Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, wants
to make the American people an offer they can't refuse.

Herman Cain Announces His Presidential Bid

Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather's Pizza and a Morehouse College graduate, recently announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president. In his campaign-announcement speech, Cain said, "The American dream is under attack from runaway debt, a stagnant economy, a muddled foreign policy and an influx of illegal immigrants. American should be infuriated because the Obama administration's $787 billion stimulus program didn't stimulate diddly."

Describing his politics as “essentially the same” as former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Cain has employed his powerful speaking style to become a smash hit among white conservative Republicans – including the ultra-conservative Tea Party Movement which many African-American progressives view as a racist organization, following televised incidents showing Tea Party members spitting on members of the Congressional Black Caucus during the debate on health care reform.

When speaking before friendly white audiences, Cain is highly critical of President Obama. He touts his business experience and pledges to “turn the economy around” while dubbing himself the “Hermanator,” suggesting he will destroy Obama in a heads up race.

The 65-year-old pushes a wide-range of conservative views saying, for example, he would never appoint a Muslim to his cabinet and that Planned Parenthood “was put in Black communities so they could help destroy black babies.” He supports a strong national defense, opposes abortion, backs replacing the federal income tax with a national sales tax and favors a return to the gold standard.

Cain was the clear winner during the first Republican presidential debate held May 5 in Greenville, S. C. Cain won a straw poll conducted at a national Tea Party summit held last February in Arizona. Searches for Cain's website jumped 35 percent in one week, following the debate http://www.hermancain.com.

Cain, a native of Atlanta, graduated in1967 from Morehouse College, a liberal arts college for black men, with a degree in mathematics. He climbed the corporate ladder in business at Pillsbury Co., a Minneapolis, Minn.-based food company. In 1988, Cain led a management buyout of Godfather’s Pizza, an Omaha, Neb., company teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

"In 14 months, we turned the company around and returned it to profitability, he said on his campaign website. The company never went bankrupt, and today, there are still hundreds of locations across the U.S.," Cain said on his website. He remained CEO of Godfather's Pizza until 1995.

"My success at turning around Godfather’s got the attention of fellow restaurateurs around the nation who invited me to join the Board of Directors of the National Restaurant Association and later elected me its chairman. In 1996, they retained me as the full-time President and the CEO of the National Restaurant Association, working on behalf of thousands of small businesses and entrepreneurs," he said.

Despite his success as a businessman, he has never held public office. It remains to be seen whether white conservatives will select a black man to be their standard bearer in 2012.

The answer is probably not. But he could be considered for vice president. And given Cain’s speaking style, his selection could make the 2012 president race very heated and full of controversy.

National Conference On Black Reparations Will Be Held In Chicago

The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA) will hold its 22nd annual national conference in Chicago, and a focus of the event is the opportunity to hear from new voices as the organization continues the struggle for reparations and defines its reparation's package.

The theme of this year's conference, which is scheduled for June 24 and 25 at the Sixth Grace Presbyterian Church, 600 E. 35th Street, is Bambalela-Jitayarishe, "Never Give Up-Be Prepared for Reparations Now!" The organization's leaders also will focus on solidifying NCOBRA's infrastructure. About 100 individuals are expected to attend the conference.

Organizers will teach community-building skills to educate, mobilize and organize teams of activists needed to write a reparations settlement package that will help heal African Americans and diminish the festering vestiges of chattel enslavement, Jim Crow segregation and modern-day racism and terror, Kamm Howard, co-chair of the Chicago chapter of NCOBRA, said in a news release. The conference also will be divided into workshops that focus on dealing with the subjugations of enslavement, tracing our genealogy and preparing non-profit organizations to receive reparations.

The event's organizers also will continue to expand black people's knowledge of five areas of injury that include economic development, education, health, personhood and criminal justice.

Haki R. Madhubuti, a noted author and founder of Third World Press, a book publishing company based in Chicago, will deliver the conference's keynote address. In addition, NCOBRA will host a town hall meeting with Glen Ford, executive editor of the Black Agenda Report as the panel's moderator http://blackagendareport.com/?q=blog/101 .

