Marian's Blog

Hillary vs. Obama? Do Democrats really want my vote?

It's 2007; not 1970 or '80 or even 1990. I've just watched the Democratic candidates debate each other on the campus of Drexel, one of two private universities (the other being Penn) which have been allowed to colonize my old neighborhood, West Philadelphia, (yet again conveniently pushing out Black Philadelphians). John Edwards isn't doing bad and Bill Richardson finally seems to have found his voice. Better late than never? I think of the two Dems whose names get the most play these days: the Senator-wife of a former president, and a Black guy who bears his family's very own Kenyan surname. To some, perhaps, this surname issue with the Black candidate is no big deal. To me it's one of many facts which set Barack Obama apart from the Black American ethnic community. For whites and even some others, perhaps Mr. Obama is "just Black enough", yet, with a father from Kenya and a white American mother (descended from Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy), in a way the chap is commended by some and recommended by others for not "dragging in all of that nasty old Black American U.S. history." Then there is Mrs. Clinton. I look at Obama and Hillary side by side and I think, "she could be his mother."

Martin L. King III's sober, inspiring "Poverty in America", from 14-15 Nov on American Life TV

Whatever else Martin King III may need for his new venture, you have to give him credit him for excellent timing. King has announced he is ready to take up his father's fight against poverty. No one else with a stature that approaches his and that of his family is doing anything as ambitious or potentially far-reaching. The elder son of Martin and Coretta Scott King has produced a powerful documentary, in which he travels the USA to carry on his parents' legacy. On Wednesday, 24 October, King's foundation, Realizing the Dream, and Baby Boomer-oriented American Life TV put on an impeccable premiere for King's new documentary, Poverty in America. Also taking part in the film's Wednesday evening premiere was American Life TV journalist (and Kentucky native), Nick Clooney. Clooney is better known to some as the brother of the inimitable vocalist Rosemary, and father to actor George. King reminded premiere guests that 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of the historic yet nearly still-born Poor People's Campaign. Martin L. King, Jr. begun that Campaign, giving his life virtually on its maiden voyage. In the first week of April 1968 King, Jr. and scores of others committed to the Civil Rights Movement went to Memphis, in west Tennessee, to support that city's striking sanitation (aka "garbage") workers. With Dr. King's world-changing assassination the Poor People's Campaign not only began in Memphis, it was pretty much cut down there. Poverty in America is narrated by longtime King family friend and Movement veteran Andrew Young. Almost a third of Americans are poor or barely surviving on low-incomes and pretty minimal government benefits.

In person, and in the documentary Wednesday night, King III sounded almost eerily like his dad. His final assertion in the documentary: "We can build a society where everyone gets a fair chance to succeed, despite the circumstances of thir birth. That's what my father fought for, and that's what I'll fight for." Well, God bless him. Seeing the (opposite) direction the U.S. has steadfastly travelled the past four decades, MLK III has the anti-poverty territory pretty well to himself. I've posted my photos of the premiere to my Flickr website.

The American assassinations, part 2 - 1964, 68: Malcolm, Martin and John's brother Bobby

