America’s New Racial Boogieman-An Interview w/ Rosa Clemente
by Davey D
Listen to this Breakdown FM Interview w/ Rosa Clemente
http://odeo.com/episodes/24390751-Rosa-Clemente-The-nation-s-new-Boogieman
We sat down with former Green Party Vice Presidential candidate Rosa Clemente to break bread about a number of issues. First and foremost we wanted to talk about the current speaking tour she is on that addresses the issue of America being a post racial society in the aftermath of the election of President Obama.
Rosa gives an in depth breakdown about this notion and concludes that racism is alive and well and may in fact if the patterns of history hold true, things may get progressively worse because of the economic downturn.
Rosa then talked about how the racism conversation needs to be extended beyond the traditional ‘Black and White paradigm. She says with 40 million Brown and Afro Latinos in this country, that we simply can not ignore the challenges they face. Some issues overlap while others like ICE raids and immigration detention centers seem to specifically target folks in Brown communities.
She expounded upon this and talked about how America’s new Racial Boogieman is Brown in particular Mexicano. She also acknowledged that racism amongst Black folks hasn’t stopped as evidence by the rash of questionable police shootings from Oscar Grant in Oakland to Adolph Grimes in New Orleans
We talked to Rosa about her thoughts around President Obama and US boycotting the Durban Conference on Racism in Geneva because of strong objections by the Isreali lobby AIPAC. She shared with us her experience of attending the first Durban Conference on racism in South Africa and what it was like to see Colin Powell lead the US delegation out the conference when the body declared slavery was a crime to humanity.
Rosa talked about how she was glad that president Obama was honest and upfront about his reasons for boycotting the conference. She said now we all know that he is powerless when it comes to standing up to Isreal which obviously control much of his agenda.
She noted that he has taken great strides to de-racialize all issues and that in many ways its easier for him to not talk about problems confronted by Black men.
We talked to Rosa about her experience in running for Vice President and what lessons she learned and what challenges she faced. She noted that she will not be leaving electoral politics and will keep her options open to run for another office down the road.
She talked about the current crises we are facing including not having Single-payer health-care and not seeing the foreclosure crises be adequately addressed. She talked about the 14 Tent cities around the country and how that was inexcusable for a country that has so many resources.
She talked about the opportunities and challenges facing the Green Party and what she would like to see happen for them in the future. She says with the Republican Party imploding and the democrats behaving more and more moderate the Greens have an opportunity to fill a big void for people yearning for more progressive politics.
We concluded by talking in great detail about the work she is doing with Amnesty International around the issue of Immigration and Detention. She talked about all the new policies, resources and laws being put in place to target those who fit the description of being undocumented. She talked about how many US born citizens are likely to be caught up in sweeps and other types of detaining procedures and may even be connected and accused of helping others come into the country ‘illegally’.
We ended our convo with Rosa talking about the role Hip Hop organizations have been playing in the political arena.
Rosa was very thorough and insightful in this must hear interview.
Listen to this Breakdown FM Interview w/ Rosa Clemente
http://odeo.com/episodes/24390751-Rosa-Clemente-The-nation-s-new-Boogieman