Author Archives: Margaret Kimberley

Before August 16, 2012, the town of Marikana was little known outside of South Africa. On that day it entered the lexicon as a place of infamy where 34 striking platinum miners were shot dead by police. The massacre at Marikana left no doubt that black South Africans had been sold out by the African National Congress and its leaders, including Nelson Mandela. Continue reading →

Americans should take a long look in the mirror before criticizing other nations for human rights abuses. The law enforcement system in the United States ranks among the worst in the world in the cruel treatment meted out to its citizens. Even children in this country are not safe if they are black and unlucky enough to interact with the police. Of all the various ethnic and national groups in the United States, only black people have to worry that their child may be pushed through a glass window by officers of the law. Continue reading →

On May 13, 1985, the mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, allowed a lynch mob comprised of the police and fire departments to kill eleven black people, including five children. He also allowed them to burn 61 houses to the ground which left more than 200 people homeless. Wilson Goode was that city’s first black mayor but being mayor was not his top priority. More than anything else he wanted to be a good negro and earn a stamp of approval from white people. Therein lies a cautionary tale which we would do well to remember today. Continue reading →

Bring back our girls. The message is a simple one that resonates with millions of people around the world. Those four words were first seen in a now famous twitter hashtag in the aftermath of the kidnapping of 280 teenagers from a school in Chibok, Nigeria on April 14, 2014. The Boko Haram group which is fighting that country’s government admits to holding the girls captive. Continue reading →

Too many Americans love to boast that the United States is a democracy. That idea is accepted uncritically and celebrated as proof of this country’s superiority. Every public activity and event is an opportunity for the false narrative to be repeated and indulged. Events as disparate as elections, holiday celebrations, advertisements, school commencements and religious worship are all used to propagandize and create false belief about the degree of power the average citizen has vis-a-vis their government. Continue reading →

In the United States the blindfolded figure representing justice is a sham. Not only can she see but she also has her thumb firmly on the scales that she holds for dramatic effect. All evidence points to the fact that justice in this country is far from blind. She sees skin color quite clearly and makes sure that anyone of a darker hue is placed under lock and key for any and every reason. Continue reading →

The United States continues to be the worst and most persistent aggressor on the planet in large part because it has paid no price for its crimes. Our government has acted with complete impunity even as it has ravaged countries as disparate as Iraq, Haiti, and Libya with military force and occupations. It has supported proxies to destabilize an elected government in Venezuela and thwart the will of the people in that country. It has ruined the Iranian economy with harsh sanctions and now seeks to do the same with Russia. America has no shame in asserting its right to intervene anywhere it chooses to on the planet, and to punish any other nation with a mistaken belief that it will be allowed to act in its best interests. Continue reading →

In nations around the world, thousands of people will demonstrate in anger if the police do harm to a citizen. Not so in the United States. In this country a uniform provides a license to maim and to kill. American police routinely beat, Taser and shoot people and no one even knows how often these assaults take place. The same government which tells us how many times police are shot doesn’t keep statistics on how often the rest of us may become victims. An estimate from 2011 indicates that American police shot 1,100 people, killing 607 of them. Continue reading →

Michael Dunn may be an easily identifiable outlier, but America clearly has a serious gun fixation and it results in the deaths of 11,000 people every year. Michael Dunn is the Jacksonville, Florida, man who shot Jordan Davis to death in the so-called “loud music” case. It should have been called the “white person shoots black person just because” case. Continue reading →

The Constitution requires the president to “ . . . from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union. . . .” Regardless of what the framers of the constitution intended, this event has devolved into empty theatrics, worthless punditry and outright lies. Continue reading →

In 1971, eight anti-war activists calling themselves the Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI plotted to break into an FBI field office located in Media, Pennsylvania. They knew that the government was conducting a massive spying effort against American citizens and they were determined to find and publicly present their evidence. Continue reading →

Nelson Mandela’s passing provides an important and rare opportunity for discussion of some very serious issues. We should not fear principled critique of people we admire but instead we have been treated to maudlin self-indulgence, useless idol worship and wrongheaded defense of Mandela’s memory. Continue reading →

I am feeling very sad right now. I don’t feel sad because Nelson Mandela died last Thursday. After all he was 95 and had been ill for some time. Of course if he were my father or grandfather I would not be so sanguine, but ultimately we all have to die and preferably in peace without physical suffering. Continue reading →

