Marian's Blog

$200/barrel Oil? Choosing sustainability

My cab driver, transplanted from Ethiopia, told me first. That was weeks ago. But I couldn't believe it till I read the headline of today's Independent (London): "Price of oil will double." Folks, we have now reached 'put up or shut up' time. Time to re-tool our out-of-whack, hyper-industrialised U.S./western lifestyle - much of which is so wastefully over-indulgent. Let's take the news as a wake up call, not doom-and-gloom. I prefer something akin to Lucile Alder's poetic view (Dancing toward the future, published in the same journal with Meadows, Meadows and Randers' 1992 follow-up to their 1972 The Limits of Growth). Make good use of age and even perhaps of wisdom. In short, finally learning, as human society, to wise-up while we have time.

"-- To become a dancer so late
To be determined so late to become
A dancer is to become part
Of the dream of the humble heart
Determined to dance to the beat
Of this one dawn becoming day
Caught by a great blush and throb
Of laughter at such a becoming
Such a desire to become a dancer
In the sense of one moving, clumsy
With effort, yet effortlessly becoming..."

Lucile Alder, Dancing toward the Future

Food: from fuel to riots as Reuters covers agflation

The current global food crisis makes me remember being in Jamaica in the last quarter of 1977. Michael Manley was prime minister. For some reason, the U.S. government did not consider Mr. Manley a friend. Somehow I sensed that perhaps it was more than coincidence that the same tense political period between Washington and Kingston witnessed empty shelves in all of Kingston's local food shops. This is no exaggeration. There was no rice and no beans ("peas" in the Caribbean). It's painful to remember, particularly in contrast to my eventual return to the States and walking into a supermarket as though it were the first time. I experienced culture shock. In fact, I wept as I saw aisle after aisle of so many brands of the same products, and much of it junk. Literally nothing to buy on grocery shelves a few short miles away in Jamaica, and row after row of food and junk on U.S. shelves. More often than not the items on the American shelves consisted of something manufactured for human consumption; so much of it in a category we've been conditioned to call "snack" foods. Fast forward to now. I'm not sure if Reuters coined the term "agflation" but they use it in this article on the soaring costs around the globe for people to feed their families and communities. This week in Haiti it was food riots and looting that resulted in several deaths. At the beginning of this year it was tortilla riots in Mexico, and last fall, some of India's poorest protested middlemen's alleged stockpiling for profit of food designated to help feed the most hungry. Amid so many concerns around food and agriculture politics globally and in the U.S., the American public needs to pressure Congress and federal and state governments to re-consider the idea of further converting land and crops used for food to the expansion of biofuel. A related matter is the fact that it's far cheaper and more efficient for people themselves to eat grain rather than raise large animals (beef livestock, for example), feed them enormous quantities of grain, and then slaughter these animals in order for people to eventually eat them. In most U.S. households for 30 years or so, the idea of the practicality of vegetarianism caused little more than a casual or bemused stir (or maybe an argument) over lunch or dinner. Today, however, with heightening contradictions of food, fuel and other costs vs. survival, this discussion hopefully will take on new life and new meaning.

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.

