The Tribune Online, 63

Affirmative Action...Still Relevant?

I have to answer in the "affirmative." In my latest encounter with a local agency, supposedly providing employment for people, they aren't doing a very good job...especially when it comes to minorities. So let's do a quick history of my personal encounter with "affirmative action" going as far back as the seventies.

While in the Navy, out west in California, I made a visit to my uncle's home, a guy that I always looked up to since I was a kid, tagging along with him to play various sports activities; he was good, and every team wanted him to play for them. Upon graduating from high school, he even got a call to try out for the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team we both liked because of Roberto Clemente, and also because they were referred to as the "Bucks"...our family name.

He instead went into the Army, got married and went to work for some big finance company in Los Angeles, at which time he got a call to come work for IBM. It appears that big corporations holding down government contracts had to quickly fill their "CQ"...coon quota...thus, my uncle with no disrespect, was one of the first blacks to accept a position with "Big Blue."  As a matter of fact, he moved right up the ladder, was transferred to Big Blue's SRA Division in Chicago, and eventually to his final promotion to its division in Connecticut, before retiring to the good life here in Virginia.

Some years later, after my tour with Uncle Sam, I started working for this large shipbuilding entity, called Litton Industries in Pascagoula, MS. The company was handling contracts for the US Navy, and only a twenty mile drive from my home in Mobile, where I was married with two sons. Everything was going fine until we were notified of a strike by one of the unions, that would shut down the yard for that time...which it did. No sooner than we returned to work, there came the layoffs, and those union members with less seniority than the others got the axe, including me. I have since had my discontent with unionized labor.

I decided to enter the corporate world and shared my thoughts with my uncle to see what he thought. He warned that his getting hired by IBM under Affirmative Action, didn't mean he would have lasted if he were not qualified. Besides, hiring on with IBM in Alabama would be a totally different world than his hiring on with the company back in Los Angeles...so be prepared for a lot of negative kickback from jump street. I took my chances, and went in for an interview, telling the interviewer of the high praise given by a relative. I was told that I had to take the "DPAT"...the Data Processing Aptitude Test. I took the test, and was told that I would be put on their "waiting list" for their Marketing Department...which at the time was all white in Mobile.

Nevertheless, I received a call from IBM's "Customer Engineering Division" the very next day, saying based on my "DPAT" score, my technical background, and also my just leaving Litton Industries of which IBM held the federal computer contract supporting the Navy; they wanted me like yesterday... and the rest as they say is history. 

Back to "Affirmative Action"... I still see a need for it to get into the door, leaving it up to the individual to  prove his or her worth. Gaining access was always controlled by politics and/or some sort of nepotism...which I, as a nationally certified minority-owned entity, am personally witnessing in a legal dispute with a federally subsidized agency in Roanoke, VA.  Maybe, we should drop the term "action" and simply replace it with "access."

The Woes of Prichard, AL

Prichard, AL  was featured on CBS' Sunday Morning News 2-20-11, revealing its point of financial destitution, to the extent that it can no longer pay its retirees their pension benefits...so what happened?

Prichard back during the fifties and sixties was a thriving hub, just outside of Mobile, but was also a hot point for segregation and white-controlled businesses being abusive to its dominant black population, until the ill-will reached a boiling point, and corruption among politicians was uncovered, sending some crooks to jail.

Black political leaders eventually replaced the white crooks but shortly afterwards, were the new political crooks, sending some of them to jail. Prichard for the longest had been besieged by political corruption and self-righteous religious attitudes by some of those very same politicians, and just some plain old ignorant business people, without the capability of being good civil and fiduciary stewards...therefore, a bankrupt Prichard.

Before I left Mobile some twenty-five years ago, and moved to Virginia, there was this joke about Prichard's effort to earn money, to solve its woes that went something like this. The politicians were coming into Mobile to sell raffle tickets to the unsuspecting, with the first prize being one week in Prichard and the second prize? Two weeks in Prichard!!

Sorry, I know it's not a joking matter, but when I tried to establish a healthcare business base in Prichard for the state of Alabama some years back, they were too dense to see the potential for gaining out of state revenue. Maybe, they are now being forced to have a change of both heart and mind; of which I will avail myself to their phone call for "help."

Show Me the Money!!

A refrain from a popular Tom Cruise movie some years back, but all the more appropo in the awakening "revolutions for democracy" in the Middle East. It shows these dictators being thrown out of power, but apparently being able to abscond with funds for pillaging their regimes over the decades...thanks, in part to the assistance of western banks and their cloaks of silence. These banks are and have in fact been no more than enablers of these repressive and tyrannical subjugations...with America and the West turning a blind eye for generations...giving rise to the Bin Ladens, et al.

