Overview

What I do know for sure is that the streets are falling apart, a long term result of first, Katrina flooding, and currently a result of drought conditions that are prevailing: water and fire. I may not know for sure why, but I do know for sure there are craters appearing seemingly overnight—I said “craters” because I didn't mean your garden-variety, average urban city pothole; I mean axle-busting, big-ass holes in the asphalt. I'm telling you what I know from experience driving these machine-eating streets. I know once I get home and pull into the driveway, I've got to be extra careful. And I know I can't fully close the den door. That's what I know for sure.  Cracking Up
 

*   *   *   *   *

Denise said she thought she was in hell. They were there for 2 days, with no water, no food. no shelter.  Denise, her mother (63 years old), her niece (21 years old), and 2-year-old grandniece. When they arrived, there were already thousands of people there. They were told that buses were coming. Police drove by, windows rolled up, thumbs up signs. National Guard trucks rolled by, completely empty, soldiers with guns cocked and aimed at them. Nobody stopped to drop off water. A helicopter dropped a load of water, but all the bottles exploded on impact due to the height of the helicopter. Katrina Survivor Stories

*   *   *   *   *

It's weird, but as we were leaving Heron St. for Fussell Cemetery Road, I reached for my passport, passport pictures, my laptop and zip disks, and a Faruk Turunz oud. Linda packed important papers (as we've always done) and reached for some memorabilia and jewelry. I still can't understand why we didn't pause to notice what we were doing long enough to see that we should have also packed up the jeep with clothes and other items. We left the Jeep behind. All our clothes – and my clothes and luggage for Turkey – we left behind. Somewhere in our psyches, we thought, as New Orleanians always think during hurricane season, "We'll be back in a day or two. Surely, this one will veer east or west or downgrade to a Category One hurricane and all we'll get is a lot of  wind and a few wind-felled trees." Katrina did veer east, but it didn't matter. The eye of this Category Five hurricane was 30 miles wide and its wind gusts were 150 miles an hour. And it traveled slowly, very slowly, taking its time chewing up our worlds. Eh La Bas

*   *   *   *   *

Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans  Preview of the Month Directed by Dawn Logsdon and Co-Directed & Written by Lolis Eric Elie Lolis Eric Elie, a New Orleans newspaperman, takes us on a tour of the city—his city— in what becomes a reflection on the relevance of history folded into a love letter to the storied New Orleans neighborhood, Faubourg Treme. Arguably the oldest black neighborhood in America and the birthplace of jazz, Faubourg Treme was home to the largest community of free black people in the Deep South during slavery and a hotbed of political ferment. Here black and white, free and enslaved, rich and poor cohabitated, collaborated, and clashed to create America's first Civil Rights movement and a unique American culture.

Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans is a riveting tale of heartbreak, hope, resiliency and haunting historic parallels. While the Treme district was damaged when the levees broke, this is not another Katrina documentary. TremeDoc

Treme: Beyond Bourbon Street (HBO)

Table

"Everyone should have been evacuated 50 hours, 60 hours or more before the hurricane come. I think that dam broke on purpose, that's what I think. I think they wanted to clear New Orleans, and get all of the Black people from out there. I don't think they want nobody to come back. But I am going back."

Hootkins's feelings about the future of the city were echoed by Roy Camry, a tenth-grade student at the (former) McDonald Senior High in New Orleans, "It's not going to be really for Black people. To tell you the truth, I think they're going to make it all a big suburb."

Ms. Mudro and Ms. Johnson also spoke of their harrowing trip out of Jefferson Parish and into Houston. Felicia Mudro recounted her experience, "They treated us like dogs, the military police. They wouldn't give us water, wouldn't give us food, passed us up for three days on the highway with our children. The whole world needs to know they are screwing us over." Survivors of New Orleans say  

*   *   *   *   *

I tried to get the police to help us, but I realized we rescued a lot of police officers in the flat boat from the Fifth District police station.  The boat. The guy that was driving the boat, he rescued a lot of them and brought them to different places where they could be saved.  We understood that the police couldn't help us.  But we could not understand why the National Guard and them couldn't help us, because we kept seeing them.  But they never would stop and help us.  Transcript of Charmaine Nevilles Story

*   *   *   *   *

"What of the people who are being cycled out of here?" "What are we sending into the population?" If people are sick and contagious, where are the precautions to separate the vulnerable? What of precautions such as masks and gloves to keep the medical professionals and first responders safe? All the here and now is suspended in the hope that maybe tomorrow will take care of itself and the worst won't happen.