Black Women meet, and annual Congressional Black Caucus

It feels like everyone meets in September. The annual CBC - Congressional Black Caucus - Legislative Conference is underway through Saturday. Looking at the conference dates apparently the traditional Sunday morning prayer breakfast may no longer be fully included, though it's popular and is taking place. Black women's groups are hosting international meetings on two continents, opening the same day, with one in Europe, Vienna, Austria, and the other in America, in Washington, DC. In Washington, along with the Constituency for Africa, the National Council of Negro Women hosted a half-day panel of women from several regions of the African world. "Empowering Women of Political Power in the African Diaspora" took place Thursday at NCNW's historic brownstone building in downtown DC. Strangely, and hardly by accident, although Washington still remains a majority-Black American city, the National Council of Negro Women is the only Black American organisation which owns a building in downtown DC (a not-so-tiny fact in itself worthy of enquiry). Moderator was Cynthia Colas, director of NCNW's International Development Center while Dorothy Height, NCNW's venerable Chair, President Emerita and resident doyenne, presided. Among presenters were African Union ambassador to the USA, Her Excellency Amina Salum Ali, U.S. Congresswoman Diane Watson of California, Zakiya Wadada, exec. dir. of the Emancipation Support Committee of Trinidad and Tobago (Caribbean), and the Hon. Halima Mohamed Mamuya, Member of Parliament, Tanzania, East Africa. So many talented women and too many to list, but more are named here. In Austria (Arnold Schwarzenegger's home country) the Black women's group AFRA and its director, Beatrice Achaleke, host the three-day Congress of Black European Women, the first congress of its type. Co-sponsored by Austria's parliamentary president Barbara Prammer, the meeting was planned as part of the EU's 2007 European Year of Equal Opportunities for All. (Possibly for all save Europe's colonial populace in the Americas???) Anyway. Here's a news story on Thursday's Congress opening. Last week I e-interviewed Yvette Jarvis in Athens. In 2000 Jarvis became Greece's first Black elected official as a member of Athens City Council. Currently she is special advisor on immigration to the city's mayor. 

The colour of sub-prime, & trans-Atlantic cash

We're back from the wilds of day-to-day reality! And today we're blogging from a handheld device. Chatted with 'techie guru' Jason, who also blogs. He had us both cracking up laughing as simultaneously we realised there's so much absurdity now going on daily that for some of us it's almost impossible to pick what to write about. How about "trans-Atlanticism in the 'hood", as France's largest bank, BNP Paribas, temporarily shut down investor access to three BNP private-investor funds linked to U.S. so-called 'sub-prime' mortgage lending. (Pretty obviously, just like decent health care and access to quality public education, home ownership is yet another part of the "American dream" fable never really intended for nor widely available to certain Americans.) Here's a tip: look for the zillions of local stories behind the "subprime" story. This is about scores of Black American families and neighborhoods, in particular, scandalously ill-served and thoroughly exploited in this disaster. We are so far from "forty acres and a mule", it's not even funny. (Little discussed today, 40 acres and 1 mule were proposed to be awarded by the U.S. government to our finally liberated, formerly enslaved Black American ancestors. Ultimately a U.S. president rejected even this gesture.)

United States Social Forum debuts in Georgia, 27 Jun-1 Jul

Hmmm... what's making headlines in the U.S. today? Paris Hilton out of jail and possibly giving an 'interview' to Playboy. Duh. In the UK Tony Blair steps out as prime minister as his Chancellor of the Exchequeur Gordon Brown steps in. And then there's the very first national U.S. Social Forum, opening in Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta and Georgia. Firmly part of the U.S. South; central geography in the original home region of the Cherokee Nation (no, it was not Oklahoma); home of Dr. Martin Luther King and historically Black American "Sweet" Auburn Avenue and Spelman (women's) and Morehouse (men's) colleges. The global social forum movement has been active and building for some time yet I would wager large numbers of Americans who probably consider themselves "informed" have no idea what a 'social forum' is. (In the U.S. staying "informed" seems to have become even more relative and challenging than it always has been - at least for news & info on certain kinds of democracy- and human rights-related topics, domestic as well as international.) The official USSF site reads: "The US Social Forum is more than a conference, more than a networking bonanza, more than a reaction to war and repression. ..." The global Social Forum theme is, "Another world is possible". The U.S. theme takes it a step further. "Another world is possible - Another U.S. is necessary." Amen.

Solstice yoga in Times Square: "Mind over Madness", free, June 21st

This is zehr cool... Mind over Madness public yoga, June 21st in Times Square, 7am to sunset. Has anyone else done this yet, say, in Nairobi, Sarajevo, Point-a-Pitre or elsewhere? About twenty-five NYC yoga studios are participating in this "free yoga-fest in the heart of Times Square. Yoga enthusiasts, both experienced and beginners, gather to face the challenge of finding tranquility and transcendence in the midst of the urban energy of the world's most commercial and frenetic place." (Inner) Peace.

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.

