C.I.: It's a comic. It's not a sketch. Isaiah was kind enough to do illustrations for two features and threw in a third sketch. He can do "The World Today Just Nuts" above it and have his comic for the week.
Ava: And I agree with C.I. As soon as I saw that sketch, even as I heard Jim hollering that it gave him an idea for an editorial, I could already see it as one of Isaiah's comics. We do not need to take Isaiah's comics here. He's got to do one for The Common Ills, this one that C.I. nixed is perfect for The Common Ills and will save Isaiah having to rack his brain all day to think of another idea for a comic.
Jim: Okay, but Isaiah could have come up with another idea. I mean, am I wrong Isaiah?
Isaiah: No, I usually do. I usually either have an idea by the time The Simpsons comes on Sunday night or else I spend that half-hour madly going through the news, doing various news searches to find something to draw.
Jess: Which is a polite way of saying, "Yes, Jim, I could have used up my entire evening coming up with another idea." This is settled matter, it's already been decided, can we move on to another topic.
Jim: Alright, we can. We will. Last week, Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "To Clarify Any Confusion" was posted. The thing's gone viral. People who don't even know I know Isaiah bring it up to me. Premise is that Isaiah's explaining the difference between entertainer Nathan Lane and Supreme Court nominee Elana Kagan. Bess e-mailed this site, thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com, Thursday asking what the inspiration for it was?
Isaiah: I was tired. I went to Yahoo News, Alta Vista and Google News. On one of them, there was a photo and I thought, "Did Nathan Lane die?" I couldn't understand why he had such a prominent photo. Then I rubbed my eyes and looked closer. It was Elana Kagan.
Jim: And it went up Sunday and Monday she was nominated. Did that surprise you?
Isaiah: Honestly, yes. I thought he was going to nominate someone else. But it ended up being very timely. And I did a lot of research for that comic and could have extended the comparisons and contrasts with Nathan Lane and Kagan. For example, both are one of three children their parents had.
Jim: Do you think she'll make a good Supreme Court judge?
Isaiah: No.
Marcia: Should the question include "if confirmed"?
Jim: Probably. But I don't think anyone here doubts she will be. Anyone? Marcia?
Marcia: No, sadly, I think she'll be confirmed.
Jim: Were you surprised, Marcia, that Kagan was the nominee?
Marcia: Yes and no. In my heart, I hoped for someone better but, in my head, I knew we were dealing with Barack. I agree with an earlier comic Isaiah did, where he advocated, in Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Future of the Court", for Anna Diggs Taylor.
Ty: And to provide the background there, Anna Diggs Taylor is a federal judge. As a judge, in 2006, she ruled, in ACLU v. NSA, that the warrantless spying the white House was doing was illegal. She stood up and was counted. It would have been great if Barack had the good sense to honor someone who did that. However, he's never shown appreciation for anyone who's demonstrated bravery. But, yeah, Anna Diggs Taylor would be a great Supreme Court Judge.
Jim: She would have been the first African-American woman to become a Supreme Court Judge had Barack nominated her. Marcia, you said you weren't surprised, that "I knew we were dealing with Barack." Did that mean that you knew he wouldn't nominate an African-American?
Marcia: Absolutely. He never does. He does nothing for the African-American community. Ever. He's basically a bastard. He's the guy who dates someone and treats them like dirt instead of honoring them because he knows he can get away with it. That explains everything about him.
Betty: I honestly think if any White person had been elected president in 2008, Black America would be better off. I do not know, and this is point Tavis Smiley's made, how we come back in 2012 or 2016 and say, "We have demands, we need to be listened to," when we've gone all this time refusing to call out Barack, refusing to make demands on him.
Ty: How honest do we want to get here?
Jim: Full blown's fine with me?
Ty: Well we can all talk strongly, no question. But Cedric and Ann are off this weekend and, as such, I feel like I need to step it up some in this conversation.
Betty: Go for it, Ty. I've got your back.
Ty: I'm sure you do and I'm sure you know where I'm going to go. You know what, I'm so damn sick of the Barack groupies and I'm so damn sick of so many people. There's an e-mail, and I was talking to Betty about it Friday, whining that we never include the Black Agenda Report in truests anymore. And my attitude is they're are damn lucky that they haven't been pulled from the links. We've discussed it repeatedly -- Betty, Marcia, Cedric, Stan and myself -- and always said, in the end, we'd leave them. But they are the main reason Ann only links to community sites. She was very clear that she was not linking to them. And they are becoming a problem. I am not afraid to make that assertion.
Stan: Nor I. I am so sick of their "racism!" every five seconds on every issue in the world. They have never understood the Tea Party movement and they have embarrassed themselves on it. That's before you even include all those demented commentaries by Paul Street. But they're insane. It's become a sickness for them, their desire, their need to see racism in everything. The facts don't back them up but they can't let it go. It's disgusting. I'm embarrassed for them. That's why we don't highlight them at our sites. Marcia's regularly asking us to ditch them.
