Thursday, April 3

Retreiver Weekly Article 4/1/2008

stupid April Fools theme so i threw in some sarcasm, enjoy.

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Thank you Senator Obama. Your eloquence once again has saved you from the recent pitfall that one Reverend Jeremiah Wright has gotten you into. We all know that you transcend race, gender, phylum, species, and whatever else there is to transcend. Unfortunately mere mortals like Rev. Wright have the unfortunate effect of unleashing their black-hole like gravitational pull on your post-human politics. You quite capably accomplished your goals of assuaging the fears of your wealthy imperialist backers although unfortunately the Toby Keith crowd is probably that much distant.

Thank you for defending Israel. Sometimes billions of dollars, weapons, intelligence, and effective immunity from international law aren’t enough. We must defend our poor, defenseless ally! For example, Palestinian anger may soon rise due to Israeli firms dumping chloride, arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead into the groundwater in the West Bank. I suggest that Israel keep illegally annexing Palestinian land to end their tragic garbage problem. Maybe if we’re lucky someone will throw a rock over the apartheid…I mean settlement wall and we can collectively punish Gaza (again) and the West Bank! One can only hope. The idea that Israeli and United States actions in the Middle East have some sort of geo-political consequence is laughable. I was never a big fan of that whole “cause and effect” thing and I’m glad to see you aren’t either. Everyone knows that the military bases we have in Middle Eastern holy lands, our training and arming of unsavory elements, and the occasional overthrow of governments are quite acceptable. I mean who could have predicted that interfering in other countries politics for our own selfish needs would backfire?

I am also proud of your continued membership to the Trinity United Church of Christ. As a fellow United Church of Christ member I support that decision completely. Remember when all of those Catholic priests were getting in trouble? Well prominent Catholic lawmakers didn’t leave the Church. Neither did most of the catholic pundits on TV that adamantly call on your to leave the church.

In terms of race, Mr. Obama, your work is not yet done. Why simply denounce Rev. Wright in order to transcend race? Some guy named Rev. Martin Luther King I hear about every February from my McDonald’s cups apparently said that America was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. This is unacceptable! I demand that you transcend time to wake Mr. King up from his dream and tell him if he doesn’t like America he can get out! Since I can only operate in the present day (for now) I’ll focus on Rev Wright.

Wrights assertion that racism is deeply embedded in America’s culture is insane. Ok except for the widespread genocide of Native Americans and our slave-owning founding fathers. Some may point to the fact that America's first president, George Washington, kept slaves in the Executive Mansion during his presidency and if you’re sharp you may know that the stable where Washington's slaves lived is literally at the entrance of the pavilion housing the Liberty Bell. But hey that’s all in the past right?

Others may point to a book called Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington which looks back on the Tuskegee Experiments (where blacks were purposely infected with Syphilis) in 1932 and examines more recent events of the same character. Quoting a review of the book published in the Washington Post “In 1945… an African American trucker being treated for injuries received in an accident… was surreptitiously placed without his consent into a radiation experiment sponsored by the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission. Black Floridians were deliberately exposed to swarms of mosquitoes carrying yellow fever and other diseases in experiments conducted by the Army and the CIA in the early 1950s. Throughout the 1950s and '60s, black inmates at Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison were used as research subjects by a University of Pennsylvania dermatologist testing pharmaceuticals and personal hygiene products; some of these subjects report pain and disfiguration even now. During the 1960s and '70s, black boys were subjected to sometimes paralyzing neurosurgery by a University of Mississippi researcher who believed brain pathology to be the root of the children's supposed hyperactive behavior. In the 1990s, African American youths in New York were injected with Fenfluramine -- half of the deadly, discontinued weight loss drug Fen-Phen -- by Columbia researchers investigating a hypothesis about the genetic origins of violence." Some may see these experiments as unethical, I think we blacks should be proud to have contributed, although unknowingly, to science.

Ignoring the above account presently we African-Americans have it great. According to the Sentencing Project “…more than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities. These trends have been intensified by the disproportionate impact of the "war on drugs," in which three-fourths of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color.” During the 1990’s, according to Linn Washington Jr., Wright’s home town of Philadelphia built eleven new prisons and one new public high school. I’m an optimist! A city can always use twelve new buildings!

In February the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination claimed the US failed to address racism against its racial minorities. But it’s been long established that we don’t care what the world thinks. We’re always right. Debbie Downers out there may point to inequality in the housing markets. So what if blacks were offered the most subprime mortgages, still face housing discrimination and gentrification? That’s probably a coincidence.

I do hope this story dies soon. By ignoring the “race issue” as you have this entire campaign i’m sure in a few more years things will even themselves out.

In all seriousness (and to avoid angry emails in my inbox) I do not agree with everything that Rev. Jeremiah Wright said, however it is undeniable that racism is still prevalent in the United States and U.S. foreign policy is at least partly responsible for our reputation in the Middle East. There’s no transcending that.

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