Manuel Raimundo Querino (1851-1923)

Everyday thoughts of an Olorisha in London

2011-07-19T15:02:00.000-03:00

Everyday thoughts of an Olorisha in London

Full Episode: Brazil, a Racial Paradise?

2011-05-05T19:27:00.002-03:00

Professor Henry Louis Gates focuses on Manuel Querino as of minute 28 of this episode, comparing him to WEB Du Bois and Carter G. Woodson, "the fathers of African-American history".

Watch the full episode. See more Black in Latin America.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/black-in-latin-america/featured/black-in-latin-america-full-episode-brazil-a-racial-paradise/224/

Timeline - Black in Brazil

2011-04-15T22:30:00.004-03:00

Haiti & the Dominican Republic: An Island Divided

2011-04-15T22:30:00.002-03:00

Watch the full episode. See more Black in Latin America.

The cost of racism « Resist racism

2011-02-02T14:20:00.000-03:00

Before Dr. Ronald E. McNair was an astronaut, he was a little boy who lived in Lake City, South Carolina. And the Lake City library did not allow African Americans to borrow books. Nine-year-old McNair refused to leave the library and the police were called.

Now the library is being renamed after him.

McNair was the second African American astronaut in space. He held a Ph.D. in physics from MIT and was a specialist in laser physics. What a loss it would have been if he had never been allowed to borrow those books.

The cost of racism « Resist racism

Black in Latin America Conference | W.E.B. Du Bois Institute

2011-01-01T17:23:00.000-03:00

“Black in Latin America” is a multinational conference that will take place at Harvard University on January 27-29, 2011. Inspired by Professor Henry Louis Gates’s upcoming documentary of the same name, to air on PBS on April 19, the “Black in Latin America” conference will gather together scholars from Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Perú, Brazil, Mexico, and the U.S. to discuss a variety of issues related to race relations of Afro-descendants in the Caribbean and Latin America. Six panels over two days, each featuring scholars from or at work in a particular country who were interviewed in the documentary, and two roundtable discussions featuring top U.S. scholars, will comprise this event. In addition, the authors Maryse Condé, Edwidge Danticat, and Jamaica Kincaid will be on hand to do readings and participate in discussions with the panelists and roundtable members.

Location: CGIS South, Tsai Auditorium, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 (map)

Free and open to the public.

No registration required by general public.

Black in Latin America Conference | W.E.B. Du Bois Institute

What Progressives Don’t Understand About Obama - NYTimes.com

2010-12-12T12:45:00.000-03:00

What Progressives Don’t Understand About Obama - NYTimes.com

Visualizing Slavery - NYTimes.com

2010-12-11T10:05:00.000-03:00

Visualizing Slavery - NYTimes.com

The New Jim Crow

2010-12-09T17:53:00.002-03:00

We’ve all heard the statistics, and most of us have simply become numb to hearing them. For many people, the over-incarceration of Black people is simply a fact of life. It shouldn’t be.

Thanks to legal scholar and professor Michelle Alexander¹ we now have a new book that explains how we ended up with a criminal justice system that targets and endangers Black communities, as well as ideas on what we can do to free ourselves from that system’s clutches.

When we put the book — The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness — in the hands of 20 ColorOfChange members to review, the response was unanimous. In addition to giving the book glowing reviews, they all wanted the entire ColorOfChange community to know about it.

It’s why we’re now inviting you to get your own copy (and for your friends or family as well, in time for the holiday season), as well as participate in a conference call with Professor Alexander in the new year to discuss it.

You can get your copy here:

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/284?id=2473-605038&akid=1770.1008708.eXzfGd&t=4

Professor Alexander’s book outlines the evolution of drug laws and how their ongoing effects on Black America parallel the role that segregation played in the period following the Civil War and preceding the Civil Rights Movement.² And it raises questions about what it will take to build a movement that can reform the broken drug laws that fuel high incarceration rates.

Criminal justice reform is key to our community — a third of Black men will spend part of their lives in prison,³ and Black children are more than six times more likely to have a parent incarcerated than White children.⁴ ColorOfChange members have demonstrated time and again that they want to change the status quo. More than 59,000 ColorOfChange members called on Congress to remove the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, and nearly 25,000 sent a statement to Senator James Webb of Virginia, thanking him for his attempts to overhaul our approach to incarceration.

We believe — and the ColorOfChange members who read and reviewed the book agreed — that the book will help us, as everyday people, stand with even more power to advocate for change. Ms. Alexander is herself a longtime member of ColorOfChange.org, and she’s agreed to speak with those of you who read the book, and answer any questions you have. We’ll contact you again early in the new year with more information about how to participate in that conference call, which is sure to be informative and powerful.

Here’s what ColorOfChange.org members are saying about The New Jim Crow:

“This book explains how this new Jim Crow came to be and how deeply ingrained it is now in the American psyche. Unless we really understand how this happened, we’ll never break this vicious cycle of African-American overincarceration… How many family members of prisoners lie about their relatives in the penal system in an effort to mitigate the stigma of criminality? This system penalizes entire families. [The book] was such an eye opener."
— Irma, Washington, DC
“This book will give you a good understanding of the system, its historical roots, its origins in the War on Drugs, the complicity of the police and legal system leading to mass incarceration of people of color, and the tragic result of creating a permanent caste system based on color. It opened my eyes and stirred my soul.“
— Larry, Freeland, WA
“This isn’t a fight for the lawyers. This is a fight for regular people, the non-experts, the advocates, the sympathizers, the human beings who care and want to care more. Fertile ground for change is wherever we are, however we are, and accessible to those of us with less than sizable monetary wealth or a law degree.”
— Thuha, Fountain Valley, CA

For more on The New Jim Crow and to get your copy, click here:

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/284?id=2473-605038&akid=1770.1008708.eXzfGd&t=6

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Natasha and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
December 9th, 2010

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU -- your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/

References:

1. “The New Jim Crow,” article by Michelle Alexander in Mother Jones, 03-08-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/279?akid=1770.1008708.eXzfGd&t=9

2. “Legal Scholar Michelle Alexander on ‘The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness’,” Democracy Now, 03-11-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/283?akid=1770.1008708.eXzfGd&t=11

3. “Too Long Ignored,” The New York Times, 8-20-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/598?akid=1770.1008708.eXzfGd&t=13

4. “Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility,” Pew Charitable Trusts, 9-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/603?akid=1770.1008708.eXzfGd&t=15

Additional resources:

“More than 1 in 100 U.S. adults are in prison,” New York Times, 2-29-2008
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/281?akid=1770.1008708.eXzfGd&t=17

Black Consciousness in Brazil

2010-11-26T10:50:00.002-03:00

Tue, 11/16/2010 - 13:51 — Italo Ramos

New census data show two million more Brazilians now describe themselves as black than did so ten years ago, when “they had said that they were not blacks, but 'mestiços' or 'mulattos,' a category more favored, socially.” This is, the author believes, a significant number, proof of the deep impact of the black consciousness movement and Brazil's relatively recent affirmative action programs. At the same time, “slowly but consistently, white people are admitting the real face of a segregationist and racist Brazil.”

Early last October, the work of the last Brazilian census had not yet been finished, but we already knew that our adult black population had grown two percentage points, from 5% to 7%, over the last ten years. (In Brazil, black people are officially considered a category apart from the racially mixed population.) For those who know Brazil and know that the country has the largest black population in the world, after only Nigeria, these numbers may seem surprisingly small. And these people may also ask how could this have happened? The new persons who were born in this so short period of time - 10 years - are not adult enough to be included by the census collector. So, where did those two percentage points came from?

Before answering, let’s explore another fundamental question: 7% is a small, insignificant number?

The answer may be Yes and No, as it depends on whom is reading it. Numbers are not geographic symbols but, as they don’t lie, they are the most powerful kind of authority we have to prove something, although our sense about their meaning may vary according to different national criteria. If you are Brazilian, 7% is very small, considering a population of 190 million people. But for those people in the world who deal with racial discrimination and racism, it will never be insignificant.

The census, made by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística-IBGE, doesn’t explain, as it is not its official business to make considerations about the development of racial awareness, but that difference of 2 points shows that, now, two million more people are accepting and proclaiming their real color. Ten years ago, when another census took place, they had said that they were not blacks, but “mestiços” or “mulattos,” a category more favored, socially. That difference is good proof that racial consciousness is growing in Brazil, which means that more and more black people are not ashamed of their racial identity, and, not statistically but ethnically speaking, two percentage points is a big and significant number.

But there is more about that.

These 7% might be added to 45% of those who said to the collector that they are mulattos, and the result will be a population of 52% of blacks and mulattos, and 49% of whites. So, in an American sense, the Brazilian black population is now larger than the white one. In the Brazilian sense, as was said, blacks and biracial are two different categories.

Another number that Census shows, 2%, refers to people who, 10 years ago, said to the collector that they were white, but, now, they want to change their category, some choosing to be mestiços, some mulattos, some indigenous. These are very light-skinned black persons who used to pass as white, but now are not ashamed to declare their real origin. They don’t want to be white, anymore.

(A good question would be “Why would a light-skinned person want to pass as white?” Well, I don’t want to answer, because my words wouldn’t be sympathetic to them.)

So, the Brazilian black population not only is the second largest in the world, but also exhibits the record of being the most mixed. In this sense, it reserves first place. Mulattos, in Brazil, are, mainly, a product of the Portuguese, who colonized the country, and the Africans, brought there to be slaves. And this mixture was always so dense that, in slavery times, there were more mulattos than today, proportionally to the total population. But the readers must not take this last information as a sign of racial liberalism from the Portuguese side, because it actually hides violence, a crime.

Speaking about crime, in this aspect, Brazilian and American slavery histories are similar. Both are full of cases of rape. At that time, it was common among landlords to take enslaved women as concubines. In Brazil, this practice was more open than in U.S., but, to take the best of American examples, we can ask: Did Sally Hemings love Thomas Jefferson? Those seven children were sons of sexual consent? If Sally really loved him, would she impose some conditions to return from France to Virginia with him, as she did? Jefferson agreed with those conditions and set her (their) children free, just like Brazilian landlords used to protect their bastard sons, giving them much better treatment. This was a natural behavior, so common that until today both societies make a difference between blacks and mulattos, giving to the latter a higher social status. What contemporary Brazilian and American whites don’t realize is that, by doing so, they are simply
modernly repeating what their ancestors, owners of slaves, used to do.

In Brazil, in the time of slavery, the mulattos were chosen to be what was called Capitães do mato (bush captains), the leading hunters of fugitives slaves in the forests and responsible for chasing those ones walking in the streets in the cities. That was a job that gave some privileges to them, as they were not in the fields nor in the big houses, but seen as the protector of the interests of white owners of slaves. But the position also gave them the very bad reputation of being enemies of black people.

The social order is self-reproductive. If nothing is done to change it, in terms of a revolt, the imposition of a law or the exposure of positive role models, the social order repeats the same pattern of the society, eternally, just like it is. So, as changes don’t happen overnight, the culture of slavery perpetuated many old customs, making that institution not as remote as we would like. And, today, the capitães do mato have disappeared, as they are not necessary, anymore, because of the end of slavery, but, more than one century later, in their places, a big majority of soldiers of the Brazilian military state police, is comprised of mulattos. These are the police in charge of invading huts in favelas and of chasing poor people in the streets, mainly blacks, asking them for identification cards and arresting those who cannot prove that they have a regular job. Black people hate them. It is history, if not just repeating itself, making a kind of
parody.

Until today, there is not an explanation for that change of attitude made by the “new blacks.” Can it be an effect of the Affirmative Action? Maybe. Affirmative Action came to Brazil around 2003, when a university in Rio de Janeiro adopted the first Brazilian system of quotas for students originating from public schools, blacks and indigenous people. Since then, the discussion about race, discrimination and racism provoked remarkable changes in the false image of a racial democracy Brazil has maintained since the abolition of slavery. Slowly but consistently, white people are admitting the real face of a segregationist and racist Brazil. But the quota system is also a university success. The last research made by the Universidade Federal da Bahia states: “…the quota students’ performance improves every year. The poorer the students, the better their progress.”

Brazil is a young country, with a juvenile enthusiasm in many senses, without answers or even research, yet, about its most important questions, like those about “new blacks.” Few people care about who makes Brazil what it is, and for whom. Of course, we are not so innocent as to not know that Brazil is evolving within a permanent conflict of huge cultural, political and economic interests that we have already identified and we are learning how to deal with its resistances, changes and tricks, like the disguised face of the modern capitaes do mato. Slowly but consistently, we are pushing ahead and improving an Affirmative Action that came late. And, for a developing country, it is comforting to know that some difficult questions, so important for tracing a right and quick road to a really democratic future, are not being answered even in developed countries.

Italo Ramos is a Brazilian journalist. He can be contacted at

iramos@cy.com.br

Interview with Sally Price

2010-11-25T15:29:00.000-03:00

Excerpt:

PROA: Your book on Maroon Arts shows how descendants of rebel slaves from diverse African origins living in Guiana and Suriname have kept alive pan-African aesthetic ideas while adapting them creatively to changing economic and social circumstances. It seems amazing that even facing much adversity (civil war, a plummeting economy, drugs, mining companies) they still care about artistic mastery. How do you explain it?

SALLY PRICE: People don’t lose their culture just because they hit hard times. Think about the descriptions we have of Africans suffering through the horrors of the Middle Passage and arriving in the Americas where one 18th-century writer observed: “todos os escravos são levados para o convés ... e seu cabelo é raspado em diferentes imagens de estrelas, meia-luas etc., o que eles geralmente fazem uns com os outros (sem dispor de lâminas), com a ajuda de uma garrafa quebrada e sem sabão.” [J.G. Stedman, quoted in S. Mintz and R. Price, O Nascimento da cultura Afro-Americana, Pallas Editora 1992, p. 72]. I would guess that equivalent examples could be found in the open-air camps where victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti don’t even have food to eat. People are surprisingly resilient in the face of adversity. It was, for example, around the time that their villages were being bombed in the civil war that Saramaka Maroon women developed openwork carving in calabashes

Interview with Sally Price

Let’s Rescue the Race Debate - NYTimes.com

2010-11-20T10:41:00.000-03:00

“There is another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. ... Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs ... There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well.”

This 100-year-old, cobbled-together quote from the “the Great Accommodator” Booker T. Washington has gotten quite a bit of circulation in the right-wing blogosphere since the Tea Party came under attack over racial issues.

Continue reading here:
Let’s Rescue the Race Debate - NYTimes.com

Gilder Lehrman Center | Frederick Douglass Prize

2010-11-10T16:37:00.000-03:00

Gilder Lehrman Center | Frederick Douglass Prize

BBC News - Brazil's education challenge in bid to be world player

2010-09-27T10:52:00.000-03:00

BBC News - Brazil's education challenge in bid to be world player

Brazil's census offers recognition at last to descendants of runaway slaves | World news | The Guardian

2010-08-30T09:03:00.000-03:00

Brazil's census offers recognition at last to descendants of runaway slaves | World news | The Guardian

Op-Ed Columnist - Bob Herbert - Glenn Beck in Washington - NYTimes.com

2010-08-28T15:06:00.000-03:00

Op-Ed Columnist - Bob Herbert - "America Is Better Than This" - NYTimes.com

Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech

2010-08-28T10:42:00.001-03:00

Seydou Keita: Photograph (1997.364) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

2010-08-09T15:14:00.000-03:00

Seydou Keita: Photograph (1997.364) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

African Influences in Modern Art | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

2010-08-09T15:12:00.000-03:00

African Influences in Modern Art | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Op-Ed Columnist - You’ll Never Believe What This White House Is Missing - NYTimes.com

2010-07-25T10:53:00.000-03:00

Op-Ed Columnist - You’ll Never Believe What This White House Is Missing - NYTimes.com

Color of Change: Tea Party Leaders Still Silent

2010-07-20T21:49:00.002-03:00

...The Tea Party leaders you'd actually recognize, people like Sarah Palin and Dick Armey, have stayed silent or denied that any racism exists in their ranks.⁴ And there's been no attempt to tackle the systemic problem of racism within the Party. It's time for leadership to speak up.

If the Tea Party is serious about not being a home for racism there are two things all its leaders and groups must do now:

Publicly make clear that Mark Williams and the bigotry he stands for aren't welcome in the Tea Party movement
Adopt a clear policy stating that racist and bigoted rhetoric and imagery will not be tolerated — by leaders, groups, or candidates — and will result in expulsion from Tea Party organizations

You can help us force the hand of Tea Party leaders by calling on them to come out of the shadows and speak up. They need to make a choice — get serious about confronting the racism in their movement, or show, with their inaction, that they welcome and rely on bigotry as a part of their movement.

Either way, we need you to make it happen. Please take a moment to add your voice now, and then ask your friends and family do the same:

http://www.colorofchange.org/teaparties/?id=2473-605038

While it's important to acknowledge that one group, the Tea Party Federation, met part of our demands on Sunday, the reality is that they did it in the most cynical way possible. When they dropped Williams, they refused to acknowledge the fact that Williams went unchallenged as a key leader after he called the President an "Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug"⁵ — or after one of many other racist rants.⁶ They tried to downplay Williams' role in the movement and maintained that there was no pattern of racism or bigotry in their movement.

How it started

On Tuesday of last week, the NAACP passed a resolution calling on the Tea Party to denounce the racist elements within its ranks, a bold and important move.⁷ On Thursday, Mark Williams of the Tea Party Express (one of the movement's most prominent leaders) responded by publishing a blog post full of nasty racist stereotypes about Black people.⁸ On Friday, thousands of ColorOfChange members took action to back up the NAACP and demand that Tea Party leaders expel Williams, and what he represents, from their movement.⁹

On Sunday, the National Tea Party Federation (one of several national Tea Party groups) banished Williams and the Tea Party Express, but they refused to take responsibility for confronting this element of their movement, and have continued to attack the NAACP for raising the issue in the first place.¹⁰ Meanwhile, the Tea Party Express is defending Williams, refusing to remove him from their leadership, and attacking the Tea Party Federation as an illegitimate group that doesn't really represent the Tea Party.¹¹

For the Tea Party movement to show that it's serious about confronting the racism within its ranks, prominent Tea Party leaders need to denounce Williams and the bigotry he represents, and they need to make themselves publicly accountable for purging racism from their movement.

