Category Archives: Race

CONVERSATION WITH KING:

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I recently had the good fortune of spending time with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Since today is a celebration of his life and accomplishments, I believe it appropriate to publish the interview. We met in Providence, Rhode Island, in a quiet room off the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel. Only about 5′ 6½” his stocky build lent size and gravitas to his presence.  He wore a dark brown suit with a thin tie and settled into the couch with a contented sigh.

MLK:  “Good to be here. Don’t get around much anymore.”

ME:  “Dr. King, I was surprised you asked to meet me in Providence.”

A small smile danced across his face.

MLK:  “I knew it wasn’t terribly far from your home–mine either.

ME:  “You know, I was pretty nervous thinking about talking to you. I feel I’m in the presence of a truly great human being.”

MLK:  “I hope you aren’t nervous now. As you can see, we both have two arms and two legs.

ME:  “Dr. King…”

MLK:  “Martin, please.”

ME:  “That might be tough, sir.”

A flicker of annoyance flashed in his bright brown eyes.

MLK:  “This interview isn’t going to last very long if you insist on calling me ‘sir.’ I much prefer to be seen as a person, even a dead person. I’m getting tired of being a larger than life figure.”

ME:  “Okay, s.., excuse me, Martin, but speaking of larger than life, what do you think about your monument?”

MLK:  “I’ve always thought of myself as a kinder and friendlier looking man than the one made from that stone. I appreciate the thought and effort, but find the strife it’s caused from its conception onward…”

ME:  “Pretty ironic.”

MLK:  “Very much so. I’d rather my legacy be framed in social progress.”

ME:  “In your wildest imaginings, did you ever think this country would have a Martin Luther King holiday?”

MLK:  “Of course not, although being assassinated helped, I suppose. But at the time of my death, my approval rating was around 30 percent.”

ME:  “You kept track of approval ratings?”

MLK:  “Ahh, another shock to your fantasy about Saint Martin? As a writer who came along after me once wrote, ‘The medium is the message.’ While I don’t entirely agree with that message, it was important to understand how others saw me if I wanted my words and actions to mean something.”

ME:  “Why only 30 percent, though?”

MLK:  “I’m tempted to suggest that you ask the respondents, but I’ll give it a try. It was a moment in time when traditions were being challenged. When the vast majority of Americans were confused, upset, and bewildered by what was taking place around them. Stokely had rejected my non-violent approach toward change by calling for Black Power and aligning himself with the Panthers. So there was real fear among White people about Negro leaders.  But I think what angered many people in 1968, including allies and friends, was my linkage of civil rights, the Vietnam war, support of unions, and a guaranteed income for everybody as the way to end poverty.”

ME:  “Do you feel your non-violent approach was vindicated by the election of a Black President. Progress as a result of your efforts?”

King smiled widely before he spoke.

MLK:  “It’s certainly progress but needs to be understood within a larger context.”

I nodded for him to continue.

MLK:  “In the long run, the most important aspect of Obama’s presidency may be less that he is a Negro than the coalition he put together to be elected. I believe he was able to mobilize the constituencies needed to work for significant and progressive change. I’m hopeful that coalition will continue to act in concert. People of color, as we’re now known, young people, White people, women, unions, Gays.  All were instrumental in Obama’s election.”

It took me a moment to realize the sound coming from the couch was laughter.

MLK:  “Which is why those groups are so angry with him.  He surely isn’t a progressive.  Which is also why people who believe in real progress must understand that change comes from the ground up and not top down.”

ME:  “You sound like a member of the Occupy Movement.”

MLK:  “I really don’t belong to groups anymore.”

ME:  “But it does sound like you support their cause though many people criticize their lack of organization, that their outdoor compounds were just magnets for drug addicts and the homeless.

MLK:  “Causes is more accurate. And I do believe if they are to become relevant organizational development is essential, but the other criticisms–those sadden me. Homelessness in a land of this wealth? Drug addiction without real treatment alternatives? A justice system that metes out different punishments for drugs that White and Black people use? Worse–a country that turned its mentally ill onto the streets by closing down homes and institutions while spending billions for multiple wars? Those are tragedies and that’s why the broadest possible progressive coalition–including addicts and the homeless–is needed to foster real change.”

