The State of the Black Union Symposium
March 1, 2005
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RUSH: Alright! "Taking more personality responsibility for individual health and the well-being of the African-American community emerged as a lead strategery Saturday at the sixth annual State of the Black Union symposium." It was the presented by PBS television talk show host Tavis Smiley. "The all-day forum focused on how to improve health among blacks, how to create a national African-American contract to address political, economic, health, and other concerns. Also tuning in was a live C-SPAN audience which showed lots of empty seats," folks. Empty seats! There were a lot of blacks there disguised as empty seats at this symposium. We happen to have sound bites. We happen to have audio from this. This was in Lithonia, Georgia, and it's the sixth annual State of the Black Union symposium. The panelists included Princeton professor Cornell West, Nation of Islam minister Calypso Louie, and the Reverend Sharpton. The agenda was an African-American contract on national goals. Here's a portion of the Reverend Sharpton's remarks.
SHARPTON: My problem is when we have people raised up who are totally alien to any accountability to our community, that are imposed upon us and then supposedly that becomes a new view. So we must teach generationally that, yeah, we can be proud of a Colin Powell getting to where he got but there wouldn't have been a Colin Powell if there wasn't an Adam Clayton Powell. And there wouldn't have been Condoleezza Rice if it wasn't for those four girls in Birmingham. Bush picked fruit off of trees that we planted and grew. He didn't plant those trees. So we need to get that straight.
RUSH: This is just comical! (Gaffaws.) This is simply comical! They are upset at their own progress! And basically what he's saying is black leaders like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice are imposed on the black community, and therefore they don't count. Bush picked from the fruit of the trees that Sharpton planted. He hasn't developed his own -- what do we call it? He hasn't developed his own plantation? The liberals have their own black plantation, so it's a white plantation where blacks are and if you grow up on the liberal plantation you're cool, you're fine, but if you didn't grow up on that plantation and you get somewhere, you're illegitimate, and you are being forced on the Reverend Sharpton and his community.
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RUSH: We go back now with audio sound bites from the Black State of the Union symposium, or, no, it's the State of the Black Union symposium, pardon me. Calypso Louie was also on the panel. We have some audio sound bites from Calypso Louie. Here is a portion of his remarks. He's upset at the loss of "testicular fortitude" among American blacks.
CALYPSO LOUIE: Here's what I see. Respectfully. Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand," but power won't even concede to a demand if the demand is coming from a weak constituency that looks like they've lost their testicular for·tee·tude.
RUSH: Now, ladies and gentlemen, don't ask me what he's talking about here. I have no clue. I can only make a guess, but if I had to guess, I'd say that he's upset with the Democratic Party. Is that what he's upset about? He certainly wouldn't be insulting the attendees at the symposium, would he, for having lost...? That's who he's insulting? He's insulting civil rights groups? He's challenging civil rights groups in the whole black community for having lost their testicular fortitude? For those of you in Rio Linda, uh... I realize this is confusing for you. Let's see, testicular fortitude. Ummm... Just think guts. That's as close as I'm going to get here. They've lost their guts. They have no guts. Well, I just want to keep the people in Rio Linda, I love 'em. They've been part of this audience since this radio show started in 1984 in Sacramento, and you have to be real careful because sometimes you can leave them behind, and I never, ever want to do that.
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RUSH: Let me grab another audio sound bite here from Calypso Louie. This is from the State of the Black Union symposium in Georgia on Saturday. Another portion of Calypso Louie's remarks.
CALYPSO LOUIE: When you go to the shopping mall, you see the mannequin. (cheers) The mannequin can't talk! (cheers) The mannequin can't walk! (cheers) We got black people in power (cheers) but they don't have power. (applause) We have black people with money that we think are giants, but in the company their white counterparts (cheers), they are midgets. (wild cheers, applause) Now if we want to get where we want to go, we can't focus on the house that has rejected us and our fathers for 400 years. (applause) We have to now focus on ourselves.
RUSH: This is just incredible. These people have been fighting the same battle, Calypso Louie, and they're losing their shirts out there. It's just amazing to hear this. I mean here in the face of progress and economic advancement, they want to deny it and say it's artificial and phony and it doesn't really exist, and being cheered on out there, it's amazing. The generations of brainwashing that go on, that has gone on is tragic. Here's Thomas, Tallahassee, Florida. Welcome to the program, sir.
RUSH: Well, I'm glad you made it.
CALLER: Okay. Listen, I'm not a Farrakhan apologist. I am a conservative Republican. One thing I just want to illuminate, he was criticizing black people in general, but, see, you've gotta understand he can't just come out and say that. The basic core of his message has always been basically -- to African-Americans, black Americans -- to reclaim your dignity, stop doing things that tear yourselves down, pull up your pants, stop glorifying criminality, use self-discipline, emphasize education -- but unfortunately his message is always watered down by his alliance with black liberal causes, you see? You know, that's sort of his base. You know, and he, can't come out and simply say, "Well, look, NAACP, get out of the past, okay? Stop chasing ambulances." You can't quite come out and say that. And so he kind of uses all these flowery terms, which in effect is a slap in the face. Now, of course, he always turns back to the same rhetoric of the establishment this, and bash Bush and this and that, whatever.
RUSH: Yeah, I know. And I hate to be rude here, I'm running out of time here, but it is, it's the same rhetoric I've been hearing from Calypso Louie for 16 or 20 years. They've got to modify this. There have been changes out there, and if he doesn't want to recognize it, he's just a dinosaur. They all are in his club.
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RUSH: Let's see. The president of Merrill Lynch is black; the president of Time Warner AOL is black; the president of American Express is black -- and Calypso Louie's posse is black. What's the complaint?
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), or any other grouping. Not that some people's lives arent harder...not that their aren't bullys and bigots out there that need to be controlled, but how long do we use those things as reasons not to fit in and succeed?
Some are successful, some aren't. Kinda like Black Americans, White Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans...But it's funny how only Black Americans who aren't successful are the FACE of Black America.

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