Marian's Blog

Major Owens unveils Black Caucus Members' opinion survey

The Congressional Black Caucus annual legislative conference ends tomorrow, Saturday. Monday, Oct 1st, I plan to attend "A New Challenge to the Congressional Black Caucus", my former boss Major Owens' Library of Congress think-tank panel on the CBC and his forthcoming book, The Peacock Elite: A Subjective Case Study of the Congressional Black Caucus. I'm interested in the results of Mr. Owens' opinion survey that he's asked his former colleagues - Black Caucus members (Members of U.S. Congress) to complete. Monday's panel includes current Congresswoman Maxine Waters (Los Angeles, California); former CBC members, Oakland (Cali) Mayor Ron Dellums and attorney Louis Stokes; author and Univ. of Maryland political science prof Ron Walters; and author Michael Eric Dyson, now on faculty at Georgetown University. I have not yet seen results of the congressional opinion survey, though I'm certain we'll hear more on Monday. Since retiring last January after 24 years representing Central Brooklyn, NY's 11th congressional district, Mr. Owens is now a distinguished visiting scholar in the Library of Congress's Kluge Center.

Post-Katrina, Cont'd: Let the People Rebuild - 2006 Harvard Jnl of African American Public Policy

For some strange reason we just don't seem to be hearing as much regular, in-depth news and information as we should about post-Katrina issues facing New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and the USA. So, we suggest you check the Summer 2006 online table of contents of, and subscribe to, the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy. From Gulf Coast women's voices and the right of return of New Orleanians internally displaced (these are the two human rights' terms) across the U.S., and restoring regional health care infrastructure. This is all about salvaging and creating grassroots democracy (what other kind is there?) in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. And, really, in the USA. Thank you for showing that you care.

Kenya: Lucy Yinda's Wema Centre for street children and community orphans

In 14 Million Dreams, Miles Roston's documentary film about Africa's millions of children orphaned by HIV and AIDS, Ms. Lucy Yinda describes how she started the Wema Centre for the rehabilitation of street children and community orphans. I can never forget the children I've seen, in Africa, in the U.S., the Caribbean, South America, the Balkans: children sniffing glue to numb hunger pain, refugee mothers with babies, smiling or anxious dirty-faced children in rags running through traffic at intersections, sometimes carrying a smaller child, begging passing drivers for change. I will never understand how anyone can take advantage of another person in such conditions. Please give Wema Centre your financial, political and spiritual support!

New Orleans, race, White voters: Or why ex-mayor Marc Morial is NOT Louisiana Governor

I should've posted this weeks ago but here goes. If anyone believes there's a "level playing field" in competing for leadership in the US, you need to remove your head from whatever hole in which it's stuck. Just because it's the 21st century and currently 2006 and some of us have high-speed Internet is no reason to deliberately subscribe to delusion. In New Orleans the son of former mayor "Moon" Landrieu (and sister of current Louisiana US senator Mary L.) and member of one of Louisiana's traditional - read 'white' - political family dynasties challenges a Black guy whose father, no disrespect intended, definitely never was elected to any Louisiana statewide office. New Orleans' ex-mayor Marc Morial's late father, Ernest "Dutch" Morial, was the first-ever Black (or Creole) mayor of New Orleans when he succeeded Mitch's dad as New Orleans mayor in April 1978. This was almost yesterday - the late 1970s - not the 1870s. Marc Morial himself, now head of the New York-based National Urban League, was a successful multi-term mayor of his hometown. Yet when it came time for him and his backers to look around for what he could do next they realised he was not going to be elected the next governor of the Bayou State. I guess Marc couldn't even seriously consider lieutenant governor - the post currently held by dynastic N.O. mayoral contender Mitch Landrieu. Landrieu could, and did, get that job. In Louisiana with his name and colour it could be handed to him - and probably was. But not Marc Morial and not Ray Nagin. Before Katrina drove out over half its majority-Black population, New Orleans - and only since the '70s - had become an oasis within a statewide political wilderness, giving at least some (albeit local rather than statewide) chance to a relative handful of Black Louisianians aspiring to exercise political leadership in their own society. Is Black American political leadership in our own country and in our home communities still too ambitious in 21st century USA? This gaping disparity (between defacto exclusion of Blacks from leadership in most of Louisiana versus a chance for Blacks to compete locally and successfully in pre-Katrina New Orleans politics) exists because like all over the USA - including the "non-racist" (?!) American North and West - millions of white Americans still refuse to support and vote for Black candidates. Even if their lives and true democracy depend on it. Another case, another state. Illinois. Barack Obama, with a Kenyan father and white American mother, reportedly depended on Black Americans as the faithful, decisive and visionary voter base that made him Illinois' first Black US senator, though he is not an ethnic Black American. (And ethnic Black Americans aren't Kenyan or White American.) Even being 'half white' did not convince a majority of Illinois' white voters to vote for Obama. That fact is deep but it is not new. If anybody ever asked us we Black Americans always have known about and felt the stab from the "'flakiness' factor" of our white kin/fellow US citizens. (Like white abolitionist John Brown there are exceptions; they deserve the attention they almost never get from the MSM.) In some circles such irrational social-political behaviour would at best be construed as a public mental health problem. Just as importantly, it's blatantly anti-democratic. At the end of the day, whoever is elected in N.O. today, the whole world needs to be aware of Katrina's unintentional yet very real impact in undermining at least four decades of work and achievements and civil and political rights organising and social behaviour change on behalf of everyone eligible to vote - in New Orleans, in Louisiana, in the South and across the USA. When the cards are on the table this playing field remains far from being level and the ceiling is so low Black Americans still can't stand up. You just have to wonder why most US pollsters and public opinion researchers do not ask Americans about this and do not seem to care.