It's time to give the Tea Party a choice — speak up and act, or make clear that the Tea Party is a home for racists and racism. You can help make that happen. Please add your voice and ask your friends and family to do the same:

http://www.colorofchange.org/teaparties/?id=2473-605038

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Milton and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
July 20th, 2010

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU — your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/

References:

1. “Tea Party Leader Mocks NAACP ‘Coloreds’ In Online Screed,” Media Matters, 07-15-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/316?akid=1520.1008708.RU0pXG&t=7

2. “Tea Party Leaders: We’re Not Racist! The NAACP Is! (AUDIO),” TPMDC, 07-14-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/315?akid=1520.1008708.RU0pXG&t=9

3. “Tea Party leader says he’s done talking about race controversy,” CNN, 7-18-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/323?akid=1520.1008708.RU0pXG&t=11

4. “The Charge of Racism: It’s Time to Bury the Divisive Politics of the Past,” Sarah Palin, 7-13-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/324?akid=1520.1008708.RU0pXG&t=13

5.“‘Tea Party’ Leader Melts Down On CNN: Obama Is An ‘Indonesian Muslim Turned Welfare Thug,’” Huffington Post, 9-15-2009
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/325?akid=1520.1008708.RU0pXG&t=15

6. “Tea Party Express’ Mark Williams: King Of ‘Accidental’ Racism”, TPM Muckraker, 7-19-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/326?akid=1520.1008708.RU0pXG&t=17

7. “NAACP Delegates Unanimously Pass Tea Party Resolution,” NAACP, 07-13-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/312?akid=1520.1008708.RU0pXG&t=19

8. See Reference 1

9. ColorOfChange.org email on Mark Williams, 7-16-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/327?akid=1520.1008708.RU0pXG&t=21

10. “Tea Party Objects to NAACP’s ‘Selective Racism’,” CBS News, 7-18-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/328?akid=1520.1008708.RU0pXG&t=23

11. “Tea party groups fire on each other,” Politico, 7-19-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/329?akid=1520.1008708.RU0pXG&t=25

Facebook | Festival of Yoruba Arts (F.O.Y.A)

2010-07-20T15:39:00.000-03:00

Facebook | Festival of Yoruba Arts (F.O.Y.A)

Globalist - A World of Hope - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

2010-07-06T10:58:00.000-03:00

Globalist - A World of Hope - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010 - NYTimes.com

2010-07-04T11:30:00.000-03:00

By FRANK RICH

Published: July 2, 2010

In the matter of race, we still take steps back and forward in bewildering alternation.

Op-Ed Columnist - Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010 - NYTimes.com

Displaced Black Landowners Fight to Reclaim Georgia Land - NYTimes.com

2010-07-01T20:17:00.000-03:00

Displaced Black Landowners Fight to Reclaim Georgia Land - NYTimes.com

British Museum exhibition: The African sculptures mistaken for remains of Atlantis

2010-06-21T11:28:00.001-03:00

Frobenius thought the Ife sculptures he found in what is now Nigeria couldn't possibly have originated from a "primitive" African culture.
The African sculptures mistaken for remains of Atlantis - CNN.com

BBC News - World News America - 'Unaccustomed' debate on race sparked in Brazil

2010-05-27T20:24:00.000-03:00

BBC News - World News America - 'Unaccustomed' debate on race sparked in Brazil

Whites only?

2010-05-22T14:25:00.001-03:00

On Wednesday, Rand Paul, the GOP’s US Senate candidate for Kentucky repeated his claim that a central piece of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was wrong, and that businesses should be free to discriminate against whomever they please.¹ Paul and his supporters don’t seem to care that without federal intervention, Black people might still be second-class citizens in many aspects of American life: where we eat, where we work, even where we live.

Then, on Thursday, FOX anchor John Stossel went even further, calling for the section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that applies to business to be repealed.² And he’s refused to back down.

While Paul may have started this outrage, he can be taken care of at the ballot box — FOX News can’t.

Stossel’s position is an affront to Black America and everyone in this country who believes in racial progress. It’s one thing to be a candidate with backwards views. It’s another to be employed by a supposed news network and to use that platform to push hateful ideas that our nation repudiated decades ago.

It’s time that FOX drop Stossel. If people like you stand up in huge numbers and FOX does not act, it will be clear that FOX stands with Stossel and his values — and we'll go directly after the network with a public campaign unlike anything we’ve pursued to date.

Can you add your voice to the call to fire Stossel? And please ask your friends and family to do the same. It takes only a moment — just click below:

http://www.colorofchange.org/stossel/?id=2473-605038

FOX has a history of providing a platform for bigoted views and race-baiting. Most recently you helped us hold FOX accountable by stripping Glenn Beck of more than 100 of his advertisers, after Beck called President Obama a “racist” with a “deep-seated hatred for white people.”³

But Stossel has arguably gone beyond Beck, echoing segregationist arguments from the Jim Crow era:

"It’s time now to repeal that part of the law because private businesses ought to get to discriminate. And I won’t ever go to a place that’s racist and I will tell everybody else not to and I’ll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist."

Stossel went on to argue something that history has disproved time and again — that private business will do the right thing, without being compelled by laws, because no one would patronize a business that discriminates. It’s a blind belief in market fundamentalism that just isn’t in sync with reality. In the '60s, white-owned businesses that allowed Blacks as customers lost business. Market forces actually perpetuated discrimination; they didn’t combat it. Simply put: segregation would still be active in parts of this country if government hadn’t stepped in.

And recent history has shown that the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act is still needed. In 1994, it was used to hold Denny’s Restaurants accountable, after the chain repeatedly refused to seat Black customers.⁴ Just last year, it was used to go after a Philadelphia pool that prevented Black children from swimming there.⁵

It’s time for FOX News to make a choice. Are they going to give Stossel a platform to revive dangerously outdated perspectives? Or will they move with the rest of the nation into the 21st century? Please call on FOX News to fire John Stossel. And once you do, please ask your friends and family to do the same:

http://www.colorofchange.org/stossel/?id=2473-605038

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Milton and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
May 22nd, 2010

https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/

References:

1. “Rand Paul On ‘Maddow’ Defends Criticism Of Civil Rights Act, Says He Would Have Worked To Change Bill,” Huffington Post, 5-20-10
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/246?akid=1465.1008708.iUu6Fi&t=7

2. “Stossel calls for repeal of public accommodations section of Civil Rights Act,” Media Matters, 5-20-10
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/247?akid=1465.1008708.iUu6Fi&t=9

3. “Beck’s UK broadcast runs without ads; over 100 companies have ditched Beck,” Jack and Jill Politics, 2-16-10
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/248?akid=1465.1008708.iUu6Fi&t=11

4. “Denny’s Restaurants to Pay $54 Million in Race Bias Suits,” 5-25-94
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/251?akid=1465.1008708.iUu6Fi&t=13

5. “Justice Department Files Lawsuit Against Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, Country Club Alleging Discrimination,” US Department of Justice press release, 1-13-10
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/252?akid=1465.1008708.iUu6Fi&t=15

Additional:

“Dancing with the Devil,” ColorOfChange.org, 3-14-07
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/249?akid=1465.1008708.iUu6Fi&t=17

Summary on FOX News and coverage relating to Black Americans
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/250?akid=1465.1008708.iUu6Fi&t=19

Op-Ed Columnist - Welcome to Confederate History Month - NYTimes.com

2010-04-18T10:52:00.000-03:00

Op-Ed Columnist - Welcome to Confederate History Month - NYTimes.com

Dr. King Said It: I'm Black and Beautiful!

2010-04-10T11:03:00.003-03:00

No comment

2010-04-08T13:06:00.000-03:00

Gov. McDonnell apologizes for omitting slavery in Confederacy proclamation - CNN.com

Book Review - The History of White People - By Nell Irvin Painter - Review - NYTimes.com

2010-03-26T14:43:00.001-03:00

Nell Irvin Painter’s title, “The History of White People,” is a provocation in several ways: it’s monumental in sweep, and its absurd grandiosity should call to mind the fact that writing a “History of Black People” might seem perfectly reasonable to white people. But the title is literally accurate, because the book traces characterizations of the lighter-skinned people we call white today, starting with the ancient Scythians. For those who have not yet registered how much these characterizations have changed, let me assure you that sensory observation was not the basis of racial nomenclature.
Book Review - The History of White People - By Nell Irvin Painter - Review - NYTimes.com

A Game of Chess, by Adam Isler

2010-03-26T09:54:00.001-03:00

20100321-_DSC8766

Trailblazing paratrooper broke color barrier in secret - CNN.com

2010-03-25T11:53:00.001-03:00

While Morris was trying to build his men's self-esteem, the War Department was quietly considering creating an all-black paratrooper unit. Morris soon found himself with a new job as the top noncommissioned officer for the new unit dedicated to training America's first "colored" parachutists, the 555th Parachute Infantry Company, or the Triple Nickle. They decided to spell it differently from "nickel" to make sure people knew they were unique. The unit had plenty of doubters.
"They didn't think colored soldiers had the intestinal fortitude to jump out of a plane in flight," Morris remembered.

Trailblazing paratrooper broke color barrier in secret - CNN.com

Museums Special Section - Haiti’s Visionaries, Rising From the Rubble - NYTimes.com

2010-03-18T13:02:00.000-03:00

Museums Special Section - Haiti’s Visionaries, Rising From the Rubble - NYTimes.com

Flash of the Spirit - a very special homily

2010-03-13T14:01:00.001-03:00

Homily for October 19, 2003.
By Lone Jensen

http://www.vuu.org/sermons/lj031019.pdf

The desert has little mercy. But plenty of sun unlike a winter day in Chicago when the grayness is so pervasive it seems to invade even our souls. It was on such a day I found her in the quiet library at the University of Chicago, a perfect expression for all the changes taking place in my own life at the time: the whirlwind Oya.
And with her I discovered the rest of the Yoruba Pantheon. It turned into a voyage of wonder and discovery much like the young American missionary who one bright morning in the middle of the 19th century ascended a lofty granite boulder and looked down upon the Yoruba city of Abeokuta. He wrote:

What I saw disabused my mind of many errors
in regard to Africa. The city extends along the bank of the Ogun for
nearly six miles and has a population of approximately 200.000 -
instead of being the naked, lazy savages I had been led to expect I saw a
lively industrious city. The men are builders, blacksmiths, basket
makers, hat makers, traders, barbers, tailors, farmers and workers in
leather and morocco, they make razors, swords, knives, hoes, billhooks,
axes, arrowheads and make soap, dyes, palm oil, nut oil and all native
earthen ware and many other things used in the country. It was a city
much as those I had left.

It is not strange he was surprised, no one had told him, just as I was never told, that Africa was more than Egypt and Ethiopia, that it held rich treasures of many cultures and religions.

BBC News - Lost Jewish tribe 'found in Zimbabwe'

2010-03-06T12:01:00.000-03:00

BBC News - Lost Jewish tribe 'found in Zimbabwe'

The oral traditions of the Lemba say that the ngoma lungundu is the Biblical wooden Ark made by Moses, and that centuries ago a small group of men began a long journey carrying it from Yemen to southern Africa.

Hearing from those professors in Harare and seeing the ngoma makes it clear that we are a great people and I'm very proud

David Maramwidze
Lemba elder

The object went missing during the 1970s and was eventually rediscovered in Harare in 2007 by Prof Parfitt.

"Many people say that the story is far-fetched, but the oral traditions of the Lemba have been backed up by science," he says.

YouTube - Parranderos de Loiza BUHOS CAFE Baila Leslie

2010-03-05T20:36:00.000-03:00

YouTube - Parranderos de Loiza BUHOS CAFE Baila Leslie

YouTube - Bomba en Loiza

2010-03-05T20:34:00.000-03:00

YouTube - Bomba en Loiza

African Continuities in the Americas

2010-03-03T15:22:00.002-03:00

AFRICAN™

CONTINUITIES

IN THE
AMERICAS:
BRAZIL 2010

Quilombo Legacy
&
The Bumba-Meu-Boi
Festival

Three City Tour:

RIO DE JANEIRO * SALVADOR * SÂO LUIS

June 16 - June 28, 2010

$2,995.00 Double Occupancy

$525.00 Single Supplement

AFRICAN PRESENCE IN BRAZIL
The legacy of Africa permeates all forms of contemporary Brazilian society. Religion, art, and culture continue to reflect the presence of the largest population of African people outside the continent of Africa. It is the intent of African Continuities in the Americas: Brazil 2010 to explore the linkages and examine the continuities that exist between Africa and the Americas.
YourWorld is offering an exciting travel celebration through Brazil, visiting three different cities to explore the continuities between Brazil and Africa. Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and São Luis are located in the three Brazilian states that have the largest African populations. African Continuities in the Americas: Brazil 2010 will examine the profound contemporary African legacy in Brazil as part of a dynamic living culture.

YourWorld's scholar-in-residence, Prof. C. Daniel Dawson, will add to this precious occasion his profound knowledge of the people in the African Diaspora and their connections. Through his competent, uncompromising and passionate approach Prof. Dawson' s lectures will expand and guide your unique experience of a vibrant learning process in an incomparably joyous environment.

C. DANIEL DAWSON
Prof.C. Daniel Dawson is a scholar, curator, photographer and arts administrator living in New York City. He has taught seminars on African Spirituality throughout the United States and in Latin America. He has also taught at the University of Iowa and Yale University. He has been Director of Education at the Museum for African Art (NYC), Program Specialist at the American Museum of Natural History and Director of Special Projects at the Caribbean Cultural Center (NYC). Prof. Dawson has been researching and traveling extensively to Brazil for the past twenty-five years and is considered a leading expert on capoeira. He currently teaches on African American culture at Columbia University (Institute for Research in African American Studies) and New York University (Gallatin School of Individualized Study).

SALVADOR DA BAHIA
Bahia is the most African of all Brazilian states. In fact Africa abounds in the capital city of Salvador, also known as the "Black Rome" because of its celebrated church architecture and 80% African population. In this city of over two million, the culture is ruled by visible African ideas. The local cuisine, musical traditions, dance forms, Bloco Afro carnival groups, acrobatic martial art of capoeira, vibrant visual arts, and even Bahia's ginga, the graceful swing of its people, are all living testaments to this permeating African influence. In addition, Bahia is full of beautiful beaches, and quiet and historically important countryside towns.

RIO DE JANEIRO

Brazilians of African origin comprise nearly 60 percent of the total population of Brazil. It is estimated that nearly 4 million Africans were shipped to Brazil. By the eighteenth century, the majority of Rio's inhabitants were Africans. As a result, virtually nothing in Rio remained untouched by African customs, beliefs and behavior - a state of affairs that clearly influences today's city, with its mixture of Afro-Brazilian music, spiritualist religions and local cuisine. Brazilian colonizers, unlike colonizers in the United States, allowed Africans to continue to use their drums. Thus began the rhythm of the saints, the samba, and it explains why Brazilian "batucadas" reign unequaled today.
The Samba is a genre of music and dance. It is the most popular and well-known musical genre to come out of the African-Brazilian experience. It is a very percussive, energetic form of music. The escolas de samba, the large community based samba groups, have occasional similarities to the dynamics of marching bands, but, the similarities end there. Samba is a full-fledged musical form intended for dancing, not marching. It's rhythmically unique and culturally vital to Rio de Janeiro and other parts of Brazil. Like many music and dance genres, the samba's roots are African. Groups of neighbors in poor Rio neighborhoods played the music together to sing and dance and soon adapted the style to become part of their yearly carnival celebration. Brazil got the samba, and the U.S. got "the blues."

SÃO LUIS, MARANHÃO

São Luís, Maranhão is a city with a rich folk tradition that blends African, Amerindian, Portuguese and French influences. Daniel Dawson will highlight the African presence in a presentation on the historical significance of Quilombos, the self-liberated communities founded by Africans in Brazil. We will visit one of Maranhão's still functioning Quilombos. Each evening we will visit the Bumba-Meu-Boi Festival, one of Maranhão's most important folklore festivals celebrated annually in São Luís, but little known outside of Brazil.
The festivities also include Tambor-de-Criola and Dança do Coco, music and dance forms unique to Maranhão. The rhythm and dances known as tambor de crioula, or "the black woman's drum", which date back to slavery times and feature women dancing to an engaging drum beat, are powerful, creative and spontaneous.

Bumba-Meu-Boi

Bumba-Meu-Boi is like carnaval in that there are parade groups, lavish costumes and songs and dancing. But one feature that distinguishes it is storytelling and poetry - some written, most improvised. It tells the story of an ox (boi) killed by a slave to satisfy his pregnant wife's food cravings. The farmer who owned the animal called on some Indian shamans (pajés), who brought the animal back to life. In São Luís
Bumba-Meu-Boi takes diverse musical forms as a result of unique instrumentation, which often includes various types of drums and other percussive instruments.
Bumba-Meu- Boi is a combination of song, dance and play in which Indian, African and Iberian-Brazilian elements are mingled. There are an estimated 60 Bumba-Meu-Boi groups in the city - musicians playing a variety of instruments, such as zabumbas (large drums) and matracas (pieces of wood or iron rings which are struck against one another).
The Bumba- Meu-Boi was originally a parody by the oppressed members of the population directed against the society of slave-owners, and accordingly was from time to time suppressed by the authorities.

CELEBRATIONS, PRESENTATIONS and WORKSHOPS

Bumba-Meu-Boi Festival * Sao Joao Festival * Show and Dinner * Art Exhibitions * Presenters * Dance, Drumming and Capoeira Workshops * Visits to Independent Programs and Schools * Visit to a Quilombo

INCLUDED FEATURES

Scheduled Round-Trip Air Transportation - USA/Brazil/USA * Accommodations at Luxury Hotels * Transfers between Airport and Hotel * Brazilian Buffet Breakfast Daily * Historical African Heritage Tours of Rio, Salvador and Sao Luis * Trip to Historical Town of Cachoeira, Lunch included * Visit to a Quilombo * All USA and Brazilian Airport Taxes Included * And much more!

PROGRAM INFORMATION

C. Daniel Dawson                                           YourWorld Consultant Group, Inc.
cddawson@mindspring.com                          (301) 776-1182Toll-Free (888) 535-3536
                                      info@yourworldgroup.com
                                                                        www.yourworldgroup.com
                                                                        photos©YourWorld Consultant Group,Inc. 2009

RESERVATION INFORMATION

RESERVATION APPLICATION
AFRICAN CONTINUITIES IN THE AMERICAS
BRAZIL 2010
JUNE 16 - JUNE 28, 2010

Name(Last) ________________________ (First) _________________________Middle

Int._____

Address___________________________________________________

Apt. No._____________

City_____________________________State/Prov.____________Zip

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Special Assistance_________________________________

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Enclosed is a deposit in the amount of____________
(Minimum deposits $250.00 - Check or Money Order Only)
Balance payments accepted with Visa, MasterCard or Discover
Create your very own payment plan. Minimum payments $300.00
Final Payment due 45 days prior to departure

Make checks payable to: YourWorld Consultant Group, Inc.

Send payment to:
YourWorld Consultant Group, Inc.
P.O. Box 2526
Laurel, MD 20709-2526 DD/100/NY/212

Kingdom of Ife video › The British Museum

2010-02-28T09:44:00.000-03:00

Kingdom of Ife video › The British Museum

Kingdom of Ife | Art review | Art and design | guardian.co.uk

2010-02-28T09:39:00.001-03:00

Kingdom of Ife | Art review | Art and design | guardian.co.uk

This is an exceptional exhibition, even by the high standards the British Museum has established in recent years. It is extraordinary because it brings together such a large number of masterpieces that have rarely or never been exhibited outside Nigeria before – and when I say masterpieces, I mean artworks that rank with the Terracotta Army, the Parthenon or the mask of Tutankhamun as treasures of the human spirit.