On the Web I found a photo taken in Washington, at Richard Nixon's January 1969 inauguration. A notation says ten thousand people came out in the cold for this event. Two thousand were protesters. In the foreground, above the crowd, a young woman holds her handpainted sign. "PEACE IS NOT SUBVERSIVE". I read those words and forty years later they make me ask myself what exactly is different today? Is America a sleepwalking society? Quite often that's how it feels. I started blogging this thread, "the American assassinations", before reading that this week BBC News has alleged U.S. CIA involvement in the 1968 murder of Robert Kennedy. The report by Shane O'Sullivan appeared November 21, 2006 on BBC Newsnight. It is possible some in the US still really do not want to think of such things. The evening he was murdered Bobby Kennedy had just won California's Democratic Party primary and was on the verge of becoming the party nominee for president of the United States. How many of us ever stop to consider the implication of these multiple assassinations in the US? All the victims were male political figures and not one of them right wing. All this violence and death. The violent reversal of the politically possible. All in less than five years, from 1963 to '68. The Boomer generation. My generation. Multiple political murders shaped my generation of American youth. In the face of serial murders and assassinations, wouldn't coming-of-age somehow change? One devastating death followed by another and another. All in barely half a decade. All with deep social and political effects that remain today. Who talks about how these killings in the U.S. marked the baby boomer generation? Many of us weren't even 18 by the time we'd lived through all this. How many people, Americans and everyone, ever think about that? Had Robert Kennedy not been shot in the recesses of an L.A. hotel it is possible, even likely, he'd have become the 37th U.S. president. Is this the real reason he died? Indeed this 'alternate reality': had Bobby Kennedy been allowed to live, at the very least would have spared us who we got instead: Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon. Some of us remember -only too well- his other "name", "Tricky Dick". Tricky Dick Nixon. Before Robert it was his brother, our president, on a routine political visit to Dallas where he, too, was assassinated in November 1963. Fewer than nineteen months later it was Black American leader Malcolm X (Malcolm Little), shot so many times, by multiple gunmen, in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. It was Sunday, 21 February 1965. In Pennsylvania my family heard the news on our car radio. This moment in my parents' car stays frozen in my mind. A sunny, early Sunday afternoon, right after church. I am in the back seat as we ride. The news comes on the radio as we're stopped at the light at East Market Street, heading north on South Queen. So much violence. And then barely three years later Martin Luther King is shot and killed, Thursday, April 4th, in Memphis, Tennessee. Then Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles on June 8th. Two more American assassinations less than eight weeks apart.

"Great Society" Speech, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, Univ Michigan May 22, 1964

Friday, 22 May 1964 "... the "Great Society" is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor. ..." - Lyndon Johnson, 36th president of the United States of America

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.

Team in Training: help Mel cross finish line(s) for cancer research

My friend Mel ('a girl') is doing Team in Training to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She and I (and a bunch of other civilian folks we know) have been together through thin and thick, doing human rights & election work in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Macedonia - but the other day she actually had to bike like halfway across the planet - or a similar distance. At least in my vivid imagination. So please visit Mel's training & fundraising page and make a donation. Thanks! Hang in there, John! Go, Mel!

How I walked MORE Women's half-marathon in 4:24

Here’s my saga of MORE mag’s third annual marathon & half-mara for women over 40. It was also an official race co-sponsored by New York Road Runners and a qualifier for the NY Marathon. In 2003 I ran Nairobi’s first women’s 10K in 1hr 40min. Compared to Kenya, nearly 4-thousand women registered for the MORE race while 10 to 11-thousand women ran Nairobi's women's 10K against HIV/AIDS. MORE was my very first half-marathon, even if I did walk. I registered early but two days before the race my participation was touch and go due to schedule conflicts. (Thanks Pam!) Finally I made it to NYC on Amtrak where I stepped off and discovered I’d returned to winter. Burrrr! Bummer. No hat; no scarf. Thank goodness I'd brought layers. Checked into hotel then made my way to MORE’s spaghetti dinner at Tavern on the Green where I met a nice group of women who traveled all the way from Lansing in Michigan to run. Post pasta and salad I popped into a pharmacy & bought an extra pair of tights. Lifesaver! At my hotel I hung out with an old friend and a new friend and had a ball catching up. Did I maybe stay up a bit late?! Early race morning I woke to drizzly weather & a craving for tylenol - effects of our bar-side chat. The first hour of the day was agonizing and not only because of my head. At 6AM the sky was ominous. Out the window I could see people with umbrellas raised. Despite my toughness I knew I was not mentally up for running in the rain with no headgear. Should I stay? Should I go? But we forged ahead. Washed, dressed, a little breakfast with fluids. Taxi’ed to Central Park where zillions of women were arriving to race. I was in the right place! The half mara started at 8:00. I started out jogging then switched to a walk. Weather was a bit chilly but thank God didn’t pour. The cool temp actually made near-perfect race weather. The half mara was twice around the park. Despite two restroom breaks (guess what: a women's race that needed more stalls - duh!) my official time was 4:24. I’d never even been in CP before. This was great fun and worthwhile so now I’m looking for more races and working to do even better next year!

Impostor: Richard Nixon, George Bush - What's the difference?