In 2009, the U.S. Senate apologized for slavery, almost 150 years after the start of the Civil War. The resolution, passed by voice vote, said it was important for Americans to apologize for slavery “so they can move forward and seek reconciliation, justice, and harmony for all people of the United States.” A disclaimer tacked on at the end of the bill said nothing in the resolution authorizes or supports reparations for slavery, but there is a growing national movement to repay African Americans reparations.

For additional information about NCOBRA, telephone Howard at 773-520-0369 or write him an e-mail at khoward.amenta@sbcglobal.net. Also, call Barbara Baker at 312-720-0648 or email her at bbaker50@aol.com.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Black Woman at Center of Sexual Assault Charge Rocking the IMF

A Black woman – an immigrant from the West African nation of Guinea – is at the center of a sexual assault allegation which has rocked the International Monetary Fund (IMF), landed its managing director in a New York City jail, and thrown French presidential politics into chaos.

The woman’s name has not been released, but the 32-year-old maid charges that 62-year-old Dominique Strauss-Kahn came out of a bathroom at his New York Sofitel Hotel suite in the nude, chased her down and forced her to perform an oral sex act.

While an investigation is ongoing, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the detectives found the maid’s story believable and Strauss-Kahn was ordered held without bail. After being jailed in Rikers Island, he is under house arrest in a $14 million townhouse in New York's swanky Tribeca neighborhood. He faces a seven-count indictment for the alleged sexual assault.

The allegation has rocked the IMF – one of the world’s most powerful financial institutions because it lends money to governments. The agency is controversial because many nations, especially those in Africa and Latin America, charge IMF loans generally come with severe austerity measures which tend to undermine social programs and hurt the poor. Strauss-Kahn resigned his position as head of the IMF to fight the allegations.

Also thrown into chaos is French presidential politics because Strauss-Kahn was widely considered the leading challenger to current French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Meanwhile, Strauss-Kahn resigned his position Thursday saying he wanted to dedicate all his strength to fighting the charges against him.

Are White Teachers “Fit’ to Teach Black Children?

Controversy Centers on Philadelphia Court Case

Are white teachers “fit” to teach black elementary school children? A case making its way through the Philadelphia federal court system will center around that issue even though the actual controversy before the court will be whether four white teachers were victims of reverse discrimination.

Here is the controversy: last week four white teachers at an East Falls elementary school, with a history of racial conflict, filed suit in federal court, alleging that Philadelphia School District officials, including a former African American principal, violated their civil rights. The teachers claim they were harassed, intimidated and told by former Principal Charles Ray, III, that they were “unfit to teach African-American students” at Mifflin Elementary School.

The discrimination allegedly took place during the 2008-2009 school year and allegedly involved Ray hiring a black teacher – Shirl A. Ishmael – to harass the whites. Ray could not be reached for comment. But school district spokesperson Shana Kemp said, “We will take a close look at the allegations and respond accordingly.”

Mifflin, a predominantly African-American school in the mostly white East Falls neighborhood, has a long history of racial controversy.

Jacksonville, Fla., Mayor Alvin Brown

Jacksonville, Fla. Elects Its First African- American Mayor

It was the closest mayoral election in the history of Jacksonville, Florida. But on Tuesday with all of the city’s 256 precincts reporting, Democrat Alvin Brown defeated Republican Mike Hogan by 1,500 votes, making Brown the first black mayor in the city’s history. Hogan later conceded the election.

Following his victory, Brown stood on the steps of City Hall and stressed the importance of strong schools in helping develop the city and its children. "My administration will be bipartisan," said Brown. "We are one city...it's going to take all of us to work together."

Brown worked in the White House during President Bill Clinton's administration. Brown directed the White House's Community Empowerment Board, which oversees billions in urban renewal programs that encourage business development in economically depressed areas and gives tax credits to businesses that investing in those areas.

When Brown returned to Jacksonville, he served as chairman of the National Black MBA Association.

Esteban Morales Dominguez

Noted Black Cuban Communist Says Reforms Will Hurt Blacks

A black communist and long-time supporter of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro says current economic reforms being implemented on the island will hurt black Cubans more than their white counterparts. According to 68-year-old Dr. C. Esteban Morales Dominguez, Cuba will need to implement some type of “affirmative action” program to reduce the suffering Afro-Cubans will face.