The Quilts of Gees Bend

2010-02-27T12:40:00.001-03:00

The Quilts of Gees Bend

Sabrina Gledhill to Give Talk on Manuel Querino and Booker T. Washington at Brasa X

2010-02-27T09:51:00.001-03:00

http://www.brasa.org/congresses/brasa_x

Decoding Limbaugh: Hendrik Hertzberg : The New Yorker

2010-02-25T22:04:00.000-03:00

Decoding Limbaugh: Hendrik Hertzberg : The New Yorker

Voodooists Attacked, Pelted With Rocks At Ceremony For Haiti Victims

2010-02-24T15:26:00.000-03:00

Voodooists Attacked, Pelted With Rocks At Ceremony For Haiti Victims

BBC News - Voodoo religion's role in helping Haiti's quake victims

2010-02-21T21:42:00.000-03:00

BBC News - Voodoo religion's role in helping Haiti's quake victims

BBC News - US renames Negrohead Mountain after black pioneer

2010-02-21T13:46:00.000-03:00

BBC News - US renames Negrohead Mountain after black pioneer

BBC News - Racism still rife in Italian football

2010-02-13T19:25:00.000-03:00

BBC News - Racism still rife in Italian football

Nelson Mandela's historic steps to freedom retraced in South Africa | World news | guardian.co.uk

2010-02-11T17:02:00.000-03:00

Nelson Mandela's historic steps to freedom retraced in South Africa | World news | guardian.co.uk

BBC News - Nelson Mandela's 1990 release marked in South Africa

2010-02-11T16:46:00.001-03:00

BBC News - Nelson Mandela's 1990 release marked in South Africa

Willie Mays: "When they called me names, I just hit [the ball] harder"

2010-02-11T16:05:00.001-03:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Willie Mays

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

Prejudice and principle brew at tea party meet | World news | The Guardian

2010-02-07T19:46:00.000-03:00

Prejudice and principle brew at tea party meet | World news | The Guardian

America's disparate army of angry conservatives assembled under one roof yesterday at the first national tea party convention in Nashville, amid controversy over an opening speech which preached bigotry bordering on racism.

Haitian ambassador shames Pat Robertson

2010-02-01T10:10:00.002-03:00

The "Black Rice" Hypothesis

2010-01-25T10:26:00.000-03:00

Since the 1970s, what can be termed the “black rice hypothesis” has emerged in
ever stronger form in successive books by Peter H. Wood, Daniel C. Littlefield, and
Judith A. Carney. The major export crop of eighteenth-century South Carolina and
Georgia—rice—is now seen as predominantly a creation of Africans. This African
contribution to New World agriculture is epitomized by the arresting title of Carney’s
book: Black Rice. A direct role for Africans in American history strikes a chord at
a time when the national story is becoming less parochial and is increasingly being
viewed in an Atlantic or global context. Furthermore, the emphasis on African
agency resonates with histories from the bottom up and with subaltern studies in
general. That South Carolina’s rice industry was built not just on slave labor, but also
on the slaves’ agricultural and technological knowledge, is an exciting and appealing
revelation. In a multicultural world, it is reassuring to realize that the black contribution
to American life involved more than just backbreaking muscle power. The
development of American rice culture, the claim goes, marked the transatlantic migration
not only of an important crop but of an “entire cultural system.” It was a
major African accomplishment.
The basic argument rests on three core elements. First, rice culture was indigenous
to Africa and was a practice of long standing. Well before the Europeans
arrived, West Africans had developed complex systems of mangrove or tidal floodplain,
coastal estuarine, and upland rain-fed forms of rice cultivation. The area of
greatest rice specialization centered on the Upper Guinea Coast, that part of the
African littoral stretching from present-day Senegal to Liberia, but also reached into
the interior, and by the seventeenth century may have extended coastwise to the
western Gold Coast.8 Second, in contrast to the cultivation of most plantation crops
in the Americas, notably sugar and tobacco, there was never a period when free—or
at least non-slave—labor could be induced to produce rice for export. The workforce
engaged in cultivating rice for export was always black, although elsewhere in the
world, slave labor was not the norm. Moreover, among communities of Maroon or
runaway slaves, rice seems to have often become the major staple and assumed special
significance. Finally, putative parallels have emerged between rice cultivation in
Africa and its counterparts in the Americas. From land preparation through sowing,
weeding, irrigating, threshing, milling, winnowing, and cooking, African practices
seemingly left a deep imprint on New World ways of growing and processing the
crop.
South Carolina (later joined by Georgia and the Cape Fear region of North Carolina)
was the primary, but not the only, rice producer in the Americas. By the late
eighteenth century, northeastern Brazil (the present states of Amapá, Pará, and Maranhã)
had become a significant center of slave-grown rice for export. There were,
then, two key nodal points for commercial rice production in the eighteenth-century
Americas, although one was much larger than the other. In addition, the production
of rice for subsistence and as a minor plantation crop occurred in many other parts
of the New World—Peru, Mexico, the Guianas, Suriname, Cayenne, El Salvador,
Jamaica, and Louisiana. Surinamese Maroons grew rice as their primary food crop,
and their oral traditions include stories about female ancestors who hid seed rice in
their hair when moving either from Africa to Suriname or from plantation to Maroon
camp; a rebellion on a Bahian sugar plantation in 1789 involved a demand by predominantly
creole slaves to “be able to plant our rice wherever we wish.” In short,
rice became widely grown throughout the Americas, and in each case the association
with black labor is evident. Rice, notes Carney, was “the signature cereal of the
African diaspora.”

Excerpted from "Agency and Diaspora in Atlantic History: Reassessing the African Contribution to
Rice Cultivation in the Americas" by DAVID ELTIS, PHILIP MORGAN, and DAVID RICHARDSON, American Historial Review, December 2007, pp. 1332-1334

New Book

2010-01-25T09:37:00.000-03:00

MAMA AFRICA: REINVENTING BLACKNESS IN BAHIA

Patricia de Santana Pinho, Duke University Press

*****************************************************************

I am pleased to announce the publication of Patricia de Santana

Pinho’s new book Mama Africa: Reinventing Blackness in Bahia

(Duke University Press). Often called the “most African” part of

Brazil, the northeastern state of Bahia has the country’s largest

Afro-descendant population and a black culture renowned for its

vibrancy. Combining insights from anthropology, sociology, and

cultural studies, Pinho considers how Afro-Bahian cultural

groups, known as blocos afro, conceive of Africanness, blackness,

and themselves in relation to both. Central to the book, and to

Bahian constructions of blackness, is what Pinho calls “the myth

of Mama Africa,” the idea that Africa exists as a nurturing

spirit inside every black person. Mama Africa is a translated,

updated, and expanded edition of an award-winning book published

in Brazil in 2004.

For more information, and to order the book directly from Duke

University Press, please visit

http://www.dukeupress.edu/books.php3?isbn=978-0-8223-4646-3

Amanda E. Sharp

Publicity and Marketing Assistant

Duke University Press

Box 90660

Durham, NC 27708

(919) 687-3650

(919) 688-4391 FAX

amanda.sharp@dukeupress.edu

905 W. Main Street, Suite 18B

Durham, NC 27701

www.dukeupress.edu

Afro-Brazilian Ancestralidade

2010-01-25T09:34:00.000-03:00

"Afro-Brazilian Ancestralidade: Critical

Perspectives on Knowledge and Development," Alexandre

Emboaba da Costa, January 27, York University, Canada

*****************************************************************

BSS Bi-Weekly Seminar presentation by Brazilian Professor and

Sociologist Alexandre Emboaba da Costa, entitled:

"Afro-Brazilian Ancestralidade: Critical Perspectives on

Knowledge and Development"

Date & time & local:
JAN 27, from 12.30 to 2pm,
Room 830, York Research Tower, York University

Abstract: His presentation analyzes the case of an Afro-Brazilian

cultural center that mobilizes ancestralidade (ancestrality) as a

form of critical knowledge. Rather than revaluing ‘race’ as

‘tradition’ or conduit for folklorization, commodification, and

ideologies of racial democracy, ancestralidade shapes a dynamic

political practice that contests the hierarchical valuing of

knowledge within capitalism and its implications for contemporary

racial inequality. He analyzes the center’s carnaval afoxé and

efforts to restructure school curriculum to highlight the ‘past’

of racialized capitalism and ancestral memory as each

contemporary projects that demonstrate the contested meaning of

culture and development.

Alex Da Costa received his PhD from the Department of Development

Sociology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. His research

examines how Afro-descendants in Brazil and Latin America

mobilize culture and knowledge to challenge the inequalities

produced through the diverse intersections of ‘race’ and

development. In winter term 2010, he will be teaching a seminar

entitled ‘Race in Development’ at the Department of Global

Development Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada.

His contact is alexandre.dacosta@queensu.ca

To Heal Haiti, Look to History, Not Nature

2010-01-22T19:37:00.001-03:00

By Mark Danner
NY Times permalink
HAITI is everybody’s cherished tragedy. Long before the great earthquake struck the country like a vengeful god, the outside world, and Americans especially, described, defined, marked Haiti most of all by its suffering. Epithets of misery clatter after its name like a ball and chain: Poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. One of the poorest on earth. For decades Haiti’s formidable immiseration has made it among outsiders an object of fascination, wonder and awe. Sometimes the pity that is attached to the land — and we see this increasingly in the news coverage this past week — attains a tone almost sacred, as if Haiti has taken its place as a kind of sacrificial victim among nations, nailed in its bloody suffering to the cross of unending destitution.

Raymond Verdaguer

And yet there is nothing mystical in Haiti’s pain, no inescapable curse that haunts the land. From independence and before, Haiti’s harms have been caused by men, not demons. Act of nature that it was, the earthquake last week was able to kill so many because of the corruption and weakness of the Haitian state, a state built for predation and plunder. Recovery can come only with vital, even heroic, outside help; but such help, no matter how inspiring the generosity it embodies, will do little to restore Haiti unless it addresses, as countless prior interventions built on transports of sympathy have not, the man-made causes that lie beneath the Haitian malady.
In 1804 the free Republic of Haiti was declared in almost unimaginable triumph: hard to exaggerate the glory of that birth. Hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans had labored to make Saint-Domingue, as Haiti was then known, the richest colony on earth, a vastly productive slave-powered factory producing tons upon tons of sugar cane, the 18th-century’s great cash crop. For pre-Revolutionary France, Haiti was an inexhaustible cash cow, floating much of its economy. Generation after generation, the second sons of the great French families took ship for Saint-Domingue to preside over the sugar plantations, enjoy the favors of enslaved African women and make their fortunes.
Even by the standards of the day, conditions in Saint-Domingue’s cane fields were grisly and brutal; slaves died young, and in droves; they had few children. As exports of sugar and coffee boomed, imports of fresh Africans boomed with them. So by the time the slaves launched their great revolt in 1791, most of those half-million blacks had been born in Africa, spoke African languages, worshipped African gods.
In an immensely complex decade-long conflict, these African slave-soldiers, commanded by legendary leaders like Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, defeated three Western armies, including the unstoppable superpower of the day, Napoleonic France. In an increasingly savage war — “Burn houses! Cut off heads!” was the slogan of Dessalines — the slaves murdered their white masters, or drove them from the land.
On Jan. 1, 1804, when Dessalines created the Haitian flag by tearing the white middle from the French tricolor, he achieved what even Spartacus could not: he had led to triumph the only successful slave revolt in history. Haiti became the world’s first independent black republic and the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Alas, the first such republic, the United States, despite its revolutionary creed that “all men are created equal,” looked upon these self-freed men with shock, contempt and fear. Indeed, to all the great Western trading powers of the day — much of whose wealth was built on the labor of enslaved Africans — Haiti stood as a frightful example of freedom carried too far. American slaveholders desperately feared that Haiti’s fires of revolt would overleap those few hundred miles of sea and inflame their own human chattel.
For this reason, the United States refused for nearly six decades even to recognize Haiti. (Abraham Lincoln finally did so in 1862.) Along with the great colonial powers, America instead rewarded Haiti’s triumphant slaves with a suffocating trade embargo — and a demand that in exchange for peace the fledgling country pay enormous reparations to its former colonial overseer. Having won their freedom by force of arms, Haiti’s former slaves would be made to purchase it with treasure.
The new nation, its fields burned, its plantation manors pillaged, its towns devastated by apocalyptic war, was crushed by the burden of these astronomical reparations, payments that, in one form or another, strangled its economy for more than a century. It was in this dark aftermath of war, in the shadow of isolation and contempt, that Haiti’s peculiar political system took shape, mirroring in distorted form, like a wax model placed too close to the fire, the slave society of colonial times.
At its apex, the white colonists were supplanted by a new ruling class, made up largely of black and mulatto officers. Though these groups soon became bitter political rivals, they were as one in their determination to maintain in independent Haiti the cardinal principle of governance inherited from Saint-Domingue: the brutal predatory extraction of the country’s wealth by a chosen powerful few.
The whites on their plantations had done this directly, exploiting the land they owned with the forced labor of their slaves. But the slaves had become soldiers in a victorious revolution, and those who survived demanded as their reward a part of the rich land on which they had labored and suffered. Soon after independence most of the great plantations were broken up, given over to the former slaves, establishing Haiti as a nation of small landowners, one whose isolated countryside remained, in language, religion and culture, largely African.
Unable to replace the whites in their plantation manors, Haiti’s new elite moved from owning the land to fighting to control the one institution that could tax its products: the government. While the freed slaves worked their small fields, the powerful drew off the fruits of their labor through taxes. In this disfigured form the colonial philosophy endured: ruling had to do not with building or developing the country but with extracting its wealth. “Pluck the chicken,” proclaimed Dessalines — now Emperor Jacques I — “but don’t make it scream.”
In 1806, two years after independence, the emperor was bayoneted by a mostly mulatto cabal of officers. Haitian history became the immensely complex tale of factional struggles to control the state, with factions often defined by an intricate politics of skin color. There was no method of succession ultimately recognized as legitimate, no tradition of loyal opposition. Politics was murderous, operatic, improvisational. Instability alternated with autocracy. The state was battled over and won; Haiti’s wealth, once seized, purchased allegiance — but only for a time. Fragility of rule and uncertainty of tenure multiplied the imperative to plunder. Unseated rulers were sometimes killed, more often exiled, but always their wealth — that part of it not sent out of the country — was pillaged in its turn.
In 1915 the whites returned: the United States Marines disembarked to enforce continued repayment of the original debt and to put an end to an especially violent struggle for power that, in the shadow of World War I and German machinations in the Caribbean, suddenly seemed to threaten American interests. During their nearly two decades of rule, the Americans built roads and bridges, centralized the Haitian state — setting the stage for the vast conurbation of greater Port-au-Prince that we see today in all its devastation — and sent Haitians abroad to be educated as agronomists and doctors in the hope of building a more stable middle class.
Still, by the time they finally left, little in the original system had fundamentally changed. Haitian nationalism, piqued by the reappearance of white masters who had forced Haitians to work in road gangs, produced the noiriste movement that finally brought to power in 1957 François Duvalier, the most brilliant and bloody of Haiti’s dictators, who murdered tens of thousands while playing adroitly on cold-war America’s fear of communism to win American acceptance.
Duvalier’s epoch, which ended with the overthrow of his son Jean-Claude in 1986, ushered in Haiti’s latest era of instability, which has seen, in barely a quarter-century, several coups and revolutions, a handful of elections (aborted, rigged and, occasionally, fair), a second American occupation (whose accomplishments were even more ephemeral than the first) and, all told, a dozen Haitian rulers. Less and less money now comes from the land, for Haiti’s topsoil has grown enfeebled from overproduction and lack of investment. Aid from foreigners, nations or private organizations, has largely supplanted it: under the Duvaliers Haiti became the great petri dish of foreign aid. A handful of projects have done lasting good; many have been self-serving and even counterproductive. All have helped make it possible, by lifting basic burdens of governance from Haiti’s powerful, for the predatory state to endure.
The struggle for power has not ended. Nor has Haiti’s historic proclivity for drama and disaster. Undertaken in their wake, the world’s interventions — military and civilian, and accompanied as often as not by a grand missionary determination to “rebuild Haiti” — have had as their single unitary principle their failure to alter what is most basic in the country, the reality of a corrupt state and the role, inadvertent or not, of outsiders in collaborating with it.
The sound of Haiti’s suffering is deafening now but behind it one can hear already a familiar music begin to play. Haiti must be made new. This kind of suffering so close to American shores cannot be countenanced. The other evening I watched a television correspondent shake his head over what he movingly described as a “stupid death” — a death that, but for the right medical care, could have been prevented. “It doesn’t have to happen,” he told viewers. “People died today who did not need to die.” He did not say what any Haitian could have told him: that the day before, and the day before that, Haiti had seen hundreds of such “stupid deaths,” and, over the centuries, thousands more. What has changed, once again, and only for a time, is the light shone on them, and the volume of the voices demanding that a “new Haiti” must now be built so they never happen again.
Whether they can read or not, Haiti’s people walk in history, and live in politics. They are independent, proud, fiercely aware of their own singularity. What distinguishes them is a tradition of heroism and a conviction that they are and will remain something distinct, apart — something you can hear in the Creole spoken in the countryside, or the voodoo practiced there, traces of the Africa that the first generation of revolutionaries brought with them on the middle passage.
Haitians have grown up in a certain kind of struggle for individuality and for power, and the country has proved itself able to absorb the ardent attentions of outsiders who, as often as not, remain blissfully unaware of their own contributions to what Haiti is. Like the ruined bridges strewn across the countryside — one of the few traces of the Marines and their occupation nearly a century ago — these attentions tend to begin in evangelical zeal and to leave little lasting behind.
What might, then? America could start by throwing open its markets to Haitian agricultural produce and manufactured goods, broadening and making permanent the provisions of a promising trade bill negotiated in 2008. Such a step would not be glamorous; it would not “remake Haiti.” But it would require a lasting commitment by American farmers and manufacturers and, as the country heals, it would actually bring permanent jobs, investment and income to Haiti.
Second, the United States and other donors could make a formal undertaking to ensure that the vast amounts that will soon pour into the country for reconstruction go not to foreigners but to Haitians — and not only to Haitian contractors and builders but to Haitian workers, at reasonable wages. This would put real money in the hands of many Haitians, not just a few, and begin to shift power away from both the rapacious government and the well-meaning and too often ineffectual charities that seek to circumvent it. The world’s greatest gift would be to make it possible, and necessary, for Haitians — all Haitians — to rebuild Haiti.
Putting money in people’s hands will not make Haiti’s predatory state disappear. But in time, with rising incomes and a concomitant decentralization of power, it might evolve. In coming days much grander ambitions are sure to be declared, just as more scenes of disaster and disorder will transfix us, more stunning and colorful images of irresistible calamity. We will see if the present catastrophe, on a scale that dwarfs all that have come before, can do anything truly to alter the reality of Haiti.

Mark Danner is the author, most recently, of “Stripping Bare the Body: Politics, Violence, War,” which chronicles political conflict in Haiti, the Balkans, Iraq and the United States.

Cynthia Scott, "I Have a Dream"

2010-01-19T11:45:00.001-03:00

Shades of Prejudice

2010-01-19T11:06:00.001-03:00

By SHANKAR VEDANTAM

Published: January 18, 2010

LAST week, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, found himself in trouble for once suggesting that Barack Obama had a political edge over other African-American candidates because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Mr. Reid was not expressing sadness but a gleeful opportunism that Americans were still judging one another by the color of their skin, rather than — as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose legacy we commemorated on Monday, dreamed — by the content of their character.

