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INTRODUCTION
In the History of, Black Politics all we seem to have left is deracialization. It Is this writers belief that we as black men have made it through the hardiest of time possible, historically speaking. In this paper I will discuss the black politics and deracialization starting with: Willie L. Brown Jr. And his triumphs over thirty-one years in a political office. Then I will discuss Colin Powell and his position as a General in United States Military. Next I will discuss O.J. Simpson, his trial and Nicole Simpson. I feel it is necessary to discuss both people because I feel this would be a direct example of deracialization. And last in this paper you will find the Million Man March, and my limited research Rev. Louis Faracon and his dealings with the Million Man March. In Conclusion it is my hope for my reader to understand the phenomena that has occurred in deracialization in 1995.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY Willie L. Brown Jr.: Mr. Brown was elected in 1964, and was born March 20, 1934, in Mineola, Texas, and currently lives in San Francisco with his wife Blanche Vitero and three children, and his religion is Methodist. He was in the National Guard Reserves from 1955-1958, he also has a B.A. from San Francisco State University and also attended Hastings College of Law. Browns roots are modest. An African American youth who had shined shoes in Mineola, Texas, he left the Lone Star State to follow a colorful uncle to San Francisco and never looked back. He went to college at San Francisco State and earned a law degree at Hastings. Brown was a man who seemed destined for big things from the moment he walked onto the Assembly floor as a Freshman legislator in 1965. He was a flamboyant, left-leaning, angry-talking young street lawyer who had formed a homegrown liberal political organization with the Burton brothers (Philip and John) and George Moscone, the son of a local fisherman. Brown had an opinion on everything and would voice it to anyone who would listen. One of his first votes was against the re-election of the legendary Jesse Unruh as speaker. But Unruh tolerated Brown, perhaps because both were raised dirt poor in Texas, both emigrated to California after World War II and both began their political careers as rabble-rousers. Its a good thing you arent white, Unruh remarked to Brown one day after the latter had made an especially effective floor speech early in his career. Whys that? Brown asked. Because if you were, youd own the place, Unruh replied. (California Political Almanac 1995-1996 Fourth Edition, Introduction By Dan Walters, pg. 204-205, 208 R 328.794 C15 35, 1995) Willie Lewis Brown Jr. Engineered what may be remembered as the coup of his legislative career at the start of his 16th and final term in the California Assembly, overcoming long odds - and, some argue, abusing his powers and tarnishing the institution - to win re-election as speaker. It was a display alternately described as dazzling in its exhibition of parliamentary mastery and dastardly in its use of raw political force. In either case, the unprecedented eighth term as speaker that Brown won in the early morning hours of January 24, 1995, added another entertaining chapter to his extraordinary personal biography. What remains to be seen is what the audacious move means for his legacy - a subject of more than passing interest to Brown himself - as he heads toward a 1996 term limit in the lower house. Brown remains the ranking state legislator in seniority. For years, he has been the most powerful Assembly member, and certainly he continues to be the most interesting - someone who engenders strong loyalty, fear and loathing in equal proportions. Rising from the humblest of orgins. Brown has held center court in the California state Capitol for the most of his career and for more than 14 years as Mr. Speaker, breaking all records for longevity and functioning as one of the nations more influential African American political figures. A fiery orator and a brilliant strategist, Brown has an explosive temper and an equally sharp, urbane wit. But he has left many, even those who admire him, wondering if he has any core beliefs other than holding power and enjoying to the hilt all that comes with it. Brown, despite his insistence during the 1995 speakership battle that the institution was first in his mind, has often behaved as if all that counted was Willie Brown. His district has almost been an afterthought in his political career, although the Supreme Courts reapportionment of his district changes his personal constituency dramatically for the 1992 elections. Brown once represented the more affluent western and northern sections of San Francisco, but reapportionment divided the city into western and eastern districts and Brown opted for the eastern one, a much poorer area that also includes many of the citys African American and Latino residents. It made no difference in terms of Browns own re-election in 1992 or 1994. The entire city is so overwhelmingly Democratic that all Brown has needed to do is file his re-election papers every two years. And his influence goes far beyond routine ballot-box matches. Former San Francisco Supervisor Terry Francois put it this way