Ulhas responded, saying:
Yes, I did. I don't understand some of these issues. e.g.
> 4] immediate cessation of
> the Joint Strike Fighter pork barrel project
What's the way forward to combat and eliminate racism? That's not very clear from this list issues, though there are points such as reparations to African Americans and affirmative action with quotas.
^^^^ CB: It is a very sloppy list, and it is a list, not even an outline, and we left out a lot but...the Joint Strike Fighter pork barrel project is, I believe, a military program that Ian informed us about. "Pork barrel" is slang for legislation that makes money for a small group of people,whom a member of Congress is looking after. It implies improperly putting some small , private interest above the general interest.
You have asked a big question on the way forward on racism. Maybe others on the list have some ideas. White people's good ideas on how to go "forward" on this issue are actually more important than Black people's ideas.
Ulhas, FYI- Most white people are not like the judge below, but there are enough of them and with enough influence to perpetuate the institution of racism. Also, much racism is much less explicit , conscious and extreme as this example
Virginia Judge Quits After Racist Comments
by Jeremy Lazarus Special to the NNPA from the Richmond Free Press
3-20-04
RICHMOND, Va. (NNPA) - Facing disclosure of racially charged comments that he had written on the Internet, Judge Ralph B. Robertson is quitting the bench after 19 years of hearing criminal cases in the city General District Court.
The veteran, snowy-haired jurist has stopped hearing cases, went on sick leave and filed for retirement, which will be effective April 1. He threw in the towel after the Free Press notified him of plans to publish an article about the disparaging views he had expressed about Black people over the past few weeks in participating in an on-line chat room.
In his wide-ranging conversations on the Internet, Judge Robertson, among other things, approvingly endorsed the notion that "African-Americans are prone to crime and violence because it is in their genes" and supported the words of another chat-room member defining some minorities as "people who have no regard for sanitation, courtesy, private property, etc."
Specifically, Judge Robertson also criticized the intellectual integrity of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and described the Rev. Jesse Jackson as "a thief and liar." He also used the same words to describe the Rev. Al Sharpton. In addition, he slammed the civil rights movement, calling it " the scam it (is) and was."
In a statement to the Free Press, the 60-year-old Richmond native said he made the decision to quit knowing that disclosure of his statements would trigger controversy, undermine the perception of his ability to be fair and tarnish the court.
"I have no intention of contesting or trying to justify my remarks. Taken as a whole, they were wrong," he wrote in a statement e-mailed to the Free Press.
"My heart and my deepest apology go out to the black community of the city of Richmond," he stated. "I want them to understand that I have never done anything in my court that has ever reflected racism. I have made many friends in the African-American community, and I hope they will accept this apology."
A former defense attorney and assistant commonwealth's attorney during his 32-year legal career, Judge Robertson started as a judge on March 19, 1985, after being elected by the General Assembly. He was elected to his fourth six-year term in 2003.
Revelation of the judge's provocative views were first provided to the Free Press by a member of the chat room who was shocked he would make statements that, in her opinion, reflected on his ability to hear cases impartially.
The Free Press verified that it was indeed Judge Robertson before approaching him for comment on his chat room statements, primarily written between Jan. 25 and Feb. 19. In the chat room, he regularly decried his inability to speak frankly on issues of race: "We are bombarded every day about how everything we do and everything we say is racist."
"I am not a racist," he wrote in a separate message, "I am a racialist. The difference being I don't discriminate against an individual, but I do recognize the fact that there are a lot of differences between races which I assume from a biological stand point is caused by difference in DNA."
Judge Robertson, whose courtroom is mostly filled with Black defendants, victims and families, agreed that African-Americans are prone to crime and violence because it is in their DNA. "Why not? It controls everything else," he wrote. "Why is a lion more ferocious than a kitty cat? The answer is that it has been bred into them at some point."
Expanding on his view, the graduate of Virginia Military Institute who earned master's degree in physics from Duke University and a law degree from the University of Virginia, wrote: "I have said, and it is certainly verified by factual findings that races can be identified by differences in DNA. If DNA controls everything else, why shouldn't it cause a difference in ability to learn or play sports or a proclivity for violence?"
The judge also bemoaned the decay of values and morals and the rise of minority populations. "Oh that we could return to those wonderful times," he wrote in response to writer who reminded everyone of the period when the United States largely restricted immigration to White people and had eugenic-style laws including bars to interracial marriage.
"Personally I like a country where morality has a meaning. We have had more people killed in the city I live in by minorities in the last 15 years than ever were supposedly lynched. When do they get through being even?" he wrote in another message.
Judge Robertson, in other messages, likened a ritual Ku Klux Klan funeral to a Masonic ceremony.
In other messages, he slammed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a plagiarist who should have been stripped of his doctoral degree rather than being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his work for civil rights, and criticized other major black figures.
"Jesse Jackson is a thief, a liar and a traitor to his own people. . Al Sharpton another liar and thief is considered another valid democratic candidate for president. When the British surrendered at Yorktown, their band played 'The World Turned Upside Down.' How correct they were."
The product of a struggling family of limited means who now lives in a posh area of the West End, he also expressed little sympathy for civil rights and affirmative action.
"When I was younger, I participated in the civil rights movement. It was the motto then of just give everyone an equal chance. . Then I started hearing, well what else is whitey going to give us? Then it became a call for reparations . The things that so called bigots pointed out - illegitimacy, lack of sexual morality and every Black man wanted a white woman. I thought all of that was a bunk of stuff designed by bigots to preserve the old way. I don't guess I have to tell you what I think about their promises now. Every one of them has come true. . I have long since removed myself from the civil rights movement and generally see it for the scam that it (is) and was."
According to the judge, the "only discrimination that occurs is reverse discrimination. It happens every day and no one says a word for fear of being labeled racist."