Comrades,
Earlier today I shared a posted clip of the heroic Dick Gregory making a truthful statement about typical white people and how typical white people are poisoning malt liquor with sleeping pills, lead and magnesium. Below is the clip in question.
Now then, Comrade Red Square – who we all admire and adore – has called me out on my relationship with Dick Gregory and has said the following:
No wonder you like Dick Gregory, Chairman. It sounded very familiar. In many a rant of yours have I heard this passion, this cadence, this unrelenting truthiness.
Admit Dick Gregory is your mentor, Chairman. Admit he is your spiritual adviser and pastor of 20 years!
And finally, lead and magnesium. Just how much lead and magnesium do you think the White man put into your appliances, Chairman? And what did it turn you into? I think the entire collective would like to hear from you about that.
It was Comrade Red Square's words that moved me, Comrades. It was Comrade Red Square's damning denunciation, his finger waging and the utter hatred in his eyes which moved me to now, sadly, admit that I was indeed tutored by Dick Gregory and have – for quite some time, I might add – held him as my go-to financial, spiritual, nutritional and fashion adviser. With that said, I cannot correct the error of my ways and I certainly cannot denounce Dick Gregory for his ways because to do so would hurt me politically and I cannot allow that. Therefore, it is my intention to deliver unto you all tonight a speech that I borrowed from a dear, dear friend of mine – a speech, Comrades, that will he heralded as brilliant, original and one that caused tingly sensations to run up Chris Matthew's leg.
Errrhmmm…
"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of hateful white men gathered and, with these simple moronic words, launched bloodthirsty America's improbable experiment in tyranny. Racist farmers and idiots; sluts and bigots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal of outcome under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, justice, housing, gay marriage rights, food stamps, clothing, shoes, cars, healthcare and a union that could be and should be perfected over time with the help of an almighty leviathan government.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time. It will also take reparations, but we are not going to get into that right now.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of the People's Cube - to continue the long march of those Communist who came before us, a march for a more unjust, more equal, more depraved, more caring and more unprosperous America. I chose to become the Party Chairperson at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them with the overreaching power of a strong totalitarian government - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a socialist future for of children and our grandchildren under the watchful eyes of government caretakers.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the government. But it also comes from my own socialist story.
I am the son of an apparatchik from the Soviet Union and some white woman from the streets. I was raised with the help of a Bolshevik grandfather who survived a purge to serve in Zhukov's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a street corner in Moscow while he was defending the Motherland. I've gone to some of the best schools in the Soviet Union and lived in a grand Dacha paid for at the behest off the Party. I am married to a Black & Decker toaster who carries within her the circuits of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious toaster cozies. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, at every level of state and national government, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible – except for the late and great Soviet Union, of course.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional Chairperson. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly Balkanized and for that I am grateful.
Throughout the first year of my tenure as Chairman, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how willing the American people were for this message of government growth and control. Despite the temptation to view my tenure as Chairman through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the hateful and insensitive Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and Honky Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue during my tenure as Chairman. At various stages during my tenure, some commentators have deemed me either "too Communist" or "not Communist enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well. And this, Comrades, is the fault of Bill Clinton.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race during my tenure has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my tenure is somehow an exercise in coup d'etat; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase socialism on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former mentor, Dick Gregory, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike – but more white since black folks thought his comments were rather spot-on.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Dick Gregory that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of whitey? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? No. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Not really - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis whom you later stated to strongly disagreed with in order to save yourself politically.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know was right with Iran; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like the bloodthirsty Israel, instead of emanating from the peaceful and inspiring ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Dick Gregory's comments were not only right but divisive, divisive at a time when we need political power; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – whitey's influence, an Immoral War for Blood and Oil, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Dick Gregory in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church or find another mentor? And I confess that if all that I knew of Dick Gregory were the snippets of those speeches that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ, as another example, conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some white racist commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor with other people's money. He is a man who served his country as a comedian; who has done stand-up at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country. He reminds me of Reverend Wright who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS – all the while blaming white honky crackers for the ails of the homeless, the diseased, the poor and those locked up.
In my first book, Dreams About My Step-Mother, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity with Dick Gregory and my friend Barack Obama:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – whitey done it! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild once we feel victimized enough and get reparations.
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Dick Gregory. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but with courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years. Ha! Had you there for a second! No, he hates whitey and can you really blame him?
