March 28, 2011
COINTELPROs then and now
COINTELPROs then and now
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Written for the People’s Hearing on Racism and Police, Oakland, California, Feb. 19 and 20, 2011
At the age of 15, Mumia was already a journalist for the Black Panther newspaper. This photo was taken in 1970. – Photo: Philadelphia Inquirer
Ona Move! Long Live John Africa! All Power to the People!
I greet you all as we look at what’s happening in the world – and try to figure out why, and how? When most people hear the acronym COINTELPRO (FBI code-speak for its COunter INTELligence PROgram), they think of the 1960s and perhaps the Black Panther Party, the Weathermen or the antiwar movement.
In fact, this government program didn’t begin in the ‘60s, nor did it end in the ‘70s – despite what newspaper accounts report, or what government PR people claim.
I know this because I did the research, read government reports, read actual files – many uncovered by the break-in of FBI field offices in Media, Penn., in the early ‘70s – and works by FBI defectors, who told the inside story.
"Teachers Ba-ad!"
"Teachers Ba-ad!"
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Have you noticed that politicians flit from boogey-man to boogey-man, a process of demonization that is usually little more than misdirection from more pressing problems?
According to a number of new governors across the country, the newest boogey-men (and I guess boogey-women) are teachers, who are portrayed as greedy, selfish, and overpaid.
Revolutionary and Gangsta
Revolutionary and Gangsta: an interview wit Aisha Sekhmet
by Minister of Information JR
Aisha SekmetWhen I was riding in Memphis last year, my homegirl Phu’cha put me up on this revolutionary gangsta rap music by a woman I had never heard of, Aisha Sekhmet. Aisha Sekhmet was spittin fire and one of the hardest women I had ever heard in terms of the message that she was promoting. The only person that I would compare her to is Oakland’s Askari X. She captured my ear because of her boldness, her passion, as well as her intellect. Check out this fiery much needed newcomer to the rap world in her own words …
M.O.I. JR: How did you start rapping? How did you get to the point where you put your music out?
February 23, 2011
Let the people’s will be done
Let the people’s will be done in Egypt and Haiti!
by SOA Watch
Protesters filling Tahrir Square shout their outrage when President Mubarak refuses to resign, as even President Obama had expected him to do, on Thursday, Feb. 10. Their angry roar could be heard a mile away. – Photo: Suhaib Salem, Reuters
The world is holding its breath as it witnesses an unprecedented expression of people power on the streets of Egypt, inspired by the recent victory of people power in Tunisia, where President Ben Ali was forced to resign. After 30 years of repressive rule, Hosni Mubarak – Egypt’s dictator and key U.S. ally in the Middle East – may be facing his last hours or days in power, as hundreds of thousands of Egyptians from all walks of life gather at Tahrir (Liberation) Square. People power is spreading in the region: Mass demonstrations in Jordan, Palestine and Yemen echo the calls of the Tunisian and Egyptian people, with their demands for democratic reform, independence and liberation.
Egyptian-born singer and author Raffi Cavoukian said: “Egyptian courage emboldens the region and the world. Let the song of Egypt’s liberty ring in our ears. Her sun is ours.”
While eyes are focused on Egypt’s doomed dictatorship, the people of another nation – Haiti – cry to allow an elected president to return. Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been in exile in Africa since the 2004 coup that overthrew him. Aristide has recently indicated his desire to return to Haiti, in spite of U.S. objections.
How does Cuba do it?
How does Cuba do it?
by Cheryl LaBash
Cuba has the lowest [infant] mortality rate in the Americas, in spite of the economic blockade imposed against it by the U.S. for more than five decades,” announced Granma newspaper on Jan. 3.
a Revolution waiting to happen
Deep inside every one of us is a Revolution waiting to happen
Remarks delivered at the Islamic Center of York in Toronto, Canada, on Feb. 12, 2011
by Cynthia McKinney
Cynthia McKinney speaks passionately at the Black Dot in Oakland during her Triumph Tour in August 2009 upon her return from breaking the siege in Gaza. – Photo: Kamau Amen Ra
One of our most famous Civil Rights Movement songs in the United States is by Gil Scott Heron. He sings, “You will not be able to stay home, Brother; You will not be able to plug in, turn on, and cop out; Because Black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day; 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 rerun, Brothers; the revolution will be live.”
Set-Up for the Sell-Out
The Set-Up for the Sell-Out
Written by [col. writ. 2/9/11] (c) '11 Mumia Abu-Jamal
These are one of those times that I hope I'm wrong - but I don't think I am.
The continuing crisis in Egypt seems to be reaching a point ripe for massive military and police repression -- not only to clear Tahrir Square in central Cairo, but to punish a people who have had the impertinence to call for the removal of their brutal, venal rulers.
I've had that feeling since the U.S., Egypt's main (money bags) backer, sent split signals in statements both public and private, that suggests that they actually like the status quo (which preserved 'stability'), but perhaps with a little cosmetic surgery.
Buju found guilty
Buju found guilty - Entertainers react to verdict
By Sadeke Brooks,
His music filled the air, shock surfaced on faces and his name was a constant topic on everybody's lips yesterday, as news came that reggae artiste Buju Banton had been found guilty of three cocaine related charges.
The artiste, real name Mark Myrie, received the verdict from the 12-member jury yesterday in the Sam M Gibbons building in Tampa, which houses the United States Middle District Court, Florida Division.
A Movie And A Movement
MOOZ-lum: A Movie And A Movement
There are films that we’ll see this weekend just for sheer entertainment value, but Qasim Basir’s “MOOZ-lum,” is more than a film it’s a movement. On the surface it’s a dramatic well-written film about Tariq, a young man struggling with defining religion for himself. He is Muslim and the lessons he’s learned at the hands of his religious teachers, including his father, bring him nothing but pain.
November 29, 2010
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide Interview
‘When we say democracy, we have to mean what we say’
Exclusive interview with former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide – November 2010
Interview by Nicolas Rossier
Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, shown here during this interview, has been living in exile with his family in South Africa since he was forced out of office and out of Haiti in a coup-kidnapping on Feb. 29, 2004. – Photo: Jeandre Gerding
Currently in forced exile in South Africa, former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is still the national leader of Fanmi Lavalas – one of Haiti’s most popular political parties. A former priest and proponent of liberation theology, he served as Haiti’s first democratically elected president in 1990 before he was ousted in a CIA-backed coup in September 1991. He returned to power in 1994 with the help of the Clinton administration and finished his term.
He was elected again seven years later, only to be ousted in a coup in February 2004. The coup was led by former Haitian soldiers in tandem with members of the opposition. Aristide has repeatedly claimed since that he was forced to resign at gunpoint by members of the U.S. Embassy. U.S. officials have claimed that he decided to resign freely following the violent uprising. He now lives in exile in South Africa where he still waits to get his diplomatic passport renewed. He is not allowed to travel outside South Africa.
Aristide is still the subject of many controversies. He is reviled by the business elite and feared by the French and American governments, who deem his populism dangerous. But he remains loved by a large portion of the Haitian population.
Continue reading "Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide Interview" »
Oscar Grant and Mumia Abu-Jamal
The many faces of Oscar Grant and Mumia Abu-Jamal
by Malaika Kambon
This little child at the Nov. 5 rally is teaching us that good jobs and public education are fundamental if the community is to have the strength to fight police terrorism and other threats. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
As we the people of the world fight for liberation, in the midst of imperial expansion, critical questions are before us:
What do we do about the crippling double standards that we see every day?
How do we destroy the institutions that have sought our destruction from their inception?
How do we STOP the killing of our collective and individual peoples by murderous police?
How do we stop the killing of each other?
What do we do to regain our sovereignty?
How do we change “just-us” to justice?
How do we provide for our basic needs and lives – when we live in a global system that was birthed upon the need for us to die, so as to take and to savage what we have to support and expand itself?
What do we Afrikans do, as the Dred Scott decision of 1857 [in which Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declared that Blacks, whether enslaved or free, were not and could never become citizens of the United States and “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect” – ed.] is revisited at every turn?
What do we tell our children when these things happen century after century?
These questions and many more have been pertinent since Cristobal Colon and the Catholic church began building industrial capitalism on the backs of Afrikan enslavement.
recording police activity illegal
US states make recording police activity illegal
The Freeman has an interesting look into various states’ efforts to make illegal the recording of police activity. In Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland, wiretapping and eavesdropping laws have been used to prosecute individuals who have recorded police activity in a public location.
chaos and misery for the African people
The Dark Side of America's “Friendship” with South Africa
Precipitating chaos and misery for the African people
by M. J. Molyneaux
The hidden agenda behind the humanitarian aid programs and interventions carried out by the United States in troubled parts of the world has been insightfully exposed by Dr Paul Craig Roberts:
”Most Americans believe that their government is the best on earth, that it is morally motivated to help others and to do good, that it rushes aid to countries where there is famine and natural catastrophes……The persistence of these delusions is extraordinary in the face of daily headlines that report US government bullying of, and interference with, virtually every country on earth.”
One of the most significant examples of this buying off and overthrowing, is the relentless interference of the governments of the US and Great Britain in the Republic of South Africa to recover control over the vast reserves of the world’s strategic minerals in that country.
Continue reading "chaos and misery for the African people" »
Waiting for "Superman"
Waiting for "Superman"
WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN”, which opened nationwide in October to rave reviews, has triggered an intense national debate about the state of public education in the U.S. The film exposes the failings of the American school system as it depicts five intertwined stories of students struggling to get an education. Several initiatives have been launched in support of the film, including a national “Take the Pledge” campaign, which provides a way for non-profits, foundations and corporations to match individual pledge levels with powerful action items aimed at helping both students and public schools.
source: thinktankmkgt
September 28, 2010
Time Running Out Faster Than Water
Time Running Out Faster Than Water, Experts Warn
Written by Thalif Deen | Inter Press Service
Stockholm - A major weeklong international water conference opened in the Swedish capital Monday with an ominous warning: time is running out faster than fresh water.
If the "massive and complex challenges" facing one of the world's most finite natural resources are not resolved soon, the future looks grimly devastating: scarcities, pollution, droughts, floods, desertification and diseases.
Gunilla Carlsson, the Swedish minister for international development cooperation, described the recent floods in Pakistan as one of the major natural disasters facing that country.
A Day in Solidarity with African People
A Day in Solidarity with African People: Reparations in Action!
Wendy Snyder, African People’s Solidarity Committee
(uhurunews) US president Obama claims we live in a “post-racial America.”
But the reality is that African people in this country have only 10 cents for every dollar that white people have; half of the 2.3 million people in US prisons are Africans; and the police murder and brutalize African communities with impunity every day.
The truth is there are two Americas, one living at the expense of the other.
Continue reading "A Day in Solidarity with African People" »
NBA’s Baron Davis Nominated For Emmy
NBA’s Baron Davis Nominated For Emmy For “Crips And Bloods” Documentary
Dear Emmy voters, Baron Davis regrets to inform you that he won’t be able to attend the awards ceremony for his documentary film on L.A. gang life.
By then, he’ll be busy with his other passion.
The Los Angeles Clippers point guard will already be at training camp when the Emmy awards for news and documentaries are handed out in New York City next Monday.
From afar, though, he’ll be rooting for the film “Crips and Bloods: Made in America,” which is up for best documentary. Davis served as executive producer, putting up the money and providing entree into a world that he escaped from — largely because of basketball — but hasn’t forgotten.
“This is very prestigious,” Davis said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We’ve really been able to tackle a subject that’s kind of been picked on, but we’ve been able to tackle it and really shed some light on it from both sides of the spectrum. We want to let people formulate their own opinions about what’s going on in this country and in the impoverished communities.”
The 31-year-old Davis longs to be more than just a star athlete. He believes he can be an agent for social change, which is why he decided to form a production company, Verso Entertainment, and pushed to make the film about two of America’s most notorious gangs.
Stop Sending Our Kids To Prison!
Dear Sen. Feinstein & Sen. Hatch, Let's Stop Sending Our Kids To Prison!
(Russell Simmons) The Youth PROMISE Act does not spend more money than we already pay for criminal justice expenses and collateral consequences, like gunshot wounds. Instead, it saves money by reducing the need for many of these expenses. With the proven ability to generate such savings and reduce crime, we have to ask our elected officials why they would refuse to support programs we all know would work to both keep our kids on the right track and save victims and taxpayers from the impact of crime.
August 30, 2010
Marcus Garvey Lives!
Marcus Garvey Lives!
Garvey's legacy carried on by the African Socialist International
The following article comes from the August 2006 issue of The Burning Spear Newspaper, the organ of the African People's Socialist Party. The recent 5th Congress of the African People's Socialist Party-USA reaffirms that his legacy lives on in the work of the African Socialist International.
(UhuruNews)Each August, growing numbers of Africans around the world celebrate the birth of Marcus Mosiah Garvey who was born on August 17, 1887 in St. Ann's Bay, Saint Ann, Jamaica.
The celebration of Garvey's birth date is due to the fact that since the attack on Africa that led to the capture, dispersal and enslavement of millions of Africans and the colonization and balkanization of Africa, no African has been more instrumental in creating the vision of a free and liberated Africa and African people. No African has been more successful in setting the example for organized resistance that would result in the liberation and unification of Africa and African people everywhere.
Garvey, more than anyone, contributed to the ideas advancing the existence of African people as a dispersed nation to be liberated from imperialism and served by our own all-African government in Africa.
July 27, 2010
The Mehserle Trial
The Mehserle Trial
The manslaughter verdict returned against former BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) cop, Johannes Mehserle, for the videotaped murder of Oscar Grant, sent hundreds of protesters back into the hot streets of Oakland, California, Grant's hometown.
The corporate media scratched its collective head, essentially asking 'Why protest when the guy was convicted?"
The protesters knew, however, that the court system bent heaven and earth to return the lightest verdict possible; involuntary manslaughter' and that Mehserle faces a possible sentence of probation to a maximum of 4 years in prison.
They knew that Mehserle got a non black jury, hundreds of miles from Oakland.
They knew that each of those hundreds could've been Oscar Grant, unarmed, shot to death on tape and the same thing would've happened.
Of course, the corporate media doesn't get it.
Consider this: If Oscar Grant were the aggressor, and charged with killing Mehserle; would he have been able to leave the state (Mehserle fled to Nevada days after shooting Grant)? Would he have been able to transfer his trial hundreds of miles away?
Would he have been able to select an all-black jury - or one from which all whites were purged?
Would he have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter - in the face of videotaped evidence?
Everyone who considers these questions honestly knows the answers. What does that say about the system? What does this say about the courts?
What does this say about our supposedly 'colorblind' present?
It says, quite loudly, that there's one law for some; another law for others.
It says that life in dark flesh is not equal to life in white flesh- and those hundreds in Oakland's streets knew this in their blood.
--(c) '10 maj
================
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
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involuntary manslaughter
Colonialist court says involuntary manslaughter in Oscar Grant case
(UhuruNews) Oscar Grant's mother, Wanda Johnson
"We could not even get six hours of deliberation. My son was murdered! He was murdered! He was murdered!” – Wanda Johnson, mother of Oscar Grant.
On July 8, 2010, after less than six hours of deliberation, a jury in Los Angeles found former Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) cop Johannes Mehserle guilty of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter for the murder of 22-year-old African Oscar Grant. Mehserle was indicted on murder charges and could have bee sentenced to life in prison.
King James, Oscar Grant
“King” James, Oscar Grant & white power
Charo R. Walker, BlackFood.org News Reporter
I’M NOT an expert when it comes to sports. But I know this to be true. Every human has the right to make what s/he feels is the best decision for her/him. Last night, when LeBron James decided that he would leave the Cleveland Cavaliers and join the Miami Heat, he did just that. And I commend him. His critics, however, – who, by the way, were his avid supporters just yesterday – have called him every name in the book and have even predicted his demise. What this yet again reveals is that whenever people of African descent exercise an act of self-determination, in whatever realm, we’re deemed “disloyal” and, yes, even “dangerous.”
Dan Gilbert, majority owner of the Cavs, in an open letter to fans, reveals how warped the mindset of some white people is. “I can tell you that this shameful display of selfishness and betrayal by one of our very own has shifted our "motivation" to previously unknown and previously never experienced levels,” he writes. “This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown "chosen one" sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And "who" we would want them to grow-up to become. But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called "curse" on Cleveland, Ohio.” And Cavs fans – grown adults – have joined in the mêlée; they’ve been shown on TV crying publicly and even burning LeBron jerseys.
June 23, 2010
May Day amidst global mayhem
May Day amidst global mayhem
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
May Day, the day celebrated for over a century as an emblem of workers’ power, seems to have become a symbol of its fall.
That’s because, as the economic system has gone through shocks, aftershocks and tremors, social and communal wealth has been funneled to banking and corporate interests – bailouts for billionaires – while workers have faced, at best, a plague of cutbacks; at worst, mass layoffs and firings as businesses reorganize by being even more antagonistic to labor.
Marx and Engels rightly determined that “the modern state is but the executive committee of the bourgeoisie.” Why else would the world’s economic powers pour hundreds of billions into corporate coffers – virtually no questions asked – while dropping a pittance – like coins in the cup – to workers and their families?
May Day began in America in the midst of the Haymarket Rebellion of the 1800s, during the struggle for the 40-hour work week and an end to child labor.
May Day still represents workers’ struggle in America, in Europe, in Africa and Asia, against state and corporate repression and greed.
In a nutshell, capitalism is in severe crisis, and the phony wars and very real rise of cronyism are but mirrors of that crisis.
If workers are to use their billions to change the world, they must join together across false barriers to build a new and better world where life and liberty are more precious than profit.
It’s not only possible; it’s necessary.
© Copyright 2010 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read Mumia’s new book, “Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A.,” available from City Lights Publishing, www.citylights.com or (415) 362-8193. Keep updated at www.freemumia.com. For Mumia’s commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.org. For recent interviews with Mumia, visit www.blockreportradio.com. Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia’s commentaries and interviews. Send our brotha some love and light at: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Greene, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg PA 15370.
Mumia conversation with Cornel West
Mumia on the death penalty – and in conversation with Cornel West
From trees to needles: an address to the ‘Lynching Then, Lynching Now, The Roots of Racism and the Death Penalty in America’ national tour
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Friends, brothers, sisters: Ona Move!
The anti-death penalty movement is an offshoot of the global human rights movement as expressed by private associations and later by a variety of governments.
It is noteworthy, then, for us to cite the state abolition of the death penalty in Kenya in 2009.
We should also note the fact that the rate of juries meting out death sentences has fallen to its lowest in 30 years.
And finally, several months ago, the group that was perhaps most instrumental in fashioning the present death penalty, the American Law Institute, announced it would no longer participate in formulating laws governing the death penalty. The ALI, a distinguished group of 4,000 judges, law professors and lawyers, were the people who initially proposed the aggravating and mitigating circumstances that the U.S. Supreme Court adopted in 1976 when it reinstated the death penalty.
And yet, despite this, the death penalty is alive and well in America. Why?
It makes no economic sense, but politicians are wedded to it.
That’s because at its core, the death penalty derives from, and thus replaces, lynch law. Is it mere coincidence that the states which are most active in capital punishment are Southern ones?
April 29, 2010
Haiti help or Haiti hoodwink?
Haiti help or Haiti hoodwink?
by Jocelyn M. Goode
Relief workers tend to a young child just rescued from the rubble in Haiti. – Photo: Reuters
Not since the levees exploded in New Orleans and caused the devastation attributed to Hurricane Katrina have the people of the U.S. been so committed to relieving the suffering of Black people. The response to the tragic situation in Haiti exacerbated by the recent earthquake has resulted in an outpouring of financial support and expressed concern. At every turn and click, there are announcements of Haitian relief fundraisers and advertisements soliciting donations.
The turmoil, death and agony that millions of Haitian people are presently experiencing are pulling at our collective heartstrings. But what does all of our money and care really do to help the massive problems?
The country of Haiti historically has been the target of economic and political ploys led by the United States and other “first world” nations. Ever since Toussaint L’Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines led the people to victory against the French, eliminated slavery and, in 1804, made Haiti the first republic ruled by people of African ancestry, the dominating world powers have made sure that Haiti suffered.
Haiti earthquake survivors carry an elderly man from the rubble. – Photo: AP
From 1915 to 1934, the United States occupied Haiti, as it frequently does to countries worldwide, to establish “democracy” and to put down resistances from “terrorists.” However, the U.S. gave Haiti as $40 million loan in 1922 that accounts for creating a shaky financial structure in the country. Haiti also had to pay France for the value of the enslaved Africans freed by the revolution in the staggering amount of over $21 billion in today’s dollars. Because of the hefty debt, much of the country’s wealth went to paying creditors abroad rather than economic investment in Haiti.
For decades, Haiti has been one of the world’s poorest nation. In 2004, the World Bank reported that the GDP per capita was $480 compared with the average income in America of $33,550. The literacy rate was 50 percent, life expectancy was a mere 49 years, 50 percent of the people were living in starvation, 40 percent of the population was under 14, and Haiti had the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean with 4.5 percent of the population – 300,000 people – affected by the epidemic.
Katrina survivors carry a woman who has collapsed from heat and dehydration at the New Orleans Convention Center.
Where was the aid over all these years? Actually, the United States has much to do with the economic and political crises in Haiti that existed well before this latest earthquake. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank forced Haiti to drop import tariffs as a way to repay loans. In 1994, Haitian President Jean-Betrand Aristide made a deal specifically with the U.S. to set import tariffs between zero and 15 percent in exchange for American protection.
As a result, Haitian agriculture, which had been sufficient to sustain the nation, was no longer able to compete with cheap, lower quality imported foods arriving from the U.S. With no tariffs and taxes, Haitian products could not compete with foreign prices, causing further economic turmoil for the country. Finally, in 2000, the United States cut off the $165 million in aid that Haiti received annually, claiming over 70 percent of the money was going to corrupt officials.
Haitian refugees head to Florida in 1981. By then over 40,000 Haitian "boat people" had sought refuge in Florida. – Photo: Nathan Benn, Floridausaimages.com
The list of socio-political inequalities in Haiti continues with unequal treatment of Haitian immigrants versus those arriving from the Dominican Republic or Cuba, no direct foreign investment in Haiti and a lack of clean water and sanitation for over half the population.
Clearly, Haiti has been in need of relief fundraisers and financial support for decades. Why now is it that people are giving so generously? Is it because the media has put the spotlight on the latest tragedy?
Will the flow of money slowly subside the way it did once Hurricane Katrina and the horrors happening in New Orleans were no longer “news”? And what exactly is happening with all the money being raised? How are we able to guarantee that the people of Haiti have any type of agency in determining how they are helped?
I raise these questions not to say that people should not attempt to help, but that perhaps they ought to rethink how they help. At this point, most of us do not have the ability nor the resources to go to Haiti and build a hospital or create the necessary infrastructure truly needed to “relieve” the ailing nation. However, our agency in this country carries a little more currency.
This is the real cost of sacrifice to make change. Do people still have this type of passion?
There needs to be mobilization in our local communities which demands full disclosure of what the politicians of this country are doing each day, and where the money is going specifically. By holding the “powers that be” accountable and enacting consequences for unaccountability, we ensure that our power as citizens, not just our dollars, brings aid to the situation.
In a capitalistic society, throwing money at the problem feels right. You can sleep at night knowing you contributed to the solution. Yet, if seeing Haiti as a stable, competitive, self-sufficient nation is truly the goal, then it will require a different kind of sacrifice from Americans. This type of action has been rare on a mainstream level in this country since the 1960s; however, it is time for the masses, the everyday people, to organize and exercise their political might to bring the true change they want to see.
Sources for Part 1
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3522155.stm
http://www.heritagekonpa.com/archives/Haiti;s percent20rice percent20farmers percent20suffered percent20since percent20trade percent20barrier percent20in percent201994.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/cooking_in_the_danger_zone/7302535.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti
April 28, 2010
Why young people must help free Mumia
Why young people must help free Mumia Abu-Jamal
by Larry Hales
“That said, it’s important to work now to change the situation that people face today — the economic crises, the corporate wars, unemployment, underemployment, mass incarceration, foreclosures and a dangerous educational system that kills souls and minds. The problems are mounting. But there are also opportunities to struggle against many of these problems and create real, lasting change.” – Mumia Abu-Jamal from an interview in Left Turn, a FIST newspaper
Mumia at 15 helped organize the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party. Already a journalist, he was named minister of information. – Photo: Philadelphia Inquirer
Mumia Abu-Jamal faces perhaps the most crucial period since 1999 when then-Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Ridge signed the last of the two death warrants for Mumia, the first being in 1995.
March 28, 2010
Critical Moment for Mumia Abu-Jamal
MARCH 29, THE DAY AFTER THE THIRD CIRCUIT RULED AGAINST A NEW TRIAL FOR MUMIA
Critical Moment for Mumia Abu-Jamal While Black Leadership Is Silent
On March 29, 2008, hundreds of Black, white, and Latino folk gathered at the Adam Clayton Powell Office Building on 125th Street in Harlem to protest the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision denying Mumia Abu-Jamal a new trial, or even a hearing detailing his trumped-up murder conviction of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in Philadelphia 26 years ago. Congressman Charles Rangel, senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), has his office there.
The Adam Clayton Powell Office Building was chosen after numerous calls were made on the Congressional Black Caucus to reaffirm their 1995 and 1999 support for Mumia. At this crucial time, Mumia needs that support once again.
The executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus, Dr. Joe Leonard, directed us to stop calling because the Black Caucus has a procedure to follow. He said he would relay these issues to the proper individuals, and they would get back to us. The chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus is Carolyn Kilpatrick; given the attitude Leonard displayed, she probably never even received our request to meet with her. Regardless, no one ever contacted us. She must now hear from all of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s supporters.
February 18, 2010
Protesters clash with police following rain in Haiti
Protesters clash with police following rain in Haiti
by Kevin Pina
A demonstrator confronts Haitian police as they block the march towards U.N. headquarters. – Photo: HIP
Port au Prince, Haiti (HIP) — About one inch of rain fell on the capital of Port au Prince early this morning sparking angry protests that tied up traffic near the airport for nearly four hours.
At 4:30 a.m. as the rain began to fall, a collective wail could be heard rising from the makeshift camps of those left homeless due to a massive earthquake that rocked Haiti on Jan. 12. Cries of helplessness and misery quickly turned into shouts of anger and invectives against Haitian President Rene Preval as thousands then took to the streets in several spontaneous street demonstrations.
Throughout one of the largest marches that headed towards the United Nations headquarters located near the airport, protesters also sang, “If Aristide were here, he would be soaked along with us.” The reference was to former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted in a coup in 2004 and continues to live in exile in the Republic of South Africa.
Aristide offered to return to Haiti to assist in relief and reconstruction efforts, but Preval and the Obama administration have rebuffed the offer. The U.S. currently has as many as 20,000 U.S. Marines on the ground ostensibly to aid in relief efforts following the quake that killed an estimated 200,000 and left more than a million homeless.
A quick visit to the homeless camps in the center of the capital showed why the homeless victims of the quake feel as if the pace of relief efforts has been too slow. Lack of proper shelter and sanitation left children lying in pools of water clearly contaminated by feces as families desperately tried to salvage and dry out their belongings as the morning sun broke through the clouds.
Before today’s rain, epidemics of diarrhea, flu, scabies, ringworm and many other preventable diseases were already raging through the makeshift camps that are estimated to be home to more than 300,000 people in the capital alone. The situation has grown increasingly desperate during the past week as complaints of corruption and incompetence in managing relief efforts by the Preval government and the U.N. have grown in proportion from the camp residents.
“We can’t take this anymore!” shouted the protestors as the march snaked through traffic towards the Toussaint L’Ouverture Airport currently under the control of the U.S. military.
A demonstrator confronts Haitian police as they block the march towards U.N. headquarters. – Photo: HIP
As the march approached U.N. headquarters where relief efforts are currently being organized, a line of shield and club wielding Haitian riot police barred their progress. The police held the march back as a short scuffle broke out with angry protesters demanding tents, food, water and the return of former President Aristide to help in relief efforts.
Two protesters received minor scrapes and injuries as the police pushed a few of them towards a deep canal lining the road, where they fell in. There were no reports of injuries to the police as the march turned back and protesters began blocking the main road to the airport with large rocks and debris.
©2010 Haiti Information Project won the Project Censored 2008 Real News Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism. Kevin Pina of HIP is Haiti correspondent to Flashpoints, heard weekdays at 5 p.m. on KPFA 94.1 and dozens of other stations nationwide. He can be reached at kp@teledyol.net.
Somali ‘pirates’ support Haiti
Somali ‘pirates’ support Haiti Port au Prince
by Agencia Matriz del Sur
“Somali ‘pirates’ want to send loot confiscated from rich countries to Haiti” is the translation of this story’s headline as published by Aporrea.org.
Jan. 21, 2010 (Aporrea.org) – Spokesmen for the so-called Somali “pirates” have expressed willingness to transfer part of their loot captured from transnational boats and send it to Haiti.
Leaders of these groups have declared they have links in various places around the world to help them ensure the delivery of aid without being detected by the armed forces of enemy governments.
The “pirates” typically redistribute a significant portion of their profits among relatives and the local population. In their operations, the “pirates” urge transnational corporations that own the cargo confiscated to pay back in cash, as banks cannot operate in Somalia.
A cry for help from Haiti
A cry for help from Haiti: ‘They are cutting off limbs needlessly and taking our dignity; the babies need to eat tonight’
by Ezili Dantò (Marguerite Laurent)
Our good friend, a fellow artist and a colleague in the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, Carl Telemaque, just called from Haiti. His number is 3711-1771. I don’t know if he will have resources on his phone for long. But he needs HELP now. If you’re not in Haiti, you can help by asking someone you know who is in Haiti to go lend a hand. Or you can send a money donation directly to Carl through Western Union et al.
“Zili,” he said, “I’m taking care of 1,500 children in Croix-des-Bouquets at zone Li Lavoix along with their families since the earthquake. We need help. We need food, water, medicine, tents and flashlights.
‘Stop all adoptions from Haiti’
Adoptees of Color say, ‘Stop all adoptions from Haiti’
Adoptees of Color Statement on Haiti
This statement reflects the position of an international community of adoptees of color who wish to pose a critical intervention in the discourse and actions affecting the child victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti. We are domestic and international adoptees with many years of research and both personal and professional experience in adoption studies and activism. We are a community of scholars, activists, professors, artists, lawyers, social workers and health care workers who speak with the knowledge that North Americans and Europeans are lining up to adopt the “orphaned children” of the Haitian earthquake and who feel compelled to voice our opinion about what it means to be “saved” or “rescued” through adoption.
We understand that in a time of crisis there is a tendency to want to act quickly to support those considered the most vulnerable and directly affected, including children. However, we urge caution in determining how best to help. We have arrived at a time when the licenses of adoption agencies in various countries are being reviewed for the widespread practice of misrepresenting the social histories of children.
February 17, 2010
An unwelcome Katrina redux
From Cynthia McKinney: An unwelcome Katrina redux
President Obama’s response to the tragedy in Haiti has been robust in military deployment and puny in what the Haitians need most: food; first responders and their specialized equipment; doctors and medical facilities and equipment; and engineers, heavy equipment and heavy movers. Sadly, President Obama is dispatching Presidents Bush and Clinton and thousands of Marines and U.S. soldiers.
By contrast, Cuba has over 400 doctors on the ground and is sending in more; Cubans, Argentinians, Icelanders, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and many others are already on the ground working – saving lives and treating the injured. Senegal has offered land to Haitians willing to relocate to Africa.
The United States, on the day after the tragedy struck, confirmed that an entire Marine Expeditionary Force was being considered “to help restore order,” when the “disorder” had been caused by an earthquake striking Haiti; not since 1751, 1770, 1842, 1860 and 1887 had Haiti experienced an earthquake.
The U.S. sends 10,000 troops to Haiti to “restore order” among earthquake survivors dying of thirst, hunger and lack of shelter and medical care. – Photo: AFP
But I remember the bogus reports of chaos and violence the led to the deployment of military assets, including Blackwater, in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One Katrina survivor noted that the people needed food and shelter and the U.S. government sent men with guns. Much to my disquiet, it seems, here we go again. From the very beginning, U.S. assistance to Haiti has looked to me more like an invasion than a humanitarian relief operation.
On Day Two of the tragedy, a C-130 plane with a military assessment team landed in Haiti, with the rest of the team expected to land soon thereafter. The stated purpose of this team was to determine what military resources were needed.
From the very beginning, U.S. assistance to Haiti has looked to me more like an invasion than a humanitarian relief operation.
‘We should be there, in Haiti’
‘We should be there, in Haiti’: Statement by Dr. Jean-Bertand Aristide
by Jean-Bertrand Aristide
President Jean Bertrand Aristide could not hold back the tears as he came to the end of his statement, broadcast Jan. 15 from exile in South Africa, his wife, Mildred, seated beside him: “Today this spirit of solidarity must and will empower all of us to rebuild Haiti,” he said, his love for his people and his yearning to be with them palpable. – Video frame: Democracy Now!
We thank all the true friends of Haiti, in particular the government and the people of South Africa for their solidarity with the victims of Haiti.
The concrete action undertaken by Rescue South Africa and Gift of the Givers is a clear expression of ubuntu. Ubuntu ngumuntu ngabantu.
As we all know, many people remain buried under tons of rubble and debris waiting to be rescued. When we think of their suffering, we feel deeply and profoundly that we should be there, in Haiti, with them, trying our best to prevent death.
January 21, 2010
NYOIL -Vs- Carol M. Swain
NYOIL faces off with Carol M. Swain on BBC "World Have Your Say"
Today Live on the BBC's program "World Have Your Say" Hip Hop Artist/ Activist/ and the I.B.W. Ambassador to Hip Hop NYOIL faced off against conservative Carol M. Swain (http://www.carolmswain.net/biointro.html) in a discussion on Barack Obama's first year in Office.
January 20, 2010
Black suffering continues
Black suffering continues
After holding on November 7 the first national peace mobilization in Washington, D. C. since the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president, the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations is holding its consolidation conference in St. Petersburg, Florida.
November 23, 2009
An interview wit’ Kambale Musavuli
An interview wit’ Kambale Musavuli, spokesman for Friends of the Congo
by Minister of Information JR
Kambale Musavuli says in this photo he was “thinking about how to best break the silence. Revolution? Coalition? or whatever type of -tion?” To invite him to your campus or community, email Kambale@friendsofthecongo.org.
(October 20, 2009)This week is Congo Week, when people around the world are putting extra emphasis on studying, teaching, advocating, boycotting and protesting the war that has torn apart the land and the lives of the Congolese. Their suffering is due to the multinational corporate and government theft of their mineral wealth, most notably their coltan reserves.
Coltan is a mineral necessary for making electronic things work – like cellphones, ipods, PS3s and laptops. Over 6 million Congolese have been murdered to assure that the corporations and governments involved have a corner on the market for the minerals that the Congo produces.
Kambale Musavuli is the spokesman for Friends of the Congo, an organization that is a voice for the Congolese people to be heard. I personally have learned so much from Kambale in the very short time that I have met him about his home, an African country that borders nine other countries on the continent. Congo is one of the richest countries in the world in mineral wealth, and it is under siege.
In the spirit of Congo Week, POCC Block Report Radio and the SF Bay View newspaper did this interview to inform our readers about this very dire situation that is happening as we speak in the Congo.
M.O.I. JR: What is Congo Week? How did it start? Who leads it? And what locations are participating this year?
Kambale: Congo Week is a global movement, which calls on people of good will all around the world to speak out about the injustices in the Congo. Since 1996, it is estimated that nearly 6 million people have died in the Congo due to the conflict. Student leaders and community organizers have responded to the silence surrounding the lives lost in the Congo with a global movement to “Break the Silence” and raise awareness about the violence, especially against women and children.
The purpose is to mobilize people in a global teach-in and other activities, including a one-hour global cell out on Wednesday, Oct. 21, from 12 noon to 1 p.m., where we turn off our cell phones in commemoration of the lives lost, leave a message on the phone about our cell phone connection to lost lives in the Congo and, upon turning the phone on, we send a text message to six of our friends letting them know about the situation in the Congo and to visit congoweek.org to get involved in the global movement.
This global Congo movement would not have existed without the support of the students at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. In March 2008, the Aggies organized the world’s first “cell out” – a boycott of cell phone usage to raise awareness about the devastating situation in the Congo. Following the “cell out,” the Aggies helped to create Break the Silence Week. People from around the world hosted events to raise awareness about the situation in the Congo and provide support to Congolese people on the ground.
Friends of the Congo, an advocacy organization I am a part of, leads the movement by providing community leaders around the world with materials, films, action items and ideas on how they can participate in Congo Week.
At this moment, we have more than 30 countries and 200 universities and many more communities participating in Congo Week. From Japan to United Kingdom, Sweden to South Africa, Canada to Costa Rica and even countries like Romania, Australia, Ireland and many more … are all joining this global movement in support of the people of the Congo. You can visit www.congoweek.org to look at the full lists of participants.
Foreign corporations that use Congolese children to dig coltan from Congo’s rich earth make $400 per pound when they sell it to power our cell phones and laptops.
M.O.I. JR: What is the importance of “breaking the silence” on the war in the Congo?
I am unarmed! Don’t shoot!
I am unarmed! Don’t shoot!
PNN reports and supports on October 22nd, the day to end police brutality
by Marlon Crump, PNN
Oakland police headquarters shut down any opportunity to talk with the people the department is supposed to protect and serve for fear of October 22nd protesters, who can be seen reflected in the OPD’s glass entrance door. – Photo: PNN staff
“I am unarmed! Please don’t shoot!”
Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow!
Eight shots by a police officer was the response, according to a speaker. “This is our holocaust!”
A couple of giant black banners are brandished in the crowd, bearing names and pictures of young lives like unsolved cold cases:
• Sheila Detoy, 1998
• Idriss Stelley, 2001
• Asa Sullivan, 2006
• Sean Bell, 2006
• Gary King Jr., 2007
• Michael Cho, 2007
• Anita Gay, 2008
• Andrew Moppin, 2008
• Brownie Polk, 2009
• Oscar Grant, 2009
All of them struck down by dark blue uniformed figures who are sworn to “protect and serve.” A T-shirt is worn by numerous victims at this event, showing a stick-figured police officer gunning down a man.
“DANGER, POLICE IN THE AREA!” it reads.
“NO MORE STOLEN LIVES!” everyone yelled.
“My only child was gunned down in 2001 while he was having a psychological breakdown: 48 shots!” mesha Monge Irizarry exclaimed to the crowd. Since then, the death of her son, Idriss Stelley, is what drives her daily to do the work that she tirelessly continues to do, supporting police brutality victims and families of victims and helping them seek justice.
October 22nd, National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, is much more than just a traditional, methodical way for everyone deeply impacted, including myself, to combat police terrorism. Physical and verbal visibility had to be everyone’s direct approach towards a universal, monumental change that is long overdue, preventing us from winning justice.
Now we are demanding no more injustice to be served to us by a just-us system. No batons swung at us. No tear gas or water hoses sprayed on us. No dogs turned on us. No guns fired at us. Just like the ‘60s era, our struggle continues in the 21st century. Our once-silenced voices and visible stances are the exchange of fire that guns us down each day.
I awaited my POOR Magazine family outside our office at 10:30 a.m. Nearly a half hour later, my mentor, POOR co-founder “Tiny” Lisa Gray Garcia arrived. Afterwards, my other comrades, Kim Swan aka Queennandi, Ruyata McClothin aka RAM and Carina Lomeli appeared.
We headed to the rally, which was at the Oakland City Hall Plaza, where we were joined by POOR comrade Muteado and other comrades in our struggle against this endless oppression, which is the government’s control arm.
Our march destination would be the entrance of the very building that has had a wicked history of patrolling and controlling communities of color: THE OAKLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT, where men and women of all races and faces are trained and militarized by government, instructed to kill and indoctrinated in police culture.
It is police culture to serve and protect the interests only of the government that pays their bills and fills their dinner plates and to oppress, depress and repress, not really to serve those in distress – that always being the case in poor communities of color and poor communities in general, but even in some cases the privileged.
“I think this rally is good because it brings together different units in the resistance movement,” Minister of Information JR, associate editor for the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper and voice of Block Report Radio, explained to me. “Together against the police, the government, murder and terrorism. Together to come up with creative solutions.”
We were all centered together in the middle of the plaza, a hot sun beaming down us. We ignored the smug and stern faces of the very few Oakland police officers who surrounded and observed us as they prepared to walk alongside of us for “crowd control and traffic safety” – although we only marched on the sidewalk and our march would only be an estimated six blocks.
From the director of the Idriss Stelley Action Resource Center, mesha Monge Irizarry, Rita Akayama of the October 22nd Coalition, Christine Lynn Harris, anti-organized stalking/covert terrorism activist, my family of POOR Magazine and POOR News Network, and numerous other groups and families of police brutality victims, the true heat wave felt in the air was everyone’s anger aimed at the unrelenting injustice by police and the “justice system.”
The change of venue motion recently granted by a judge in the case of Oscar Grant’s killer, Johannes Mehserle, that could lead to his murder trial being held before an ignorant, uncaring jury in a as yet unknown California county greatly increased our anger toward the system and its corruption.
“My life was stolen! I am Oscar Grant!” yelled a female speaker on the mic.
“This is a chance for everyone who has lost a loved one through police brutality to tell people,” Kathleen Espinosa, mother of Asa Sullivan, said to me. She gave an emotional address about what the aftermath has been like for her and her family since Asa was killed by two members of the San Francisco Police Department as he hid in a two-and-a-half-foot-high attic crawl space in 2006.
Glen Beck’s Mumia obsession
Fox finds a new Black boogeyman: Glen Beck’s Mumia obsession
Demand a civil rights investigation for Mumia on Thursday, Nov. 12, in Washington, D.C., at the U.S. Department of Justice
Introductory comment by revolutionary journalist Kiilu Nyasha: I met Linn Washington in Philadelphia in 1995 when I managed to cover – for Black August ‘95 on KPFA – the last August hearing with Mumia present in court. He is a fine journalist and has been there for Mumia from the gitgo.
During that last August hearing, Judge Sabo was demonstrating his overt racism blatantly – more so than any other white racist judge I’d ever seen, and I’d seen several by then. Gov. Tom Ridge, who became U.S. national security advisor post-9/11 – had signed a death warrant and Mumia was scheduled for execution Aug. 17. We raised hell, with MOVE in the lead, and the death penalty was rescinded.
But here we are again, almost 20 years later, with Mumia still on death row, our movement in the doldrums, and right-wing mass media crucifying him as we speak. But can we blame it all on Fox? I think not. I think we have to blame our collective selves for the present-day passivity and non-movement.
Kiilu Nyasha - Photo: Scott Braley
We – especially Black and Brown folks – have dropped the ball big time. Oh, we can find all kinds of excuses, but excuses are like assholes; everyone’s got one. And, dammit, we’ve got to step up the pressure on this system to abolish the death penalty and free our political prisoners. Mumia, as Linn details, is the victim of the Philadelphia reactionary, racist power structure that could not tolerate such a politically charged voice, truly the voice of the voiceless.
The oldest civil rights organization in the country is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Where have these Johnny come lately NAACP folks been all this time? They have chapters all across this country, yet they’ve left the organizing around Mumia’s case to left-wing white folks whose denied racism has successfully run folks of color, especially Blacks, right out of the campaigns.
Are we gonna step back and let our stand-up brother, who has dedicated his entire life – co-founded the Philly Black Panther Party chapter when he was about 16 years old, becoming its minister of information – be murdered by the state? Without a real fight?
by Linn Washington Jr.
Relax Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Mumia Abu-Jamal - Photo: Prison Radio
The Fox News cable channel crew has discovered a new all-purpose Black boogey-man to rile latent racial animosity in America: Mumia Abu-Jamal, the internationally acclaimed death row journalist.
Abu-Jamal is now a regular reference in the weapons of mass deception arsenal employed by Fox and its friends to demonize their enemies de jour.
A few weeks ago, the campaign mounted by two Fox ideological allies that successfully sacked Fox liberal commentator Dr. Marc Lamont Hill highlighted Hill’s backing of a fair trial for Abu-Jamal as an objectionable offense.
Far-right agitators David Horowitz and Cliff Kincaid saw sinful scandal in Fox simply employing Columbia University Professor Hill for what the scholar was: a liberal hired by Fox to question postures conservatives proclaim sacrosanct.
Kincaid, in an Oct. 19 posting on his Accuracy in Media site, scored Hill for calling Abu-Jamal a “freedom fighter and political prisoner.”
Earlier this summer Fox’s onslaught against now former White House “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones frequently cited Jones’ support for Abu-Jamal, who is on Pennsylvania’s death row due to a controversy-mired conviction for killing a Philadelphia policeman.
For weeks, Fox’s popular Glenn Beck bashed Jones for supporting efforts to free “a communist cop killer” – irrespective of the fact that Abu-Jamal is not a communist and card carrying communists never reference Abu-Jamal as a member of their movement.
Frequent emphasis by advocates of Abu-Jamal’s execution, including Fox hosts, that courts have repeatedly held up Abu-Jamal’s conviction ignore an improbability embedded in that accurate statement about this case.
The same Philadelphia and Pennsylvania courts that have found major flaws in 86 Philadelphia death penalty convictions between Abu-Jamal’s December 1981 arrest and October 2009 declare that not a single error exists in America’s most publicly contentious murder case.
Pennsylvania courts, for example, find no foul in prosecutors improperly excluding Blacks from Abu-Jamal’s trial jury, manipulating evidence and making secret deals with alleged eyewitnesses – all fundamental fair trial violations producing favorable actions by those courts for defendants in numerous cases.
Another example is Pennsylvania state and federal courts voiding 22 death penalties because of failures by defense lawyers to present any mitigating evidence for their clients during death penalty phase hearings following guilty verdicts.
However, those same courts found no fault in the failure of Abu-Jamal’s trial counsel to present any mitigating evidence during the penalty phase hearing.
A problem more troubling than the penchant of Fox and friends to fudge facts is the fact that too much of the mainstream media uncritically embraces rhetoric oozing from the far right, rarely subjecting that rhetoric to full and fair reporting that is supposed to be the cornerstone of journalism.
This lack of full and fair reportage polluted coverage of the onslaught against Van Jones and has long corrupted coverage of the controversial Abu-Jamal conviction.
A Sept. 6, 2009, New York Times article on the resignation of Van Jones from his White House post listed Jones’ public support of Abu-Jamal as one of Jones’ alleged liabilities.
However, that Times article lacked any reference to the fact that Jones, as an Ivy League trained lawyer involved with social justice issues, could legitimately have concerns about the disturbing evidence of fair trial rights violations enmeshed in Abu-Jamal’s conviction.
“Human rights organizations have pointed to egregious procedural mistakes in Abu-Jamal’s original trial, which were obviously rooted in a background of prevalent racism,” stated a resolution approved on Oct. 28 by the City Council of Munich, Germany. Elected leaders in over 25 cities from San Francisco to Copenhagen have approved resolutions demanding a new trial for Abu-Jamal.
Linn Washington Jr.
The seminal February 2000 Amnesty International report on the Abu-Jamal case concluded that “numerous aspects of this case clearly failed to meet minimum international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings.”
Yet, the New York Times and other major American newspapers deemed Amnesty International’s Abu-Jamal report not worthy of coverage despite major papers carrying nearly thirty articles referencing other AI actions during a ten-day time period surrounding release of that Abu-Jamal report.
Philadelphia’s largest newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, ran a 53-word News Brief on page 2 of its B-section on that 35-page Amnesty International report.
Although the AI report was the first from a major organization to thoroughly document egregious shenanigans by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the Abu-Jamal case, the Inquirer did not consider that report significant enough for full article coverage despite having published 67 articles mentioning Abu-Jamal in 1999 alone.
The mainstream news media’s mile-wide-but-inch-thick coverage of Abu-Jamal aids the ability of Fox, its friends and others to exploit public misunderstandings about this case.
Fair trial proceedings are a fundamental tenant of American democracy. Yet, the judge presiding during Abu-Jamal’s trial displayed unfair bias by proclaiming before jury selection that he was going to help prosecutors “fry the nigger.”
While such an overtly racist remark generally constitutes a judicial error requiring reversal of a conviction, a Philadelphia judge ruled no error existed because the jury not the judge convicted Abu-Jamal. That ruling contradicts the reality that judges control what evidence a jury hears.
That Amnesty International report noted that “the jury was left unaware of much of the crucial information regarding” the policeman’s death due in part to “the overt hostility of the trial judge.”
Surprisingly, a mainstream media usually quick to prick racially inflammatory remarks exhibits little interest in numerous instances of racism infecting the Abu-Jamal case.
Evidence of outrageous errors underlying Abu-Jamal’s conviction literally hides in plain sight. One glaring example is photos of the December 1981 crime scene taken by police investigators that do not show a critical element of the prosecution’s case against Abu-Jamal.
The eyewitness testimony of cab driver Robert Chobert was a central pillar of the prosecution’s case against Abu-Jamal, but police crime scene photos do not show Chobert’s cab behind the slain officer’s patrol car where prosecutors claimed it was parked when Abu-Jamal allegedly killed Officer Daniel Faulkner.
Four police photos capturing different angles of the crime scene contained in the trailer for a forthcoming film about Abu-Jamal’s case do not show Chobert’s cab.
There are only two possible scenarios for the missing cab in those crime scene photos: Either police tampered with the crime scene by removing the cab or the cab was never there. Either scenario is a major legal violation warranting a new trial.
Curiously, inconsistencies in crime scene evidence and irregularities in court rulings rarely elicit attention in mainstream media coverage of the Abu-Jamal case that takes a guilty-as-charged tact. Yet these inconsistencies and irregularities are what fuel the vast international movement supporting a new trial for Abu-Jamal.
On Thursday, Nov. 12, Abu-Jamal supporters have scheduled a rally at the U.S. Justice Department headquarters in Washington, D.C., urging Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a civil rights investigation into violations rampant in this contentious case.
One major civil rights violation often overlooked by Abu-Jamal supporters and ignored by his opponents occurred during a critical 1995 appeal hearing. Pennsylvania’s then Gov. Tom Ridge sabotaged that proceeding by improperly issuing a death warrant based on confidential information Ridge’s aides obtained from state prison personnel, who were illegally intercepting mail sent to Abu-Jamal by his defense lawyers.
Ridge’s warrant enabled biased trial Judge Albert Sabo to rush that appeal hearing where Sabo denied defense lawyers standard opportunities to adequately gather and present evidence.
While a federal appeals court faulted prison personnel for illegally opening Abu-Jamal’s legal mail neither federal nor state courts have found any fault in the damage to fair trial proceedings done by Ridge’s malicious action.
One problem with mainstream media coverage of the Abu-Jamal case and other instances of racial related injustices from the criminal justice system to other sectors of society like education or employment is that coverage presents racial inequities as isolated instead of endemic.
Failure to present inequities in context deprives the public of proper understanding. The 1968 Kerner Commission Report on race relations in America faulted the news media for this failure.
As noted in the Kerner Report, “If what the white American reads in the newspapers or sees on television conditions his expectation of what is ordinary and normal in the larger society, he will neither understand nor accept the Black American.”
Linn Washington Jr. is an associate professor of journalism at Temple University in Philadelphia and a columnist for the Philadelphia Tribune. He writes regularly on the Abu-Jamal case, inequities in the justice system and racism in the news media. This story originally appeared in Counterpunch.
Where’s the bailout for the poor?
Cabrini Green eviction update: Where’s the bailout for the poor?
by Megan Cottrell
Fifty people gathered around Lenise Forrest’s home in the Cabrini rowhouses, asking a very pertinent question: “Where’s our bailout?”
They gathered to stop Lenise from being evicted and to start a new movement – the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign. They say they’re going to stop any eviction in the city that’s happening because of a person’s economic means. The rich got bailed out, they say. We will not be put out.
Statement by Juanita Young
Hands off Juanita Young!
Video of Lynne Stewart speaking in defense of Juanita Young and Juanita’s statement follow
by Saeed Shabazz
Special to the Amsterdam News
Juanita Young, legendary freedom fighter against police terrorism – Photo: Bill Moore, Amsterdam News
Juanita Young is a grandmother who stands maybe 5 feet tall – she is legally blind and also suffers from bad asthma attacks. But that hasn’t stopped police officers from harassing her and her family at all hours of the night – cops from the 43rd Precinct and the Anti-Crime Unit out of the 48th Precinct in the Bronx. Since the end of August, cops have been all over Young, claiming that her sons are wanted for crimes for which they have no explanation.
And over the past three weeks, cops have broken down her door and the main door to her building, attempted to climb through her bathroom window because she wouldn’t open the door, put a gun in her face, and lied about having warrants for her youngest son.
“Not only have my rights been violated, but I feel physically and psychologically terrorized,” Juanita Young wrote recently on the Internet. “I fear for my safety.”
That is why there is a call to join a vigil starting at 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 19 and ending at 9 a.m. on Nov. 20 at Juanita Young’s home at 1772 East Tremont Ave., between St. Lawrence and Commonwealth. There is also a petition, titled “Hands off Juanita Young and Family.” [Bay View readers are strongly urged to sign and to urge others to do the same. - ed.]
Lynne Stewart, the embattled attorney, another grandmother figure and one of NYC’s fighters for justice, stated in a YouTube video in August [see below] that they are attacking Juanita Young because she is a “freedom fighter” who has taken on the NYPD on no uncertain terms. “They attack her because we live in a police state, and they know no one in authority will hold them accountable,” Stewart said.
“We must protect our freedom fighters,” Stewart said over and over again.
“Yes, we must protect our freedom fighters,” stated Brother Shaka of the New Black Panther Party in Harlem. He said that a lot of people are concerned about what is happening to Juanita Young, and are asking what they may do to help. “It is important to help her, but equally important that we connect the dots, realizing that harassment of Juanita Young stems from a bigger picture,” Shaka said.
Many of the nation’s activists are remembering that this is the 40th year after the FBI/Chicago Police Department assassination of Black Panther Fred Hampton. On Dec. 3, there is a scheduled panel discussion at the Community Church on East 35th Street on “Racism, Repression and Resistance” – the key topic being the ongoing repression of political dissent.
“What is happening to Juanita Young is a police brutality pandemic, which is worse than the H1N1 virus,” claims Shaka. COINTELPRO is not dead, he argues. “And the people are going to have to organize at the community level to combat against it,” he adds.
As a reporter, I first met Young in 2000 shortly after an under-cover Bronx cop had killed her son, Malcolm Ferguson, 23, on a stairwell in a Bronx apartment building.
The police department first claimed that the two men had tussled and the gun went off accidentally and that Ferguson was a known drug dealer – leaving the impression that he was a victim of the war on drugs. But Young refused to accept their explanation and, after hearing what the medical examiner said about the wound to her son’s head, she stayed on course, refusing to back off.
The diminutive freedom fighter joined the October 22nd Coalition Against Police Brutality, a left-leaning group with national ties, and the rest is history, as they say. Young united with Iris Baez and Nicholas Heywood Sr. and many others as the voices in the city always on the scene to chastise the police for their constant bad behavior.
It was the AmNews that reported the full story in June 2007 that a Bronx jury awarded Young $10 million in punitive damages for the killing of Ferguson, saying the cop used excessive force. The same jury also cleared his name because there were no drugs found on him or at the scene.
Ferguson had been seen by the police as one of the leaders of the demonstrations in the neighborhood after the four cops who killed Amadou Diallo were found not guilty. Speculation would have it that the cops did not want Ferguson gaining any ground as a community activist.
Young has told me on more than one occasion that before her son’s death, she was just a mom trying to raise her children. “I fear for the lives of my children and grandchildren. We are not safe. I am a target,” she writes.
The one person who can put a stop to this is Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson, the Negro in “white-face” who, when this reporter asked him while standing in front of the church where Police Officer Omar Edwards was to be memorialized, what it would take to get him and Juanita to sit down for a talk, Johnson said, “You know Juanita,” and walked into the church.
Why is Johnson the key?
He has wasted taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars on frivolous charges, such as in 2003 when officers evicted Juanita Young and her family from her apartment, charged her with trespassing and physically removed her. A jury determined in October 2007 that the arresting officer used excessive force and she was later acquitted of all charges.
November 2006, Juanita Young was arrested by eight cops who were answering a call for an ambulance. She was beaten, kicked and handcuffed to a hospital bed for four days until supporters held a press conference. The district attorney then sent her a ticket to appear in court.
October 2008, another jury acquitted her of all charges.
Now the cops are breaking down her door, claiming that there is a warrant for her youngest son, Buddy, which may have to do with him not answering a desk appearance summons. The latest fiasco has to do with Buddy being implicated in a robbery, but when they get to court, the people there are only talking about a misdemeanor charge. Johnson can put an end to all of this!
No one at 1 Police Plaza, City Hall or the Bronx district attorney’s office wants to talk about Juanita Young. Is that surprising?
“Though I have been diligently fighting against police brutality for nine years, this most recent string of attacks has left me shaken to the core,” writes Juanita Young.
So, all of us who boast that we put our pants on one leg at a time, best to take Brother Shaka’s advice and realize that this will stop only when we organize and make it stop.
Hands off Juanita Young and family!
Saeed Shabazz writes for the Amsterdam News, one of New York City’s largest and most influential Black newspapers since Dec. 4, 1909.
Lynne Stewart speaks in defense of Juanita Young
Lynne Stewart hugs a supporter as she prepares to go to prison to begin serving a 28-month sentence for relaying a message from her client, an accused terrorist, to a reporter.
A rousing defense of Juanita Young was delivered by Lynne Stewart at a rally Aug. 10, 2009, that was followed by a march to the 43rd Precinct to demand an end to police terror and harassment of Young and her family. Lynne Stewart, 70, herself a legendary freedom fighter who, in her long career as an attorney, defended Black Panthers and others considered enemies of the state, was ordered to prison today, Nov. 19, 2009, for assisting a client. Stewart described the status of her case, her health and her spirits Nov. 18 on Democracy Now!
The Aug. 10 march and rally was triggered by a police attack on Juanita Young during a cookout for her family and neighbors Aug. 8, described this way by an eyewitness: “A little after 11 p.m. Saturday night, I was standing in front of Juanita’s building when this all went down. Juanita was having a cookout in the backyard, but sitting out front with her kids, grandbabies, neighbors and friends.
Police raided Juanita Young’s home during a cookout Aug. 8. Here, one cop swings a metal baton at one son while another son, JJ, badly beaten and bloody, lies at the cops’ feet. – Photo: Kathie, October 22nd, NYC Indymedia
“The 43rd Precinct had been driving around the block all night – and all week, apparently – stopping and searching just about every male that was on that block. While I was there, one young man was stopped as he was coming out of the corner store with Reese’s peanut butter cups in his hands.
“Over a dozen cops seemed to appear out of nowhere, broke the front door down, slammed JJ, Juanita’s oldest son, up behind the door, and beat him on the head while cuffing him. This was all happening with kids and babies around. Photos are posted at NYC Indymedia.
“I was told later that the cops went upstairs into Juanita’s apartment, made everyone get down on the floor, and also arrested her daughters Saran and Naya, Saran’s baby’s father, Tyrell, their cousin Jason, and family friends Jonathan and Mike. They were brought to the 43rd Precinct According to those who were released a few hours later, JJ is really bad off. I saw him throwing up when they were putting him into the car, with lumps on his head, and he can’t open his eyes because of the pepper spray.
“After many phone calls to the precinct from all over the country, JJ was eventually taken to a hospital. He is to be arraigned Monday morning in Bronx Criminal Court. Everyone else was released with a summons for disorderly conduct.”
BART cop slams passenger into window
Video: BART cop slams passenger into window
by Mary Ratcliff
KCBS calls it “Another Viral BART Police Confrontation,” referring to the now world famous video of a BART officer shooting passenger Oscar Grant in the back as he lay face down on a BART platform at 2 a.m. New Year’s Day. The new video, shot Saturday evening, shows another BART officer assaulting a passenger almost as viciously.
Though removed tonight from YouTube, the video, originally titled “BART cop breaks window w/drunk guy’s face,” can be seen below and on CNN, which is showing it repeatedly, and on TV stations and websites in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, where Johannes Mehserle will be tried in 2010 for the murder of Oscar Grant.
Mehserle is the first police officer to stand trial for murder in California history. The venue for his trial was recently moved from Oakland to Los Angeles after his lawyer argued that police brutality is too rampant in Oakland for Mehserle to get a fair trial there.
Extreme brutality is depicted on the new video. The San Francisco Examiner reports: “A BART police officer was shown in an online video smashing the head of a belligerent passenger through a thick glass window Saturday at West Oakland station.
“After the video was posted on YouTube, the transit agency held a press conference to announce that the passenger had been charged with felonies and a misdemeanor.
“The arresting officer and the passenger were both injured during the incident, police said.
“In the video, the passenger, identified as Michael Gibson, 37, of San Leandro, can be seen acting belligerently before being hauled off the train by a BART police officer.
“Gibson was removed from the train at 5:40 p.m. after four people reported him to police for being drunk, trying to start fights with other passengers and making racial slurs, BART Police Patrol Commander Daniel Hartwig told reporters.
“The officer can be seen in the video pushing Gibson across the platform from the train to a wall before shoving him strongly into a glass window, which shattered under the impact.
“The glass was one-fourth of an inch thick and fell 30 feet onto newspaper boxes, according to Hartwig. …
“Hartwig said the incident is being investigated and he acknowledged that the video played a role in BART’s decision to hold a press conference.
“‘We are keenly aware of what YouTube brings to the public,’ Hartwig said.”
A BART press release, headlined “BART Police Officer Injured Arresting Unruly Rider at West Oakland Station,” attempts to exonerate the unnamed officer, in case anyone should suspect him of wrongdoing: “The officer removed the suspect from the train and led him to the platform wall in an attempt to place him under arrest. During that attempt, the heavy-duty glass portion of the wall was broken and showered down on the officer and the suspect.”
“At this time, we don’t know what broke the glass,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle, quoting BART Cmdr. Hartwig.
Race was an obvious factor when Johannes Mehserle, who is white, killed Oscar Grant, a young Black man. The new incident has less obvious racial implications. “BART officials said Sunday that both the officer and Gibson are white. Gibson’s father said his son is black but is light-skinned and often mistakenly identified as white.” The Chronicle noted that the officer “stands 6 feet 1 and weighs 200 pounds” while Gibson is “listed on jail records as being 5 feet 9 and 155 pounds.”
Gibson is also disabled, his father told the Chronicle, which reported: “Gibson’s family said he had struggled with mental illness and substance abuse, and had been in previous run-ins with police.” ‘We’ve been trying to get help for him,’ said his father, Joseph Gibson of Hayward. ‘He’s got mental problems and should have been put away a long time ago. He’s been in and out of so much stuff lately.’
“But he added, ‘This cop didn’t even say anything. He just grabbed him and rolled him into the window.’”
Source: SFBayView
‘Operation Small Axe’
‘Operation Small Axe’ trailer
Ever since the cold blooded, videotaped murder of Oscar Grant at 2 a.m. New Year's Day by BART cop Johannes Mehserle, Oaklanders have covered the city with the message, "I am Oscar Grant!" - Frame from the film "Operation Small Axe"
“Operation Small Axe” takes a raw and unflinching look at life under police terrorism in Oakland, drawing parallels with the struggles against oppression in Palestine and South Africa. Through the stories of Oscar Grant and Lovelle Mixon, the film focuses on the occupation of Oakland’s communities of color by militarized and racist police forces.
Oscar Grant was shot in the back and killed by Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle on Jan. 1 of this year. On March 21, Lovelle Mixon was killed by Oakland police after having allegedly shot five OPD officers, killing four.
The film, now debuting to rave reviews around the Bay Area, is directed and produced by 393 Films’ Adimu Madyun, edited by Angela N. Carroll, with camera work by Hooker Boy, Angela N. Carroll, Siraj Fowler and Adimu Madyun. Prisoners of Conscience Committee Minister of Information JR is the executive producer.
Watch this “Operation Small Axe” trailer for a taste of the bitter but little known war waged daily on the streets of Black and Brown Oakland by the police against the people. Now that the judge has ordered the murder trial moved out of Oakland of the cop who killed Oscar Grant in cold blood two hours into the 2009 New Year on a BART platform in front of hundreds of horrified passengers, this film will inform all Californians why justice for Oscar Grant is imperative.
Arrange for “Operation Small Axe” to be shown in your community by contacting Minister of Information JR at blockreportradio@gmail.com or calling the SF Bay View, where JR is associate editor, at (415) 671-0789.
Source: SFBayView
October 19, 2009
Nation's first Hip-Hop Diploma
Nation's first Hip-Hop Diploma Program seeks more female candidates
"B-Girl Be Hip-Hop Diploma Scholarship" Announced at McNally Smith College of Music
Soul Food Co-op
Soul Food Co-op: an interview wit’ co-owner Yasser
by Minister of Information JR
Right after the chattel slavery era, the great Marcus Mosiah Garvey taught our people all over the world the importance of providing for ourselves as well as the importance of being able to employ our own community.
Today Garvey would be proud of ATL transplants Yasser and Vahid, two young adults who brought the Soul Food Co-op (grocery store) to West Oakland’s Village Bottoms Cultural District. We finally have a place, in the hood, where you could send your children to the store to get real fresh fruits and vegetables, without them having to see cigarette and alcohol ads.
Soul Food Co-op is being transformed into a place where people can come learn about how food affects their body, learn new vegetarian recipes, get a massage, buy fresh vegetables and fruit through walk-in or through ordering it and having it delivered to your house, among other services.
I took this opportunity to interview Yasser, one of the co-owners of Soul Food Co-op, so that the community could understand what the mission is in providing all of these much needed services to an impoverished community, with a high unemployment rate, sub-standard schools and government sanctioned liquor stores on every other block.
M.O.I. JR: You and Vahid just opened a store. Can you tell us its name and purpose in the community?
Yasser: A grocery store – or rather food security in general – is vital for any community in these days and times and before. Communities knew that to thrive there had to be a food source. And while, sure, we do have community food sources in this historically Black neighborhood, we were thinking that it would mean a lot to our people if we provided a space for them to get their goods at a price. And recently due to networking we will have free food to offer to our families and coming generations.
M.O.I. JR: What kind of stuff do you carry?
Yasser: Produce, spices, fruit – it’s all natural foods – no MSG, no intrusive stuff that doesn’t mix with the body chemistry. Remember, this is for our community.
M.O.I. JR: What is the importance of eating right and knowing how food affects your body?
Yasser: Like I said, we don’t offer anything that is intrusive. You won’t find a Pepsi, liquor or skittles in our store. You will find whole food, spices and super foods. We know our people have been ridden down with all these liquor stores.
But West Oakland is coming up. We have two grocery stores and our people have good food to eat. Good food allows you to think straight. It’s about body chemistry.
M.O.I. JR: Can you talk about the mobile nature of your business?
Yasser: To provide a space for our people to get groceries, to mingle, to eat whole – that’s a movement within itself.
M.O.I. JR: I know that both of y’all have Southern roots from Atlanta. How does that mix up with that West Coast living to create Soul Food Co-op?
Yasser: The West Coast is always seen as the place where you have healthy foods education. But we both come from backgrounds where our foods was whole. Our families fed us soul foods and soul food is what keeps the body happy and whole.
So the mix just matched and we saw what this neighborhood needed and we answered the call with the rest of the community. Remember this grocery store is located in the Village Bottoms and this village is a sustainable one with good Soul Foods Co-op right down the street or the Village Bottoms Farms.
M.O.I. JR: Can you talk about some of things other than selling food that Soul Food will be engaged in?
Yasser: We are a part of the Village Bottoms Neighborhood Association, which makes us a part of the entire Village Bottoms Family. Right now there is this campaign – “Become a Friend of the Black New World” – that’s vital cause the Black New World is a social aid and pleasure club modeled after the kind in New Orleans where people would come out and perform by singing, dancing, whatever they felt would entertain. But the money would go right back into the community to feed the people, programs, all of the vital community stuff. So that’s what we support and we ask that you support that too! Come by and support us. Support us all.
M.O.I. JR: Where is Soul Food Co-op? And how do people get in contact with you?
Yasser: Twelfth at Pine Street. We deliver to Oakland. You can’t beat that. Bottoms up! To contact us, call soulfoodscoop@gmail.com. Send us your grocery list if you are in the East Bay. But if you are in San Francisco, don’t worry; we do vending.
Email POCC Minister of Information JR, Bay View associate editor, at blockreportradio@gmail.com and visit www.blockreportradio.com.
October 16, 2009
The Unnecessary Death of My Aunt, Hazel
The Unnecessary Death of My Aunt, Hazel
Cynthia McKinney
Continue reading "The Unnecessary Death of My Aunt, Hazel" »
Circles of sameness
Circles of sameness
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
A young Black man, a graduate of one of the best law schools in America (Yale), who, from a poor family, uses his gifts and energies not to make a buck for Wall Street or Dow Jones, but to make a difference in his neighborhood of Oakland, California, by community organizing around social problems: jobs, the environment, clean energy, police violence and education.
Imagine what such a man must’ve felt to see an unprecedented presidential campaign by another young Black man, who, from modest economic means, also graduates from one of the best law schools in America (Harvard) and spurns lucrative offers from rich law firms to become a low paid community organizer on Chicago’s West Side, the city’s poorest, Blackest neighborhood.
Why, he must’ve felt that this was a man after his own heart. A man who came from the poor and returned to the poor, to serve and organize amongst them.
He must’ve thought that this was the coming of a New Age – a new era of profound social change in America.
So Van Jones, activist, joins the Barack Obama administration, as the green energy czar, a field he’s passionate about, to provide jobs in Black communities and conserve natural resources as part of a larger change in America’s addiction to oil.
But, almost immediately, Jones comes under attack from forces in America that really don’t want change.
Egged on by “conservative” shout show hosts, Jones was being labeled “racist” and that old Cold War charge that should’ve died with the fall of the Soviet Union, “communist.”
This should’ve had little impact on a president who has been called “racist” and “socialist” by the same people. These are, if not the very same people, certainly the ideological descendants of those who spit on Black children trying to go to schools during the Civil Rights movement, who called Martin Luther King Jr. a “communist” so loudly that he was under FBI electronic surveillance to the day he died and those at the forefront of the so called “debate” around health care.
For the, change means fear. In their dark imaginations, the only people who want change are communists.
It shouldn’t have had an effect, but it did. Jones resigned, to protect a president who wouldn’t protect him.
It reminded me of Lani Guinier, another brilliant Yale trained Black lawyer, who get left hanging when racists dubbed her “quota queen” when she was nominated for a post in the Clinton administrations Justice Department.
The more things change … If racists can ostensibly lose an election and still dictate policy, then have they really lost?
It seems to me that the loudest voices screaming “racist” are the most racist, who stood for a status quo that has never served anyone but themselves.
© Copyright 2009 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read Mumia’s brand new book, “Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A.,” available from City Lights Publishing, www.citylights.com or (415) 362-8193. Keep updated at www.freemumia.com. For Mumia’s commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.org. For recent interviews with Mumia, visit www.blockreportradio.com. Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia’s commentaries and interviews. Send our brotha some love and light at: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Greene, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg PA 15370.
Source: SFBayViev
July 29, 2009
Miani's Young are Dying
Miani's Young are Dying
by Paul A. Moore
They fall with regularity, in a rhythm of death. The youth of Overtown and Liberty City and all points of poverty in are rushed to their graves to the accompaniment of beats and rhymes that profit the few and lock the many in a dance of death. “All of us grown folks who sit and watch you die one after another failed you.”
July 03, 2009
UNPLUGGED’ PERFORMANCE BY DÁVILLE IN NY
UNIFYING ‘UNPLUGGED’ PERFORMANCE BY DÁVILLE IN NY
Chart topping international reggae singer, DáVille, took time out to send an inspirational message of encouragement and hope to the youths of Jamaica, when he performed at ‘Unified Unplugged’ recently at the Denim Lounge in Brooklyn, New York.
An impassioned DáVille said, “The children must be a focus for us as they are our future.” He recalled his days as a youth and some of the obstacles he had to overcome to achieve success. DáVille and Fashozy Records have made a commitment that as part of their philanthropic focus, they will donate time and resources to help uplift the youths.
Backed by the New Kingston band, who were opening acts of the night, DáVille treated his New York fans to an energetic entertaining performance as he dished out his current chart-topping songs, ‘Missing You Right Now’ and ‘Never Gonna Cry’. Fans were also taken down memory lane with some of their favourite hit songs such as ‘On My Mind’, ‘In Heaven’, ‘I'm In Love With You’, ‘My Grade’ and ‘Fling It Up’, among others.
The crowd became his personal back-up singers as they sang along with him word for word. They wouldn’t allow DáVille to exit the stage and begged for more. When the singer wrapped up his performance, he couldn’t escape the several fans who lined up for him to sign autographs and take photos with them.
There was also an interactive question and answer segment in which fans could get up close and personal with the singer.
One satisfied fan was quoted as saying, “Any time I go to a Dáville show, I get my money’s worth. He is a great performer.”
Founder and president of the ‘Unified Unplugged’ entertainment series, Ronnie Tomlinson, explained that the event is about acts with a mission to restore and help build a potential future in the lives of the youths who are sometimes forgotten.
Through her promotion company, Destine Promotions, Ms. Tomlinson teams with the most prominent reggae and dancehall artistes to raise awareness for youths and their education.
In light of the recent alarming increase in youths dropping out of schools at the secondary level in Jamaica, Destine Promotions has decided to stage a series of ‘Unified Unplugged’ events aimed at raising awareness under the mantra ‘Choose Your Destiny – Be Educated’.
Throughout the staging of the events, sponsors and supporters will be recognised for their contributions to the proliferation of this ‘Stay In School’ campaign. During each event the artistes will do a video recording message addressed at the children telling them that they hold the power to their destiny.
All artistes who perform on ‘Unified Unplugged’ will be asked to introduce themselves to their fans, communicate their reasoning behind the lyrics they do and relate their upbringing to the audience.
June 29, 2009
Black Wall Street! A History Lesson to Learn
Black Wall Street! A History Lesson to Learn from and Re-Build on!
Reality check: the only things keeping Black people in the condition that we are in centers around our failures. Our failing to remember how to confront and overcome various types of fear; our failing to remember how to confront and effectively neutralize the power that oppresses, seduces and robs us of dignity; and our failing to remember how to effectively use the individual and collective power we possess to change our condition and the condition of our people. There was a period when we awoke but then the oppressor came with a Plan B that put us back to sleep again and sent us to dreamland! Now is the time for the Reawakening of our people and the gathering for the Harvest! The alternative is to watch our youth kill each other, starve in the streets and wither and rot in lock down institutions! A planned matrix of Spiritual, mental and physical death!
We empower the oppressor by not being what we should be – by not remembering how great we are; by not remembering and promoting the dynamic movements the freed men and women – slaves and descendants of slaves - Negro Black Americans initiated; We do not need to dig in the ruins of Egypt or any other African country to know how brilliant, creative, powerful and innovative our people – the Sons and Daughters of Africa and their descendants around the planet were and still are. As Black Americans we need only to look closely at our true Negro Black American History – African-Caribbean History that took place right here in America and the Caribbean. Before we trip on 3000 BC we must understand true Negro Black American History from 1600 A.D. to 2009 A.D.!
Reality check: Start with Tulsa Oklahoma. An excellent example of what was and what the beast did and will do to destroy and stop Black economic empowerment and community development. Here are the links to four videos that are extremely important. Share them with your family and those who educate your children:
The Tulsa Riots Part 1 click here
Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma - Pt. 1 click here
Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma - Pt. 2 click here
Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma - Pt. 3 click here
These videos feature the people who lived the history - true Griots - sharing truth - not a watered down Hollywood version of Greenwood or a commercial re-make. They present a vivid chapter of Negro Black American History that we must review, remember and learn from. There were numerous ‘Black Wall Streets’ – numerous thriving Black communities established throughout America. They were self sufficient thriving communities with businesses, schools, houses of worship. In these days there was ‘nation building’ going on!
Reality check: We were a segregated and superior community. Our HBCUs were turning out brilliant teachers, doctors, and lawyers that were teaching and treating our people – thriving in segregated communities. Segregation created prosperity for us – necessitated self reliance – forcing us to spend our money with our people – 90 percent of our money circulated in our communities!
Negro Black American is not a history of a weak cowardly, lazy people as the White version of history would have our children and the world believe. The form of chattel slavery practiced and supported by the European was the most vicious dehumanizing form of servitude ever perpetuated – the African Holocaust! Yet we are still here.
Ask yourself: What happened? – why have we been in such a terrible state of socio-political economic condition for the past 80 years; why have so many of our HBCUs deteriorated and have so few Negro Black American students graduating; why have the Black farmers loss millions of acres of land – a close look at history from 1700’s to date will answer all questions and also point the way to Where to go from here!
After reviewing the Tulsa videos kindly re-read Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic speech Where Do We Go From Here? Also click here and review the video of his speech on Economic Power which I have also posted. Make sure to share this information with your children so that they understand that Negro Black America has always fought for change – that fighting for change and transformation of America did not start with the Obama run for political office, it started with the first African slave and first freed slave’s run for his life – fight for his freedom and justice in this hate filled land they found themselves marooned in!
Anyone who reads and understands Dr. Kings speech "Where Do We Go From Here?" delivered at the Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta, Georgia to the 11th Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on August the 16th 1967 will see that Dr. King was moving beyond a Civil Rights Dream to Economic Empowerment. He was throwing down the ‘gauntlet’ to what I like to call the Economic Empowerment Warriors. These are individuals, true Warriors, who are not blinded by the glitz nor deafened by the noise or silent about what is going on in America today or the international financial meltdown. Warriors who have and will continue to focus on the paths to Economic and Political Empowerment Dr. King charted and highlighted in this speech.
I have included excerpts from Where Do we Go From Here? The entire speech can be downloaded at: http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/voice_of_king.htm Our failure to remember and continue on the path has been costly!
.Perhaps the area of greatest concentration of my efforts has been in the cities of Chicago and Cleveland. …….
….The most dramatic success in Chicago has been Operation Breadbasket. Through Operation Breadbasket we have now achieved for the Negro community of Chicago more than twenty-two hundred new jobs with an income of approximately eighteen million dollars a year, new income to the Negro community…..[Applause]….; there was another area through this economic program, and that was the development of financial institutions which were controlled by Negroes and which were sensitive to problems of economic deprivation of the Negro community. The two banks in Chicago that were interested in helping Negro businessmen were largely unable to loan much because of limited assets. … And I can say to you today that as a result of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago, both of these Negro-operated banks have now more than double their assets, and this has been done in less than a year by the work of Operation Breadbasket. [applause]
……….. And finally, the ministers found that Negro contractors, from painters to masons, from electricians to excavators, had also been forced to remain small by the monopolies of white contractors. Breadbasket negotiated agreements on new construction and rehabilitation work for the chain stores. These several interrelated aspects of economic development, all based on the power of organized consumers, hold great possibilities …….. The kinds of requests made by Breadbasket in Chicago can be made not only of chain stores, but of almost any major industry in any city in the country.
…..And so Operation Breadbasket .…. It simply says, "If you respect my dollar, you must respect my person." It simply says that we will no longer spend our money where we can not get substantial jobs. [applause]
…The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold: We must create full employment, or we must create incomes….
…..we are likely to find that the problem of housing, education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished. …. Negroes, who have a double disability, will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the additional weapon of cash to use in their struggle……
Peace Power and Blessings will come from Back to Black
The Nationalist "Maoist" Movement in China
The Nationalist "Maoist" Movement in China
The Shifting Tide of Chinese Sentiment — A Nationalist "Maoist" Movement in China?
Joe Tougas writes: June 4th is the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, what my friend in Beijing cautiously refers to in public as “that thing that happened in 1989.” In the context of that bloody day and the economic crisis, China is re-examining the merits of capitalism versus communism in a pivotal moment in the country’s history.
For the past six years, there’s been a political movement in China called Wu You Zhi Xiang, which roughly translates to “Utopia” in English. However, it should be noted the translation is very loose due to the absence of a completely correlating word that fully expresses the sentiment of this organization’s Chinese name.
With images of Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, and the Chinese flag at the meetings, where on can hear songs from the Cultural Revolution playing before the speakers get started. Utopia is critical of the United States, and the right wing of the Chinese government, particularly with regard to China’s neoliberal capitalism and economic involvement with the U.S. It also conveys a message through its literature that China should replace the U.S. as the world leader. Whether Mao Zedong would have agreed with these sentiments or not, there is a banner on the wall that says “we miss Mao” in Chinese.
Unfinished Acts: January Rebellions
Unfinished Acts: January Rebellions
Unfinished Acts: January Rebellions
After the small print-run debut of Unfinished Acts: January Rebellions at the San Francisco and New York Anarchist Book Fairs we are happy to finally make this magazine available in digital format.
From the introduction:
Unfinished Acts is a collective recounting and analysis of events surrounding the shooting of an unarmed 22-year-old Black man in Oakland. Oscar Grant III was executed by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officers during the first hours of 2009 on the platform of the Fruitvale station. Unfinished Acts was written collectively by a group of anarchists who were and still are actively present in the rebellion following Oscar Grant’s execution.
.....
The following pages include a few short histories of a few significant social movements to help contextualize the rebellions. This history acts as intermissions for a documentary dramatization (but factually correct!) of some of the events that unfolded in the streets during the first month of 2009. We have reconstructed the narrative and dialogue from collective stories, personal experiences and videos of the rebellions posted online. We conclude with our own analysis and lessons.
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In conversation,
Unfinished Acts
Hip Hop for HIV Awareness
Stars Set to Perform at Hip Hop for HIV Awareness
By Monique Love
Plies, Bun B, Twista, Yung L.A., Gorilla Zoe, Day 26, Bobby Valentino, LeToya Luckett and Ginuwine are set to perform at the Hip Hop for HIV Awareness free concert at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, TX on July 11.
Houston’s popular radio station 97.9 The Box, The Houston Department of Health and Human Services, Amerigroup Community Care, AIDS Foundation Houston, and the NAACP Houston branch have teamed up for the Hip Hop for HIV Awareness, to educate Houston residents about the ongoing AIDS epidemic.
Free testing started June 22 and continues til June 26 at the NAACP Family Technology Center. For more information visit http://www.kbxx.com.
SOURCE:
June 28, 2009
Before Nation
Before nation
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
As the temperature of war increases in Iraq and the U.S. increases troops in Afghanistan, an unanswered question looms. Not “what is a nation” so much as “why is this a nation, and when”?
When we speak of Iraq, Afghanistan or even Pakistan as nation-states, we are really speaking of political elites in their capitals and of relatively new political identities that are not truly agreed upon even in those states.
Many of these nations had their borders drawn, not by themselves, but by diplomats in Europe, more for their interests than the inhabitants thereof.
Let me give but one example: Remember the former Pakistani president-general, Pervez Musharraf? In the year he was born, there was no Pakistan. He was born a citizen of northwest India.
In many of these countries there are millions of people who see themselves, first and foremost, as members of ancient tribes, to whom loyalties lie. They are Pashtun, Punjabi or Tajik.
In Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s autobiographical work, “Infidel,” she recounts the childhood memory of her and her sister standing in their back yard in Somalia, reciting the lineage of their clan. Standing over them was the daunting figure of grandmother, a switch in hand, and woe to the child who would forget or overlook an ancestor.
Her grandmother didn’t demand that they recount the rulers of Somalia. What was important was tribe, clan and sub-clan histories and lineages.
For millions and millions of people in Africa and South Asia, one’s clan is crucial; nation is ephemeral. For before nation, there was clan. When one is in distress, there is clan. When one is endangered, there is clan.
Nation is a collection of strangers. Nation is the faraway capital. Nation is the oppressive force that imposes taxation, or unwanted military presence.
As the U.S., under Obama, plans to downsize in Iraq and beef up in Afghanistan, it faces a force that Americans have not had to consider for several centuries: the power of tribes. (Here, I speak of the so-called “Indians,” a European name imposed on a host of tribes, clans and sub-clans.)
This is the true social and political power that lies beneath the ossified and often corrupt national governments in which the U.S. has invested billions.
There is the formal nation-state, with all the structure that Americans like, but unseen is the true movers and shakers of society – identity formers – tribes.
This may be the rock upon which all U.S. efforts – all of its billions, all of its military might – shatters.
© Copyright 2009 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read Mumia’s brand new book, “Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A.,” available from City Lights Publishing, www.citylights.com or (415) 362-8193. Keep updated at www.freemumia.com. For Mumia’s commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.org. For recent interviews with Mumia, visit www.blockreportradio.com. Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia’s commentaries and interviews. Send our brotha some love and light at: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Greene, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg PA 15370.
Caravan for Justice III
Caravan for Justice III brings the heat to the lawmakers
by Crystal Carter
Sacramento, activists, teachers and family members came together to rally against laws that have failed to serve the betterment of their communities.
The third installment of the Caravan for Justice took place Tuesday, May 26, on the steps and inside the State Capitol building in Sacramento.
“It’s a hot day today,” said Minister Christopher Muhammad. “But it’s going to be even hotter for the legislators if they don’t listen to our demands.”
Minister Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam as well as the executive director of Muhammad University of Islam in San Francisco, is one of the main organizers in the Caravan for Justice.
So far the Caravan for Justice movement has been a success. Their last visit to the Capitol on April 8 caused two legislators, Tom Ammiano and Leland Yee, to initiate a bill promoting “civilian oversight” to handle complaints against the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police in the wake of Oscar Grant’s death. The protest has also focused on issues involving gang injunctions and succeeded in prompting Sen. Roderick D. Wright and Leland Yee to inject a bill to combat them.
Dana Blanchard, a fifth grade teacher from Berkeley, brought 14 of her students with her to participate while voicing her concerns to the crowd. She understands that not everyone can get to the protests but she offered other alternatives: signing petitions, writing letters and attending events when you have the time.
“I brought my students with me so they can learn how to stand up for what they believe in,” she said.
Blanchard said that the state we live in doesn’t care about its students. She is worried about where her students will end up if they don’t know their rights. She says that she tries to let her students understand that there may be things that they disagree with and there may be things that they don’t understand but she always makes it a point to let the children know that their opinions do matter.
Tom Helme, 26, graduate of Humboldt State University, spoke about the project that he and a group of other community members started called Cop Watch in the city of Modesto.
“We decided to take matters into our own hands after realizing how much police can get away with,” said Helme. “Now when we see someone getting wrongfully harassed by the cops, we pass them out our ‘know your rights’ card.”
The know your rights card spells out a step by step process of what one should do when being questioned by the police. One part of the card reads:
“If the police stop you, ask, ‘Am I free to go?’ If not, you are being detained. If yes, walk away. Ask, ‘Why are you detaining me?’ To stop you, the officer must have a ‘reasonable suspicion’ to suspect your involvement in a specific crime (not just a guess or a stereotype).”
“Getting involved in protests like this gives us a sense of community,” said Helme. “We are transforming energy into action.”
Bisola Marignay, an activist who participated in the caravan insisted that although there are a number of issues that were addressed in the protest that she would not have it any other way.
“Separation is a weakening factor,” she said. “When we come together, our energy is that much stronger.”
Oralia Cortez, 62, along with her group, Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes (FACTS), came from Bakersfield to get their word heard. Cortez has a vested interest because her son is serving 35 years to life for his third strike for stealing $1,000 dollars. She says that in order to influence the legislature, you must use your words as your weapon.
On Nov. 2, 2004, the state’s voters rejected an amendment to the statute – offered in Proposition 66 – that would have required the third felony to be either “violent” and/or “serious” in order to result in a 25-years-to-life sentence. In the last week before the election, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger launched an all-out campaign against Prop. 66. “It would release 26,000 dangerous criminals and rapists,” he stated. When, in fact, there were only 8,000 people sentenced to 25 years to life under the Three Strikes Law.
