by Dr. Floyd W. Hayes,
III

"I see a growing prison-garrison state in which urban
residents will become the targets of mounting police murder and incarceration."
The author's grim assessment is based on the "absolute disregard for the
sanctity of Black life" that marks each era of American history, from chattel
slavery to the 50-bullet New York City police barrage that killed Sean Bell.
Urban police practices constitute a kind or organized terror that remains essentially
unchanged even after police ranks have become integrated. "Big city police forces
are infected with a culture of racism and violence that historically has
sanctioned the savage and brutal treatment of Black people, other people of
color, and the poor. 

by BAR editor and senior columnist

Margaret Kimberley

A Barack Obama presidency would certainly be a
first - the first time that "most black people will end their historic
progressive politics and applaud this country's criminal activity just because
the head criminal looks like them." Despite the fact that African Americans
overwhelmingly agree with the thrust of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's critique of
American society, history and government policies, they will undoubtedly vote
in huge majorities for the Illinois senator who has repudiated Wright.
"Obama's campaign has been filled with a laundry list of lies" and promises to
continue on that track. But, as with Colin Powell's lying, international
lawbreaking term in high office, "most black people [will make] excuses for him
and for his crimes." Although verbally less bellicose than Hillary Clinton,
Obama is no less the warmonger in substance.

by Mel Reeves

Barack Obama demands that African Americans
"respect" the verdict in the Sean Bell case - but what about justice? Why
should Blacks respect any element of a police-judicial apparatus that sanctions
the deployment of 50-round firing squads targeting unarmed men? If all U.S.
laws and judicial decisions deserve Black folks' respect, then Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney's 1857 declaration that Blacks have no rights a white man
is bound to respect should also be respected. Every outrage known to mankind
was once legal in the United States when inflicted on Blacks and Native
Americans. "We know from history that that which is legal is not necessarily
just."

by Nikki Ayanna Stewart

When the Black Freedom Movement withered away from
disuse and neglect, it left a generation of enthusiastic young activists-to-be
with unprecedented "access" to white dominated institutions, but no movement
with which to affiliate. What's a determined mover-and-shaker to do? Get a job,
that's what. While the author's friends settled in as corporate lawyers,
management consultants and other odd jobs, she was fortunate enough to become -
for a time - a "professional feminist" working for "reformist" non-profits. But financial pressures pushed her towards
academia, and the realization that "I and others in my group" are
"repositories for the Civil Rights generation's left-over hopes and dreams."
Barack Obama, she now understands, has been the "symbolic beneficiary
and repository" of those dreams - which is not the same thing.

by Ali Abunimah

If Liberation Theologians like Rev. Jeremiah
Wright feel discarded by Barack Obama, consider the Palestinians. By all
accounts, as an Illinois State Senator Obama was at least open-minded about the
plight of Palestinians - to the distress of Israel lobbyists. No more. Obama
managed to inject pro-Israel, anti-"radical Islam" remarks into his speech on
race relations in the U.S. He speaks of a history of "tensions" between African
Americans and Jewish Americans, but fails to trace these conflicts to Israel's
support for apartheid South Africa. And then there is Min. Louis Farrakhan.
"Why must every black candidate to a major office go through the ritual of
denouncing Farrakhan, a marginal figure in national politics?" Rejection of
Farrakhan and unquestioning support for Israel is the price of admission to
mainstream U.S. politics.