Word To My Brothers

Let me begin by sharing my credentials as a black man. Although I clearly don’t have dark skin, and there can be no doubt that my ancestry is unquestionably of the Caucasian persuasion, I think there is enough historical precedence to identify me with the African American community. How can that be? Well, many of you will remember that Bill Clinton was sometimes referred to as “America’s first black president.” Hey, if a white man who is the former governor of a small southern state qualifies as a “brother,” there’s no reason why I can’t be one, too.

Besides, Jesse Jackson is now saying that Barack Obama is “acting like he’s white.” Who would know colors better than Mr. Rainbow Coalition himself? So if Clinton is black and Obama is white, I feel perfectly comfortable speaking as a black man on behalf of men of all colors.

Isiah Thomas, coach of the New York Knicks, made the news this week because he seems to believe that there is one standard for black men and a different one for white men. Mr. Thomas says it is deeply offensive to him when he hears a white man refer to a black woman as, well, you know, the “b-word.” A black man doing the same thing, however, is, according to Thomas, not such a big deal. It must be a part of that culture, kind of like Michael Vick’s dog fighting.

Here’s my problem with Mr. Thomas: How does a man’s being black or white give him the right to talk to any woman, black or white, in a degrading way? Call me old-fashioned, but I was raised to treat women (and all people for that matter) with respect, not to talk about them or to them in offensive ways. I think that should go for men of all colors and ethnicities, whether their name is Isiah Thomas or Don Imus.

Imus was way out of line with his comments about a group of female college basketball players, and the public outcry was loud and understandable. His career went up in flames after leaders in the African American community began calling for his head.

Here are my questions: Will Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson come out publicly and call for Isiah Thomas to be fired? Is there a boycott of the New York Knicks in the works? Where is the outrage?

What will be next? Some “gangsta rapper” will come out and say that black men get a pass when it comes to roughing up black women because it’s “different” for them. Sharpton and Jackson will administer a gentle slap on the wrist, and the whole episode will be chalked up to the “African American culture.”

As a black man, I find this exceedingly offensive.

Who's The Traitor?

It was one day. Twenty-four hours. Isn’t it amazing how life as we know it in America was forever changed in one single, solitary day?

It’s been six years. Six years since that day when time seemed to stand still.

I’ll never forget the range of emotions I felt on that day. First there was confusion. Somebody reported that a small plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. Nobody knew for sure at the time if this was some bizarre accident or if it was done intentionally.

Confusion gave way to disbelief when I saw a second plane slam into the other WTC tower. Suddenly, the once fuzzy picture was becoming all too crystal clear: we were under attack. Yet it all seemed so surreal and unthinkable. How could this be happening in the land of the free?

Disbelief gave way to fear. We heard a report that a low flying plane was headed north along the Potomac River. Suddenly this unfolding drama seemed to be right in my own backyard. I lived less than a mile from the Potomac. All I could think was, “Who’s going to be next?”

Fear gave way to uncertainty. When I heard the news about a plane hitting the Pentagon, I immediately reached for the phone. My stepmother works in the Pentagon, and my dad’s office wasn’t too much further away. Desperately I dialed their numbers, praying that they were both OK. The phone lines, however, were completely jammed. I couldn’t call them and they couldn’t have called me if they had wanted to. It was a helpless feeling. Later in the day, thankfully, I got confirmation that they were both safe.

Uncertainty gave way to anxiety. I had just witnessed an act of war. I didn’t know at the time who had done it, but I knew one thing for sure: we were no longer a country at peace. Suddenly, the future looked very different. Somehow I knew that things had forever been changed. There was a nervousness down deep in my stomach, and I’ll never forget how it felt.

Anxiety gave way to anger. As my heart and brain processed the events of the day, I began to feel this seething rage inside of me. I didn’t know what could possess someone to perpetrate something like this, but I knew that we had to bring them to justice. To put it succinctly: I was hot!

But then, as the day was drawing to a close, the anger in me gave way to pride.

I had never been more proud to be an American than I was on that day. As I watched firemen and police officers risk their lives to save the lives of others, I was proud to be an American. As I considered the possibility that a group of passengers on board a plane gave their lives to prevent an attack on our Capitol, I was proud to be an American. As I watched our lawmakers standing side-by-side on the Capitol steps singing God Bless America, I was proud to be an American.

Does anybody other than me remember how, in the midst of our darkest hour, this great country became united? There was no Democrat or Republican on that day. There was no conservative or liberal on that day. There was no upper, middle or lower class on that day. We were all united simply as Americans.

Oh, what a difference six years makes.

Actually, it didn’t take six years to divide us. As a matter of fact, it only took one congressional election the following year to bring Washington back to politics as usual. And today, on the sixth anniversary of the attacks on America, the political divide in our country is a chasm that seems unbridgeable.

Yesterday, an ad appeared in The New York Times that essentially called the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, a traitor. The full-page ad was the work of moveon.org, an ultra-liberal special interest group that represents the extreme left fringe of the Democratic Party. At least that’s who we thought they represented.

This ad should have been universally condemned by members of both political parties. General Petraeus is a well respected, highly decorated, and impressively qualified leader who was chosen to lead the surge in Iraq without one dissenting vote in Congress. More than that, he is not a puppet of President Bush. From all I’ve seen, General Petraeus is a straight shooter, and he’s not going to “cook the books” just to make the president look good.

But now that he’s testifying before Congress, he’s archenemy number one for moveon.org, and apparently for many of the Democrats; particularly those who are running for president. They seem to be afraid of upsetting the movers and shakers at moveon.org, therefore they refuse to condemn this ad in spite of how despicable it may be.

And so, six years after 9-11, partisan politics is alive and well in Washington. And the country is more divided now than we ever were before. Moveon.org should be ashamed of itself and issue an apology immediately. If anyone is acting like a traitor, it is this ultra-liberal organization, not our leader in Iraq.