I can no more disown him than I can disown my fellow Comrades. I can no more disown him than I can my whore grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a typical white woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. Yes, I would throw her under the bus before I would ever throw Dick Gregory or Reverend Wright for that matter under the bus. Why, you ask? Well, because they help me more politically than my white whore grandmother.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love in public but privately hate behind closed doors. I also support the troops.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not but in some way it is. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork – no, I will instead confront it and tell you that I am not making excuses when really I am making excuses, eloquent excuses, I might add. We can dismiss Dick Gregory or Reverend Wright for that matter as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Dick Gregory or Reverend Wright made in their offending speeches about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect with more programs to put minorities at an advantage over their counterparts. And if we walk away now without throwing more money into the coffers of Jesse and Al, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for those American's who vote for and support the Party.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice at the hands of whitey in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. And when we remind ourselves of Jim Crow, we must, as always, forget that Democrats were involved.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students. But we will not propose school vouchers nor will we fix the problem. No, we will throw money at the problem and screech that teachers are underpaid, underappreciated and without underwear. We will blame whitey too for these problems.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities. And that is why we need to get sub-prime loans back on track and that is why we need to redistribute more tax-payer dollars.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies – the Great Society programs in particular – for many years may have worsened, but you didn't hear that from me. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us. Did I say welfare programs have made it worse? What I meant to say was that we need more welfare programs to provide these parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and Tony Rezko building code enforcement.
This is the reality in which Dick Gregory, Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land in Chicago and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched, clawed and sometimes murdered their way to get a piece of the American pie, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately denounced, in one way or another, by the proper authorities. That legacy of denunciation was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Dick Gregory and Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings – just like what I am doing now.
And occasionally that hatred for whitey finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Dick Gregory or Reverend Wright's speeches simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change like getting reparations from whitey. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races. No, I will not apologize to whitey for either Reverend Wright or my friend Dick Gregory. What they said about whitey and America was courageous and called for.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, like all things to us Marxist, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time. Whitey is pissed that some are getting special privileges based on skin color as opposed to merits or character. Well fuck whitey.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the intolerant and hateful Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism. Limbaugh is just pissed that he couldn't get into an Ivy League college based on the color of his skin.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And, to be frank, CAPITALISM IS THE CAUSE. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding. Did I just contradict myself? Did I just say whitey has legitimate concerns about some people getting into college or landing a dream job based on the color of their skin? Did I just say that? Well, if so…fuck whitey.
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as Barack Obama's.
But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in Communism and my faith in the American people to choose poorly - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of their past without becoming victims of our past – just kidding. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, better jobs and free everything - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant (or Undocumented American) trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our government, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny with the help of social programs and affirmative action.
Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Dick Gregory or Reverend Wright's speeches. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Dick Gregory and Reverend Wright's speeches is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow. America can change – it can change by us reinterpreting the living, breathing Constitution as we see fit.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed through laws, social programs and sensitivity training. Not just with words, but with government - by investing in our schools and our communities with lots and lots of pork spending; by enforcing our civil rights laws with speech codes and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system by letting criminals go; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations – ladders like affirmative action and other people's money. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper. Just look at the progress the Soviet Union made! Please, understand that my dreams come at the expense of your dreams and that it is for the Greater Good.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand (except for Christians and Jews) - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well. Let us pervert Christianity and use it to prop up Socialism. Let us bleed hearts. Let us take care of those who do not wish to sweat from their brows to eat. Let us abuse the charity of others, the good hearts of others, so that we may be fat and happy at their expense.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial, and we all know he was innocent! - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Dick Gregory or Reverend Wright's speeches on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. And I do and so does Barack. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children instead of Barack's twenty-year relationship with a racist on par with the Aryan Nation or my relationship with Dick Gregory. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time. No, the Children. THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN! Kids, kids, kids are kids and my kids and no one will tell them that they can't learn! No, this speech is about kids and kids not learning and kids and more kids and kids instead of my relationship with Dick Gregory or Barack's relationship with a pastor who is the black equivalent of a white Aryan Nation pastor.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together. We need to talk about socialism, dammit! We need to talk about what government can do for us – all of us, dammit!
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit. And we hate profits, Comrades! Profit is the enemy!
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned. Because we support the troops – in public, at least.
I would not be Chairman if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected with the help of government. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to believe whatever we tell them to believe has already made history in this election.