ME:  “People point to the election of President Obama as evidence that we, in the U.S. live in a “post-racial” society.  What’s your take?”

King’s bulky body shook and this time there was no confusion about his laughter.

MLK:  “From where I listen, the words often used are ‘level playing field.’ That, and ‘post racial’ are ways to ignore the injustice that runs rampant throughout this society. Simply look at life expectancy: white males live about seven years longer on average than Black men. White women live more than five years longer than their Black counterparts. Although researchers have suggested that genetics accounts for the differences in health and not health care access, that notion has been debunked. Wages? As recently as 2010 median annual earnings of Black men were 74, 75 cents to a White male’s dollar. Less than the Constitution’s original 3/5ths valuation.

I began to ask another question but King shook me off.

MLK:  “The issues facing our country are deeper than simply race–though race is certainly not simple. The issue of color is interwoven with economics and economics affect more than just people of color. It affects the White woman and her children who live in a holler without clean water, or no water at all, the laborer whose pensions have been destroyed by the upper class even as the upper class generates enormous amounts of money for itself, the government worker who no longer has the right to collective bargaining, the middle class who struggle to pay exorbitant college tuition. I could continue.

ME:  “You seem pretty up to date on what’s taking place here.”

MLK:  “I have plenty of time on my hands.”

ME:  “So if you were able to return would you still be as committed to non-violence given everything you just described?”

MLK:  “Absolutely. Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. It doesn’t require murder. A society formed from blood inevitably leads to more blood. We need nothing else than to look at history for confirmation.”

ME:  “Most people don’t believe this world capable of non-violence. To use your words, ‘we need nothing else than to look at history for confirmation.'”

King smiled.

MLK:  “You’ve lost your nervousness. Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

ME:  “You didn’t have a chance to climb the stairs.”

MLK:  “The assassination just strengthened my belief that a society built upon blood never leaves that blood behind–which makes it so important that change is engendered non-violently.”

Dr. King stood and I popped off my chair.

MLK:  “I’m not interviewed much these days. Thank you.”

ME:  “Are you kidding? This was an honor.”

MLK:  “No, my friend, it was just an interview.”

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
Martin Luther King

TWO-FACED LIES AND BULLSHIT

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And I’m not even talking Romney.

The day after the first presidential debate, I wrote a rough draft for today’s post, trying to exorcise my fury about Romney’s neck breaking flip-flops and outright lies.  I also wrote about Obama’s incomprehensible somnolence and lackadaisical performance.

Problem was, so did the rest of the world.  Since there’s no reason to repeat much repeated news and opinion, I’m bringing the election closer to home: the Massachusetts Senate race between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown that has garnered national attention.

For weeks we have been pummeled upside the head with Brown ads that attack Warren’s assertion that she is part Native American because she has no papers to prove it.  Since her employers have publicly said that she had been hired on the basis of her skills rather than background, one might think Brown would stop the attacks.  Not Mr. Brown.

Then what’s good for the goose… I’d like Scott Brown to prove he’s a Caucasian male. Don’t talk to me about skin color, which is often misleading.  I want something more than what he was told by his family.  On top of that, I demand to see proof that if he actually is a Caucasian male, he was never given a leg up throughout his life because of it.  I want all his previous employers to publicly proclaim that Brown had never jumped past a person of color or a woman of any color because of the box he checked.  Your turn, Scott.