People of color voted majority Dem, most Whites Republican

Here are statistics political pundits and others need to chew on. A Latino colleague sent me this NYTimes link to a fascinating exit survey on the November 2006 U.S. midterm House of Reps election. According to Edison Media Research & Mitofsky International, overall White women and men voted 52% Republican. Every counted group of people of colour voted majority Democrat.

I say every counted group because for some reason Edison/Mitofsky chose to exclude American Indian voters. Edison/Mitofsky also condescendingly refers to people of colour as "non-whites". To put it bluntly, both of these things stink and in future posts I'll be following these issues: the constant, daily exclusion of American Indian people from virtually every U.S. poll and everything else, and the use of this idiotic, pejorative negation "non-white".

Regarding votes for Democrats, whites voted just 48% compared to Black voters who cast 89% - eighty-nine - for Democrats, Latinos ("Hispanics") 70% Dem and Asians 62%. Although Edison/Mitofsky refers to people collectively as "non-whites", they seem to have "forgotten" to publish the average of these votes for Blacks plus Latinos plus Asians. So I took the liberty of doing it. The totals are about 73% for Democrats to about 27% for Republicans among all voters of colour. NYTimes says the polling firm interviewed more than 13-thousand voters as they exited 249 polling places.

U.S. Midterms: "Appetizer for 2008" - Gergen

What was unimaginable less than 48 hours ago has occurred. Democrats have won both the House and the Senate while Mr. Rumsfeld has been shown the District line. Sayonara, Don. I couldn't have said it better than David Gergen on CNN declaring Tuesday's election results "the appetizer" for Election Day 2008. Gergen also aptly declared what's happening in America as "political high drama". A-men. In today's early hours, Thursday, 9 November, Associated Press has now declared Jim Webb winner while Mr. Webb has publicly thanked the people of Virginia (1607-2007) for electing him that state's new U.S. senator. Unlike perhaps a few folks I don't really intend to brag. At least not much. Globally and inside the U.S. all of us are dealing with many sobering things. Yet now at least there's the opportunity to begin again and to do some things which are both practical and right. Tuesday's really was a seismic vote.

It's Iraq, the economy AND the Constitution, "Stupid"

I'm certainly not calling anyone "stupid". That was part of a very accurate and effective Democratic campaign slogan a few elections back. But mid-term Election 2006 is about Iraq. It is about the U.S. and global economy - which also partly is about Iraq, especially for the U.S. economy already in the toilet - and it is about whether the U.S. Constitution is worth the paper it was written on. Even Alice in Wonderland never went to a tea party like the one all of us are at. In spite of assessments of many, many Americans, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld tells us again: he doesn't plan to go anywhere. Could someone, anyone, please show Mr. Rumsfeld to the District of Columbia line? Who is taking marching orders from whom? If, like me, you're an American, for God's sake vote - and vote progressive. Everyone else in the rest of the world, please pray, or just send some good energy our way.

WAR as "tax", only worse, & the U.S. 2006 elections

We're into the countdown to the 2006 U.S. mid-term elections. Tuesday, Nov 7, is election day, and if you're registered, I urge you to vote. On t.v. one of the usual political talking heads tries to "remind" us that "if Democrats win, they'll institute taxes."

What the heck?! Is that supposed to be an argument?

Isn't war a huge, bloody, tax???

No amount of taxes or other money that any of us pays will bring back one life lost in this war. Don't forget to add in billions going to some rather shadowy private corporations to "rebuild" the country where the war is. Then we hear not much really is being built. So we don't even know where the money has gone. "Your tax dollars at work." But in the Washington, DC metro area - mainly suburban Maryland and northern Virginia - you hear from reliable sources that so many of the people with money to buy big homes work (or do contracting) for Defense Department and "Homeland Security". So please don't talk to me about Democrats and "taxes". Let's vote.