State of Black Union look at Katrina & Bush- Poppy won't be pleased; 2007 in Old Virginny

Barely a month ago George Bush pere (the daddy) told all of us how badly he felt for his boy George as Rev. Joseph Lowery and former president Jimmy Carter took W to task at Mrs. Coretta Scott King's funeral. Well, Daddy definitely will not be pleased with, and he and Barbara may not want to see, CSPAN's video of the 2006 Sobu conference. Al Sharpton, Harry Belafonte and Louis Farrakhan each takes a turn putting Bush act II's name in his mouth, and repeatedly including his role in the devastating federal response to Hurricane Katrina. All this was in Saturday's SOBU State of the Black Union conference. Um-um-um. I almost felt sorry for Bush. Again. But this time thank heaven he wasn't there applauding and wondering how to act. And all this was on his "home territory." No, not Connecticut. Houston. In Texas. No matter who or where you are, if you consider yourself a thinking human being please read and consider supporting SOBU's Covenant with Black America. In remembrance of the early British North American presence - the root of the UK-US 'special relationship', and of course not excluding Britain's role in the slave trade - SOBU organiser Tavis Smiley announced in Houston that next year's conference will convene in good olde Jamestown, Va. Throughout 2007 Virginia will remember the last four hundred years since American Indians saved the bacon of English settlers at a place that came to be known as Jamestown. So many Black Americans have ancestors and family from Virginia. Incidentally, we wonder how the quadricentennial planners intend to accurately incorporate the fact that until 1792 Kentucky was part of Virginia.

God, Please Send Me Back as a Black American again

This is for my buddy and brother Washingtonian George over at Negrophile ("one who loves and admires Black people"). Thank you for that inspiration, in spite of such things as Harvard University's "implicit association test" - which neither mentions nor measures the existence of those of us (not only among Blacks) who love and admire Black Americans - Black folks any and everywhere. Thank you, George, for Negrophile's truth and inspiration. I also thank the spirit of my cousin, Harry Lee Gudger, God rest his good-natured soul. In his lifetime Harry Gudger was a native of Muncie, Indiana USA who later became an elected officer of the Texas NAACP. From Zvornik to Srebrenica, from Travnik to Somalia, Haiti and beyond I've been asked: "'What' (ethnicity) are you? Where are you from?" As I walked to work one morning in eastern Bosnia an elderly man asked (translating): "Gospodja ("ma'am") - Are you from India?" I looked my elder, that's what he was, in his eyes and let him know, "no, sir", I was not from India but that I was Black American, meaning this particular US North American version of our mestizajes of the Americas - our various, similar yet diverse mixtures of African + Indigenous Native American + European - mixed race ancestry. In other words I am 100% Black American. I realise and cannot accept as some among the 'newly mixed' assert "their" issues and identity right here in the same geopolitical space by apparently ignoring and supplanting - even denigrating - any thoughtful consideration of the processes by which mixed race people in the US and Americas were created centuries ago. In other words, I thank the Creator for making my people - Black Americans - as fully human as most of them truly are; and in the face of and in spite of such indifference, cruelty, craziness, deprivation and depravity, all taking place in the midst of unprecedented wealth and power. Across the world and including some recent immigrants to the USA - so many people have told me they've been inspired by Black Americans... So if there is karma and as Black Americans say, "What goes around comes around," God, send me back another time as a Black American, a Black American woman.

