I am a community organizer!

First: Giving honor to the community organizer of all community organizers.......Jesus!

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I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities.
- Sarah Palin, 2008

I was appalled to hear that statement by the Republican Vice Presidential Nominee last week. The first thing that came to my mind was to wonder how the very people in Wasilla, Alaska, who helped her in her rise to political office, must feel.

Community organizers have been the building blocks for everything we enjoy in this society since its inception. Every social/political movement has its base in community organizing: When colonists of old decided that taxation without representation was not a just way to govern. When black slaves, Nat Turner and Joseph Cinquez, said enough is enough! When women, deprived of the right to vote, stood their ground and deprived their husbands the pleasure of marriage. When Dr. Martin Luther King and Minister Malcolm X juxtaposed civil disobedience and the threat of the ballot or the bullet. When Mrs. Jones deemed that her intersection was a safety hazard and organized her neighbors to petition the city for a stop sign. When neighbors organize with other neighbors to save schools, hospitals, jobs and homes from foreclosure.

Yes, the community organizers, who work diligently and often voluntarily or for very little money at all, make a difference in our communities. Madam Governor, to denigrate their worth is to sabotage your chances for success. As a one-time community organizer, I understand how an organizer connects with the neighbor, the beautician, the grocer, the postman, the local politician. I am sure you understand this principle, but you chose to abrogate this knowledge in order to bring down your opponent. We realize that principles and respect are not natural characteristics of a Republican political campaign, but your indiscretion will come back to bite you because we are people, too.

Madam Governor, the next time you need to reach out to the community for support, just remember that the community organizer is the one who can make that happen for you, if they so choose.

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz

In 1965, in his eulogy, Ossie Davis called Malcolm X, "Our Shining Prince".

Growing up in River Terrace, Washington, DC, my very early years were insulated from much of the madness that was going on in the country, at the time. I didn’t have any interaction with white people until I went to St. Emma Military Academy which was fifty miles west of Richmond, Va. I can remember hearing on the news, periodically, about two angry Negro preachers (and that’s what we were called then). One was in the south and the other in the north.

I couldn’t understand why they were so angry. I asked my father and he explained that these preachers were trying to make conditions better for Negroes. I was puzzled because I thought us, Negroes, had no problems. We could fish in the Anacostia when we wanted to. We could catch a game at Griffith Stadium and we could go to the movies for a quarter at the Langston or the Senator Theaters. What problems did we have?

In the summer of 1963, my father took my brother and I to a huge demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial to see one of those angry Negro preachers. The one from the south and, man, that was one hot day! I had never seen so many white people in my life! River Terrace was different. Everyone looked like me. My doctor looked like me. My teachers looked like me. My dentist looked like me. I didn’t know what to think of this mass of humanity, but they were so nice to my brother and me. My father lifted me up on his shoulders to see this preacher who looked like my father, talking to all of these white people.

One day, on my way home from Woodson Junior High School, I remember hearing some grownups shouting, “they killed him… they killed him!”.

The Muslim preacher is dead! What’s a Muslim?

My first year at St. Emma, I met other Negro kids from all over the world! The guys from New York were so cool. They spoke differently. Their music was exotic, latin and jazz. They wore beautiful sweaters on the weekend called Blye’s. They talked politics. They talked about that Muslim man that was killed the year before. The New Yorkers spoke with passion about him, the kind of passion that made you want to know about this man.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

One of the cool guys from New York stuck a paperback book in my hand. Read it! Malcolm X’s life was so different than my own. Those same white people that were so nice to my brother and me killed Malcolm’s father when he was just a boy. His father was a preacher like my father. I couldn’t imagine my father being killed. Now, I understand why he was so angry.

The cool New Yorker gave me other books. That year, I never read so many books before that weren’t school assignments, in my life! St. Emma was very insular and we didn’t know much about the racial tension that was going on in the country at the time. The cadets at school depended on information that was received through letters. If a cadet didn’t get a letter, he would read another cadet’s letter. The guys received word about the struggles in our hometowns and we read more books and discussed what we read.

That dude is crazy!

Lemuel broke out in a Dashiki! I had never seen one before. Lem was spouting all this crazy stuff about we come from Africa and we should be proud of our heritage. I think he changed his name, too. Malcom X got rid of his slave name so Lem did too, I guess. I didn’t think the “good reverend” was ready for me to change my name, but Lem was entertaining!

It wasn’t until years later that I realized that Lem and the cool guys from New York were setting the foundation for my appreciation of Malcolm X and all that he stood for. I truly believe that Dr. King was successful in what he did, due in part, to the stature of Malcolm X on the national scene. As a young man, I couldn’t accept nonviolence as a tactic. Turn the other cheek in River Terrace? I don’t think so. The strength and integrity that Malcolm exemplified was a model for all of my peers.

Just before his untimely death, Malcolm X was becoming a world citizen. He was learning that not all white people were like those that had killed his father. He had made peace with himself and was preparing to start a new phase of his development that encompassed people of all races that were willing to work for the betterment of mankind.

Today, on his eighty-third birthday, I say, ‘thank you, Malcolm. You will never be forgotten.'

This is playground stuff

The world needs to understand that Barack Obama is not just campaigning for President of the United States by himself. It's like the Verizon Wireless commercials, he is running with a whole movement behind him. A movement of people who have been used and abused by this political system. These folks know that never before has anyone who look like them have ever gotten this close to the highest office in the land, if not the world!

Tavis Smiley, the former Black Entertainment Television talk show host, recently resigned as a commentator on the syndicated "Tom Joyner Morning Show", according to Joyner, because he was tired and busy with other things. Joyner stated that he believed that the real reason is because Tavis was beaten up by the listeners of his program for being too critical of Obama. If this is true (which I'm certain it is), for Tavis Smiley not to be sensitive to the enthusiasm of Obama's supporters whom perhaps, are a major part of his audience as well, amazes me. Tavis questioning candidates' platform and veracity is justifiable. But, to rebuke Obama for not attending the State of the Black Union, that Smiley hosted and criticising him for not attending a Dr. King memorial is ludicrous. After all, Obama suggested that his wife, Michelle, could attend the Union meeting because he had a scheduling conflict. Everyone knows Michelle's capability. Why wasn't she good enough if he couldn't make it himself? Also, Tavis slammed Obama for not attending recent commemoration events in Memphis for Dr. King. Why Tavis? The senator just spoke at Dr. King's church, Ebenezer, for Dr. King's birthday commemoration.

It appears that Tavis got his ass whipped on the play ground and decided to take his ball and go home, not to play with those guys any more!

Come on, Tavis...grow up! You are trying to stand in the way of a elephant stampede that will mow you down. Let's lose the child-like pouting and join in a constructive debate and not a power play to see who can really capture the imagination of the American electorate because you ain't going to win that one.

We need your voice. We need your talent. We may even need your ball. So, let's makeup and play some ball.

The Prince of Peace

Today, we commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King. I can only imagine the pride he is feeling, right now, knowing how far we’ve come and how proud he must be of the candidacy of Barack Obama.

Thank you, Dr. King, for your dedication to a task much larger than yourself, your love and ultimate sacrifice.