over night, and its complexities defy a one-size fits all approach to handling it.

So that the thing to do for now is to come up with measures that will stabilize the situation as it is. Closing down the border on this side with a physical wall and adequate personnel is a start.

This start should emphasize shutting-off illegal immigration at the spigot: Mexico’s walls within, economic and social barriers in their culture and legal system where far too many members of their society exist in a bottomless pit of poverty, where the only way out is via illegal migration to America.

True representative democracy holds the same promise for the poor of Mexico and Latin America as it does in Iraq and over the long-term contributes to America’s national security interest.

Vashti
4/25/06

Slouching between Condoms & Artificial Fingernails

2006-04-18T04:24:00.000-05:00

Well the indictments came down last night in Durham, and so did Rev. Jessie Jackson. He came on the scene offering to pay the accuser’s tuition. Presumably she and a lot of other college girls in America are having to finance their education by stripping. ( No mention was made of those women who go about their tuition by faith, flipping burgers, doing without, etc.)

The members of the Lacrosse team were likened to their slave-owner grandfathers, by Rev Jackson, their racist sexual exploitation of black slave women…. With all due respect for the accuser, given her stated purpose for going to the house in the first place, comparing this case with history does a disservice to our ancestors and the virtues they lived and died for.
vashti

America the Balkanized (more thoughts)

2006-04-16T22:12:00.000-05:00

The rhetoric of the illegal immigrant rights movement, speaking of “worker’s rights” is the language of class-politics, a spirit that’s out of line with the assumptions of American constitutional democracy. Our rights were given to us by God, not the result of social engineering, or other fabrications of human intent.

While it remains disturbing, it should come as little wonder that this same political movement holds in contempt the law and sovereignty of America, while viewing the American people’s compassion as an entitlement.

Meanwhile, since we’re on the subject, when it comes to unapologetic anti-immigrant national policy one need look no further than Mexico’s constitution.

To begin with it prohibits non-Mexicans from speaking out concerning any aspect of Mexican politics. An American citizens living in Mexico with the temerity to speak out concerning the issues under discussion, for example, would be subject to arrest, regardless of legal status.

In America we’ve handcuffed & muzzled our policemen when it comes to illegals. Asking about legal status is racial profiling, while Mexico authorizes its civilians to arrest immigrants found to be breaking the law. Contrast that with how the Minutemen have been portrayed as heartless bigoted vigilantes for patrolling the border for illegal crossings.

Across the border immigrant workers know nothing of “worker’s rights”. It’s okay with their constitution for employers to prefer Mexican citizens over immigrants.

See www.bleedingamerica.com

vashti

Balkanization American-style

2006-04-16T18:30:00.000-05:00

"Balkanization" is a better way to describe what's happening in Omaha, Nebraska, where the school district has been broken up into three districts along racial lines. The new scheme which was sheparded through the Nebraska legislature by a veteran black lawmaker is described as giving black people a chance to control their own education. My initial response was to think of this in terms of segregation /integration. But the more I thought about it the more it looks like the outworkings of affirmative action and other race-based remedies gone to seed.
No matter how well intentioned the idea of "leveling the playingfield" may seem, the inherent weakness of these solutions is that they breed unhealthy class-identification, where the value of individual initiative is minimized. I see this development in Omaha as a loss, signifying a dangerous resignation and frustration with the American way, which was never really tried over the last 40-years of America's contentious culture of civil rights.

Affirmative action, forced busing to achieve racial balance in schools, distorted American freedom, just as surely as Jim Crow-segregation was an outright violation of the constitution. Two wrongs don't make a right, even if in one case the wrong is justified on the basis of it's benevolent intent. American democracy, though we speak of majority-rule, is not designed to operate on the basis of utilitarian values. The notion that the end justifies the means fits like an unnatural growth, in a democracy premised on the belief that, "all Men are created equal" by virtue of God's handiwork.

Sponsors of the bill which was signed into law last week argue that segregation was not their intent, that the schools were segregated already. In the early days of civil rights litigation, it became a trusim that intent to discriminate was not the issue, all a court had to do was find that a practice was discriminatory, and liability would ensue. In the case of the Omaha school district's breakup along racial lines that are deemed to be in the best intrest of the students, it appears to me that we can see the initial mistake, the arbitrary quality built into the whole canon of civil rights jurisprudence. Here a race-conscious remedy designed to make things seperate but equal, is allowed because the blessings of Omaha's civil rights establishment and other powers that be have been muttered, mantra-like over the whole affair. This is what bothers me, and should concern freedom-lovers every where.
vashti
http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=316&sid=749020

More thoughts on life lived between condoms & artificial fingernails

2006-04-13T21:03:00.000-05:00

At the gym a little while ago, the radio behind the check-in desk was on. The sound of a black man's voice making a plea for somebody to please come forward to the police with information on a recent case where an 18-year old black youth, was shot dead during choir practice outside his southside church.

