Politico: In a direct address to black America, President Barack Obama said that while “there’s probably never been less discrimination in America than there is today… the pain of discrimination is still felt” by Latinos, Muslims and gays, as well as African-Americans.

In New York on Thursday to mark the centennial of the NAACP, Obama delivered a sweeping speech outlining his domestic policy, and recalling America’s journey from slavery to freedom. He praised civil-rights activists, saying, “because of what they did, we are a more perfect union.”

Yet, he said, in spite of the many strides, there is still work to be done in ending discrimination and closing the racial gaps in employment, education, health care and incarceration rates. [ READ MORE ]

FULL SPEECH

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Cities Cracking Down on Saggy Pants — Some May Face Jail Time

The “Saggy Pants” fashion started in U.S. prisons, where inmates aren’t given belts with their baggy uniform pants to prevent hangings and beatings — a “gangster rap” craze featuring low-slung baggy pants sometimes held by the hands to prevent it from falling down the legs. Sometime the pants are worn so low, that boxer shorts or bare buttocks are in full view.

“For young people, it’s a form of rebellion and identity,” Adrian “Easy A.D.” Harris, 43, a founding member of the Bronx’s legendary rap group Cold Crush Brothers. “The young people think it’s fashionable. They don’t think it’s negative.”

“The reason I don’t wear tight pants is because it’s easier to get money out of my pocket this way,” Wise said. “It’s just more comfortable,” says Mark Wise. My jeans sag for practical reasons.

“Are they going to go after construction workers and plumbers, because their pants sag, too?” Murray asked. “They’re stereotyping us,” says shop owner Mack Murray

The latest city to crack down on “Saggy Pants” is Flint, Michigan. Flint cops are cracking down on sagging pants, and violators of ordinance could face fines — even jail time.

Flint residents now have to watch their butts because Police Chief David Dicks is on the lookout.

Dicks, who took over the department last month on an interim basis, announced that his officers would start arresting people wearing saggy pants that expose skivvies, boxer shorts or bare bottoms.

“Some people call it a fad,” Dicks told the Free Press this week while patrolling the streets of Flint. “But I believe it’s a national nuisance. It is indecent and thus it is indecent exposure, which has been on the books for years.”

On June 27, the chief issued a departmental memorandum telling officers: “This immoral self expression goes beyond freedom of expression.”

The crime, he says, is disorderly conduct or indecent exposure, both misdemeanors punishable by 93 days to a year in jail and/or fines up to $500.

Flint is often called one of the most violent cities in America, however in recent years, it has seen a drop in homicides.

Civil Liberties

Greg Gibbs, a lawyer and chair of the ACLU Flint chapter, said the crackdown sounds like a “vast waste of resources.”

“In Atlanta, we see this as racial profiling,” said Benetta Standly, statewide organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. “It’s going to target African-American male youths. There’s a fear with people associating the way you dress with crimes being committed.”

Michigan ACLU Executive Director Kary Moss said race could become an issue if the chief aggressively enforces the law…[MORE >>]

In desperation, Hillary Clinton is now explicitly referring to her appeal to “Hard-Working Americans, White Americans,” adding that she appeals to a wider coalition of voters — including whites who have not supported Barack Obama in recent contests.

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.

Clinton’s blunt remarks about race came a day after primaries in Indiana and North Carolina dealt symbolic and mathematical blows to her White House ambitions.

Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, notes quite correctly that at the end of the day her primary support doesn’t prove she’s more electable. Either Democrat will get “the vast majority” of the other’s primary election votes in a general election, he said, adding that Clinton’s comment was a “poorly worded” variation on the way analysts have been “slicing and dicing the vote in racial terms.” …..[more]

I construe Hillary’s comments as a suggestion that “blacks are lazy,”….a racial stereotype I expect to come from a ReTHUGlican and not a Democrat.

“Her statement seems to exclude African-Americans from being hard-working,” said Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist and CNN contributor, aligned to the Obama campaign, who is black. “Also, there are a lot of white Americans for Barack Obama. So it’s misleading and it’s not true,” said Mr. Simmons.

Mr. Simmons added:

“There is a very particular feeling that this couple(Bill and Hillary Clinton), that African-Americans had such regard for and trust in, has been at best dismissive towards Barack Obama and in many ways has used race and differentness as a weapon against him.”

Senator Diane Feinstein, a Clinton backer, has also indicated she wanted to hear “what Clinton’s strategy is,” adding: “The race is reaching a point now where there are negative dividends from it in terms of strife within the party.”

