Marian's Blog

"Blogging While Black' Panel at 2005 South by Southwest, Sunday 13 March

South by Southwest conferences and festivals are coming up in Austin, Tx in just over a month. I see George - of AllAboutGeorge - has a notice on his blog that he's on the Blogging While Black panel, on Sunday, 13 March. I used the link George posted tho' I don't yet see mention of all the panels. Wonder who else'll be on the panel; I send them my congrats!

Sunnis as 'Serbs'? Iraq election, Sunni minority, ethnic jigsaw puzzles

Iraq is happening today. I see Peter Erben is in charge of Iraq's out-of-country voting. That's the process for those Iraqis who will vote but aren't in [the midst of the carnage of certain areas of present-day] Iraq.

Here at my house we're talking about the Iraq election process compared to our experiences in Bosnia, Kosova/Kosovo, Croatia, and elsewhere in the Balkans.

For the moment we'll set aside the distinct and frightening, or at the very least unsettling, possibility of going to vote (or to monitor these elections) and not getting back alive. There's also issues of follow-up to this election including the presence of a now politically dominant Shi'a society in a sea of Sunni-dominant societies.

[Apparently Bush's Official Washington says it intends going to change all that. To change in fact the whole Mideast. On the brilliant Daily Show with Jon Stewart, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said the Bush juggernaut ["Jagannatha"] is not interested in any news stories, any factual accounts, congressional questions/ [minority Democrat] condemnation, or any other criticism.]

The Bush part of Official Washington is on its own path for 4 more years.

Iraq causes some of us to think of the 'ghosts' of other recent (and far less bloody/chaotic) foreign (mostly not unilateral) military interventions and subsequent elections.

Like Bosnia 1997. Thanks to OSCE, this was my own introduction to life and work in eastern Bosnia: Zvornik, Bratunac and Srebrenica (and of course Sekovici [sheh kovee chee]) - the Bosnian Serb Republic, Republika Srpska.

After the Bosnian war and the rest of the break up of former Jugoslavija, some saw Bosnian Serbs as Bosnia's new ethnic underdog - or as being out of favour - since the forces purporting to represent them [Milosevic et al] had lost the war.

The thing to realise here is that the ethnic effect I'm talking about was/is not limited to a single country.

Bosnia was one thing. So was Croatia. Then there was Kosovo.

I should say there is Kosova/o. "Kosova" in Albanian.

Kosova/o remains a province of Serbia and of 'remnant' Jugoslavija, which amounts to Serbia including Kosova/o + tiny Montenegro). [The international community still isn't sure what to do on the Kosovo/a final status either. With all eyes on Washington & Iraq time is running out for Kosovo/a's peaceful resolution.]

What's left of the Kosovar Serbs is now Kosova/Kosovo's largest ethnic minority.

(There are also major & even more disadvantaged Roma ["gypsy"] and related populations in Kosovo/a and throughout the Balkans.)

Check your news archives and elsewhere on the Kosovo Serb minority's (non)participation in elections there since 2000. Yes, I was there in the province's very first municipal election in 2000.

And now we have Iraq. Kurds seem thrilled to vote, as are most or many of the newly post-Saddam (a Sunni), liberated numerical majority Shi'a population.

With Sunnis as the majority in the region what of their minority in Iraq? Will the Sunni be the "Serbs" of Iraq?

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!!).

Uncle Bud - Dr. Reuben R. Nichols, MD, 1927-2005, New Jersey USA

Dr. Reuben R. Nichols (Jr.) joined our ancestors in the morning of Thursday, 13 January 2005.

Services were held Monday, 17 January in Rahway, New Jersey. An expanded memorial is planned pending arrangements by the family.

In Newark Dr. Nichols was known with love and respect as the Ghetto Doctor because of his dedication to the people & communities he served. His medical specialty was thoracic (chest) surgery.

His family and friends mostly called him "Bud" or "Nick".

Reuben Richard Nichols, Jr. was born 8 January 1927 in Knoxville, Tennessee, southern Appalachia USA. He was the baby brother of Edna and only son of the late Maude Gudger Nichols and Reuben R. ("Sarge") Nichols, Sr. (the late Sergeant & Mrs. Reuben R. Nichols of Washington, DC).

In addition to his sister, Dr. Nichols is survived by his wife, and by his children: 2 daughters and 2 sons as well as his beloved grand and great grandchildren.

Dr. Nichols was preceded in death by his parents and later by his beloved first wife, the late Louise Massingale Nichols, a native of St. Louis, Missouri.

