Feudalism In The Commonwealth

In 1619, English colonizers brought captured Africans to Virginia on a cargo ship “The White Lion.” The white colonizers also brought a hierarchical social structure, left over from the days of feudalism in mid-evil England.

In medieval England (emphasis on “evil”), feudalism comprised four levels of economic strata:

The King, The King’s Court (nobles), vassals, and serfs.

Within such a social construct for 404 years the Commonwealth of Virginia — especially in its capital city of Richmond — too few white people, have controlled too much, for too long, at the expense of too many people of color.

Currently, this brand of feudalism in Richmond poisons the population.

The “King” is represented by wealthy white institutions and corporations, individuals and families, self-named “First Families of Virginia” or “FFV.”

The wealth of this upper strata controls who gets what, how much, and when, as it relates to the intersection of economics and politics.

The “King” selects it “Court of Nobles” in the Black community and reward them with financial business and individual contracts, corporate board appointments and patronage (i.e the perception of high social status), private club memberships. The consideration for such economic gifts is compliance to the status quo.

For such Black people, challenging “The King” may cost their social position with the controlling powers and principalities.

Just below the “The King’s Court” are current “vassals” who are the “tenants” of the Court.

As underlings, they execute the King’s will. For example, such competent, but compliant “vassals” may operate nonprofit organizations or charitable institutions that receive “The King’s ransom.”

At the lowest rung of the social ladder in Richmond are poor Black and Brown people who function as “serfs.”

By government statistics, Richmond’s poor (at federal poverty level) is said to be around 27%. However, individuals and families just above federal poverty are nonetheless, poor, which may well elevate the percentage to 40%. Their labor — like serfs of old — is exploited by the “vassals,” under the tutelage of the “King’s Court,” in service to the “King.”

An understanding of feudalism in Richmond helps to explain the recent referendum vote on a proposed privately financed (no tax burden on Richmonders) entertainment complex, including a four-star hotel, 3,000- seat arena, sound/movie stage, and casino by Urban One and Churchill Downs.

Wealthy white people assigned the Black Nobles, operating as the “King’s Court,” along with their underlings, to oppose the referendum, expressly or by the silence, in order to maintain their social status. Meanwhile, the locked out and the left behind poor residents were the biggest losers, with little prospect for meaningful monetary relief in the forseeable future.

At its core, the referendum vote was about race, gender and power. The King prefers compliant Black people who know their place (see The Mis-Education of the Negro by Dr. Carter G. Woodson).

Many Black people in Richmond suffer from the “Scared Negro Disease” (see Richmond Free Press, March 2018 and “The Politics of Decorum,” by A. Peter Bailey).

Enter Ms. Cathy Hughes, who was neither compliant or afraid. Ms. Hughes may well be the current incarnation of Mrs. Maggie Walker, in terms of competence, courage, com mitment, compassion, and most of all, cash.

Accordingly, Ms. Hughes threatened the feudalistic order of the once Capital of the Confederacy. For had the project passed, Ms. Hughes would not only have had a seat at the “The King’s” table, she would have become “Queen of Money” in Richmond. “The King” could not have such.

From another historical perspective, Ms. Hughes represent-ed the iconic Harriet Tubman, who famously said, “I could have freed more, if they only knew they were enslaved.”

The Commonwealth of Virginia in many ways is “Ground Zero” for the American Empire, including the good, the bad, and much of the ugly. The problem is “the wealth” is not shared with “the common people.” Virginia still ranks sixth in total wealth, among states in America.

In this case, the feudal plantation prevailed, but the righteous resistance rolls on.

Regrettably, Black people and white people in Richmond are imprisoned in a feudalistic economic and social system.

Ultimately, Richmond must free itself, and value all people’s prosperity, not just “The King.”

As the song says, “Red Yellow, Brown, Black or White, we are ALL precious in God’s sight.”

Where Is The American Dream?

Once upon a time, the “American Dream” was thought to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as defined by an adequate-paying job, a house, and equal opportunity for a higher standard of life. In 2013, recent public policy decisions have sounded the alarm clock of unthinkable unemployment, home foreclosures, and a national feeling of regression for most Americans. New words such as “sequester” have added incomprehension to injury. Where did the American Dream go?