However, Dominguez, an economist at the Center for U.S. Studies at the University of Havana, said he still supports what he described as Cuba’s “extraordinary humanist” and socialist revolution. He said he was especially pleased with Castro’s early efforts to outlaw racism and provide equal opportunity for blacks.

Under Cuban socialism, blacks like other Cubans, receive free housing, free health care, free education and are guaranteed jobs. But under reforms being implemented by Fidel Castro’s brother, Raoul Castro, some of these benefits, specifically guaranteed employment, may soon disappear.

In a 4,300-word essay published last week, Dominguez said blacks and mestizos (people of mixed race) have been the most disadvantaged in the workplace and often held the worst jobs with the lowest retirement benefits. However, while pushing affirmative action, Morales urged blacks to avoid American-style political confrontation with the government.

According to the most recent census, 65 percent of Cubans identify themselves as white and 35 percent as black or mestizo.

Commentary

"Black Women Are Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women” Controversy

Will the Nonsense and Bias Ever End?

By Robert N. Taylor

Just in case you missed it, the blog creating the biggest controversy among African American internet users this week was one posted May 15 by Psychology Today magazine. It was written by evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa, and its appalling title was “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive than Other Women?”

Using data from the government-funded Add Health Project, Kanazawa purports to “objectively” show that black women cannot be rated as beautiful as women from other racial groups.

First, let us have a word on Dr. Kanazawa. He is about as close as one can get to being a right-wing academic nut. In 2008, he suggested that the entire Middle East should be hit with a nuclear bomb because of the 911 attack on the United States. Earlier, in 2006, he published a controversial paper suggesting that poor health in many countries is not a result of poverty but instead results from the people having low IQs.

Second, why would a generally respected publication like Psychology Today post an article from Kanazawa? Some years ago, I was a Psychology Today subscriber. A point came when I refused to renew my subscription because I began to notice that the magazine was veering away from well-researched, science-based articles and was instead delving into controversy for the mere sake of controversy.

The net result was that increasingly nonsensical and even bizarre articles began to appear in the publication. The chief criteria for publication appeared to be building readership by focusing on controversy – no matter how ridiculous the topic.

Third, there is actually nothing new about Kanazawa’s study. It is just about as old as racism itself. Let us be clear: there is no such thing as an objective standard of beauty covering all people in all cultures for all times. What a people consider beautiful is normally determined by the culture in which they were raised (or acculturated).

In the United States, for example, the leading (but not exclusive) standard of beauty forced onto people (both explicitly and implied) is one of blonde hair, blue eyes and white skin. It is an ethno-European standard. A woman of African, Asian or even Hispanic ancestry) raised in such a culture is automatically a second- or third-class citizen in terms of the dominant beauty standard.

Unfortunately, economic and military domination has allowed the ethno-European standard of beauty to be spread through much of the world.

Fourth, Kanazawa makes an amazing admission. He says black women are objectively less beautiful than other women, although “black women (and men) subjectively consider themselves to be far more physically attractive than others …”

Now, if Blacks considered themselves attractive, then whose opinion are you using to say they are not? Kanazawa is obviously using a white standard of beauty applied by whites to blacks to reach his conclusions.

Five, there is simply too much diversity among African Americans to apply a single standard of black beauty and then compare that standard to other groups. “Blacks” run the physical gamut from “deep chocolate” to “high yellow.” For example, the 2009 Tishkoff study found that the typical American black was genetically 22 percent European. Some “blacks” were as much as 90 percent of European ancestry.

Finally, I am sick and tired of these insults, especially when they masquerade as objective or scientific. I am sick and tired of responding to them because it is so difficult to talk logic and reason to a person who wants to believe nonsense. Note: there is only one race on the planet Earth: the human race. That race had its origins in Africa roughly 200,000 years ago and began to spread to the rest of the world about 60,000 years ago.

Everyone on the planet – from the darkest complexioned person in the Congo to the lightest complexioned person in Sweden – is of African Ancestry. That’s it and that’s all.

[Robert N. Taylor is editor of the DailyBlack News Journal blog. Visit him frequently at http://dailyblack.webs.com or email him at taylormediaservices@yahoo.com.]