Now for a history moment. What's the difference between George Bush and Richard Nixon? In my book - Nixon was impeached. In November 1973 Nixon spoke to a large group of Associated Press editors in Florida, stating, "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook...." He added he was "not a crook." The American public disagreed. In 2006 it would seem reasonable that US citizens have a civic responsibility to be interested in knowing not only whether their president is a 'crook' but also whether he is competent. US citizens need to know whether our legislative branch (Congress) and the judicial branch (Supreme Court) of government are even exercising their check and balance functions. We're supposed to know who actually is running the US government, and whether or not those actions truly represent the will of the American people. If the answer to any of those things is no, we're in it deep. In October 1973 the Nixon administration appointed special prosecutor Archibald Cox to investigate the break-in at Democratic Party national headquarters then located in Washington's Watergate complex. (The late Frank Wills was the security guard who discovered the break-in.) Within days Nixon had decided to fire Cox. This led to October 20, 1973's "Saturday Night Massacre." The firing was temporarily halted by US Attorney General Elliot Richardson and deputy AG William Ruckelshaus as both chose to resign rather than obey the order to fire Cox. These days who would have that much integrity? Let's not mention courage. Enter Robert Bork, Nixon's Solicitor General in 1973. Later as Supreme Court candidate he was "borked."  After the demission of Richardson and Ruckelshaus, Bork voluntarily carried out the order to fire Cox. That was then and this is now, as another conservative by the name of Bruce Bartlett has published a rousing book titled Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. I have absolutely no nostalgia for Mr. Reagan or his "legacy", but unfortunately before long more of us probably will agree with the first part of Bartlett's premise. - "Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people." - Archibald Cox

Liverpool, Slavery and The Beatles: Modern Black Atlantic History

"As we write the 20th century what is the role of the Beatles - four white guys from Liverpool UK - in modern Black Atlantic history?" I feel a sense of betrayal when I recall that in the 1960s and later American kids made quite wealthy a group of young men from a city called Liverpool. And in recent years scholars of American popular music and culture have discovered the high cost of the "Liverpool music" phenomenon to the careers and livelihoods of U.S. musicians - especially Black American R&B groups of the 1960s. More than that, I freely admit I was one of these 'ahistorical' youth, though in most respects I wasn't really ahistorical. We simply hadn't a clue about Liverpool's earlier role in deporting, shipping, trading and enslaving our ancestors and those of millions more African descendants in the Americas. I loved the Beatles' music. I bought their records. I saw A Hard Day's Night. My friend Angeline and I even took Paul and John (Angeline and myself, respectively) as alter egos. Don't ask why exactly, but we really were into it and in a way our respective choices were on target. I think very few people in America "put two and two together" back then. I would be intensely curious to know whether any historian or social critic in any country ever attempted to put into the broader Black Atlantic context various interpretations of the meaning of the arrival in the Americas of a group of young Liverpudlian men. In America, apparently, we young Black, Native American, White, Latino and Asian American youth had no idea we were part of a longstanding socio-historical process between the US and UK - a system which without doubt was postcolonial contrary to opinions of some current observers [see my note below on Deepika Bahri's exclusion of postcolonial experience in the US]. Point of history: Among other settlements, in 1607 English settlers founded the Jamestown colony (Virginia). Over in the UK did the Beatles or anyone else reflect upon all this? It seems that even in the late 20th century and on both sides of the pond we still were part of the uninterrupted Atlantic relationship that conspired to silence and 'not remembering'. In the US there had to be those who knew this history and yet they said nothing, let alone jog public memory and foster discourse. More than a few Black American youth - including myself - were buying Beatles' records, singing their songs, we watched them on Ed Sullivan and stood in long lines to pay them to get into their concerts. We never asked - nor did we have means to do so - what Ringo, Paul, George or John thought of Black people - Black Americans, Africans, African Caribbeans, African Canadians or Black British - and of our post-slave-trade societies. We never asked what The Beatles thought of our history or of their own or of their intersections. Nor did we ask what they knew or thought of Liverpool's wildly lucrative links to Africa and the slave trade. Fast forward to 2006. Like the October 2005 STAMP project on the docks of Lancaster near the Millenium Bridge, does Liverpool have a public memorial to the way this city constructed and equipped itself from wealth acquired through catching, shipping and selling captive Blacks? Do Paul McCartney, George Harrison or Ringo Starr, or Sean Lennon or Yoko Ono Lennon or the John Lennon estate for that matter even care that these roots formed the cornerstone of Liverpool history? It's been almost a half century since four young musicians from Liverpool arrived on the shores of America and received an unbiased and unprecedented welcome. In turn that welcome afforded them the means, if not the responsibility, to contribute and to help make our common future different and better than our common past.