Then, just to be clear about his constant claims of “bipartisanship,” let’s peek at some of Mr. Brown’s Senate voting record:

A study of Republican Scott Brown’s voting record in the U.S. Senate by ProgressMass reveals that, when Brown had the opportunity to oppose Republican obstruction in the U.S. Senate and demonstrate bipartisan leadership, he voted overwhelmingly with his Republican colleagues.  This finding runs directly counter to Republican Scott Brown’s recent claims of bipartisanship.  Brown voted with his Republican colleagues at a rate of over 75% (over 93% prior to Elizabeth Warren’s entry into the Senate race) to block legislation that had the support of 50 or more Senators, measures that would have passed the U.S. Senate on a so-called “up-or-down vote,” according to the ProgressMass review of Brown’s Senate record.  In other words, during his tenure in the U.S. Senate, when Republican Scott Brown was faced with a choice between bipartisan leadership and partisan obstruction, Brown chose partisan obstruction over bipartisan leadership 3 to 1.

Among the 40 measures with majority support in the U.S. Senate that Republican Scott Brown voted with his Republican colleagues to obstruct were:

4/26/10: S. 3217, Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 (Senate Vote 124)
The bill was the original financial regulatory reform bill, increasing accountability and transparency, and ending “too big to fail.”

7/27/10: S. 3628, Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act (Senate Vote 220)
This bill would have increased transparency of corporate and special-interest money in national political campaigns, in response to the notorious Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, as well as prohibited foreign influence in federal elections.

9/28/10: S. 3816, Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act (Senate Vote 242)
This bill would have given companies a two-year payroll tax holiday on new employees who replace workers doing similar jobs overseas, as well as revoked provisions of the tax code that encourage companies to outsource their workforce.

11/17/10: S. 3772, Paycheck Fairness Act (Senate Vote 249)
This bill would have provided more effective remedies to victims of gender-based discrimination in the payment of wages.

12/8/10: S. 3985, Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act of 2010 (Senate Vote 267)
This bill would have provided a one-time payment of $250 to all Social Security recipients to help compensate for the lack of a cost-of-living adjustment.

12/9/10: H.R. 847, James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 (Senate Vote 269)
This was the original version of the 9/11 first responders bill to improve health services and provide financial compensation for 9/11 first responders who were exposed to dangerous toxins and were now sick as a result.  The bill would establish a federal program to provide medical monitoring and treatment for first responders, provide initial health screenings for people who were in the area at the time of the attack and may be at risk, and reopen the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund to provide compensation for losses and harm as an alternative to the current litigation system.

5/4/11: S. 493, Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer Reauthorization Act of 2011 (Senate Vote 64)
This bill would reauthorize the “Small Business Innovation Research” (SBIR) and “Small Business Technology Transfer” (STTR) programs, which Scott Brown earlier said provided “vital resources to small businesses nationwide, and this reauthorization is incredibly important for Massachusetts and our country,” and signed on as a co-sponsor of the measure before Republicans lined up behind a competing measure.

5/17/11: S. 940, Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act (Senate Vote 72)
This bill would have eliminated five tax subsidies for U.S. oil companies and closed a loophole that oil companies exploit to disguise foreign royalty payments as taxes and reduce their domestic tax bill.  Resulting savings would have been applied to reducing federal budget deficits.

10/11/11: S. 1660, American Jobs Act of 2011 (Senate Vote 160)
The bill would have created an estimated 1.9 million jobs nationwide, including 16,000 in Massachusetts.  It would have extended several stimulus measures scheduled to expire at the end of 2011, including the employee payroll tax holiday, and extended unemployment insurance, helping over 170,000 Massachusetts residents.  It also included several measures designed to prevent layoffs and encourage businesses to hire new workers, including: $35 billion in aid to local governments to help slow job losses in the public sector, about $100 billion in various infrastructure improvement programs, tax credits for businesses that hire long-term unemployed workers, and reductions in the level of payroll taxes that businesses have to pay.

10/20/11: S. 1723, Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act of 2011 (Senate Vote 177)
This bill would have invested $35 billion in state and local governments, including $591 million in Massachusetts, to prevent layoffs of public workers and first responders, including an estimated 6,300 education jobs in Massachusetts.  The spending would have been offset by a 0.5% surtax on all income earned above $1 million.

