Waterstar

:-) "That's just the Way it is" Brian Hornsby Standing in line marking time Waiting for the welfare dime 'Cause they can't buy a job A man in a silk suit hurries by As he catches the poor old lady's eyes Just for fun he says, "Get a job" That's just the way it is Some things will never change That's just the way it is Ah, but don't you believe them They say, "Hey little boy you can't go Where the others go 'Cause you don't look like they do" Said, "Hey old man How can you stand to think that way Did you really think about it Before you made the rules" He said, son That's just the way it is Some things will never change That's just the way it is Ah, but don't you believe them Well they passed a law in '64 To give those who ain't got a little more But it only goes so far Because the law don't change in another's mind When all it sees at the hiring time Is the line on the color bar That's just the way it is Some things will never change That's just the way it is Ah, but don't you believe that (I hope the lyrics are right, but the point is there same way.)

You honestly think that the situation would have been the same if George Zimmerman had been the one shot by Trevon Martin under the same race based circumstances? Wow... Did you mean go crazy like Nat Turner? If so, that sounds like a page out of the same narrative with which most here are innoculated basically from birth to death. What made Nat Turner crazy? Why is something wrong with Nat Turner and not his enslaved brothers and sisters who think that he is crazy for the mentality "Get free or die trying"? Why is Nat Turner crazy and not his own people of today who, under much less dangerous circumstances, refuse to take steps to assert their right to live their own destiny? Quiet as it's kept, these little chops down at a vicious system might have been little, but they have been as many small axes to the big tree. That's exactly what those who desire to maintenance of the repressive and oppressive status quo would have most think. "Look around. You see it has been tried yet has never worked. It will never work. This is your lot in life." However, what many Americans do not know simply because they rely on news and the representation of public opinion only from the country of America, is that things are falling apart and the economy is merely one part of it. Things are falling apart and the people of the world are beginning to open their eyes to the world lie pushed by America and Europe. Some of these people who are beginning to open their eyes live in America and Europe while many others do not. America and Europe are losing much influence in world affairs. The euro is on the decline and so is the all mighty dollar. Those most affected by globalization are starting to see how its foundation is like a vampire that cannot live without blood to suck and they are starting to say to the system, "Our blood you will suck no more."...The world actually seems on the brink of World War III, but who cares about world affairs here? Not even state run propaganda will be able to soften the realities of the world forever. "Who no know go know"-Fela. @Communication. No, no failure to communicate, Cynique. We communicate just fine, even if our views are different. I think that the perception of a communication gap is yet another thing that we allow to keep us divided (and therefore conquered). As far as trying some different things. I wonder how many of Martin Luther King Jr.'s own people laughed at him when he spoke of what he envisioned for a better tomorrow. I wonder how many people even thought that the Berlin Wall would never be brought down. Imagine dying from scurvy being so common and most of everyone thinking that that's "just the way it is"... How many of those people were never exposed to anything different? Oranges.... Oranges, high in vitamin C to stop such an epidemic. Looking beyond the narrow view of personal experience alone (because our personal experiences are very narrow when compared to all the knowledge and wisdom that there is) can be so beneficial. I don't think that it stops with having been there and having done that. I think that our work must extend to the children. Most of that which is is a result of that which has been done. Likewise, that which is done can, in many cases, be undone. We look around at our communities and many of our older brothers and sisters say that they remember a time when things were not like this. Just like it has taken something to get to this unwanted point, it will take something to get to a more desired point. The generations before are the givers of the torch of a better tomorrow...Will they say of the torch, "Well this thing is of no use anyway so I'm going to save you a lot of pain and frustration and extinguish this thing" or will they pass on the torch, the teachings, watering the seeds for a better day? Many, of many races/nations/backgrounds, who have worked for a better day have been demonized, killed, written off by history. Does that mean that a better day is not possible? I wonder how many people thought Harriet Tubman was crazy.What she was doing was clearly illegal. Was she a crazy old woman with foolish thoughts of freedom? Let some of us tell of her own people, even in this day, she was. Anyway, I'll stop the examples. :-) I think the minds of the children are of utmost importance. In my opinion, we have to nurture their creativity and intelligence. We have to plant the seeds of a better day within them and water them for as long as we live so that they can carry on the cycle. Drop by drop, the rain gathers to form a large body of water.

If black folks had overcome their slave mentality when it comes to reacting to injustice, they would be doing much more than venting. Maybe a slave mentality is just what we need, just a different one, like that of Nat Turner's. Plus that should let us know just how free we are not. If the closest black people can come to justice is venting, it sure says a lot about the level of freedom there is. Why should this be accepted? Why should this subconsciously be accepted as "just the way things are"? If Trevon Martin were white and George Zimmerman were black, do we really think that venting would be the closest to justice that white people would get? We are insane. I need to see if Dr. Cartwright got a fancy sounding term for such behavior. I don't know what it's called, but surely it is under the umbrella of black insanity.

You don't harass me. I don't care about people's opinions enough to be harassed by them, because in life there are two options: You can either agree with me...or you can be wrong. Outside of this universal truth, however, I think that it is good to hear more than one perspective. It can be beneficial on whichever levels one allows it to be. Now, I am going to tell you something on a different note. Cynique said: "As we know, African like Europe is a large continent so to just randomly claim an African heritage would be like a person from France adopting the culture and heritage of Spain because both of these countries are a part of the same continent." We are the only ones with a global level of idiotic thinking that keeps us from understanding that our commonalities outweigh our differences. Most people of European descent understand the importance of solidarity and they will stand in solidarity with one another even when they don't particularly like one another.They understand that there is a greater goal to focus on and with this understanding, they organize and, as a minority, control the world's majority. We all in da same (slave) ship yet we focused on who got da best view. Just because most people laugh at an idea does not mean that the idea is not a good one. Reality is the majority of people are too busy with box-type thinking and have only box-type vision. It wasn't so long ago that the idea of you and I communicating through something that could connect anyone anywhere anytime was laughable. "Har har har! It'll never happen." Mind you, many probably said that about Rome before it fell. Marcus Garvey's idea of Africans continental and Diasporan doing business with each other was both wonderful and workable. Why wouldn't it be workable? Do we not see Europeans from all over the corners of the Earth doing business with one another and doing well (oh and very often on the backs of the people of color, too)? As for us, all we can often think about is "Us four and no more" or feeling as if we've arrived once we've become high ranking tokens. I think that it also has something to do with a level of cowardice, too. The path of least resistance is preferable to others because it is comes with less effort and less backlash. I sure hope that the generations to come are much different than their presently punk behind progenitors.

I suppose that mostly depends on what constitutes a dictator. What are the requirements for this title? If it is tyranny and disregard for the will of the people, when has America not had a dictator? It's just that in what is often considered a "dictatorship", the person considered a dictator is much easier to point out as opposed to being under a system in which one repressive/oppressive regime after another rules. It's harder to point fingers in the latter case, because one does not have enough fingers on his hand to point in this case. The system is often to blame and is yet blameless because it is inanimate. Though it is a system based upon the dominating will of the corrupt, who is so silly as to point fingers at something that cannot be physically seen? In such a system, the upholders of it are simply that and though they are animate, they "didn't make the rules" so they are blameless. One man's hero is another man's pirate. Case in point: Christopher Columbus. In the same way, one man's liberator is another man's tyrant. Fidel Castro is a hero in the minds of some, a tyrant in the minds of others. I think it's time to look beyond the narrative that is but one in an anthology of this country's agenda oriented history. I am of the persuasion that it is high time we look beyond the demonization of certain leaders and ask why. Is it not odd that some of the biggest supporters of Batista are fiercely anti-Castro. Why is this? Many times when people her e talk about Castro as this ruthless dictator, they are merely repeating lines from that ever present narrative that I mentioned. Cynique said: "You don't see any Americans trying to escape this country to go and live in Cuba, but Cuba has a lot of refugees who have sought a better life in America." After her escape, Assata Shakur, who was a political prisoner here, was granted political asylum in Cuba by Fidel Castro. I think that perhaps many more would try to escape this country to go live in Cuba if the restrictions in reference to Cuba were not so firmly in place. Cuba has a lot of refugees who have sought a better life in America, true, but many of them are anti-Castro yet pro-Batista. America supported Batista's regime. Batista was not a 'dictator" to America because Batista was in a puppet position for American interests. At any rate, the vast majority in America is overcome by a bombardment of stories from one anti-Castro perspective. Why not look for other sides sometimes? Just as it is not often told that Fidel Castro was a lawyer, it is often not told that Che Guevara was a medical doctor... They would be considered humanitarians in societies in which profits are considered a poor substitute for the right to self-determination and human dignity. What really is freedom in a society in which one's heroes and villains are pre-selected for them? The film featured interviews with: Phillip Agee Muhammad Ali Harry Belafonte Ramsey Clark Angela Davis Elián González Nelson Mandela Gabriel García Márquez Ted Turner Alice Walker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkNm7BWcOl0&feature=related