a few years ago: He (Brown) engenders fear like you wouldnt believe. I have just become enthralled at the way he wields power. I dont know a politician in San Francisco that dares take him on. Brown is a star, and not just in San Francisco and the tight little world of Sacramento politics. He was, for example, the Rev. Jesse Jacksons national campaign chairman in 1988. In 1994, Brown took a trial run at expanding his stardom in another direction: into the world of broadcasting. He hosted a half-hour daily talk show on a Sacramento TV station. The show pulled disappointing ratings and ended after a 13-week run, but the genre remains an option for him. (California Political Almanac 1995 - 1996 Fourth Edition, Introduction By Dan Walters, R 328,794 C15 35 1995, pg. 203 - 204) Whether Brown is remembered for the power play or for the creation of a more fairly structured house remains to be seen. Even before the divisive 1995 speakership battle, Browns critics argued that he has rarely exercised his talents on behalf of substantive policy issues and has, instead, presided over a decline both in the performance and the moral atmosphere of the Legislature. He has been accused of shaking down special interests for millions of dollars in campaign funds, of presiding over a blantly partisan reapportionment of legislative districts in 1982 and of being too consumed with the inside game. After winning the speakership, Brown took the vast inherent powers of the office and shaped them into a personal tool, controlling the activity of the house with his authority over committee assignments and resource allocation. But Brown argues that he made life easier for lawmakers of both parties, and he takes credit for rounding up votes for the budgets of Republican governors - budgets ultimately passed with more Democratic support than Republican. Outside the confines of the Capitol, Brown is a controversial figure. Republicans routinely use Brown as a tool to stir up supporters and to raise money, a fact he acknowledged during the 1995 speakership fight. All your lives youve been running to get elected to public office on the theory that you would somehow vanquish Willie Brown - the hated speaker, the demon speaker, he said in a floor speech aimed at Republicans. No matter how you desperately attempt to rewrite history, for 14 years I have carried the of speaker of this house, and I many cases I have distinguished this house by virtue of it. Given his complete immersion in the aura and power of the speakeship, it was not surprising that Brown took it very personally when the voters in November 1990 passed Proposition 140, imposing term limits on legislators and forcing them to cut their staffs. Voter antipathy toward the Legislature was aimed, in part, at Brown - and he knew it. In the wake of proposition 140, Brown bitterly lashed out at the press, calling reporters dispicable and moving their desks from the side of the Assembly chambers to the rear. Brown viewed passage of term limits as an image problem and not as the result of a more deeply seated institutional malsise. (California Political Almanac 1995 - 1996 Fourth Edition, Introduction By Dan Walters, R 328.794 C15 35 1995, pg. 207) Willie Brown has since then left office of speaker of the house, and is now seeking to be the mayor of San Francisco. Theres a very undefined vision of where Willie Brown will take the city of San Francisco. It is my gathering from the news articles that I have read that Frank Jordan has not done very much for San Francisco addressing the issues, such as the homelessness, economic standing, human treatment, inner youth city programs, and social illnesses. The Sacramento Bee gives great success to Willie Brown, it says that the voters are in support of his leadership. Willie Brown has thirty-one years under his belt and he has never lost and never failed to achieve his goals for the passing of laws, and making laws for rehabilitation. The polls have Willie Brown leading 27 points over Jordan. Several analysis say that they believe the margin is actually normal, but few if any see a real Jordan serge yet. The indications are that Brown is safely ahead, said San Francisco pollster David Blinder. At this point Browns big vulnerability comes from within potential complacency among his supporters, people potentially perceiving him as thinking the election is over when its not. (Sacramento Bee, December 3, 1995, By Brad Hayward, A24) Colin Luther Powell: New York City, Apr. 5, 1937, was appointed assistant to the president for national security affairs in 1987 and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989, the first African American to fill either post. A career army officer, Powell was commissioned in 1958 after graduating from New York's City College, where he was enrolled in the R.O.T.C. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam (1962-63; 1968-69) and held executive posts under five presidents--in OMB (the Office of Management and Budget) and the departments of Energy and Defense--while advancing through grades to the rank of general. Colin Powell (1937- ), American Army general and chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, helped create the strategy that led to the defeat of Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. In the summer of 1958 Colin Powell was in R.O.T.C. at Fort Benning, Georgia. He arrived at in June of his twenty-first year was a meritocracy, a place where performances counted more than pedigree or race - and if the Army itself was more and more becoming a meritocray in larger ways - off base in western Georgia in 1958 for a young black officer was another story. William McCaffrey, Powells fellow machine-gun hauler, recalled one example for Newsday. There was a string of bars outside the place, and when we tried to go in, they wouldnt serve us because Powell was black. We just kept telling the bartender this guy is a Ranger just like is, but we got into some kind of fight. We went back a second night, and things got really ugly. The third time he just went off by himself, and we found him later at that same bar. Hed gone in and talked to the guy, and theyd given him a beer and told him to go sit in a corner and leave them alone. Its incredible to believe, to even put in perspective after all these years, that a man who is now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a possible vice-president, was denied service in my life time, McCaffrey adds. Powells first field assignment - the second item in a military resume that would grow to thirty-four entries and include three continents, seven U.S. forts, the White House West Wing, and nearly every ring of the Pentagon - was as a platoon leader with Company B, Second Armored Rifle Battalion, Forty-eighth Infantry, with the United States Army in Germany. Powell arrived in October of 1958. Four years and ten months after Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had first enunciated the policy of instant, massive retaliation against a direct Soviet attack at times and places of our own choosing; almost two years after Soviet troops and tanks had rolled into Budapest and crushed the revolt there; and long after there was any real hope, except in the dreamiest diplomatic circles, that the two post-World War II superpowers could find any sort of meaningful common ground. Powell was stationed for much of the time in Gelnhausen, near the border of the Hessen and Bavarian states, on the Kinzia River, less than fifty miles from the East German border, where - so military doctrine held - the ground war between East and West was most likely to begin. Over the next twenty-four months he would shuttle between the Second Armored Rifle Battalion and the Third Armored Division. He would also find a good friend and what seems to be a first rabbi.(Colin Powel, Soldier/Statesman - Statesman/Soldier, Howard Means, 355.0092 P882zm 1992, pg 110) Powells first rabbi in the military - one of those critical senior officers who can help guide a career through the bureaucratic advancement labyrinth of the services - appears to have been Ret. Col. Raymond Red Barrett. I was executive officer of the battalion he went to, Barrett says. I was there from 1957 to 1960. That was the Third Armored Division, Germany. He was great at that time. Theres no question. He was an outstanding officer. His sense of responsibility - he had that from the word go. And a cheerful disposition - he was never head serious, even under adverse conditions hed find something humorous. He was an all-around guy, not just rifle platoon but heavy mortar. He was a real goer, a real doer. (Colin Powell, Soldier/Statesman - Statesman/Soldier, Howard Means, 355.0092 P882zm 1992, pg. 111) By the summer of 1962 the terms of a career in the Army were about to change for Powells immediate generation of officers. While Americans had been staring eastward across the Atlantic Ocean, mesmerized by a potential ground was with the Soviet Union across the battlefields of Europe - and a potentially far more devastating nuclear confrontation beyond that - the nation was slowly sliding into war in Asia for the third time in a little more than two decades. Beginning in 1961, a search had gone out across the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. In July of 1962 Powell got orders to do just that. I was an infantry officer. I was stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, Powell told the Washingtonian. I was thinking of getting married, or at least I was going very steady with a young lady, and suddenly I got orders saying, You are going to Vietnem. Colin Powell got married three weeks later on August 25, 1962.(Colin Powell, Soldier/Statesman - Statesman/Soldier, Howard Means, 355.0092 P882zm 1992, pg 115-116) Captain Powell served his first tour in South Vietnam - December 1962 to November 1963. In February of 1966 Powell was pulled off of the Army infantry Board, which he returned to after his advanced infantry course and assigned to be an instructor at Fort Bennings Army Infantry School, where he had been a student only nine months earlier. (Colin Powell, Soldier/Statesman, - Statesman/Soldier, Howard Means, 355.0092 P882zm 1992, pg 138) From 1966 to 1987 Colin Powell moved rather quickly up through the ranks. In November 5, 1987 he was appointed the office of National Security by President Ronald Regan. Colin Powell was the first African American to achieve such an office, beating several young men to such a prominent post. In 1995 Colin Powell has since the retired from his position as a general. And was given the