ZOMG...She’s Cold and Calculating et al.
Contemporary Notes by Chitown Kev
Yes, I am a supporter of Senator Kamala Harris in her bid to become the 2020 Democratic Party presdential nominee and yes, quite naturally, I am delighted by her rise in both the national and Iowa polls...but none of that would have to be true in order for me to defend her from some of the attacks that I have seen against Senator Harris for...that moment...you know…
Here at Daily Kos and in other places, Kamala Harris was called “belligerent”, “cold and calculating”...I saw comments that went so far as to call her a “snake.”
Even noted White House Correspondent April Ryan accused Kamala Harris of “playing the race card” (chile...)
Look, leaving aside the merits or the demerits of the content of the exchange between Senator Harris and Vice-President Biden…
I want a President of the United States to think and plan strategically, to speak truth to power, to be ruthless as the situation requires...I mean, many Democrats have long praised (and rightly, IMO) Lyndon Baines Johnson for having those character attributes and, yes, in this day and age, any person that is going to take on that POS that currently occupies the White House is going to need those attributes and be willing to use them.
2) It occurs to me that part of what racial segregation was designed to do (especially in areas like education) is to prevent the Barack Obamas and Kamala Harris-es from rising out of black communities...trust me, the black community is full of that type of potential; the segreationist white folks knew it then and all of America now realizes that.
And THAT genie ain’t going back into the bottle...and on that note…
3) Congratulations to Ms. Cori Gauff
4) That’s right, black folks can do ANY damn thing they want if given the chance.
And that’s what segregationists didn’t want to happen.
If you didn’t know, then you had better ask somebody.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Residents and environmental activists of Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” headed to Japan to confront the company that owns the chemical plant they believe is killing them.
Over the past week, people from Reserve, Louisiana, have attended a series of events across Tokyo to draw attention to the harmful practices of the company Denka. Since 2015, Denka has owned the Pontchartrain Works Facility in Reserve. The majority Black town of 10,000 is considered at the highest risk of cancer caused by toxic air anywhere in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Reserve is in what environmental justice advocates call Cancer Alley, an area located between New Orleans and Baton Rouge that is home to 45,000 people. There are about 50 toxic chemicals in air in this region, including benzene, 1,3-butadiene, formaldehyde, chloroprene and ethylene oxide [EtO], which present extreme health risks to residents.
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If you’re among the many who saw the craziness around the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and thought, “Maybe I’ll wait until the crowds are a little thinner,” I have good news and bad. The good: As the museum approaches its third birthday, it’s not the sardine can it was during its first year. The bad: It’s still insanely crowded, especially during prime hours.
I’m a little surprised the museum still feels so packed. Don’t get me wrong — it’s a fantastic museum, more than worthy of all the buzz. But it’s also a big museum, with 105,000 square feet of exhibit space and 517,198 visitors during the first four months of this year. Compare that with the National Portrait Gallery, which has considerably less exhibit space (57,000 square feet) and more visitors (553,116 in the same four months) — and no timed tickets or long lines.
You might argue (correctly) that portraits tend to be flat, while the NMAAHC displays some enormous, three-dimensional pieces of history, including an entire prison guard tower. (Also, the Portrait Gallery’s interior courtyard probably acts as a pressure valve when crowds get thick.) However, I suspect the layout of the NMAAHC is the biggest culprit in its continuing congestion.
Visits to NMAAHC begin with bottleneck after bottleneck: There’s just one escalator to get to the one glass elevator to get to the beginning of the history exhibit. Then, you’re funneled into a series of narrow rooms that cover the origins of slavery and its transition from being a temporary condition to one that was lifelong and linked to another poisonous construct: race. The bottom floor’s claustrophobic spaces are perhaps meant to echo the nightmarish experience of slave ships, but they also make it tough to take in the thoughtfully presented and succinctly explained history on offer.