Now, if the US wants to really redeem itself for its misdeeds of hypocrisy, during the freeing of the Middle East inhabitants, it would seek to assist in the recovery of these billions of dollars stashed away in European and American banks... that is, if they're truly interested in seeing terrorism nipped in the bud. The West could encourage the newly formed governments to develop massive infrastructure rebuilding in transportation, communication, new schools, hospitals, and a secure structure to accommodate quick acceptance in the overall society of western finance.

Instead of selling military armaments as in the past to maintain those old Middle Eastern monarchies, we would see increased exports in non-military trade, construction equipment, non-military workers going to assist, teachers, medical teams, college and university satellites being established to lead the way...dispelling what became known as the "Ugly American" aka the "Great Satan"... and, all on the dime of the recently kicked out crooks.

Crooks and Corruption...A Big Problem for Democracies

The long reigning crooks are on the run, the people have to now recover all of the people's wealth, that the crooks have stolen and hidden away in various foreign banks. They must get the capital back into the country's circulation...but, be ever so careful of the crooks waiting to take the former crooks' positions.

That's why most countries have not been able to emerge successfully from their tyrannical subjugation in the name of democracy. A new assortment of crooks  takes control and starts the political racket all over again. This has been seen in Africa, time and time again...from Angola to Zaire, and thus this great continent stays in the darkness of human progress, with its people suffering from ongoing "gang activity." Mankind, most often, just can't be trusted to do what's right in most instances. This is why America and other western nations have an obligation to assist  as opposed to preying on  these newly born governments.

As an old college professor said once in a history class, self-governing after a revolution can be a "hell of a thing."

Doug Wilder's "Big Goof" 

Doug Wilder has gone and done it again...this time with the National Slavery Museum, that was supposed to be built in Fredericksburg, VA. This is almost as bad as his not supporting the Democratic contender Creigh Deeds for Governor over Bob McDonnell, the Republican, who is currently the Governor. On top of that, within weeks of his inauguration, McDonnell announces a Confederate History Month, honoring those who sought to keep Doug Wilder's ancestors enslaved...what irony??

For those of you that don't know, Doug Wilder is now the mayor of Richmond, and formerly the first black Governor of Virginia, since the end of slavery...a notable accomplishment indeed. He has a building honoring him on the campus of Hampton University, the alma mater of Booker T. Washington...my American hero.

The building of this museum got off to a rousing start with some big name celebrities such as Bill Cosby. I should have known something was amiss with Bill being one of the business supporters, being that Bill has had nothing but a string of business failures in his wake since Jello and the Cosby Show. There was his stint with E.F. Hutton...people stop listening and E.F. Hutton bit the dust. Then, there was his investment in a black race car driver who never could get into a winning finish. There was also a rumor of his intentions to purchase "NBC" resulting from the success of his TV show...fizzled. Finally the National Slavery Museum...DOA.

Anyway, my involvement with this National Slavery Museum came with my making a donation of some books I published on the subject. I could never get a responsible party to commit to receiving the books to get a receipt for a tax deduction. After about ten telephone calls, it was as if someone got so upset with my being unrelenting about receiving the receipt...they just would not answer my calls.

I decided to visit this museum site in Fredericksburg. As a matter of fact it was the weekend of President Obama's inauguration and not all that far from DC. I arrived in Fredericksburg on a Saturday afternoon, and nobody even knew where the location was...for there was no office building or anything. Finally, a lady coming out of a shopping center said she heard it was going to be located in back of the shopping center. Went there...and nothing.

Now, it appears that a family who donated a lot of slavery artifacts to the museum can't get them back from "Doug's boondoggle"...with Doug exclaiming...just wait, we'll going to get it done. All I can say is show me the money!! I'm still waiting for a receipt for the books I donated. I'll go a step farther and say this Museum has about as much chance of being built with Doug's promises as "reparations for slavery." 

Quid pro "Quodaffy Duck"

Another raving Islamic lunatic...c'mon man, give it up and "skedaddle," like the rest of your Islamic cronies.  Not Quaddafi, he says he's intent on dying as a "martyr,"  and I say so be it...the sooner the better...but, I wouldn't bet on his being remembered as anybody's martyr.

These crooks have been ripping off their countries and people for centuries and longer with their lavish lifestyles, European concubines, and foreign bank accounts, while keeping their own women subjected to stone-aged customs of poverty, caning, and stoning at their discretion. Frankly, it might send a message to the other corrupt Islamic shieks and sultans, if he, "Quodaffy Duck" were captured and stoned to death, closing a chapter on the misguidance, enslavement, and ignorance for those many generations with the misinterpreting of the "Prophet's teaching."