Cynique, any rational human being knows that Gawd is republican. As for those who have come from other parts of The Americas, this land is much more their home than is the patriotic settlers. Again, cycles though. Wat a bam bam to come... Also, you often trip me out, but this just took the cake. Cynique said: "Black folks and their point men Cornel and Tavis are also stewing in their collard green juices because Obama hasn’t thrown them any corn bread crumbs." :D People have amnesia like no other, too. I clearly remember how Tavis Smiley was a forreal (Bill) Hillary Clinton supporter. I remember Maya Angelou with her "my girl" commercials about Hillary Clinton. I don't know how long it's going to take people in America to see politicks for what they are, whether the face is white, black, or aything else. As long as the society is one based on profits before people, the politicians, scientists, as well as community "leaders", etc. will reflect that. As for the author of the article, she is not at all in the "Why has Obama da Christ forsaken us" bunch, though (sadly) most truly are. This is an article that she wrote in 2008 and I think that it was a very understandable angle: Two American moments, which one will we extend and sustain? "I know the America on the left. I am so glad to meet the America on the right. I will never forget the historic victory of November 4, 2008." Ezili Dantò I Don't Know this America....But I'm most happy to meet it by Ezili Dantò, Nov. 5, 2008, Haitian Perspectives I grew up with the picture on the left. That's the America that lynched Black soldiers in their uniforms after World War II. It's the America I was taught. It's the America unfortunately I've lived through. It's the America that killed the Dreamer. Yes, I grew up with the picture on the left. I know that America. But yesterday, on November 4, 2008, I was most happy to actually meet the America that chose to make the picture on the right its new dawn.... Honestly, as someone raised in post-Civil Rights America, I don't know this America. I didn't think it was possible. I am most happy to meet this America and I am most thankful for President-elect Barack Obama's unyielding audacity of hope. Most happy to have taken part in it because he envisioned what could be. I am glad to meet this America of new possibilities, this America of November 4, 2008. I want to be part of this America where I don't feel an outsider to Officialdom because I work for human rights, social justice and equality, workers rights, reciprocal trade, respect for Haitian democracy and constitutional rule. I hope that that America won't again turn away from this hope for the poor and disenfranchised all over this planet, and go back to promoting the special interests of the corporate elites, valuing profit over people. Senator Barack Obama's victory has introduced me to the possibility of that America. That's a stunning feat. I hope all of us rise up to meet this America we all took a glimpse of on November 4th. Change would truly have come if we actually ACT to extend the November 4th values and broad, inter-generational coalition, across the races, transcending political party, class and creeds that was forged to elect Barack Obama. And extend it each and everyday of our lives. I didn't believe it existed or could be pulled forth in my lifetime. That I've lived to see it, to know it's there and not just the ephemeral dream; that I have lived to see a Black man, this man of integrity and enormous vision and competence, this son of an African, with an aunt who is still an "illegal alien" about to call home, a White House built by the forced labor of African captives, that this America exists and was pulled forth for the world to see, makes me more thankful than I can say. I pour libation for all the Ancestors who did not live to see that the color line has been crossed. I weep for all the American lives and Iraqi lives in Iraq and elsewhere around the world that paid the ultimate price for this day to come so simply. I pray the children in the Congo will benefit from this new day. I hope this means Haitian lives will also be more valued and a new US-Haiti partnership is on the horizon. I pray that a new dawn of American leadership is at hand and hope that President Barack Obama will work with us as we've outlined in "What Haitian Americans are Asking of the New US President." Four years ago, part of HLLN mission, as articulated in Campaign Six was to help to elect a President that would not extend the tyranny and disenfranchisement of the Black masses that Bush Regime change brought to Haiti in February 2004. We hope to retire that campaign now and have a working relationship with this new Congress and this new President. Yes we can - Wi nou kapab. I thank and am so deeply grateful to all those who worked to get out the vote and so blessed to meet this America I don't know but want to get to know, sustain, belong to and have a relationship with. It's been a long time coming... Marguerite Laurent/Ezili Dantò Founder and President, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network November 5, 2008 (See Background Essay - The America I Know) *********************************************************************** Forwarded by Ezili's Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network *********************************************************************** Two American moments, which one will we extend and sustain? Yes, we did it! OBAMA 08’!!! Change Has Come to America - Obama's new website **************************************** Background essay: The America I Know Nothing that I know or have lived, especially after Bush's bloody regime change in Haiti on February 29, 2004, prepared me for the momentous election of a tolerant, compassionate, (seemingly people-over-profit) Black man - who stands for a more equitable world - to the presidency of the United States. The US I knew had disregarded the laws, so at least I thought if Obama won, the election would be stolen or at least there would be some haggling for a week, at the minimum. I was not prepared for the unanimous acceptance of a Black man as president of the United States by 11pm on election night. The America I knew was all about “plausible deniability,” had a shameful legacy of racism, had carried on a pre-emptive war, lied to the American people about weapons of mass destruction, lied to the American people about what they are doing in Haiti, passed the Patriot Act, tortures prisoners at Guantanamo, discriminates against Haitian immigrants... I don’t know the November 4, 2008 America…But I'd like to make it real and have a relationship with it. The US I know: Flaunt their love of justice and liberty and then support Taliban-type regimes and when that goes awry, bomb the heck out of Afghanistan. The America I know: Sponsor elections throughout “the developing” world, and then outfit their own private armies, to “restore order” and reverse said elections whenever the US-sponsored candidate fails to be elected by the populist. Mobutu, Duvalier, the Gerald Latortue Boca Raton Regime, who maintained these? The America I know: Armed and trained thugs and convicted felons, Louis Jodel Chamblain and Guy Philippe in the Dominican Republic to invade Haiti on Feb. 2004 in order to end Haiti’s Constitutional democracy and when these surrogates could not complete the task... The America I know: Sent in US Special forces, with the assistance of French and Canadian soldiers, to kidnap the Constitutionally elected President of Haiti and exiled him to the Central African Republic in order to dominate Haiti, secure the Haitian market for US goods and take by US-sponsored force, once again, Haitian resources – state-owned companies, Haiti’s gold, oil, gas reserves, coltan, et al... and all they couldn't persuade Haitian President Aristide or the Haitian people, to give away. The America I know: Was built on the genocide of the Amerindians, the enslavement of Africans, and then the blood of centuries of lynching with impunity, the razing to the very ground of Black cities like Rosewood and the “Black Wall Street” in Oklahoma, the colonization of Haiti for 19 years as well as the neocolonization of Dominican Republic, Latin America…; built on gunboat diplomacy and US marines bringing (their sort of) “order” to “backwards” Black and Brown countries all over the world. The America I know: Legalized murders and mayhems under Jim Crow for 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation; then after the Civil Rights Movement, denied equal rights to Blacks-Americans through racial profiling, mandatory sentencing, the criminalization of poverty and drug addiction otherwise known as the “war against drugs,” or more aptly, the war against young Black males.” The America I know: Trained death squad soldiers and sent them forth, from Fort Benning, Georgia, unto the Haitian people, onto the people of Latin America.... The America I know: Employed Toto Constant, Haiti's strongman who was the head of the FRAPH death squad that murdered more than 3,000 Haitians from 1991- to 94 and then gave this terrorist asylum in New York while denying fleeing innocent Haitian refugees even a hearing of their asylum claims... The America I know: Incarcerated and indefinitely detained Black children, women and men, whose only crime is that they are poor and from Haiti, at Guantanamo Bay, before they started using it as a place to indefinitely incarcerate and torture Al Qaeda, and other "enemy combatants". The America I know: Has an overwhelming, disproportionately high African American male population (more than 50% of total US prisoners) in jail when we only make up 13% of the population. More than half of death row prisoners in the US are Black males. That's the America I know. That's the America I thought would never make a righteous Black man with the democratic and social justice values of Barack Obama its President. I know the America of the dream that all men are created equal. I was raised in the post-Civil Rights era of the dream, again, deferred for the masses. I was raised in the post-Civil Rights era where America was starting to look like Haiti, with Katrina lifting up for the world to see the huddled and excluded Black US masses left behind and Ophra, Michael Jordan and PDitty representing the few who had successfully made it in an America where overt institutional racism was replaced by the more insidious covert institutional racism and its denial... "Race doesn’t matter" the Neocon chorus went, and most vociferously by the right wing neo-conservative blacks who were universally celebrated as the “good Black” the "objective" and "not angry" Blacks. Like in Haiti, these Black middlemen told white America what their rich white benefactors wanted them too say and what white Neocon-rule America wanted to hear. Who are some of these black "conservatives?" Well, African American folks like Shelby Steele, Ward Connelly, Armstrong Williams, Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, et al... That's the America I know. Is the nightmare is over? President Barack Obama was born of an African father, a white mother from America, spent his childhood in Asia - America/Africa/Asia - will this internationalist bring US change that will help bring relief to the disenfranchised of the world - to the children in Haiti, Baghdad, Congo, Beirut, Gaza, and all the other places in the crosshairs of the American empire's superpower guns? There is work to be done, and it's up to all of us, not just President Barack Obama. In his victory speech, President-elect Barack Obama, had the vision to place the responsibility for the welfare of the nation in our own hands, us the citizens, where, in a democracy, it truly must rest. We know the odds, but Obama’s victory has taught us not to be led by fear or doubt but faith and hope. He’s taught us that anything is possible. Yes we can - Wi nou kapab. Marguerite Laurent/Ezili Dantò Founder and President, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network November 5, 2008