The Senate leader’s choice of words was flawed, but positing that black candidates who look “less black” have a leg up is hardly more controversial than saying wealthy people have an advantage in elections. Dozens of research studies have shown that skin tone and other racial features play powerful roles in who gets ahead and who does not. These factors regularly determine who gets hired, who gets convicted and who gets elected.

Consider: Lighter-skinned Latinos in the United States make $5,000 more on average than darker-skinned Latinos. The education test-score gap between light-skinned and dark-skinned African-Americans is nearly as large as the gap between whites and blacks.

The Harvard neuroscientist Allen Counter has found that in Arizona, California and Texas, hundreds of Mexican-American women have suffered mercury poisoning as a result of the use of skin-whitening creams. In India, where I was born, a best-selling line of women’s cosmetics called Fair and Lovely has recently been supplemented by a product aimed at men called Fair and Handsome.

This isn’t racism, per se: it’s colorism, an unconscious prejudice that isn’t focused on a single group like blacks so much as on blackness itself. Our brains, shaped by culture and history, create intricate caste hierarchies that privilege those who are physically and culturally whiter and punish those who are darker.

Colorism is an intraracial problem as well as an interracial problem. Racial minorities who are alert to white-black or white-brown issues often remain silent about a colorism that asks “how black” or “how brown” someone is within their own communities.

If colorism lives underground, its effects are very real. Darker-skinned African-American defendants are more than twice as likely to receive the death penalty as lighter-skinned African-American defendants for crimes of equivalent seriousness involving white victims. This was proven in rigorous, peer-reviewed research into hundreds of capital punishment-worthy cases by the Stanford psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt.

Take, for instance, two of Dr. Eberhadt’s murder cases, in Philadelphia, involving black defendants — one light-skinned, the other dark. The lighter-skinned defendant, Arthur Hawthorne, ransacked a drug store for money and narcotics. The pharmacist had complied with every demand, yet Mr. Hawthorne shot him when he was lying face down. Mr. Hawthorne was independently identified as the killer by multiple witnesses, a family member and an accomplice.

The darker-skinned defendant, Ernest Porter, pleaded not guilty to the murder of a beautician, a crime that he was linked to only through a circuitous chain of evidence. A central witness later said that prosecutors forced him to finger Mr. Porter even though he was sure that he was the wrong man. Two people who provided an alibi for Mr. Porter were mysteriously never called to testify. During his trial, Mr. Porter revealed that the police had even gotten his name wrong — his real name was Theodore Wilson — but the court stuck to the wrong name in the interest of convenience.

Both men were convicted. But the lighter-skinned Mr. Hawthorne was given a life sentence, while the dark-skinned Mr. Porter has spent more than a quarter-century on Pennsylvania’s death row.

Colorism also influenced the 2008 presidential race. In an experiment that fall, Drew Westen, a psychologist at Emory, and other researchers shot different versions of a political advertisement in support of Mr. Obama. One version showed a light-skinned black family. Another version had the same script, but used a darker-skinned black family. Voters, at an unconscious level, were less inclined to support Mr. Obama after watching the ad featuring the darker-skinned family than were those who watched the ad with the lighter-skinned family.

Political operatives are certainly aware of this dynamic. During the campaign, a conservative group created attack ads linking Mr. Obama with Kwame Kilpatrick, the disgraced former mayor of Detroit, which darkened Mr. Kilpatrick’s skin to have a more persuasive effect. Though there can be little doubt that as a candidate Mr. Obama faced voters’ conscious and unconscious prejudices, it is simultaneously true that unconscious colorism subtly advantaged him over darker-skinned politicians.

In highlighting how Mr. Obama benefited from his links to whiteness, Harry Reid punctured the myth that Mr. Obama’s election signaled the completion of the Rev. King’s dream. Americans may like to believe that we are now color-blind, that we can consciously choose not to use race when making judgments about other people. It remains a worthy aspiration. But this belief rests on a profound misunderstanding about how our minds work and perversely limits our ability to discuss prejudice honestly.

Shankar Vedantam, a Nieman fellow at Harvard University and a reporter for The Washington Post, is the author of the book “The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives.”

Read original article in the NY Times

Exporting Misery to Haiti

2010-01-19T09:26:00.000-03:00

By James Ridgeway, Reader Supported News

Monday, 18 January 2010 15:20

A boy watches a passing helicopter as Haitians line up to receive high-protein biscuits being handed out by the World Food Program with the assistance of United Nations troops. (photo-caption: Carolyn Cole, LA Times)

"Le ou malere, tout bagay samble ou," says one of the Creole proverbs that are a staple of Haitian popular culture. When you are poor, everything can be blamed on you. It's a truth we can see played out in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake.

Reader Supported News | Perspective
Exporting Misery to Haiti: How Rice, Pigs, and US Policy Undermined the Haitian Economy
è ou malere, tout bagay samble ou, says one of the Creole proverbs that are a staple of Haitian popular culture. When you are poor, everything can be blamed on you. It's a truth we can see played out in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. While many Americans are reacting to the disaster with genuine compassion and generosity, there's another kind of response afoot as well - one that extends well beyond the sickening remarks made by Pat Robertson or Rush Limbaugh.

Why can't the Haitians ever seem to take care of themselves? ask the denizens of web chat rooms and radio call-in shows. The place was a mess before the earthquake, and nothing we do ever seems to help - so why bother? In more elevated circles, the comments are more subtle: "Development efforts have failed there, decade after decade," noted a piece in Sunday's Washington Post, "leaving Haitians with a dysfunctional government, a high crime rate and incomes averaging a dollar a day." With rescue efforts still underway, it said, "policymakers in Washington and around the world are grappling with how a destitute, corrupt and now devastated country might be transformed into a self-sustaining nation."

You'd never guess, from this discourse, how much US policy has actually undermined Haiti's ability to be a "self-sustaining nation," especially its ability to feed itself. America's history of invasion, occupation, and intervention into Haiti's political and economic life stretches back two centuries, with plenty of help from homegrown Haitian despots. But since the 1980s, in particular, the United States has helped turn a nation of low-tech subsistence farmers into a dumping ground for American agribusiness.

The most glaring example of this trend is rice, which was once a staple crop. Today, little rice is grown in Haiti; instead, the nation is a market for the subsidized rice crop grown in the United States. Human Rights lawyer Bill Quigley, now at the Center for Constitutional Rights, wrote about this trend in the spring of 2008, as food riots shook Haiti and other parts of the developing world:

In 1986, after the expulsion of Haitian dictator Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loaned Haiti $24.6 million in desperately needed funds (Baby Doc had raided the treasury on the way out). But, in order to get the IMF loan, Haiti was required to reduce tariff protections for their Haitian rice and other agricultural products and some industries to open up the country's markets to competition from outside countries. The US has by far the largest voice in decisions of the IMF. "American rice invaded the country," recalled Charles Suffrard, a leading rice grower in Haiti, in an interview with the Washington Post in 2000. By 1987 and 1988, there was so much rice coming into the country that many stopped working the land.

Quigley interviewed Father Gerard Jean-Juste, a Haitian priest and human rights advocate. "In the 1980s, imported rice poured into Haiti, below the cost of what our farmers could produce it," Fr. Jean-Juste said. "Farmers lost their businesses. People from the countryside started losing their jobs and moving to the cities. After a few years of cheap imported rice, local production went way down." By 2008, Haiti was the world's third largest importer of US rice, receiving some 240,000 tons that year alone.

US rice growers are heavily subsidized by the government. Between 1995-2006 they received $11 billion. The American rice industry is also protected by tariffs - the same sorts of tariffs the IMF demanded Haiti remove. With the average family income standing at about $400 a year, most Haitians couldn't afford to pay international prices for a product they once grew for themselves - so they had to have aid. The US sponsored the aid, but half the money didn't go to buy the food; it went to US farmers, to processors and to shipping companies, because the food had to be transported in US ships. A good part of the so-called handout to Haiti actually went to US agribusiness, which needed markets for its overflowing bins of farm products.

Another infamous "aid" story involves the destruction of native pig farming in Haiti, following an outbreak of swine fever in the late 1970s. As described by Paul Farmer, the physician and anthropologist legendary for his work among Haiti's poor, pigs were once a centerpiece of Haiti's peasant economy, providing a reliable source of income and an insurance policy against hard times. The hardy Haitian creole pigs seemed to be remarkably resistant to swine fever. But American agriculture experts feared that Haiti's pigs could spread the disease to the United States and destroy its massive hog business, and bankrolled a $23 million "extermination and restocking program."

By 1984, all of Haiti's 1.3 million pigs had been killed. USAID and the Organization of American States thereupon announced a plan to replace the Creole pigs with brand new Iowa pigs - provided that the peasants committed to building pigsties to US standards and demonstrate they had enough money to buy feed. Even the peasants who could afford these "free" pigs found that they couldn't flourish under Haitian conditions. The fragile kochon blan ("foreign" or "white" pigs) frequently fell ill and had to go to the vet; they wouldn't eat scraps and required expensive feed; and they had few litters. Soon, the project was abandoned - leaving Iowa hog farmers enriched, and hundreds of thousands of Haitian families without a key means of survival.

These changes in many ways served US economic interests in the Caribbean, which since the 1980s have been oriented towards knitting the area into a common free trade zone, first in the Caribbean Basin Initiative and then under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Forced out of small-scale farming by the elimination of two basic staples, Haitians moved to the cities, where they were available to work in sweatshops producing panties, bras, and dresses for such places as Sears, WalMart, and JC Penney. US aid programs have supported the effort to turn countries such as Haiti into low wage assembly platforms that supply a cheap, easily exploitable workforce for American and international business - and at the same time, relieve pressure on immigration by keeping the desperate Haitians working at home for what is barely a living wage.

After coming to Haiti en masse in the 1980s and 1990s, some of these companies moved on to even cheaper - and more "stable" - countries. Yet recent development initiatives, including the US's HOPE II program to encourage duty-free trade with Haiti, continued to emphasize the low-wage, export-oriented garment industry over sustainable agriculture or other projects that would build Haiti's self-reliance. At the same time, Western companies looked toward the prospect of an expanded tourist industry, owned by foreigners and once again exploiting cheap labor. The purported return of the luxury tourist hotels targeted such places as Jacmel, which now lie in ruins.

Even before the earthquake, these economic actions, driven by outside economic forces, offered little promise of restoring and reinvigorating indigenous farming, or providing any sort of real, homegrown economic base for Haiti. Such has been the nature of the US's "help" to its impoverished Caribbean neighbor.

As the Haitians say, Bel dan pa di zanmi. A beautiful smile doesn't mean he's your friend.

James Ridgeway, an investigative journalist, is senior Washington correspondent for Mother Jones. His books include "The Haiti Files," an anthology of history, politics and culture.

Read original article here

"The Dream" Remains a Dream

2010-01-18T15:44:00.002-03:00

Monday 18 January 2010

by: Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

(Photo: Dick DeMarsico / World Telegram & Sun)

On January 18, 2010, America will celebrate the birth, death, and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We will hear those powerful words, "I Have A Dream." What has troubled me over the years is how Dr. King, the visionary, prophet and revolutionary's vision, action and ultimate sacrifice have been hijacked, compromised and relegated to being those of just a dreamer.

Dreamers are safe, docile and non-threatening. People are comfortable with dreamers. Why? To be a dreamer, you must be in a restful state, usually asleep. To cast Dr. King in the light of a dreamer allows people to be convinced that action resulting from clear vision is not necessary. It allows the oppressed to be fooled into being patient and non-revolutionary; yours will come by-and by. It allows Dr. King's "Dream" - his vision - to remain a dream.

What many fail to realize is that Dr. King was no dreamer. He was a visionary, not some abstract thinker or philosopher. He was a prophet and a true revolutionary.

As I understand it, the original title of the "I Have A Dream" speech was "Normalcy - Never Again." That title was a real indication of what was to come. It was a clear statement that what had been accepted - what had been normal, i.e., oppression in America, would no longer be tolerated.

Dr. King the realist states, "... we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land...." That was no dream; that was the Negro's reality in 1963 and a clear indictment of the social conditions in America at that time. It continues to be an unfortunate reality for too many children languishing in inner-city schools, parents losing jobs and homes, and those unjustly incarcerated in American jails and prisons.

Dr. King the strict constructionist referred to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. He stated, "It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.... America has given the Negro people a bad check - a check which has come back marked insufficient funds." Again, no dream in that statement; that's a clear indictment of the African-American human condition!

Dr. King the prophet offered hope by saying, "But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation." He said this because he clearly understood the power of hope. As a minister, he clearly understood the power of faith.

Before Dr. King talks about the dream, he says that we must march ahead. "We cannot turn back.... We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality." In light of the January 1, 2009, murder of Oscar Grant in Oakland, California; the November 25, 2006, murder of Sean Bell; the March 16, 2000, murder of Patrick Dorismond; the February 4, 1999, murder of Amadou Diallo and many others, African-Americans still find themselves victims of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality, racial profiling and Driving While Black - and sometimes Walking While Black.

The "dream" reference actually comes toward the end of the speech. As Dr. King was close to ending his nine-minute delivery, the great gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson, who was seated behind him, said, "Tell them about your dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!" At that point, Dr. King went away from his prepared text and said, "... so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream." It's important to understand that he spoke of the dream in the context of the horrific reality for the Negro and the poor that he had just articulated. What makes the "dream" significant is its juxtaposition against America's reality, failures and oppression of its own citizens - their nightmare!

Today, many see President Obama's historic accomplishment as evidence of the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream, a "post-racial" America. Standing as proof that America has made progress on the long and difficult road toward racial tolerance and acceptance. Progress yes, however, there are still many miles left to travel.

As long as African-American men are incarcerated at a rate more than six times that of white men and the incarceration of black women continues to grow at record numbers, the "Dream" will remain a dream. As long as unemployment among African-Americans is more than twice the unemployment rate of white Americans and as long as studies show that a black family's income is a little more than half that of a similar white family's income, the "Dream" will remain a dream. As long as African-Americans continue to deal with Driving While Black, excessive high school dropout rates, and imbalances in health care, the "Dream" will remain a dream.

Until every American's reality reflects the founding principles of this great nation:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The "Dream" for too many in America will remain a dream.

Haiti in Ink and Tears: A Literary Sampler

2010-01-17T19:27:00.001-03:00

By MADISON SMARTT BELL

Today is a good day to remember that in Haiti, nobody ever really dies. The many thousands who've had the breath crushed out of their bodies in the earthquake, and the thousands more who will not physically survive the aftermath, will undergo instead a translation of state, according to the precepts of Haitian Vodou, some form of which is practiced by much of the population. Spirits of the Haitian dead — sa nou pa we yo, those we don’t see — do not depart as in other religions but remain extremely close to the living, invisible but tangible, inhabiting a parallel universe on the other side of any mirror, beneath the surface of all water, just behind the veil that divides us from our dreams.
That extraordinary spiritual reservoir is the source of the Haitian religious view of the world — as powerful as any today. As often as it is misunderstood and misrepresented, Haitian Vodou, with all it carries out of the cradle of humankind’s birth in Africa and combines with Roman Catholicism, has enabled Haitians to laugh at death, as they have too often needed to do.
During the decade-long Haitian revolution that began in 1791 — the only event in human history where African slaves won freedom for themselves by force of arms — a prisoner of the French was awaiting execution by burning. Come, he is supposed to have said to his companions, let us show these people how to die. He climbed onto the pyre himself and stayed there, without uttering another sound, until the fire consumed him.
The energy of souls not lost springs back into the living world, not only through one of the few surviving religions that allow believers to converse face to face with the gods, but also in an extraordinarily rich, fertile and (in spite of everything) optimistic culture. Haiti offers, keeps on offering, a shimmering panorama of visual art and a wealth of seductive and hypnotic music, much of it rooted in the rhythms of ceremonial drumming. For the past 50 years a remarkably vivid and sophisticated Haitian literature has been flowing out of Creole, an ever-evolving language as fecund as the English of Shakespeare’s time. The Haitian world is not all suffering; it is full of treasure. Here are a few of the many voices, native and not, inspired by Haiti. —Madison Smartt Bell

Read NY Times feature in full here

Manuel Querino now on Facebook

2010-01-05T12:04:00.001-03:00

Visit his page and become a fan http://www.facebook.com/pages/Manuel-Querino-Brazils-first-Black-vindicationist/275039574687?ref=ss

Percy Sutton

2009-12-28T12:12:00.003-03:00

STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT OBAMA ON THE PASSING OF PERCY SUTTON: 'Percy Sutton was a true hero to African Americans in New York City and around the country. We will remember him for his service to the country as a Tuskegee Airman, to New York State as a state assemblyman, to New York City as Manhattan Borough President, and to the community of Harlem in leading the effort to revitalize the world renowned Apollo Theater. His life-long dedication to the fight for civil rights and his career as an entrepreneur and public servant made the rise of countless young African Americans possible. Michelle and I extend our deepest condolences to his family on this sad day.'

When you're young, gifted and black, your soul's intact

2009-12-08T08:41:00.001-03:00

To be young, gifted and black,
Oh what a lovely precious dream
To be young, gifted and black,
Open your heart to what I mean

In the whole world you know
There are billion boys and girls
Who are young, gifted and black,
And that's a fact!

Young, gifted and black
We must begin to tell our young
There's a world waiting for you
This is a quest that's just begun

When you feel really low
Yeah, there's a great truth you should know
When you're young, gifted and black
Your soul's intact

Young, gifted and black
How I long to know the truth
There are times when I look back
And I am haunted by my youth

Oh but my joy of today
Is that we can all be proud to say
To be young, gifted and black
Is where it's at

http://boscarol.com/nina/html/where/tobeyounggifted.html

History of the Watch Night Service

2009-12-07T15:12:00.003-03:00

During the church service at a Negro church in Heard County. New York Public Library.

Many of you who live or grew up in Black communities in the United States have probably heard of "Watch Night Services," the gathering of the faithful in church on New Year's Eve.
The service usually begins anywhere from 7 p.m. To 10 p.m. And ends at midnight with the entrance of the New Year.
Some folks come to church first, before going out to celebrate.
For others, church is the only New Year's Eve event.
Like many others, I always assumed that Watch Night was a fairly standard Christian religious service -- made a bit more Afro centric because that's what happens when elements of Christianity become linked with the Black Church.
Still, it seemed that predominately White Christian churches did not include Watch Night services on their calendars, but focused instead on Christmas Eve programs.
In fact, there were instances where clergy in mainline denominations wondered aloud about the propriety of linking religious services with a secular holiday like New Year's Eve.
However, there is a reason for the importance of New Year's Eve services in African American congregations.
The Watch Night Services in Black communities that we celebrate today can be traced back to gatherings on December 31, 1862, also known as "Freedom's Eve."
On that night, Blacks came together in churches and private homes all across the nation, anxiously awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation actually had become law.
Then, at the stroke of midnight, it was January 1, 1863, and all slaves in the Confederate States were declared legally free .
When the news was received, there were prayers, shouts and songs of joy as people fell to their knees and thanked God.
Black folks have gathered in churches annually on New Year's Eve ever since, praising God for bringing us safely through another year.
It's been 145 years since that first Freedom's Eve and many of us were never taught the African American history of Watch Night, but tradition still brings us together at this time every year to celebrate "how we got over."

