Black History

COMMENTARY: Embracing the Courageous Four; Radically Reconceiving and Reconstructing America

LOS ANGELES SENTINEL — In spite of the forked-tongue talk, doublespeak and patently racist ranting of the pretending President Trump and the White supremacist mob-like cheerleaders chanting hatred at his rallies, we must not miss the fresh, air-clearing and uplifting wind that is steadily rising and blowing our way. It is the transforming force of the voice, views and defiant struggles of the courageous four “freshmen” congresswomen: Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA); Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY); and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). They come to their position anxious and impressively able to serve the people, their constituency, the vulnerable, and the larger interests of the country with rightful concern for the well-being of the world. And they will not be bullied or silenced by Trump and company, nor accept a party discipline that calls for a compromise of their principles or taking a position that diminishes and undermines their capacity to serve the people as best they can and see it.

Published

7 years ago

July 30, 2019

Oakland Post

By Dr. Maulana Karenga

In spite of the forked-tongue talk, doublespeak and patently racist ranting of the pretending President Trump and the White supremacist mob-like cheerleaders chanting hatred at his rallies, we must not miss the fresh, air-clearing and uplifting wind that is steadily rising and blowing our way. It is the transforming force of the voice, views and defiant struggles of the courageous four “freshmen” congresswomen: Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA); Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY); and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). They come to their position anxious and impressively able to serve the people, their constituency, the vulnerable, and the larger interests of the country with rightful concern for the well-being of the world. And they will not be bullied or silenced by Trump and company, nor accept a party discipline that calls for a compromise of their principles or taking a position that diminishes and undermines their capacity to serve the people as best they can and see it.

Trump’s attacks on these four courageous, committed, knowledgeable and defiant congresswomen of color, not only reflect his commitment to views, policies and practices that are racist, anti-people of color; xenophobic, anti-immigrant and those different; sexist, anti-women; and opportunistic, ever self-promoting and peacocking. These attacks also reflect his reactionary politics and conception of America. It is a politics of White supremacy; predatory capitalism at home and abroad; warmongering; privatization of public wealth and space; and peddling a personalized patriotism based on his astonishing ignorance, multiple insecurities and vulgar interests.

We must constantly expose, criticize and condemn the monster side of America we call Trump and his supporters and enablers, but we must not over focus on him and under focus on the rising movement to actively resist him in Congress, as represented by the initiatives of the courageous four and also in our various communities across the country. To make this mistake would be like over focusing on a devasting fire and the havoc it is wreaking and under focusing on the response and responders needed to control and extinguish it.

Audacious and defiant, these four progressive congresswomen resist and reject Trump’s attempt to impose his deformed and dishonest reactionary conception of patriotism and politics. Indeed, they cannot morally and will not politically accept Trump’s packaged and constantly peddled racist patriotic politics of vicious and varied forms of oppression: apartheid walls here and abroad; corruption and coercion; the savaging of immigrants and the abuse and separation of children from their families; anti-labor and anti-union policies; preference for the rich at the expense and injury of the poor; racial and religious restrictions and preferences; denial of climate change; and his obsessive and infantile attempt to rival and erase everything considered an Obama achievement.

Trump and his allied haters, enviers and detractors can call them names and attribute to them all kinds of social sins, but these courageous, competent and committed women of color congresswomen stand on solid moral and political ground. They are right to criticize and condemn the inhumane detention, conditions and treatment of the refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants at the border as a concentration camp, a site of mass detention, oppression, labor and sexual abuse and exploitation, degradation and death. And such camps were put in place first, not by the Nazis, but by Euro-Americans against Native Americans, whether in missions or so-called “reservations.”

Regardless of the Barnum and Bailey big top circus of smoke and mirrors, dog whistles, and lying as public policy and a way of life from the Trump camp of circled covered wagons, the real issue is what kind of America we want and are willing to struggle, strive and sacrifice for to bring into being at this critical juncture in the history of our people and this country. The struggle is over two concepts of America: whether it is a finished White product or an ongoing multicultural project. In the first version, we are to accept White dominance, defer to policies and practices negative to human life, dignity and development and be grateful to live in the house Jack, the enslaver, segregationist, capitalist and colonizer claims he built, but without rightful acknowledgement that it was built with the enslaved and exploited labor and social and political exclusion of oppressed people. The second concept of America sees it as an unfinished ongoing multicultural project in which each people and person has both the right and responsibility to speak their own special cultural truth and make their own unique contribution to how this society is radically reconceived and reconstructed in the most just and human way.

