Go Donna Edwards!

Donna Edwards is a great candidate for Congress for (parts of) Montgomery County and Prince George's County in Maryland. Her opponent, incumbent Al Wynn is a good example of black-on-black crime for his pro-corporate, anti-consumer positions on Capitol Hill. Check out this great article in MyDD about her Washington Post endorsement.

Please, Mr. Beauprez, Save My Unborn Black Baby!

Congressman Bob Beauprez's (R-CO) run for governor has taken a strange turn in a recent NPR interview with host Ryan Warner. The gubernatorial candidate is very concerned about the millions of unborn black babies -- tragically killed every day by their misguided, selfish or evil mothers. Read for yourself(emphasis mine):

BEAUPREZ: Tragically, I think, in some of our ethnic communities we're seeing very, very high percentages of babies, children, pregnancies end in abortion. And I think that it's time we have an out-in-the-open discussion about what that means.

WARNER: Do you know which ethnic communities in particular?

BEAUPREZ: I've seen numbers as high as 70 percent, maybe even more, in the African-American community that I think is just appalling. And I'm not saying it's appalling on them; I'm saying it's appalling that something's happening to encourage that. Frankly, it raises another question: Do we think it's OK that that many African-American babies aren't allowed to be born and live an otherwise normal life and reach the blessings, the fullness of the American dream? I think those are very, very serious, very intense, very personal questions that a society such as ours ought to ponder.

Beauprez though is sadly mis-informed. Or crazy. Because the abortion rate is probably closer to 33% among African-American women. Still high, but far from 70%.

As I've previously written, the abortion rate is 3 times higher among African-Americans than among white women. This is in part a crisis of the U.S. healthcare system that makes preventative care and health education difficult to obtain for those living in poverty. And 1/3 of blacks still live below the poverty line.

The trouble here is that Beauprez is sounding crazy. And desperate. Is this some kind of compassionate conservatism that he's promoting? Is he advocating outlawing abortion in the U.S. to save the poor unborn black babies of America? A dream deferred indeed -- how can a tiny, disadvantaged and dead black baby expect to live the American dream? Mr. Beauprez, thank you so much for exaggerating this problem and working hard to ensure my sure-to-be-foolish reproductive choices are duly limited so that more "ethnic" children like mine will grow up in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Thanks for trying to impose your religious beliefs on me. Thanks for your cynical, false concern.

Hard to believe this man is a Member of Congress.

I hope that this sort of talk encourages people out there to consider Bill Ritter, the Democratic, non-crazy candidate for governor of Colorado. He seems like a very good alternative.

Thanks also to Colorado Media Matters for covering the story.

40,000 U.S. Troops AWOL since 2000

Where have all the soldiers gone? The U.S. Armed Forces isn't saying much about the fact that so many troops -- over half of which are from the Army alone -- are AWOL and neither is the mainstream media. Why? Well, it doesn't really mesh with the "we're winning the war against terror" and "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" storylines we usually hear from the Bush administration. Apparently, some of us are neither fighting "them" over there nor over here.

Deja vu, it seems: During the Vietnam War era (roughly between 1961-1975), about 50,000 Americans fled to Canada to avoid the war. Our generation is apparently more decisive, I guess, when it comes to bailing individually out of ill-conceived, ill-managed, bloody conflicts with no exit strategy.

Hat tip: Playahata

Hurricane Kanye

Kanye West took a lot of criticism immediately after he broke from the teleprompter during a hurricane relief telethon for Katrina victims last year.

His statement was brave and frankly, looking back, true. It wasn't as if black leaders rushed at first to support him. There was a recoiling of fear and a failure to call a spade a spade. Yet Kanye broke the ice and expressed what a lot of black folks (and some non-black ones too) were thinking in the aftermath of Katrina. Many of us still believe that, deep down, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." And also: "Those are my people down there."