Currently, there are more than 8,400 inmates serving possible life terms under the three strikes law, according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“Wickedness prevails when good people do nothing,” she said. “An unjust law is no law at all.”
According to Minister Christopher Muhammad, the fourth Caravan for Justice is scheduled to take place sometime next month. Plan to get on one of the dozens of buses that will take you there from around California.
Watch Caravan for Justice III on video
For more information, visit www.caravanforjustice.com, email info@caravanforjustice.com or call toll-free (877) 549-8657.
Crystal N. Carter, a 2008 graduate of San Francisco State University, is a member of the Bay Area Black Journalists Association (BABJA). She writes for ColorLines Magazine and can be reached at ccarter6@gmail.com.
Transforming philanthropy into revolutionary giving
Transforming philanthropy into revolutionary giving… and dismantling the non-profit industrial complex
by Lisa Gray-Garcia aka Tiny
I just wonder what part of re-thinking he didn’t understand. I began reading an op-ed entitled “Re-thinking philanthropy” by William F. Shultz published recently in the American Forum. From a quick e-glance at the subject line I was filled with excitement, imagining a critique of the rooted-in-slavemaster hierarchy becoming seeds of the non-profit-industrial complex crabs-in-a-barrel system that non-profit organizations barely survive on and compete with each other over crumbs for. But alas, no, I would be sadly disappointed as I read on, seeing only a vague questioning of non-profit organizations who receive public money but don’t provide health care to their workers.
The lofty title and the barely challenging thoughts left me wondering what part of re-thinking didn’t Schultz understand. Doesn’t the notion of “re” anything imply that you will be asking the hard questions – like who gets access to wealth, how wealth and the earth’s resources were stolen from the original stewards of the earth only to be controlled and disseminated by folks who have nothing to do with its labor force, its gardens, its oceans, its resources?
How development is never led by countries and peoples called “developing nations.” How dreaming, conceptualizing and strategic planning about money has been done by poor folks throughout the centuries but that knowledge, those dreams, that scholarship is never valued for the complicated work that it is but rather is seen as unimportant only because the folks doing the strategic plans, the schedules, the budgets, the work plans are working poor mamaz and daddyz, abuelitas and aunties and uncles.
During the first 200 years of the theft of indigenous people’s land, destruction of resources and death of peoples and communities known as European colonization in the U.S., the missionary ideals and practices of Christian charity were replaced by the capitalist and patriarchal pattern of philanthropy. One of the earliest examples of philanthropists were benevolent slave owners who “took care of their slaves.”
From that frightening template of patriarchal domination, philanthropy was implemented by corporate moguls like John D. Rockefeller, Leland Stanford and Andrew Carnegie who used the process of giving away their money to appear as though they were caring about people, rather than just making profit while they sponsored and launched well-funded studies and endowments and created fellowships, grants and entire institutions around eugenics, a terrifying fascist and racist pseudoscience created to achieve so-called racial purity, eventually adopted by Hitler to rationalize the Nazi beliefs and practices of murdering Jewish peoples and disabled folks.
Philanthropy is only a tool
But of course you can’t blame philanthropy. After all, it’s rooted in Eurocentric, Western values of capitalism, which promote, demand and rely on separation, ageism, individualism and self-determination to produce an ongoing supply of consumers – isolated, separated from their families, consuming new couches, new cars, a separate set of silverware and dishes, not to mention apartments and houses. These values directly impact the programming decisions and priorities of an organization’s development, transforming the agendas of well-meaning and sometimes even revolutionary organizations rooted in poor communities of color into programs that perpetuate rigidity and harm on indigenous, multi-generational, care-giving communities.
The results of these values’ impact on organizations include the creation of youth-only programming for indigenous youth whose cultures value eldership and family, even to the harming of a community’s deep cultural structure or the complete separation and de-linking of naturally linked cross-movements such as an organization working for tenants’ rights and organizations working to advocate for homeless families and children. These values also lay the groundwork for the punitive systems of harm perpetrated by the non-profit industrial complex.
In another emulation of capitalist values driving non-profit funding the same way as market shares determine the for-profit market-driven world, non-profit organizations are forced to pursue funding led by that year’s sexy initiatives. On more than one occasion at what I call a step and fetch it grant interview where the grantor decides whether you, the grantee’s issue or project, is important enough to fund, I have actually heard the word sexy used to describe poverty, disability, racial justice, domestic violence, homelessness and global development.
This process has only worsened due to the economic downturn. Large foundations are using the excuse of the downturn to fund even less, demand even more and widen the gap between communities in poverty leadership and who drives development decision-making.
The alternative: revolutionary giving
So what would it look like to re-define development and fundraising? To practice what we at POOR Magazine call “Revolutionary Giving”? It would begin with the recognition that just because people have money, have inherited money, or have access to money and connections that they inherently hold the knowledge needed to distribute that money.
Further, to understand that people who have struggled to raise children in poverty, take care of elders, keep multiple low-wage jobs or navigate multiple systems like welfare, education, social security and/or project housing in fact hold a deep scholarship about the use and distribution of resources. Similarly, that values of caring, interdependence and eldership as defined by indigenous folks and folk of color aren’t just nice ideas but actually need to drive the core values of organizational development and funding initiatives for poor communities of color.
Finally, to even consider a new form of philanthropy and giving, it must be cleansed of its eugenicist, racist past and redefined as a form of reparations that centers giving within the concept of reparations and the redistribution of the wealth, resources and land that was stolen from indigenous communities and poor communities of color locally and globally. The people who in the beginning of time were the stewards of the now very sick earth, who remain invested in its thrival and growth and who survive directly on its gifts and harvests.
Revolutionary Change Session June 19-21
Register now for the upcoming Revolutionary Change Session: Crumbling the Myth of the Gift, Deconstructing Donor Denial and Dismantling the Non-Profit Industrial Complex … One Outcome at a Time, a three-day seminar June 19-21 at the Westbay Conference Center, 1290 Fillmore St., San Francisco. It is presented by the Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute (RPMJ) at POOR Magazine.
This session is designed for conscious folk with race, class and/or education privilege from across the globe who are interested in exploring, implementing and practicing truly revolutionary expressions of giving, equity sharing and change-making. We will deconstruct the lies intrinsic in philanthropy, reconstruct the truths of humanity, care-giving, sharing and community and practice a new form of equity sharing we at POOR Magazine call “Revolutionary Giving.”
To register and learn more, go online to RPMJ Program Seminar.
Lisa Gray-Garcia aka Tiny is a poverty scholar, welfareQUEEN, revolutionary journalist and the author of “Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America.” She co-founded POOR Magazine and Poor News Network with her Mama Dee.
Victory for Afrikan Diaspora
Victory for Afrikan Diaspora Reparations Movement at Durban Review Conference
by Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma’at
As we commemorate Afrikan Liberation Day – and the 84th birthday of our revolutionary ancestor, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Minister Malcolm X), as well as the 87th birthday of his and our dear friend, Elder Mother Yuri Kochiyama – we encourage our communities to recognize and celebrate another key victory for our reparations movement.
This past month, representatives of nations, states, non-government and grassroots organizations from around our earth gathered for the Durban Review Conference (DRC). Held at the United Nations’ European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the DRC was a follow-up to the Third World Conference Against Racism (WCAR). That important event took place eight years ago in Durban, South Africa.
Most significantly, the 2001 WCAR process brought forth the strategic and passionate organizing of reparations advocates, particularly those from the U.S., which led to a monumental victory. Despite the initial threatened boycott, then intense pressure and interference on numerous heads of state and, later, withdrawal by then U.S. (P)resident George W. Bush, powerful language was adopted into the final document.
The Durban Declaration and Program of Action (DDPA) stated that slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, colonialism and apartheid were crimes against humanity. Furthermore, it called upon the U.N., its member states, and international financial and development institutions to develop capacity-building programs for the economic and social development of people of Afrikan descent, i.e., reparations.
So we fast forward to this year. While the non-attending imperialist states, including the U.S. under new President Barack Obama, the corporate media and numerous talking heads were pontificating about who was not in Geneva in April, our focus was on reaffirming the DDPA, addressing reparations more specifically and establishing a Permanent Forum for African Descendants.
While the ever-offending colonialists and their mouthpieces were loudly objecting to positive language which humanized the suffering Palestinian people’s right to their land, nationhood and self-determination, we were busy building a strong multi-national and multi-racial alliance with and for Palestine. Though the class of vicious warmongers feigned condemnation of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s very presence at the DRC, some of us reminded folks that it is the sovereign nation of Iran that is being encircled by the dangerous nuclear U.S., NATO and state of Israel occupiers in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and, of course, Palestine and other parts of the Afrikan continent.
And, to put matters in their proper context, we should emphasize that even with the highly publicized absence of only 10 European or Euro-settler states, more than 95 percent of U.N. member states did, indeed, play a part. One of our old Chicago community organizing strategies was if the criminals wouldn’t show up to a public gathering, it was then our sacred duty to take our mass mobilizations to properly serve, try, convict them and promote justice wherever they reside. Ase`. Amen.
Therefore, in spite of the disrespect shown by what the newly-appointed Attorney General Eric Holder has correctly called “a nation of cowards [in] race related issues,” our movement prevailed. The DDPA was reaffirmed! Though we were temporarily unsuccessful in our challenge to representatives from member states and current U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Judge Navi Pillay for a Permanent Forum for Afrikan Ascendants, we did achieve the full support of our Indigenous allies who recently gained that success after decades of struggle.
Special praise goes to the Africa (Diaspora) Group representatives and NGOs such as the African Descendants Caucus, Global Afrikan Congress, Civil Society Forum, December 12th Movement, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations of America (N’COBRA), World Against Racism, United Against Racism (in the U.S.), US Human Rights Network, TransAfrica, New Black Panther Party and many, many others. Our gratitude should also be extended to progressive media such as Free Speech Radio News, Pacifica Radio Network, The Final Call, Black Star News of London, San Francisco Bay View newspaper and many, many other non-corporate outlets from around the world which provided honest reporting of the proceedings leading up to, during and after the Durban Review Conference.
It is my feeling that, as we collectively advocate for a Durban-plus-10-year conference in 2010 or 2011, the reparations movement can put itself in a much stronger position to gain even greater achievements. Even with the worsening monopoly and financial capitalist depression, the issue of reparations is now receiving more traction throughout the African Diaspora.
Our task is to continue our multi-national discussions, unity-building efforts, mobilizations, challenges to governments and corporations for past and continuing crimes against humanity and thorough evaluations of member states’ implementation, or lack thereof, in carrying forward the DDPA.
Upcoming events
In the Bay Area, reports from the Durban Review Conference will be made during the 51st year commemoration of African Liberation Day in Oakland, sponsored by the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party (AAPRP). Those events take place on Friday, May 30, at Laney College and Saturday, May 31, at Bobby Hutton (aka Defremery) Park at 18th and Adeline.
Foundations for Our New Alkebulan/Afrikan Millennium (FONAMI) will host a Juneteenth Freedom Days event at the Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., between Broadway and Telegraph in Oakland. We will also be screening Brother Al Santana’s powerful film highlighting our collective reparations victory in Durban, South Africa.
Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma’at (former European enslavement name, J. “Harry” Armstrong) is a past National Co-Chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA), author of the books “Reparations Sasa, Volumes One and Two,” and composer of the “We Demand Reparations” and the new “Rise UP You Mighty Afrikan People” musical CDs. To order books and music CDs, arrange speaking engagements or participate in our petition drives to the United Nations and President Barack Obama, write to FONAMI, P.O. Box 10963, Oakland, CA 94610 or email support@wedemandreparations.com.
Race and Recession Report
Race and Recession Report
While all Americans worry about economic insecurity during this crisis, its most damaging effects have been
unevenly distributed. People of color are unemployed, hungry, homeless and without healthcare at alarming
rates. Many have already fallen through the widening cracks in the social safety net, and countless more are
about to go under. This dire and worsening situation amounts to a state of emergency. Examining the disparities
reveals patterns that are not simply coincidental. Indeed, people of color face barriers to opportunity at
every turn, and the impact is devastating, not just to them, but also to struggling white people. Ultimately, to
ensure a stable and growing economy for all will require solutions that directly address these disparities.....Continue
June 07, 2009
African Village Survival Initiative
June 02, 2009
A note on Solidarity
May 01, 2009
Children who kill never had a chance
Children who kill never had a chance
I have met children who became killers several times in my life
I have met children who became killers several times in my life: in the warzones of the Congo and the Central African Republic, and in the grey Young Offenders’ Institutes of Britain. When I read about the events that are alleged to have happened last weekend in South Yorkshire, I kept thinking about their small, paranoid eyes. Two brothers – aged ten and eleven – have been charged with torturing two other, younger kids. The victims had been hit with bricks, burned with cigarettes, and slashed with knives in a wild field.
We are a long way from knowing what happened in that field that afternoon, or who carried out these acts. But the visceral temptation when any children face accusations like this is to brand them as inherently evil demons who should be locked far from us for life. But the most famous case of child-on-child killing in British history – that of Mary Bell – shows us how flawed this initial reaction is.
In 1968, in the sagging streets of the poorest part of Newcastle, a ten year old girl strangled two toddlers – Martin Brown, and Brian Howe – to death. She then cut their bodies, and with her best friend, a mentally disabled thirteen year old, she left notes in a nursery saying: “We did murder Martain brown, fuckof you BAstArd.” She was reflexively described in the press as a child who had been “born evil”, a “monster” and “demon.”
Now we know what happened to her to make her into such a child. Mary’s mother, Betty Bell, was a severely disturbed alcoholic who had been sectioned at least once. She worked as a prostitute specialising in sado-masochism – whippings and stranglings. The first thing she said when Mary was placed into her arms after giving birth was: “Take the thing away from me!” She rejected her daughter and repeatedly tried to kill her by feeding her an overdose of sleeping tablets. But eventually, she did find a use for Mary. Once she turned four, she began to pimp her to paedophiles.
Mary never knew who her father was, but she suspected her mother had been inseminated by her own dad. Later in life, she asked her mother point blank if this was the case. She didn’t deny it. Betty simply said quietly: “You are the devil’s spawn.”
When she was ten, Mary made friends with another girl who was being raped by a local paedophile. All they had known in their lives was violent abuse – and they began to act it out. Mary tried to cut off one of the boy’s penises with a razor – a plain, crazed act of revenge for what she had experienced since she was a toddler.
Yet it is strangely comforting to see evil as a primordial external force, something alien that can be hunted down and confined to cages. It dodges the colder truth that I have learned from all the child-killers I have met: we all have the capacity for terrible cruelty and sadism, especially if we are subjected to horror ourselves. Which of us can be confident that, given such Mary Bell’s childhood, we wouldn’t have done something depraved?
Yet the trial of the two children who killed Jamie Bulger – and the websites trying to figure out where they are now, so they can be lynched – suggests we have barely progressed since then. Excellent works of investigative journalism like Blake Morrison’s book ‘As If’ have uncovered evidence that these children were subjected to violent and probably sexual abuse. We don’t want to hear it. We want devils and demons and a black-and-white world that tells us: no, it couldn’t have been you; this crime belongs to a different species.
These killings are not political parables. However much right-wingers want to make this a story about welfare dependency and left-wingers want to make it a story of brutal Thatcherite economics, these rare murders have happened in Britain at the same rate for over a century. They have to be understood at the personal, human level.
To understand and explain these cases is not to excuse, or justify. We are talking about the most terrible thing that can happen to a person: torture, and murder. The children who do this need to be humanely detained for as long as they are a danger. But everything we know about children who kill tells us they are invariably victims of extreme abuse themselves, deserving of compassion, not hysterical condemnation.
I have watched my friend Camilla Batmangelidh – the director of Kid’s Company – work with children in South London who have bricked, bottled and tortured other children. She explains: “Since the Bell and Bulger cases, we’ve learned a lot about how a developing brain reacts to abuse, but the judicial system hasn’t caught up. We now know from brain scans that if you have really poor quality care in childhood, your pre-frontal lobes don’t develop properly. Those are the parts of the brain that think rationally, empathise, and exercise self-control. It is physically impossible for these children to calm down and think a situation through. Their brains haven’t developed that way.” So to treat them like morally responsible mini-adults who just made a bad decision – as the British courts do today – doesn’t make sense. It is a neurological fiction.
When this impaired brain chemistry combines with violent abuse and rape, the children can become time-bombs. “They have been taught to see the world through one template: you’re a victim, or you’re an abuser. That’s how they think human relationships work,” Batmangelidh puts it. “At first, they are abused, and at some point they become determined to be a perpetrator, because then at least they have power and control. If you think those are your only two options in life, it seems preferable.”
As she said this, I remembered the child soldiers in Central Africa who pointed guns into my face and smirked. Their families had been bayoneted in front of them, and they had buried the bodies themselves. In the warzones of the Congo, I met eleven and twelve year old boys who had seen their mothers and sisters snatched away, and were then picked up by the militiamen and trained to rape and kill. Like Mary, they were re-enacting the violence they had experienced in a desperate attempt to switch roles: this time, they were the Big Men.
Children who kill are a question of mental health, not morality. They are internally destroyed children, not devils. Given the love and support that they deserve, such children can develop their frontal lobes and their capacity for empathy over time, and be released. As Gita Sereny’s reportorial masterpiece ‘Cries Unheard’ shows, Mary Bell eventually developed into a morally responsible adult and “a very, very loving mother” – albeit one perpetually haunted by the knowledge of what she had done.
Haven’t we progressed enough since the Middle Ages to see these truths, and reject the barbaric theology of “evil” children?
When accusations like this bleed into the news, we need to stand at the front of the looming lynch mob and say: Stop. Think. In 1861, a leader in The Times commented on the trial of two eight year old boys in Stockport who had tortured and killed a toddler. It said: “Children of that age cannot be held legally accountable in the same way as adults. It is absurd and monstrous that these two children have been treated like murderers.” Isn’t it time we progressed to 1862?
Originaly Published by http://www.johannhari.com; Johann Hari is an award-winning journalist who writes twice-weekly for the Independent, one of Britain's leading newspapers, and the Huffington Post. He also writes for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, Le Monde Diplomatique, The New Republic, El Mundo, The Guardian, The Melbourne Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, South Africa's Star, The Irish Times, and a wide range of other international newspapers and magazines.
It's equal societies that thrive - and survive
When we rebuild after this disaster, we need to be guided by equality
It's equal societies that thrive - and survive
In the smoking rubble of market fundamentalism, we are all being forced to rethink the principles that order our societies – and one small, shining idea is rising from the wreckage. It is the idea of human equality.
The need for us to return to this, our best and most basic instinct, is spelled out in a new book by Professor Richard Wilkinson and Dr. Kate Pickett called ‘The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better.’ It is the culmination of twenty-five years of scientific research. The truths it contains provide us with a compass to rebuild our societies – and a reason to be profoundly optimistic. There is a way we can make our societies dramatically better – and the impulse to do it is hard-wired into each of our brains.
It starts with a stark realization. For millennia, there was one obvious and necessary way to improve human life: raise material living standards. If you are hungry, you will be made a lot happier by food. If you are thirsty, you will be made a lot happier by water. The human impulse for self-improvement was simple: give us more, and give it to us now. But we now know from reams of studies that once your basic needs are met – once you pass the magic number of $25,000 a year – something changes.
We carry on accumulating and accumulating, because it’s what we’ve grown to think will give us happiness, but it works less and less. And after a while, this unhindered chasing of More More More by the very richest begins to make us miserable – and corrodes some of the other basics we need as humans.
One of our most basic psychological needs is for status – to feel that we are a valued member of our tribe. We evolved in small, very egalitarian tribes of hunter-gatherers, and have only lived outside them for a few minutes in evolutionary terms. So when we feel our status is threatened – or there is no way of becoming respected by the rest of the tribe – we begin to malfunction in all sorts of ways.
Indeed, other than being chased by a wild animal or worrying that our supplies of food, water and shelter will be cut off, nothing makes humans more anxious than panic about our status. Endless clinical trials show what happens to our bodies when we feel we are going to lose our status and could end up being looked on as inferior. Our bodies lock into a “fight-or flight” response, where our heart and lungs work harder, our blood vessels constrict, and we burn up our energy stores fast. Our systems flood with a hormone called cortisol.
If this lasts only a short period, it can be good for us: it helps us escape that growling lion, or pull ourselves out of the wreckage of a crashed car. But if it goes on for weeks or months, we begin to suffer all sorts of dysfunction – as we’ll see in a moment.
Yet we have built our societies on exaggerating this status panic – and we have been ratcheting it up over the past thirty years. The more unequal a society is, the more intense it becomes. Even if you slip to the bottom in Sweden, it’s not so very different from the top. But when there is a long social ladder and the bottom rung means humiliation and poverty, everyone at every rung feels a sweatier need to cling to their place – and the society starts to go wrong. This isn’t left-wing speculation: it is an empirical fact.
Japan and Sweden are very different societies, but they are consistently at the top of the charts for every indicator of social success. They have low violence, low mental illness, low teenage pregnancy, low drug addiction, low obesity, low prison populations, high life expectancy, and high levels of friendship and trust. They are economically highly equal societies. The US and Portugal are also very different societies, but they are consistently at the bottom of the charts. They are highly unequal societies. If you plot countries on a graph, you see the causal relationships with striking clarity. Increase inequality, and every one of these dysfunctions shoots up with it.
How can this be? When we are locked in stress, we get sicker. High cortisol levels corrode our insides and massively increase the risk of heart-attack. We eat more – and our bodies store fat differently. It hugs them to our middles, rather than storing them lower down, in our hips and thighs. We are far more likely to break down into depression or mental illness, or to snap and attack somebody. James Gilligan – the psychiatrist running the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard Medical School – explains that acts of violence are “attempts to ward off or eliminate the feeling of shame and humiliation – a feeling that is painful, and can even be intolerable or overwhelming.” He adds that he has “yet to see a serious act of violence that did not represent an attempt to undo this ‘loss of face.’”
And when we are locked in stress, we become more suspicious of the people around us. In highly equal Sweden, 66 percent of people feel they can trust their fellow citizens – and as a result have the highest levels of friendship in the developed world. In highly unequal Portugal, only 10 percent of the population trust the rest: see the bars on the windows.
It can be easier to see how this model of stress and humiliation affects us by looking at our evolutionary cousins. In a recent study, scientists at the University of North Carolina took twenty macaque monkeys, divided them into groups of four, and put them in separate enclosures. In each little group, they formed hierarchies, with some at the top, and some at the bottom. They then made it possible for the monkeys to give themselves a dose of cocaine by pulling a lever. The dominant monkeys took very little cocaine – while the subordinate, humiliated monkeys took huge amounts. They were, in effect, compensating themselves for being at the bottom of the pile with no way out. Now think about the rates of drug addiction in Detroit, or South Central Los Angeles, or the Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
Our elites have adopted an ideology – the extreme inequality of market fundamentalism – that simply doesn’t suit our species. It makes us sick and aggressive and anxious. This doesn’t just affect the poor: the studies show the disastrous effects of inequality run right up the ladder.
It doesn’t have to be this way. By democratically taxing the rich and using the money to lift up the poor, we can make life better for all of us. Of course there must be some income differentials – but nothing like our own grotesque rates. Plato suggested the richest person should be allowed to earn fives times the wage of the poorest person, which seems fair to me. The evidence is in, and it is plain: a more equal society is a happier, safer, and healthier one. (The obvious exception to this rule is Communist societies. They were incredibly miserable: if equality is imposed by crazed tyrants, at the expense of freedom, then it has none of these positive effects.)
Wilkinson and Pickett explain how the US would change over time if we taxed and invested our way to the same levels of economic equality as social democratic Sweden: “The proportion of the population feeling they could trust others might rise by 75 percent – presumably with matching improvements in the quality of community life; rates of mental illness and obesity might similarly be cut by about two-thirds, teenage birth rates could be more than halved, prison populations might be reduced by 75 percent, and people could live longer while working the equivalent of two months less a year.”
In Britain, “levels of trust might be expected to be two-thirds higher [with all the improvements in community life that brings], mental illness more than halved, everyone would get an additional year of life, teenage birth rates would fall by a third, homicide rates would fall by 75 percent, everyone could get the equivalent of almost seven weeks extra holiday a year, and the government would be closing prisons all over the country.”
It’s a shining vision – and not utopian. It exists now in a free, democratic country. Most Americans and Brits intuitively want it: over 80 percent say the income gap is too high. It is only the undemocratic, concentrated power of the wealthy that holds us up.
And there is another, even more sombre reason why we need to democratically equalize our societies. We are now highly likely to face a series of destabilizing and dangerous climate shocks. In his book ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail or Survive’, Jared Diamond looks at the societies throughout history that have faced similar shocks. The difference between the ones that died out and the ones that survived was relative equality. If the elite stands far above the population and can insulate itself from the effects of the shock – for a while, at least – then the society doesn’t make it through. We need to reorganize ourselves now, while we can.
At the end of the failed age of market fundamentalism, the long-suppressed democratic cry for equality is emerging once again. Its glow should be at the core of how we move beyond this cold, cold depression.
Originaly Published by http://www.johannhari.com; Johann Hari is an award-winning journalist who writes twice-weekly for the Independent, one of Britain's leading newspapers, and the Huffington Post. He also writes for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, Le Monde Diplomatique, The New Republic, El Mundo, The Guardian, The Melbourne Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, South Africa's Star, The Irish Times, and a wide range of other international newspapers and magazines.
‘Oakland at war, a civil war, us against the authorities’
‘Oakland at war, a civil war, us against the authorities’
Davey D interviews Mistah F.A.B. on the shooting deaths of Lovelle Mixon and four Oakland police officers
After the funeral March 27 that filled the Oakland Coliseum with more than 20,000 cops, motorcycle officers escorted the body of Sgt. Mark Dunakin to its resting place in Tracy. Dunakin was notorious in North Oakland for wreaking havoc on Black Oaklanders. All the OPD officers killed March 21 lived outside Oakland. – Photo: Lance Iversen, SF Chronicle
Davey D hanging here in Austin, Texas, and we have caught up with Mistah F.A.B. By now everybody knows the news that has taken place in the City of Oakland that is now national news. We’ve been around a lot of folks from around the country, from Jadakiss to Bundee, and we’re talking about the situation that has taken place with the four cops that have gotten killed on the eve of the Oscar Grant trial [i.e., the murder trial of former BART cop Johannes Mehserle, which was postponed].
We wanted to catch up with Mistah F.A.B. He’s one of the key voices of the Bay, at least nationally speaking, and we wanted to get your assessment, especially since you were part of the big showcase that was here last night with everybody who was on the bill, from the Bundees on down, and want to get your take on what people are saying and how you personally as an Oakland resident is feeling about this situation.
Mistah F.A.B.: Well, anytime where there’s a death situation, Davey, you don’t want to go out and say, well, they deserved it, because somebody lost a father and somebody lost a friend. And when you deal with death, nothing constitutes a reason for death. Like I don’t wish death on anyone and I don’t wish jail on anyone. Those are horrible things to face.
Unfortunately, when you live in times where it’s really war - and our city, for anybody who doesn’t know, the City of Oakland right now is under war; we’re like a civil war, and it’s us against the authorities - it’s unfortunate that if you get pulled over, you’re so afraid for your life that you’re going to react as someone would react in war.
I mean, man, if you’re hearing about these cops killing all these people, all these young brothers, and you get pulled over, you don’t know if you’re going to go to jail or if you’re going to die. So it’s a Catch 22, man, and it’s unfortunate because, like I say, more than one person lost their life here; more than two people lost their life here: The cops lost their lives and Brother Lovelle lost his life. That’s five deaths, man, as a result of 1) self defense and 2) being afraid for your life. So what do you do?
It’s a civil war, us against the authorities - if you get pulled over, you’re so afraid for your life that you’re going to react as someone would react in war.
Davey D: So let me ask you, one of the things people are saying is that it was wrong for people around the country - and we saw this last night when dead prez announced it and people cheered, well, I don’t know if they cheered at your spot, but they definitely cheered at the other spot - and some people are like, well, I don’t understand.
I mean when I talked to a cat from Philly, they had horror stories, and the people from Houston have horror stories. All these people come from communities where they have horror stories and it seems like you would think that after the tragedy of Oscar Grant or Annette Garcia or a Sean Bell or anybody that law enforcement would use that tragedy - the good people in law enforcement would use that tragedy - as a way to bridge that gap, strengthen the bonds with the community. And apparently that hasn’t happened. It seems that things have gotten worse.
Mistah F.A.B.
Mistah F.A.B.: I’m not a guy that says all police officers are bad because there are some cops that really handle their obligations and their duty to their position. There are many cops that along the way they’ve spared me. There’s been times where they know you’re doing wrong but they’re like, “Get outta here, man; it’s bigger than that.” So all cops aren’t bad.
And, like they said, when they announced it, people cheered, like, “Fuck the cops!” “Kill ‘em!” “Kill the cops!” “Kill the pigs!” And that’s not going to settle anything. What that’s going to do is the cops hear - just like we talk, they talk: “So that’s how y’all feel? All right, we’re going to get your ass back!”
It’s war, man. It’s really gang war all over America, all over the world. In Philly, Houston, New York, cops need to realize the only way that this is going to stop is if they step up and take the initiative to say, OK, we’re wrong; we’ve done wrong things. How can we mend these relationships?
How can we sit down and come into the community and make a peace? And if there is no possible way to make a peace, let us admit our faults. Therefore, the people won’t feel like, “Oh, man, I’m getting pulled over.”
A random traffic stop is life or death now. Why does it feel like that, like you don’t even want to stop. So you got a high speed chase, you risk somebody else’s life, you pull over, you shoot a cop: That’s your life. You can’t win. People are blaming the people like they’re stupid for doing that. Why are they doing that? That’s some ignorant asshole wanting to shoot a cop. But no, they’re not.
That’s somebody who’s scared for his life. All over the country, all over the world, they’re afraid for their lives. People of authority are taking advantage of their authority and the good cops aren’t taking the initiative to step up and say, “We don’t support that.” They’re not saying: “Hold on! We’re not like that. All of us aren’t like that.”
A random traffic stop is life or death now. You don’t even want to stop. So you got a high speed chase, you risk somebody else’s life, you pull over, you shoot a cop: That’s your life. You can’t win.
Davey D: That’s something that was talked about last night and the question was asked - we were talking with some brothers off the record because they didn’t want to go on, and that just goes to show you there were folks that were here that were afraid to go on because of past situations and they don’t want to be on record - but they were asking, what was the reaction of the police after Oscar Grant? Did anybody send his mom a flower? Cards? Did anybody hold a press conference to say this is a tragedy? You didn’t see none of that.
Dude broke it down: He said they see us as inhuman. If they see us as inhuman, why should we not see them as inhuman?
Mistah F.A.B.: I don’t see a problem going on record because this is something I really stand firm and believe. I talked to many - I won’t put their name on record - but I talked to some Black officers in our community and I told them: Yo, you know, when this whole situation went down, I felt like you guys should have came forth like, “We’re not supporting that. We definitely don’t believe in the ideologies that some of these officers and these people of authority are enforcing. We want to make amends with the community.”
They see us as inhuman. If they see us as inhuman, why should we not see them as inhuman?
You have to realize, Davey, there are officers who have programs, like these summer programs where there are sports programs for these kids. Like I told one of them, I said, “Bro, you’re one of the main representatives to get kids into school and the initiative to get them into sports and community related type things so when it’s time for these kids to turn 18 and when they become grown, they’re an enemy? These same kids you played with in summer camp and baseball - they’re an enemy now?
“These are the kids that are dying. These are the grown men that were once in those programs. They aren’t your enemy. Don’t treat them like they’re your enemy. These are your offspring, these are kids that played in your camp.”
Davey D: What did these officers say when you broke it down to them like that?
Mistah F.A.B.: It was so humbling to see someone like me really tell them like that. Like one of the officers - I’m in the hood when I see him, and I flag him down and the homies were like, “Man, what you doing?” I’m like, “Hold on, man; this is a homie. He’s a cool dude.” So I flag him down and he pulled over. He like, “F.A.B., what’s up, man?”
I’m like, “Man, why you don’t take a stand to that, dude? Why you didn’t say nothing about that?” He’s like, “F.A.B., man, it’s so many politics.” I said, “Listen, there comes a time when you have to make your own politics. You have to say it even if this is worth losing my job or worth losing whatever rank I have or public persona that people perceive me as.
“What are you going to stand for? This could have been your kid that they killed. Are you going to stand for something or are you going to hide behind your position?”
And to a lot of these artists, a lot of these political figures, these athletes: “Stop hiding behind your position. People say, oh, let’s do it off the record. Why? Let’s put it on the record. Show us how you really feel. Show us what’s going on in your community. Or is it something that you’re not wanting to stand for?”
This is not saying I’m going to kill a cop when I see one. I’m not saying that, ‘cause I honestly do believe that there are cops out there that really do their job. But I’m not going to hide behind my position as a rapper and be afraid that if I get pulled over, they’re going to take this out on me because I represent for my people. If we don’t address the politics and the issues that the public needs to hear, then no one will ever be conscious of what’s really going on.
Davey D: That’s real talk. We’ve been talking with Mistah F.A.B. As we wrap up, we’re here in Austin, Texas, and for people who don’t know, yesterday when the news broke out here at the South by Southwest Music Conference, it reverberated all the way around. Dead prez got on the stage at two concerts and announced it, and in both the concert that I was at, where it was a mixed audience - Black, Brown, white, everybody - the audience cheered - cheered - and that says a lot.
At the concert that F.A.B. was at, same thing: Packed house cheered. And I guess this leads to my last question: With these sorts of relationships, there are two concerns that people have. One is people are speculating, OK, this is how you feel and it will really bring the heat and not just people in Oakland but in all cities where people may feel encouraged or some sort of satisfaction from this are going to catch heat.
But I’m not going to hide behind my position as a rapper and be afraid that if I get pulled over, they’re going to take this out on me because I represent for my people. If we don’t address the politics and the issues that the public needs to hear, then no one will ever be conscious of what’s really going on.
Last night we saw a heavy presence of police. I don’t know if it was because of the closing or whatever but also the question is, what are some of the solutions that we can put forth? What kinds of things should happen?
Mistah F.A.B.: The people must realize that death is not cool. I’m not telling y’all, “Yo, go kill a cop, man. Make your people happy.” It’s not about that. What is that settling?
But if slaves revolted and killed a slave owner, then the people who have been oppressed will feel some type of satisfaction, because for so long they have been getting treated with the injustices of these slave owners. The authorities act like they’re slave owners and they treat us inhuman. They treat us like we’re less than one-third of a man like we used to be when we first came to this country.
If we take a stand and we make examples of these slave owners, then the slave owners will realize, “Wait! Hold on! This ain’t right. Something ain’t right. Wait a minute and they must realize it’s something that they’re doing that raises the level, the intensity level, that forces us to revolt and rebel.
But if slaves revolted and killed a slave owner, then the people who have been oppressed will feel some type of satisfaction … The authorities act like they’re slave owners and they treat us inhuman.
The people must understand that I’m not saying continue to accept the injustices - no way! Put your foot down, stand firm on your decisions that you do make, but also be aware of the fact that this is someone else’s family. If they want to continue to act that way, whatever your decision, stand firm with it. But always try to look for the positive decision out of it. Don’t just always say, “Well, I’m gon’ kill him.”
Like last week, Davey, they just gave my brother 432 years. That’s serious. It’s so serious that it’s unbelievable. When you hear your brother say they just gave me 432 years, what I’m gon’ do? What you gon’ do? 432 years? It’s serious, Davey.
They’re making examples out of us, all because they can. We stand firm on our decision as we gather, as we organize in a worldwide brotherhood realizing that we’re not going to take this anymore.
But let’s come forth with our political leaders and let’s sit down with their authority leaders and let’s make up a solution. And if there’s no solution to be made, then the problem will persist. And it’s not like this problem has just started happening. This has been going on for years. But who’s going to step forward and say, “Let’s make this change, let’s try to do this.”
I have no problem going to sit down with the chief of police and say “Dog, let’s do this. Let’s do that.” And once the public sees someone of my social status and my relevance in the community and I’m bringing those guys that you’re turning your back on, those same guys that you’re racially profiling, that you’re pulling over, that are afraid for their lives, they’re on the front line and they’re willing to say, all right what we gon’ do?
That’s what must happen. So political leaders, community leaders and people of activism all over the country and all over the world must step forth to make a change for power, not a change of continuing the cycle of ignorance.
Davey D: We’ve been talking with Mistah F.A.B. We’re here in Austin, Texas. Davey D hanging out with you. I want to thank you, Mistah F.A.B., for taking time out, sharing your thoughts.
We want people to reflect on this, and let’s figure out how we can really flip this to our collective advantage and move forward. We’ve had the Oscar Grants, we’ve had the Sean Bells, the Annette Garcias, the Adolph Grimes - 12 shootings already at the start of this year. Something has got to change; otherwise, it’s going to be a very, very, very long, hot summer.
Email Davey D at mrdaveyd@aol.com and visit daveyd.com. Listen to Davey on Hard Knock Radio Monday-Friday at 4 p.m. on KPFA 94.1 FM or kpfa.org.
What about the black community?
What about the black community?
G20 Summit to deepen theft of Africa's resources
UhuruNews
African People's Socialist Party members participate in a demonstration against the G20 which is meeting in London to once again decide the fate of colonial peoples and their resources.
The following statement was produced by the Uhuru Movement, Mbongwana and Nigeria Liberty Forum
We are opposed to the London G20 Summit, presided over by a black man or not, to attempt to rescue capitalism at the expense of black people everywhere. We are echoing what happened in St. Petersburg, Florida when Uhuru organizers took direct action by challenging Obama’s failure to address the conditions of Africans in the 2008 U.S. presidential elections campaign. Here in London, we are asking the same question: what about six million Africans killed and 48,000 women raped every month in the war in Congo sponsored by the U.S. and Britain in a process of mining coltan, which is used in making mobile phones and computers? What about Sudan where the U.S. and Britain are engaged in a proxy war to contain China’s access to African oil? What about Nigeria where the government has gone to war against the people of Delta Niger to secure oil for the U.S. and Europe?
The capitalist world economy born by attacks and exploitations of Africa.
Key to the birth of this present parasitic capitalist system was the enslavement of the African continent and the kidnapping, dispersal and colonization of African people around the world. It was born as a result of the theft of land, resources and labor from Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East, etc.
This current crisis has been delayed for over two decades because the capitalists passed on most of the costs on Africa and other oppressed nations. From the 1980s up to this credit crunch, the G8 escaped credit meltdown because Africa has been paying for the capitalization (social benefits) of European and U.S. banks through IMF, the World Bank and other parasitic neocolonial schemes imposed on us.
Financial crisis of capitalism caused by the growing resistance of national liberation movements reclaiming control over their lives and resources
This is the consequence of the rise of China, India, Iran, the Hugo Chavez-led Bolivar revolution in Latin America and the struggles of other colonized peoples. As these nations continue to rise, imperialist white power is forced on the defensive, and its access to resources is restricted, consequently challenging the reproduction of imperialist economies.
The U.S. and EU governments are trying to extend the G8 gang to G20 to manage the world economy at the expense of nations who have not yet achieved their freedom, especially the divided and dispersed African nation. This G20 meeting, chaired by a black man will not address the way out for black people, but a way out for the imperialists. This can only be done by tightening the grip of strangulation on Africa.
Investment banks can create and sell financial products but cannot create real value. Likewise national banks of England, Europe and the U.S. can print bank notes but can not create value, which is created by labor in society. The role of colonized nations in the current world economy is to create value for imperialist nations.
The real question is not the nature or extent of deregulation, stimulus or fiscal package, but access to real value. Unrestricted theft of Africa’s natural resources and worldwide black labor is the essence of the G20 summit, just as it was when the imperialist states met in the 1884 Berlin Conference.
The solution is not to fix this colonial slavery system, but to end it.
Massive transfer of peoples and social wealth to the bankers and other sectors of the ruling class are a crime. Massive cuts of social programs that are being planned are a crime. We have the obligation to build our own African plan that will allow us to recapture our unity in struggle and our Africa for ourselves.
The road to freedom leads through the creation of the Europe front of the African Socialist International hosted by the African Liberation Day committee on May 23-24, 2009 in Manchester. Building the United States of Africa, led by African workers in alliance with poor peasants is the way forward for black people everywhere.
One Africa! One Nation !
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http://uhurunews.com/story?resource_name=what-about-the-black-community Contact : ald_Europe@yahoo.co.uk, mbogwanacrm@hotmail.com www.uhurunews.com:Tel : 07862 294364, 0208 265 1731
Parasitic Capitalism 101
Parasitic Capitalism 101
Penny Hess, Apr 23, 2009
Capitalism was born from the theft of African people, African gold and African labor, along with theft of Indigenous lands and resources throughout the world.
As Omali Yeshitela teaches, impoverished, war-like, disease-ridden, feudal Europe set out to solve its problems by assaulting Africa, the Americas and Asia.
By the year 1500 Europe had already forcibly removed 700 tons of African gold and nearly a hundred thousand African people.
Parasitic Capitalism Began with the Slave Trade
Today stockbrokers discuss the price of oil over martinis at lunch. Two hundred years ago they talked about the price of a shipment of African people over a pint of ale.
The first stock market sprung up in Amsterdam in 1602, at the height of the trade in enslaved Africans that turned human beings into the world’s most lucrative commodity.
The dollar sign ($) is modeled on a symbol resembling shackles used by slave ship owners to keep count of their human cargo.
The unthinkable auctions of African people throughout the Americas not only made large profits for the slave owners, they shaped the modern U.S. economy.
For example, in the Shokoe Bottom neighborhood of Richmond Virginia, 350,000 African people were auctioned between 1790 and the 1860s.
That’s just one city among hundreds in the hemisphere where Africans were sold as chattel. In every case the auction markets fed the establishment of hotels, transportation systems, stores and countless other trades, services and opportunities for white people based on the enslavement of Africans.
The abolishment of the official trade in African human beings did not end white society’s dependence on the exploitation of forced African labor. The imperialist extraction from African people today is far greater than it was during the time of chattel slavery.
The U.S. outlawed the importation of African people ended in 1808, but the trade continued with African people smuggled in as contraband.
Additionally, plantation owners began to “breed” African people. Forcing African men and women together in hideous dungeons called “breeding pens,” one Virginia slave owner boasted he had sold 6,000 African children bred under these inhumane conditions.
Slavery Continues as “Convict Leasing”
Following the Civil War, Southern states set up the genocidal system of Convict Leasing that persisted until the 1940s in some states. With mass arrests on Jim Crow laws that made just about everything African people did illegal, hundreds of thousands of African men, women and children were rounded up in state-controlled work camps.
The motto of Convict Leasing was “One dies, get another,” because there was no longer the profit motive for slave owners to keep their property alive. African people were leased out to plantation, mine and railroad owners for hard labor.
Africans were brutalized, worked to death in the heat and bitter cold and starved. Little children were sent into the fields and down in the coal and phosphate mines of Birmingham and northern Florida.
Convict Leasing made so much money that it rebuilt the economy of the south after the Civil War. The state of Alabama, for example made 75 percent of its revenues from Convict Leasing in the 1890s.
Capitalism Loots Africa
After the Civil War was the period of direct colonialism in Africa. The entire continent was carved up by European powers in 1885 to begin the greatest plunder of natural resources in the history of the world.
Rubber, diamonds, ivory, oil, animals, wood and every mineral known to science were extracted with the labor of Africans, coerced through the generous use of gun powder, Christianity and every imaginable form of terror.
At least 20 million African people were slaughtered in Africa during this process. Europe and the U.S. got fabulously rich, beyond imagination.
Source:http://uhurunews.com/story?resource_name=parasitic-capitalism-101
Global Warming and Climate Change in Perspective
Global Warming and Climate Change in Perspective: Truths and Myths About Carbon Dioxide, Scientific Consensus, and Climate Models
by William Happer (April, 2009)
Statement to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee by William Happer, Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University, made on February 25, 2009.
Madam Chairman and members, thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Committee on Environment and Public Works to testify on Climate Change. My name is William Happer, and I am the Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics at Princeton University. I am not a climatologist, but I don't think any of the other witnesses are either. I do work in the related field of atomic, molecular and optical physics. I have spent my professional life studying the interactions of visible and infrared radiation withgases - one of the main physical phenomena behind the greenhouse effect. I have published over 200 papers in peer reviewed scientific journals. I am a member of a number of professional organizations, including the American Physical Society and the National Academy of Sciences. I have done extensive consulting work for the US Government and Industry. I also served as the Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy (DOE) from 1990 to 1993, where I supervised all of DOE's work on climate change. I have come here today as a concerned citizen to express my personal views, and those of many like me, about US climate-change policy. These are not official views of my main employer, Princeton University, nor of any other organization with which I am associated.....(click here to read full article)
Global Warming and Climate Change in Perspective
Global Warming and Climate Change in Perspective: Truths and Myths About Carbon Dioxide, Scientific Consensus, and Climate Models
by William Happer (April 20, 2009)Statement to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee by William Happer, Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University, made on February 25, 2009.
Madam Chairman and members, thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Committee on Environment and Public Works to testify on Climate Change. My name is William Happer, and I am the Cyrus Fogg Bracket Professor of Physics at Princeton University. I am not a climatologist, but I don't think any of the other witnesses are either. I do work in the related field of atomic, molecular and optical physics. I have spent my professional life studying the interactions of visible and infrared radiation withgases - one of the main physical phenomena behind the greenhouse effect. I have published over 200 papers in peer reviewed scientific journals. I am a member of a number of professional organizations, including the American Physical Society and the National Academy of Sciences. I have done extensive consulting work for the US Government and Industry. I also served as the Director of Energy Research at the Department of Energy (DOE) from 1990 to 1993, where I supervised all of DOE's work on climate change. I have come here today as a concerned citizen to express my personal views, and those of many like me, about US climate-change policy. These are not official views of my main employer, Princeton University, nor of any other organization with which I am associated.
Cartoon by Cox and Forkum
Continue reading "Global Warming and Climate Change in Perspective" »
March 30, 2009
Stop the Genocidal War on the African Community Now! Economic and Social Justice for the African Community!
Statement from the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement
The following is a statement from the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement.
The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) calls on all progressive-minded people to stand against the brutal, long-standing, publicly-supported policies of police containment that keep the African community under the grip of a colonial occupation for which the Oakland Police Department (OPD) is the front line of assault.
We call for support for the African community demands for genuine economic development and social justice for the African community.
The deaths of four members of the OPD on March 21, 2009, were the result of these relentless policies, which are manifested daily in the cold-blooded police murders, brutality and harassment of African men and women, youth and elderly by the heavily armed, military style Oakland police force;
In draconian laws such as Three Strikes that discriminatorily lock up tens of thousands of African people for life in the multi-billion dollar California prison industry;
In the hostile, substandard education system that profiles African male children as young as six years old as criminals and “super-predators,” and feeds the shameful juvenile prison industry that violates every principle of international law;
In the highly-documented government-imposed illegal drug trade which is often the only last-ditch source of employment in a community whose own economic infrastructure has been destroyed by “urban renewal” and gentrification;
In the specific targeting of African homeowners for predatory subprime mortgages, thousands of which are now in foreclosure;
In the cruel foster care system that turns African babies and children, victimized by this system, into profitable commodities for the lucrative white foster-care industry.
It was the historic brutality of the Oakland Police Department that gave rise to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in the 1960s.
We recognize that African communities of Oakland and throughout the U.S. are locked down under a deadly colonial occupation no different than the conditions imposed on the Iraqi and Afghani people under the U.S. military occupation and the near genocidal colonial assault on the Palestinian people by the illegitimate settler-state of Israel.
We believe that all oppressed and colonized peoples have a right to struggle for liberation and to resist, as Malcolm X said, by any means necessary.
Just like the resistance of Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser, enslaved Africans once vilified and today considered heroes, African people in Oakland have a right to struggle against this government-imposed terror. This is exactly what our brother Lovelle Mixon did.
We believe the actions brother Lovelle Mixon took were in fact a direct response to a system that upholds itself and protects itself through the imposition of a police state within the African community to enforce systematic harassment, torture, death and destruction on the African community, so that it can continue to thrive.
Africans have come to the conclusion that if you do not resist oppression from the police, you will end up unjustly murdered by them, all criminal charges will be dropped against them, hence injustice within the system perpetuates itself while Africans continue to die.
Knowing the history of how the police treat Africans, Lovelle Mixon felt he had to defend himself in the face of the oppressive police state. And he did so, honorably. Like the missiles launched from Gaza and the Iraqi resistance forces, African people will rightfully fight to free themselves against oppression in every form.
We call on the citizens of Oakland to unite with the demands raised by the Uhuru Movement for genuine economic development to the African working class community, for reparations for the families of victims of police violence, for a community controlled police review board with subpoena powers and for an immediate end to these failed public policies of police containment which have brought so much suffering to the African community for so long.
We call on Oakland citizens to join us in rejecting the knee-jerk criminalization of the oppressed African community by the city and state governments, and in recognizing that in order to go forward as a city we must unite in the quest for economic and social justice for the African community.
Uhuru!
The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement is an organization led by the African working class to defend the democratic rights of the African community. http://uhurunews.com/
Free the City Hall 2!
Police attack protesters at Philly city hall! There is no free speech for African people in Philadelphia!
See video of police attack here.
PHILADELPHIA, PA — On Thursday, March 19, 2009, police attacked members of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) in the gallery of the City Council during the City Council session where Mayor Nutter was announcing his 2010 budget. International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement members were holding signs protesting Mayor Nutter’s budget, which cuts essential services for the African population while spending more than one billion dollars a year for police and prisons attacking the black community. Subsequent to the police attack, InPDUM international organizer Diop Olugbala, (aka Wali Rahman), and member Shabaka Mnombatha, (aka Franklin Moses), were brutally arrested and are being charged with aggravated assault on police!
As the meeting started, some of the many InPDUM supporters present were holding up signs saying "Unite Philadelphia through Economic and Social Justice", "Jail Killer Police", "Stop the War on the Black Community", and other demands upholding the rights of the impoverished black community.
The meeting began with a resolution to recognize the unbeaten Frankford Chargers youth football team. The Chargers were wearing black armbands in memory of their teammate, 14-year-old Sharif Lee Jones, who was murdered by Philadelphia police on August 24, 2008.
As the team left the chambers, civil affairs police gathered behind the InPDUM organizers and demanded they immediately sit down and stop protesting. A Civil Affairs officer put Diop Olugbala into a chokehold. When Diop and the entire audience protested this attack, the police threw Diop and Shabaka down and arrested them.
During the violent attack, the police threw at least two elderly people to the ground, and another member of InPDUM, an elderly African woman, was taken to the hospital with a broken hip.
The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement calls for people to join the Campaign to Free the City Hall 2!
Stop Philadelphia’s Billion Dollar War Against the African Community!
Throw Nutter in the Gutter! Impeach Mayor Nutter!
InPDUM is calling on people to contact the offices below with the following Demands:
The immediate Release of Wali Rahman and Franklin Moses.
Stop the frame up and drop all charges.
Offices to be contacted:
9th District Jail where our Comrades are being held hostage at 215-686-3090.
And call into Mayor Nutter’s Office 215-686-3000.
Source: http://uhurunews.com/story?resource_name=free-the-city-hall-2
March 29, 2009
The Haiti connection: An open letter to Black people everywhere
by Abdul Olugbala Shakur
My beloved people, my name is Abdul Olugbala Shakur, and I am a New Afrikan Freedom Fighter. Though I am only 47 years old, I have been active in the service of our people since the early 1970s.
Marching with blaring trumpets and chanting crowds on Jan. 26, 2008, Haitians say No to the U.N. massacres in the Site Soley neighborhood of Port au Prince. Ever since enslaved Haitians defeated Napoleon’s armies in 1804 to become the world’s first independent Black nation, world powers have tried to kill the bodies and spirits of their descendants. But, defiant and resilient, Haitians march on. – Photo: Jean Ristil, HaitiAnalysis.com
I grew up in the struggle. The struggle is my life; it’s all I know. I came to prison at the age of 18 for allegedly participating in an armed attack on two white sailors in retaliation for a violent sexual assault on a young sista from the community.
As a realist, I understand I may never step foot beyond this concrete hell again, but I refuse to allow this concrete hell to define who I am or restrain my revolutionary spirit. Though I have spent the past 25 and a half years in solitary confinement - an attempt by my keepers no doubt designed to destroy my spirit - my spirit is free, for I have transcended the concrete hell which contains my physical being.
One of the most pervasive misconceptions pertaining to our imprisoned community is that we lack a sense of humanity or the capacity to empathize, or that we are selfish and always seeking to take advantage of others. This is one of many reasons why society at large tends to allow the prison industrial slave complex to treat us with brutality, as if we are deserving of such inhumane treatment.
I, as a New Afrikan political prisoner of war, know this is not an accurate description of who we are, especially as it relates to New Afrikan political prisoners of war, political prisoners, and politically conscious prisoners and activists. Our good deeds and activist work is often overshadowed by government-sponsored anti-prisoner propaganda.
I believe it is time for us as a collective to display our sense of humanity and come together to save our communities. To exhibit a greater expression of our humanity, let’s reach out our hands to help our people in Haiti, to rebuild our international symbol of resistance to global white supremacy and slavery.
Approximately three months ago I received a letter from a young sista inquiring about why I show so much concern for the people of Haiti, especially being that I am not Haitian? I told her I am a New Afrikan and as a New Afrikan I represent the totality of all that is Afrikan - and Afrikan descended - so I embody all that is Black and beautiful.
I am Haitian, I am Jamaican, I am Afro-Cuban, I am Kenyan, I am Afro-Puerto Rican. All that is Afrikan, from Afrika to the rest of the world, their blood also runs through my - our - veins. During the slave trade, the racist slave traders intentionally tried to destroy the Afrikan family - which they believed would facilitate the psychological breaking process.
The slave traders sold family members to different genocidal slave plantations. For example, a mother went to Haiti, her husband to Cuba, her mother to AmeriKKKa, her sista to Brazil, her daughter to the Dominican Republic, and her son to Jamaica. We as a people are descendants of this attempt to execute this global Afrikan genocide, and I refuse to contribute to that genocide by denying my global Afrikan family. As a New Afrikan, I am also Haitian, and I am compelled by this innate affinity to stand up for the rights of our people in Haiti.
I realize that we as a people in this country are faced with our own crises, from the violent deaths of our young people due to gang and drug-related violence and to HIV/AIDS. Our communities are just as unstable as many of the Afrikan-run countries.
Political prisoner Abdul Olugbala Shakur, self portrait
Though we can all concede that these unstable conditions have been orchestrated by the forces of white global supremacy, we can’t blame racism for our own failure to act in our own best interest. I am not neglecting the problems that we face here in this country. Being part of an imprisoned think tank, the New Afrikan Prisoners Writers’ Union, we are equally committed to resolving many of the problems we face as a people.
We have developed a number of proposals designed to address many of the problems we face daily, like gang violence, criminal behavior and the protection of our young women in particular, but the key to our success is coming together as a people and not depending on the government or working with the cops. They don’t give a damn about us or our children. We must take the initiative to do for ourselves, and this includes helping our global Afrikan community.
The world became spectators as genocide scourged the sacred Black land of Rwanda. In contrast, when genocide was visited upon the former European nation of Yugoslavia, European nations around the world - AmeriKKKa in particular - mobilized their forces to stop and prevent the genocide of other white people. But they allowed genocide in Afrikan countries to go undeterred. Here we are again being spectators, as genocide ravishes our people in Congo, in Darfur and in Haiti. Yes, Haiti.
What’s going on in Haiti is often associated with countries in Afrika, but right here in the Western Hemisphere, a new form of genocide is taking place. Our people in Haiti are faced with conditions that are equal in results to those that exist in Darfur and other places in Afrika, but yet very few people or governments are responding, except to mandate an occupation by United Nations troops, whose main goal is to suppress the Lavalas movement of President Aristide in the name of “maintaining order.”
My beloved people, it is obvious that we as a people can no longer depend on others to value Black lives. It is quite clear that Black lives do not hold the same human value as white lives in the eyes of European people, which includes white AmeriKKKa. So it is incumbent upon us to move on behalf of protecting, preserving and valuing Black lives, both here and globally.
This task will require direct participation on all our parts, including those of us behind enemy lines. I am particularly appealing to the Black church. In my opinion, the Black church can play one of the most effective roles in intervening in the U.S. government-orchestrated genocide in Haiti. The Black church already possesses the internal infrastructure and capacity to mobilize a grassroots campaign designed to end the genocide in Haiti, restore the democratically elected government of Aristide and remove the U.S. puppet regime who had gained power via an illegal and unjust coup.
It is obvious that we as a people can no longer depend on others to value Black lives.
Many have suggested that the Black church is no longer relevant, and an appeal to them would be an act of futility. It is inconceivable to think that the Black church would ignore the plight of our people in Haiti. I refuse to believe this.
The suffering and pain of our people in Haiti have only been exacerbated 10-fold due to the multiple and rapid back to back hurricanes that have hit Haiti. Many people, including children, have died as a direct result of these hurricanes. I, as a New Afrikan freedom fighter, don’t expect the forces of global white supremacy to come to the aid of our people in Haiti - no different than the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina.
We as activists knew that our communities were not prepared for a natural disaster. We are now three years removed from Hurricane Katrina, and not one of our communities is prepared for a natural disaster. As soon as another disaster hits, we will be blaming racism again but, I ask, what is stopping us from acting in our own best interest?
When I see the tragedy in Haiti, it is symbolic of our own failure as well. White supremacy nationally or globally is not stronger than the global Black Diaspora, but our strength depends on our ability to come together and ACT IN OUR OWN BEST INTEREST.
We have the means and resources at our disposal to improve our living conditions and communities, but our people in Haiti don’t have the means, resources or infrastructure to resist global white supremacy and their orchestrated genocide. This is why it is imperative for the global Black Diaspora to respond to their needs and call for help.
White supremacy nationally or globally is not stronger than the global Black Diaspora.
We are in a position to serve as an advocate on their behalf. We are in the center of the imperialist monster that is contributing to this genocidal process. We can apply the necessary pressure on this government and their stepchild, the United Nations, to compel them to act in the best interests of the people of Haiti. Though I don’t recognize the legitimacy of this fascist government, I believe we have no choice but to attempt to reach them with the hope that they will intervene and end their support for a non-democratic government and demand the immediate release of the Lavalas political prisoners, POWs and activists.
We as New Afrikan prisoners can help to raise awareness, using the various media, to inform ourselves and educate our communities about the genocidal crisis that has engulfed our beloved Haiti. The more we learn, discuss and write about the crisis in Haiti, the more people will be aware of it.
I encourage the Black church, grassroots activists and Black student unions to contact the Haiti Action Committee at www.haitisolidarity.net, action.haiti@gmail.com, or P.O Box 2218, Berkeley, CA 94702. You can also contact me if you want to discuss what you can do to contribute to Haitian resistance and reconstruction.
My beloved people, we hear the cries of suffering that reverberate from the depths of Darfur, Liberia, Congo and all across our Motherland, but we have not heard the cries of suffering and pain from our people in Haiti. I ask: WHAT HAVE YOUR EARS HEARD TO WISH TO HEAR NO MORE? AND WHAT HAVE YOUR EYES SEEN TO WISH TO SEE NO MORE? Can deafness and blindness be a desired escape from our own reality, with the hope that our problems will go away on their own? Unfortunately, this is not the reality of our situation. It will take a conscious and collective effort to resolve our daily problems.
We are committed to resolving the gang violence in our communities, and we invite you to join our efforts. But we are equally committed to restoring our beloved Haiti. It is important for us to get involved. The lives of many children are at stake and Haiti is not in the position to save their - our - children.
I have spent almost 26 years in solitary confinement - isolation - but I refuse to allow my isolation to serve as an excuse for doing nothing. I am committed to serving ALL OUR PEOPLE, especially our babies and children. Seeing the resilience of our beloved Haiti has strengthened my commitment to our global revolutionary liberation struggle - until the last drop of my Black royal blood.
My beloved people, believe me, I understand the reality of the harsh conditions we find ourselves in, and we of the New Afrikan Prisoners Writers’ Union are committed to solving the problems we face daily, but we are asking each one of you to make a contribution towards rebuilding our beloved Haiti in the spirit of our beloved generals and liberators Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Toussaint L’Ouverture. We each can contribute something to this worthy cause.
Seeing the resilience of our beloved Haiti has strengthened my commitment to our global revolutionary liberation struggle - until the last drop of my Black royal blood.
Though the genocide in Darfur embodies the typical elements that define genocide, Haiti is experiencing another form of genocide where the global powers of white supremacy orchestrate conditions that are similar to that of the typical genocide, but make no mistake about it: It is still genocide, and many of our children, women and elders are dying daily.
We can make a difference. Join our struggle to save our beloved Haiti. We must do it for the children. We can no longer turn a deaf ear to their cries of pain. I will now bid you all my love and solidarity! Long live our New Afrikan independence movement!
Abdul Olugbala Shakur (s/n J. Harvey) works with the New Afrikan Prisoners Writers’ Union. Send our brother some love and light; write to Abdul Olugbala Shakur (s/n J. Harvey), C-48884, SHU D-4-112, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City, CA 95532. http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/the-haiti-connection-an-open-letter-to-black-people-everywhere/
March 01, 2009
A Challenge to 'Radical' and 'Pan-Africanist' Obamites
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
In an "Open Letter to the People of Zimbabwe," U.S.-based activists denounce sanctions against that country as "war crimes and the officials who initiated them as war criminals." By that definition (a good one), Barack Obama is a war criminal. The problem is, some of the signers of the Open Letter are prominent Obama supporters. What use are their declarations of solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe, when they support the "war criminal" who imposes sanctions against them and makes common cause with banksters here at home? It's past time to call these confused and conflicted people out by name, and challenge them to a real debate.
A Challenge to ‘Radical' and ‘Pan-Africanist' Obamites
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
"Obama has consistently spoken and acted in lockstep with George Bush on Zimbabwe sanctions."
An "Open Letter to the People of Zimbabwe," widely circulated on the Internet in February, demands "the U.S., British and other imperialist governments" end economic sanctions against that nation and otherwise keep their "hands off Zimbabwe!" Although honest progressives may differ on the political character of Robert Mugabe's regime - now joined in a power-sharing relationship with the opposition, whose leader's allegiances are likewise subject to dispute - there can be no equivocation about the Zimbabwean people's "right to self-determination and sovereignty without any imperialist interference."
Washington's blatant and longstanding campaign for regime-change must be denounced and resisted in all its manifestations - no ifs, ands or buts. The economic sanctions are, as the letter describes them, "collective punishment of the Zimbabwean people." The signers correctly and "unequivocally denounce these sanctions as war crimes and the officials who initiated them as war criminals."
Well said - but there's a great disconnect between the words and some of the names listed as endorsing the letter. A number of the signers are full-throated, religious-like followers of Barack Obama, one of the "war criminals" that has supported and, as president, extended U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe.
These unabashed Obamites, several of whom I debated at a large forum in Harlem, in December, make a great noise about "imperialists" in general while pledging undying "solidarity" in the struggle against such "criminals," yet in their daily practice labor mightily to absolve President Obama of culpability for his crimes. It requires rivers of obfuscation and oceans of purposeful omission to separate the Commander-in-Chief and President of the United States from the crimes planned and carried out in his office. The perpetrators of this bizarre fantasy - that the "imperialists" are out to get Mugabe, but Obama isn't one of them - deepen confusion among the public, especially African Americans, and make a mockery of true solidarity. In the light of ever-unfolding events, they make themselves and progressive politics appear ridiculous, as they tip-toe around the mountainous facts of Barack Obama's actual presidency - not the wishful one they have invented.
"They labor mightily to absolve President Obama of culpability for his crimes."
Obama's implacable hostility to Zimbabwean independence and sovereignty is undeniable. He has consistently spoken and acted in lockstep with George Bush on the subject, and as president is preparing new ground for aggression against that country and elsewhere in Africa and the developing world.
On June 24, 2008, following a U.S.-UK-led United Nations Security Council resolution declaring that violence fostered by Mugabe's government had made fair runoff elections "impossible," candidate Obama took South Africa to task for failure "to pressure the Zimbabwean government to stop its repressive behavior." The U.S., he said, should tighten its economic sanctions. Obama told the press: "If fresh elections prove impossible, regional leaders backed by the international community should pursue an enforceable, negotiated political transition in Zimbabwe that would end repressive rule and enable genuine democracy to take root." That's regime-change.
Obama's behavior was in perfect synch with the Bush Administration, and with Republican presidential candidate John McCain's statements on the issue.
At the United Nations on July 10, Russia and China vetoed punitive American and British sanctions against Zimbabwe. Frustrated and outraged, Bush used his executive powers to expand U.S. sanctions, joined by Britain and the European Union.
"The U.S., Obama said, should tighten its economic sanctions."
On January 15 of this year, days before Obama took the oath of office, his nominee for Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, told a confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill it was still possible that Russia and China might be persuaded to change their votes on Zimbabwe sanctions. There can be no doubt she was speaking for the incoming administration, which looked forward to winning sanctions where George Bush had failed.
On January 26, Mugabe and the opposition agreed to form a unity government, threatening to derail the U.S.-British strategy to further isolate and then topple Mugabe. When the unity talks briefly fell apart, Obama, now president, let it be known that he hoped the opposition would remain out of government, so that momentum toward UN sanctions might be revived. That would be Susan Rice's job. "Susan is extremely aware of what is going on in Zimbabwe and she feels very strongly that there is a tremendous miscarriage of justice in that country and that it has to end," an Obama foreign policy aide told The Times-UK. "Once she has her feet on the ground she is going to turn her attention to this issue." The January 28 story was titled, "President Obama leads US drive to topple Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe."
When, a few days later, unity talks successfully resumed with the support of African organizations, the Obama administration reacted with bitterness and frustration. "Mugabe is not getting a reprieve from President Obama," said an aide. For the time being, however, UN sanctions were off the table, and the momentum of American aggression was spent.
But not necessarily for long. Susan Rice, an ardent supporter of AFRICOM, like her boss, is a leading advocate of "humanitarian" military intervention, the doctrine that big powers have a duty to intervene when a government fails to protect its people from...whatever. In the run-up to unity talks, the Brits and Americans appeared to be trial-ballooning Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak as a pretext for intervention - but in Africa, a "humanitarian" rationale for imperial interference can always be found, or invented.
"Obama let it be known that he hoped the opposition would remain out of government, so that momentum toward UN sanctions might be revived."
It is beyond dispute that Obama, as candidate and president, has been a fierce proponent of sanctions against Zimbabwe. George Bush's sanctions by executive order are now Barack Obama's sanctions - fully qualifying the new president as a "war criminal," as defined by the signers of the recent "Open Letter to the People of Zimbabwe." Yet some of the signers are apparently capable of compartmentalizing facts as it suits them, in order to avoid painful confrontation with the truth: Obama is not only our first Black president, but also our first Black war criminal president.
Who are these deeply conflicted persons? I am specifically referring to five signatories of the Open Letter, whose irrational Obama-Love I have personally witnessed in the context of debate over Obama's foreign and domestic policies, the first four at Harlem's Great Debate in December, the last encounter at Audubon Ballroom, Harlem, in early 2008.
Prof. Dr. Leonard Jeffries, City College CUNY. Dr. Jeffries refuses to present any substantive critique of Obama's actual policies on Africa or any other issue. He proclaims that every Black person should study "Obama-ology," meaning "how Obama does things."
Dr. James McIntosh, Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive to African People (CEMOTAP). Dr. McIntosh tells audiences to look out for Obama's "winks" - those confidential messages meant especially for Black folks. The rest is just Obama doing what he has to do.
Viola Plummer, December 12th Movement. Ms. Plummer has the uncanny ability to call for revolution and declare the near-divinity of Obama in the same breath.
Atty. Malik Zulu Shabazz, New Black Panther Party. Atty. Shabazz and his party bear no resemblance to the original. His evaluation of Obama: "He is a good father and husband."
Amiri Baraka, playwright & poet. The one-time Prince of Schisms now pillories Cynthia McKinney for failing to get on the Obama-wagon. His capacity for both insult and reason appears to be failing.
Not one of these five people, all prolific speakers with followings in their own arenas, would call President Barack Obama a war criminal in the usual course of their political work. Instead, to varying degrees, they publicly praise and even express adoration for him. Yet they sign an Open Letter affirming solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe in the face of sanctions by "war criminals" - like Obama. Such solidarity is worthless on its face, because it means less than nothing in their actual domestic practice, which is filled with expressions of love for the war criminal and endless excuses and rationalizations for his behavior.
One line of the Open Letter is especially poignant in light of the contradictions personified by the Five Obamists: "We face the same enemies at home as do the people of Zimbabwe--the worldwide clique of bankers and bosses who put their greed for profits before meeting people's needs."
The Obamites are fully capable of damning the banksters till midnight, all the while pretending that Barack is not Wall Street's protector and co-conspirator. Resisting reality, they spread further confusion.
It is past time to call them out - not just the five signatories but all the "Left" representatives of Obamite contradiction who are misleading our people at this critical juncture in history. Preparations are under way on both coasts for a series of REAL debates on how to deal with the Obama presidential experience - a challenge like none other in American - especially African American - history.
We challenge the "Left" Obamites to attend. BYOR (Bring Your Own Reality) is not permitted.
Courtesy of BAR executive editor Glen Ford (A certified Elder of the Black Journalism Tribe) can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
February 27, 2009
Black Agenda Report Radio
1:The "Rule of Law" in the Obama Era
A Black Agenda Radio commentary
The unraveling of capitalism, now rapidly accelerating, has been accompanied by mind boggling excesses of corruption. The collapse of moral inhibitions at the highest levels of American institutions has the effect of a billboard flashing, "Steal as much as you can, as quickly as you can, before the other guy beats you to it." On the heels of revelations of Bernard Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme, we learn that even larger sums may have been looted from U.S. reconstruction aid intended for Iraq - most of it by American military and civilians. It appears that the thieves looted Iraqi money under the control of Americans, as well. Barack Obama claims he wants to be careful to get out of Iraq in a "responsible" manner. With billions being looted, the most responsible thing President Obama could do is get his thieving Americans out of Iraq while there's still something left for the natives.
Obama is quite unenthusiastic about punishing George Bush's gang for vandalizing the U.S. Constitution. While making weak noises about "nobody" being "above the law," Obama goes on to say that "generally speaking, I'm more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards." In other words, unless he's forced to take action, Obama would just as soon allow Bush's wholesale violations of the rule of law to go unpunished. Apparently, some Harvard lawyers don't place much value on the Constitution.
When the president signals that enforcing the law is no big thing, the president's fans act accordingly. The nation's largest anti-war coalition, United for Peace and Justice, has decided not to push for prosecution of Bush, Dick Cheney and their merry band of war criminals and other assorted crooks. United for Peace and Justice is more concerned about keeping Obama happy than with uniting behind peace or justice. Meanwhile, two out of three Americans are in favor of investigating whether the Bush crowd violated the law in pursuing their so-called "war on terror."
Not so long ago, the Americans were well-known for telling anyone who would listen that the United States is a beacon of justice for humanity. That was never true, of course, but nowadays it's a bad joke. According to Mary Robinson, who used to be United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the U.S. now sets a bad example for the planet. Other countries now justify their own crimes by citing American anti-terror practices. The best thing the U.S. can do to help repair the damage its done to the morals of the planet, says Ms. Robinson, is to abandon its "war paradigm."
If Barack Obama thinks he can simply walk away from a host of war crimes and violations of U.S. and international law, he is mistaken, and on the way to making himself, and the nation, even more culpable. Legally speaking, Obama has an obligation to prosecute violations of international law and U.S. treaty. If he does not, then he invites other countries to hold their own trials of Americans, and impose their own punishments.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
www.BlackAgendaReport.com
2:The Old Superpower Ain't What She Used to Be
A Black Agenda Radio commentary
The Obama administration's director of national intelligence has recognized that the United States' economic problems are the country's "primary near-term security concern." This conclusion by intelligence czar Dennis Blair surprised members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who are used to the executive branch spreading alarms about the so-called "terrorist threat" and the dangers posed by "rogue" nations. The testimony is evidence that Mr. Blair's boss, Barack Obama, can see at least as far as the nose on his face. It is also an admission that the U.S. superpower isn't what it used to be, in terms of controlling events in the world.
Blair said, "The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests." Which makes sense - as far as it goes. What the rulers in Washington, including Barack Obama, will never understand is that the United States is responsible for accelerating the process of its own decline, through relentless threats to the security and sovereignty of everyone else on the planet. The more Washington pushes, the more the world pushes back. Since September, every inhabitant of Earth blames the U.S. for infecting the globe with "the American disease" - the worldwide economic meltdown. Nobody has any sympathy for the great vector of economic illness, and most think the Americans deserve whatever they get, having bragged on themselves all these decades while sneering down their fat red noses at the rest of humanity and its problems.
Any U.S. intelligence official worthy of the description knows that the global schoolyard longs to see the bully get what's coming to him. This has especially been the case since George Bush told the world to kiss his butt, with the illegal invasion of Iraq. The invasion was a declaration that the United States was at war with the very concept of international law. Literally no one was safe.
Although the Americans failed to achieve their objective, which was to dominate the energy producing regions of the Middle East and Central Asia, George Bush kept threatening to make another try. His successor, Barack Obama, behaves in a more civilized manner, which is welcomed by the international community. But Obama still claims his superpower rights, and continues to spend more money on weapons than the rest of the world, combined. No matter how you slice it, that's a threat.
The Americans used to be fond of saying that everybody else on the planet secretly preferred that Washington take charge of things - that it gave them comfort. Nobody's saying that anymore, not since the meltdown. The United States, having lost all claim to moral leadership in the world, is now the international pariah, the source of the spreading plague of economic insecurity.
Obama's intelligence director, Dennis Blair, suggests that about one-quarter of the world's governments have experienced "low-level instability" due to the meltdown. A better question for Mr. Blair might be: how much more unstable has the United States become, since the economic crash of its own making? Blair might do better to study that problem, than worrying about former client states that no longer want to hear what Washington has to say.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
www.BlackAgendaReport.com
Gov. Paterson, grant clemency to Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim
by Kiilu Nyasha
To date, I have yet to receive a reply to this letter I sent to New York Gov. David A. Paterson regarding Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim. Therefore, I decided to make it an open letter with the hope that pressure can be brought to bear - by the people - to address this concern.
Herman and Jalil, held captive since the early 1970s, are being denied their parole hearings because neither the California governor nor the New York governor will respond to their transfer requests.
The San Francisco 8 Committee, of which I’m a member, is conducting a Black History Month campaign - “Phone or Fax for Parole!” - every Monday. Please write to Gov. Paterson at the address below, call him at (518) 474-8390, fax him at (518) 474-1513 or (518) 474-3767 or email him at david.paterson@chamber.state.ny.us.
Governor David A. Paterson
State Capitol
Albany, New York 12224
Continue reading "Gov. Paterson, grant clemency to Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim" »
DA moving ahead with charges in BART shooting protests
by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Oakland police arrests on Jan. 7 were unnecessarily brutal. The photographer who took this picture wrote: “This guy was walking with a group of friends about a half block past McDonald’s on 14th when police targeted just him and chased him in a circle back around the McDonald’s. He then ran across the street and once he saw there were cops running at him from both sides, he just stopped and stood there. Cops pushed him down and immediately began tasering him as he lay there not resisting. They may have tasered him for close to a full minute. Since when did using tasers become a standard part of handcuffing someone?” – Photo: Dave Id, Indybay
A volunteer attorney with the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild says that, while charges have been dropped for many of the individuals arrested in recent Oakland protests over the shooting death of Hayward resident Oscar Grant by a BART patrol officer, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office is moving forward with between six and seven cases, at least three of them felonies.
Attorney John Viola, who operates a San Francisco law practice, spoke by telephone this week after two “mass arraignment” days for Oscar Grant protesters were held in Alameda County Superior Court last Friday and the following Monday. Viola said he believes at least two more mass arraignment days have been scheduled within the next several days.
“The overwhelming majority have been discharged, but the legal landscape is still solidifying, and we’re still waiting for the dust to clear on who will actually be charged,” Viola said.
The District Attorney’s Office itself has been less than helpful in giving out information to the media about the status of the cases. A reporter asking at the office about the Oscar Grant cases on the afternoon of Feb. 6, the day that many of the cases were dropped at the morning arraignment, was only told, “We don’t have a lot of information on the cases; only a few people showed up today.”
Viola said he believes something in the neighborhood of 130 people have been arrested in Oakland Oscar Grant protests, including arrests made following protest marches on Jan. 7 and 14, a January protest walkout at several high schools, and following the Jan. 30 bail hearing for Johannes Mehserle, the former BART officer who has been charged with murder in Grant’s New Year’s Day shooting death. He said that about 70 of those cases were arraigned on Feb. 6 and 9, with most of those charges being dropped.
National Lawyers Guild Bay Area Chapter Executive Director Carlos Villarreal said that, while the District Attorney’s Office has a year to file the charges, “typically when they don’t charge on the first day’s hearing, they don’t come back and dig it up. So we’re cautiously optimistic, but we’ll still monitor the cases.”
He said that even though the DA is not moving forward with many of the charges, some of the individuals whose cases have been dropped are complaining that authorities “still have their cell phones or their cameras,” many of which were confiscated by police during the various demonstrations. Villarreal said that approximately eight attorneys are actively working on the Oscar Grant protest cases, that “others have indicated they will help if the charges stick and go to court,” and that his office is actively consulting with other NLG attorney members as well.
While the next major day of Oscar Grant arraignments in Alameda County Superior Court is scheduled for Feb. 17, where some of the individuals arrested in the student walkout are expected to appear, Villarreal said that none of the future arraignment dates are expected to have as large a number of potential cases as those on Feb. 6 and 9.
POCC Minister of Information JR speaks at the ILWU Black History Month rally, “Racism, Repression and Rebellion: The Lessons of Labor Defense,” on Saturday, Feb. 14. Other speakers included Clarence Thomas and Jack Heyman, ILWU Local 10; Martina Davis-Correia, death penalty opponent and sister of death row prisoner Troy Anthony Davis; Robert R. Bryan, lead attorney for Mumia Abu-Jamal; Jack Bryson, father of two brothers, friends of Oscar Grant, who were with him on that BART platform; Dianne, Oscar Grant's godmother; Gerald Sanders, former Black Panther and labor organizer; Richard Brown, former Black Panther and member of the San Francisco 8; Pierre Labossiere, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee; Rev. Cecil Williams, Glide Memorial United Methodist Church; and Tayo Aluko, who recreates Paul Robeson in his play “Call Mr. Robeson.” – Photo: Dave Id, Indybay
Meanwhile, Viola said that “probably one of the most serious cases still being charged” is that of Cleveland Valrey Jr., the San Francisco Bay View newspaper reporter and KPFA radio show host who goes by the name JR, who has been accused of setting fire to a trash can during the night of downtown Oakland vandalism following the Jan. 7 protest march.
The District Attorney’s Office has charged Valrey with violation of California Penal Code Section 451, felony arson, which carries a possible sentence of between 16 months and three years in state prison, and is a strike under the state’s “three strikes” law.
“It’s an incredibly serious charge for someone expressing outrage at a time when they should have been outraged,” Viola said, adding that “the people who really should be held accountable” are the BART officers whose actions led to Oscar Grant’s death.
The attorney said that Valrey was innocent of the charges, and that anyone actually guilty of the act for which he is being accused - setting fire to a trash can - should have been charged only with felony vandalism at the most, a lesser offense. Valrey was present in downtown Oakland during the Jan. 7 protest and vandalism but has said he was there only in his capacity as a reporter and that his camera was confiscated by Oakland police officers.
BART officials announced Wednesday evening that they had picked Oakland law firm Meyers Nave to conduct an independent, third-party internal affairs investigation of the actions of all the officers present during the shooting death of Oscar Grant III on the Fruitvale Station platform.
“Meyers Nave has strong ties to this community and extensive experience in conducting internal affairs investigations,” said BART board member Carole Ward Allen, who chairs the board of directors’ newly formed BART Police Department Review Committee. “All of us on the committee felt it was essential for the public to have complete confidence in the findings of this internal investigation - and that the best way to guarantee that confidence was to bring someone in from the outside with an impeccable record to conduct the investigation independently.”
According to the statement released by BART, Meyers Nave has a “20-year history of producing independent, objective reports that have led to the discipline and termination of officers in other jurisdictions as well as changes in the policies and procedures of other law enforcement agencies.”
Additionally, the board committee announced Wednesday that it had retained the services of Reginald Lyles to support the committee in its work.
A long-term member of the Oakland faith community, Lyles has spent over 20 years with the Berkeley Police Department, and he retired from law enforcement as a Novato police captain in 2003.
Bay Area journalist J. Douglas Allen-Taylor writes the column UnderCurrents; he can be reached at safero@earthlink.net. This column was published Wednesday, Feb. 11, in the Berkeley Daily Planet. Courtesy of http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/da-moving-ahead-with-charges-in-bart-shooting-protests/
War on drugs and gangs means wholesale incarceration of communities of color
by Adeeba Folami
This photo of FBI agents arresting suspected gang members comes from the FBI’s online “Gang Gallery,” part of the media hype to convince the public to support more funding for the war on drugs and gangs. Tell your House and Senate representatives to remove those funds from the stimulus package. – Photo: FBI
In early February, the FBI issued a media statement citing concerns about the spread of gang violence as reported in the “2009 National Gang Threat Assessment” produced by the National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC). Findings in the 40-plus page report were based on information from a variety of agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; Department of Justice; Drug Enforcement Administration; FBI; Federal Bureau of Prisons; U.S. Army; Customs and Border Protection; Immigration and Custom Enforcement; and local and state law enforcement agencies.
As of last September, there were nearly 1 million gang members, according to NGIC, belonging to 20,000 gangs spread across the country. Most engage in a variety of criminal activities, the most prevalent being drug distribution and sales of marijuana, cocaine and other street drugs, the NGIC reports. Gangs are said to be migrating out of the inner-cities to suburban areas, causing an increase in gang-related activity.
“Criminal gangs commit as much as 80 percent of the crime in many communities, according to law enforcement officials throughout the nation,” the report declares.
However, some suggest such a claim is little more than “fear mongering” and an attempt to spur a media campaign designed to manipulate the public into believing more funding is needed for gang and law enforcement programs. Such programs have historically devastated Black and Latino communities, said LaWanda Johnson, spokesperson for the Washington, D.C., based Justice Policy Institute (JPI), an organization founded in 1997 that has published nearly 50 reports exploring the negative impacts of incarceration.
In a phone interview, she said this latest focus on gangs and drugs comes just weeks after the FBI issued its 2008 Preliminary Semiannual Crime Statistics report showing violent crime down 3.5 percent nationwide. “Where is the data coming from?” Johnson asked of the claim that 80 percent of crime was gang-related.
Usually when crime decreases, she explained, a first response is to reduce funding for gang surveillance and policing programs. In an effort to keep those funds flowing, she continued, some law enforcement agencies resort to using buzz words like “juvenile crime” and “gang violence” to create a “media hype” which distorts reality.
“Most violence is not committed by gangs. It’s not what people are trying to make it out to be,” Johnson said, adding that the historical pattern has been to increase police presence and ignore solutions which would better enhance public safety. Even many in the Black community fail to see the futility of past gang violence prevention efforts.
“We still haven’t gotten to the point where we realize that more police does not equal more safety. We should know that,” she said.
Some law enforcement agencies resort to using buzz words like “juvenile crime” and “gang violence” to create enough “media hype” to keep funds flowing for their gang surveillance and policing programs - programs that have historically devastated Black and Latino communities.
For decades now, many who saw no other answer to inner-city urban crime and violence willingly accepted heavy-handed policing tactics which Johnson said ensured that many Black youth grew up in “war zones,” some eventually counted amongst the “obscene” number of Black males behind bars in America, one of the by-products of policies instituted to counter public outcry about increased gang and drug violence.
Interestingly, Johnson noted that, although the public face of gangs is Black and Brown, approximately 40 percent of gang members aged 12-16 are White. The image of gang members being predominantly non-White is even given in the NGIC report where, out of 28 listed street, prison and motorcycle gangs, only one - the Aryan Brotherhood - was identified as having Caucasian membership.
The government’s war on drugs and gangs has, over the years, disproportionately affected Black communities even though JPI found that Whites and Blacks use and sell drugs at similar rates. Nationwide, Johnson said statistics show that for every 33 White men imprisoned for drugs, 638 Black men are jailed. “The people who actually go to jail for drug offenses are mainly African American,” she said.
The situation may be on the verge of escalating as billions of dollars of President Barack Obama’s proposed stimulus package are set aside to fund the types of law enforcement programs used to counter increased gang violence. “We see in the stimulus package that they have earmarked $4 billion toward Byrne Grants and another $1 billion for community oriented public policing programs,” Johnson said.
The grants would fund drug task forces, she explained, while the public policing funds would be used to hire 13,000 more police officers in the nation. “These programs were funded during the Clinton administration and they contributed to the wholesale incarceration of communities of color.”
It is said that more Blacks ended up in prison after Clinton’s terms than after President Ronald Reagan’s, despite the fact that some considered Clinton the “first Black president.” Now that a real Black president is in office, it appears he is on the same path toward even greater disparity for the many Blacks who may end up behind bars during Obama’s historic term.
JPI has called on the president and Congress to reject funding for more police and anti-gang programs which, ironically, were done away with during President George W. Bush’s terms, having been “found to be ineffective as a means of increasing public safety.”
‘Even though cops swarm our neighborhoods every day, it has not increased public safety.’
Such funds, Johnson said, would be better used on programs with proven records of improving community safety, not on strategies designed only to increase law enforcement presence in already over-policed communities. “Even though cops swarm our neighborhoods every day, it has not increased public safety,” she said. “We are no more safe in our neighborhoods now than in the ‘80s. Investments in education, community services, schools and jobs are what make communities healthier.”
View the full NGIC report at fbi.gov. Access JPI reports and statistics at justicepolicy.org.
Adeeba Folami is a freelance journalist residing in Denver, Colorado. She can be contacted via her website http://bhonline.org.
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/reject-police-and-anti-gang-funding-in-stimulus-package/ Editor’s note: Within hours of the Senate’s passage of its version of the stimulus package Tuesday, Feb. 10, House and Senate negotiators began the work of reconciling it with the House version. To persuade them to reject funding for more police and anti-gang programs, call your Congressional representatives. Contact them through the online Congressional Directory or by calling the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 or, toll free, (877) 210-5351 or (866) 220-0044.
Oscar Grant – and YOU
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
The latest march for Oscar Grant, the March for Stolen Lives on Friday, Feb. 6, also honored all those whose loved ones have been killed by police. During the march, former BART cop Johannes Mehserle, the trigger man who murdered Oscar Grant, was bailed out of jail. – Photo: Dave Id, Indybay
Like you, I’ve seen the searing phone-camera tape of the killing of 22-year-old Oscar Grant in Oakland, California.
And although it’s truly a terrible thing to see, it’s almost exceeded by something just as shocking. That’s been how the media has responded to this police killing, by creating a defense of error.
This defense, that the killer cop who murdered Grant somehow mistook his pistol for his Taser, has been offered by both local and national news reporters - even though they haven’t heard word one from Johannes Mehserle, the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) cop who wasn’t even interviewed for weeks after shooting an unarmed man!