11/3/11: S. 1769, Rebuild America Jobs Act (Senate Vote 195)
This bill would have invested $50 billion in infrastructure repair, plus another $10 billion in an infrastructure bank, which would provide loans for private, revenue-generating infrastructure projects.  The spending would have been offset with a 0.5% surtax on all income earned above $1 million.  The measure would have created an estimated 11,000 jobs in Massachusetts and invested $850 million in the Commonwealth’s infrastructure.

12/1/11: S. 1917, Middle Class Tax Cut Act of 2011 (Senate Vote 219)
This bill would have reduced employment tax rates in calendar year 2012 (payroll tax holiday period) for both employers and employees to 3.1%.

12/8/11: S. 1944, Middle Class Tax Cut Act of 2011 (Senate Vote 224)
This bill would have extended through 2012 the reduction in employment taxes for employees and the self-employed.

3/29/12: S. 2204, Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act (Senate Vote 63)
This bill would have limited or repealed certain tax benefits for major oil companies while extending a number of energy efficiency and renewable energy tax credits.

4/16/12: S. 2230, Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012 (Senate Vote 65)
Known as the Buffett Rule, this bill would have enhanced tax fairness by ensuring a 30% effective tax rate on income exceeding $1 million.

And while this is not Brown’s entire voting record, it sure doesn’t reflect anything close to bipartisanship.  (Which side are you on, Brown, which side are you on?)  It’s Romneyesque.  Two-faced lies and bullshit.  Is it any wonder this so-called Caucasian male is reduced to ugly personal attacks?

“The most violent element in society is ignorance. “
Emma Goldman

THE FINE ART OF LIVING

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Nate’s quote, (see last week’s post LOCKED IN LEISURE),  was an accurate reflection about his impending death, but the real meat of our relationship had much more to do with living than dying.

I live in Jamaica Plain, a mixed Boston neighborhood next to predominately Black Roxbury.  In the lull between writing and my trial and jury consulting, I decided to channel my unemployment into getting in shape.  Located across from Roxbury Community College, the Reggie Lewis Community Center was a well-appointed gym with spacious community rooms, a state-of-the-art indoor track, and virtually no White members.  It was also affordable, opposed to gyms where you gotta refinance your house in order to join.

As mentioned last week, it wasn’t very long before Nate invited me into his circle, mainstays at the Center and the heart of their senior citizens club called The Sensational Seniors.  Suddenly I found myself reveling in an entirely Black social life and paying dues to the seniors club.

Now let’s time machine back about 30 years from then.  I spent my last three years of high school at a residential Hasidic yeshiva in Brooklyn—and believe me, five days a week were more than enough.  So I began to visit my mother and her husband Seymour’s house in Orange,  New Jersey, desperately hoping to find some sort of weekend fun.

I did.  Seymour taught in a local high school and his colleague, who lived down the block, had a son named Clifford who was my age.

Although he was ordered to visit me, turned out we liked each other and became really close friends, hanging out on a steady weekend basis.  Clifford and his family were Black.

Which, despite my liberal upbringing, was a new do.  Especially when we went out.  In fact, the first dance we attended thrust my face into my own unconscious racism.  There were about three hundred kids and, for the first hour, mine was the only White face in the crowd.  Although Cliff had been teaching me to dance, I just paced the periphery.  Then a White girl strolled through the door.  My eyes lit up.  I figgered I was golden.  Gonna have a chance to practice my new moves.  Hey, one White guy, one White girl.

A half a dozen dances later, Cliff whispered into my ear. “You know she’s Albino, don’t you?”

“What’s an Albino?”

“She’s a Black girl who looks White.  Plus, her boyfriend just walked in and you’re dead meat if he sees you dancing with her.  You better take that leap and dance with a black Black girl.”

He was sweet but I understood why I had waited to dance for someone who was “White.”

For the next three years my entire weekend social life was hanging with Cliff and his friends.  Needless to say, I danced with any and  all the girls with whom we partied and played and took to the White Castle before going home.

Still, it had been a long jump since high school and took a while to grow comfortable with Nate’s ever expanding crew.  On the other hand, it was sort of like déjà vu all over again, having the time and space to rap and hang out and get to know people without rushing off to the next place to be.