Britain reports plot to blow up transatlantic flights from London

BBC and other media are reporting an alleged terror plot to blow up planes on transatlantic flights out of London. In the UK more than 20 persons have been arrested with searches continuing. Three U.S. airlines are said to have been targeted: United, Continental and American. London's Heathrow Airport appears virtually closed for the time being, with an international 'knock-on' or domino effect. UK authorities advise travelers to stay away from Heathrow as much as possible today. At present no hand luggage or liquids may be carried onto UK flights. Exceedingly long queues are reported along with flight cancellations and/or serious delays. A steady stream of news conferences is occurring in London, Washington and elsewhere.

World Cup: Italy 2, Deutschland 0, tied with an azzurro-blue bow!

Well, folks, it was wine over beer in Germany last night! Roger Cohen's Herald Trib piece nicely summarises what went down as Italia came through with back-to-back goals in overtime! Everybody was shocked - including Fabio Grosso - as he made that first score. Over by Circo Massimo in downtown Roma they were dancing in the street late into the night. Grazie, Deutschland, for the 2006 hospitality and a hard-fought game!

World Cup and Der Spiegel Online: German incident in an Italian hotel, 2004

None of us knows exactly how today's Italy-Germany match will go. Some folks are pulling even harder for Italia ever since Achim Achilles' "why bother" comments were published in his infamous (and now removed) column on Der Spiegel Online (DSO). (The last link is to a BBC story about the column.) I say "why bother" because, well, why bother writing and publishing such nonsense?? From what I read, the column wasn't witty and definitely was not funny. I won't say Achilles' comments came from all Germans because obviously they did not. Not to mention, as others have pointed out elsewhere, the name Achim Achilles isn't exactly culturally German itself. At the same time it seems his remarks aren't as isolated as most of us would wish. It's interesting to consider and discuss how such aggressively stereotypical thinking fits into "problem-making" versus the efforts at "problem-solving" that are going on simultaneously today across the globe, including in Italia and Germany. In his June 28 post titled "Heil Spiegel" Italian humorist/comedian Beppe Grillo ("GREEL-lo") writes about the Der Spiegel episode via his blog. To Der Spiegel Online's credit, two days after Grillo's post someone called "Roberto Longo" added DSO's apology - in 3 languages - on Grillo's site as a response to the "Heil Speigel" entry.

This forces me to recall the Italian press reports of the incident two summers ago (2004) in an Italian hotel (Il Tritone in Abano Terme, Padova) where German tourists actually demanded the hotel management remove from her job a young woman on a 1-month student internship working Tritone Hotel's front desk. If you read Italian, see Costantino Muscau's 24 May 2004 article in Corriere della Sera: "E nera, non puo stare alla reception". Translation: She's Black, she can't be [work] at the reception [desk]. The 18-year-old student worker was African and, for some reason, this particular group of foreign (German) tourists organised to get her fired; not because of anything incorrect in her work but because of who she was. Later the story came out of how her parents settled in Italy years earlier, her father, Ekoli Mahnge Zulu, being a former IBF welterweight world boxing champion. Unfortunately the Tritone hotel's management did cave-in to this crazy, racist pressure (from a group of German tourists no less), which justly brought lots of coverage and an outcry in the Italian media. This led to the young woman (Marlene Zulu, Zairoise by birth) being offered and accepting another "stage" at the "more appropriate" Rossini Hotel, also in Italy, in Pesaro. Daily injustices like this anywhere in the world and including Europe, Germany, Italy and elsewhere, should have such courageous outcomes far more often.

Caribbean heritage: "I met History once but he ain't recognize me"

Recently I read somewhere a scholar's observation that if you want to understand Britain's early colonies in the Americas you cannot make a distinction between life in the British colonial Caribbean and life on the British colonial North American mainland. Charleston, South Carolina's deep connections to St. Catherine's (now St. Kitt's) and Nevis are just one example. The people and their interactions were so totally linked. Part of what our histories and heritages tell me is we have a lot of "re-discovering" to do - not only of each other but of ourselves. I found a few things I like on this site of professor A. Waller Hastings - including Derek Walcott's quote. I feel I know what he's talkin' about:

“I met History once, but he ain’t recognize me” (Derek Walcott, “The Schooner Flight”). And an 1882 quote from British politician Sir John Seeley: "We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind."