Dr. Nichols is also survived by family in Leavenworth, Kansas City and Chanute, Kansas; Washington, DC; Pennsylvania; Greeneville, Tennessee and western North Carolina; Muncie and Indianapolis, Indiana; Los Angeles and Sacramento, California; Ohio; Arizona; New Mexico; Anchorage, Alaska and elsewhere in the United States and abroad, including Tokyo, Japan, Amsterdam, Netherlands and Rome, Italy.

Dr. Nichols grew up with his family in Washington, DC where he graduated from historically Black Dunbar High School and Howard University.

While studying at Howard Medical School Dr. Nichols taught anatomy there and completed his medical education at age 21.

He began his medical career in the American South - Tuskegee, Alabama and Cedartown, Georgia before establishing his practice in New Jersey. Uncle Bud was in love with life.

8 Feb: "Eyes on the Prize" - Viewing parties wherever You are

Picked up on this news at social bookmark space del.icio.us. To me del.icio.us is kind of like listening to radio, only you read.

I wasn't familiar with something called downhillbattle.org - as 'music activists' dedicated to the music downloading struggle - but it seems they've taken up the cause of getting historic t.v. documentary "Eyes on the Prize" re-distributed. There's some kind of complicated copyright problem not to mention its producer, Henry Hampton, passed away in 1998. He was only 58.

Sorry for not having names of many other collaborators here. Check the links I've included or surf for more.

I remember that "Eyes" kind of made Henry Hampton's professional reputation. He founded and ran the film and video production firm, Blackside Inc. In its day it was the largest Black American owned tv/film production company.

EOTP is narrated by the boyishly cute Civil Rights Movement veteran Julian Bond. His father, Horace Mann Bond, was the first Black president of historically Black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.

Frances K. Gateward writes at Museum.tv: "Produced over the course of twelve years by Blackside, Inc. one of the oldest minority-owned film and television production companies in the country [U.S.], the series received over 23 awards, including two Emmys... the International Documentary Association's distinguished documentary award... and the CINE Golden Eagle."

There's also the programme's companion book, written by journalist Juan Williams. There doesn't seem to be a copyright battle - at least not over the paperback: Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 (1987), by Juan Williams, introduction by Julian Bond; also written with the Eyes on the Prize Production Team. Judging by its unexplained unavailability maybe the hardback is another (copyright) story.

1987. It's darn near 20 years since this book came out, and it's shameful the video and the books (hardback especially) have gotten relatively little play in so many years.

The video. Possibly a brilliant move by downhillbattle and potentially a win-win strategy, though I'd love to know exactly how many Black interactive media [& music] principals downhillbattle has, knows, helps & works/networks/partners with.

It may be strategic (as in new "allies"?) that they've taken up the cause of getting "Eyes on the Prize" - "the most comprehensive television documentary ever produced on the American civil rights movement" [pbs.org] - back to the world.

I hadn't realized it's been 10 yrs since EOTP last saw the public light of day. That is way too long.

What's the deal, who holds copyright? What's the beef?

On Tuesday, Feb 8th, at 8pm/20.00hrs downhillbattle is asking us all to organise mass public showings of EOTP. Details @ the website. I'm there already...

Wanna play?? "Who wants to be Black American?"

What is up with this?? Is being who we are now like a game show or something: "Gee, who wants to be a Black American??"

On the eve of U.S. Black History Month 2005 ("The Niagra Movement: Black Protest Reborn") I need to ask who is trying to co-opt and confuse the identity and ethnicity of Black American people?

Black History Month was started in Washington, DC by Carter G. Woodson, a native of next-door Virginia. As a [Black American] school child in Washington, DC, my Mother remembers meeting Carter G. Woodson, much like years later when I met Mohammed Ali/Cassius Clay on more than one occasion.

Were Carter Woodson alive today I'd ask what he thinks of these lame attempts to dilute and de-stabilise Black American identity. If I told my 5 Black American grandparents what some folks today are trying to do to our ethnicity they'd all probably turn in their graves (all located in the USA).

My Black American family's been formed, enslaved, born, raised,
worked and died in North & South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, DC, Kansas, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, Florida, and elsewhere in the USA.

In spite of apparently never-ending efforts against Black Americans there are still plenty of us in most [not all] of those places all over the USA; so there's really no need for anyone to try to 'recruit' or invent any "new" Black Americans.

