FISCAL CLIFF OVER BENGHAZI , By Louise Annarino, November 29,2012
On September 11, 2012 4 Americans in the diplomatic service of the United States, at one of the most dangerous postings in the Middle East were murdered in Benghazi, Libya.
During the first 2 weeks of September 2012, 32 Americans were killed in Detroit; one of them and Iraq Vet and father of five children named Davis Nelson, who pushed aside a woman neighbor about to be shot by her husband in a domestic dispute and took the bullet himself. (http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/19568205/32-people-murdered-over-15-day-period-in-detroit ).
By the time of the Benghazi murders,Chicago had already seen 400 Americans murdered within its borders during 2012. During August 2012 alone, 38 persons were killed.( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/01/chicago-homicides-reach-4_n_1929015.html ).
In Columbus,Ohio 83 Americans had been murdered between January 1 and November 29, 2012. The breakdown: 88% male, 70.7% African-American, 56.5% age 20-39, 79.3% shooting victims. ( http://www.dispatch.com/content/pages/data/crime-safety/homicide/homicides.html ).
During the past year, more than a 1,000 children died before their first birthdays in Ohio. The breakdown: 6.3% white, 5.7% Latino, and 15.8% African-American; likely the highest in the nation for African-American babies. ( http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/11/29/black-infant-deaths-worst-of-bad-news.html ).
More than 1 in 5 of all American children live in poverty; 1 in 3 American children of color live in poverty. As a result, America loses half a trillion dollars per year in lost productivity, increased health care costs, and increased crime. ( http://www.childrensdefense.org/newsroom/child-watch-columns/child-watch-documents/forward-for-children.html ).
Excuse me for finding American’s obsessive concern about fiscal cliffs and the terrorist attack in Benghazi nothing short of ridiculous. Many Americans live on the fiscal cliff, just over its edge struggling to hang on, or at the bottom of the cliff all of their lives. Many Americans face the threat of violence and death daily in American cities and towns. The silence has been deafening in addressing these issues. It is not that Americans have been unaware of the problem; but, their solution has been to flee to suburbs and gated communities rather than addressing the needs of fellow Americans they identify as “the other”.
Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and others warn us that we must protect the low tax rate of the richest of the rich and their investments. To do so he insists we cut redefined entitlements. Entitlements are those things to which one is entitled; over which one has ownership rights. These same small-government proponents propose taking away our property rights, our entitlement to the Social Security and Medicare benefits we paid for through payroll deductions from every paycheck we have ever earned by reason of our labor. They have redefined entitlements as gifts from our socialist president, and socialist Democratic party. Please, spare us the hypocrisy. You spare us very little else.
And John McCain reminds us daily that 4 Americans died in Ben Gahzi. Mr. Cain, where is your outrage over the Americans killed by violence in the hearts of our cities every night? Over the infant mortality rate for our babies? Over the 3532 American Iraq War dead? Which you supported despite the obvious lies used to justify it. Forgive me if I find your outrageous disdain for Ambassador Rice the farce it is.
It has been difficult for me to write because it has been difficult to channel my anger toward those who continue to obstruct the people’s business in Congress, who continue to filter their world view through a racist and sexist lens, who believe they lost the 2012 election simply because they mistakenly and incompetently marketed their party platform to the public, and who only regret the failure, but not the use, of their voter suppression efforts.
I admire President Obama’s ability to tolerate such hypocrisy and continue to seek workable agreements with persons whose words twist reality, whose motives cannot be trusted, and whose sexist and racist world view is potentially harmful to so many Americans. We must demand that President Obama, Rep.Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC)and Sen.Harry Reid(D-NEV) ask more of their Republican colleagues, not less, in their negotiations. At the very least they must demand respect for people of color and women (including Ambassador Rice), adherence to truth, and a firm commitment to openly support any agreements they reach.
