Marian's Blog

Join us! Friday, 16 Jan, 9PM U.S. East, "LEGACY OF 1804" (BlogTalkRadio)

Hi, everyone! Join host Alice Backer and me, Friday, January 16, 2015, as we discuss the International Decade for People of African Descent, 9PM U.S. Eastern, on the weekly "LEGACY OF 1804" radio show on BlogTalkRadio! The UN has declared the International Decade for People of African Descent, from 2015 to the end of 2024! The Decade's three themes: Recognition, Justice, and Development. Check Alice's website for live interview link and call-in info. KISKEACITY ~ Come back to this link after the live interview for replay and to share the show!

We're back (smile)

We're back after a healthy hiatus. And wishing everyone a beautiful and pleasant holiday season, and a happy New Year. Have you heard? 2015 to 2024 is the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent. FINALLY! Finally, Mom and Dad, grandparents, great grandparents; 2nd, 3rd and 4th greatgrandparents. We Afrodescendants - meaning we people, families, and communities of African ancestry, yet who are not from Continental Africa - finally the world begins - begins - to formally, and, hopefully, even legally, acknowledge our existence on the map of the world (and of our respective regions and countries). Please bear with me while I catch up on my blog skills. And thank you for seeking out Marian's Blog, and for reading! #excited #gladtobeback 

Summer reading? Britain, the Slaves & U.S. Revolution - "Rough Crossings"

We'd like to recommend a book for those interested: Simon Schama's Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution. Here's a video - Schama discussing this huge, terribly obscured chapter of Black American & U.S. history, with staff of Google. This history is growing serious legs. 

Greens' McKinney and Clemente: Helping us learn to overcome

This will be one of my last blog posts before Tuesday's U.S. presidential election. Borrowing from our sisters over at Document the Silence blog (on violence against women of colour), I feel the need to quote my Caribbean-American lesbian sister, Audre Lorde: “When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” You said a mouthful, Audre.

Like myself, writer/activist Barbara Smith and many, many others who (through our people's spiritual, physical and political evolution rather than random, superficial "change") over and over again, daily - cumulatively - over three long centuries in & of what is now the U.S.A., the veteran and former Democratic congresswoman from Georgia, CYNTHIA MCKINNEY, is yet another Black American woman who not only has understood, intuitively & explicitly, but repeatedly - so often virtually fearlessly - has ACTED UPON this deep mantra on (social) environmental- and self-knowledge. This evolution and regular willingness to take action in spite of fear are just part of the experiences and ethnic/cultural characteristics of Black Americans, and of Black American women in particular, that have been ridiculed, censored and 'disappeared' in the course of this 2006-2008 U.S. presidential election cycle. Martin Luther King affirmed, "We shall overcome." And yet, noting the endemic sexism toward Black women over three centuries (not one election cycle) of the Black Liberation Movement that is native to what is now the USA (as well as in the current presidential selection process), it is entirely possible that Dr. King may have got this phrase from someone else, much like "I HAVE A DREAM" actually came from the lips & mind of Mississippi native daughter FANNIE LOU HAMER. In addition to being a member of the Black ethnic population of the USA, Mrs. Hamer was not MALE, and like most Black Americans, nor did she have a PhD or any kind of college/university degree. And yet she was an eloquent, timeless, courageous and effective leader. Unlike almost all of his Movement Sisters whom I will call the "Movement Women Elders" and the "Movement Young Sistas," Dr. King is consciously and constantly remembered, enshrined, re-enshrined and re-interpreted, even as hundreds and thousands of incredible Black American women remain obscured and unknown, and too often even ridiculed, derided, discounted, and finally left behind; most often quite deliberately. In this context it's worth noting that this contempt and disrespect which Black American women encounter comes from all around us: from White women & men alike (regardless of nationality), from people coming from other countries & societies, from more than a few Black men, again of varying ethnic & national backgrounds, and, most sadly and most intimately, often from some of our own sister Black women whether of U.S. or other backgrounds. Some of us know exactly whom I'm talking about. And yet, in spite of the course of Election 2008, following this most historic 2008 U.S. Green Party presidential ticket of CYNTHIA MCKINNEY AND ROSA CLEMENTE, the obscurity, derision and media whiteout will NOT be the enduring characteristics of this campaign nor of these two sistas and all the People who are choosing to support them at the polls on Tuesday, 4 November. (Power to the People 2008 - www.runcynthiarun.org) This dual candidacy not just of two women (which is significant), not only of two women who both are women of colour, but more precisely and most historically both are Afrodescendant Women of the Americas, is at least three (3) centuries overdue for the Black people of what today is the United States of the Americas (i.e., Black Americans) and for all the Afrodescendants of the Americas. It is also high time that on Tuesday, November 4 (as opposed to an essentially empty promise to "some day" vote for someone like ourselves (another Black woman, another Black American woman) in a non-specific, non-existent future) seemingly discounted but significant numbers of Black women voters will actively choose to put ourselves first, go to the polls and vote for ourselves. The 2008 U.S. presidential election is time for everyone to vote in favour of our own most deeply held values (as opposed to a common "logic" of voting the lesser of various "evils"). For more and more of us, our values - no matter how much money a candidate raises or how he smiles and speaks in chosen tones - do NOT include either so-called "Clean Coal" (i.e., Mountaintop Decapitation/Removal) or "nuclear power" (i.e., Uranium Mining, Uranium tailings, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, massive amounts of lethal, radioactive nuclear waste, groundwater contamination, radiation - including contamination of the Navajo Nation (and other Indigenous communities) and uranium miners suffering from uranium-induced cancer). The original quote about needing to exploit coal & nuclear power was made by the 2008 Democratic candidate.