When I was growing up and sometimes - while traveling - my (Black American) family was busy seeking out a gas station's single 'colored'
restroom [as in 3 doors labelled "men", "women", "colored"] or the local colored motel -if there was one - outsiders (i.e., white Americans) showed no interest in subverting our ethnic identity. In the U.S. North just as much as the South most white Americans (including most of the whites who are related to Black Americans) - just wanted us to stay away; to keep our political and physical distance.

White folks wanted us Black Americans to be 'useful' ... and usable... yet pretty invisible. No such luck for them anymore.

Now together with our domestic and international friends and allies Black Americans must organise and communicate to fight the latest attempts to erase, nullify, dilute and de-value Black American
ethnicity, community, culture and history, as well as our future.

Do U.S. authorities and others wish to manipulate the traditional and
defacto definition of "African American" to further marginalise the
tens of millions of us who actually are Black Americans?

One of the weirdest things that's happened to me personally behind all this is having an Italian American man publicly call me a "racist" - simply because I told him Barack Obama is not Black American.

Well shut my impudent Black American female mouth. Obviously that guy knows better than I who I am and who is and is not related to me. And if you believe that, I've got a bridge...

The U.S. government's (calculated) political process of "naturalising" people cannot make them Black Americans any more than they can "become" American Indian/Native American.

Isn't there a provision in human rights custom or law that says all
human beings and human communities have a right to legal recognition of their ethnic identity? (As if the U.S. government, which has refused to sign other key international agreements, would care.)

The fact that a person or their family is African or "of African
ancestry" (i.e., Black) and lives in (i.e., re-located/migrated to)
the United States does not make her or him a member of the Black
American ethnic group. This is not to suggest those persons are not Black, however they are not ethnic Black Americans from the U.S.A.

For some reason up to now the American government can't seem to be bothered to point out the difference.

It seems almost too obvious to state that due to our distinct history
(still largely unknown or misunderstood outside the USA), Black
American ethnicity & identity are not constructed the way white
Americans and the U.S. government have deliberately (and
hyper-racially) constructed "whiteness" and "white American" identity.

For the past 100 or more years White American identity has perpetuated itself by changing imported individuals and their families and/or communities from various European backgrounds into "white American".

Such persons are also (erroneously) called "Caucasian" - as the U.S. government calls whites (and anyone else they wish to racially/ethnically co-opt).

I received an opinion survey from the opinion polling firm Zogby asking people to choose the "African American" they consider most influential. The "candidate list" included Colin Powell and Barack Obama, neither of whom is Black American.

I'm not saying perhaps one or the other or both of these persons might not be an exemplary human being. I am saying that neither had any family member who was a Black American enslaved or free in the USA.

As an ethnic group our history is not identical to the history of white people in America, since we are Black Americans and are neither white nor white American. Black Americans are related to many white people (most of whom we do not know by their name) - most who refuse to talk about it ... but that's another story. [Read Ed Ball's Slaves in the Family.]

Colin Powell is Caribbean American. Both his parents came to New York from the island nation of Jamaica. Which is absolutely fine, but none of his 4 grandparents came from any Black American community in the United States.

Barack Obama, who is Kenyan and white, is now a U.S. senator - almost solely thanks to the political support of Black Americans from the Southside of Chicago, Illinois. His father is Kenyan who moved to the U.S. and his mother is white American.

That ancestry does not make a person a Black American. In fact Barack Obama, through his mother, is descended from white slaveholder Jefferson Davis who was president of the Confederacy - the armed rebellion organised against the United States to keep Black Americans in enslavement.

If Barack Obama has any blood connection to Black Americans it would
be through his mother's white American family & the Black Americans to whom his Mother and her family are almost certainly related. Sadly, white Americans have almost never acknowledged such things ... but that's another book.

On behalf of my family, ancestors and community I deeply resent continuing attempts to manipulate our existence, to alter who we are. The world needs to understand this, not fall for it, and actively oppose what's going on.

After Auschwitz: Russia + David Duke + Internet = Marketing Racism: Africans, Asians, others high Risk including Death

In June 2004 Carolynne Wheeler reports in the Guardian (UK) the assassination of 64 year old (Russian) scholar and minority rights committee chair, Dr Nikolai Girenko, "shot at point-blank range when his granddaughter called him to speak to a stranger at the door."

Considering the code red state of racist violence in Russia today it's just a distant, particularly bitter memory that Russia's troops liberated survivors of Poland's WWII extermination camp Auschwitz.

