#BLM: Dealing In Dirt And Stealing In The Name Of The Lord

In the George Orwell book Animal Farm, the farm animals successfully revolt against the cruel human overlord and his minions. The pigs, being more intelligent and selfish, seize leadership and gradually return the other animals to their previous low status. 

The pigs either rewrite the rules or employ insulting lawyerly sophistries to declare that a violation of both the word and spirit of the commandment is actually no violation at all. The pigs claim any detractor is a traitor working with the humans. 

I recalled this fiction when I ran across a news story about a similar set of pigs evidently working assiduously to enrich themselves from the blood, sweat, and tears of those they apparently regard as less than.

On a sunny day late last spring, three leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement — Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Melina Abdullah — sat around a table on the patio of an expensive house in Southern California. 

“For me, the hardest moments have been the right-wing-media machine just leveraging literally all its weight against me, against our movement, against BLM the organization,” Cullors said. “I’m some weeks out now from a lot of the noise, so I have more perspective, right? While I was in it, I was in survival mode.” She was referring to an April 2021 article in the New York Post that revealed her purchase of four homes for nearly $3 million.

Rittenhouse Found Not Guilty

I don't have much to write about the Rittenhouse not guilty verdict. I'm disgusted but not surprised. It was apparent from the beginning of the trial and its development that the judge was going out of his way to put not only his thumb on the scale for Rittenhouse but both feet as well. I can not imagine a situation in which an underage Black boy goes to a different state, brandishes a gun which he has no legal right to use, gets into confrontations, shoots multiple people and is acquitted of all charges by way of self-defense. 
And to put the cherry on top of the sh*t sundae, the judge throws out the gun possession charge, claiming that the law is too vague. Legally this is the equivalent of the proverbial Black gangster in Chicago shooting other Black gangsters, using illegal guns to do so, and successfully claiming self-defense. That's just not going to happen too frequently.

The people on the more progressive side of the political spectrum will need to collectively get used to using guns, keeping guns, and bearing guns. The right and their enablers in the justice system feel that they are the only armed people. The justice system is not going to prevent them from shooting you or punish them when they do. Right-wing vigilantes will be encouraged by this verdict.

Like it or not, as a country we are moving past the "Can't we put down the guns and talk?" phase of our political life. This is not that different from the Greensboro Massacre that occurred all those years ago. when I was a youngster. If someone of ill intent thinks you're weaker than they are, there will be problems.

Black Men Arrested At Starbucks Speak Out

You may have heard about the Black men arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks while they were waiting to have a business meeting with a possible partner. Charges were dropped. The white female manager who called the police within two minutes of the men's arrival allegedly did so because the men hadn't purchased anything and had asked (and been denied) a chance to use the bathroom. There have been other incidents at other Starbucks locations but this is emphatically not solely a Starbucks problem. This is a white racism problem or to be more precise as some of the people behaving in this manner towards Black people are not white, it's an anti-Black racism problem, particularly an anti-Black male attitude. Again, incidents like this are why I am so dismissive of anyone who argues that Black men are oppressive patriarchs. You can say a lot of things about patriarchs but they don't get arrested and perp-walked out of an establishment for the crime of annoying or scaring someone who isn't Black. 

We see again that the mere presence of Black masculinity in a public space badly scares some people and/or sets them off. Just as in Fort Worth, or in Rochester Hills, being Black in public causes some non-Blacks to either wet their pants in fear or feel that they must immediately show the n****s who is the boss. What sort of citizen are you if you can literally be arrested because someone thinks that you didn't order coffee fast enough? You're certainly not a first class citizen. The men speak about their experiences below:

Trevor Noah and Tomi Lahren

You may have heard about this recent interview/discussion/confrontation between conservative media personality Tomi Lahren and Daily Show host Trevor Noah. Using both logic and gentle ridicule where appropriate Noah shot down most of Lahren's talking points. Although I think it's unlikely that Tomi Lahren will change her mind on anything anytime soon I think it's also important to engage and confront people who make bad arguments. One of the things which the right has done much more successfully than the left is to use telegenic seemingly friendly media spokeswomen and spokesmen to sell repulsive ideas. It's true that some of these people are indeed beyond redemption or aren't worth engaging because all they want to do is insult people. Debating your own humanity is a sucker's game. But sometimes people can be too quick to scream in outrage and cease debate when faced with ideas that challenge their mindset. This can be tempting; it's sometimes morally justified. There is no such thing as reasoned debate with a dedicated Nazi or someone who thinks slavery was a positive good. That person has made his decision. But to the extent that plenty of people on the right don't fall into those categories but still ascribe to "deplorable" ideas, as Hillary Clinton might put it, it is important for people on the other end of the political spectrum to engage in spirited debate and show people how and where they are wrong. Lies that go unchallenged can spread more quickly than one might think.