opportunity to run for President of the United States which he has chosen to decline. The football star Orenthal James Simpson, San Francisco, July 9, 1947, first gained fame as a running back (1967-68) for the University of Southern California, where he won the 1968 Heisman Trophy. Simpson was drafted by the Buffalo Bills of the professional National Football League (NFL) and, after a period of adjustment, displayed the same smooth, deceptive running style that had made him virtually unstoppable in college. Simpson was selected to play on five all-star teams and set the NFL record (1973) for the most rushing yards gained in a season, 2,003. That record was broken in 1984 by Eric Dickerson of the Los Angeles Rams who ran for 2,105 yd. Simpson finished (1979) his career with 11,236 yd gained rushing, at the time second in NFL history. He also set records for most touchdowns scored in one season--23 in 1975--and for most 200-yd games in a career (6). After his retirement Simpson turned full-time to a career in movies and television. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. O. J. Simpson's Most Memorable Games (1978); Fox, Larry, The O. J. Simpson Story: Born to Run (1974). O.J. Simpson (1947- ) established what was then an NFL single-season rushing record in 1973 when he gained 2,003 yards. He gained over 200 yards in a game more times (6) than anyone else. On retiring in 1979 to pursue a promising career in film and television, Simpson ranked second behind Jimmy Brown in career rushing yardage for the National Football League. OJ Simpson was a accused of Nicole Simpsons murder it has been a racial question for some and has been a non-racial question for others in such of facts. As I stated in the pre we need to know also Nicole Simpsons story, and the book that I got to tell this story is Nicole Brown Simpson, The Private Diary of a life interrupted. Throughout her book she has stated that OJ loved Nicole but she was in fear for her life. She was a battered woman that could not escape a mental, abusive environment. On page 210 she is quoted as saying I felt a cold chill when I was around OJ Simpson. The last phone call that Nicole was Sunday and it seemed from reading the book that she was scared, paranoid, and that she was in fear of her life. It is not to be disputed that OJ Simpson did not batter her but yet it is a question of did he kill her. Deracialization for this writer is to say that he married her, had to kids with her, and how could he kill her. It is not possible to kill someone that you strongly love, but yet to try to help them and reconnect your relationship with them. In the OJ Simpson trial the defense painted OJ just so, the prosecution painted him in a jealous rage. As a writer of this paper, I say it just isnt so. I pause to find the errors inside their reasoning of guilty: 1) his arthritis 2) the samples of blood contaminated, cross contaminated 3) the time factor and 4) Mark Ferman. Just what those simple four reasons in my mind he was not guilty, but I am here to answer the question of deracialization. As I have said before, an integrated marriage between two races is deracialization. Million Man March: In the Million Man March you had three million African American men and women predominately men marching on the steps of Washington. The NAACP down played it but yet they were there the other organizations of Black origin down played it but yet their leaders were there. The Million Man March was help in Washington DC for a joining of the Black Brotherhood. The prominent leader of this march was Rev Louis Faracon, whom was teaching the black men not to degrade their black women, to help his fellow black men, to support the organization of their community, to own up to their responsibility as parents, to better themselves and their black communities at large. These were the teaching of the honorable Rev, Louis Faracon. How does this apply to deracialization, I would say that it would be described for a political and social issue to better serve all communities at large. If you have listened to Rev. Faracon you will hear the things I have just mentioned apply to all people in 1995. What may divide us can only make us stronger when we see a common and mutual interest. In conclusion, the Willie Brown, Colin Powell, OJ Simpson, and Rev. Louis Faracon symbolize a strong point of deracialization, but I guess the question is what is deracialization, I do not have the answer. Have lived so many years in this world toghter but yet we have walked apart. We eat at the same restraunt but we never speak to on another. It is only when there is a social issure it separate us do we stand up and fight. It is only when an injustice is done that we stand up and fight. It is only when a man of color attempts to obtain a presidential seat do we stand up and fight. It is only when we have a race war were the fighting will end and there will be no one left to fight. BIBLIOGRAPHY
California Political Almanac, 1995-1996, Fourth Edition, Introduction By Dan Walters, R 328.794 C15 35, 1995 Colin Powell, Soldier/Statesman - Statesman/Soldier, Howard Means, 355.0092 P882zm, 1992 Nicole Brown Simpson, The Private Diary Of a Life Interruped, Faye D. Resnick with Mike Walker Sacramento Bee December 3, 1995 Brad Hayward section A24