If you’ve ever wondered about the role of the media, let this be a lesson to you. You can see here that the claim that the corporate media is objective is but a cruel illusion.
Imagine this: If the roles were reversed, that is, if bystanders had footage of Grant shooting Mehserle, would the media be suggesting a defense for him?
The March for Stolen Lives on Friday was met with an even heavier, more aggressive police force – by both Oakland and BART cops – than for the previous Oscar Grant marches. Here, marchers are rushed and shoved back onto the sidewalk after they had dared to step out onto the street. – Photo: Dave Id, Indybay
Would Grant have been free to roam, to leave the state a week later?
Would he have made bail?
The shooting of Oscar Grant III is but the latest, West Coast version of Amadou Diallo, of Sean Bell, and of hundreds of other Black men - and like them, don’t be surprised if there is an acquittal … again.
Oscar Grant is you - and you are him, because you know in the pit of your stomach that it could’ve been you, and the same thing could’ve happened.
You know this.
And what’s worse is this: You pay for this every time you pay taxes, and you endorse this every time you vote for politicians who sell out in a heartbeat.
You pay for your killers to kill you, in the name of a bogus, twisted law, and then pay for the state that defends him.
Something is terribly wrong here - and it’s the system itself.
Until that is changed, nothing is changed, for we’ll be out here again, in the streets, chanting a different name.
© Copyright 2009 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read Mumia’s latest book, “We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party,” winner of the 2005 People’s Choice Award, available from South End Press, www.southendpress.org or (800) 533-8478. Keep updated by reading Action Alerts at www.mumia.org and www.moveorg.net. To download mp3s of Mumia’s commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.org or www.fsrn.org. For recent interviews with Mumia, visit www.blockreportradio.com. Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia’s commentaries and interviews to inspire progressive movement and help call attention to his case. Send our brotha some love and light at: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Greene, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg PA 15370.
The conflict in the Congo is a resource war waged by U.S. and British allies
A contextual analysis of the December 2008 U.N. report
by Kambale Musavuli
Heal Africa counselors in Goma support victims of sexual violence in Eastern Congo. – Photo: Harper McConnell, Heal Africa
Since Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Congo in 1996, they have pursued a plan to appropriate the wealth of Eastern Congo either directly or through proxy forces. The December 2008 United Nations report is the latest in a series of U.N. reports dating from 2001 that clearly documents the systematic looting and appropriation of Congolese resources by Rwanda and Uganda, two of Washington and London’s staunchest allies in Africa.
However, in the wake of the December 2008 report, which clearly documents Rwanda’s support of destabilizing proxy forces inside the Congo, a series of stunning proposals and actions have been presented which all appear to be an attempt to cover up or bury the damning U.N. report on the latest expression of Rwanda’s aggression against the Congolese people.
The earliest proposal came from Herman Cohen, former assistant secretary of state for African affairs under George Herbert Walker Bush. He proposed that Rwanda be rewarded for its well documented looting of Congo’s wealth by being a part of a Central and/or East African free trade zone whereby Rwanda would keep its ill-gotten gains.
French President Nicholas Sarkozy would not be outdone; he also brought his proposal off the shelf, which argues for essentially the same scheme of rewarding Rwanda for its 12-year war booty from the Congo. Two elements are at the core of both proposals.
One is the legitimization of the economic annexation of the Congo by Rwanda, which for all intents and purposes represents the status quo. And two is basically the laying of the foundation for the balkanization of the Congo or the outright political annexation of Eastern Congo by Rwanda. Both Sarkozy and Cohen have moved with lightning speed past the Dec. 12, 2008, United Nations report to make proposals that avoid the core issues revealed in the report.
The U.N. report reaffirms what Congolese intellectuals, scholars and victims have been saying for over a decade in regard to Rwanda’s role as the main catalyst for the biblical scale death and misery in the Congo. The Ugandan and Rwandan invasions of 1996 and 1998 have triggered the deaths of nearly 6 million Congolese. The United Nations says it is the deadliest conflict in the world since World War II.
The report “found evidence that the Rwandan authorities have been complicit in the recruitment of soldiers, including children, have facilitated the supply of military equipment, and have sent officers and units from the Rwandan Defense Forces” to the DRC. The support is for the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP, formerly led by self-proclaimed Gen. Laurent Nkunda.
The report also shows that the CNDP is sheltering a war criminal wanted by the International Criminal Court, Gen. Jean Bosco Ntaganda. The CNDP has used Rwanda as a rear base for fundraising meetings and bank accounts, and Uganda is once more implicated as Nkunda has met regularly with embassies in both Kigali and Kampala.
Also, Uganda is accepting illegal CNDP immigration papers. Earlier U.N. reports said that Kagame and Museveni are the mafia dons of Congo’s exploitation. This has not changed in any substantive way.
The report implicates Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa, a close advisor to Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda. Rujugiro is the founder of the Rwandan Investment Group. This is not the first time he has been named by the United Nations as one of the individuals contributing to the conflict in the Congo.
In April 2001, he was identified as Tibere Rujigiro in the U.N. Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as one of the figures illegally exploiting Congo’s wealth. His implication this time comes in financial contributions to CNDP and appropriation of land.
This brings to light the organizations he is a part of, which include but are not limited to the Rwanda Development Board, the Rwandan Investment Group, of which he is the founder, and Kagame’s Presidential Advisory Council. They have members as notable as Rev. Rick Warren, business tycoon Joe Ritchie, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Scott Ford of Alltell, Dr. Clet Niyikiza of GlaxoSmithKline, former U.S. president Bill Clinton and many more.
These connections provide some insight into why Rwanda has been able to commit and support remarkable atrocities in the Congo without receiving even a reprimand in spite of the fact that two European courts, French and Spanish, have charged their top leadership with war crimes and crimes against humanity. (The Spanish court is the same court that ruled against Pinochet of Chile.) It is only recently that two European nations, Sweden and the Netherlands, have decided to withhold aid from Rwanda as a result of their aggression against the Congolese people.
The report shows that the Congolese soldiers have also given support to the FDLR and other armed groups to fight against the aggression of Rwanda’s CNDP proxy. One important distinction must be made in this regard. It appears that the FDLR support comes more from individual Congolese soldiers as opposed to overall government support.
The Congolese government is not supporting the FDLR in incursions into Rwanda; however, the Rwandan government is in fact supporting rebel groups inside Congo. The Congolese population is the victim of the CNDP, FDLR and the Congolese military.
The United Nations report is a predictable outgrowth of previous reports produced by the U.N. since 2001. It reflects the continued appropriation of the land, theft of Congo’s resources, and continuous human rights abuses caused by Rwanda and Uganda. An apparent aim of these spasms is to create facts on the ground - land appropriation, theft of cattle and other assets - to consolidate CNDP/Rwandan economic integration into Rwanda.
The Congolese government is not supporting the FDLR in incursions into Rwanda; however, the Rwandan government is in fact supporting rebel groups inside Congo. The Congolese population is the victim of the CNDP, FDLR and the Congolese military.
Herman Cohen’s “Can Africa Trade Its Way to Peace?” in the New York Times reflects the disastrous policies that favor profits over people. In his article, the former lobbyist for Mobutu and Kabila’s government in the United States and former assistant secretary of state for Africa from 1989 to 1993 argues, “Having controlled the Kivu provinces for 12 years, Rwanda will not relinquish access to resources that constitute a significant percentage of its gross national product.”
He adds, “The normal flow of trade from eastern Congo is to Indian Ocean ports rather than the Atlantic Ocean, which is more than a thousand miles away.” Continuing his argument, he believes that “the free movement of people would empty the refugee camps and would allow the densely populated countries of Rwanda and Burundi to supply needed labor to Congo and Tanzania.”
Cohen’s first mistake in providing solutions to the conflict is to look at the conflict as a humanitarian crisis that can be solved by economic means. Uganda and Rwanda are the aggressors. Aggressors should not define for the Congo what is best, but rather it is for the Congo to define what it has to offer its neighbor.
A lasting solution is to stop the silent annexation of Eastern Congo. The International Court of Justice has already weighed in on this matter when it ruled in 2005 that Congo is entitled to $10 billion in reparations due to Uganda’s looting of Congo’s natural resources and the commission of human rights abuses in the Congo. It would have in all likelihood ruled in the same fashion against Rwanda; however, Rwanda claimed to be outside the jurisdiction of the court.
The United States and Great Britain’s implication is becoming very clear. These two great powers consider Rwanda and Uganda their staunch allies and, some would argue, client states. These two countries have received millions of dollars of military aid, which in turn they use in Congo to cause destruction and death.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame is a former student at the U.S. military training base Fort Leavenworth and Yoweri Museveni’s son, Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, graduated from the same U.S. military college in the summer of 2008. Both the United States and Great Britain should follow the lead of the Dutch and Swedish governments, who have suspended their financial support to Rwanda.
With U.S. and British taxpayers’ support, we now see an estimated 6 million people dead in Congo, hundreds of thousands of women systematically raped as an instrument of war and millions displaced.
A political solution will resolve the crisis, and part of that requires pressure on Rwanda in spite of Rwanda’s recent so-called “house arrest” of Laurent Nkunda. African institutions such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union are primed to be more engaged in the Congo issue. Considering Congo’s importance to Africa, it is remarkable that they have been so anemic in regard to the Congo crisis for so long.
Rwanda’s leader, Paul Kagame, cannot feel as secure or be as arrogant as he has been in the past. One of his top aides was arrested in Germany as a result of warrants issued by a French court and there is almost global consensus that pressure must be put on him to cease his support of the destabilization of the Congo and its resultant humanitarian catastrophe.
In addition to pressure on Kagame, the global community should support the following policies:
1. Initiate an international tribunal on the Congo.
2. Work with the Congolese to implement a national reconciliation process; this could be a part of the international tribunal.
3. Work with the Congolese to assure that those who have committed war crimes or crimes against humanity are brought to justice.
4. Hold accountable corporations that are benefiting from the suffering and deaths in the Congo.
5. Make the resolution of the Congo crisis a top international priority.
Living is a right, not a privilege, and Congolese deaths must be honored by due process of the law. As the implication of the many parties in this conflict becomes clear, we should start firmly acknowledging that the conflict is a resource war waged by U.S. and British allies.
Living is a right, not a privilege, and Congolese deaths must be honored by due process of the law.
We call upon people of good will once again to advocate for the Congolese by following the prescriptions we have been outlining to end the conflict and start the new path to peace, harmony and an end to the exploitation of Congo’s wealth and devastation of its peoples.
Kambale Musavuli is spokesperson and student coordinator for Friends of the Congo. He can be reached at Kambale@friendsofthecongo.org. http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/the-conflict-in-the-congo-is-a-resource-war-waged-by-us-and-british-allies/
February 26, 2009
New NYPD data shows record number of stop-and-frisks in 12-month period
531,000 New Yorkers stopped and frisked in 2008: Numbers show shocking racial disparities
One of the over half million yearly NYPD stop-and-frisks: More than 80 percent are of Blacks and Latinos. – Photo: CrownHeights.info
New York - The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) responded to new data released to the City Council by the New York City Police Department showing the final total of stop-and-frisks for 2008 to be a record 531,159. Over 80 percent of them were of Black and Latino New Yorkers. The NYPD is required to keep a database of its stop-and-frisks as a result of CCR’s 1999 racial profiling lawsuit filed in the wake of the Amadou Diallo shooting, Daniels v. City of New York.
A ruling last September by U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin required the NYPD to turn over all stop-and-frisk data from 1998 through the present in relation to a second class action racial profiling lawsuit filed by the center in early 2008, Floyd v. City of New York. This is the first time this data has been made publicly available. Last month, CCR released a preliminary analysis of the years 2005 through the first half of 2008, the years covered in the case, Floyd v. City of New York.
“The record number of New Yorkers being stopped-and-frisked is a quality of life issue for all New Yorkers and the targeting of African American and Latino City residents creates a climate of fear, aggression and distrust, particularly in communities of color” said CCR attorney Darius Charney. “These numbers tell us there is a significant need for reform and oversight of the NYPD to end its racially-biased policing.”
The number of New Yorkers who were stopped and frisked by police last year rose by 62,227, up from 468,932 in 2007, with the racial breakdown remaining relatively constant. CCR’s report analyzed nearly 1,600,000 NYPD stops of New Yorkers. From 2005 through 2008, approximately 80 percent of total stops made were of Blacks and Latinos, who comprise 25 percent and 28 percent of New York City’s total population, respectively. During this same time period, only approximately 10 percent of stops were of Whites, who comprise 44 percent of the city’s population.
Results show that Blacks and Latinos are significantly more likely to be stopped by the police than Whites; that Blacks and Latinos are more likely to be frisked after a NYPD-initiated stop than Whites; and that Blacks and Latinos are more likely to have physical force used against them during a NYPD-initiated stop than Whites. Yet the rates of summons and arrests from all stops is not only extremely low, but nearly the same across racial categories.
On Jan. 31, 2008, CCR and the law firms of Beldock, Levine & Hoffman and Covington & Burling filed a class action lawsuit charging the NYPD with engaging in racial profiling and suspicion-less stops-and-frisks of New Yorkers. In April, CCR served discovery requests on the City seeking production of the NYPD’s stop and frisk data for the last 10 years.
According to CCR attorneys, the named plaintiffs in the case - David Floyd, Lalit Clarkson, Deion Dennis and David Ourlicht - represent the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who over the last several years have been stopped on the way to work, in front of their house, or just walking down the street, without any cause, primarily because they were men of color.
Police stops-and-frisks without reasonable suspicion violate the Fourth Amendment, and racial profiling is a violation of fundamental rights and protections of the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Copies of the report and the complete data are available at www.ccrjustice/stopandfrisk. Click on Floyd v. City of New York For more information.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Visit www.ccrjustice.org.
You Are Being Lied To About Pirates
Behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal
By Johann Hari / http://www.JohannHari.com
Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy – backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China – is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labelling as "one of the great menaces of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell – and some justice on their side.
Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" – from 1650 to 1730 – the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage Bluebeard that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often saved from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains Of All Nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence.
If you became a merchant or navy sailor then – plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry – you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked often, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.
Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied – and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively, without torture. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century".
They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly – and subversively – that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal Navy." This is why they were romantic heroes, despite being unproductive thieves.
The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young British man called William Scott, should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."
At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."
This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence".
No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters – especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas." William Scott would understand.
Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.
The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail – but who is the robber?
Johann Hari is an award-winning journalist who writes twice-weekly for the Independent, one of Britain's leading newspapers, and the Huffington Post. He also writes for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, Le Monde Diplomatique, The New Republic, El Mundo, The Guardian, The Melbourne Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, South Africa's Star, The Irish Times, and a wide range of other international newspapers and magazines.
The Last Plantation
by Jessica Hoffmann
In 1920, at the height of Black farm ownership, one in seven U.S. farms was Black-operated; by 1992, the number had fallen to one in 100. While the USDA is not solely responsible for this - physical violence, flimsy heir-property laws and other factors are also to blame - the department has played a huge role. From discriminatory lending practices to foreclosures, the agency’s policies have directly contributed to a massive loss of Black land wealth and the rapid decline of the Black farmer, leading some to call the USDA “the last plantation.”
Black farmers are organizing to counter the racist practices of the USDA
Delores Amason’s family has been farming for generations. Her father, Leroy E. Harvey, was a sharecropper who bought 40 acres of farmland in Tillery, North Carolina, through a New Deal program that offered loans to help small farmers own the land they worked. For decades, the family grew cotton, peanuts, corn and soybeans, and bought more acres as they could.
“We weren’t rich by anybody’s standards,” Amason says, “but it didn’t bother us because we worked for ourselves.”
Harvey, like most farmers, relied on cyclical operating loans to pay expenses in advance of the income-generating harvest. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (commonly referred to by its acronym, USDA) was tasked with supporting small farmers who had trouble getting credit from other sources. Yet when Harvey was hurt by early freezes in the 1980s, he fell behind on payments to the agency and found himself struggling to get a regular USDA operating loan. He turned to a private bank and was startled to learn that the USDA had ordered them not to approve his loan, saying they were about to foreclose on his land.
Many Black farmers like Harvey have seen their economic situations hurt rather than helped by the USDA. In 1920, at the height of Black farm ownership, one in seven U.S. farms was Black-operated; by 1992, the number had fallen to one in 100. While the USDA is not solely responsible for this (physical violence, flimsy heir-property laws and other factors are also to blame), the department has played a huge role. From discriminatory lending practices to foreclosures, the agency’s policies have directly contributed to a massive loss of Black land wealth and the rapid decline of the Black farmer, leading some to call the USDA “the last plantation.”
Black farmers are organizing to protest these conditions and to share resources among themselves. As a coalition, they lobbied for changes to the Farm Bill that passed in Congress last year and won a number of important provisions, including halting foreclosures against any farmer who has a discrimination claim pending against the USDA. They are hoping their collective work will finally begin to chip away at the federal agency’s long-standing practice of targeting Black farmers.
The U.S. government itself has documented widespread, ongoing discrimination against Black farmers by the USDA
Black farmers tell stories of USDA officials - especially local loan authorities in all-white county committees in the South - spitting on them, throwing their loan applications in the trash and illegally denying them loans. This happened for decades, through at least the 1990s. When the USDA’s local offices did approve loans to Black farmers, they were often supervised - farmers couldn’t spend the borrowed money without receiving item-by-item authorization from the USDA - or late. And in farming, timing is everything.
Meanwhile, white farmers were receiving unsupervised, on-time loans. Many say egregious discrimination by local loan officials persists today.
Lloyd Wright, who directed the USDA’s civil rights department in 1997-98, remembers a farmer whose land was foreclosed and sold by the government while his civil rights claim was pending. “We found that the Department of Agriculture was guilty, but we really couldn’t compensate him because his land was gone,” Wright reports.
In 1997, a group of Black farmers led by Tim Pigford of North Carolina filed a class-action suit against the USDA. They argued that they had been systematically discriminated against by the agency and that the mechanisms for challenging such discrimination were useless: They’d been filing complaints for years to a civil rights office without knowing that President Ronald Reagan had disbanded it in 1983.
Between 1983 and the late 1990s, Wright says, there was no consistent, functional civil rights office within the USDA. In all, 22,000 farmers were granted access to the Pigford class-action suit and, in 1999, the government admitted wrongdoing and made a $2.3 billion settlement - the largest civil rights settlement in U.S. history.
Yet Black farmers’ feelings about Pigford are mixed. Membership in the class was limited to Black farmers who were racially discriminated against by the USDA between 1981 and 1996. “Fifteen years does not cover the damages that had been done,” insists Gary Grant of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association.
The settlement also created a two-track system wherein farmers could opt for a direct payment of $50,000 or try for a larger settlement by providing extensive documentation. As most farmers hadn’t kept a detailed paper trail, the majority opted for the $50,000.
Although about 15,500 farmers have received the $50,000 settlement, a 2004 investigation by the Environmental Working Group and the National Black Farmers Association found that nearly nine out of 10 Black farmers who sought restitution through Pigford were denied. Worse, the USDA actively fought claims, spending 56,000 Department of Justice staff hours and $12 million contesting individual farmers’ claims. Harvey was one of many whose claims were dismissed on technicalities.
Even if Pigford had been fully implemented, it still would have fallen short of farmers’ hopes. “We wanted land back that had been illegally taken,” Grant says. “That has not occurred.” There were no structural changes made at the USDA to ensure that discrimination would stop.
Wright claims that since he retired in 1998, the USDA hasn’t had a functional system for tracking civil rights complaints. Although the USDA claims to be effectively processing complaints today, repeated requests for information about their process only resulted in officials finally stating they wouldn’t provide information without a Freedom of Information Act request. A May 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office found that management of civil rights complaints by the USDA “continues to be deficient despite years of attention.”
Black farmers have been organizing themselves
Farmer-organizers with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives have created local co-ops to share the risks and profits of small-scale farming over the last 40 years. Ben Burkett, a member and fourth-generation farmer, says, “If it hadn’t been for my local [co-op], I wouldn’t be farming today.”
The Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, with 1,500 members in 21 states, is organizing a North Carolina environmental justice summit, and the Southern Rural Development Initiative is partnering with small, grassroots organizations on initiatives like creating markets where small-scale farmers can sell organic, locally grown food to their neighbors. In different ways, these groups are encouraging local, cooperative economics among Black farmers.
Last year, they went to Washington
A coalition of organizations led by the National Black Farmers Association lobbied to win several important items for Black farmers in what’s known as the Farm Bill, the massive instrument that determines USDA policy. The bill is revised every few years.
One new provision allows farmers who missed the original Pigford deadline to participate in the class action. This could open up the class to as many as 80,000 people. Since the 2008 Farm Bill passed, 800 have already filed suits, and grassroots groups are holding workshops in farm communities to let others know about it. Although they concede that Pigford has limitations, many farmers are still hoping to be among the few to receive some compensation.
The new Farm Bill also established an advisory committee to improve outreach to Black farmers and set annual reporting requirements for civil rights complaints. And there is finally a moratorium on foreclosures against any farmer who has a discrimination claim pending against the USDA. Grant and other activists would like to see more action taken, including restoration of farmers’ land and ruined credit. And the county committee structure through which the USDA makes loans must be reformed, according to Grant, Wright and others.
Dolores Amason’s father, now 93, managed to save his land - but only through bankruptcy and refinancing. The family is now making payments on land it has owned since the 1930s.
Of all the Black farmers who were once the heart of her community in North Carolina, “my father is the only one that’s left,” Amason says. Many of his peers, unable to survive as farmers, went to work in a nearby nuclear plant. As of the 2002 Census, the average age of Black farmers was almost 60.
“How do we get young people who have witnessed these kinds of devastation to realize that someone could actually make a decent living tilling the soil?” asks Grant.
This story originally appeared in the January-February issue of ColorLines. Jessica Hoffmann can be reached at jess@jessicahoffmann.com.
Congo’s riches belong to the Congolese
by Kambale Musavuli
Speech delivered Jan. 17 in Raleigh, N.C.; videos follow
Rallying on the 48th anniversary of the U.S.-backed assassination of the great Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first freely elected prime minister, student leader Kambale Musavuli speaks in Raleigh, N.C., Jan. 17. – Photo: Peter Peyechu
Veiw Film: Can Anyone Save Congo?: The March - Part 1
This superbly produced film is the beginning of a journey into the hearts and the minds of the Congolese in America, as they Break the Silence and fight to SAVE CONGO! The filmmakers are Charles Vakala and Eric B. Ndelo, who also did the editing, of Divine Righteous Children. It transports us to the march and rally in Raleigh, N.C., on Jan. 17, the 48th anniversary of the U.S.-backed assassination of one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century, Patrice Lumumba.
Forty-eight years ago, on this 17th day of January, the first freely elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrice Emery Lumumba, was brutally murdered by the United States, Belgium and certain local elites because he wanted the resources of the Congo to benefit the Congolese people. He, as a public servant to his people, fought day in and day out to bring the Congolese people independence from Belgium.
On this day we commemorate him, we need to always remember that he gave his life for us to have a better future than he had. His legacy lives and his bullet-proof ideas still resonate in our generation. As I speak to you today, the underlying reason of his murder still remains the central question for the conflict in the Congo since 1996: The underlying issue is who is going to control Congo’s wealth and for whose benefit.
To those of you who may not know what is taking place in the Congo, I would like to tell you that Congo is bleeding and dying a thousand deaths. The Congo is the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today, where nearly 6 million people have died since 1996 - half of them children under the age of 5 - and hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, all as a result of the scramble for Congo’s wealth.
The United Nations says it is the deadliest conflict in the world since World War II. Yet, Doctors Without Borders say that it is one of the most under-reported stories of our time. The media is silent, the government is silent and the world is silent.
Why is the world silent? “A time comes when silence is betrayal,” says Dr. Martin Luther King. He goes on to say, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” It is a scar on the human conscience to know what is happening in the Congo and do nothing about it.
It is up to all of us to help the children of the Congo who live in a refugee camp for months, sometimes years, just because the world needs the resources of the Congo. As Che Guevara stated years ago, “The Congo problem is a world problem.”
As Gaza receives the media attention due to the unthinkable tragedy taking place there, we shall not forget that immeasurable tragedies are taking place in the Congo - with 45,000 people dying every month just for the blings of our lives and the rings of our phones.
What can we all do to work with our brave brothers and sisters in the Congo waging a fight for peace and human dignity?
In the Congo, 45,000 people are dying every month just for the blings of our lives and the rings of our phones.
I will start with you, my Congolese brothers, sisters and elders. I want you to remember what Lumumba said before his death in his last letter to his wife, “that the future of the Congo is beautiful and that it expects for each Congolese to accomplish the sacred task of reconstruction of our independence and our sovereignty; for without dignity there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men.” A greater sacrifice on the part of Congolese is needed for the sons and daughters of the Congo.
Patrice Lumumba in Stanleyville, May 1960
What sacrifices are we willing to make so that our brothers and sisters in Congo can live peacefully as we do in America? What kind of sacrifices are we making so that our Congolese children can go to school as they do here, so that our young mothers are not widowed, so that our sisters are not raped, so that our brothers are not joining militias because there is no better option, so that people do not go hungry in the most fertile land in Africa? What sacrifices are we willing to make so that our Congolese families can live in dignity, as we do here? WHAT SACRIFICE ARE WE MAKING!
We are the ones who will rebuild our beautiful country. We need you in every sector of life. The world will help us, but they won’t fight for our country. The world would put pressure on their governments but will not elect our leaders in 2011. The world will advocate for us but will not reform our political system for us.
We must sacrifice our time to the Congo, our life if necessary. Some of us are Congolese Americans and should pressure the American government by lobbying day in and day out to alleviate the suffering of our brothers and sisters at home. Some of us work for hospitals and could help in sending medical supplies to many clinics that need it at home. Some even own companies, and they could help in any way possible.
Our people on the ground need your help. Always remember our origin. They can take you out of the Congo, but they cannot take Congo out of you. We need to support our people at home. The future of the Congo is bright, as I can see in the eyes of students and people I meet all over the country.
Fifth graders at Kipp DC: Will Academy, a middle school in Washington, D.C., raised $800 in one day for the movement after a presentation about the conflict taking place in the Congo. The Avonside Girls’ High School students mobilized their whole school to join the international cell-out (cell phone usage boycott) and had a public relations firm help them to get the word out on the war in Congo in their community.
Not to forget my beloved Aggies, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University students, who went around the campus and collected 1,200 student signatures and the endorsement of more than 40 student organizations’ presidents so that our university would join the Break the Silence Movement and receive an official letter of recognition from the chancellor of the university.
Through all my travels, I’ve met so many compassionate people from all races and faiths. And all of them were ready to support the Congolese people. To all of you who are here on this cold day, remember that Congo needs you. As Dr. King explained: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
The forces against the Congo are tremendous. We want you to join the global movement to break the silence around the atrocities taking place in the Congo. We hope that this new wind can be TODAY what the Free South Africa movement was yesterday. Bring your talents, your ideas, your skills to help us support the Congolese people.
Call your local leaders, radio stations, inform your professors in your universities, talk with Congolese as they try to find healing from this suffering. Let people in your network know about the Congo.
Just imagine Congo’s spectacular potential, which ranges from its fauna and flora to its untapped reserves of resources. It is a storehouse of strategic minerals we use in our daily lives. Sixty-four percent of the world’s reserves of coltan are found in the Congo. It is a part of the second largest rainforest in the world behind the Amazon. It has the hydro capacity to provide electricity for the entire African continent, southern Europe and parts of the Middle East. It could feed the entire world through 2050.
Did you know that the oldest mathematical artifact was found in the Congo? It is called the Ishango bones and is about 22,000 years old.
All the potential of the Congo can be realized with unity, dedication and the submission of individual and personal aspirations to the collective will. We ask that you BREAK THE SILENCE in your daily lives and support us in our quest to bring about fundamental changes in the Congo.
Lumumba stated, “We are not alone. Africa, Asia and free and liberated people from every corner of the world will always be found at the side of the Congolese.” I hope you will stay engaged in our quest to bring peace and stability in our Congo and finally start rebuilding our country and help it rise like a phoenix.
When the Congo won independence in 1960, Lumumba pointed the way: “Together, my brothers, my sisters, we are going to begin a new struggle, a sublime struggle, which will lead our country to peace, prosperity and greatness.”
Thank you, God bless you, God bless the Congo!
Kambale Musavuli is spokesperson and student coordinator for Friends of the Congo. He can be reached at Kambale@friendsofthecongo.org. Call 1-888-584-6510 or visit CongoWeek.org to arrange for the Break the Silence Spring Speakers Tour to come to your community - your university, high school, organization, labor union or business group. Become a Friend of the Congo at FriendsoftheCongo.org.
Obama is president: Time for self-deliverance
by Cash Michaels
Special to the NNPA from the Wilmington Journal
Obama’s people greeted his inauguration as no new president has ever been greeted. Of the 1.8 million people who packed the Washington Mall in freezing weather, some say nearly half were Black. Many carried flags who had never had reason to wave one before. – Photo: Kimara
Wilmington, N.C. (NNPA) - Now that Barack Hussein Obama has taken the oath of office to become the 44th president of the United States, and the first African-American ever to do so, what will he do for Black America?
With over 2.5 million American jobs lost last year, the auto industry near collapse, millions of Americans losing their homes, two foreign wars and a national economy on life support, President Obama has more to deal with coming into office than any other president in history.
So what can the Black commander in chief do to help address high unemployment, lack of affordable healthcare, substandard education and many other maladies that perennially plague the African-American community?
Panelists who took part in Kwanzaa Joy: A Community Celebration of Our First African-American President late last month, all agreed that before Blacks ask that question, they should first ask, “What are we going to do for ourselves?”
“I’m looking forward to his presidency with great expectations, but we have to work,” Stella Adams, owner of S.J. Adams Consulting in Durham and formerly the executive director of the North Carolina Fair Housing Center, told those gathered for Kwanzaa Joy at the Vital Link in CrossLink School in Southeast Raleigh.
“We have to help Obama,” Adams continued. “He’s cleaning up a major mess. One man cannot do the work. So it’s going to be incumbent on us to figure out where we fit in in helping him.”
Adams said that means African-Americans have to continue to be politically civically active, electing local officials who also share President Obama’s vision of change that America can believe in.
“He needs more than our vote,” she concluded. “He needs our work.”
Irving Joyner, associate law professor at North Carolina Central University School of Law, said African-Americans have to realize that Obama “wasn’t elected to be the top civil rights leader … nor was he elected to articulate or promote the African-American agenda.”
Joyner continued, “Electing Barack Obama president doesn’t mean we have overcome … We could put too much faith in him to deliver us, when we need to be organizing to deliver ourselves.”
Joyner added that African-Americans must be serious about delivering on their own agenda, because there may be times when the community has to disagree with President Obama on various policy issues.
Poetess and community activist Ajuba Joy reinforced the notion that African-Americans now have every reason to improve their communities and, by doing so, they help President Obama address the ills of the nation.
Joy also expressed confidence in First Lady Michelle Obama, saying that she is the president’s closest adviser, and being a proud, accomplished Black mother, she won’t allow him to forget the community.
Marquita McAlpine, graduating NCCU senior, an NAACP member and president of the NCCU Presbyterian Campus Ministry, agreed that the African-American community must “continue to work.”
But she also admonished the Kwanzaa Joy audience “not to underestimate” the power and commitment of young people, especially after their impressive support for Obama at the polls.
“We’re still involved; the momentum is still alive,” McAlpine said.
NCCU Political Science Professor Jarvis Hall said “Amen” to the notion that no one individual, not even President Barack Obama, “can change the systemic problems that exist in America today.”
Hall said, “At times, we’re going to have to push Barack Obama. We’re going to have to make sure that he is true to the progressive agenda that he’s promoted. And it’s going to be up to us to continue this movement.”
Rev. William Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP, said while he agreed with much of what he’d heard from his fellow panelists, theologically no one really knows what’s going to happen next.
Barber said God has made this Barack Obama’s time for a reason that still may not be clear to African-Americans. He concludes, “We’re thinking it’s about him, when it could be about us.”
NNPA, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, serves over 200 Black newspapers. Read more stories from the Black press at www.BlackPressUSA.com
A Reoccurring Racist Nightmare
by Dellano Cleveland
Immediately after Johannes Mehserle, the cop who executed Oscar Grant, was granted bail on Friday, a small army of Oakland police prepare at 14th and Jackson to protect downtown Oakland property from the people …
Unfortunately, once again we find ourselves in a reoccurring racist nightmare. On New Year’s Day 2009, a BART pig at the Fruitvale station in Oakland viciously assassinated an unarmed young Black man. As we sit here behind the walls of the prison industrial complex, we struggle to confront this brutality, an all out campaign to execute with malice any disfranchised people with impunity. This cop knew what he was doing when he pulled his weapon and blatantly murdered an innocent, unarmed human being with total disregard for this man’s life.
But understand we all are very saddened by the tragic loss of Brotha Oscar Grant, and after sadness comes retribution. This Amerikkka has taught us this action must be resolved in order to move forward.
To the family of Brotha Grant our great respect and condolences are extended. But, Brothas and Sistas, this is all about all of the people who have been assassinated by the system. To our ancestors on slave ships to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Brotha Malcolm X to Brotha Emmit Till to Brotha Diallo, shot 41 times reaching for his wallet in New York, to Brotha Sean Bell to the li’l ol’ grandmother in Georgia, where the pigs
… backed up at 14th and Harrison with their tank-like Hummer …
raided the wrong house. To Tyisha Miller, shot 24 times by the Riverside pigs; after they stop laughing, Sgt.Gregory Preece, makes the statement: “If it will help her family, tell them we used Black bullets,” according to the Black Voice News.
Understand that no amount of training will change the minds of this racist society. Already $22 million has been spent on training in Riverside County to improve community and sensitivity relations within the community and nothing has changed, according to the Black Voice newspaper I once read, trying to sustain mental sanity, spiritual health, social life and political struggle in the midst of a slave holding white supremacist civilization that has viewed itself as the most enlightened, free, tolerant and democratic experiment in human history. But this cannot happen unless you try.
So when you see anger in the streets, please do not feel as though your loved ones are being disrespected. It’s because the people need something or someone to rally for, against this racist bloodthirsty system that has forever stood on the backs of the people in order to maintain control of the very community they are sworn to protect.
… as windows are boarded up along 14th Street. – Photos: Dave Id, Indybay
The people are desperately seeking equality and the Amerikkkan dream. In 2009, minorities are still being viciously murdered in the concrete jungles of this Amerikkka. While you are arresting the people for marching in the streets in protest, you have the audacity to wait two to three weeks to arrest a pig who assassinated an unarmed Black man lying face down. Jim Crow is alive and well in Amerikkka. You should be so lucky to have a few windows broken.
Martin L. King said [in his Letter from Birmingham Jail written in 1963]: “This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists [Thurgood Marshall], that ‘Justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”
Send our brother, who is on San Quentin’s Death Row, some love and light: Dellano Cleveland, H-20500, San Quentin State Prison, 5-EB-117, San Quentin, CA 94974.
Source:http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/a-reoccurring-racist-nightmare/
February 25, 2009
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth (1797–November 26, 1883) was the self-given name, from 1843, of Isabella Baumfree, an American slave, abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Ulster County, New York. Her best-known speech, Ain't I a Woman?, was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.
Truth was born into slavery around 1797. She was one of twelve children born to James and Elizabeth Baumfree, who were slaves of Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh. The Hardenbergh estate was in a hilly area called by the Dutch name Ulster County, New York (just north of present-day Rifton), in the town of Esopus, New York, 95 miles north of New York City. After the colonel's death, ownership of the family slaves passed to his son, Charles Hardenbergh.
After the death of Charles Hardenbergh in 1806, Truth, known as Isabelle, was sold at an auction. She was 9 years old and was included with a flock of sheep for $100 to John Neely, near Kingston, New York. Until she was sold, Truth spoke only Dutch. She suffered many hardships at the hands of Neely, whom she later described as cruel and harsh and who once beat her with a bundle of rods. Truth previously said Neely raped and beat her daily. Neely sold her in 1808, for $105, to Martinus Schryver of Port Ewen, a tavern keeper, who owned her for 18 months. Schryver sold her in 1810, for $175, to John Dumont of West Park, New York. Although this fourth owner was kindly disposed toward her, his wife found numerous ways to harass Truth and make her life more difficult.
Around 1815, Truth met and fell in love with a slave named Robert from a neighboring farm. Robert's owner forbade the relationship; he did not want his slave to have children with a slave he did not own, because he would not own the children. Robert was savagely beaten and Truth never saw him again. In 1817, Truth was forced by Dumont to marry an older slave named Thomas. She had five children: Diana, fathered by Robert; and Elizabeth, Hannah, Peter, and Sophia, fathered by Thomas.
The state of New York began, in 1799, to legislate the abolition of slavery, although the process of emancipating New York slaves was not complete until July 4, 1827. Dumont had promised Truth freedom a year before the state emancipation, "if she would do well and be faithful." However, he changed his mind, claiming a hand injury had made her less productive. She was infuriated. She continued working until she felt she had done enough to satisfy her sense of obligation to him by spinning 100 pounds of wool.
Late in 1826, Truth escaped to freedom with her infant daughter, Sophia. She had to leave her other children behind because they were not legally freed in the emancipation order until they had served as bound servants into their twenties. She later said:
“ | I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right. | ” |
She found her way to the home of Isaac and Maria Van Wagener, who took her and her baby in. Isaac offered to buy her services for the remainder of the year (until the state's emancipation took effect), which Dumont accepted for $20. She lived there until the New York State Emancipation Act was approved a year later.
Truth learned that her son Peter, then 5 years old, had been sold illegally by Dumont to an owner in Alabama. With the help of the Van Wageners, she took the issue to court and, after months of legal proceedings, got back her son, who had been abused by his new owner.
Truth had a life-changing religious experience during her stay with the Van Wageners, and became a devout Christian. In 1829 she moved with her son Peter to New York City, where she worked as a housekeeper for Elijah Pierson, a Christian Evangelist. In 1832, she met Robert Matthews, also known as Matthias Kingdom or Prophet Matthias, and went to work for him as a housekeeper. In a bizarre twist of fate, Elijah Pierson died, and Robert Matthews and Truth were accused of stealing from and poisoning him. Both were acquitted and Robert Matthews moved west.
In 1839, Truth's son Peter took a job on a whaling ship called the Zone of Nantucket. From 1840 to 1841, she received three letters from him, though in his third letter he told her he had sent five. When the ship returned to port in 1842, Peter was not on board and Truth never heard from him again.
"The Spirit Calls Me"
On June 1, 1843, Truth changed her name to Sojourner Truth and told her friends, "The Spirit calls me, and I must go." She became a Methodist, and left to make her way traveling and preaching about abolition. In 1844, she joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Massachusetts. Founded by abolitionists, the organization supported women's rights and religious tolerance as well as pacifism. There were 210 members and they lived on 500 acres (2 km²), raising livestock, running a sawmill, a gristmill, and a silk factory. While there, Truth met William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles. In 1846, the group disbanded, unable to support itself. In 1847, she went to work as a housekeeper for George Benson, the brother-in-law of William Lloyd Garrison. In 1849, she visited John Dumont before he moved west.
Truth started dictating her memoirs to her friend Olive Gilbert, and in 1850 William Lloyd Garrison privately published her book, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave. That same year, she purchased a home in Northampton for $300.
In 1851, she left Northampton to join George Thompson, an abolitionist and speaker. In May, she attended the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio where she delivered her famous speech Ain't I a Woman, a slogan she adopted from one of the most famous abolitionist images, that of a kneeling female slave with the caption "Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?"
Reminiscences by Frances Gage
Akron Convention, Akron, Ohio, May 1851
"There were very few women in those days who dared to "speak in meeting"; and the august teachers of the people were seemingly getting the better of us, while the boys in the galleries, and the sneerers among the pews, were hugely enjoying the discomfiture, as they supposed, of the "strong-minded." Some of the tender-skinned friends were on the point of losing dignity, and the atmosphere betokened a storm. When, slowly from her seat in the corner rose Sojourner Truth, who, till now, had scarcely lifted her head. "Don't let her speak!" gasped half a dozen in my ear. She moved slowly and solemnly to the front, laid her old bonnet at her feet, and turned her great speaking eyes to me. There was a hissing sound of disapprobation above and below. I rose and announced "Sojourner Truth," and begged the audience to keep silence for a few moments."
"The tumult subsided at once, and every eye was fixed on this almost Amazon form, which stood nearly six feet high, head erect, and eyes piercing the upper air like one in a dream. At her first word there was a profound hush. She spoke in deep tones, which, though not loud, reached every ear in the house, and away through the throng at the doors and windows."
Over the next decade, Truth spoke before dozens, perhaps hundreds, of audiences. From 1851 to 1853, Truth worked with Marius Robinson, the editor of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Bugle, and traveled around that state speaking. In 1853, she spoke at a suffragist "mob convention" at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City; that year she also met Harriet Beecher Stowe.[2] In 1856, she traveled to Battle Creek, Michigan, to speak to a group called the Friends of Human Progress. In 1858, someone interrupted a speech and accused her of being a man; Truth opened her blouse and revealed her breasts.
"Ain't I a Woman?"
Truth delivered her best-known speech in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention. The speech has become known as Ain't I a Woman? after Truth's refrain.
The speech as shown here has been revised from the 19th century dialect in which Truth spoke.
“ | Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne five children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or Negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it. The men better let them.Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say. | ” |
--Sojourner Truth
January 30, 2009
Demands grow for Gaza war crimes investigation
ChrisMcGreal http://www.guardian.co.uk Israel is facing growing demands from senior UN officials and human rights groups for an international war crimes investigation in Gaza over allegations such as the "reckless and indiscriminate" shelling of residential areas and use of Palestinian families as human shields by soldiers.
With the death toll from the 17-day Israeli assault on Gaza climbing above 900, pressure is increasing for an independent inquiry into specific incidents, such as the shelling of a UN school turned refugee centre where about 40 people died, as well as the question of whether the military tactics used by Israel systematically breached humanitarian law.
The UN's senior human rights body approved a resolution yesterday condemning the Israeli offensive for "massive violations of human rights". A senior UN source said the body's humanitarian agencies were compiling evidence of war crimes and passing it on to the "highest levels" to be used as seen fit.
Some human rights activists allege that the Israeli leadership gave an order to keep military casualties low no matter what cost to civilians. That strategy has directly contributed to one of the bloodiest Israeli assaults on the Palestinian territories, they say.
John Ging, head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza, said: "It's about accountability [over] the issue of the appropriateness of the force used, the proportionality of the force used and the whole issue of duty of care of civilians.
"We don't want to join any chorus of passing judgment but there should be an investigation of any and every incident where there are concerns there might have been violations in international law."
The Israeli military are accused of:
• Using powerful shells in civilian areas which the army knew would cause large numbers of innocent casualties;
• Using banned weapons such as phosphorus bombs;
• Holding Palestinian families as human shields;
• Attacking medical facilities, including the killing of 12 ambulance men in marked vehicles;
• Killing large numbers of police who had no military role.
Israeli military actions prompted an unusual public rebuke from the International Red Cross after the army moved a Palestinian family into a building and shelled it, killing 30. The surviving children clung to the bodies of their dead mothers for four days while the army blocked rescuers from reaching the wounded.
Human Rights Watch has called on the UN security council to set up a commission of inquiry into alleged war crimes.
Two leading Israeli human rights organisations have separately written to the country's attorney general demanding he investigate the allegations.
But critics remain sceptical that any such inquiry will take place, given that Israel has previously blocked similar attempts with the backing of the US.
Amnesty International says hitting residential streets with shells that send blast and shrapnel over a wide area constitutes "prima facie evidence of war crimes".
"There has been reckless and disproportionate and in some cases indiscriminate use of force," said Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty investigator in Israel. "There has been the use of weaponry that shouldn't be used in densely populated areas because it's known that it will cause civilian fatalities and casualties.
"They have extremely sophisticated missiles that can be guided to a moving car and they choose to use other weapons or decide to drop a bomb on a house knowing that there were women and children inside. These are very, very clear breaches of international law."
Israel's most prominent human rights organisation, B'Tselem, has written to the attorney general in Jerusalem, Meni Mazuz, asking him to investigate suspected crimes including how the military selects its targets and the killing of scores of policemen at a passing out parade.
"Many of the targets seem not to have been legitimate military targets as specified by international humanitarian law," said Sarit Michaeli of B'Tselem.
Rovera has also collected evidence that the Israeli army holds Palestinian families prisoner in their own homes as human shields. "It's standard practice for Israeli soldiers to go into a house, lock up the family in a room on the ground floor and use the rest of the house as a military base, as a sniper's position. That is the absolute textbook case of human shields.
"It has been practised by the Israeli army for many years and they are doing it again in Gaza now," she said.
While there are growing calls for an international investigation, the form it would take is less clear. The UN's human rights council has the authority to investigate allegations of war crimes but Israel has blocked its previous attempts to do so. The UN security council could order an investigation, and even set up a war crimes tribunal, but that is likely to be vetoed by the US and probably Britain.
The international criminal court has no jurisdiction because Israel is not a signatory. The UN security council could refer the matter to the court but is unlikely to.
Benjamin Rutland, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said an international investigation of the army's actions was not justified. "We have international lawyers at every level of the command whose job it is to authorise targeting decisions, rules of engagement ... We don't think we have breached international law in any of these instances," he said.
Brothers In Blood and The Unbeknownst Panthers
By Todd Steven Burroughs
POINT No. 7: We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people.
–From the platform of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense
“That’s Fred Hampton.”
“Is he dead?… Bring him out.”
“He’s barely alive; he’ll make it.”
Bang. Bang. As recalled by Chicago Black Panther Harold Bell, the officers then said:
“He’s good and dead now.”
So a year that will end with the 40th anniversary of Chicago Black Panther Fred Hampton’s murder by police begins with another murder by police. Sadly, the above exchange could be taped over the video of the shooting of Oscar Grant III, a young Black man from Oakland, California, the place the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was born 22 Octobers ago. Grant, 22, was killed in a local subway station. He was handcuffed and had his stomach to the floor. Was that not enough for now-ex Officer Johannes Mehserle? Caught up in the aftermath of the melee between Black youths, did he make a mistake and think his pistol was his taser gun? Either way, the bullet went through Grant’s back, hit the floor, and ricocheted back up into his lung. Grant was as good and dead as Fred Hampton was 40 years ago.
And yes, some folks in Oakland have just finished tearing some @*^t up in response while investigators investigate and pontificators pontificate. In today’s Oakland, there is no Black Panther Party headquarters to go to, no Huey Newton to rally the troops. Newton, who had never escaped the lure of the streets, has been dead 20 years this year, and the living Panthers new color is now gray, grandmothers and grandfathers, authors and professors, holding reunions and chronicling the Good/Bad Old Days as best they can. Meanwhile, in Chicago and D.C., Black folks are getting out the party hats to celebrate some sort of change in America–something about somebody in a parade on Pennsylvania Avenue in a tricked-out Caddy…..
In 2009, police are given permission to kill Black people individually. In 1969, police were given permission to kill Black people collectively. FBI head J. Edgar Hoover was scared to death of these young Black people who let their hair grow out, smoked weed openly, wore black leather jackets and berets, quoted revolutionary philosophers such as Chairman Mao and Frantz Fanon, and carried guns. Hoover had already done his best to destroy the movements of Brother Martin and Minister Malcolm, and with their bodies getting cold, turned the Bureau’s attention to the Panthers. Hoover told the nation’s local police departments in 1969 the same thing former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld apparently told soldiers in Iraq in 2004: Do whatever you want, as long as it accomplishes the mission. It wasn’t hard to mess with America’s insurgents back in the day; neighborhood revolutionaries actually had public headquarters and listed phone numbers.
So in 1969, the Chicago police’s Panther snitch, William O’ Neal, gave the pigs a rundown of Panther HQ. Bullets were wasted and breakfast food for Black children were burned. Those who want to see any of this with their own eyes should go to Google Video and look for a documentary called “The Murder of Fred Hampton.” Lies against, and about, Black people are best seen in grainy black-and-white footage.
The police hated the Panthers because the Panthers publicly monitored the actions of the police. In Oakland in the very beginning, the Panthers, lead by co-founders Newton and Bobby Seale, tailed the police with rifles and a law book, watching the officers’ interaction with the Black community.
Seale in his memoir, “Seize The Time”: “Huey was on a level where he was ready to organize the Black brothers for a righteous revolutionary struggle with guns and force. It came to a point where, every day, we walked in and out of the Panther office, around to my house or around to Bobby Hutton’s house, or somebody’s house, with guns on our sides, and got in a car, or two or three cars, or four or five cars as it built up, and patrolled the pigs on Friday and Saturday nights…We had a camera or two, a law book, and were working on getting some tape recorders in patrolling the pig cops.”
Newton is his memoir, “Revolutionary Suicide”: “Out on patrol, we stopped whenever we saw the police questioning a brother or a sister. We would walk over with our weapons and observe them from a ’safe’ distance so that the police could not say we were interfering with the performance of their duty. We would ask the community members if they were being abused. Most of the time, when a policeman saw us coming, he slipped his [citation] book back into his pocket, got into his car, and left in a hurry. The citizens who had been stopped were as amazed as the police at our sudden appearances. I always carried law books in my car. Sometimes, when a policeman was harassing a citizen, I would stand off a little and read the relevant portions of the penal code in a loud voice to all within hearing distance. In doing this, we were helping to educate those who had gathered to observe these incidents.”
The transit police tried to take all the cell-phone cameras and those hand-held joints-you know, for “evidence.” (Against whom?) But they missed a few. “They’re all being cooperative. They’re all telling the cops, ‘Okay, okay, okay,’ ” according to Karina Vargas. The 19-year-old is telling a local television station what she and her camera saw on that Bay Area Rapid Transit train-how the group of youths pulled by the police were cooperating with them during that early New Year’s Day morning. Oscar Grant was among the youths handcuffed. It’s all on Youtube, with color and sound and shock and awe. Instead of “Power to the People,” the cry was “Put it on Youtube!” And so the young people did, fearlessly, echoing some strand of history of which they probably were unaware.
So Grant is on youtube and Hampton is on Google Video. Joined in pixels and bullet holes and blood. Fred Hampton Jr.-in his mother’s stomach while she miraculously survived the Chicago police invasion and the murder of her beloved-will turn 40 around the same time Grant’s daughter will go to kindergarten. I wonder what she will learn there about America.
Oakland rebellion: Eyewitness report by POCC Minister of Information JR
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/oakland-rebellion-eyewitness-report-by-pocc-minister-of-information-jr/
Only when Oakland’s rage over the execution of Oscar Grant broke out into a full rebellion on Wednesday, Jan. 7, did authorities, after nearly a week of silence, take this police murder seriously. Still, Oakland youth took the brunt as police used military equipment such as this tank-like hummer to put down the rebellion – while Mayor Ron Dellums promised police restraint. – Photo: Brooke Anderson, IndyBay
During the first Wednesday of 2009, downtown Oakland was physically rocked by the justified fury that the rebellions brought out in response to the police killing of 22-year-old unarmed Black male Oscar Grant, who was fatally shot at the Fruitvale BART station while he was face down, being restrained by two officers, in front of dozens of witnesses New Year’s morning.
For me, that day of protesting started at the Fruitvale BART station with a peaceful rally that was organized by members of the Bay Area’s activist community. Speakers included Crea Gomez, a community non-profit advocate, local rappers like Zion of Zion I and Mistah FAB, as well as concerned community members like myself who were appalled at the police murder. I was there as a member of the Black community demanding justice for the police murder of Oscar Grant, as well as I was in attendance as a journalist on assignment.
“BART had shut down the station so that it would slow the pace of protesters who could have used the BART to get to the rally but had to rely on Oakland’s slow ass bus system to make their voices heard,” MOI JR explains. – Photo: Demondre Ward
When I arrived a little bit after the protest started, I witnessed at least 200-300 people who were demanding justice for Oscar Grant’s family at the BART station. BART had shut down the station so that it would slow the pace of protesters who could have used the BART to get to the rally but had to rely on Oakland’s slow ass bus system to make their voices heard. People of all nationalities, ages, classes and religions were chanting angry slogans led by the speakers: “Fuck the police!” “No justice, no peace!” “Justice for Oscar Grant!”
One of the things that struck me most about this rally was the fact that it was so many people who were moved to protest in East Oakland, which is rare during a workday. The question that I asked on the microphone when it was my turn to speak was, “Why didn’t people come out when Bay Area police officers murdered unarmed Terrence Mearis, unarmed Casper Banjo, unarmed Anita Gaye, unarmed Gary King, unarmed Gus Rugley, unarmed Cammerin Boyd, unarmed Idriss Stelley or when the police terrorized 15-year-old unarmed Laronte Studesville, unarmed Randy Murphy or unarmed Nadra Foster? Is it because these cases were not caught on camera?”
These children, a racial cross-section of Oakland, seem determined to stop the police’ open season on young men of color before it’s their turn. The sign on the left reads, “Sunset 2008-90 RIP Oscar Grant III, Casper Banjo, Jose Luis Buenrostro, Jody Woodfox, Gary King Jr., Andrew Moppin and others at the hands of Oakland police.” – Photo: Demondre Ward
It seemed to me that people have to see police atrocities on television to believe that they happen in the Black community, when young Black males in the Bay Area and all over the country know from experience that the police have a legal license to kill you, severely beat you or frame you with no repercussions. An example of this is the Oscar Grant case, where he was unarmed and shot point blank, while being restrained by two officers and surrounded by at least three more, yet no one was charged with murder, manslaughter or as an accessory to murder. After a few hours, this demonstration ended peacefully, with the remaining protesters marching to downtown Oakland.
I left and went and hung out with some of my friends that were at the Fruitvale BART protest. About an hour later, I got a call telling me that I needed to cover what was going on in the streets of downtown. When I got there, I saw dozens of police in a huge circle on 14th and Broadway, occupying the intersection in front of City Hall. The Oakland hummer, the tank-like armored vehicle that was shown on the news, had just shown up.
On one block, the militant activists were shouting slogans face to face with police. Behind them, a few bands broken up into racial groups were smashing car windshields and storefronts on 14th, using their feet and their skateboards. Many of the white protesters, who had their faces covered up, were involved in setting cars on fire. I was photographing this historic time, where the people’s patience ran short on city officials, including the mayor, who refused to indict any of the officers involved.
Since this day, I have seen many reports talking about white invaders taking over the rebellion, which is b.s. Yes, they played a part, but so did everyone else. They didn’t take over anything, and the Black, Brown and Asian youth involved were taking leadership from themselves, not the white people.
After the peaceful though spirited rally at the Fruitvale BART station on Wednesday, Jan. 7, protesters marched downtown, where they were met by walls of police in riot gear, sparking a rebellion that forced the powers that be to recognize the rage stirred up by the New Year’s execution of Oscar Grant and official Oakland’s complicity by silence. – Photo: Demondre Ward
I’ve also heard some criticisms of the rebels, because of the fact that they tore up innocent people’s property. But the reality is that the peaceful protest outside of Fruitvale BART as well as the meeting of ministers, reverends and local politicians that took place that morning demanding an explanation from the D.A. did not put the mayor, police and city officials on notice nor did those actions have the energy behind them to make the police execution of Oscar Grant a national story.
The rebellion did. As a matter of fact, during the rebellion, Mayor Dellums had a secret meeting with many of these suit-types, then proceeded to walk through the rebellion like Black Jesus, with about 50 primarily Black people in suits following him across Broadway to City Hall, where he held a press conference. Needless to say, the protesters he was talking to demanded that he indict all of the officers involved, but the mayor clouded the issue with words like “respect” and “civility” while the city was burning and being trashed in the backdrop due to his negligence in dealing with a police force that has a notorious history of terrorism in the Black community - as if it had not been police who shot an unarmed Black man, Oscar Grant, a week prior.
“This guy was walking with a group of friends about a half block past McDonald’s on 14th when police targeted just him and chased him in a circle back around the McDonald’s. He then ran across the street and once he saw there were cops running at him from both sides, he just stopped and stood there. Cops pushed him down and immediately began tasering him as he lay there not resisting. They may have tasered him for close to a full minute. Since when did using tasers become a standard part of handcuffing someone?” writes the photographer. – Photo: David Id, IndyBay
Once the mayor was booed and run off from his press conference, Round 2 of the rebellion began, claiming Broadway and 17th. This was at about 9 p.m. The Oakland police escalated their attacks on protesters by six or seven of them at one time breaking ranks from the other dozens of officers they were originally standing with to tackle and arrest anyone in the vicinity. Another tactic utilized by the OPD was to roll up to an intersection in a hummer with about 10 pigs hanging off of it, and the cops would jump off, brutally arresting everyone in reach.
I was arrested in front of the Ron Dellums Federal Building, after at least two officers broke out running after me for no reason, tackled me to the cement, injuring my left leg, and bouncing my camera off of the ground. I was charged with the trumped up charge of felony arson. Luckily, a few legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild saw the whole episode.
After I was arrested and in the paddy wagon, I heard a dispatcher say that the police needed to confiscate all cameras and camera phones from arrestees, which they did, so that they could use this info as evidence in different cases. To add to their reasoning, they also wanted to cover up and slow down the amount of information that could be posted, broadcast and published that was live from the street rebellion in Oakland, where protesters were being routinely roughed up and beaten by the Oakland police, while the mayor, who was on the scene, refused to act in this case, as well as in the case of Oscar Grant. A week later, I still don’t have my camera, which I use daily to bring in an income to support myself and feed my family.
When I got locked up, the solidarity was amazing. Blacks, Latinos, Asians and whites were in North County being booked on misdemeanor charges like “inciting a riot,” “vandalism” and “failure to disperse.” I was reportedly one of three or four who were charged with a felony directly related to the case. A guy that I got booked into Santa Rita with, a Black Puerto Rican, was charged with “felony vandalism.”
The truth expressed by the sign this protester is holding as he is interviewed at the Fruitvale BART station rally on Wednesday, Jan. 7, can be attested to by youth of color in every hood and barrio in the country. – Photo: Demondre Ward
Now the truth of the matter is that most people arrested were cited out, but the felony charges were saved for Blacks and Latinos. Me and the brotha were the only ones on our bus to Santa Rita who had to put on the “Yellows,” which represent violent inmates, while the rest of the people on the bus with us put on “Blues,” which designate a prisoner as general population.
Behind enemy lines, the inmates at Santa Rita put their fists in the air, smiled, cheered and gave us dap when we told them that we were being held captive because we were in the streets during the rebellion. Mexicans were congratulating Blacks, Blacks were congratulating whites, Norteños (a Latino street organization) were congratulating Bloods (a Southern Cali street organization), who are their rivals, for their participation in fighting the police and the city for justice against police terrorism.
When it is all said and done, I’m proud of Oakland people in general and youngstas specifically for standing up to the occupying army in our community: the police and the city officials that support the system that lets the police kill us wantonly. Like what was being said in the streets of the rebellion, “Oscar Grant is not Sean Bell, and New York is not Oakland.” In other words, we are not just taking this police murder sitting down, like other big cities have in recent years.
I’m proud of Oakland people in general and youngstas specifically for standing up to the occupying army in our community: the police and the city officials that support the system that lets the police kill us wantonly.
The rebellion was just the beginning of a longer political education class in Amerikkkan politics and how it fails to meet the needs of its Black and Brown low income dwellers. I will continue to cover how the cops who were involved in the shooting of Oscar Grant are handled by the city, how the protesters who caught charges in the rebellion are handled, as well as see how the police are handled after they were brutally beating people up, framing people at the rebellion and stealing their cameras and telephones without warrants to build cases against people.
Don’t miss these upcoming events
The arrested protesters’ next hearing is this Friday, Jan. 16, 9 a.m., in Department 112 of the Wiley M. Manuel Courthouse, 661 Washington St. in downtown Oakland. Strong support from the community will help win justice for Oscar Grant and for the protesters.
You could hear from the family of Oscar Grant and from protesters, community leaders and artists at the “Town Bizness Townhall Meeting - Against Police Terrorism” on Friday, Jan. 23, at the legendary Black Dot Café, 1195 Pine St. in West Oakland at 6 p.m. It is free. All are invited. For more information, you could hit up www.blockreportradio.com and www.sfbayview.com.
Thanks to the generous support of Black Repertory Group Theater producer Sean Vaughn Scott, the matinee performance of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” on Saturday, Feb. 7, will benefit my legal defense fund and Block Report Radio. Doors will open at noon for a talk by Prisoners of Conscience Committee Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., and the play will follow.
Meanwhile, here’s what you can do
Demand that the police involved in the execution of Oscar Grant be charged and that the trumped up charges against JR Valrey and all the other arrested protesters be dropped immediately. Call, mail, fax or email:
• Mayor Ron Dellums, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, 3rd Floor, Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 238-3141, fax (510) 238-4731, officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com
• District Attorney Tom Orloff, 1225 Fallon Street, Room 900, Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 272-6222, fax (510) 271-5157, cci@acgov.org
• Congresswoman Barbara Lee, 1301 Clay Street, Suite 1000-N, Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 763-0370, fax (510) 763-6538; for email, go to http://lee.house.gov/?sectionid=128§iontree=18,128.
Also, all who can are urged to offer your financial support to Minister of Information JR for his legal defense and to replace his camera by donating online at www.SFBayView.com. You can also donate by credit card by calling the Bay View at (415) 671-0789 or you can mail your donation to SF Bay View, 4917 Third St., San Francisco CA 94124.
Email POCC Minister of Information JR at blockreportradio@gmail.com and visit www.blockreportradio.com.
New Orleans mobilizes against police murder of Adolph Grimes
by Darwin Bond-Graham
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/new-orleans-mobilizes-against-police-murder-of-adolph-grimes/
Protesters marched outside the NOPD station Thursday morning, Jan. 8, with signs that demand “Justice for Adolph Grimes III” and “Self-Determination for the African-American Nation.” At the same time in Oakland, California, protesters packed the BART board meeting to demand justice for Oscar Grant, another 22-year-old Black father executed by police in the early hours of New Year’s Day. – Photo: Darwin Bond-Graham
About two dozen citizens gathered outside of the 2nd District police headquarters at 7:30 this morning to condemn the slaying of Adolph Grimes III by a gang of New Orleans police officers. They are calling for a more vigorous investigation into Grimes’ death and greater accountability for police officers all the way up to the chief of police.
Grimes, a 22 year-old New Orleans native, living in Houston since Katrina, was back visiting family for the New Year’s holiday. In the early hours of Jan. 1, an unmarked police vehicle filled with plain-clothes officers swooped in on Grimes as he was waiting for a relative in his parked car outside of his grandmother’s house. They were headed to an Uptown night club.
A hail of gunfire ensued. Grimes was hit 14 times, 12 in the back, according to early reports from the New Orleans coroner. Police claim it was a “gun battle” and that after the incident is investigated the shooting will be justified. Few community members have confidence in the police department’s account, and with good reason.
Grimes’ family and friends describe him as a law abiding citizen and proud father of an 18-month-old baby. The NOPD, however, has already begun spreading subtle character misinformation about Grimes to prejudice the case and steer public opinion away from sympathy with the victim. Police note that Grimes was carrying a hand gun and claim that a later search of his vehicle turned up a shotgun and “high velocity” magazine clips.
Police Chief Warren Riley and Assistant Superintendent Marlon Delfillo held one press conference about the police killing by lining up 9mm cartridge pistol clips and Grimes’ handgun on a table next to their podium to imply the victim’s deservedness of the police attack. Ironically, the bullets numbered 19, just five more than entered Grimes’ body and probably fewer than the total hail of bullets that struck him down.
Grimes’ family and community leaders point out that he had a permit for the hand gun. The shotgun turned up in a search that wasn’t conducted until days after the killing, casting doubt on the conduct of the investigation so far. Some in the community believe the shotgun was planted. Furthermore, NOPD’s Chief Warren Riley has so far declined to state whether Grimes’ weapon and hands have been tested for gunpower residue.
Even so, if Grimes fired on the police it would prove very little. Few believe the NOPD or other city officials are capable of investigating their own officers. Grimes’ family called the FBI to lodge a civil rights complaint days after the shooting. The FBI has now opened its own investigation.
The fact that an unmarked car filled with plain-clothes officers moved in so quickly and aggressively on an otherwise innocent Black man raises serious questions about the intent and conduct of the officers. A group of New Orleans ministers described the conduct of the officers as “trigger happy.” The Times-Picayune described the gang of officers involved as an undercover narcotics unit including three women and six men: “They were dressed like tourists, and the women would pose as ‘decoys’ - potential victims - for robbers.”
Many New Orleanians carry a weapon as protection against possible muggers. If Grimes fired - which is still not proven - it was likely to protect himself from an attack by a car filled with suspicious and hostile looking armed strangers in “street clothes.” Police Chief Riley admitted in one news conference that “I don’t know if he knew they were police when the first shot was fired” but reiterated the department’s claim that Grimes fired first.
Community leaders gathered outside the police station today say Grimes was straight up murdered and that a full investigation can only be the beginning of bringing his killers to justice.
Sadly, within hours of Grimes’ slaying at the hands of the NOPD, another young Black man was shot by police in Oakland, California. Videos of Oscar Grant’s murder have circulated widely on the internet. Dozens of transit riders witnessed Grant being shot execution style in the back by an officer.
Last night Oakland erupted in rebellion as youths marched in the streets. Their demonstration ended with police firing rubber bullets and tear gas on the protestors who destroyed police vehicles in retaliation.
So far the response in New Orleans has been more subdued, even though the community is filled with outrage. Protestors at today’s demonstration at one point chanted, “No justice, no peace!” Organizers of today’s protest say there will be another demonstration next Thursday.
Darwin Bond-Graham can be reached at darwin@riseup.net or through his blog, http://darwinbondgraham.blogspot.com/.
Condemn the New Orleans police murder of Adolph Grimes III
Demonstration Thursday, Jan. 8, 7:30 a.m., First District Police Station, 501 N. Rampart St., New Orleans
by Leon A. Waters
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/condemn-the-new-orleans-police-murder-of-adolph-grimes-iii/
Adolph Grimes III
The New Orleans police have murdered another African American youth. Around 3 a.m. Friday morning, Jan. 1, New Year’s Day, an elite squad of un-named plainclothes officers shot and killed 22-year-old Adolph Grimes III. Grimes was waiting in his car, parked outside his grandmother’s house, for his cousin when he was assaulted by the police.
When an independent examination was done on the scene of the crime - the 1700 block of Governor Nichols Street and not the 1600 block as alleged by the police and the media - the examination disclosed that the shooting could not have happened the way the authorities claimed.
Several tales have emerged from the NOPD and the coroner’s office as to the “facts” of what happened. Police Chief Warren Riley has a tale. The un-named police officers have a different tale. Coroner Frank Minyard has his tale.
All of these tales are designed to demonize young Adolph Grimes III. These tales are to suggest that Adolph was a “thug,” that he was probably doing something illegal, and that the police were justified in killing him.
The standard line that the young man “fired at officers,” resulting in officers having been “forced” to kill the suspect is being repeated. [Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard has said Grimes was hit 14 times, with 12 of the bullets striking him from behind.] This, of course, is a lie - a lie repeated endlessly by the bourgeois media acting as spokespersons for the police.
The state, led by Chief Warren Riley, claims a complete and thorough investigation will be conducted. But how can that be?
How can the wolves with blood all around their mouth conduct a genuine and honest investigation of the slaughter of the chicken?
The murder of Adolph Grimes III, like that of Ronald Madison and James Brisette on the Danziger Bridge, Jennard Smith, Vergil Braud, Corey Horton, Adolph Archie, Willie Daniels, Gerald Glover, Matthew Cohea, Sherry Singleton, James Billy etc. is another blatant display of the murderous activity of the NOPD.
Enough is enough! Let us all join together and combat this police terror and protest this savage murder of Adolph Grimes III. Join us in our protest. On your jobs, in your school and in your neighborhoods, rally your co-workers, neighbors and friends to join with you in protest. We must demand justice for Adolph Grimes and all victims of police murder.
Justice for Adolph Grimes III! Jail the police murderers now! End the state coverup!
Leon A. Waters can be reached at leonawaters8@gmail.com.
Congo: One hundred years of colonialism, dictatorship and war (1908-2008)
by Kambale Musavuli and Maurice Carney
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/congo-one-hundred-years-of-colonialism-dictatorship-and-war-1908-2008/
Congo's holocaust by Khalil Bendib
2008 marked the 100-year anniversary of the removal of the Congo from King Leopold II of Belgium as his own personal property. Global outrage at the King’s brutal rule resulted in his losing the Congo treasure trove on Nov. 15, 1908.
Leopold II accumulated spectacular wealth for himself and the Belgian state during his 23-year dominion (1885-1908) over the Congo. During this period, an estimated 10 million Congolese lost their lives while Leopold systematically looted the Congo of its rubber and ivory riches. Congo was then handed over to Belgium, which ruled as a colonial power from 1908 to 1960.
Congo finally got its independence on June 30, 1960, when Patrice Emery Lumumba, its first democratically elected prime minister took office. Unfortunately, the Western powers, primarily the United States and Belgium, could not allow a fiercely independent African to consolidate his power over such a geo-strategic prize as the Congo. Lumumba was removed from power in a Western-backed coup within weeks and assassinated on Jan. 17, 1961.
Belgium apologized for its role in Lumumba’s assassination in 2002, yet the U.S. still downplays its role in murdering this great young leader. The U.S. replaced Lumumba with the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and backed him until he was overthrown in 1997.
The overthrow of Mobutu unleashed an ongoing resource war that has caused deep strife and unbearable suffering for the Congolese people, particularly the women and the children. It is estimated that nearly 6 million Congolese have been killed since the 1996 invasion by Rwanda and Uganda with support from the United States and other Western nations.
A century later, Congo is at another crossroads. In spite of the advances in technology and the shrinking of the world, it is curious that there is such silence around the suffering of the Congolese people due to the exploitation of powerful corporate and foreign forces beyond its people’s immediate control. Unlike the early 1900s, remarkably, today there are few if any voices the likes of Mark Twain, who wrote “King Leopold’s Soliloquy,” Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness” (often misread as Congo or Africa being dark, but he was referring to the dark hearts of the exploiters of the Congo), and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame, who wrote “Crime in the Congo.”
The Congo Reform movement that drew from the work of African Americans such as William Sheppard and George Washington Williams and led by European figures such as Robert Casement and E.D. Morel gave birth to the modern international human rights movement.
One hundred years later we are again calling on the global community to be at the side of the Congolese. This time, there is one fundamental difference: The Congolese are agents in this narrative and the call this time is not for a handover to a colonial power or neo-colonial institutions but rather to the people of the Congo.
The clarion call is for combating the forces - local elites and rebels, foreign governments, foreign corporations and multi-lateral institutions - that have the Congolese people in a death trap. The charity prism of the humanitarian industry is not the answer. It only perpetuates dependency and dis-empowerment.
Should Congo be truly liberated, the Darfurizaton (emptying of agency from the afflicted people) of the global movement in support of the Congo must be avoided at all costs. Congolese must be agents rather than objects in the pursuit of the control of their land and their lives.
The sovereignty of the people and control and ownership of the riches of their land is the fundamental human right for which we must advocate. It is a call not only for the Congo but the entire African continent.
Become a part of the global movement to “Break the Silence” as the Congolese pursue true sovereignty and liberty.
Maurice Carney is executive director and Kambale Musavuli is student coordinator of Friends of the Congo, 1629 K St. NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20006, (202) 584-6512, info@friendsofthecongo.org, www.friendsofthecongo.org. Friends of the Congo is led by people of African ancestry and others of goodwill. With strong support from friends of the Congo throughout the globe, the vast human and natural resource potential of the Democratic Republic of Congo can serve as an instrument to meet the great needs of the people of Congo and Africa.
Bill to propel $12 billion prison construction project sent to governor with budget package
While governor and legislature propose massive cuts to education and 2,000 public works projects are on hold, prison expansion is pushed forward
The solution to prison overcrowding, like this packed gym at the California state prison at Lancaster, is to send prisoners home to take care of their families, not to build more prisons. – Photo: Spencer Weiner, AP
While the governor and the legislature propose massive cuts to education, delays or cancellation of 2,000 public works projects including voter approved projects to retrofit schools - among the budget bills sent to the governor was a bill to fix problems with AB900, the largest prison construction plan in history.
“The governor and our legislature were supposed to be reducing California’s budget deficit. Instead, the legislature passed ABX1-10 - clean up language necessary to implement 2007’s massive prison construction plan,” says Debbie Reyes of the California Prison Moratorium Project, members of the statewide coalition, Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB).
AB900 was passed in the early hours of the morning on April 26, 2007, without voter approval and with no public hearings. “As we cancel or delay voter approved projects to retrofit schools, the legislature is moving forward with $12 billion worth of new prison and jail beds - without voter approval and without money to build or operate those new beds,” says Geri Silva of CURB member Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes.
Using lease revenue bonds, AB900 would add up to 53,000 new prison and jail beds and at least $1.6 billion per year in operating costs to California’s $10 billion prison budget. The cost to taxpayers for construction and debt service on the high yield bonds is projected to reach $12 billion. Though the bill suggests that there will be rehabilitation programs created in conjunction with the new prison beds, AB900 does not include money for staff or general operations, let alone new programs.
Late last year, the Pooled Money Investment Board put 2,000 public works projects on hold because the state’s fiscal disaster makes it impossible to sell bonds. California’s credit rating is now the lowest in the nation.
“If we are choosing among public works projects, a positive vision for California’s future and children dictates that we preserve funding for schools and cancel projects for more prison beds,” says Manuel La Fontaine II of All of Us or None, also members of CURB.
“So far, no AB900 beds have been built. No bonds have been sold. And we face an historic budget crisis. These facts, along with the governor’s veto of the budget bills, gives the legislature yet another chance to do the right thing,” says Mary Sutton of Critical Resistance Los Angeles, members of CURB. “We must reduce our reliance on prisons by refusing to pass clean up language for AB900 and canceling the project altogether.”
Initial AB900 projects have faced organized opposition from communities across the state. The residents of the rural town of Madison in Yolo Country filed a lawsuit stating the county supervisors violated state and local laws when they voted for the 15-acre construction project, ignoring the environmental impacts. “The proposed Madison site is in a FEMA-designated high-risk flood zone and an agricultural preserve. It also has a complete lack of water, sewer, electrical and gas infrastructure,” says Robyn Rominger of Save Rural Yolo County.
To address New York’s budget crisis, their governor is proposing to close four prisons. And the federal court currently hearing the case on prison overcrowding is poised to order a reduction in the number of people in prison in California.
Expanding prison capacity would also impact any attempts to reduce the number of people in prison. “We appreciate that the legislature did pass some changes to parole and corrections policies that should reduce the number of people in California’s prisons, but canceling new prison construction needs to be among those changes,” says Carol Strickman of CURB member Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. “History teaches us if you build more beds, you fill those beds.”
For more information, contact Rose Braz at (510) 435-6809 or rose@criticalresistance.org. http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/bill-to-propel-12-billion-prison-construction-project-sent-to-governor-with-budget-package/
They can’t kill a revolutionary: Showing solidarity with Ikemba (Marritte Funches)
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/they-can%e2%80%99t-kill-a-revolutionary-showing-solidarity-with-ikemba-marritte-funches/
Editor’s note: Marritte Funches, known to other prisoners as Ikemba, whose story the Bay View has been following, has been on hunger strike since Dec. 11, seeking medical care and an attorney. He has received no medical care; a lawyer is interested in his case but as of Monday had not decided whether to take it. Word arrived Monday that Marritte is being transferred to a prison not served by the only doctor in Nevada available to treat him. Calls to Corrections Director Howard Skolnik at (775) 887-3216 and Gov. Jim Gibbons at (775) 684-5670 are urgently needed. This extraordinary organizer and teacher - as these letters from other prisoners attest - is in excruciating kidney pain and may not be able to cling to life much longer. Deaths in prison due to medical abuse and neglect are rampant all over the country, but the ACLU National Prison Project calls Nevada’s Ely State Prison, where Marritte did most of his organizing and Coyote is still held, the nation’s worst.
Reductions in prison population can save the state billions
Brief filed in prison overcrowding lawsuit advocates the only real solution: Reduce the number of people in prison and cancel new prison construction
http://www.sfbayview.com/2008/reductions-in-prison-population-can-save-the-state-billions/
To lock up these men – this is a prison gym-turned-“dormitory” in Sacramento – many of them fathers, money is being drained out of education and health care for their children, who are denied a father and breadwinner. Free ‘em all! – Photo: Max Whittaker, New York Times
San Francisco - As the lawsuit over prison overcrowding comes to a close and the state faces a massive budget shortfall, Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) is proposing the only real solution to the overcrowding crisis: reducing the number of people in prison and canceling new prison construction.
“The state has argued that this crisis can be alleviated by massive prison expansion, but past attempts to build our way out of overcrowding have always failed. CURB opposes the state’s $12 billion prison construction program, AB900, because it simply expands a failed system. It imposes huge human and financial costs with no improvement in public safety,” says Bob Lane of Critical Resistance, one of the CURB member organizations. Even Secretary of Corrections James Tilton admits California’s prisons are already “too big to manage.”
In referring to the state’s current budget crisis, Lane continued, “It speaks sadly of our vision for the future when voter approved projects to improve schools and transportation are threatened by the budget, yet we proceed with building more prisons funded by bonds not approved by the voters.”
CURB’s constituent organizations represent the individuals and communities directly impacted by the state’s public safety policies. “CURB’s proposals give voice to those who have the most direct interest in changing the state’s corrections policy,” says Hamdiya Cooks of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, another member of the CURB coalition.” People inside prisons have been forced to live under unconstitutional conditions for far too long, and their family members - including young children - have suffered along with them.”
In addition to enormous construction costs, AB900 commits taxpayers to future operating costs of more than $1.6 billion per year. “Massive expansion will continue to siphon money from education, health care and vital social services into more prisons,” says Karen Shain of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, also a CURB member. CURB asks the court to bar AB900’s implementation.
Based on reports from state commissions and experts, CURB recommends a number of specific measures to reduce the prison population: changes to parole and sentencing policy, fully funding drug treatment instead of imprisonment, releasing elderly persons, and providing housing, job assistance and health care to those returning from prison. “These measures will bring significant cost savings, calculated by the experts to be hundreds of millions of dollars per year,” adds Lane.
“The current proposals by the governor and the legislative analyst for early release and changes in parole policy are steps in the right direction,” says Shain. “But they have not been adopted by the Legislature and they do not go far enough. The changes CURB proposes will not only reduce the population but remove the pressures for future overcrowding.”
Contact CURB at 1904 Franklin St., Suite 504, Oakland CA 94612, (510) 444-0484, rose@criticalresistance.org or http://www.curbprisonspending.org/.
January 26, 2009
Aids Tots Used as 'Guinea Pigs'
By DOUGLAS MONTERO
New York Post, {FRONT PAGE}
February 29, 2004 -- The state Health Department has launched a probe into potentially dangerous drug research conducted on HIV-infected infants and children at a Manhattan foster-care agency, The Post has learned. Some 50 foster kids were used as "guinea pigs" in 13 experiments with high doses of AIDS medications at Manhattan's Incarnation Children's Center, sources said.
Most of the ICC experiments were funded by federal grants and in some cases, pharmaceutical companies. They used city foster children, who were sent to the Catholic Archdiocese-run facility by the Administration for Children's Services.
ICC was involved in 36 different experiments, according to the National Institutes of Health Web site. One study researched "HIV Wasting Syndrome," which studied how a child's body changes when his medication is altered.
A handful of the experiments involved combining up to six AIDS drugs - so-called "cocktails" - in children as young as 3 months, and another explores the reaction of not one, but two doses of the measles vaccine in kids ages 6 to 7 months.
Other studies tested the "safety," "tolerance" and "toxicity" of AIDS drugs.
"They are torturing these kids, and it is nothing short of murder," said Michael Ellner, a minister and president of Health Education AIDS Liaison, an advocacy group for HIV parents.
Biochemist Dr. David Rasnick, a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley and an expert in AIDS medication, was outraged because the drugs, alone or combined, have "acute toxicity which could be fatal."
He said the drugs' side effects include severe liver damage, cancerous tumors, severe anemia, muscle wasting, severe and life-threatening rashes and "buffalo hump," where fatty tissues accumulate behind the neck.
Housed in a former convent and run by the Archdiocese of New York's Catholic Charities, the foster-care agency described the experiments on its own Web site, which was abruptly shut down after The Post began making inquiries.
Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling said experiments at ICC were halted in 2002. He said he did not know why. Zwil- ling also said he did not know if any children had died.
An ACS spokeswoman said the agency hasn't approved any new experiments since 2000 because the "risks outweighed the benefits." She declined to explain further. That agency is also reviewing its files on the case.
Jacqueline Hoerger was a pediatric nurse at ICC from 1989 to 1993 and said the experimentation was going on even back then. "We were taught that any symptom we saw was HIV-related," said Hoerger, 43. "The vomiting, diarrhea, wasting syndrome, the neurological side effects - they were dying. There was death."
She didn't think doctors were doing anything wrong, however, until years later, when she tried to adopt two of the foster girls. When she refused to give the kids the center's high-powered AIDS cocktails for fear it was making them sicker, ACS had social workers take the children away from her.
Advocates for children question the ethics of experimenting on foster kids - especially those too young to know what's happening to them.
"The most vulnerable, disadvantaged children are being exploited by powerful entities and used as guinea pigs as if they were not human beings," said Vera Sharav from the Alliance for Human Research and Protection.
The tests were conducted by doctors from Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, which was affiliated with ICC until 2002 and reaped the financial benefits of the research.
"Through these trials, children at the ICC outpatient clinic gained access to state-of-the-art treatments for HIV," said Annie Bayne, a Columbia spokeswoman.
ACS policy states it seeks parental consent before a child is enrolled in a study. If the parents cannot be found, ACS's medical and legal divisions, and its commissioner, must all approve.
The condition, however, is that the experiment "offer each participating child a significant potential benefit, a concomitant minimal risk of injury or harm," ACS spokeswoman MacLean Guthrie said.
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, who headed ACS at the time of the experiments, refused comment.
Officials at ICC, which was established in 1989 to house and care for HIV-infected "boarder babies" left stranded in city hospitals, refused to talk to The Post.
I Took Girls Out of Hell - and City Stole Them Back
By DOUGLAS MONTERO
February 29, 2004 -- Jacqueline Hoerger will never forget the raid of her Nyack home by foster-care social workers who snatched the two HIV-positive sisters she was trying to adopt. Her crime: She was accused of neglect by the girls' doctor because she refused to give them a potentially dangerous cocktail of high-powered AIDS medications that she felt made them sicker.
Hoerger, a pediatric nurse who spent two years as the girls' foster mother, got the children from Manhattan's Incarnation Children's Center, a foster home for HIV-infected kids, where she worked from 1989 to 1993.
There, she watched an array of researchers experiment on HIV-infected children, some as young as 3 months.
She did her job and figured the doctors at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, which is affiliated with ICC, knew what they were doing. It wasn't until she was allowed to take the sisters, ages 6 and 4, home in late 1998 that she began questioning the doctors and suspected they were conducting research.
"They were given to me as total wrecks," Hoerger said, describing how the oldest was hyperactive and sickly and the youngest was lethargic, extremely overweight and could barely walk.
She learned the drug cocktails were highly toxic and mostly untested in children after listening to a speech by Dr. Philip Incao, of Denver, who travels across the country questioning current HIV medical practices.
She decided to wean them off the drugs with Incao's help.
That's when the brow-beating began. The Administration for Children's Services, which has admitted to allowing researchers to conduct medical experiments on HIV-infected children, and the Catholic Home Bureau, the adoption arm of the Archdiocese of New York, became the doctors' enforcers.
When Hoerger refused to relent, social workers came and took the girls away.
ACS refused to comment about the case, citing the privacy of the two sisters.
"I gave my blood, sweat and tears to help these children, and we turned them into real kids," said Hoerger, who cared for the girls with her husband, a schoolteacher. "They were just taken away - two healthy kids - taken away.
"I spent a couple of days in total shock," said Hoerger, who despite her run-in the ACS maintains her license as a nurse. "I didn't do anything for two days - I was in total, complete shock."
That was in 2000. She hasn't seen the kids since.
Black Nationalism Rocks the Nerves of Certain Black People
Written by A. Peter Bailey
When reading the near maniacal reactions by commentators such as Juan Williams, Stanley Crouch and their equally terrified cohorts in journalistic, academic and cultural circles on even the slightest expression of Black Nationalism, I remember a column I wrote 22 years ago on the “Need for Black Nationalism.” Excerpts are as follows
If there is one thing that most whites, whether left, right or center, agree upon it is that any manifestation of nationalist sentiment by Black people is to be bitterly opposed. The unrelenting opposition of most Whites to Black Nationalism should signal to Black folks that it may very well be the key to our gaining control of our communities and its resources. Unfortunately, too many Black folks, especially those in positions of influence, refuse to even consider nationalism as a possible instrument for empowering our people.
Their evasion was examined by Harold Cruse in his compelling, provocative book, Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. Cruise wrote that “…These fears of nationalism are what gives the lie to the claims of the integrationists that they are confronting the realities of racial discrimination. Racial integration that evades a confrontation of nationalism confronts nothing at all because it deals with neither Black Nationalism, White Anglo-Saxon Nationalism nor Jewish Nationalism and their various implications…” Perhaps the most cogent definition of nationalism was made by the late Malcolm X who said that “The political philosophy of Black Nationalism is that which is designed to encourage our people to gain complete contron over the politics and the politicians of our community. Our economic philosophy is that we should gain economic control over the economics of our own community, the businesses and the other things which create employment so that we can provide jobs for our own people instead of having to picket and boycott and beg someone else for a job. Our social philosophy means that we believe that it is time to get together among our own kind and eliminate the evils that are destroying the moral fiber of our society. These include drug addiction, drunkenness, adultery that leads to an abundance of bastard children, welfare problems. We believe that we should lift the level of the standard of our own society to a higher level wherein we will be satisfied and then not be inclined towards pushing ourselves into societies where we are not wanted.”
A nationalistic philosophy is not, as some critics insist, one that leads to Black isolation. We recognize the crucial importance of interacting with and forming alliances with other groups. We insist, however, that such alliances can only be productive if we are as skilled, powerful and totally committed to our group’s interests as our potential coalition partners are to theirs. The nationalist rejects the whole ‘woe is us’ syndrome when speaking about our people. We believe that any group which has survived the persistent physical and psychological brutality that has been inflicted on us in this country, is composed of strong, resilient and resourceful individuals. As nationalists, when we sit down to negotiate with other groups, we are not burdened with any of the psychological hang-ups that plague too many of our people. It is for sure that our adversaries will be represented by people with nationalistic feelings about their own groups.
xA nationalist-oriented Black community will be a political, economic and social asset to all income levels within our community. For instance, huge numbers of Black folks currently utilize the services of White professionally, White tradespersons, white cultural institutions and white businesses. Would it not be beneficial to the total Black community if we, operating under a philosophy of economic nationalism, switched these allegiances to their Black counterparts? It is idiotic, if not suicidal, for us to be anti-nationalist when most every group that we deal with regularly practices political, economic and social nationalism.
To do this effectively and successfully, Cruse wrote, we need “a collective leadership, a guiding committee of political, economic and cultural experts to take on an agreed upon set of social goals…” In other words the true believers need to gather together and begin to develop and implement programs, no matter how small, which are well-grounded in the nationalist philosophy.
It is amazing that Black Nationalism, considering how few Black people practice it, elicits so much teeth-nashing outrage from Juan, Stanley and their colleagues. My next column will include some observations by Martin Luther King, Jr. that may also rock their nerves.
