Marian's Blog

Black History Month on the Eve of the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

It's Black History Month, folks. Today, renegade though it may be to some, my focus is on the peculiarities I'm observing in this 2008 U.S. presidential election season. I'll begin with a fact that may not be obvious to some observers, and the farther one is from the U.S. and our history the less obvious this fact will be. Let's call it Fact 1:

Come November, U.S. voters, after well over two centuries, still will not elect to the presidency a Black person who is the descendant of "we the people" who were enslaved not long ago in the U.S.A. These descendants are the Black American people, the group of Blacks whom Kenyan historian Ali Mazrui somehow has come to deem "undefinable" or "unmentionable", or who somehow should not be singled out n view of our long historical existence, lest in some way we might be seen as an "elite." That is his term, not mine. The other side of this issue is the current possibilitiy of electing someone to become the first Black president of a country - in this case the United States - but a person who in fact does not come from the indigenous Black population of said country. We'll call this Fact 2. Or as Mr. Mazrui informed all of us during the January symposium which was supposed to be about Blacks and abolition of the U.S. slave trade, the United States may beat Kenya by electing the first "Luo" president. Apparently Luo is the name of the Kenyan ethnic group Barack Obama's late father belonged to. Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga is a Luo also, hence the inside joke, though not to Americans in general or to Black Americans in particular. ...

Darfur: do Arab governments care? The Doha Debates on BBC

When I think of the Arab League usually I think of Somalia. I recall the League's presence and involvement in the 2002-2004 Somali peace talks in Eldoret and Mbagathi, Kenya. If you have real access to BBC TV, and not what I can only regard as the mostly pandering, mind-numbing soap opera, real estate and auction fare still being passed off as BBC America, make sure you catch the Doha Debates' segment on Sudan's genocide in Darfur. This originally aired on BBC 26-27 January 2008. The segment focuses on the Arab world's relationship to the Government of Sudan and its genocide in Darfur. I'd never before seen this series. It was taped in Qatar with a studio audience of maybe sixty, several of whom also asked a few questions of the panel aloud. The motion debated was "This House believes Arab governments couldn't care less about Darfur."

Edwards backers excluded from CNN interview on South Carolina Black voters

At this stage in the Democratic primaries why would CNN or any media outlet exclude supporters of any major candidate? Today, Friday, CNN "domestic" service interviewed two Black South Carolina religioius leaders, Revs. Timothy Browne (Cleveland Chapel Baptist Church) and Joseph Darby (Morris Brown AME Church; AME = African Methodist Episcopal, a Black American Christian denomination). It's also worth noting that no women were interviewed.

Rev. Browne said he supports Clinton. CNN introduced Rev. Darby, claiming declaring him among Barack Obama's supporters. Darby quickly corrected CNN's interviewer, pointing out he isn't supporting anyone yet. Looks like somebody at CNN must have "mis-underestimated" their homework... With apologies and a hat tip to GW Bush (sic). So why didn't CNN include an Edwards supporter?

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.

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. 

Call your U.S. senators today in favor of S. 1257 - DC Voting Rights!

According to DC Vote, today is the second annual National Call-In Day for U.S. voters to ask their U.S. Senators to vote YES on S. 1257 - the DC Voting Rights Act. DC Vote says Senate Majority leader Harry Reid has committed to bringing S. 1257 to the Senate floor tomorrow, 18 September. You can call your two U.S. senators on the following 866 number before 5PM U.S. Eastern time today. Ask them to please vote to pass the DC Voting Rights Act - tel: 1.866.346.3008. Or call on 1.202.224.3121 and ask for your senators' offices. Ask friends, family and colleagues to do likewise. If you're not American but know others who are, ask them to do the same. And thanks. What's at stake is (finally) granting equal participation in the House of Representatives to the people of Washington, DC. You'd think we already had this right, huh?

Americans whose home is "the Nation's Capital" - Washington - have waited patiently and protested very peacefully for a very long time. We're again asking our sister and fellow citizens for a modicum of equal status. Even if we win tomorrow, we'll still be unrepresented in the U.S. Senate. 

One battle at a time. The House of Reps already has approved this change. Now the decision is up to the 100 senators who control DC's future yet are only based in Washington to represent all the other Americans out in the lower 48 States plus Alaska and Hawaii.

"Washington City", as we once were called, has been the US capital since the early 1800s. Enslavement of Black Americans in DC only ended in 1862. So why have Washingtonians been so long excluded from equal representation?

Earlier today, a Democratic email colleague shared the fact that Sept. 18 is "Constitution Day" in the U.S. I'd never heard of it but as a proud native of the District of Columbia it's hard to wrap my mind around, and just as difficult to describe, how it feels knowing every moment I've lived in Washington, I've been de facto excluded from, politically voiceless in and invisible to, our national system of "representative democracy."

Amanpour CNN - God's warriors

Quite possibly the reason NY Times reviewer Neil Genzlinger doesn't seem overly impressed with "God's Jewish Warriors" could be that perhaps sixty per cent of the people whom Christiane Amanpour interviewed in Israel are 'straight outta Brooklyn', from New York's Jewish Orthodox communities. So for Genzlinger and a few others, the info in part one of God's Warriors may just be 'old news', although I certainly learned a few things and was impressed. I thought of my friend, Amy, a brave and intelligent former Brooklynite, a woman who's also an orthdox Jew, yet hardly submissive. But that's another story. Tonight is part two of the series, on God's Muslim Warriors, and Friday, part three is on U.S. Christian fundies. Most definitely worth watching, and discussing.

Don't bother USA with facts? Dalits: India's own "Black" population

In Minneapolis in the late 80s or early 90s, along with two other persons of colour (Vincent who is Dalit and a U.S. Latina lady from St. Paul whose name I don't immediately recall), I initiated an "emergency" panel made up of the three of us to engage and question the Brazilian pedagogist, Paulo Freire. Interestingly, Mr. Freire's wife also sat in on the panel, next to her spouse, but I think she listened. Freire is the author of the classic, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The occasion was the afternoon session of an all-day adult literacy conference and the venue may have been Augsburg College. Vincent, the Mexican American lady and myself appeared to be the only persons of colour in attendance. Or at least that's the way the whole thing came off, which is why I proposed to the organisers the change in the scheduled afternoon session which eventually was accepted. Fast forward. 21 June of this year Washington Post (finally) ran a front-page article on the ongoing suffering still inflicted by society upon the Dalit people of India. For years I've wanted to discuss this with people like Deepak Chopra, Ravi Shankar, Sonia Gandhi (who is italiana, by the way), and all the "shris", yogis and yoginis running around Europe and the U.S. A couple of years ago I learned from a young Asian Indian woman living in the US that "desi" is a term by which some Indians and other south Asians prefer to call themselves these days. In certain circles - Silicon Valley par exemple - people from India have become quite "popular", along with yoga, the domestically infamous H1B U.S. immigration visas and 'outsourcing' of all kinds of formerly domestic consumer services, to places most of us never will see.

Hollywood Apartheid, Or appreciating the Films of Oscar Micheaux (1883-1951)

lncreasingly more frequently I think of the late, great American -and Black American - filmmaker, Oscar Micheaux. For me, Mr. Micheaux's prodigiousness and genius remain as freshly astounding as his obscurity still largely enforced by U.S. society.

Actress Hazel Diaz and three fawning male co-stars, in Micheaux's 1938 film, Swing! Britannica.com

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.