Can Smokey Find the 32 Black People In Wasilla, Alaska?

[Political Tiger]

VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Can Smokey Find the 32 Black People In Wasilla, Alaska?

Smokey Fontaine, the fearless leader of BlackPlanet.com, recently found out that there were 32 Black people in Wasilla, Alaska — the hometown of Republican vice-presidential nominee, Gov. Sarah Palin.

Black folks in Alaska? How did they get there? Who would they be voting for? See the cold truth as Smokey flies to America’s Icebox to find them.

VIDEO:
http://newsone.blackplanet.com/nation/video-exclusive-smokey-fontaine-goes-to-wasilla-alaska/

[Cleita]

1. When I visited Alaska back in the early sixties, I found a lot of African American

people settled there and owning businesses. I struck up a conversation at the lunch counter of Newberry's in Anchorage with a young African American girl and she told me that she moved there because her brother did his time in the army in Alaska and like it so much that he convinced her to move up there with him when his army stint was over with. It turns out that many of the others got there via the military as well and found a place where they were treated as equals (this was before MLK and the civil rights movement) and decided to live there when they were done with the military. Now I don't know if that tolerance is still there considering all the people from the lower 48 who moved there to build the pipeline who might have brought their bigotry with them. Last August I took a cruise through the panhandle and noticed no African Americans in the ports we visited.

[customerserviceguy]

2. Can I point out this isn't helping?

When I lived out in the Northwest (Olympic Peninsula of WA state) African-American neighbors were respected and treated the same as everyone else. I would imagine that in a live-and-let-live state like Alaska, it would be the same.

Now, since I've moved to NY a year and a half ago, I've re-learned what racial predjudice is like in the 21st Century. I grew up with it as a child outside of Gary, Indiana, and in my 37 years in the NW, I thought it had lessened.

I was proud to see that all 39 counties in WA voted for Sen. Obama in the caucuses, and there are no more than ten of them in areas that would qualify as even mildly urban. I hope that Sen. Obama's election is the key to the rest of America discovering what we knew in the NW, that you don't have to live as a racist.

[melody]

5. California, Oregon, Washington is one solid block of dark blue

:bounce::bounce::bounce:

[ColbertWatcher]

6. "you don't have to live as a racist."

I hope so too, it would be about fucking time.

But, I think this guy was just trying to be funny.

Although, the player was a little glitchy for me.

[customerserviceguy]

7. Gotta tell you, I was somewhat shocked

for the first year here in NY, there were derogatory stereotypical names for African-Americans (and even Irish and Italian Americans) that I had never heard before. We just didn't use them out in the NW, and my parents tried their very best to keep us from absorbing the racist poison that was around us in Indiana.

It is my fervent hope that President Obama turns out to be the statesman that Nelson Mandella was for South Africa. We desperately need the healing.

[Winterblues]

3. I grew up in Juneau Alaska the State capital

When I was in grade school all the way til fifth grade there were only two black families in Juneau. Also until fifth grade native Americans/Indians were not allowed to attend white man's school. They had their own Indian school. That changed with Statehood.

[Blue_In_AK]

4. That may be true of Wasilla,

but certainly not of Anchorage. It's true we don't have lots and lots of African-American residents, but there doesn't seem to be much prejudice. Our neighborhoods are integrated, our schools are very diverse -- in fact we are a 50-50 school district, 50% minority. Of course, that includes many Asians, Pacific Islanders, Native Alaskans, as well as African-Americans, but Alaska is far from a lily-white state.