State of the Black Union on CSPAN!

My brother just shared with me that the annual, public, free SOBU conference - the State of the Black Union - sponsored by broadcaster Tavis Smiley, is now being televised on CSPAN. Tavis says there are 5,000 persons attending the conference in Houston, Texas, plus scores more watching nationally and internationally via CSPAN. Thanks bro. Check it.

Financial aid for HBCU students affected by Hurricane Katrina

This information is from the Southern University New Orleans (SUNO) campus website. Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund is offering US$500 emergency scholarships to students affected by Hurricane Katrina who normally attend SUNO, and also to students who are from New Orleans who attend a member school of the Marshall scholarship fund. Click for more info. Also - students from Xavier, Dillard and SUNO are eligible for a $1000 scholarship through the Tom Joyner Foundation. Deadline for this second source is 31 October 2005 - email HBCURelief /at/ blackamericaweb.com - send your full name, the school from which you are transferring, the school you are attending and a phone where you may be reached. Other important financial aid links for students from SUNO's fine website:

Hurricance Katrina Information for Students and Parents

Hurricane Katrina Information for Federal Direct Loan Borrowers

Hurricane Katrina Information for FFEL Borrowers

Donate to BlackAmericaWeb Hurricane Relief Fund

Melvin Collier over on the Afrigeneas forum kindly informed me of BlackAmericaWeb's Hurricane Relief Fund which is "providing support to families who are assisting those displaced by Hurricane Katrina." You can donate online or mail it to: BlackAmericaWeb.com Relief Fund, PO Box 803209, Dallas, TX 75380-3209. Please donate. Thank you and God bless you.

List of Charities to Send Help to Katrina Survivors

This list - slightly re-ordered - of charities is from the Associated Press and was posted on AOL News. This is one list. Others may have more.

"Organizations Accepting Katrina Donations."

Episcopal Relief & Development: 1-800-334-7626 or http://www.er-d.org United Methodist Committee on Relief: 1-800-554-8583 or http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/emergency/hurricanes/2005 Islamic Relief: http://www.irw.org/katrina United Jewish Communities: http://www.ujc.org Operation USA: 1-800-678-7255 or http://www.opusa.org FEMA Charity tips: href="http://www.fema.gov/rrr/help2.shtm National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster: http://www.nvoad.org ICNA Relief: http://icnarelief.org Louisiana Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: http://www.la-spca.org Help for Animals: Humane Society of the United States: http://www.hsus.org Red Cross: 1-800-HELP-NOW or https://www.redcross.org Salvation Army: 1-800-SAL-ARMY or http://www.salvationarmyusa.org Catholic Charities: 1-800-919-9338 or http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org

Niger - Donate to World Food Programme: Easy as sending an SMS

I just sent an SMS that donates 100% of my contribution to the WFP. Here's just about all the info you need to donate directly to the World Food Programme.  Niger is one of the world's regions we know is most in need right this moment of immediate financial aid to provide food -- that plus some serious-as-a-heart-attack guards to stop those men in refugee & feeding camps who beat and bully women and children in order to grab emergency food supplies. I think direct grassroots contributions like this are faster and more reliable than the endless cycle of fighting, convincing, and/or working with our governments to share resources with starving people. We need to do both, but people - especially infants, children, nursing mothers and the elderly - need to eat at least one decent portion of food every day. The WFP is based at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization - known as "the F-A-O" or "faow" - in Rome, Italia. This info is right here on the WFP website: "The fastest way to help WFP's fight against hunger is an online donation by credit card. You can also donate in the following ways. Please note that, for now, only contributions by US taxpayers are tax-deductible. CHEQUES AND POSTAL ORDERS - ... are welcome in any major currency and should be made out to the World Food Programme. Please send with the printed version of the coupon available online by clicking here [the 'click here' only works directly from the WFP website. The info given & requested is: "I would like to give to WFP operations in (fill in the blank). NAME: ... ADDRESS: ... City: ... Country: ... Postal Code: ... - [WFP] Resources and Mobilization Service: TEL: +39 06 6513 2411 FAX: +39 06 6513 2810 or +39 06 6513 2071; resourcesnospam@wfp.org "] "or include a piece of paper with the same information. Depending on where you live, the cheque and coupon should be sent to:

United States US Friends of the WFP PO Box 11856 Washington , D.C. 20008 Japan Japan Association of WFP Minatomirai 1-1-1, Nishi-ku Yokohama 220-0012 Japan Rest of the world Director, FDP Resources Division WFP - Via Cesare Giulio Viola, 68/70 00148 Rome - Italy

BANK/POSTAL TRANSFER

WFP has accounts in three countries – depending on where you live, please use one of the following options for national/international transfers.

