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Thomas is an NBA player who gave a powerful speech.
Other Af-Am leaders were speaking in Washington today.
I think the leaders have always been there. Maybe post-Katrina, more white Americans are ready to start listening.
‘Giving all honor, thanks and praises to God for
courage and wisdom, this is a very important rally. I’d
like to thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts,
feelings and concerns regarding a tremendous problem
that we are currently facing. This problem is
universal, transcending race, economic background,
religion, and culture, and this problem is none other
than the current administration which has set up shop
in the White House.
In fact, I’d like to take some of these cats on a field
trip. I want to get big yellow buses with no air
conditioner and no seatbelts and round up Bill
O’Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Trent Lott, Sean Hannity, Dick
Cheney, Jeb Bush, Bush Jr. and Bush Sr., John Ashcroft,
Giuliani, Ed Gillespie, Katherine Harris, that little
bow-tied Tucker Carlson and any other right-wing
conservative Republicans I can think of, and take them
all on a trip to the hood. Not to do no 30-minute
documentary. I mean, I want to drop them off and leave
them there, let them become one with the other side of
the tracks, get them four mouths to feed and no
welfare, have scare tactics run through them like a
laxative, criticizing them for needing assistance.
I’d show them working families that make too much to
receive welfare but not enough to make ends meet. I’d
employ them with jobs with little security, let them
know how it feels to be an employee at will, able to be
fired at the drop of a hat. I’d take away their
opportunities, then try their children as adults,
sending their 13-year-old babies to life in prison. I’d
sell them dreams of hopelessness while spoon-feeding
their young with a daily dose of inferior education.
I’d tell them no child shall be left behind, then take
more money out of their schools, tell them to show and
prove themselves on standardized exams testing their
knowledge on things that they haven’t been taught, and
then I’d call them inferior.
I’d soak into their interior notions of endless
possibilities. I’d paint pictures of assisted
productivity if they only agreed to be all they can be,
dress them up with fatigues and boots with promises of
pots of gold at the end of rainbows, free education to
waste terrain on those who finish their bid. Then I’d
close the lid on that barrel of fool’s gold by starting
a war, sending their children into the midst of a
hostile situation, and while they’re worried about
their babies being murdered and slain in foreign lands,
I’d grace them with the pain of being sick and unable
to get medicine.
Give them health benefits that barely cover the common
cold. John Q. would become their reality as HMOs
introduce them to the world of inferior care, filling
their lungs with inadequate air, penny pinching at the
expense of patients, doctors practicing medicine in an
intricate web of rationing and regulations. Patients
wander the maze of managed bureaucracy, costs rise and
quality quickly deteriorates, but they say that managed
care is cheaper. They’ll say that free choice in
medicine will defeat the overall productivity, and as
co-payments are steadily rising, I’ll make their
grandparents have to choose between buying their
medicine and paying their rent.
Then I’d feed them hypocritical lines of being pro-life
as the only Christian way to be. Then very
contradictingly, I’d fight for the spread of the death
penalty, as if thou shall not kill applies to babies
but not to criminals.
Then I’d introduce them to those sworn to protect and
serve, creating a curb in their trust in the law. I’d
show them the nightsticks and plungers, the pepper
spray and stun guns, the mace and magnums that they’d
soon become acquainted with, the shakedowns and illegal
search and seizures, the planted evidence, being
stopped for no reason. Harassment ain’t even the half
of it. Forty-one shots to two raised hands, cell phones
and wallets that are confused with illegal contrabands.
I’d introduce them to pigs who love making their guns
click like wine glasses. Everlasting targets surrounded
by bullets, making them a walking bull’s eye, a living
pinata, held at the mercy of police brutality, and then
we’ll see if they finally weren’t aware of the truth,
if their eyes weren’t finally open like a box of
Pandora.
I’d show them how the other side of the tracks carries
the weight of the world on our shoulders and how
society seems to be holding us down with the force of a
boulder. The bird of democracy flew the coop back in
Florida. See, for some, and justice comes in packs like
wolves in sheep’s clothing. T.K.O.d by the right hooks
of life, many are left staggering under the weight of
the day, leaning against the ropes of hope. When your
dreams have fallen on barren ground, it becomes
difficult to keep pushing yourself forward like a
train, administering pain like a doctor with a needle,
their sequels continue more lethal than injections.
They keep telling us all is equal. I’d tell them that
instead of giving tax breaks to the rich, financing
corporate mergers and leading us into unnecessary wars
and under-table dealings with Enron and Halliburton,
maybe they can work on making society more peaceful.
Instead, they take more and more money out of inner
city schools, give up on the idea of rehabilitation and
build more prisons for poor people. With unemployment
continuing to rise like a deficit, it’s no wonder why
so many think that crime pays.
Maybe this trip will make them see the error of their
ways. Or maybe next time, we’ll just all get out and
vote. And as far as their stay in the White House, tell
them that numbered are their days.’ _________
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