Those are the question we asked on the first day. NO ONE IS IN CHARGE!!!  Whos Helping the Helpers

*   *   *   *   *

Audio: My Story, My Song (Featuring blues guitarist Walter Wolfman Washington)

*   *   *   *   *

Missing People in New Orleans—Its figures paint a dramatic picture of jobs and housing decline in the central city area. During the storm's aftermath, thousands of residents were evacuated from the city. Two years later, one in three households have still not returned, and the population has dropped from 455,000 to 274,000. Poor households with children are particularly likely to have stayed away, with the number of children in public schools at only 40% of its pre-Katrina level. To some extent, migrants from Mexico and Central America have replaced Afro-Americans in New Orleans, with an estimated additional 100,000 Hispanic people in the region. They have been attracted by some of the relatively well-paying jobs in construction and tourism. Looking for jobs—But overall, the News Orleasn metro area employs 113,000 fewer people than in August 2005, and the pace of job creation has slowed to a crawl. The biggest declines were in tourism jobs (down 24,500), government jobs (down 29,000) and healthcare jobs (down 23,000). And 4,000 smaller firms closed after the storm. "We apparently are at a place where the post-storm employment recovery is peaking," said demographer Elliot Stonecipher. "Those categorical drops in jobs paint a picture of a devastated economy and we have to stop acting like they didn't happen."  Steve Schifferes. Two years on, New Orleans stalls News BBC

*   *   *   *   *

The Conspiracy to Whiten New Orleans: 80% of NO Blacks May Not Return  

In New Orleans, Smaller Means Whiter 

Jose Torres Tama : Hard Living in the Big Easy         In Exile    Above America     God Fear America   Stars Are Eyes  *   *   *   *   *   Aug 31- Sept 1    Sept 2    Sept 3    Sept  4   Sept  5     HBCUs & Black Educators  Governor says everyone must leave New Orleans      Eighteen Months After Katrina (Bill Quigley) Bill Quigley:New Orleans a Year After Katrina

 

The Katrina Papers, by Jerry W. Ward, Jr. $18.95  /  The Richard Wright Encyclopedia (2008)

*   *   *   *   *

The Katrina Papers is not your average memoir. It is a fusion of many kinds of writing, including intellectual autobiography, personal narrative, political/cultural analysis, spiritual journal, literary history, and poetry. Though it is the record of one man's experience of Hurricane Katrina, it is a record that is fully a part of his life and work as a scholar, political activist, and professor.  The Katrina Papers  provides space not only for the traumatic events but also for ruminations on authors such as Richard Wright and theorists like Deleuze and Guattarri. The result is a complex though thoroughly accessible book. The struggle with form—the search for a medium proper to the complex social, personal, and political ramifications of an event unprecedented in this scholar's life and in American social history—lies at the very heart of The Katrina Papers . It depicts an enigmatic and multi-stranded world view which takes the local as its nexus for understanding the global.  It resists the temptation to simplify or clarify when simplification and clarification are not possible. Ward's narrative is, at times, very direct, but he always refuses to simplify the complex emotional and spiritual volatility of the process and the historical moment that he is witnessing. The end result is an honesty that is both pedagogical and inspiring.—Hank Lazer

*   *   *   *   *

 

Rwanda Crisis Could Expose U. S. Role in Congo Genocide (Glen Ford)  / The Uprooted Chronicling the Great Migration (Jill Lepore) Katrina . . . somethin' 'bout a storm By Charles E Siler Katrina Flood Index   / Katrina Survivor Stories   / The Katrina Papers: A Journal of Trauma and Recovery (book)

*   *   *   *   *

Everybody Loves the Sunshine (Incognito) /  Superwoman, Where Were You When I Needed You (Stevie Wonder)

Food For Thought: Conversations with Ice Cube: “Comedy is the path of least resistance for Black People in Hollywood” / K'Naan / Mos Def (Full Episode)

*   *   *   *   *

AALBC.com's 25 Best Selling Books

 

