An Ethiop Office Rant

I have avoided all interaction with the man down the hall in the past several years since I joined this east coast outfit. The dour self-righteous pre-Madonna’s world view revolves around stale and unsolicited sloganesque rants against Bush, American racism, and organized religion. With the exception of the occasional silly emoticon-filled group e-mails I get from him, our paths generally don't cross each other. The New Englander, like some white liberals I know, loves his causes but not necessarily the people he purportedly defends: talking to black and Latino male coworkers makes him break into a cold sweat.

I overheard his conversation with someone in the hallway not too long ago. I could trace an edge to his nasal timbre. “He doesn’t have the support of the real African-American community right?” Shit. Obviously, Barack Obama. “. . . and minorities (it came out “MNORDYS”) have so much to thank the Clintons, right?” The woman he was talking to is an African-American woman who unfortunately harbors an outward contempt for African- and Caribbean-born immigrants. She kept repeating “that’s right, honey, you got that right!”

WTF?

I resisted the urge to march out of my office to connect my Swingline to Moron 1 and Moron 2’s noggins and instead turned to blogger to start this rant. I have pondered this before in From Kenya with Love: what is it about Bill and Hillary that makes African-Americans believe the fake New Yorkers will deliver them to the Promised Land?

Unfortunately, African-Americans and Africans have borne the brunt of most of President Clinton’s failed policies. Several issues come to mind but let’s look at four: crime, death penalty, immigration, and Rwanda. Turning first to crime, the findings of the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice are revealing—at the end of the Clinton presidency,

With two million people behind bars in the U.S., and 4.5 million people on probation and parole, America ends the Clinton-era with at least 8.5 million people who are either under the control of the correctional system or working for the criminal justice system . . . While everyone is affected by the nation's quadrupling of the prison population, the African American community has borne the brunt of the nation's incarceration boom. From 1980 to 1992, the African American incarceration rate increased by an average of 138.4 per 100,000 per year. Still, despite a more than doubling of the African American incarceration rate in the 12 years prior to President Clinton's term in office, the African American incarceration rate continued to increase by an average rate of 100.4 per 100,000 per year. In total, between 1980 and 1999, the incarceration rate for African Americans more than tripled from 1156 per 100,000, to 3,620 per 100,000.

Toni Morrison’s stupid comment that Clinton is America’s “first black president” had very little to do with the fact that the former president’s policies improved the lives of African-Americans. In her own words, it had everything to do with the fact that Clinton "displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas."

And who can forget Ricky Ray Rector? In 1992, the governor of Arkansas left a heated presidential race to return to his home state to preside over the execution of a severely retarded African-American death row inmate (Rector saved his desert thinking he would return to finish it after his execution) and sent a clear message to America that he was strong on crime. In a 5mg dose of Sodium thiopental, the presidential candidate erased the specter of a Dukakis dilemma. Clinton would be proven ethically, medically, and constitutionally wrong ten years later: in 2002, in Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court finally did away with the practice of executing the mentally retarded ruling that it violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

And then there are Bill Clinton’s 1996 immigration laws that allowed for the wanton deportation of thousands of immigrants, including Ethiopian-Americans. We recognize the complexity of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA) (passed along with the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) but Clinton signed on to the deportation provisions of the Republican bill in an election year, again, in an attempt to erase any notion of weakness. In an all too familiar Ricky Ray Rector moment,

with the stroke of a pen, then-President Bill Clinton signed two bills that would be remembered notoriously as the 1996 immigration laws. The laws made whole classes of people detainable and deportable. Greencard holders with any contact with the criminal justice system, people fleeing persecution from other countries, undocumented workers earning less than minimum wage, and immigrants detained on secret evidence all became targets of the government, and at risk of permanent exile from the United States. In preparation for deportation, immigrants would be herded off like cattle by Homeland Security (formerly INS) into county jails and prisons around the country, indefinitely. Since 1996 over one million immigrants have been deported.