Terrence Says has a great summary on the substantive points of Kanye's emotional roll. My favorite part of the clip below is the look on Mike Myers' and Chris Tucker's faces after Kanye's final, famous statement. Doh!

I think some people, including Kanye, probably thought that he'd be blackballed, that he'd ended his career that night. Until they really thought about it and realized...he was right.

Terence Blanchard, New Orleans Native, Breaks It Down

The famous jazz musician and film score composer breaks it down for you in just 2 minutes -- what you should understand about the Bush administration post-Katrina in this vignette from Spike Lee's excellent documentary. I think he speaks for a lot of African-Americans, which is probably why this is the only clip from the When the Levees Broke I can find so far on YouTube. If you find more, let me know.

The bottom line is that the GOP, in 5 days, managed to erode several years' successful hard work in attempting to broaden their appeal to African-Americans. Trust will be hard to regain for anyone who watched the events unfold last year and sees the slow pace of recovery now.

Do You Prefer Your Racism Rare or Well Done?

In all the bustle about George "Mr. Macaca" Allen's racist comments and comfort with Confederate symbolism, many have overlooked Jim Webb's past on this issue. Webb is Allen's Democratic opponent for the VA Senate seat.

On the one hand, I'm reluctant to criticize him -- certainly every Senate seat counts in the drive to take back the Senate for Democrats. On the other, I don't envy Virginians their choice of Senate candidates. Jim Webb has been hostile to affirmative action only to change his position under pressure and needing a large turnout among African-Americans.

But how does Webb really feel? The Richmond Times-Dispatch published an article just before VA's Democratic primary describing some of Webb's expressed thoughts on the Confederacy. The article quotes from a speech Webb gave in 1990 at the Confederate Memorial. It is one of only a handful of select speeches available on Webb's personal site which indicates, I think, some measure of meaning and pride for him that continues. Despite this critical article and the potential negative impact on his campaign, the speech is still up on his site today.

Read it. I think my personal favorite is this selection:

But more than anything else, I am compelled today to remember a number of ancestors who lie in graves far away from Arlington. Two died fighting for the Confederacy -- one in Virginia and the other in a prisoner camp in Illinois, after having been captured in Tennessee. Another served three years in the Virginia cavalry and survived, naming the next child to spring from his loins Robert E. Lee Webb, a name that my grandfather also held and which has passed along in bits and pieces through many others, such as my cousin, Roger Lee Webb, present today, and my son, James Robert, also present. And another, who fought for the Arkansas infantry and then the Tennessee Cavalry under Nathan Bedford Forrest. And, to be fully ecumenical, another, who had moved from Tennessee to Kentucky in the 1850's, and who fought well and hard as an infantry Sergeant in the Union army.

Chilling, ain't it. Especially the part about Nathan Bedford Forrest, like Webb, a descendent of hard-working Scotch-Irish. He was also a slave trader, Confederate general and founder of the Ku Klux Klan.

I agree with Kilo that Webb's got some racial problems and they don't seem to be going away (though I disagree that Allen is the answer to Webb's racial problems!) Generally, when people have 2 unsavory choices, they tend to avoid choosing at all. Without African-Americans voting in large numbers this fall, Webb's Senate bid will be sunk.

Yet, is there some ray of hope that Webb can be reached and moderate more of his positions? Does a reasonable man exist beyond the evident mixed feelings about contemporary Virginia and Virginians? Below is an excerpt from the end of his speech that seems to carry even more resonance today given the President's bloody Iraq adventure:

"...our leaders should carry next to their breasts, and contemplate every time they f ace a crisis, however small, which puts our military at risk. it should echo in their consciences, from the power of a million graves . It is simply this: You hold our soldiers' lives in sacred trust. When a citizen has sworn to obey you, and follow your judgment, and walk onto a battlefield to defend the interests you define as worthy of his blood, do not abuse that awesome power through careless policy, unclear objectives, or inflexible leadership."