http://blackagendareport.com/content/not-voting-obama-were-not-even-buying-voting-ticket-show Not voting for Obama: We’re not even buying a voting ticket to the show by Ezili Danto I speak my heart and mind on this. In 2008, Ezili’s HLLN supported a vote for Obama, not because we entirely believed the Obama fairytale (See, The America I Know, 2008.) We supported a vote for Obama in 2008 for both pragmatic and idealistic reasons. But more so because eight years of Bush and the application of the Wall Street deregulation excesses left over from Bill Clinton and others had reached a crescendo point that was shockingly, brutally horrible and demoralizing for the entire world. But we also campaigned and urged a vote for Obama, despite his apparent selection by one-percenter forces, because the symbolic victory and metaphoric narrative of “The Whitehouse: From Sally Hemings to Michelle Obama” was a powerful and compelling vision we wished to participate in bringing to a reality for the human race. (That sentiment was expressed in this essay - I Don’t Know this America…But I’m Most Happy to Meet It .) So, Ezili’s HLLN actively campaigned for getting rid of the Republicans that had presided over the 1991 and 2004 unconstitutional regime changes in Haiti. We campaigned so that Obama would give Haiti temporary protected status (TPS), end deportations, trade, promote democratic elections in Haiti, value and invest in the Diaspora remittances for reform in Haiti instead of tied-aid to NGOs, end the US occupation of Haiti behind UN guns, provide relief to Main Street in America, universal health care, social justice, stop torture, end the resource wars abroad. (See, Towards A New US-Haiti Partnership: What Haitian Americans Ask of the New US President and Congress.) Instead, for instance, it took the earthquake which ended the lives of 310,000 Haitians before front man, Barack Obama, deigned to give limited TPS and stop deportations. Then less than a year later he re-started deportations even with UN-imported cholera ravages and failed aid to the earthquake victims. But George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton Obama would soon destroy even the tiny scraps of good he brought with TPS by unleashing Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton on Haiti’s head for the duration, not to mention the Bush-Clinton partnership for earthquake “relief”. (Corruption uninterrupted and Haiti’s Hotel Boom: Only for the Rich.) We wrote then our dissent. “Give us a 100 hard right-wing Republicans to face any day. Keep the namby pamby Democrats or progressive left selling their constituents out in the name of some mythical, so-called bipartisanship. They are the worst and most dangerous enablers of neoliberal globalization masturbating on the poor’s imposed pain, poverty and suffering.” (See Obama’s offered HOPE is sweatshop slavery ; Since before the fall of the US-supported Duvalier dictatorships in 1986, the US has been bringing “hope” to Haiti. The newest, profit-over-people sweatshop hoax is Caracol, a sweatshop project masking the foreign appropriation of fertile Haiti lands and deep water ports.) Today, any politician who uses the word “hope” and “change” – as in, “I am the change you’re looking for” – is unable to waste our time with US perverted elections whatsoever. The whole system is corrupt. Integrating with injustice is no longer an option. Obama was the straw that broke the camel’s back for us. Truly, his tenure has hurt our hearts in so many ways. Not least of which is the fact that a Black man has become number one superpower overseer of the profit-over-people paradigm. Ezili’s HLLN will not be supporting Obama’s reelection. We suggest conscious folks nix the political theater of the Republicans and Democrats, concentrate on local self-reliance, local community building, local people empowerment, local building of relevant educational, health care, local food sovereignty, local production, local work and local communication self-sufficiency infrastructures. Don’t count on any government to “save you”. Not happening folks, not with perverted electoral politics, whether you’re in the US or Haiti. The corporations have bought out the politicians and they’re about servicing Wall Street, giving corporate welfare, maintaining their jobs at ALL cost. Obama’s betrayal of core justice values, cuddling Wall Street instead of making it accountable, just to get re-elected cannot sufficiently be offset by general fear of the Republican’s Supreme Court nominations. We must speak truth to power, live without fear. And the Supreme Court has presided over a judiciary that disproportionately favors the wealthy, puts more Black men into the prison system than anywhere else in the world for nonviolent crimes such as being addicted to “inhaling.” Moreover, what has the Supreme Court done for Main Street lately anyhow? Or, to preserve its objectivity, its reputed sacredness? Like the Democratic and Republican members of Congress, the folks at the Supreme Court are a reflection of the times. They have simply become an arm of the global corporatocracy, giving more human rights to corporations than to human beings. Supreme Court appointments are simply not a sufficiently important issue to vote Democrat. The old dog – “vote-for-the-lesser-of-the-two-evils” argument no longer has traction – won’t hunt. People, of all ethnicities, are tired of dealing with evil. Period. If being a “pragmatist” or a “realist” means choosing only amongst evil, count us OUT. The US-Euro pragmatic philosophy has a place, brings lots of comfort, but it is also responsible for the myopic resource wars and prevalent loss of the human soul amongst the schooled peoples worldwide, not to mention the rut and perennial impasse we’re in with perverted US electoral politics. Fact is, the US voting rights our Ancestors fought and died for, are redistricted out of legitimacy at the whim of the more wealthy and more powerful. And that’s LEGAL! I am envisioning another world. Not integrating with injustice. Obama betrayed the American voters who expected he would not gut the US Constitution. But he has. And, some of us here at HLLN are lawyers. This writer herself is a member of two US State bars where the oath I made was to protect the US Constitution. Moreover, as a born-Haitian - with a legacy to reach for - who has spent what seems a lifetime advocating against the US destruction of legitimate elections in Haiti, against the US and the wealthy’s support of apartheid and ethnocide in Haiti, against US destruction of the 1987 Haiti Constitution with illegal US regime changes in Haiti, as an advocate who has had to deal with the poor Haitians’ indiscriminate indefinite detention simply because the US and Haiti’s repugnant undemocratic forces suspect these poor voted and supported Lavalas, I find NOTHING redeeming about the Constitutional lawyer, named Barack Obama. (President Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Into Law ; Activists sue Obama, others over National Defense Authorization Act ; Obama’s abysmal record on civil liberties; Obama re-authorizes the Patriot Act ; Obama Supports – sweeping intelligence surveillance -FISA Legislation ; Obama preserves renditions ; Obama Endorses Bush Secrecy On Torture And Rendition.) It’s simply unforgivable on so many levels that Barack Obama went further than George W. Bush in denying human rights and social justice to US and world peoples, like Haitians. Under the Obama tenure, indefinite military detention of U.S. citizens is lawful in the land of the free and home of the brave and Haitians are saddled with George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to help us become more a democratic and stable Black nation! Susan Rice takes over the role Colin Powell played for the Bushes while Cheryl Mills is out there pushing the Duvalierist agenda in Haiti previously championed by Bill Clinton’s commerce secretary, the late Ron Brown. Yes racism against Obama exist. No doubt. But, Obama ruined his own integrity by betraying the hopeful world who wished respite from empire’s invasions, narcissism, resource wars, denial of social justice and land grabs behind the do-gooder facade. Obama especially betrayed the weary American people who voted for him. Yes, Obama probably will win again over Romney. The powers that be are very satisfied with the pretty Black family mask of US imperialism and Americans, of all ethnicities, are programmed for the fairytale narrative and for suburban amnesia; would rather have comfort to liberty. Obama will most likely win again because denial is easier than the hard reality of Obama’s betrayal of Main Street and championing of corporate welfare for Wall Street. Under Obama, like it was under Bill Clinton, the one-percenters continued their white supremacist and land/resource grabbing invasions and betrayal of Africa, continued the perennial US war in Haiti, against the poor worldwide, against countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, et al… Obama did not bring American soldiers home but started other wars. Both parties are the same. And, in a world of infinite possibilities we choose not between the lesser of two evil. In fact, those of us who are not into denial and work at the human-rights front lines prefer to face the Republican snake head-on than the confused and gutless Democrat chameleon whining about being a progressive when it is NOT. There’s no difference between the two US political parties, except one is more direct in its tyranny against the most vulnerable amongst us. The other hides behind pseudo liberalism and gives us Clintonesque deregulation, NAFTA unfair trade and loss of US jobs, gutting Glass-Steagal to serve the Goldman Sachs cadres, Welfare-to-Work when all work has flown overseas where US superpower might makes sure there’s no minimum wage, no human rights, unions or respect for Black and Brown life. Whoever is in charge of the profit-over-people paradigm, Democrat or Republican, Ezili’s HLLN will be confronting 24/7. Full time. Frankly we prefer watching the Democrats in the opposition to the Republicans opposing EVERYTHING that they sat by and watch OBAMA preside over. There’s much less emotional tie-in for me there. If that means facing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLWnB9FGmWE, and that is some sort of Armageddon, so be it. Bring it on. But there are other choices, like everyone NOT showing up for this theater and nullifying the elections. Envision that. A courageous electorate that stops believing things must stay as they are with the duopoly. Just imagine it. Yes indeed I am a dreamer. Nothing changes without risk. Pragmatism is just a cop-out. Since it doesn’t matter who we vote for, best to make a statement. I think that’s pragmatic. More so than voting for Obama, the servicing U.S.-Euro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw. Share your thoughts with us on this position. With respect, Ezili Dantò May 4, 2012