I’ll end this rant with what is perhaps Clinton’s supposed biggest policy failure of his presidency: the Rwanda genocide. In 2001, following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the National Security Archives published a series of declassified U.S. government documents detailing the Clinton administration’s knowledge of the impending Rwanda genocide (the “final solution” to exterminate Tutsis) and did nothing about it. Clinton’s decision to become a bystander to the unfolding events in Rwanda and why he chose that course are detailed here, here, and here. A poignant commentary on the findings of the National Security Archives, as reported in The Nation states:

[t]hroughout the crisis, considerable U.S. resources--diplomatic, intelligence and military--and sizable bureaucracies of the U.S. government were trained on Rwanda. This system collected and analyzed information and sent it up to decision-makers so that all options could be properly considered and 'on the table.' Officials, particularly at the middle levels, sometimes met twice daily, drafting demarches, preparing press statements, meeting or speaking with foreign counterparts and other interlocutors, and briefing higher-ups. Indeed, the story of Rwanda for the U.S. is that officials knew so much, but still decided against taking action or leading other nations to prevent or stop the genocide. Despite Rwanda's low ranking in importance to U.S. interests, Clinton administration officials had tremendous capacity to be informed--and were informed--about the slaughter there.

Relax, Clinton lovers: I’m no Clinton hater. Overall, 42 is possibly one of the most brilliant presidents to occupy the White House. But black love for Hillary based on a bizarre and misplaced black love for Bill is infantile. Even more unfortunate is the African-American rallying behind the fake New Yorker without even listening to a single debate between the top Democratic hopefuls, and this includes John Edwards.

I don’t agree with Obama on every issue. Nor do I believe America is ready for him (yet). But based on what I’ve seen and heard to date, I dig the son of a Kenyan immigrant who is no intellectual lightweight. I also have faith in America: it is, after all, the land of the possible.

As far as the New Englander (and those who sent me links to Hillary Clinton’s campaign website following my last piece on Obama), S P F C C M T. As to Obama’s “blackness,” a recent Guardian article is a must read.

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The Call for Democracy (Dr. Berhanu calling it here)

Ethiopian democracy continues to be on a standstill: Predictably, the treason and attempted genocide trials have met repeated courtroom delays and the unwillingness (and/or inability) of High Court judges to proceed with deliberations on the underlying alleged offenses signals continued governmental repression. The 2006 U.S. Country Report on Human Rights Practices recounts a laundry list of abuses, including

limitation on citizens' right to change their government during the most recent elections; unlawful killings, and beating, abuse, and mistreatment of detainees and opposition supporters by security forces; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention, particularly those suspected of sympathizing with or being members of the opposition; detention of thousands without charge and lengthy pretrial detention; infringement on citizens' privacy rights and frequent refusal to follow the law regarding search warrants; restrictions on freedom of the press; arrest, detention, and harassment of journalists for publishing articles critical of the government; restrictions on freedom of assembly; limitations on freedom of association; violence and societal discrimination against women and abuse of children; female genital mutilation (FGM); exploitation of children for economic and sexual purposes; trafficking in persons; societal discrimination against persons with disabilities and religious and ethnic minorities; and government interference in union activities.

The Country Report paints a picture of a country besieged by a leadership unwilling to heed the calls of the governed to be ruled under an open and transparent decision-making process. The people of Ethiopia deserve better. Although a clear vindication by the Court is the best outcome for the imprisoned leaders of the CUDP, we are happy to read about the U.S. Ambassador’s attempts to seek a negotiated release. Given their age and physical condition—especially Engineer Hailu Shawel’s and Professor Mesfin Woldemariam’s—we are hopeful the leaders could, at the very least, fight the false charges while released on bail. Denying them and the other prisoners such a right is cruel, vindictive, and consistent with the pattern and behavior of repressive African regimes. Arguments that they are charged with high crimes or that they would pose a flight risk are laughable and smack of political as opposed to judicial decisions.

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The only good thing that has come out of ET Wonqette’s silence is that I finally managed to browse through her archives to read postings I missed in the past couple of years. Until she returns to blogging, I urge you to take your time to review her archives. Weichegud is as good as blogging gets.