In short, too few Americans have profited too much, at the expense of too many in the last 60 years. Tax policy has permitted “American” corporations to virtually pay no taxes while exporting jobs to low-paying countries around the world. “American” banks have been allowed to receive free “bailout” funding with no requirement to make new loans (or restructure them) to ordinary people who were targeted for sub-prime loans to generate more profits for the banks. Moreover, little regulation of hedge funds let them make huge sums of money by essentially betting against the American economy, which opened the door of despair for many.

However, the adage “knowledge is power” prevails in understanding how our nation’s spirit of growth for all sectors of economy has been weighted to the wealthy.One excellent source is the “People’s Guide to the Federal Budget” by the National Priorities Project. The People’s Guide provides basic information in plain language for ordinary Americans to follow their tax money through the federal budget, separate substance from the “spin” of politicians, compare policy priorities in federal budget to those of most people, and increase citizen involvement in how government works at the national, state, and local level. The familiar phrase of “power to the people” is now exampled by the rise of the Tea Party in 2009 and Occupy Wall Street in 2011. In a similar way, the People’s Guide prepares people to affect progressive public policy.

Another informational resource is Who Stole the American Dream by Hedrick Smith. In the book, Hedrick Smith lays out a historical timeline which reveals how the “American Dream” was built and how it was decimated. For example, Smith’s timeline traverses Henry Ford’s common sense idea in the early 1900’s to pay workers a good wage in order to afford American products such as Ford automobiles. Ford’s policy led to the American auto industry providing annual wage increases, health benefits, and merit promotions that other American industries followed. One result was a CEO to worker income ratio of 40:1 in 1950. From 1945 to 1973, employee productivity and pay rose over 90 percent.

Smith’s timeline goes on the reveal the agreed personnel policy of leading American CEO’s in the 1960’s, commonly known as the “virtuous circle of growth,” or, in other words, a happy worker is a productive worker. In addition to progressive corporate policy, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations with outside agitation of civil rights and consumer rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Nader helped to enact public policy in the form of consumer protections, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Immigration Act of 1965, Fair Housing Act of 1968, Equal Protection Agency, and Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA).

Simultaneously to progressive public policy formation, Republican Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater reversed progressive partisanship and planted the seeds to what would become today’s Tea Party. In 1971, conservative attorney Lewis Powell (from my hometown of Richmond, Virginia) issued the infamous “Powell Memo” calling for increased corporate policy activism to benefit the wealthy, thereby reversing the progress for ordinary Americans.

Accordingly, corporate CEO’s organized the Business Roundtable in 1971 to raise an army of corporate lobbyists to benefit the greedy over the needy in nearly every American industry. From money management to manufacturing; from agriculture to automobiles a race to the bottom ensued for lower corporate taxes and workers’ wages. By 1998, regulations separating commercial banks from investment banks were repealed and a banking bonanza to bilk hard-working Americans began. Like the first 75 years of the 19th century, two-thirds of the 20th century would see progressive policy yield to policy for the rich in the last 25 years.

We, the ordinary people, must make extraordinary efforts to organize and affect the change we want to see occur by demanding of the government fairness and justice. For example, we should at least support:Full-employment legislation sponsored by U.S. Representative John Conyers (House Resolution 870) 

• Moratorium on Home Foreclosures

• Forgiveness of nearly all student loans for five years

• Legislation for livable wages (based on costs in each city/town)

• Expand Social Security and Medicare

• Enact Employees Free Choice Act

• Expand Parent-Plus Student Loan Program

• Reinstate Jobs Council

• Reinstate Defined Benefit Pension Plans

• Maintaining Minority Business Development Agency in Department of Commerce

When we fight together, we win!

The Silent Support Syndrome

There seems to be a reluctance by white moderates in Virginia — elected officials and otherwise — to challenge the public existence of Confederate statues in the Commonwealth. I refer to such as “The Silent Support Syndrome.”

Following the American Civil War, Virginia was one of the last seven states to re-join the United States of America, along with Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas. Virginia was among the first states to erect statues to Confederate generals and soldiers in the 1890s.

Because of the possibility of being convicted as traitors to the United States, Confederates were given pardons and forced to pledge an oath of loyalty to the Union as a requirement for citizenship.

And while not Confederates, most white elected officials in Virginia were racial bigots by believing the inherent inferiority of black people. For example, in 1872, the “Anti-Negro Committee” of the Virginia General Assembly passed racially restrictive laws in marriage, housing districts, public restaurants, public parks and public performances.

However, later, a minority of moderate white people — mostly Quakers and members of the NAACP — stood up and challenged Jim Crow policies in Virginia. They did so with a mantle of moral courage. For them, giving all Americans full citizenship was more about right and wrong than black and white.

But where are such white moderates in the halls of the Virginia General Assembly and the suites of corporate Virginia today? Where does the white church leadership in Virginia stand on Confederate statue removal today? Their silence condemns them as complicit with the Confederacy and its lost cause.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in April 1963, “I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

Dr. King’s letter called white Americans to be more “American” than “white” and Christians to be more “Christian” than “white.”

Confederate statues represent slavery, secession, sedition, racial segregation, the false notion of white supremacy and “Jim Crow” that followed the statues’ erection in Virginia. Confederate statue removal is a moral issue of great magnitude. 

Whether white people who consider themselves moderate act on the removal of Confederate statues from public places will define how the Commonwealth is perceived nationally and internationally. Not to act could have disastrous results on tourism and economic development for the entire state.

Our beloved state can be “Virginia is for Lovers” or “Virginia is for Haters.” It is time the “Old Dominion” becomes the “New Dominion” by removing Confederate statues from public places. By doing so, we will show the world that after 400 years since Africans were forcibly brought to the Commonwealth, we finally are beginning to “get it!”

The Scared Negro Disease Remains

As another Black History Month has passed I revisited the relevant speech given by former mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, Maynard Jackson in 2002, while speaking in Portland, Oregon, entitled, “The Scared Negro Disease”.

Mayor Jackson’s diagnosis is seemingly cancerous in Black politicians in the Commonwealth of Virginia, particularly as it relates to the removal of Confederate statues.

Maynard Jackson was one of the last “Race Men” (and Women) who were elected mayor of a city.  Mayor Jackson became the first Black mayor of a city in the American south.   He joined the racial regal ranks of Carl Stokes, Richard Hatcher, Coleman Young, Marion Berry, Harold Washington, and Chokwe Lubuumba as fearless mayors who courageously challenged the prevailing powers of their time.  Such men and women of courage are needed in the Commonwealth of Virginia to remove Confederate statues.

Despite his privileged upbringing, Maynard Jackson was not scared to “call it like is was”.  Moreover, he used his powers in elective office for all people, by enforcing fairness in contracts entered in to by the City of Atlanta.

The history of the statues is rooted in the “religion” of the Confederacy, which was established to maintain free labor of Africans.  The documents of secession from the United States of America by Confederate states are replete with referrals, “…white supremacy…” of White people, and “racial inferiority” asserted for African people.

Initially, after the American Civil War, White southerners were ashamed to identify with the Confederate loss.  In the 1880’s, the Daughters of the Confederacy began a campaign to insert favorable language of “honor”, “nobility”, and “courage” ascribed to confederate soldiers in school textbooks.  In addition, The Daughters began to raise money to erect statues of Confederate soldiers and generals.

Black leaders, newly elected under Federal Reconstruction, were limited in their response to the resurgence of Confederate symbols, following the removal of federal troops in Southern states, due to the Hayes/Tilden presidential compromise of 1877 (not to mention the ever present threat of death at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan).

Not until Black candidates won a majority on Richmond’s City Council in 1977 did Chuck Richardson, Maynard Jackson’s brother-in-law, call for the removal of the statues.

Some would say: Why challenge pieces of bronze?  Who cares?

If the Confederate statues were merely medal, White nationalists and neo-Nazis would not arm themselves to protect the statues and, in the process, kill Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia last August.

Global citizens from Beijing, China, to Budapest, Hungary, to Burundi, East Africa know the Commonwealth of Virginia because of Charlottesville.  The statues are a  stain on our beloved state.

As the Commonwealth prepares to commemorate it 400th year the Confederate the statues are a constant reminder that elected officials support “The Commonwealth of the Confederacy”, with the tourism motto of, “Virginia is for Haters”.

Where are the voices of valor from Black elected officials—and White ones too?  Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was correct with conviction in saying, “No one can ride your back if it is not bent”.

I have had the honor of being trained by, worked for, and worked with fearless men and women who took on—and won—battles of racial respect in their time.

With such a background, today’s Black elected officials at every level of government in Virginia who refuse to take a stand for removal of Confederate statues, suffer from “The Scared Negro Disease”, and such sickens me.