Bush does not squeak by in Virginia and New Jersey elections

It looks like Virginia Democrat and current lieutenant governor Tim Kaine has defeated Republican Jerry Kilgore in the state's governor's race. So much for Mr. Bush's political support on the heels of his Summit of the Americas junket (and street protests) in Mar del Plata, Argentina. In New York City Republican incumbent billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg has been elected to another term, defeating challenger Fernando Ferrer. By late October Bloomberg's campaign had spent nearly 67 million dollars on his mayoral campaign. In New Jersey voters have selected US Democratic Senator Jon Corzine to be New Jersey's new governor over challenger Douglas Forrester. With a three hour time difference separating California from the East Coast US, not much news has arrived yet from out there. More later.

Madonna racks up on horse

I thought I was the only one - and for some reason suddenly yesterday I remembered my own ignominious spill from a horse last summer while I was learning to jump. Now I hear Madonna's suffered a similar fate; well, worse since she broke bodily parts and (luckily) I did not. Reuters says she was riding a new horse and it was her birthday. As a matter of fact she walked past me last fall on a side street in central London. She was dressed so... normally. Jeans, jacket, and a cap. I was impressed. So, Madonna, when the time comes and those bones heal, you know what you might want to do. Advice to myself, too. Get yourself back on another wonderful horse and preferably one you really know.

Conrad Harper: Harvard's lone Black board member quits when Summers gets pay raise instead of walking papers

Too often we the public are left to try to 'read between the lines.' These days a lot of people will say what they think about gender but not about race. And almost no one asks them to elaborate their 'perspectives' on race. So, far more must be inferred about their racial attitudes than what they think about gender. (As a woman of color I certainly know when it works the other way around: acknowledging race/ethnicity struggles but not dealing with gender; but in mainstream western society and its MSM, for a long time now, gender is far more accepted in discussion and debate.) Months ago after hearing Harvard Univ president Lawrence Summers' inexcusable "explanation" for women's underrepresentation in senior science positions, I could only wonder: ... What must this guy claim causes the absence plus lack of retention and under-promotion of Blacks, American Indians, and Latinas/Latinos? In January, Lawrence Summers said "differences in men's and women's abilities may partly explain why fewer women are in line for top science jobs." What do you say about the colored people, Mr. Summers? And the women of color naturally populating both categories whose existence stands to blow 'explanations' defending the absence/marginalisation of either group. Now we learn Harvard's only board member who is a person of colour has quit. Seems he did it on principle - a concept almost never discussed these days, much less done. AP reporter Michael Kunzelman says Conrad Harper, Black American attorney who is a 1965 Harvard law grad, "said he was angered both by [Lawrence Summers'] comments about women and by his being given a 3 percent salary raise." It does seem weird, doesn't it?? Almost as if he were being rewarded for what he said in January; definitely not sanctioned. Conrad Harper's letter of resignation from Harvard's board was released publicly yesterday. As reported by AP, Harper explains "his concerns "came to a head" when the Harvard Corporation decided last month to boost President Lawrence H. Summers' salary to about $580,000." In his letter, Harper tells Summers, "I believe that Harvard's best interests require your resignation." "I saw a pattern," Harper continues in his July 14 letter to Summers. "Your statements demeaned those who are underrepresented at the top levels of major research universities." Check the whole article here. You go, Conrad Harper.