Stuart Hall on the Obama phenomenon

2009-11-23T11:25:00.001-03:00

Race, the floating signifier, featuring Stuart Hall

2009-11-23T10:41:00.000-03:00

Cosmopolitanism - Interview with Stuart Hall - March 2006

2009-11-23T10:04:00.001-03:00

Jon Stewart asks, "Is blackface ever OK?"

2009-11-12T09:49:00.002-03:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Is Blackface Ever OK?

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

University race quotas row in Brazil

2009-11-01T09:45:00.002-03:00

Read original article here

By Gary Duffy,
BBC News, Rio de Janeiro

Many Brazilian universities have already adopted affirmative action policies

There are more people of African descent in Brazil than in any country outside the African continent itself, but the higher you go in Brazilian society the less evidence there appears to be of that reality.

Critics say part of the blame lies with a system which has often failed to provide equality of access to third-level education, though recent years have seen some improvements.

To try to address the problem, many Brazilian universities have adopted affirmative action policies or quotas to try to boost the number of black and mixed race students, or more generally those from poor backgrounds.

Gisele says the quotas system has given her a head-start

It is a controversial approach which some argue is necessary to end decades of inequality, while others fear it threatens to introduce racial tension in a society which has been largely free of such problems.

Gisele Alves lives in a poor neighbourhood in Nova Iguacu on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, and says she doubts she would have got to college without a helping hand from the state.

She is studying at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), which was one of the first to adopt quotas.

"I thought I was going to finish school, find work in a little shop, get married and pregnant and that would be it. I didn't expect much more than that," she says.

"But with the system of quotas I started to think I could go to university. My parents couldn't pay privately - if I wanted to study it had to be at a public university."

Giselle got her place in part due to Rio's controversial quotas system which sets aside 20% of public university places for poor black and indigenous students, and the same number for students educated in the much criticised public school system.

Legal challenge

Those parents who can afford it often opt to have their children educated in more expensive private schools, giving them a considerable advantage when it comes to highly competitive university entrance exams - especially for prestigious courses such as law and medicine.

Mr Bolsonaro says the quotas approach is a form of reverse discrimination

It is a process which works against poorer students - which in Brazil often means black or mixed race.

"When you consider the way things are in Brazil, you can see that poverty has a colour," says Lena Medeiros de Menezes, vice rector at the State University.

"It will take a long time for investment in primary and secondary education to bring about equality. How do I see quotas? It's a way to change things and change them rapidly."

But in Rio de Janeiro a question mark hangs over the quotas system after a legal challenge mounted by state congressman Flavio Bolsonaro.

He argues the approach is a form of reverse discrimination.

"What are you going to say to a teenager who goes to do a university entrance exam and gets a high mark, but doesn't get through, but another teenager has passed with a much lower mark because they have a dark skin?" he says.

"What would be the legacy of that for future generations?"

White or black?

Rio's Federal University (UFRJ) does not operate a system of quotas, though the issue has been widely debated.

Prof Paixao says black Brazilians are largely absent from key professions

Professor Marcelo Paixao, who lectures there, says it is clear that in Brazil those of African descent are largely absent from many key professions.

"Here the percentage of black people holding jobs - such as doctors, engineers, economists, lawyers - is very low," he says.

"When you have universities - principally the most prestigious ones which are the public ones - so closed to presence of the Afro-descendent population, this means these professions will also continue to be exclusive to a certain group of people for a very long time."

The debate in Brazil is further complicated because of the sometimes uncertain definition here of who is white, black or mixed race - official surveys let people classify themselves.

Hundreds of years of racial mixing means that many Brazilians regard themselves as neither black nor white but something in between, and recent surveys suggest some people have even changed their view of how they should be described.

Racial equality law

Some argue that quotas even partly based on race introduce a tension that never existed in Brazilian society in the way it has in the United States, while others say it simply recognises the obvious link between being poor and black.

You can not force a racial identity in a population where a large percentage of the population don't have a clear racial identity and don't want that

Simon Schwartzman
Brazilian researcher

"I think the main issue has to do with poverty and the bad quality of basic education," says Simon Schwartzman, senior researcher at the Institute of Studies of Work and Society in Rio de Janeiro.

"People who are poor don't have access to good education; they have more difficulty in having access, in particular to the more prestigious courses. It is a question of poverty not of race.

"There are good reasons to be against race quotas in Brazil - I don't think it makes any sense at all. For people who are poor and didn't have a good education, I think there is a good argument for that, provided you do it properly.

"You can not force a racial identity in a population where a large percentage of the population don't have a clear racial identity and don't want that. If you look at the population and ask people 'what is your race?' - many people won't know exactly what to answer.

"That is not to say that you don't have prejudice, that the fact that you are black you don't suffer, because you do. You should do specific things about that, but not to institute a kind of national policy based on race," Mr Schwartzman says.

For a future generation of students this complicated question has still to be finally resolved.

A long-debated law on racial equality only recently passed an important stage in congressional approval by avoiding controversial issues such as quotas.

It appears the final word may be left to the country's Supreme Court which is due to give its views on the matter in the year ahead.

The good, bad and ugly hair days

2009-10-31T10:55:00.001-03:00

By Chikodili Emelumadu
BBC Africa Have Your Say

It was only after losing a huge chunk of hair that I stopped straightening it with chemical relaxer - something I had done growing up in Nigeria since the age of six.

My bald patch was dubbed the "helicopter landing pad" by my flat mates at university for months afterwards.

I share this painful anecdote because a new documentary has re-ignited the natural versus straightened hair debate among black women.

I've had my hair chemicalised for the last 10 years. It's so easy to manage because I have a lot of hair. I love it

Olivia at Queens Hair Design

Chris Rock's film Good Hair focuses on the United States and the lengths and money African-Americans will go to achieve longer, smoother, shinier, straighter "good" hair - using hot presses, creme relaxers, weaves and wigs.

Women in Africa are no strangers to the lure of "the creamy crack", as our American counterparts call relaxer - likening it to cocaine because of its addictive nature, and are as willing to take the risk of burning their scalps using it.

'Feel the burn'

"I've had my hair chemicalised for the last 10 years," Olivia told the BBC as she had her hair done in Queens Hair Designers in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

Cameroonian first lady Chantal Biya's leonine mane is her trademark

"It's so easy to manage because I have a lot of hair. I love it."

The most common ingredient in relaxers is sodium hydroxide or lye. In the documentary, an aluminium can dipped in a bowl containing the chemical melts completely.

But Florence, a hairdresser at Queens Hair Design, dismisses the "if you feel the burn, it's working" belief.

She says it is all about technique and places the blame for any "helicopter landing pads" squarely on too-clean or already traumatised scalps.

"Usually before I relax your hair I will ask you whether you have recently braided or washed your hair. If you have then the hair will not relax nicely," she explains.

South African Elma Titus, who specialises in African hair and scalp problems, agrees that relaxers are not solely to blame for the problem of hair loss.

"It could be the chemicals or it could be the extensions that you're putting in your hair all the time without giving your hair time to recuperate - or even the wigs," she says.

Human hair

Apart from the health implications women face in search of good hair, there is the expense. Black women are said to spend about three times more on their hair than other women.

My bad scalp days are well and truly over

Chikodili Emelumadu

The cost of extensions and wigs can be staggering, ranging from $10 a-piece for synthetic hair to as much as $800 (£486) and upwards for human hair pieces.

Yet it does not seem to deter women bent on achieving perfect flowing locks.

Take Cameroon's first lady Chantal Biya for example. Her leonine mane of tawny hair has become her trademark.

Nigerian Cherish Angula admitted to the BBC's Africa Have Your Say programme that she had just spent $750 getting a lace-front wig - but she said it is money well spent.

"It lasts three, four times as long as ordinary weave-ons [extensions] and so it works out cheaper for me.

"It is basically a whole head unit, you attach it with glue around the circumference of your head and it gives it a more natural appearance like the hair is growing from your head.

"It's basically the same thing that celebrities like Beyonce wear."

Fashion facism?

What might seem like vanity to some can in fact boil down to survival for many women in Africa where careers and incomes can rely on one's hair style.

If you really want the job you'll have to do what they want

Judy at Queens Hair Design

In Kenya, for example, a woman with the natural look or dreadlocks is unlikely to succeed at job interviews.

"If you really want the job you'll have to do what they want," says Judy at Queens Hair Design.

And even the thought of opting for a natural look is greeted with hilarity by the Queens Hair Design clientele.

But some women, such as journalist Phyllis Nyambura who edits a women's supplement for a Tanzanian newspaper, are trying to take on such prejudices.

"The weaves were great at first," Ms Nyambura says.

"I would change my hairstyles and look different all the time but the problem was that they are a bit expensive and there is also that fake thing about them."

For my part, I am immune to the fashion fascism, and my bad scalp days are well and truly over.

Click to see original BBC News article and readers' comments

Honorary PhD for Iyalorisa Stella of Oxossi

2009-09-09T10:28:00.008-03:00

Photo: Mario Cravo Neto

At 9:30 a.m tomorrow, the Universade do Estado da Bahia (Uneb) will award Mãe Stella de Oxossi, iyalorisa of Ilê Axé Opo Afonjá, an honorary doctorate to mark the 70th anniversary of her initiation. Two people were selected to receive this honour in 2009. The other was Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, the President of Brazil.

Glenn Beck, Van Jones, and You

2009-09-09T10:28:00.001-03:00

Saturday night, Van Jones resigned from his job as the White House special adviser on Green Jobs.¹ Van's resignation came after a vicious smear campaign by Fox television host Glenn Beck, and it is the latest evidence of why our campaign against Beck is so important.

Van is a passionate thinker and leader and we are grateful to him for co-founding ColorOfChange. But this campaign is not about Van. It's about stopping Glenn Beck, who has promised to take his witch-hunt to others in the administration. Beck's overall plan is to create an atmosphere in which the White House can accomplish nothing, and he's carrying it out by preying on race-based fears and mobilizing hate.

The good news is that our campaign is working. More than 175,000 of you have stood up, and advertisers have followed suit. As of today, 62 companies have stopped their ads from running on Beck's show. Every national company with a name you'd recognize is gone. What's left are mostly far-right groups and direct marketing companies selling things like gold coins and discounted exercise equipment.

The reality of Beck's attacks on Van

After we launched this campaign, some bloggers and reporters tried to discredit the effort by claiming that the White House or Van was somehow involved, or that we launched the campaign to protect Van. It's an absurd accusation. Van hasn't worked with ColorOfChange in years, and when we decided to launch the campaign we didn't even know that Beck had attacked him. The reality is that we began our campaign for the same reason 175,000 of you have now joined it: Glenn Beck called the president of the United States a "racist" who "has a deep seated hatred for White people," which is part of a pattern of Beck using lies and distortions to race-bait and fear-monger.²

As Beck started losing advertisers in response to our campaign, he went into full-scale attack mode on Van--exaggerating or distorting his record on 23 shows and devoting an entire segment to discrediting him. Beck presented his attacks on Van as honest journalistic inquiry, while dishonestly failing to mention that Van co-founded the group leading a successful advertiser boycott against him.

But Beck's real goals were clear: Take down Van. Undermine the White House. Set the stage for his followers to say our campaign was about protecting Van. And of course, create a distraction from our campaign and the real reasons major companies are ditching Beck's show.

The problem with Beck

Glenn Beck's show is described as news analysis and commentary, and he claims to be bringing his viewers "the facts"; but his attacks on the President's character, agenda and advisers are anything but news. They are political character assassination of the worst form, relying on dishonesty, distortion, exaggeration, and fear. And Beck has promised to launch more attacks on new targets.³ Our country is facing numerous challenges, including a struggling economy, a climate and energy crisis, and a broken health care system. The media should be promoting thoughtful, rational dialogue about how to solve these problems, not launching dishonest political attacks to distract and divide us.

Our team is working hard to use all the tools at our disposal to take away Beck's platform. In the coming weeks there will be more for you to do. But for now, we ask you to do something simple. If you haven't done so already, please email your friends and family, and ask them to sign on to our campaign against Glenn Beck. There's a message you can send them at the link below:

http://colorofchange.org/beck/passalong.html?id=2473-605038

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
September 9th, 2009

https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/?id=2473-605038

References

1. "White House Official Resigns After G.O.P. Criticism," New York Times, 9-06-09
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/us/politics/07vanjones.html

2. "Beck caps off week of race-baiting by calling Obama a 'racist'," Media Matters, 7-30-09
http://mediamatters.org/research/200907300019

3. @glennbeck on Twitter, 9-03-09
http://twitter.com/glennbeck/status/3749169499

The Jena 6 are free at last

2009-06-27T14:02:00.001-03:00

Yesterday, nearly two years after more than 320,000 of you stood up to protect them from Jim Crow justice, the Jena 6--Jesse Ray Beard, Carwin Jones, Robert Bailey, Theo Shaw, Bryant Purvis and Mychal Bell--are all now free to move ahead with their lives. We should all be proud.

The five remaining Jena 6 cases were brought to conclusion on Friday¹ when Jesse Ray, Carwin, Robert, Theo, and Bryant pleaded "no contest" to misdemeanor simple battery charges.² They will spend no time in jail, serve seven days of probation, and pay relatively minor fines and court fees.

It's an incredible outcome given that the young men were originally charged with attempted murder in small-town Louisiana and had neither the funds nor the connections to get high-quality representation or attention for their cases.

Luckily for the Jena 6, hundreds of thousands of you got involved, and the power of your participation changed the game. An amazing team of lawyers worked tirelessly to achieve Friday's outcome. Our staff helped recruit them, and your financial contributions--over $275,000--provided the bulk of the funds for their work. Jim Boren, the coordinating attorney, said this about ColorOfChange members' contribution: "None of this would have happened without you."

But it wasn't just lawyers and money. Over 300,000 of you wrote to Governor Blanco and District Attorney Reed Walters. On September 20th, 2007, more than 10,000 of you went to Jena. Members who couldn't make it to Jena held more than 150 rallies and vigils across the country, and made more than 6,000 phone calls to elected officials in Louisiana. And a few weeks later, ColorOfChange members sent almost 4,000 complaints demanding an inquiry into the DA's actions.

Your actions offline and online helped put Jena on the map and resulted in critical coverage in every mainstream news outlet. You started a movement that made it impossible for Louisiana officials to support the status quo.

Today we offer congratulations to these young men and their families, and we say thank you to the entire ColorOfChange.org community. We're also so thankful to the attorneys who took these cases but chose to stay out of the limelight. They and several others³ are the unsung heroes of this story.

As the young men of the Jena 6 close this chapter of their lives, we wanted to give you an opportunity to wish them well. Click the link below to leave a personal statement for the young men of the Jena 6, or to listen to the voicemail from Jim Boren thanking the ColorOfChange community for our work:

http://www.colorofchange.org/jenaresolution/?id=2473-605038

While this is a great moment, it's important to remember that if it were not for the extreme nature of this case, most of us wouldn't have known about it or gotten involved. The reality is that there are countless Jena 6's: young people--often Black and male--who are overcharged or unduly criminalized, and whose plight is unknown to most of the outside world.

It's the reason our work cannot just be about identifying and fighting for individuals railroaded by the system, but about creating systemic change in criminal justice in America. We are truly grateful to have the chance to do this work with you, and we're hoping for your continued engagement and support.

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
June 27, 2009

https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/?id=2473-605038

References:

1. "Plea Bargain Wraps Up 'Jena 6' Case," 9-26-09
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/26/national/main5116800.shtml

2. The sixth teenager charged, Mychal Bell, pleaded guilty to battery in juvenile court on December 3rd, 2007.

3. Thanks are due to Alan Bean, Tory Pegram, and King Downing, who dedicated months to working with the families and getting the story out, and to our friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center who played a central role in putting together and supporting the legal teams. Without any one of them, our work would have been hampered, or in some cases not possible at all.

Wapedia on Afro-Brazilians

2009-06-25T10:13:00.000-03:00

Afro-Brazilian , or Black Brazilian , is the term used to racially categorize Brazilian citizens who self-reported to be of black or brown ( Pardo ) skin colors to the official IBGE census. As of 2005 , 91 million Brazilians were included in the black and brown category. ^[2]

Brazil has the largest population of black origin outside of Africa ^[3] with, in 2007, 7.4% classyfing themselves as preto(black skin color) and 42.3% as pardo (brown color). The latter classification is broad and encompasses Brazilians of mixed ancestry, including mulattos and caboclos ^[1] making the total 49.5%. The largest concentration of Afro-Brazilians is in the state of Bahia where over 80% of the people are descendants of Africans. ^[4] ^[5] ^[6]

A large number of Brazilians have some African ancestry and Brazilian populations are remarkably heterogeneous. Due to intensive mixing with Europeans and Native Indians, Brazilians with African ancestors may or may not show any trace of black features ^[7] .

Access to Justice: Lessons From Civil Rights Experiences in Brazil and the USA

2009-05-18T11:24:00.000-03:00

*****************************************************************

As part of the U.S.-Brazil memorandum of understanding signed in
2008 to discuss issues of racial and ethnic discrimination, this
event is part of a two-day bi-national steering committee meeting
to deepen the dialogue on the civil rights agenda of both
nations.

http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_events/task,view/id,2018/

Research Focus: Americas
<http://www.csis.org/index.php?option=com_csis_topics&task=select&id=30>

Program: Americas Program
<http://www.csis.org/index.php?option=com_csis_progj&task=view&id=1>

Related Materials

<http://www.csis.org/media/csis/events/090429_brazil_invitation.pdf>
Multimedia

Audio(02:11:33)
<http://media.csis.org/americas/090429_americas_english.mp3>

Event Information

Time
April 29, 2009
2:00-4:00pm

Location
B1 Conference Center
1800 K St NW
Washington DC

Contact Jessica Horwitz<mailto:americas@csis.org> 202-775-3180

"Access to Justice: Lessons From Civil Rights Experiences in
Brazil and the United States"

Opening Remarks by

His Excellency Antonio de Aguilar Patriota
Ambassador of Brazil to the United States

Panelists included

Wade Henderson
President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights

Elaine Jones
Former President, NAACP Legal Defense Fund

His Excellency Edson Santos
Minister of the Special Secretariat for
Policies to Promote Racial Equality, Brazil

Floor Audio
<http://media.csis.org/americas/090429_americas_floor.mp3>
(both
Portugese and English)

http://media.csis.org/americas/090429_americas_english.mp3
Audio clip

Youth and the Myth of Post-Racial Society

2009-04-27T22:08:00.001-03:00

http://www.truthout.org/042709A
Henry A. Giroux, Truthout: "With the election of Barack Obama, it has been argued that not only will the social state be renewed in the spirit and legacy of the New Deal, but that the punishing racial state and its vast complex of disciplinary institutions will, if not come to an end, at least be significantly reformed. From this perspective, Obama's presidency not only represents a post-racial victory, but also signals a new space of post-racial harmony. While 'post-racial' may mean less overt racism, the idea that we have moved into a post-racial period in American history is not merely premature - it is an act of willful denial and ignorance."