Journalist/Lecturer A. Peter Bailey, a former president of the New York Association of Black Journalist, can be reached
Source: http://www.blackballot.com
Low Income People Caused the Global Economic Meltdown
Written by Sid Davis
Republicans were rebuked by the electorate on November 4th, but we can still see them out there in the woods, huddled around a fire, making plans to storm Castle Potomac again. Although their coded racist attacks failed to vanquish Barack Obama, they have successfully used the technique for decades, and they aren’t about to abandon it now—even immediately post-election. And in fact, while we’ve been busy congratulating ourselves on Obama’s upcoming presidency, a shiny new reconfiguration of the same old coded Republican racism has already been unveiled by hacks like Rush Limbaugh, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, and a rabid bat swarm of noxious rightwing bloggers.
The title of this article already revealed the climactic punchline of the new right wing routine, now here’s how the slippery set-up goes: Government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created to make home ownership possible for low income Americans. They were once responsible in handling this chore, but in the last ten years, they were pressured by liberal groups into lending billions of dollars to people unable to responsibly manage debt. When those low-income borrowers defaulted on the loans , the financial shockwave brought on the mortgage crisis, which in turn triggered all the other crises rocking the globe. Got that? Now for the secret code that puts the new attack in perspective, go back to the header of this article, and substitute “black” for “low-income”.
, the financial shockwave brought on the mortgage crisis, which in turn triggered all the other crises rocking the globe. Got that? Now for the secret code that puts the new attack in perspective, go back to the header of this article, and substitute “black” for “low-income”.
Of course, you and I know that most sub-prime borrowers were white, but that fact has been conveniently glossed over. When it comes to matters of economics, everyday Americans subscribe to the one-drop theory—if there’s one black person involved, it’s a black problem. This belief has served Republicans well when attacking welfare and other programs. Like those attacks, this one is built around such tortured logic that you need M.C. Escher to deconstruct it, but I’ll see if I can do it in just a few paragraphs. First, let’s hear from economist PaulKrugman, of the New York Times, who wrote in a recent editorial: “…it’s
now clear that the phony account of the crisis—that it’s all due to Fannie, Freddie, and nasty liberals forcing poor Angelo Mozilo to make loans to Those People—is setting in as Republican orthodoxy, part of what you have to believe to be a respectable member of the party.”I quoted Krugman because he is one of the most esteemed economists in the world. He won a Nobel Prize back in October, and has published quite a few articles on race in America as it relates to economics. If he says this is happening, then it is. So that takes care of anyone out there who might suggest Republicans are making no such attack, and I’ve succumbed to paranoia. Republicans are indeed making a coordinated attack, trying for what must be the ten thousandth time to achieve strategic goals while simultaneously sticking it to black folks politically. Now that we’ve settled that, let’s deal with the substance—or lack thereof—in their claims about Freddie and Fannie.
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae did own some sub-prime mortgages, and made up a substantial part of the market when that market was a fraction the size it eventually became. However, the companies targeted the lowest risk consumers, and were actually withdrawing from the sub-prime market during the height of the housing bubble. The vast majority of sub-prime loans came from the private sector, and it was the private sector that inflated the bubble to stratospheric proportions by disproportionately lending to uncreditworthy candidates, sometimes offering zero-down, zero-collateral loans that were scheduled to reset at higher rates down the line. By 2006, about 85% of sub-prime mortgages were issued by private institutions. By then Freddie and Fannie had decided to put on the brakes. Freddie Mac announced in February of 2007 that it would buy sub-prime adjustable rate mortgages only if the borrower qualified for the maximum rate of the loan.
did own some sub-prime , and made up a substantial part of the market when that market was a fraction the size it eventually became. However, the companies targeted the lowest risk consumers, and were actually withdrawing from the sub-prime market during the height of the housing bubble. The vast majority of sub-prime loans came from the private sector, and it was the private sector that inflated the bubble to stratospheric proportions by disproportionately lending to uncreditworthy candidates, sometimes offering zero-down, zero-collateral loans that were scheduled to reset at higher rates down the line. By 2006, about 85% of sub-prime mortgages were issued by private institutions. By then Freddie and Fannie had decided to put on the brakes. Freddie Mac announced in February of 2007 that it would buy sub-prime only if the borrower qualified for the maximum rate of the loan.
So there’s no doubt—at least among the rational—that the fault for the mortgage implosion lies mainly with the private sector. They are the ones who got drunk on easy profit and didn’t know when to stop. How could they have gotten so out of control? Deregulation played a major role. Who are the champions of deregulation? Why, our friends the Republicans, still out there in the woods plotting their assault. While it’s true that a Democratic House stood idly by, and William Jefferson Clinton aided and abetted the crime before and after the fact, deregulation is a rightwing rubric that has been pushed by neo-liberal economists for the last thirty years.
It’s important to note—both political parties are surrounded by neo-liberal advisors, who have metastasized like cancer among Washington legislators. But it is Republicans who championed the deregulation that made sub-prime loans an intensely profitable option for Wall Street. Freed from oversight, the bankers were able to target any consumers they wished, and that’s exactly what they did. Republicans insinuate that the private sector was duped, that they heard a liberal siren song of universal home ownership that proved irresistible. But in the reality-based world, where the rest of us live, a business deal has two sides, and while financial institutions are inherently sophisticated, many consumers are not. The unsophisticated cannot trick the sophisticated into bad mortgage partnerships, nor can pressure groups force businesses to take risks. Private lenders saw an avenue for obscene profits and willingly marched ahead. Those are the facts, and pretzel logic won’t change them.
This brings us neatly to the most important part of this discussion—the idea of deregulation, which has been popularized over the last thirty years by the aforementioned neo-liberals. Has anyone else noticed how elitist this belief is? In every sector of society there are rules, accompanied by bodies that enforce the rules, yet in the realm of business there are to be no constraints save those that occur via the invisible hand of the market. The invisible hand, proponents claim, is law enough, because the men who live in the economic ether are a higher echelon of being who are immune to base instincts and act only in accordance with Newtonian laws of market equilibrium. Now, if I may say so without sounding too polemical, this is a giant crock of horseshit. If New York City were this mythical market, there would be no law against armed robbery because thieves would understand that robbing too many people would eventually leave them with no source of income. I can safely speak for everyone by saying we don’t want to try that experiment in lawlessness, even though a single armed robbery can harm at most only a few individuals at once. So in that case, why do we tolerate lawlessness in business, where a single bad deal can harm millions? If you can explain this to me, I’d absolutely love to hear it. Meanwhile, I’ll tell you what I think the answer is.
Going all the way back to the ancient code of Hammurabi, laws have been the most important factor in the advance and survival of civilization. Yet the majestic white men on their economic Olympus, who we peasants can see quite clearly have the morals of greasy-haired goateed meth dealers, claim not to need laws. In that way the neo-liberal model is not just elitist—it is racist. Neo-liberalism is a pseudo-philosophy cooked up by greedy, wannabe aristocrats to trick citizens—all citizens, whether green, white, black, latino, native American or Asian—into allowing rich white men to live above the law. That’s the answer.
While there are a few women, and a few blacks, and lately a lot of Chinese and Arabs, who have gained admittance to the game, neo-liberal philosophy was conceived and etched in stone at a time when the big teak table atop Mount Finance contained only white men. Neo-liberalism is a form of coded elitism, yin to the yang of coded racism. In a desperate effort to stop poor and middle class Americans from looking behind the Wizard’s curtain and questioning the merits of our economic system, the neo-liberal right has launched a divide-and-conquer offensive in hopes that non-black Americans will retreat into the comfortable and familiar bosom of racist blame. The sheer breadth of this assault is astounding.
In four years, when Obama runs for re-election during what the neo-liberal Republicans hope will be a prolonged economic malaise, the plan is for this narrative to be front and center, just like that mythical welfare queen, and that infamous invocation of Willie Horton, and that still-fresh insinuation that Obama is a secret terrorist. The spook in the closet this time is “poor and undisciplined consumers who tried to live beyond their means”, but the game is the same and the name hasn’t changed and the color is the one you find in the last corner of your Crayola box. I guess we’ll just have to see if Americans have caught on.
Source: http://www.blackballot.com
did own some sub-prime mortgages, and made up a substantial part of the market when that market was a fraction the size it eventually became. However, the companies targeted the lowest risk consumers, and were actually withdrawing from the sub-prime market during the height of the housing bubble. The vast majority of sub-prime loans came from the private sector, and it was the private sector that inflated the bubble to stratospheric proportions by disproportionately lending to uncreditworthy candidates, sometimes offering zero-down, zero-collateral loans that were scheduled to reset at higher rates down the line. By 2006, about 85% of sub-prime mortgages were issued by private institutions. By then Freddie and Fannie had decided to put on the brakes. Freddie Mac announced in February of 2007 that it would buy sub-prime adjustable rate mortgages only if the borrower qualified for the maximum rate of the loan.
did own some sub-prime , and made up a substantial part of the market when that market was a fraction the size it eventually became. However, the companies targeted the lowest risk consumers, and were actually withdrawing from the sub-prime market during the height of the housing bubble. The vast majority of sub-prime loans came from the private sector, and it was the private sector that inflated the bubble to stratospheric proportions by disproportionately lending to uncreditworthy candidates, sometimes offering zero-down, zero-collateral loans that were scheduled to reset at higher rates down the line. By 2006, about 85% of sub-prime mortgages were issued by private institutions. By then Freddie and Fannie had decided to put on the brakes. Freddie Mac announced in February of 2007 that it would buy sub-prime only if the borrower qualified for the maximum rate of the loan.THE PRIVATIZATION OF WAR
By Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.
Tribune Media Services http://www.blackballot.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73:the-privatization-of-war&catid=55:international-politcs&Itemid=114
They guard U.S. officials. They patrol the Green Zone, the U.S. headquarters in Iraq. They supply the food, the oil, clean the barracks and fix the machines. They arent U.S. soldiers they are private contractors. The Bush administration has privatized war. The second biggest army in Iraq consists of armed security forces supplied by private contractors.
They act above the law and with unclear lines of authority. They work abroad, so they are largely beyond the reach of U.S. law. On contract from the U.S. government, they are beyond the reach of Iraqi law, as established in an order issued by the U.S. Authority there before turning power over to the Iraqi government. When the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandals were revealed, private security forces and interrogators were at the center of it. But none was held accountable under law.
It isn't only the U.S. that privatizes war the British have followed suit, as well. The British charity, War on Want, reported last year that there are three British private security guards to every British soldier in Iraq.
Congressional investigators are about to unearth massive abuses and corruption in Iraq, but the mercenaries operate across the world. In 1998, for example, DynCorp security agents in Bosnia were implicated in a highly publicized sex slave scandal. The firm quickly recalled at least 13 agents from the country none faced criminal prosecution.
The modern day mercenaries also operate largely free of government scrutiny or oversight. Their contracts and their activities are shrouded in secrecy. Companies, unlike government agencies, are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act and often stonewall congressional inquiry. Members of Congress have sought thus far without success to get an explanation of the contracts that Blackwater USA security officers have in Iraq.
Under George Bush, the use of private contractors generally has doubled to about 400 billion a year in 2006, as the administration is driven by a philosophy that would privatize everything it can. Finally, with Democrats reviving congressional oversight, questions are being asked.
Private contractors claim to provide savings and efficiency because of the benefits of competition. In fact, the GAO now suggests, in most areas, the contractors have little competition. Sole source, no bid contracts are the rule, not the exception. And the contractors as we saw in the bribing of Rep. Duke Cunningham and the other scandals of the DeLay Congress spend millions wining, dining and rewarding the legislators who provide them with their immensely profitable contracts. Instead of saving money, taxpayers are likely getting fleeced.
The top 20 service contractors, according to The New York Times, have spent nearly 300 million since 2000 on lobbying and have donated some 23 million to political campaigns.
The whole thing gets incestuous. The New York Times reports that in June, the General Services Administration, short of employees to review cases of incompetence and fraud by federal contractors, actually hired a private contractor to do the investigation. And the contractor CACI International had itself barely avoided suspension from federal contracting for its role in Abu Ghraibs crimes. For the GSA, CACI supplied six people at 104 an hour over 200,000 per person annually.
These private armies now may themselves become a problem. The Guardian reports on a bizarre plot in Equatorial Guinea, where 67 foreign mercenaries were arrested in what may have been a foiled attempt to overthrow the dictator of that oil rich nation. And former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide charged that the private guards who were supposed to be defending him instead abandoned him under orders from the U.S. government when he was overthrown.
If privatization doesnt produce savings and offers such scope for abuse, why has it continued to grow Part of the reason is simply the animus for government by modern day conservatives. Part of it is political grandstanding. President Clinton, for example, boasted that he had cut the size of the federal bureaucracy even as those cuts were feeding a cancerous growth of contracting out vital services. The problem now is that the government lacks the capacity to control its contractors and has begun contracting out that oversight. The result, too often, is costly waste. But when the government is creating private armies, often beyond the reach of war, the perils are far greater.
The Congress has begun a great debate about our policy in Iraq. But it is vital that they investigateas Sen. Joe Biden and Rep. Henry Waxman have promised the privatization of war. This must be brought under control before the Congress finds itself like the Roman Senate at the end of the Roman Republic faced with mercenary armies that are out of control.
Source:http://www.blackballot.com
What happened to freedom?
by Jamal Hart
Jamal Hart
“Known worldwide as an almost mythical birthplace of liberty, the hope and freedom acted as a kind of psychic magnet, drawing the poor and oppressed from the class-bound aristocracies of Europe in rivers of emigration as well as Black captives escaping from Southern bondage and Black freedmen and women fleeing a humiliating and soul-sapping Southern apartheid. The Philadelphia that the stalwart Frederick Douglass beheld with snarled contempt would more than double in size in half a century, rising from 650,000 people in 1860 to 1.5 million by 1914.” - “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, quoted from “We Want Freedom” by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Firstly, I would like to take this time to request a moment of silence for all of our fallen heroes and sheroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom against the oppression of innocent people by this wicked injustice system.
I humbly would like to thank each and every one of you who came out in support of this year’s Class-War Prisoners event. Your solidarity is greatly respected. I give the greeting in many tongues to everyone in attendance by saying “As-Salaam-Alaikum,” “Hotep,” “Ona MOVE” and “Greetings” to the masses who sacrificed their time to attend this important event. You have been chosen to become informed, abreast and in tune with a constant struggle that connects us all. I thank the Partisan Defense Committee for their massive support and love over the years throughout this atrocious ordeal. I stand in total solidarity with the labor force and with all people who take a stand against injustice and oppression.
I want you all to know that I have been constantly pushing for liberation quite vigorously and many of you inspire me to push harder and remember the words of a great freedom fighter, Sis. Harriet Tubman, who said: “I started with this idea in my head. There’s two things I have a right to: death or liberty,” quoted from the book “We Want Freedom” by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
From the beginning, as many of you know all too well, we are fighting for Mumia Abu-Jamal to be exonerated to freedom. We the people here today and abroad will not compromise in the liberation and freedom of him from behind enemy lines. The supporters constantly expressed this urgent message: FREEDOM OVER A NEW TRIAL!
So many times we have witnessed the vile injustice orchestrated in those so-called rooms of justice - aka the courtrooms. Too many have been unjustly persecuted and railroaded either because of the color of their skin, their poverty or even a combination of both. God forbid they publicly oppose this outright oppression! They will be prosecuted, ridiculed and even have their character defamed to a demoralized state by this mendacious legal system.
By you being here today either to support this movement or join it for the first time, you are showing your awareness and solidarity to expose and demolish the unsavory racist courts, the police state and racist Death Penalty Act that feeds off the working poor. We must collaborate and fight to achieve the one goal to free Mumia and all of our freedom fighters, including myself, from behind enemy lines.
The senseless murders at the hands of these racist rogue law enforcement officers nationwide are robbing the lives of our youth, women and men to feed their taste for blood like vampires. We cannot allow these injustices to go unchecked and accept their lies, thereby causing their behavior to be justified.
The courts, from the lower level to the Supreme Court, want to act as if they cannot see that Mumia Abu Jamal is innocent. All of the evidence is clear and convincing and it is either overlooked or dismissed by these rogue courts. However, when a rogue police officer opens fire on innocent working class people and immigrants, somehow they get swift justice and are freed of all charges.
As a man who didn’t think twice to become the voice of the voiceless, Mumia stepped up to the plate to expose this demonic system - a system that was and still continues to enforce intense oppression on African Americans throughout this nation by murderous police officers who hide their venomous ways behind their shields. It then allows them to freely practice corruption, extortion and murder, among other unpleasantries.
A prime example of this is what happened on Osage Avenue on May 13, 1985, when 11 MOVE members were brutally murdered by this murderous government. Another example is the attempted assassination of my dear father Mumia on Dec. 9, 1981, in downtown Philly when these rogue police officers not only shot him, but beat him even while inside the emergency room of Jefferson University Hospital. WHAT HAPPENED TO FREEDOM?
Comrades, the only way we will get freedom for our political prisoners who are suffering in the prison hells of this country is to come together, becoming a solid force for the poor and working class. We must reach one to teach one and educate the masses on the political history of America’s oppression.
Many of you assisted in changing history in America by voting for the first African-American president, showing the world that anything is possible in America. As that was an accomplishment, so should the goal of galvanizing the people and educating them on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal and too many more being railroaded by a mendacious legal system.
Comrades, we all know that these are trying times. We must step up to the plate and push harder until my dear father Mumia is ultimately free! At some point we need to get a grip and demand the freedom of this innocent man.
Lastly, I remind all of you as I remind myself every day that we must not allow our adversaries to wag the tail of the dog and allow them to spoon-feed us with their deceiving lie that America does not have any political prisoners.
I am before you today in spirit to express to you that the only way Mumia will be free is for all of us to mobilize like never before and demand that freedom he and all of our freedom fighters so rightfully deserve. We must let them know that we will never give up! There is NO compromise!
FREE MUMIA NOW!
This address was read at the Partisan Defense Committee’s Holiday Appeal held on Dec. 13 in New York City. Jamal has been incarcerated since 1996. Please write to show a brother some love at the following address: Jamal Hart #50597-066, FCI Loretto, P.O. Box 1000, Loretto, PA 15940-1000.
Source: http://www.sfbayview.com
Nevada is killing prison organizers with the ‘kindness’ of medical abuse and neglect
by Mary Ratcliff
Nevada State Prison in Carson City, Marritte Funches’ current address, dates back to at least 1863, when the first execution, a public hanging, took place there and the first inmate files, which are now available online, were kept.
http://www.sfbayview.com/2008/nevada-is-killing-prison-organizers-with-the-%e2%80%98kindness%e2%80%99-of-medical-abuse-and-neglect/
“I am writing to tell you that my daughter’s father, who is on the tier with Marritte, says that Marritte is in a lot of pain from probable kidney failure and all they are giving him for pain is aspirin!” This chilling message came by email from an activist in Nevada, who added, “I know this is not uncommon for Nevada, but still it is really horrible.”
Earlier, she had written: “I hope that Marritte gets health care. What they are doing there is nothing short of torture.” With medical abuse and neglect making headlines in California, neighboring Nevada seems to be competing for the “prize” of “Worst U.S. Prison Medical System.”
Nevada prisoner, organizer and teacher Marritte Funches, who for many years has used the Bay View newspaper to educate and encourage other prisoners, is in danger of dying of kidney failure due to medical abuse and neglect that appears to be deliberate and retaliatory. According to the ACLU Prison Project, health care in Nevada prisons is as bad as it gets nationwide. It’s so bad, Marritte says, that Nevada prisoners have “killed themselves and elected to accept lethal injection rather than continue to suffer the horrendous medical care.”
The Nevada activist, Natalie Smith Parra, wrote a little about her family’s experience: “My daughter’s dad has horrible health issues. He has a lawsuit in federal court, but even with that, things are deteriorating. I would love to somehow draw massive attention to the abuses going on in that system. It is just so bad. …
“My daughter had 200 postcards signed at CR10 (the large September conference in Oakland marking the 10th anniversary of Critical Resistance, a leader in the prison abolition movement) and sent them all to (Nevada Director of Prisons Howard) Skolnik, demanding that they give her father his PRESCRIBED walker. They haven’t given it to him. It just goes on and on. It really puts a whole new spin on ‘crime.’”
Four days after Natalie sent that email, Marritte wrote this letter to the Bay View:
“Today at approximately 3:20 p.m. the pigs viciously assaulted a fellow convict, Rickey Egberto, #20632, who was defenseless, as he was fully restrained in handcuffs and shackles when they attacked him. This is the same Indian brother whose family contacted you on my behalf.
“I found out after speaking with you last that I obviously look worse than I thought. Mr. Egberto had expressed his concerns for me to his family because I look like I’m on my last legs.
“OK, so I witnessed everything that went down, but I can’t detail it here. I’m writing because they beat him pretty bad. This is an old man in his mid-50s. And the last thing I heard as they were taking him away was him yelling that he couldn’t breathe and that his leg had been broken.
“I’m hoping you have his family’s contact info. They need to call the prison and come out here immediately.
“Please tell them that I am sorry I wasn’t able to get those pigs - four or five of them - off him. I’m locked in my cell and there was nothing I could do but yell and make sure they knew I was watching.
“Tell them I said there will be retribution for the righteous. The pigs will not get away with this.
“I don’t know if Mr. Egberto is OK or not. No one will tell me shit. The pigs took his phone privileges, and they’re tearing up all of his property now.
Natalie wrote when I relayed Marritte’s letter to her by email: “Yes, they definitely have it in for Rickey. He has been a fighter his whole life and he will never give up. I suppose that is the way he will die one day, and in his opinion, there are worse ways to go.”
What you can do right now
If you’ve heard enough already to want to take action, both Corrections Director Howard Skolnik and Medical Director Dr. Bruce Bannister can be reached at the Nevada Department of Corrections, P.O. Box 7011, Carson City, NV 89702, (775) 887-3216, fax (775) 887-3253. Please call or write them today. They have responded before to pressure to do the right thing, and they will again.
Contact Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons at 101 North Carson St., Carson City, NV 89701, (775) 684-5670, fax (775) 684-7198, too. Natalie advises us to contact the governor as well as prison officials, noting, “Skolnik doesn’t like it when anyone goes over his head.” She adds, “I think the more transparent these gulags become, the better it is for the inmates.”
Marritte visits the doctor
Marritte Funches
“On Oct. 24, I finally saw the doctor,” Marritte writes. After dozens of calls to prison officials from activists, he’d been moved Oct. 2 to Nevada State Prison in Carson City to see the prison system’s only kidney specialist. Naima Black, head of the American Friends Service Committee’s Stopmax Project, had been told by Medical Director Dr. Bannister’s office that Marritte was scheduled for an appointment on Oct. 10.
Two weeks later, he and the doctor finally met. “But the whole situation was not ideal, to say the least,” Marritte notes. “In fact, I am somewhat suspicious, but I will withhold judgment until I see what happens next.
“The day started when I was awakened by a tidal wave of raw sewage water coming under my door. Myself and several others fought this foul smelling wave of toxic waste for several hours before the guards got someone out to fix the problem.
“The goon squad showed up with no notice to take me to the doctor. I was then strip searched and chained head to toe - chains on my ankles, wrists and around my waist, with a black box covering the handcuffs. As we were leaving, the sewage pipes burst and another wave of raw sewage was headed towards my cell.
“I was taken outside and placed into a van. Two armed guards rode with me in the van while two more followed in a chase car behind us. They took me to Regional Medical Facility, located inside of another prison about a quarter mile from this one, called Northern Nevada Correctional Center.
“Once inside RMF, we were directed to a tiny examination room, which was filthy. … The garbage was overflowing with old puss- and blood-stained bandages etc. We were the first to use the room that day, so this filth had been there who knows how long. We waited there one and a half hours, me sitting on the examination chair and four goons surrounding me.
“When the doctor came, he immediately stated he had to leave for an emergency, so we had to hurry. I was unable to even go over all of my symptoms. So the doctor, whose name is Nixon … takes about one and a half minutes to do the examination. He tells me he didn’t see any obstructions, but there was something wrong with my bladder. …
“I asked on the way out, as they were rushing me out of there, ‘Can this cause kidney pain?’ The doctor said, ‘No,’ which automatically rang a bell in my head that he’s only looking at the symptom, not the cause. I told him I had severe kidney pain, so he ordered a medication for my bladder. …
“My concern is that Dr. Nixon has not set up a follow-up exam and has not fully grasped the problem. Whatever he found wrong with my bladder is only a symptom, not the cause.”
“Albeit I saw the kidney doctor under some pretty barbaric circumstances, he did find something wrong and ordered medications along with further testing,” Marritte wrote Nov. 1, “but once back here at NSP, I’ve been dealing with a bunch of drama over the medical staff attempting to give me different meds than what Dr. Nixon prescribed.
“For example, he ordered meds for my pain, but these people tried to give me a psychotropic instead. This is what they do with everyone. Back pain, can’t sleep, scrape your knee - they pass out psych drugs, especially Elevil, like candy. But even in small doses, psychotropic drugs can alter a person’s brain chemistry.
“One of the med staff here, Nurse Janice, tried to threaten and intimidate me into taking the drug. I demanded to speak to the doctor. Instead I was given some extra strength Tylenol. I also found out the med staff here intercepted the letter I wrote to Dr. Nixon detailing the symptoms I’ve been suffering from.
“Then just this afternoon this same Nurse Janice tried to poison me. When she brought my meds, I noticed something wasn’t right. Just as I was about to take the pill she gave me, I looked at it and it was not the same pill I’d been taking. Turns out it was a very powerful psych drug that would’ve left me a vegetable for the next few days. And when I caught it, the nurse just gave me an evil grin. The COs (correctional officers) tried to laugh it off. …
“I’ve kept my cool thus far, but I don’t see this turning out well. I need a lawyer. This type of madness can’t keep going on. A statement has to be made.
“These people have got to know someone is watching, and they will not be allowed to continue killing people, torturing and denying medical care etc. I am only here now under threat and (because of their) fear of exposure. And they’re still playing games with my life.”
Young people have decided there will be a new legacy
On Nov. 5, the day after the election, Marritte wrote: “I’m wondering what Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, Young Emmett Till, Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Sundiata Acoli, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Afeni Shakur, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur - Assata Shakur, man, maybe we can bring our sista back home now and get some pardons for some of these other brothas and sistas - I’m wondering what they all must be thinking.
“I gotta confess I’m writing this to you now with a great deal of emotion. I was born in 1971, part of the generation thrown into the lurch as our leaders were murdered, bought off and buried inside these prisons across the country, when the Civil Rights Era was in its death throes. …
“Today I am humbled. Young people have decided there will be a new legacy, and I am hopeful. I sit here an innocent man imprisoned by a corrupt judicial system and slated to die in this cold cell.
“But I am hopeful for my 19-year-old daughter, who voted for the first time, for the future and the promise of America. And I can continue my work educating and organizing programs for the young people here in these prisons, with that hope firm in my heart.
“And now we - all of you out there, friends and family of us in these dungeons - we gotta get to work. Obama will now be choosing a new attorney general and possibly two or three Supreme Court judges. We’ve gotta make sure he makes these decisions with us in mind.
“We’ve gotta make sure he appoints a delegation to address the inherent flaws and discrepancies in our judicial and prison system. We know there isn’t going to be much money from the government for the things we want, but it will not cost a dime to get rid of these directors of prisons and medical directors who enable the current expansionist warehouse mentality of our prisons.”
My father was gunned down by the SFPD
“Many of us in these pens don’t have any family or friends on the outside to encourage or keep them thinking positive,” Marritte writes. “The few that I had are all either dead, strung out or caged in a cell the same as me.
“My father was gunned down by the SFPD before I could even talk to tell him how much I loved him. Maybe that’s why I never did like pork, and my mother always told me I never could stand a kkkop.
“She passed away after my first years in prison. It was not until the Bay View came along that I felt there was someone out there who cared about us in these pens, about me. Its insightful words challenging me to be more active in the struggle, the Bay View helped me to see, even though I had no working concept of politics before coming to prison, indeed I am a political prisoner.
“When I first came to prison my heart was filled with anger and confusion, as it was obviously my race, not the evidence that was the determining factor in my wrongful conviction: falsely accused by a white man who was actually the original suspect, prosecuted by a white man who freely violated the law to manufacture false evidence against me, judged by a white man who actually wore a gold hangman’s noose on a chain around his neck, and convicted by an all-white jury. Even the gallery was filled with an all-white audience. The public pretender/ defender who dumped me was a white man too.
“Born and raised in San Francisco, I never knew or thought much about racism. But that whole experience gave me a sense of what it must’ve been like to be the star of one of those good ol’ boy picnics Down South back in the ‘40s and ‘50s. …
“When I first came to the pen, I only knew my life had been taken away for something I didn’t do. And just as the kkkops had taken my father from me, they were now taking me from my baby daughter.
“I was surrounded by sadists employed by the state and allowed to abuse their positions with impunity. And they took pride and pleasure in making my life as miserable as they could. Really it was just an extension of my county jail experience, where I was constantly harassed, beaten and tortured by being strapped naked to a board for eight to 12 hours at a time. They called it behavior modification, my punishment for fighting back when they’d rush into my cell eight people deep to beat me.
“And being raised in the streets of San Francisco, I was taught to never bite my tongue or run from adversity. So I stood alone and never asked for help to fight my battles.”
Nevada is a very sick system
“I will not stop teaching these young brothas the truth,” Marritte writes, “who their true teachers and s/heroes are that shed blood and died for us. I will never stop encouraging them to educate and organize themselves to be strong leaders and protectors of their communities.
“These are the reasons the prisoncrats are willing to let me die rather than give me the medical care I need. They know you can’t see the dark circles under my eyes or how much pain I’m in every day. So they use my will to live and unwillingness to show weakness as a weapon against me. ‘He’s not dead or bleeding, he still looks strong, (so) he must be OK.’ They know the general public will not take my word over theirs.”
According to Natalie: “Nevada is a very sick system, even sicker than most, from what I’ve seen. I would love to organize a protest in Las Vegas, one that upsets the tourist industry, by exposing people to the truth of what is going on there, including telling people about Patrick Cavanaugh, a diabetic who was left to rot to death from diabetic gangrene (oh, but he didn’t want any medication) and other examples of extreme medical abuse. The tourist industry seems to be the only thing that state cares about.”
Marritte needs a lawyer!
Before Marritte rots to death, please help find him a lawyer. “I don’t necessarily need a lawyer licensed in Nevada,” he writes. “This will likely be a federal suit, meaning any attorney skilled in civil law will be able to take the case. And at the very least we can find a good attorney who will do the work for me to file in my name as a pro per litigant. So they’d do the work and I’d just file the papers. I am counting on you to help me find someone.”
If you can help, please write right away to Marritte Funches, #37050, P.O. Box 607, Carson City NV 89702. Or you can contact the Bay View: Call (415) 671-0789, email editor@sfbayview.com or write SF Bay View, 4917 Third St., San Francisco CA 94124. Recommendations from other prisoners or their loved ones are most welcome.
Email Bay View editor Mary Ratcliff at editor@sfbayview.com.
Source: http://www.sfbayview.com
COINTELPRO plot against ‘Omaha 2’ included a cadre of top FBI officials
by Michael Richardson
Mondo we Langa
Ed Poindexter
http://www.sfbayview.com/2008/cointelpro-plot-against-%e2%80%98omaha-2%e2%80%99-included-a-cadre-of-top-fbi-officials/
In Omaha, Nebraska, the leaders of a Black Panther group, Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice), were the targets of a clandestine operation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation code-named COINTELPRO. J. Edgar Hoover, then FBI director, had ordered the massive but secret operation against the Panthers and other domestic political organizations and individuals. Hoover’s goal was to “disrupt” the Black Panthers out of existence by targeting its leadership for elimination, prosecution and a host of dirty tricks.
The Aug. 17, 1970, bombing murder of Omaha policeman Larry Minard provided Hoover and his operatives with the opportunity to put the “Omaha 2″ behind bars by charging them with the crime. Officer Minard had been lured to a vacant house by an anonymous phone call about a woman screaming; however, a tape recording of the killer’s voice on the emergency call system was an obstacle to the prosecution of the two Panther leaders.
A month after FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered the lab report withheld (above), he wrote in another extremely candid memo: “Purpose of counterintelligence action is to disrupt BPP [Black Panther Party] and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge.”
A plan was quickly hatched in Omaha to send the tape recording to the FBI Crime Laboratory for vocal analysis. But even before Minard’s mangled body was buried, J. Edgar Hoover had issued an order to the crime lab director, Ivan Willard Conrad, to withhold a formal lab report on the tape. Conrad spoke to Hoover on the phone on Aug. 19 about the unusual order to derail the investigation, noting on his copy of the COINTELPRO memorandum that Hoover said it was “OK to do.”
Conrad followed orders and the tape was withheld from defense attorneys and never heard by jurors who convicted Poindexter and Langa in April 1971. At the time of the trial, COINTELPRO was unknown to most Americans and never mentioned at the trial. Jurors were unaware of the duplicity and intervention of the FBI director in the case.
Years after the killing, Mondo we Langa obtained portions of his FBI file under a Freedom of Information lawsuit. In a heavily redacted COINTELPRO memo, the plot to withhold the vocal analysis of the tape was revealed. Assistant Chief of Police Glen W. Gates was the police command officer working with the Omaha FBI office to thwart the investigation into the identity of Minard’s killer, betraying his murdered fellow officer to make a case against the two activists.
But there were other conspirators in the COINTELPRO plot and some of the highest officials at the FBI were on the distribution list of the damning memorandum. Receiving copies of the memo from supervisory Special Agent Wayne W. Bradley to Conrad at the FBI Crime Laboratory were John P. Mohr, William Cornelius Sullivan, Charles “Chick” Brennan and John Edward Shimota. Alexander Rosen and George C. Moore were also clued in to the secret operation in a follow-up memo three days later.
Mohr, assistant to the director, was a top boss and the closest of the plotters to Hoover. Mohr took charge of the Bureau in the days following Hoover’s death in 1972 and was tasked with arranging Hoover’s funeral until President Richard Nixon decided Hoover should have a state funeral, where Mohr served as an honorary pallbearer. Mohr, along with Hoover’s personal secretary, Helen Gandy, oversaw the shredding of Hoover’s notorious secret files about which he had lied to Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray while denying their existence.
Mohr, who was forced out of the Bureau within a month of Hoover’s death, eventually became disgraced after his role in the U.S. Recording Co. corruption scandal was revealed. Attorney General Griffin Bell was unable to prosecute Mohr because of a statute of limitations but uncovered Mohr’s extensive use of FBI personnel as his own personal work crew - having them build furniture, repair appliances and upkeep his automobile - and also his acceptance of gifts from companies doing business with the Bureau.
Conrad, the recipient of the confidential COINTELPRO memo, was also later caught in the U.S. Recording Co. investigation taking over $20,000 of expensive electronic equipment for his home use. Conrad too avoided prosecution because of a statute of limitations but had to make partial restitution to the Bureau and returned 29 boxes of electronic equipment.
Sullivan, an assistant director of the Domestic Intelligence Section and later assistant to the director, was the chief architect of COINTELPRO and likely was the point man who monitored developments in Omaha. Sullivan admitted knowledge of the Omaha case in a speech to United Press International reporters in October 1970, his last speech as an FBI official.
Although Sullivan steadfastly denied the existence of COINTELPRO during his tenure at the Bureau, he did tell an interviewer after he left the agency, “I was opposed to Hoover’s discontinuing COINTELPRO.” Sullivan then explained the clandestine chain of command.
“Take COINTELPRO, for instance: It began by the men in the field suggesting new methods and procedures, which were reviewed by supervisors, who in turn bucked memoranda up the line through section chiefs, branch inspectors and so on until it finally got to Mohr and me. We’d look it over and send it to Hoover. All ideas came from the working level, because, hell, you’ve got to understand that the position of people like myself is administrative. We didn’t have any time to sit around thinking up counterintelligence operations.”
Sullivan’s departure from the FBI was not long after the Omaha 2 trial in 1971. Sullivan coveted Hoover’s job and made a bid to oust the director by revealing to an administration official that Hoover had secretly wiretapped Henry Kissinger. Nixon was enraged and demanded the wiretap logs, which Sullivan secreted out of FBI headquarters. When Hoover learned of Sullivan’s disloyalty, he fired Sullivan and changed the locks before any more documents ended up where they didn’t belong.
Brennan was Sullivan’s chief investigator and entrusted with cracking the Pentagon Papers case. Daniel Ellsberg’s secret report on the war in Vietnam was breaking news and Brennan was assigned to find the leak. Brennan inadvertently crossed Hoover by interviewing Ellsberg’s father-in-law after misreading Hoover’s shaky handwriting. Ellsberg’s in-law was a friend of Hoover’s and was to be left alone. Hoover ordered a demotion for Brennan following the snafu, but Sullivan intervened on his behalf setting the stage for Sullivan’s break with Hoover over the Kissinger wiretaps.
Shimota was a special agent assigned to COINTELPRO operations and turned up investigating the American Indian Movement after the Wounded Knee shooting of two FBI agents. By the mid ‘70s, Shimota was working prostitution cases in Fargo, North Dakota, suggesting a fall from grace within the Bureau. In the Fargo case, Shimota was cited for writing the confession of one of the prostitutes.
Rosen was not on the special distribution list of the Aug. 19 memo to Conrad but did receive the follow-up memo putting him in the conspirator’s loop. Rosen was assistant director in charge of the General Intelligence Division and acted as liaison to the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. Rosen was another honorary pallbearer at Hoover’s funeral. In charge of investigating possible accomplices of Lee Harvey Oswald following President Kennedy’s assassination, Rosen made no serious effort, later telling a U.S. Senate committee that investigating Oswald’s associates was only an “ancillary matter.”
Moore, whose signature appears on the Aug. 22 COINTELPRO memo about Larry Minard’s murder, was chief of the Racial Intelligence Section. When asked about the illegality of COINTELPRO actions, he would later tell a U.S. Senate committee, “We never gave it a thought.”
Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, targets of the FBI plot to withhold evidence, were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Both men remain in prison 38 years later at the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary, where they continue to deny any involvement in the crime.
When asked about the illegality of COINTELPRO actions, George C. Moore, chief of the Racial Intelligence Section, would later tell a U.S. Senate committee, ‘We never gave it a thought.’
Poindexter has a new trial request pending before the Nebraska Supreme Court over the withheld evidence and conflicting police testimony. No date for a decision has been announced.
Michael Richardson is a freelance writer based in Boston. Richardson writes about politics, law, nutrition, ethics and music. He is also a political consultant. This story first appeared at OpEd News. Send our brothers some love and light: Mondo we Langa (David Rice), 27768, Nebraska State Penitentiary, P.O. Box 2500, Lincoln, NE 68542-2500; and Ed Poindexter, 27767, 1-A-12, Nebraska State Penitentiary, Box 2500, Lincoln, NE 68542-2500.
Source:http://www.sfbayview.com
Thirty-five years of isolation, introspection and torture
Testimony to the 7th Annual Symposium Against Isolation
by Herman Bell
When imprisoned and placed in an isolation unit, at some point you begin to live inside yourself, assessing and measuring how you are doing against the moment-to-moment, day-to-day challenges that you are confronted by to gauge how well you are getting on. Even though we may spend countless years in prison, little if anything ever changes there. This might sound contradictory: In our minds we can become inured to the harshest conditions as a natural survival instinct; however, in reality, they remain just as agonizing. How we deal with them, process them, interact with them in our mind largely determines the change we perceive around us and inside ourselves.
![San Francisco 8 supporters gather at the Hamilton Rec Center on Sept. 24, 2007, to celebrate the release on bail of six of the eight and to send their love to Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim, who remain behind enemy lines. Herman and Jalil are eligible for parole. The son of the policeman they were wrongly convicted of killing supports their release, saying: “I feel that Herman Bell and Anthony Bottom [Jalil Muntaqim] were both victims as well of a much larger scheme which got them incarcerated to this day ... And to me they have shown great resilience in prison, that their mind is still intact, that their spirit is still eager to do good, and I just pray that the Parole Board will look at the context and the time and send a message to me of healing.”](http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/sf-8-we-love-herman-bell-release-of-6-hamilton-rec-092407.jpg)
San Francisco 8 supporters gather at the Hamilton Rec Center on Sept. 24, 2007, to celebrate the release on bail of six of the eight and to send their love to Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim, who remain behind enemy lines. Herman and Jalil are eligible for parole. The son of the policeman they were wrongly convicted of killing supports their release, saying: “I feel that Herman Bell and Anthony Bottom [Jalil Muntaqim] were both victims as well of a much larger scheme which got them incarcerated to this day ... And to me they have shown great resilience in prison, that their mind is still intact, that their spirit is still eager to do good, and I just pray that the Parole Board will look at the context and the time and send a message to me of healing.”
Isolation bears two recognizable features: One is introspection; the other is torture. It brings out the worst in us and the best in us; regardless, we must somehow still make it through the day. And in the course of that day, and every day, we must fight our demons, real and imagined. The real ones are plain enough to see. They turn the keys. (But not all the turn-keys are bad, just most of them. I like to think that the decent ones were well brought up by their parents and that the bad ones, perhaps, didn’t receive all they thought they should from their parents and others, and therefore will always feel the world owes them something and that meantime they can do whatever they want. Controlling for greed and ideology - how else do we explain the pathology of man’s inhumanity to man?)
Isolation means you are cut off from the rest of the world, save for the occasional life-line that finds its way to you in the form of a visit, a letter and the occasional headline on a discarded newspaper that you might glimpse as you pass it by. Your world is greatly reduced. Fresh air, sunlight, food, keeping your body and clothes clean - the things you once took for granted - take on new importance in your life.
Under these reduced circumstances, you become so sucked into yourself that an hour feels like a day has gone by, a day feels like a week, and a week like a month. You lose a sense of time; you no longer care whether it’s day or night; you hallucinate; you hyperventilate. You know your scene has to change; nothing lasts forever. Your survival instincts keep you holding on. And suddenly the unexpected melodic sound of jangling keys breaks through the cocoon that time and isolation had woven around you. Then you wonder had all that been a dream.
Isolation transposes our reality; physical torture shapes it. Physical torture is a ravening beast that has slipped its bounds from Hell to feast upon the soul of humanity. It’s the Big Bad Wolf threatening the Three Little Pigs. It’s the Boogeyman lurking in the woods we heard so much about, coming to get us. It’s our worst nightmare rattling a locked door, straining mightily to get at us. It’s Abu-Ghraib; it’s Guantanamo; it’s the CIA’s Extraordinary Rendition; it’s the screams of prisoners in U.S. police stations.
Physical torture is a ravening beast that has slipped its bounds from Hell to feast upon the soul of humanity.
It’s the cries of the torn, the battered, the tormented victims of this ravenous beast that rears its ugly head to feast on pried fingernails and electrically charred genitalia, ear lobes and human breasts; chased down with a liter of water-boarding, stress positions, extremes of hot and cold temperatures; and garnished with absolute silence and jarring noise. All done to preserve an antiquated political and economic system that deprives the many of their needs and serves the few in their greed.
Outrage against this social practice should know no bounds; how can we not fight to end it?! Let us send the beast and its minions back to where they belong.
This testimony will be presented at the 7th International Symposium against Isolation to be held in Vienna Dec. 19-22. Black Panther veteran Herman Bell, 59, has been a political prisoner since 1973. He has earned a master’s degree, taught and coached younger prisoners and created the Victory Gardens Project to raise and distribute fresh organic produce in the inner city. Now a member of the San Francisco 8, he is being held in the San Francisco County Jail and can be reached by mail at Herman Bell, 2318931, 850 Bryant St., San Francisco CA 94103. Please support the brothers of the SF 8 by sending a donation. Make checks payable to CDHR/Agape and mail to Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR), P.O. Box 90221, Pasadena, CA 91109, or donate on line at www.freethesf8.org/donate.html. Contact the SF 8 at that address, (415) 226-1120, FreetheSF8@riseup.net or www.freethesf8.org, where you can learn about the case and each of them.
Source: http://www.sfbayview.com
The New Melinnium Minstrel Show
http://unn13.com/world/articles/minstrel.html
8/12/2003 - Liberty stands still, AND DO... for there is no liberty, no freedom for the Black man, woman or anyone else in this society save the rich and elite, the minute percent of the population that control the masses. In this world today we don't even have the freedom to breathe pure air, drink clean water or eat nourishing food grown from the ground for it is all contaminated. We are afraid of the fruits and vegetables, hence making it hard to be vegetarian or vegan; they are sprayed with pesticides, insecticides and genetically crossbred with whatever the government chooses to further experiment with. They take our wombs unbeknownst to us for no reason, just to further desecrate us, as they have done everything Black on this Earth from the pyramids to the Great Sphinx. How long will the gods be slaves to the devil?
We live in a land stolen from the Natives in a drunken deal...the U.S. continues to terrorize every nation on Earth and force its evil ways on us all. Attacking now the last of the Mohicans, the Arab and Moslem nations, for the rest of the countries are already under tight U.S. grip while the so-called government are just puppets for the hidden puppet masters. Meanwhile we sit around and watch all this take place. If you are easily offended, then stop here but don't get mad cause you aint mad at Eminem or Jigga when they curse or say "nigga."
I sit and wonder has that blue/green dye and lye from that perm got your brain so fried that you can't see? Or is it that Kentucky Fried Chicken...oops did I say chicken, cant call it that no more just "KFC" cause it damn sure aint chicken genetically engineered whatever for the day to destroy the masses. Hell if it was and is chicken I still don't want it. Lord knows what drugs they pumpin into that chicken in the coop along with the steroids and hormones, that drive them so mad they attack each other
to bludgeons then their beaks have to be removed. Eat that, I don't think so, and believe me I grew up on chicken, but then I woke up. You are so happy that its on sale 29 cents a pound. You go home and fry it up in some canola oil (jet fuel, lubricant)or whatever is on sale that day... And if you still eatin swine in 2003, like the sayin goes if ones choose to be led as cattle, then they deserve to be slaughtered as such.
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Fresh on the heels of charges that its soft drinks contain high levels of pesticides, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are now being accused of causing cancer, miscarriages and kidney failure in Kerala and West Bengal.
found high levels of toxic metals in waste released from Coca-Cola and PepsiCo plants.
We are judged in this society by the most lawless and evil men on the planet, pedophiles, murderers, thieves etc. How can the lawless create and enforce law? Do you remember all the hell raisers left Europe (Your Rope) for America to raise hell as they pleased in the New Land? The Babylon Whore sent them with a master plan to steal a land and build it off the blood, sweat and tears of the gods which once ruled over them. Then after breaking our backs, minds and spirits, they say lets set these niggers free, but nigga trust you aint free in 2003.
OJ killed a white woman, Kobe allegedly raped one...Nigga don't you remember massa used to beat your black ass raw, even lynch yo ass for lookin at his white she-devil, and hell why do you want to? Man don't you know she is nothing more than an upgraded ape trying to strengthen her doomed species with your seed.
Oh nigga you want to repatriate? Go back to Africa smitten with AIDS and poverty, after your ancestors bust they ass and died on the way here and built up this land. Not only that you want the devil that snatched your ass up to pay your way, HA. Why do you want to return to a country that has been raped by these demons and constantly being poisoned each day? Who is this sick cracker poisoning the 
foods at the grocery stores in South Africa with cyanide? Oh, its that same ever loving Uncle Sam that's poisoning your black ass over here in the supposed "land of the free."
Yeah you gotta go to work, pay yo bills, and pray to that white god that beat your ass for 400 years. Even the demon Pope got paid off slavery, charging a quarter to save the souls of slaves dying on the way to this place. Then massa let you go free and told you sit in the back of the bus, don't drink off the white fountain, separate schools, etc for the niggas and you got mad. Sit in the back, shit why you wanna sit with they ass at all?
No matter how much you tithe at church on Sunday, pastor aint gon save you, he can't even save himself. Look at that pastor up on the pulpit preachin after lying up with Sister Jenkins and drunk on Saturday night. Then Sunday morning Pastorleaves his big ol house, pulls up in his new Lexus the congregation bought, into his reserved parking space at the church. Not to mention Deacon Brown got a 
percentage of the church's collection for the day in his pocket. Meanwhile you riding the church van to work along with others who can't afford a car, your rent is late, but your tithes are on time. Then we have Bishop Caldwell actually paying whites $5 to attend his Sunday church service and $10 an hour on Thursday. I know some of yall don't make that an hour at yo jobs...and what is he paying his poor black members ZERO. The congregation of sheep, or shall I say cattle await slaughter.
Oh and I aint forgot you playa playa....wit cha bling bling and all your hoes? Him a bad man eh? NOT! Selling crack and ignorance to your own people while 
your Uncle Sam pimps your dumb ass. Shit the man got you doing a great deal of the work for his ass. Brother why you sellin that shit to your own people my mother, brother, sisters, etc. Hell, you probably sell it to your own momma if she got the loot some of yall even take food stamps. Don't you know we all the same people and 
we in this shit together? Black is all day long and forever, is there no honor amongst thieves, no ghetto code of conduct? Guess not. I remember a time a boy could get killed for a pair of expensive sneakers, now yall kill for even less. But yall gang bangers wont kill a cop for shit after they then ran up in yo spot, beat yo ass, took all ya loot, and tore up your mommas house. Yeah I know a lot of yall still livin in ya momma basement, sorry ass.
You'll going to do a drive by, yeah bust a cap up in somebody ass, 
but when the police come its "hands inna di air," and you damn sure freeze. What happened playa I thought you was bad, a gangsta shit you got all the guns. You shot up my brother yesterday cause he aint have yo money, not to mention the little 
girl that took a stray bullet cause she was outside playing in her yard at the wrong time. But when the cops come yo ass is runnin scared, shoutin 5-0! Nigga you aint shit, cause you damn sure afraid of these lawless demons. All the while, they lounge, bathe in and drink clean water, eat fine, uncontaminated food, laugh at you and think of more ways to keep you ignorant.
The devil got you killin for him, slaving on yo job, singin and dancin for his ass like the old "step and fetch it," hell its gotten worse than ever. Yall busy getting 
hot in here takin off your clothes, because Nelly tell ya to and this nigga aint got the sense of a genetically engineered soybean [poison]. Yeah you do need to take off your clothes, take Tommy Hilfinger, Polo and all those other names off your ass. Tommy then told yall niggas he aint made his clothes for yall but still you insist on wearin it cause the buffoons on TV got in on. While you shakin your ass, getting hot, drinkin 40's, smokin blunts, askin Maury to find yo baby's daddy, puttin on your Sunday church clothes, workin on massa's modern day plantation, he is steady killin yo black ass. By the time you figure it out, it'll be another page in history.
The National Security Advisor is a black woman, the Secretary of Defense a black man, and the head of training for the FBI is a black woman. Massa has his agents keepin your ass in check and you aren't even aware of what's going on. We aint talkin to these fools blacks pretending to be white, pretending to be black? WTF? You figure it out if the lye (lie) aint fried your brain cells too bad. You watchin BET all day [Black Entertainment Television] but it aint even black. BET is owned by Viacom, [whites] like the whole of the media, which is controlled by the government, the puppets for the hidden hand. So remember these people just sold their souls for a dollar, pieces of paper with dead crackers on it, and you worship it like mindless fools. Like I said these white devils are just upgraded apes genetically upgraded by us [Blacks] not the original black man, but the Black gods that came down and nurtured this Earth. The white man had to create the illusion of money to feel good about himself, the lowly being that he is then uses that to make a nigga feel less than, when we are the true gods on this Earth.
I mean you tell me, how intelligent do you have to be to sing about being hot and takin your clothes off? DUH! and how serious can you take a grown ass man with a bandaid on his face? Not a personal attack on Nelly cause he can't help himself the crackers own his ass, they tell him what to do, what to say and he don't know no 
damn better cause he blinded by the dollars. I mean the song is catchy, I remember the original song, "I feel like bustin loose, bustin loose?" Nelly is just an example since he is at the top of the charts right now along with Bouncy [Beyonce]. How much talent does it take to grease your ass up, get half naked and slide across a stage and her daddy is her manager, come on pops, stop exploiting your daughter for the white man's dollars... Meanwhile the video set is full of white men [perverts], who want nothing more than to further desecrate and exploit the black women. HOES put some clothes on and be women.
On that note there is actually a law against indecent exposure meaning if your naked ass is caught outside you are suppose to be arrested. Go figure, when all I see on TV is nothing but indecency. You know its bad when you have to turn off the TV cause the commercials are sick and the cartoons are off the chain. I have not seen a commercial yet without someone half naked or some sort of sexual innuendo, who the hell wants to get an orgasm from their shampoo? How sick is this, I saw a Snapple commercial where two bottles were dressed up to be married and the "groom" actually took off with another "male" bottle of Snapple. Who are the dumb asses who think up this stuff, then you wonder why everybody is gay/lesbian? A continuous flow of subliminal messages and mind control. Not to mention the new show "Boy meets Boy" where gay men compete for the love of another man. Isn't there enough shit on TV to mess up the people's mind? Who the hell wants to see this? All this indecency on the TV I'd rather just keep it off, and you damn sure can't censor what your children watch when the commercials are worse than the TV shows.
Then when yall found out the Beltway Sniper was a black man, everybody was mad as hell. I can't believe a black man would do this, he is crazy, blah blah blah. This is only because the media programmed you to be; don't you know the government owns the news you watch and they tell you what they want you to know, how they want you to know and perceive it. Or do you just not have a mind of your own cause massa broke you in so well.
Let's look at the facts, John Allen Muhammad, forty something, Muslim, Martial Arts, Army Veteran, expert at weapons, seemingly intelligent. I mean how many of yall have the sense to operate a global positioning system [GPS], convert a car into a fighting position and target not random individuals but specific ones all around nation's capital, Bush's backyard. All of this with a young man he took under his wing, mentored and was a father figure to him. I mean he trained this boy, Malvo was damn sure disciplined, and they say responsible for most of the shooting... How many black men you see doing this
baby mammas not yo baby daddy? You really should be looking at this man in a totally different light. Yall mad cause the white man said you suppose to be mad at him. This black man had DC/VA scared as hell, yall was even scared to leave the house and carry on day-to-day activities, my man had yall shook! Now when the last time a black man had some crackers that scared. Shit we better cover this one up yall, don't want no other niggers wakin up and catchin on, keep them killin each other in the ghettos not our backyard.
I mean look all the profilers were DEAD WRONG, Babylon's so called experts. All that time went by to find out it was a black man and a young boy in a Caprice Classic not a white van. Ha, and they spent all that time locking down I-95 searching every white van on the highway. I know these pecker woods was pissed when they found out a nigga been terrorizing they ass far less than the way they have been terrorizing us for ages. Nope it wasn't a crazy country cracker with a rifle, not even Bin Laden's boys, but an intelligent black man who knew what time it was when 911 occurred. Of course they don't want the niggas wakin up and catchin on like Muhammad, what better than to discredit this black man and cover it up with lies of mind-control and brainwashing.
What Muhammad did was timely and rightly guided and some of yall niggas should have been inspired to see a Black man finally stand up and say this shit-uation is wrong...the Black Man/Woman is god. But no yall say he took innocent lives, as did the hijackers in the 911 incidents. You tell me how many people in the WTC was innocent remember for various reasons some people did not go to work that day...were they the innocents why were they spared? WTC to me just means dirty world money, the root of all evil. I know for sure aint nobody workin for the FBI innocent, if you recall Muhammad let three people live and yall say he crazy. Right now Bush is killin Iraqis every day and yall proud of it but you don't call him crazy, that's yo President. Shame on you when judgment comes. Crackers drug yo ass over here and killed many of you [oh my bad some of you say your ancestors wasn't slaves], raped you in the bottoms of ships full of feces and vomit, is that not beyond crazy? What is crazy and sick is slowly and secretly poisoning the food, water, air of people for they own evil reasons.
Why can't a black man be that clever we have been the creators from the beginning from the peanut to the light bulb, hell this very internet you are surfin on was the creation of a BLACK MAN. You don't know it because you are the Manchurian Candidate, the ones victim of MK Ultra, being brainwashed by your uncle to think you are free in the U.S. and you can be what you want to be, shit if that's the case what is Affirmative Action for, the NAACP? Hell I aint colored I am BLACK and they are just watchers for the man...why follow and be part of an organization founded by a white woman to further control the black mind and keep it from being free. Satan sure has his team of watchdogs and you see what he does to his own people you think he care about you? Come on yall wake up, don't you feel like bustin loose of these mental chains...you are still a slave [even if you say your ancestors were not]. Take the bandaid off and let the wounds of years lynching, raping, brainwashing and oppression heal. It is said in the Holy Quran that Allah leads astray whom he choose, WE are trying to enlighten you to truth and lead you aright. Meanwhile, yo massa is at a constant plot to keep you deaf, dumb and blind as to who you are.
Just look at it...in Tuskegee they gave a town full of black men syphilis just to literally watch them suffer and die, they killed Bob Marley spiked him with cancer, poisoned Farrakhan now he has prostate cancer, senseless hysterectomies, Mumia in jail smiling, they bombed MOVE, we got AIDS, Sars, , blue dye, yellow dye, jet fuel in our food, and sodium hydroxide seepin into ya brain. What will it take for you to realize that they are out to kill you mentally, spiritually and physically?
Brothers how long will you let them pimp you and your woman, strip women of their wombs needlessly to keep us from nation building, lock you up and take your manhood, treat you like a damn dog. Stop killin your brother and yourselves and deal with the real enemy...don't be skurred. The black man is god, will you live as a god or perish with the devil...
How did the Queen go completely backwards to total buffoonery...
shouldn't she be stripped of her title, "Queen"???
Sistas support the brothas and stop baring your ass for a dollar; the man has been exploiting us for years don't exploit yourselves. Close your legs, guard your modesty and be a queen. Stop feeding your children red
dyes, blue Pepsi, fast food, and other shit you cant even pronounce. If you can't read it you don't need it and please get your babies off Ritalin they don't need that shit they need some attention and a home cooked meal. Stop letting the schools raise your babies. Reclaim your roles, you were once healers, nurtures and also creators...remember?
Nah yall aint ready for the revolution. I heard a speaker say black people don't get mad about nothing no more, AND DON'T. The white man is constantly doing shit to us to see how much we can take. Will yall ever fight back? Don't you feel like bustin loose of your ignorance? I know how it is I once was sleep, but then I woke up and now I live. I give thanks to the writings of Ital Iman I truth that yo massa won't ever reveal to you, so stop waitin for him to tell you its ok. You probably say you can't tell from my writings that I learned from Ital but shit, look at who I am talkin to, I had to stoop to your level to get you to listen all you unconscious Rastas, Jesus freaks and ghetto gangsters. If I was talkin to enlightened beings, conscious ones my rhetoric would truly be different.
Yall constantly lookin to a white god, money god, Jesus (whether he be white, black or blue, Jesus is a MYTH), and even to little green aliens, but never to yourself. Then you believe in all this other nonsense and say WE are crazy, because we say the Black Man is god, and WE created this race of white people from an un-evolved ape species. We are talking about the coming of the Holy Mothership [Nibiru]. While you are eating your pork chop sammich and drinkin red Kool-Aid we are in the middle of the makings of the "Master Blaster Jammin" the people did not believe but the prophet's ship did come and they all watched as he left them in their ignorance. Don't say we didn't tell you so, for it is written in the Holy Book of Wonder.
I hope someone Black is getting this for our site is bombarded with spies and agents monitoring what we have to say. A white person wrote how black people don't like to read, ha if you got this far then you can consider yourself an exception. I read somewhere else that if they do read it is no more than a page because they lose interest. Could it be something in the water or the food that is making your attention span so short, is it Attention Deficit Disorder [ADD] that your uncle has given you?
January 02, 2009
Breakdown FM: An Interview w/ Sister Souljah-Still at War 'Til Midnight
Click Link Below to Listen to Breakdown FM Interview
http://odeo. com/episodes/23722448-Sista-Souljah-Interview
An Interview w/ Sister Souljah
Still at War Till Midnight
The first time I met Sister Souljah was back in 1989 when she rolled through the now defunct New Music Seminar in New York City and set the place on fire.
There was a historic panel discussion featuring Chuck D of Public Enemy, film director Spike Lee, Singer James Mtume and if memory serves me correctly music exec Bill Stephany also sat on that panel.
At that time we knew Souljah as Lisa Williamson and she was no joke. Fiery, articulate and uncompromising, she was one of those folks who made everyone step up their game.
She was the type of person who you wanted to be riding alongside you because there was no way she was gonna lose. She proved that during this panel discussion. The conversations that took place that day were heated. Mtume was a source of controversy because several months prior he had gone on the radio said something about rappers and sampling and how it was not a cool thing.
This prompted a response from the group Stetsasonic who released a song called 'Talking All That Jazz' which took Mtume to task. The Stets crew showed up to the session deep as it was first time the two parties had met. Anticipating more controversy, folks were pleasantly surprised as Mtume eased tensions by backing off the harshness of his initial statements and clarifying what he meant. He noted that he was a fan not an enemy to Hip Hop.
Spike Lee was the man of the hour because his movie 'Do the Right Thing' had dropped and set off racial tensions in New York. That day Spike was bold and brash and seemed to relish the storm that surrounded him and his movie. He pulled no punches as he explained that he felt his movie and the issues it raised was the 'right thing' and that it was high time folks dealt with the issue of race head on.
A few months after later New York's simmering racial tensions would boil over with the shooting death of Yusef Hawkins in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
Public Enemy was the biggest rap group at that time with Chuck D making folks quiver as he talked about his disdain for Elvis in the song 'Fight the Power'. That afternoon he spoke eloquently and laid out a 6 point platform that he said would take Hip Hop and industry to new heights. There were a lot of folks in the room that day that took notes and launched their careers using Chuck's advice. The tenet of his speech was centered around importance of positioning oneself to be a presenter of music and not leaving it up to others who did not love or respect the culture. He who controls and defines the music has major power was Chuck's mantra that afternoon.
Like I said the panel was on tilt, but the person who really rocked the house was the lone woman on that panel Lisa Williamson, who at the time was unknown to folks outside of New York, but known to many of the rappers in the room.
If memory serves me correctly, I think fellow journalist Harry Allen described her as a raptivist. That day she gave an impassioned speech about the importance of NOT allowing 'media middlemen' get in the way of the social, political and business dealings of Black people. She talked frankly about people outside the community coming in and playing folks off one another, by sparking conflict and redefining our issues and pushing their own agendas. She talked about how Black folks needed to communicate directly with one another and not let people come between us.
At that time she named off several music industry executives including Lyor Cohen and Cara Lewis.
She said, "If your name is Eric B you don't let Cara Lewis come between us you come talk to me first because I'm your sister... The middleman will beat us every time". Her remarks were riveting and for many in the room prophetic as many of us would have our own challenges with middlemen who would come into our midst and divide us if we didn't support or agree with their ideals and outlooks.
Sadly Public Enemy would be the first of many who would weather such a storm over remarks made by Professor Griff who was accused of being anti-semtic
Fast forward 19 years.
Lisa Williamson is now Sister Souljah, best selling author, scholar and most importantly still an uncompromising community activist and organizer. She's still the type of person who makes you straighten up your shoulders and step up your game when she enters the room. You step up, not because you're intimidated or brow beaten, but because her energy is infectious and you simply can't help yourself.
I caught up with Souljah the other day when she touched down in the Bay Area to promote her new book 'Midnight' which is the prequel to her book 'The Coldest Winter Ever'. It's her first book in 8 years and has got a lot of people buzzing as they were left wanting to know so much more about the character Midnight. We talked at length about her book, the process she underwent when writing and what sort of things she wanted to convey. Souljah noted that nowadays she finds it easier to get life lessons across through her works of fiction versus real life narratives.
She britsles at the notion of her being the jump off of what the industry now likes to coin gangsta /urban lit. She explained that there's no jumpoff and that Black folks have been writing and reading forever. She's a writer and a good one at that who produces material that is captivating to an audience that is often underserved and discounted. She doesn't dumb down her material or compromise on the quality of work. She strives to give her audience the best she has to offer and hates that there are those who feel that as a writer who is popular amongst this underserved audience that she has somehow compromising her talents.
We also talked about whether or not the stories were true about her and Will Smith's wife Jada Pinket Smith were working on a movie for 'Coldest Winter Ever'
She gave us the full 4-1-1. She said she is still working with the Smith's on making her book into a movie. She says she has plans to make sure all her books go to the big screen. She also talked about the importance of people owning their intellectual property. In 2008 with all the new technology around, owning your creations is more important then ever. "Get your business straight", she said.
That point would be reiterated later that evening before a packed house at Eastbay Church of Science in Oakland as she told the audience how HBO agreed to make the movie' but then backed out at the 11th hour after she and Jada had done all sorts of leg work including penning a screenplay. She noted that HBO backed out the deal, retained the movie rights to her creation and for the most parts were making no moves to go forward. She talked about how she had to shell out 300 thousand dollars to buy back her rights and how she learned a hard lesson. Now she owns everything outright and won't make such a mistake again. She told the audience to make sure they always understand their value in the larger scheme of things.
During our interview we built upon a number of topics.
She talked about President-elect Barack Obama and what his victory means to us as Black people. She broke things down as she explained that Obama has a job to do as president and that it doesn't have much to do with the day to day job each of us have to do to uplift our communities. She went into detail about this. We also touched upon Obama's background as a community organizer and how that measured up to the work she has long done as a community organizer who worked with and still works with homeless youth.
Souljah talked at length about how we should understand that all of us have jobs to do. All of us have a place to fit in. She talked about how we should not be lured into the trap of celebrity worship where we expect a rap artist to suddenly come along and craft a bill or get knee deep into work details that are required to be an effective community activist. She said we often put the wrong expectations upon people and then are left disappointed when they don't come through.
This discussion then led to a larger breakdown about leadership in the African American community and the current state of Hip Hop. With each topic Souljah kicked some keen insight that will leave many re-adjusting some of their concepts.
As we talked I realized that over the years and with all the topics we've discussed in interviews from politics to Malcolm X to relationship advice, I never got the background story that prompted her middleman remarks during that 1989 New Music Seminar panel.
She explained that as a young activist at 19 years old she was doing a lot of work with homeless kids and spending what little money she had on those kids.
She talked about how she met LL Cool J and came up with the idea of doing some sort of fundraising concert for the youth. LL wanted to make sure she was on the up and up and sat down with the kids sans Souljah and got the scoop. Once sastified that she was sincere he agreed to do a concert and not charge her so she could raise funds for her summer camp. This was the start of good thing as soon a number of other artists joined in and added to the lineup. Souljah soon developed a reputation for doing these big concerts at the Apollo Theater in Harlem where some of the biggest names in Hip Hop would come donate their time while she charged a high ticket price that was aimed at all the so called uptown ballers. 100% of the money went to the kids.
Souljah explained it was the perfect marriage. At the time everyone was under 21 and all who participated was excited at being able to contribute their talents to something that was overwhelmingly positive. This was all going down at the height of the crack era where you had young Black people who had been written off by society. It was astounding to critics and enemies of Black people and Hip Hop culture to see young people doing for self and pulling themselves up by their proverbial boot straps and not looking for handouts. People were helping build up their communities. Many of the artists who participated did so gladly because they saw the immediate benefits as that the money raised not only went to Souljah's camps but would also help spark after school programs for the youth in many of the artists own hoods.
As Souljah's concerts became legendary throughout New York she started to get some outright haterism from industry executives. Frustrated because she had violated no laws and the artists she tapped were in compliance with their contracts, they saw her concerts as something that was cutting them out and therefore a problem. Souljah had eliminated the middleman and went directly to the artists where she leveraged her friendships by highlighting everyone's mutual interests to help out the kids in the neighborhood.
Industry folks worked overtime to find ways to undercut Souljah including going to some of those popular rap artists and threatening to mess up future financial earnings. Souljah noted it was a cold game and quite eye opening to see outside forces could come into the hood and economically strong arm some of our best and brightest stars. One by one folks caved in fearful of economic reprisals. She noted that many weren't the soldiers she had thought they would be. many did not live up to rhetoric and science they kicked in their songs.
Souljah went on to note that many didn't come directly to her to explain their concerns. Instead industry execs inserted themselves into the equation insisting that they would handle all dealings including bookings for Souljah's concerts. The artist would no longer perform for free and in fact they were being priced out of the market. The end result was her being pressured and eventually written (black balled) out the picture.
A-List rap artists doing a free concert in New York-a city with more than 8 million people was apparently a big problem. Several years later Souljah's formula to help fund community organizations would be replicated by commercial radio stations around the country who would have major rap stars come through and do free Summerjam, Wintetrjam and every other type of 'jam' concerts for charity. The coldest part about this is while some of the gate receipts would go aid a few community groups, many of these stations would make up to a third of their yearly budget in behind the scenes sponsorship money for these megajams. So almost overnight, these huge rap stars went from helping fund community social programs in their own neighborhoods that were being systematically under-funded by the then Reagan and Bush administrations to helping fund the portfolios for investors and media moguls to tunes of millions of dollars. The platforms of these media moguls would later highlight harsh stereotypes that would far too often be used to demonize us and put us in bad light. Souljah's recounting of these incidents were sobering as we can see that in way too many instances the same tactics are used today with similar results.
It's with this backdrop and understanding that Souljah's remarks to the audience about owning your own, building institutions and us respecting and loving one another take on heightened meaning. The fact that after 15 years of marriage she and her family still hit the road attending all her lectures is a testament to her understanding about how we should strive to keep ourselves firmly rooted.
It was a pleasure chopping it up with Sister Souljah. As I said she's inspiring and full of insight. Her new book Midnight is one that she says she put her heart and soul into and is her favorite work to date. She noted this is the type of book that will hopefully help us grow and become better men and women..
This interview also weeves in excerpts from speeches that Souljah has given in the past as well as a reading from her new book Midnight...
Enjoy
http://www.daveyd.com/
December 31, 2008
White couple, black man battle for claim to South Africa farm
White couple, black man battle for claim to South Africa farm
Their colliding dreams reflect the challenge the government faces in restoring land to blacks without driving whites off productive farms and destroying the country's economy.
By Scott Kraft
December 19, 2008 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-southafrica19-2008dec19,0,1671924.story?page=1
Reporting from Middelburg, South Africa -- Like so many corporate executives, Ed Meyer dreamed of retiring to the countryside. And so, seven years ago, he and his wife, Sally, left Cape Town to settle on the 3,500-acre ranch that had been in Ed's family since 1916.
It's not hard to see what fueled the dream. Their Cape Dutch-style farmhouse, all curved gables and whitewashed walls, is perched on rust-colored savanna, dusted with the scent of 50 species of blooming aloe. The view from their lawn is an oil painting of gentle hills, puffy clouds and long shadows.
"This is such a beautiful, tranquil valley," Ed says, digging into a lunch of kudu pie, hot from Sally's oven. The kudu was a gift; the antelope "was encroaching on our neighbor's fruit trees."
But their peaceful retirement was interrupted a little over a year ago when Andries Mahlungu, a gardener in nearby Marble Hall, said the farm belonged to him. In a formal claim with the government, he contended that his ancestors were there first.
Now the white couple and the black man are locked in a battle over the farm -- and, in a sense, over the past and future of South Africa.
The legal pillars of white minority rule came tumbling down with South Africa's first democratic elections almost 15 years ago, and the oldest of those laws was the Natives Land Act, which had severely restricted black land ownership since 1913.
The challenge that the new black-majority government faced was how to restore land to blacks, in a legal and orderly way, without creating a panic that would drive whites off productive farms and destroy the country's economy -- a scenario that was soon to strangle neighboring Zimbabwe.
The solution the government came up with was to create a Commission on Restitution of Land Rights to adjudicate land claims and, when valid, compensate the current owners. So far, the commission has settled about 75,000 of 80,000 claims, returning hundreds of thousands of acres to blacks and paying white farmers market rates that have totaled more than $2 billion.
With the deadline for filing claims now past, the government has pledged to settle the 5,000 outstanding claims in the next two years. But the commission is running short of money, and many of the remaining claims, like Mahlungu's against the Meyers' property, are being hotly contested.
All across post-colonial Africa, governments have struggled to correct past injustices, with mixed results. In Zimbabwe, violent land seizures have driven away white farmers and sent the economy into a tailspin of mind-boggling inflation and catastrophic food shortages.
The South African government vowed to carefully investigate land claims and provide fair compensation to white farmers. Many of the country's 40,000 white farmers willingly sold their property.
Even so, the effect on the country's agricultural economy has not been overwhelmingly positive. Whereas the global trend is toward larger, more commercially successful farms, South Africa is breaking many of its large farms into smaller, less economically efficient pieces to meet the claims of new black farmers.
Partly as a result, South Africa in the last year has gone from a net exporter of food to a net importer. And, in another worrying trend, some of the whites who sold their farms have been recruited by other African countries, where their skills are much in demand. Now once-impoverished countries such as Mozambique are becoming more self-sufficient -- and taking a share of South Africa's export market.
Piet Kemp is the regional manager for the Transvaal Agricultural Union, which represents mostly white farmers in the province that includes the Meyer farm. He is skeptical of many of the land claims.
"You have a family that has farmed for 150 years and then you have a guy who worked on the farm for 12 or 15 years suddenly making a claim," he says. "It's not right. But in the end, many farmers don't want to fight, so they sell."
In some cases, whites have sold their farms without a fight because a neighboring property was divided into small pieces for multiple black owners; Kemp says the whites felt it would be too difficult to run their farm "next to a squatter camp." In other cases, farmers have agreed to sell but the government has been slow to finalize the purchase.
"Much of the farming has come to a complete stop," Kemp says. "In the end, we'll be the same as Zimbabwe."
Molefe Pulane, a spokeswoman for the national land claims office, acknowledges that the process is slow, hobbled in part by a corruption scandal at the Land Bank, which provides money for the purchases. "It's not going well," she says. "There are some problems, and we're addressing them."
But the land rights commission maintains that the country's redistribution of land is playing an important role in alleviating poverty and allowing the black majority, who outnumber whites 8 to 1, to fully participate in the country's economy.
"Everyone has got an obligation to ensure that there is restorative justice for those who suffered the loss of their rights to land in the country of their birth," the commission said in a recent statement. "It cannot be business as usual until all the victims are compensated for their loss."
Continue reading "White couple, black man battle for claim to South Africa farm" »
In Kenya, land is the root of most problems
In Kenya, land is the root of most problems
Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP/Getty Images
In western Kenya, Masai warriors gather in a battle field armed with bows and arrows as they clash with members of the Kalenjin tribe in the Transmara district in March. As the East African nation struggles with food shortages, a sluggish economy and wounds from post-election violence, there’s a growing consensus that one issue rests at the heart of Kenya’s woes: land.
Kenya's land is owned mostly by politicians who grabbed millions of acres in questionable deals over the last 45 years. Above, Masai warriors with bows and arrows clash with a rival tribe in a postelection land dispute in March. Now the new lands minister has an ambitious redistribution plan.
Edmund Sanders
December 20, 2008
Reporting from Limuru, Kenya -- Africa's Land Battles:
the second of two parts
From his tented refugee camp, James Karanga Ngugi seethed as he scanned a vast horizon of fallow, unoccupied land -- most of it owned by two of Kenya's most prominent political families.
"Why do they have so much and I have nothing?" he asked.
His grandfather once prospered here, before he was displaced by British colonialists. After independence, villagers regained control, but were soon forced out again, this time by a rich Kenyan businessman with ties to the president.
As compensation, Ngugi received 10 acres of land about 100 miles away, but residents there, from a different tribe, always resented his presence. During the election turmoil late last year and early this year that grabbed headlines worldwide, his house and business were burned down.
"Now I have to restart with nothing," he said.
As this East African nation struggles with food shortages, a sluggish economy and wounds from post-election violence, there's a growing consensus that one issue rests at the heart of Kenya's woes.
It's the land, stupid.
All across Africa, battles over land continue to simmer, largely a fallout of European colonialism. During most of Africa's history, sparse population and tribal traditions meant land was plentiful and disputes were rare. Colonialists introduced alien concepts such as borders and private ownership. Since independence began to sweep the continent 50 years ago, fledgling African governments have struggled to unwind injustices, sometimes with disastrous results. The Zimbabwean economy was devastated by President Robert Mugabe's campaign to seize and redistribute land owned by white farmers.
Kenya suffered a similar colonial legacy, but has taken a different route. As is the case in many African nations, more than half of Kenya's land is owned by a minority of its richest families, including some white foreigners. But unlike Zimbabwe and South Africa, where the struggle has pitted whites against blacks, the land here is owned mostly by Kenyan politicians who have grabbed millions of prime agricultural acres in questionable real estate deals over the last 45 years.
"This is really an issue between us as Kenyans," said Paul Ndungu, head of a landmark 2004 report that investigated more than 40 years of land fraud. "It's Kenyan versus Kenyan."
Tribal clashes that killed more than 1,000 people after the disputed presidential election last December, were rooted largely in historic disputes over land. As Kenya struggles to feed its people, vast swaths of its most productive terrain sit idle and underutilized -- and the land grievances remain unresolved.
"Peace, tranquillity and stability in Kenya is predicated on sorting out this land issue," said Odenda Lumumba, head of the Kenya Land Alliance, a land-reform advocacy group.
Newly installed Lands Minister James Orengo, a former student activist who was once jailed for aiding a 1982 coup attempt, has vowed to take on Kenya's rich and powerful with a progressive new land policy.
Among other things, he wants to reclaim stolen public lands, bar foreigners from owning property, introduce taxation on idle land and increase squatters' rights.
Orengo also is pushing to computerize Kenya's aging system of land records, which hasn't changed since colonial times. Paper records have made forgery and corruption easier. When one shady developer was investigated recently, police believe he covered his tracks by burning down the local survey office where records were stored.
Opposition is quickly building. Critics have dubbed Orengo the "doyen of radicalism." One group of landowners said his "Marxist ideologies" would lead to a "Zimbabwe-style economic meltdown."
But Orengo's biggest obstacle probably will come from within the government. Members of the political elite have been the nation's biggest land grabbers over the decades, which is why Kenya never pursued land reform and redistribution, as other African nations did, experts say. Many of those leaders remain in power.
"The people responsible for this mess still find themselves in government and they've used their influence to delay [reform]," Ndungu said.
Continue reading "In Kenya, land is the root of most problems" »
Black state legislators want economic bailout – ‘in the neighborhood’
Black state legislators want economic bailout – ‘in the neighborhood’
by NNPA Editor-in-Chief Hazel Trice Edney
Edward Mills Jr., 17, looks forward to beginning a building trades class, part of a Detroit program for youngsters who have dropped out of school. Black state legislators know that dropping out can mean a great financial loss to the dropout, his family and his community. – Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Detroit News
Washington (NNPA) - They didn’t get it by Christmas, but the nation’s Black state legislators are now looking for what they perceive as their fair share of an economic bailout for ‘the neighborhood’ while Congress is doling out billions to corporations.
“While we support the bailout of Wall Street, the bailout of the financial institutions and the automobile industry, we feel very strongly that Main Street and our streets need to be bailed out as well,” says Georgia State Rep. Calvin Smyre, president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators.
“So, with that in mind, we need to finish a package whereas a check can get into the hands of the consumer and then therefore the consumer can go to the corner grocery store, the drug store, the supermarket, the various department stores - and, where the rubber meets the road, is the consumer spending has to go up, so therefore that stimulates the economy in the neighborhood so to speak.”
The U.S. Congress has approved a $700 billion bailout for the financial industry and a $17.4 billion loan for troubled U.S. automakers. But how can the nation help the average citizen who is out of work or living from paycheck to paycheck, one missed rent from homelessness?
Smyre and state legislators have a remedy: “The only way to do that is to create a stimulus program whereas the American consumer is involved. Those other bailouts are rightfully so. But they don’t help create jobs. They help save jobs. So unemployment is a key factor.”
Facing a gamut of dire needs on the state level, Smyre and his 125 fellow representatives from 42 states met in Washington earlier this month for the caucus’ 32nd Annual Legislative Conference. They met with members of the Obama transition team with hopes of bringing home federal dollars to offset serious shortages that are often used to deal with social programs and other crucial needs that are now exacerbated by the failing economy.
Obama has set a goal to create at least 3 million jobs in the first two years of his administration, which starts Jan. 20. Meanwhile, states are suffering, Smyre says.
“There are 43 out of 50 states with some sort of budget shortfall. With Georgia alone, we’ve got a $2 billion shortfall. So, with that in mind, we just want to be partners with our federal government to be able to assist us in the downturn in our economy,” Smyre says.
Smyre was on his way to a policy meeting dealing with the Second Chance Act to help lower the prison recidivism rate. There would also be discussions on the high school dropout rates.
“In Georgia alone there were 60,000 dropouts in ‘07,” he said. Connecting the statistic to the economy, he added: “If we could cut back on our dropout rate, if those 60,000 kids had stayed in school over their lifetime, it would have been $16 billion to the Georgia economy over their lifetime. So there is a direct correlation to those kinds of issues. So, naturally, we as state legislators, we’re going to still be vigilant as it relates to gang violence, as it relates to the recidivism rate in our prison system and making sure that folks get a second chance.”
Still, he says, legislators are well aware that the blame for the economy can’t be laid at the feet of the new administration. But the socio-economic impact is worsening; therefore, there must be some pressure. For example, the states of Michigan, Rhode Island and California have the worst jobless rates in the nation, at 9.6 percent, 9.3 percent and 8.4 percent respectively.
The states with the worst annual murder rate in the nation are California, where Compton has 67.1 murders per 100,000 people; Indiana, where Gary has 58 per 100,000; and Alabama, where Birmingham has 44.3 per 100,000.
Social statistics across the board, including dropout rates, infant mortality rates and incarceration rates - all often associated with economic injustice - are skyrocketing in cities and states across the nation.
The caucus released a 47-page document outlining proposed resolutions to some of the problems faced by states, including requiring states to report impacts on racial minorities when changing criminal laws and laws pertaining to state procurement. The Ratified Resolutions also call on Congress to “take all action necessary to ensure that states are able to meet needs of our citizens during these difficult financial times; and … that NBCSL calls on Congress to provide an excess of capital to the states so they are not only able to fill their budget shortfalls, but able to provide additional stabilization to their economies.”
Dropout rates, infant mortality rates and incarceration rates - all often associated with economic injustice - are skyrocketing in cities and states across the nation.
Smyre says these are the resolutions that will be passed on to President Obama and to the members of the House and Senate. He doesn’t anticipate a fight but knows that none of the resolutions will be easy.
“Regardless of how you put it, it’s not going to be on automatic pilot. In just a little time, the budget is going to change. It’s going to require funding and that’s always going to require a very difficult proposition,” he says. “There’s a lot of anticipation with the legislators and this is just a start. Nobody has made a first down yet. Nor has anyone scored.
“But we as African-Americans, we don’t want to suffer from the illusion of inclusion. We want to be involved in the process. And from every indication that we’ve been given we are going to be involved.”
Hazel Trice Edney is editor-in-chief for NNPA, the Black Press of America.
Don’t be a Buffalo Soldier
Don’t be a Buffalo Soldier
by Carl Dix
During the Civil War, Black soldiers were allowed to enlist in the Union Army. After the war, most left the army. But some stayed. These soldiers were sent west to fight and kill the Native American Indians who were defending their lands against the government and the white settlers. The Indians called these soldiers “Buffalo Soldiers.” “Buffalo Soldiers”: Oppressed people given guns and sent out to kill other oppressed people. An old and shameful story that some people, somehow, take pride in. Now that story - and that call - is being revived.
U.S. forces, including these modern “Buffalo Soldiers,” round up all the men in the village of Mashahdah, Iraq, in 2003. – Photo: Revcom.us
Barack Obama is going to the White House - the first Black president - and he’s calling for a new spirit of service to America. Well, I got a question, especially for Black youth: Are you going to sign up to fight America’s wars now? When Bush was talking about staying the course in Iraq till victory is achieved, most of you all weren’t buying it. But now your chests swell with pride when you think of Obama becoming the commander-in-chief of the free world. Some of you all are thinking maybe you would fight for an America that has Obama in charge.
Don’t do it. The nature of these wars hasn’t changed. They still come down to raining death and destruction on people who haven’t done a damn thing to deserve that kind of brutality. Is having a Black commander-in-chief enough to get you to enlist in America’s wars for empire, to kill people, and maybe die yourself, trying to keep America’s stranglehold on the world in effect? Or are you going to stand with people around the world in opposition to these wars? Are you going to buy the poison Obama is selling and think, and act, like an American? Or are you going to start thinking about what humanity needs?
You all aren’t the first generation to face this question. Back in the 1960s, the U.S. sent hundreds of thousands of young men to Vietnam - to kill people and maybe get killed themselves to serve the U.S. empire in trying to drown the Vietnamese people’s liberation struggle in blood. They tried to send me over there, but thanks to the powerful movement of resistance to that war and what I learned from GIs who had gone to Vietnam, I refused to go and kill people in another land. I had more in common with them than with the people who ran this country.
And with all the hell Black people were catching in the U.S., I felt my fight was here. I got sent to Leavenworth Military Penitentiary for this “crime.” Other GIs refused to go out and fight the “enemy” or resisted in other ways. And many who did go came back to the U.S. and got involved in resistance against the crimes of the system. Some of them joined the Black Panther Party and promoted solidarity with the struggle of the Vietnamese people. I became a revolutionary communist back then, and I’ve been on that tip ever since.
Some things are different today. The U.S. is going against a different kind of enemy, Islamic fundamentalists, who don’t represent anything good, and there isn’t a powerful movement in opposition to these wars at the moment. But one thing is the same: These are wars for empire. They’re going to send you to murder people at wedding parties in Afghanistan, terrorize children in their homes in Iraq and run their torture chambers. No one should join up to fight or give support to these wars!
Bombs dropped on villages in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan by U.S. war planes won’t be any less destructive if Obama is the commander-in-chief of the pilot dropping them! Israeli cluster bombs spread in Palestinian villages and refugee camps won’t kill any fewer children if Obama is authorizing the military assistance instead of George Bush! Threats to attack Iran won’t be any less warmongering if they are uttered by Obama instead of Bush!
So again I ask you: Are you going to approach these wars thinking like an American? Are you gonna follow the example of the Buffalo Soldiers? They were Black cavalry units formed in 1866, made up of former slaves who had fought in the Union army in the Civil War. They were sent off to fight in the murderous and genocidal “Indian wars,” driving the native inhabitants off their lands to make way for the expansion of America “from sea to shining sea.” And while the Buffalo Soldiers were fighting the native inhabitants for America, Black people in the southeastern U.S. were catching hell from the KKK and mob violence.
Some people think the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers is something to be proud of. Colin Powell kept a Buffalo Soldier statue on his desk when he was a top official during both of the Bush presidencies. Colin Powell, who tried to cover up the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war, who was a major architect of the first Gulf War and who went to the U.N. and lied through his teeth to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003, finds the Buffalo Soldiers inspiring. He called them “the wind beneath my wings” and especially cited their “loyalty.” Later they were sent by the U.S. to fight Mexican Revolutionaries like Pancho Villa. This is a shameful legacy, and it’s no wonder that a war criminal like Colin Powell is inspired by it.
If you follow in the footsteps of the Buffalo Soldiers, you will be called on to do just like they did: commit horrible acts against people who have done nothing to you, and you will do it in the service of a system that has carried out terrible crimes, including against the masses of African-American people, and you may end up giving up the only life you have in the service of that foul system.