Muhammad Ali

There aren't too many giants left who walk the earth. Muhammad Ali was one such man. I was sad when I heard the news of his June 3 passing at the age of 74 but at the same time I wasn't. Ali was a man who lived his life in line with his beliefs and principles. I wish he had lived longer. However often times when someone passes our sadness is more about how we're affected and not the end of that person's life. Ali stood up at a time when it was much easier to duck and hide. He paid a price for that. Maybe it's always much easier to duck and hide. I don't know if the later battles Ali had against fellow boxing titans Frazier, Foreman, Holmes and Norton brought on or worsened his Parkinson's Disease. I do recollect that even pacifist relatives who were otherwise steadfastly opposed to boxing tuned in to watch an Ali bout. Ali was larger than life. Unfortunately most of my memories of Ali boxing were when his skills had already visibly deteriorated. But even then there was always a glimpse of the speed, grace and power that made him the Greatest, as he would have been the first to tell you. But more than the classic fights which I was mostly too young to remember what I remember about Ali is how he made people I knew, especially the men in my family, feel. Ali was a Black man who defiantly seized and kept the right to name himself. He made his own decisions about what was good and what wasn't. He made Black people feel good about being Black. This is still a controversial stance today. Ali said I'm not going to have a European name based in slavery because I'm not European. I'm going to love myself. And he refused to join a war he didn't believe in, even though he likely would have been kept far away from any danger. He threw away three years of his career at the top just to stand on principle. How many of us would do that? How many of today's athletes would make that sacrifice? Ali helped to start a change in how Black athletes were perceived, how they performed and how they were marketed, one that is still going on today. Ali wasn't perfect. None of us are. And certainly there are probably some people who were more comfortable with the aged man who could barely speak than the young brash "Mouth Of The South" who cut opponents up with verbal wit even quicker than he did with his fists. But for my money Ali truly was The Greatest.

I’m the greatest thing that ever lived! I’m the king of the world! I’m a bad man. I’m the prettiest thing that ever lived.

It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.

It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.

The Professor and The Police

As I've made clear on many occasions in this space I'm not overly fond of the police. Just as a general rule if police are talking to you for any length of time something has probably gone wrong in your day. All else equal police are usually quicker to initiate and escalate aggressive action against Black citizens than they are against Caucasian ones whether it it be shooting people only armed with wallets or toy guns, choking people accused of selling loose cigarettes, arresting professors who are entering their own home or writing people tickets for incredibly obscure and vague traffic violations which only ever seem to be enforced against Black people. There is a problem with policing in this country. After saying that though police do have a job to do. They are necessary. I don't want police not to arrest anyone. Humans aren't saints. We never will be. I just want police to stop being needlessly violent, racist, brutal or bullying. When I first saw this story headline I was primed to find fault with the police officers' action. But after reading the story I couldn't see what the police did wrong. And believe me I looked.  A black Princeton professor is protesting her arrest during a traffic stop last week, saying she was mistreated because of her race by two white police officers who searched her and handcuffed her to a table. The police chief in Princeton, N.J., however, said the officers had followed department policy in arresting the professor, Imani Perry. The arrest of Dr. Perry, a professor of African-American studies, and the divergent views of how it was handled have reignited a debate on social media over police tactics and racial profiling. The arrest came after officers stopped Dr. Perry around 9:30 a.m. on Saturday for driving 67 miles per hour in a 45 m.p.h. zone, Capt. Nicholas K. Sutter, the department chief, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
While Dr. Perry said in a message posted online that she was arrested over “a single parking ticket,” Captain Sutter said that the officers who stopped her — a man and a woman — learned during a routine check that her driving privileges had been suspended and a warrant had been issued for her arrest over two unpaid parking violations from 2013. “The warrant commands the officer to take the person into custody,” Captain Sutter said. The officers searched, handcuffed and placed Dr. Perry into a squad car, the captain said. At the police station, she was handcuffed to a workstation and booked. After paying outstanding fines totaling $130, he said, she was released. Dr. Perry, who declined to comment via email on Tuesday, wrote about the episode on Twitter and Facebook on Monday, saying it had left her humiliated and frightened.
LINK

