Saturday, April 18, 2009

Obama Admin Boycotts UN Racism Conference

The Obama administration will boycott "with regret" a U.N. conference on racism next week over objectionable language in the meeting's final document that could single out Israel for criticism and restrict free speech, the State Department said Saturday.

The decision follows weeks of furious internal debate and will likely please Israel and Jewish groups that lobbied against U.S. participation. But the move upset human rights advocates and some in the African-American community who had hoped that President Obama, the nation's first black president, would send an official delegation.

The administration had wanted to attend the April 20-25 meeting in Geneva, although it warned in late February it would not go unless significant changes were made to the draft text.

Some revisions — including the removal of specific critical references to Israel and problematic passages about the defamation of religion — were negotiated for which State Department spokesman Robert Wood said the administration was "deeply grateful."

But he said the text retains troubling elements that suggest support for restrictions on free speech and an affirmation of the findings of the first World Conference Against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 that the U.S cannot endorse.

 

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3 comments:

  1. It's about time we let Mr Obama know WE are here, and that there are consequences to dissing OUR fundamental objectives...

    If his Caucasoid constituents can have a "Tea Party"....

    Certainly WE can throw him a Bash too!!


    If we don't rattle this KneeGrows chain enough to wake Michelle ( & get her talkn dat pillow talk) & Grandma too ( Lawd have Mercy!) ......lol

    Then expect those enemies he's surrounded with, to keep pushing their vile agendas...


    Can WE Turn tha Heat Up N Here!!



    Mawelulu

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  2. I'm pleased to see President Obama boycott this conference, but for a very different reason: I'm tired of the word "racism".

    If we believe that whites persecute us on the basis of our "race" then we must agree with white supremacists that Blacks are from a different "race" from whites. Ever since whites used excuses based on the belief in separate and unequal "races" to justify slavery, there has been the strong belief in America and elsewhere that whites and Blacks, by virtue of different skin colors and skin color-associated physical characteristics, are from separate "races", and therefore should use separate bathrooms, etc.

    The belief in separate races is a manifestly false belief, based on white supremacist propaganda rather than science.

    Rather than try to "unite the races", we need to state very clearly and consistently that "race" does not exist at all, and that whites are persecuting us based on our skin color and ethnicity.

    I'm am convinced that, rhetorically and politically, this is the more solid and powerful high ground from which to fight that which for decades has erroneously been termed "racism".

    And so I don't want to see President Barack Obama lend his name to the belief that separate "races" exist. They don't and they never did.

    There is a very real problem with Israel's treatment of Arabs (and American police treatment of Blacks), but these problems are based on the determination of some people with white skin to dominate, persecute, and marginalize others based on their skin color and ethnicity. That's not "racism". That's color and ethnicity-associated ideation, emotion and political behavior.

    Fighting so-called "racism" will not change Israels's behavior toward Arab neighbors. Cutting US support for Israel and it's military will change Israel's behavior toward its Arab neighbors, and does not require us to concede that we are from a different species than whites.

    Of course changing US policy toward Israel will take a generation or two of effort, but calling Israel "racist" will not change Israel's behavior any sooner. It will only embolden them in their false belief and insistence that, as part of different "races", Arabs and Israelis are fundamentally different from each other in ways that go beyond their skin color, eye color, hair color, ethnicity and history.

    Let's get this right. Let's insist that although different skin colors and ethnicities exist, different races are a white supremacist fallacy.

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  3. It was the white supremacist who established this notion of "race." RACE-ism is a power dynamic in which any one group or groups of people with enough resources, wealth and power can marginalize, enslave, redline, culturally castrate and DWB us.
    We've NEVER had that "power." And after all the hell we were put through for centuries NOT once did we ever rise up and seek to overthrow this or any other oppressive regime/government in which we were living under.
    All we do is complain and beg quite frankly. Beg the very enemy who put us in the very position we're in and who then centuries later points the finger at us telling us to give up or "victim mentality."
    "We've given you jobs, affirmative action, welfare, mayors, governors, police chiefs and now a president and you still want more. You want reparations? Well kiss my white ass" is their illogic.
    A few short weeks after the Bush Administration walked out on the world conference against racism, 9/11 occured. What separates Obama's decision from Bush's eight years ago? Nothing!
    All presidents no matter race, color, creed or gender MUST bow to Zionist Israel and that's precisely what Obama is doing.
    Also how does Obama's Harvard Law prof Charles Ogletree feel about his protegee being staunchly against an issue he himself has worked tirelessly on for about the past decade? I've never heard him address it.
    And what about Cornel West who claimed that immediately after Obama's historic election how he'd breakdance in the morning, party at night but the next day would be his biggest critic.
    Where are those critical voices now? I don't hear them at all.
    And of course nothing like this was in Tavis and Stephanie Robinson's watered-down "Accountable" text. Not anything!

    So while everyone across the media spectrum will be assessing what grade to give Obama in his first 100 days let me say that on this matter alone he gets an "F!"

    Finally, to address what Francis L. Holland is suggesting let me say that everyone that can work, communicate and rule so to speak on this planet is a human. We don't inhabit this planet with other competing beings, i.e. aliens--that we know of.
    So this notion of simply eliminating the concept of "race" on the basis that we're all human is old and tired. Because again, it's a given that we're all humans.
    Black and white pacifists for years have sought to argue that we all bleed red.
    But the white supremacist sought clear and defining differences upon which to divide and conquer.

    And going back to what I stated earlier and based on your assessment, you clearly do not overstand what racism is and how it works. Neely Fuller Jr is famous for saying how if you don't know what white supremacy is, how it works, ... everything else will only confuse you.
    And based on some of your comments you're still very much confused.

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