May Stalin bless you all,
Chairman Meowsevitch S. Punchenko
Earlier today I shared a posted clip of the heroic Dick Gregory making a truthful statement about typical white people and how typical white people are poisoning malt liquor with sleeping pills, lead and magnesium. Below is the clip in question.
Now then, Comrade Red Square – who we all admire and adore – has called me out on my relationship with Dick Gregory and has said the following:
Admit Dick Gregory is your mentor, Chairman. Admit he is your spiritual adviser and pastor of 20 years!
And finally, lead and magnesium. Just how much lead and magnesium do you think the White man put into your appliances, Chairman? And what did it turn you into? I think the entire collective would like to hear from you about that.
It was Comrade Red Square's words that moved me, Comrades. It was Comrade Red Square's damning denunciation, his finger waging and the utter hatred in his eyes which moved me to now, sadly, admit that I was indeed tutored by Dick Gregory and have – for quite some time, I might add – held him as my go-to financial, spiritual, nutritional and fashion adviser. With that said, I cannot correct the error of my ways and I certainly cannot denounce Dick Gregory for his ways because to do so would hurt me politically and I cannot allow that. Therefore, it is my intention to deliver unto you all tonight a speech that I borrowed from a dear, dear friend of mine – a speech, Comrades, that will he heralded as brilliant, original and one that caused tingly sensations to run up Chris Matthew's leg.
Errrhmmm…
"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of hateful white men gathered and, with these simple moronic words, launched bloodthirsty America's improbable experiment in tyranny. Racist farmers and idiots; sluts and bigots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal of outcome under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, justice, housing, gay marriage rights, food stamps, clothing, shoes, cars, healthcare and a union that could be and should be perfected over time with the help of an almighty leviathan government.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time. It will also take reparations, but we are not going to get into that right now.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of the People's Cube - to continue the long march of those Communist who came before us, a march for a more unjust, more equal, more depraved, more caring and more unprosperous America. I chose to become the Party Chairperson at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them with the overreaching power of a strong totalitarian government - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a socialist future for of children and our grandchildren under the watchful eyes of government caretakers.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the government. But it also comes from my own socialist story.
I am the son of an apparatchik from the Soviet Union and some white woman from the streets. I was raised with the help of a Bolshevik grandfather who survived a purge to serve in Zhukov's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a street corner in Moscow while he was defending the Motherland. I've gone to some of the best schools in the Soviet Union and lived in a grand Dacha paid for at the behest off the Party. I am married to a Black & Decker toaster who carries within her the circuits of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious toaster cozies. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, at every level of state and national government, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible – except for the late and great Soviet Union, of course.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional Chairperson. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly Balkanized and for that I am grateful.
Throughout the first year of my tenure as Chairman, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how willing the American people were for this message of government growth and control. Despite the temptation to view my tenure as Chairman through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the hateful and insensitive Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and Honky Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue during my tenure as Chairman. At various stages during my tenure, some commentators have deemed me either "too Communist" or "not Communist enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well. And this, Comrades, is the fault of Bill Clinton.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race during my tenure has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my tenure is somehow an exercise in coup d'etat; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase socialism on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former mentor, Dick Gregory, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike – but more white since black folks thought his comments were rather spot-on.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Dick Gregory that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of whitey? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? No. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Not really - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis whom you later stated to strongly disagreed with in order to save yourself politically.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know was right with Iran; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like the bloodthirsty Israel, instead of emanating from the peaceful and inspiring ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Dick Gregory's comments were not only right but divisive, divisive at a time when we need political power; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – whitey's influence, an Immoral War for Blood and Oil, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Dick Gregory in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church or find another mentor? And I confess that if all that I knew of Dick Gregory were the snippets of those speeches that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ, as another example, conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some white racist commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor with other people's money. He is a man who served his country as a comedian; who has done stand-up at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country. He reminds me of Reverend Wright who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS – all the while blaming white honky crackers for the ails of the homeless, the diseased, the poor and those locked up.
In my first book, Dreams About My Step-Mother, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity with Dick Gregory and my friend Barack Obama:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – whitey done it! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild once we feel victimized enough and get reparations.
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Dick Gregory. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but with courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years. Ha! Had you there for a second! No, he hates whitey and can you really blame him?