DON’T DO IT! Don’t sign up for America’s wars under the leadership of “commander in chief” Barack Obama and carry forward the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers. Instead get with a cause that’s in the interest of humanity and is something worth fighting for - making revolution to wipe imperialism off the face of the earth
Carl Dix is a long time revolutionary whose writings appear in Revolution newspaper and other publications. He can be reached at carldix@hotmail.com.
http://www.sfbayview.com/2008/don%e2%80%99t-be-a-buffalo-soldier/
America’s sixth child
America’s sixth child
by Marian Wright Edelman
The sixth child
On the day he died, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called his mother to give her his next Sunday’s sermon title: “Why America May Go to Hell.” In his 1968 call for a Poor People’s Campaign, he warned that “America is going to hell if we don’t use her vast resources to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life.”
As Christians prepare to celebrate the birth of the most famous poor baby in history, imagine God seeing our very wealthy family blessed with six children. Five of them have enough to eat and comfortable warm rooms in which to sleep. One does not. She is often hungry and cold. On some nights, she has to sleep on the streets or in a shelter and even be taken away from her neglectful family and placed in foster care or a group home with strangers.
Imagine this rich family giving five of its children nourishing meals three times a day and snacks to fuel boundless energy but sending the sixth child from the table to school hungry, with only one or two meals and never the dessert the other children enjoy.
Imagine this very wealthy family making sure five of its children get all of their shots, regular health checkups before they get sick and immediate access to health care when illness strikes but ignoring the sixth child, who is plagued by chronic respiratory infections and painful toothaches, which can abscess and kill for lack of a doctor or a dentist.
Imagine this family sending five of its children to good stimulating preschools and making sure they have music and swimming lessons after school but sending the sixth child to unsafe daycare with untrained caregivers responsible for too many children or leaving her occasionally with an accommodating relative or neighbor or older sibling or alone.
Imagine five of the children living with books in a family that is able to read to most of its children every night, but leaving the other child unread to, untalked and unsung to, unhugged or propped before a television screen or video game that feeds her violence and sex and racially- and gender-charged messages, intellectual pablum, interrupted only by ceaseless ads for material things beyond the child’s grasp.
Imagine this family sending some of their children to high quality schools in safe neighborhoods with enough books and computers and laboratories and science equipment and well prepared teachers but sending the sixth child to a crumbling school building with peeling ceilings and leaks and lead in the paint and asbestos and old, old books - and not enough of them - and teachers untrained in the subjects they teach and with low expectations that all children can learn, especially the sixth child.
Imagine most of the family’s children being excited about learning and looking forward to finishing high school, going to college and getting a job but the sixth child falling further and further behind grade level, not being able to read, wanting to drop out of school, and being suspended and expelled at younger and younger ages, because no one has taught her to read and compute. And no one has diagnosed her attention deficit disorder or treated her health and mental health problems or helped her keep up with her peers.
Imagine five of the children engaged in sports and music and arts, in after-school activities and summer camps and in enrichment programs but the sixth child hanging out with dubious peers or going home alone because Mom and Dad are working, in prison or running away from their parenting responsibilities and escaping by using drugs and alcohol, leaving her alone or on the streets during idle non-school hours and weeks and months, at risk of being sucked into illegal activities and the prison pipeline or killed in our gun-saturated nation.
This is our American family today, where one in six of our children - 13 million children - lives in poverty in the richest nation on earth, more than 40 percent of them in extreme poverty. It is not a stable, healthy, economically sensible or just family. Our failure to invest in all our children before they get sick or drop out of school, get pregnant or get into trouble is extremely costly. Every year that we let 13 million children live in poverty costs $500 billion in lost productivity, crime and health costs.
Marian Wright Edelman
As our political leaders ponder our nation’s choices over the next 60 days, let them remember the millions of children living in poverty and extreme poverty and without health coverage and put their needs first and not last. Our economic futures depend on it and so does our nation’s soul.
Marian Wright Edelman, whose latest book is “The Sea Is So Wide And My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation,” is president of the Children’s Defense Fund.
http://www.sfbayview.com/2008/america%e2%80%99s-sixth-child/
Merchants of death: Exposing the corporate-financed holocaust in Africa
Merchants of death: Exposing the corporate-financed holocaust in Africa
by Keith Harmon Snow
War in Congo has again been splashed across world headlines and the same old clichés about violence and suffering are repackaged and rebroadcast as “news.” Meanwhile, early indications out of America are that President-elect Barack Obama will assemble a foreign policy-team primed for business as usual.
Rape is used as a systematic means of instilling terror in the people all over DRC. Bebiche, 20, fled eastern Congo and crossed the country on foot to find some refuge in western Congo. Countless women and girls in DRC have no options for existence but to pursue survival sex. – Photo: Keith Harmon Snow
How will Hillary Clinton as secretary of state compromise the Obama administration’s capacity to honestly redress the untold suffering, massive theft of resources and millions of deaths in Africa?
And Tom Daschle? Behind the media smokescreens are people whose involvement has been documented and exposed, but there is always some African fall guy - the “embraceable” Black subordinate or “rebel” commander - charged with war crimes and used to deflect attention from the leaders of organized white-collar crime networks.
Blacked out are the corporate executives, government officials and expatriate personnel of Western enterprises whose success amidst chaos implicates them in the deracination and death of millions of Black people. What’s behind the recent hostilities and media posturing in Central Africa?
The short, brutish life of Sandrine
On a darkling plain in a far away place the skeletons of hundreds of unnamed people lie strewn over the land amidst the red dirt and brown grasses scorched by the equatorial sun. Bones poke into the air here and there, hidden by the tall grass, tripping you up as you walk; others lie bleaching white in piles where the bodies fell. These are the killing fields of Bogoro, a small hillside village on a southerly road out of Bunia, a metropolis of suffering in the wild, wild east of Congo.
The grassy plains of Bogoro were guarded by soldiers and when I arrived the militia of the day wore black trench coats and black mirror sunglasses to enhance the aura of terror that surrounds them. With AK-47s slung over their shoulders, they talked on shiny Nokias and Motorolas and Samsungs - cell phones built with the blood minerals of the Congolese people.
Sandrine - not her real name - is a survivor who participated in the massacre at Bogoro. I interviewed Sandrine, just seventeen at the time, in 2007, and she recounted her ordeal as the sex slave of soldiers. Sandrine told how people were forced by militia commanders to chase down neighbors and kill or be killed. I found Sandrine living in misery in an evacuated refugee camp.
Sandrine knows nothing at all of the vast mining operations or minerals shipments being flown out of remote jungle airstrips in her home territory - or even that such airstrips exist. Ditto for the Congolese researchers I met, in Orientale, who worked with the International Criminal Court. Moto Gold? Mwana Africa? Walter Kansteiner? They had never heard of such companies, or such people.
In Western media reportage, the plunder of raw materials in Congo is usually de-linked from the killing, even though the extractive industries are directly behind it and even though almost everyone has begun to parrot the accusation of “resource wars” in Congo.
The Bogoro massacre occurred in February 2003 and, like the Hutu-Tutsi stories from Rwanda, the media whipped up the specter of ancient tribal animosities between Hema and Lendu tribes. But the real story is not quite so black and white. Or is it?
In Western media reportage, the plunder of raw materials in Congo is usually de-linked from the killing, even though the extractive industries are directly behind it.
Today the International Criminal Court (ICC) holds three Congolese “warlords” in the ICC prison at The Hague, Netherlands, and all three were associated with events at Bogoro. However, the white patrons reaping the profits behind the bloodletting in the eastern Congo are protected by a new humanitarian order predicated on permanent inequality, structural violence and race politics.
But for a few brief periods of relative calm, the war in Congo’s eastern Orientale and Kivu provinces has hardly stopped since its beginning in 1996, and the realities have been shrouded in media clichés and stereotypes and disingenuous expressions of outrage that deflect attention from the true protagonists and root causes of war and plunder in Africa.[1]
Good versus evil and the names games
Congolese men in South Kivu, falsely accused of being FDLR militia from Rwanda, are brutalized and detained by FARDC. – Photo: © 2007 Keith Harmon Snow
The UPC, FPRI, FNI - these are three of the scores of militias that have risen and fallen in Orientale since the war began in 1996 and, more poignantly, they are meaningless acronyms used to scramble the brains of Western spectator-news-consumers.
First there was the Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A) that invaded Rwanda, and then came the Alliance for the Democratic Liberation of Zaire (ADFL) that marched across Zaire to unseat President Mobutu. Next came the “rebellion” with Jean-Pierre Bemba and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) and all the different factions of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie, or Congolese Rally for Democracy - RCD, RCD-G (Goma), RCD-K, RCD-K-ML - backed by Rwanda and Uganda.
Here are the comrades in arms who studied together at the Marxist University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania: Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president; Laurent Desiré Kabila, the ADFL figurehead and assassinated president of the Democratic Republic of Congo; Meles Zenawi, president of Ethiopia; Isaias Afwerki, president of Eritrea; Africa scholar Mahmood Mamdani; former RCD leader Wamba dia Wamba; Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president; and John Garang (d. 2005), former leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and first president of South Sudan.
Both the RPF/A and SPLA waged successful covert guerrilla wars against governments that were considered “undesirable” by Washington, both achieved their objectives of seizing land and gaining control, and both insurgencies were covertly backed by U.S. Committee for Refugees official Roger Winter - a pivotal U.S. intelligence asset operating in Sudan and a dedicated ally of Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame and John Garang.
Winter’s protégé is Susan Rice, Clinton’s assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Rice was one of the primary architects of the Pentagon’s prized Africa Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) - a euphemistically named entity created to project U.S. power in Africa and run by U.S. Army Special Forces Command (SOCOM).[2]
The coups d’etat in Rwanda and Burundi occurred after the presidents Juvenal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira were assassinated on April 6, 1994. Similarly, more than a decade of covert U.S. military support for the SPLA, channeled through Uganda and Ethiopia, led to the Naivasha Peace Agreement of January 2005 and the creation of the autonomous country of South Sudan.
The “Rwanda genocide” began with the 1990 invasion of northern Rwanda by Ugandan forces that brutally targeted everyone in their path. By the time the RPF/A forces - comprised mostly of seasoned Ugandan troops - reached Kigali, more than 800,000 IDPs (internally displaced persons) were hovering around the capital city: They were terrified, they were homeless, they were hungry, they were angry and - justifiably - they took up arms. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) and its Canadian Gen. Romeo Dallaire clandestinely backed the illegal guerrilla war.[3]
The guerrilla wars in Rwanda and South Sudan were prosecuted much like the CIA-backed low-intensity guerrilla warfare, spawned by Washington, against populist movements in Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile and Guatemala. This is exactly what is playing out in Congo and Sudan today: low-intensity guerrilla warfare prosecuted by powerful shadow forces competing for land and loot.
SPLA leader John Garang received military training at the School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia. Paul Kagame received training at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. At the time he was sent for training, Kagame was Museveni’s director of military intelligence; upon his return, he assumed command of the army created, financed and trained by Uganda: the Rwanda Patriotic Army.
Both Garang and Kagame likely received “counter-insurgency” training through the Pentagon’s International Military Education and Training Program (IMET). Since 1998, the IMET program has provided training to 318 RDF and 291 UPDF soldiers. Many other IMET soldiers who attended the notorious School of the Americas are today known human rights violators in Latin America.
In North Kivu province we find the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and the National Congress for the Defense of the People, the CNDP, created by self-appointed Rwandan “General” Laurent Nkunda. Here the media has historically cast Gen. Nkunda as good, the FDLR as evil. Only recently has Nkunda come under any kind of “harsh” criticism.
The war in eastern Congo is almost universally described with clichés about the “Rwanda genocide.” The usual targets of white media racial profiling and hysterical academic polemics are the Hutu - the infamous Interahamwe and FDLR - the “killers” who “fled Rwanda after committing genocide” there. This is how millions of innocent Hutu people - comprising over 85 percent of the populations of Rwanda and Burundi - are collectively dehumanized.
Congolese Mai Mai militias are described as “nationalists” sometimes “wearing bathroom fixtures on their heads” and “shooting magic bullets.” The Mai Mai are the closest thing to a people’s or indigenous justice movement in Congo. The Mai Mai have most recently allied with the Congo’s national army, the Armed Forces for the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC), and the Mai Mai are sometimes cast as good, but usually as evil.
In 2007 the Mai Mai and FDLR joined forces to form the Front for the National Liberation of Kivu (FNLK). Backed by the FARDC, the FNLK is purportedly vying for power against Gen. Nkunda’s CNDP. However, alliances are constantly shifting based on private profit and “warlord” fiefdoms, and ALL factions, at some point or other, have collaborated in war and resource plunder.
Western news stories throw the acronyms and names of militias around with little or no information about their rise or fall, and nothing substantive about foreign backers they collaborate with. Militias mysteriously appear and disappear. Indeed, the more you read about Congo from venues like the New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker or the Atlantic Monthly, the less you will understand. This is no accident, and - no, you are not dumb.
Take the militia FNI: But for the victims and their suffering, it makes no difference what the acronym stands for; it’s all one big sadistic joke of language and power. The most significant fact to remember about this “F” “N” “I” is that they served as the private proxy army for the gold mining operations of Metalor, a Swedish firm, and AngloGold Ashanti, headquartered in South Africa and partnered with Barrick Gold.[4] Secondly, they were agents for Ugandan power brokers.
Anglo-Gold Ashanti directors include Sir Sam Jonah, who is also a director of shady mining-cum-military companies operating in Sierra Leone and connected to Tony Buckingham and other white-collar mercenaries. Buckingham affiliated companies - e.g. Heritage Oil and Gas, Branch Energy, Saracen Uganda - collaborate with the Museveni regime. Saracen’s top shareholder is Gen. Salim Saleh, half-brother of Yoweri Museveni, and Congo’s nemesis, a Ugandan agent cited by the United Nations for war and plunder in Congo.
AngloGold Ashanti is the Anglo American mining conglomerate of the Oppenheimers and De Beers mining cartels of Britain and South Africa, interests deeply aligned with Belgian American intelligence insider Maurice Tempelsman - the godfather of covert operations in Africa. Tempelsman’s diamond interests in Congo were, at least partially, displaced by the Israeli cartels of Dan Gertler and Benny Steinmetz.[5] It is a no-brainer that the Tempelsman gang backs Rwanda’s occupation of eastern Congo.
For a second example, media corporations have consistently blacked out the truth about the lucrative corporate “conservation” industry with articles like the recent New York Times production “Congo Violence Reaches Endangered Mountain Gorillas” (Jeffrey Gettleman, Nov. 18, 2008). Unreported however are the many accusations coming out of North Kivu that link the Jane Goodall Institute and Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund to local Mai Mai and FDLR: Like every other militia, or occupation army, these factions have infiltrated villages and now prey on, intimidate and abuse the locals. The white agents working for Western “conservation” NGOs - and we know their names - are directly responsible for extortion, racketeering, land theft, human rights atrocities and for ripping apart the social fabric.[6]
“The commander of the Mai-Mai is Col. Ntasibanga and the commander of the FDLR is Col. Faraja,” report Congolese locals who have been documenting the abuses (the facts are confirmed by a Spanish journalist). “We count already five people killed because of this [conservation] project … DFGF and JGI are without doubt corrupt … they are paying armed groups and forcing us off of our lands.”[7]
The Gettleman NYT article, on the other hand, cites one of these agents, Samantha Newport, described as “a spokeswoman for Virunga National Park.” She in fact works for Richard Leakey’s organization, Wildlife Direct, a shady paramilitary entity involving Walter Kansteiner.
A little matter of genocide
This woman died and the world press took no notice. “God help us if we have become so numb as to ignore even one death,” says writer Georgianne Nienaber. – Photo: © 2007 Keith Harmon Snow
The international arrest warrants issued by Spain and France against some 40 former RPF/A and current Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) members are patently dismissed by Western media of all stripes, buried behind waves of pro-RPF propaganda and intimidation that labels anyone who does not support the Kigali military dictatorship as genocide deniers, themselves guilty, by extension, of genocide.
While the RPF/A and UPDF are often named for leading the charge and supplying the bulk of the forces, the 1996 invasion of Zaire, launched from Uganda and Rwanda, involved U.S. covert forces with state-of-the-art C4ISTR - Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance - and there were Humvees and C-130 aircraft ferrying black-skinned U.S. Special Forces into South Sudan and northeastern Congo. The invasion also involved Israeli military experts, an assortment of Eritrean and Ethiopian regulars, and SPLA forces.[8]
The Anglo-European-Israeli forces penetrated eastern Zaire through the Gulu and Arua Districts of northwestern Uganda - the heart of Acholiland and ground zero for the ongoing genocide of the indigenous Acholi people - and they backed the RPA/UPDF who marched across Zaire massacring refugees, mostly women and children, mostly Hutus, who fled Kigali in 1994.[9] [10]
Howard French, then the Africa Bureau Chief for the New York Times, witnessed the Hutu genocide in Zaire, and wrote about it.[11] Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani - who by no means was an impartial observer when he arrived in Goma in September 1997 - described “an indiscriminate slaughter” of Interahamwe, of unarmed Hutu refugees, and of Congolese Hutus in the Kivus.[12] Bill Richardson, President Clinton’s ambassador to the United Nations, stated in a May 1997 interview: “I think there’s strong evidence that there have been these massacres.”[13]
But the subject of Hutus being slaughtered was only broached as a tool to hammer down the uppity Black rebel who diverged from his script and upset Washington’s plans. Indeed, the rise and fall of ADFL figurehead Laurent Desiré Kabila exemplifies the embraceable Black leader transformed almost overnight into the unembraceable Black fall guy. In the end, a bullet dispatched Laurent Kabila on Jan. 16, 2001, exactly 40 years after the assassination of Patrice Lumumba (Jan. 17, 1961).
Anyone who dismisses the organized and intentional RPF/A and UPDF military campaign against millions of Hutu people - massacred and chased from the Uganda border to Kigali, into to eastern Congo, and finally attacked in refugee camps and butchered all the way across Zaire - is a genocide denier. (Of course, the UPDF-RPF/A alliance also summarily executed and massacred Rwandan Tutsis and indigenous Twa and Congolese people.) Similarly, anyone who dismisses the organized persecution and atrocities against the Acholi people in Northern Uganda - maintained by the Museveni government and the UPDF occupation - is a genocide denier.
The criminality of the Kagame regime is whitewashed by the massive public relations campaigns involving Kagame’s special advisors and sponsors: former Ambassador Andrew Young and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Young’s Goodworks International also backs the Museveni regime. Buffing the shiny image of the government of Congo’s President Joseph Kabila is Stevens and Schriefer Group, the Washington, D.C., PR firm that twice helped get George W. Bush elected.
The New Yorker and CNN have consistently manufactured the pro-RPF/A propaganda, reported by Christiane Amanpour and Philip Gourevitch. Amanpour is married to James Rubin, Bill Clinton’s assistant secretary of state and Madeleine Albright’s right-hand man and now economic adviser to President-elect Barack Obama. Gourevitch - who produced the celebrated pro-RPF/A text “We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families,” is a close friend of Paul Kagame and a conduit for State Department disinformation passed by James Rubin, who was also chief spokesman for the Clinton State Department (1997-2000), and whose sister, Elizabeth Rubin, was dating Gourevitch.
U.S. business tycoon Joe Ritchie “has volunteered in Rwanda for the past five years introducing the country to business leaders around the world.” Ritchie also runs an “entrepreneurial philanthropy” called Friends of Rwanda and serves on President Paul Kagame’s Advisory Council and as CEO of the Rwanda Development Board.[14] [15] Like Walter Kansteiner, Joe Ritchie is a commodities and options trader from Chicago with deep pockets and dark secrets: Involved in a private attempt to overthrow the Taliban in 2000, Joe and James Ritchie were aided by their favorite consultant, former national security adviser Robert McFarlane, who successfully lobbied the CIA to dispatch an Unmanned Aerospace Vehicle (UAV) to the skies over Afghanistan.[16]
The Congo wars have direct links to the many long years of war in Sudan and Uganda, and they are intertwined with the current low-intensity warfare and the mass murder in Darfur, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. If we apply the genocide label to conflicts where it surely fits, then genocide is ongoing in Congo’s Orientale and Kivus provinces, and in Acholiland in Northern Uganda.[17] But it is also occurring in Iraq, Afghanistan, Burundi, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Botswana, Columbia, the Palestinian Territories and Malaysia, to mention a few irrefutable cases.
These geopolitical and strategic hotspots remain mostly blanketed by media reportage that quite literally blacks out key white protagonists by putting a Black African face on things. Another example: There has been little reported about the perpetual warfare and human rights atrocities in Orientale linked to tight little airstrips carved out of the rainforest and paved with support from the Pentagon-connected United States Agency for International Development (USAID).[18]
Consider Mwana Africa, a South African firm that controls the Kilo-Moto gold fields in Zani, DRC. The Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), led by Thomas Lubanga, occupied the Zani gold fields in 2002 and stirred up ethnic animosities that led to massive suffering and depopulation. However, according to Congolese locals, it was the white missionaries from the Africa Inland Mission that deeply divided local ethnic groups. French tycoons Jacques and Alvaro Hachuel own Mwana Africa.
Mwana Africa’s European director, Etienne Denis, began his long career of impoverishing the Congo at Umicore, formerly the Belgian mining giant Union Miniere, in 1974. The Mwana Africa airstrip at Zaniand nearby roads, were built with USAID backing, and the gold is flown out to Tanzania - one of the most underappreciated criminal players funneling weapons to Uganda and Congo - or sometimes shipped out by road through Uganda.[19] Mwana Africa is also involved in Congo’s bloody MIBA diamond concessions in Mbuji Mayi and the cobalt/copper concessions in Katanga.[20]
Similarly, almost nothing in context has been reported of the white mercenaries and their petroleum operations on the Uganda border with Orientale.[21] Like the ongoing covert war in Darfur, where the backers of the “mysterious” rebel groups are never exposed, the militias operating in Congo are proxy armies that serve the interests of external power blocks at the expense of their competitors.
Most reporting from the Kivus zooms in on sexual violence and the Western media always blames the victims - Congolese soldiers caught in the maelstrom of international proxy warfare and organized crime. But we hear nothing about U.S. or Canadian or Australian mining companies - and for those rare times that we do, the reportage de-links the mining from the mass murder.[22] More often, the media turns the story upside down, claiming that responsible Western mining executives are waiting in the wings for security to improve so they can provide jobs and accountability and “sustainable development” for the Congolese people. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A recent front page news feature, “Congo’s Riches, Looted by Renegade Troops,” about the Bisie tin mine in North Kivu, offers the perfect example. “On paper, the exploration rights to this mine belong to a consortium of British and South African investors who say they will turn this perilous and exploitative operation into a safe, modern beacon of prosperity for Congo,” wrote Jeffrey Gettleman for the New York Times. “But in practice, the consortium’s workers cannot even set foot on the mountain. Like a mafia, Col. Matumo and his men extort, tax and appropriate at will, draining this vast operation, worth as much as $80 million a year.”[23]
And thus do the valiant white knights of the New York Times shine their spotlight on plunder and extortion in Congo. Alas, it is a selective shining, an expedient “humanitarian” concern, and an arrogant moral high ground. Indeed, it is just another shade of the black and white race politics behind the politicization of the International Criminal Court.
The Black African fall guys
In June of 2008 the ICC charged two Black African rebel leaders, Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, with six counts of war crimes - willful killing, inhuman treatment or cruel treatment, using children under the age of 15 years to participate actively in hostilities, sexual slavery, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and pillaging - and three counts of crimes against humanity - murder, inhumane acts and sexual slavery.
ICC prosecutors say that Chui and his commander Katanga - known as Simba - led a militia called the Front for Patriotic Resistance of Ituri (FPRI); Chui was also a commander in another militia, the National Integrationist Front (FNI). The FPRI was fighting against the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC); another militia in Congo backed by outsiders - in particular, some faction from the U.S.
UPC commander Thomas Lubanga - another Black man - was the first person detained at the ICC’s Scheveningen prison at The Hague. Charles Taylor, former “warlord” and president from Liberia, was the second. Germaine Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui were next to be chosen for this auspicious club. Congolese “warlord” Jean-Pierre Bemba is the last of five detainees now held at the ICC. Bemba was the leader of the Congolese rebel army, the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), but he is charged with crimes in the Central African Republic.[24]
These five men all have more in common than the charges against them. They are all Black men, once embraced by the system and empowered as local or national leaders, and they are now the Black stooges who fell from grace to become, in the language of anthropologist and scholar Dr. Enoch Page, “unembraceable.”[25]
The unembraceable status, applied to Africa, is reserved for Black males, for dictators and warlords, rapists and killers, for “dirty” Arabs like Omar al-Bashir, president of Sudan, and for former “Marxist” guerillas, like Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe. Always they are people of color: They are the O.J. Simpsons and Michael Jacksons of Africa, formerly embraced Black males now ruthlessly persecuted by the Western establishment - primarily through racial surveillance and targeting in the mass media. Such treatment is rarely applied to white males, anywhere.
Someone has to be held responsible for the mass murder at Bogoro, but who paid the 29-year-old “warlord” Germaine Katanga? Why should he be the only one prosecuted? Who provided the jeeps for the “warlord” Mathieu Chui? Where did “warlord” Thomas Lubanga get the satellite phone to coordinate his private militia? How did Charles Taylor go from Harvard University to money laundering in Liberia to a Massachusetts prison - which he “escaped” from - and then on to become first the “president” and later “warlord” of Liberia?
How does Moto Gold Mining Co. extract gold from a war zone? And how do the shiny black leather belts and pressed camouflage fatigues and crisp felt berets and rocket-propelled grenades find their way to Laurent Nkunda’s “rebel” army now fighting in the North and South Kivu provinces of Congo?
Aware of their vulnerability as Black African fall guys - and soon after the ICC arrest of Jean-Pierre Bemba - the top brass of the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces curtailed their international travel plans and convened a special meeting at Uganda’s Bombo army headquarters near Kampala, in June 2008, to discuss fears of ICC warrants being issued against them.
Of course, the U.S. government and its business partners dictate the operations of the ICC. While considering soldiers of the United States and its allies to be above international humanitarian law and protected from the jurisdiction of the ICC, the Pentagon has simultaneously directed the formation, operations and legal precedents of the ICC through the involvement of members of the U.S. military’s Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps, the legal arm of the Pentagon.[26]
Congolese troops and militias connected to Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and wife Janet and their military collaborators operate extortion and racketeering networks that are plundering Congo. While former militias responsible for plunder have ostensibly been disbanded, new military networks have replaced them again and again.
Uganda arming militias yet again
FDLR "genocidaires” – children with guns – in eastern DRC
“The Congolese military [FARDC] works with Ugandans,” reported Christian Lukusha, an expert with Justice Plus, a Congolese human rights NGO based in Bunia, “including Salim Saleh, Museveni’s half-brother. And they ship timber and minerals across the border at both Aru and Mahagi. It’s completely clandestine.”[27]
According to the United Nations Observers Mission in Congo (MONUC), fighting in Orientale in September 2008 drove over 90,000 additional IDPs (internally displaced people) from their homes and lands. Fighting continued into October and November, and militias new and old are today floating between Uganda, South Sudan and DRC, recruiting and conscripting soldiers, including children, and training and indoctrinating them in the ideology of their “mysterious” leaders.
The FPJC - Front Congolaise Pour la Justice au Congo - is but the latest militia to suddenly emerge from the hills of Orientale. On Sept. 29, 2008, the FPJC, described as “a newly formed rebel group,” attacked and pursued retreating contingents of President Joseph Kabila’s regular army, the FARDC, before raiding and looting villages. Since mid-September the FPJC has engaged FARDC troops in firefights along the Lake Albert border zone.
According to Congolese sources in Bunia, the FPJC is solidly backed by Uganda and provides a second front in an alliance with Laurent Nkunda’s Rwandan army, which has freely operated in the Kivu provinces for years.
“The FPJC rebels are in the bush close to the Semliki River and the Uganda border,” says Godefroid (not his real name), a Congolese professional in Bunia who travels back and forth to Uganda by land. “There is some new recruitment of former militias along the Congo-Uganda border by Thomas Lubanga’s former UPC minister Mr. Avochi, a Congolese who as been in exile in Uganda since 2004.”[28]
Military training camps for the new FPJC recruits are today operating from at least four sites on the Uganda side of the border: 1) in the Kikong-Hoima district; 2) in Kasatu, close to Djegu, in Nebbi district; 3) in the Urusi area, close to Mahagi, of Nebbi district; and 4) in Bondo, close to Aru and Arua, in the Uganda district.
“Such trainings cannot happen without a clear agreement and support of the upper authorities of Uganda,” says Godefroid. “It’s all connected to the oil under Lake Albert and the gold in Orientale.”
According to this source, a senior FPJC military commander named Sherif confirmed that Laurent Nkunda and his National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) are involved with these Ugandan bases. “They are providing CNDP military training and recruits are given the CNDP ideology.”
Coincidentally - but not reported by the media - a hornet’s nest of Western petroleum and mining companies, all linked to international private military companies, local militias, and the national armies of Uganda, Rwanda and Congo, are fighting for control of the land on both sides of the Congo’s eastern border.
“Salim Saleh is involved in all of this,” said one Congolese official at the border town of Aru, DRC. “He is certainly responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Saleh worked with Jerome Kakwavu when he was the big chief in Aru. Kakwavu is a FARDC general now, in Kinshasa. Salim worked all the different groups, trading arms, playing them off one against the other.”[29]
Not reported by the media - a hornet’s nest of Western petroleum and mining companies, all linked to international private military companies, local militias, and the national armies of Uganda, Rwanda and Congo, are fighting for control of the land on both sides of the Congo’s eastern border.
Petroleum companies that have recently emerged and are now laying claim to DRC or Ugandan concessions on Lake Albert include Tower Resources, South African consortiums PetroSA and Divine Inspiration, and H Oil & Minerals Ltd.[30] Tower Resources is a U.S.-U.K. firm affiliated with U.K.-based Hardman Resources and tied to oil exploitation in Kenya and Namibia.[31]
H Oil & Minerals is a European firm operating in South Sudan, DRC and Angola; financiers include the Deutsche Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction & Development, and the Belgian giant Société Générale - one of the Congolese people’s greatest historical enemies. H Oil & Minerals is also closely linked to Marc Rich and his Switzerland-based company Glencore International, both known for arms trafficking in Angola and DRC through Angolagate notable Pierre Falcone. An Arizona (USA) Republican, Falcone is reportedly very tight with the Joseph Kabila government. Marc Rich is the fugitive Swiss financier who for years appeared on the FBI’s list of most wanted criminals on charges ranging from trading with embargoed states, tax evasion, racketeering and arms trafficking; Marc Rich was pardoned by Bill Clinton on Clinton’s last day in office.[32]
One of the most notorious global arms traffickers involved in Congo, Namibia and Zimbabwe is John Bredenkamp, one of Britain’s 50 richest men. Walter Hailwax, the Belgian honorary consul to Namibia, is a director of arms producer Windhoeker Maschinenfabrik and the local director of Bredenkamp’s arms brokerage company, ACS International Ltd. A key agent in Zimbabwean and DRC organized crime networks, Bredenkamp is one of the phantom white-collar criminals behind Robert Mugabe, another Black African fall guy now targeted by the Western press, think tanks and flak organizations, to the exclusion of other major interests. Of course, the Ndebele people suffered war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide under Mugabe, with the bulk of the atrocities committed from 1981 to 1988. (Mugabe remained an embraceable Black agent of white power until about 1999, and today - according to the Western economic and policy establishment, and the mass media, who no longer embrace him - he is the devil incarnate in Zimbabwe.)
The Lord’s Resistance Army
If you asked Western media consumers to name a bloodthirsty guerrilla movement in Africa, it is likely they would point to “warlord” Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), this thanks to the one-sided fictional media campaigns waged by National Public Radio, Time Magazine, Washington Post, or by Christopher Hitchens - who calls them “a Christian Khmer Rouge” - and Vanity Fair.[33] [34]
In the simplistic Western media narratives, the LRA is always described as a “fanatical Christian cult” that abducts children and forces them to commit atrocities. In the dichotomy of “good” versus “evil,” the LRA is “wicked” and the forces they are fighting against, President Museveni and the UPDF, are benevolent. Indeed, evangelical Christian missionaries from the United States have been deeply involved with the SPLA war against the “satanic” forces of the LRA and the Islamic government of Sudan.[35]
Spilling over from the wars in Uganda and Sudan and operating a clandestine network of terror and extortion in the north of Congo today, the LRA has waged a low-intensity war against the Museveni regime since circa 1987. The LRA is a Ugandan guerrilla force backed by the government of Sudan (Khartoum) and its allies and clandestinely supported by unnamed factions in Congo, Europe and Washington.
“For 19 years, Joseph Kony has been enslaving, torturing, raping and murdering Ugandan children,” wrote Christopher Hitchens, “many of whom have become soldiers for his ‘Lord’s Resistance Army,’ going on to torture, rape and kill other children.” Parroting the establishment line, Hitchens has no complaints about the UPDF brutalizing children in the refugee camps of Acholiland, and he never mentions the SPLA’s conscription of thousands of child soldiers.[36]
According to a high-level United Nations source working in the DRC, the LRA maintains very high-level political ties in New York and Washington, D.C., through Jongomoi Okidi-Olal, a Ugandan-American representative living in the U.S. The Uganda government has purportedly asked the Bush administration and the United Nations to arrest Okidi-Olal and hand him over to the ICC.[37] Other sources claim that Okidi is a fraud.
Interestingly, we find that Mwana Africa - whose vast Kilo-Moto mining concessions sprawl across northern Orientale - is also operating in Angola and South Africa and at five major mining concessions in the so-called “failed state” of Zimbabwe.[38] The government of Angola has always backed President Joseph Kabila, is very hostile to the Kagame gang and currently controls Congolese territory (Kehemba) near the Angolan border. Given the spoils to be had, it is likely that factions from Angola or Zimbabwe also back the Lord’s Resistance Army in a bid to displace Mwana Africa and other competitors from mining and petroleum sites in northeastern Congo.[39]
Congolese sources claim that MONUC moved into the Watsa region in northern Orientale only after the LRA - coming in through Garamba National Park near the Sudan border - began threatening the operations of AngloGold Ashanti, Mwana Africa and Moto Gold Mining.[40] Additionally, Garamba National Park is rich in diamonds and gold.
While the LRA is also supported by Ugandan factions opposed to the Museveni dictatorship, it is widely believed the LRA is a tool of the Museveni government used to manipulate public opinion, create chaos across the region, gain international sympathy from foreign donors and thereby procure massive financial backing to facilitate some of the world’s most lucrative and unappreciated AID-for-ARMS scandals. It is the perfect ruse to facilitate permanent foreign military intervention.
The LRA also reportedly moved into the northern DRC to displace SPLA troops that had a long history of plundering the area, shooting wildlife and harassing villages.[41] Thus while the evil LRA is always in the crosshairs of the international media, the same media protects the saintly SPLA, no matter the justice or criminality of either.[42]
The mass media and foreign policy discourses are saturated with the writings, op-eds and policy briefs of “experts” who serve as apologetic propagandists for foreign interventions and hidden agendas. Such “experts” exercise stark biases in naming or delineating the “killers” versus “victims” and for this reason they often gain exclusive access to mass media venues. The system of information control becomes self-perpetuating in favor of power and deception.
Experts working for the Pentagon, State Department or national security apparatus deploy arguments cloaked in righteous assumptions of higher morality about human rights or humanitarian concern. For example, Sudan “experts” like Dr. Eric Reeves and Alex De Waal provide a constant barrage of one-sided propaganda to manufacture consent at home and project American power in Sudan.[43] This propaganda is unassailable by Western “news” consumers, because consumers are not otherwise privy to, interested in or compelled to discover the deeper truths.
‘Raise Hope for Congo’ initiative
Like the “Save Tibet” campaign, the one-sided propaganda campaign and institutionalized big-money networking of the “Save Darfur” movement compelled ordinary citizens to become active participants in “stopping genocide.” A similar agenda is driving the new “Raise Hope for Congo” initiative. While their ideological programs are advanced through the Western mass media, organizations - e.g. the International Crises Group, Center for American Progress, International Rescue Committee, ENOUGH! - work to manufacture consent and channel popular consciousness through jingoistic sloganeering and humanistic language that offers “news” consumers exactly what they want to hear: peacekeeping, human rights, democracy, sustainable development, participatory mapping, Africa for the African people, and “never again” interventions against genocide.
Such propaganda campaigns proscribe ideas and possibilities, and they subvert popular movements. In the end, the true grassroots initiatives for social justice and legitimate peace have been expropriated or channeled into serving narrow prerogatives of power. And the voices of the voiceless are crushed, along with their bodies. The International Criminal Court serves a similar and necessary function in manufacturing consent and consolidating Western power. It is really about keeping up appearances: the appearance of justice being served, human rights being protected.
On Oct. 14, 2005, the ICC unsealed arrest warrants against five LRA commanders, all of them Black Africans: Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti, Raska Lukwiya, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen. In October 2008, after the LRA committed fresh atrocities in northern DRC, the ICC renewed its calls for the arrest of Joseph Kony.[44]
Western propaganda campaigns proscribe ideas and possibilities, and they subvert popular movements. The voices of the voiceless are crushed, along with their bodies.
Uganda’s representation at ICC proceedings to explore war crimes in Congo has included at least two very high profile lawyers from Foley Hoag LLP, an influential Washington law firm.[45] Similarly, the Pentagon seconded its lawyers from the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps to the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR), where victor’s justice has arbitrarily and selectively politicized genocide in favor of the Pentagon’s UPDF/RPA proxy governments.[46]
Foley Hoag LLP is also tied to the U.S.-Uganda Friendship Council, a consortium that involves Coke, Pfizer and Chevron-Texaco. Coke director Kathleen Black is a principle in the Hearst media empire, while Coke directors Warren Buffet and Barry Diller are directors of the Washington Post Co., and these are the media institutions that whitewash the white-collar crime in Congo. Uganda’s image is further sanitized by London PR firm Hill & Knowlton.”[47]
From 2000 to at least 2004, Yoweri Museveni was co-chair of the euphemistically named Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa (PCHPA). The PCHPA is a front for multinational corporations and USAID, a Christian-based “soft policy” wing of the Pentagon that uses food as a weapon under the disguise of charity. Other PCHPA chairs include former U.S. Senator and Alston & Bird lawyer Bob Dole; Peter Seligman, chair and CEO of Conservation International, an NGO connected to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and Jane Goodall Institute operations in DRC; George Rupp, president of the International Rescue Committee, a flak-producing organization involved in DRC; and Alpha Konare, the former chair of the Commission of the African Union (2003-2008), the governing body responsible, for example, for oversight of the supposedly “neutral” African Union “peacekeeping” force in Darfur, Sudan - a force that again deploys RDF forces as proxies to secretly further U.S./U.K. interests.
One PCHPA director also represents Bread for the World, a protectionist and nationalistic U.S.-based Christian evangelical “charity” whose directors include Bob Dole and former White House cabinet officials Mike McCurry and Leon Panetta. Along with Thomas Pickering, Susan Rice, Gayle Smith, Donald Payne, Ed Royce, John Podesta, Anthony Lake, Bill and Hillary Clinton and others, these are the architects of covert operations in Africa during the Clinton years.[48]
Sen. Tom Daschle is a special policy advisor for Alston & Bird and an honorary senior fellow of the Center for American Progress (CAP), the nationalist U.S. big money “think tank” behind a multitude of front groups with hidden foreign policy agendas around Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and Sudan.[49] These include the ENOUGH! Project, the new Raise Hope for Congo initiative, the Genocide Intervention Network, the ONE Campaign and the International Crisis Group (ICG) - all of which somehow involve agents like John Prendergast, former national security insider for President Bill Clinton. It is interesting that a lot of the same people show up tied to different organizations involved in “grassroots” campaigns to help Africa.
The ONE campaign was launched by a coalition of 11 prominent corporate so-called “charity” organizations, including Bread for the World, CARE, Save the Children and the International Rescue Committee (IRC); each of these profit-based organizations has a euphemistic name that suggests a humanitarian or humanistic agenda, but they actually serve corporate interests. CARE has received funding from weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp. In 1996 the IRC reportedly took over bases near the Hutu refugee camps in eastern Zaire and proceeded to shell the camps with heavy weapons; also, Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright are IRC overseers.[50] ICG director Zbigniew Brzezinski is an advisor to President-elect Barack Obama.
In July 2008, Sen. Tom Daschle led a special delegation of policymakers on behalf of the ONE Campaign, described as “a bipartisan movement of over 2 million advocates for the elimination of global poverty and disease.” The ONE delegation also “met with civic and government leaders, as well as everyday citizens and entrepreneurs, to discuss Rwanda’s courageous national reconciliation since the genocide in 1994 …”[51]
Daschle and Dole’s law firm, Alston & Bird, is a sponsor of the corporate “Millennium Promise” project, and they provide pro bono legal services, in both the U.S. and Africa, for the Millennium Villages and Millennium Promise, both in Rwanda.[52] These programs are designed to put a “development” face on Africa while maintaining structural inequality, protectionist trade barriers and military superiority.
To put it simply, white people will always get the best jobs, corporations will run and ruin the world - dumping substandard and outdated products on confused populations; seeding the natural world with genetically engineered crops; peddling pretty plastic junk; pushing pharmaceutical pills; strip-mining everything - and we will all fool ourselves and ease our consciences by pretending that we are breaking down barriers of inequality and building a better world.
According to a very high level United Nations special investigator sent to negotiate with LRA commanders in DRC’s far north Garamba region in February 2007, the Uganda government had then recently “arrested” a U.S. military agent and five Congolese militia leaders discovered in Uganda. Originally detained in Kampala, the U.S. military agent was nonetheless allowed to move freely in and out of the DRC.[53]
The U.S. maintains “Intelligence Fusion Cells” in Congo and one cell, in Kisangani, capital of Orientale, was situated in a compound, ringed with coils of barbed wire, near the Tshopo River power station, and was run by a “ex”-marine named “Tom” who refused to discuss the cell. There were two U.S. military and two Rwandan military working there.[54] MONUC’s local spokesman confirmed only that the cell revolves around a “tripartite security arrangement between Rwanda, Uganda and DRC,” adding, “that one we don’t touch. It’s very hot.”[55] British soldiers stationed in Kisangani said the American fusion cell “monitors intelligence on tantalum extraction.”
To put it simply, white people will always get the best jobs, corporations will run and ruin the world - dumping substandard and outdated products on confused populations; seeding the natural world with genetically engineered crops; peddling pretty plastic junk; pushing pharmaceutical pills; strip-mining everything - and we will all fool ourselves and ease our consciences by pretending that we are breaking down barriers of inequality and building a better world.
A few years back, the U.S. donated to Rwanda two Boeing aircraft that were routinely used by the regime’s Ministry of Defense for arms and minerals trafficking between Rwanda, Belgium, Albania and Bulgaria. Operated by Silverback Cargo Freighters, a Kigali-based company blocked from European airspace since 2006, the planes were also reportedly used for CIA operations, including the transfer of U.S. “war on terror” prisoners. The Rwandan government refused to aid UN investigators seeking information about the company’s clandestine operations.[56] [57]
Recent massive human suffering and the escalation of hostilities by the Nkunda army in eastern Congo have provoked a spate of high-visibility policy statements where some powerful Western interests are calling on the “international community” to strengthen the MONUC military occupation of Congo, while other powerful interests from the new humanitarian order are calling for the European Union to send in a rapid reaction force.[58]
Blessed be the peacekeepers
Congolese sources everywhere confirm the widespread involvement of MONUC soldiers in guns-for-minerals swaps and sexual violence; sources repeatedly accuse MONUC troops of delivering weapons back to militias to justify MONUC’s $1 billion a year occupation of Congo.[59]
“MONUC was giving weapons to the militias,” says yet one more Congolese official. “MONUC had their own ambitions. It was about gold. The peace that was achieved in Orientale around 2006 was not achieved by MONUC; the National Police Force from Kinshasa and the integrated FARDC brigades achieved it. MONUC was frustrating the peace.”[60]
Congolese sources everywhere confirm the widespread involvement of MONUC [U.N.] soldiers in guns-for-minerals swaps and sexual violence.
In the new Congo war documentary by Dutch filmmaker Renzo Martens, “Enjoy Poverty,” we see South African mining staff of AngloGold Ashanti confirming MONUC’s pivotal role in securing the company’s access to gold in Orientale. The entire “humanitarian” enterprise must be properly situated in the political economy of profit-based charity, resource control and racial injustice.[61]
MONUC doesn’t need more guns; it needs fewer guns - but arms dealers keep shipping them in. And Congo doesn’t need more foreign mercenary forces posing as “peacekeepers” but secretly serving narrow, undisclosed interventionist agendas on behalf of multinational corporations.
Ditto for Darfur. In an “explosive” new book by progressive activists that mildly exposes some of the hypocrisies of the Save Darfur movement, we find the authors calling for greater military intervention and sneering at others who have criticized and rejected military intervention for being what we might call the new, old humanitarian warfare in Africa.[62]
The book, “Scramble for Africa: Darfur - Intervention and the USA,” cites ad nauseum all the usual propagandists that are monopolizing the English language mass media, publications from the far right to progressive left, on Darfur. These experts include Alex De Waal and Eric Reeves - and the International Crisis Group - but there are plenty of citations and references to journalists who peddle the establishment inventions and thereby black out the forces of Western control.
By page xvii of the preface, the authors - who have no experience anywhere near Sudan - have become the prosecution, judges and jury of their own private international court: “That [President Omar al-Bashir] is a major war criminal is beyond doubt,” they wrote, “as is the fact that he should face trial for his substantial violations of international human rights law.” The American authors, it seems, are also in the business of overthrowing governments: “Given the litany of abuses for which [the Government of Sudan] is guilty,” they wrote, “there would be little to mourn in Bashir’s overthrow, and such a move - depending, of course, on the actors involved, and its prospects for success - could be cautiously supported.”[63]
In other words, it’s fine for white people from the United States to organize the overthrow of sovereign governments, as long as we selectively chose the “right” people for the job. The authors never similarly condemn “leaders” from the United States, Canada, Israel or Europe, and they never suggest that President Bush should be overthrown or that Donald Rumsfeld or Henry Kissinger or Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf or Maurice Tempelsman should be prosecuted for war crimes.
The book makes no mention of covert operations or private military companies operating in South Sudan or Darfur and, while it illuminates the Bush administration’s collaboration with the Khartoum government, it is nothing more than a cheerleading tool for the opposing power blocks, including the massive so-called “humanitarian relief” operations. Such is the racial obliviousness of the new humanitarian disorder.
But Darfur’s cheerleaders and Khartoum’s enemies are not so neutral as they appear.
In 1992, Darfur human rights expert Alex De Waal established African Rights, an NGO based in London, co-directed with Rakiya Omaar. In August 1995, African Rights published the report, “Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance,” one of the first “human rights investigations” to appear after the so-called “100 days of killing” and the successful RPA/UPDF coup d’etat in Rwanda of 1994.
“Among the early reports on the genocide, none matches Africa[n] Rights, ‘Rwanda, Death, Despair and Defiance’ (September 1994) for the clinical description of the atrocities inflicted upon Tutsi victims,” wrote renowned Africa scholar René Lemarchand, “ranging from political murders to collective massacres in churches, schools and stadiums, and the daily manhunts conducted on the hills. Significant as it is to our understanding of the sheer savagery that has accompanied the carnage, the African Rights report is utterly silent on the grisly crimes and torture inflicted by Tutsi soldiers on innocent Hutu civilians, some of which are by now well documented (Nduwayo, 2002: 9-16; Amnesty International, 1994; Des Forges, 1999; Reyntjens and De Souter, 1994).”[64]
Lemarchand makes the usual error of accepting the “clinical description of the atrocities inflicted on Tutsis” at face value. How does he know they are all Tutsis and only Tutsis? Because African Rights says they are? Where does he get his information about “daily manhunts conducted on the hills”? Why would Lemarchand so quickly trust the claims of a report that he simultaneously castigates for its (authors’) extreme and obvious biases?
“This woman of Somali origin is an RPF agent,” says Jean-Marie Higiro of African Rights’ co-director Rakiya Omaar. Higiro was director of the Rwandan Information Office (ORINFOR). “She has her office in Kigali. In 1994 she was at Mulindi, the headquarters of the RPF. As the RPF conquered territories from the Rwandan Government Forces, she collected information fed to her by the RPF.”[65]
“An intensive back and forth activity between this so-called British human rights organization, African Rights, and the intelligence services of the president’s office and the military has been observed,” wrote Paul Rusesabagina. “Her investigators are very close to the [RPF/RDF] military intelligence apparatus, and the modus operandi of both appears to be similar.”[66]
The African Rights report was one of the first to manufacture and promulgate the false (one-sided) mythology of “genocide” in Rwanda. It says nothing about RPF/A massacres or foreign military involvement and peddles the now clichéd and disingenuous stereotypes about victims and killers. What does the African Rights report tell us about the veracity of Alex De Waal’s “human rights” reports and political analyses coming out of Darfur? Further, Alex De Waal’s ties to U.S. intelligence include his involvement with Harvard University and the Council on Foreign Relations: De Waal was a member of a CFR task force focused on defining a new military and intelligence engagement with Africa that is cloaked in “humanitarian” rhetoric.[67]
We further witness the hypocrisy and international scandal of having three battalions of Pentagon “trained” Rwandan Defense Force (RDF) “peacekeepers” operating in Darfur while the RDF is openly backing Laurent Nkunda’s occupation proxy force in Congo. Similarly, the UPDF - having received fresh military training by U.S. covert forces in Uganda - has been sent to Somalia. This is not “peacekeeping”; it is crazy making.
A few well-placed arrests - beginning in Washington, Frankfurt, London, New York or Brussels - would redress the problem of impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity everywhere.
The Kansteiner connection
The Moto Gold Project is located in the Kilo Moto goldfields in the northeast of the DRC, some 150 kilometers west of the Ugandan border town of Arua. Kilo Moto was President Joseph Mobutu’s private mine, but the project, at various stages, involved powerful Western interlocutors: Belgians Yves Le Norvan and the Damseau family; Roger Lemaire, a Houston, Texas, insider; and an Israeli military agent identified as David Agnon.[68] Kilo Moto’s gold, then as now, usually exited Congo (Zaire) through remote airstrips.[69]
The present Moto Gold Mining “lease” - a massive land grab corruptly obtained - covers an area of approximately 1,841 square kilometers and involves sites at Durba, Watsa and Doko. Moto Gold’s partners in Orientale include Siemens and Ken Overseas. Siemens director Tiego Moseneke is also a director of PetroSA, a new South African oil minor poaching DRC oil concessions on Lake Albert.[70] Ken Overseas Co. is involved in the Minière de Bakwanga (MIBA) diamond mines in Congo’s Mbuji-Mayi province. In their reports on war and plunder in DRC, the United Nations Panel of Experts named Ken Overseas in a MIBA mining consortium linked to Belgian tycoon Philippe de Moerloose and Israeli mining magnate Dan Gertler; both men have been flagged for arms trafficking.[71]
A few well-placed arrests - beginning in Washington, Frankfurt, London, New York or Brussels - would redress the problem of impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity everywhere.
Walter Kansteiner III is one of the shadiest architects of Congo’s troubles. The son of a coltan trader in Chicago, Kansteiner was assistant secretary of state for Africa under G.W. Bush and former “National Security” insider and member of the Department of Defense Task Force on Strategic Minerals under Bill Clinton. Kansteiner’s speech at The Forum for International Policy in October of 1996 advocated partitioning the Congo (Zaire) into smaller states based on ethnic lineage; Laurent Kabila was marching across Zaire at the time.[72]
The balkanization of Congo appears to be a major objective behind the current organized chaos in the Great Lakes region.[73] Further, it is obvious that conflicts from within the U.S. - between the Department of State, Pentagon and intelligence agencies - are translating to regional warfare on the ground in, especially, Sudan, Uganda and Congo.
Kansteiner is a trustee of the Africa Wildlife Foundation - another profit-based “conservation” corporation tied to Conservation International, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and the Jane Goodall Institute - entities whose front of gorilla and chimpanzee protection hides a deeper agenda.[74] It is not surprising to find that one of the AWF’s premier sponsors is Barrick Gold. Kansteiner is also linked to Richard Leakey’s paramilitary front organization Wildlife Direct and to the Africa Conservation Fund, a shady Washington, D.C., entity.[75]
Kansteiner is a director of the precious metal firm Titanium Resources Group, a company deeply tied to Sierra Rutile Ltd., a firm pivotal to the bloodshed in Sierra Leone.[76] Sierra Rutile Ltd. director Sir Sam Jonah reportedly helped finance Rwandan RCD rebel groups in DRC while he was a CEO of Ashanti Goldfields; Jonah is also a director for Moto Gold.[77] Sierra Rutile is owned by Max and Jean-Raymond Boulle and Robert Friedland, “Friends of Bill” Clinton who are linked to clandestine networks of offshore holdings and front companies involved in weapons trafficking, money laundering and human rights atrocities from Burma to the Congos to Mongolia.[78]
On April 28, 2008, the ICC issued an international arrest warrant for militia commander Bosco Ntaganda, former commander of the Forces Patriotiques pour la Libération du Congo (FPLC), a militia that operated in the oil and gold areas of Orientale. Bosco is currently the chief of staff of Laurent Nkunda’s CNDP army in North Kivu.
On July 14, 2008, the prosecutor of the ICC applied for an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, accused of crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. Bashir is an Arab - another person of color - and the ICC has deeply politicized the Darfur conflict in keeping with the imperialist smokescreen of the “Save Darfur” movement.
There have been no ICC indictments against a single white man who could be proven to be equally culpable in war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide, though the list of possibilities - as indicated herein - is very, very long.
“Its name notwithstanding, the ICC is rapidly turning into a Western court to try African crimes against humanity,” writes Mahmood Mamdani. “It has targeted governments that are U.S. adversaries and ignored actions the United States doesn’t oppose, like those of Uganda and Rwanda in eastern Congo, effectively conferring impunity on them.”[79]
The writing is on the wall, and we can anticipate the eventual arrest of Ugandan military commanders, including Laurent Nkunda, James Kazini, James Kabarebe, Salim Saleh and Paul Kagame. Such arrests aren’t likely to involve legitimate judicial proceedings, and it won’t be merely because these people deserve to be arrested, which they do, and they probably won’t be arrested before a few more million people are slaughtered in Central Africa.
The arrests will come because these are the notoriously visible people of color used to make invisible - quite literally black out - the white war criminals and covert operators wrecking havoc in Africa and elsewhere around the world. They are the embraceable Black Africans, and the future fall guys, and Africa’s “leaders” should take note. And so should Barack Obama.
Even more critical is the need for the Western news consuming public to recognize the face of propaganda and the nature of “change” and what it means to people of color everywhere. Thus it is critical to note the recent shift in media coverage that accompanies the imminent shift in the post-election balance of U.S. power. Gen. Laurent Nkunda has been deeply involved in Congo for years and the Kagame military machine has been shipping weapons and officers directly to Congo; these Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) officers infiltrate the country and direct the “rebel” operations, and the CNDP has served as a lever of power used against the Kabila government. Reported herein - and nowhere else - is the ongoing secret military involvement of Yoweri Museveni and the Ugandan crime networks.
The children of the Congo need us to call out the merchants of death and leave the wealth of the Congo for the Congolese people. - Photo: foto_morgana
Only recently, as power shifts from the G.W. Bush power elite to the incoming Obama administration - being packed with Clintonite friends and officials and by Democratic Party financiers like diamond kingpin Maurice Tempelsman - has Nkunda or Rwanda been subject to any kind of “harsh criticism.” The New York Times article of Dec. 3, 2008, is the perfect example of the “news” media serving hidden agendas. In “Rwanda Stirs Deadly Brew of Troubles in Congo,” the New York Times peddles the standard narrative about “genocide in Rwanda” in 1994.
Suddenly, writes Jeffrey Gettleman, one of the NYT’s chief Congo propagandists of late, there is a “secret Rwandan brotherhood” and Rwandan government officials are involved in the bloodletting and plunder in Congo.[80] Such “exposés” appear only because power factions - in this case a right-wing Republican faction allied with the Bush administration - are exerting leverage through their mouthpiece, the New York Times, and thus mildly exposing the obvious links of the former Clinton administration - a competing power faction, more heavily comprised of right-wing Democrats - to war and covert operations in Congo. There is a similar political economy of intervention at work vis-à-vis Darfur, Sudan.
Suddenly it is beneficial to name a few names - names like Modeste Makabuza Ngoga - names that have been known and named before.[81] These New York Times articles are nothing more than expedience, tricks in a bag of tricks, as power jockeys for its positions, and for massive private profit, as we approach the zero hour and the twilight of savior Barack Obama’s coming, bringing “change” to America and the same old, new, humanitarian warfare to Africa.[82]
Notes
[1] There are exceptions to the rule, including the extensive publications by this author and those by Africa researcher David Barouski. See, e.g., David Barouski, “Mining in the Ituri Province of the Congo: A Contemporary Profile,” Z-Net, April 15, 2008; and David Barouski, “Laurent Nkundabatware, His Rwandan Allies, and the ex-ANC Mutiny: Chronic Barriers to Lasting Peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Feb. 13, 2007.
[2] Wayne Madsen, “Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999,” Mellon Books, 1999.
[3] Investigations into the 1994 events in Rwanda and documents presented at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda reveal a huge body of evidence supporting what soon become obvious conclusions.
[4] Keith Harmon Snow and David Barouski, “Behind the Numbers: Untold Suffering in Congo,” Z Magazine, March 1, 2006; and Human Rights Watch, “The Curse of Gold,” June 1, 2005.
[5] See Keith Harmon Snow, “Gertler’s Bling Bang Torah Gang,” Dissident Voice, Feb. 9, 2008.
[6] Private investigations, North Kivu, DRC, 2005-2007, and private communications, 2008.
[7] Private communications, July through November 2008.
[8] See Wayne Madsen, “Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999,” Mellon Books, 1999; and Keith Harmon Snow, “Darfurism, Uganda and U.S. War in Africa: The Spectre of Continental Genocide,” Dissident Voice, Nov. 24, 2007; private interviews, eyewitnesses working in western Uganda at the time, October 2007.
[9] The Acholi people - non-combatant men, but mostly women and children - have suffered decades of genocidal treatment by UPDF soldiers deployed by Yoweri Museveni, president in Uganda, and top military commanders Gen. James Kazini, Gen. Salim Saleh, Gen. Kahinda Otafiir, Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, Lt. Gen. Katumba Wamala, Maj. Gen. Jim Owoyesigire and Brig. Gen. Robert Rusoke.
[10] Private interview, eyewitness working in western Uganda at the time, October 2007; see also Wayne Madsen, “Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999,” Mellon Books, 1999.
[11] Howard French, “A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa,” Vintage, April 2005.
[12] Mahmood Mamdani, “Understanding the Crisis in Kivu: Report of the CODESRIA Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo September, 1997,” Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, Nov. 20, 1998, http://hrp.bard.edu/resource_pdfs/mamdani.kivu.pdf.
[13] “ZAIRE: Peace Possible?” interview with Bill Richardson, PBS Online News Hour, May 9, 1997, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/africa/may97/zaire_5-9.html.
[14] Friends of Rwanda advisory board: http://www.friendsofrwanda.com/foractivity/.
[15] “A Brief Profile of Joe Ritchie,” The New Times, Nov. 26, 2008, http://www.newtimes.co.rw/index.php?issue=13707&article=10610.
[16] Marc Kaufman and Robert E. Pierre, “Rich Brothers Mission to Save Afghanistan Stirs Suspicions,” Washington Post News Service, International Herald Tribune On-Line, Nov. 9, 2001, http://www.uni-muenster.de/PeaCon/global-texte/g-notes/IHT%20RichBrothersMission-IHT.htm.
[17] Quotes are used because the “genocide” label and realities on the ground are highly contested.
[18] Moto Gold Mines website: http://www.motogoldmines.com/board_of_directors.9.html.
[19] Private interviews, Bunia, Kisangani and Zani, DRC, March 26-28, 2007; and Mwana Africa presentation, 30th Minesite Mining Forum, March 28, 2006: http://www.mwanaafrica.com/ir/files/presentations/2006/minesite_mar06.pdf.
[20] Mwana Africa presentation, 30th Minesite Mining Forum, March 28, 2006: http://www.mwanaafrica.com/ir/files/presentations/2006/minesite_mar06.pdf.
[21] See Keith Harmon Snow, “Northern Uganda: Hidden War, Massive Suffering: Another White People’s War for Oil,” Global Research, May 26, 2007.
[22] See Keith Harmon Snow, “Three Cheers for Eve Ensler? Propaganda, White Collar Crime and Sexual Atrocities in Eastern Congo,” Z-Net, Oct. 24, 2007.
[23] Jeffrey Gettleman, “Congo’s Riches, Looted by Renegade Troops,” New York Times, Nov. 18, 2008, p. 1, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/world/africa/16congo.html.
[24] See Keith Harmon Snow, “A People’s History of Congo’s Jean-Pierre Bemba,” Toward Freedom, Sept. 18, 2007.
[25] See Dr. Enoch (Helan) Page, “‘Black Male’ Imagery and Media Containment of African American Men,” American Anthropologist, March 1997, Vol. 99, No. 1, pp. 99-111.
[26] See, e.g., William K. Lietzau, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2003/d20030522liet.pdf.
[27] Interview with human rights investigator, Bunia, DRC, March 23, 2007.
[28] Private communications, Orientale, DRC, November
[29] Private interview, Aru official, Aru, DRC, March 26, 2007.
[30] See “An Industry Rebirth? Oil in the DRC,” Consultancy Africa Intelligence; and Tower Resources: http://www.towerresources.co.uk/corporate.html; H Oil and Minerals Ltd. website: www.hoilminerals.com.
[31] Tower Resources website: http://www.towerresources.co.uk/operations.html.
[32] Ken Silverstein, “The Arms Dealer Next Door: International billionaire, French prisoner, Angolan weapons broker, Arizona Republican. Who is Pierre Falcone?” In These Times, Dec. 22, 2001.
[33] Christopher Hitchens, “Childhood’s End,” Vanity Fair, January 20076, http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/01/hitchens200601.
[34] After querying Vanity Fair editors with a story idea about war in Africa, the editors responded that Christopher Hitchens is their sole source correspondent on Africa.
[35] See Richard Bartholomew, “American Pastor Helps SPLA Battle LRA in Sudan,” Jan. 25, 2005, http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2006/01/25/american-pastor-helps-spla-battle-lra-in-sudan/; and Keith Harmon Snow, “Oil in Darfur? Special Ops in Somalia?” Global Research, Feb. 7, 2007, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20SN20070207&articleId=4717.
[36] Jo Becker, “Children as Weapons of War,” Human Rights Watch World Report 2004, Human Rights Watch, January 2004, http://www.hrw.org/legacy/wr2k4/index.htm.
[37] Interviews with U.N. official in eastern DRC, August 2006 and February 2007. See also “U.S. asked to arrest Ugandan-American rebel Jongomoi Okidi-Olal - The real brain behind LRA leadership?” Xinhua, April 9, 2006, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/09/content_4402556.htm.
[38] Mwana Africa presentation, 30th Minesite Mining Forum, March 28, 2006, http://www.mwanaafrica.com/ir/files/presentations/2006/minesite_mar06.pdf.
[39] See Charles Onyango Obbo, “Soon the guns of Goma might be heard in Kampala,” Monitor On-Line, Nov. 19, 2008, http://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/11dd77ace1d4c3d0.
[40] Private interviews, Bunia and Kisangani, February and March 2007.
[41] The international rhino conservation programs at Garamba are reportedly somehow tied to the political interests of the opposition party in Zimbabwe; private interview, U.N. investigator, Kisangani, DRC 2007.
[42] See Keith Harmon Snow, “Oil in Darfur? Special Ops in Somalia?” Global Research, Feb. 7, 2007, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20SN20070207&articleId=4717.
[43] See Keith Harmon Snow, “Oil in Darfur? Special Ops in Somalia?” Global Research, Feb. 7, 2007, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20SN20070207&articleId=4717.
[44] “ICC calls for renewed efforts to arrest Joseph Kony,” RNW International Justice Desk, Oct. 6, 2008, http://www.rnw.nl/internationaljustice/icc/Uganda/081006-uganda-kony.
[45] Paul S. Reichler and Lawrence H. Martin. See “Public sitting held on Monday 18 April 2005, at 10 a.m., at the Peace Palace, President Shi presiding, in the case concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda),” International Court of Justice, CR 2005/7, 2005
[46] Ralph G. Kershaw, “Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda: International Justice According to Washington,” Covert Action Quarterly, No. 74, Fall 2002.
[47] Jeevan Vasagar, “Uganda hires PR agency to buff up its image,” The Guardian, May 21, 2005, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/21/jeevanvasagar.
[48] See Wayne Madsen, “Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999,” Mellon Press, 1999.
[49] http://www.americanprogress.org/aboutus/staff/DaschleSenatorTom.html.
[50] Private interview with U.N. special investigator XXX XXX, Kisangani, DRC, 2006; investigations in Goma and Bukavu, DRC, 2005-2007.
[51] See “Senator Tom Daschle Leads Delegation in Rwanda,” Alston & Bird website, July 22, 2008, http://www.alston.com/firm/News/Detail.aspx?news=2612.
[52] Alston & Bird website: http://www.alston.com/firm/News/Detail.aspx?news=2612.
[53] Private interview with U.N. special investigator XXX XXX, Kisangani, DRC, 2006.
[54] Investigations of “American Intelligence Fusion Cell,” Kisangani, DRC, July 31, 2006.
[55] Investigations and interviews in Kisangani, DRC, 2006.
[56] Private interview with U.N. special investigator XXX XXX, Kisangani, DRC 2007.
[57] See “Silverback Cargo Freighters Rwanda,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, http://www.sipri.org/contents/armstrad/Air_Cargo_Operators/Silverback_Cargo_Freighters.html and Silverback Cargo Freighters website: http://www.silverbackcargo.com/inside.php?photo.
[58] Marianna Brungs, “EU: Coalition of Leaders Calls for EU Force in Congo,” Crisis Watch Press Release, Human Rights Watch, London, Nov. 27, 2008.
[59] Private interviews, Bunia, DRC, February and March 2007.
[60] Private interviews, Bunia, Aru and Zani, February 2007.
[61] Renzo Martens, “Enjoy Poverty,” International Documentary Festival, Amsterdam, http://idfa.nl/en/festival/schedule/film.aspx?id=781e5666-0d52-43d5-ba66-67c6815ce198.
[62] See Keith Harmon Snow, “Oil in Darfur? Special Ops in Somalia? The New, Old, Humanitarian Warfare in Africa,” Global Research, Feb. 7, 2007, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20SN20070207&articleId=4717.
[63] Kevin Funk and Steven Fake, “The Scramble for Africa: Darfur - Intervention and the USA,” Black Rose Books, 2008.
[64] René Lemarchand, “Scholarly Review: Rwanda: The State of Research,” November 2007, http://www.massviolence.org/Rwanda-The-State-of-Research?artpage=4.
[65] Private communication, Jean-Marie Higiro, Oct. 17, 2008.
[66] Paul Rusesabagina, “Rusesabagina responds to Rwanda government book on ‘Hotel Rwanda,’” EUX-TV (Brussels), April 12, 2008, http://eux.tv/article.aspx?articleId=20114.
[67] “More Than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa,” Council on Foreign Relations, Task Force Report No. 56, January 2006, http://www.cfr.org/publication/9302/#author.
[68] Private interview, keith harmon snow with OKIMO Company officials, Bunia, March 24, 2007.
[69] Private interview, Keith Harmon Snow with OKIMO Co. officials, Bunia, March 24, 2007.
[70] Legal Brief Today, July 27, 2006, http://www.legalbrief.co.za/article.php?story=2006072709081497; and “Local Companies in Scramble for DRC Oil,” Johannesburg Sunday Times, Aug. 18, 2008; and H Oil and Minerals Ltd. website: www.hoilminerals.com/index.php/news/entry/local_companies_in_scramble_for_drc_oil/.
[71] The others included the Groupe Van De Ghinste, Demimpex, Chanic and OSS; both OSS and Demimpex are De Moerloose companies. See “Report of the United Nations Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of the Democratic Republic of Congo.” Also see Keith Harmon Snow, “Gertler’s Bling Bang Torah Gang,” Dissident Voice, Feb. 9, 2008; and Keith Harmon Snow, “Congo’s President Joseph Kabila: Dynasty or Travesty?” Toward Freedom, Nov. 13, 2007.
[72] “Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999,” United States 107th Congress, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, First Session, May 17, 2001, comp. Centre for Research on Globalization: http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD111A.html.
[73] “The U.S. (Under)mining Job of Africa,” http://cryptome.org/us-africa.wm.htm.
[74] See the King Kong series published by Keith Harmon Snow and Georgianne Nienaber, Op-Ed News, 2007 and 2008.
[75] Africa Wildlife Foundation, http://www.awf.org/section/about/trustees.
[76] Titanium Resources Group, http://titaniumresources.com/about-us/management-team.
[77] See Wayne Madsen, “Genocide and Covert Operations In Africa, 1993-1999,” Mellen Books, 1999.
[78] See Wayne Madsen, “Genocide and Covert Operations In Africa, 1993-1999,” Mellen Books, 1999.
[79] Mahmood Mamdani, “The New Humanitarian Order,” The Nation, Sept. 29, 2008, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080929/mamdani.
[80] Jeffrey Gettleman, “Rwanda Stirs Deadly Brew of Troubles in Congo,” New York Times, Dec. 3, 2008; and Jerome Delay, “Many of the most powerful people in Congo have close ties to Rwanda’s elite in Kigali,” New York Times, Dec. 3, 2008.
[81] See Roxanne Stasyszyn, “A World Playground: Congolese People Sacrificed for International Games and Profits,” Dissident Voice and Global Research, Nov. 8, 2008, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10848.
Keith Harmon Snow is a frequent contributor to Global Research, where this article first appeared. To learn more, visit his website, All Things Pass, and Friends of the Congo. He can be reached at keith.harmon.snow@gmail.com.
Hope Afloat for Congo
Somali woes: The perils of intervention
Somali woes: The perils of intervention
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
![Somali pirates – fishermen who have been forced out of their fishing grounds by foreigners – hijack the MV Faina on Sept. 24 in Somali waters. A Ukrainian cargo ship loaded with heavy weaponry, including 33 Russian-designed T-72 battle tanks, the Faina is still being held, for $35 million ransom, 89 days later. Newsweek quotes a leader of the pirates, interviewed by phone from the bridge of the Faina, who explains, “If we are forced to avoid fishing our waters, then those [commercial] ships are all our fish.”](http://www.sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/somali-pirates-hijack-mv-faina-092408-by-afp.jpg)
Somali pirates – fishermen who have been forced out of their fishing grounds by foreigners – hijack the MV Faina on Sept. 24 in Somali waters. A Ukrainian cargo ship loaded with heavy weaponry, including 33 Russian-designed T-72 battle tanks, the Faina is still being held, for $35 million ransom, 89 days later. Newsweek quotes a leader of the pirates, interviewed by phone from the bridge of the Faina, who explains, “If we are forced to avoid fishing our waters, then those [commercial] ships are all our fish.” – Photo: AFP
On the coastal outcrops of East Africa, in an area known as “the horn,” Somalia sits like a sentinel jutting into both the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
Although Somalis have recently been in the Western press because of a half-dozen sensational cases of piracy, the nation has a long and distinct history, centuries before the era of European colonialism.
As long ago as the 1400s, Somalis fought border wars with their western neighbor, Ethiopia. But like many African nations, interference by the West has meant disaster for the people.
Somalia was colonized by the French, the Italians and, later, the British, who split the country into separate territories. But throughout the colonization era, the people kept their language (Somali), their culture, their history and sense of Somali nationhood.
The MV Faina off Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast – Photo: AFP
In 2006, as part of the U.S. misguided “War on Terror,” the U.S. supported an Ethiopian invasion and occupation of Somalia that transformed a bad situation into a worse one. The occupation stirred up Somali nationalism, which strengthened hard-core Islamist forces, which have spearheaded Somali resistance against the Ethiopians.
Now comes word that the Ethiopians are rushing for the exits. By January 2009, they should be gone.
In the aftermath of this bloody, unpopular occupation has grown a deeply radicalized and militarized generation of youth that has no lived memory of schools, of peace or of communal well-being - only of war and strife.
When the U.S. supports proxy wars against nations it doesn’t like, it rarely reaps anything better than bitterness.
For the U.S., as one of the world’s richest countries, can often afford such expenses, but it doesn’t know the time or form of repayment.
Seven years ago, the U.S. experienced one form of repayment from an offshoot of the mujahadin army, which had forced the Soviets out of Afghanistan, growing stronger in men, money and material by the day.
If Sept. 11th has taught us anything, it should be that wars abroad can become strikes at home.
We’ve not heard the last of Somalia.
http://impoetryious.com/blog-mt7/mt.fcgi?mode=view&_type=entry&id=441&blog_id=1&saved_added=1
© Copyright 2008 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read Mumia’s latest book, “We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party,” winner of the 2005 People’s Choice Award, available from South End Press, www.southendpress.org or (800) 533-8478. Keep updated by reading Action Alerts at www.mumia.org and www.moveorg.net. To download mp3s of Mumia’s commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.org or www.fsrn.org. For recent interviews with Mumia, visit www.blockreportradio.com. Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia’s commentaries and interviews to inspire progressive movement and help call attention to his case. Send our brotha some love and light at: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Greene, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg PA 15370.
From Fanon to Africa, with love
From Fanon to Africa, with love
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.sfbayview.com/2008/from-fanon-to-africa-with-love/
President of the Congo Patrice Lumumba, shown here under arrest in December 1960, wrote in his last letter to his wife before his assassination: “We are not alone. Africa, Asia, and free and liberated people from every corner of the world will always be found at the side of the Congolese. They will not abandon the light until the day comes when there are no more colonizers and their mercenaries in our country. … History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that Brussels, Paris, Washington or the United Nations will teach … Do not weep for me, my dear companion. I know that my country, which suffers so much, will know how to defend its independence and its liberty. Long live the Congo! Long live Africa!”As the economies of the West and East tumble, tremors may also be felt in African economies, as heightened food prices push populations to the breaking point of near starvation. In country after country the struggle for life becomes even harder, and it seems like leaders are more remote than ever.
Whenever I read of economic or ethnic strife in any part of Africa, I’m reminded of Dr. Frantz Fanon, the ethno-psychiatrist born in the Caribbean island of Martinique, who became a revolutionary, working on behalf of the Algerian Revolution, and writer of the masterpiece, “The Wretched of the Earth” (1966).
Fanon’s work was widely read on three continents and is still worthy of study, not least because the insightful thinker predicted how African rulers would rule if they didn’t unite the continent’s various peoples and failed to develop truly independent and socialist governing systems.
Many African post-colonial leaders, trained as they were in Eurocentric schools, sought to replicate such theories in African societies which could only result in disaster. Fanon is cutting when he describes the role of these Eurocentric African leaders who were attempting to recreate little pieces of Europe in their former colonies:
“In underdeveloped countries, we have seen that no true bourgeoisie exists; there is only a sort of little greedy caste, avid and voracious, with the mind of a huckster, only too glad to accept the dividends that the former colonial power hands out to it. This get-rich-quick middle class shows itself incapable of great ideas or of inventiveness. It remembers what it has read in European textbooks and imperceptibly it becomes not even the replica of Europe, but its caricature.”
When leaders were trained in capitalist colonizing economic theory, the most important lesson they learned was how to recreate colonialism, not to destroy it.
Many African nations have been riven by deadly and destructive ethnic clashes, such as Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Mauritania and beyond.
Fanon wrote in “Wretched” that the “national bourgeoisie … which has totally assimilated colonialist thought in its most corrupt form, takes over from the Europeans and establishes in the continent a racial philosophy which is extremely harmful for the future of Africa.”
Thus, long inculcated into the European practice of “divide and conquer,” African leaders exploit ethnic differences - so-called “tribalism” - to stir the pot between communities. So, Hutus fight Tutsis, Zulus fight Xhosas, Kalenjins fight Kikuyus and on and on, while communal unity seems like an unattainable mirage. While people think of their ethnic identities, few think of national identities, and fewer still think of what African unity really means.
Divided into clans, Africa remains ripe for the plucking by the new colonialists, who see it as a vast stealing ground, from which resources can be looted with relative ease.
Fanon foresaw this half a century ago. Nkrumah tried to organize against it. But, regrettably, we are where we are.
It is almost painful to read Fanon today, over 40 years after his publications (in English), so accurate and cutting is his analysis. Yet, the truth remains that many African states have Black presidents and prime ministers who preside over systems that are tied with a thousand chains to the old colonials powers, which continued under new management old exploitative relationships.
Indeed, in “Toward the African Revolution” (1967), Fanon wrote of the global significance of the imperialists’ murder of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected president of the Congo:
“Africa must understand … that there will not be one Africa that fights against colonialism and another that attempts to make arrangements with colonialism … Our mistake, the mistake we Africans made, was to have forgotten that the enemy never withdraws sincerely. He never understands. He capitulates, but he does not become converted. Our mistake is to have believed that the enemy had lost his combativeness and his harmfulness. If Lumumba is in the way, Lumumba disappears. Hesitation in murder has never characterized imperialism. Look at Ben M’hidi, look at Moumie, look at Lumumba. Our mistake is to have been slightly confused in what we did. It is a fact that in Africa, today, traitors exist. They should have been denounced and fought. The fact that this is hard after the magnificent dream of an Africa gathered together unto itself and subject to the same requirements of true independence does not alter facts. … Let us be sure never to forget it; the fate of all of us is at stake in the Congo.”
‘Our mistake is to have believed that the enemy had lost his combativeness and his harmfulness. If Lumumba is in the way, Lumumba disappears. … Let us be sure never to forget it; the fate of all of us is at stake in the Congo.’ - Frantz Fanon
In February and March, several African states had food riots - or should we say “hunger riots”? Some countries have sold staples at lower costs in special stores. Other countries have reached almost apocalyptic levels of hyperinflation where their currency is virtually worthless.
In general - at least as of several months ago - the following were equivalent to one U.S. dollar: in Algeria, 65 dinars; in Cote d’Ivoire, 420 francs; in Nigeria, 118 nairas; in Tanzania, 1,396 shillings; in Malawi, 140 kwacha. Only in one African country, Ghana, was its New Cedi equal to a dollar.
Half a century after most African states gained independence, and the continent is still a social, economic and political basket case. Fanon, if he were still alive, would weep.
© Copyright 2008 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read Mumia’s latest book, “We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party,” winner of the 2005 People’s Choice Award, available from South End Press, or (800) 533-8478. Keep updated by reading Action Alerts at www.mumia.org and www.moveorg.net. To download mp3s of Mumia’s commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.org or www.fsrn.org. For recent interviews with Mumia, visit www.blockreportradio.com. Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia’s commentaries and interviews to inspire progressive movement and help call attention to his case. Send our brotha some love and light at: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Greene, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg PA 15370.
The Triangular Slave Trade
This article reproduced in its entirety and was written by Neelam Sharma using material submitted by Jalil Abdul Muntaqim, a political prisoner currently held in Easter Correctional Facility Napanoch, NY and Bonnie Kerness, associate director of the American Friends Service Committee in New Jersey, a prisoners' rights advocate for the past 20 years.
The U.S. representative to the United Nations recently expressed his disgust at a request that the American Government should "officially apologize” for the damage done to African Americans by the Triangular Slave Trade [the term applied to describe the trade in Africans]; his reasoning was that since slavery was actually "legal" at the time no "crime" was in fact committed. Taking note of this line of argument is important to understand clearly that even as we are busy campaigning for reparations for past wrongs, a new form of slavery is being "legally" created.
The African slave trade of 16th-18th century did not appear suddenly overnight; it grew over a period of time driven by the "economic interests" of merchants and businessmen; and it was sanctioned by their representatives in government. This is precisely the process that is unfolding today with the creation of a "prison industrial complex" on a scale never before seen. There are two very disturbing aspects of the growth in this "new industry": the contracting out of penal institutions to business interests, and the increasing use of physical and psychological torture on prisoners as a form of "control".
The Growth of Private Prisons:
Ten years ago there was just five privately run prisons in the country, housing a population of 2000. Today, 20 private firms run more than 100 prisons with about 62,000 beds. That is still less than 5 per cent, but the industry is expanding fast, with the number of private prison beds expected to grow to 360,000 during the next decade. Already 28 states have passed legislation making it legal for private contractors to run prisons; more are expected to follow suit. Companies like Goldman Sachs and Co., Prudential Insurance Co. of America, Smith Barney Shearson Inc., and Merrill Lynch and Co., are among those competing to underwrite prison construction with private, tax-exempt bonds (where no voter approval is required). Why such a scramble for these contracts? Consider the growth of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the industry leader whose stock price has increased from $8 a share in 1992 to about $30 today, and whose revenue rose by 81% in 1995 alone. The Nashville-based CCA, which runs 46 penal institutions in 11 states, controls roughly half of the industry. It took ten years for the company to reach 10,000 beds; it is now growing by the same number every year.
The Triangle of Interest:
On May 12 1994 the Wall Street Journal featured an article entitled: "Making Crime Pay-Triangle of Interest Created Infrastructure To Fight Lawlessness-Cities see Jobs; Politicians see a Popular Issue and Businesses Cash In- The Cold War of the 90's". In other words, the media creates a climate of fear about rates of crime, politicians campaign on this issue demanding new legislation and get tough measures like "three strikes"; businesses step in to snap up the lucrative prison contracts. Of course, it is precisely big business and their representative in government who control the media.
This "Triangle of Interest" has set the stage for the resurrection of slavery in America since this peculiar institution was never in fact abolished. From the time it was written, the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which is popularly known to have abolished "involuntary servitude" and "chattel slavery" of Africans, has had an exception clause: "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." This clause has been consistently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, meaning that prisoners are to be considered no more than "slaves of the state."
A Social Environment That Creates Criminals:
It was this same clause in the 13th Amendment that was used, after the emancipation of African slaves, to sentence Africans who were once slaves, to new forms of slavery. In a new book called Prison Writing in 20th Century America, the editor H. Bruce Franklin begins with an Autobiography of an Imprisoned Peon. A brief extract from this essay, which was originally published in 1904, shows clearly how slavery was continued using the exception clause. "One of the usual ways of securing laborers for a large peonage camp is for the proprietor to send out an agent to the little courts in the towns and villages, and where a man charged with some petty offenses has no friends or money the agent will urge him to plead guilty, with the understanding that the agent will pay his fine, and in that way save him from the disgrace of being sent to jail or the chain gang! For the high favor the man must sign before hand, a paper signifying his willingness to go to the farm and work out the amount of the fine imposed. Every year many convicts were brought to the Senator's camp!" The writer, who to this day remains anonymous, goes on to explain that most of those "convicts" had been "set-up for the crimes" they were convicted of with the collusion of state officials, plantation owners and paid "agents" in the African community.
What is different about the situation existing today? High proportions of people of color are filling this country's prisons for drug-related crime, specifically offenses related to crack-cocaine. The truth about the U.S. government's complicity in introducing crack cocaine into the Black neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles, through its agency the CIA, is only now emerging. Since the release of Gary Webb's articles in the San Jose Mercury-News in 1996, detailing how the CIA used the Nicaraguan Contras to flood the Black communities with cheap drugs, the CIA has consistently denied these allegations. However, in July of this year, CIA officials spoke anonymously to reporters about an internal agency report relating to these charges. It is interesting what one of them said, "In some cases, we knew that the people we were dealing with would not qualify as Vienna choirboys, but we dealt with them nonetheless because of the value they brought." It is also interesting that this 2-volume report is still classified.
The Criminalization of Youth of Color:
This is simply one method that has been used by those with power to criminalize poor and oppressed people, especially young males of color, but increasingly also women of color. Some of the processes used to create entire communities of "criminals" are very subtle; this subject could warrant an entire article by itself. But a measure of how successful these attempts have been is the acceptance of prison as a part of life among large sections of our youth. While Black people, conservatively, comprise only 12.5% of the entire US populations; we make up 48% of the prison population. The fastest growing ethnic group being imprisoned today is people of Mexican descent. This country imprisons more of its citizens than any other industrialized nation: 1.7 million people are currently in state and federal prisons. This number does not reflect those in children's facilities, immigration detention center, or county and city jails.
Could it be that these figures in some way reflect a growth in crime? Well, none other than the FBI recently reported that crime in America is in fact decreasing (the one exception is crimes of violence by police officers!). The truth is that to be profitable private prison firms must ensure that prisons are not only built but also filled. Experts in the "industry" claim that 90-95 % capacity is needed to guarantee the hefty rates of return required luring investors. Prudential Securities, for example, issued a wildly bullish report on CCA a few years ago, but cautioned, "it takes time to bring inmate population levels up to where they cover costs. Low occupancy is a drag on profits."
Businesses and Politicians - "Working" Together:
It is hardly surprising that all the major firms in the field have hired big time lobbyists to push for the type of "get tough policies" needed to ensure their continued growth. When it was seeking a contract to run a halfway house in New York City, Esmore (the number 3 firm in this new industry) hired a former aide to State Representative Edolphus Towns to lobby on its behalf. The former aide won the contract, as well as the support of his former boss, who had been an opponent of the project. In 1995, the chairman of Wackenhut (which has a third of the "private prison market") testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee urging support for amendments to the Violent Crime Control Act. The amended provisions of the Act subsequently passed, authorizing the expenditure of $10 billion to construct and repair state prisons.
CCA has been especially adept at expansion via "political payoffs." The first prison the company managed was the Silverdale Workhouse in Hamilton County, Tennessee. After Tennessee Commissioner Bob Long voted to accept CCA's bid for this project, the company awarded Long's pest control firm a lucrative contract. When Long decided the time was right to quit public life, CCA hired him as a lobbyist. The company has been a major financial supporter of Lamar Alexander, the former Tennessee governor, and failed presidential candidate. In one of many "sweetheart" deals, Lamar's wife made more than $130,000 on a $5,000 investment in CCA. Tennessee Governor Ned McWherter is another CCA stockholder; he is quoted in the company's 1995 Annual Report as saying "the federal government would be well served to privatize all of their corrections."
The young male of color who is worth less than nothing in this economic system is suddenly worth between $30-60 thousand dollars a year in the "justice" system. About three-quarters of new admissions to American jails and prisons are men of African and Mexican descent. Jerome Miller, a former youth corrections officer in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, says, "The race card has changed the whole playing field. Because the prison system doesn't affect a significant percentage of young white men, we'll increasingly see prisoners treated as commodities. For now the situation is a bit more benign than it was back in the 19th Century, but I'm not sure it will stay that way for long."
Controlling These New Slaves:
In July of this year, a judge in California ordered a defendant in her courtroom to be zapped with a "stun belt" because he would not keep quiet when told. In a September 13th 1997 People's Weekly World article by Julia Lutsky entitled "Torture in America," the writer describes stun belts. "A relatively new restraint device is the stun belt, in use since 1993. It delivers an eight second 50,000-volt shock to the prisoner's kidney area, often leaving him writhing in pain on the floor. Some states are considering it as a possible alternative to chaining work gangs. It leaves prisoners free to move about, and can be activated by a guard from 300 feet away. Stun belts are currently used in the federal prison system, the US Marshall's Service, over 100 county agencies and the corrections facilities of 16 states." The nonchalant use of this device in a courtroom against someone who was no physical threat whatsoever merely reflects the increasingly common use of such means of torture within the prisons.