Michelle Alexander & Randall Robinson on the Mass Incarceration of Black America Part 1 of 2 (on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr.'s bday). [media=]

www.democracynow.org Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from His Native Land ( 2004) Longtime human rights activist and TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson joins us in our firehouse studios to talk about U.S. foreign policy in Africa and the Caribbean, why he refused an honorary degree from Georgetown after the CIA’s George Tenet spoke there and his latest book "Quitting America" which explains why he left the U.S. to live in St. Kitts-Nevis. [includes transcript] As we have pointed out before on the program, in his state of the union address last month, President Bush did not mention the word Africa once during the entire speech. In last year’s address, Bush’s most prominent mention of Africa was the accusation that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger–an allegation that later turned out to be entirely baseless. Today we are going to take an extensive look at Bush’s policies toward Africa, African-Americans and the Caribbean with one of the most well-known critics of US foreign policy toward these areas of the world: Randall Robinson. He is a longtime human rights activist who founded the organization TransAfrica in 1977 to address U.S. policy toward Africa and the Caribbean. Among his most well-known campaigns [ ] was against the apartheid regime in South Africa and US support for it. In 1994, Robinson made national headlines as he staged a 27-day hunger strike to protest US actions in Haiti. He is one of the people most credited with bringing the issue of reparations for slavery into the mainstream with his book "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks." Last year He once declined an honorary degree from Georgetown University because George Tenet, the director of the CIA and an ardent supporter of the invasion of Iraq, had been invited the day before to speak at one of Georgetown’s graduation exercises. Three weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, Robinson officially "quit" the US and moved to St. Kitts-Nevis, the small Caribbean island nation where his wife was born. He has just written a new book explaining why he left. It is called "Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man From His Native Land." * Randall Robinson*, founder of TransAfrica and one of the leaders of the movement to change US policy toward the apartheid regime in South Africa. He is well known for hunger strike protests and sit-in demonstrations. His book "The Debt" brought the issue of reparations into the mainstream. His latest book is "Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from His Native Land." AMY GOODMAN: Why did you quit? Why did you leave America? RANDALL ROBINSON: Well, we were — my wife, Hazel, and I, with our daughter Kalia were going to a place as much as we were leaving this place. St. Kitts-Nevis is a small exquisitely beautiful, democratic, well-run, civil, decent society, where people care about each other and take care of each other. These were qualities I had come to find hopelessly lacking, absent, in American society. I had discovered at this age — I was 60 when we left — that I wanted to live in a society for some time, some portion of my life, where race did not have to be a battlement, that one could get beyond that and not feel it always in one’s craw. And it’s a kind of thing that it used up so much of my energy, and the energy of so many in the United States. But perhaps more importantly, that after the active stage of this great crime against humanity, slavery and de jure discrimination that put together ran for 346 years, America became very satisfied with itself, that it had done all that it was going to do, while the victims of this long-running crime were left wounded in the worst way: families destroyed, chances for healthy socializations gone, prospects nil, and so the main bulk of the black community remained bottom stuck. The civil rights movement helped people like me, people who had come from intact families, whose parents were healthy enough to encourage us to believe that we could do well. And so, it meant that the door was open, if you could walk, perhaps could you get through it, but many could not, and they remained bottom stuck. Black community cleaved into two parts: those who could benefit and those who were too terribly devastated to do so. Nothing has been done for them. So, we find ourselves now in a situation in America with a society in terrible shape, but with that condition, fundamentally ignored by those who rule it. It just does not matter, even as it jeopardizes the whole of society. A poll was done recently that showed that a full half of Americans are afraid to venture more than a mile from their homes at night. The whole society has become a sort of prison. We have one 1/20ths of the world’s population with one-fourth of the world’s prisoners. There’s something wrong with that, 2 million and climbing, half of whom are black, because of the reasons I detailed, in addition to the active discrimination that is ongoing. The chance of a black getting arrested, a young black male, are six times that of his white counterpart, of being incarcerated seven times, and once incarcerated will serve a sentence exactly twice as long as his white counterpart for the same crime. Blacks are half of those on death row, three-quarters when they are added to the Hispanic inmate populations. So, this business of locking up people has become a new thriving industry in America with private prisons, in a democracy, which means that in order to have your stock increase in value in a private prison, you have to get more prisoners. So, states like California are investing much more in prison construction than they are in ground-up construction of new universities. And all of this goes on with the full blessing of not just governments that come and go, Democratic and Republican, but with the full blessing of media, the popular culture, and all of the rest. In our foreign policy, this hyperpower, I think is coming to endanger the entire world, because now it operates willy-nilly without checks and balances. Iraq is just one example of the kind of disaster that is possible when we have a nation so powerful, so full of itself, unwilling to examine itself, self absorbed, and narcissistic in all of what that means, that it will go forward against the grain of the international community unilaterally, to create the disaster that Iraq will be for many generations to come. It won’t work. To think that we now in Iraq have Muslim women becoming prostitutes, servicing American soldiers just feeds the kind of hatred that is growing and felt towards Americans throughout the Islamic world. It’s a very sad thing, and we get to a point that we cannot make America listen anymore to anybody but itself. I — I just — to preserve my sanity, and I think my voice, I thought it best for me to leave. I wanted to see another place, to feel another place, and be inspired and encouraged, and enlivened by it. AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s been quite amazing to watch television over this past week, after David Kay said he couldn’t find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. All of the programs are talking about how could we have gotten it so wrong. They’re interviewing the people who got it so wrong. In the news headlines, we are pointing out that Colin Powell is now saying if he had only known what he knows now. Yet more than half the people in this country were opposed to the bombing of Iraq, did not believe, perhaps, weapons of mass destruction were an imminent threat to the United States. I haven’t seen any of those voices, the people who had said "no" from the beginning. I’m reading your book, Quitting America. Now, this book was just published, but you wrote it last year. You extensively refer to the fact that you didn’t believe there were weapons of mass destruction. Can you talk about the arguments and who put forward these arguments? RANDALL ROBINSON: The Iraq chapters in the book were written in late April, and it was apparent then that Iraq had almost from the beginning of the attack, that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. North Korea has weapons of mass destruction. They told us. We knew it. We didn’t attack North Korea. And we’re not going to attack North Korea. China has weapons of mass destruction. We’re not going to attack China. We’re not going to attack any country with weapons of mass destruction. We are bullies. That’s why we attacked Iraq. We knew they had no weapons of mass destruction. And if anybody now tries to disavow, like Mr. Powell — I know it’s ship-jumping time. Well, the administration has the sword, shopping for someone willing to fall on it, desperate now, perhaps. This administration I’m sure will be recorded in history as the most conspicuous disaster in American presidential history. AMY GOODMAN: Talk about last spring when you turned down this great honor to get an honorary degree from Georgetown University. What happened? RANDALL ROBINSON: Well, I flew up from St. Kitts-Nevis, arrived the night before. It was May, and it was wet and chilly. I stayed at the Georgetown Inn. In the morning I was to go over, they called us. They said they were going to pick me up, to come over. I absently opened the Post to the Metro section, and I saw there, above the fold, a picture of Mr. Tenet and the First Lady. Mr. Tenet had spoken at the School of Foreign Service the day before, and had received an honor, and I was stunned. I wanted so much to call Hazel in St. Kitts-Nevis, but I was uncomfortable about talking about this on the phone, so I had already made my decision, but I wasn’t quite sure how I could do it. I knew I couldn’t accept the degree at that point. What had meant so much to me as an honor, maybe I deserved it for being flattered, the vanity of the whole thing, but from that point on, it meant nothing, and I went to the school and talked to the dean who had made this happen for me. I asked him if I could speak, and I had written what I was prepared to say, and he told me, as is the case with most honorary degrees, you don’t get an opportunity to speak. You simply accept the sash and sit down. And so, I told him if I couldn’t speak, then I had to tell him I couldn’t accept it. And he asked why, and I told him. And then he — I went in to see the dean — I spoke to Tony Lewis, former New York Times columnist, about it, and I gave Tony a copy of what I was prepared to say. He was the commencement speaker. And they took me back to my hotel, and I went back to St. Kitts-Nevis. And although my name was on the program, that day, no mention was made during the exercises of why I did not participate or why I was not — why I was not there. AMY GOODMAN: We have to break for stations to identify themselves. When we come back, maybe you could read that address you didn’t get to give at Georgetown last May. RANDALL ROBINSON: Sure. AMY GOODMAN: This is "Democracy Now!" Our guest is Randall Robinson. He has written a new book. It’s called Quitting America — The Departure of a Black Man from His Native Land. Stay with us. AMY GOODMAN: "Wake up, Everybody" Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes here on "Democracy Now!