The clerk remarked that "somebody know what went on".... The rule of law out here where it's hard for a pimp. "Gangs". People are afraid to talk.

vashti

More thoughts on life between "condoms & artificial fingernails

2006-04-13T20:55:00.000-05:00

"The definition of a decadent society might be one in which private vices become public, not merely in the sense of becoming known, but in the sense that the leaders of the society govern in accord with their vices. Sins of the flesh, traditionally thought of as sins of weakness and sources of shame, become sins of pride."
James Hitchcock, TOUCHSTONE MAGAZINE, April 2006. www.touchstonemag.com

Between Condoms & Artificial Fingernails

2006-04-13T14:19:00.000-05:00

Between condoms & and artificial fingernails

Regarding the Duke Lacrosse stripper rape case.
That DNA results seem to give the Lacrosse team members a clean bill of health where these charges are concerned is of no major significance according to the prosecutor handling the case, Mike Nifong.
In Nifong’s view the only thing conclusive that can be drawn from the fact that DNA tests failed to finger any of the accused players is that the attackers may have worn condoms. This and artificial fingernail fragments collected at the scene. According to the accuser, a 27-year old, single mother, her nails were broken as she fought off the alleged attackers, and together with the prosecutor’s condom-theory, a forensic case may be made without DNA.

So between a condom and artificial fingernails let the search for truth begin.

Talk about poetry, the story this tells about our ideals as a society, the sources we look to for distilling ideas and values concerning social norms. It may be that there’s tons of other supporting evidence that the prosecutor hasn’t revealed yet. ( Nifong also happens to be running for re-election with a black opponent in May. )
Regardless of what happens in this case, or with the prosecutor’s re-election bid, its’ emblematic value to society endures with these two social artifacts: condoms and artificial fingernails. These stand as bookends, reminders of how destitute we’ve become in our moral intelligence, our framework for distilling truth.
Between condoms and artificial fingernails, no rules apply except: “if it feels good do it”, or “love the one you’re with…” (to quote tunes popular in my generation, social artifacts representing our vast & inestimable contribution to today’s pervasive climate of amorality).
vashti

CASTE- AMERICAN STYLE

2006-04-12T17:00:00.000-05:00

I have not seen todays news on the Duke Univeresity Lacrosse team rape charges. Except for the fact that it was a part of the background noise of my existence living in a media-saturated world, the story was not on my radar screen. That changed when I happened to hear the news as it was breaking concerning the infamous email. The one in which one of the males involved promised that the next party, would not only include female-strippers performing, but that he'd end the performance with their murder & mutilating.

I thought to myself after hearing this that perhaps I'd been being a little hasty in dismissing the original headlines & newsflashes. The thought that murder and mutilation was evidently a cool frat-house laugh-line was chilling, or that erotic fantasizing over this sort had somehow crossed over from mental-derangement to mainstream locker-room bawdiness was likewise bone-chilling. Suddenly this was not a been-there, done-that, eyes-glazed- over media PC- extravaganza...

Yesterday's news was about the DNA reports of the accused players. Theirs and the DNA-of social culprits, the real causes, society's failings, the usual suspects of victims and victimizers....Just say white perpetrator, black victim. (You get it right...)

Today this story came back to mind when I read an email concerning an orphange operated by Christians that's beseiged by sectarian militants, in India's Hindu -state of Rajasthan. There orphan girls from the Dalit caste, the untouchables, live in fear of being shipped off to serve as temple sex-slaves, pursuant to social mandates stemming from Hindu religious beliefs. This is a here and now story, not something being mindlessly mouse-clikced around the web. But who could be blamed for thinking so, given the scant attention it has been given by any news media.

Which brings me back to Duke University Lacrosse/USA, where the saga of "caste" American-style plays out in black & white ( ad nauseum for me).
The 24-hour news-cycle, abounds with "ism-spins".
Fifteen minutes of fame and counting--talk of personal responsibility poo-pooed and taboo.
Center-stage yesterday America's primo-castebusters: representatives of Durham's black civil rights elite, self-righteous & indignant bashing the press for referring to the accuser in their stories as a "stripper". (Blaming the victim, a felonius PC-violation. )

Gosh...speaking of untouchables, think of the wonders, the hope that a little mainstream ink extended toward the orphan Dalit-girls in Rajasthan might accomplish.

