Letters to the Editor.

Kudos to June Jordan 

How I loved June Jordan's wonderful article "The Invisible People: An Unsolicited Report on Black Rage" (March issue) about dispossessed black rage!

I know well the feeling that no matter what you do, your voice will not be heard. However, little by little, we are struggling to extend the circle of consciousness. My group, United Citizens for Progressive Action, is working to get out the shocking evidence of massive race-based voter disenfranchisement in Tennessee. Everything that happened in Florida happened here. So many people were disenfranchised--the vast majority of whom were African American or poor--that it is actually possible that the electoral vote of Tennessee was turned. Yet this issue has received no media coverage at all, outside of the black press. Please visit our website at: http://www.nashvilleinsanity.com/NP breakingnews.html and spread the word!

Catherine Danielson Nashville, Tennessee

I would like to thank June Jordan for her article in the March issue. I hope more and more of us keep on expressing our rage, solicited or not. I wholeheartedly agree with her, and would like to respond with two points.

One: She asks, "Where is there record of any major national newspaper or TV channel attempting ... to find out what black people were thinking, and why?" Sadly, I know of none in the mainstream, and that is why alternative media deserve our support now more than ever.

Two: I must respond to Bernice Johnson Reagon's quote, "We didn't have time for Ralph Nader or anyone like that." I joined the Green Party last year precisely because the Democrats had already completely betrayed people of color. If black and brown folks had joined together with the party whose platform supported their issues, then Nader could have received 20-30 percent or more of the vote, assuring federal funding for next time and lighting one hell of a fire under the butts of the white supremacists in either major party.

We need to become as united as they are. Right now, we are allowing ourselves to be fatally divided.

Not that I don't believe U.S. electoral politics are systematically and fundamentally flawed or that Nader didn't have some problems as a candidate. But Gore didn't?!

Disenfranchised groups can make a huge difference by ending our support of the status-quo, two-party system that disenfranchises us and the candidates who betray us. I think we should consider alternatives like the Green Party very seriously in future elections. Together, we can truly make a difference.

Valerie Opielski Brooklyn, New York 

I would not diminish June Jordan's anger if I could, and 84 percent voter turnout is a very beautiful goal. But I'll believe it when I see it.

Jordan talks with exceptionally gifted fellow artists. I just talk with ordinary folks, some of whom vote and some not, and many of whom, voters or not, doubt that it makes a difference. Maybe in some respects they're wrong, but in a way I think the "ill-informed" working people have found a truth the educated electorate has refused to see.

After all, as Jordan herself pointed out, the media did not cover the illegal disenfranchisement of thousands of voters, and Al Gore did not give a damn. The majority of the Supreme Court flouted the law to secure the outcome it wanted. And of all the senators who used to appear principled, there was not one to sign the complaint brought by the Black Caucus--not Sarbanes or Mikulski, not Feingold, or Wellstone. Not one.

The only good thing to come out of this election is the clear demonstration that the rot is everywhere. Of course, that is an ugly and disillusioning truth, but it is a truth. Seize it and use it! Don't just sign up voters and lead them like sheep to support candidates who don't support them. Sign up voters and teach them how issues relate to real life. Show them how to follow voting records and encourage them to raise hell with incumbents who sell out.

Katharine W. Rylaarsdam Baltimore, Maryland

June Jordan sounds more confused than enraged.

First, we hear in her article that 90 percent of blacks voted for Gore, then we hear that Gore is a white supremacist, then we hear that black voters don't have time for Nader. Well, it seems that they have time to vote for a white supremacist. Finally, she takes a pot shot at the American left, the only group that acknowledges that class is the basis for political organizing, not the divide-and-conquer identity politics of the woman's movement or the black civil rights movement.

The problem with the American political system is that it is rigged to perpetuate the status quo and to keep the entrenched power in place. Perhaps we can arrange for international observers to be present for the next "election."

Dave Toorchen Columbus, Ohio

Distracted Americans

"If Campaign 2000 offered America a remarkably clear choice of direction, why couldn't most working Americans be bothered to vote?" asks John Nichols in his review of Robert Borosage and Roger Hickey's book, The Next Agenda: Blueprint for a New Progressive Movement (March issue). While I concur with Nichols that neither Gore nor Bush offered Americans a rousing choice (as a Green, I proudly voted and campaigned for Nader), Nichols may actually "misread the American people as grievously as did the Democrats," to turn his words on him.

There are two common and equally mistaken ways in which liberals and progressives view American citizens. On the one hand, many comfortable liberals privately if not publicly view most citizens as stupid, ignorant, bigoted, and consequently easily duped by conservatives. On the other hand, many progressives--like Nichols, Joel Rogers, Jim Hightower, and Michael Moore--implicitly or explicitly paint Americans as smart, informed, critical, and consequently not easily duped by conservatives.

Such liberals and progressives might be right about different portions of the American public, or both partially right about the same public; they may also both misrepresent many American citizens. Rather than stupid and duped, or smart and critical, it might be more accurate to describe most Americans as distracted. I suspect, contrary to Nichols's view, that most Campaign 2000 non-voters chose to stay at home because of habits of inattention, not because they assessed, in an informed, reasoned manner, that there was no clear choice. When otherwise distracted Americans do pay attention, they are--as New Democrats like Clinton and Gore have found--more likely to identify with so-called moderate or independent politicians than with bigoted ones, and not out of reasoned choice but because "moderate" and "independent" sound reasonable to the uninformed.

The question progressives such as Nichols must ask themselves again and again is why, if American citizens are so smart, did just 3 percent of them vote for Nader? The common answers--lack of media coverage, and the two-party monopoly--don't suffice. The unpalatable point for progressives is that many, if not most, nonvoters didn't care to learn more about Nader because they were too busy with their distractions, from Survivor to Home Improvement to Internet porn. This is both a sad statement and a challenge: Let us, as progressives, not romanticize American citizens, but instead work to break through their distractions.

Paul Lachelier Somerville, Massachusetts

You Sickos!

What's the story with the photo on page 20 of the March issue showing a man with his fingers up someone's ass? Does the word "sick" mean anything to you?

How about the phrases "designed to offend 99 percent of your readers," or "grist for the mill of your enemies on the right."

Bob La Follette must be turning in his grave.

Bennett Muraskin Morris Plains, New Jersey 

The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive. All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness. Letters may be e-mailed to: [e-mail]. Please include your city and state.