Soon our hour-long gym sessions had two hour kibitzing chasers. I remember a woman confiding one of her greatest experiences was when Duke and his orchestra came to town. There were tears in her eyes as she recalled Duke prancing down from the bandstand in the middle of a song to ask her for a dance.

I also learned about the racism traveling Black musicians faced, Duke included, whenever they rolled into town during the 40’s and 50’s.  Any town, but Boston was particularly nasty where they were forced to sleep in buses or peoples’ houses.

I learned through my friends’ firsthand knowledge how warm Louie Armstrong was, the hours Coltrane kept (returning from a gig at 2 A.M and practicing until dawn every night), how difficult Sonny Stitt was at times.

Eventually I began gyming three days a week then going to lunch across town at The Old Country Buffet where Nate made it clear he wasn’t gonna sit in a booth.  “That’s where cockroaches live in restaurants,” he explained.  There were about six of us who became regulars, becoming great friends with the manager, and spending most of our afternoons eating, talking, (serious and otherwise) and playing with other customers as many grew to know and enjoy our hijinks.

It was flat out fun and an eye opener—despite the ribbing I got from my other friends about belonging to a Black senior citizens group and spending my days hanging at Old Country.  An eye opener because their stories also brought back memories—some not so sweet—to those who were telling them. Unlike my high school friends, these men and women had lived through some of the worst racism 20th century America dished out.

I learned directly about the hostility and horror my friends had faced and truly began to understand the strength it took to survive all those decades.  I listened to personal accounts about how an oppressed community dealt with the shit poured on their heads and still managed to stay intact despite it all.

But what I learned the most was there really are times when color need not be a barrier to love and friendship in a way I hadn’t in high school.  This despite the subtle but strong weaving of racism throughout the fabric of our culture.

Thanks Nate, you reminded me of something I’ll never forget again.  He was bright and interested in ANYBODY who was sympatico.  He also had the ability to have fun in any situation and was able to share that fun with those around him. That’s the really fine art of living.

“Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.” —Jim Rohn

 

The Tea Party: We Gettin’ One Lump Or Two?

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There are plenty of labels people hang on the Tea Party:  patriots, idiots, people who want to stop the insanity, people who are insane, rednecks, and racists–just for starters.  Then there was an anonymous comment I read online: “Tea Party is just a nice way of saying KKK.”

Would that it were so simple. The KKK made no bones about their public hatred of Blacks.  They were founded and acted on tenets of white supremacy, and weren’t the least bit shy about using terrorism to make their beliefs crystal clear.

But from where I sit, the Tea Party’s brand of racism is, in some ways, far more insidious because its followers are unable (or unwilling) to perceive that much of the underpinnings of their philosophy is indeed racist. That is, their demands to obliterate safety nets that have been in place since Roosevelt and Johnson in the name of small government–non progressive tax programs (flat tax), limitations on growth in federal spending, etc–would result in worsening the already lousy living conditions for countless people of color and the poor of every hue.  The TPers’ obliviousness, their refusal to even acknowledge the logical consequences of their programs and philosophy, trades racist rhetoric for racist policy results, real lynchings for slowly twisting in the wind.

Worse, The Tea Party movement is a natural outgrowth of our domestic policies and ideologies.  And Progressives miss the point when they froth at the mouth about the Palins, Rands, and Bachmans-as foolish and detestable as their thinking might be.  The Tea Party is simply a naked distillation of historical and modern political thinking about race, poverty, taxes, and government.

LET’S START WITH RACE:

It’s not surprising the TPers landed where they are.  How many decades have Republicans and “New Democrats” objected to Affirmative Action, citing time after time that we now live in a country that has a “level playing field.”  Or, both parties raising the specter of Welfare Queens, which conjures up big Black women living high on the hog without a care in the world.