Mickey Mouse...an authentic American symbol

Jazz, an American originated musical form, although emanating from African culture and European classics, was a genre of my familial appreciation. I also came to appreciate the European classics, for instance "Gregorian Chants", probably due to my religious upbringing. All other American music artforms came out of this Jazz/Classical genre, and what Jazz/Classical have in common is that they are in many instances "divinely complex" as coming from a power, beyond mankind's realm of creativity.

These other American music forms from blues, country, rock, rhythm, and rap all show their limitations, as if to say there is nothing new under the sun that they can express from these originations, although expressed by what might be considered very talented individuals by many if not most performers. Frankly, a lot of it has just drifted in to "schlock"...and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to detect that of which I speak.

This brings me to the subject of religiosity, again emanating from African and European cultures, but the base of most belief systems on the planet, and most of it like much of the aforementioned music collection, religion has drifted off into just so much "schlock" used by certain elements to subjugate and subject people to fears of the unknown, that which they refer to as "God."

You would think that in today's society we would have figured it out in distinguishing a profound belief in the "Universal Power" versus some religious annotations of said power, but we haven't, so here's a potential solution I mentioned sometime back that might be applicable to the discontent from a simmering pot of religiosity in today's world...at least in America.

Just as one has to have a license to preach to the public, be it from an acolyte to a witchdoctor, or to practice "faith healing" as it were, or to collect monies for peddling their beliefs, I suggest we go one step farther and that's to say...that anytime any individual on American soil even remotely infers that his/her teachings are from the word of God, he or she has to don a set of "Mickey Mouse" ears, or else be subject to a fine or penalty for each occurrence.

The Madness of Virginia's Christian TV Evangelist...Pat Robertson

I saw on some supermarket tabloid that Pat Robertson could be flippin' out?? There could be some truth to the gossip after reading an Associated Press article written by Nedra Pickler for BlackAmericaweb.com.

The article reads:  "US District Judge Gladys Kessler in Washington dismissed a lawsuit by the 'American Center for Law and Justice', a Christian legal group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson, on behalf of five Americans who can afford health insurance but have chosen for years not to buy it.

Three of the plaintiffs...Margaret Peggy Lee Mead, Charles Edward Lee, and Susan Seven-Sky said they want to refuse all medical services for the rest of their lives because they believe God will heal their afflictions." 

Is it time that Pat cops an "insanity plea" before more religious damage can be done??

Too Little, Too Late??

As reported by Reuters, "Saudi King Abdullah returned home on Wednesday after a three month medical absence and unveiled benefits for Saudis worth $37 billion in apparent bid to insulate the world's top oil exporter from an Arab protest wave."

This appears to be no more than continued Islamic hypocrisy, when in fact this could have been done by the fattened sultans and sheiks decades ago instead of succumbing to their hedonistic desires of the proclaimed "satans" of the west.

This, what has descended into a Middle Eastern moral abyss, is seeing its judgement day as prophesied...with the destruction of the devils that allowed it to happen...sultans, sheiks, and sundry monarchs.

Racist Language in the Alabama Constitution??

You don't say!! A white Alabama representative stated today or yesterday that they were going to make a serious effort to remove "racist language" from Alabama's State Constitution. For all of you right wing "constitutionalists" I'm sure this comes as a shock...being that you believe any "constitution," like any version of the Bible should be taken literally.

As former Governor of Lousiana, Earl Long, said in so many words, we gotta stop wanting to sleep with "niggers" at night and wanting to kill 'em during the day.

I have never read the Alabama Constitution, but I can imagine what some of that language might be...for example, "It's okay before God and white men to bed 'nigger women' at night and then go lynch their 'nigger men' during the day"...am I close?

Alabama Shelby's "Sour Grapes"

Alabama, specifically Mobile's "EADS" lost the Air Force Tanker contract to Chicago's Boeing, and this is what Alabama's Senator Richard Shelby said, "I'm disappointed but not surprised...Only Chicago politics could tip the scales in favor of Boeing's inferior plane, EADS cleary offers the more capable aircraft."

C'mon Senator Shelby, that sort of talk typifies Alabama "redneck" thinking...similar to Alabama's current Governor, who expressed his religious thoughts about who's saved and who's not according to his standards...and to your Mississippi neighbor in wanting to resort to dignifying the "Confederacy."

Perhaps, if you and your co-Republican Senator Jeff Sessions were more forward-thinking, you could better understand why America has to be more future-oriented when it comes to national security...and issuing out contracts.

Jeff Sessions vows to investigate losing the Air Force Tanker Deal

Lotsa luck!! I hope Sessions gets about as much cooperation in his "witch hunt" as he was willing to provide in my asking for an investigation of IBM's defrauding the US Gov't, when he was the US Attorney for the southern district of Alabama in the eighties. Poetic justice can be sweet in removing the bitterness of political injustice...um, um...good.