Politicizing the United Negro College Fund

Saunders and One of the Fucking Koch brothers

Life must be tough for Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Saunders is African-American, as are many members of AFSCME, so his support of such an important institution as the United Negro College Fund is entirely relevant and not "charity" but solidarity, exactly what labor unions do. Charles Koch and his brother however, are not. Recently, the Koch clowns splattered $25 million all over the UNCF, triangulating an abandonment of the charity by AFSCME. In the endless politicization of public life, this is a win for Koch and a loss for the labor movement, AFSCME in particular, working people in general, democracy, and America as we know it.

While Koch-connected contributions to the UNCF are charity in a strict sense, these descendants of a founding member of the storied opponent of civil rights for African Americans and viciously right-wing John Birch society are not known as good-hearted philanthropists. The Koch's have a lot of money and a great deal of their spending goes strictly toward enhancing their ability to make more money. But in the "I have a deadline to meet" and "both sides of any story are equally bad/good" 24 hour media environment, the Koch chump change buying allegiance from desperate young African-Americans is a wonderful change of heart. Not only have Koch and Koch finally come around to the idea that black people are people too, the mainstream media will allege, but the nation's largest public sector union showed how petty and superficial they are in abandoning these needy students What is the real story behind the Koch brothers giving $25 million to allow underprivileged black kids to go to college?

If Charles and David have ever done a decent thing with all of their wealth, I have not heard of it. So plain altruism is probably not the answer here. Here is, I believe, a clue from UNCF's own press release. "The overarching goal of the UNCF/Koch Scholars Program is aimed at broadening educational opportunities so that aspiring African American students can better understand how entrepreneurship, economics, and innovation contribute to well-being for individuals, communities, and society." Similar to corporatespeak, charities use language designed to manipulate definitions to death and make words basically meaningless but lovely-sounding. Given the Koch's history of cynical self-serving behavior that corrupts anything they touch, undermining and rotting the republic's institutions in their wake, it is safe to interpret meanings to those words for their sincere intent.

In a word, this money is going to go toward reorienting any kind of solidarity in what UNCF calls "the 37 UNCF-member Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)" from the African-American community to the corporate world and it's values. It may be subtle and over a long time-frame, but the faculty, operating procedures and policies of HBCUs will gradually align more compatibly with the "devour everything for short-term profit and establish absolute power over society" ethos of the business community. Turning what has been a somewhat reliable source of Progressive power in the black middle-class into just another weapon against working people, democracy, economic security and opportunity, etc.

The side benefit of throwing this chump change at the UNCF is the wedge it drives with AFSCME by putting the sincere but less significant contributions to higher education for African-Americans by labor on par with what is essentially the evil empire of Koch. Oh my how mustaches must have twirled when this scam was thought up. UNCF is not ACORN, a group working to empower the disenfranchised to organize and help themselves claw toward decent living conditions, and therefore public enemy number one to the right wing. Therefore, UNCF cannot simply be destroyed; it must be co-opted to serve the interests of power.

Just another cynical calculation and power play by two of the main drivers of American decline.