Fiction

#1 - Justify My Thug by Wahida Clark
#2 - Flyy Girl by Omar Tyree
#3 - Head Bangers: An APF Sexcapade by Zane
#4 - Life Is Short But Wide by J. California Cooper
#5 - Stackin' Paper 2 Genesis' Payback by Joy King
#6 - Thug Lovin' (Thug 4) by Wahida Clark
#7 - When I Get Where I'm Going by Cheryl Robinson
#8 - Casting the First Stone by Kimberla Lawson Roby
#9 - The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth by Zane

#10 - Covenant: A Thriller  by Brandon Massey

#11 - Diary Of A Street Diva  by Ashley and JaQuavis

#12 - Don't Ever Tell  by Brandon Massey

#13 - For colored girls who have considered suicide  by Ntozake Shange

#14 - For the Love of Money : A Novel by Omar Tyree

#15 - Homemade Loves  by J. California Cooper

#16 - The Future Has a Past: Stories by J. California Cooper

#17 - Player Haters by Carl Weber

#18 - Purple Panties: An Eroticanoir.com Anthology by Sidney Molare

#19 - Stackin' Paper by Joy King

#20 - Children of the Street: An Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery by Kwei Quartey

#21 - The Upper Room by Mary Monroe

#22 – Thug Matrimony  by Wahida Clark

#23 - Thugs And The Women Who Love Them by Wahida Clark

#24 - Married Men by Carl Weber

#25 - I Dreamt I Was in Heaven - The Rampage of the Rufus Buck Gang by Leonce Gaiter

Non-fiction

#1 - Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable
#2 - Confessions of a Video Vixen by Karrine Steffans
#3 - Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love by Zane
#4 - Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny by Hill Harper
#5 - Peace from Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What You're Going Through by Iyanla Vanzant
#6 - Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey by Marcus Garvey
#7 - The Ebony Cookbook: A Date with a Dish by Freda DeKnight
#8 - The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors by Frances Cress Welsing
#9 - The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Godwin Woodson

#10 - John Henrik Clarke and the Power of Africana History  by Ahati N. N. Toure

#11 - Fail Up: 20 Lessons on Building Success from Failure by Tavis Smiley

#12 -The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

#13 - The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life by Kevin Powell

#14 - The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore

#15 - Why Men Fear Marriage: The Surprising Truth Behind Why So Many Men Can't Commit  by RM Johnson

#16 - Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire by Carol Jenkins

#17 - Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority by Tom Burrell

#18 - A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle

#19 - John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism by Keith Gilyard

#20 - Alain L. Locke: The Biography of a Philosopher by Leonard Harris

#21 - Age Ain't Nothing but a Number: Black Women Explore Midlife by Carleen Brice

#22 - 2012 Guide to Literary Agents by Chuck Sambuchino
#23 - Chicken Soup for the Prisoner's Soul by Tom Lagana
#24 - 101 Things Every Boy/Young Man of Color Should Know by LaMarr Darnell Shields

#25 - Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class  by Lisa B. Thompson

*   *   *   *   *

Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It By H. W. Brands In Greenback Planet, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands charts the dollar's astonishing rise to become the world's principal currency. Telling the story with the verve of a novelist, he recounts key episodes in U.S. monetary history, from the Civil War debate over fiat money (greenbacks) to the recent worldwide financial crisis. Brands explores the dollar's changing relations to gold and silver and to other currencies and cogently explains how America's economic might made the dollar the fundamental standard of value in world finance. He vividly describes the 1869 Black Friday attempt to corner the gold market, banker J. P. Morgan's bailout of the U.S. treasury, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and President Franklin Roosevelt's handling of the bank panic of 1933. Brands shows how lessons learned (and not learned) in the Great Depression have influenced subsequent U.S. monetary policy, and how the dollar's dominance helped transform economies in countries ranging from Germany and Japan after World War II to Russia and China today.

*   *   *   *   *

Predator Nation Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America By Charles H. Ferguson If you’re smart and a hard worker, but your parents aren’t rich, you’re now better off being born in Munich, Germany or in Singapore than in Cleveland, Ohio or New York. This radical shift did not happen by accident.  Ferguson shows how, since the Reagan administration in the 1980s, both major political parties have become captives of the moneyed elite.  It was the Clinton administration that dismantled the regulatory controls that protected the average citizen from avaricious financiers.  It was the Bush team that destroyed the federal revenue base with its grotesquely skewed tax cuts for the rich. And it is the Obama White House that has allowed financial criminals to continue to operate unchecked, even after supposed “reforms” installed after the collapse of 2008. Predator Nation reveals how once-revered figures like Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers became mere courtiers to the elite.

