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Books by Wilson
Jeremiah Moses
Golden Age of Black Nationalism,
1850-1925 (1988) /
The Wings of Ethiopia
(1990)
Alexander
Crummell: A Study of Civilization and Discontent
(1992) /
Destiny & Race: Selected Writings, 1840-1898
(1992)
Black
Messiahs and Uncle Toms: Social and Literary
Manipulations of a Religious Myth (1993)
Liberian Dreams: Back-to-Africa
Narratives from the 1850s
/
Afrotopia: The Roots of African American
Popular History
(2002)
Creative Conflict in African American Thought (2004)
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Open Letter to President
Barack Obama
By Wilson Moses
Berlin, 2011-04-26
Dear Mr. President,
Thanks for the occasional emails
sent out to myself and other supporters over your name.
I am a New Deal
Democrat born in Detroit 1942. I say to my friends that
I was a Democrat for forty-five years before I became an
African American, although few people appreciate my
humor.
You have correctly
offered specific, detailed, and valid responses to Rep.
Paul Ryan's ill-conceived proposals to privatize
Medicare and other aspects of the social safety net.
You have appropriately, if not forcefully, advocated
necessary tax increases. You appropriately target the
wealthy, but everyone knows that middle-class people
must also share the burden of tax increases. When I say
middle-class, I mean families with incomes over $80,000,
for whom MODESTLY progressive taxes are unfortunately
necessary. I don't think working-class families with
combined incomes under $50,000 should be burdened with
additional taxes.
The age for
receiving social security benefits must continue to rise
in accord with increasing life-expectancy, although
health concerns must be taken into consideration. It is
difficult to justify payment of lightly-taxed social
security benefits to persons with incomes over $300,000
and liquifiable assets over $3,000,000.
The government must
invent a more efficient and productive way of putting
social security funds to work, without risking them in
the world of speculation. Social Security funds should
never be subject to inflationary policies of the Fed, or
the threat of a treasury default planned by the enemies
of Social Security.
I encourage you to
take a stronger stand in favor of minimum wages and the
right to collective bargaining.
As a Roosevelt
Democrat, I strongly support military spending, but I
believe there are areas of waste in our military budget.
I am disappointed
with your health care plan. You should have thrown a
"Hail Mary" pass, and not worried about having it batted
down. Your short-pass has been intercepted and may well
be run-back for a touchdown.
Our illegal alien
problem is caused by hypocritical, church-going
Republicans, who brought Mexicans here under horrid
conditions and at wages below the legal minimum, without
social security and other benefits. We cannot, and
should not, pack millions of exploited workers into
boxcars and dump them somewhere in the Mexican Desert.
Many of these Mexican Americans are citizens born here
in the U.S., but lacking official birth certificates,
because they were not delivered in hospitals. We must
develop just means of conferring permanent
residency, and, where appropriate, citizenship.
I hope you will
speak out against the abandonment and disfranchisement
of citizens of Detroit and other Michigan cities. I
believe the tragedy of Detroit is equally shocking as
the tragedy of New Orleans. Much of the spite directed
at Michigan cities is thinly veiled racism.
I disassociate
myself from mindless criticisms of you that have come
from some opportunist black chauvinists and insincere
public intellectuals in the black community.
University
education must become once again affordable. A
university student should never work more than 12 hours
per week at minimum wage. A working class mother should
be able to afford to pay for her son's or daughter's
university tuition without taking a second job. Two
semester's tuition at a state university should not cost
more than two weeks take-home pay for a bus-driver,
garbage man, cleaning woman, or librarian.
Governments have no
business issuing marriage licenses to anybody,
straight or gay. Religious people have the freedom to
validate their marriages in their churches. Others have
the right to formalize marriage contracts in whatever
way they see fit.
I associate myself
with your friendliest critics, black and white alike. I
appreciate and encourage all expressions of your
fidelity to the best traditions of the Democratic Party,
which, for all its severe historic flaws, is nonetheless
the traditional party of the WORKING CLASS. I also
encourage you to remind the public of forgotten
progressive traditions of the Republican party, which
once abolished slavery, protected consumers, regulated
monopolies, and recognized the legitimate role of big
government in restraining the greed of big business.
Respectfully yours,
Wilson J. Moses
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The Reagan Doctrine of National Suicide
(Moses)
/
The Country We Believe In
(Obama)
A Time for
Peace: A Time for War
(Moses)
/
Obama’s Libyan Choices
(Moses)
/
Tea
Party,
Schmee
Party
(Moses)
Cornel West and the fight against
injustice /
Cornel West Calls Out Barack Obama
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Malcolm X
A Life of Reinvention
By
Manning Marable
Years
in the making-the definitive biography of
the legendary black activist.
Of the great figure in twentieth-century
American history perhaps none is more
complex and controversial than Malcolm X.
Constantly rewriting his own story, he
became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and
an icon, all before being felled by
assassins' bullets at age thirty-nine.
Through his tireless work and countless
speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands
of black Americans to create better lives
and stronger communities while establishing
the template for the self-actualized,
independent African American man. In death
he became a broad symbol of both resistance
and reconciliation for millions around the
world. |
Manning Marable's
new biography of Malcolm is a stunning achievement.
Filled with new information and shocking revelations
that go beyond the Autobiography, Malcolm X unfolds a
sweeping story of race and class in America, from the
rise of Marcus Garvey and the Ku Klux Klan to the
struggles of the civil rights movement in the fifties
and sixties.
Reaching into
Malcolm's troubled youth, it traces a path from his
parents' activism through his own engagement with the
Nation of Islam, charting his astronomical rise in the
world of Black Nationalism and culminating in the
never-before-told true story of his assassination.
Malcolm X will stand as the definitive work on one of
the most singular forces for social change, capturing
with revelatory clarity a man who constantly strove, in
the great American tradition, to remake himself anew.
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 26 April 2011
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