Essay 152

Presenting a busy weekend with MultiCultClassics Minutes…

• The United States Postal Service unveiled a series of postage stamps to commemorate Hispanic Heritage month. The “Let’s Dance: Bailemos!” series displays a variety of Latin dance styles, including merengue, salsa and mambo. Apparently, the Memín Pinguín breakdancing stamp did not make the final cut.

• Forget racial profiling. A group in Ohio has made accusations of values profiling. Operation Keepsake, an abstinence program that works with over 130 Ohio schools, used the term in response to the state Department of Health nixing conservative writer Maggie Gallagher as the speaker at an abstinence conference next month. Although Gallagher has been a strong proponent of abstinence, she also has strong opinions about gay issues — and those opinions allegedly made her too controversial for members of the state Department of Health. Which means Operation Keepsake must abstain from oratory intercourse with Gallagher for now.

• In a People magazine interview, Lil’ Kim spoke about her impending incarceration. The recording artist expects to maintain a certain level of glamour in the slammer. “They have makeup in there, gel for your hair, they have all kinds of stuff,” Lil’ Kim said. Hair gel? Maybe like the hair gel in “Something About Mary.”

• Friends of the Border Patrol, a bunch of Minuteman wannabes in California, planned to kick off their volunteer services — until a group of protesters overwhelmed and outnumbered them. A scuffle ensued, and Friends of the Border Patrol decided not to head for the border. Earlier in the week, Friends of the Border Patrol had been hassled by 30 jeering haters and a mariachi band. Hope the group wasn’t seeking to generate credibility and respect for their unofficial authority.

• Employees at a New York City co-op were ordered by management to only speak English at work. A letter stated, “You were instructed that all dialogue in public spaces was to be held in English…After lengthy discussion, management recommended you enroll yourself in ‘English as a second language’ classes as a condition of your employment.” Great suggestion. Then the workers will have no problem declaring, “This shitty job sucks big time.”

• Like some kind of reverse Rodney King incident, President Bush is taking a serious beating from a number of Black folks. The first major blow was delivered when rapper Kanye West declared on live TV, “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.” Next, Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx supported West by adding, “I feel that as the president of the United States, you are the father, and all Americans are your family. In this situation, George Bush didn’t view us as his family. To show up four or five days later, that’s no way to treat your family. If something happened to my family in Des Moines where I grew up, I would be there right away, not days later.” Senator Barack Obama slipped in a few more jabs during a Harvard Law School speech. “In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, I think it’s important that we don’t just assume that George Bush is lying when he says he’s finally been awakened to the fact that there is poverty and racism in our midst,” Obama stated. “It’s tempting to do so, especially when he decides to put Karl Rove in charge of reconstruction…We should trust although we should verify…We should actively reach out to [Bush] and say, ‘Mr. President, we believe, in fact, that those differences were as disturbing to you as they were disturbing to us.’” Jesse Jackson observed, “It’s a hurricane for the poor and a windfall for the rich.” Even Bill Clinton, the unofficial first Black president, got into the act. “You can’t have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle-class people up, and when you tell people to go do something they don’t have the means to do, you’re going to leave the poor out,” said Clinton. “This is a matter of public policy…And whether it’s race-based or not, if you give your tax cuts to the rich and hope everything works out all right, and poverty goes up and it disproportionately affects Black and Brown people, that’s a consequence of the action made.” Before Hurricane Katrina hit, Harry Belafonte sparked controversy by relating the Bush administration to Hitler. Somebody needs to get a mic in Belafonte’s face pronto.