There are also "stun guns," "tasers" and "electric riot shields," which like the belt are all electronic shocking devices. In 1996, the Phoenix New Times reported the death of inmate Scott Norberg at the Maricopa County Jail. Allegedly, he died while fighting with officers who were attempting to confine him in a "restraint chair," while strapping a towel around his mouth to "keep him from spitting." During the struggle, Norberg was shocked multiple times with stun guns. Inmates who witnessed his death estimated that he had been shocked between 8 and 20 times. Guards estimated the number of shocks between two and six. An examination of Norberg's corpse, commissioned by his family, puts the number at 21.
Donald Blosswick, associate professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah, contends that the design of the "restraint chair" is unsafe, because it forces prisoners into a stressful position and does not include directions to move the prisoners' limbs regularly. Richard Swart, a social worker incarcerated at a Utah State Prison, provided testimony for another inmate. Scotty Lee Yocham. He wrote: "Yocham was directed to leave the strip cell and a urine soaked pillowcase was place over his head like a hood. (He) was then walked, shackled and hooded to a different cell where he was placed in a device called 'the chair'. The 'chair' is a restraint device designed for mentally ill persons who pose a significant danger of harming themselves or others. The inmate is stripped nude, placed in the chair with their buttocks several inches below their knees. The arms and legs are then cuffed or shackled to the legs of the chair to prevent the inmate from moving. The design of the chair forces the inmate's back against the chair. Mobility is almost non-existent. The inmate cannot relieve himself without soiling himself. He is left uncovered and unprotected, in pain, and shackled. Yocham was kept in the chair for over 30 hours."
The Colorado ACLU is engaged in a federal suit against the El Paso County Jail concerning the death of a prisoner who was strapped to a device known as the "restraint board.” This board is 7 feet long and 1 foot wide. Prisoners are strapped face down in seven places from the ankle to the head-making movement impossible. The inmate in question, Michael Lewis, died on February 7, 1998, after being strapped to the board for several hours for the second time that day. The lawsuit alleges that several hundred prisoners have been strapped to the board in the last few years, some for as long as 12 hours. The ACLU alleges, "the restraint board is a terrifying experience that causes pain, psychic pain, mental distress and physical injuries."
Another restraint device is "the motorcycle." Its use has been reported by prisoners in South Carolina being held in isolation units. It is similar to the "board," in that prisoners are strapped down at several body points. However, the use of this particular board is accompanied by a motorcycle helmet, which is placed on the prisoner's head to prevent the prisoner from repeatedly and deliberately banging it.
The use of "pepper spray" is perhaps one of the most frequently reported methods of torture. Ronnie Stewart, prisoner at the Arizona State prison in Florence states: "The use of pepper spray and beatings is a part of everyday life within the system here at the Special Management Unit #1 if it is not being sprayed directly on you, then the entire wing is being sprayed. This has occurred 3 times in the past 2 weeks. It is not uncommon for the officers to use up to eight cans on a single inmate. I myself was sprayed and it was about 10 hours before I was allowed to wash off the chemical agent. This resulted in burns and blisters to my arms, face, chest, and feet. For the entire 10 hours, it felt like I was being boiled alive. When you are forced to stand in the sun with no shelter the sweat from your body continues to reactivate this chemical agent so that you remain in extreme pain the entire day."
Isolation Reports of the use of these various devices of torture within the prisons are coming almost exclusively from prisoners being kept in isolation, which in itself is increasingly used as form of control and torture. In two landmark decisions U.S. judges have recently sentenced people to life in solitary confinement, perhaps marking a new era in the use of "sensory deprivation" as a condition of imprisonment. These sentences reflect the U.S. criminal justice policy, which increasingly encourages the use of “control units,” “security housing units,” and "super-max" prisons.
The first official "control unit" was opened in Marion Federal Prison in Illinois in 1972. It was a "behavior modification" experimental unit. Other similar units began opening in state prisons across the country around the same time. In 1983, the entire prison at Marion was "locked down" (an action in which all prisoners are locked in cells 24 hours a day without human contact) in response to an isolated incident of violence. This lock-down has never been lifted. In 1995, a new federal high tech prison in Florence, Colorado, took over the "mission" of Marion; according to authorities, it houses the "most predatory" prisoners in the U.S. Prisoners are kept in nearly total isolation for years; there is little intersection with anyone other than prison staff. Visits and telephone calls from family and friends are severely restricted, as are educational, recreational, and religious services.
Currently over 40 states throughout the country have adopted the federal model of control units; these often take the form of "supermax,” or "maxi-maxi" prisons. While specific conditions in these units vary, their goal is to "break" prisoners through spiritual, psychological, and/or physical breakdown. Supporters of these units claim they are necessary to deal with "hardened criminals." In fact, the development of control units can be traced directly to the years of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements when many activists found themselves in prison. The use of sensory deprivation as a form of behavior modification was extensively used on members of the Black Panther Party, Black Liberation Army, Puerto Rican Independence Movement, and American Indian Movement, as well as white political activists, jailhouse lawyers, Islamic militants and prison activists.
In recent years, the rapid growth of these "control units" has been accompanied by an insane duplication of their controls and restrictions. For example, when a control unit prisoner leaves his cage, he is strip-searched, even when he has only been in contact with prison staff. Oscar Lopez, a Puerto Rican political prisoner, reported being searched rectally 3 times returning; on e time he hadn't been in the direct company of anyone else for months. Increasingly, mentally ill prisoners are being put into isolation rather than receiving the treatment, they need. In New Jersey, there is the documented case of Frank Hunter, who died in an isolation unit after being forced to commit sexual acts for food; he didn't know who or where he was when he died.
How will a government, which today sanctions such barbaric conditions within its prisons, take seriously a demand that it apologizes for past atrocities, never mind repairing the damage? A distinguishing feature of the trade in Africans, which first brought Black people to this continent, was that the slave was seen as a "commodity", nothing more than "chattel" to be used for profit. Today, would-be profiteers rub their hands in glee when they see the potential profits to be made from this modern version of the slave trade, as characterized by a headline in USA Today: "Everybody's doin' the Jailhouse Stock." The forces that seek to benefit from this new slave trade have formed a "triangle of interest."
The time has arrived for African-Americans, and all poor and oppressed people, to form our own "circle of interest." It is only by putting aside our differences, our egos and our sectarian interests, and concentrating on the commonality of our oppression, that we can wage an effective resistance to this new effort to enslave us. Certainly there can be no doubt that today, more than ever, the poverty and oppression within our communities is inextricable linked to the situation in the prison system. We cannot successfully challenge either one without challenging the other.
"The difference between successful and unsuccessful movements is in the people who lead them. Successful ones are led by persons gifted with a delicate balance of both mental and physical forcefulness. Brains are useless without the nervous equipment and the muscle required to execute their orders.” -George Jackson, Field Marshall, BPP
In Struggle,
Neelam Sharma
525 E. 55th Pl. N.
Tulsa, OK 74126
Another shade of Black Panther - Richard Aoki
Richard Aoki (Field Marshall)
Growing up was know easy job for Richard at the early stages in his life he and his family were placed in an Internment camp during World War II, a childhood prisoner held at Topaz Concenation camp in Utah from 1942-1945. He joined the military at a young age, Having left the Army after two years of service, Richard was intimately aware of the vicious treatment and punishment that the U.S. government could meter out.
Being Japanese-American and growing up in Black West Oakland, he was tight with Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, as well as David Hilliard years before the party started. He also attended Merritt College for two years before transferring to U.C. Berkeley in 1966. Richard remembers" we had discussed pressing political, social issues of the day, that we wanted to do something about it, so we got together one night and hammed out the 10 point program of the Black Panther Party.
Richard said, there were several Asian American members of the BPP, he was the only one attain a formal leadership role. Richard attended the first meeting of the BPP his connection to the community along with revolutionary politics and his action made it easy for other Panthers to accept him as a equal, he was made branch captain they accepted his rank, and later in the Party Huey promoted him to Field Marshall. Richard said, "one of the first things the Party did was patrol the police of Oakland, they were killing a dude a week, and set up Political Education classes for members and the community."
Richard says" I've seen where unity amongst the races yielded positives results. I don't see any other way for people to gain freedom, justice, equality here except by being inclusionst"
Enrolling at U.C. Berkeley soon after the founding of the BPP, Richard became a leading member of the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA). A student based organization whom platform closely resembled the Party's 10 point program. Richard would recruit blacks on the campus by passing out information and telling students about the Party and when Elrage Clever started teaching classes on campus in 1968(Experienmental class 139X) he was there organizing for the BPP.
From 1968, onward Richard was involved in networking with various groups cutting across communities, and nationalities. Richard says" One of the least understood aspects of the liberation movement era is the impact that many Black, Brown, Yellow, Red radicals had on one another. Ideological and organizational influences spilled across vast distances, while Panthers absorbed Maoism, Asian Americans took to the lectures and speeches of Huey Newton, Chicanos and Puerto Rican radicals replicated some of the BPP' Serve the People programs" as well as Native Americans like groups like AIM".
Richard was a founding member of the Third World Liberation Front on the campus of UO Berkeley in 1969 which was a formation of African Americans, Native Americans, Africans, Mexican Americans, Asian students, striking to win demands for a Third World College on campus.
The college would include departments for Chicano studies, and Native American Asian, and Africans studies, with the aim of the program being to help oppressed minority communities in American. TWLF is were striking for the same basic demands that the students at San Francisco State were. The formation of radical students successfully challenged, the most conservative intuitions in the nation the University system and won vital space in the form of Ethnic Studies Depts. On both UC Berkeley as well as San Francisco State campuses With these new departments has made higher education transformed the cultural imagation of many people and communities of color, thanks to people like Richard Aoki who paved the way for many others to fellow. Richard said, "That if it not for the BPP the many student and political groups for students rights would not have emerge."
Note: Richard donated some of the first defend weapons for police patrols to the BPP. Richard has always been active in the communities, and today after he has retired from his job, he still doing workshops and speaking about the past as well as present conditions like the War, Economy, and Police Abuse.
Source:hppt://www.itsabouttimebpp.com
Mugabe Under Siege As International Leaders Call for His Ouster
Mugabe Under Siege As International Leaders Call for His Ouster
The International leaders have voiced there concern over a growing political impasse in the Republic Zimbabwe, even as Mugabe remains defiant to share power. French President Nicholas Sarkosy, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the ANC Chairman Jacob Zuma have called for an urgent ouster of the Zimbabwean freedom fighter Robert Mugabe to salvage the nation once termed as the “breadbasket of Africa” from sliding into anarchy…
Archbishop Desmond Tutu says Mugabe must step down or be removed by force. African Union or the SADC would have the capacity to remove Mugabe, 84.
The South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said that Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe must step down or be removed by force.
“I think now that the world must say: ‘You have been responsible with your cohorts for gross violations, and you are going to face indictment in The Hague unless you step down’,” Tutu, a Nobel peace prize winner, told Dutch current affairs TV programme Nova.
Asked if Mugabe, who has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980, should be removed by force, Tutu said: “Yes, by force — if they say to him: step down, and he refuses, they must do so militarily.”
Desmond, is the continent’s leading voice against the former apartheid regime in South Africa, said the African Union or the Southern African Development Community (SADC) would have the capacity to remove Mugabe.
“He has destroyed a wonderful country. A country that used to be a bread basket — it has now become a basket case,” Tutu said.
Tutu’s comments came on the day Zimbabwe declared a national emergency to halt a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 560 people.
Once hailed as a model African democrat, Mugabe has become increasingly criticized, particularly in the West over a worsening political and economic crisis that critics blame on his policies.
In Kenya, Prime Minister Raila Odinga also fired salvo at the Zimbabwean leader terming his 28 year rule as a “vile dictatorship” that must be stopped by all means.
Like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Raila has called for the urgent deployment of African Union troops to end the humanitarian crisis.
“Crisis in Zimbabwe has reached a point where other African states should not turn a blind eye,” he said in a press statement at the Serena Hotel in Nairobi city.
The Prime Minister Raila Odinga, urged Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, who is the AU chairman, to call an urgent Heads of state summit and send troops to Zimbabwe.
“The international community must respond to the call of the African people and help end this murderous reign of Mugabe.”
He supported the calls for the armed intervention to remove Mugabe from power, he said, “If AU has no troops, it must allow the UN to send forces to Zimbabwe to take control of the country and ensure flow of humanitarian assistance.”
The Kenyan Prime Minister also accused the South Africa Development Cooperation (SADC) which has been mandated by AU to mediate the Zimbabwe crisis, of acting without convictions or resolve.
Elsewhere, the European Union (EU) also joined calls for President Mugabe to step down or be removed from power as the crisis has become more severe. Mugabe blames Western sanctions for Zimbabwe’s collapse. Critics pile blame on his increasing authoritarian rule.
In Brussels, the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said, “I think the moment has arrived to put all the pressure for Mugabe to step down”
The French President, Nicolas Sarkosy, whose country holds the rotating EU Presidency said, “I say today, that the Zimbabwean leader must go. Zimbabwe has suffered enough”
The United States under the secretary of State and Britain have also voiced their concern for the ouster of the Zimbabwean leader.
Zimbabwe has the highest inflation rate in the world standing at 231,000,000 per cent. At least 600 people have died of cholera as health infrastructure collapses. The biting food shortage is exemplified by empty supermarkets shelves.
The life expectancy in the Republic of Zimbabwe is tracked as the lowest in the world at 37 years, while infant mortality rate is 81 for 100 births. The country went to the controversial polls on March, 29, 2008 in which Mugabe claimed victory.
Source: http://www.blackpower.com/business/kenya-like-everybody-else-is-sliding-into-a-recession/
©2008 Starlin Media Nework. P. O BOX 1194-40400 Suna-Migori, Kenya.
December 30, 2008
Katrina’s Hidden Race War
Katrina’s Hidden Race War by A.C. Thompson
For white vigilantes in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina signalled the beginning of hunting season on blacks.
The way Donnell Herrington tells it, there was no warning. One second he was trudging through the heat. The next he was lying prostrate on the pavement, his life spilling out of a hole in his throat, his body racked with pain, his vision blurred and distorted.
It was September 1, 2005, some three days after Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans, and somebody had just blasted Herrington, who is African-American, with a shotgun. “I just hit the ground. I didn’t even know what happened,” recalls Herrington, a burly 32-year-old with a soft drawl.
The sudden eruption of gunfire horrified Herrington’s companions–his cousin Marcel Alexander, then 17, and friend Chris Collins, then 18, who are also black. “I looked at Donnell and he had this big old hole in his neck,” Alexander recalls. “I tried to help him up, and they started shooting again.” Herrington says he was staggering to his feet when a second shotgun blast struck him from behind; the spray of lead pellets also caught Collins and Alexander. The buckshot peppered Alexander’s back, arm and buttocks.
Herrington shouted at the other men to run and turned to face his attackers: three armed white males. Herrington says he hadn’t even seen the men or their weapons before the shooting began. As Alexander and Collins fled, Herrington ran in the opposite direction, his hand pressed to the bleeding wound on his throat. Behind him, he says, the gunmen yelled, “Get him! Get that nigger!”
The attack occurred in Algiers Point. The Point, as locals call it, is a neighborhood within a neighborhood, a small cluster of ornate, immaculately maintained 150-year-old houses within the larger Algiers district. A nationally recognized historic area, Algiers Point is largely white, while the rest of Algiers is predominantly black. It’s a “white enclave” whose residents have “a kind of siege mentality,” says Tulane University historian Lance Hill, noting that some white New Orleanians “think of themselves as an oppressed minority.”
A wide street lined with towering trees, Opelousas Avenue marks the dividing line between Algiers Point and greater Algiers, and the difference in wealth between the two areas is immediately noticeable. “On one side of Opelousas it’s ‘hood, on the other side it’s suburbs,” says one local. “The two sides are totally opposite, like muddy and clean.”
Algiers Point has always been somewhat isolated: it’s perched on the west bank of the Mississippi River, linked to the core of the city only by a ferry line and twin gray steel bridges. When the hurricane descended on Louisiana, Algiers Point got off relatively easy. While wide swaths of New Orleans were deluged, the levees ringing Algiers Point withstood the Mississippi’s surging currents, preventing flooding; most homes and businesses in the area survived intact. As word spread that the area was dry, desperate people began heading toward the west bank, some walking over bridges, others traveling by boat. The National Guard soon designated the Algiers Point ferry landing an official evacuation site. Rescuers from the Coast Guard and other agencies brought flood victims to the ferry terminal, where soldiers loaded them onto buses headed for Texas.
Facing an influx of refugees, the residents of Algiers Point could have pulled together food, water and medical supplies for the flood victims. Instead, a group of white residents, convinced that crime would arrive with the human exodus, sought to seal off the area, blocking the roads in and out of the neighborhood by dragging lumber and downed trees into the streets. They stockpiled handguns, assault rifles, shotguns and at least one Uzi and began patrolling the streets in pickup trucks and SUVs. The newly formed militia, a loose band of about fifteen to thirty residents, most of them men, all of them white, was looking for thieves, outlaws or, as one member put it, anyone who simply “didn’t belong.”
The existence of this little army isn’t a secret–in 2005 a few newspaper reporters wrote up the group’s activities in glowing terms in articles that showed up on an array of pro-gun blogs; one Cox News story called it “the ultimate neighborhood watch.” Herrington, for his part, recounted his ordeal in Spike Lee’s documentary When the Levees Broke. But until now no one has ever seriously scrutinized what happened in Algiers Point during those days, and nobody has asked the obvious questions. Were the gunmen, as they claim, just trying to fend off looters? Or does Herrington’s experience point to a different, far uglier truth?
Over the course of an eighteen-month investigation, I tracked down figures on all sides of the gunfire, speaking with the shooters of Algiers Point, gunshot survivors and those who witnessed the bloodshed. I interviewed police officers, forensic pathologists, firefighters, historians, medical doctors and private citizens, and studied more than 800 autopsies and piles of state death records. What emerged was a disturbing picture of New Orleans in the days after the storm, when the city fractured along racial fault lines as its government collapsed.
Herrington, Collins and Alexander’s experience fits into a broader pattern of violence in which, evidence indicates, at least eleven people were shot. In each case the targets were African-American men, while the shooters, it appears, were all white.
The new information should reframe our understanding of the catastrophe. Immediately after the storm, the media portrayed African-Americans as looters and thugs–Mayor Ray Nagin, for example, told Oprah Winfrey that “hundreds of gang members” were marauding through the Superdome. Now it’s clear that some of the most serious crimes committed during that time were the work of gun-toting white males.
So far, their crimes have gone unpunished. No one was ever arrested for shooting Herrington, Alexander and Collins–in fact, there was never an investigation. I found this story repeated over and over during my days in New Orleans. As a reporter who has spent more than a decade covering crime, I was startled to meet so many people with so much detailed information about potentially serious offenses, none of whom had ever been interviewed by police detectives.
Hill, who runs Tulane’s Southern Institute for Education and Research and closely follows the city’s racial dynamics, isn’t surprised the Algiers Point gunmen have eluded arrest. Because of the widespread notion that blacks engaged in looting and thuggery as the disaster unfolded, Hill believes, many white New Orleanians approved of the vigilante activity that occurred in places like Algiers Point. “By and large, I think the white mentality is that these people are exempt–that even if they committed these crimes, they’re really exempt from any kind of legal repercussion,” Hill tells me. “It’s sad to say, but I think that if any of these cases went to trial, and none of them have, I can’t see a white person being convicted of any kind of crime against an African-American during that period.”
You can trace the origins of the Algiers Point militia to the misfortune of Vinnie Pervel. A 52-year-old building contractor and real estate entrepreneur with a graying buzz cut and mustache, Pervel says he lost his Ford van in a carjacking the day after Katrina made landfall, when an African-American man attacked him with a hammer. “The kid whacked me,” recalls Pervel, who is white. “Hit me on the side of the head.” Vowing to prevent further robberies, Pervel and his neighbors began amassing an arsenal. “For a day and a half we were running around getting guns,” he says. “We got about forty.”
Things quickly got ugly. Pervel remembers aiming a shotgun at a random African-American man walking by his home–even though he knew the man had no connection to the theft of his vehicle. “I don’t want you passing by my house!” Pervel says he shouted out.
Pervel tells me he feared goons would kill his mother, who is in her 70s. “We thought we would be dead,” he says. “We thought we were doomed.” And so Pervel and his comrades set about fortifying the area. One resident gave me video footage of the leafy barricades the men constructed to keep away outsiders. Others told me they created a low-tech alarm system, tying aluminum cans and glass bottles together and stringing them across the roads at ankle height. The bottles and cans would rattle noisily if somebody bumped into them, alerting the militia.
Pervel and his armed neighbors point to the very real chaos that was engulfing the city and claim they had no other choice than to act as they did. They paint themselves as righteous defenders of property, a paramilitary formation protecting their neighborhood from opportunistic thieves. “I’m not a racist,” Pervel insists. “I’m a classist. I want to live around people who want the same things as me.”
Nathan Roper, another vigilante, says he was unhappy that outsiders were disturbing his corner of New Orleans and that he was annoyed by the National Guard’s decision to use the Algiers Point ferry landing as an evacuation zone. “I’m telling you, it was forty, fifty people at a time getting off these boats,” says Roper, who is in his 50s and works for ServiceMaster, a house-cleaning company. The storm victims were “hoodlums from the Lower Ninth Ward and that part of the city,” he says. “I’m not a prejudiced individual, but you just know the outlaws who are up to no good. You can see it in their eyes.”
The militia, according to Roper, was armed with “handguns, rifles [and] shotguns”; he personally carried “a .38 in my waistband” and a “little Uzi.” “There was a few people who got shot around here,” Roper, a slim man with a weathered face, tells me. “I know of at least three people who got shot. I know one was dead ’cause he was on the side of the road.”
During the summer of 2005 Herrington was working as an armored-car driver for the Brink’s company and living in a rented duplex about a mile from Algiers Point. Katrina thrashed the place, blowing out windows, pitching a hefty pine tree limb through the roof and dumping rain on Herrington’s possessions. On the day of the shooting, Herrington, Alexander and Collins were all trying to escape the stricken city, and set out together on foot for the Algiers Point ferry terminal in the hopes of getting on an evacuation bus.
Those hopes were dashed by a barrage of shotgun pellets. After two shots erupted, Collins and Alexander took off running and ducked into a shed behind a house to hide from the gunmen, Alexander tells me. The armed men, he says, discovered them in the shed and jammed pistols in their faces, yelling, “We got you niggers! We got you niggers!” He continues, “They said they was gonna tie us up, put us in the back of the truck and burn us. They was gonna make us suffer…. I thought I was gonna die. I thought I was gonna leave earth.”
Apparently thinking they’d caught some looters, the gunmen interrogated and verbally threatened Collins and Alexander for ten to fifteen minutes, Alexander says, before one of the armed men issued an ultimatum: if Alexander and Collins left Algiers Point and told their friends not to set foot in the area, they’d be allowed to live.
Meanwhile, Herrington was staring at death. “I was bleeding pretty bad from my neck area,” he recalls. When two white men drove by in a black pickup truck, he begged them for help. “I said, Help me, help me–I’m shot,” Herrington recalls. The response, he tells me, was immediate and hostile. One of the men told Herrington, “Get away from this truck, nigger. We’re not gonna help you. We’re liable to kill you ourselves.” My God, thought Herrington, what’s going on out here?
He managed to stumble back to a neighbor’s house, collapsing on the front porch. The neighbors, an African-American couple, wrapped him in a sheet and sped him to the nearest hospital, the West Jefferson Medical Center, where, medical records show, he was X-rayed at 3:30 pm. According to the records, a doctor who reviewed the X-rays found “metallic buckshot” scattered throughout his chest, arms, back and abdomen, as well as “at least seven [pellets] in the right neck.” Within minutes, Herrington was wheeled into an operating room for emergency surgery.
“It was a close-range buckshot wound from a shotgun,” says Charles Thomas, one of the doctors who operated on Herrington. “If he hadn’t gotten to the hospital, he wouldn’t have lived. He had a hole in his internal jugular vein, and we were able to find it and fix it.”
After three days in the hospital, which lacked running water, air conditioning and functional toilets, Herrington was shuttled to a medical facility in Baton Rouge. When he returned to New Orleans months later, he paid a visit to the Fourth District police station, whose officers patrol the west bank, and learned there was no police report documenting the attack. Herrington, who now has a wide scar stretching the length of his neck, says the officers he spoke with failed to take a report or check out his story, a fact that still bothers him. “If the shoe was on the other foot, if a black guy was willing to go out shooting white guys, the police would be up there real quick,” he says. “I feel these guys should definitely be held accountable. These guys had absolutely no right to do what they did.”
Herrington, Alexander and Collins are the only victims, so far, to tell their stories. But they certainly weren’t the only ones attacked in or around Algiers Point. In interviews, vigilantes and residents–citing the exact locations and types of weapons used–detail a string of violent incidents in which at least eight other people were shot, bringing the total number of shooting victims to at least eleven, some of whom may have died.
Other evidence bolsters this tally. Thomas, the surgeon who treated Herrington, staffed one of the few functioning trauma centers in the area, located just outside the New Orleans city line, not far from Algiers Point, for a full month after the hurricane hit. “We saw a bunch of gunshot wounds,” he tells me. “There were a lot of gunshot wounds that went unreported during that time.” Though Thomas couldn’t get into the specifics of the shooting incidents because of medical privacy laws, he says, “We saw a couple of other shotgun wounds, some handgun shootings and somebody who was shot with a high-velocity missile [an assault-rifle round].” The surgeon remembers handling “five or six nonfatal gunshot wounds” as well as three lethal gunshot cases.
In addition, state death records show that at least four people died in and around Algiers Point, a suspicious number, given that most Katrina fatalities were the result of drowning, and that the community never flooded. Neighborhood residents, black and white, remember seeing corpses lying out in the open that appeared to have been shot.
While the militia patrolled the streets of Algiers Point, the New Orleans Police Department, which had done little to brace for the storm, was crippled. “There was no leadership, no equipment, no nothing,” recalls one high-ranking police official. “We did no more to prepare for a hurricane than we would have for a thunderstorm.” Without functioning radios or dispatch systems, officers had no way of knowing what was happening a block away, let alone on the other side of the city. NOPD higher-ups had no way to give direction to unit commanders and other subordinates. As the chain of command disintegrated, the force dissolved into a collection of isolated, quasi-autonomous bands.
Around Algiers Point people say they rarely saw cops during the week after Katrina tore through Louisiana, and in this law enforcement vacuum the militia’s unique brand of justice flourished. Most disturbing, one of the vigilantes, Roper, claims on videotape recorded just weeks after the storm that the shootings took place with the knowledge and consent of the police. When we talk he makes the same assertion: “The police said, If they’re breaking in your property do what you gotta do and leave them [the bodies] on the side of the road.”
As we drive through Algiers Point in a battered white van, Roper tells me he witnessed a fatal shooting. Roper says he was talking on his cellphone to his son in Lafayette one evening when he spied an African-American man trying to get into Daigle’s Grocery, a corner market on the eastern edge of the neighborhood, which was shuttered because of the hurricane. Another militia member shot the man from a few feet away, killing him. “He was done,” Roper recalls.
During our conversations, Roper never acknowledges firing his weapon, but in 2005 a Danish documentary crew videotaped him talking about his activities. In this footage Roper says, when pressed, that he did indeed shoot somebody.
Fellow militia member Wayne Janak, 60, a carpenter and contractor, is more forthcoming with me. “Three people got shot in just one day!” he tells me, laughing. We’re sitting in his home, a boxy beige-and-pink structure on a corner about five blocks from Daigle’s Grocery. “Three of them got hit right here in this intersection with a riot gun,” he says, motioning toward the streets outside his home. Janak tells me he assumed the shooting victims, who were African-American, were looters because they were carrying sneakers and baseball caps with them. He guessed that the property had been stolen from a nearby shopping mall. According to Janak, a neighbor “unloaded a riot gun”–a shotgun–”on them. We chased them down.”
Janak, who was carrying a pistol, says he grabbed one of the suspected looters and considered killing him, but decided to be merciful. “I rolled him over in the grass and saw that he’d been hit in the back with the riot gun,” he tells me. “I thought that was good enough. I said, ‘Go back to your neighborhood so people will know Algiers Point is not a place you go for a vacation. We’re not doing tours right now.’”
He’s equally blunt in Welcome to New Orleans, an hourlong documentary produced by the Danish video team, who captured Janak, beer in hand, gloating about hunting humans. Surrounded by a crowd of sunburned white Algiers Point locals at a barbeque held not long after the hurricane, he smiles and tells the camera, “It was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it.” A native of Chicago, Janak also boasts of becoming a true Southerner, saying, “I am no longer a Yankee. I earned my wings.” A white woman standing next to him adds, “He understands the N-word now.” In this neighborhood, she continues, “we take care of our own.”
Janak, who says he’d been armed with two .38s and a shotgun, brags about keeping the bloody shirt worn by a shooting victim as a trophy. When “looters” showed up in the neighborhood, “they left full of buckshot,” he brags, adding, “You know what? Algiers Point is not a pussy community.”
Within that community the gunmen enjoyed wide support. In an outtake from the documentary, a group of white Algiers Point residents gathers to celebrate the arrival of military troops sent to police the area. Addressing the crowd, one local praises the vigilantes for holding the neighborhood together until the Army Humvees trundled into town, noting that some of the militia figures are present at the party. “You all know who you are,” the man says. “And I’m proud of every one of you all.” Cheering and applause erupts from the assembled locals.
Some of the gunmen prowling Algiers Point were out to wage a race war, says one woman whose uncle and two cousins joined the cause. A former New Orleanian, this source spoke to me anonymously because she fears her relatives could be prosecuted for their crimes. “My uncle was very excited that it was a free-for-all–white against black–that he could participate in,” says the woman. “For him, the opportunity to hunt black people was a joy.”
“They didn’t want any of the ‘ghetto niggers’ coming over” from the east side of the river, she says, adding that her relatives viewed African-Americans who wandered into Algiers Point as “fair game.” One of her cousins, a young man in his 20s, sent an e-mail to her and several other family members describing his adventures with the militia. He had attached a photo in which he posed next to an African-American man who’d been fatally shot. The tone of the e-mail, she says, was “gleeful”–her cousin was happy that “they were shooting niggers.”
An Algiers Point homeowner who wasn’t involved in the shootings describes another attack. “All I can tell you is what I saw,” says the white resident, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. He witnessed a barrage of gunfire–from a shotgun, an AK-47 and a handgun–directed by militiamen at two African-American men standing on Pelican Street, not too far from Janak’s place. The gunfire hit one of them. “I saw blood squirting out of his back,” he says. “I’m an EMT. My instinct should’ve been to rush to him. But I didn’t. And if I had, those guys”–the militiamen–”might have opened up on me, too.”
The witness shows me a home video he recorded shortly after the storm. On the tape, three white Algiers Point men discuss the incident. One says it might be a bad idea to talk candidly about the crime. Another dismisses the notion, claiming, “No jury would convict.”
According to Pervel, one of the shootings occurred just a few feet from his house. “Three young black men were walking down this street and they started moving the barricade,” he tells me. The men, he says, wanted to continue walking along the street, but Pervel’s neighbor, who was armed, commanded them to keep the barricade in place and leave. A standoff ensued until the neighbor shot one of the men, who then, according to Pervel, “ran a block and died” at the intersection of Alix and Vallette Streets.
Even Pervel is surprised the shootings have generated so little scrutiny. “Aside from you, no one’s come around asking questions about this,” he says. “I’m surprised. If that was my son, I’d want to know who shot him.”
By Pervel’s count, four people died violently in Algiers Point in the aftermath of the storm, including a bloody corpse left on Opelousas Avenue. That nameless body came up again and again in interviews, a grisly recurring motif. Who was he? How did he die? Nobody knew–or nobody would tell me.
After hearing all these gruesome stories, I wonder if any of the militia figures I’ve interviewed were involved in the shooting of Herrington and company. In particular, Pervel’s and Janak’s anecdotes intrigue me, since both men discussed shooting incidents that sounded a lot like the crime that nearly killed Herrington and wounded Alexander and Collins. Both Pervel and Janak recounted incidents in which vigilantes confronted three black men.
Hoping to solve the mystery, I show Herrington and Alexander video of Pervel, Janak and Roper, all of whom are in their 50s or 60s. No match. The shooters, Herrington and Alexander tell me, were younger men, in their 30s or 40s, sporting prominent tattoos. I have not been able to track them down.
New Orleans, of course, is awash in tales of the horrible things that transpired in the wake of the hurricane–and many of these wild stories have turned out to be fictions. In researching the Algiers Point attacks, I relied on the accounts of people who witnessed shooting incidents or were directly involved, either as gunmen or shooting victims.
Seeking to corroborate their stories, I sought out documentary evidence, including police files and autopsy reports. The NOPD, I was told, kept very few records during that period. Orleans Parish coroner Frank Minyard was a different story. The coroner, a flamboyant trumpet-playing doctor who has held the office for more than thirty years, had file cabinets bulging with the autopsies of hundreds of Katrina victims–he just wouldn’t let me see them, in defiance of Louisiana public records laws.
After wrangling with the coroner for more than six months, I decided to sue–with a lawyer hired by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute–to get access to the autopsies. (We weren’t the first to take the coroner to court. CNN and the New Orleans Times-Picayune had successfully sued Minyard, seeking particular Katrina-related autopsies.) This past May, Orleans Parish district court judge Kern Reese ruled in our favor, ordering Minyard to allow me to review every autopsy done in the year after the storm. But I soon learned that reconstructing history from the coroner’s mess of files was next to impossible, because the paper trail is incomplete. “We carried the records around in our cars, in the trunks of our cars, for four months and, I mean, that–that was the coroner’s office,” Minyard said in a sworn deposition obtained during the course of our suit. “I’m sure some of the records got lost or misplaced.” Even the autopsy files we got were missing key facts, like where the bodies were found, who recovered them, when they were recovered and so forth.
Many of the manila file folders the coroner eventually turned over were empty, and Minyard said he’d simply chosen not to autopsy some twenty-five to fifty corpses. The coroner also told us he didn’t know exactly how many people were shot to death in the days immediately after the storm–”I can’t even tell you how many gunshot victims we had”–but figured the number would not “be more than ten.”
Under oath Minyard proceeded to say something stunning. The NOPD, he testified, was only investigating three gunshot cases, all of them high-profile–the Danziger Bridge incident, in which police killed two civilians, and the shooting of Danny Brumfield, who was slain by a cop in front of the Convention Center. Minyard’s statement buttressed information I’d gotten from NOPD sources who said the force has done little to prosecute people for assaults or murders committed in the wake of the storm.
I contacted the police department repeatedly over many months, providing the NOPD with specific questions about each incident discussed in this story. The department, through spokesman Robert Young, declined to comment on whether officers had investigated any of these crimes and would not discuss any other issues raised by this article.
Sifting through more than 800 autopsy reports and reams of state health department data, I quickly identified five New Orleanians who had died under suspicious circumstances: one, severely burned, was found in a charred abandoned auto (see “Body of Evidence,” page 19); three were shot; and another died of “blunt force trauma to the head.” However, it’s impossible to tell from the shoddy records whether any of these people died in or around Algiers Point, or even if their bodies were found there.
No one has been arrested in connection with these suspicious deaths. When it comes to the lack of action on the cases, one well-placed NOPD source told me there was plenty of blame to go around. “We had a totally dysfunctional DA’s office,” he said. “The court system wasn’t much better. Everything was in disarray. A lot of stuff didn’t get prosecuted. There were a lot of things that were getting squashed. The UCR [uniform crime reports] don’t show anything.”
In response to detailed queries made over a period of months, New Orleans District Attorney spokesman Dalton Savwoir declined to say whether prosecutors looked into any of the attacks I uncovered. The office has been through a string of leadership changes since Katrina–Leon Cannizaro is the current DA–and is struggling to deal with crimes that happened yesterday, let alone three years ago, Savwoir told me.
James Traylor, a forensic pathologist with the Louisiana State University Health Center, worked alongside Minyard at the morgue and suspects that homicide victims fell through the cracks. “I know I did cases that were homicides,” Traylor says. “They were not suicides.” NOPD detectives, the doctor continues, never spoke to him about two cases he labeled homicides, leading him to believe police conducted no investigation into those deaths. “There should be a multi-agency task force–police, sheriffs, coroners–that can put their heads together and figure out what happened to people,” Traylor says.
One of the suspicious cases I discovered was that of Willie Lawrence, a 47-year-old African-American male who suffered a “gunshot wound” that caused a “cranio-facial injury” and deposited two chunks of metal in his brain, according to the autopsy report. Minyard never determined whether Lawrence was murdered or committed suicide, choosing to leave the death unclassified. However, the dead man’s brother, Herbert Lawrence, who lives in Compton, California, believes his sibling was murdered. Herbert tells me he got a phone call from one of Willie’s neighbors shortly after he died. The caller said Willie, whose body, according to state records, was found on the east bank of the Mississippi, was killed by a civilian gunman. “The police didn’t do anything,” Herbert says, pointing out that NOPD officers didn’t create a written report or interview any relatives.
Malik Rahim is one of a handful of African-Americans who live in Algiers Point, and as far as he’s concerned, “We are tolerated. We are not accepted.” In the days after the storm struck, Rahim says, the vigilantes “would pass by and call us all kind of names, say how they were gonna burn down my house.” They thought “all blacks was looting.”
As he walked the near-deserted streets in that period, Rahim, 61, a former Black Panther with a mane of dreadlocks, came across several dead bodies of African-American men. Inspecting the bodies, he discovered what he took to be evidence of gunfire. “One guy had about his entire head shot off,” says Rahim, who was spurred by the storm to launch Common Ground Relief, a grassroots aid organization. “It’s pretty hard to think a person drowned when half their head’s been blown off,” he says. He thinks some of the gunmen saw Katrina as a “golden opportunity to rid the community of African-Americans.”
Sitting at his kitchen table, while a noisy AC unit does its best to neutralize the stifling Louisiana heat, Rahim describes the dead and lists the locations where he found the bodies. He also shows me video footage taken days after the storm. On the tape, Rahim points to the grossly distended corpse of an African-American man lying on the ground.
Rahim introduces me to his neighbor, Reggie Bell, 39, the African-American man Pervel confronted at gunpoint as he walked by Pervel’s house. At the time, Bell, a cook, lived just a few blocks down the street from Pervel. In Bell’s recollection, Pervel, standing with another gun-toting man, demanded to know what Bell was doing in Algiers Point. “I live here,” Bell replied. “I can show you mail.”
That answer didn’t appease the gunmen, he says. According to Bell, Pervel told him, “Well, we don’t want you around here. You loot, we shoot.”
Roughly twenty-four hours later, as Bell sat on his front porch grilling food, another batch of armed white men accosted him, intending to drive him from his home at gunpoint, he says. “Whatcha still doing around here?” they asked, according to Bell. “We don’t want you around here. You gotta go.”
Bell tells me he was gripped by fear, panicked that he was about to experience ethnic cleansing, Louisiana-style. The armed men eventually left, but Bell remained nervous over the coming days. “I believe it was skin color,” he says, that prompted the militia to try to force him out. “That was some really wrong stuff.” Bell’s then-girlfriend, who was present during the second incident, confirms his story. (In a later interview, Pervel admits he confronted Bell with a shotgun but portrays the incident as a minor misunderstanding, saying he’s since apologized to Bell.)
On my final visit to Algiers Point, I stand on Patterson Street, my notebook out, interviewing a pair of residents in the dimming evening light. An older white man, on his way home from a bar, strides up and asks what I’m doing. I reply with a vague explanation, saying I’m working on an article about the “untold stories of Hurricane Katrina.”
Without a pause, he says, “Oh. You mean the shootings. Yeah, there were a bunch of shootings.”
When I share with Donnell Herrington what the militia men and Algiers Point locals have told me over the course of my investigation, he grows silent. His eyes focus on a point far away. After a moment, he says quietly, “That’s pretty disturbing to hear that–I’m not going to lie to you–to hear that these guys are cocky. They feel like they got away with it.”
reprinted from The Nation
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Who Really Killed Malcolm X?
Who Really Killed Malcolm X? An Exclusive Interview with Khalil Islam Who Spent 22 Years in Prison for His Murder By Janelle Oswald
A http://www.blackpower.com Exclusive
The 1960s in black American history was marked by three notorious assassinations: the demise of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who was respected by African-Americans because of his Civil Rights support, in 1963; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968; and the shooting of Malcolm Little a.k.a. Malcolm X in 1965.
All three men were shot down in the prime of their professional lives, and have had numerous conspiracy theories surrounding their deaths. Despite individuals being convicted for their assassinations, the police, FBI, CIA, and other groups have not escaped suspicion or public scrutiny.
Khalil Islam spent 22 years in prison for the murder of Malcolm X. Now a free man - who used to go by the name of Thomas 15X Johnson and was a ranking lieutenant at Elijah Muhammad’s Temple No. 7 on 116th Street and Lenox Avenue - Islam is ready to tell his story to the world.
He wants to ‘prove his innocence’, reveal who he believed killed ‘Detroit Red’, and explain why ‘they’ wanted to frame him.
In his hoarse, quiet voice, the father of six told Black Power: “I did not kill Big Red. I know I served time, but I am innocent.” Becoming overwhelmed, he said: “They gave me the star role - the man with the shotgun, but as I protested 43 years ago, I did not kill my black Muslim brother, Malcolm X.”
Explaining why he is now willing to speak about the “injustice,” Islam states: “People are always confronting me, including friends and family, asking why I was picked as the individual who supposedly shot Malcolm X. I’m a private person and I don’t like to focus on the past, but I believe the time is right to speak now.”
Continuing, he says: “Being Red’s security person made me the perfect culprit. The fact that Red defected and I didn’t - I stayed with our leader the Honourable Elijah Muhammad - the prosecutors used this as a motive against me.”
“My rapid advancement in the brotherhood, making me lieutenant in one year, and my position with Red is what put me in view of the law enforcement. Before his death the authorities constantly photographed me wherever I went with him, and this was used against me in court. I was found guilty by my association.”
Malcolm X, also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, broke away from with his mentor, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam (a.k.a. the Black Muslims) and self-proclaimed Messenger of Allah. Having once viewed Elijah as his savior from the dismal streets of crime, keeping him out of prison (he became involved in drug dealing, gambling, racketeering, robbery and prostituted himself), the discovery of Elijah’s personal life led Malcolm X to feel betrayed by his teacher.
As a result, Malcolm X referred to the ‘Messenger’ as a ‘religious faker’ in his famous autobiography and he denounced Elijah Muhammad’s alleged sexual dalliances. Consequently, he became vulnerable to attack from his Muslim peers. No longer trusted and derided as ‘a Judas’ and ‘the chief hypocrite,’ Malcolm X publicly announced his break from the Nation of Islam on March 8 1964, and founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc. four days later.
“Only those who wish to be led to hell, or to their doom, will follow Malcolm,” wrote the then Louis X, later known as Louis Farrakhan. Malcolm X was now seen as public enemy number one.
Remembering his departure from the brotherhood, Islam stated: “Malcolm was worthy of death when he began to blaspheme the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Although I did not kill him, I did feel a strong anger towards him because I used to see the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as Christ-like.”
“I believed that if God could send Jesus Christ as a savior, he could also send the Elijah Muhammad as a messenger - although I now know different. Like myself, many saw Malcolm’s death as what it was supposed to be.”
He added: “You did not break the rule, Red knew that. You don’t criticize the leader and expect to get away with it. In those days if we caught someone even smoking in the mosque, we’d smash your face in, and what Malcolm said was below the belt.”
The cold winter afternoon on which the ‘Father of Black Power’ was assassinated at the Audubon, still remains fresh in Islam’s mind because his neighbor frantically banged on his door as news of Malcolm X’s assassination was aired. He insists he was not present at the death of the man he was employed to guard.
“I spent most of the day in bed because I had a rheumatoid-arthritis condition, he told Black Power. “They said I shot Malcolm, then jumped out the ladies’ room window and ran down the stairs, but how could I have done that?” The truth is, I could hardly walk … I only found out about the shooting when my next door neighbour started shouting, ‘They got Big Red.’ “
This alibi meant little at Islam’s murder trial. Both Islam’s wife and the neighbor who informed him of Malcolm X’s death testified in court, but their word (despite being said under oath) counted for nothing. Nor did it matter that the man with the shotgun was described as dark-skinned with a full beard, while Islam is light-skinned and was beardless at the time.
More galling was when Talmadge Hayer, a 22-year-old member of the Nation of Islam, suddenly confessed to Malcolm X’s murder, while swearing that Islam along with Norman 3X Butler, another Temple No. 7 lieutenant, had nothing to do with the murder.
Also a bodyguard for Muhammad Ali when the boxer joined the brotherhood, Islam was convicted of first-degree murder in early 1966, and spent the next two decades behinds bars in various New York State maximum-security prisons.
He spent his first four years caged in ‘the hole’, where prisoners saw only an hour a day of natural sunlight.
Despite not being the sole person to be convicted of Malcolm X’s killing - Talmadge Hayer and Norman Butler also went down - Islam was said to be the first official black Muslim to go to prison.
“I was innocent, yet there I was, behind those walls,” said Islam. “Right from the start I knew that they were trying to frame me, because just the thought that I could do such a thing was insane. As the saying goes, ‘if the hat fits, wear it’, and I fitted. They knew I would never talk, never give anyone up. I was just the perfect patsy.”
Asked whether he received any support from the Nation of Islam, the 73-year-old former convict replied: “No! They gave me no help. No visits. I was very hurt by the lack of support the brotherhood showed me, especially because I knew that they knew I was innocent.
“It was not until the trial ended and I was sent to prison that I began to reflect on the whole situation. When I analyze my dedication towards the religion and the respect I had for my high-ranking peers, I should have had the best legal representation, but they gave me nothing.”
Known as the ‘ambassador prisoner’ while in jail, Islam continued to spread the love of Allah, and taught his fellow black brothers inside the slammer to have respect not only for themselves but also for their race as a whole.
Speaking of the violence that he witnessed inside, Islam revealed, “Death was the order of the day. When you’re locked up 24 hours a day you will see the worst type of violence amongst inmates, such as rape and killings. It’s very tragic what a lack of education can do. I felt obligated to empower my fellow black brothers.”
Taking a deep breath, he added: “It took me until now to really understand it, to think it through, and that’s important because I always felt knowing what happened would be the key to who I really was.”
Asked who he felt framed him, Islam answered sharply: “Inside people. The Feds set me up because they felt I too became a threat, because they believed I wanted to take over from Red.”
“Taking care of all the top brothers in the ministry exposed me to a great deal of inside information and knowledge, and in the eyes of the Feds they saw me as another threat, just like Red. You have to understand that during those days, and still now, white people were very afraid of an educated black man.”
Islam believes that five men from New Jersey carried out the assassination of one of the great black heroes of all time. “These men were not true followers,” said Islam. “They were relegated. There was a lot of confusion amongst the Muslim masses at that time. There was hatred and jealously, and those men were known criminals.”
Islam categorically rejects the possibility that the command to kill Malcolm X came from Chicago, the headquarters of Elijah Muhammad, which is one of the most popular conspiracy theories since the assassination. He insisted that the five men who orchestrated the Muslim leader’s death were organized by the Feds.
Islam told Black Power that he had no time to feel sorry for himself or feel bitter towards those that he felt put him behind bars, because he was too busy keeping up with his religious studies of the Quran, the Bible, and other academic materials (including law), in order to prepare himself for his release date.
“What good would it have served for me to crumble while I was locked up? I used my time to better myself and progress physically, mentally, but most importantly, spiritually.”
During his jail term, Islam had a visit from Wallace D. Muhammad, son of Elijah Muhammad. Educated in traditional Islamic schools, an Arabic speaker and Quranic scholar, W. D. Muhammad’s beliefs were different from his father’s and he developed a strong connection with Malcolm X before his death.
Amazed by his visit, Islam explained: “He told me to look him in the eye and tell him whether or not I had anything to do with killing Malcolm X. I knew they were friends, so he wasn’t asking just as a leader but also as a man. I told him I didn’t do it. That was when he gave me my name, Khalil Islam, which means ‘friend of God.’ “
Released in 1987 aged 52 with just $40 in his pocket, Islam’s life behind bars caused the breakdown of his family. His kids were deeply affected by his imprisonment, which eventually resulted in a divorce from his first wife.
Like Malcolm X, Islam was brought up a Christian, fell into drugs and crime due to ‘a lack of opportunity in black America’, and was drawn to the Nation of Islam after spending time in jail. He later joined mainstream Islam, searching for the true concept of God.
Believing that there are always powerful, positive life lessons to be learned from trials and tribulations, after prison Islam dedicated his life to helping marginalized black youth, schooling them on God’s love. However, the deterioration of his health - he has experienced several heart bypasses - has made him retire from his mentoring programs.
Islam was only discharged from hospital the day before the interview, and increasing fatigue could be heard in his frail voice. He said his only wish before meeting his maker was to be vindicated over Malcolm X’s murder, and to visit Mecca to make his hajj.
“If I don’t do that, I’m going to die a miserable man.”
He asked if Black Power is based in England, (it’s not) and exclaimed: “I’m so honored that you having given me the opportunity to tell my story so English people and the rest of the world can hear the truth. Back in the days, we used to travel to Europe a lot and I am very aware that there is a huge brotherhood in the UK.”
Islam added: “Muhammad Ali paid for me to take a polygraph test, which I passed. Talmadge Hayer signed an affidavit revealing the names of the four men who he claimed really helped him assassinate Red, and since my release I have met two of Malcolm’s daughters, Qubilah and Ilyasah, and they both have told me that they knew that I did not kill their beloved father. I just hope that one day the justice system will admit that they jailed an innocent man.”
http://www.blackpower.com/politics/who-really-killed-malcolm-x-an-exclusive-interview-with-khalil-islam-who-spent-22-years-in-prison-for-his-murder/
ACTOR DANNY GLOVER AMONG HONOREES AT AFUWI GALA 2009
ACTOR DANNY GLOVER AMONG HONOREES AT AFUWI GALA 2009
Friday, December 05, 2008 - Actor and Humanitarian Danny Glover, Bermuda Premier Dr. Ewart Brown and Macy’s Department Store are among the list of honorees for the 12th Annual Fundraising Gala of the American Foundation for the University of the West Indies (AFUWI) to be held on Thursday, January 29, 2009 at the Pierre in New York City at 6:30 pm. Harry Belafonte will again serve as Honorary Patron. The Annual Gala is the AFUWI’s premier fundraising event in the United States at which the prestigious Legacy Awards are conferred on notable individuals who represent high levels of achievement within their respective fields of industry and enterprise. Awards will be presented in three categories; Caribbean Luminary, The Vice Chancellor’s Achievement Award and The University of the West Indies Bob Marley Award.
This year’s recipient of the University of the West Indies Bob Marley Award is UN Ambassador Danny Glover.
“This honor is granted to individuals whose contribution to the advancement of arts and culture transcends boundaries of race, color, creed and geographies, uniting people throughout the world in a spirit that embodies the essence of the music and lyrics of the Hon. Robert Nesta Marley, O.M.,” noted Annmarie Grant, executive director of the AFUWI, housed at the Consulate General of Jamaica in New York City.
Sir Courtney Blackman, founding Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados and vice-chairman of the Stanford International Bank will be presented with the Foundation’s Special Award while Macy’s will receive the Corporate Award. Sir Courtney Blackman is also a former Chairman of the AFUWI and is being honored for his outstanding contribution to the Foundation as well as to the growth and development of the financial industry of the Caribbean region.
The 2009 Luminary Award recipients include; Dr. Ainsworth Allen, Dr. Ewart Brown, Hon. Helen Marshall, Dr. Muriel Petioni and Dr. Lamuel Stanislaus, while the Vice Chancellor’s Achievement Awardees comprise; Joi Gordon, Andrew Gray, Jerome Maxwell, Dr. Bert Petersen and Voza Rivers.
Veronica Campbell-Brown, 2008 double Olympic Gold medalist will also be on hand to receive the Foundation’s tribute, recognizing and saluting the superb performance of Caribbean athletes at the recent Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
Hosts for the black tie gala are; My9 TV Co-Anchor Brenda Blackmon; CNN Anchor Soledad O’Brien and WCBS News Anchor Maurice Dubois, all of whom have generously agreed to donate their talent in support of the Foundation’s effort to secure funds for scholarships and grants for needy students of the University of the West Indies.
A silent auction is included in the evening’s programme and will feature items donated by local businesses and members of the public.
Tickets for the benefit can be purchased at the AFUWI office in New York City by calling 212-759-9345. Corporate packages are also available. For information about donating to the Foundation, please log on to http://www.afuwi.org
Contact:Aubrey L. Campbell / JIS/NY / T: 212-935-7506
The Great Harlem Debate Was the Obama Election Good for Black People?
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The Great Harlem Debate
Was the Obama Election Good for Black People?
by Davey D
Listen to this Debate on Breakdown FM by clicking the link below
http://odeo.com/episodes/23767113-The-Great-Harlem-Debate-pt1
http://odeo.com/episodes/23767115-The-Great-Harlem-Debate-pt2
This past Sunday over 1200 people showed up at Salem Methodist church in Harlem to listen and weigh in on a discussion that has been raging on in our communities but oftentimes swept under the rug. The historic election of Barack Obama has been a source of pride for many. Record numbers of Black people came out and voted for him. His largest percentage, a whooping 94% of Black folks punched his name in the ballot booth. However, many did so wondering if an Obama election will lead to pressing issues within the African American community would be addressed, or if his election would symbolize to those outside the community that racism was a thing of the past?
One of the nagging concerns that surfaced during Obama's historic run was him distancing himself from anything Black. He stayed away from key events ranging from Tavis Smiley's annual State of the Union where rival Hillary Clinton showed up to the 40th commemoration ceremonies in Memphis, Tn for the death of Dr Martin Luther King. His republican rival John McCain showed up for that event.
There were always grumblings that Obama was distancing himself from the Black community to appease skittish white voters who lived in the middle of the country who oftentimes made no bones about their reluctance to vote for a Black man. many of us held our tongues and rationalized that Obama 'had to play the game' and 'do what was needed to get elected.
Rap star David Banner explained it best when he suggested that we give Obama a chance and stop asking all these brilliant questions that we never asked white candidates who we often seem to give unconditional support. Let Obama get in the white house first and then push for him to address our issues.
Banner's remarks were supported by scholars like Dr Michael Eric Dyson who often talked about Obama giving Black folks a proverbial wink as he campaigned. Dyson told us that Obama understood our concerns but had to roll a certain way to get elected. He was catching unprecedented hell including several thwarted assassination attempts by racist whites. With all that pressure the least we as Black folks could do was keep our mouths shut and help clear the way for an Obama victory which at the end of the day would be ours.
Lastly the argument was put forth by many that we better go for Obama if for any reason to avoid a 3rd Bush-like term in the form of a reactionary figure like John McCain who at one point staunchly refused to vote for a Dr Martin Luther King Holiday. After a disastrous 8 years of Bush that harshly impacted the Black community to not vote for Obama was seen as treasonous.
While a substantial amount of Black folks heeded the suggestions of Banner, Dyson and other supporters there were others like Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report who boldly made the case that Obama should not get a pass and his actions and words wether he was running for office or in office should be called into question if they weren't in alignment with issues that the community was talking about. The Black Agenda Report spent much of the campaign season questioning Obama's affiliations and key players who worked for him behind the scenes. They questioned his policy decisions and expressed concern early on that Obama was running too far to the right. Ford and his partner Bruce Dixon often noted that if we don't hold Obama or anyone's feet to the fire they will take us for granted and never come to our arena because we put no demands on him. In recent weeks Ford and Dixon have raised concerns about Obama's cabinet appointments, noting that many of them have had shady and antagnostic records when it comes to dealing with Black issues.
So with all this in mind, the stage was set for the Great Harlem Debate. Some thought that such a discussion was premature because Obama hasn't been sworn in yet, while others felt it was reactionary not realizing that many of the participants have debated each other throughout the campaign. Now was just as good as anytime to have this discussion. Obama is the President of the United States and not the President of Black America. hence it would be up to the community to define and articulate their concerns just as they would to any other person sitting in the Oval Office. To not do so would be fool hardy.
This past Sunday attendees heard compelling remarks from great scholars and community leaders. Each speaker was given 8 minutes to make their case. Here's some highlights on how it unfolded.
Dr Leonard Jeffries kicked things off by talking about what an Obama victory symbolized. He said that he did not expect Obama to fundamentally change things or to take up causes like Reparations. He noted that it was up to him and our community to raise those issues. He said it was up to the community to put forth a Pan African Agenda not Obama. He said we can't be blinded by our ideologies so much so that we refuse to accept and be apart of the change that is occurring. He talked about how having a Black family in the White House spoke volumes to many who felt left out as well as people all over the world. He said Obama's image gets to replace the image of 50 Cent. Jeffries talked about the excitement that people in other countries like Germany had with Obama being in the White House. He also raised eyebrows when he said that Obama is is the start of capitalism collasping. He said Wall Street could be replaced with Afrika Street.
Cultural Scientist and author Dr Marimba Ani followed Jeffries and reminded folks the reason why so many had gathered that Sunday afternoon. It wasn't just to talk about Obama but also to bring attention and raise money about political prisoners. The Great Harlem debate in particular was to raise money for Mutulu Shakur-many of you know him as Tupac's stepfather. She wanted to make sure we did not lose sight of that because the plight of PP was not one that Obama has raised or was likely to unless pressured.
Dr Ani said that Obama has ignored Black people and that the power elite along with its media has sold Obama to the masses. She said he was controlled behind the scenes and basically chosen to represent interests that are outside the community. She also noted that many of us were not on the same page in terms of what their expectations and goals were. She said that as Pan Africanist and Nationalist those goals had not been clearly laid out and until they were it would be difficult to determine whether or not an Obama election was good for Black people.
She spoke at length about a racial identity and how Obama's victory has brought about a post racial climate. She talked in detail about the type of negative impact that is and will have on Black people who are increasingly being told that racism no longer exists. She also talked about how there are now all these articles and pundits who have been speaking out in recent weeks insisting that Obama is not Black as if to take away from the significance of his victory and also to further keep him disconnected from us.
She concluded her remarks to by reading an excerpt from a letter that Obama had penned in response to Kenyan officials who reached out asking for help. The letter talked about that help would be forthcoming if Kenya's foreign policy was in line with that of the US. The letter noted that the US would need to set up a base in that country to set up their Africom headquarters. You could tell by the crowds reaction that people were shocked to hear that.
Malik Zulu Shabazz who heads up the New Black panther Party spoke about the type of uplifting impact Obama rise to the presidency has had with the gang members he has been working with. he talked about the Crips in LA and the Bloods in Brooklyn expressing pride in seeing Obama run and win. He talked about how many felt inspired to do better for themselves. He also questioned why we would want to rain on the parade of those elders and other community members who saw this as a great accomplishment. He asked those opposed to Obama if we had rather had John McCain in the white house?
New York City Councilman Charles Barron followed Shabazz and talked about the type of momentum an Obama win had given to those determined to make a difference on a local level. He said he and others in his East New York neighborhood took advantage of the excitement Obama brought to electoral politics and got key people into office including his wife who is now in the state assembly. He talked about the importance of us having community control from top to bottom and that Obama's run set the tone for us to make this happen all over.
Glen Ford followed Barron. The pair have debated Obama on a couple of occasions in the past. He wasted no time in laying out a compelling case against the President elect by talking about how our blind support of Obama has allowed him to run to the right and stay there. Ford underscored his remarks by talking in detail the concerns raised behind Obama's cabinet picks.
He talked about Robert Gates who he described as a war monger and a war criminal who was linked to Iran Contra scandal and the mining of harbors in Nicarugua.
Ford laid out arguments against cabinet pick Susan Rice who he said was aligned with George Bush in her support of the war we have with Somalia. He talked about Obama's chief of staff Ram Emmanuel and how his staunch zionist connections should be cause for concern. Ford also talked about Obama's economic team and how many of were on board the ship that has gotten us in the economic mess we are in now.
Ford concluded by reminding us that Obama's victory means he has power. He is in a position to set the agenda and make sound decisions that will keep the interests of those who are often taken for granted and adversally effected by policy decisions.
Those are just a few of the many highlights. We broke this Breakdown FM into two parts. In part two we hear engaging remarks from people like Viola Plummer of the December 12th Movement, Dr james Turner, Dr Don Smith, Pam Afrika and Afrika Bambaataa.
On this Breakdown FM show you will hear incredible music talking about the presidential election from artists like Brother Ali, Rebel Diaz, Dead Prez, Common, Zion I, Kev Choice and Afrika Bambaataa.
Big shout out to my radio colleagues, former Green Party presidential candidate Jared Ball of Freemix Radio http://www.voxunion.com/?p=542 and Andreas Jackson of Media Electic http://www.andreasjackson.com for being at the event and documenting the proceedings. Both these gentlemen have the entire 3 hour proceedings unedited on their respective sites. Their recordings and interviews which you are hearing on Breakdown FM are invaluable.
Source:http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfmfuseaction=blog.view&friendID=15116190&blogaID=457058244
Top 10 Obama Player Haters of 2008
Top 10 Obama Player Haters of 2008
By Casey Gane-McCalla
This election saw Barack Obama inspire millions of Americans to hope, believe and work for change. However, Obama also managed to inspire millions of haters, who expended an extreme amount of negative energy in taking down the President Elect. Here is our Top 10 Obama Haters of 2008.
1. Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity spent the whole election season using his program as one big negative campaign ad against Obama. He called Obama's church a cult, called him racist, attacked Michelle Obama as angry and bitter and harshly criticized Obama's ties to Reverend Wright, ACORN and William Ayers. He ran a series on his program called Obama an Friends: A History of Radicalism, which was one long negative smear campaign against Obama and had gave renowned anti-Semite, Andy Martin, a platform to bash Obama.
Watch Hannity Call Obama Racist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3qbibh8Mk
2. Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly got into a shoving match with an Obama aide in early January and called the aide a son of a bitch. He later threatened to call in the lynch mob on Michelle Obama because of her 'unpatriotic comments' and called Obama a socialist and a communist on The View. Obama would later show his metal by dealing with his hater face to face in a very testy interview with O'Reilly.
Watch Obama on the O'Reilly Factor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_753sLQQ8q8
3. Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin took to her moniker, Pitbull with Lipstick, and began to take a bite out of Obama from her first speech at the RNC convention in August, belittling his experience as a community organizer. Palin would go on the campaign trail, inspiring millions of American with her Obama hate, accusing him of palling around with terrorists, and questioning his relationship with former pastor, Reverend Wright. During campaign speeches, crowd members would yell things like 'kill him, he's a terrorist, off with his head' and Palin didn't blink an eye, giving the silent approval of the statements.
Watch Sarah Palin Accuse Obama of Palling Around With Terrorists
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi3oP74kMjA
4. Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh attacked Barack Obama's racial background, making a song Barack the Magic Negro, called him a halfrican American and said that Obama was Arab and not Black, seeing how his father was from from the Arab part of Africa(Kenya is less that 2% Arab). Limbaugh also organized operation chaos, urging supporters to vote for Hillary to extend the democratic primaries and bruise up Obama and repeatedly referred to Obama as Osama.
Click Here To See All of Limbaugh's Racist Comments
5. Pastor Manning
While Obama had the overwhelming support of the black religious community, there were a few haters. Pastor Manning has called Obama a 'house negro,' 'pimp' and 'long legged mack daddy. Manning has also attacked Obama's late mother, calling her 'trash,' for sleeping with a black man and saying, "Generally the most noble of white society choose not to intercourse sexually with African men. So it's usually the trashier ones who make their determinations that they're going to have sex."
Watch Manning Call Obama a Pimp and a Mack Daddy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfZqMkdpYi0&eurl=http://newsone.blackplanet.com/year-in-review/top-10-obama-player-haters-of-2008/&feature=player_embedded
6. Bill Clinton
When asked why it took two Clintons to beat Obama, Bill Clinton responded, "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here." No one had mentioned Jackson, so it came off like, 'yeah blacks can win South Carolina but Obama, like Jesse Jackson, he never really is going to have a shot.' Clinton also claimed that Obama's Presidential bid was a 'fairy tale.' Well guess what Bill? Fairy tales do come true.
Watch Bill Clinton Play Obama for Another Jesse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqd2dfjl2pw&eurl=http://newsone.blackplanet.com/year-in-review/top-10-obama-player-haters-of-2008/&feature=player_embedded
7. John McCain:
Despite pledging to run a clean campaign, John McCain ran the dirtiest campaign in Presidential history. By October, 100% of all of McCain's ads were negative. McCain's attack ads compared Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, attempted to tie him to Williams Ayers and Tony Rezko and claimed he wanted to teach sex ed to kindergartners. In the debates McCain showed his disdain for Barack Obama by never looking him in the eye and referring to him as 'that one.'
Watch McCain Call Obama That One
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNzA9LfMlmU&eurl=http://newsone.blackplanet.com/year-in-review/top-10-obama-player-haters-of-2008/&feature=player_embedded
8. Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson wound up crying when Barack Obama won. However, after Barack Obama gave a speech on Father's Day, telling black men to be more responsible for their kids, Jesse though he was talking down to black people. He reiterated that sentiment to another guest while appearing on Fox News with harsh language, saying "Barack be talking down to n****rs, I want to rip his nuts off." I do believe that Jackson just had a disagreement with Obama that Fox News decided to make public, but still, wanting to rip Obama's nuts off gives him a spot in our Top 10.
Watch Jesse Jackson's Infamous Comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQl_6buUggM&eurl=http://newsone.blackplanet.com/year-in-review/top-10-obama-player-haters-of-2008/&feature=player_embedded
9. Ann Coulter
On Fox News, Ann Coulter referred to Barack Obama as B. Hussein five times in two minutes and said "his first big accomplishment (was) being born half-black.' She has also compared him to Hitler, calling his book, Dreams From My Father a 'dimestore Mein Kampf' and called him a socialist who wants to surrender.
10. Bill Cunningham
Cunningham is one of the original conservatives to popularize the use of Obama's middle name. When he first did it at a McCain event, McCain apologized for him, but would eventually let other members of his staff use it for events. Cunningham has referred to Obama as a Manchurian candidate and said that Obama 'wants to gas the Jews.' Cunningham would also compare Obama to Mao, Castro and Russian communists saying, "Much like Castro took over Cuba, Mao Zedong took over Red China, and the Communists took over Russia, Obama now is poised, according to many of my good friends on the left like Paul Mason and others, to seize power in America, and I hope to be a bloodless coup."
Watch Cunningham Bash Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umTZffAfw7s&eurl=http://newsone.blackplanet.com/year-in-review/top-10-obama-player-haters-of-2008/&feature=player_embedded
Notorious B.I.G. NOT Overrated! / Notoriously Overrated:
Notorious B.I.G. NOT Overrated! - Response To What's So Big About Biggie Smalls?
By Paradise Gray
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=53228685&blogID=456808723
I found the article "Notoriously Overrated: What was so Big about Biggie Smalls?" by Minister Paul Scott distasteful and totally missing the point. While I consider Min. Paul Scott a good brother and a friend, I do not agree with his opinion of The Notorious B.I.G.
"Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one, and most of them stink!"
Here's my take on why "Biggie Smalls" was BIG:
It is not fair to compare the story of Biggie Smalls to the story of Fred
Hampton. It's not even like comparing apples and oranges (they are both
fruit), It's flat out wrong to try to compare rappers to revolutionary activists
and leaders. Rappers, athletes and other entertainers are too often cited
as role models by members of the media who somehow believe because
people cheer for them while being entertained, it somehow magically transforms individuals into heroes and someone to be imitated or admired off stage.
This new form of idol worship is a distortion of reality, basically setting
artists up for a long fall after building them up to the top as celebrities
who are morally and culturally un-vetted. Marketing and promotions brings us
capitalism at it's best (or should I say Worst?).
Rappers are more like actors who play a character or role, for Minister Paul
Scott to suggest that he knew Christopher Wallace as a person because he
listened to his music or saw his videos is inaccurate. If you did not know him
personally, you don't know any more about him than you know Al Pacino after
watching Scarface. No one judges California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger by the roles that he played as a Hollywood actor.
What is it about rapping the words that makes Biggie's artistic
contributions to pop culture less relevant than the cold hard stories of
the streets written by Donald Goines? The Notorious B.I.G. was a great writer
and story teller with a lyrical flow and swagger that in my opinion has earned
Christopher Wallace an indisputable place among the "Greatest Rappers Of
All Time" in spite of the fact that (as Davey D reminds us) his "body of works"
is very limited due to his un-timely death.
Lest we forget, Christopher Wallace was manipulated and exploited by the
corrupt system that is the music industry and the entertainment industry in
general. Much in the same way that Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, Michael
Jordan, Elvis, Britney Spears and most artists that you ever heard of is
exploited and used. Industry executives are just as accountable for the
content of negative lyrics as the artists that they sponsor and exploit.
The artist is the low man on the totem pole who's carcass is free for the
picking by sleazy buzzards known as managers, promoters, producers, record
labels, booking agents, lawyers, magazines, television shows, radio stations
and the like. They could care less about the poor slobs that they shine
their lights on or the victims of the negative imagery as long as they make money.
In fact, radio stations and magazines fanned the flames between Tupac and
Biggie's so called East Coast VS West Coast beef to the point that I
consider them accomplices to both of their murders. It was a media feeding
frenzy that fed into America's blood lust that encourages drug use,
violence, misogyny, homo-phobia, racism and other distractions that *did not
begin with Hip-hop and won't end with it*. Love it or hate it, the things
that Biggie rapped about are as American as apple pie.
We have built rappers up with so much "keep it real" bull-crap to the point
that their rapping skills have less to do with their success in the industry
than their "Rap Sheets". What do you have to do to maintain street
credibility when 50 Cent himself (9 bullets in his body and all) has to
keep disrespecting people and calling out other rappers to maintain
controversy and remain relevancy in the eyes of the media who then transmit
the concepts to the record buying public.
We need to bring the unrealistic expectations that have been placed on
entertainers into perspective. They are cool, they sound great, they are
great to watch on TV, but I am qualified to say that most of what you see on
TV is fake as hell and should be exposed as such. We should take the time to
educate people about the multi-media brainwashing that has taken place that has
so many of our young people convinced that being a drug dealer, thug,
criminal in general or even a murderer is something to aspire to be.
Christopher Wallace was a talented writer who was murdered in his prime, a
man who deserves respect as an artist and as a human being. He is not
overrated as an artist and we will never know what kind of man he could have
turned out to be. Imagine if Detroit Red had been murdered before reaching his
potential of becoming Malcolm X.
We have to apply critical thinking to all media that we consume as well as
the media that we allow our children to consume. Keep entertainment and
media in perspective. It's O.K. to be entertained, but in the ironic immortal
words of Flavor Flav "Don't believe the hype".
Get beyond complaining about the messages in the industry, do something
about it, organize, be active, support conscious artists, create your own
positive media, don't just disrespect the memory of a beloved father, friend
and artist. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone", none of us are perfect.
As a Minister (Paul Scott) the words "Judge not lest ye be judged" should
resonate with you. We owe the hundreds of potential Biggies and Tupac's
who are currently still in the industry and the millions of them on the streets
all over the world more than rants of "Pull Up your Pants". The conditions
that exist in our communities are not just the results of negativity and criminal
elements, but the lack of involvement by intellectuals, men of God and positive
people.
I wonder how the story would have turned out had the conscious community, black churches, and revolutionaries had organized together and bailed out Tupac Shakur rather than Suge Knight.
Rest in Peace Christopher "Biggie" Wallace, only God can judge you now.
--
Paradise Gray
One Hood
Http://www.1hood.org
Http://www.myspace.com/paradisegray
Continue reading "Notorious B.I.G. NOT Overrated! / Notoriously Overrated:" »
'Killing a Brown' New Evidence of Extremists in the Military
'Killing a Brown' New Evidence of Extremists in the Military
By David Holthouse
Intelligence Report
Winter 2008
The racist skinhead logged on with exciting news: He'd just enlisted in the United States Army.
"Sieg Heil, I will do us proud," he wrote. It was a June 3 post to
AryanWear Forum 14, a neo-Nazi online forum to which "Sobibor's SS,"
who identified himself as a skinhead living in Plantersville, Ala., had
belonged since early 2004. (Sobibor was a Nazi death camp in Poland
during World War II).
About a month after he announced his enlistment, Sobibor's SS
bragged in another post to Forum 14 that he'd specifically requested
and been assigned to MOS, or Military Occupational Specialty, 98D.
MOS98D soldiers are in high demand right now. That's because they're
specially trained in disarming Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), the
infamous roadside bombs that are killing and maiming so many U.S.
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presumably, part of learning how to
disarm an IED is learning how one is made.
"I have my own reasons for wanting this training but in fear of the
government tracing me and me loosing [sic] my clearance I can't share
them here," Sobibor's SS informed his fellow neo-Nazis.
One of his earlier posts indicated his reasons serve a darker
purpose than defending America: "Once all the Jews are gone the world
will start fixing itself."
|
Sobibor's SS included enough biographical details in his various
posts to Forum 14 over the years, including that he's a single father
from the small town in southern Alabama, that a military investigator
with access to enlistment records for recent months should have little
trouble determining whether the Army may actually be teaching a
skinhead with genocide on his mind about tactical bomb-making.
But there's little reason to expect that will happen.
Two years ago, the Intelligence Report
revealed that alarming numbers of neo-Nazi skinheads and other white
supremacist extremists were taking advantage of lowered armed services
recruiting standards and lax enforcement of anti-extremist military
regulations by infiltrating the U.S. armed forces in order to receive
combat training and gain access to weapons and explosives.
Forty members of Congress urged then-Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld to launch a full-scale investigation and implement a
zero-tolerance policy toward white supremacists in the military.
"Military extremists present an elevated threat to both their fellow
service members and the public," U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, an
Alabama Republican, wrote in a separate open letter to Rumsfeld. "We
witnessed with Timothy McVeigh that today's racist extremist may become
tomorrow's domestic terrorist."
But neither Rumsfeld nor his successor, Robert Gates, launched any
sort of systemic investigation or crackdown. Military and Defense
Department officials seem to have made no sustained effort to prevent
active white supremacists from joining the armed forces or to weed out
those already in uniform.
Furthermore, new evidence is emerging that not only supports the Intelligence Report's
original findings, but also indicates the problem may have worsened
since the summer of 2006, as enlistment rates have continued to
plummet, and the military has struggled to meet recruitment goals in a
time of unpopular war. Asked about the latest developments, military
officials this fall declined to comment.
A new FBI report confirms that white supremacists are infiltrating
the military for several reasons. According to the unclassified FBI
Intelligence Assessment, "White Supremacist Recruitment of Military
Personnel Since 9/11," which was released to law enforcement agencies
nationwide: "Sensitive and reliable source reporting indicates
supremacist leaders are encouraging followers who lack documented
histories of neo-Nazi activity and overt racist insignia such as
tattoos to infiltrate the military as 'ghost skins,' in order to
recruit and receive training for the benefit of the extremist movement."
The FBI report details more than a dozen investigative findings and
criminal cases involving Iraq and Afghanistan veterans as well as
active-duty personnel engaging in extremist activity in recent years.
For example, in September 2006, the leader of the Celtic Knights, a
central Texas splinter faction of the Hammerskins, a national racist
skinhead organization, planned to obtain firearms and explosives from
an active duty Army soldier in Fort Hood, Texas. That soldier, who
served in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, was a member of the National Alliance,
a neo-Nazi group.
"Looking ahead, current and former military personnel belonging to
white supremacist extremist organizations who experience frustration at
the inability of these organizations to achieve their goals may choose
to found new, more operationally minded and operationally capable
groups," the report concludes. "The military training veterans bring to
the movement and their potential to pass this training on to others can
increase the ability of lone offenders to carry out violence from the
movement's fringes."
In May, Army Cpl. Adrian Petty, a member of the Vinlanders Social Club
(VSC) skinhead gang, posted several photos to his MySpace page showing
himself in uniform serving in Iraq. One, depicting him riding in a
Humvee, was captioned, "On Another VSC Recruiting Mission."
Currently, 46 members of the white supremacist social networking
website Newsaxon.com identify themselves as active-duty military
personnel. Six of these individuals are members of "White Military
Men," a New Saxon sub-group.
Earlier this year, the founder of White Military Men identified
himself in his New Saxon account as "Lance Corporal Burton" of the 2nd
Battalion Fox Company Pit 2097, from Florida, according to a master's
thesis by graduate student Matthew Kennard. Under his "About Me"
section, Burton writes: "Love to shoot my M16A2 service rifle
effectively at the Hachies (Iraqis)," and, "Love to watch things blow
up (Hachies House)."
Kennard, who was working on his thesis for Columbia University's
Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, also monitored claims
of active-duty military service earlier this year on the neo-Nazi
online forum Blood & Honour, where "88Soldier88" posted this
message on Feb. 18: "I am in the ARMY right now. I work in the Detainee
Holding Area [in Iraq]. … I am in this until 2013. I am in the infantry
but want to go to SF [Special Forces]. Hopefully the training will
prepare me for what I hope is to come."
One of the Blood & Honour members claiming to be an active-duty
soldier taking part in combat operations in Iraq identified himself to
Kennard as Jacob Berg. He did not disclose his rank or branch of
service. "There are actually a lot more 'skinheads,' 'nazis,' white
supremacists now [in the military] than there has been in a long time,"
Berg wrote in an E-mail exchange with Kennard. "Us racists are actually
getting into the military a lot now because if we don't every one who
already is [in the military] will take pity on killing sand niggers.
Yes I have killed women, yes I have killed children and yes I have
killed older people. But the biggest reason I'm so proud of my kills is
because by killing a brown many white people will live to see a new
dawn."
The Army is currently investigating war crimes allegations leveled
against Iraq combat veteran and active-duty Army soldier Kenneth
Eastridge, 24, who in November was sentenced to 10 years in prison for
the December 2007 murder of a fellow serviceman. After Eastridge was
arrested for that killing, National Public Radio publicized his MySpace
page, which showed Eastridge displaying a tattoo of SS lightning bolts,
a common neo-Nazi insignia.
Another member of Eastridge's company recently told Army
investigators that Eastridge used a stolen AK-47 to fire
indiscriminately at Iraqi civilians from his moving Humvee on the
streets of Baghdad. "The military is to some extent desperate to get
people to fight, soldiers who are not fit, mentally and physically
sick, but they continue to send them," Eastridge's attorney told
Kennard. "Having a tattoo was the least of [Eastridge's] concerns."
As part of the research for his thesis, "The New Nazi Army: How the
U.S. military is allowing the far right to join its ranks," Kennard
used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain from the Army's Criminal
Investigative Division investigative reports concerning white
supremacist activity in 2006 and 2007. They show that Army commanders
repeatedly terminated investigations of suspected extremist activity in
the military despite strong evidence it was occurring. This evidence
was often provided by regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which are
made up of FBI and state and local law enforcement officials.
For example, one CID report details a 2006 investigation of a
suspected member of the Hammerskins, a multi-state racist skinhead
gang, who was stationed at Fort Hood, a large Army base in central
Texas. According to the report, there was "probable cause" to believe
that the soldier "had participated in a white extremist meeting and
also provided a military technical manual 31-210, Improvised Munitions Handbook,
to the leader of a white extremist group in order to assist in the
planning and execution of future attacks on various targets."
The report shows that agents only interviewed the subject once, in
November 2006, before Fort Hood higher-ups called off the investigation
that December.
Another report, also from 2006, covers an investigation of another
Fort Hood soldier who was posting messages on Stormfront.org, a major
white supremacist website. One CID investigator expresses his
frustration at the muddled process for dealing with extremists. "We
need to discuss the review process," he writes. "I'm not doing my job
here. Needs to get fixed."
A third CID report, regarding a 2007 investigation, notes the
termination of an investigation of a soldier at Fort Richardson,
Alaska, who was reportedly the leader and chief recruiter for the
Alaska Front, a white supremacist group. According to the report, the
investigation was halted because the solider was "mobilized to Camp
Shelby, MS in preparation for deployment to Iraq."
Editor's Note: As this story went to press,
Southern Poverty Law Center Chief Executive Officer Richard Cohen wrote
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reiterating the request that the
Department of Defense adopt a zero-tolerance policy
with respect to extremists in the military. As the article notes, a
similar letter, addressed to Gates' predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld,
produced no action by the Pentagon.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=53228685&blogID=457537709
New Entertainment Company Creating Change In Hip Hop
Spotsylvania, VA, 12/18/08, (Hip Hop PR Wire) --
Limaj Media Group LLC, also doing business as Eye Entertainment, is less than a year old; still in its seed stage as development goes. During these times of uncertainty, insecurity and distrust the owners are putting everything they have (and some things they don't) into their dream. But these young entrepreneurs see hope amidst the economic crisis – the belief that we are now standing upon the precipice that will force us to make a change. Their website states "Change is inevitable. We simply strive to make sure it is for the better."
The Business
Eye Entertainment is a networking and marketing company designed to provide individuals and businesses in the entertainment and fashion industries the resources and support needed to achieve their goals. So what distinguishes this entertainment company from the countless others that promise to do the same thing? Eye Entertainment's unique approach is two-fold: it allows artists to stand out in an industry over-saturated with people dedicated to becoming overnight celebrities; the music acts as a medium through which they spread the true meaning behind LMG.
"LMG is about more than us. More than hip hop. It's about the movement," explains Jamil Aaron, also known as VA the Governor, the CEO of Limaj Media Group.
The Movement
The owners, employees and supporters of Eye Entertainment understand that artists have an overwhelming influence over what is considered "cool" or acceptable, particularly within the urban and hip hop communities. Cleverly mixed into the impressive wordplay and hot beats is a message that they believe will stimulate the transition from a society obsessed with materialism to one that is focused on the pursuit of knowledge, wisdom and understanding. They are dedicated to creating music for the mind, not the bank account. As posted on their website:
"We must not continue to enslave ourselves to mere representations of power. Money is not power. Neither are fast cars, luxurious mansions, or shiny chains. These are simply possessions that distract us from what can make us truly powerful. The ability to make knowledgeable, informed decisions is the key to becoming successful in anything we do, including life. After all, once the money's gone, what will be left to define you?"
After all, this is the year we elected for change.
More information about Limaj Media Group and Eye Entertainment can be found on their website, www.LimajMediaGroup.com. They have also set up a collection on fundables.com so anyone who believes in their mission can pledge their support. Any and all donations of time, equipment and resources will also be accepted. They can be contacted through their website or at info@limajmediagroup.com.
http://www.fundable.com/groupactions/groupaction.2008-12-07.5964621748/groupaction_view
Interview Contact: Melissa Henning
Telephone: (540)429-2444
press@limajmediagroup.com
http://www.limajmediagroup.com
Limaj Media Group, LLC
209 Burlington Dr. Fredericksburg, VA 22407
Voice: (800)965-4625 or (770)482-9900
Self Destruction 2009 Single
Self Destruction 2009 Single
Chicago, IL, 12/19/08, (Hip Hop PR Wire) -- Self Destruction 2009 Single is being released today to all media outlets in an effort to help spread the message of "Stop the Violence!" Artists lent their lyrics for a cause they believe in. The time is now as we approach the holidays and a new year; it will give us all something to think about and reflect on loved ones that lost there life to senseless violent acts. Let's make sure we kick 2009 off right!
Self Destruction 2009 – featuring KRS One, Syleena Johnson, Twista, Crucial Conflict, Phil G, Kenny Bogus, Straw and Pugs Atomz; Produced by Grant Parks. Grant Parks and CoalMine Music worked with KRS One and his Stop the Violence Movement in an effort to use music to help spread the message of "Stopping the Violence". Chicago & other major cities have suffered from high numbers of senseless killings over the last year and there is an urgent need to release this song. KRS One, The Stop the Violence Movement, Grant Parks and CoalMine Music thank all the artists for their participation in making this happen!
For your free MP3, email: jc@coalminemusic.com
Subject: Media MP3
coalminemusic.com // myspace.com/grantparks // myspace.com/coalminemusic
www.myspace.com/stoptheviolenceorg
For More Information Contact:
CoalMine Music, Inc. 630.544.7296
jc@coalminemusic.com
December 04, 2008
A Day of International Solidarity to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
STEVIE CULTURE : CONSCIOUS LYRICS
STEVIE CULTURE : CONSCIOUS LYRICS
Stevie Culture has been a musician for his entire life. He was born in Kingston, Jamaica to Rastafarian parents. His Father was a musician who played the guitar and sang.
As the lead singer for “The S.A.N.E. Band” (Sounds Against Negative Expression—the top band in Jamaica during the 1990s), Stevie Culture performed as an opening act for many Reggae artists such as Shaggy, Anthony B, Sizzla, Third World, UB40, Steel Pulse, Culture, Burning Spear, The Wailers and Alton Ellis. More impressively, Stevie has performed on stage as a backing vocalist for many great artists like Dennis Brown, Tony Rebel, Everton Blender, Capleton and the late, great Garnet Silk.
Stevie Culture is an artist that has always worked toward keeping consciousness in Reggae music. He has also fought the same fight that legends such as Bob Marley and Peter Tosh have fought throughout the years to keep the message of Reggae music important and valid.
“This song is about the upliftment of Reggae music. Over the years, Reggae has become mostly slack lyrics about sex and violence. So I’ve written this song to inspire others to think consciously when writing songs. Remember, the children are listening” Stevie Culture
Stevie Culture is a huge factor in the forwarding of cutting edge Reggae music coming out of Jamaica. He is a well know musician around the Jamaican musical community and is also a studio musician, composing original music and played on many future stars album, such as Crystal Axe, Steve Aliba form Africa. He also played keys on the Itals new album "Me Livity".
He not only produces the most exciting groundbreaking Riddims heard anywhere, he was the lead singer and drummer for the famous "SANE" band, and toured with Toney Rebel, Everton Blender & Utan Green. Stevie's tours have drawn massive crowds all over the world, from the Caribbean to Japan.
Stevie has collaborated on several songs with big name Reggae bands, such as Morgan Heritage and African Star. He has also opened for major bands like Third World, Maxi Priest and Shaggy.
His first official single release "Top Class" is making waves from Taiwan to JA. It is being played on hundreds of Radio stations worldwide and it is getting an amazing response. He plans to release his first Album on King Step Recording in June of 2006. The album's title is "Blessen", and is a harmonious blend of Modern Roots, Dancehall and a little something extra.
Born August 2, 1973 as Steffen Jones, Stevie grew up in a musically inclined family from Lacovia, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. His father, Jah Lenks (Lloyd Jones) was the lead singer of the band 12 Tribes of Israel. His biggest musical influences growing up were Bob Marley, Alton Ellis and Stevie Wonder.
Source:http://www.myspace.com/sculture http://www.stevieculture.com
November 30, 2008
The Black Male Handbook - Kevin Powell
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The Black Male Handbook is a collection of essays for Black males on surviving, living, and winning. Kevin Powell taps into the social and political climate rising in the Black community, particularly as it relates to Black males. This is a must-have book, not only for Black male readers, but the women who befriend, parent, partner, and love them.
The Black Male Handbook answers a collective hunger for new direction, fresh solutions to old problems, and a different kind of conversation -- man-to-man and with Black male voices, all of the hiphop generation. The book tackles issues related to political, practical, cultural, and spiritual matters, and ending violence against women and girls.
The book also features an appendix filled with useful readings, advice, andresources. The Black Male Handbook is a blueprint for those aspiring to thrive against the odds in America today.
An Economic Team for “Bold, Clear, Decisive Steps”
Every day this week, President-elect Barack Obama has introduced new members of his economic team. Today it was Paul Volcker and Austan Goolsbee, who will lead the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Asked if the flurry of public activity was a response to the current Administration's handling of the current crisis, President-elect Obama said that his focus on the economy was about something much broader.