Betty Shabazz

This Week in Black History

Week of May 28 to June 3

May 28

1936 – Betty Shabazz, the widow of black nationalist leader Malcolm X, was born on this day in Detroit, Mich. Shabazz was born Betty Jean Sanders and raised by foster parents. She attended Tuskegee Institute (now university) and became a registered nurse. In 1994, she created a national controversy when she linked Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan to the assassination of Malcolm X. Nonetheless, she and Farrakhan reconciled in 1995 and she spoke at the historic Million Man March. She died June 23, 1997 as a result of injuries sustained in a house fire set by her grandson.

2010 – A book is released revealing that during the mid-1970s when much of the world was lining up to help overthrow racist white minority rule in South Africa. Israel was supporting the racist regime by providing it with chemical and nuclear weapons for possible use against the country’s majority black population.
The documents were discovered by American scholar Sasha Polakow-Suransky while researching the book The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa. Though seldom mentioned by American media, it was an open secret during the 1970s that Israel was one of the Apartheid regime’s closest allies. “Apartheid” is what the minority white government called its system of racial oppression.

May 29

1854 – Escaped slave and abolitionist Sojourner Truth delivers her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron. Truth (born Isabella Baumfree) had been physically and sexually abused by various slave owners and their wives in New York.

She sought refuge in religion. Sojouner Truth finally escaped after her last slaver owner reneged on a promise to free her. She became the leading female abolitionist of the period, often delivering powerful and inspirational speeches. She traveled widely in her anti-slavery mission telling friends, “The spirit calls me and I must go.”

1865 – President Andrew Johnson announces his Reconstruction program after the Civil War. At the same time, Johnson was one of the greatest betrayers of blacks in American history. He reneged on many of the promises made to the former slaves by the recently assassinated Abraham Lincoln.In fact, Johnson’s Reconstruction program was more favorable to the former slave owners and Confederate soldiers than it was to the ex-slaves. Johnson even opposed granting blacks voting rights.

Thomas J. Bradley

1973 – Thomas Bradley is elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles, California.

May 30

1822 – What could have been the largest and most elaborate slave rebellion in American history is betrayed by a house slave seeking favors from his white master. The rebellion was organized by Denmark Vesey and involved thousands of blacks in the Charleston, South Carolina area. Vesey was actually a free man who had purchased his freedom. He was doing a thriving business as owner of a carpentry shop, but he has secretly vowed ‘not to rest until all slaves are free.’ The betrayal of the Vesey plot by a house slave resulted in dozens of people, including four whites, being arrested; many of them were eventually hanged. Vesey was put to death on June 23, 1822.

1854 – Congress passes the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Act had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise and opened the Northern territories to slavery. More specifically, it allowed whites in Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not slavery would be allowed in the territories. The act led to major clashes between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces. The fighting was so vicious that Kansas became known as “bleeding Kansas.” However, through the use of fraud, pro-slavery forces won the day. But anti-slavery forces were so angered that the Act had the effect of hastening the start of the Civil War and the eventual end of slavery throughout the country.

1903 – One of the most outstanding poets in the history of black America, Countee Cullen, is born in Louisville, Ky. or Baltimore, Md. The exact city of his birth is still debated. He was raised in New York City, rose to fame in the early 1920s and became a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Cullen married, but there were persistent rumors that he was a closeted homosexual. He died in 1946 of high blood pressure and what was then called uremic poisoning or acute kidney failure.

May 31

1870 – Congress passes the first Enforcement Act providing stiff punishment for both private citizens and public officials who conspired to deprive the recently freed slaves of either their civil rights or their right to vote. The Act was in response to the old plantation aristocracy and the defeated rebel soldiers who were taking control of Southern governments and enacting “Black Codes” aimed at the suppression of black freedoms and voting rights. The Act was also in response to the growing power of white terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.

1881 – Educator Booker T. Washington was formally recommended to head the newly planned Tuskegee Institute (now university) in Tuskegee, Alabama. Washington would use his post to become the top black educator and one of the most influential black leaders in America. He would later be criticized by more militant black leaders such as W.E.B. DuBois for being “too accommodating” to whites. Washington basically became an advocate of blacks sacrificing their push for social equality in favor of acquiring labor skills and building businesses.

