Marian's Blog

Who is helping Detroit's change & rebirth? Maureen Taylor, MWRO, on Al Jazeera News

Being from Detroit, don't you think entertainer Madonna Ciccone would do well to help her Afrodescendant friends and neighbours of her home region, rather than attempt to adopt more children away from the African continent?? Thanks to my friend MTC for sending links for Al Jazeera's Faultlines story, Despair in Detroit, parts one & two. Featured in both segments is Ms. Maureen Taylor of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, along with other folks with ideas and work worth hearing in the news, and then discussing publicly. In part 1, Ms. Taylor is at 9 minutes into the counter, and she also speaks toward the end in part 2.

From U.S. Homes to global financial disaster: Bloomberg's Weil scooped by nine years

 Jonathan Weil's 27 Apr 2009 Bloomberg.com column is "One Nation, Under Banks w/ Justice for No One." Here's a short url: http://ow.ly/4lg8. I'd wager that Mr. Weil, like most Americans (and almost everyone else), may be unaware of Atlanta Legal Aid Society veteran attorney Bill Brennan's 24 May 2000 testimony to Congress. On Facebook we have a group open to all that's dedicated to sharing and examining Brennan's prescient testimony of nine years ago. Yes, nine years ago, and even earlier than that, someone described to Congress how segments of the U.S. consumer, financing and housing markets were "under banks, with justice for no one. But who was listening and who really cared? There's also Dr. Beryl Satter's Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, & the Exploitation of Black Urban America., in which the chair of history at Rutgers University chronicles her own father's role in the deeply rooted and deeply corrupt U.S. real estate tradition of preying upon Black Americans. Raymond Arsenault's review appears in the 19 March NY Times, which for the present I'm not linking here. "...[Prof. Satter] begins with the complicated story of her father, Mark Satter, a Jewish lawyer and landlord... “ What type of human rights abuse is institutionalised housing-finance exploitation, based on ethnicity, race, geographic racial segregation, & the overall, and continuing, post-slavery situation of the U.S.A.?

Checking in, and trying out Twitter

Wow. I hope everyone's well! So much is going on, folks. (I don't have to tell you that.) Plenty to write about and just as much to do. I can't believe how TINY Typepad's interface is becoming. I don't know about you, my readers, but on my end it's actually hard to read. I also can't believe how long my blogging break's been, then my spouse reminded me the other day! Opened a twitter acct @ungaro for those who'd like to connect there. Things are stirred up in Martinique and Guadeloupe - "overseas France". In Paris the slavery descendants' organisation CM98 has been very active on the issues of Overseas France and France's slavery and post-slavery socio-economic-historical legacies and their challenges. (When I lived in France 30+ years ago, everyone thought I was guadeloupéene. Meanwhile, in one of the African sources of my slave-trade family heritage, Madagascar's president has just ceded power to the military, who are said to back his rival, the mayor of the capital, Antananarivo. And then there are the corporate "bailouts" like AIG; and the Obama admin's insulting decision to BOYCOTT the April 20-24, 2009 Durban Anti-racism Review: the U.N.'s first major follow-up to the August 2001 WCAR international racism conference held in South Africa. This weekend, Washington, DC will witness 2009's first national anti-war march - courtesy of A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition. So much going on. So much more to come.

Will this ever stop? The propoganda since 2006, at least

Enough already. As a Black woman whose U.S. family was enslaved in the USA, hearing solely people interviewed over and over, in every medium, talk about someone as though he were one of us, a slavery descendant -- as if he, who in honest, accurate reality, is the descendant of several white slaveowner families and not of enslaved Black people - as if he and his own family - not Michelle Robinson's family - ever lived through even a fraction of centuries'-long suffering, torture, exploitation and alienation endured by members of my family and our whole community; and even as if this person were God. In the faith in which I was raised this is blasphemous. All this feels like being raped, over and over, and then having people you know - even some family and longstanding friends - repeatedly come and ask why you keep protesting, why you refuse to lie back, be "grateful" and enjoy. 

DC Statehood Now for inauguration!

U.S. capital city Washington DC is the only place on the U.S. mainland that does not have  representation in the U.S. Senate and House just like all other U.S. mainland citizens. Is it because we're mostly Black American and related factors?

Today and the past couple of days have been a great opportunity to get the word out about Washington's colonised status and develop new support. One of our supporters was spotted holding up our sign on MSNBC.

Before, during and after the inauguration, tell somebody that Washington, DC needs Statehood!

DC STATEHOOD YES WE CAN Sign behind Newark mayor Corey Booker

"We will bury you" - Old words, new context in a new century

I remember a conversation last summer with a woman who told me she grew up in Czechoslovakia. It is now two countries: the Czech and Slovak republics. She grew up in Czechoslovakia before the end of the Communist system. She asserted to me that there's more brainwashing in the U.S. than there was in her Soviet-linked homeland. In turn this made me think of my life in proximity to U.S. politics, especially during and before the 2000, '04 and 2008 presidential elections. I feel we are not out of the woods. 

People and media are chattering about making history with installing Barack Obama. Just one of the funny things is, the rationale only seems to go back to "the Civil Rights movement," the early 1960s, or the '50s if people are particularly "knowledgeable" about "the past." But Black American history goes back to the 1850s and 1750s; and no one is talking about how or even if Barry Obama represents something from back then, and if he does, what it is.

In fact, what Mr. Obama actually represents is not Black America, but various slaveholding families of white America. But why bog down events or confuse anyone with facts? Rather than work to elect the United States' first Native American or Black American president, here we are today. It feels as though someone is trying to bury Black America - who we are and our history - alive. This in turn makes me remember the words of Khrushev in 1956. 

