dagblog - Comments for "Why blacks aren’t embracing Occupy Wall Street - The Washington Post"

Thanks for the intro to Joe

EmmaZahn — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:19:27 +0000

In reply to I thought Ms. Patton really

Thanks for the intro to Joe Mamo.

Patton's piece reminded me of something I read several weeks ago too. I meant to post it here. Better late than never. Maybe.

Kasim Reed, Occupy Atlanta, and a fresh wave of history | Political Insider

"Fifty years ago, when Shirley Franklin was still a high school teenager, she slipped away from her Philadelphia bed – without telling her mother – for an anti-nuke march on the Pentagon.

The biographical tidbit is necessary to any assessment of last week’s decision by Mayor Kasim Reed, Franklin’s successor, to clear Occupy Atlanta and its tents from a downtown park – and send the bonded-out protesters against corporate greed and economic disparity on a nomadic trek across the city, like some Lost Tribe of Ishmael.

Atlanta may not have realized the implications at the time, but the city crossed a generational divide when Reed was elected two years ago. Born in 1969, he is the first mayor in nearly 40 years who did not spring from a culture of protest."

....

I thought Ms. Patton really

artappraiser — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 05:40:20 +0000

In reply to Why blacks aren’t embracing Occupy Wall Street - The Washington Post

I thought Ms. Patton really got rolling with the controversial no-holds-barred straight talk on page 2 of her op-ed, here

More recently, the Congressional Black Caucus and other civil rights groups have received strong financial backing from telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Comcast. These firms support regulations that would be barriers to the goal of universal Internet access, stifling economic opportunity for black communities. We can’t expect our civil rights organizations and political leaders to help blacks rage against the corporate machine when they are part of it.

and here:

New Jersey comedian John “Alter Negro” Minus says he won’t participate in the Occupy protests because black people are being besieged by so many social injustices, he can’t get behind targeting just the 1 percent.

Banks’ bad behavior “just gets lost in the sauce, so to speak,” Minus said. “High joblessness and social disenfranchisement is new to most of the Wall Street protesters. It’s been a fact of life for African Americans since the beginning. I actually think black people are better served by staying out of the protests. Civil disobedience will only further the public perception that black people like to cause trouble.”

Some of the conundrums raised by Patton reminded me of this story and comments @ The Root last month, written when "OWS" was several weeks old:

So What If Joe Mamo Made $788 Million?
Attempts to curb a Washington, D.C., gas station mogul raise issues of money, power -- and race.
By: Frank McCoy, October 10, 2011

some of which read to me along these lines: "for crying out loud, we just finally got to the stage where a tiny few of our folks finally made it into 'the 1%.'"

A Twitter post from Joy Reid,

cmaukonen — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 23:08:05 +0000

In reply to Why blacks aren’t embracing Occupy Wall Street - The Washington Post

A Twitter post from Joy Reid, of the blog the Reid Report, put it this way last week: "Disconnect: liberals see a suddenly 'militarized,' possibly federalized police force. Black people see 'the usual.'"

http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/153170/%22how_could_this_happen_in_...

Some gleeful spite from

EmmaZahn — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:12:21 +0000

In reply to Why blacks aren’t embracing Occupy Wall Street - The Washington Post

Some gleeful spite from Walter Russell Mead on the article's subject.

Occupy The Plantation? Blacks Shun OWS | Via Meadia: