Jul 23

Written by:
7/23/2008 8:39 PM 

Color is defining. It let slavers get away with dehumanizing Africans. It was Jesse Jackson’s coalition cry. Purple was Alice Walker’s metaphor for love. And it is color, bright, vibrant, color that may have jump-started the Green Party. McKinney and Clemente embody the spirit of those Americans who cannot afford to play-act in politics, those for whom the ten key values mean not choice but survival.

Americans of color could “jump-start” the Green Party because they have survived more oppression than the US police state will ever be able to visit on the comfortable.  In surviving they have become brothers and sisters. Survivors, they can teach “us” a few things.

Menwomen, we have become divided, men from women by power, men from men by money, and women from women by Hillary. Some of that is true, but the whole truth is that cars and couch potato electronics have fragmented old-fashioned towns into morsels readily digested by corporate greed. Fragmented, we have yielded control to the likes of Clear Channel. And their control cannot be matched by any coalition of the likes of Common Cause. An example of this sort is AIPAC ‘s ability to divide progressives on the knife edge of oil-powered Zionism. And so, menwomen, divided “we” bicker while the brothers and sisters watch.

Ten key values or no, the Greens cannot soon be of any assistance to Americans of color. But, McKinney and Clemente’s nomination could soon help the Greens. The voices of these women may help our ever-hopeful political party come to understand that the way out of oppression is not from couch to ballot box but instead is the sum of paths created by welding back together fragmented American communities. And that welding, strangely enough, is done by applying the ten key values to ourselves.