This Is Me - Blowing My Life - Trying 2 Get $ From Yours

A couple of days ago, when I wrote "'Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide' Ain't Just A Song" I ended the post with "Death stalks us in this land,..." Now I'm sure, to some of you, that's merely hyperbole but, to the rest of us, it ain't no joke:

“There are more African-Americans on probation, parole, or in prison today than were slaves in 1850. It is not a crisis of crime. It is a crisis of people being left behind. 

...We tried to outpace the thing that chased us, that said: You are nothing. We tried to ignore it, but sometimes we caught ourselves repeating what history said, mumbling along, brainwashed: I am nothing. We drank too much, smoked too much, were abusive to ourselves, to each other. We were bewildered. There is a great darkness bearing down on our lives, and no one acknowledges it.”

Today it's not fair to say "no one acknowledges it," but it's difficult to understand how so few Republicans truly comprehend the life-or-death implications of how this plays out. Inside and out. 

Or the opportunities missed. 

Not to get all Glenn Beck on you but, speaking of the 1850s:

There's a growing fan club for Woodrow Wilson?

Although [Woodrow] Wilson promised African Americans "fair dealing...in advancing the interests of their race in the United States", the Wilson administration implemented a policy of racial segregation for federal employees. Although considered a modern liberal visionary giant as President, in terms of implementing domestic race relations, however, Wilson was "deeply racist in his thoughts and politics, and apparently was comfortable being so. 

...the Republicans won a landslide in 1920 by denouncing Wilson's policies."

I bet - and we could again. Why's Leo here? Because he's doing what I can't as a Republican (no worth in it) - he's living a life of being creative - but with the truth. Or, as one writer said, This is nuts.

Leonardo Di Caprio is making a biopic about Woodrow Wilson, based on a new book that celebrates the life of the most racist president of the 20th century. 

Wilson supported the KKK, defended lynching, re-segregated Washington DC, and fired all African-Americans from federal jobs. Wilson was not just a racist; he was a proud racist. He actually had the KKK-endorsing film “Birth Of A Nation” shown at the White House and called its depiction of the Klan as liberators of white southerners “history written with lightning.” 

Wilson was no mere man of his time. His time, on matters of race, was passing and he used the powers of the presidency to hold the clock back.

That's a light brush stroke, worthy of a Leo's making-a-movie exposé. But turn back to Woody Willie's hard-assed Wikipedia page and then, if you have any feeling for black people - as people - the true depth and horror of being bent over hits you. It hits me, anyway. The Right should already be ripping Leo's guts out (as they should've Oprah's, pre-Obama) making damned sure he gets this story correct:

In 1912, "an unprecedented number" of African Americans left the Republican Party to cast their vote for Wilson, a Democrat. They were encouraged by his promises of support for minorities. However, once in office, Wilson's cabinet members expanded racially segregationist policies. Black leaders who had supported Wilson in the 1912 election were angered when Wilson placed segregationist white Southerners in charge of many executive departments, and the administration acted to reduce the already-meager number of African-Americans in political-appointee positions. Wilson's cabinet officials, with the president's blessing, proceeded to establish official segregation in most federal government offices – in some departments for the first time since 1863. New facilities were designed to keep the races working there separated.

Historian Eric Foner says, "[Wilson's] administration imposed full racial segregation in Washington and hounded from office considerable numbers of black federal employees." Segregation was also quickly implemented at the Post Office Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. Many African American employees were downgraded and even fired. The segregation implemented in the Department of the Treasury and the Post Office Department involved not only screened-off working spaces, but also separate lunchrooms and toilets. 

 

Some segregationist federal workplace policies introduced by the Wilson administration would remain until the Truman Administration in the 1940s.

Other steps were taken by the Wilson Administration to make obtaining a civil service job more difficult for blacks. Primary among these was the requirement, implemented in 1914 and continued until 1940, that all candidates for civil service jobs attach a photograph to their application further allowing for discrimination in the hiring process. 

Despite these policies, Wilson was criticized by such hard-line segregationists as Georgia's Thomas E. Watson, for not going far enough in restricting black employment in the federal government.

Wilson did not interfere with the well-established system of Jim Crow and backed the demands of Southern Democrats that their states be left alone to deal with issues of race and black voting without interference from Washington. 

In 1914, Wilson told The New York Times, "If the colored people made a mistake in voting for me, they ought to correct it."

I guess that was considered the president giving a pep talk. (Blacks get a lot of bullshit pep talks in the face of real obstacles. The line "Don't be a victim" is usually in there somewhere. Let's see, we got the enraged broke-back black guy and a Jewish blogger, against Leonardo Di Caprio and the marketing might of Hollywood - that's a fair fight to the Right.) Shut up, Leo. You're actually making me understand those slow-assed people in the DMV better. There's no point, in working faster, if they're so far behind they'll never catch up. A life of crime's right around the corner for their kids, trying to make up for what Woodrow took away, before their grandparents spent their lives fighting to get that shitty assed job for their children. "Don't be resentful" others say, while out kayaking, flying their planes, horseback riding, or the best - in email, while on this thing most blacks still have never experienced, a mythical escape from your troubles called a "vacation."

Fine, I'll stop resenting, and just stay depressed I'm not even surviving and the story of why is "history written in lightning." 

"They" ought to correct it - like stolen lives and fortunes easily come back. Or easily produce happy productive people, always on the right road, as long as they stay positive - over generations -  that's the fucking joke.

The implication, on top of everything else, that no matter what the issue, black lives are expected to consist of struggling to fix a multitude of injustices - or struggle at all - it's just sick. This isn't France - I'm at home, damn it, in NewAgeLand. Where everyone else pursues their interests, and I'm not supposed to notice what I've been stuck writing about, as opposed to my own possible concerns (or unlikely desire) for ebony ironwood lighting fixtures, the locations of any black Buddhist tourist attractions featuring unicorns bred by Rappers out to "save the planet," or the casually-approached question of whether the best place to post my long-awaited essay, A Negro Dolphin Wishes Of Love, is on Craig's List or not?

You know, good ol' dependably empty-headed, me:

I never have anything better to do,....