A Black President Doesn't Mean Racism Is Gone in America

2009-04-21T19:11:00.003-03:00

http://www.truthout.org/042109B
Peter Phillips, Truthout: "Racial inequality remains problematic in the US. People of color continue to experience disproportionately high rates of poverty, unemployment, police profiling, repressive incarceration and school segregation. According to a new civil rights report, 'Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century Challenge,' by Gary Orfield, schools in the US are currently 44 percent nonwhite, and minorities are rapidly emerging as the majority of public school students. Latinos and blacks are the two largest minority groups. However, black and Latino students attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights era."

EBONY POWER

2009-04-14T09:55:00.000-03:00

EBONY's May issue, with Oscar nominees Viola Davis and Taraji P. Henson on the cover, names 'THE EBONY POWER 150: THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BLACKS IN AMERICA,' including President Obama, Rep. James Clyburn 40 other House members, Donna Brazile, Gwen Ifill, Mayor Fenty, Michael Steele, Soledad O'Brien, Don Lemon, General Powell, Oprah and Dr. William H. (Bill) Cosby Jr.

Also: 'POWER BEHIND THE POWER: TOP BLACKS IN THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION': 'Brought together by EBONY magazine on the White House grounds for the first time since Inauguration Day, they are part of a team put together by the president to carry forth his vision for the country. With one look at the historic collection of dynamic advisers-12, the most African- Americans ever in such high-powered positions within the White House-it is obvious that change has already come to the nation's capital.'

The remarkable photo includes Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; Eric Holder, attorney general; Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser; Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; (standing, l. to r.) Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council; Joshua DuBois, director of the White House Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; Ron Kirk, U.S. trade representative; Desirée Rogers, White House social secretary; Mike Strautmanis, chief of staff to the assistant to the president for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison; and Rob Nabors, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.

And in 'A GREAT DAY AT THE WHITE HOUSE: AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS CORPS,' Kevin Chappell (called on by President Obama at the last presser) reports that the press corps includes 'a record number of African-Americans who intensely cover the most watched president ever. Ebony magazine has gathered for the first time these nearly two dozen journalists in the White House press briefing room for a historic photograph of Black writers, editors, producers, correspondents, photographers and cameramen. They range from energetic newbies covering their first administration to grizzled veterans who have seen presidents come and go. They work for a variety of outlets, including mainstream media, African-American mainstays and Internet-only operations. While many of them were proud at the thought of the first African-American president, these journalists each day ask the tough questions, reject evasive answers and go after the news wherever it may lead. It's not personal. It's their job.'

The photograph includes: Pamela Gentry, senior political analyst for BET.com; April Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Radio; Suzanne Malveaux, White House correspondent for CNN; Nia-Malika Henderson, writer for POLITICO; Lauren V. Burke, freelance photographer; Darlene Superville, writer for The Associated Press; Michael Fletcher, White House correspondent for The Washington Post; Dayo Olopade, Washington correspondent for TheRoot.com; Athena Jones, NBC producer; Dan Lothian, White House correspondent for CNN; Giaco Riggs, cameraman for CNN; Andre Showell, reporter BET News; Kevin Chappell, senior editor for EBONY and Jet magazines; Karen Ann Carr, writer for Washington Waterfront News; Tony Umrani, cameraman for CNN; Rodney Batten, cameraman for NBC; Tony Butler, cameraman for NBC; Doug Perkins, freelance cameraman for CBS and The Associated Press; and Edward Lewis, cameraman for FOX. Not pictured are Hazel Trice Edney of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), Cynthia Gordy of Essence magazine and Wendell Goler of FOX News Channel.

Source: Mike Allen's POLITICO Playbook Daily Update

John Hope, the Prince Who Refused the Kingdom

2009-04-08T21:09:00.001-03:00

http://www.truthout.org/040809EDU
Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Root: "When I was 20, I decided to hitchhike across the African continent, more or less following the line of the equator, from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. I packed only one pair of sandals and one pair of jeans to make room for the three hefty books I had decided to read from cover to cover: Don Quixote, Moby Dick and From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. I read the latter - the black-and-white-bound third edition of John Hope Franklin's 1947 book - while sailing down the Congo River and recovering from a nasty bout of dysentery. It became such a valued reference for me that I kept it, for years, in the bookcase at my bedside."

Gill Scott Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

2009-04-04T14:20:00.001-03:00

Gil Scott-Heron turned 60 on April 1st

Gil Scott-Heron stands as a towering figure of black popular music. With a masters in creative writing from Johns Hopkins, the writer, poet, composer, pianist, and modern-day griot is a true artist in an industry lacking true artistry.

Scott-Heron emerged in the early 1970s with albums such as What’s Going On and There’s A Riot Goin’ On. By 1970, there was a profound shift in the struggle for equality as the fight for civil rights gave way to the demand for Black Power. The Civil Rights Movement had lost its focus, being ripped apart by differing interest groups and ignored by a wartime US government. The voices of its leaders were silenced by jail or bullets.

Black popular music reflected this change. The voices on the radio stopped preaching brotherhood and togetherness and started reporting the facts, and the music got more aggressive. Leading the new attack was a new voice: articulate, uncompromising, and enraged. The voice held the light up to the country’s missteps and shook up an apathetic audience. The voice was Gil Scott-Heron’s. Scott-Heron was born in Chicago in 1949. He grew up in Lincoln, Tennessee and later the Chelsea neighborhood of the Bronx.

As a student, he admired the poetry of Langston Hughes and followed his footsteps by enrolling in Lincoln University. By age 20, he completed the novel The Vulture and the book of poetry, Small Talk At 125th & Lenox. The Vulture was an auspicious beginning, heralded by Essence as "a strong start for a writer with important things to say." In the 1970’s, Scott-Heron hooked up with Flying Dutchman records to produce several important albums including Pieces of Man and Free Will.

During the 1980s, for Arista label, Scott-Heron released twelve albums. Then, after a twelve-year break, he signed with TVT Records and released Spirits in 1993. The first cut of this album, "Message To The Messenger," is a warning to today’s rappers, urging them to take responsibility in their art and in their communities. Since then, he has played to sell-out crowds all over the world, performing at major festivals in England and the United States, including New York’s Central Park.

The revolution will no be televised
You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back
after a message about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

Fourth International Conference on Education, Labor and Emancipation

2009-03-09T14:44:00.001-03:00

This year’s Theme: Manifesto for New Social Movements: Equity, Access, and Empowerment

It will be held in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil on June 16th - 19th 2009.

A brief description follows:
Scholars, teachers, students and activists from various fields and countries will convene in Salvador, Bahia (Brazil) to compare theoretical perspectives, share pedagogical experiences, and work toward developing a global movement for social justice in and through education. We invite proposals from the following perspectives: indigenous, feminist, postcolonial, Marxist/neomarxist, queer theory, critiques of neoliberalism/globalization, CRT, liberation theology, anthropology, comparative/international education, etc. Visit our website for more information. http://academics.utep.edu/confele

We appreciate if you can forward this invitation to others who may be interested.

Please do send in your proposals, here are the guidelines:

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
We are currently witnessing the emergence of a new context for education, labor, and emancipatory social movements. Global flows of people, capital, and energy increasingly define the world we live in. The multinational corporation, with its pursuit of ever-cheaper sources of labor and materials and its disregard for human life, is replacing the nation-state as the dominant form of economic organization. Faced with intensifying environmental pressures and depletion of essential resources, economic elites have responded with increased militarism and restriction of civil liberties.
At the same time, masses of displaced workers, peasants, and indigenous peoples are situating their struggles in a global context. Labor activists can no longer ignore the concomitant struggles of Indigenous peoples, African diasporic populations, other marginalized ethnic groups, immigrants, women, GLBT people, children and youth. Concern for democracy and human rights is moving in from the margins to challenge capitalist priorities of “efficiency” and exploitation. In some places, the representatives of popular movements are actually taking the reins of state power. Everywhere we look, new progressive movements are emerging to bridge national identities and boundaries, in solidarity with transnational class, gender, and ethnic struggles.
At this juncture, educators have a key role to play. The ideology of market competition has become more entrenched in schools, even as opportunities for skilled employment diminish. We must rethink the relationship between schooling and the labor market, developing transnational pedagogies that draw upon the myriad social struggles shaping students’ lives and communities. Critical educators need to connect with other social movements to put a radically democratic agenda, based on principles of equity, access, and emancipation, at the center of a transnational pedagogical praxis.
Distinguished scholars from numerous fields and various countries will convene in Salvador, Bahia (Brazil) to compare and contribute to theoretical perspectives, share pedagogical experiences, and work toward developing a global movement of enlightening activism. Issues related to education, labor, and emancipation will be addressed from a range of theoretical perspectives, including but not limited to the following:

Critical Pedagogy

Critical Race Theory

Postcolonial Studies

Marxist and Neo-Marxist Perspectives

Social Constructivism

Comparative/International Education

Postmodernism

Indigenous Perspectives

Feminist Theory

Queer Theory

Poststructuralism

Critical Environmental Studies

Critiques of Globalization and Neoliberalism

Liberation Theology

Proposals may be offered as panel presentations or individual papers. Please indicate type of proposal with the submission.

Individual paper proposals should contain a cover sheet with the paper title, contact information (e-mail, address, telephone number, and affiliation), a brief bio, for each presenter, and an abstract of no more than 250 words (not including references). Please indicate whether you will present in Portuguese, Spanish or English. Presenters who wish to present in Portuguese should nevertheless include an English or Spanish translation of the abstract with their submission.

Panel proposals must include a cover sheet with the panel title and organizers’ contact information (e-mail, address, telephone number, affiliation), as well as an abstract of the overall panel theme (no more than 400 words, not including references) and abstracts/bios for each paper included in the panel. Please indicate whether panel members will present in Portuguese, Spanish or English. Proposals submitted in Portuguese should include translations (either English or Spanish) of the panel theme with each individual abstract.

Please submit proposals by E-mail only to: confele@utep.edu <mailto:confele@utep.edu> . THE DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS IS March 1st, 2009. Proposals must be accompanied by your conference registration in order to be considered.

Following the tradition of the last three conferences, a book will be produced comprising the most engaging papers from CONFELE 2009, as selected by an editorial board. Presenters wishing to be considered for this volume should submit full papers (in APA style) for review by August 1st, 2009.

César Augusto Rossatto, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Critical Pedagogy & Multiculturalism and Social Justice

The University of Texas at El Paso

College of Education, Room #812

El Paso, TX 79968-0574

(915) 747-5253

www.academics.utep.edu/confele

Slave in Jefferson Davis' home gave Union key secrets

2009-02-21T15:19:00.000-03:00

Story Highlights

William Jackson, a slave, learned key details inside the home of Jefferson Davis
Davis was president of the Confederacy; Jackson leaked key secrets to the Union
"Because of his role as a menial servant, he simply was ignored" by Southerners
Author said history must never forget the sacrifice of African-Americans in Civil War

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- William Jackson was a slave in the home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis during the Civil War. It turns out he was also a spy for the Union Army, providing key secrets to the North about the Confederacy.

William Jackson, a slave, listened closely to Jefferson Davis' conversations and leaked them to the North.

Jackson was Davis' house servant and personal coachman. He learned high-level details about Confederate battle plans and movements because Davis saw him as a "piece of furniture" -- not a human, according to Ken Dagler, author of "Black Dispatches," which explores espionage by America's slaves.

"Because of his role as a menial servant, he simply was ignored," Dagler said. "So Jefferson Davis would hold conversations with military and Confederate civilian officials in his presence."

Dagler has written extensively on the issue for the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence . Watch the stories of slaves as spies »

In late 1861, Jackson fled across enemy lines and was immediately debriefed by Union soldiers. Dagler said Jackson provided information about supply routes and military strategy.

"In Jackson's case, what he did was ... present some of the current issues that were affecting the Confederacy that you could not read about in the local press that was being passed back and forth across local lines. He actually had some feel for the issues of supply problems," Dagler said.

Jackson and other slaves' heroic efforts have been a forgotten legacy of the war -- lost amid the nation's racially charged past and the heaps of information about the war's historic battles. But historians over the last few decades have been taking an interest in the sacrifice of African-Americans during those war years.

Jackson's espionage is mentioned in a letter from a general to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell refers to "Jeff Davis' coachman" as the source of information about Confederate deployments. Watch grandson of slaves: "They call me Little Man" »

Dagler said slaves who served as spies were able to collect incredibly detailed information, in large part because of their tradition of oral history. Because Southern laws prevented blacks from learning how to read and write, he said, the slave spies listened intently to minute details and memorized them.

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"What the Union officers found very quickly with those who crossed the line ... was that if you talked to them, they remembered a great more in the way of details and specifics than the average person ... because again they relied totally on their memory as opposed to any written records," he said.

Jackson wasn't the only spy. There were hundreds of them. In some cases, the slaves made it to the North, only to return to the South to risk being hanged. One Union general wrote that he counted on black spies in Tennessee because "no white man had the pluck to do it."

No one was better than Robert Smalls, a slave who guided vital supply ships in and out of Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. He eventually escaped and provided the Union with "a turning of the forces in Charleston Harbor," according to an annual report of the Navy secretary to President Lincoln.

"A debriefing of him gave ... the Union force there the entire fortification scheme for the interior harbor," Dagler said.

One of the most iconic spies was Harriet Tubman, who ran the Underground Railroad, bringing slaves to the North. In 1863, she was asked by the Union to help with espionage in South Carolina. She picked former slaves from the region for an espionage ring and led many of the spy expeditions herself.

"The height of her intelligence involvement occurred late in 1863 when she actually led a raid into South Carolina," Dagler said. "In addition to the destruction of millions of dollars of property, she brought out over 800 slaves back into freedom in the North."

As the nation marks Black History Month in February, Dagler said that history should include the sacrifices of the African-Americans who risked their lives for their nation. Many paid the ultimate sacrifice.

"They were all over the place, and no one [in the South] considered them to be of any value. Consequently, they heard and saw virtually everything done by their masters, who were the decision-makers," Dagler said.

Whatever happened to William Jackson, the spy in Jefferson Davis's house? Unfortunately, that remains a great unknown.

"He simply disappeared from history, as so many of them have."

View source article

A nation of cowards?

2009-02-21T10:59:00.001-03:00

By Charles M. Blow

Most whites harbor a hidden racial bias that many are unaware of and don’t consciously agree with. And getting them to talk frankly about race is still hard.

This began as a relatively quiet Black History Month. The biggest highlight was a 72-year-old former Klansman scratching “apologize to John Lewis for beating him up” off his bucket list.

Then came Attorney General Eric Holder’s scathing comments about America being “a nation of cowards” because we don’t have “frank” conversations about race. That got a lot of attention.

I take exception to Holder’s language, but not his line of reasoning. Calling people cowards is counterproductive. It turns the conversation into a confrontation — moving it beyond the breach of true dialogue and the pale of real understanding.

That said, frank conversations are always welcomed. But, before we start, it might be helpful to have a better understanding of the breadth and nature of racial bias.

According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released last month, twice as many blacks as whites thought racism was a big problem in this country, while twice as many whites as blacks thought that blacks had achieved racial equality.

Furthermore, according to a 2003 Gallup poll, two in five of blacks said that they felt discriminated against at least once a month, and one in five felt discriminated against every day. But, a CNN poll from last January found that 72 percent of whites thought that blacks overestimated the amount of discrimination against them, while 82 percent of blacks thought that whites underestimated the amount of discrimination against blacks.

What explains this wide discrepancy? One factor could be that most whites harbor a hidden racial bias that many are unaware of and don’t consciously agree with.

Project Implicit, a virtual laboratory maintained by Harvard, the University of Washington and the University of Virginia, has administered hundreds of thousands of online tests designed to detect hidden racial biases. In tests taken from 2000 to 2006, they found that three-quarters of whites have an implicit pro-white/anti-black bias. (Blacks showed racial biases, too, but unlike whites, they split about evenly between pro-black and pro-white. And, blacks were the most likely of all races to exhibit no bias at all.) In addition, a 2006 study by Harvard researchers published in the journal Psychological Science used these tests to show how this implicit bias is present in white children as young as 6 years old, and how it stays constant into adulthood.

(You can take the test yourself.)

So why do so many people have this anti-black bias?

I called Brian Nosek, an associate professor in psychology at the University of Virginia and the director of Project Implicit, to find out. According to him, our brains automatically make associations based on our experiences and the information we receive, whether we consciously agree with those associations or not. He said that many egalitarian test-takers were shown to have an implicit anti-black bias, much to their chagrin. Professor Nosek took the test himself, and even he showed a pro-white/anti-black bias. Basically, our brains have a mind of their own.

This bias can seep into our everyday lives in insidious ways. For example, a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in October found that many white doctors also had an implicit pro-white/anti-black bias, while black doctors showed almost no bias for one race or the other. The paper suggested that these biases may contribute to the unequal treatment of blacks, and that doctors may not even be conscious of it.

Can we eradicate this implicit bias? Maybe.

According to a Brown University and University of Victoria study that was published last month in the online journal PLoS One, researchers were able to ameliorate white’s racial biases by teaching them to distinguish black peoples’ faces from one another. Basically, seeing black people as individuals diminished white peoples’ discrimination. Imagine that.

Now that we know this, are we ready to talk? Maybe not yet. Talking frankly about race is still hard because it’s confusing and uncomfortable.

First, white people don’t want to be labeled as prejudiced, so they work hard around blacks not to appear so. A study conducted by researchers at Tufts University and Harvard Business School and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that many whites — including those as young as 10 years old — are so worried about appearing prejudiced that they act colorblind around blacks, avoiding “talking about race, or even acknowledging racial difference,” even when race is germane. Interestingly, blacks thought that whites who did this were more prejudiced than those who didn’t.

Second, that work is exhausting. A 2007 study by researchers at Northwestern and Princeton that was published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science found that interracial interactions leave whites both “cognitively and emotionally” drained because they are trying not to be perceived as prejudiced.

The fear of offending isn’t necessarily cowardice, nor is a failure to acknowledge a bias that you don’t know that you have, but they are impediments. We have to forget about who’s a coward and who’s brave, about who feels offended and who gets blamed. Let’s focus on the facts, and let’s just talk.

•

I invite you to visit my blog, By the Numbers. Please also join me on Facebook, and follow me on Twitter, or e-mail me at chblow@nytimes.com.

View source article

Please help spread the word

2009-02-19T22:27:00.001-03:00

Dear Friend,

Yesterday, the day after President Obama signed his stimulus bill into law, the NY Post ran a cartoon depicting the bill's "author" as a dead monkey, covered in blood after being shot by police. You can see the image by clicking on the link below.

In the face of intense criticism, the Post's editor is standing by the cartoon, claiming that it's not about Obama, has no racial undertones, and that it was simply referencing a recent incident when police shot a pet chimpanzee. But it's impossible to believe that any newspaper editor could be ignorant enough to not understand how this cartoon evokes a history of racist symbolism, or how frightening this image feels at a time when death threats against President Obama have been on the rise.