So I'm not sure what the good professor expected the police to do in this situation. If you are really doing 67 mph in a 45 mph zone chances are good that the police will notice that and stop you. If you're doing 22 mph above the speed limit, no matter what your race there is a good probability that you will receive a ticket. Once the police have stopped and identified you, if they discover that you're driving on a suspended license and have an outstanding arrest warrant, your travel plans are going to change. It's virtually a sure bet that they will ask you to (and by ask I mean make) accompany them to the nearest local police station or jail to get things sorted out. And being police they will likely use the imperative mood and imperious tones of voice that are guaranteed to rub you the wrong way. 
Now the original underlying parking tickets may well have been issued by racist cops looking to mess with black people for their own amusement or to meet revenue quotas. I wouldn't have been surprised at all. We've seen that sort of thing all over the US, most infamously in Ferguson. The tickets may have been ridiculous. But if you are a victim of such an occurrence your choice is to fight them in court or pay them. Doing neither will simply make matters worse as we saw in this situation. Maybe I'm missing something but from the article it appears that the police did what they were supposed to do. It is a fact that police routinely mistreat black people or other non-black people whom they perceive as being powerless. It is also a fact that in any given individual case you have to show some form of mistreatment. And I just didn't see that in this case, even predisposed as I am to expecting it. Of course maybe the police are lying. Maybe they were already profiling the professor. But if so it's not apparent from anything the professor says. There are very real cases of bias in the world. Mentioning this incident in relation to them trivializes more dangerous police encounters.  Again I understand that the professor did not like her run-in with the police. Most people don't. I certainly haven't.  But in this individual case I think some perspective is of use.

Flint Water Crisis: For a Few Dollars More

We are amazed but not amused By all the things you say that you'll do
Though much concerned but not involved With decisions that are made by you
But we are sick and tired of hearing your song Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong
'Cause if you really want to hear our views You haven't done nothing
"You haven't done nothing"- Stevie Wonder
Unless you have been completely cut off from the news over the past 90 days you have heard about the crisis in Flint, Michigan. In 2013, the State of Michigan took control over Flint and forced a change from the Detroit water supply to the local water supply from the Flint river. The problem with this decision was that the Flint river water was too corrosive for older untreated pipes. Lead and other contaminants soon started leaching into the water supply. There is no amount of lead in drinking water which is considered to be safe. People consuming or using the water immediately noticed bad colors, foul smells, wrong tastes and acidic reactions to metals. When all of this was brought to the attention of the emergency manager,the state officials responsible for water safety, and other state appointees and politicos they ignored the concerns of the citizens, mocked them, slow walked or tried to "fix" water quality tests, viciously attacked any scientist who raised alarms about the Flint water, lied and said the water was safe, and worked assiduously behind the scenes to figure out a way to blame anyone except themselves. I really don't have a lot to say about this both because (1) I need to create shorter posts due to increasing work responsibilities and (2) the actions of most of the people involved are obviously beyond reprehensible. They shock the conscience. It is just barely defensible for the state to take over financial operations of a city that is unable or unwilling to pay its bills. It is never defensible for anyone to poison people to attempt to balance the books. And yet that is precisely what happened in Flint.

As has been pointed out over and over again during the past few weeks if ISIS or some other foreign terrorist group had poured lead into the drinking water of a US city there would be national, even international, outrage both at the perpetrators as well as the incompetents who let it happen. Both drones and DoJ prosecutors would be immediately dispatched. A lot of the criminals involved would end up dead or in prison. But Flint is a majority black and mostly impoverished city. So instead we have the spectacle of the National Review claiming that the Republicans in charge aren't to blame. We have local Michigan Republicans claiming that the lead in water problem is overblown. We have EPA administrators not doing their job. We have Republicans claiming that the Feds are the true villains, which given the usual Republican viewpoint on states' rights and regulation, is like a bank robber claiming that the FBI is responsible for his crime wave. After all they should have stopped him sooner. There is an excellent examination of the timeline here. You can also hear what the whistleblower scientist, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, had to say here at 2:59. People didn't like what she had to say but fortunately she had the courage of her convictions and the knowledge that her research was correct. As she points out, the problem may be even worse than we realize.

