Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Volsi Mimir who wrote (9439)	10/14/1998 1:52:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Respond to of 67261

>>> The first set of candidates was a parody of like to like in improbable classes Oops, sorry. Hard to know when people are being serious here, E7. From now on I'll read your stuff more carefully. Ciao, Chaz

To: Volsi Mimir who wrote (9439)	10/15/1998 1:06:00 AM
From: Volsi Mimir	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Clinton's unpaid debt to his black defenders By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist, 10/07/98 boston.com Without a quick return of the favor, without political evidence of his appreciation, the euphoric black defense of President Clinton will become an embarrassing hallucination. No bloc of voters has stood with Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal as strongly as African-Americans. As Republicans line up the hearse for Clinton's cadaver, black folks vow to take over the steering wheel, driving Mr. Clinton away from the cemetery. As Republicans rain charges of perjury on Clinton's head, black folks hold up the umbrella for the president and sing ain't no sunshine if he's gone. No bloc has so reacted to the scandal as if the emperor were fully clothed despite his open fly. Black folks have given Clinton a 90 percent job approval rating. Prominent African-Americans, saying Clinton is the firewall between black folks and the Republicans, say they are going to the wall to stand up and ''protect this president.'' Invoking the ugliness of J. Edgar Hoover hounding Martin Luther King Jr., black politicians say Clinton is being railroaded and politically lynched just like a black man. In fact, Clinton acts so much like a black man when he is around black people, writer Toni Morrison recently called Clinton ''our first black president. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime.'' It is understandable if African-Americans pragamatically stick with Clinton because they fear a vacuum in which conservatives Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott take control of Capitol Hill. But black support has far exceeded that realm. With pomp and platitude that could come only from laughing gas, African-Americans are now playing caddy and chauffeur without expecting payment for the service. African-Americans have said they will go to the wall for Clinton even as Clinton has yet to show any evidence during his six years in office that he has gone to the wall for African-Americans. For all the warmth bathed on Clinton at black churches and black professional conventions, Clinton has been a two-spigot faucet of tepid and ice cold. Clinton has been impressive in ending tokenism in the Cabinet. He gave a decent speech defending affirmative action. He traveled to Africa. The current economy has helped him reduce black poverty. In doing those, of course, he makes himself a more embraceable politician than a Gingrich or a Lott. But Clinton also choked on his most important chance to physically defend affirmative action, barely uttering a peep as California, which accounts for one out of every nine Americans, voted to kill it. He then let his race initiative fall into a chasm of inattention. He let slip through Congress anti-affirmative action legislation that slashed black broadcast ownership. Clinton joined the Republican war on poor people, putting strict time limits on welfare even though many cities with high concentrations of black poor do not have enough jobs for those kicked off. Clinton has done nothing to reduce the gap between black and white unemployment even though African-Americans remain twice as likely to be unemployed. Clinton is still part of the Republican war against young black males, going along with drug sentencing practices that - despite his intellectual understanding of its effects - now has given one out of every three young black men a criminal record. While Clinton has fought for police and prisons, he has not significantly used his bully pulpit to rally support for public schools, which Republicans refuse to fund. And that is before getting personal. For all of the black talk about Clinton being ''our'' friend, no prominent African-American dares mention that two of the people that Clinton has soiled with his sorry, selfish, two-bit coverup are his black secretary, Betty Currie, and his black confidant, Vernon Jordan. Conveniently lost in the need to ''protect this president'' is the lack of protection Clinton gave black friends Lani Guinier, Joycelyn Elders, and Henry Foster. Conversely, Clinton now employs Jesse Jackson as an ambassador and a family minister, but only after defanging him in the Democratic Party. All of this might matter little if we knew up front what Clinton is going to do for black folks in return for all this support. But there is no obvious quid pro quo. Instead, what little time Clinton has to do government business is on behalf of the haves. The New York Fed is providing $3.5 billion to bail out foolish millionaires and their hedge funds. Clinton has called for new military spending. He is thinking about military action in Kosovo. He is seeking tens of billions to bail out world markets. He keeps seeking middle ground in the Middle East. Not a peep yet has been heard about what Clinton will do for his most loyal people, black people, in employment disparity, in affirmative action, in public education, or in criminal justice. The longer the silence, the more black people will look less like the people who stood up for Clinton than the ones who lay down for him. When Clinton has ever needed refuge he could always count on black people leaving him a key under the mat. Without a response from Clinton for all this hospitality, African-Americans will end up as the doormat. Derrick Z. Jackson is a Globe columnist