My first visit to Warsaw impressed me by the extent to which - in my book - parts of its culture still seem to reflect its Jewish past. As we remember Auschwitz I really want to know if Russia's Duma (lower house of parliament) still promotes and sells David Duke's racist, anti-semitic book. (The Duma website is in Russian & kirilica - cyrillic alphabet.)

Nowadays around 20 April every year Russia becomes even more dangerous than it already is for Black people and other people of colour. April 20 - the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth - is also a deadly time for others perceived as racially/ethnically "different", and even just 'foreigners'.

After Hitler's birthday in 1998 "a group of youths broke the teeth of a black US Marine embassy guard." [April 2002 BBC news: "Moscow ups security for Hitler's birthday". The author writes Russia's interior ministry counts about "10,000 Russians" (allegedly mostly youth) as members of neo-nazi groups. In my book 10-thousand seems seriously underestimated.

"Xenophobic attacks occur regularly in Moscow and other large Russian cities, with Africans and people from the Caucasus region among those most often targeted." [From the same Apr 2002 BBC report.]

From Moscow in Jan 2001 Anna Bodkhen wrote in the Boston Globe:

"Twenty years after he resigned as the leader of the Ku Klux Klan, DAVID DUKE appears to have found a new audience for his racist views in Russia: members of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. Duke's new book, an anti-Semitic tract called ''The Jewish Question Through the Eyes of an American'' has been on sale at the legislature since December [2000]. The sales staff says the glossy black volume is doing a brisk business at $1.70 a copy. ...

"... The book, Duke's first work to be published in Russian, asserts that Russia, being a ''white nation,'' can play a crucial role in saving the ''white race,'' which, he argues, is facing a ''genetic catastrophe.'' What needs to be done, Duke writes, is to recognize the Jewish tendency to strive toward ''supremacy.'' "

I'm looking for news accounts of the letter African embassies in Moscow drafted jointly in 2002/2003 to Russia's foreign ministry, asking for official Russian government action against increasingly violent racist attacks on diplomats, embassy staff and dozens of other Blacks [and others racially/ethnically different] in Russia.

"Even on the metro I'm scared. I can't even go out anymore. Russia is no longer safe for us blacks" - Nigerian student Jane; BBC article, 4 Sept 2001, "Moscow race hate 'on the rise'."

All this culminated in the November 2003 dorm fire in Moscow that killed more than 40 foreign students and injured scores of others.

More on the Ku Klux Klan: a Secret history

The documentary film "The Ku Klux Klan: a secret history" includes interviews with folks like Civil Rights Movement veteran Julian Bond, as well as staff of the Southern Poverty Law Center based in Montgomery, Alabama USA. Julian Bond serves on their board of directors.

"Ku Klux Klan: secret history"; white "supremacy"; David Duke and Russia's racist violence

If you haven't seen the film The Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History you should. These days it's showing in Europe on the History Channel via satellite TV. We only hope it's still being shown in the US and elsewhere in the Americas, as well as Africa and the rest of the world.

This film is thorough & pulls no punches. It also includes a profile of David Duke and his 'kinder, softer' white-collar white supremacy.

Sadly, America is now well into an era where a very vocal social and political element is steadily moving us further & further to the right, and more openly closer to so-called "white identity" or "Christian [read 'white'] identity" racist hate groups. The KKK: A Secret History helps us understand where we stand on the global political/historical map.

Any update of this film made in 1998 should expand to show ties of domestic U.S. racist proselytism and violence to their international activities including those via the Internet.

[Traveling out of the U.S. and back on a passport issued to him by the United States of America] American white supremacist David Duke has made multiple trips to what he calls "white Mother Russia" and has had at least one of his books translated into Russian and sold from a store run by Russia's own Duma (national parliament).

Duke's influence in Russia and the region seems linked to a noticeable upsurge in racist and anti-Semitic violence - including severe beatings and murders - following his trips to the Russian Federation over the past few years. This influence quite possibly includes impetus behind the extremely suspicious Nov 2003 fatal early morning fire in a foreign student dormitory at Moscow's People's Friendship University.

More than 40 mostly Asian and African foreign students died in that fire. We are not saved.

DARFUR & U.S. Black History Month 2005

We need something from each of us who reads this blog to help save the people of Darfur in 2005. The first thing is sharing a commitment to act; to do some little thing for Darfur on a regular basis. That includes sending designated material help through known & respected organisations. There is no choice... Darfur must be our priority.

Check my Sister Okuwori's entry on Darfur over at her blog, Black Looks.

And it's almost February as Black America and our compatriots & global 'fellow travelers' prepare for U.S. Black (African American) History Month.