Crooks and Liars:
While Max Blumenthal was up in Alaska gathering information on Sarah Palin's background, he managed to sit down and interview two of the African-American community leaders in Anchorage who'd had dealings with Palin as governor: Gwen Alexander, the president of the African-American Historical Society of Alaska, and Bishop Dave Thomas, a distinguished black pastor from Anchorage.
As you can see, Palin made clear to them through her refusal to participate in the state's traditional Juneteenth celebration, as well as her refusal to work on their concerns about minority hiring for the gas-pipeline commission and on her staff, that race relations are pretty low on her priority list.
Much of this was reported a few weeks ago by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, but the impact of Palin's behavior comes home here: It's clear that the African American community in Alaska feels thoroughly disenfranchised.
Update:Palin Advisor quits, citing race problems...this time with the native Alaskan population.
3 comments:
No surprise with this one. When Sarah pushed her husband to drop his culture and his Mother it was the being. After Sarah lost to a black woman in the Miss Alaska Beauty Contest the seed of racism was planted and has continued to grow. Our country has come a long way as some of been left behind or chose to. Sarah uses God words often but questioning Obama's name shows she has never read the Bible.
Alaska has a population of around 25,000 African-Americans, with a total population of around 700,000. Therefore, African-Americans make up around 4% of the overall population of Alaska, with higher percentages in the larger cities like Anchorage.
We should familiarize ourselves to the history of African-Americans in Alaska:
http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=233
For example, African-Americans who built the highway to Alaska stayed to live after it was completed. Taking the position that the people who continue to play a significant role in the building of the infrastructure of Alaska should not be represented on the staff of Gov. Palin is preposterous.
Gov. Palin’s attitude toward Alaska’s black population indicates what her feelings might be toward all African-Americans as vice-president and possibly president of the United States. Like Sen. McCain, Gov. Palin shows little or no respect for the observance of Juneteenth Independence Day in America. Juneteenth is an official state holiday observance in Alaska which requires the Governor to issue an annual proclamation. Despite the statute, Gov. Palin did not issue a Juneteenth Proclamation in 2007.
Gov. Palin still refuses to meet with African-American leaders of the Ministers Alliance to discuss job opportunities for African-Americans during the building of the Alaskan pipeline. Again, in my opinion, if elected to the White House, most likely her actions toward African-Americans will not change. Let African-American leaders in Alaska tell their own story about Gov. Palin. I have spoken to several of them and remain quite concerned about what I am hearing.
Juneteenth is America’s 2nd Independence Day celebration. 29 states and the District of Columbia recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday or state holiday observance, as well as the Congress of the United States.
Together we will see Juneteenth become a national holiday in America!
“DOC”
Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D.
Chairman
National Juneteenth Holiday Campaign
National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF)
National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council (NJCLC)
http://www.Juneteenth.us
http://www.19thofJune.com
http://www.njclc.com
http://www.JuneteenthJazz.com
DOC/Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr.
Welcome to Justice League!
And thank you for your insight on African-Americans in Alaska as I am unfamiliar with the population of African-Americans in that state.
And it does sound to me that if Palin has not given opportunities for minorities in positions in her state for African-Americans and oppose Juneteenth (which I attend the event on that holiday every year), then it is safe to say that she will disenfranchised minorities in opportunties should she becomes VP. McCain has a clear record of vetoing a holiday for MLK in Arizona.
That is not the type of Presidency [McCain-Palin] and division in this country. We certainly need change from the last 8 years. Thank you for your insight. Hope to see you again on the blog.
Post a Comment