Progressive Values Must Shape Federal Budget
By Gary L. Flowers
Executive Director & CEO
Black Leadership Forum, Inc.
April 17-24, 2011
Contrary to television “talking heads”, all budgets are not all the same. How private citizens construct budgets is vastly different from how government should do so. Household budgets at their best are balanced by not spending more than revenue received. Government budgets are different in that, by providing services to the public, there is not a “zero/sum” construct. Some programs within a federal budget must be preserved for the good of the nation.
In short, politics can be defined as who gets what, and when. Therefore, budgets drafted by politicians are moral documents, filled with the values of who and what is-important.
Such is the backdrop for the raging debate in Congress over America’s federal budget in how to address spending cuts to the “debt ceiling” (America’s credit card) and retain our nation’s bond rating in order to produce lower long-term deficits
There are two budgetary views that receive most of the news coverage by commercial television outlets: Those of Democratic and Republican members of Congress.
The Republican budgetary proposal seems to value war and the wealthy. As though imitating “reverse Robin Hood” the Grand Ole Party would take from the poor and give to the rich. The idea of “trickle down” economics where the rich get richer, and somehow stimulate the economy to share there money with the less fortunate has been proven untrue over the past 30 years. In the spirit of President Ronald Reagan who coined the phrase “starve the beast”, Republican leaders today intend to use the federal budget to dramatically reduce programs established for the dispossessed and downtrodden. Another popular phrase used by Republicans is to “shrink the size of government.” Yeah, right!
If such a philosophy of “smaller government” were taken to its nonsensical conclusion, we would have less post offices, interstate highways, traffic lights, and police and fire departments. Not good.
Democrats, on the other side of the political aisle, seem to favor cutting programs for the poor underprivileged within the national budget, but by less than the Republicans’ plan. Thus, top Democrats propose to place “everything [programs] on the table for cutting.” The one major point of the Democrat’s plan I believe will be beneficial to the nation is the proposed repeal of Bush-era tax cuts to millionaires (top 2% wealthy in the nation.
In the 1970’s I remember one of my grandmother’s favorite television shows was “The Price is Right”. On the show, contestants were asked to decide whether they wanted to take a chance on winning the contents behind sealed doors. The show’s host would euphorically ask: “Do you want door number one or door number two?”
In today’s budget proposal battle, the nation may well need “door number three”, by way of the proposed budget offered by the Progressive Caucus of the United States Congress. Unlike proposals thrown by the Democrats and Republicans, the Progressive Caucuses “People’s Budget” would preserve needy domestic programs and cut programs for the greedy. For example, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Planned Parenthood would be left in tact. Moreover, the “public option” would give Americans the choice of selecting a health plan provided, in part, by the government that would cost less than those provided by private health providers. Under the “Peoples Budget” would cut costly programs such as military ones within the Department of Defense and millionaires would be forced to pay their fair share in taxes. Sounds good to me.
The American people should value the People’s Budget offered by the Progressive Caucus within the Congress. Ask your representative is he or she is a member of the Progressive Caucus.
In linking leadership,
Gary L. Flowers
Executive Director & CEO
Black Leadership Forum, Inc.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Reintroducing Rosa!
Reintroducing Rosa: Mrs. Park’s Fight to Prosecute Rape of Black Women
By Gary L. Flowers
Executive Director & CEO
Black Leadership Forum, Inc.
May 8-15, 2011
Traditionally Black History is presented with accounts of luminaries such as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Gabriel Prosser, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks. In nearly every instance the narrative is narrowly offered, and skewed to heroics of Black men.
Mrs. Rosa Parks is no exception. To read most history textbooks students have been fed fiction as to who Mrs. Parks was and how she came to be the Mother of the Modern Civil Rights Movement. I vividly learning the limited lesson that Mrs. Parks was a “poor seamstress who was simply too tired to move to the back of the bus”, as racially segregated laws required in most American cities, from 1896 (Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case) to 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education court case).
In reality, Mrs. Parks was no “shrinking violet” in response to racial segregation. First, Rosa Parks sought to attend, and completed college at the Philander School, which was a training ground for activists who wanted to challenge “Jim Crow” laws. Secondly, after finishing her studies, Mrs. Parks returned to her home of Montgomery, Alabama and immediately challenged the racist voting laws of Alabama by applying for the right to vote. In 1943 and 1944, Rosa Parks was told she failed the voting examination. In 1945, Mrs. Parks not only memorized the questions, but the answers to the exam repeated them to voting officials. As a result, she passed and was granted her right to vote in Alabama—twenty-years before African Americans could vote via the 1965 Voting Rights Act; and ten years prior to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Moreover, Mrs. Parks intentionally chose to be a part of history. Rosa Parks was elected to serve as the Secretary of the Montgomery Chapter of the NAACP. As such, she regularly met with Attorney Fred Gray (lawyer to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) to strategize on challenging racist laws. In fact, James Blake, the bus driver on whose bus Mrs. Parks refused to move was well known within the Black community of Montgomery as a virulent racist, who regularly verbally insulted African Americans, particularly Black women. Rosa Parks deliberately chose the exact bus and the date (December 1, 1955) to enter the annals of world history.