"No, I think what it speaks to is the frustration of eight years in which middle class wages have gone down, or in real terms their family incomes have been reduced," he said. "It expresses frustration about our inability to tackle some of the long term problems that we've been facing and have been talking about for decades, whether it's health care, energy, an education system that's been slipping behind in critical areas like math or science. And most of all, I think frustration with the incapacity of Washington to take bold, clear, decisive steps to deal with our economic problems."
For years President-elect Obama has fought not only for an overhaul of the regulations that govern Wall Street -- as his economic agenda states, "Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe that our deep systemic financial market crisis requires a systemic response" -- but for bold action in nearly every area of public policy.
The members of the economic team he announced this week clearly reflect these key principles. Each has the experience, ability, and will to enact bold change. Below we've put together some recent statements from each member of the team to give you an idea of where they're coming from on these key issues.
Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary-designate:
"Apart from the mix of incentives and constraints set by regulatory policy, the structure of the regulatory system in the United States needs substantial reform. Our current system has evolved into a confusing mix of diffused accountability, regulatory competition, an enormously complex web of rules that create perverse incentives and leave huge opportunities for arbitrage and evasion, and creates the risk of large gaps in our knowledge and authority. This crisis gives us the opportunity to bring about fundamental change in the direction of a more streamlined and consolidated system with more clarity around responsibility for the prudential safeguards in the system."
--Speech, 6/9/08, link
Larry Summers, Director-designate of the National Economic Council:
"I think the defining issue of our time is: Does the economic, social and political system work for the middle class?... Because the system’s viability, its staying power and its health depend on how well it works for the middle class."
--New York Times, 6/10/07, link
Christina Romer, Director-designate of the President's Council of Economic Advisors:
"Poverty is arguably the most pressing economic problem of our time. And because rising inequality, for a given level of income, leads to greater poverty, the distribution of income is also a central concern."
--Economic Review, 1/1/99, link
Melody C. Barnes, Director-designate of the Domestic Policy Council:
"To restore fairness to our system, I will embark on a multi-faceted approach including increasing our investment in public education, promoting genuine health care reform, and backing a higher minimum wage... Our economic security, our national security, our health, and the future of the global environment are fundamentally linked to the choices we make about energy."
--"What a Progressive President Might Say," Op-ed, Washington Post, 1/22/07, link
Peter Orszag, Director-designate of the White House Office of Management and Budget:
"While I’m on the topic of health care, I’d like to make a point related to the current turmoil in financial markets. Many observers have noted that addressing the problems in financial markets and the risks to the economy may displace health care reform on the policy agenda… Although it may not seem immediately relevant given our current difficulties, it will be crucial to address the nation's looming fiscal gap -- which is driven primarily by rising health care costs -- as the economy eventually recovers from this current downturn."
--CBO Director's Blog, 10/13/08, link
Paul Volcker, Chair of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board:
"The new system seemed to work effectively in fair financial weather, with great confidence in its efficiency and presumed benefits. However, I believe there is no escape from the conclusion that, faced with the kind of recurrent strains and pressures typical of free financial markets, the new system has failed the test of maintaining reasonable stability and fluidity... The critical pressures on our financial markets are not unique, nor can an approach to dealing with those pressures be successful in isolation. We have a lot upon which to build, and we should not miss the opportunity to extend the areas of cooperation."
--Testimony to the Joint Economic Committee, 5/14/08, link
November 25, 2008
PLEASE VISIT BRO. TROY'S SITE AND SUPPORT!
Written by Martina Correia
Friday, 03 October 2008
LET'S DO ALL THAT WE CAN, PLEASE PUBLISH BROADLY!
via: http://www.myspace.com/freetroydavis
Note from Martina:
One thing we need to keep is the Media in this story so please to everyone please post comments to CNN.com, CBS.com and make comments on the Troy Davis stories and email other national, state and local media where you live and tell them we want to know more about the Troy Anthony Davis case. One element I have noticed missing in all the , media outlets is that no one mentions that the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act is involved, and that is why Troy's case has got to this point. So we want to encourage the media to talk about law and how it does not protect the innocent by limiting the appeals process. If the media knows we want to know more they will do more stories on this case. So get you emails going to all national media. Continue to write op-eds, this is a case of innocence not just the death penalty, eyewitness identification, witness recantation and procedures of law.
Thanks
Martina Correia.
Silencing our Joy
by Martina Correia
Troy Anthony Davis is Prayerfully closer to his walk to Freedom!
September 25, 2008
This is a letter of thank you to all the activists, clergy, lawmakers, lay people and those who believe in human rights and human dignity. On behalf of my family, myself and most importantly my brother Troy we say thank you, but we know the fight is not over and we pray the United States Supreme Court votes to take Troy's case, which will surely have national ramifications in protecting the Innocent in respect to the appellate process. My heart is filled with so many emotions as I see human kindness flourish on behalf of Troy and because of Troy. I cannot express the blessing you all have become to my family and to my brother Troy, who receives so many letters he is overwhelmed, yet elated.
People congratulate me on being a wonderful sister and champion for my brother and they sometimes question why, and my answer is simply, "If you really knew Troy and could sit down with him for 30 minutes, you would know. Troy is the type of brother that makes your life so much richer, so much fuller, so much easier and because he is on death row, awaiting execution, it also makes my life so much sadder." That is why I say, "My name is Martina Correia and I am on death row, because that is where, my brother lives, I am not convicted of murder, my only crime is loving my brother Troy."
Last year as many of you know, Troy came within 23 hours of execution, this past week he came within 90 minutes, it has been such a rollercoaster ride for my family, my siblings, my mother, my son and especially Troy. A ride I pray none of you ever experience, the last 48 hour visits, the saying goodbye, the charge you give the family for the future and the tears and fears of the pending state murder. The knowledge that my brother has been on death watch, isolated from his peers for weeks with a small television that has two hard to see stations, a small radio and a occasional phone call to family and friends. It seems the more celebrity Troy case garners the more he is punished by the prison, constantly changing the rules to discourage his spirits, yet he remains prayerful and in good spirits as if he were in a secret place.
For example prisoners under death watch can call their friends and family as often as they would like. For Troy a special phone that is monitored and instead of usually costing $5.50 per 15 minute call, the charge to our family and friends is almost $9.00 a minute with no explanation from the prison. For Troy most of his numbers to family and friends are being restricted or blocked. Then the rules change again the last 48 hours they told Troy he could only use the phone twice a day for 15 minutes and that included attorney calls. The last 24 hours they took his witnesses to execution off his list saying they can be taken off at the discretion of the Department of Corrections, including the Clergy of his choice. Then the threat to me his sister, if I let the media or anyone other than family talk to Troy on the phone he will have no phone privileges at all. It is like physiological torture and they are angry because it has not penetrated his spirit, no his faith. All of this and Troy remains unwavered, with no anger, still prayerful, still hopeful, still thankful.
I guess you are all wondering why I am telling you this in a thank you letter, well the fight we face is still so very real and your work is therefore needed even more, your voices to tell Troy's story, your passion to fight for his liberation, your determination to understand that the case of Troy Anthony Davis is not an anti-death penalty movement. The case of Troy Anthony Davis is about Innocence, Justice and challenging a government system in Georgia that is hateful, spiteful and defiant. When they cannot defeat us they attack Troy, and he is willing to face the attacks if we are willing to continue the fight!
As I sit here on my bed, exhausted yet full of joy and uncertainty, feeling the affects of 7 ½ years of constant chemotherapy, I am reflecting on the day of September 23, 2008, as we entered the grounds of the Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison, where I wanted to cry but I could not, I wanted to yell but I could not, I wanted to leave but I could not. Then I watched the expression on my son's face, that for the first time in his 14 years of visiting death row, he witnessed, more than 100 SWAT, Tactical Squad officers, corrections officers with dozens of dogs, shot guns in hand, all because the state of Georgia wants to kill his Uncle Troy. I have only seen such force on television from the civil rights era.
My first thought was be polite, follow directions and we will be safe, my second thought was how powerful this case has become and why they fear Troy being kept alive will shake the judicial system and expose the truth and my final thought, how they must be treating my brother inside those prison walls. As we enter the prison where the handicap elevator has not worked for almost a year, we have to practically carry two relatives up two flights of stairs. In visitation they allowed 5 people in at a time, we are all mindful of the clock. I am standing conducting the visits, praying no one asks me, "How are you doing, can I get you anything," then scanning the room looking away from any friend or relative that maybe about to cry.
Well visitation is over we are rushed out at 3pm on the dot. Taking my mom and family to the New Hope a place where death row family members are embraced. I get into my car to head back to the prison to meet Rev. Al Sharpton and we enter the prison grounds and the show of police force and the media waiting to pounce. Guards coming over to slip in a shout out to Rev. Sharp ton and then entering a roped off area for supporters for Troy, then a complete stranger so I thought, a small Caucasian women from Texas that has heard about Troy's case, who said "Are you Martina," I replied, "Yes." Then I realized it was a lady that sent me an email, that no matter what she has to do, she just wanted to be there for Troy. Well the press is running to capture our voices as a bus load of supporters are also entering the area, we learn of the Stay from one of the attorneys. We are so happy, excited, prayerful and now hopeful. Troy's last prayer began with pray for the MacPhail Family and then our family and the people who have lied against him, after which he asked God to spare his life.
The state is so ready to kill Troy they have already set up the time for his final visits 6 to 9 on Monday and requested a new list for his final visitors.
Martina Correia
JOIN MINISTER~GENERAL AHMAD of SONS OF AFRIKA
SUNDAYS @ 11 AM ET / 2 PM UT or GMT for THE NATIONAL HOLLAH~BLACK http://www.HARAMBEERADIO.com
THE TRUTH ABOUT SIS. ASSATA SHAKUR
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THE TRUTH ABOUT SIS. ASSATA SHAKUR FAR AND WIDE!
Written by Evelyn A. Williams
LET NO ONE BE FOOLED BY THE FILTHY LIES OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA! via: www.assatashakur.org
Assata Shakur's Appeal Attorney Shares Facts in Case (2005)
PLEASE REDISTRIBUTE
STATEMENT OF FACTS IN THE NEW JERSEY TRIAL OF ASSATA SHAKUR:
Written by Evelyn A. Williams, dated June 25, 2005
(Translations in French and Spanish available at www.assatashakur.org)
Traducción Española
Pour ceux parlant Français
As a member of Assata's New Jersey trial legal defense team, and her appeal lawyer, I think a correct statement of the circumstances of New Jersey Trooper Werner Foerster's death as established by exhibits, trial testimony and forensic evidence and that conclusively repudiate the revisionist lies now being advanced by the State of New Jersey as "fact", need to be repeated.
It is be remember that the only surviving eyewitnesses to the NJ Turnpike shoot-out were (1) Sundiata Acoli, (2) Trooper Harper, (3) Assata and (4) the driver of a car traveling along the NJ Turnpike at the time of the incident. Zayd Malik Shakur, a passenger, was killed during the shootout.
1. Sundiata did not testify at trial, nor did he make any pre-trial statements.
2. Harper's testimony and actions are contained in the following documents (admitted into evidence)
a. The three official investigative reports prepared by Harper, in which he wrote that after he stopped the Pontiac, he ordered Sundiata to the back of the car to show his driver's license to Trooper Foerster who had arrived at the scene. That Sundiata complied without incident. That as he looked into the inside door of the Pontiac to check the registration, Foerster yelled at him and held up an ammunition clip. He stated that at the same time Assata reached into a red pocketbook, removed a gun from it and fired at him. That he immediately ran to the rear of his car and fired at Assata, who had emerged from the car, and was firing at him from a prostrate position alongside of the Pontiac. And it was at this point that he shot her. (admitted into evidence)
b. His Grand Jury testimony where he swore under oath to the truth of the statements he had made in his 3 official reports. (admitted into evidence)
c. Trial transcripts of his testimony at both Sundiata's and Assata's trials where he admitted, under cross-examination, that he had lied in all three of his official reports and in his Grand Jury testimony. That the truth was that Foerster had never shown him an ammunition clip; that Foerster had not yelled to him; that he had not seen a gun in Assata's hand while she was seated in the car; that Assata did not shoot him from the car; and that he had not seen a red pocketbook.
d. Audio tapes of the official recorded NJ Turnpike radio communications between all NJ State Trooper cars traveling the Turnpike near the scene of the shoot-out, dated May 2, 1973, which revealed that two additional turnpike patrol cars, those driven by Trooper Robert Palenchar and Trooper Woerner Foerster, had been ordered to aid Harper at the stop prior to the shoot-out. (admitted into evidence)
e. The verbatim, hand-written record of what transpired inside the NJ Turnpike Administration Building when Harper entered it at or about 1AM on May 2, 1973, to report the shoot-out to Sergeant Chester Baginski who was in charge of maintaining the official record of turnpike occurrences on that (refereed to as the Station Bible). Harper reported that he had just been involved in a shoot-out after he had stopped a Pontiac containing three Black people, two men and a woman, that he had been wounded, and that the Pontiac was proceeding South on the turnpike. He gave the license plate number, but did not mention that Trooper Foerster had arrived at the scene. (admitted into evidence)
f. Audio tapes of the investigation conducted by Detective Sgt. First Class Richard H. Kelly in the Administration Building at 7:37AM that morning to determine why over an hour elapsed from the time Harper entered the Administration Building that night and the discovery of Foerster's body. Statements by each of the troopers present when Harper came into the Administration Building revealed that Harper had not reported Foerster's presence at the scene and that no one was aware of the fact that Foerster lay on the road beside his car in front of the Administration building for over an hour, when his body was accidentally discovered by Trooper O'Rourke who had left the Administration building to investigate the scene of the shoot-out, less than 200 yards away. (admitted into evidence)
3. Assata testified that Harper stopped the car without any known reason, shot her with her arms raised at his demand, and then shot her in the back as she was turning to avoid his bullets. Almost mortally wounded, and semi-conscious, she climbed into the backseat of the Pontiac to avoid further bullets. Sundiata drove the car five miles down the road and parked it, where she remained until State Troopers dragged her onto the road.
4. A driver traveling north along the turnpike at the time of the incident testified at trial that he had seen a State Trooper struggling with a Black man between a parked white vehicle and a State Trooper car whose overhead revolving lights lit up the area. He was unable to identify the Black man, and further stated that he saw no one else on the road or at the scene. He immediately reported what he had seen to New Jersey Police Headquarters.
It therefore remained only forensic evidence to help determine the facts of that night as much as they could be determined. The forensic evidence examined by both the New Jersey crime laboratory in Trenton, New Jersey and FBI crime laboratories in Washington, D.C. established the following:
1. The finger print analyses of every gun and every piece of ammunition found at the scene showed there were no fingerprints of Assata found on any of them. (The official analyses admitted into evidence)
2. Neutron Activation Analysis taken immediately after Assata was taken to the hospital that night showed there was no gun power residue on her hands. Effectively refuting the possibility that she had fired a gun. (The official analyses were admitted into evidence)
3. As a result of the bullet Harper shot under her armpit, while her arms were raised in, her median nerve was severed, immediately paralyzing her entire right arm, shattering her clavicle, and lodging in her chest so close to her heart that an operation to remove it was not feasible. A neurologist testified to that fact at the trial.
4. A pathologist testified that "There is no conceivable way that the bullet could have traveled over to the clavicle if her arm was down. That trajectory is impossible."
5. A surgeon testified that "it was anatomically necessary that both arms be in the air for Ms. Chesimard to have received the wounds she did."
The state offered no expert witnesses to refute this medical testimony.
6. Photographs depicting the gunshot entry wound under her armpit and the entry would of the bullet Harper shot into her back were admitted into evidence during the trial.
Therefore, since no evidence existed that proved Assata fired the bullet that killed Trooper Foerster, why was she found guilty of his murder? There are several explanations:
The first is that the climate of hatred, prejudice and racism that had so contaminated the Middlesex County jury pool in 1973 that a change of venue was ordered, continued to exist in 1977. The unanimous opinion of the 1973 jury pool was "If she's Black, she's guilty." After three defense motions for change of venue, Judge Leon Gerofsky granted the motion, stating, "It was almost impossible to obtain a jury here comprised of people willing to accept the responsibility of impartiality so that defendants will be protected from transitory passion and prejudice." The trial was then moved to Morris County where Assata's trial was severed from Sundiata's because of her pregnancy.
In 1977 Assata began trial for the second time in this same Middlesex County, and this time jury nullification was insured: The jurors chosen to determine Assata's guilt or innocence consisted of five jurors who were either relatives or close personal friends of state troopers or of state law enforcement officers.
However, Assata was not convicted of firing the shot that killed Trooper Foerster. She was convicted as an accomplice to his murder under New Jersey's "aiding and abetting" statute. Under New Jersey law, if a person's presence at the scene of a crime can be construed as "aiding and abetting" the crime, that person can be convicted of the substantive crime itself. Judge Theodore Appleby charged the jury that they were permitted to speculate that Assata's "mere presence" at a scene of violence, with weapons in the vehicle, was sufficient to sustain a conviction of the murder of Trooper Foerster. She was also convicted of possession of weapons – none of which could be identified as having been handled by her and of the attempted murder of Trooper Harper, who had sustained a flesh wound at the time of the shootout.
Now, 32 years after her conviction, a new, fabricated version of Foerster's death has emerged:
There is absolutely no evidence to support statements made by Col. Joseph R. Fuentes, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, who said that "It was later determined that Werner Foerster's service weapon was ripped from his holster as he lay wounded on the pavement, and he was executed with two shots to the head from his own service weapon."
But his motivation for making those statements is clear:
1. To justify Assata being placed on the domestic terror watch list along with Osama bin Ladin. He said, "Anyone with a mindset that would execute a police officer once they were on the ground is dangerous enough to be considered a domestic terrorism threat." But Assata is the only person convicted of a single domestic crime who has been classified a terrorist and put on the terrorism watch list, thereby nullifying the very definition of "terrorism"
2. To justify the $1 million dollar bounty to be paid from tax payers money. He said, "The reward money should make Chesimard a much more attractive quarry for professional bounty hunters."
New Jersey State Assembly Speaker, Albio Sires, a longtime member of CANF (Cuban American National Foundation, representing Cuban exiles), said: "If Cuba's citizenry could be informed of the $1 million bounty and the real story of Chesimard's crimes, there is an increased likelihood of her being brought to Justice…. We want the Cuban people to know the real story about Joanne Chesimard and not the deceptive representation advanced by the Castro regime. We want people to realize that she is not a hero and she is really a violent criminal who is wanted for killing a State Trooper and escaping justice."
By falsely asserting that Assata shot Foerster in the head while he lay helplessly on the ground, killing him "execution style", the US Justice Department hopes to strip Assata of any of the sympathy and political support she now receives in the United States and from the citizens of Cuba. By labeling her a cold-blooded cop killer, the hope is that the real circumstances of the NJ Turnpike as well as all the years prior to that event during which time Assata was relentlessly hunted with the stated purpose of killing her on sight for having committed crimes of which the government knew she was innocent, will be forgotten.
But even as official lies are now being manufactured to convert Assata into a terrorist, so that Cuba can be accused of "harboring a terrorist" and to justify kidnapping her, there are, in fact, two well-known and admitted, convicted terrorists who are now being given safe harbor in the United States.
The US government has refused to extradite admitted terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, (charged with the shoot down of a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 civilians and convicted of other terrorist acts including the Bay of Pigs). The US government has also refused to extradite Posada's convicted fellow terrorist, Orlando Bosch, who escaped from Venezuela and came to Miami in 1987 with the assistance of the CANF, Jeb Bush and his father, the then US Attorney, Gonzalez, who personally approved the bounty, also approved prisoner torture at Abu Ghreb. Or that the approval came after New Jersey resident, Michael Chertoff, was named Secretary of the Department of Homeland Defense.
There are the facts. Let us not forget them.
- Evelyn A. Williams
President Obama: White Supremacy's Super Weapon for the 21st Century
Written by Umar R Abdullah-Johnson
First there was Global 2000, the Rockefeller project to reduce the global African population by fifty percent. Then there was Hurricane Katrina, massive Black population removal for high-speed gentrification & oil exploration. Still further, there was AIDS & EBOLA, racial diseases created to erase Africans in the Congo so the resources of the world's most minerally-rich country could be put to use for the global elite. There was Asian Bird Flu & the so-called stock market crash of 2008 that sought to destabilize China's economic dominance of foreign markets. There was also Pearl Harbor & 9-1-1, where Anglo-American leaders allowed there own citizenry to be deliberately executed in order to go to war with other races in a geo-political attempt to increase supervision of mineral supplies and conspiratorial agendas by the "Brown" races of the world. However, white supremacy's greatest weapon for the 21st century is neither an economic weapon or natural disaster. Rather, the post-Bush years will require a much more cunning approach to Anglo ascendancy on the global spectrum. The newest weapon is nothing more than a human being. A lonely European, trapped in a Black Man's body that he wish he never had. Barry, excuse me, Barack, as he now calls himself, may be a psychological monstrosity but at present he is a political necessity. Despite the fact that this man harbors negative views of most Black men for harm caused to his spirit for being abandoned by his Kenyan father; on the political stage, this emotionally fragile "bi-racialite" is able to use African intelligence & oratory in a manner never before seen by a "Negro Loyalist" in American history. In fact, once he is done helping the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) destabilize the rest of Africa's economies, and once he is done helping Israel strengthen its position as chief spy for white supremacy, in the volatile middle-eastern region of the planet, Mulatto Jesus will then go down in history as one of the greatest Machiavellian schemes ever unleashed by the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission (TC) towards helping them achieve there goal of creating a One White World Order.
Negro hysteria is currently running at an all-time high in the Black community as preachers are finding verses in the bible that they "think" speaks to the coming of the Mulatto Christ, while talented 10th Elitist Negrophobes, many of whom will be disappointed when they don't get appointed to his cabinet, are busy organizing politically unconscious Blacks to "get out and vote" for a so-called African-American ( I thought an African-American was a descendent of one of the enslaved Africans who helped build this nation – where does he fit in?) who has virtually ignored there every concern since he announced his presidency. He has spoken to poor white, Hispanics, native Americans and even homosexuals, but "Brother" Barry has yet to mention a single word about the plight of Blacks or what he proposes to do about it. He has openly come out against Affirmative Action because "it discriminates against poor whites (Negro Please!!)." He has also come out against an apology for slavery and against reparations. However, this "White Man's Black Man" has garnered a level of support from Americanized Africans never before seen in U.S. History. The interesting thing about Barry Soreoto (his real initials are "B.S." for a reason) is that white people have given him more than $1Billion dollars to help him reach in the White House, while Black people think he is suddenly going to put on an Afro and start speaking to there issues once he is elected. There is a much finer chance that Oprah Winfrey will start having issues that matter to the Black community on her show, or the next Black athlete won't marry a white woman before that happens. Mr. B.S. is going to do none of the above. He loves America, and as he has said on so many occasions, anyone who has a problem with America has a problem with him. Negro schizophrenia has always been one of the chief impediments to the progress of Black people, but unfortunately in the 21st century, when the white, brown and yellow races are planning to bury the Black one for good, the best the victim can do is place hope in the enemy's weapons as if they are somehow going to fire there artillery at themselves.
President B.S. made $4 million dollars last year, just raised a record $1 Billion during this race, his autobiography sales are through the roof, he just paid astronomical fees to air a 30-minute ad just before the world series, but has not taken out a single ad, with campaign funds, in a major Black publication. The very same Black journalists who have championed his cause can't even get one green dollar to help offset the cost of all the free publicity that they have given him. We have homeless Black people, mothers sleeping on the street with their children, and he can waste millions of dollars an hour on television commercials that seek to prove to white people that he can be "as white as the whitest white man." Certainly, some Obama-maniacs reading this article are having an emotional temper tantrum that someone dares to state that the Mulatto Christ for the whites may actually be the Anti-Christ for the Blacks. When this circus is over in four or eight years, there will be a lot of broken-hearted B.S. supporters who are going to wonder how he could betray Black people the way that he has. Paradoxically, President Soreoto will not owe you an explanation because in your political ignorance you rushed out to cast a vote without asking him a single question about his plans for the hood, you didn't bother asking him to come to a single political convention to "EARN" your vote . . . . .actually Tavis Smiley invited him to come to one of his town hall meetings, but the Mulatto Christ flat-out rejected the invitation, receiving no ridicule from the Black community whatsoever in the aftermath, since he has to "act like a sellout" in order to get "selected" to be the next president of white racism. What this election season has proven more than any other is that Black people are just as politically retarded as we were when we came out of slavery. We still prefer to feel rather than think. We still prefer to be led than to think critically for ourselves. I for one am not ashamed to say that I am neither democrat or republican, and am not for Obama or McCain, I am for Black Independence. I too would also like to run for President of the United States, I too would also like to be chief executive over a large block of organized and interconnected states, I too would like to hold the largest office in the land, I too would like to be president of the richest and most powerful government on earth. However, my presidency will not be in the west, it will be in the east, when I am proclaimed, Dr. Umar Abdullah-Johnson, President of the United States of Africa!!!
Umar R Abdullah-Johnson is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist and educator who practices privately throughout Pennsylvania and lectures throughout the world. He is a highly sought after graduation speaker, parent workshop deliverer and educational consultant. He is founder and CEO of Independence Psychological & Education Services, LLC and The International Movement for the Independence & Protection of African People (IMIPAP). Brother Umar specializes in working with disruptive behavior disorders, childhood anxiety & depression, and special education law. He is an authority on the life of Marcus Garvey, Pan-African Nationalism & the history of the abolitionist movement. A blood relative of Frederick Douglass, Umar is an orator and frequent guest on Black talk radio stations and universities around the country. A dedicated Garveyite, and former Minister of Education for the UNIA-ACL, he is known for his fierce Race Pride and blunt criticism of African thought and behavior. He can be reached for consultation or lecture scheduling at umarthepsychologist@yahoo.com
Information age: M1 of dead prez interviews Mumia Abu Jamal
by POCC Minister of Culture M1 Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Part 1
M1 of dead prez after a recent concert in Frisco The Prisoners of Conscience Committee Minister of Culture M1, also known for his work with the legendary rap group dead prez, interviewed prolific journalist and political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal about two weeks ago. A lot of people wonder what Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz) and Sam Cooke talked about when they were with Muhammad Ali the night that he won his first professional title bout against Sonny Liston, or what Huey P. Newton and Richard Pryor talked about when they used to hang out at parties. This was an unscripted conversation between one of the most revolutionary voices in the media today, that being the "voice of the voiceless" Mumia Abu Jamal, talking to one of rap music's most revolutionary voices, M1. What makes M1 and Mumia different from Malcolm and Sam or Huey and Richard is that in their cases, Malcolm and Huey were the organizers, while Sam was a talented singer and Richard was a legendary comedian.
In this case, although M1 is a rapper and Mumia is a journalist, both have long histories of organizing in the Black community. M1 is currently with the Prisoners of Conscience Committee, and Mumia Abu Jamal is a former member of the Black Panther Party. Check out what these two veterans of our struggle talked about, when they finally met for the first time, through some phone lines. - Minister of Information JR
M1: This is M1, the People's Advocate, one-half of dead prez and the Minister of Culture of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee signing in for Block Report Radio, and I am proud and honored to be on the phone today with Mumia Abu Jamal, the voice of our people and the voice inside our struggle behind enemy lines. I got a few questions today, and I can't wait. I'm honored to be talking to you here today. How are you feeling?
Mumia: Good, brother, the honor is also mine. I know of you, not musically but politically, and this is good enough for me.
M1: Good, good. I want to jump right in. A partner of mine, Rosa Clemente, and I often talk about the concept of media justice, and you as the voice of our people's resistance, what information do you feel is the most pertinent in these days of distraction, i.e. Republican versus Democrat? What is the most important thing that we need to know?
Mumia: The most important thing that we need to know right now is it doesn't matter who gets elected, honestly. I know people heard that years ago when Ralph Nader was running, but I mean in the grand scheme of things, because what we are talking about is differences of degree. We're talking about two imperial presidents, you know? One will be a pretty brown face, a pretty brown young face even. One will be a less pretty old white face. But essentially what they are talking about is imperialism. So what people need to understand and really really need to get is that they should demand through their actions ...
THIS CALL IS FROM THE STATE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION SCI GREENE, AND IS SUBJECT TO MONITORING AND RECORDING.
Mumia: They should demand through their activities in the streets and everywhere else what kind of system they want and what they oppose. If they feel that everything is honkey-dory if you get a Black president, then they'll be just like the people in Philadelphia who believed that everything was great when they got a Black mayor. t really doesn't matter what color someone is, it matters ... what their mind is like, what they are thinking about - if they are in support of empire or really in support of democracy.
If you think about this war that we are in the middle of, in order for this war to happen, the government had to ignore not just millions of people in the United States but millions of people, tens of millions of people all around the world in some of the biggest demonstrations in the history of the world. So we're talking about an anti-democratic system. And that can only be changed, not by that system, but by the people.
M1: Good, well, going forward I would like say that yesterday we celebrated African Liberation Day, and that's in the memory of Kwame Ture, and also remembering Malcolm X and his birthday just passed, we see the importance of great organizers who were able to galvanize the best that our people could give to our struggle and to our movement. And also we see the importance of organization. What is your vision of the organization that will defeat imperialism worldwide?
Mumia: Well, it has to be a global organization. By that I mean the new name of imperialism in the 21st century is really globalization. And when you think about that, when you read about that, when you study about that, globalization really means the globalization of capital. You don't hear people talking about the globalization of labor. But you know that working people all over the world have more in common with each other than they have with their own so-called leaders or the rulers, the ruling class that is of those societies.
So people should globalize resistance. And that means talking across cultures, learning other languages. It's easier now in the age of the internet than it was 30 years ago, but it is still necessary, you see? Because we need to break through these illusions that the media puts in people's heads. I mean, there are millions of people who hate people that they have never met.
If you mention the name of the president of Venezuela or the president of Iran, people will base their hatred on stuff that they heard on the news. And more likely than not, it was erroneous exaggerations or just straight up lies. Why should people hate someone that they don't know based on misinformation? You could only do that if you know the role of the media in a capitalist society, which is to support the rule of the rulers, you see?
M1: Great, it's so much to learn. I'm so happy to be soaking this up.
THIS CALL IS FROM THE STATE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION SCI GREENE AND IS SUBJECT TO MONITORING AND RECORDING.
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The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal: An Innocent Man on Death Row
Who is Mumia Abu-Jamal?
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a renowned journalist from Philadelphia who has been in prison since 1981 and on death row since 1983 for allegedly shooting Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He is known as the “Voice of the Voiceless” for his award- winning reporting on police brutality and other social and racial epidemics that plague communities of color in Philadelphia and throughout the world. Mumia has received international support over the years in his efforts to overturn his unjust conviction.
Mumia Abu-Jamal was serving as the President of the Association of Black Journalists at the time of his arrest. He was a founding member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Black Panther Party as a teenager. Years later he began reporting professionally on radio stations such as NPR, and was the news director of Philadelphia station WHAT. Much of his journalism called attention to the blatant injustice and brutality he watched happen on a daily basis to MOVE, a revolutionary organization that works to protect all forms of life--human, animal, plant--and the Earth as a whole.
The Scene
In 1981, Mumia worked as a cab driver at night to supplement his income. On December 9th he was driving his cab through the red light district of downtown Philadelphia at around 4 a.m. Mumia testifies that he let off a fare and parked near the corner of 13th and Locust Streets. Upon hearing gunshots, he turned and saw his brother, William Cook, staggering in the street. Mumia exited the cab and ran to the scene, where he was shot by a uniformed police officer and fell to the ground, fading in and out of consciousness. Within minutes, police arrived on the scene to find Officer Faulkner and Mumia shot; Faulkner died. Mumia was arrested, savagely beaten, thrown into a paddy wagon and driven to a hospital a few blocks away (suspiciously, it took over 30 minutes to arrive at the hospital). Mumia somehow survived.
The Trial
The trial began in 1982 with Judge Sabo (who sent more people to death row than any other judge) presiding. Mumia wished to represent himself and have John Africa as his legal advisor, but before jury selection had finished, this right was revoked and an attorney was forcibly appointed for him. Throughout the trial, Mumia was accused of disrupting court proceedings and was not allowed to attend most of his own trial. Sabo lived up to his nickname of “Prosecutor in Robes.”
The Evidence:
The prosecution claimed that the shot which killed Faulkner came from Mumia Abu-Jamal’s legally registered .38-caliber weapon, contradicting the medical examiner’s report that the bullet removed from Faulkner’s brain was a .44-caliber. This fact was kept from the jury. Moreover, a ballistics expert found it incredible that police at the scene failed to test Mumia’s gun to see if has been recently fired, or to test his hands for powder residue. One of the most damning prosecution claims was that Mumia confessed at the hospital. However, this confession was not reported until nearly two months after December 9th, immediately after Mumia had filed a brutality suit against the police. One of the officers who claims to have heard the confession is Gary Wakshul. However, in his police report on that day he stated, “the Negro male made no comments.” Dr. Coletta, the attending physician who was with Mumia the entire time, says that he never heard Mumia speak.
The Witnesses:
The star prosecution witness, a prostitute named Cynthia White, was someone no other witness reported seeing at the scene. During the trial of Billy Cook (Mumia’s brother) just weeks before Mumia’s trial, White gave testimony completely contradictory to what she stated at Mumia’s trial. Her testimony at Billy Cook’s trial placed someone at the scene who was not there when police arrived. This corroborates the other five witness accounts that someone fled the scene. In a 1997 hearing, another former prostitute, Pamela Jenkins, testified that White was acting as a police informant. Other sworn testimony revealed that witness coercion was routinely practiced by the police. In 1995, eyewitness William Singletary testified that police repeatedly tore up his initial statement--that the shooter fled the scene--until he finally signed something acceptable to them. The following year, witness Veronica Jones came forward to testify that she had been coerced into changing her initial statement that two men fled the scene. Witness Billy Cook, who was present the whole time, has stated very clearly that Mumia is absolutely innocent.
The Sentence:
Due to police manipulation of witnesses, fabrication of evidence, and the rights of the defense severely denied, Mumia was found guilty. He was sentenced to death during the penalty phase based solely on his political beliefs. Mumia has been unjustly separated from his family for twenty-two years, with the threat of death looming over his head.
New Witnesses:
In 2001, court stenographer Terri Maurer-Carter came forward and stated that in 1982, before Mumia’s trial began, she heard Judge Sabo say, “Yeah, and I’m going to help them fry the n****r.” He was referring to Mumia. This backs up evidence of judicial bias and racism in Mumia’s case. In the same year, esteemed Philadelphia journalist Linn Washington stated that on the morning of December 9th, 1981, he went to the scene to report on it--and no police were present. This backs up prior claims that police didn’t handle the crime scene properly.
The Confession:
In 1999, Arnold Beverly confessed to killing Officer Faulkner. This confession is validated by a lie detector test administered by eminent polygraph expert Charles Honts. Despite concrete evidence supporting this confession, the Philadelphia District Attorney has refused to investigate, and the courts have not even allowed it to be heard. The injustice continues . . .
The Decisions:
On December 18th, 2001, Judge Yohn issued a decision on the Habeas Corpus petition
in Federal District Court. He upheld Mumia’s unjust conviction, but challenged the sentencing phase (the death sentence). This means there could be a new sentencing hearing after all appeals are resolved, but the only options are life in prison with no possibility of parole or another death sentence. This is not justice. There is massive evidence of Mumia’s innocence and he should be absolutely free. Mumia’s legal team
filed an appeal of this decision in January of 2002. Mumia remains on death row until
all appeals by both sides are heard.
Judge Pamela Dembe’s November 21, 2001, rejection of Mumia’s request to reopen the PCRA hearings was appealed by Mumia’s legal team. Judge Dembe based her decision almost entirely on the Peterkin case, which has just been overturned! On October 8, 2003, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected the appeal, stating that the Beverly confession cannot be heard due to time limitations. The court also stated that Terri Maurer-Carter’s testimony is irrelevant. The struggle continues.
The Movement:
A broad international movement has formed in support of Mumia. Celebrities such as Danny Glover, Ossie Davis, and Susan Sarandon, world leaders like Nelson Mandela, Danielle Mitterand (former First Lady of France), and Fidel Castro, governing bodies
such as the Japanese Diet, 22 members of the British Parliament, and the European Parliament have all recognized the blatant injustice in this case and have called for a new trial at the very least. Millions of people throughout the world have taken to the streets to protest his unjust imprisonment.
Mumia’s case has been a unifying point for many social struggles because it concentrates issues vitally important to our future, such as the rise in prison populations, police brutality, the death penalty, persecution of political dissent, and the continuation of white supremacy and racism in the U.S. From death row, Mumia has continued to speak out for all who are oppressed through his journalism. He has published four books, and his weekly columns are published throughout the world. His case is one of the most important social justice fights of our time.
*For a statement by Immortal Technique on the Significance of Mumia, click here
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC) • freemumia@freemumia.com • (212) 330-8029
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IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE - A benefit for Afghanistan's children of war
support:
Hassan Salaam
Da Circle
Ras Ceylon
Our mission is to restore hope to the lives of Afghanistan's children of war; by removing them from a state of anguish, isolation and persecution, toward a future of hope, and justice inherent to our most primitive human rights.
Our mission is supported by the planned initiation of the Amin Institute, in March 2009 in Kabul, Afghanistan where we will provide full scale rehabilitation to some of the more then 2 million orphaned and 60,000 homeless children on the streets of Afghanistan. At the Institute up to 20 children will have access to safe housing, education, proper medical treatments, psychological care, and most importantly a childhood characterized by the hope and self sufficiency necessary for proper childhood development. The Institute will be a beacon of goodwill in a place that has seen so much negativity and pain. It is not just a dream, but a reality waiting to happen. Real lives will be changed as they are shown what the determination and willingness of compassion can accomplish.
Source:http://www.trueskool.com/events/immortal-technique-a-benefit
The Truth: An Un-American Idea
INTELLIGENTNEWZNET...The Truth: An Un-American Idea
The Truth: An Un-American Idea
Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers. Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee. But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth.
Jeremiah…Chapter 7 verse 26-28…King James Version
After listening to, watching, and reading transcripts of Chicago’s now infamous Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons, as well as other people’s comments about those sermons, the inescapable reality of our situation hit me like a crane falling from a New York City skyscraper! That reality was that, to tell THE TRUTH is as "UN-AMERICAN" an act as bombing the World Trade Center. The truth in our day has been deemed an "enemy-combatant" an "enemy of the state" a "threat to national security" and a hater of the "freedom’s" and "liberties" on which "democracy" was founded.
It’s time for us to be honest. WHAT PART OF WHAT REV. WRIGHT SAID WAS NOT THE TRUTH? He said…
"…the Government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a 3 strike law and then wants us to sing God Bless America…NO…NO…NO…Not God Bless America, but God Damn America! For killing innocent people, God Damn America for treating her citizens as less than human…"
Now am I missing something because America (CIA) DID bring drugs into the country! They DID flood poor neighborhoods with these drugs, and used the money to finance covert wars on foreign soil and subsequently built a prison industrial complex that incarcerates unsuspecting ghetto children while making themselves billions of dollars in the process! All of this might be an inconvenient truth, but it is the truth nevertheless!!! [See, Iran Contra; Dark Alliance by Gary Webb; ask John Kerry or visit Freeway Rick Ross at Prison]. The reverend continued by stating that 9/11 could have been the result of America’s tyrannical and oppressive foreign policy. He referred to this as the proverbial "chicken’s coming home to roost". He said…
"…We (America) bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki…and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye…We (America) have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done over seas are now being brought back right over into our own front yards…"
I’m not trying to be sarcastic but I really thought in 2008 that all of this was elementary and basic common knowledge. While watching an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, I heard Barney Frank say that "it was wrong for Rev. Wright to suggest that America had brought 9/11 on itself". Now I can understand why some people might think that it’s wrong to bring up these very uncomfortable things because it’s very painful to confront the potential reality of why such a horrific event could have happened, but in my opinion it’s vital for us to start dealing with the core and real reasons why people around the world have so many issues with America. If you can accept the fact that Saddam Hussein was executed because his "chickens’ of subjugation, oppression, and state sponsored terrorism throughout Iraq and the neighboring regions had finally came home to roost, it shouldn’t be considered Un-American for Rev. Wright or anybody else to start looking at America under the same type of microscope to try and figure out just what the hell is going on around here. How many American’s really understand the depth of this countries influence in foreign lands - for better or for worse? How many American’s know that "Al-Qaeda" is an American CIA invention? This group was armed, trained, and named by the CIA in the early 1980’s, and used to help destabilize the then Soviet Union. Guess what, it worked! America’s so-called "Cold War" or "War on Communism" created the world we are wrestling with today, i.e., the "war on terror" the ’war on drugs", etc.
· The Cold War was responsible for fueling the illegal drug trafficking in America beginning when drugs from Laos were shipped to America in the 1950’s – 60’s and profits from sales financed the arming of allies fighting against Ho Chi Min. Also, the flooding of African-American communities with tons of cocaine from South America with proceeds going to finance the contra’s whose task it was to destabilize the Sandinistas of Nicaragua.
· The Cold War was responsible for arming, training and financing such terrorists groups as Al-Qaeda, as well as the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Believe it or not Saddam Hussein was also a CIA "Cold War" creation.
· The Cold War was responsible for arming opposing African rebels in the Congo, thus, giving rise to the current "civil-unrest" in African countries like Sierra Leone.
I suggest the uninformed American citizen grab him/herself a copy of Mahmood Mamdani’s Good Muslim, Bad Muslim (Tree Leaves Press, New York 2005). It was during this same "Cold War" period that Robert McFarlane and Oliver North asked the Saudis for $1 million a month to help finance their own international terror campaigns. The two, North and McFarlane, also tapped the Apartheid South African government for $1 million a month for the same covert terror. Then we wonder why the Reagan/Bush administration did nothing about the genocide in South Africa that was at its peak during this time?
You see, after the Boland Agreement that stopped funding for the "war on communism" the Reagan/Bush administration took two initiatives that all but destroyed America’s "black" community and changed U.S. foreign policy forever. According to Mamdani, these were 1) they turned to the drug trade for an illicit source of funds; 2) they turned to the religious right to implement those foreign policy objectives that Congress had ruled against, thus beginning a trend towards privatizing war." Rev. Wright was, in effect, RIGHT!
Remember Malcolm X made the "chicken’s coming home to roost" analogy famous amongst us. Malcolm used the proverb immediately following the assassination of JFK. Brother Malcolm was referring to the fact that America had just assassinated Patrice Lumumba and had been involved in the assassination of many other foreign leaders, so maybe the JFK assassination was an example of "reaping what you sew", one of those good ole "Judeo-Christian" principles on which America was built. Today we know that the same American "Judeo Christian" machine that assassinated Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Lauren Kabila, Martin Luther King and Brother Malcolm, was the same machine responsible for splattering JFK’s cerebrum all over his wife in front of the entire Judeo-Christian world.
Bottom line, Rev. Wright is a pastor whose only crime was telling the TRUTH! He had no cache of arms stockpiled in the basement of his church, he had no "weapons of mass destruction" and his church hasn’t and doesn’t receive any western-union transfers from Osama Bin Laden. The good Judeo-Christian Rev. Wright simply told the truth, now he’s an "anti-American villain", who supports the "terrorist" and the "axis of evil", [ooohhh…scary], when both these infamous boogie monsters have "Made in America" sewed in their underwear!
But, even in the seriousness of this public "denunciation" and disowning/disagreeing with the good Reverend’s "anti-American-rhetoric", I did find some humor in all of this. That laugh came from my own hood while watching black reverend’s from my area play such an agile and rhythmic game of hop-scotch trying their damnedest not to say what they really felt, something like "Yes…God Damn America!" It was like that part in the Bible wherein Jesus told the disciple Peter that he would deny him thrice before the cock crow (John 13:38). Peter wanted to be down and represent with, and for, the denounced, rejected and crucified Jesus, but at the same time he did not want the rejection, denouncing and public crucifixion that came with telling the truth in the ROMAN EMPIRE!
These are Christian pastors who, by all accounts and testaments are supposed to do "what would Jesus do". Jesus said that "the Truth shall set you free". America was supposedly founded on a Judeo-Christian morality which holds certain "truths" to be self-evident! However, when Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Fred Hampton Sr., Gary Webb, and many others were moved to expound on certain evident truths, they were all denounced, disowned, messages reduced to rhetoric and assassinated! When certain MC’s of Hip Hop’s "Golden Era" (Public Enemy, KRS ONE, X-Clan, Poor Righteous Teachers, Brand Nubians, Ice Cube, Paris, Kam, Sista Souljah, etc.) were moved to high-light certain truths that they held to be self-evident, the entire movement was officially "un-officially" banned from the public domain; denounced, disowned, message reduced to worthless rhetoric and all but assassinated?
So, if the countries so-called Christian leaders (white, black, etc.) want to maintain their positions of no-POWER in the current set-up, they must take the position of the high priest Caiaphas of Jesus’ day. For it was the high priest Caiaphas who said that if this man is allowed to continue with his sayings and works, the Romans will come and take all of our positions in the high places and destroy what’s left of Jewish autonomy (John 11:41-53)! Needless to say, in order to keep their positions in the high places, they sold Jesus out even though they knew he was telling THE TRUTH!
It is a sad day in the world when men are threatened to denounce, disown, and disassociate themselves with the truth. If men were not afraid to speak truth to power America would not have invaded Iraq on the premise of an out-right LIE! If someone in congress or the presidents cabinet would have been brave enough to publicly tell the truth about Saddam’s "WMD’s", over 4000 American soldiers and 120,000 Iraqi citizens would not be dead. It was George Orwell that said "in a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act". It was the Apostle Paul that said "Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? (Gal. 4:16)
WISE INTELLIGENT
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October 31, 2008
A MAORI GIFT OF THANK YOU TO BOB MARLEY
A MAORI GIFT OF THANK YOU TO BOB MARLEY |
| Gold-selling reggae artiste, Ruia, recently came to Jamaica to film a Bob Marley documentary for the Mäori of New Zealand. It serves as the latest example of reggae's global reach beyond the major metropoles of New York, London and Tokyo. The documentary will air in New Zealand early next year in Ruia's native Mäori language. The documentary's translated title is A Gift of Thank You to Bob Marley and should air early 2009. It centres on the role reggae played in reigniting pride in the Mäori people. "Bob Marley's music came at a very important time and to tell you the truth Bob Marley woke me up, along with the messages of Marcus Garvey and Rastafari. There are similarities between our prophets and your culture. ..... And to tell you the truth, Rastafari Reggae Jamaica has influenced an initiation of a renaissance in our country....of our people are no longer lying down anymore, and being submissive. We now want to get up and challenge things," said Ruia earlier this month at Bookophila cafe in Kingston. Mäori are the original inhabitants of the New Zealand, they came before the Europeans, but have been colonised by the Europeans. "Today we own about seven per cent of the land," said Ruia whilst being filmed by his documentary crew. 
Some years ago Ruia's record label got the rights to translate 20 Marley songs into Mäori. He delivered a personal copy to the Bob Marley Museum. "We got to meet Stephanie Marley and gifted over the CDs with a covenant between our people and the Marley nation and the Jamaican people, and we also a carved a treasure box that we gifted to her. She has allowed it to be displayed in the Marley Museum." Ruia wants to broaden a cultural exchange of artists between both countries. "Part of the reason we come here to make connections with different artists. We were in Tuff Gong the other day, and we met about six artists and four or five producers. And we met two other producers. So we are looking at collaborations," he said. Jamaica is a sort of Mecca for Reggae and culture, he said: "Kiwi people love Reggae and love Jamaica, because of Bob Marley, Toot and the Maytals, Burning Spear, the Abyssinians all of them down to Buju Banton. So many of our people see Jamaica as a holy place and dream of coming here." |
October 29, 2008
"THE IMPACT OF WOMEN IN HIP HOP"
THE HIP HOP CULTURE CENTER IN HARLEM ANNOUNCES "THE IMPACT OF WOMEN IN HIP HOP" View Photos file
CINDY CAMPBELL, JAZZY JOYCE, SHA ROCK, MC LYTE, DANYEL SMITH, GAMILAH SHABAZZ, SHERI SHER OF MERCEDES LADIES, AMANDA DIVA AND DREAM HAMPTON SOME OF THE FEW TO BE HONORED
NEW YORK, NY – September 2008 – The Hip Hop Culture Center announces The Impact of Women in Hip Hop, an exclusive event honoring women who have leaped across barriers and blazed a trail in the Hip Hop industry.
Set to take place on Saturday, October 4th at The Hip Hop Culture Center, 2ND Floor of the Magic Johnson Theater on 2309 Frederick Douglass Blvd in Harlem USA, the 2008 first annual Tribute will induct legends officially into the Hip Hop Culture Center, while recognizing the generation of women following in their footsteps. Featuring The Hypnotized Dance Company and The Hand, an African drum and dance group, The Ladies in Hip Hop Fashion Show, Lyrical Showcases, Film Screenings and a Graffiti Tribute. The Hip Hop Culture Center of Harlem will make history with this Multi-Media Exhibition, bringing the evening to a culmination with The legendary Ralph McDaniels who will be video mixing the best of women in Hip Hop, showcasing his one of a kind archive of all of the females who have impacted Hip Hop.
Cindy Campbell: The talented 1st Lady of Hip Hop. Cindy Campbell is the catalyst for the humble beginnings of Hip Hop. Cindy had a vision to organize a back to school party. Little did she know that her party, DJ'd by her now famous brother, the legendary founder of Hip Hop, Kool Herc was to become known as The Beginning of Hip Hop.
Sha Rock: Sha-rock, the 1st Pioneer Luminary Emcee, originally from the group known as The Funky Four Plus 1, has created a legacy for generations of females to look up to. Her trailblazing work as a Hip Hop artist deserves its rightful place in history.
Gamilah-Lamumba Shabazz: The fourth of Malcolm X's daughters, Gamilah has continued her father's legacy of empowerment and education through her work with urban youth and her use of Hip Hop as a platform for her message of unity and change.
Sheri Sher of Mercedes Ladies: Sheri Sher is a founding member of The Mercedes Ladies, the first all-female MC and DJ crew in the history of hip hop. Sheri has also worked in the psychiatry and criminal justice fields, and she frequently speaks to young women about self-empowerment. She lives in Harlem U.S.A. and has recently published Mercedes Ladies, the novel.
Jazzy Joyce: This Bronx native began breaking down "male only" DJ doors in the early 80's. Inspired by her family and the emerging Hip Hop scene, she bought a pair of turntables, honed her skills and never looked back. Since breaking down the gender door she has made a name for herself that you're sure to recognize. She has also blazed the path for up and coming young women interested in breaking into the Hip Hop world.
Tamekia Flowers: Founder and president of Hip Hop 4 health, a non profit organization dedicated to use hip hop to promote health awareness. Hip Hop 4 health partners with health industry professionals to educate tweens (8-12) and teens (13-17) on health issues through interactive workshops, health fairs, concerts and empowerment seminars.
Amanda Diva: An accomplished poet, journalist, radio & television personality, scholar (she has a Master's degree in African-American Studies), singer, and lyricist, Amanda Diva is definitely the best kept secret in female emcees.
Danyel Smith: Smith is a former editor at large for Time Inc. and the former editor in chief of Vibe. She has also written for the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Spin, the San Francisco Bay Guardian , and the New York Times. Smith is on the part-time faculty at the New School University and wrote the introduction for the New York Times' bestseller Tupac Shakur.
Dream Hampton: A Hip-Hop journalist who in 1990 became the first woman on staff at The Source magazine, she has penned essays on misogyny, police brutality and global issues. As a contributing writer at Vibe, she wrote career defining articles. Her essays and articles have appeared in a dozen anthologies.
The Impact of Women in Hip Hop will celebrate the successes and contributions of women in Hip-Hop through art exhibitions, film screenings, special performances and key note speeches. Additionally, this event will be used as a platform to educate and empower the community. There will be a voter's registration drive, free HIV screenings, and countless resources on site to promote heath and wellness.
5 Top Green Jobs
In-Demand Jobs That Make Green Industries Go by Kristina Cowan, PayScale.com
With high energy costs bearing down on individuals and companies alike, green industries offer viable solutions to our world's energy fix, and plenty of jobs. Experts point to a host of in-demand green jobs, a handful of which are below, noting that as the industries and technologies constantly evolve, so too will these jobs.
Wind-Energy Developer
The U.S. wind-energy market is very competitive, drawing new players and offering growth opportunities in all sectors of the industry, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). In especially high demand are wind-energy developers, who do the front-end work, including finding plots of land for wind farms, collaborating with meteorologists on wind assessments, and working with land owners and local regulatory agencies and power companies, according to Chris Beck, president of Global Recruiters of Boulder in Colorado, which specializes in recruiting for renewable energy and sustainable industries.
"We see developers who may have engineering, law, construction backgrounds. It really is a fusion of a lot of different disciplines," Beck says. They can earn salaries between $110,000-$180,000, he notes, and often have large bonuses based on successful projects, which can easily add 50 percent or more to their salaries.
Wind Construction Project Manager
After a developer lays the groundwork for a wind farm, the construction manager "takes over and gets the thing built," Beck explains. These positions manage the daily activities of constructing wind farms, such as road work, foundations, collection systems, substation, interconnection, and commissioning, according to AWEA.
"They usually have an engineering background, and oftentimes they have experience building other energy-generating systems, like a fossil fuel plant," according to Beck. Their salary range is between $110,000-$130,000, he says.
Sustainability Director
Sustainability directors devise ways for companies to be more environmentally sensitive through such methods as reducing a company's "carbon footprint." The footprint measures the amount of greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating, etc., according to CarbonFootprint.com.
Directors' broad range of responsibilities fall into two categories, says Richard Eidlin, the Colorado-based business outreach director at the Apollo Alliance, which promotes clean energy and a reduction in dependence on foreign oil. There's an internal side of the job that looks holistically at how a company operates and creates ways to boost the bottom line through energy efficiency. On the external side, the director interacts with suppliers, regulators and products designers, as well as customers, investors, and advocacy groups.
Eidlin says the jobs are fairly high-paid, earning $100,000 and up, and usually require a background in science or engineering, depending on the company. "People interested in science, society, and policy would find this position of interest, because you have to keep track of all three to do well," he explains.
Energy Engineer
Energy engineers help companies reduce their energy costs, often focusing on making buildings more energy efficient. These positions are in high demand, according to Beck, as more companies strive for energy efficiency. Mechanical engineers are good candidates for these jobs; they simply need to learn about energy efficiency tools and techniques, Beck explains. He says their salary range is between $65,000 and $120,000.
If you're looking for a full-time energy engineering gig, your best bet may be at a larger firm with a bigger budget, according to Eidlin.
Environmental Engineer
Using biology and chemistry principles to develop solutions to environmental problems is the work of environmental engineers, who seek to limit the effects of acid rain, global warming, car emissions, and ozone depletion. "Assignments include the development of long-range community, regional, or facility plans to serve the public and protect the environment," according to Alexandra Levit's new book, "How'd You Score That Gig?: A Guide to the Coolest Jobs-and How to Get Them." "Environmental engineers are the ones behind the scenes, working every day to keep our planet from deteriorating more than it already has."
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says environmental engineers should see employment growth of 25 percent between 2006 and 2016, much faster than the average for all occupations. PayScale salary data shows the annual median salary for environmental engineers with five to nine years of experience at $61,142.
October 06, 2008
Pharoahe Monch to Host CMJ's International Hip-Hop Event GLOBAL HIP HOP THROWDOWN
Pharoahe Monch to Host CMJ's International Hip-Hop Event GLOBAL HIP HOP THROWDOWN
Event Will Unite the Talents of Global Hip-Hop's Rising Stars at New York Cities' Largest Music Conference and Networking Event
Global music and media company NOMADIC WAX & public relations/music promoter THE BLOOM EFFECT have joined forces and will co-produce this year's CMJ INTERNATIONAL HIP-HOP THROW-DOWN. The event will unite the talents of a creative and diverse group of lyricists and DJs from Africa, Korea, Canada, and Europe at club DROM, located at 85 Ave A in New York's East Village on Thursday October 23rd 2008. The event will begin at 8 PM and will last until 3 AM and will feature live international hip-hop music and DJs spinning music.
The College Music Journal Marathon (CMJ) is New York's largest music, film and media conference and will host hundreds of live performances, films, lectures and networking events. "CMJ is a perfect place for a global hip-hop event like this" said The Bloom Effect CEO, Fiona Bloom. "An event that unites MCs from a variety of backgrounds, countries and nationalities is exactly the kind of event that we want to be promoting at a global music conference like CMJ".
The CMJ International Hip-Hop Throw-down has been building up for me since I've been very supportive of this genre and have made inroads bringing great talent to the U.S stages and now we bring it one step further to a bigger platform. A tremendous opportunity. To have an artist like Pharoahe host this event is such an honor and is testament to the fact that international hip-hop is becoming more accepted by the mainstream." said Nomadic Wax founder Ben Herson.
This years event will feature a handful of rising stars including Blitz the Ambassador (Ghana), Drunken Tiger( Korea ), King Reign (Canada), Empire Isis (Canada), Chachi (Cape Verde) and Too Many Fish France). Dj's Boo and DJ Soulscape from Korea will be on the turntables. V.J Kwon from Korea will set the tone and visuals for the night. Blitz the Ambassador (who will be backed by a 10 piece band, "The Embassy Ensemble") is no stranger to international hip-hop. Last year, Blitz headlined and hosted at the prestigious Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival, a three day global hip-hop event at Trinity College in Hartford CT.
"It's incredible to see such diversity in an event like this" said Blitz. "To have artists from all over the world performing on the same stage together shows how global and powerful hip-hop culture has become".
The showcase will end out with a party DJ line up of World Music Dj's from various radio programs and entities. The party will go till 3am.
This years event will be sponsored by Scion, WNYE (New York Public Radio), Fusicology, World Hip-Hop Market, Remix Hotel, End of the Weak, The Flava(Worldspace), Popular Printing, Lima Chips, The Hip-Hop Association and more TBA.
The International Hip Hop showcase is the only one of its kind during CMJ.
There will also be an all French Hip Hop showcase at Hiro Ballroom on Friday, October 24th featuring La Caution, Mangu and Wax Tailor.
Blitz The Ambassador- http://www.myspace.com/bliztheambassador
Chachi- http://www.myspace.com/bigchach
Empire Isis - http://www.myspace.com/empireisis
Drunken Tiger- http://www.myspace.com/tigerhiphop
King Reign- http://www.myspace.com/reignmusic
Webbafied- http://www.myspace.com/toomanyfish
Soulscape- http://www.myspace.com/djsoulscape
V.J- Kwon http://www.vjkwon.kr
Ben Herson (Nomadic Wax) - ben@nomadicwax.com (917) 225-8472
Fiona Bloom (The Bloom Effect) - fiona@thebloomeffect.com (646) 764-0004
Urban Communications, LLC Acquires Controversial N*ggaSpace.com
BALTIMORE, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Baltimore-based Urban Communications, LLC (UC) today announced the acquisition of N*ggaSpace.com, a social network visited over 7,000,000 times in 2007 according to Google Analytics.
"Urban Communications will soon be the number one trafficked network within the online African American community," said Kenny Clash, President, (UC). "Not only do Urban Communication users set the trends, they constantly want to associate with others in the community with similar interests."
"We plan to introduce N*ggaSpace.com users to better technology, which includes better enhanced content filters and privacy controls. It is remarkable that within the past 72 hours more than 30,000 people typed in the domain name N*ggaSpace.com," said Patrick Nagle, Product Development, (UC).
"Out of the 20 million African Americans online, 15 percent use or are aware of N*ggaSpace.com," said Chanda Cole, VP Marketing (UC).
About Urban Communications:
Urban Communications, LLC was launched in March 2008 with the goal of becoming the premier online destination for African Americans. Additionally, Urban Communications owns and operates:
OurSpace.com (http://www.ourspace.com)/ an online social location that currently provides HBCU Students a superior way to connect with others whom share similar experiences and perspectives. OurSpace.com enables users to share pictures, video and music. As a member of OurSpace.com you'll notice that it is easy to make new friends through our secure online social environment.
BlackPower.com (http://www.blackpower.com)/ "Black Power," a daily online magazine designed to inject wit, hipness and edge into the discussion of viewpoints currently shaping black culture. Using intelligent, out-of-the-box, thought-provoking discussion of issues from a variety of black perspectives, Black Power challenges the myth of monolithic black thought. Top journalists, bloggers and trend-setters come together in a face that will change the face of "black news." News, commentary, and opinion blend with satire, music and multi-media technology to create a unique online platform devoted to the totality of the black experience in the United States and all over the world.
Contact:
Chanda Cole
443.400.5114
cole@ourspace.com
http://www.ourspace.com/about
Source: Urban Communications, LLC
CONTACT: Chanda Cole of Urban Communications, LLC, +1-443-400-5114,
cole@ourspace.com
Web site: http://www.ourspace.com/
http://www.blackpower.com/
October 01, 2008
"COUNTDOWN TO CHANGE: 2008 Hip-Hop Vote and Wall Street's Kredibility"
With only 38 days left to the November 4, 2008 US Presidential Election, millions of young hip-hop voters are preparing to make a tremendous impact on the outcome of the election. As we witness the daily "Countdown to Change" in America and the world, we all should take a moment to better understand the implications of the current economic crisis facing Wall Street and other financial markets throughout the world.
In hip-hop "street kred" is very important to the distinction and value of your brand. When you play with other peoples' money, as well as with your own money, you always should strive to make your word bond and keep your financial commitments and obligations to avoid the inevitable occurrence of some type of street justice response.
Likewise the major players on Wall Street now have to strive to regain their credibility. Once you lose your "street kred," it is important to take the necessary steps to restore your significance or you will be out the game and irrelevant to the empowerment of others.
When President Clinton left the White House, there was a trillion dollars in surplus inside the US Treasury. Eight years later President George W. Bush will leave the White House with the US in a multi-trillion dollar deficit and Wall Street in need of a $700 billion bail out. Wow that is a lot of paper.
Liquidity and il liquidity are now key terms of the global debate. When the American economy goes down, it the affects the economies of hundreds of millions of others around the world.
From the recent economic failures in the US of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, and Washington Mutual, billions of dollars have been loss and without urgent corrective polices, transparency, oversight, and more effective governmental regulations, there will be even more corporate failures.
What is the connection between the economic stability and profitability of Wall Street, Main Street and your street? Jobs are at stake. Savings and investments are turning into worthless dust directly as a consequence of the Wall Street crisis.
Unemployment today, particularly in urban communities, in every region of the nation is the highest in ten years. Poverty is on an hourly increase. The cost of living is so high that millions of people have to choose between getting a meal, shelter and clothing over against the costs of health care, child care and education.
Home foreclosures in our communities are a growing daily reality. I am in DC attending the Annual Legislative Weekend of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, DC and walking through the public parks here I saw ten times more homeless people, of all racial and ethnic groups, from the very young to the very old, female and male struggling to find a dry, safe place to sleep and live literally on the ground.
Two blocks from the White House, the ranks of the homeless are growing larger and larger. Thus, there is a lot at stake economically and politically in terms of the outcome of the 2008 Presidential Election. The quality of life of millions of people is at stake. .
There are still more than 20 million people who are not registered to vote in America. That is crazy. Many states have set October 6, 2008 as the deadline to register to vote to be eligible to vote on November 4th. This "Countdown to Change" is urgent and serious.
Let's get the word out. From Wall Street to your street, let's "Get Your Money Right," "Get Your House Right," and "Get Your Vote Right."
-Dr. Ben Chavis
Source:http://thedailygrind.globalgrind.com/archive/2008/09/28/quot-countdown-to-change-2008-hip-hop-vote-and-wall-street-s-kredibility-quot.aspx
September 26, 2008
Minority Woman in Media Celebrates 12 Years in the Entertainment Industry
LaChic, Inc formerly Stowe Communications, Inc has just celebrated 12 years in the entertainment industry. CEO/Founder, Sibrena Stowe Fernandez, of Afro-Cuban descent, has been influential in Hop Hop. Sibrena Stowe Fernandez is a media tycoon whose columns "Speakin' It real w/ Sibrena" are her trademark. Sibrena is considered Hip Hop's Urban socialite and a leader in media buys.
New York, NY (PRWEB) September 24, 2008 -- La Chic, Incorporated (formerly Stowe Communications, Inc.), New York's premiere media firm since September 1996, has landed a new account with a successful recording label, Music World Entertainment, all while celebrating 12 years in media!
Currently, La Chic, Inc. has booked over 300 commercial ads for recording artist, Solange Knowles, whose album is entitled, "Sol-Angel & The Hadley Street Dreams". Solange debuted her sophomore album on August 9, 2008 and has placed #9 on the Billboard charts and sold over 46,000 copies in one month. Music World Entertainment has an established musical line-up and La Chic, Inc. will be instrumental in placing all TV ads for their entire roster, including gospel group Trin-i-tee 5:7, whose album will be in stores in September 2008 and Grammy Award winner, Beyonce Knowles album will follow.
In addition to the procuring Music World Entertainment as a client, La Chic, Inc. has established themselves as the "go to" company for all Urban music and luxury brands that target African-American and Hispanic consumers. A few of La Chic, Inc's clients include Kedar Massenburgs' K'orus Wines, recording artist, "Joe" and Neo-Classic Soul singer, Algebra. Corporate clients include C3 Media- an interactive service, Universal Music Group, The Developer's Group, Egger's Jewelry , Urban Impact Conference and countless other companies.
Fortunately CEO/Founder Sibrena Stowe Fernandez has expanded her enterprise and has become a media tycoon within her own right, with her trademark columns and celebrity news articles called, "Speakin' it real with Sibrena," and as publisher to a bi-lingual publication called, "La Chic: The Magazine For Women." The upcoming Nov. 2008 issue will feature the Latin Grammy Awards and the cover story is called, "The ethics of an editor," which is about former Editor In Chief of The Source Magazine, Kim Osorio and her new biography called, "Straight from da Source."
Sibrena says, "I've been fortunate to stay in the game even when the times got tough. A lot of my colleagues had to shut down and work for a big corporations but not me, I'm a deliberate creator of my own destiny and I am earning a good living. I focus on my investments, the tuition for daughters' education at American University and then some!"
For Press Inquiries Contact: Diana Pena at LaChic, Inc. #347-270-4904
September 04, 2008
YOUR MONEY
A Taxing Time for the Self-Employed |
With Cheryll Hanson-Simpson |
Opposition calls for resignation of Grenada's DPP
ST GEORGE'S, Grenada (CMC) - Grenada's Opposition Leader Dr Keith Mitchell has called for the resignation of Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Christopher Nelson over remarks made in connection with the detention of former legal advisor to Government, Hugh Wildman.
The former Grenada prime minister said he plans to write letters of complaints to the chief justice of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Supreme Court and the head of the Judicial and Legal Services Commission about the matter.
"His utterings are seriously unacceptable for someone occupying that particular job and therefore we call for his resignation," said Dr Mitchell yesterday in his first official news conference since his New National Party (NNP) lost the July 8 general election after 13 consecutive years in office.
"We call for his resignation and if he refuses, I believe the Judicial and Legal Service Commission should take steps to do what it has to do to cause him to be removed from office."
Wildman, who served as legal advisor to Dr Mitchell's Cabinet, was detained last Saturday, on suspicion that he blocked a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe into the collapse of First International Bank of Grenada (FIBG) in 1999.
Nelson, however, told journalists that if the FBI had been allowed into Grenada then 6,000 retirees in North America would not have been defrauded over EC$170 million.
"There was solid evidence that Mr Wildman had a part to play in the FBI not coming to assist the Grenadian authorities in investigating FIBG," said Nelson this week.
Nelson's comments have angered the ex-prime minister who was among several high ranking government officials named in a court hearing in Oregon, USA, as having collected money from FIBG, but who have denied the charge.
"I have no confidence in him. I believe that the country has no confidence in him," declared Dr Mitchell whose NNP now controls four of the 15 seats in the House of Representatives.
"I believe that if he understands what the Director of Public Prosecutions' job is all about he would know that his utterings publicly on television and radio are unacceptable to the position."
Source:http://www.cananews.net/
ETANA … Don't judge me by my hairstyle
STAR of the Month Etana is slowly making a fashion statement with her unusual hairstyle. Known for her powerful voice, Etana also has powerful views that permeates into the way she carries her hair. With the front of her hair completely natural and the back in dread locks, Etana doesn't want to be defined or judged by her hairstyle.
"Right now a lot of people we base on their hair, I don't think that should be done whether you're Christian or Rastafarian, hair should not be a part of it. Some people wear locks and they have nothing to do with Rastafarian, it's like you're judging a book by its cover," Etana said.
While some consider her style interesting, according to Etana most persons enjoy her hairstyle and most don't like it when she covers her hair by wrapping it. Etana even received pictures from persons who have begun to follow in her footsteps by copying her hairstyle. On most occasions Etana prefers to twist or braid the back up.
Source:http://www.jamaica-star.com/thestar/20080903/ent/ent2.html
August 28, 2008
MILITANT REGGAE/DANCEHALL ARTISTES AVOCATES COUNTER BAN ON RED STRIPE BEER/GUINESS
By Baldwin Howe
A militant set of Reggae/Dancehall artistes have initiated a bold counter move of their own, in reaction to the announcement made earlier this month by Red Stripe Beer to sever their association, in terms of sponsorship, from ‘live music events” that they say, “encourages and facilitates the use of violent and anti-social lyrics.” The justification given by the artistes for their counteraction is quite understandable. Most of the artistes think that, in light of this development, one good turn deserves another. They say their ban is just an equal reaction to the beer company’s move.
A few of them have even gone on to voice their opinions openly. Popular dancehall deejay, Mavado, is of the feeling that if the company, (Red Stripe), feels that it should withdraw its support of dancehall related entertainment events then dancehall artistes and supporters of the genre should also withdraw their support from Red Stripe Beer and the company’s other products, (Guiness etc.)
Beenie Man also is annoyed at the beer company’s move has also been quoted in the national media as saying that this is the second time that Red Stripe has taken this action. He said in essence that, people don’t attend dancehall events to listen to beer and stout bottles workout. They are willing to sponsor ‘rock’ shows in Europe but don’t hesitate to dis’ national promoters and artistes. He thinks it is just an attempt to try mash up de t’ing. He further vented his feelings by saying the artistes and events assist in making Red Stripe Beer and Guiness stout sell. That the artistes work hard in assisting to promote Jamaican music and its products and Red Stripe Beer is a Jamaican product. Beenie Man is advocating that all artistes and dancehall supporters should stop drinking Red Stripe and Guiness and start to drink more Magnum Tonic Wine. Beenie Man thinks that artistes and supporters of the dancehall genre should not support the products of companies that, by their actions, are boxing food from the mouths of promoters, artistes and their children.
Female deejay sensation, Spice, also holds the view that if Red Stripe Beer have slapped a ban on the dancehall, then is only fair that the people the ban affect should respond in kind. Spice was recently quoted in the national media as saying that she don’t think the dancehall fraternity should have anything to do with Red Stripe Beer. Her opinion is if Red Stripe withdraws from supporting dancehall events and artistes, then the dancehall fraternity should also withdraw their support from them.
The current furore, as it relates to the ban and counter ban, came about when, on April 4, 2008 Red Stripe Beer issued a public statement to the effect that the annually held Reggae Sumfest and Sting ‘live’ show events are no longer going to enjoy being main beneficiaries of the company’s sponsorship of their events. This action amounts to rescinding of the agreement they had with the organizers of both events. The public statement read in part thus: “Over thee years, however, a very negative trend of glorifying violence has crept into some aspect of the music, causing consternation among well-thinking Jamaicans and others, at home and abroad. This has far-reaching and damaging implications for the industry, and for Jamaica as a whole.”
In further proffering their position to institute a counter ban on Red Stripe Beer, most of the artiste argues that the dancehall genre share a major part of the responsibility in assisting to popularize the product among patrons who support dancehall events. It their view, when ’live’ stage show events are held, (Sumfest, Sting etc.), patrons do not pay to come and be entertained by Red Stripe Beer, they pay their money to see and hear a Bounty Killa, Mavado, Beenie Man, Sizzla Kalonji and others acts advertised to perform.
Dancehall artistes are not alone in expressing disgruntlement over Red Stripe Beer’s decision.
Popular poet and broadcaster, Mutabaruka, has also voiced his views on the matter. This he made public during a performance he was giving at the Liberty Hall, on
King Street, in downtown Kingston. In essence he opined that the realization is that it is not really violence that is being fought against, it is the position most, if not all, dancehall artistes take against homosexuality. He noted that violence has been in the national music for a very long time. The reality, he observes, is that Red Stripe Beer is pulling out because the powerful lobbyists of the gay community has also done so. He considers Red Stripe Beer’s action to be a hypocritical one.
Maxine Whittingham-Osbourne, the head of corporate relations at the beer company, in responding to the impending ban said in the national media that her company is disappointed about the brewing developments but is adamant in remaining firm regarding its stance. The Red Stripe Beer executive further stated that the artistes’ reaction to the decision is a sad affair and if it is truly the case the company expresses its disappointment but will, non-the-less be standing by its decision. She said that it is not Red Stripe Beer’s modus operandi to be retaliatory and the company will be seriously assessing the current situation to see what initiatives could be developed as Red Stripe Beer in not against the music industry.
Another part of the company’s statement made it clear that Red Stripe Beer will be ensuring that its product and the various brands it distribute are conveniently made available whenever and wherever loyal consumers enjoy their premium alcoholic beverages, despite the beer company’s withdrawal of sponsorship to Reggae Sumfest and Sting.
Whittingham-Osbourne further sited the fact that the sponsorship withdrawal was in keeping with Red Stripe Beer’s corporate strategies and values. In her view, the key matter is the situation that currently exists wherein Jamaica now wears the label of being the murder capital of the world, and in that regard, the company think it needs to take stock of all the factors that are contributing to this prevailing trend. It is Whittingham-Osbourne firm opinion that the glorification of violence in our music in not complimenting Jamaica’s current situation.
We here at Reggae Times will be closely monitoring the current situation between the Red Stripe Beer and the dancehall fraternity/music industry with the hope that some rational understanding will prevail, for the full benefit of Jamaica and all concerned.
SOURCE:http://reggaetimes.com/wordpress/?cat=16
August 26, 2008
Michal Moore "Mike's Election Guide"
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Aug 26, 2008
From Michal Moore: I've Written a Book I'd Like You to Read
Friends,
This morning my new book officially goes on sale.It has a fancy title: "Mike's Election Guide". It's cheap ($11.19 on Amazon) ( http://www.amazon.com/s?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Mike%27s+Election+Guide&x=12&y=21 ). It's got a cool quote on the back cover from Republican congressman Tom Davis: "The Republican brand is in the trash can ... If we were dog food, they would take us off the shelf."
And it's got 200+ pages of facts and ideas that you won't read anywhere else, like:
** Does John McCain think it's right to drop bombs on civilians in (his words) "heavily populated" cities?
** The only reason Social Security is running out of money is because people who make over $102,000 a year pay NO social security tax on what they make over $102,000 (if they did, we'd have enough money in Social Security for the next 75 years!).
** Bring back the draft -- but only draft the rich. If they have to serve, they won't be so eager to start ridiculous wars.
** Despite what you've heard, we actually pay more "taxes" than France or any European country -- and get none of the benefits they receive.
** Why we must arrest Misters Bush and Cheney as they slip out of the White House this coming January 20th for the crimes they have committed.
The early reviews are in. The New York Daily News declares that "Mike's Election Guide" "takes no prisoners." The Associated Press calls it "a manual of mockery for the 2008 presidential election." And the St. Petersburg Times says that "Mike's Election Guide" is a "mix of outrageous humor, passionate partisanship and common sense." The McClatchy Newspaper chain calls it a "no-holds-barred examination of our politics. Pages explode with so much humor, you'll find yourself laughing out loud at Moore's sharp wit on serious topics such as health care, childcare, taxes and terrorism." And this piece from AlterNet ( http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/95906/michael_moore_dares_to_ask:_what27s_so_heroic_about_being_shot_down_while_bombing_innocent_civilians/ ) lays out my reasoning for telling the whole truth about what John McCain did in the Vietnam War -- and asks why everyone else seems afraid to bring this up.
I've written this book to give you some good arguments to make as you discuss the election with family and friends. And I've laid out the 12 Senate seats and 30 House seats we can win -- and how to do that.
I need to warn you -- I don't let the Democratic Party bigwigs off the hook. I challenge them to have a spine, to not repeat the past mistakes they've made in the past two elections, and I ask them why they're so afraid of Republicans ("Is it true that Democrats still drink from a sippy cup and sleep with the light on?").
I hope you get a chance to read my book and that it gives you a good (and needed) laugh -- and also a bit of inspiration as we head toward that fateful day on November 4th.
Click here to order ( http://www.amazon.com/Mikes-Election-Guide-Michael-Moore/dp/0446546275?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219768845&sr=1-1 ).Click here to visit "Mike's Election Guide" on the web ( http://www. michaelmoore. com/mikeselectionguide/ ).
Thanks for all your support of my work.I wish all of us well as we have but ten weeks to go before Redemption Day!!
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
http://www. michaelmoore. com/
Join Mike's Mailing List ( http://www. michaelmoore. com/mikesmailinglist/index. php ) | Join Mike's Facebook Group ( http://www. new. facebook. com/pages/Michael-Moore/24674986856 ) | Become Mike's MySpace Friend ( http://www. myspace. com/mmflint )
August 20, 2008
H.I.M. Future Youth !
H.I.M Future Youth Apparel Design
August 12, 2008
Uhuru organizer speaks out on why the struggle with Obama
Diop asks, "What about the black community?" On Friday, August 1st I led a contingent of the Uhuru Movement into Barack Obama’s town hall meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida to raise the question, “what about the black community, Obama?” Without the benefit of a big media budget, our organization attempted to bring the serious issues experienced by African working class people across this country into the national political debate.
These issues include the targeting of African and Latino communities with predatory “sub-prime” mortgages – a scheme that has made millions for people like Obama’s chief financial advisor Penny Pritzker, while stripping black families of billions of dollars, the greatest loss of wealth our community has suffered since being brought in chains to this country. We also challenged Obama to take a stand against the police shootings of unarmed African people, and explain why he has publicly defended the judge’s acquittal of the NYC police who murdered Sean Bell.
He has said that he cannot speak out on behalf of those who have been historically oppressed for fear of offending other people. Yet in Miami, he promised the Jewish community, which considers itself a historically oppressed community, that he supports turning all of Jerusalem over to Israeli control, despite the internationally enforced sharing of that city with the Palestinians. When Obama speaks to black audiences, he attacks us, attributing our community’s poverty, not to systemic oppression, but to bad culture and lack of work ethic.
Barack Obama has criticized African fathers for abandoning our children, although a recent study showed that black fathers stay more involved with their children after a split from the mother than white fathers. And Obama says nothing of the unjust imprisonment of 1 in 9 black men of child-bearing age, the overwhelming majority of whom are locked up on minor drug or other non-violent economic violations stemming from conditions of desperate poverty. He has failed to achieve any meaningful program of economic development for the African community. In speaking to a group of black legislators, Obama said “a good economic development plan for our community would be if we make sure folks weren’t throwing their garbage out of their cars.”
Barack Obama wants to increase military spending and praised Clinton for abolishing AFDC and welfare. He has reversed his position opposing the death penalty and speaks out against reparations. He wants to escalate the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and has threatened Venezuela and Iran with military aggression. He has upheld the FISA, supporting wire-tapping and government spying on citizens. He receives unprecedented financial backing from Wall Street. His close advisors and potential cabinet members include war criminal Richard Clarke, Tri-lateral commission founder Zbigniev Brzezinski, Madeleine ‘it’s worth the price of 1 million dead Iraqi children’ Albright, and Free Trade advocates Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee.
Some argue that we must support Obama or else we are supporting McCain. We in the Uhuru Movement don’t believe our community should restrict our political options to a choice between one white ruling class party or another. In fact, the black community’s most recent experiences in the U.S. electoral arena have resulted not only in the Republican Party’s theft of our votes, but prior to that we suffered some of the worst attacks on our community at the hands of the Democratic Party administration of William Jefferson Clinton, who put 100,000 more police on our streets to murder our people, privatized the prisons to exploit our unpaid labor, and discontinued the public subsidies for impoverished children and families that had been won by African people as a concession to our movement of the 1960s.
African people’s experiences with these last several elections and the desperate conditions facing our community have created a willingness by our people to seek independent political alternatives. In response to this crisis, the white rulers put forward Barack Obama – a pied piper taking African people back into clutches of the Democratic Party. If anyone looks seriously at the positions, programs and advisors of Barack Obama, they will see that he does not stand for any kind of real change, but for the defense of the same old status quo, with a new face. America is in an economic crisis and the white ruling class hopes to save itself by deepening the exploitation of African people in the U.S. and on the continent of Africa, where the world’s biggest reserves of oil and precious minerals lie. How better to do it than with an African face at the head of state?
Our success as a people requires that we achieve our own independent political agenda. African people’s votes should be contingent on the willingness of a candidate to support and fight for that agenda. The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement has invited Barack Obama, John McCain and Cynthia McKinney to attend our annual convention on September 27-28 in St. Petersburg, Florida to clarify their position on the question, “what about the black community?’ Based on their response, we will consider endorsement of a U.S. presidential candidate.
Diop Olugbala is the International Organizer for the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement
Source:http://www.uhurunews.com/
August 04, 2008
"What About the Black Community, Obama?"
ST. PETERSBURG, FL — On Friday, August 1, the Barack Obama presidential campaign hit a serious bump in a St. Petersburg, Florida town hall meeting as members of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) challenged Obama on his unwillingness to speak to the interests of the African community.
While demonstrators outside chanted "Obama, McCain, its the same game," InPDUM members inside raised a banner that read "What about the black community, Obama?"
InPDUM International Organizer Diop Olugbala challenged Obama asking, "In the face of the numerous attacks that are made against the African community or the black community by the same U.S. government that you aspire to lead - and we are talking about attacks like the subprime mortgage that you spoke of that wasn't just a general ambiguous kind of phenomena, but a phenomena that targeted the African community and Latino community; attacks like the killing of Sean Bell by the New York police department and Javon Dawson right here in St. Petersburg by the St. Petersburg police, and Jena 6 and Hurricane Katrina, and the list goes on. In the face of all these attacks that are clearly being made on the African community, why is it that you have not had the ability to not one time speak to the interests and even speak on the behalf of the oppressed and exploited African community or black community in this country?"
After stammering, Obama made the claim that he had addressed all of those issues with public statements, but that he just may not have spoken out in the way desired.
It is well known that he did make a statement after the acquittals of the police who pumped 50 bullets into Sean Bell's car on his wedding day stating that the unjust verdict needed to be respected.
On the U.S. government's leaving African people for days to die after Hurricane Katrina he stated on September 6, 2005, "I do not subscribe to the notion that the painfully slow response of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security was racially-based. The ineptitude was colorblind."
Obama was right that he had not spoken to these issues as would be desired. While he may have conceded that the subprime loans were predatory, he has failed to condemn Penny Pritzker, his national finance advisor, for having made a fortune through the subprime mortgage scheme at the expense of Africans and Latinos.
In fact, Obama's painting the U.S. as some place on the verge of a "post-racial" society with "race problems" being "90 percent" solved, his opposition to reparations for African people and his liquidating the colonial relationship that African people in the U.S. are held in are disarming. His role as a pied piper - leading African people who are disenchanted with the inability of the U.S. electoral process to provide any solution for them right back to the Democratic Party - is problematic for African people.
His role is one that works against African people’s struggle for self-determination - the loss of which was necessary for the building and maintaining of the United States of America.
The question for African people cannot be confined to whom to vote for in a bourgeois election where freedom and self-determination for African people will never be on the ballot. The question instead must be one of what must be done to win self-determination.
Source:http://uhurunews.com/radio/
July 21, 2008
One Australian company showing the world how its done, taking charge of climate change.
Australia, Commonwealth of (Press Release) July 17, 2008 -- The owners of an Australian website will plant tens of thousands of trees to try to offset the carbon emissions of hundreds of thousands of drivers.
Sensis, which runs the navigation website Whereis, has launched the GreenRoad campaign, allowing environmentally friendly drivers to calculate and offset the carbon emissions of trips up to 200km.
With the help of not-for-profit group GreenFleet, Sensis will then plant the number of trees to offset the carbon footprint. Sensis expects to plant more than 17,700 trees to offset about 4700 tonnes of carbon emissions before the campaign ends on August 6.
Belinda Lang from Sensis said she was hopeful many of the four million visitors to Whereis.com would register with the GreenRoad campaign.
"Were hoping to educate people about how easy carbon offsetting is and that anyone can do it. not just big business," said Lang, who also revealed the trees would be protected for 100 years.
She hoped the campaign would lead to more motorists reducing their carbon footprint. "It'd be great if people who dip their toe in the water with the GreenRoad campaign extended that to offsetting their vehicles in their household," she said. "If we can have that kind of impact it'd be wonderful."
The GreenRoad campaign will run until August 6.
Driving more than 200km each week produces almost three tonnes of greenhouses gases a year.
To register, visit www.thegreenroad.com.au.
Sensis, which runs the navigation website Whereis, has launched the GreenRoad campaign, allowing environmentally friendly drivers to calculate and offset the carbon emissions of trips up to 200km.
With the help of not-for-profit group GreenFleet, Sensis will then plant the number of trees to offset the carbon footprint. Sensis expects to plant more than 17,700 trees to offset about 4700 tonnes of carbon emissions before the campaign ends on August 6.
Belinda Lang from Sensis said she was hopeful many of the four million visitors to Whereis.com would register with the GreenRoad campaign.
"Were hoping to educate people about how easy carbon offsetting is and that anyone can do it. not just big business," said Lang, who also revealed the trees would be protected for 100 years.
She hoped the campaign would lead to more motorists reducing their carbon footprint. "It'd be great if people who dip their toe in the water with the GreenRoad campaign extended that to offsetting their vehicles in their household," she said. "If we can have that kind of impact it'd be wonderful."
The GreenRoad campaign will run until August 6.
Driving more than 200km each week produces almost three tonnes of greenhouses gases a year.
To register, visit www.thegreenroad.com.au.
Bright Lights 
- Carib City
Bright Lights - Carib City
Forget Carrie from Sex In the City. On Wednesday, June 4th, there was a Cari-Fest in the City, at the Carifest CARES: Keep A Child Alive launch party and benefit at 40/40 on 25th Street, and the Sumfest launch party at Negril on West 3rd Street.
The launch for Carifest CARES was attended by scheduled performing artists Matisyahu, Caution, Kayla Bliss, Meta & The Cornerstones, Uriel Hamilton and Midnight. Joseph Israel greeted the crowd via a pre-recorded message played on 40/40’s many flat screens. He offered his regrets at not being able to attend the event because he is currently on tour; however, he will also be performing at this year’s Carifest. Lee Scratch Perry did not attend; however, his new album’s producer, Andrew WK, did.Carifest, an annual, New York-based, Caribbean diaspora celebration that combines food, crafts, and a concert, will also include a charitable theme this year: “Carifest CARES: Keep a Child Alive (KACA)”. Keep a Child Alive is a non-profit organization founded by Leigh Blake, in response to the desperate cry for much-needed AIDS-combating medicines in Africa.
Marie Davis, a woman living with HIV, gave a powerfully poignant speech to the evening’s attendees about the need for HIV and AIDS testing within the community. She stated, “The African and African- American community is the largest community living with HIV and AIDS, yet we are the least frequently tested voluntarily. Too often, I hear people, especially parents, say they don’t want to get tested because they are afraid to know if they are infected, or not. If you are a parent, you have a moral obligation to find out of you are living with either HIV or AIDS, so you can protect your children.” Her speech was met with thunderous applause from the rapt audience. She also stressed the importance of the use of condoms, and explained the difference between HIV and AIDS, emphatically stating that they were not the same thing.