Please join me and other ColorOfChange.org members in demanding that the Post apologize publicly and fire the editor who allowed this cartoon to go to print:

http://www.colorofchange.org/nypost/?id=2473-605038

The Post would have us believe that the cartoon is not about Obama. But on the page just before the cartoon appears, there's a big picture of Obama signing the stimulus bill. A reader paging through the Post would see Obama putting pen to paper, then turn the page to see this violent cartoon. The imagery is chilling.

There is a clear history in our country of racist symbolism that depicts Black people as apes or monkeys, and it came up multiple times during the presidential campaign.

We're also in a time of increased race-based violence. In the months following President Obama's election there has been a nationwide surge in hate crimes ranging from vandalism to assaults to arson on Black churches. There has been an unprecedented number of threats against President Obama since he was elected, with hate-based groups fantasizing about the killing of the president. Just a week ago, a man drove from Louisiana to the Capitol with a rifle, telling the police who stopped him that he had a "delivery" for the president.

There is no excuse for the Post to have allowed this cartoon to be printed, and even less for Editor Col Allan's outright dismissal of legitimate concerns.

But let's be clear who's behind the Post: Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, the Post's owner, is the man behind FOX News Channel. FOX has continually attacked and denigrated Black people, politicians, institutions at every opportunity, and ColorOfChange has run several campaigns to make clear how FOX poisons public debate.

I don't expect much from Murdoch. However, with enough public pressure, we can set the stage for advertisers and subscribers to think long and hard before patronizing outlets like the Post that refuse to be held accountable.

You can help, by making clear that the Post's behavior is unacceptable, and by asking your friends and family to do the same. Please join me:

http://www.colorofchange.org/nypost/?id=2473-605038

Thanks.

Bill Cosby's “Pound Cake Speech”

2009-02-15T11:00:00.000-03:00

BlackPast.org is an independent non-profit corporation 501(c)(3). It has no affiliation with nor is it endorsed by the University of Washington. BlackPast.org is supported in part by a grant from Humanities Washington, a state-wide non-profit organization supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the state of Washington, and contributions from individuals and foundations.

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(2004) Bill Cosby, “The Pound Cake Speech”

On May 17, 2004, the NAACP staged a gala celebration at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Comedian, actor and philanthropist Bill Cosby was asked to deliver the main address. Cosby unexpectedly used the occasion to deliver a controversial speech that profiled current African American social, economic and cultural deficiencies. His speech ignited a firestorm of protest and debate. It appears below.

Ladies and gentlemen, I really have to ask you to seriously consider what you’ve heard, and now this is the end of the evening so to speak. I heard a prize fight manager say to his fellow who was losing badly, “David, listen to me. It’s not what’s he’s doing to you. It’s what you’re not doing."

Ladies and gentlemen, these people set -- they opened the doors, they gave us the right, and today, ladies and gentlemen, in our cities and public schools we have 50% drop out. In our own neighborhood, we have men in prison. No longer is a person embarrassed because they’re pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child.

Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic and lower middle economic people are not holding their end in this deal. In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on. In the old days, you couldn’t hooky school because every drawn shade was an eye. And before your mother got off the bus and to the house, she knew exactly where you had gone, who had gone into the house, and where you got on whatever you had one and where you got it from. Parents don’t know that today.

I’m talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? Where were you when he was twelve? Where were you when he was eighteen, and how come you don’t know he had a pistol? And where is his father, and why don’t you know where he is? And why doesn’t the father show up to talk to this boy?

The church is only open on Sunday. And you can’t keep asking Jesus to ask doing things for you. You can’t keep asking that God will find a way. God is tired of you . God was there when they won all those cases. 50 in a row. That’s where God was because these people were doing something. And God said, “I’m going to find a way.” I wasn’t there when God said it -- I’m making this up. But it sounds like what God would do.

We cannot blame white people. White people -- white people don’t live over there. They close up the shop early. The Korean ones still don’t know us as well -- they stay open 24 hours. I’m looking and I see a man named Kenneth Clark, he and his wife Mamie. Kenneth’s still alive. I have to apologize to him for these people because Kenneth said it straight. He said you have to strengthen yourselves, and we’ve got to have that black doll. And everybody said it. Julian Bond said it. Dick Gregory said it. All these lawyers said it. And you wouldn’t know that anybody had done a damned thing.

Fifty percent drop out rate, I’m telling you, and people in jail, and women having children by five, six different men. Under what excuse? I want somebody to love me. And as soon as you have it, you forget to parent. Grandmother, mother, and great grandmother in the same room, raising children, and the child knows nothing about love or respect of any one of the three of them. All this child knows is “gimme, gimme, gimme.” These people want to buy the friendship of a child, and the child couldn’t care less. Those of us sitting out here who have gone on to some college or whatever we’ve done, we still fear our parents. And these people are not parenting. They’re buying things for the kid -- $500 sneakers -- for what? They won’t buy or spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics.

Kenneth Clark, somewhere in his home in upstate New York -- just looking ahead. Thank God he doesn’t know what’s going on. Thank God. But these people -- the ones up here in the balcony fought so hard. Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all run out and are outraged: “The cops shouldn’t have shot him.” What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else. And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said if you get caught with it you’re going to embarrass your mother." Not, "You’re going to get your butt kicked." No. "You’re going to embarrass your mother." "You’re going to embarrass your family." If you knock that girl up, you’re going to have to run away because it’s going to be too embarrassing for your family. In the old days, a girl getting pregnant had to go down South, and then her mother would go down to get her. But the mother had the baby. I said the mother had the baby. The girl didn’t have a baby. The mother had the baby in two weeks. We are not parenting.

Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people. They are showing you what’s wrong. People putting their clothes on backwards. Isn’t that a sign of something going on wrong? Are you not paying attention? People with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isn’t that a sign of something or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isn’t it a sign of something when she’s got her dress all the way up to the crack -- and got all kinds of needles and things going through her body. What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don’t know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail. (When we give these kinds names to our children, we give them the strength and inspiration in the meaning of those names. What’s the point of giving them strong names if there is not parenting and values backing it up).

Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person’s problem. We’ve got to take the neighborhood back. We’ve got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It’s right around the corner. It’s standing on the corner. It can’t speak English. It doesn’t want to speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk. “Why you ain’t where you is go, ra.” I don’t know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t land a plane with, “Why you ain’t…” You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they’re moving ahead on this. Well, they know they’re not; they’re just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you’re just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.

Now, look, I’m telling you. It’s not what they’re doing to us. It’s what we’re not doing. 50 percent drop out. Look, we’re raising our own ingrown immigrants. These people are fighting hard to be ignorant. There’s no English being spoken, and they’re walking and they’re angry. Oh God, they’re angry and they have pistols and they shoot and they do stupid things. And after they kill somebody, they don’t have a plan. Just murder somebody. Boom. Over what? A pizza? And then run to the poor cousin’s house.

They sit there and the cousin says, “What are you doing here?” “I just killed somebody, man.” “What?” “I just killed somebody; I’ve got to stay here.” “No, you don’t.” “Well, give me some money, I’ll go….” “Where are you going?” “North Carolina.”

Everybody wanted to go to North Carolina. But the police know where you’re going because your cousin has a record.

Five or six different children -- same woman, eight, ten different husbands or whatever. Pretty soon you’re going to have to have DNA cards so you can tell who you’re making love to. You don’t who this is. It might be your grandmother. I’m telling you, they’re young enough. Hey, you have a baby when you’re twelve. Your baby turns thirteen and has a baby, how old are you? Huh? Grandmother. By the time you’re twelve, you could have sex with your grandmother, you keep those numbers coming. I’m just predicting.

I’m saying Brown versus the Board of Education. We’ve got to hit the streets, ladies and gentlemen. I’m winding up, now -- no more applause. I’m saying, look at the Black Muslims. There are Black Muslims standing on the street corners and they say so forth and so on, and we’re laughing at them because they have bean pies and all that, but you don’t read, “Black Muslim gunned down while chastising drug dealer.” You don’t read that. They don’t shoot down Black Muslims. You understand me. Muslims tell you to get out of the neighborhood. When you want to clear your neighborhood out, first thing you do is go get the Black Muslims, bean pies and all. And your neighborhood is then clear. The police can’t do it.

I’m telling you Christians, what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you hit the streets? Why can’t you clean it out yourselves? It’s our time now, ladies and gentlemen. It is our time. And I’ve got good news for you. It’s not about money. It’s about you doing something ordinarily that we do -- get in somebody else’s business. It’s time for you to not accept the language that these people are speaking, which will take them nowhere. What the hell good is Brown V. Board of Education if nobody wants it?

What is it with young girls getting after some girl who wants to still remain a virgin. Who are these sick black people and where did they come from and why haven’t they been parented to shut up? To go up to girls and try to get a club where “you are nobody....” This is a sickness, ladies and gentlemen, and we are not paying attention to these children. These are children. They don’t know anything. They don’t have anything. They’re homeless people. All they know how to do is beg. And you give it to them, trying to win their friendship. And what are they good for? And then they stand there in an orange suit and you drop to your knees: “He didn’t do anything. He didn’t do anything.” Yes, he did do it. And you need to have an orange suit on, too.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for the award -- and giving me an opportunity to speak because, I mean, this is the future, and all of these people who lined up and done -- they’ve got to be wondering what the hell happened. Brown V. Board of Education -- these people who marched and were hit in the face with rocks and punched in the face to get an education and we got these knuckleheads walking around who don’t want to learn English. I know that you all know it. I just want to get you as angry that you ought to be. When you walk around the neighborhood and you see this stuff, that stuff’s not funny. These people are not funny anymore. And that‘s not my brother. And that’s not my sister. They’re faking and they’re dragging me way down because the state, the city, and all these people have to pick up the tab on them because they don’t want to accept that they have to study to get an education.

We have to begin to build in the neighborhood, have restaurants, have cleaners, have pharmacies, have real estate, have medical buildings instead of trying to rob them all. And so, ladies and gentlemen, please, Dorothy Height, where ever she’s sitting, she didn’t do all that stuff so that she could hear somebody say “I can’t stand algebra, I can’t stand…" and “what you is.” It’s horrible.

Basketball players -- multimillionaires can’t write a paragraph. Football players, multimillionaires, can’t read. Yes. Multimillionaires. Well, Brown v. Board of Education, where are we today? It’s there. They paved the way. What did we do with it? The White Man, he’s laughing -- got to be laughing. 50 percent drop out -- rest of them in prison.

You got to tell me that if there was parenting -- help me -- if there was parenting, he wouldn’t have picked up the Coca Cola bottle and walked out with it to get shot in the back of the head. He wouldn’t have. Not if he loved his parents. And not if they were parenting! Not if the father would come home. Not if the boy hadn’t dropped the sperm cell inside of the girl and the girl had said, “No, you have to come back here and be the father of this child.” Not ..“I don’t have to.”

Therefore, you have the pile up of these sweet beautiful things born by nature -- raised by no one. Give them presents. You’re raising pimps. That’s what a pimp is. A pimp will act nasty to you so you have to go out and get them something. And then you bring it back and maybe he or she hugs you. And that’s why pimp is so famous. They’ve got a drink called the “Pimp-something.” You all wonder what that’s about, don’t you? Well, you’re probably going to let Jesus figure it out for you. Well, I’ve got something to tell you about Jesus. When you go to the church, look at the stained glass things of Jesus. Look at them. Is Jesus smiling? Not in one picture. So, tell your friends. Let’s try to do something. Let’s try to make Jesus smile. Let’s start parenting. Thank you, thank you.

Sources:

<http://www.eightcitiesmap.com/transcript_bc.htm>

Gaddafi wants Caribbean in Africa

2009-02-13T10:58:00.000-03:00

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has said he would like a United States of Africa to include "Caribbean islands with African populations".

Col Gaddafi, speaking in Tripoli as the African Union's (AU) new chairman, said this could include Haiti, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.

The Libyan leader also sympathised with Somali pirates, describing their actions as self-defence.

Last week he said that multi-party democracy was not right for Africa.

The BBC's Rana Jawad in the Libyan capital says Col Gaddafi's critics believe he is too erratic to be chairman of the 53-nation AU.

A week into his appointment his agenda for Africa is expanding and his views remain as controversial as ever to some people, she says.

Praise for pirates

Celebrating his new role at his compound in Tripoli on Tuesday, Col Gaddafi suggested Caribbean islands should join the AU and become a bridge between Africa and Latin America.

He went on to tell a gathering of some 400 guests that Somali pirates were only hitting back against other countries stealing marine wealth from the region's waters.

Col Gaddafi said the United Nations should protect Somali waters from the piracy of other countries.

He also said he would use his 12 months at the helm of the AU to try to resolve Africa's conflicts, including Darfur and Somalia.

Last week, the Libyan leader used his inaugural address as rotating head of the AU in Ethiopia to push his long-cherished pet project of a United States of Africa.

He envisages a single African military force, a single currency and a single passport for Africans to move freely around the continent.

But the response from many of his fellow African leaders was lukewarm, with some saying the proposal would add an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.

He also raised eyebrows by saying that multi-party democracy only led to bloodshed in Africa and that the best model for Africa was his own country, where opposition parties are not allowed.

View source article

Darwin was an abolitionist

2009-02-13T10:21:00.003-03:00

...while many of his contemporaries approved of slavery, Darwin did not. He came from a family of ardent abolitionists, and he was revolted by what he saw in slave countries: “Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have stayed in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal .... It makes one’s blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty.”

-- Olivia Judson

Read full article on Darwin's 200th birthday here

Commentary: Lincoln's remarkable tie to former slave

2009-02-12T11:19:00.001-03:00

CNN Editor's note: James Oliver Horton is Benjamin Banneker professor emeritus at George Washington University and a professor at the University of Hawaii. He is a member of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and author of "Landmarks of African American History."

James Horton says Lincoln and abolitionist Frederick Douglass had a relationship of shared respect.

(CNN) -- Few relationships in American history have been more remarkable than that between President Abraham Lincoln and black abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass.

Lincoln was born a Southerner 200 years ago, on February 12, in a rough-hewn cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky. He spent most of his adult life in the North, working a series of odd jobs before becoming a lawyer and a leading Illinois politician.

Finally, in 1860, he became the first Republican president of the United States.

Douglass escaped slavery in Maryland in 1838 and found shelter with the Underground Railroad's Vigilance Committee in New York.

He was joined there by Anna Murray, a free black woman from Maryland who had helped him escape. The couple married and soon moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where Douglass became deeply involved in the abolition movement and became one of its most effective anti-slavery speakers. iReport.com: Hear Douglass's descendants read Lincoln's second inaugural address

After an abolitionist lecture tour in Ireland, Scotland and England, Douglass moved his family to Rochester, New York, where he started a newspaper, The North Star. For more than 30 years, he edited a variety of newspapers that focused on issues of racial justice and equality.

Through the 1850s, Douglass became one of the most respected and influential abolitionists in the nation. His support of Lincoln's presidential candidacy in 1860 was measured and based on his pragmatic analysis of national politics at that time.

Before the election, he addressed a crowd of anti-slavery voters in Geneva, New York, most of whom were skeptical of Lincoln's qualified and relatively mild opposition to slavery.

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Douglass argued that although Lincoln was not the perfect abolitionist choice for president, he was by far the best of the alternatives. Even though he understood that Lincoln was no hard-core abolitionist, he hoped that the election of a Republican to the presidency might help move the nation in an antislavery direction.

Douglass's reaction to Lincoln's presidential victory in 1860, like that of many African-Americans and abolitionists, was hopeful. "God be praised," he exclaimed.

Lincoln's reaction to Southern secession and the formation of the Confederacy encouraged Douglass and other abolitionists.

Many anticipated that a war with the slaveholding South would inevitably mean a war on slavery and an end to that inhumane institution. Douglass called the Civil War "the American Apocalypse" and argued that "not a slave should be left a slave in the returning footprints of the American army gone to put down this slaveholding rebellion."

Despite Douglass's optimism, many African-Americans lacked faith in Lincoln's administration. Their misgivings sprang from a knowledge of his pre-presidential political career.

During his unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate seat in 1858, Lincoln faced an attempt by his Democratic opponent, Stephen A. Douglas, to portray him as an abolitionist who favored racial equality.

Understanding the potential political devastation among Illinois voters of such a charge, Lincoln defended himself with strong declarations of white supremacy.

"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races," he declared during his debate with Douglas in Charleston, Illinois.

Although he was committed to the containment of slavery, not allowing it to expand into the Western territories, Lincoln explained that he believed that the Constitution protected the slave property of Southern slaveholders.

This stand on slavery's protection deeply concerned Douglass and others who hoped that Lincoln's election might lead to its abolition.

In his first inaugural address in early March 1861, just a month after the Southern states seceded and formed the Confederacy, Lincoln sought to assure slaveholders that they had nothing to fear from his administration.

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists," he said. He then added a personal note on the question of slavery, as he had done during the 1858 Illinois Senate race. He assured slaveholders that "I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

Although Lincoln's words did not convince the South, they raised fears for Douglass and other black Americas. Early in the war Lincoln's actions exacerbated these fears as he revoked emancipation orders issued by Union Gens. John C. Freemont and David Hunter and even relieved Freemont from duty. He also disbanded the black regiment Hunter had formed.

Yet, in fall 1862, when Lincoln announced that he would emancipate the slaves of rebel slaveholders as of New Year's Day 1863, Douglass reacted immediately in the pages of Douglass's Monthly.

Though impatient with what he saw as Lincoln's "cautious, forbearing and hesitating way," Douglass announced, "we shout for joy that we live to record this righteous decree."

When the Emancipation Proclamation was announced January 1, 1863, it also authorized the recruitment of African-Americans into the Union armed forces.

Douglass agreed to recruit African-American troops but was greatly disturbed when blacks received roughly half the pay of whites at the same rank. During their first conversation in summer 1863, Lincoln and Douglass discussed this pay inequity

As Douglass recalled, he first met Lincoln in August. Later he explained to a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia "how the president of the United States received a black man at the White House."

To great applause, he explained that the White House messenger respectfully invited him into the president's office. Lincoln rose and extended his hand as Douglass entered. "Mr. Douglass, I know you; I have read about you, and Mr. Seward [William Seward, the secretary of state] has told me about you."

Douglass explained that Lincoln "put me at ease at once."

Although Lincoln did not promise immediate action on the equal pay issue, he was clearly impressed with the service of African-American troops and seemed to agree that "ultimately they would receive the same [pay]."

Douglass left the meeting much impressed with the president, a man much like himself, sincere, self-educated and self-made. Lincoln, he believed, was worthy of "the prefix Honest" before the nickname Abe.

Lincoln's respect for Douglass encouraged a clearer anti-slavery position. In his second inaugural address after his re-election in 1864, Lincoln linked the hardships of war to the sinfulness of slavery.

Perhaps, he speculated, the Almighty would continue to punish America "until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword."

For Douglass, these words were further proof of "the solid gravity of [Lincoln's] character."

As a further sign of respect, Lincoln invited Douglass to the White House reception after the address, a gesture unprecedented in presidential history.

As the former slave entered the room, the president announced to his guests, "Here comes my friend Douglass." Then, taking Douglass' hand, he asked for a comment on the inaugural speech and added, "there is no man in the country whose opinion I value more than yours." Douglass complimented the speech, whereupon Lincoln thanked him.