Unfortunately there is probably not much recourse for criminal prosecutions under Michigan law. It appears at first glance as if the public actors may be generally protected from criminal charges under the Emergency manager provision. We shall see. Civil cases are a certainty. There may be room for criminal charges under Federal law. But that is of course up to the President and Attorney General. I don't know the relevant laws. I will say that if we can't arrest a public official for poisoning an entire community then the law is a joke. It's unlikely that Governor Rick Snyder will be impeached as Republicans have majorities in both the Michigan House and Senate. Previous recalls have failed. At this time Snyder has said he's not resigning. As a final kick in the teeth the state is requiring that people pay for the poison water they consumed. If that is not evil I don't know what is. Please note that with only a few exceptions no Republican running for President has had anything to say about this issue. It's just not something they seem to care about. Everyone has to prioritize which issues they find important. But the next time someone wonders aloud, in good faith or otherwise, why black Americans albeit diverse in income, wealth, political views and other characteristics, tend not to vote for Republicans, please point them to this story. A party that shows depraved indifference to people based on skin color and/or class tends not to get their votes. Ironically though this horror might be the catalyst for less partisanship in Michigan as a right wing militia has assisted in distributing clean drinking water. The militia is also making noise about armed self-defense. So there's that. Ultimately no matter your race, gender, age, sexuality or other marker of identity, you don't want lead in your water.

Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke Kills Laquan McDonald

Another day, another black person killed by a cop. Based on past experiences there will almost surely be brain dead trolls popping up like mushrooms across social media who will start bleating "what about black-on-black violence" or claim that unless we are law enforcement officials ourselves that we can never really walk in an officer's shoes and thus have no right to judge. Both of those things are stupid deflections. But just for the record, the black criminals who mostly kill other black people and occasionally kill white people, are usually promptly arrested, charged, tried, convicted and sentenced. They don't have (nor should they have) aggressive unions defending them, bosses who will lose evidence, prosecutors who will delay charging them and a friendly media and supportive public (jury pool) who will often frame the worst actions in the most benign light possible. And to the second common deflection, of course police have the right to self-defense and to use deadly force to protect others. No one questions that. If someone is stupid enough to attack a police officer who is acting within the law and gets themselves shot for their trouble you won't find me shedding many tears. No. And whether they like it or not, police officers are indeed not above the law. When they do wrong they should be held to account just like everyone else. Our society can't or rather shouldn't function with a caste of people who can kill at will with no repercussions or consequences. The problem here is that American police officers are overly aggressive towards black people, regardless of whether said black people are committing crimes or not. And when force is used against a black person, it's often considered to be justified, regardless of the actual facts of the case. Cops are very quick to use force against black people, no matter if there is an objective threat or not. Tennis players minding their own business get tackled. Recalcitrant children are slammed to the ground or dragged across classrooms. Men allegedly selling tax free cigarettes are choked to death. Someone driving without a license who might owe child support is shot in the back. Blackness in and of itself seems to justify the force. We've seen this over and over and over again. The most recent example, or rather the example that we just found out about occurred in Chicago in 2014, where CPD officer Jason Van Dyke killed Laquan McDonald. He shot him sixteen times. He shot him when McDonald was on the ground. According to details of the charges released in bond court Tuesday, Van Dyke was less than an hour into his overnight shift on the night of the shooting when a call came over the police radio at 9:47 p.m. of a citizen holding McDonald after he had been caught breaking into trucks and stealing radios in a parking lot near 41st Street and Kildare Avenue. Another unit responded first and said over the radio that McDonald was walking away with a knife in his hand, Assistant State’s Attorney William Delaney said. At 9:56 p.m., a beat car reported that McDonald had “popped the tire on their squad car,” Delaney said.

At 9:57 p.m., McDonald can be seen in the video walking away from the officers near the center line of Pulaski Road. Van Dyke and his partner got out of their marked Chevrolet Tahoe with their guns drawn, and Van Dyke took at least one step toward the teen and opened fire from about 10 feet away, Delaney said. “McDonald's arm jerks and his whole body spins around and falls to the ground,” Delaney said.