United States Bank/Stock Transfers For transfers, either send an e-mail to info@friendsofwfp.org or call +1 202 530 1694 Japan Bank Transfers For transfers, call +81 45 2212510 Italy and Rest of the World : Bank/Stock Transfers For transfers, either send an e-mail to resources at wfp.org or call +39 06 6513 2316 Note: we would very much like to thank you for your donations, so please send an e-mail to resources @ wfp dot org with the donation amount and your current contact information (name, address, e-mail address). Alternatively you can send a letter to the Italy address in the option above.

OTHER WAYS TO DONATE

SMS: in selected countries, you can also donate by SMS. This list is constantly growing so please check back regularly to see new countries have been added. And spread the word!

Australia: text the word DONATE to 19932222. You will receive a confirmation message and your mobile will be charged AU$5.00 South Africa : text the word DONATE to 31009. You will receive a confirmation message and your mobile will be charged R5 UK: text the word DONATE to 81333 - You will receive a confirmation message and your mobile will be charged £1.50 United States: text the word DONATE to 33133 - You will receive a confirmation message and your mobile will be charged US$1.99

Free-dial Japan number : please use our free dial number 0120-496-810

For more information: please contact one of the following depending on where you live:

United States
info -at- friendsofwfp.org
Tel: +1 202 530 1694
Fax: +1 202 530 1698
www.friendsofwfp.org

Japan
Tel: +81 45 2212510
Fax: +81 45 2212511
www.jawfp.org

Italy
resources -at- wfp.org
Tel: +39 06 6513 2316
Fax: +39 06 6513 2810
http://www.wfp.org/

"Africa Meets the Americas" - Global Black Women Leaders Meet in TEXAS Usa, October 2005

Ladies and gentlemen: "Africa Meets the Americas," the Houston Global Congress Unites Black Women Leaders. October 7-11, 2005 we will celebrate the Second Global Congress of Black Women Leaders, this year in Houston, Texas USA. Perhaps you or your organisation or someone you know can sponsor a Black woman leader to attend. The first Global Congress took place last July at UNESCO headquarters, PARIS, where pioneer African Brasilian woman political leader Benedita da Silva was outstanding, and was elected Speaker of the Congress by conference attendees. For more info on "Africa Meets the Americas," go to: www.gcbwl.org or www.globalcongressofBlackWomenLeaders.org. Register here in English. Global Congress founder & Organiser is Ms Sandrah Monthieux Pelage, native of Martinique, West Indies/le Caraibe; email: gcbwl at e-a-r-t-h-l-i-n-k dot net - don't forget to take out the dashes. The Honorable Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Member of United States Congress is the Host and Honorary Chair. Be part *Bring passion *Break paralysis *Be powerful. Honorary Chairs who will address the Congress: Dr Dora Akunyili, Director General, National Agency for Food & Drug Administration and Control, Nigeria; Dame Jocelyn Barrow, the first Black Woman Governor of the BBC & Honorary Chair of the Global Council of Black Women Leaders; la Senadora Piedad Córdoba, Member of the Senate of Colombia, South America, and Lecturer at the National University of Colombia, Bogota; the Honorable Joyce London Alexander, first Black Chief United States Magistrate Judge, Boston, Massachusetts USA; Her Excellency Barbara Masekela, first Black Woman Ambassador to Paris and to the USA for the Republic of South Africa; Ms Harriet R. Michel, president of the National Minority Supplier Development Council, New York, New York; Dr Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Associate Dean, Harvard University School of Public Health and Leader of the Global Congress' Health & Wellbeing Commission; Ministra Matilde Ribeiro, Government Minister for Promotion of Racial Equality, Brazil; Hon. Députée Christiane Taubira, Member of the Parliament of France and originator of the "Slavery, Crime against Humanity" legislation in France; Her Excellency Marina Valère, Ambassador of Trinidad and Tobago to the USA, and former board member of Trinidad and Tobago Airports Authority; and Ms Sandrah Monthieux Pélage, founder and president of the Global Congress and the Global Council of Black Women Leaders, Inc. Register here: www.gcbwl.org. Official conference hotel is Hilton Americas. Book your room now at Global Congress lower room rate; and for sure other Houston hotels also are available even if they aren't official conference hotel.