Bush Shamelessly takes Republican "New Southern Strategy" to Indiana Black Expo - and to Latinos

Today George Bush and GOP Chair Ken Mehlman took their 'dog-and-pony' show to Indiana and Indiana's Black Expo. Since I have family ties there Indiana also is a home to me. The Bush-Mehlman junket was part of what I'm naming the New Republican Southern Strategy. The 'strategy' seems pretty much to be an attempt to dilute or neutralise the Black vote while organising dissatisfied Whites. Those too are my own words. The tantalising question of what some White Americans may be or ought to be upset about - and at whom - will be subjects for future posts on this blog. The New Republican Southern Strategy extends well beyond the US South, though Indiana, which borders the state of Kentucky, culturally is not completely "Northern." The Bush-Mehlman Hoosier trip was arrogant and anti-historical in the way it targeted Black Americans. These are the same people who violated the voting rights of thousands of Black Americans before and on Election Day 2000. Now George Bush and Ken Mehlman have the gall to stand before Black Indianans asking for a political blank check. Forget it George. And by the way, since Republicans have yet another "strategy" to woo Hispanics - and try to divide them from Blacks - FYI - Latinos are not monolithic... and just to re-iterate: with most Black Americans THE GOP IS STILL BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE.

The Tom and Katie show

Am I the only person who wants to know WHY Tom Cruise keeps grabbing that girl by the back of her neck? "Spirit Fingers" (I'm guessing SF is a "Western" blogger) based in Hong Kong has at least one blog entry on the TOM AND KATIE Show: "I Loved This Woman." [even if I did snap her neck]

Was he afraid she might turn her head?

Oprah nixes HERMES: Paris Shop says don't come in

Money makes some Black folks rich but it still can't make some other folks less ignorant. In a tragic case of "mistaken identity" shopkeepers at Hermes in Paris apparently mistook Oprah Winfrey for an idiot. Maybe they saw her chocolate brown face and thought "beggar." Oops. The talk show host, and publishing and producing diva - and all-around sister with mucho courage - is said to have assured the public that Hermes need not worry about seeing her -or her credit cards - ever again. I hope she keeps her word, which frankly she's likely to do. I have a strong feeling word will be getting around and some other folks will follow Oprah's lead and give Hermes and their scarves some permanent "space." This "misunderstanding" as Hermes called it, is a regularly occuring social-psychological condition known to and experienced by many, many Blacks & other people of colour (gens de couleur, gente de color). I call it the "Your-Money's-not-as-good-as-White-folks'-Money Disease." Couturier Hermes has since apologised to Oprah, but honey ... it _ is _ too _ late. Hopefully le tax system francais has a business write-off specifically for financial losses due to racist stupidity. If they don't, they and a lot of other places should. And not just in France.

Race for the Cure thank You ... and "Coming out Grandma"

Well I am up and getting ready for today's 5K. We have a woman-like change of plans. By now in my life I know: Women's lives are so - flexible. I'll be there with my granddaughters - a two year old and a two month old. This will be their first race. The 2 yr old loves running, the other one drinks alot. Luckily it's milk (not cow's). I've just about put aside thoughts of Burundi, Rwanda, Bosnia ... We'll see how the morning develops. Weather's good. I want to thank everyone who is supporting me by making donations. Detailed thank-yous later. "Italia" called this morning, in that "sarcastic" bemused voice, to let me know the town's rooting for me. And all of us are rooting for women and men all over the world dealing with breast cancer and other illness. Was it Susan Komen Foundation that notes in the US alone, about 1600 men a year discover they have breast cancer? Men have mammaries too. The rest of that is also a blog for another day.

We're Blowing It Bigtime, President Johnson; LBJ's "Great Society" May 1964

President Lyndon Baines Johnson's 22 May 1964 commencement address to the graduating class, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.

"... For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people. The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization. Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society. The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. ..."

How will we use the 9 years left till 2014 ???

Fitness honey - "The Old and The Restless" Wash Post 25 Jan 05

You know you're up to it. Check Abigail Trafford's Tues, 25 Jan Wash Post article, "The Old and the Restless" (on pg. HE01).

"The new fitness freak is the 60-year-old who lifts weights every day. Or the 70-year-old who runs marathons. For some, regular exercise becomes the organizing focus of the week, the way raising children and building a résumé used to be.

"I do it -- it's like drink," quips Peter Barnes, who retired for several years after practicing law for more than 35 years in Washington and Baltimore. Now back to work in a less frenetic job, as a lawyer for the federal government, he goes to the gym five or six mornings a week for an intense regimen of spinning and body building. "It's very much an organizing principle of my week," says Barnes, 64. ..."

It's my turn next week when we head for the snow (skiing-yes!!).