Iran has never invaded or occupied another nation, it hasn’t killed civilians with drones, it never had any colonies, nor did it enslave millions of people or keep a huge portion of its population behind bars. Its political system is run by a class of conservative clerics and can’t be called democratic in the classic sense. Then again, the same can be said for countries who only choose leadership from among those given a stamp of approval by the wealthiest 1%. Despite these attributes, Iran is demonized by forces in the West who want that nation to exist only as a vassal state. Continue reading →

A line in a poem says “to err is human, to forgive divine.” We hear constant exhortations to forgive and forget and let bygones be bygones. Most religions teach forgiveness as a major tenet. Literature, old adages and religious beliefs may seem harmless, but behaving as if forgiveness is an unalloyed good can have dangerous consequences, especially for black people. Continue reading →

The federal and state governments operate under a system which is of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. Ordinary governmental functions which could easily be carried out with public money are instead privatized, depriving the public sector of revenue and jobs and making the neediest citizens unnecessarily dependent on the private sector. Governmental largesse on behalf of big business is focused primarily on poor people, the group most at the mercy of the system. Corporations collect child support payments and then imprison the poor people who can’t pay. While imprisoned, another corporation provides what passes for medical care. The crime is a perfect one. Continue reading →

Black Americans are living in a time of utter insanity. They are getting poorer; they have a good chance of being incarcerated; the blue collar and government jobs they depended on for living wages are disappearing, and public education as we know it may cease to exist. Every single avenue they have historically used to improve their lot in life is less and less secure. In addition to all of these issues, the president of the United States looks like them and creates confusion so deep and so dangerous that many can’t even bring themselves to acknowledge their ever worsening plight. Continue reading →

“Does al Shabab Pose a Threat on American Soil?” So read a headline in the New York Times’ blog, Room for Debate. Despite its name, Room for Debate rarely shows any true differences of opinion on whatever issue of the day is considered significant to the Times’ editors. None of the supposed debaters on this topic actually addressed the central issue of al-Shabaab’s existence and what it says about the United States behavior around the world. A better question would be why the United States turned Somalia into a ruin and why does it keep killing people there. Continue reading →

On May 13, 1985, the mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, allowed a lynch mob comprised of the police and fire departments to kill eleven black people, including five children. He also allowed them to burn 61 houses to the ground which left more than 200 people homeless. Wilson Goode was that city’s first black mayor but being mayor was not his top priority. More than anything else he wanted to be a good negro and earn a stamp of approval from white people. Therein lies a cautionary tale which we would do well to remember today. Continue reading →

The United States is the clear loser in the battle to destroy the Syrian government. For the past two weeks, the president and the secretary of state have publicly said that a military attack on Syria was imminent. They kept up the steady drumbeat of claims that the Syrian government committed atrocities against civilians and they tried to round up support for military action both in the American Congress and around the world. Now the president has announced that he is postponing a congressional vote and sending John Kerry off to Russia to talk to the Russians who so shrewdly stopped them in their tracks. Continue reading →

If Barack Obama’s ascendance to the Oval Office was worth a fraction of the importance which has been claimed, the president would do something to stop the human catastrophe of mass incarceration and the destruction it has wrought on black Americans. Instead he has officially given it his blessing. In a stunning decision, the Obama administration has made it quite clear where it stands. It stands with making certain that the president spends his two terms in office pleasing white people at the expense of black people. Continue reading →

There is much to be said about the verdict which found George Zimmerman not guilty in the killing of Trayvon Martin but one thing is clear: Racism is so deeply embedded in the white American consciousness that significant numbers of white people coalesced in support of Zimmerman without having to openly say so. Continue reading →

Centuries of oppression have made black people particularly susceptible to the tempting siren song which comes with the image of black success. It is harmless to want a black person to win some coveted acclaim like a Pulitzer prize or even an Oscar, but quite another to be rendered stupid by the sight. Our history teaches us that we must be wary lest we be carried away by emotion that is without substance. Continue reading →

No one likes a bully and no one likes a liar. The United States government is surely both because other nations have no problem openly treating it with the disdain it deserves. The saga of Edward Snowden provides the latest proof of the disrespect that America has brought upon itself. Its tantrums and rants mean little to anyone outside of the USA bubble. Continue reading →

Edward Snowden has been called a traitor, a narcissist, a loser and a danger to national security. Reporters have questioned whether he was friendly enough to his neighbors or why he made a good salary despite having just a GED. He has even been criticized for leaving the military after he broke his legs. His whereabouts are unknown because the federal government is preparing to file charges against him. Continue reading →