People living with HIV and AIDS can prevent or delay some of the more serious symptoms and complications, if given anti-retroviral treatment (ARV) medication. These medicines are easily accessible in the United States, but are virtually non-existent in Africa, where the AIDS pandemic has reached its peak, killing tens of millions of people. That is where Keep A Child Alive comes in. According to KACA, ARV medicines can miraculously prolong the lives of those dying from AIDS. KACA forwards 100% of their donations to this cause, and supports 14 clinical and orphan care sites in 7 countries. According to KACA, there are over 15 million children worldwide who have lost one, or both, parents to the AIDS pandemic.
To learn more about what you can do to help this cause, contact info@keepachildalive.org, or attend Carifest CARES on Sunday, July 6th, at the USTA National Tennis Center, in Flushing, Queens, from 5pm until 11pm.
Meanwhile, across town, at Negril, media, friends and Jamaican government officials came together to support the launch for Sumfest, an annual concert event which takes place in Montego Bay, Jamaica on July 13th-19th.
Sumfest organizers, Johnny Gourzong, Executive Director, Robert Russell, Chairman, Sydney Reid, Director of Sites & Services, and Marcia McDonnough, Promotions Director, were at Negril to answer questions from the media about this year’s upcoming event. The organizers were joined by Jamaican political bigwigs such as Edmund Bartlett, Minister of Tourism, Carole Guntley, Director General in the Ministry of Tourism, Basil Smith, Director of Tourism, David Shields, Deputy Director of Marketing, and Donnie Dawson, Deputy Director of Tourism. The Jamaican politicians attended alongside their New York-based counterparts like Guillemo Linares, Commissioner of Immigration Affairs, and Genieve Brown Metzer, Jamaican Counsel General to New York.
Despite the withdrawal of former Sumfest sponsors, Red Stripe, due to what they expressed as a disdain for the increasingly violent and inflammatory lyrics in dancehall music, the show must, and will indeed, go on. If the love and support that was apparent at the jam-packed launch was any indication of the support for the actual event, this year’s Sumfest will be just as successful as before, without sponsorship from Red Stripe.
If you were unable to attend the launch parties, there is still plenty of time to get tickets to either, or both, of the events. Between Carifest CARES and Sumfest, it will certainly be a memorable Summer-fest of Cari-fun.
By Brittany Somerset
Please Link to JamaicaPressRelease.com
Carifest Cancelled
Carifest C.A.R.E.S. Cancled
By Brittany Somerset, Intrepid Reporter, Manhattan, NY.Due to a combination of poor ticket sales and inclement weather, Carifest C.A.R.E.S has been cancelled. In the past Carifest has drawn criticism from gay activist groups who vehemently protested certain dancehall artists who used Carifest as a platform to wax philisophical about burning gays. Anti-gay sentiments that receive massive forwards from audiences at festivals in Jamaica, where homophobia is socially acceptable and even encouraged, do not go over well in New York City.
In an effort to make a positive change this year, Carifest C.A.R.E.S (Compassionate Artists Recognizing Entertainment Solutions) was meant to be a charitable event to sponsor Keep A Child Alive (KACA) an organization which provides medicine and relief to African children orphaned due to the AIDS pandemic, which has claimed millions of lives. Some critics felt however, that taking a community renowned for its homophobia, and preaching AIDS awareness to them, was an insurmountable task and alienated its core audience.
While it is ridiculously ignorant in this day and age to think that AIDS is primarily a homosexual disease, a popular, promiscuous reggae singer who asked that his name be withheld stated while he hardly ever uses prophylactic protection, he believes as long as he thinks positively, he wouldn’t get AIDS because Jah would protect him. It was this type of ignorant, detrimental and potentially deadly attitude that Carifest CARES wanted to enlighten people about.
Carifest CARES has not been without controversy. Earlier in the month, artist Eek-A-Mouse was kicked off the bill, due to the racist remarks he made during a press conference for the event, verbally attacking white Jewish reggae artist Matisyahu, among others. His tirade was posted on YouTube.com for the world to see, drawing derision from even the most loyal of his fans. He posted a rebuttel on YouTube.com, further explaining his position, to no avail.
Various artists with a much more positive vibration were considered as a replacement for Eek-A-Mouse, from Spanner Banner to the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars, however the promoter was not able to secure the necessary additional time from the Parks Department, in order to accommodate additional band changes.
While removing Eek-A-Mouse from the bill did not due any damage to the integrity of the festival itself, fans speculate that the overall line-up itself simply wasn’t strong enough to draw the amount of people required to make the event a success. Whereas past Carifests have included heavy hitters with crossover appeal like Collie Buddz, Ninjaman, who had been previously barred from entering the country for over a decade, and is heralded as the best Jamaican-born MC, as well as typically top drawing festival artists like Beenieman, the Carifest CARES line-up featured repeat artists like Matisyahu, and newcomers like Meta and the Cornerstones, causing people to speculate that the types of artists who would be necessary to make this event a commercial success did not want to participate or be associated with a benefit for AIDS awareness. Others would speculate that it is difficult to get Jamaican artists to reduce their performance fees for a charitable event of any kind.
Fourth of July weekend itself, normally a notorious party weekend in New York, has been washed out, due to fog and rain. At many hotspots all over the city where people had assembled to watch the fireworks, from the rooftop of the Gansevoort hotel to South Street Seaport, myriad complaints could be heard about not being able to see the fireworks clearly. It stands to reason that people who are not going to want to stand out in the rain to see the annual fireworks display, are not going to want to stand out in the rain to see an annual concert event.
While Carifest Cares promoters Team Legendary and Alphonso D’Niscio Brooks in particular are to be commended for their efforts to enlighten their community about the AIDS crisis, it is unfortunate that this event had to be cancelled partially due to lack of support from their community. Carifest CARES publicist Erika Tooker stated, “Moving forward with the concert under these circumstances will in no way benefit the cause. Reggae-Carifest N.Y., Inc. apologizes to all patrons who purchased tickets and assures such patrons that full refunds will be made. All ticket holders can return to point of purchase to receive a full refund.” At this time, no plans have been made to reschedule Carifest CARES.
Reggae Legends John Holt and Winston “Merritone” Blake to headline Concert to Commemorate Jamaica’s 46th Year of Independence
Posted by CaribbeanVibesRadio.com
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – In what is billed as “An Evening of Elegance,” reggae veterans John Holt and Winston “Merritone” Blake will headline a concert to celebrate Jamaica’s 46th anniversary at the swank Zanzibar Night Club. This semi-formal event will take place Aug. 2, and doors open at 9 p.m. Tickets are available online—at www.pumpstn.com—for $25 and $30 at various tickets outlets.
Presented by Pumpstation Entertainment, this “Evening of Elegance” is a first-of-its-kind event catering to a broader Caribbean and urban base audience. “We plan to take people back down memory lane, particularly Jamaican people,” says Omar Stephenson of Pumpstation Entertainment.
The event coincides with Jamaica’s 46th independence celebration, where traditional celebrations “back-home” are often laced with sweet reggae music, delicious Jamaican food and beautiful people.
Zanzibar On the Waterfront will provide drink specials and a complimentary Jamaican style buffet. Reggae crooner John Holt, backed by Ruff Stuff Band, will deliver a sweet serenade of classic tunes like “Dusty Road”, “Further You Look,” “The Tide Is High” and the unforgettable “Stick By Me.”
With well over 50 years in the reggae music business, both Holt and Merritone carry equally a sense of pride and tradition, representating what can be claimed, as truly Jamaican. After all, that’s what it’s about, as an important milestone in Jamaica’s history is celebrated 46 years from British rule.
Additional music will be presented by Pumpstation Sound System and Caribbean Vibes Radio’s own PauL MacK, who promises to dig deep into his musical vault to keep the vibe right.
For more information and store locations, visit www.pumpstn.com.
Sourec:http://www.jamaicapressrelease.com
July 13, 2008
FEG Presents She'k 2nd Annual Females In Rap and Hip-hop Seminar and Showcase
Atlanta, GA -- On Aug 16, 2008, FEG (Fowler Entertainment Group) will host the She'k 2nd Annual Females In Rap and Hip-hop Seminar and Showcase in St. Louis, MO.
She'k, Your Number One Source for Females In Rap and Hip-hop has been in existence since December 2006, providing the largest, most consistent platform for females in rap and hip-hop on the web. A weekly podcast is produced by the host KD and consisting of a top 10 countdown plus the She'k Make It or Break It, where listeners can vote online and an old school mix. The show features exclusive She'k Interviews with many of the artist as well as segment producers for entertainment, motivational speaking and physical fitness. FEG has also launched She'k TV which will feature female artist, business owners as well as other females selected by FEG.
The 1st Annual She'k Weekend was held in Atlanta with the top prize going to The Georgia Gurlz. The event this year will be held in St. Louis, MO at the Saint Ann Community Center. This event is intended to provide information to the community targeted mainly at females interested in the entertainment industry. Seminar panelist consist of professional females in the entertainment industry. This year panelist include promoter Vanita Applebum (VanitaApplebum Entertainment Services, Inc.), Lynne "Blasia" Parker Vice President of Fyreboy Records, media company owner Chantell Overton (OhhMy.net), fashion expert Maxine Elbert a.k.a. Big Sexy, music producer and composer Single WOne (Single WOne Productions & Publishing), Mz. Fe owner Get It Girl Entertainment, promoter Mz. Law (Law for Life Entertainment) plus many more.
The event will be hosted by She'k TV hostest "Desiree" and co-hosted by St. Louis own, promoter and comedian, Mz. Funy.
For event tickets, artist, media/press passes and other information, please visit the website:
http://www.shekwomenrap.com
or send an email to:
shek_showcase@hotmail.com
For sponsorship request contact:
Kala Brown, Trees With Roots Entertainment
404.380.0506
Rick Ross Charities, Inc in association with the City of Miami Gardens and The Children's Trust present the 2nd Annual Rick Ross Be Out Day
Miami, FL, July 7, 2008 -- To date, Rick Ross Be Out Day is Rick Ross Charities, Inc. Signature Event which assist parents with preparing for the back to school experience by distributing backpacks and school supplies while providing an entertaining day at the park with complimentary food, drinks, health screenings and entertainment. The presentation of the annual Rick Ross Charities, Inc Scholarship Award is presented at Be Out Day as well. In 2007, Miami Carol City Senior High School Graduate Juanita Williams was the scholarship recipient and the event was attended by over 2500 children and families. Recording Artist Flo Rida, Yung Joc, Brisco, Gorilla Zoe, DJ Khaled and a host of others assisted Rick Ross with entertaining the many children and families attending Be Out Day. The 2nd Annual Rick Ross Be Out Day will be held on Wednesday, August 6, 2008 from 12noon – 5pm at Miami Carol City Park. The goal of Rick Ross Be Out Day is to promote education advocacy and social responsibility. Rick Ross Be Out Day is sponsored in part by the City of Miami Gardens, The Children Trust and MediumFour.
ABOUT RICK ROSS CHARITIES, INC
Rick Ross Charities, Inc. is a non-profit, 501(c) (3), founded by Rick Ross in 2006. Rick Ross Charities, Inc. mission is to strengthen the lives of today's at-risk youth from all backgrounds and create diversity by providing solid resources through education advocacy, mentoring programs and financial resources to deserving students. Rick Ross is committed to having Rick Ross Charities, Inc. serve as a catalyst to inspire positive change by creating and supporting programs that uplift the well being of today's youth. Rick Ross Charities, Inc. provides community support through various programs and projects such as the annual Rick Ross Be Out Day, Thanksgiving Turkey Giveaways, Holiday Gift Giveaways, College Scholarship Fund, Financial Seminars and a host of others.
ABOUT RICK ROSS
"Rick Ross place in the hip-hop universe was solidified in 2006 when his single "Hustlin" became the first master tone ever certified platinum by the RIAA for sales of 1 million copies before the associated album had even been released. The debut album "Port of Miami" was certified Gold with over 800,000 copies sold. Now Slip N' Slide/Def Jam recording artist Rick Ross joins the exclusive VIP club reserved for MCs whose first two consecutive major label album releases have entered the Soundscan chart at #1, as TRILLA (in stores March 11th) debuted at #1 on first week sales of over 198,000 units. TRILLA follows the success of Port Of Miami, the Slip N Slide/Def Jam debut album (released August 2006) which entered at #1 with first week sales of 187,000 units." Rick Ross plans are now to open the door of opportunity for other aspiring artist with the launch of his Maybach Music Group Label.
2ND ANNUAL RICK ROSS BE OUT DAY
Who: Rick Ross Charities, Inc in association with the City of Miami Gardens & The Children's Trust
What: 2nd Annual Rick Ross Be Out Day
Where: Miami Carol City Park
3201 NW 185th Street, Miami Gardens, FL 33056
When: Wednesday, August 6, 2008
12noon – 6pm
More Info: www.rickrosscharitiesinc.org
305-851-5699
Editors Note: Pictures and interviews available upon request
--
Elora Mason
E. Mason & Associates
305-851-5699 Phone
646-390-9414 Fax
elora@emasonassociates.com
Plies Announces Non-Profit Organization and $10,000 "Somebody Loves You" Scholarship Fund
New Album, "DEFINITION OF REAL," in Stores Now
NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - June 27, 2008) - Big Gates/Slip-N-Slide/Atlantic recording artist Plies has announced details of his very own non-profit organization, Big Gates and Plies Power Of Visions Foundation, Inc., as well as a scholarship program, the "Somebody Loves You" Scholarship Fund. This all comes as the Ft. Myers, Florida-bred rapper continues to ride the wave of success proven by his sophomore release, "DEFINITION OF REAL," which debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200, selling 215,000 copies in its first week. In fact, the album's first week sales gave Plies the highest selling first-week numbers in the history of Miami-based Slip-N-Slide Records.
Keeping in the tradition of Plies' philanthropy, Big Gates and Plies Power Of Visions will provide funding for legal representation and aid to needy individuals, specifically those who are incarcerated, with the goal of promoting a more functional, productive, and just community. The organization will also provide educational forums, classes, workshops, trainings, opportunities, and other charitable activities aimed at individuals in the community, in particular focusing on rehabilitation.
In addition, Big Gates and Plies Power Of Visions will focus on promoting activities for youth and minorities, including education, mentorship, cultural experiences, and preventative measures aimed at combating incarceration in the Tampa and Ft. Myers, Florida areas.
The organization's first effort will be the "Somebody Loves You" Scholarship Fund 2008 (named after the song "Somebody (Loves You)" from his current album), which is designed specifically for students attending an accredited college or university, who have a parent(s) that is presently incarcerated and who is financially disadvantaged. The scholarship is open to students who are currently enrolled or who will be entering school this fall. Two scholarships will be awarded to one male and one female in the amount of $5000 each.
According to a published Senate report in September of 2000, as many as 70 percent of children of incarcerated parents will become involved with the criminal justice system unless effective intervention strategies are set in place. Big Gates and Plies Power Of Visions, Inc. hopes to inspire and encourage these at-risk youth to break the cycle of incarceration. Co-founder Plies comments, "We want to provide those who have been and continue to be affected by the negative impacts of the prison system with a sense of hope, and to let them know that they are not forgotten. No matter what adversities one may face in life, one thing remains true -- and that is that somebody loves you."
For more information on the organization and scholarship, as well as scholarship application details, visit www.pliesworld.com/somebodylovesyou.
In other Plies news, "Bust It Baby Part 2 (Feat. Ne-Yo)," the first single from "DEFINITION OF REAL," continues to be another massive hip-hop hit for Plies. The track is ranked at #2 at Urban outlets nationwide this week. What's more, "Bust It Baby Part 2" is turning out to be a pop mainstream summer sensation, coming in this week at #3 on Billboard's "Hot 100 Airplay" ranking, as well as #8 on the overall "Hot 100."
"Bust It Baby Part 2" is also continuing Plies' incredible run of blockbuster ringtones. The single is currently #3 on Nielsen Ringscan's "Top 200 Mastertones" ranking.
Plies recently shot the music video for his next single, "Please Excuse My Hands (Feat. Jamie Foxx and The-Dream)," which is slated to hit video outlets nationwide early next month.
For up-to-the-minute news and information, visit www.pliesworld.com, www.myspace.com/plies, and www.imeem.com/plies.
CONTACT:
Catharine McNelly
212-707-3069
catharine.mcnelly@atlanticrecords.com
Cara Donatto
818-238-6819
cara.donatto@atlanticrecords.com
June 07, 2008
REGGAE LOVERS FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
Reggae lovers are fighting back! There is a commission formed to defend freedom of speech where reggae music is concerned.
Based on the tremendous pressure some dancehall artistes have been facing with gay rights group the commission is now formed to fight back.
The most recent attack surfaced in Waterloo, Ontario on May 10th where Mr Vegas was scheduled to perform but could not, as the venue was threatened by gay activists stating that if Vegas perform they would picket the event.
Unfortunately, the venue cancelled the show to avoid the unwanted negative attention the establishment would receive had the show gone
on. In an effort to fight these many cancellations and in some cases song withdrawals, blogger Maria Jackson has put a group together called REGGAE LOVERS FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH. The purpose of the group is to investigate and challenge these gay activists as oppose to simply giving in to their every requests. The group which currently has members hailing from different parts of the world is open to the public and does invite any and everyone who believes that reggae is being unfairly targeted to join the fight.
Posted by yardFlex on 02:36 PM | Comments (14
"One of our sons are Missing" ;June 19 - 21, 2008, Brooklyn
"One of Our Sons is Missing": June 19 - 21, 2008, Brooklyn
We All Have Secrets... Some Kill
Provocative and engaging, One of Our Sons is Missing explores the lies we tell ourselves and the truths we hide from others when a Caribbean family is forced to confront dark secrets, prejudices and fear as the threat, and reality, of HIV/AIDS invades their world. It also examines the risks to which young people may be exposed in their relationships, often without being fully aware of the consequences.
When first staged in his native Trinidad, Godfrey Sealy's work was considered at once groundbreaking and scandalous for dealing openly with the issues of sexuality and HIV/AIDS in the English-speaking Caribbean. Unfortunately, after almost two decades, the scandal is its narrative remains painfully contemporary.
Kumble Theatre for the Perfroming Arts
Long Island University - Brooklyn Campus (corner Flatbush Ave Extension & Dekalb Ave)
June 19 - 21
May 28, 2008
IYAGO ENTERTAINMENT GROUP Presents WHAT BLACK MEN THINK
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IYAGO ENTERTAINMENT GROUP Presents WHAT BLACK MEN THINK
An In Depth View of How Myths, Stereotypes and Misrepresentations render Black Men Non-Necessities in their Communities and Families... In the most provocative Black film of the year, Janks Morton presents a searing examination of the role that myths, stereotypes and misrepresentations have played in the decimation of modern era black relationships, and how the symbiotic relationship between government, the media and black leadership perpetuates misinformation to further marginalize the role of black men in society. Since the triumphs of the civil rights legislations of the early 1960s havoc and decimation has been wreaked on the Black family with a specific devastation on the Black man. With negative imagery of the media, the failed policy of the great society and modern era black leadership abandoning tenets that historically held the community together, a new form of mental slavery has perpetuated an undeclared civil war in the Black Community...
May 20, 2008
Malcolm X
original name Malcolm Little , Muslim name el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz
born May 19, 1925, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.died February 21, 1965, New York, New York
Malcolm X.
© Archive Photos
African American leader and prominent figure in the Nation of Islam, who articulated concepts of race pride and black nationalism in the early 1960s. After his assassination, the widespread distribution of his life story—The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)—made him an ideological hero, especially among black youth.
Born in Nebraska, while an infant Malcolm moved with his family to Lansing, Mich. When Malcolm was six years old, his father, the Rev. Earl Little, a Baptist minister and former supporter of the early black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, died after being hit by a streetcar, quite possibly the victim of murder by whites. The surviving family was so poor that Malcolm's mother, Louise Little, resorted to cooking dandelion greens from the street to feed her children. After she was committed to an insane asylum in 1939, Malcolm and his siblings were sent to foster homes or to live with family members.
Malcolm attended school in Lansing, Mich., but dropped out in the eighth grade when one of his teachers told him that he should become a carpenter instead of a lawyer. As a rebellious youngster Malcolm moved from the Michigan State Detention Home, a juvenile home in Mason, Mich., to the Roxbury section of Boston to live with an older half sister from his father's first marriage. There he became involved in petty criminal activities in his teenage years. Known as “Detroit Red” for the reddish tinge in his hair, he developed into a street hustler, drug dealer, and leader of a gang of thieves in Roxbury and Harlem (in New York City).
While in prison for robbery from 1946 to 1952, he underwent a conversion that eventually led him to join the Nation of Islam, an African American movement that combined elements of Islam with black nationalism. His decision to join the Nation also was influenced by discussions with his brother Reginald, who had become a member in Detroit and who was incarcerated with Malcolm in the Norfolk Prison Colony in Massachusetts in 1948. Malcolm quit smoking and gambling and refused to eat pork in keeping with the Nation's dietary restrictions. In order to educate himself, he spent long hours reading books in the prison library, even memorizing a dictionary. He also sharpened his forensic skills by participating in debate classes. Following Nation tradition, he replaced his surname, “Little,” with an “X,” a custom among Nation of Islam followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders.
Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam
After his release from prison Malcolm helped to lead the Nation of Islam during the period of its greatest growth and influence. He met Elijah Muhammad in Chicago in 1952 and then began organizing temples for the Nation in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston and in cities in the South. He founded the Nation's newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, which he printed in the basement of his home, and initiated the practice of requiring every male member of the Nation to sell an assigned number of newspapers on the street as a recruiting and fund-raising technique. He also articulated the Nation's racial doctrines on the inherent evil of whites and the natural superiority of blacks.
Malcolm rose rapidly to become the minister of Boston Temple No. 11, which he founded; he was later rewarded with the post of minister of Temple No. 7 in Harlem, the largest and most prestigious temple in the Nation after the Chicago headquarters. Recognizing his talent and ability, Elijah Muhammad, who had a special affection for Malcolm, named him the National Representative of the Nation of Islam, second in rank to Muhammad himself. Under Malcolm's lieutenancy, the Nation claimed a membership of 500,000. The actual number of members fluctuated, however, and the influence of the organization, refracted through the public persona of Malcolm X, always greatly exceeded its size.
An articulate public speaker, a charismatic personality, and an indefatigable organizer, Malcolm X expressed the pent-up anger, frustration, and bitterness of African Americans during the major phase of the civil rights movement from 1955 to 1965. He preached on the streets of Harlem and spoke at major universities such as Harvard University and the University of Oxford. His keen intellect, incisive wit, and ardent radicalism made him a formidable critic of American society. He also criticized the mainstream civil rights movement, challenging Martin Luther King, Jr.'s central notions of integration and nonviolence. Malcolm argued that more was at stake than the civil right to sit in a restaurant or even to vote—the most important issues were black identity, integrity, and independence. In contrast to King's strategy of nonviolence, civil disobedience, and redemptive suffering, Malcolm urged his followers to defend themselves “by any means necessary.” His biting critique of the “so-called Negro” provided the intellectual foundations for the Black Power and black consciousness movements in the United States in the late 1960s and '70s (see black nationalism). Through the influence of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X helped to change the terms used to refer to African Americans from “Negro” and “coloured” to “black” and “Afro-American.”
Kenyatta, Jomo
Jomo Kenyatta
died August 22, 1978, Mombasa, Kenya
original name Kamau Ngengi
born c. 1894, Ichaweri, British East Africa [now in Kenya]died August 22, 1978, Mombasa, Kenya
Jomo Kenyatta.
John Moss—Black Star
African statesman and nationalist, the first prime minister (1963–64) and then the first president (1964–78) of independent Kenya.
Early life
Kenyatta was born as Kamau, son of Ngengi, at Ichaweri, southwest of Mount Kenya in the East African highlands. His father was a leader of a small Kikuyu agricultural settlement. About age 10 Kamau became seriously ill with jigger infections in his feet and one leg, and he underwent successful surgery at a newly established Church of Scotland mission. This was his initial contact with Europeans. Fascinated with what he had seen during his recuperation, Kamau ran away from home to become a resident pupil at the mission. He studied the Bible, English, mathematics, and carpentry and paid his fees by working as a houseboy and cook for a European settler. In August 1914 he was baptized with the name Johnstone Kamau. He was one of the earliest of the Kikuyu to leave the confines of his own culture. And, like many others, Kamau soon left the mission life for the urban attractions of Nairobi.
There he secured a job as a clerk in the Public Works Department, and he also adopted the name Kenyatta, the Kikuyu term for a fancy belt that he wore. After serving briefly as an interpreter in the High Court, Kenyatta transferred to a post with the Nairobi Town Council. About this time he married and began to raise a family.
The first African political protest movement in Kenya against a white-settler-dominated government began in 1921—the East Africa Association (EAA), led by an educated young Kikuyu named Harry Thuku. Kenyatta joined the following year. One of the EAA's main purposes was to recover Kikuyu lands lost when Kenya became a British crown colony (1920). The Africans were dispossessed, leaseholds of land were restricted to white settlers, and native reservations were established. In 1925 the EAA disbanded as a result of government pressures, and its members re-formed as the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA). Three years later Kenyatta became this organization's general secretary, though he had to give up his municipal job as a consequence.
Evers, Medgar
Medgar Evers
died June 12, 1963, Jackson, Miss.
in full Medgar Wiley Evers
born July 2, 1925, Decatur, Miss., U.S.died June 12, 1963, Jackson, Miss.
Medgar Evers.
© Archive Photos
American black civil-rights activist, whose murder received national attention and made him a martyr to the cause of the civil rights movement.
Evers served in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II. Afterward he and his elder brother, Charles Evers, both graduated from Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Alcorn State University, Lorman, Miss.) in 1950. They settled in Philadelphia, Miss., and engaged in various business pursuits—Medgar was an insurance salesman, and Charles operated a restaurant, a gas station, and other enterprises—and at the same time began organizing local affiliates of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). They worked quietly at first, slowly building a base of support; in 1954 Medgar moved to Jackson to become the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi. He traveled throughout the state recruiting members and organizing voter-registration drives and economic boycotts.
During the early 1960s the increased tempo of civil-rights activities in the South created high and constant tensions, and in Mississippi conditions were often at the breaking point. On June 12, 1963, a few hours after President John F. Kennedy had made an extraordinary broadcast to the nation on the subject of civil rights, Medgar Evers was shot and killed in an ambush in front of his home. The murder made Evers, until then a hardworking and effective but relatively obscure figure outside Mississippi, a nationally known figure. He was buried with full military honours in Arlington National Cemetery and awarded the 1963 Spingarn Medal of the NAACP.
Charles Evers immediately requested and was granted appointment by the NAACP to his brother's position in Mississippi, and afterward he became a major political figure in the state. Evers's widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams, was the first woman to head the NAACP (1995–98).
Byron de La Beckwith, a white segregationist, was charged with the murder. He was set free in 1964 after two trials resulted in hung juries but was convicted in a third trial held in 1994. Beckwith was given a life sentence, and in 2001 he died in prison. Source:http://search.eb.com/blackhistory/article-9033366
Du Bois, W.E.B.
W. E. B. Du Bois
died August 27, 1963, Accra, Ghana
in full William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
born February 23, 1868, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, U.S.died August 27, 1963, Accra, Ghana
W.E.B. Du Bois, 1918.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
American sociologist, the most important black protest leader in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. He shared in the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909 and edited The Crisis, its magazine, from 1910 to 1934. Late in life he became identified with communist causes.
Early career
Du Bois graduated from Fisk University, a black institution at Nashville, Tennessee, in 1888. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895. His doctoral dissertation, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1870, was published in 1896. Although Du Bois took an advanced degree in history, he was broadly trained in the social sciences; and, at a time when sociologists were theorizing about race relations, he was conducting empirical inquiries into the condition of blacks. For more than a decade he devoted himself to sociological investigations of blacks in America, producing 16 research monographs published between 1897 and 1914 at Atlanta (Georgia) University, where he was a professor, as well as The Philadelphia Negro; A Social Study (1899), the first case study of a black community in the United States.
Although Du Bois had originally believed that social science could provide the knowledge to solve the race problem, he gradually came to the conclusion that in a climate of virulent racism, expressed in such evils as lynching, peonage, disfranchisement, Jim Crow segregation laws, and race riots, social change could be accomplished only through agitation and protest. In this view, he clashed with the most influential black leader of the period, Booker T. Washington, who, preaching a philosophy of accommodation, urged blacks to accept discrimination for the time being and elevate themselves through hard work and economic gain, thus winning the respect of the whites. In 1903, in his famous book The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois charged that Washington's strategy, rather than freeing the black man from oppression, would serve only to perpetuate it. This attack crystallized the opposition to Booker T. Washington among many black intellectuals, polarizing the leaders of the black community into two wings—the “conservative” supporters of Washington and his “radical” critics.
Two years later, in 1905, Du Bois took the lead in founding the Niagara Movement, which was dedicated chiefly to attacking the platform of Booker T. Washington. The small organization, which met annually until 1909, was seriously weakened by internal squabbles and Washington's opposition. But it was significant as an ideological forerunner and direct inspiration for the interracial NAACP, founded in 1909. Du Bois played a prominent part in the creation of the NAACP and became the association's director of research and editor of its magazine, The Crisis. In this role he wielded an unequaled influence among middle-class blacks and progressive whites as the propagandist for the black protest from 1910 until 1934. (See also the Britannica Classic Negro literature.)
Both in the Niagara Movement and in the NAACP, Du Bois acted mainly as an integrationist, but his thinking always exhibited, to varying degrees, separatist-nationalist tendencies. In The Souls of Black Folk he had expressed the characteristic dualism of black Americans:
One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.…He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.
Carver, George Washington
George Washington Carverborn 1861?, near Diamond Grove, Mo., U.S.
died Jan. 5, 1943, Tuskegee, Ala.
died Jan. 5, 1943, Tuskegee, Ala.
George Washington Carver
Courtesy of the Tuskegee Institute, Alabama; photograph, P.H. Polk
American agricultural chemist, agronomist, and experimenter whose development of new products derived from peanuts (groundnuts), sweet potatoes, and soybeans helped revolutionize the agricultural economy of the South. For most of his career he taught and conducted research at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Tuskegee, Ala.
Carver was the son of a slave woman owned by Moses Carver. During the Civil War, slave owners found it difficult to hold slaves in the border state of Missouri, and Moses Carver therefore sent his slaves, including the young child and his mother, to Arkansas. After the war, Moses Carver learned that all his former slaves had disappeared except for a child named George. Frail and sick, the motherless child was returned to his former master's home and nursed back to health. The boy had a delicate sense of colour and form and learned to draw; later in life he devoted considerable time to painting flowers, plants, and landscapes. Though the Carvers told him he was no longer a slave, he remained on their plantation until he was about 10 or 12 years old, when he left to acquire an education. He spent some time wandering about, working with his hands and developing his keen interest in plants and animals.
By both books and experience, George acquired a fragmentary education while doing whatever work came to hand in order to subsist. He supported himself by varied occupations that included general household worker, hotel cook, laundryman, farm labourer, and homesteader. In his late 20s he managed to obtain a high school education in Minneapolis, Kan., while working as a farmhand. After a university in Kansas refused to admit him because he was black, Carver matriculated at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, where he studied piano and art, subsequently transferring to Iowa State Agricultural College (Ames, Iowa), where he received a bachelor's degree in agricultural science in 1894 and a master of science degree in 1896.
Carver left Iowa for Alabama in the fall of 1896 to direct the newly organized department of agriculture at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, a school headed by the noted black American educator Booker T. Washington. At Tuskegee, Washington was trying to improve the lot of black Americans through education and the acquisition of useful skills rather than through political agitation; he stressed conciliation, compromise, and economic development as the paths for black advancement in American society. Despite many offers elsewhere, Carver would remain at Tuskegee for the rest of his life.
After becoming the institute's director of agricultural research in 1896, Carver devoted his time to research projects aimed at helping Southern agriculture, demonstrating ways in which farmers could improve their economic situation. He conducted experiments in soil management and crop production and directed an experimental farm. At this time agriculture in the Deep South was in serious trouble because the unremitting single-crop cultivation of cotton had left the soil of many fields exhausted and worthless, and erosion had then taken its toll on areas that could no longer sustain any plant cover. As a remedy, Carver urged Southern farmers to plant peanuts and soybeans, which, since they belong to the legume family, could restore nitrogen to the soil while also providing the protein so badly needed in the diet of many Southerners. Carver found that Alabama's soils were particularly well-suited to growing peanuts and sweet potatoes, but when the state's farmers began cultivating these crops instead of cotton, they found little demand for them on the market. In response to this problem, Carver set about enlarging the commercial possibilities of the peanut and sweet potato through a long and ingenious program of laboratory research. He ultimately developed 300 derivative products from peanuts—among them cheese, milk, coffee, flour, ink, dyes, plastics, wood stains, soap, linoleum, medicinal oils, and cosmetics—and 118 from sweet potatoes, including flour, vinegar, molasses, rubber, ink, a synthetic rubber, and postage stamp glue.
In 1914, at a time when the boll weevil had almost ruined cotton growers, Carver revealed his experiments to the public, and increasing numbers of the South's farmers began to turn to peanuts, sweet potatoes, and their derivatives for income. Much exhausted land was renewed, and the South became a major new supplier of agricultural products. When Carver arrived at Tuskegee in 1896, the peanut had not even been recognized as a crop, but within the next half century it became one of the six leading crops throughout the United States and, in the South, the second cash crop (after cotton) by 1940. In 1942 the U.S. government allotted 5,000,000 acres of peanuts to farmers. Carver's efforts had finally helped liberate the South from its excessive dependence on cotton.
Among Carver's many honours were his election to Britain's Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (London) in 1916 and his receipt of the Spingarn Medal in 1923. Late in his career he declined an invitation to work for Thomas A. Edison at a salary of more than $100,000 a year. Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Franklin D. Roosevelt visited him, and his friends included Henry Ford and Mohandas K. Gandhi. Foreign governments requested his counsel on agricultural matters: Joseph Stalin, for example, in 1931 invited him to superintend cotton plantations in southern Russia and to make a tour of the Soviet Union, but Carver refused.
In 1940 Carver donated his life savings to the establishment of the Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee for continuing research in agriculture. During World War II he worked to replace the textile dyes formerly imported from Europe, and in all he produced dyes of 500 different shades.
Many scientists thought of Carver more as a concoctionist than as a contributor to scientific knowledge. Many of his fellow blacks were critical of what they regarded as his subservience. Certainly, this small, mild, soft-spoken, innately modest man, eccentric in dress and mannerism, seemed unbelievably heedless of the conventional pleasures and rewards of this life. But these qualities endeared Carver to many whites, who were almost invariably charmed by his humble demeanour and his quiet work in self-imposed segregation at Tuskegee. As a result of his accommodation to the mores of the South, whites came to regard him with a sort of patronizing adulation.
Carver thus increasingly came to stand for much of white America as a kind of saintly and comfortable symbol of the intellectual achievements of black Americans. Carver was evidently uninterested in the role his image played in the racial politics of the time. His great desire in later life was simply to serve humanity; and his work, which began for the sake of the poorest of the black sharecroppers, paved the way for a better life for the entire South. His efforts brought about a significant advance in agricultural training in an era when agriculture was the largest single occupation of Americans, and he extended Tuskegee's influence throughout the South by encouraging improved farm methods, crop diversification, and soil conservation.
source:http://search.eb.com/blackhistory/article-9020575
Carmichael, Stokely
Stokely Carmichael
died Nov. 15, 1998, Conakry, Guinea
original name of Kwame Toure
born June 29, 1941, Port of Spain, Trinidaddied Nov. 15, 1998, Conakry, Guinea
Stokely Carmichael, 1970.
UPI/Corbis-Bettmann
West-Indian-born civil-rights activist, leader of black nationalism in the United States in the 1960s and originator of its rallying slogan, “black power.”
Carmichael immigrated to New York City in 1952, attended high school in the Bronx, and enrolled at Howard University in 1960. There he joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Nonviolent Action Group. In 1961 Carmichael was one of several Freedom Riders who traveled through the South challenging segregation laws in interstate transportation. For his participation he was arrested and jailed for about 50 days in Jackson, Miss.
Carmichael continued his involvement with the Civil Rights Movement and SNCC after his graduation with honours from Howard University in 1964. That summer he joined SNCC in Lowndes county, Alabama, for an African-American voter registration drive and helped to organize the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, an independent political party. A black panther was chosen as the party's emblem, a powerful image later adopted in homage by the Black Panther Party.
During this period Carmichael and others associated with SNCC supported the nonviolence approach to desegregation espoused by Martin Luther King, Jr., but Carmichael was becoming increasingly frustrated, having witnessed beatings and murders of several civil-rights activists. In 1966 he became the chairman of SNCC, and during a march in Mississippi he rallied demonstrators in founding the “black power” movement, which espoused self-defense tactics, self-determination, political and economic power, and racial pride. This controversial split from King's ideology of nonviolence and racial integration was seen by moderate blacks as detrimental to the civil-rights cause and was viewed with apprehension by many whites.
Before leaving SNCC in 1968, Carmichael traveled abroad speaking out against political and economic repression and denouncing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Upon his return, Carmichael's passport was confiscated and held for 10 months. He left the United States in 1969 and moved with his first wife (1968–79), South African singer Miriam Makeba, to Guinea, West Africa. He also changed his name to Kwame Toure in honour of two early proponents of Pan-Africanism, Ghanaian Kwame Nkrumah and Guinean Sékou Touré. Carmichael helped to establish the All-African People's Revolutionary Party, an international political party dedicated to Pan-Africanism and the plight of Africans worldwide. In 1971 he wrote Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism.
May 18, 2008
African dies in Belgian immigration officials’ brutal custody
Published Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Democratic Rights Law and Legal Cases Police and Prisons
Europe and Russian Federation
Demonstration in response to Ebenizer Sontsa's death By Luwezi Kinshasa, Secretary-General of the African Socialist International
MERKSPLAS, Belgium — Prisoners sparked a rebellion inside the Merksplas detention center in Belgium on Thursday, May 1, 2008 after 32-year-old Ebenizer Folefack Sontsa was found dead inside the prison. The prisoners clearly understood that the death of the African from Cameroon was no suicide, despite prison official’s claims that he hung himself.
Instead his death was but one of several acts of colonial violence imposed on him. Ebenizer Sontsa was thrown into the prison by the Belgian colonialist government that maintains a policy of locking up Africans on the pretext of immigration offences while Belgium continues to live off of our riches.
Brother Sontsa could have been killed the previous Saturday when he was assaulted by the police while screaming for help on board a Brussels Airline flight headed to Cameroon. A courageous African named Serge Fosso stood up and questioned the police’s violent attack on the brother while recording with a video camera. According to Fosso, he had to act as he was reminded of an African woman suffocated to death with a pillow by two Belgian police on a SABENA flight in 1998.
As more passengers began to protest the attack, the police were forced to abandon their action and move Ebenizer Sontsa to the detention center where he was found dead. The brother who defended him was thrown out of the plane without reimbursement, detained for 11 hours and banned from ever flying on Brussels Airlines again.
Ebenizer Sontsa’s case is not an isolated event. According to the website www.dibussi.com, “On March 27, [2008], 136 Nigerian passengers were ordered off a British Airways flight to Lagos after they complained about the brutal treatment of a man who was being deported to Nigeria. One of the passengers, Ayodeji Omotade, whom police considered the ringleader of the protest movement, was arrested, abandoned at the airport and banned from flying on British Airways.”
We agree with Brother Ebenizer’s lawyer, Maitre Alexis Deswaef, who holds the Belgian government responsible for his client's death and reveals that police tortured his client during the first expulsion attempt. In fact, witnesses say he was beaten so bad he could barely walk.
Officials at the Merksplas detention center have even had to admit that when Ebenizer’s body had signs of trauma when he returned to the center on Saturday.
We call on the African world to build an international world tribunal in the hands of Africans workers ourselves so that we can put our oppressors on trial and deliver justice on our own terms.
The Belgian police are guilty of murder The Belgian government, led by Prime Minister Yves Leterme, is also guilty of murder.
The government of Paul Biya in Cameroon as well as other neocolonial governments throughout Africa are all guilty of crimes of oppressing and exploiting African people.
The African working class must have power in our own hands!
Uhuru!
Source:http://uhurunews.com/story?resource_name=african-dies-in-belgian-immigration-s-brutal-custody
May 16, 2008
The Balleot or The Bullet (revised) is Obama Black Power?
Invitation
The conditions in the African community in the United States are dire, much like the conditions Africans find ourselves in around the world. African communities in the U.S. have been devastated by the subprime mortgage crisis. While the U.S. government bails out bankers, brokers and lenders who created and profited from the predatory lending practice that targeted Africans for subprime and adjustable rate mortgages, hundreds of thousands of African families have lost our homes.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to imprison more and more Africans to feed its failing economy. The current situation where one out of every nine African men of childbearing age is in prison in the U.S. is but a continuation of the brutally vicious convict leasing system established immediately after the emancipation proclamation supposedly “freed” enslaved Africans, the establishment of slavery as a means of punishment in the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the development of designer laws to drag masses of African people to prisons to provide free labor.
The so-called education system violates our children on a daily basis. As if an anti-African curriculum were not enough, the schools brutalize our children. Small children, like five-year-old Ja’eshia Scott in St. Petersburg, Florida or six-year-old Desire’e Watson in Avon Park, Florida, are handcuffed and imprisoned by police for so-called “temper tantrums.” Sixteen-year-old Pleajhai Mervin had her arm broken in Palmdale, California by one of the many cops who function in schools as military forces just because the cop said she didn’t clean up a dropped cake to his liking. Then there is Shaquanda Cotton who was locked up and sentenced to seven years in prison in Texas for allegedly pushing a hall monitor.
Lynch mob fervor continues to rise, be it from mobs of white workers or mobs of State military agents in the form of the police. The Jena Six case is but one example. Another example can be found in the case of Sean Bell who New York police decided to massacre with 50 bullets just hours before his wedding. Then there is the case of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnson of Atlanta, Georgia, who was shot down like a dog by a unit of police who kicked down the door of her home. Cases like these of vicious attacks against the African community can be found throughout the U.S.
Then again, no one can forget the Katrina situation in the Gulf Region, where the U.S. government not only left Africans to die with no access to food or clean water, but contained the African community of New Orleans with armed police and sent in troops from private contracting firms like those found in Iraq to murder African people. Even now, the government-imposed Katrina crisis continues as a fierce gentrification process is making it impossible for African people to return to our homes.
Amid this sea of colonial misery stands Barack Obama. Charming and articulate, Obama beckons us to follow him.
Obama is being presented to African people in this time of extreme crisis — when Africans would be looking for solutions other than through the system that has created all of our problems — as the solution. We are told that he brings “change we can believe in.” Never mind that he is the U.S. presidential candidate who has received the most funds from Wall Street. Nevermind that his advisors include Penny Pritzker, who made riches through the subprime crisis that is making Africans homeless now, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who as former U.S. president James Earl Carter’s national security advisor created the modern jihad to destroy the Soviet Union.
But does Obama actually represent a solution to the conditions of African people? Up to now, Barack Obama has refused to speak to the conditions African people face. The one time he was forced to mention African people — following statements made by his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright — he only glossed over them, equating the experience of African people, who exist as a domestic colony within U.S. borders, with that of working-class white people who feel “anger over welfare and affirmative action.”
So what solution would Barack Obama’s election as U.S. president mean for Africans suffering under unbearable conditions in what is being called a “post-racial” society?
Malcolm X raised the question of “the Ballot or the Bullet” back in the 1960s, another time when African masses were looking for our own solutions of Black Power independent of the Democratic and Republican parties. During that time, one response by white power, in addition to a massive military assault against the African community and our organizations, was to put forward as our representatives people who look like us but who actually served white power.
Come to African Liberation Day in Washington, D.C. on May 25, 2008 and participate in a symposium to discuss the question: “Is Barack Obama Black Power?”
Speakers participating include:
- Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP)
- Queen Mother Dorothy Benton Lewis, National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA)*
- Chokwe Lumumba, Chair of the New Afrikan People’s Organization (NAPO)
- Glen Ford, Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report
- Claudette Perry, Global Afrikan Congress (GAC)*
- Ajamu Sankofa, National Conference of Black Lawyers and N’COBRA*
- Dr. Aisha Fields, Director of the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP)
- Ivory Muhammad, President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) source:http://www.alduhuru.org/index.html
May 15, 2008
Do You Get Harassed, Stopped, or Arrested By The Cops?
(MxGM) Every year thousands of people are improperly stopped, detained, arrested, brutalized and even murdered by the police. Young people of Afrikan descent are frequent targets of the cops. Although most cops don't respect them, you do have legal rights.
IF THE COPS STOP YOU...
- .Ask if you are free to go.
- Stay calm; don't physically resist or run - you might get shot!
- Try to remember the badge number, name, and physical description of the cop(s) who stopped you.
- Say as little as possible, and only answer their basic questions (name and address).Talking to police will NEVER help you.
.They can only LEGALLY search you if they think you are armed and dangerous.
IF THE COPS SEARCH YOU...
- They can only LEGALLY search you for weapons, NOT for drugs.
-.Say loudly "I DO NOT CONSENT to this search" so that others around can hear you.
- Cops may search you illegally, but your lawyer might be able to get the evidence thrown out in court if the search was illegal.
IF THE COPS ARREST YOU...
- Don't say ANYTHING - Just ask for a lawyer! Don't talk to the police, speak on videotape, talk to a District Attorney, or other inmates about anything that has to do with the crime you may have been arrested for.
- You will be handcuffed, searched, photographed, and fingerprinted.
- Do not sign anything!! Cops are trained to trick you.
IF THE COPS INTERROGATE YOU...
- Cops have to read you your rights before they interrogate you.
- You should ask to speak to a lawyer - it will never help you to talk to the cops.
- If you decide to talk to the cops anyway, you can decide to stop talking at ANY time and ask for a lawyer - the cops then MUST stop interrogating you.
IF YOU ARE IN A CAR...
- If cops legally stop you and see something illegal in "plain view", they can search your car without warrant.
- If cops legally stop you, they can can frisk the driver and serarch the passenger compartment - they CANNOT search your trunk. Even if they arrest you - they CANNOT search your trunk on the scene.
- BUT if cops have probably cause that something in your trunk contains illegal contraband OR the car is impounded, cops can search the ENTIRE car (including the trunk).
- Never consent yo a search of your car - even if you have nothing illegal.
IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 16...
- Cops have to make a "reasonable effort" to reach your parent/guardian before they can start interrogating you. Your parent/guardian is allowed to sit in the room with you while you're being interrogated.
- Remember that even if your parent/guardian is there, you should still ALWAYS ask to speak to a lawyer before answering questions.
- Cops can stop you if you are hanging out during school time or if they suspect you are a runaway.
Need info on a friend/relative who's been arrested? Call Central Booking in that borough:
Bronx: 718/590-2817
Brooklyn: 718/935-9210
Manhattan: 212/374-5818
Queens: 718/520-9311
Staten Island: 718/876-8493
If you need legal representation or advice on a police abuse or brutality case please call one of the following organizations:
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
718-254-8800
Neighborhood Defenders Service of Harlem (Harlem Residents Only)
212-876-550
National Lawyers Guild
212-679-5100
New York Civil Liberties Union
212-607-3300
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
212-614-6464
NYPD Report 2006-2007
Total Number in New York City Population:
White: 3.6 million
Black: 2.2 million
Total Police Stops:
White: 94,530
Black: 453,042
Number of Stops That Did Not Result In An Arrest Or Summons
White: 83,452
Black: 402,943
Stops As Percentage of Population:
White: 2.6%
Black: 21.1%
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is an organization of Afrikans in America / New Afrikans whose mission is to defend the human rights of our people and promote self-determination in our community. In order to survive as a people, it is necessary that we not only UNDERSTAND OUR RIGHTS but also DEFEND THEM.
MXGM's People's Self-Defense Campaign (PSDC) observes, documents, and prevents incidents of police misconduct and brutality through educating and organizing our community and supporting survivors/victims of this misconduct.
The Goals of PSDC:
1 - Immediately convict all police officers guilty of misconduct in our community.
2 - Fire Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and make the role of Police Commissioner an elected position.
3 - Community Control: we determine how our community is policed.
4 - Independent investigations of ALL Police killings.
5 - End to militarized anti-crime programs such as Operation Impact.
This program is not intended to engage police in conflict. It is geared to see that we are protected from widespread abuses that have become commonplace and have largely gone without punishment.
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM)
P.O. Box 471711
Brooklyn, New York 11247
www.mxgm.org
(718) 254-8800
"If we're going to talk about police brutality, it's because police brutality exists. Why does police brutality exist? Because our people in this particular society live in a police state"
- Malcolm X
May 14, 2008
Thug Life Army Records to Release In The Shadow of an Icon 12/14
Grassroots record label Thug Life Army Records is set to re-arrange the urban hip hop landscape with the release of their highly anticipated hip hop project 'In The Shadow of an Icon'.
In stores January 15th nationwide, 'In The Shadow of an Icon' is a unique project putting artists from all across the nation together for a meaningful message filled CD, built on the 'thought process' of the late hip hop and rap icon Tupac Shakur (2Pac). The project contains no music by Tupac (2Pac), but it does reveal artists who grew out of the 'shadow' of the hip hop Icon
As we see the urban hip hop musical landscape infiltrated by corporate hip hop and what seems to be so much music with out a meaning, this unique project from Thug Life Army Records focuses on the 'real' things going on in the streets and in the lives of many in hip hop culture.
Hip Hop icon Tupac Shakur was more than a rap artist. He was also a poet, an activist, a reporter and yes a teacher. The artists put forth on this unique project have all learned and have crafted their skills out of the 'shadow' of the teacher Tupac Shakur; they too have re-taken the place of 'street reporter' to enlighten, spread the news and/or deliver true street messages in their rhymes.
This project, from Thug Life Army Records, distributed by Fontana/AMG/Universal/, was released to all the major digital download sites in mid December and is available now for on line download.
If your local record source does not have the CD ask them to order it and if your local radio station is not playing tracks from 'In The Shadow of an Icon' please request that they do. Support of this album will show that Hip Hop is not Dead, people are just not looking in the right places for it.
When asked about the direction the music takes in the CD, RB explains "The various sides and teachings of the 'man', Tupac Amaru Shakur are represented on this CD - from his street side, to his political side, to his deep inner self. A total look is taken at the course Tupac had traveled in his short life. A picture of Tupac's life is a picture of many of our lives. His up's and down's are roads many of us have shared along the way. That is why Tupac gained the respect of almost everyone in the hip hop community - we could feel his pain and joys, as he felt ours. His words and teachings remain relevant today because the situation has not changed since Pac first started exposing the real truth of hood life, and the artists on this project continue with
Pac's message of 'keeping it real' thru real talk. No spinning rims or drinking in the club, just solid true about the reality of being raised in a society that does not understand you or your situation."
"Violence has touched many in this country, not only the hip hop community. This is not only a requiem for the life of Tupac and for all the fallen 'souljahs' who have died needlessly or have found themselves in situations they cannot control, but it also emphasizes why the lyrics that Tupac spit and the knowledge he put forth is still relevant today; because nothing has really changed over the last 11 years since Tupac was murdered, and the artists on this project came together to put out a hip hop album with a 'meaningful message'."
With over 25 different artists participating in the project, there are many backgrounds and each artist has their own region where they rep from and their own experiences in life.
Here is the track list for 'In the Shadow of an Icon' and more information can be found at http://www.myspace.com/intheshadowofanicon or on the Thug Life Army Records web site at http://thuglifearmyrecords.com .
Track list for 'In the Shadow of an Icon'
Disc One
1.) Boo Kapone - KNOWLEDGE
2.) Concrete Souljahs - Walk wit me
3.) allfrumtha i - Everywhere I Go (good and evil)
4.) SUPe – The System
5.) Hustle Creed - We Live and We Die
6.) Purple Lounge "H.O.P.E"
7.) Nolan – PEOPLE
8.) 1223 - Wish I Knew
9.) Jasiri X and Franchise - 2 Pacs More
Producer: Paradise Gray (X Clan) and GM3
10.) Page 1 - Fallen
11.) Ebony Burks – Choice
12.) G Luv - Revelation
13.) FAME – Next 2 Kin
14.) U.N.D feat. Teeka – Understand
15.) binky mack - Conflict Of Interest
Disc Two
1.) Kemo the Blaxican - Breathe
2.) Celly Cel - No Tomorrow
3.) Dolo - So Much Drama
4.) Qwiccshott - Never
5.) Sammy B feat Big Dee – No Half Steppin
6.) 3RDegree – Broken Home
7.) allfrumtha i - Me & My Dawg
8.) K – Loron – Speed of Life
9.) Concrete Souljahs - Related to the Undergroud
10.) Tommy Danger - Run for Cover
11.) Wize-Fool – DANGEROUS FREE THINKER
12.) binky mack - Taken Over
13.) Malign20 - Hopes and Dreams
14.) Queen Josie - Young Men of Today (Spoken Word)
Web Site - http://thuglifearmyrecords.com
And on MySpace at - http://www.myspace.com/intheshadowofanicon
and http://www.myspace.com/thuglifearmyrecords
Press Contact
RB Riddle
ThugLifeArmyrecords@gmail.com
Cell – 513-673-3144
For radio mp3's and/or a press promo copies of the album for review or banners to help promote this project on your site please contact RB Riddle or Thug Life Army Records at Info@ThugLifeArmyRecords.com
Interactive One, Radio One's Digital Unit, Inks Exclusive Multi-Year Advertising Deal With AllHipHop.com, the #1 Site for Urban News
Interactive One + AllHipHop.com means extended reach into sought-after urban demographic online
NEW YORK, May 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Interactive One, the digital division of Radio One. (NASDAQ:ROIAK) (NASDAQ:and) (NASDAQ:ROIA) , in partnership with AllHipHop.com (AHH), the fastest growing provider of music related urban online content, today announce a five-year multi million dollar deal to offer advertisers access to the most engaged and active African-Americans online. The move aligns two of the most prominent African-American media organizations, creating the largest and most scaleable online advertising network targeting the African-American consumer. The combined traffic of both Interactive One and AllHipHop.com will give advertisers access to more than 4 million monthly unique visitors and over 500 million page views.
"We firmly believe that the future for the African-American consumer and those dedicated to communicating with them is in new media, and as such, this relationship extends our commitment to being the online leader in the African-American space," said Alfred Liggins III, CEO of Radio One, Inc. "Our relationship with AllHipHop.com is another example of our ability to enable blue chip advertisers to reach African-Americans online, whether it is across social networks, online news outlets, or digital content providers. AllHipHop.com is the leading site for all things relating to hip hop and their editorial vision and product innovation is a great complement to our sales and marketing expertise."
Interactive One will be the exclusive sales agent for AllHipHop.com. The move gives the site access to Interactive One's valuable relationships with big name advertisers while also extending Interactive One's online reach, offering advertisers a one-stop media solution to address the unique values and needs of the African-American online consumer.
The combined reach of Interactive One and AllHipHop.com will now give advertisers access to the largest group of active African-Americans online who have yielded more than 500 million page views across their combined properties per month. Interactive One's existing online brands include Blackplanet.com (the largest social network targeting African Americans, with over 18 million members), Giantmag.com, MiGente.com, Newsone.com, TVONE.TV and the websites of 53 urban radio stations across the country.
Both companies have seen tremendous growth in 2008. Interactive One recently launched Newsone.com in addition to last month's acquisition of Community Connect Inc., the largest publisher of niche social networks reaching more than 23 million multicultural social networking users in the U.S. This, combined with AllHipHop.com's unparalleled access to the urban trendsetting community, gives advertisers the opportunity to integrate into the largest digital network that provides news, information, entertainment, community, tools and services that uniquely speak to African-Americans.
"We expect that 2008 will continue to be a landmark, thrilling banner year for AHH Holdings and this deal will act as a mutually beneficial situation that will allow all parties to delve into new business arenas," said Chuck Creekmur, co-founder and CEO of AllHipHop.com. "It pleases us to enter into this deal at such a pivotal moment for AllHipHop.com, as we celebrate our 10th year anniversary in '08."
This exciting partnership is the first of many major announcements that AHH Holdings LLC, parent company to AllHipHop.com, plans to make in conjunction with their 10th Year Anniversary Program. As the pioneering leading source of urban news and information on the Internet, the AllHipHop brand looks to expand into television programs, concert series, and numerous global branding opportunities and will continue to be a force in Internet innovation for years to come.
ABOUT ALLHIPHOP.COM For 9 years now, AllHipHop.com has been the #1 online destination for Hip-Hop news, reviews and industry insights. Continuing to strive for excellence as a website but also a business entity, AllHipHop.com won the Rising Star' Award from Black Enterprise, May 2006, delivering over 150 million audited impressions per month and growing. AllHipHop.com is the world's most visited Hip-Hop/urban website and attracts an average of 5 million visitors per month. AllHipHop.com is the brainchild of "Grouchy" Greg Watkins and Chuck "Jigsaw" Creekmur. The website was launched in 1998 and has become the premier Hip-Hop/urban news provider on the web. The site features daily updates, interviews, reviews and a fast growing community, sharing news and views of their own. Sources as varied as CNN, The Associated Press, The O'Reilly Factor, XXL Magazine, VIBE and the New York Daily News all regularly use AllHipHop.com's pages. Since 1998, the site has also been an innovator in the mobile field, delivering daily news alerts to over 300,000 music industry taste makers and Hip-Hop lovers' phones and emails. Watkins registered AllHipHop.com in 1997 and initially used it as a vehicle to promote artists that were recording for his fledgling imprint, Oblique Recordings. In late 1997, Charles "Jigsaw" Creekmur was working on another Internet venture and the two combined forces and created the first version of AllHipHop.com. Since then, the independently owned site has grown organically and has grown to rival several of the top sites on the Internet, including BET.com, MTV.com and others. Essence Magazine noted AHH as 1 of the 4 top music websites among YouTube.com and MySpace.com in the June 2007 issue and VIBE Magazine in its annual Juice issue, ranked AHH as #29 out of the top 100 music industry leaders. AllHipHop.com is the only urban site to expand its reach outside of the internet.
ABOUT RADIO ONE, INC. (http://www.radio-one.com/) is one of the nation's largest radio broadcasting companies and the largest radio broadcasting company that primarily targets African-American and urban listeners. On a pro forma basis, after closing the sale of our Los Angeles station, Radio One will own and/or operate 53 radio stations located in 16 urban markets in the United States. Additionally, Radio One owns Magazine One, Inc. (d/b/a Giant Magazine) (http://www.giantmag.com/), interests in TV One, LLC (http://www.tvoneonline.com/), a cable/satellite network programming primarily to African-Americans, Reach Media, Inc. (http://www.blackamericaweb.com/), owner of the Tom Joyner Morning Show and other businesses associated with Tom Joyner, and Community Connect Inc., an on-line social-networking company, which operates a number of branded websites, including BlackPlanet, MiGente, and Asian Avenue.
Source: Radio One
CONTACT: Taryn Langer of Group SJR, +1-212-751-3392,
tlanger@groupsjr.com, for Interactive One; or Tammy Brook of FYI Public
Relations, +1-212-586-2240, for AllHipHop
Web site: http://www.radio-one.com/
Russell Simmons, Majora Carter and Bhai Mohinder Singh Will Be 2008 Hollister Award Recipients
NEW YORK, May 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Russell Simmons, music industry pioneer, entrepreneur and philanthropist, will receive a 2008 Hollister Award on September 18, 2008 from the Temple of Understanding (ToU) in honor of his work to bridge the divide between people of different religions and cultures.
Majora Carter, the second awardee, will be honored for her work to bring social and environmental justice to poor and disenfranchised communities around the world. She is a leading urban revitalization strategist, the founder of Sustainable South Bronx, and a 2005 MacArthur "Genius" Fellow.
Bhai Mohinder Singh, the third awardee, is the leader of the largest Sikh community in the United Kingdom. He will be honored for his work as an intra- and inter-faith educator and for his dedication to advancing interfaith issues at the United Nations.
The three awardees will join a distinguished list of past recipients, which includes: His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Dr. Wangari Maathai, Peter Max, Daniel Pearl, Fr. Thomas Keating, Queen Noor of Jordan, Maestro Ravi Shankar and Dr. Thomas Berry.
The United Nations Delegate's Dining Hall is the location for this year's event. Among the 300+ guests, UN dignitaries, leaders of national and international organizations, past awardees, corporate leaders, religious dignitaries, and music industry leaders are expected to attend.
The Hollister Award is presented to religious figures who bring interfaith values into the place of worship; and secular figures who promote greater understanding of spiritual values in areas such as the arts, education, media, government, science, law and ecology.
The Temple of Understanding is a leader in educating youth and adults cross culturally and inter-religiously in order to alleviate fear and hatred between different ethnic and religious groups. Founded in 1960 by Juliet Hollister, with the support of Eleanor Roosevelt and leaders from religion and politics, ToU is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit and NGO in Consultative Status with the United Nations.
The Executive Director of ToU is Alison Van Dyk. His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama is one of the Honorary Chairpersons. The co-Chairpersons are Sherry B. Bronfman, Marshia Glazebrook, and Laxmi Shah.
If you'd like further information or to schedule an interview, please
contact Andrea Brown at 212-573-9224, ext 22 or
info@templeofunderstanding.org
Source: The Temple of Understanding
CONTACT: Andrea Brown of Temple of Understanding, +1-212-573-9224, ext.
22, +1-646-522-0529 (Mobile), info@templeofunderstanding.org
Web Site: http://www.templeofuderstanding.org/
Kevin Epps, hip hop filmmaker, wins Silver Telly Award
May, 2008 – San Francisco, CA - Mastamind Productions LLC. announces that Hip hop filmmaker Kevin Epps' production on Current TV, "Popped in Oakland" has won a Silver Telly Award. "Popped in Oakland" shows the victims of street violence side of the story that's mostly discarded by the nightly news, says Current TV's Roberto C. Grijalva, also co-producer of "Popped in Oakland", 'Epps has done a great job making sure these stories are not ignored. "Popped in Oakland" won the Silver Telly Award in the Cultural category.
Information about the production
"Popped in Oakland" takes a deep look at gun-related violence and the affects it has on young black men. Here the testimony of those who've survived shootings and get a deeper look into what one doctor is calling "an epidemic of violent crime in the African-American community."
About Current TV Current TV is an Emmy award winning independent media company led by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt. Current features "pods", or short programs, of which a portion are created by viewers and users. Current TV is the first 24-hour network based around viewer-created content, which it dubs VC2. Users (called VC2 Producers) contribute three-to-seven- minute "pods", which are on a variety of subject matter. The content is filtered by registered users on Current's website through a voting process, but pods are ultimately approved or disapproved by Current's on-air programming department. VC2 makes up a portion of the material aired on the channel. Users can also create Viewer Created Ad Messages, or V-CAMs and Current TV promos which are small promotions for either Current TV or the general topic of VC2. The channel has exclusive broadcast rights in all medium for perpetuity on viewer-submitted pods, and in some cases outright ownership of the pod and its raw footage, although this is negotiated on a pod by pod basis.
About Telly Awards The Telly Awards recognizes distinction in creative work," honoring outstanding local and regional television commercials and productions, as well as non-broadcast video productions. The Telly Awards were founded in 1978 by David E. Carter, a past Emmy and Clio Award winner who has written several books on corporate branding and design. In recent years, the Telly Award has become a highly sought award and is recognized as a true accomplishment in the field of Commercials and Television Programs. www.tellyawards.com
About Kevin Epps Kevin Epps (2002) hardcore hip-hop documentary "Straight Outta Hunter's Point" won local and national acclaim, launched Epps into the spotlight, and pioneered a new genre, shot all digital it established him as a leader in digital, independent film and new media. Epps other work, Rap Dreams (2006) about the struggles of upcoming rappers receive recognition as well. Kevin is in the process of completing a new documentary feature, The Black Rock: The Untold story of the African-American experience at Alcatraz. His other most recent work ranging from gun violence to black fatherhood can be seen airing nationwide on Current TV, a network founded by former Vice President Al Gore. Epps sits on the board (DMAC), Digital Media Advisory Council, and is an advisory Board member, of the San Francisco Black Film Festival.
Press:
Kevin Epps
kevepps@gmail.com
Hidden in Plain Sight -Positive Messages in Mainstream Rap Songs
Hidden in Plain Sight -Positive Messages in Mainstream Rap Songs courtesy of Rap & Rock confidential
rockrap@aol. com
"Hip-hop needs to find the next subject. Politics and social stuff—those are going to be the next real subjects groups get into.
"
—George Clinton-
, Detroit Free Press, summer 2007
Too many in the hip hop audience accept the big lie promoted by opportunist preachers and politicians that hip-hop is only about madness and misogyny. The truth is very different. There are many, many hip-hop songs reaching millions of people which carry a message of unity, songs whose protests and promise promote a vision of a world without war, poverty, and racism. The truth here should set us free, free of false divisions between mainstream and underground, between bling bling and backpack.
Let us know what we've missed.
"All of Me," 50 Cent featuring Mary J.
Blige—Two heavyweights talk about politics at square one, between a man and a woman in a relationship. Fifteen rounds of intense negotiation lead to the kind of "win win" outcome music manages best.
"Bendicion Mami," Fat Joe—A tribute to his mother and, just like Tupac, it resonates beyond the individual situation because our mothers are held up as subhuman by the media and by the masters of puppets in the White House. Here it's also about unconditional love for one's family and support in the face of physical illness and the sickness of the system.
"Black and Brown," Xzibit—"80% of inmates are black and Hispanic/They're trying to wipe us off of this planet/Dammit….That's why we've got to sit down/And talk about the black and the brown." A love song to brothers thrown against brothers in Los Angeles, nationwide and worldwide, with a dream of what could happen if we learned to focus on our real enemy.
"Buck the World," Young Buck—"My rent due/Baby need food and shoes/I'm flat broke/Still I refuse to lose." A song about reaching the breaking point and choosing life anyway, changing a "Fuck the World" goodbye to a "Buck the World" throwdown.
"Cold World," Xzibit—A rap that follows the money at the root of a young woman savaged by a dehumanizing job then by unemployment, of a kid locked into a losing street hustle and of an Iraqi family facing guns and bombs.
"Concrete Jungle," Jim Jones, featuring Max B, Rell, Dr.
Ben Chavis and Noe—There's power to Jones's shout out to his "political soldiers" behind bars—without romanticizing the streets, he's dreaming of the world that can come out of making the culture of those streets work for us.
"Do Your Time," Ludacris with Beanie Siegel and C-Murder—A roll call of friends and loved ones locked down by a justice system "fucked up," bolstered by details of life behind bars, suggestions for how to support these brothers and sisters and contemplating what MLK would think of how far we have to go.
"Dreams," The Game—King's dreams again, asking us to contemplate what they have in common with those of Huey Newton, Easy E, Marshall Mathers, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Jackson, Aaliyah and Left Eye Lopez.
"Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It," Ice Cube—Lays waste to the logic that blames rap for everything from selling crack to college shootings, in fact arguing that gangsta's the loudest voice against everyday violence. And the reason, Cube explains, "Lyrically I'm so lethal…Just to feed all my people.
"
"Georgia Bush," Lil' Wayne—Sums up the first year after Katrina, calling the President out for ongoing genocide. A sample of Ray Charles's "Georgia" not only emasculates the president but restores the power of that refrain free of nostalgia.
"Get Ya Hustle On," Juvenile—Life after Katrina's a lot like life before Katrina, "your mayor ain't your friend/he's the enemy," your friends are behind bars, and there's no government for the people just a hustle to stay alive. But this song's not about defeat—"It's crunch time," Juvenile declares, "It's the movement.
"
"Ghetto, Arab Remix," Ali B featuring Yes-R & Akon—This call for worldwide unity features Morrocan rappers Ali-B and Yes-R joined by R&B singer Akon, who has his own roots both in St. Louis and West Africa.
"Hangin' On (My Song)," Chingo Bling—Biggie rapped about contemplating suicide, here it's the terrorism of the immigration police that puts a man in that mind state.
"Hard Out Here for a Pimp," Three 6 Mafia—Oscar or not, this song stands strong on its own, deromanticizing the hustle of "seeing people killed and seeing people deal and seeing people live in poverty with no meal.
"
"Hate It or Love It," The Game and 50 Cent—"The underdog's on top, and I'm going to shine, homie, until my heart stop." Summons Rakim and Marvin Gaye to remind listeners that playa hatin' avoids the hard work of dealing with the power structure.
"Hip Hop Police," Chamillionaire featuring Slick Rick—Cites Snoop Dogg's "Murder Was the Case" to suggest hip hoppers not let themselves be turned against each other but, instead, stay focused on the real sources of injustice.
"Hope," Twista and Faith Evans—Twista wishes, "I could go deep in a zone/And lift the spirits of the world with the words within this song." He does just that and so much more, calling for his brother to get out of jail, his grandmother to get well, an end to drug dealing, war and poverty. Faith's refrains make it easy to "take this music and use it, let it take you away.
"
"Imagine," Snoop Dogg, Dr.
Dre and D'Angelo—In this world without hip hop, there's all the same poverty, sickness, madness and death except no music to bring people together to fight.
"Let's Get This Paper," Rich Boy—May be the angriest, hardest-hitting political statement anyone's made about the war against the poor, here at home and over in Iraq.
"Lighter's Up," Lil Kim—In English and in Spanish, Brooklyn's self-proclaimed queen of rap serves up this reggaeton-flavored rap for unity, "no matter where you from.
"
"Live Again," Yin Yang Twins—Dirty South bad boys contemplate the quiet agonies of women forced out of their homes and into the streets, taking off their clothes to feed their kids and hoping for a second chance at life. D-Roc bemoans the fact that the schools don't prepare these women for the world they face, and the preachers don't give them refuge, so their hopes and dreams only find voice in rap.
"Make Me Better," Fabolous and Ne-Yo—A Brooklyn rapper joins forces with a sweet voiced refrain to show just how much we need one another.
"Memphis," Eightball & MJG—A rally cry for unity among all the hoods of the Mid-South, calling upon the region's rich musical history and pointing toward a future where all the ghettos nationwide come together.
"My Hood," Young Jeezy—"Everytime I do it, I do it for my hood/And everytime I do it, I do it for your hood/and everytime I do it, I do it for they hood/It's understood….
"100 Years," Plies—Story after story indicting a justice system out to put every young man in the hood behind bars, asking such pointed questions as "how in the fuck can four birds get you a life sentence, but give a cracker seven years for money launderin' millions?"
"Over and Over," Nelly—Even without the video of a day in the parallel lives of Tim McGraw and Nelly, these blues suggest the strong ties that bind Nelly being "country" to country music.
"Pal Norte," Calle 13—This rap about the political vision of an immigrant to El Norte ran in heavy MTV rotation after its album knocked Jennifer Lopez off the top of the Latin pop charts in 2007.
"Ridin'," Chamillionaire—A tribute to the Undeground Kings's "Ridin' Dirty," this huge hit is the catchiest, boldest protest of racial profiling yet.
"Runaway Love," Ludacris with Mary J.
Blige—Just what it sounds like, a love song to children fleeing violence and a dream of a future those kids can live for.
"Slap," Ludacris—A working man's blues that runs through the details of a hard scrabble life, growls at the wealthy, tells the President to just shut up, and then stops and contemplates the abyss. "Troops gone and we still at war/Nobody even knows what for/Even more I'm scared to find what the world really has in store.
"
"Slippin'," Lil' Kim featuring Denaun Porter—"Fuck the law, the whole system's corrupt," Kim declares as she describes just what's universal about the dog-eat-dog situation that landed her in jail.
"Speaker," David Banner featuring Akon, Lil Wayne & Snoop Dogg—West Coast and Southern unity "busting out of your speakers," relishing a sense of power and self control that comes with others at your side.
"Stand Up," Eightball & MJG—A call to the South, East, West and Worldwide for rappers to talk straight, stay true, stand up for each other, go the distance and forget those who've got nothing better than do than hate on other artists.
"Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill)," Wyclef Jean with Lil' Wayne and Akon—A redemption song for a high school sweetheart all but lost to that same mess that threatens to take us all down.
"The Message," Styles P—To each member of his family, to his hood, to his crew, to the poor, to the jail, to the kids, to the ladies, to the rich, to the world, the messages P leaves vary in specifics, but they're tied together by "one is all and all is one/I'm going to see us all rich before all is done.
"
"The Morning News," Chamillionaire—After the enormous success of his debut album, this Houston rapper opened his second album with this attack on the emptiness of television news, where Rosie debates the Donald and the latest gaffes by Paris Hilton and Michael Jackson are worth more time than the reality that your tax dollars just "pay for classes," CEO's are "slavemasters….and if you ain't upper class/then your opinion is irrelevant.
"
"The Way I Live," Baby Boy Da Prince—An appreciation of life in Marrero, one of the neighborhoods spared by Katrina's floodwaters but not New Orleans' neglect and devastation before or after.
"We Takin' Over," DJ Khaled (with Rick Ross, T.I.
, Lil' Wayne, Fat Joe and Akon)—Exactly what it sounds like, blasting off with tympani and some kind of outer space choral/keyboard part that says, think big and then think bigger. Arab-American, West African, Latino and African-American voices plan a takeover, "one city at a time….with enough work to feed the whole town." A manic Lil' Wayne vocal promises that those who polite society most fear will soon be heard.
"What's Going On," Remy Ma with Keisha Cole—A heartbroken prayer to an aborted child from a young mother, without money or even support from her family or the father of her child, waiting for an answer.
"Why We Thugs," Ice Cube—The original gangsta still standing spells out the tough questions gangsta's critics either don't think hard enough to ask or willfully dismiss.
"Call me an animal up in the system/But who's the animal that built this prison?/Who's the animal that invented lower living?
*****
"The turn to death themes in the spirituals was partly due to the execution of Nat Turner in 1831. Soon after, many songs included references to the coming 'Judgment Day' for the plantation regime and, later, for the Confederacy—'Can't stand the fire.' Turner's rebellion also sparked a movement that spread white Christian missionaries across the South in order to establish churches for African-Americans that used only approved songs. The battle over lyrics and music censorship, sacred and secular, has been fully engaged ever since. The day-to-day life of the plantation bloc was built around perpetual monitoring of the behavior of blacks and whites.
"— Clyde Powers, from Development Arrested: Race, Power, and the Blues in the Mississippi Delta
5:08 PM
Inglewood police fatally shoot passenger, wound driver
Monday, May 12, 2008
Inglewood police fatally shoot passenger, wound driver So folks who don't know, here's what's going on.. Police terrorist committed a Sean Bell type murder on mother's day here in LA. They shot up a car filled with unarmed Black men after supposedly hearing gun-shots. Non of the passengers had a gun, committed a crime or shot anyone. The car was so riddled with bullets it look like swiss cheese. They showed the car on today's morning newscasts. This latest incident comes at the heels of a swarm of Philadelphia police beating down 3 men and the acquittal of NYPD officers who shot Sean Bell 50 times... Not sure what more can be said or done at this point, but it can't be business as usual. |
Jewish code snarls probe into Crown Heights attack
BY LARRY MCSHANE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, May 9th 2008, 4:00 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2008/05/09/2008-05-09_jewish_code_snarls_probe_into_crown_heig.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2008/05/09/2008-05-09_jewish_code_snarls_probe_into_crown_heig.html
Long before the first rapper stopped snitching or any Mafiosi swore an oath of omertà, there was the Jewish law of mesira.
The tenet that forbids Jews from informing on fellow Jews is one of the hurdles facing Brooklyn prosecutors probing the April 14 attack on a black man by two Jewish men, sources told the Daily News.Authorities - invoking a complaint long cited in cases involving rappers - said the initial probe was hindered by the local Hasidim's refusal to cooperate.
One source suggested the Orthodox community was taking a page from the rap world's "stop snitching" handbook. But it was actually lifted directly from the Code of Jewish Law."The Hebrew word is mesira, which means basically you are not allowed to be an informant," said Rabbi Shea Hecht, a well-known figure in Crown Heights.
"In essence, I am not allowed to snitch, period."
The attack in Crown Heights led Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes to empanel an investigative grand jury to try to shake loose reluctant witnesses. It's the same technique prosecutors tried unsuccessfully in the slaying of rapper Busta Rhymes' bodyguard in 2006.
Rhymes and about 50 other witnesses refused to cooperate with cops. Their decision was based on street cred. The slaying remains unsolved.When college student Andrew Charles was attacked in Crown Heights by two men wearing yarmulkes last month, police quickly identified a suspect - the driver of the getaway SUV.
Menachem Ezagui came to the 71st Precinct stationhouse with a lawyer after the vehicle was discovered. Police sources said he refused to answer any questions.
Charles, 20, the son of a city cop, was walking on Albany Ave. when a bicycle-riding assailant sprayed him with Mace. The SUV then pulled up, with a second man jumping out to smash the college sophomore twice with a nightstick, police said.
Cops have made no arrests. A lawyer sought to broker a deal that would have led two Jewish suspects to surrender on reduced charges. Sources said the district attorney's office rejected the deal, insisting the attack was too severe.
According to Hecht, mesira is not an all-encompassing concept - common sense supersedes the law, as does the responsibility of preventing injury to others. "You're not allowed to stand on the blood of your brother," he said.
That comes with a loophole, too. If Jews are convinced that one of their own will not get a fair shake from authorities, they have no obligation to cooperate.
"There are double standards - sometimes they work to your advantage," Hecht said. "To think there's no political element to justice in America would be foolish."
__._,_.__._,___ANOTHER AMADOU SUES "TAUNT' COPS
ANOTHER AMADOU DIALLO SUES ’TAUNT’ COPS ANOTHER AMADOU SUES 'TAUNT' COPS By KATI CORNELL ("TRAGIC VICTIM: In 1999, Amadou Diallo was fatally gunned down by cops who fired 41 shots at him in front of his Bronx building .  May 10, 2008 -- "Oh, you're back from the dead," the officers crudely joked as they cuffed Diallo, 26, who was stopped while parking his car with his wife in the passenger seat on Feb. 26, according to the suit filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court. "The fact that plaintiff's name is Amadou Diallo - a common name in Guinea, Africa, where both plaintiff and the victim of the '41-shot' slaying . . . were born - was a source of amusement, laughing and inappropriate joking amongst the officers," the suit states. The cops initially told Diallo his headlight was out, but it was only an excuse to search his car on a "hunch," according to the suit, which comes amid unrest over acquittals in the recent slaying of Sean Bell by cops who fired 50 shots. "One of the officers then claimed to have found a knife in the vehicle," according to the suit, filed by lawyer Joel Berger. Diallo was "handcuffed and thrown against the hood of his vehicle and his head was banged on the hood." "There was no such knife," the suit says, calling it "a subterfuge to bring [him] to a police precinct for questioning about gang activity." Diallo was subjected to "crude and disgusting comments" by the cops because of his name, according to the suit, which seeks unspecified damages from the city and the NYPD. "We have not yet received the legal papers," a city Law Department spokeswoman said in a statement. Nearly all of the cops at the scene were white. Diallo was taken from 136th Street and Eighth Avenue and brought to the 32nd Precinct station house at around 8:30 p.m., where he was placed in a holding cell and interrogated. About 24 hours later, he appeared before a judge to face a knife-possession charge, which prosecutors dropped. Court papers show Assistant DA Chris Prevost told the judge cops had failed to submit the necessary paperwork to support the arrest. The Amadou Diallo who became a household name in 1999 was shot dead by four plainclothes cops in The Bronx on Feb. 4 of that year. The cops who confronted him on the steps of his apartment building mistakenly thought he was reaching for a gun as he moved to pull out his wallet. The cops fired 41 rounds at him, but were acquitted of criminal charges. |
May 13, 2008
NEW JAMAICAN WRITER SECURES INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING DEAL AFTER WiSPA PRIZE COMPETITION
NEW JAMAICAN WRITER SECURES INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING DEAL AFTER WiSPA PRIZE COMPETITION Written by Mark on March 5th, 2008
WiSPA 2006 finalist, Helen Williams, is having her award winning entry published by London company, A & C Black Publishers Ltd. The story ‘Finding My Roots’ is featured in an anthology entitled ‘All in the Family’ which is due to be released in May 2008. The contract was secured after WILDE Network promoted the short story to several publishers in the UK. This is just one the numerous benefits of entering the annual WiSPA Creative Writing Prize competition; other prizes include cash, laptops, books and vouchers.
The WiSPA Creative Writing Prize which is set to become one of Jamaica’s most prestigious arts awards is hosted by UK company WILDE Network Limited in partnership with DMA (Ja) Ltd. The competition is the central feature of the annual WiSPA Literary Retreat, which brings together women from the US, UK and Jamaica for two weeks of creative writing workshops. The free workshops will be taking place from 24th November – 8th December 2008 at Jackies-on-the-reef in Negril.
Speaking about the Prize, Managing Director of WILDE, Jendayi Headlam , a Jamaican living in the UK stated: “We are very excited and honoured to be able to provide this opportunity for our Jamaican sisters. Not only does the prize give women a sense of achievement, pride and self-powerment, it is also a real source of opportunity for our writers to engage an international audience and increase their earning power.”
The 2007 Awards ceremony was held at the Hilton Hotel, Kingston and celebrated the achievements of Jamaican women. Last year’s winners were Ann-Margaret Lim and Sabrena McDonald in the short story and poetry sections respectively. Sabrena McDonald said: “Winning first prize in the WiSPA poetry competition was more than encouragement to me as a writer; it was the needed nudge for me to seriously work on compiling my anthology for my first publication and also an added inspiration for me to rediscover my voice as a spoken word performer. All in all, it has encouraged me to keep writing as a woman with opinions and as a human with purpose. So….write on!”
WiSPA 2008 is now inviting women to register their intention to enter. Closing date for registration is 30th June 2008 and all entries must be submitted by 31st August 2008. Registration forms and full details about this year’s competition can be found at www.wilde2000.org.uk/wispa or by emailing wispa-prize@wilde2000.org.uk.
About WILDE International Network
Founded in 1999 and incorporated in 2003, WILDE International Network is an arts production company, whose services include learning & development, events design & management, audio services and publishing. WiSPA is the annual literary retreat for female authors and poets from the UK and the US who are joined by their Jamaican counter-parts, in an invigorating interaction of diverse feminine creativity.
Contact:
Mike Brooks, DMA on 876 850 2755
Jendayi Headlam, Public Relations, WILDE International Network, +44 794-940-0495 or email jendayi@wilde2000.org.uk
Jamaican Author Tells Immigrant’s Story
Jamaican Author Tells Immigrant’s Story Written by GeorgeGraham on May 6th, 2008
Popular author George Graham, whose book, “Hill-an’-Gully Rider,” sparked widespread comment in the Caribbean, explores the life of a Jamaican immigrant in his new novel, “The Color of Ice: A Canadian Serenade.”
Born in Black River, Jamaica, Graham immigrated to Canada during the late 1950s and lived there for about 20 years, with two breaks to return to live and work in Jamaica. During one break he was Public Relations Director for the Jamaica Industrial Development Corporation, and during the other he was one of the founding editors of The Jamaica Daily News.
His Daily News columns created intense controversy, and when he declared he was “voting with his feet” to return to Canada in 1973, he was subjected to a torrent of abuse and even received threats on his life.
The episode that sparked his decision to leave Jamaica had nothing to do with his columns, however. It was sparked by a car-jacking during which an escaped prisoner held a pistol to his head for nearly half an hour before dumping him in the street and taking off.
The gunman was killed a few days later in a shoot-out with police, and the car was found wrecked and abandoned on a country road. The trunk was full of ganja (which, Graham hastened to make clear, was placed in the trunk by the car jacker).
“I didn’t think I was a coward,” Graham recalls. “But when I heard the click of the gun’s safety catch that night, every hair stood up straight on the back of my neck.”
In “Hill-an’-Gully Rider,” Graham attempted to reconstruct a Jamaica that might have been if the policies he deplored had been rejected by the island’s leaders.
In “The Color of Ice: A Canadian Serenade,” Graham sings a gentler tune. He tells the heartwarming and often-amusing story of a Jamaican country boy who immigrates to Toronto in the early 1960s and finds himself in a strange and hostile environment.
Alone and half-frozen, he longs for the sunshine and sensuality of his homeland.
The civil rights movement is at its height and the Vietnam War is raging. Catastrophic events in the United States have a profound effect on his perceptions – and on his life.
Early encounters with bigoted Canadians make him acutely self-conscious of his swarthy skin and Caribbean accent. And when he falls in love with a white Canadian girl, his mind is filled with self-doubt and mistrust.
But his talent for music and help from newfound friends open doors he never knew existed, and shape a destiny beyond his wildest imaginings.
“The Color of Ice: A Canadian Serenade” is available on the web at :http://www.publishamerica.com/shopping/index.htm
“Hill-an’-Gully Rider” is available at http://stores.lulu.com/georgeg
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) 15ty year celebration & fund raiser to be held may 16th.
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) cordially invites you to attend our 15th year celebration and fund raiser to be held on Friday May 16, 2008 from 6:30 - 9:30 pm at the Martin Luther King, Jr.
Labor Center located at 310 West 43rd street between 8th and 9th Avenues in New York City
For 15 years the MXGM has worked tirelessly to defend the human rights of people of African descent. To date we have raised over $100,000 for political prisoners in the United States; we have organized an ongoing cop watch and know your rights program to combat the proliferation of police brutality in our communities; we work with young people on a weekly basis, through our New Afrikan Scouts program, to teach those youth about the richness of African culture and the resistance movements that shape our history.
Please join us for an evening - hosted by Asha Bandele - of music and performances as well as an amazing silent Art Auction featuring prominent visual artists as we celebrate our work and honor some fellow community activists that have supported the mission and goals of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.
Lawyers Soffiyah Ellijah and Tarif Michael Warren along with entertainers Mos Def and Talib Kweli, and Councilman Charles Barron will be receiving our first Grassroots Community Award. The key note speaker will be Dhoruba Bin Wahad.
The artists that will be offering their work include:
* Chidi Ozieh
* hubert neal jr.
* frank d. robinson jr.
* William Jones
* Zaquan Holland
* Miles Bumbray
* Eesuu Orundide
* Wesley Clark
* Loganic
* Ajamu Walker
* Lance Wiggs
* SUNDIATA ACOLI
* Emmanuel Pratt
* Austin Greene
* Ezra Mabengeza
* Chris Burns
* Halima Cassells
* Patricia Hicks
MXGM's 15 Year Celebration Art Auction
It is with your support that we are able to continue to work towards liberation and self-determination for all African people.
REGISTER FOR THIS FUND RAISER ONLINE HERE
The Event Fee is $25 per person and we are also honoring Patrons Packages:
* Silver Patron: $200 - Patronan's ticket plus 1 complimentary reservation
* Gold Patron: $300 - Patronan's ticket plus 2 complimentary reservations
* Platinum Patron: $400 - Patronan's ticket plus 3 complimentary reservations
* Black Patron: $500 - Patronan's ticket plus 4 complimentary reservations
Can't Register Online?
Please RSVP via regular mail by Monday May 12th 2008 to the following address:
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
PO Box 471711
Brooklyn, NY 11247
Won't Be In Town on May 16th?
You can still show your support and love by providing MXGM with a tax-deductible contribution to help us continue our work within the community.
Contributions can be mailed to the above address, or done online with a credit card or paypal account with this link: Contribute To MXGM.