Post by Moses on Dec 10, 2004 6:41:49 GMT -5
Gruesome Role Models
As Powell passes the baton of shame to Condoleezza Rice, African Americans – especially those who are acutely concerned with the Black “image” – must contemplate how that image has been mangled and debased by two individuals from the very bottom of our moral barrel. Secretary of State-in-Waiting Rice thought the United States had succeeded in destroying Venezuela’s leftist democracy in April, 2002, when it appeared that a military/rich white elite coup had toppled the elected government of Hugo Chavez. After a popular uprising restored the proud mestizo-mulatto Chavez to power, a surly Condoleezza Rice greeted the news in the most undiplomatic way imaginable "I hope that Hugo Chavez takes the message that his people sent him, that his own policies are not working for the Venezuelan people, that he's dealt with them in a high-handed fashion."
Like Aristide, President Chavez had been marked for either execution or a flight into exile. Rice’s churlish remarks may pass for statesmanship in Bush’s America, but should have caused great revulsion in Black America, as they did throughout Latin America. This should have been particularly true among members of the NAACP, which had only months before honored Rice with its “Image Award.” Had Chavez been eliminated, the mostly non-white, poor Venezuelan majority might today be subjected to the same horrors that Colin Powell has inflicted on Haiti: death squads indistinguishable from the “police” roaming the slums, nightly “disappearances,” constant replenishments of bodies in the “dump zones,” and jails full of political prisoners, some scheduled for secret execution.
Condoleezza Rice will soon have the opportunity to build on her own foul legacy. However, on an historical scale, it will be difficult to trump Colin Powell’s abominations against Haiti. More than any other individual, Powell has defiled the honor of African-descended people everywhere. Through prodigious acts of treachery, trickery, kidnap and mass murder, Powell has attempted to reverse Haiti’s glorious revolution in the year of its 200th anniversary. He spits on the graves of the hundreds of thousands of Africans who died defeating the armies of France, Spain and Britain, and whose victory in 1804 inspired the Diaspora to believe that slavery could one day be defeated and Black dignity, reclaimed.
As TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson said on learning that Powell had stabbed Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Haitian nation in the back: “Colin Powell is the most powerful and damaging black to rise to influence in the world in my lifetime.”<br>
Any Black person who calls Powell a role model is a scoundrel or a fool. Most likely, both.
www.blackcommentator.com/117/117_cover_haiti_pf.html
As Powell passes the baton of shame to Condoleezza Rice, African Americans – especially those who are acutely concerned with the Black “image” – must contemplate how that image has been mangled and debased by two individuals from the very bottom of our moral barrel. Secretary of State-in-Waiting Rice thought the United States had succeeded in destroying Venezuela’s leftist democracy in April, 2002, when it appeared that a military/rich white elite coup had toppled the elected government of Hugo Chavez. After a popular uprising restored the proud mestizo-mulatto Chavez to power, a surly Condoleezza Rice greeted the news in the most undiplomatic way imaginable "I hope that Hugo Chavez takes the message that his people sent him, that his own policies are not working for the Venezuelan people, that he's dealt with them in a high-handed fashion."
Like Aristide, President Chavez had been marked for either execution or a flight into exile. Rice’s churlish remarks may pass for statesmanship in Bush’s America, but should have caused great revulsion in Black America, as they did throughout Latin America. This should have been particularly true among members of the NAACP, which had only months before honored Rice with its “Image Award.” Had Chavez been eliminated, the mostly non-white, poor Venezuelan majority might today be subjected to the same horrors that Colin Powell has inflicted on Haiti: death squads indistinguishable from the “police” roaming the slums, nightly “disappearances,” constant replenishments of bodies in the “dump zones,” and jails full of political prisoners, some scheduled for secret execution.
Condoleezza Rice will soon have the opportunity to build on her own foul legacy. However, on an historical scale, it will be difficult to trump Colin Powell’s abominations against Haiti. More than any other individual, Powell has defiled the honor of African-descended people everywhere. Through prodigious acts of treachery, trickery, kidnap and mass murder, Powell has attempted to reverse Haiti’s glorious revolution in the year of its 200th anniversary. He spits on the graves of the hundreds of thousands of Africans who died defeating the armies of France, Spain and Britain, and whose victory in 1804 inspired the Diaspora to believe that slavery could one day be defeated and Black dignity, reclaimed.
As TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson said on learning that Powell had stabbed Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Haitian nation in the back: “Colin Powell is the most powerful and damaging black to rise to influence in the world in my lifetime.”<br>
Any Black person who calls Powell a role model is a scoundrel or a fool. Most likely, both.
www.blackcommentator.com/117/117_cover_haiti_pf.html