Lincoln had dealt with other blacks during his time in the White House but never on such an equal footing as with Douglass. Both men were well aware of the significance of race for their time. Douglass was realistic in his understanding of Lincoln's racial assumptions and never regarded him as a thoroughgoing racial egalitarian.

Still, long after Lincoln's assassination in 1865, Douglass remembered his finer qualities. In 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant unveiled the Freedmen's Monument in Washington, dedicated to the memory of Abraham Lincoln. Douglass then delivered a speech gracious in its praise of the former president.

Although Lincoln "shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race," Douglass explained to the interracial audience, his actions made him the man whose name was "near and dear to our hearts."

Then speaking directly to the African-Americans in the audience, Douglass urged gratefulness for "the vast, high and preeminent services rendered to ourselves, to our race, to our country and to the whole world by Abraham Lincoln."

This relationship between a former slave and a sitting president of the United States was unique indeed. Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, evidently understood the mutual respect that the two men shared. After Lincoln's death, she presented Douglass with Lincoln's favorite walking cane, saying her late husband would have wanted him to have it.

She also wrote, "I know of no one that would appreciate this more than Fred. Douglass."

Her judgment was sound, for Douglass later wrote, "She sent it to me at Rochester, and I have it in my house to-day, and expect to keep it there as long as I live."

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of James Oliver Horton. The article was adapted from "Lincoln and Douglass: Hope, Ambivalence and Change" published in New York Archives, Winter, 2009

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New book: Joaquim Nabuco and the British Abolitionists

2009-02-09T10:20:00.000-03:00

Leslie Bethell & José Murilo de Carvalho (organizadores), Joaquim
Nabuco e os abolitionistas britanicos: Correspondencia 1880-1905
(Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks/ Academia Brasileira de Letras, 2008),
450pp. (Bi-lingual edition of 110 letters, with an introduction
by the editors, a chronology and a bibliography)
Published December 2008.

English edition to be published February/March 2009:

Joaquim Nabuco, British abolitionists and the end of slavery in
Brazil: Correspondence 1880-1905 edited with an introduction by
Leslie Bethell & José Murilo de Carvalho (London: Institute for
the Study of the Americas, 2009).

From the Introduction to English edition:

‘A little studied aspect of the struggle to abolish slavery in
Brazil in the 1880s is the relationship established and
maintained between Joaquim Nabuco, the leading Brazilian
abolitionist, and the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in
London. The correspondence between Nabuco and Charles Harris
Allen, Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, and other British
abolitionists throughout the decade and beyond reveals a
partnership consciously sought by Nabuco in order to
internationalise the struggle in Brazil. These letters provide a
unique insight into the evolution of Nabuco’s thinking on both
slavery and abolition and at the same time a running commentary
on the slow and (at least until 1887-8) uncertain progress of the
abolitionist cause in Brazil.’

New book: Race and the Politics of Solidarity

2009-02-09T10:19:00.001-03:00

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Politics/PoliticalTheory/ContemporaryPoliticalThought/~~/dmlldz11c2EmY2k9OTc4MDE5NTMzNTM2MQ==

Race and the Politics of Solidarity
Juliet Hooker
Description

Solidarity--the reciprocal relations of trust and obligation between citizens
that are essential for a thriving polity--is a basic goal of all political
communities. Yet it is extremely difficult to achieve, especially in
multiracial societies. In an era of increasing global migration and
democratization, that issue is more pressing than perhaps ever before. In the
past few decades, racial diversity and the problems of justice that often
accompany it have risen dramatically throughout the world. It features
prominently nearly everywhere: from the United States, where it has been a
perennial social and political problem, to Europe, which has experienced an
unprecedented influx of Muslim and African immigrants, to Latin America, where
the rise of vocal black and indigenous movements has brought the question to
the fore.
Political theorists have long wrestled with the topic of political solidarity,
but they have not had much to say about the impact of race on such solidarity,
except to claim that what is necessary is to move beyond race. The prevailing
approach has been: How can a multicultural and multiracial polity, with all of
the different allegiances inherent in it, be transformed into a unified,
liberal one? Juliet Hooker flips this question around. In multiracial and
multicultural societies, she argues, the practice of political solidarity has
been indelibly shaped by the social fact of race. The starting point should
thus be the existence of racialized solidarity itself: How can we create
political solidarity when racial and cultural diversity are more or less
permanent? Unlike the tendency to claim that the best way to deal with the
problem of racism is to abandon the concept of race altogether, Hooker stresses
the importance of coming to terms with racial injustice, and explores the role
that it plays in both the United States and Latin America. Coming to terms with
the lasting power of racial identity, she contends, is the starting point for
any political project attempting to achieve solidarity.
Product Details
240 pages; 6 1/8 X 9 1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-533536-1ISBN10: 0-19-533536-8
About the Author(s)

Juliet Hooker is currently Assistant Professor of Government at the University
of Texas at Austin. She has published numerous book chapters in edited volumes
and journal articles that span Political Theory and Latin American Politics,
with a special focus on Theories of Multiculturalism, Latin American Political
Thought, and Afro-descendant and Indigenous Politics in Latin America.

The Black Power of Capoeira

2009-02-08T10:37:00.003-03:00

(Photo from the Black Belt archive)

By D. David Dreis
Published in Black Belt magazine in the early 1970s

http://www.blackbeltmag.com/the_black_power_of_capoeira/archives/541

The nation of Brazil is taking a long, hard look at its checkered past. Some of what it sees is in need of a whitewash, cleaned up and scrubbed so that it makes good reading in history books. Slave uprisings, the likes of which were steeped in bloodshed, are part of its folklore. And Brazil is finally accepting capoeira as the true black power of its nation.

For several years now, Brazil has skirted its heritage with capoeira. It has been overlooked, disregarded and dismissed. Historians battled against bureaucratic red tape to find the clearing, some gaps in history had to be filled in. A few years ago an 81-year-old Portuguese man, an eyewitness to the open gaps in history, told his story; the story was about capoeira.

Vicente Ferreira Pastinha was the man who did the filling. What he talked about at length were the slave uprisings against the cruelty of persecution and the tool of self-defense employed by the slaves, created by the blacks.

Now that Brazil is taking its reluctant look, it is learning about capoeira and wincing at what it has learned. Descriptions aptly outlined by the old man attest to fast-moving arms and legs battling the onslaught of intemperate slave owners, fighting against the huge organization of oppression only to be pressed down in bloody defeat. Capoeira had its most terrifying results in the slave uprisings against the plunderers of human dignity, the landowners who were in operation since the colonization of Brazil by the Portuguese. With each suppression came more and more restrictions until at last, weary and beaten, the insurgent African natives, the slaves, were defeated. As the white populous worked on the ledgers of history, they erased the black marks of capoeira, pretending it never happened. Pastinha remained alive and brought the reality of the past into full focus.

Kept alive in the secrecy of hardened souls, the martial art continued to be taught and learned, and if movements were displayed, they were said to be a harmless native dance. This was the way capoeira survived the torture of time.

Pastinha revealed how the cultural aspects of the art seemed to vanish and how desperate students used the art to break down the statutes that were placed in their way. That they used capoeira for damage and destruction without rhyme or reason is also part of the haggard history. Without the culture and the heritage, much as that taught in the world of the martial arts, there was nothing save destruction and demolition. Again and again, insurgent blacks were put down in one after another bloody encounters. Capoeira’s heritage seemed to vanish for good.

Now, 81 years old and blind, destitute save for the income that has been secured from devoted followers of the art, Pastinha is cared for with the respect of students who look at him with the same dedication that Japanese karate and judo students look toward their sensei. He lives in Salvador, Brazil, and still partakes in the martial art, although the years and the disregard have taken their toll on his prowess.

But as Pastinha has revealed the past, a 68-year-old instructor known only as “Master Bimba” is advancing it to the future with his instruction in the martial art. Since he has been teaching capoeira, many practitioners have passed through his hands and are advancing the art further still.

Five years ago, a group headed by Benjamin Muniz started to make a true and schematic study of the “kata” of capoeira, transferring what Pastinha related into viable and teachable terms. Reluctantly, the nation began to recognize capoeira and accept it for what it was although they have staunchly refused to accept it as a national sport, knowing all too well that capoeira is not a sport at all. Today, it has been “washed down” as a cultural, native dance. In this manner capoeira is, to the Brazilian hierarchy, “acceptable.”

International Prestige

Muniz and his group, the Olodum, are performing demonstrations wherever they can find an audience. Their efforts at folklore festivals have garnered them international prestige, despite the backhanded help given them by national officials.

In 1968, the Olodum represented Brazil at the Third Latin American Folkloric Festival staged in Argentina and took second place after finding themselves winners of three gold medals and one silver. This year, they garnered a first place win at the Latin American Festival held in Peru. So commanding was their performance, supported by musical instruments, which are part of its clean-scrubbed look, that the Brazilian Ministry is paying homage to the art with the inclusion of capoeira demonstrations on its “official” schedule of national demonstrations.

But its homage is to the development of the black man in the martial arts. Although the students today are members of all races, much like many of those studying Oriental martial arts are Caucasians, the Negroes are paid the most homage through their development of capoeira.

Nothing is making the black man walk tall more than his tie in the culture of the martial arts. This heritage has become entrenched in the folklore of the martial arts history. And there’s nary a tinge of the Oriental in its makeup.

How strange it was for the heritage to start in Brazil and seemingly end there, because slaves were traded and deposited all over the world. Quite possibly, had there been instructors in the martial art in the United States, capoeira might have changed the face of history in North America.

This is not a treatise on civil rights; it is a testimony to an austere and legitimate martial art that identifies with all of the traditions of the other martial arts forms. As the Japanese warlords oppressed the Okinawan populace, causing them to seek an effective means of self-defense, so it is with capoeira, developed from the black African who was trained to fight the elements in his homeland but turned to use his training to fight against the tormentors of human dignity in Brazil.

Representatives of Brazil, those who wish to look with pleasure on the history of their nation, would like the demonstrations of the dance to continue and be treated as a dance. Indeed, capoeira, because of its potentially dangerous aspects, must be practiced as a dance, as a “kata,” but there cannot be a “kumite.” The practitioners know the law and are forced to accept it, but they earnestly believe that the art could be a dynamic sport if the reigns of government myopia were removed.

Admittedly, there have been many practitioners of the art who are working out with no punches or kicks pulled. It has resulted in some damaging effects, and even they recognize that the unleashed power of the art must be tempered somewhat for a sport in which the nation could take pride. As Gichin Funakoshi tempered karate and Jigaro Kano tempered judo, the leaders of capoeira, perhaps Master Bimba, are looking for that combination of sport-art.

The emphasis on capoeira is on muscular strength, joint flexibility and rapid movements. All of these are calculated to subdue, and subdue fast, any threat, any battle.

Quick Body Movements

Capoeira makes much of quick body movements as most of the martial arts do. But it places a greater emphasis on the power of the legs, strong weaponry in the employ of trained fighters. A capoeira man may meet a fighter face to face, but in a fraction of a second he can flip to the ground, shooting a strongly placed foot into a vital attacking area. It has been said that the capoeira fighter, trained to put punch-power in his foot, can effectively destroy a man mortally with a well-placed kick!

That it whets the interest of those who see it has been fairly well documented. In Los Angeles to attend a folklore festival, the members of Olodum were besieged with requests from students to demonstrate at local colleges and universities. At every demonstration, there was much interest in bringing the martial art instruction to the United States. Many of those people making the requests were, to no one's surprise, from the black community.

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, Waldemar Dos Santos is the man in charge of making capoeira popular. His is a mission that has seen the face of determination muddied by blockades to his perseverance.

Dos Santos, a short, strong man with scarred hands and forehead, learned his capoeira on the streets. But he is the foremost teacher in this city where study in judo and karate have reached a new high in interest and attendance. At 37, the man is determined to have capoeira become even more important than these other martial arts. “This is Brazilian,” he says with assuredness. “This fighting art is in the blood.”

So pronounced is Dos Santos about capoeira and its nationalistic ties that more than 100 students are studying with him. He learned the martial art in the beaten-earth clearings, which were to become “academies” for capoeira in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but having now returned to Sao Paulo, the young man is determined to make the art “official.”

He, too, has suffered from the oppression of red-tape authority. He has titled his “course” a Brazilian folklore movement. His students practice in what was once the parlor of a townhouse, its walls now smeared with dirty palms and feet. After six months of “dance” movements, which in reality is the “kata,” Dos Santos instructs his students into the violent phase of the art. “I admit,” he says, not too proud of the statement, “that Brazilian capoeira is one of the dirtiest, formalized fighting styles known.”

How “dirty” has capoeira been or become? The history books are not clear on this point, either. There are many legends surrounding the martial art and explaining how it was used by Brazilian sailors who picked it up and “adapted it” from the slaves before them. According to some sources who reluctantly admit it, the sailors used capoeira to “fight for keeps,” taping knives and razor blades to their bare feet and hands before entering a fight. Dos Santos shrugs his shoulders on this facet. Perhaps that was how the art was “bastardized” by the Brazilian sailors, but he has enough confidence in “empty hand” and “empty foot” facets of the art to bypass that addition.

Recent Police Records

Recent police records in Rio show what happens when capoeira gets out of hand. Military police tried to arrest a drunken capoeira (the term is used for the fighter as well as the art) nicknamed “Master Satan.” Satan took on a 24-man platoon and fought them to a draw. Seven policemen were hospitalized, two with broken arms and two with split livers. When Satan still stood defiant after a battering by 24 billy clubs, police had to decide whether to shoot him or let him sleep it off. They decided to try the latter.

“The feet are man’s most deadly weapon,” says Paulo Romero, a Rio capoeira practitioner. “The head is the weakest. Capoeira aims at bringing the strongest weapon to the point of weakness.”

Master Bimba has defined the modern sport-art and outlined 72 separate movements that have colorful names, similar to those given in tai chi chuan, such as “Daddy’s Scissors,” “Banana Plant” and “Tail of the Dragon Fish.”

“Before World War II,” Master Bimba says, “capoeira was illegal.”

Police were called wherever it was practiced. Now, at long last, it is being appreciated for the thing of physical beauty that it really is. Speed, agility and multiplication of force is the key.

Master Bimba knows that this definition is in conflict with the view taken by the fighters in the art. “Capoeira is as graceful as a ballet, but it was invented to kill,” he admits. “In a street fight in old Colonial Brazil, capoeira was a fight to the finish. A knife, a razor, a broken bottle made a capoeira the equal of 20 men.”

Pastinha, however, shirks the contempt against the art. Historically, it belongs to Brazil and it should be recognized, in his opinion. “As a Brazilian,” he says, “I am proud of this friendly country. The capoeira meeting his adversary has the possibility by means of lightness and quickness of the art to disarm any opponent, either taking the weapon from him or vanquishing him by throwing the armed adversary to the ground.”

Pastinha is still the prime authority on the art, and he has seen it develop to a point of respectability. Master Bimba is the foremost practitioner and teacher in Brazil, and his students are as enthusiastic over the techniques as students anywhere. There are some who are unhappy that it is locked into the demonstration aspect, colorful though it may be with its musical accompaniment and bright costumes, ofttimes striped trousers that give off a garish and more “carnival” appearance than most. At least the art is being nurtured and someday perhaps, if it continues to live and gain in popularity, capoeira may grow into a full-fledged martial art and a national endeavor.

Right now, one university accepts it as part of its curriculum within its folklore program. Moving it over to physical education may be a tricky accomplishment, but until that day does arrive, the followers of the art will continue to demonstrate it, allowing people to forget it is really an example of black power.

UNH 2009 MLK Jr. Celebration

2009-01-27T11:45:00.000-03:00

One in 100: Dismantling a Prison Nation

The University of New Hampshire is pleased to present its 2009 MLK Celebratory events commemorating the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A series of six major activities with an overarching theme entitled, One in 100: Dismantling a Prison Nation, will highlight King's struggle to create a beloved community where social, political, and economic justice are more the norm than the exception. This year's theme centers on the conclusion of a 2008 PEW Report that revealed the sobering results of the steady growth of America's prison industrial complex, a system that has more than one in every 100 adults confined behind bars. UC Berkeley Prof. and internationally known civil rights activist Angela Davis, will deliver the keynote address

In recent years a persistent theme of Davis' work has been the range of social problems associated with incarceration and the generalized criminalization of those communities that are most affected by poverty and racial discrimination. She draws upon her own experiences in the early seventies as a person who spent eighteen months in jail and on trial, after being placed on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted List".

PBS: The Brazilian Barack Obama

2009-01-27T09:01:00.001-03:00

You may remember PBS FRONTLINE/World's story about the Brazilian Barack Obama.

That story has been re-edited and included in our broadcast nationwide on Tuesday January 27th, so if you or your friends are in the U.S, tell them to tune in to PBS tonight (check local listings for time)!

If not, check out the website - the full video will be available to watch on January 28th, and there are many new, wonderful features on the site that address the different ways that race and racism affect both Brazil and the U.S.

There is also a terrific photo slideshow following the Brazilian politician Claudio Henrique to the U.S, where he attended Obama's inauguration wearing a fedora!

see:

www.pbs.org/frontlineworld

We have a Facebook page now too - please join our community: http://www.facebook.com/pages/PBS-FRONTLINEWorld-Global-Storytellers/36142430249

Please share the news widely!

Annual Report on Human Rights in Brazil

2009-01-26T09:40:00.000-03:00

An electronic version available at the following site:

http://www.social.org.br/

The site is of the Rede Social de Justica e Direitos Humanos.

The latest (2007) report is available in English and Portuguese.
Those interested are invited to check the site again soon for a
forthcoming report on the 2008 Brazilian human rights situation.

The reports are valuable documents made by reputable scholars and
activists who are long-time observers of Brazil's human rights
situation, both in the urban and rural areas. There are annual
reports going back to 2000 so that recent diachronic trends
may be analyzed as well.

Congratulations, President Obama!

2009-01-20T16:19:00.001-03:00

The official portrait of the 44th President of the United States -
Barack Hussein Obama

Obama: The Face of Brazil's Carnival

2009-01-16T20:24:00.000-03:00

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Barack Obama is the new face of America, and his likeness will be represented in force during this year's bawdy Carnival bacchanalia.

Plastic replicas of the U.S. president-elect's face are the top-selling masks this year, said Olga Gibert Valles, owner of one of Rio's oldest Carnival costume producers.

That means come Feb. 22, when Carnival begins, thousands of half-naked ''Obamas'' will take to the streets during the countless freewheeling parades throughout the city.

About half of Brazil's 190 million people are black and many were elated by Obama's election. The incoming U.S. president is so beloved, at least eight Brazilian politicians changed their names to ''Barack Obama'' on the ballot of local elections in October.

''First, he isn't Bush,'' said 24-year-old Mascaras Condal mask designer Victor de Quadras, explaining the Obama masks' appeal. ''Second, there are many blacks in Brazil and it's important that he's the first black president in the U.S.''

Valles said her company has already made 7,000 Obama masks.

The company is well known in Rio for its clever designs featuring politicians or other news makers.

The biggest selling mask depicting a real person?

''It's Osama,'' Valles said, referring to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. About 50,000 of his masks have been sold since the Sept. 11 attacks, which Valles attributed to dark humor rather than support for terrorism.

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