The Bush administration has cut job training and reversed the decade-long fight to bridge the digital divide between whites and minorities in his proposed budget released February 4, 2002. Diverting the money, his cuts in job training will be replaced by $100 million per year for others to promote marriage among the poor in hopes the kids will do better with two parents. The Bush social experiment may produce a baby boom of poor kids. What a social experiment! Also by cutting 70% of the Clinton administration's 2001 Technology Opportunities budget, the program that increases Black Internet use annually by 30%, like job training, will now fall to the ominous state of "benign neglect."

"The Bush administration seems determined to pursue policies that will widen the gap between the haves and have-nots," states William Taylor, acting chair of the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights. Citing the judicial dismantling of affirmative action programs by nominating conservatives opposed to civil rights, "We may awaken from our current preoccupation with national security to find ourselves a nation more divided, less equal, and therefore less secure, than before," he continued.

Meanwhile, on February 6, 2002 the Congressional Black Caucus opposed confirming President Bush's nominee to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. Members of the Caucus contend that nominated US District Judge Charles W. Pickering, Sr. is too conservative on criminal rights, abortion and, especially civil rights.

Back in California, February 20, 2002 polls are showing the Republican gubernatorial campaign of the liberal former Los Angeles Mayor, Richard Riordan, has stalled at 41% GOP support. Riordan, considered to be the only GOP candidate who can seriously compete against Democratic Governor Gray Davis, promised me personally in Oakland last month that he would institute his successful Los Angeles affirmative action outreach program statewide if elected Governor. Yet, the Republican Party is against affirmative action and 2/3 of the GOP members are conservative. Ironically, white Republicans in Congress represent 53% of the nation's Black voters according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic studies.

But, look out America! There may be some Black governors in November 2002. New York State Comptroller H. Carl McCall is running for Governor of New York, Illinois State Attorney General Roland Burris is running for Governor of Illinois, and Florida State Senator Daryl Jones is running for Governor of Florida. Throughout history out of 2200 state governors, there has been only one Black state governor, Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.

"Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever."
                                                                    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.