Marcia: Because I don't need it. I don't need them. F**k Glen Ford and Bruce Dixon is my attitude. They're supposedly addressing African-American issues. Where are LGBT African-Americans represented at BAR? We're not. I'm sick of their homophobia. And a weekly that can't address LGBT rights is one suffering homophobia. And there was the thing with the Cambridge cop, who was White, and Henry Louise Gates, and they had to scream "RACISM!" on that. And act like Gates was our greatest voice. Last week? They're tearing Gates apart because they don't like his take on reparations.
Betty: Marcia, thank you for bringing up the LGBT issue because I, honestly, hadn't even thought about it until you brought it up. I agree with you on that and I'm so sorry that I didn't notice it on my own. In terms of Gates? I don't think racism was the reason for the altercation. With reparations, Gates has done what he always does, presume to speak for everyone. That's what he did with the cop, most likely, and it pissed the officer off -- the same way his speech on reparations pissed people off. Gates loves to provoke. That said, I'm honestly where he is on that issue. I was thinking Ty was going to bring that up. Ty and I working with a people of color peace group here in the Bay Area and we've actually been addressing the issue of reparations in a number of circumstances.
Ty: And letting go. For example, the US government owes Iraq money for the damage done to the country of Iraq. Palestinians would argue Israel does the same and, forty or fifty years ago, Israel would argue the same of others in the region. I'm for immediate reparations but I think things have a time limit.
Betty: We're all talking, in the group, how sick we are of the refusal of peace in that region and of all the Hatfield and the McCoys politics. And how when you say that, one side wants to scream they were persecuted by the world and the other wants to scream they have no big weapons and blah, blah, blah. Reality, if we hold onto everything we'll never grasp anything in the present. We've got two hands, people, each of us has two hands. At some point you grab onto the present or you drown. Really. That's what happens. You go under. And we're focusing on those issues internationally but, on the way back, Ty and I are always applying it to other issues as well. We think Israel needs to grow the hell up, for example, and offer Palestinians half the region now occupied so that there can be a two-state solution. We're aware of the dangers of that for both sides. If people can't let go of grudges and the past, no one progresses. Palestine and Israel could sign an agreement tomorrow but warring would continue unless the two sides were willing to stop bringing up 1968 and this and that and everything else. It's the same with a segment of Cubans who come to America and want to use Florida as a place to launch war on Cuba. Let it go. You have to be willing to live in today. This attitude that they're going to overturn Castro and go back to pre-Castro days, over fifty years ago, is just ridiculous. We have to learn to move on. Take the genocide of Armenians. That needs to be recognized worldwide with a proclamation and included in our history books. But that's so long ago that I'm not going to advocate for money to change hands. And with that in mind, and those conversations we're having, I just currently no longer advocate for reparations. A part of me cringes at that statement as I make it; however, I cannot call out the right-wing Cubans, for example, and their refusal to live in today if I'm advocating for reparations for slavery. I think the ship sailed on that. Slavery is a stain on the nation. Hopefully, we will always remember it and learn from it. But this idea that we're going to do something financially for a practice that was ended approximately 150 years ago? I'm sorry. I don't want to be a Sunni or a Shi'ite who's forever battling the other and explaining how I was wronged and demanding this or that. I don't want to be on that seesaw.
Stan: Interesting. I need to think about it. I understand what Betty and Ty are saying, I can follow their points. I can even agree with their points. I'm not sure I'm willing to follow them to the conclusion, however. That doesn't mean they're wrong. It may mean, if I'm unable to follow them to the same conclusion, that I'm a petty person who holds a grudge. But I need to think about it before I comment on where I'm at.
Marcia: I'm actually with them. I know Ann would be as well because Ann and Ty have talked about this. I don't know where Cedric would be but my guess would be he would either be echoing Stan or maintaining that reparations were needed. And I can respect those points of view. For me, the change was Gates' remarks on this topic and, most importantly, the attack that followed. An attack that was led, please note, by White people like Paul Street and I believe Dave Zirin. Gates is not a genius. I think he flew off the handle with the police officer and deliberately provoked an incident. I think the fact that he made all these public charges about the police officer supposedly breaking this law and that law and never turned around and sued him, but did have a beer with him, demonstrates that Gates over reacted. So don't lump me in with the groupies he has. But he is an older man who has seen a lot. So when he speaks about issues, I do think we listen. We don't have to agree but we do need to listen because he's speaking from a long life of experiences. And what I heard -- and what Ann heard -- from his column was more than what was on the page. We may have read more into it or not. But what we took from it was that there can be a long, long battle to convince the country that reparations are necessary. And at the end of that, decades from now, something may or may not take place. Or we can work on some issues that are really effecting our communities right now.