This conversation that these courageous four are compelling the country to have is a necessary one, and one that builds on and moves forward a tradition of struggle defined by our foremother, Fannie Lou Hamer, as rooted in the a moral imperative to righteously and continuously question America in thought and practice. It is a moral imperative deeply embedded in the Black Liberation tradition and other radical and progressive traditions of this country. It calls for us to question the quality, content and course of American thought and practice, and to measure it by its highest ideals and engage in corrective action where America finds itself in contradiction to these ideals. And it calls on us to even go beyond its best ideals when they are found to be in contradiction with the best of our moral sensitivities, moral reasoning, lived experience, and knowledge-producing practice.

It is right, good and necessary to raise questions about and reject a racial, religious or political protocol that demands agreement with immoral, irrational and unjust policies and practices. We are right to question corporate and big money negative influence on domestic and foreign policy and on democratic governance. It is not our obligation to demonstrate allegiance to or support of a foreign state as part of participating in American government. Nor is it wrong to question and reject any pressure to do so.

It is right to reject the claim of any country, people or person of a right to immunity from criticism and it is right to raise questions concerning the violation of human rights and international law by any country, people or person. And that includes, not only Israeli occupation of Palestine and the oppression of Palestinians; but also American, Canadian and French occupation of Haiti and oppression of the Haitian people; the Chinese oppression of the Uighurs; the Burmese oppression of the Rohingya; and the Saudi and Emirates’ criminal and indiscriminate bombing of the Yemeni people.

Other questions heretofore pushed to the side, buried in conservative, reactionary and even liberal graves of indifference, dismissal and amnesia, must be resurrected, revived and put at the center of national discourse policy and action. And we are not to be grateful or express gratitude for being conceded human rights we had at birth and just by being human. Nor are we to be grateful to self-seeking others for civil rights, freedom and justice which we won in the fire and furnace of righteous and relentless struggle.

This article originally appeared in The Los Angeles Sentinel.

Oakland Post

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#NNPA BlackPress

COMMENTARY: The National Protest Must Be Accompanied with Our Votes

Just as Trump is gathering election data like having the FBI take all the election data in Georgia from the 2020 election, so must we organize in preparation for the coming primary season to have the right people on ballots in each Republican district, so that we can regain control of the House of Representatives and by doing so, restore the separation of powers and balance that our democracy is being deprived of.

Published

1 day ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper. File photo..

By Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper

As thousands of Americans march every week in cities across this great nation, it must be remembered that the protest without the vote is of no concern to Donald Trump and his administration.

In every city, there is a personal connection to the U.S. Congress. In too many cases, the member of Congress representing the people of that city and the congressional district in which it sits, is a Republican. It is the Republicans who are giving silent support to the destructive actions of those persons like the U.S. Attorney General, the Director of Homeland Security, and the National Intelligence Director, who are carrying out the revenge campaign of the President rather than upholding the oath of office each of them took “to Defend The Constitution of the United States.”

In California, the primary comes in June 2026. The congressional races must be a priority just as much as the local election of people has been so important in keeping ICE from acquiring facilities to build more prisons around the country.

“We the People” are winning this battle, even though it might not look like it. Each of us must get involved now, right where we are.

In this Black History month, it is important to remember that all we have accomplished in this nation has been “in spite of” and not “because of.” Frederick Douglas said, “Power concedes nothing without a struggle.”

Today, the struggle is to maintain our very institutions and history. Our strength in this struggle rests in our “collectiveness.” Our newspapers and journalists are at the greatest risk. We must not personally add to the attack by ignoring those who have been our very foundation, our Black press.

Are you spending your dollars this Black History Month with those who salute and honor contributions by supporting those who tell our stories? Remember that silence is the same as consent and support for the opposition. Where do you stand and where will your dollars go?

Oakland Post

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Activism

Congresswoman Simon Votes Against Department of Homeland Security, ICE Funding

“They need accountability. Republicans already gave these agencies an unprecedented $170 billion for immigration enforcement, funding they have used to conduct raids at schools, separate families, and deploy a masked paramilitary who refuse to identify themselves on American streets. This bill gives them more funding without a single reform to stop unconstitutional, immoral abuses,” she said.

