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Inside this Issue
Article and Author Abstracts |
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Cover Story: Irrational Expectations |
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| How Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., is disappointing black Americans while attracting left-leaning white Americans because of racial confusion rampant in both constituencies |
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Amos Jones is Executive Editor of American Populist Monthly.
In late July, Michelle Obama, while raising money for her husband in Florida, inveighed against the questioning by many black Americans of her husband’s racial credentials. Although U.S. Presidential hopeful Barack Obama is obviously biracial, many white and black Americans, including his wife, avoid acknowledging this inconvenient truth and its significant political and policy implications. It is inaccurate to call Obama black; to be sure, as a matter of logic, if Obama is black, then Obama is white. A serious, unconflicted examination of the denial of his biracial status leads Executive Editor Amos Jones to argue, in this month’s cover story, that a substantial portion of the candidate’s black and white support is energized through a widespread practice of political self-gratification. This commitment to the mere illusion of a black presidential candidate would explain certain voters’ pathologically ecstatic responses to the high-profile, high-stakes racial stimulus that is the Obama factor. |
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Immigration Reform: Moving Forward |
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| Stuart Ambrose earned a Bachelor of Arts from Emory University before studying at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and then moving to New York and then Los Angeles as an actor and singer. In addition to his entertainment pursuits, he is a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. |
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| I was given a wonderful bit of insight about the current illegal immigrant situation in our country when last summer I embarked on a small, informal research project in my U.S. Marine Corps Reserve unit. Unlike active duty units, which draw Marines from all over the country, reserve units draw most of their personnel from the local population. As such, in Southern California the Headquarters and Service Company of 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines in Pasadena is made up mostly of Hispanic Marines. |
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The Downfall of Bush’s MBA Presidency |
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| A Case Study in a Failed Application of Consensus Leadership Principles |
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Elizabeth Shirey is an award-winning Wellesley, Mass.-based editor and writer whose articles have appeared in the Sacramento News & Review, the Wellesley News, and other publications.
Even before George W. Bush took office in 2000, his background at Harvard Business School colored critics’ predictions of his effectiveness as president. The first president with a Masters of Business Administration, Bush was referred to as the “MBA president,” or perhaps even more accurately, the “CEO president.” He vowed to run the government like an efficient business, delegating responsibility effectively and demanding results and increased productivity. These ideals appealed to Americans looking for a change from Bill Clinton’s relaxed White House, where meetings were held on “Clinton Standard Time” and the administration tried to address a number of complex issues instead of outlining a narrow set of goals. Bush attempted to bring his business knowledge to the White House, and the public is now in a position to evaluate his performance from this perspective as his approval rating hovers around 30 percent. Did the president fail to follow the proven, sacred commercial principles emphasized in America’s business schools? Or did he succeed, but the result was ineffective? |
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In spending terms, women of color greatly influence fashion market; from the runway, they make only small mark |
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But changing demography fuels new advertising forms
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LaMont Jones, Jr., of Pittsburgh, is an award-winning journalist, newspaper fashion editor, and book publisher. An ordained minister, he has degrees in journalism, government, and theology.
Legendary Italian designer Giorgio Armani launches his newest women’s fragrance this fall, and the face he has picked to promote it is an unlikely one. At first blush, superstar songstress Beyoncé Knowles might seem an obvious choice. However, how beauty is defined in America, and increasingly across the globe, is a case study in race politics. The prevailing beauty standard is decidedly Scandinavian: white skin, long blonde hair, blue eyes, small features, thin frame. The more a woman deviates from this image, the less attractive and desirable she is considered. So, a composite of the opposites of the ideal - dark skin, kinky hair, broad features, fuller figure - results in the physical appearance that was profanely derided by shock jock Don Imus in his self-imploding description of black players on the Rutgers University women’s basketball team in April. |
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THE REV. AMOS BROWN, D.MIN. |
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Sermon of the Month |
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| Wounded at Worship |
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The Reverend Doctor Amos Brown is Senior Pastor of the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco. He has served in numerous denominational capacities as well as on that city’s Board of Supervisors.
This issue’s offering was delivered at the 9 a.m. November 13, 2006, service of worship at the Abyssinian Baptist Church of New York City on the occasion of that congregation’s 198th Church Anniversary. Preaching from a text beginning in the fourteenth chapter of Luke at verse 14, Rev. Brown began: “I want to tag onto this text the topic for this day’s celebration: Wounded at worship. Wounded at worship. Not out on the street where your pastor was socially wounded by a non-professional law enforcement officer the other day. Not at a tap room or a bar where some of us get too high in the spirits that we would challenge someone to a fight. Not at the racetrack where many a horse, many a rider has been wounded. But I want to talk about the reality that one can be wounded at worship - in the holy place, in the assemblies of the saints, one can be wounded.” |
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THE LOUIS CLAYTON JONES FILES |
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The Illusory Vote (1983) |
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| The late Louis Clayton Jones authored the uncannily predictive 1981 book Enough is Enough: A Journal of Articles, Letters and Speeches by Louis Clayton Jones. Before he died in January 2006 at the age of 70, the former Fulbright Scholar, Howard University alumnus, 1961 graduate of Yale Law School, and international lawyer/businessman transferred his previous and in-progress writings to his nephew Amos Jones, now Executive Editor of American Populist Monthly. |
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| In the interest of intellectual honesty and out of a need to forestall eventual disillusionment on the part of the new black voters, and especially new young black voters, somebody must take the responsibility of placing the vote in proper perspective. Of course the vote makes a difference! If blacks had voted as a bloc in the Democratic primary, Percy Sutton would be mayor of New York today. Coleman Young is mayor of Detroit because blacks vote intelligently in Detroit. There are now seventeen black Congressmen because blacks voted for them. Jimmy Carter was literally placed in the White House by black voters. At the risk, however, of cynicism, this writer would submit to you that the only difference effected by this black exercise of the franchise is the change in the color of the skin of some office holders. Has housing improved for black people? Do our children read, write, and count better? Do more blacks than ever have jobs? Are the welfare rolls decreasing? Do we have access to quality medical care? Are affirmative action programs alive and well? Did Rep. Charles Rangel cast the deciding vote in the Ways and Means Committee in favor of deregulating natural gas because blacks did or did not vote? |
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