However, one major role Mrs. Parks played in history has not been sufficiently revealed until recently in the form of the book, The Dark End of the Street, (2010) by Danielle McGuire. Due, in part, to male dominated Civil Rights historians the role of Black women has usually been relegated to secondary status. In her book, Ms. McGuire exposes wide-spread cases of rape by White men of Black women, few of which went to trial, and despicably even less resulted in conviction. All-White juries from 1896 to well into the 1960’s simply refused to honor justice and convict Whites of crimes against Blacks (Let me not mention the “legal” rape of Black women by White “Founding Fathers” such as Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and others).
In one particular case in 1944 a young, married African American woman named Mrs. Recy Taylor was walking home from church with family members on a dark road when a car full of White men slowly passed and returned. At gunpoint, Mrs. Taylor was taken and gang raped by 6 of the 7 men. Like countless Black women raped by White men prior to the 1960’s Mrs. Taylor was let go by her captors and threatened by life if she told. Unlike most she immediately and courageously told her family and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Mrs. Parks was assigned by the NAACP to investigate the rape case and organized a portion of the Black community to call for the rapists to stand trial. She won the battle of bringing the men to court twice, but all-White juries never convicted the rapists. Nonetheless, Mrs. Parks’ organizing skills and activism led to a network of community organizers upon which the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott was successful. Who knew?
Actually, many historians knew of Mrs. Parks’ work on the Recy Taylor case but declined to write about such due to the violence of rape, and the need to first dismantle racial segregation via federal legislation such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act; the 1965 Voting Rights Act; and the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
America cannot move “beyond race” until our nation moves into a frank discussion of the lasting effects of the false notion of White Supremacy.
In linking leadership,
Gary L. Flowers
Executive Director & CEO
Black Leadership Forum, Inc.
By Gary L. Flowers
Executive Director & CEO
Black Leadership Forum, Inc.
May 8-15, 2011
Traditionally Black History is presented with accounts of luminaries such as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth, Gabriel Prosser, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks. In nearly every instance the narrative is narrowly offered, and skewed to heroics of Black men.
Mrs. Rosa Parks is no exception. To read most history textbooks students have been fed fiction as to who Mrs. Parks was and how she came to be the Mother of the Modern Civil Rights Movement. I vividly learning the limited lesson that Mrs. Parks was a “poor seamstress who was simply too tired to move to the back of the bus”, as racially segregated laws required in most American cities, from 1896 (Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case) to 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education court case).
In reality, Mrs. Parks was no “shrinking violet” in response to racial segregation. First, Rosa Parks sought to attend, and completed college at the Philander School, which was a training ground for activists who wanted to challenge “Jim Crow” laws. Secondly, after finishing her studies, Mrs. Parks returned to her home of Montgomery, Alabama and immediately challenged the racist voting laws of Alabama by applying for the right to vote. In 1943 and 1944, Rosa Parks was told she failed the voting examination. In 1945, Mrs. Parks not only memorized the questions, but the answers to the exam repeated them to voting officials. As a result, she passed and was granted her right to vote in Alabama—twenty-years before African Americans could vote via the 1965 Voting Rights Act; and ten years prior to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Moreover, Mrs. Parks intentionally chose to be a part of history. Rosa Parks was elected to serve as the Secretary of the Montgomery Chapter of the NAACP. As such, she regularly met with Attorney Fred Gray (lawyer to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) to strategize on challenging racist laws. In fact, James Blake, the bus driver on whose bus Mrs. Parks refused to move was well known within the Black community of Montgomery as a virulent racist, who regularly verbally insulted African Americans, particularly Black women. Rosa Parks deliberately chose the exact bus and the date (December 1, 1955) to enter the annals of world history.
However, one major role Mrs. Parks played in history has not been sufficiently revealed until recently in the form of the book, The Dark End of the Street, (2010) by Danielle McGuire. Due, in part, to male dominated Civil Rights historians the role of Black women has usually been relegated to secondary status. In her book, Ms. McGuire exposes wide-spread cases of rape by White men of Black women, few of which went to trial, and despicably even less resulted in conviction. All-White juries from 1896 to well into the 1960’s simply refused to honor justice and convict Whites of crimes against Blacks (Let me not mention the “legal” rape of Black women by White “Founding Fathers” such as Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and others).
In one particular case in 1944 a young, married African American woman named Mrs. Recy Taylor was walking home from church with family members on a dark road when a car full of White men slowly passed and returned. At gunpoint, Mrs. Taylor was taken and gang raped by 6 of the 7 men. Like countless Black women raped by White men prior to the 1960’s Mrs. Taylor was let go by her captors and threatened by life if she told. Unlike most she immediately and courageously told her family and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Mrs. Parks was assigned by the NAACP to investigate the rape case and organized a portion of the Black community to call for the rapists to stand trial. She won the battle of bringing the men to court twice, but all-White juries never convicted the rapists. Nonetheless, Mrs. Parks’ organizing skills and activism led to a network of community organizers upon which the historic Montgomery Bus Boycott was successful. Who knew?
Actually, many historians knew of Mrs. Parks’ work on the Recy Taylor case but declined to write about such due to the violence of rape, and the need to first dismantle racial segregation via federal legislation such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act; the 1965 Voting Rights Act; and the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
America cannot move “beyond race” until our nation moves into a frank discussion of the lasting effects of the false notion of White Supremacy.
In linking leadership,
Gary L. Flowers
Executive Director & CEO
Black Leadership Forum, Inc.
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