A whole history of the things Britain (and France and Holland and Spain and Portugal, etc., etc.) did - not to mention the hard cash they stashed - but of which she now has so little conscious memory. I say this as one of tens of millions of people of colour from the Americas (and elsewhere) with what I'll call "our unclaimed ties to Britain" (i.e., ties Britain thusfar seems to refuse to recognise). So Seeley's quote sounds accurate to me.

Nor is all the Caribbean English-speaking or linked to colonial Britain: "... one of the early revolutionary critiques of colonialism, [was] that of Frantz Fanon, a French writer born in Martinique [part of the Caribbean] and educated to conceive himself as French.  However, his education in France and confrontation with French racism made him aware of the disorientation he experienced as a black man taught to behave “white,” and he responded in part by writing his influential tract, Black Skin, White Masks (1952). ..."

"... Among the first British colonies were those that later formed the United States, and foremost among these was Virginia (est. 1617) [actually it was 1607, with major retrospective activities in 2007] where the cultivation of tobacco, previously unknown in Europe, proved a boon to the British economy. Virginia contributed enormous amounts of revenue to the crown; .... duties on tobacco amounted to £421,000 pounds in the two-year period between 1699 and 1701 - one-fifth of all customs revenue during that period (7). ... Britain also developed economic interests in the West Indies. The first British settlement was in Barbados (est. 1627), which struggled at first until the possibilities of the sugar trade became apparent. The sugar economy led to other West Indian colonies, but the climate of the region made it unattractive to British settlers; even indentured servants and deportees lacked the physical stamina needed, so the slave trade was introduced to provide an appropriate labor force (the local population having already been devastated as a result of being the first point of contact with European civilization). ..." We come from this history that once was whole and now we and it are fragmented. And so it goes. Happy Caribbean American Heritage Month to all of us connected to this common history.

Immigration: the "one size fits all" problem

The other day a white American man "confided" to me, unsolicited, how he knows a number of other white Americans who he says "would sooner hire immigrants" than hire Black Americans. He added he didn't think this was happening "by accident"; that many or even most of these people know exactly what they are doing.

This reminds me of a conversation years ago in Minnesota. Another white American described to me how certain white Minneapolis & St. Paul employers were hiring Black Americans, Native Americans (American Indians), and Latinos in order to pay less than the hourly wage they would pay most whites.

These attitudes - de facto policies of not hiring Black Americans, and paying people of colour lower wages than whites for the same work - are not based on any consideration of "individual abilities" but are two related versions of the same old racism. In the national immigration debate who is discussing or even talking about this? The white American I quoted first is now in the U.S. but says he has lived abroad a lot - in Africa, and not as U.S. military. I suggested he find the courage to speak publicly about what he already knows that he knows.

This immigration morass is more complicated and more compelling than many let on, which makes it definitely worth thinking hard about and discussing and acting on with all the affected parties at the table, including Black Americans. So far this does not seem to be what is happening - certainly not enough. And though next to American Indians, Black Americans have been in America longest and have so much at stake, most of us are not being included in the public discussion and most of us are not in the highly charged politicking and lobbying process.

"The Israel Lobby" in London Review of Books

I've been told by those "in the know" that this piece by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt is a seminal article. It's about US foreign and domestic policy toward Israel, and its other effects in the Mideast. Also in Africa which seemingly often is caught somewhere in between. US Mideast policy always keeps Israel at its center. What are the effects? And for Americans when is it ever ok to question, examine and even to change the current "terms" of US-Israeli politics? The LRB article even quotes Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. He was born David Gryn in 1886 in a place called Plonsk which then was Russia and became Poland. Gryn/Ben Gurion "told Nahum Goldmann, the president of the World Jewish Congress: If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country . . . We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?"

John Mearsheimer is author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and professor of poli sci at Univ. of Chicago. Stephen Walt is an international affairs prof at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and author of Taming American Power: The Global Response to US Primacy, among other titles.

