Click here to download the MP3

Click here to download the MP3

Click here to download the MP3

Click here to download the MP3

Click here to download the MP3

While the tea parties were formulating nationwide, President Obama announced the highlights of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which includes a tax cut for 95% of working families, 70% of tax benefits going to the middle 60% of American workers and $ 3 billion of tax credits that had already been paid out to first time home buyers, just to name a few of the tax breaks aimed at the working class.

The tea parties seemed to be taking place in a parallel universe, because the theme was “Obama is taxing us to death!” Here in Connecticut, the overwhelmingly white crowds continued to ignore the fact that wealthy state residents and corporations are being taxed at a ridiculously low rate, as they did everything short of burning the president in effigy.

Organizers and conservative commentators described the tea parties as a “grassroots” protest. The reality is that Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works, two conservative think tanks run by corporate lobbyists, were actually the principle organizers of the “movement”. Fox News, that vaunted beacon of social justice, was the only network, broadcast or cable, to cover the protests live.

The rich and corporations used a mixture of fed up working class folks and outright racists as pawns to attack the Obama administration and the Democrats. Protesters in Philadelphia held signs which referred to the president as a “shoe shine boy” and called for the lynching of black Democrat members of Congress. Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) told a rabid crowd that the state may secede from the Union. Just in case you didn’t know, secession is an act of treason.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Connecticut Voices for Children released a report on Thursday, which finds that the state’s poor and middle class pay more in taxes than its wealthiest residents. No tea party has been scheduled for the poor. Governor Rell’s office did not return a call seeking comment on the report.

According to witnesses, Shawn ran into the house and was chased by an officer with about a month of experience. The officer then reappeared in the doorway shortly thereafter. The witnesses state that the elder Monroe approached the doorway and was shot through the screen door by the rookie officer, who then ignored the pleas of witnesses to call an ambulance and instead yelled “Officer in distress” into his radio. Witnesses allege that a second officer used a blue latex glove to pick up Monroe’s loaded gun, which he kept in full view on the porch for hunting and protection in the crime infested neighborhood. The officer yelled at witnesses to back away, cursing one who asked what he was doing. The witnesses said that the next time they saw Monroe’s gun, it was laying next to his body. The cops at the scene claim that Monroe pointed his gun at them.

Louisiana State Police, the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department are currently investigating witnesses’ claims of misconduct by the Homer officers. When he was questioned about the fear that black Homer residents say they have of his officers, Homer Police Chief Russell Mills said, “If I see three or four black young men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names. I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested.”

The Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report which revealed that blacks and Latinos were nearly three times as likely as whites to be searched by police, while blacks were four times as likely as whites to be subjected to the use of force. Monroe’s killing occurred while blacks nationwide were still fuming over the New Year’s Day shooting of Oscar Grant, an unarmed black man, by an Oakland transit cop who has been charged with murder. The night before, a 23 year old black male was sitting in his sports utility vehicle in the driveway of his parent’s home, when he was shot and wounded by police officers who claimed that they believed the SUV was “stolen”.

The website Malcolm-Che.com, which tracks police misconduct, has documented a litany of unprovoked police shootings including two incidents where people of color were blasted in their own homes. The site reported on an investigation of the Inglewood Police Department by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, following four fatal shootings by Inglewood officers in four months.Three of the incidents involved unarmed individuals.

The fact is that the cops are not “out of control”.The DOJ report clearly shows that the police are engaging in a calculated pattern of violent and homicidal behavior toward people of color. This is the issue that continues to be overlooked as the mainstream media chases the story of another black man who has fallen victim to trigger happy white cops.

Since John McCain and Sarah Palin went down in flames on November 4, Limbaugh has been the Republicans’ phoenix, rising from the ashes of the GOP’s loss in the 2008 presidential election to ascend to the position of its de facto leader. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) found that out the hard way when he dared to criticize Limbaugh in January for making negative comments about the Republicans’ congressional leadership. Gingrey’s office was subsequently deluged with phone calls from his constituents, supporting Limbaugh. The congressman immediately issued a statement apologizing for his blaspheme and declaring his allegiance to the conservative commentator. He also called in to Limbaugh’s radio show to do some more butt kissing.

Republican National Committee Chairman / hood ornament Michael Steele is currently fighting to keep his position after, among other comical blunders, referring to Limbaugh as an “entertainer” and describing his rhetoric as “incendiary” and “ugly” during a February 28 appearance on D.L. Hughley’s CNN talk show. Steele has since denied that he criticized Limbaugh; someone should inform him about the invention of videotape. After a nationwide manhunt which included the use of bloodhounds and helicopters equipped with infrared beams, the Republicans found another black party member, North Carolina national committeewoman Dr. Ada Fisher, and immediately placed her in front of the national media for the purpose of declaring that Steele should resign from his RNC Chair post.

Limbaugh’s legion of fans proclaim that he represents “Conservative Values”. Let’s take a look at Rush’s value system. During the 2004 presidential primaries, Democratic candidate Al Sharpton pointed out that the administration of former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, one of his opponents, lacked diversity. Limbaugh dismissed Sharpton’s comments by saying that the only people of color in Vermont were the ones “…working in somebody’s garden”. He once told a black caller to “…take the bone out of your nose” and has referred to President Obama and actress Halle Berry, both biracial, as “Halfrican Americans”. Limbaugh played the racist Obama parody song “Barack the Magic Negro” on his show during the 2008 presidential election campaign, and has also used the Dionne Warwick tune “I Know I’ll Never Love This Way Again” before reporting on stories about people suffering from AIDS.