2004 Global Congress-UNESCO PARIS

Unlocking the Door of no Return: OTU People of African Ancestry Reunion, NYC 12 August

Deadria Farmer-Paellman, genetics scientist Dr Rick Kittles and others are planning the August 12 OTU ceremony in New York. On March 4 I posted an entry about Gina Paige's Atlanta, Ga lecture on Africa, DNA and Genetics. Now Farmer-Paellman and her colleagues are organising the first annual OTU African Ancestral DNA Ceremony: "Unlocking the Door of No Return." See below Dina Kraft's photo of the actual Door of No Return in Senegal, west Africa. Tens of millions of our African ancestors were forced out of Africa through those corridors and deported to the Americas. Scores of other African deportees met their deaths in "the middle passage" of the icy cold Atlantic Ocean. OTU - the Organization of Tribal Unity: Reuniting People of African Ancestry: www.theotu.com. With a keynote address by Dr. Rick Kittles, PhD geneticist and founder of African Ancestry DNA testing company. Dr Kittles did special research for the 2003 BBC tv documentary, Motherland: a genetic journey.

Dina Kraft photo. The haunting Door of No Return, Goree Island, Senegal, West Africa

August 12 performances by The Great Day Chorale, directed by Louvinia Pointer. Ceremony, 10 am to noon, reception, noon to 2 pm. Church Center for the United Nations, 777 United Nations Plaza, 1st Avenue at 44th St, New York. "Join us in recognizing those who have unlocked the "Door of No Return" through DNA testing. Learn more about these powerful tests and network with others who share our African ethnicity and nationality." Free admission but limited seating - rsvp by July 20. Co-Chair/Founder, Deadria Farmer-Paellmann; Co-Chair/Chief Genealogist, Antoinette Harrell-Miller; Chief Elder, Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely; Chaplain, Reverend Al Sampson. This takes place 11 days before annual 23 August International Day of Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition, recognised by UNESCO.

Motherhood in two reviews of "The Pact"

I saw an interesting-looking book on Professor Kim's News Notes. It's called "The Pact." So I checked two reviews. One was by Regina Marler: "As teenagers from a rough part of Newark, New Jersey, Sampson Davis, Rameck Hunt, and George Jenkins had nothing special going for them except loving mothers (one of whom was a drug user) and above-average intelligence..." Then I began reading the one from Publishers Weekly: "Growing up in broken homes in a crime-ridden area of Newark, N.J. ..." Which version sounds like m-e-l-o-d-r-a-m-a? And guess which review I skipped. In an age when too many people in the US and elsewhere have no home or responsible parent at all, I have to critique continuing knee-jerk use of this term "'broken' home." "Loving mothers" and "broken homes" for sure don't mean the same thing, and after you've read the latter for the ten-thousandth time it's gotten pretty old. I for one have started to wonder - where the heck are the exposés, for instance, on alcoholism in wealthy and upper middle class white American homes? I know the alcohol problem exists in well-to-do 'burbs because I've seen it and my white friends have told me. It's out there just as sure as the over-exposed fact of many Black American children growing up with one parent who is a mother who loves them and doesn't have much cash. In The Pact Sampson Davis, Rameck Hunt and George Jenkins describe their early lives as they helped each other through high school, college and professional school, and later started the Three Doctors Foundation.

Black High school Econ teacher leaves $2 mill to Prairie View A&M

In the so-called mainstream media no one but no one documents Black American (or other Black) philanthropy. Perhaps most insulting, many aren't even aware our philanthropy exists not to mention the fact that in the US at least, our assistance does not benefit only Black people. Salatheia Bryant's article about frugal public school teacher Whitlowe Green is from the Houston Chronicle website. "Whitlowe R. Green wore second-hand clothing, purchased out-of-date meats, shopped at auctions and stopped talking to a relative for two years because of a $6.76 debt." He served the community as an economics teacher in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). When he retired in 1983 he earned $28,000 a year. (The same year I left Laredo, Texas.) When Green started teaching in 1937 his yearly pay was $700. Most of his teaching career was spent teaching economics at Houston's Yates High School. As one friend remembered him: "When you go to the counter to pay the bill he'd kind of slow down and let you get ahead. He played poor. He was just a regular guy." Mr. Green was 88 when he died of cancer in 2002. He graduated from Prairie View A&M in 1936. Read the rest of Salatheia Bryant's fascinating and humbling story here.