TEXAS’ Widest Circulated and Read Newspaper with a Black Perspective

African American News & Issues’ editorial staff aren’t holding their breaths and waiting to exhale, when our detractors (that think we’re a bunch of racists who find unique and innovated ways to play the race card) finally agree with us. Prejudiced deductions notwithstanding, our critics apparently have become addictive to rejecting information that doesn’t lineup with the information and data that’s disseminated by the mainstream media. In addition, since most of the elitist Black faces in high places depend on the mainstream media for their major source of information, research data and statistics, there’s no way they will agree that we do, indeed, try to report from a common sense, Black perspective as objectively as we possibly can. But we really do.

We Must Understand, what is referred to as a mindset is defined in the dictionary as a noun that alludes to "the beliefs that affect somebody’s attitude - a set of beliefs or a way of thinking that determine somebody’s behavior and outlook." If you set that definition in your mind it shouldn’t be a problem to understand why many African Americans have embraced the ideal that slavery is in the distant past of the land of the free and descendants of chattel slavery should forget their past and press toward the mark with their eyes on the prize of first class citizenship. In essence, that’s exactly what Pres. George W. Bush told the captured audience at the July 20, 2006 NAACP Convention, when he mused: "I understand that racism still lingers in America. It’s a lot easier to change a law than to change a human heart.

"And I understand that many African-Americans distrust my political party. I consider it a tragedy that the party of Abraham Lincoln let go of its historical ties with the African-American community. For too long, my party wrote off the African-American vote, and many African-Americans wrote off the Republican Party." Apparently Bush has the same mindset about Black America as he has about Iraq, therefore he might truly believe that he can win the hearts and minds of a people whom he has disrespected, simply because they have new leadership. Should we equate Julian Bond to Saddam Hussein? For sure, he sounded much like Iraq’s vanquished president when he was quoted to say," The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side," during his Feb.2, 2006 speech at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina.

We Must Understand, true history doesn’t lie, but Bush apparently doesn’t know "The Grand Old Party’s" true history. He should know that "the party of Lincoln" was a third party, which used freeing the slaves to lure free Black’s votes, which made "Honest Abe," the first U.S. president elected by a third party. And, contrary to whitewashed history, Lincoln disrespected slaves. He thought that Africans were inferior people who had no place in mainstream America. Apparently Bush is Black History illiterate, or he would know that we helped make the GOP. Especially in his home state (FYI: The first ever state Republican convention that met in Houston on July 4, 1867 was predominantly African American in composition, with about 150 African American Texans attending, and 20 Anglos.

The second State GOP Chairman, Norris Wright Cuney, an African-American from Galveston led the Republican Party from 1883 to 1897, it’s said by State historians held "the most important political position given to a black man of the South in the nineteenth century."-Republican Party of Texas.) Surely, the foregoing knowledge should inspire the old homily, "If you fool me once, shame on you. If you fool me twice shame on me," that our old folks often used when somebody tried to run their weak game on them. Although the old folks in the ‘hood had no idea that they were reciting an old Chinese proverb, they definitely left no doubt about where they were coming from. Furthermore, it made no difference whether they were speaking to family, friend or foe, because they said what they meant and meant what they said.