–The War and Peace Report." Our guest is Randall Robinson. He is the founder of TransAfrica, based in Washington, D.C., but he left this country three weeks before 9-11, three weeks before September 11, 2001, with his wife and daughter and moved to St. Kitts-Nevis. He has just written a book about why he left America called Quitting America. Randall, if you would read. You have in your book the address that you didn’t get to read at Georgetown, turning down your honorary degree. RANDALL ROBINSON: I wrote this, of course, on the commencement day in May in my hotel room in Longhand just before I was to leave to go over to the school. "I wish to begin by apologizing to all of you if what I am about to say on your day causes you discomfort. I have fought all of my life against social injustice. I have opposed unjust communist regimes and unjust capitalist regimes. I have fought against unjust white regimes and unjust black regimes. I do not live in the United States anymore. I live on the tiny democratic Caribbean island of St. Kitts-Nevis. I only learned this morning that George Tenet, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was to be the speaker at your School of Foreign Service exercises yesterday. I sincerely believe that in the years ahead, the entire world will come to accept that the United States has committed in Iraq a great crime against humanity, a crime against innocent Iraqi women, children, and men. Indeed, a crime against our own men and women, who have paid and will continue to pay with their lives, for the greed of America’s empire makers. In my view, President Bush, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Powell, and Mr. Tenet are little more than murderers. There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and they knew this. There is no Iraqi connection to 9-11. There was no legal justification for a war in which we have not bothered to count the Iraqi dead. America has committed an awful wrong in the sight of God, and I trust in time, that this will be the prevailing view or verdict of humanity. In any case, you have chosen the wrong person this morning. I should not have come. Indeed, I would not have come had I known before what I learned this morning, when I opened the newspapers. Americans must choose. They must choose between decency, of course, and empire, between morality and murder, between truth and deception. Mr. Tenet has the right to speech protected by our constitution, but that right should not be exercised on a platform so broadly respected as yours. I cannot accept your honor, for in my view, Georgetown University yesterday disqualified itself of the moral authority to bestow one. My candle lights little other than the interior of my own conscience; but for me, for all of my life, that has been enough." And that’s what I didn’t get to say that day. AMY GOODMAN: Randall Robinson, reading the address he would have given at Georgetown University this past May, turning down the honorary degree they wanted to give him. You are well known for taking very strong stands, as you did around the coup in Haiti, as you did when the U.S. government, then led by President Clinton, was turning back Haitian refugees. You fasted until you were getting very ill for a month. You stayed in your office at TransAfrica until Sandy Berger, the then National Security Adviser, came to your hospital bedside to ask what you would accept. He was a classmate of yours in law school? RANDALL ROBINSON: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: What you were demanding? RANDALL ROBINSON: Only that we comply with International Law, and provide sanctuary for those Haitians who were fleeing political persecution with a well-founded fear for their lives, that we behave as other nations are asked to behave, and to comply with international norms. We were rounding up Haitians, and taking them back without examination. And we were accepting Cubans, just as broadly. And the President knew at the time that many of the Haitians that we returned were being killed. And it was just an intolerable situation. President Clinton needed Florida for his re-election, and he made the calculation that Florida wanted Cubans, and they didn’t want Haitians. So, with the knowledge that these people were dying, that he sent back, in violation of international law, he did so until the hunger strike, I think, focused a more public light on his policies. AMY GOODMAN: You had a name, and they didn’t —- we would know -— RANDALL ROBINSON: It was a shameless chapter in American — in American diplomacy, particularly from a president who had gotten so much support from the black community, the black community that didn’t know enough about the full consequence of American policy, which is perhaps what you can say now about the entire American community, about our policy generally. Democracy doesn’t work without an enlightened citizenry. Ours is not very sophisticated about what we do beyond our borders. I think presidents and politicians know how suggestible the American population is, and with that knowledge comes a kind of contempt that you can tell them anything, and that’s what we have done in Iraq. And so, I think before we go to war, we ought to always ask those who support war, "Would the war in Iraq be worth the loss of a single life if that life were yours?" Before you send somebody else’s child, you ought to have to answer that question. Now, I think in World War II, many might have said "Yes," but I don’t think anybody who voted for this war, who supported it, would answer that question, "Yes." Clinton might have been asked the same question with respect to Haiti. It was a terrible thing that he was — that he was doing. AMY GOODMAN: The headlines now in Haiti are very frightening. I’m looking at the Christian Science Monitor, a piece, "New Haitian Exodus–Same Old US Treatment of Refugees. Almost daily, pro- and anti-government demonstrators flood the streets of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, disrupting business and forcing schools to close. Those calling for the departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide show no sign of backing down. Since September, more than 50 people have died, and scores more have been wounded. Haiti has just celebrated its bicentennial since 1804." You were a close friend of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and you write about him and what’s happening in Haiti in your book Quitting America. RANDALL ROBINSON: I think he is a fine man who has been given little chance to succeed. The Republicans took both houses of the Congress shortly after he was returned to power and immediately began to organize to isolate him in his country. American bilateral assistance was cut off and channeled through NGO Organizations in Haiti that were controlled by wealthy Haitians to create the impression that the wealthy Haitians were benefiting the Haitian people and not the government that had no resources to do so. The U.S. blocked the disbursement of Inter-American bank loans, $146 million for health, water treatment, roads, education, blocked all of those monies, and that move has had disastrous effects. It was approved by the bank, but the disbursement was blocked by the United States. Again, the idea was to strangle the government of Aristide. We haven’t liked Haiti since Toussaint Louverture defeated France. George Washington hated that. Thomas Jefferson said awful things. There’s been no appreciation for Haiti’s role in making the Louisiana Purchase possible. Napoleon sold it after he lost that revolution. Since then, we have done every imaginable thing to Haiti, and are still doing it. Now in Haiti there is a minority movement being led by a Lebanese-American, Andy Apaid, against Aristide. Now, the real issue is not whether I support Aristide or not, or not whether some Haitians do or do not like Aristide. In a constitutional democracy, you must never have allowed the change of government by demonstration. You have a constitution, and you have mechanisms. Aristide wants elections. The opposition, knowing that they can’t win an election, opposes elections. The American Administration says that they will recognize no election that the opposition doesn’t participate in. The opposition says it will not participate. So, Aristide cannot have elections. The Parliament, of course, has lapsed because he cannot have those — those elections unless he wins the consent to participate from a small minority, and the U.S. is supporting this. It is a — it is an obvious, outrageous attempt to deconstruct a new democracy in the Caribbean. AMY GOODMAN: Well, the U.S. has a history of that in Haiti going back to the coup. You write about Emmanuel Constant, the head of FRAP, the paramilitary terror organization in Haiti. It’s interesting from Clinton to Bush. Bush is leading a so-called war on terror. This is a terrorist on U.S. soil. RANDALL ROBINSON: In New York. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about it? RANDALL ROBINSON: He’s walking about freely. He led the organization in Haiti that terrorized the country when President Aristide was in exile in Washington. Every morning, bodies were found all about Port-au-Prince. The work of Toto Constant’s people: people hacked to death, shot to death, bludgeoned to death, all of that sort of stuff, was well known to us, but he had at the same time a very fast collaboration with the CIA. And so when Warren Christopher said that we cannot have a defensible relationship with a new democratic Haiti unless we return Constant to Haiti, Toto Constant warned that he knew things about the CIA that he would divulge were that the case. So, the U.S. has continued to host him here. AMY GOODMAN: Finally, on U.S. designs on St. Kitts-Nevis, we only have 30 seconds, but you tell a story about St. Kitts-Nevis wanting more support as a tourist economy, and the head of St. Kitts-Nevis meeting with a Republican congress member to talk about the future relationship. RANDALL ROBINSON: Well, that was the ostensible agenda, and the congressman said to Prime Minister Douglas, there’s one other matter. You know, we may have to leave the uh, uh — AMY GOODMAN: Vieques RANDALL ROBINSON: …Vieques, because of the protests and the cancer rates sky-rocketing, because of the exploding of the American ordinance, and all of the exercises that we conduct there. We may have to re-locate our practice ordnance exercises. We wondered if we could blow up your island from time to time… He said it with a straight face. AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us. Randall Robinson is here with us in New York for another day, but he has left the United States and written a book about it, Quitting America, Randall Robinson’s book about the departure of a black man from his native land. That does it for the show.