Limbaugh was investigated by the Palm Beach (Florida) County State Attorney’s Office in 2006 after the discovery that he had received 2,000 painkillers prescribed by four doctors in six months at a pharmacy near his Palm Beach mansion. Limbaugh admitted in 2003 on his show to being addicted to painkillers and announced that he would immediately be entering a 30 day drug rehab program. A doctor shopping charge was dropped by prosecutors in exchange for Limbaugh agreeing to pay $30,000 toward the defrayal of investigation costs and entering a 18 month therapy program, which would be supervised by his physician. Limbaugh had ridiculed President Clinton for saying that he didn’t inhale when he smoked weed and declared that all drug addicts should be jailed on his syndicated television show in 1995. He’s currently under fire for suggesting that President Obama’s proposed changes to the health care system will be supported by “the liberal lion Teddy Kennedy” and named the “Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care bill” in “honor” of Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer. Yeah, I agree that Limbaugh personifies the values of the Right.

The current Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers: 8.1%, 651,000 jobs eliminated.  However, among Hispanic workers unemployment is 10.9%, and for black workers is 13.4%.   While the unemployment rate increased .4% for white workers from January to February, the rate was twice that for black workers (.8% increase) and three times that for Hispanic workers (1.2% increase).  Such rates are sure to disproportionately affect urban areas with high concentrations of black and Latino workers, areas where many workers are already isolated.  Connecticut cities, such as Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven, were feeling the crunch before the so-called recession.   These disparities complicate matters, and the continued lack of media attention adds to the economic isolation.

If 8.1% is crisis level unemployment, then where were the alarms last year, February 2008 when black unemployment was 8.4%?  A year ago, Hispanic unemployment was a 6.3%.  Anything over 6% is generally cause for concern – for the general population, that is.  One year ago the white unemployment rate was 4.4%.  Today it is 7.3%.

Rates of unemployment for black and Hispanic workers have consistently been  higher than the average.  Yet, it’s only when white unemployment rates climb over 6 or 7 % that the news media pays significant attention.

Photo credit: burienundressedblog – http://flickr.com/photos/23898496@N08/

Sarahi Yajaira is a Latina lesbian, and she wants you to know. In a world where few gay Latinas make it into the public eye, Sarahi’s poetry puts it clearly: she’s not invisible, and she’s got something to say.

Her shoulders square in a button down shirt and loosely knotted tie, and with a big smile on her face, Sarahi took the stage at the Studio at Billings Forge Friday night before a crowd of about four dozen to give a goodbye performance.

Sarahi, who has lived in Connecticut since 2002, is moving to the Dominican Republic soon to work on her writing. She credits her urge for self-expression and narrative in part to her childhood, where even the few introverts in the family would start telling tales and doing impressions at family gatherings.

Sarahi’s first poems brought the audience back to her life growing up in New York City, the daughter of a Puerto Rican mom and a Dominican dad, and the 33rd (and the favorite, out of 46) granddaughter of her abuela. Of the 36 cousins, sisters and brothers in the U.S., all lived within a few mile radius of each other, attended the same schools, and called one another best friends.

The childhood she describes is characterized by both the magical world created by a neighborhood filled with lots of kids and the rough realities of domestic violence, when the younger generation played impossible baseball games in tight apartment hallways, made their family name infamous at the neighborhood elementary school, and managed to find the humor in a machete-wielding relative in their Pentecostal church. When her grandmother died when she was 15, Sarahi explains in a poem, she came to realize the event meant the death of her family togetherness as she knew it, the scattering of a once close-knit clan. Another poem expressed the overwhelming feeling of first love, albeit soured by an intolerant church community.

Sarahi’s poems about childhood capture the impossible wish to return to it,  despite its hardships. She steers clear of sentimentality, capturing this yearning in a simple dialogue between herself and a cousin she grew up with, walking around the old neighborhood after having not seen each other for six years. Listening, you feel like you too experienced this “beautiful time in life amidst the chaos” and long for it in the same way as the poet.

Poems grappling with her Latina lesbian identity shed light on the impossible expectations and boundaries of society where Latina woman who are gay are too often invisible. She explained this contradiction in the line, “You have broken the first of the Latina commandments / You should never love your women more than your men.”

Sarahi’s poetry is full of humor, emotional clarity, and vivid scenes anchored in simple imagery – like her grandmother’s hair covered in coconut oil and her first girlfriend’s in a dress at church. Her writing is soon to be published in a collection of Latina Dominican poets, and she aims to have a book published by the end of the year.

Sarahi started her performance by saying that everything is a work in progress, and that nothing is set in stone, a fitting mantra for someone about to take a journey. Hartford will miss Sarahi’s voice, but her experiences in the Dominican Republic will surely leave her with more stories to tell.

If you want to learn more about the Studio at Billings Forge and the events there, curated by Luis Cotto, join the Facebook group. The next event will be Albert Rivera’s quartet on Friday, Jan. 30. The Studio is located in Frog Hollow in Hartford; Broad Street between Capitol and Russ.