Booker T. Washington

1921 – The infamous and bloody Tulsa, Ok., riots begin. Whites go on a violent rampage lasting several days. When the rioting was over, an estimated 21 whites and 60 blacks were dead. In addition, as many as 15,000 blacks were left homeless as hundreds of homes and businesses were burned to the ground. The area bearing the brunt of the destruction was known as the “Black Wall Street” because of its large number of African-American owned businesses. As recently as 2007, Detroit Congressman John Conyers was working on legislation designed to give the few remaining black survivors of the rioting additional time to sue in order to recover some of their loses. The rioting was reportedly sparked by a false claim from a white female elevator operator of being assaulted by a black man. But whites’ envy of blacks’ success in the Tulsa area may have also played a major role in the upheaval.

June 1

1835 – The Fifth National Negro Convention convenes in Philadelphia, Pa. The gathering of free blacks demonstrated how history can sometimes come full circle. One major focus of the convention was to urge blacks to stop referring to themselves as “Africans,” “Blacks” or “Coloreds” and instead adopt the word “Negro” as the official racial designation. Gradually, the designation became popular even though all blacks did not agree with it. Researcher Richard Benjamin Moore writes that at the time some blacks felt word “Negro” was “a symptom of the degrading sickness of opportunism and the increasing acceptance of inferior social and political status.”

1843 – Truth meets with Abraham Lincoln. Sojourner Truth leaves New York and begins her mission as an anti-slavery crusader. Physically and sexually abused as a slave, Truth found solace in religion and says her speech-giving and crusading were inspired by a divine revelation. She was born Isabella Hurley (although there is some debate as to whether she ever actually adopted her slave master’s last name). She was 5’11” tall and became a powerful voice against the evils of slavery.

1864 – Solomon George Washington Dill is murdered by angry whites. Dill was one of those rarities in Southern society – a poor white man who supported an end to slavery and blacks’ demands for social justice. Dill’s “crime” was giving what some whites considered “an incendiary speech” to a group of South Carolina blacks.

1973 – Detroit’s WGPR becomes the nation’s first black-owned television station. It was granted a license to operate on this day in 1973 but did not actually go on air until September 1975.

June 2

1863 – Abolitionist and “Underground Railroad Conductor” Harriet Tubman leads a force of Union Army guerrilla soldiers into Maryland and frees over 700 slaves. Tubman was one of the most noteworthy women in the anti-slavery struggle prior to the Civil War and became a leading voice in the call for the federal government to allow blacks to fight in the war.

1899 – African Americans observe a “National Day of Fasting” to protest lynching and other racial attacks against blacks. The day of protest was called by the National Afro-American Council.

1975 – James A. Healy becomes the first black Roman Catholic Bishop in the United States. He was consecrated at the Roman Catholic cathedral in Portland, Maine.

June 3

Josephine Baker

1904 – Dr. Charles R. Drew is born. He grows up to conduct original research on blood transfusions and the creation of blood plasma. Drew also established Britain’s first blood bank and in the United States he fought against the segregation of blood based on race. He died on April 1, 1950 as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident while driving in North Carolina.

1906 – Entertainer Josephine Baker is born in St. Louis. At 16, she starred in the hit controversial musical “Shuffle Along.” She did not achieve fame, however, until she left the United States and moved to Paris, where her exotic dancing and singing made her an international sensation. Baker was of mixed race, born to African American and Native American parents. She returned to the U.S. several times including in 1963 to speak at the Dr. Martin Luther King-led March on Washington for civil rights.

1919 – The Liberty Life Insurance Company becomes the first insurance company organized by blacks outside of the South. It was incorporated on this day in Chicago in 1919.

1942 – Singer Curtis Mayfield is born in Chicago. His musical style combined blues, gospel and soul music popular in the area at the time.

1968 – The Poor Peoples March on Washington begins. The idea of a march and a tent city to unite poor people of all races was original conceived by civil rights legend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But King was assassinated in April 1968 and the campaign to dramatize the suffering of America’s poor was carried out by his assistant Rev. Ralph David Abernathy.

This Week in Black History” is compiled by Robert Taylor. Register for the first Black History Club organizing meeting. It takes place at 1: 00 PM. on Saturday, June 4 at the Martin Luther King Library, 9th & G Streets, NW, Room 221, Washington, D.C. Register by leaving your name and number at 202-657-8872 or by sending an e-mail to SirajT12@yahoo.com.

The NorthStar News & Analysis - May 26, 2011