Yes, I agree. Huey Long, like almost every politician, was first and foremost a politician. As for FDR, he came from a wealthy family, but his experience with polio was a life altering experience. It seems that it made him more compassionate and uch more concerned about the common man (but "common man" doesn't necessarily mean "common man regardless of race, creed, color, etc.") Oh yes indeed...and they've been revvin' eversince, haven't they? Always somebody somewhere who needs exploitin *d'oh* I meant savin via freedom and democracy. Also, I don't know how Cuba is more of a failure than U.S. I suppose it depends heavily upon one's idea of "success". As for Obama, in all fairness, I can say that there were some really wonderful things that he wanted to do, but he was the head... the head does not turn without the neck. Congress was the neck. However, this does not put him in the clear. Perhaps one of the main reasons that he will not get as much support from African American voters who voted for him before is because a vote for Obama has, for the last four years, turned out to be little more than a vote for right wing agenda. Don't get it twisted though. I don't get into all that wing stuff. Left wing or right wing, they belong to the same bird. A vote for Romney might be a vote for big business, but at least there is the "might" factor with more room for the benefit of doubt. As for President Obama, on the other hand, some who think more globally know his track record and feel that a vote for Obama is a vote for imperialism. In other news, why is the "duopoly" hardly questioned? How does democracy come even close to being fair when the system really just boils down to a two-party one? ("Today's Specials are doo-doo and urine. Which one would you like? Take your time and vote order when you're ready." Uh... .. I think I'll skip lunch.) On another note, freedom isn't free; it costs folks like you and me:

Fi real~

Well (though the psychology is quite real) at least the authenticity of the Willie Lynch document is suspect. Ol Doctor Cartwright, though..... Can you see the madness in this though? Because I want to escape the misery of slavery, something is wrong with "me". This is not simply saying, "Gurl, you crazy." This is actually saying, "Gurl, you're crazy. No, like forrea-forreal. You have a mental disorder and the name of it is drapetomania". Can you see the remnants of this today? When African Americans speak of the racial injustices of the past and the present, something is wrong with "them". Heck though. Your own people are quicker to say you crazy for that than others. "Don't you go round talkin dat liberation FOOLISHNESS! We's FREE now. Talkin bout equal rights and justice. Don't you know was a time when we had tah drank outa CULLID fountains!! You should just be tellin Jeezus dank-yah fo allowin yo no good darkie self to eat at DENNY'S!! Now get from round hyeah wit all dat FOOLISHNESS!"