Published

1 day ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

Congresswoman Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12). File photo.

By Post Staff

Congresswoman Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12) released a statement after voting against legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which supports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB).

“Today, I voted NO on legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security through Feb. 13, 2026.

“ICE and CBP do not need more funding to terrorize communities or kill more people,” she said in the media release.

“They need accountability. Republicans already gave these agencies an unprecedented $170 billion for immigration enforcement, funding they have used to conduct raids at schools, separate families, and deploy a masked paramilitary who refuse to identify themselves on American streets. This bill gives them more funding without a single reform to stop unconstitutional, immoral abuses,” she said.

“The American people are demanding change. Poll after poll of Americans’ opinions show overwhelming support for requiring ICE agents to wear body cameras and prohibiting them from hiding their faces during enforcement actions. This is the bare minimum transparency standard, and this funding legislation does not even meet this low bar,” Simon said.

“Republicans in Congress are not serious about reining in these lawless agencies. Their refusal to make meaningful changes to the DHS funding bill has consequences that go beyond immigration enforcement. TSA agents who keep our airports safe and FEMA workers who help our communities recover from disasters are stuck in limbo due to Republican inaction.

“The Constitution does not have an exception for immigrants. Every person on American soil has rights, and federal agencies must respect them. The East Bay has made clear at the Alameda County and city level that we will hold the line against a violent ICE force and support our immigrant communities – I will continue to hold the line and our values with my votes in Congress.”

Oakland Post

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Activism

Post Newspaper Invites NNPA to Join Nationwide Probate Reform Initiative

The Post’s Probate Reform Group meets the first Thursday of every month via Zoom and invites the public to attend. The Post is making the initiative national and will submit information from its monthly meeting to the NNPA to educate, advocate, and inform its readers.

Published

1 day ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

iStock.

By Tanya Dennis

The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) represents the Black press with over 200 newspapers nationwide.

Last night the Post announced that it is actively recruiting the Black press to inform the public that there is a probate “five-alarm fire” occurring in Black communities and invited every Black newspaper starting from the Birmingham Times in Alabama to the Milwaukee Times Weekly in Wisconsin, to join the Post in our “Year of Action” for probate reform.

Reporter Tanya Dennis says, “The adage that ‘When America catches a cold, Black folks catch the flu” is too true in practice; that’s why we’re engaging the Black Press to not only warn, but educate the Black community regarding the criminal actions we see in probate court: Thousands are losing generational wealth to strangers. It’s a travesty that happens daily.”

Venus Gist, a co-host of the reform group, states, “ Unfortunately, people are their own worst enemy when it comes to speaking with loved ones regarding their demise. It’s an uncomfortable subject that most avoid, but they do so at their peril. The courts rely on dissention between family members, so I encourage not only a will and trust [be created] but also videotape the reading of your documents so you can show you’re of sound mind.”

In better times, drafting a will was enough; then a trust was an added requirement to ‘iron-clad’ documents and to assure easy transference of wealth.

No longer.

As the courts became underfunded in the last 20 years, predatory behavior emerged to the extent that criminality is now occurring at alarming rates with no oversight, with courts isolating the conserved, and, I’ve heard, many times killing conservatees for profit. Plundering the assets of estates until beneficiaries are penniless is also common.”

Post Newspaper Publisher Paul Cobb says, “The simple solution is to avoid probate at all costs. If beneficiaries can’t agree, hire a private mediator and attorney to work things out. The moment you walk into court, you are vulnerable to the whims of the court. Your will and trust mean nothing.”

Zakiya Jendayi, a co-host of the Probate Reform Group and a victim herself, says, “In my case, the will and trust were clear that I am the beneficiary of the estate, but the opposing attorney said I used undue influence to make myself beneficiary. He said that without proof, and the judge upheld the attorney’s baseless assertion. In court, the will and trust is easily discounted.”

The Black press reaches out to 47 million Black Americans with one voice. The power of the press has never been so important as it is now in this national movement to save Black generational wealth from predatory attorneys, guardians and judges.

The next probate reform meeting is on March 5, from 7 – 9 p.m. PST. Zoom Details:
Meeting ID: 825 0367 1750
Passcode: 475480

All are welcome.