Based on many newly released court filings, it details the extent of the crimes—there is no other word—committed in the frenzied chase for wealth that caused the financial crisis.  And, finally, it lays out a plan of action for how we might take back our country and the American dream.—Read Chapter 1

*   *   *   *   *

Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America By Melissa V. Harris-Perry According to the author, this society has historically exerted considerable pressure on black females to fit into one of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the Matriarch or the Jezebel.  The selfless Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.      Professor Perry points out how the propagation of these harmful myths have served the mainstream culture well. For instance, the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for black females to feel a maternal instinct towards Caucasian babies.

As for the source of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their own bodies during slavery given that they were being auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless, it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate indiscriminately.

*   *   *   *   *

Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays Edited by Miriam DeCosta-Willis  Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a collection of fourteen essays by scholars and creative writers from Africa and the Americas. Called one of two significant critical works on Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late 1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of Carter G. Woodson and Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an historical context for understanding 20th-century creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone writers, such as Cuban Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist, and scholar Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the significance of Negritude in Latin America.

This collaborative text set the tone for later conferences in which writers and scholars worked together to promote, disseminate, and critique the literature of Spanish-speaking people of African descent. . . . Cited by a literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."

*   *   *   *   *

So Rich, So Poor: Why It's So Hard to End Poverty in America By Peter Edelman If the nation’s gross national income—over $14 trillion—were divided evenly across the entire U.S. population, every household could call itself middle class. Yet the income-level disparity in this country is now wider than at any point since the Great Depression. In 2010 the average salary for CEOs on the S&P 500 was over $1 million—climbing to over $11 million when all forms of compensation are accounted for—while the current median household income for African Americans is just over $32,000. How can some be so rich, while others are so poor? In this provocative book, Peter Edelman, a former top aide to Senator Robert F. Kennedy and a lifelong antipoverty advocate, offers an informed analysis of how this country can be so wealthy yet have a steadily growing number of unemployed and working poor. According to Edelman, we have taken important positive steps without which 25 to 30 million more people would be poor, but poverty fluctuates with the business cycle.

The structure of today’s economy has stultified wage growth for half of America’s workers—with even worse results at the bottom and for people of color—while bestowing billions on those at the top. So Rich, So Poor delves into what is happening to the people behind the statistics and takes a particular look at the continuing crisis of young people of color, whose possibility of a productive life too often is lost on their way to adulthood.—DemocracyNow

*   *   *   *   *

It's The Middle Class Stupid! By James Carville and Stan Greenberg It’s the Middle Class, Stupid! confirms what we have all suspected: Washington and Wall Street have really screwed things up for the average American. Work has been devalued. Education costs are out of sight. Effort and ambition have never been so scantily rewarded. Political guru James Carville and pollster extraordinaire Stan Greenberg argue that our political parties must admit their failures and the electorate must reclaim its voice, because taking on the wealthy and the privileged is not class warfare—it is a matter of survival. Told in the alternating voices of these two top political strategists, It’s the Middle Class, Stupid! provides eye-opening and provocative arguments on where our government—including the White House—has gone wrong, and what voters can do about it.  Controversial and outspoken, authoritative and shrewd, It’s the Middle Class, Stupid! is destined to make waves during the 2012 presidential campaign, and will set the agenda for legislative battles and political dust-ups during the next administration.

*   *   *   *   *

The White Masters of the World

From The World and Africa, 1965

By W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois’ Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization (Fletcher)

*   *   *   *   *

Ancient African Nations

*   *   *   *   *

If you like this page consider making a donation

online through PayPal

*   *   *   *   *

Negro Digest / Black World

Browse all issues

1950        1960        1965        1970        1975        1980        1985        1990        1995        2000 ____ 2005        

Enjoy!

*   *   *   *   *

The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan  /  The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll  /  Only a Pawn in Their Game

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for Slavery

*   *   *   *   *

The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg

The Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804  / January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of Haiti 

*   *   *   *   *

BLACK CLASSIC BOOKS   BCP Digital Printing

*   *   *   *   *

ChickenBones Store (Books, DVDs, Music, and more)

 

update 12 July 2012