You can get more info on the Hopewell orphanage at the following web address.

www.persecution.org
www.hopegivers.org
vashti

American Immigration Thoughts

2006-04-08T07:03:00.000-05:00

Yes it's about the American soul, this work that Americans won't do, and us black folks ought to be weeping tears of repentence, on our knees reclaiming our father's work-ethic. Fifty-years after moving to the front of the bus, it seems we've left our lunch-pails, our tools for self-reliance at the back of the bus. With the culture of civil rights displacing traditional moral grounding, our expectations over the last 40 years have been formed around the notion of legal rights, what the government owes us.

Leaving aside the merits and demerits involved with America's immigration crisis, if it's true that demography determines destiny, then the political vulnerability of black America, having been dominated for 40 years by a one-sided philosophy of citizenship which has stressed civil rights as entitlement- rights, could not be more apparent.

There's a moral wake-up call that we can heed individually, and which is long overdue regardless of the outcome for illegal immigrants. This notion that there is work Americans won't do should perish from the landscape of serious social discourse. And the beauty of this approach is that the only revolution it requires is on the inside, an exercise in self-governance.
vashti

Immigration Thoughts

2006-04-07T16:49:00.000-05:00

WE’RE LIVING IN HOPE
Everytime I hear it, the comment about work that Americans won’t do, I’m reminded of how the debate over illegal immigration is indeed about the soul of America. My mother was a maid, my upbringing fitting from an economic standpoint, the stereotype of the black woman scrubbing white women’s floors. Black women as domestic workers were still common when I entered the work world as a lawyer over thirty-years ago. Affection, pride, guilt, these were my feelings in the evenings working late at my desk, rolling aside in my executive –style chair, making room so Miss Lyons or Miss Rebecca could get around my desk for the waste- basket. The face of my mother’s sacrifice, her hopes fulfilled beyond her generation’s wildest expectations for their children. In the later years of her life, she’d say “we hoped when we didn’t see any hope.”
Nowadays I use my law degree on a part-time basis teaching undergraduates, and I’ve learned it’s nothing to be offended at when the cleaning people many times seem to ignore me when I offer them the same greetings I once offered Miss Lyons and Miss Rebecca, --- comradeship of my mother’s hoping. Things became clear one night when a young girl I’d seen many times, went out of her way to smile at me, and with determined gesturing of her hands, she let me know that she didn’t speak English.
Work didn’t take on a new language, it’s still the grammar of hope.

Vashti Varnado
4/7/06

Marriage is for white people or "he just my baby daddy".

2006-04-03T02:38:00.000-05:00

Why the title "Black & Bible Beautiful"? I've already referred to the fact that I'm a black woman of the 1960's, when "Black & Beautiful" came into vogue as the watchword of black dignity--(pride I should say.) The notion that "black is beautiful" is positive sounding, made to-order for our new enfranchisement, after living under a social order that systematically denied our personhood and history. The problem is that when we put aside our straightening combs and relaxers, that was not enough.
We needed a moral framework to inform what was truly beautiful. "Say it loud I'm black and I'm proud". Proud of what, and by the way what does being proud mean? And so when I say I'm "black and Bible- beautiful", I'm thinking in terms of a moral vision, the Bible-based values that were good enough for our mothers and fathers....
I'm reminded of the recent column in the Washington Post (Joy Jones, 3/26) about the moral perceptions of black grade-schoolers, who say "marriage is for white folks". I need not cite the statistics, the massive failure of the black family over the last 35 years. The plague of social pathologies resulting from it, are the stuff of our everyday lives. In my opinion the legacy of the 1960's civil rights generation is crystallized in the understanding of marraige expressed by the black children in the column. Read it and weep: "Marriage is for white people". For a parallel translation from the language of the 1960's see:"I'm black and I'm proud". A condition of spiritual nakedness.
vashti

Beyond earthbound

2006-04-01T17:30:00.000-06:00

I could've said I'm black and blogger beautiful, cyberspace and words a passport beyond earthbound presuppositions too.
Just wanted to get away from the shackles of the 1960's, the inertia of civil rights. "Black is beautiful" I'm black and I'm proud we song. Black pearl precious little girl...I was just at the Walgreen drugstore where lunch counters have been a thing of the past for 30 years. Can't say they went the way of segregation as some would spin it in vain homage to the race narrative. No it's more accurate to say that the former days as the latter days have gone the way of commerce, ingenuity unhinged by the America of free-enterprise. I'm reminded when I go into Walgreen's, the site of lunch-counter protests against segregation across the south of my youth, that black history has become like a time-capsule, defining the minds of black people today irrespective of the changing world around us. Multi-lane checkout counters have taken the place of the lunch counters, and instead of middle-aged white-women wearing comfortable shoes serving tuna-club sandwiches, all the rage seems to be for middle-aged black women, scanning and smilings. "Have a nice day." I wonder if they're like me, college & graduate degrees coming out the yang-yang, thirty-five years into civil rights when skin don't matter except for wrinkles and jowls.
Have a nice day.
vashti