I grieve the loss of life in Ben Ghazi, and continued threats to those Americans who represent our country abroad. But, I also grieve the the daily threats to America’s children and families who face on-going threats of economic loss and violence, especially within the African-American community. Where is our outrage on their behalf? Who will speak for these Americans? Will you?
annarino writes 
Zimmerman Not Guilty of Murder of Trayvon Martin? Take Off the Hoods,Americans, By Louise Annarino,July 15,2013
Zimmerman Not Guilty of Murder of Trayvon Martin? Take Off The Hoods,Americans! By Louise Annarino,July 15
Used to be the Ku Klux Klan, men…even women… of every education level and background including law enforcement, donned white robes and hoods to protect their identity and hide their shame. Their stated purpose was to meet out justice to African-Americans who had crossed over a boundary; and,in some way failed to acknowledge the superiority and power of the white community. Perhaps, a 14 year old African-American boy smiled at a white married woman as he entered her small grocery http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/ . Perhaps a 37 year old African-American father of three children spent his days registering voters and seeking the end of Jim Crow laws as a N.A.A.C.P field organizer http://www.history.com/news/7-things-you-should-know-about-medgar-evers.
The murders of Emmet Till and Medgar Evers are well known, but every African-American, boys and men in particular, endure retaliatory acts based on racial bias and racial animus every day. They are familiar with expressions of bigotry and punishment justified by white fear. The white robes are gone now,replaced by an unreasonable white fear instututionalized in the law, and unquestioned by the white media.
Attorneys on each side of the George Zimmerman murder trial scrupulously avoided the racial motivation for the murder. The judge ordered the phrase “racial profiling” not be used. White “legal experts” on every channel affirmed this approach, as that required by a unbiased court. They are all wrong. The only way the court could have been free of bias would have been to acknowledge the racial bias underlying the case. Lady Justice is blindfolded but she is not stupid. She must not pretend race is not a motivation to kill. Our history clearly tells us otherwise. She need not play the fool; unless, she fears her power and authority can be used to empower scary African-American boys and men.
I expected the defense team to provide a strong defense woven into a story of why it was reasonable for a fully-grown man,trained in martial arts and armed with a gun, to fear a 17 year old African-American boy on his way home from a “munchies-run”. I expected the defense team to discount the boy’s right to defend himself from the attack his cultural history and his phone friend warned him to expect from his silent stalker. And,I expected the defense team to turn Trayvon’s self-defense into the justification of Zimmerman’s fear.
I naively did not expect the prosecution team to ignore racial bias. Special Prosecutor Angela Corey stated “This case has never been about race or the right to bear arms. We believe this case all along was about boundaries, and George Zimmerman exceeded those boundaries.” http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2013/0714/Zimmerman-not-guilty-Victory-for-new-kind-of-civil-rights-era The prosecution was eager to talk about boundaries,a euphemism for racial animus. But of course, we refuse to admit the existence of racial bigotry. We refuse even when we are charged to seek justice for the murder of an African-American teenager who did NOTHING wrong;certainly,nothing to explain the irrational or unreasonable fear proclaimed by Zimmerman’s attorneys. The prosecution failed to admit race drove motivation until the last minutes of the trial. It allowed the defense to hide race under the hood,as many of us do when we face racial animus. What we fear is not African-Americans.What we fear is our own racism.
Now, the “legal experts” are proclaiming it is impossible to prove racial animus led to Trayvon’s death. The only reason they make this claim is beacuse they cannot comprehend, or refuse to acknowledge, the continuing and historical irrationality of white fear. No one who is willing to admit this “fear turned to hate” is hogwash believes the DOJ cannot find such a connection. On THE VIEW today,the “legal expert” Dan Abrams responded to factually-based questions and comments by Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd by dismissing their comments as “emotional’. While they clearly felt emotional, their comments were no less rational this his own. In fact, they were more so http://abc.go.com/shows/the-view/blogs/hot-topics/george-zimmerman-verdict.
The lack of racial intelligence among our legal experts, prosecutors,defense attorneys,judges, media pundits and manyof us white Americans is institutionalized. This must change. twe must do all we can to raise our racial I.Q. We no longer wear physical hoods over our heads to hide our identity and our shame. We wear figurative hoods of ignorance over our heads to pretend we have no reason to feel shame. Take off the hoods,America! We cannot change what we refuse to face…our selves.
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Tagged as African-American, civil rights, courts, Dan Abrams, george Zimmerman, hate crimes.department of Justice, juries, justice, law, racial profiling, racism, self defense, Sherri Shepherd, The View, Trayvon AMrtin, Whoopi Goldberg