Marian's Blog

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.

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.

Washington's Slavery Emancipation, April 1862

Spring in Washington means more than cherry blossoms. Throughout April, Washington, DC -- or at least some of us -- will recognise the 146th anniversary of the abolition of Black enslavement in the District of Columbia which took place Wednesday, 16 April 1862. Here's the rub: annual ceremonies marking DC emancipation were held from 1866 till 1901, but then nothing all the way up to 2002. What happened after 1901? This date of the end of enslavement, though incredibly significant, wasn't even an official local holiday until 2005. So much for marking major passages in U.S. history. So to honour the beginning of real freedom for so many people right there in the U.S. capital, Marian's Blog has a new spin-off featuring the District of Columbia Emancipation Act of 1862. The office of the mayor of Washington has an online calendar listing most of this year's events remembering the mid-19th century emancipation of a people who lived then, and still do, in the shadow of the Capitol, the Congress, the White House and Supreme Court of the United States, in Washington, DC.

Chocolate City, a film on Washington, DC and gentrification

In recognition of our colonised status, people around the world can help by taking a symbolic break from even uttering the words "Washington" and "Washington, DC." Leave our name out of conversation and put a blank space in print. Besides the general public, those encouraged to promote, observe and abide by the boycott should include bloggers, teachers and professors, clergymembers, tourists and tour guides, travel agents, economists, journalists, scientists, activists and politicians. To do so will send a powerful message in contrast to the real lack of power of our city's mostly Black and mostly Black women residents. Washington, the city, always has been about far more than national and international politics and tourism.

(In Washington, an image of DC native son the late Marvin Gaye shows up only in a vodka advert. U.S. Capitol with "don't walk" sign. Photos property Marian's Blog)

In fact, DC's reality remains hidden: a majority-Black American city with a buried yet deeply rooted history (and identity) as the former capital of the U.S. interstate slave trade. People live here, and for many years the majority of Washington's citizens have been Black Americans; or at least we have been the vast majority until the very recent past. Washington as a majority Black city has always been subjugated and segregated. We have been and are under attack. In spite of the presence of international organizations and the embassies of nations around the world, little news of the real DC and our status seems to get out, even and especially among journalists. Along comes a film to break the silence: CHOCOLATE CITY, a documentary by filmmakers Ellie Walton and Sam Wild. Just as they would have bought Black Americans' ancestors as slaves, property developers have bought my town and the local population is being forced out using means that are mostly foul. CC focuses on the displacement and dispersal of the community of 400 families who lived in public housing called Arthur Capper Homes. The film has two de facto "stars", Arthur Capper resident Debra Frazier and Anu Yadav, a performance artist of South Asian origin. The two form unlikely yet complementary poles in the moving narrative. A quickly built official website for Chocolate City is down now seems to be back up after having received so many hits it temporarily exceeded its bandwidth. I'm also pointing readers to Jennifer Tchinnosian's 6 Feb 2008 review in George Washington University's student paper, the Daily Colonial, a name which is wholly a propos.

The international conversations Black America's not having: Reading Yvonne Bynoe

Came across an interesting article from nearly a year ago: author Yvonne Bynoe's Black America After Jim Crow: Still Feels Like Segregation, published on AlterNet. (They have good stuff and deserve your consideration of $upport.)

For decades I've been having "frank and candid" conversations, personal and public, with Black folks from around the world outside the USA, as well as with my folks here at home. I agree with much but not all of what Bynoe writes. I remember a surreal moment in the Kenyan government representative's speech at the U.S. 4th of July diplomatic event in Nairobi a few years ago. Johnnie Carson, a Black American, was ambassador. But I'll save this for another time.

"What has not occurred are frank and candid conversations between native Black Americans and immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean that aim to update the public face of "Black America." These dialogues would first need to acknowledge the unique cultures and histories of the various groups, while forging relationships based on our shared interests and challenges in this country as people of African descent." - writer Yvonne Bynoe

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. ...

John Edwards knows it's the economy, not just Iraq

As the candidate said last night in New Hampshire, I too am on the John Edwards grassroots campaign bandwagon right through my ancestral South Carolina, called "the Black Primary", and the other 47, right up to the Democratic Party convention next August in Denver. John Edwards all along has been addressing what's touching, and crushing, the majority of Americans, middle- and working-class/working-poor and poor. I scoffed when I read a Washington Post headline quoting George Bush saying how 'good' the economy looked. I was wondering what planet he was visiting or what he'd been ingesting. That was only about ten days ago. Now Bush has backtracked, acknowledging there are issues with the economy, and today CNN (MSM - mainstream media) reports we're in a recession since the final quarter of 2007. I hear all the candidates. I'm supporting John Edwards.

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. 

3 votes shy: Dems Baucus, Byrd & GOP halt S. 1257, DC Voting Rights

I couldn't believe the news at mid-afternoon today that on a 57 "yes" to 42 "no" voice vote, the U.S. Senate today failed to endorse S. 1257. This bill finally would have given Washington, the District of Columbia its own voting representation in the House of Representatives. Can any Americans truly be proud of, or indifferent to, this outcome?

This probably is particularly sobering for 87 year old, former Massachusetts senator Edward Brooke, a Republican who is Black. Despite his best bi-partisan efforts, today's vote split along party lines. With eight exceptions, other Republicans voted against 1257 despite the fact that its major compromise would have given Utah one more congressional seat.