This wasn’t begun by TPers but from the Reagan Revolution that Bill Clinton did nothing to stop or undo.  In fact, he encouraged the myths through his program “to end welfare as we know it. (Which in reality meant a huge jump in the prison population of women between the ages of 18-25 for non-violent crimes.  With or without welfare, people need to survive).  And if Democrats are honest about it, Clinton was more than willing to suspend civil liberties to invade Cabrini Green, a non-white housing project in Chicago.

So please let’s drop the pretense that somehow the TPers are more racist than traditional politicians who, in the face of institutional and individual racism, call our society’s opportunities equal for all.  If anything, the TPers are more sincere in their mistaken beliefs than the regular pols, who actually know the truth but pander to the make-believe for political gain.

TAXES:

Another Tea Party inheritance.  Prop This, Prop That, and trickle-down economics have been a mainstay of the Republican Party and, in their own way, post Reagan Democrats who act as if taxes have no relationship whatsoever to the betterment of people’s lives.  I’m not suggesting there isn’t government waste.  And I certainly have no truck with where a significant portion of our taxes go.  But to eviscerate the idea of taxes, to turn the word into an obscenity has its roots much farther back than the TPers, who have come by this “no taxes” mantra via decades of politically professed hatred of government.

It’s time for Progressives to champion the belief that government has the potential to enhance people’s lives. That government is a social compact between all that live here, and the definition of that compact needs relentless work.  Something we haven’t done effectively for decades.  We seemed to take too many of our truths for granted, above discussion.  But we were the only ones who stopped talking, stopped acting, and look what’s happened with issues like a woman’s right to choose, institutional racism, social responsibility-hell, even evolution.  We need to recapture lost ground-ground that has allowed the TPers to plant their flag.

We need to trumpet that race is not irrelevant, that poverty exists beyond most American’s wildest dreams, and that it existsbecause of our social structure, not because of an individual’s own doing.  We need to fight about how taxes are spent, not whether they should exist.

Our lack of organization, our inability to reach out and connect with people who don’t share our beliefs, our preference to react rather than act, our waste of time ad homonym name calling of people with whom we disagree, and especially our blindness to the real effects of the Reagan Revolution helped create space for the Tea Party.

As much as I hate to say it, most of them are pretty genuine in what they believe.  And getting rid of their political ideology is gonna be much more difficult than comparing them to the KKK or deriding their “stupidity.”

We live in a political and cultural crossfire.  Some call it Red versus Blue.  Some call it North versus South.  Some call it Conservative versus Liberal.

I call it Truth versus Myth.  Our war isn’t against the Tea Party, but against the propagation of the myths that have infected our entire society.  For it is these myths which aided and abetted the Tea Party’s creation.

A government of the 1%, by the 1%, and for the 1%.

Time For Israeli Regime Change

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If we are comfortable instigating regime changes in countries that oppress their inhabitants (and three wars suggest we are), then it’s time to take a cold hard look at Israel.

From the moment of its inception, Israel has systematically treated its Arab/Palestinian inhabitants as second class citizens without the same rights afforded to Jews.  First, was a systematic and escalating land grab.

— The Israeli government confiscated any “common land,” untitled ground upon which non-Jewish people lived.

— The Israeli government also took all lands owned by out of the state non-Jewish residents.  (There is an argument that Palestinians left their land at the behest of Arab countries just prior to the 1948 war.  While this is still under debate, there is no question about the Israeli threats that drove other Palestinians from their homes, land, and villages.  This was the land the government then declared to be “absentee owned.”

— If this wasn’t bad enough, the State confiscated territory Palestinians owned even if they were still in Israel but not literally home at the moment of seizure.  Too bad for those who happened to be visiting relatives or out for a cup of coffee.

— And, of course, there were no Israeli inhibitions about taking whatever they wanted by declaring the need for “military land.”

This was no helter skelter response to the 1948 war. It was simply the start of an ongoing and continuous process.  Take, for example, Israeli citizenship categories and the privileges-or lack thereof-that accompany them:

JEWS:
Privileged access to the material resources of the State as well as the social and welfare services of the State. Access to use 93 percent of pre-1967 Israel controlled by the Land Agency. Note that no one can actually purchase Agency land, which is leased to Jews only.