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When Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly hit a roadblock while researching her family history, a chance encounter at a conference with members of the Daughters of the American Revolution got her the help she needed to keep going.
Now, Kelly is helping the DAR have its own breakthrough moment. On Sunday, the lineage-based group, with a longstanding reputation as a bastion of white privilege, will install Kelly as the head of its New York state organization and the first African American woman on its national governing board.
The milestone, Kelly and others say, reflects the efforts the organization has made in recent decades to encourage women of color to get involved, after a long history of exclusion.
The Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890. The first black woman to join in modern times became a member in 1977.
Kelly, 72, who lives in New York City, joined the DAR in 2004 after tracing her own lineage to a white Virginian who donated supplies to the Revolutionary War efforts.
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The Human Rights Campaign has hired civil rights lawyer Alphonso David as its seventh president.
According to the Advocate, he is the first person of color to lead the organization in its nearly 40-year history. He will assume the role in August, replacing Chad Griffin, who served as president of the organization since 2012.
“If we want to win full equality, that’s going to require us to come together, to dig deep, to be resilient, to embrace our differences, to tenaciously defend the most vulnerable among us, to fight with every ounce of determination we have,” he said in a video announcement released by HRC. “I promise you this, I will fight for each and every one of us. All I ask is that you join me, that you join the Human Rights Campaign in our fight for true equality. In unity, we will fight back and we will win.”
With an annual revenue of around $45.6 million, the Human Rights Campaign is the largest and most powerful LGBTQ advocacy group in the United States. However, it’s been accused of prioritizing the needs and concerns of gay white men over the rest of its constituency.
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This African country has some of the most progressive laws in the world, but refugees fleeing homophobia elsewhere often find a country that is morally conservative, hostile, and profoundly violent. The Atlantic: The Unfulfilled Promise of LGBTQ Rights in South Africa
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On a recent foggy morning, Ndodana boarded a minibus and traveled more than 20 miles to the Ivan Toms Centre for Men’s Health to collect his free HIV medication. The gay-friendly clinic lies in a predominantly white neighborhood of Cape Town, wedged between a strip of restaurants, upscale hotels, and the V&A Waterfront, a major tourist attraction.
The bimonthly trip is a long one and, on the surface, unnecessary: Mfuleni, the impoverished township where he rents a room, has its own HIV-treatment center. Yet to Ndodana, a slender, dreadlocked Zimbabwean in his early 30s, going there is not an option. The clinic is run-down and often overcrowded. Most of all, though, he fears harassment for being gay.
“The officials don’t do their jobs,” Ndodana, who asked that he be identified only by his first name to avoid being targeted, told me. “Instead they are judging you.”
When apartheid ended a quarter century ago, South Africa’s new rulers rushed to adopt inclusive legislation, passing laws enshrining gender equality and freedom of expression. The country now has some of the most progressive LGBTQ laws in the world, including full constitutional protections against discrimination. This legal environment is unmatched on a continent where colonial-era laws against gay sex are still commonplace, and where offenders in some nations face the death penalty. Cape Town advertises itself as Africa’s gay capital, with dedicated nightclubs, film festivals, and pride events.
As a result, many LGBTQ people from across the continent make their way here. Hundreds of people who are sexual minorities arrive each year from places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and Sudan. In Ndodana’s case, after he fled violent persecution at home in Zimbabwe, South Africa was supposed to offer sanctuary—a place to live, and love, with almost unimaginable freedom.
But like countless others in his position, he soon came to see a wide gulf between this legal promise and the lived reality. The rights promised on paper in South Africa remain out of reach for many who need them most, particularly those fleeing homophobia elsewhere. For them, a quite different South Africa awaits: morally conservative, hostile to outsiders, and often profoundly violent. “The law jumped miles ahead of society,” said Nigel Patel, an LGBTQ-rights activist who himself moved to South Africa from Malawi, in part for this country’s queer-friendly reputation.
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