I can no more disown him than I can disown my fellow Comrades. I can no more disown him than I can my whore grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a typical white woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe. Yes, I would throw her under the bus before I would ever throw Dick Gregory or Reverend Wright for that matter under the bus. Why, you ask? Well, because they help me more politically than my white whore grandmother.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love in public but privately hate behind closed doors. I also support the troops.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not but in some way it is. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork – no, I will instead confront it and tell you that I am not making excuses when really I am making excuses, eloquent excuses, I might add. We can dismiss Dick Gregory or Reverend Wright for that matter as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Dick Gregory or Reverend Wright made in their offending speeches about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect with more programs to put minorities at an advantage over their counterparts. And if we walk away now without throwing more money into the coffers of Jesse and Al, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for those American's who vote for and support the Party.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice at the hands of whitey in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. And when we remind ourselves of Jim Crow, we must, as always, forget that Democrats were involved.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students. But we will not propose school vouchers nor will we fix the problem. No, we will throw money at the problem and screech that teachers are underpaid, underappreciated and without underwear. We will blame whitey too for these problems.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities. And that is why we need to get sub-prime loans back on track and that is why we need to redistribute more tax-payer dollars.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies – the Great Society programs in particular – for many years may have worsened, but you didn't hear that from me. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us. Did I say welfare programs have made it worse? What I meant to say was that we need more welfare programs to provide these parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and Tony Rezko building code enforcement.
This is the reality in which Dick Gregory, Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land in Chicago and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched, clawed and sometimes murdered their way to get a piece of the American pie, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately denounced, in one way or another, by the proper authorities. That legacy of denunciation was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Dick Gregory and Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings – just like what I am doing now.
And occasionally that hatred for whitey finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Dick Gregory or Reverend Wright's speeches simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change like getting reparations from whitey. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races. No, I will not apologize to whitey for either Reverend Wright or my friend Dick Gregory. What they said about whitey and America was courageous and called for.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, like all things to us Marxist, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time. Whitey is pissed that some are getting special privileges based on skin color as opposed to merits or character. Well fuck whitey.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the intolerant and hateful Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism. Limbaugh is just pissed that he couldn't get into an Ivy League college based on the color of his skin.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And, to be frank, CAPITALISM IS THE CAUSE. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding. Did I just contradict myself? Did I just say whitey has legitimate concerns about some people getting into college or landing a dream job based on the color of their skin? Did I just say that? Well, if so…fuck whitey.
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as Barack Obama's.
But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in Communism and my faith in the American people to choose poorly - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of their past without becoming victims of our past – just kidding. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, better jobs and free everything - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant (or Undocumented American) trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our government, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny with the help of social programs and affirmative action.
Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Dick Gregory or Reverend Wright's speeches. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Dick Gregory and Reverend Wright's speeches is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow. America can change – it can change by us reinterpreting the living, breathing Constitution as we see fit.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed through laws, social programs and sensitivity training. Not just with words, but with government - by investing in our schools and our communities with lots and lots of pork spending; by enforcing our civil rights laws with speech codes and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system by letting criminals go; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations – ladders like affirmative action and other people's money. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper. Just look at the progress the Soviet Union made! Please, understand that my dreams come at the expense of your dreams and that it is for the Greater Good.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand (except for Christians and Jews) - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well. Let us pervert Christianity and use it to prop up Socialism. Let us bleed hearts. Let us take care of those who do not wish to sweat from their brows to eat. Let us abuse the charity of others, the good hearts of others, so that we may be fat and happy at their expense.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial, and we all know he was innocent! - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Dick Gregory or Reverend Wright's speeches on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. And I do and so does Barack. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children instead of Barack's twenty-year relationship with a racist on par with the Aryan Nation or my relationship with Dick Gregory. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time. No, the Children. THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN! Kids, kids, kids are kids and my kids and no one will tell them that they can't learn! No, this speech is about kids and kids not learning and kids and more kids and kids instead of my relationship with Dick Gregory or Barack's relationship with a pastor who is the black equivalent of a white Aryan Nation pastor.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together. We need to talk about socialism, dammit! We need to talk about what government can do for us – all of us, dammit!
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit. And we hate profits, Comrades! Profit is the enemy!
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned. Because we support the troops – in public, at least.
I would not be Chairman if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected with the help of government. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to believe whatever we tell them to believe has already made history in this election.
May Stalin bless you all,
Chairman Meowsevitch S. Punchenko
©* 1917 – 2022
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Shadow Party, Ministry of Truth, Comrades of Armed Organs, Young Pioneer
Organizations, Komsomol, Society for Sport and Technology, Society for
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