Alvarez said the video showed McDonald lying on the ground while shots continued to strike his body and the pavement near him, with puffs of debris kicking up and his arms and body jerking as he was hit. In all, Van Dyke was on the scene for less than 30 seconds before he started shooting, and the first shot was fired about six seconds after he exited his squad car, Alvarez said. About 14 or 15 seconds passed between the first and last shots fired by Van Dyke, and for 13 of those seconds, McDonald was on the ground, she said. According to interviews with other officers at the scene, McDonald never spoke to them or responded to commands to drop the knife. Witnesses who were stopped in traffic on Pulaski told authorities that McDonald seemed to be “looking for a way to get away from the police,” Alvarez said. “He never moved toward, lunged at or did anything threatening,” she said. Story link You can see the full video at the end. I don't know how long it will be up. Now again, if McDonald had rushed the officers that would be one thing. But he didn't. And the initial police report claimed that McDonald had lunged at the cops and died of one shot to the chest. Surprise, surprise, police officers lie. Allegedly some other cops tried to delete footage from local surveillance cameras which showed the event. The only reason we're learning about this is that whistleblowers inside the city administration or police department or elsewhere worked with journalists unconvinced by the official narrative to reveal the truth. The city has already settled with McDonald's family to the tune of $5 million. And the fact that Van Dyke was charged with first degree murder is literally unprecedented. That just doesn't happen often with police officers, particularly in Chicago. It remains to be seen whether Van Dyke is convicted of first degree murder. My understanding from friends, family members and associates who are attorneys is that the charge is a very high bar, especially for a police officer who is acting as part of his official duties. It doesn't make me feel great that the district attorney took a year to file charges. She apparently only did so because the video was going to come out.  That doesn't seem like a profile in courage or integrity but perhaps better late than never. Time will tell.

#RIP Corey Jones

A Black man is killed by a police officer off of I-95 in Florida. Scratch that. Corey Jones, a drummer at his church, is killed by a non-white police officer who was in plain clothes in an unmarked car. We here at The Urban Politico were alerted to this story Tuesday morning. We read about it, discussed it in an email exchange, and took no action until today when you began reading this post late in the afternoon while wasting time at your day job.

So why the delay?

Honestly, I thought it would go away. I naively wished the story would go away. I stuck my fingers in my ear, sang La La La La La La La loudly and off key and willed Corey Jones's name to not enter my subconscious, to become a here today gone tomorrow news story I could forget in a week. But I know better. Corey Jones was in deep in my brain with all the others like him who had gone before him. So here we are today with another name, another blog post, another hashtag, another Black man slain at the hands of people who are supposed to serve and protect everyone, and the only thing the Black community has to show for it is the injustice of paid administrative leave.




The one difference between Corey Jones and the Mike Brown's, Eric Garner's, Sam Dubose's, Christian Taylor's and others is that he was probably armed when he was shot down by Nouman Raja. I say probably because Corey Jones's gun, that he bought three days before he was killed, was found at the scene, but there's no other evidence to suggest how he was holding it, or even if he was holding it at the time of his untimely death. The second amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America guarantees all people of this great nation the right to bear arms. But apparently that right doesn't truly apply to everyone.

Real Talk. If some strange man was nosing around your car after you broke down at 3:15 in the morning wouldn't you be wary of their presence? Real Talk. If you were armed while said stranger was nosing around your car after you broke down at 3:15 in the morning wouldn't you feel the least bit safer if you unholstered your gun and held it at your side? I don't know what happened in Corey Jones' final moments. No one does. Conveniently dash camera wasn't working, a body camera was not worn, and the only other witness to what transpired in the seconds Jones confronted Raja, or Raja confronted Jones, and Raja shot scared is dead.

I understand that we as civilians are supposed to respect the lights, the badge and the uniform, but in this situation there were no lights. Officer Raja was in an unmarked car. There was no uniform because Officer Raja was in plain clothes, undercover. With that said, I want to know how long was an unidentifiable Officer Raja in fear for his life from Corey Jones before he unholstered his own gun and shot the drummer who broke down on the side of the road, and was waiting on his family to come through for a ride? Did Officer Raja even identify himself? Did he ask Corey Jones to put the gun down after doing so? Or did he just unload because he felt like he had the right because he was a scared police officer? Did it ever cross his mind that maybe Corey Jones was scared of the unknown man nosing around his car at 3:15 in the morning? Does anyone ever ask what the Black man fears? Right now, I bet it's police officers.

#RIPCoreyJones.

Recap: The First Democratic Debate

Five democratic candidates for President of the United States took the debate stage in Las Vegas last night to face off over the issues for the very first time. Lincoln Chafee, Jim Webb, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Martin O'Malley introduced themselves to the American people and then got down and dirty in the political mud.

No topic was off limits. Gun control. Hillary Clinton's Emails. Benghazi. Syria. Russia. The Economy. Black Lives Matter. The candidates covered it all. Well, at least some of them did, and that is where we have a problem, if you don't like your candidates chosen for you.




Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders clearly had more debate prep than any of the other candidates on the stage. And by debate prep I mean Clinton's failed 2008 run when she endlessly debated then Senator Barack Obama despite having no chance at the nomination, and Clinton and Sanders' storied histories in the halls of Congress. As for the other candidates, they barely registered in the key arguments being put forth in the debate. It was the Hillary and Bernie show.

One of the most contentious issues early on was gun control. The gloves came off between the old Senate fellows. Hillary Clinton said Bernie Sanders wasn't tough enough on gun control. Bernie tried to argue that there is a difference in the perception of guns in rural areas versus more urban areas, and while he is technically right, that technicality doesn't matter when you consider the students and teachers of Sandy Hook were teaching and learning in a rural area when they were massacred by a madman.

The debate on gun control quickly devolved into a debate about war and who would be a better Commander in Chief. Hillary Clinton was painted as too quick to press the button considering her voting record on Iraq. Bernie Sanders was painted as a pacifist, and the other three candidates pontificated about how they would have voted had they been in Congress, and what they will do once they become the President of the United States. Only Jim Webb could really speak about what it's really like to be at war considering his Marine background, but he squandered his chance to silence, and then complained that he didn't get enough time to speak.

From war the natural progression of the debate led to Syria, Russia, and Benghazi. This brought the marquee moment of the debate when Senator Bernie Sanders exclaimed, "We're tired of hearing about the damn emails." Hillary Clinton appreciated the vote of support from her socialist rival. The debate carried on and came to two of my favorite topics. Let's start with the economy.

On this topic the Democrats did what the Democrats always do. They blamed the Republican. In this case they blamed Bush. The campaign tactics of 2008 and 2012 when Obama ran were employed in earnest with a couple new twists. When the conversation turned to restoring Glass-Steagall all the candidates supported the move except Hillary Clinton. I wonder why? The obvious and only reason that Mrs. Clinton cannot support the restoration of the one piece of legislation that would keep investment banks separate from commercial/community banks is because it is the key piece of legislation her husband took pride in dismantling in the name of deregulation, trimming the fat, cutting the tape, and balancing the budget. While I'm sure President Clinton was well meaning in his actions back in those roaring 90s, it got us Millennials a lot of heartache in the aughts.

Instead of supporting the restoration of Glass-Steagall Mrs. Clinton promoted the failed pansy bill that is Dodd-Frank and promoted progressive capitalism with checks and balances. Bernie Sanders called her on her B.S. and Martin O'Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and Jim Webb wept. Or at least they should have for their silence.

Last night's debate was hosted by CNN in conjunction with Facebook. That means questions were taken from real people to see if the candidates truly know what's going within the pulse of the country. The first question posed was a simple one, but an important one (especially to this here blogger) "Do Black Live Matter or Do All Lives Matter?

All of the candidates stated why Black Lives Matter. Whether they believe in the movement and goals of the grassroots civil rights campaign or not they gave politically correct answers. All except for maybe Jim Webb. He stumbled around his work with the Black community and came up with I've been working with African Americans and their situation... Mr. Webb, what exactly is our situation?

The Black Lives Matter questions raises a broader issue, not just among the Democratic candidates but for the entire 2016 campaign on both sides of the aisle. Unless the next President is Ben Carson, then our next President will be forced to have a "black agenda." An agenda President Obama could not, does not, and can not outwardly have for the simple fact that he is Black. For the first Black President to have an explicitly Black agenda, while necessary, will be to some too explicitly racist and at very least pandering. I know. The psychology of our country is backwards. However, what Obama had to do through Attorney General Eric Holder, and now Attorney General Loretta Lynch Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump can do on their own. They can put forth a plan to promote the equality of minorities among the greater hegemony and by "pandering" if you will they get the minority vote they are looking for.

It's still a long road to go for both the Democrat and Republican ticket, and though I hate to admit it Hillary Clinton was the strongest candidate at the podium last night. I don't like her sense of entitlement, and I don't care for her deceptive scandals but she did make several compelling arguments and the other candidates, save for Bernie Sanders didn't put up much of a fight against her machine. Especially Martin O'Malley. He's running for Vice President. I'm sure of it.

Questions:

1. What did you think of the Democratic candidates' debate performance?
2. If the election were today who would you vote for?
3. Do there need to be more candidates in the race?