In November 1956, then-Soviet ruler Nikita Khruschev addressed Western diplomats, as recounted at the time by TIME magazine:  

At the final reception for Poland's visiting Gomulka, stubby Nikita Khrushchev planted himself firmly with the Kremlin's whole hierarchy at his back, and faced the diplomats of the West, and the satellites, with an intemperate speech that betrayed as much as it threatened.
  
"We are Bolsheviks!" he declared pugnaciously. "We stick firmly to the Lenin precept—don't be stubborn if you see you are wrong, but don't give in if you are right." "When are you right?" interjected First Deputy Premier Mikoyan—and the crowd laughed. Nikita plunged on, turning to the Western diplomats. "About the capitalist states, it doesn't depend on you whether or not we exist. If you don't like us, don't accept our invitations, and don't invite us to come to see you. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!" 

Gaza: Reading Robert Fisk on The Independent.co.uk

Some readers of Marian's Blog may be aware that I'm a former journalist (and press secretary, etc.) myself. And yet, being briefly outside the United States, I am experiencing culture shock. In this case the shock is good, due to once again being surrounded by so much news and so many free and readily available (televised & broadcast) news sources. Many of these are sources which, back in the States, most Americans and those living in the U.S. 1) are not offered via U.S. media & U.S. cable TV distribution systems, and 2) which, quite often, Americans will not discuss, quite often even when they may be aware of certain events going on in the world outside (or even within) the USA.

And so it was thanks to a long interview seen (more than once) on Al Jazeera's English-language TV that I learned of one experienced and rather outspoken British observer, Robert Fisk, and his columns in the British paper The Independent. 

This entry is short, and yet for today perhaps it's enough. 

Chicago 2008: Men, media, politics, and bread, with butter

Plans seem to be afoot, perhaps via Illinois' attorney general and state supreme court, to push defiant governor Rod Blagojevich from that state's administrative and political bus. Two other observations come to mind. I compare them to an elephant - or a donkey - in the room. These are the way in which, and despite any misgivings, Jesse Jackson, Jr. (elder politico cum clergyman) chose to back Barack Obama, and secondly, how Jesse III, his son and Illinois member of Congress, for some unspecified time period has been politicking for the now-vacant Senate seat. Coincidence? Mr. Jackson the elder backed Mr. Obama very visibly and seemingly inside the Black American community, without a balanced or critical view. When it came to news coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, Jackson the elder was everywhere. In some circles he seemed to have a virtual monopoly on voicing opinions (none really critical of Mr. Obama) "on behalf of Black America" on the campaign. Then, on election night, the omnipresent Jackson was filmed shedding tears. Earlier there were his frequent U.S. media appearances as well as his repeat visits (which very few Americans saw) on Britain's BBC TV and France's France24 TV. It's not quite a year since Rev. Jackson appeared on BBC International where he quickly wrote-off as "a cheap shot" the reporter's earnest question about Mr. Obama's ethnic and historical dis-similarity from Black Americans (the descendants of people enslaved in the US and before the US existed). In shocking contrast, Barack Obama comes from a White slaveowning family, with the addition of his Kenyan father. Rev. Jackson's son, Rep. Jesse Jackson III, is hyperactively seeking the Senate seat vacated by Barry/Barack. Might these father-son activities be related? Do journalists care? Do we even still have the right to ask? What happens with interests who understand "on which side their bread is buttered," and by whom, and act in accordance? We may spend the next four to eight years answering this question.

\Malik Rahim's Dec 6 New Orleans congressional race!

We just want to quickly alert readers and volunteers to Malik Rahim's campaign and the Vote Malik website. Please go there and contribute a bit of your time, talent and, for eligible donors, some cash! Every little bit helps. After Hurricane Katrina Malik, a native New Orleanian, co-founded the Common Ground Collective to help his sister and fellow New Orleanians get back on their feet. The people and the city are still working on it. Mr. Rahim is the Louisiana Green Party candidate and running against incumbent Bill Jefferson who's been distracted for quite some time by his own indictment on charges of alleged corruption while in office.

BBC snubs Cynthia McKinney: U.S. third-party candidates

The election may be over yet BBC has forever altered my perception of it as a relatively balanced source of international news. I was watching BBC TV News last Monday evening, Nov 3, as the announcer chirpily announced there actually were other candidates in the U.S. election. Surprise! He proceeded to name and show photos, first Ralph Nader (independent), ex-Republican, now Libertarian Bob Barr (a U.S. Afrodescendant who seems to self-identify as "white"), and the third candidate? I was pretty well waiting for the newsreader to note Cynthia McKinney, the U.S. Green Party candidate. Was I wrong. Instead the Beeb names... Gene Amondson. Gene Amondson?? Have you heard of Gene Amondson? Has he, like Cynthia McKinney, been a six-term (or even a one-term) member of the U.S. Congress? I don't recall BBC bothering to mention Mr. Amondson's party affiliation (perhaps more obscure than his name, if that's possible). And so Tuesday, election day, I looked it up on the Net. Apparently he belongs to the "Prohibition Party." Prohibition? I thought that failed in the 1930s. Thanks to BBC News, Cynthia McKinney out, Gene Amondson in. Here's a deeper, bitter irony: Cynthia McKinney bears a British surname; like almost all Black Americans, probably linked to slavery. She carries a family name of British origin and yet, so uncharacteristically, the BBC had not even the slightest desire to acknowledge her, let alone brag about her, on the basis of UK ties to this U.S. presidential candidate and her almost certain British slave-trade family history. How sad; how racist.