Ty: And, as Marcia pointed out, I was talking to Ann about this as well and her comment to me was that this is probably why Gates and Barack are friends -- because Gates attitude is similar to Barack's on this issue. Meaning that the re fighting of the same battles may be counter-productive. For Betty and I, as she so aptly explained, it was seeing the conflict going on in so many regions and how it has so many historical roots, so many historical grievances and how no one ever wants to budge an inch. And that's not, "Let's cave and give in and do so on every issue!" That is acknowledging that we have many current issues effecting the Black community and this push for reparations takes up a lot of space. As Marcia was noting, ZNet carried several commentaries on it -- slamming Gates. Which was probably the busiest "Black week" for ZNet. We have real issues to address. Foreclosures have hit the Black community at a higher rate as has unemployment. To offer only two examples. We have real issues that need to be addressed right now. Betty and I aren't going to condemn anyone who continues the fight for reparations. That includes Stan even if he changes his site to "Reparations Now!" But, as we're talking about and learning about conflicts and conflict resolution, it just doesn't make sense to us personally that we advocate for this.
Stan: And, to be clear, I understand what you are both saying, what all of you are saying, even Ann who is not here, but I don't know. I need to think about it some more. And I'm not sure, even when I do think about it more, that I'll be on the same side of this issue. However, I will always be personally on your side Ty, Betty and, of course, my cousin Marcia.
Betty: And we don't have to all agree on this issue. I mention that because some people will be worried, "Oh, no, a disagreement in the midst!" It's not going to effect us. We will still get along very well. We do disagree on things, all of us. But we always have each other's back. And this is a complex issue and, a month from now, having explored this, I might swing back to my earlier position. I have no notion that "I am right and you are wrong!" I only know that, for now, this feels like the right position to me.
Stan: And I don't want to be coming off like I'm rigid. For example, I just went to Black Agenda Report and see a piece by the idiot Tim Wise trashing Gates. And that's enough to make me want to jump on board with Gates. It's like, White Ass Tim Wise, shut the hell up. This isn't your issue. And just that he thinks he can speak for Black America and, in the process, trash Gates, is enough to make me want to jump on board the other ship. I'm not rigid and I'm open to discussion but I do not know where I stand on this issue at this time.
Ruth: And what is really great is that Stan is comfortable saying that. That there is not this "I must have an opinion and I must express it now."
Ty: Right. If we were people on a Sunday chat & chew, we'd all have to have our opinions and have fixed opinions and be experts on every topic -- experts who knew nothing. And Stan's willingness to say he's going to have to think about it is brave and refreshing. New topic, Emily H. e-mails to say she just found us a month ago and that she's glad for that but worried because other websites she enjoyed refused to drink the Kool-Aid only to either shut down or begin sipping it. Comments?
Rebecca: We don't sip the Kool-Aid. In fairness to those who shut down, you have no idea how ugly it was in 2008. At C.I.'s request, we avoided that topic in 2008. C.I.'s belief was that if we wrote about it, we'd be (a) navel gazing and (b) encouraging the attacks. So we just ignored them as best we could but we got awful e-mails. From people we'd never heard from claiming to be readers. For example, I don't get 50 e-mails a day. So mid-January 2008, I start getting 50 e-mails a day, angry ones, from so-called readers, slamming me and telling me they hate me and accusing me of everything and just really ugly and mean and threatening e-mails. And we all go them. But it was really easy to get depressed by those. And if someone felt they couldn't take it anymore, I fully understand that. I am glad for those who were brave. But that's one group. The other group? I know what Emily's writing about. There are a large number of 'brave' types who have, bit by bit, inched over into Camp Obama and they think no one would notice. But you do notice and you don't respect them. Taylor Marsh was the most obvious about it so I calling it "Pulling a Taylor Marsh" in 'honor' of her. For those who don't know, Taylor was a Hillary supporter. She blogged about how she couldn't support Barack, wouldn't do it. She was a lunch bucket whatever. And she blogged she supported Reagan in the 80s and blah blah blah. Before the DNC convention, the tired porn worker was screaming at anyone who wouldn't vote for Barack. She flipped in one day. I think others were and are more subtle.
Jim: Betty mentioned Iraq and I wanted to pick up on a conversation from the last week's "Iraq roundtable" -- specifically the Jewish archives that were found submerged in water by US forces. Hidden away, trashed. And the US rescued them and restored them. Last week, it was learned the US would be turning them back over to Iraq's government. Trina wrote about it in "Outrage" on Friday. Trina?
Trina: Well I do find it outrageous. It would be akin to turning over Armenian records to Turkey. Iraq doesn't want the Jewish population, they've made that clear. So they have no right to records on Jews. It's not difficult to determine. This is the same country, please remember, that now insists it can't and shouldn't have to pay off its debt to Kuwait for attacking Kuwait. They want their payments lessened and their excuse is, "It happened under the old regime so we're not responsible!" And yet they're demanding these records, collected under the old regime, and saying, "They are ours!"
Ruth: Talk about an incongruity.
Trina: Amen.
Jim: Ruth, any additional thoughts? I'm getting a wrap-it-up from Dona.
Ruth: I really loved what Trina wrote and appreciated that she wrote it. It makes me very angry and I was glad to discover just how angry it made Trina. Jews were treated like crap under Saddam Hussein and even worse after the US-invasion in 2003. Saying the Iraqi government deserves the historical Jewish archives is like saying a man who beat a woman repeatedly deserves half her income.
Jim: Alright and, as I noted, Dona gave me the wrap it up so I'm doing so. This is a rush transcript.