In 2008, simply by choosing to work together, Cynthia McKinney, Rosa Clemente and the U.S. Green Party have modeled for us all that not only is it better, it's now imperative (to quote Rosa), for us to run for office, participate in society, to vote, and also to speak.

Brazil: Afrodescendant Land Claims go to ILO

With assistance from Australia-based COHRE, Afrobrazilians being evicted from their ancestral lands are taking their case to the International Labour Organisation (ILO). More later...

One reason I won't vote Democrat in 2008 (voting Green instead)

Politics may make "strange bedfellows," as the saying goes, but there have to be limits, and every now and then I reach one of mine. In this case, for me, it's around the 2008 U.S. presidential election. As Peter Finch's character shouted in the film Network, this is one year when I am not going to "take it" anymore.

Less than two years ago, in late November 2006, I received an email from a reader describing himself as a White American, telling me that (in his opinion - the only one that really counts, of course) he's "never committed even one act of "racism"..." [his quotes] in his life. Bravo for you, dude.

In fact, he started his email telling me that he's voted Democrat all his life. As I read, I wondered, "What Democratic Party member-profile does this guy fit?" How many Democrats think like him? I wondered, Are Democrats like him just ignored, or even accepted? That was then and this is now, and I leave it to others more interested than I to answer such questions. (Don't hold your breath...)

In 2008 the Democratic Party took things a step farther and found themselves the "kind" of "black" (as so many white Americans seem to like to say) they could feel "comfortable" to back for president; one whom even Joe Biden could bring himself to admire.

So this is the year when some Black people with the privilege to vote in the U.S. - i.e., people from different ethnic and national backgrounds (continental African, Caribbean, Black American, Afro-Latino) have convinced themselves that voting Democratic will somehow be "pan-African." Not only are most White voters left clueless about pan-Africanism and what it's supposed to be, some of those who will vote Nov. 4th for the Democrats selected black guy are the descendants of the same people who enslaved my family: in Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, South Carolina - and elsewhere. I call them "slaveholder descendants for Obama." These slaveholder descendants will feel good about themselves and their motives as they cast their votes for the Democratic candidate, even while they avoid and still steadfastly refuse any contact with or acknowledgement of me, my family and the history, places and country (also names and bloodlines) we share. Then there is the guy who sent the email below. Are these people really all on the same page? Good question, and yet relatively few Americans seem to have the stomach to attempt any acceptable answer.

In 2007 I finally shared the message below with Democrats Abroad email list. As I wrote to Dems Abroad, there is no etiquette for how to bring up such subjects, and yet I also know that they need to be raised and addressed, and not just by persons who look like me.

Hurricane Gustav: Evacuation Priority

We're tracking Hurricane Gustav which many say could be worse than Hurricane Katrina almost exactly three years ago. New Orleans is now under a mandatory evacuation order, this time around providing bus transport for its residents without cars. Gustav has left Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, etc. into the Gulf of Mexico, headed for the U.S. coast, in particular New Orleans.

Greens' Rosa Clemente on WAMU.org Radio, 26 Aug

Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney's running mate Rosa Clemente did a very informative interview earlier today with Kojo Nnamdi of WAMU-fm (part of American University). Great interview, Rosa. You can hear it online here. It seemed a bit strange when Clemente referenced history of the Young Lords political party and compared them to the Black Panthers. Nnamdi said most people were more familiar with the Panthers. I'm thinking this would depend on whom you talk with. Was Kojo being disingenuous? Also about the radio call-in from a Black American man who pointed out, accurately, the gulf of historical difference between Barack Obama's identity in and toward the U.S. (and the U.S. toward him) and that of the entire indigenous U.S. Black population, i.e. Black Americans.) Meanwhile, not only is Kojo Nnamdi himself "Black," he's a native of Guyana, and I'm happy for him. Guyana's a fascinating case. It's a South American country yet historically, culturally and demographically, identifies greatly with the societies and countries of the Black, English-speaking Caribbean. As a child of Guyana's Afrodescendant, Caribbean-identified people, is it that Kojo isn't really that familiar with the history of the Young Lords? Maybe or maybe not. In the end of all this, there's as much historical, cultural, geographic and blood heritage difference between Barack Obama and Black Americans as there is between Mr. Obama and the Afro-Guyanese. Ain't nothing really 'easy' or 'user-friendly' about the histories, peoples and realities of the Americas, especially we Black folks. In a more honest, transparent world Kojo could reflect a bit on this, think of his family, country and sub-region of his origin and its peoples, as distinct as the Black Americans, and then go and do a truly informative radio show on all the above.

Ingrid Betancourt Freed in Colombia

French and U.S. media report the military rescue of Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt along with three persons identified as U.S. State Department military contractors, and several Colombian military. Betancourt and her campaign manager, Clara Rojas (released several months ago), were kidnapped by the FARC in February 2002.

$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