“Duck Hunting” Ma. Clinton however, appears unmoved by the “sniper-fire,” telling cheering supporters yesterday, in Charleston, West Virginia that the state’s primary next Tuesday, which she is expected to win, was “a test for me and a test for Senator Obama.”

I also find it odd that Latino voters who have been supporting her in large numbers are not included in the “Hard Working White” coalition….and what about blacks? Won’t she need the most consistently loyal Democratic party voting block, if she becomes the nominee?

The “Bitch of Chappaqua, New York” is in full Kamikaze (suicide) Mode….The “Hill” has become so selfish she doesn’t mind destroying the Democratic Party,…. and the “bitching and moaning” does not bode well for future female candidates.

LOL!

This woman is running amok, and if the DNC does not quickly “reject and denounce,” her — she will drive such a monumental wedge between the voters so much so that it will be next to impossible to unite the party for the general election.

Al Gore, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi and other big-wigs of the Democratic party need to step in and get this witch out of the race, before her “toxic waste” does extreme damage to the party…..and to Bill’s already “Lewinsky-Stained” legacy.

On the other hand, if she decides to ’surrender’ within the next week or two, it will a ‘joy’ to watch Hillary stumping enthusiastically for Obama in the general election — essentially denying her current charge(s); that Obama is elitist and out of touch with middle-America.

Can’t wait for that… LOL!

By: Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu

Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights advocate — Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu

When we were struggling in South Africa against the vicious racist policies of apartheid, it was exhilarating to proclaim to our people that our God was encountered first not in the peaceful quiet of a sanctuary. No, our God was out there in the rough and tumble of the politics of the day. Our God revealed Himself in the utterly vulgar world of setting a fractious rabble of slaves free. Our God was/is the great liberator God of the Exodus — the paradigmatic event that helped to define God as the God who is never unbiased, but is always biased in favor of the oppressed, the marginalized, the down and outs.

This God in Jesus Christ continued to demonstrate this bias — Jesus companied not with the high and mighty, Archbishops, Presidents, and such like, but with the scum of society, prostitutes, sinners, the despised. This was the God who had an extraordinary identification with the little people — inasmuch as you have done this(clothed the naked,fed the hungry,etc.) staggeringly you have done it as to God. Wow. Our God did not give good advice from a safe distance. No, our God entered the fiery furnace to be there as Immanuel, God with us in our anguish and agony. Our God was not deaf, but heard our cries, was not blind but saw our suffering and would as of old come down to deliver us from our bondage too, so that we would enjoy the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Jeremiah Wright has said really no more than this which falls squarely in the ambit of black theology, black religion to answer the anguished questions of black people suffering under the brutality of white racism. It ultimately seeks reconciliation, but you cannot be reconciled with one who has his boot on your neck to keep you in the gutter. To be reconciled you must stand up right to look the other in the eye.

Black theology and religion seek the liberation of all, oppressor and oppressed, black and white together — as we accomplished it in South Africa for freedom is indivisible. Whites won’t be truly free until blacks are free. Listen to Condeleeza Rice in the Washington Times. Obama is a person of courageous integrity. He could have ingratiated himself to white Americans by repudiating his pastor completely. He did nothing of the sort. That speaks volumes for the man. America will not find peace with itself until you really deal with your history. You need something like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help you come to terms with your past.

Another Jeremiah, the prophet of old shocked his compatriots when Jerusalem was being besieged by the Chaldeans. He urged his compatriots to desert and join the enemy. What price patriotism.

About The Author: Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to the cause of racial justice in South Africa. He served as the first black African archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996.

Prior to this role as spiritual leader of the Anglican Church in South Africa, Tutu served as General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches from 1978 to 1985. It was in this position that he became an international voice for the anti-apartheid movement and received the Nobel Prize.

In 1995, South African President Nelson Mandela appointed Archbishop Tutu Chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the body set up to investigate human rights violations under that country’s apartheid governments from 1960 to 1994. Tutu retired from in 1996 and was given the honorary title of Archbishop Emeritus.

Since then, Archbishop Tutu served as a visiting professor and scholar at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. He has received numerous awards and has authored two books, No Future Without Forgiveness and God has a Dream.

Tutu continues to write, lecture, and travel the world as an advocate of human rights and social justice. He is currently involved with a number of non-profit organizations working for peace and equality, meeting the needs of disadvantaged children and fighting HIV/AIDS.

Here is what set off Lou Dobbs — CNN’s in-house nativist/arsonist ‘compost thrower’:

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said that race is still an issue in America.

She said yesterday that the United States still has trouble dealing with race because of a national “birth defect,” that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country’s very founding. Read the full story