NON-JEWS/ARABS: 
Taxpayers and citizens with voting rights, but denied the right to utilize the 93 percent of pre-1967 Israel controlled by the Land Agency. Denied equal access to water, social and welfare services. Generally not permitted to serve in the military, which automatically excludes many social and welfare services available to those who complete compulsory military service (i.e., Jews).

NON-JEWS/ARABS:
About 200,000 taxpayers and citizens with voting rights, classified as “absentees.”  Denied the right to utilize property in 93 percent of pre-1967 Israel. Denied equal access to water, social and welfare services. Denied all rights to the property (lands, houses, corporations, shares, bank accounts, bank safes, etc.) they owned until confiscated by the Jewish state. This theft was made “legal” by the Absentees Property Law of 1950.

NON-JEWS/ARABS:
3,000,000 taxpayers without voting rights. Denied the right to utilize or buy property anywhere in pre-1967 Israel. No access to social and welfare services. Many (mostly those who once lived in pre-1967 Israel) have had all their property confiscated by the Jewish state without compensation and been forced to live in ghettos in two areas that resemble concentration camps.

This information above comes from Israel: An Apartheid State by Uri Davis, published in 1987, but still pretty accurate. Let’s look beyond the second class citizenship that the Israeli government permitted Palestinians during the early years of statehood.  Let’s look at now.

Palestinian suicide bombing, shelling of Israeli cities from Gaza and the West Bank are violent acts that have been, and ought to be, condemned and punished.  But the picture we’ve gotten from the mainstream media looks quite different if we compare some very ugly numbers:

Since September 29th, 2000 to the present, 124 Israeli children have been killed.  The number of Palestinian children killed during the same time period–1,452.

Since September 29th, 2000 to the present, 1,084 Israeli adults have been killed.  The number of Palestinian adults during the same period–6,430.

Since September 29th, 2000 to the present, 9,226 Israelis have been injured.  The number of Palestinians injured during the same period–45,041.

The current number of Israeli political prisoners or detainees is 1.  The current number of Palestinian political prisoners or detainees is 5,935.
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Since 1967 the number of Israeli homes that have been demolished for settlement reasons is 0.  Since 1967 the number of Palestinian homes demolished for settlement reasons–24,813.
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Israeli unemployment is presently 6.4 percent.

Palestinian unemployment rate in the West Bank–16.5 percent.

Palestinian unemployment rate in Gaza–40 percent.

Of the 40 towns in Israel with the highest unemployment rates, 36 are Arab towns.

According to the Central Bank of Israel statistics for 2003, salary averages for Arab workers were 29 percent lower than for Jewish workers.

U.S. government aid to Israel in 2009 was 8.2 million dollars of military aid per day.

U.S. government aid to Palestinians in 2009–0 dollars.

(These numbers and their primary sources can be found at http://www.ifamericansknew.org.)

Nothing frightens Israel more than the demographic reality of the booming Palestinian population.  And given Israel’s continued and adamant refusal to negotiate anything close to a fair two-state solution, (which would mean the immediateinternationalization of Jerusalem (a holy city to at least three religions), a return to the 1967 borders without any Jewish settlements on the Left Bank, and the cessation of the Gaza Blockade) what alternative will the Israeli government have other than driving the Palestinian Nation into Jordan proper?  Just one, genocide.

As a Jew who lost family in the Holocaust and was schooled in yeshivas from the 3rd to 12th grades, I’m appalled that mypeople, victims of that horror, have no qualms about imposing rigid apartheid on the Palestinian people. I feel sick that Israel has followed such destructive and self-destructive policies for over 60 years.  Policies that have turned their back on any justtwo-state solution, a solution I no longer believe feasible because of Israeli intransigence.  And that lack of belief has me staring what could be the most horrible era in all of Jewish history.  A time when a people, who had been systematically and murderously oppressed throughout our past, becomes an agent of genocide.