Troy, I also believe that many African Americans who supported Obama the last time will either vote for him or not vote at all...unless a new politician springs up that can convince them that ""Yes we really can THIS time...forreal..." Oh you know da spirit of redneckishness is no respecter of class or political group. And you know you saw ol liberal Bill Clinton turn as red as a beet when he apparently thought Obama was getting too "uppity". " Now yew just hold on der, Boy!!" was all over his face. Hillary was just about to show Obama that she could win the pissing contest hands down. This is kinda interesting, funny and, for the most part, real talk:

I think that it is not really taken into consideration just how much a goup of people can be impacted by living in a society in which they are dominated in both number and political 'power'. Especially when this minority goup is met with hostility by the dominant majority group. This can have a very negatively strong impact on the collective psyche. Inferiority complexes are learned just like positive self concept is learned and one thing we have to know is that the way that one feels about him/herself has almost everything to do with the way that he/she goes about life. It affects how one perceives others greatly and if one does not perceive others as superior to him/her, then the way in which he/she interacts with them is going to be much different from the way in which one who perceives others as superior to him/her interacts with them. This, in turn, often affects how the person/people on the other end will interact with them as well.

Well, Bro... To each his/her own of course. I will say this, though. Specific ethnicities/cultures/regional differences don't keep us from experiencing the global struggle that we experience. Peter Tosh summed it all up in a matter of minutes in a song by the name of "African". Perhaps if more of us shared his mentality, we would not be as elephants ruled by ants.

TLCurtis said: "I had no idea that someone who was racist against African-Americans would see someone who was actually from Africa as being any different, or 'better', anyway." Waterstar: Is this question based on something that you have gotten from the article? If so, I am not exactly following the rationale behind the assumptions in your question. Care to elaborate?

Even your reviews are beautifully poetic. Cynique, have you any guesses as to why Toni Morrison chose to write about that particular era in this so-called "post-racial" error (oops) era?

Britain apologizes for playing apartheid-era anthem By Richard Allen Greene, CNN updated 12:22 PM EDT, Thu June 7, 2012 London (CNN) -- British field hockey authorities have been forced to apologize "unreservedly" to South Africa after an old national anthem from the days of apartheid was played before an international game this week. Great Britain Hockey called the mistake "sensitive" and "unfortunate." "It was completely shocking," the chief executive of South Africa hockey said of hearing the pre-1994 anthem "Die Stem" being played before Tuesday's game in London. "I thought, 'What is that?' And when I listened further, I realized it was 'Die Stem.' I couldn't believe my ears," Marissa Langeni said Thursday. Some of the younger players on the team didn't even know what song was being played, she said. The anthem dates from the days of white minority rule over South Africa. A new national anthem, "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika," meaning "God Bless Africa," was added alongside it when Nelson Mandela became president in 1994, and the two songs were combined in 1997. "For the majority of South Africans, we don't relate to that anthem," Langeni said. "It was the anthem of a small section of our community. It's as good as not having played an anthem." "If they flew the old flag of the country, I would be equally surprised," she said. Tournament organizer Great Britain Hockey on Wednesday published "a full and unreserved apology to the South African women's hockey team and their supporters for mistakenly playing the wrong national anthem before South Africa's match with Great Britain." GBH Chief Operating Officer Sally Munday blamed the mistake on "a contractor responsible for sports presentation at the event." She said organizers had not checked the anthem in advance and took full responsibility for the mistake. Langeni said she was very satisfied with the apology, calling the error "a bit of an administrative blunder." South Africa beat Great Britain 3-1 in an upset. ((Waterstar note: Hmm....))

Hey, Cynique. It's something, yes. I'll have responses to this and other threads for you. Soon come. :-)

"Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race" "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race" "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race," by Dr. Cartwright (in DeBow's Review) DRAPETOMANIA, OR THE DISEASE CAUSING NEGROES TO RUN AWAY. It is unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers... In noticing a disease not heretofore classed among the long list of maladies that man is subject to, it was necessary to have a new term to express it. The cause in the most of cases, that induces the negro to run away from service, is as much a disease of the mind as any other species of mental alienation, and much more curable, as a general rule. With the advantages of proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many negroes have of running away, can be almost entirely prevented, although the slaves be located on the borders of a free state, within a stone's throw of the abolitionists. If the white man attempts to oppose the Deity's will, by trying to make the negro anything else than "the submissive knee-bender," (which the Almighty declared he should be,) by trying to raise him to a level with himself, or by putting himself on an equality with the negro; or if he abuses the power which God has given him over his fellow-man, by being cruel to him, or punishing him in anger, or by neglecting to protect him from the wanton abuses of his fellow-servants and all others, or by denying him the usual comforts and necessaries of life, the negro will run away; but if he keeps him in the position that we learn from the Scriptures he was intended to occupy, that is, the position of submission; and if his master or overseer be kind and gracious in his hearing towards him, without condescension, and at the sane time ministers to his physical wants, and protects him from abuses, the negro is spell-bound, and cannot run away. According to my experience, the "genu flexit"--the awe and reverence, must be exacted from them, or they will despise their masters, become rude and ungovernable, and run away. On Mason and Dixon's line, two classes of persons were apt to lose their negroes: those who made themselves too familiar with them, treating them as equals, and making little or no distinction in regard to color; and, on the other hand, those who treated them cruelly, denied them the common necessaries of life, neglected to protect them against the abuses of others, or frightened them by a blustering manner of approach, when about to punish them for misdemeanors. Before the negroes run away, unless they are frightened or panic-struck, they become sulky and dissatisfied. The cause of this sulkiness and dissatisfaction should be inquired into and removed, or they are apt to run away or fall into the negro consumption. When sulky and dissatisfied without cause, the experience of those on the line and elsewhere, was decidedly in favor of whipping them out of it, as a preventive measure against absconding, or other bad conduct. It was called whipping the devil out of them. If treated kindly, well fed and clothed, with fuel enough to keep a small fire burning all night--separated into families, each family having its own house--not permitted to run about at night to visit their neighbors, to receive visits or use intoxicating liquors, and not overworked or exposed too much to the weather, they are very easily governed--more so than any other people in the world. When all this is done, if any one of more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good require that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which it was intended for them to occupy in all after-time, when their progenitor received the name of Canaan or "submissive knee-bender." They have only to be kept in that state and treated like children, with care, kindness, attention and humanity, to prevent and cure them from running away. DYSAETHESIA AETHIOPICA, OR HEBETUDE OF MIND AND OBTUSE SENSIBILITY OF BODY--A DISEASE PECULIAR TO NEGROES--CALLED BY OVERSEERS, " RASCALITY." Dysaesthesia Aethiopica is a disease peculiar to negroes, affecting both mind and body in a manner as well expressed by dysaesthesia, the name I have given it, as could be by a single term. There is both mind and sensibility, but both seem to be difficult to reach by impressions from without. There is a partial insensibility of the skin, and so great a hebetude of the intellectual faculties, as to be like a person half asleep, that is with difficulty aroused and kept awake. It differs from every other species of mental disease, as it is accompanied with physical signs or lesions of the body discoverable to the medical observer, which are always present and sufficient to account for the symptoms. It is much more prevalent among free negroes living in clusters by themselves, than among slaves on our plantations, and attacks only such slaves as live like free negroes in regard to diet, drinks, exercise, etc. It is not my purpose to treat of the complaint as it prevails among free negroes, nearly all of whom are more or less afflicted with it, that have not got some white person to direct and to take care of them. To narrate its symptoms and effects among them would be to write a history of the ruins and dilapidation of Hayti, and every spot of earth they have ever had uncontrolled possession over for any length of time. I propose only to describe its symptoms among slaves. From the careless movements of the individuals affected with the complaint, they are apt to do much mischief, which appears as if intentional, but is mostly owing to the stupidness of mind and insensibility of the nerves induced by the disease. Thus, they break, waste and destroy everything they handle,--abuse horses and cattle,--tear, burn or rend their own clothing, and, paying no attention to the rights of property, steal others, to replace what they have destroyed. They wander about at night, and keep in a half nodding sleep during the day. They slight their work,--cut up corn, cane, cotton or tobacco when hoeing it, as if for pure mischief. They raise disturbances with their overseers and fellow-servants without cause or motive, and seem to be insensible to pain when subjected to punishment. The fact of the existence of such a complaint, making man like an automaton or senseless machine, having the above or similar symptoms, can be clearly established by the most direct and positive testimony. That it should have escaped the attention of the medical profession, can only be accounted for because its attention has not been sufficiently directed to the maladies of the negro race. Otherwise a complaint of so common an occurrence on badly-governed plantations, and so universal among free negroes, or those who are not governed at all,--a disease radicated in physical lesions and having its peculiar and well marked symptoms and its curative indications, would not have escaped the notice of the profession. The northern physicians and people have noticed the symptoms, but not the disease from which they spring. They ignorantly attribute the symptoms to the debasing influence of slavery on the mind without considering that those who have never been in slavery, or their fathers before them, are the most afflicted, and the latest from the slave-holding South the least. The disease is the natural offspring of negro liberty--the liberty to be idle, to wallow in filth, and to indulge in improper food and drinks. De Bow's Review Southern and Western States Volume XI, New Orleans, 1851 AMS Press, Inc. New York, 1967