Misogyny, "the English disease"; and Julie Bindel in The Guardian

I noticed Julie Bindel's commentary in today's Guardian and just sort of exhaled, thinking "finally". Finally a British woman writing openly about something which has disgusted me for years, and in spite of my appreciation for much of what makes the UK the UK. What has disgusted me is the glaring contempt toward women that exists and is even rewarded among some British men; even to the point of murder (femicide) and serial murder. Over the years watching British news I kept seeing how it seemed like almost every few weeks some woman's or girl's remains were being sought or found. There are also the stories of UK male doctors and nurses with a penchant for killing mostly women patients. The first and last straw was my own experience working with certain - not all - male Brits. Finally when I fairly screamed about all this, a male close to me - and an Anglophile mind you - told me of "the English disease". I'd never heard it before he said it though I'd definitely felt "the English disease". My friend did not invent this string of words which refers to a profound antipathy among some men toward women. I would love to know who coined it; how this phrase came to be. Bindel writes forcefully in The Guardian: It is high time we start treating murders committed because of men's hatred of us, and, where no conviction is achieved due to the internalised misogyny of police, as being as serious as the Stephen Lawrence case. Stephen Lawrence was a Black teen murdered in London in 1993 by a group of young white men. In 2000 in London I met Stephen's mother. His killing was so poorly handled by authorities that all of it required another, far-reaching investigation. My own hope is someday soon one of us with a 'special' human sensitivity, and one that is not 'selective', will be able to explain to Britain and the whole world the type of antipathy which obviously links both.

Blair and Bush: E. J. Dionne's Coalition of the Erring

It worked for "Brangelina", so why not Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush? We'll use "blush" - pronounced 'bloosh' the way Scots would say it. I love the George Orwell quote in E.J. Dionne's 30 May article. "[T]he slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." How 'twu'. Well, bring it on anyway. As soon as we're done we'll all hunt, fish, chop wood and ride bikes at George's private lake in Texas.

Haditha: Reports Marines will face trial; investigation of possible cover-up

In a news article dated Wednesday, 31 May, the Independent (of London) writes that according to the BBC, "American soldiers would stand trial" in last November's killings of unarmed Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq. The article adds there's an investigation about whether there may have been a cover-up by senior officers. Oliver Duff and Jerome Taylor reported for the Independent.

Color of wealth: what's the racial wealth divide?

The Color of Wealth is available June 2006. Subtitled "The Story Behind the US Racial Wealth Divide", authors include my girl Rose Brewer along with Rebecca Adamson, Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles and Betsy Leondar-Wright.

Woman of colour and M.I.T.-trained economist Julianne Malveaux reviews TCoW: "... shows how contemporary wealth differences evolve from pivotal points in our history, and explains how public policy, even when well meaning, reinforces existing inequality. This book is an important contribution to critical work on race and economics.” Julianne's most recent book is Wall Street, Main Street and the Side Street: A Mad Economist Takes a Stroll.

The Color of Wealth press release explains that for every 100 cents (dollar) owned by an "average" US white family, an "average" US family of color has just 18 cents. "Why do people of color have so little wealth? The Color of Wealth lays bare a dirty secret: for centuries, people of color have been barred by laws and by discrimination from participating in government wealth-building programs that have benefited white Americans." This includes, for example, "post–World War II GI Bill programs [that] helped whites only—The Color of Wealth is the first book to demonstrate the decisive influence of government on Americans’ net worth."

"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

Why does Bush talk about 'the Americas' but not the OAS?

There's a major disconnect in the Americas. I can't figure when or where or how it began. Bush is in Chicago talking to the National Restaurant Assoc. and answering citizen questions about "the Americas" and relations with "our neighbors" in "the Western Hemisphere". Actually, seems more like throwing tomatoes at Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Chavez 'just happens to be' a pardo - which means he's a racially mixed person of African and Native descent; like a lot of us from the Americas. And Bush never mentions anything about the OAS. (As a matter of fact, neither does the MSM.) Heck. It's almost right out back of the White House.

Speaking of "neighbors" and "neighborhoods", this may ring a bell: "... In present day Venezuelan society, notes respected commentator Gregory Wilpert, "The correspondence between skin color and class membership is quite stunning at times. To confirm this observation, all one has to do is compare middle to upper class neighborho