African in America or African American? "The riddle of identity means I can live in the US for 20 years yet still be treated differently – by both black people and white" Mukoma Wa Ngugi guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 January 2011 08.30 EST Africans who live in America do not share the history of struggle for civil rights, and indeed, even today, do not experience racism in the same way – the 'African foreigner privilege', Mukoma W Ngugi calls it. Photograph: Corbis African in America or African American? Mukoma Wa Nguigi "You do not know what it means to be black in this country," an American-born son told his African father. He was right. White America differentiates between Africans and African Americans, and Africans in the United States have generally accepted this differentiation. This differentiation, in turn, creates a divide between Africans and African Americans, with Africans acting as a buffer between black and white America. It is with relief that some whites meet an African. And it is with equal relief that some Africans shake the hand proffered in a patronising friendship. Kofi Annan, the Ghanaian former UN secretary general, while a student in the United States, visited the South at the height of the civil rights movement. He was in need of a haircut, but this being the Jim Crow era, a white barber told him "I do not cut nigger hair." To which Kofi Annan promptly replied "I am not a nigger, I am an African." The anecdote, as narrated in Stanley Meisler's Kofi Annan: A Man of Peace in a World of War, ends with him getting his hair cut. There are several interesting questions here. Why would Kofi Annan accept a haircut from a racist? Why did he not stand in solidarity with African Americans who, at that time, were facing lynching, imprisonment and other forms of violence simply for agitating for their rights? And equally intriguing, on what basis did the racist barber differentiate between African black skin and African American black skin? Is an African not racially black? At a time of racial polarisation in the US, what made the haircut possible? Being black and African, these are the types of questions with which I constantly wrestle as I navigate through myriads of confusing, illogical, but always hurtful and destructive racial mores. I was born in Evanston, Illinois to Kenyan parents. We returned to Kenya when I was a few months old. I grew up in a small rural town outside of Nairobi, and attended primary and secondary school in Kenya before returning to the United States in 1990 for college. I have now lived in the United States half my life. What I have come learn is that in the United States, being African can get you into places being black and African American will not. For instance, take the "African foreigner privilege". In Ohio, thirsting for a beer I walk into the closest bar. Silence. I order a beer and the white guy next to me says, "Where are you from? Where is your accent from?" I say, "Kenya." Relief, followed by the words "Welcome to America. I thought you were one of them." The thirsty writer in me is intrigued. Now that I am on the inside, I can ask "What do you mean?" "Well, you know how they are," followed by a litany of stereotypes. Eventually, I say my piece but the guy looks at me with pity: "You will see what I mean." Never mind that to his "Welcome to America," I said I had been in the US for 20 years. The end result of the African foreigner privilege, usually dispensed with condescension, is that Africans are becoming buffers between white and black America. There is now a plethora of reports comparing African students to African American students. The conclusion is that if Africans fresh off the boat are doing better than African Americans who have been here for centuries, then racism can no longer be blamed. But the reports do not consider that, just maybe, at either Harvard or a community college, Africans experience race differently from African Americans. Africans experience a patronising but helpful racism, as opposed to the hostile, threatened and defensive kind that African Americans grow up with. Racism wears a smile when meeting an African; it glares with hostility when meeting an African American. Africans in the US can end up becoming foils to continuing African American struggles, because they buy into the stereotypes. They end up seeing African Americans through a racist lens. This is not to say that African Americans have not themselves bought into racist stereotypes of Africans, where Africans are straight out of a Tarzan movie. But to the credit of African Americans, they have actively, through organisations like Africa Action and Trans-Africa Forum, agitated on Africa's behalf. Indeed, Nelson Mandela once said that without African American support, ending apartheid would have taken much longer. But one will not find organisations in African countries that reciprocate – for example, seeking to end a racialised judicial system in the US that sees more black men in prison than in college. And Africans in the United States tend to stay away from protests against police brutality and racial profiling. True, the fear of immigration police and offending the host country play a part, but I think there are ways in which Africans do not see the African American struggle against racism as their fight, too. Twenty years and counting in the US, I no longer feel a conflicted identity, one is that torn between being black in the United States and African. Going to Kenya this past December for the Kwani Literary Festival, I saw no contradiction between going home to Kenya and returning home to the US. I do not fully comprehend terms like cosmopolitan. I do not float around in a universal home. But it makes sense to me that one can have two homes at the same time. Not just in the physical sense, but in the deepest sense of the word – to be rooted, and to have roots growing, in two different places. And as a writer and citizen, I have duties to each. I want to open up the contradictions that, in Kenya, keep the majority in oppressive ethnicised poverty and violence and, in the United States, racialised violence and poverty. As an African and a black person, I feel, rightly or wrongly, that I have a duty to love both homes. And love need not always be pleasant – it can be demanding, defensive, angry and wrong, but it always wants to build, not destroy.

Who's crazy? It is really the natural healer Dr. Sebi or is it really the profit centered system that says which suggests that he is crazy? Dr. Sebi

Quote: "The theory that AIDS originated in African monkeys arose from an incident of laboratory contamination." (as described in New Africa Analysis * ) This whole issue of AIDS reminds me of the "Which came first; the chicken or the egg" type thing. Did the laboratory contamination come before AIDS or is it that an incident of" "undesirable" populations came before AIDS? This nation which can produce these holograms for airports and can kill people with unmanned drones could never give me their b.s. story about the sudden onset of HIV/AIDS and have me to believe it. People really think that a nation so technologically advanced, one capable of producing all kinds of things cannot produce a cure for AIDS? Are we really serious?? Why are we so quick to believe stuff from these doctors/scientists anyway? What does not exist will be somehow invented. Manufactured dis-ease is very profitable and it is very practical for population control because the public which has yet to study the patterns of the past cannot make connections to the present and trust when they should question. I am interested also in the study of the connection between malaria and AIDS. I am, perhaps, even more interested in Dr. Sebi's (Honduras) cases with patients who had outside diagnoses of HIV/AIDS yet were treated by him and told afterwards by outside doctors that they did not have HIV/AIDS. There is no profit in a cure. Which drug dealer in his/her right mind would give a loyal addicted customer a cure for his/her addiction? There is no profit in this cure just like there is no profit in most cures. If people were really the priority here, Dr. Sebi would not have been dragged through the dirt for claiming to have a cure with documented evidence to back the reasons for his claims. "Profits over people" is always the rule of thumb in the vulture-culture.

What happens when you protest in America? Well, that depends largely on what you are protesting about, but most importantly, it depends on the color of your skin. Check these protests out and see if you can determine how and why things went awry. The first peaceful assembly starts off peacefully yet ends violently. The second peaceful assembly is met with resistance, but the resistance is dramatically different. Why? Check this out: