No Tears for Brown v Board of Education—In 1990, after months of interviews with Justice Thurgood Marshall, who had been the lead lawyer for the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund on the Brown case, I sat in his Supreme Court chambers with a final question. Almost 40 years later, was he satisfied with the outcome of the decision? Outside the courthouse, the failing Washington school system was hypersegregated, with more than 90 percent of its students black and Latino. Schools in the surrounding suburbs, meanwhile, were mostly white and producing some of the top students in the nation. Had Mr. Marshall, the lawyer, made a mistake by insisting on racial integration instead of improvement in the quality of schools for black children? His response was that seating black children next to white children in school had never been the point. It had been necessary only because all-white school boards were generously financing schools for white children while leaving black students in overcrowded, decrepit buildings with hand-me-down books and underpaid teachers. He had wanted black children to have the right to attend white schools as a point of leverage over the biased spending patterns of the segregationists who ran schools — both in the 17 states where racially separate schools were required by law and in other states where they were a matter of culture.— Juan Williams Don’t Mourn Brown v. Board of Education   Education & History

The Browning of American Cities

An analysis of census data released last week has shown that the white non-Hispanic population in another three of America's 50 largest cities has become a minority. In Phoenix, Tucson and Denver, the white population has recently fallen below 50 percent, according to William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. He predicts that another four cities will soon follow. Whites will become a minority in Arlington, Tex.; Charlotte; and Las Vegas within two years and in Austin within four years, he said. Although these changes were once driven by "white flight," Frey said, something else contributed in the cities that most recently reached the tipping point. While they were still losing some whites, the more dramatic shift was the increase in Hispanics, some of whom were moving from California and elsewhere in the United States in search of a better -- and more affordable -- life. "Changing Face of Western Cities" by Anushka Asthana Washington Post

Israeli War Report: 400 Lebanese . . . have died, an overwhelming number of them civilian and many of them children . . . . Israeli victims (about 50 so far, and most of them soldiers) . . . . More than half a million people in Lebanon have been turned into refugees in just a matter of weeks. Israelis are bunkered in bomb shelters. “Condoleezza Rice: Midwife from Hell,” by Matthew Rothschild http://progressive.org/mag_wx072806   Diary of Zena el-Khalil

War on the Family: Mothers in Prison and the Families They Leave Behind by Renny Golden

War on the Family is a searing indictment of the booming prison industry and the hell it has unleashed on the victims of its "success"--primarily African Americans, Latinos, and Arabs. "We can't build prisons fast enough to hold this world's cargo of dark-skinned prisoners," Golden writes. "The U.S. incarceration rate rose almost 300 percent between 1980 and 1998, eclipsing both South Africa and Russia's all-time international imprisonment record."

. . .  Her statistics are revealing: "...the female state and federal prisons population increased 275 percent between 1980 and 1992, while violent offenses increased only 1.3 percent." While not suggesting that incarcerated women live admirable lives or are only victims, Golden proves the idiocy of the race-based "drug-addicted welfare mother" stereotypes that are often propagated by the "family values" Christian Right. She deconstructs the myth that it is "personal choice and individual character, rather than social opportunity" that enables social transformation.  Sojourners Magazine

Poverty faced by Baltimore Students.

Baltimore has a 24 percent poverty rate, ranking it as the sixth-poorest region in the nation among 236 areas surveyed by the Census. . . . About 73 percent of students in Baltimore’s schools receive free or reduced-price lunches, compared to just 31 percent in neighboring Baltimore County. . . . 35 percent of Baltimore’s children live below the poverty line, compared to just 11 percent statewide and 18 percent nationally. Nearly 22 percent of the city’s kids are without a parent in the work force—that’s more than three times the state average. . . . educators say, test scores reflect the impact poverty has on student achievement. . . .Across grade levels, those who didn’t receive any aid were twice as likely to score in the advanced category of the MSA test for reading, and were 2.5 times as likely to do the same in math. --  R. Darryl Foxworth, "No School is and Island" (City Paper 10/19/05)

FEMA Evicting 50,000 Families from Temporary Housing

 When the congresssional investigations are held the survivors must be allowed to testify -- Rudy

Hunger in America: Hunger in U.S. households has risen by 43 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data released today. The analysis, completed by the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University, shows that more than 7 million people have joined the ranks of the hungry since 1999.

The USDA report, Household Food Security in the United States, 2004, says that 38.2 million Americans live in households that suffer directly from hunger and food insecurity, including nearly 14 million children. That figure is up from 31 million Americans in 1999.

California, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oklahoma and South Carolina all have food insecurity and hunger rates that are significantly higher than the national average. The lone bright spot in the nation is Oregon. Once considered to have the worst hunger in the country, Oregon has shown significant decreases in food insecurity and hunger since 1999-2001. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-10/bu-hia102805.php

Government Increasing Inequalities

Income inequality is now near all-time highs, with over 50 percent of 2004 income going to the top fifth of households, and the biggest gains going to the top 5 percent and 1 percent of households. The average CEO now takes home a paycheck 431 times that of their average worker. . . .

Now, to pay for hurricane reconstruction and the war in Iraq, Congress is considering cuts in programs that help poor people, such as Medicaid and Food Stamps. They have not yet considered fairer ways of reducing the deficit by reversing special tax breaks for the rich, such as the recent cuts in capital gains and dividend taxes.

Inequality is non-partisan. The pace of inequality has grown steadily over three decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations and Congresses.

The Gini index, the global measure of inequality, grew as quickly under President Clinton as it has under President George W. Bush. Widening disparities in the U.S. are the result of three decades of bi-partisan public policies that have tilted the rules of the economy to the benefit of major corporations and large asset owners at the expense of people whose security comes from a paycheck. Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel, Inequality in America: Version 2.0

"Whites simply will not invest in a school system which educates black children." -- Norward Roussell

President ARISTIDE SENDS HIS CONDOLENCES

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Pretoria, South Africa

September 3, 2005

The historic ties between Haiti and Louisiana are rooted in its namesake land purchase occasioned by the Haitian Revolution.  Today this connection has expanded.  It finds new root in a shared human suffering caused by this week’s catastrophic storm and ensuing floods. Our sincere condolences for the loss of life, injury, suffering and great pain that has befallen the people of the United States.   The grieving faces that we see so resemble the grieving faces of Haitians—who have faced similar waters that swept away lives and engulfed tiny boats overloaded with people fleeing the political repression following the coup d’etat/kidnapping of February 29, 2004. Human suffering transcends nationality, color, religion and class. It can leave no individual indifferent. We reiterate our expression of sympathy in this time of pain.  Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Castro offers medical aid to U.S.

Saturday, September 3, 2005

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- Cuban President Fidel Castro has offered to send help to the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. At a nightly roundtable program on state-run television Friday, the Cuban leader said his nation was ready to send 1,100 doctors and 26 tons of medicine and equipment. "Others have sent money; we are offering to save lives," he said.

Hiring Crisis For U.S. Black Teens

U.S. employers added 207,000 new nonagricultural jobs in July, while the national unemployment rate remained at 5.0 percent, the Labor Department reported on August 5. Yet for one group of workers in America’s labor force, there remains little to cheer about when it comes to being hired by employers.

The July jobless rate for America's black teens was 33.1 percent, up by 0.7 percentage points from June. In other words, black teens are out of a job at nearly seven times the national rate!  

Currently, the U.S. economy is growing, with new jobs being created in many sectors. Examples include construction, real estate, restaurant and retail.

Moreover, job expansion during the past three months has spurred wage growth. Main Street’s gain is Wall Street’s pain, as this rise in hourly wages could cause inflation and boost the cost of borrowed money.

At the same time, there is a festering jobs crisis for America’s black youth. They are living in depression-like times concerning employment opportunities, with their absence from payrolls being overlooked in corporate news.

Where is the outrage? Any at all? -- Seth Sandronsky, "Hiring Crisis For U.S. Black Teens"

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Black Masses on Their Own

The leading political leadership for the Black community has been the middle class, first at the head of a people driven by their condition in the rural South, and then by the urban workers.

The 1960s was the end of the unity between the Black middle class leaders and the masses of Black poor and working people. Now, there is a political split, and the Black middle class has parted company with the Blacks in the new proletariat because they are relatively secure and the others are not.

In fact, the vision of the Black middle class will be promoted in campaign after campaign. But that vision will fail because it does not address the fundamental reality of the new class. The best two examples I can think of have to do with the two most important political events in the last few years for Black people in the USA--the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion and the Million Man March.

Both events reflected great commitment and mobilization, but neither had a political program. Now each has attempted to define a political program--the outline of a plan for economic development attributed to the Cripps and the Bloods, as well as the general plan developed by the Summit of Black leadership after the MMM.

Both of these efforts tried to argue that a program of Black capitalism under the leadership of the Black middle class would work.

This is a misunderstanding of history and the issues we have been discussing here. At the end of the 19th century, this program of Black capitalism was undertaken by Booker T Washington and others to consolidate the Black middle class as a leadership.

This was a useful strategy, as there was room to maneuver in a segregated society based on an expanding industrial economy. Today, based on the five revolutionary processes [Decline of Industrial Jobs, Growing Inequality, Social Breakdown, Destroying the Safety Net, Spiritual Crisis], no such Black capitalist program makes any real sense at all. 

This is fantasy, pure and simple. The main character of the Black middle class is not Black business, but professional jobs in government and corporate settings. The masses of Black people are on their own. -- -Abdul Alkalimat, "Technological Revolution And Prospects for Black Liberation in the 21st Century."

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When Cotton Was King

It is generally believed that in less than two weeks, Whitney designed a cotton-gin for short-fiber cotton, although the historian Herbert Aptheker reports that this cotton gin developed from the drawing of a slave in Mississippi. (Workers have been ripped off at the suggestion box for a long time!)

The cotton gin increased productivity in a very dramatic way. When cleaning the cotton by hand, it took one slave a complete day to clean one pound of cotton. The hand-powered cotton gin increased this productivity to 150 pounds per day. With steam power driving the gin, one slave could produce one bale or 1000 pounds per day.

So the statistics speak for themselves. Before the cotton gin, in 1790, the US produced 6,000 bales of cotton, by 1810 this was up to 178,000 bales of cotton, and by 1860 four million bales of cotton.

By 1820 cotton was more than 50% of all US exports and after 1825, US-produced cotton was 80% of the commercial supply on the entire world market. Cotton had become King, meaning that from 1830 to 1860 more money was invested in land and slaves for cotton production than all the rest of the US economy put together! In 1790 there were 700,000 slaves and by 1860 there were 4 million, of whom more than 70% were in cotton production.

Black people were pulled west by the expansion of the cotton belt, so that after beginning with a concentration in South Carolina, the main concentration of Blacks had moved over to Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. --Abdul Alkalimat, "Technological Revolution And Prospects for Black Liberation in the 21st Century."

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Under Financing Black Colleges

Nationally, the historically black colleges and universities have a six-year graduation rate of 38 percent, according to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. That is slightly lower than the figure for black students at all other institutions, and roughly 40 percentage points lower than for blacks at elite schools. The situation amounts to a little-noticed crisis in the very institutions that, for their size, play a disproportionate role in educating African-Americans.

A half-century after Brown v. Board of Education, 40 years after Lyndon Johnson's speech endorsing the concept of affirmative action, and two years after the Supreme Court upheld racial diversity as a factor in admissions, the approximately 80 historically black colleges and universities still enroll more than 10 percent of the African-American students in higher education and award close to 20 percent of degrees. . . .

As a result, the students who come to Texas Southern arrive less prepared and sometimes less committed than their forebears. Roughly one-third of them require remedial classes before they can enter college-level courses. More than 100 of the available spaces in the Summer Academy went unclaimed, even though the program charges no tuition and provides a stipend for books that is worth several hundred dollars. . . .

The economic impact hobbles black colleges and institutions themselves. For in higher education, the prevailing rule of fund-raising is that the rich get richer. Texas Southern has an endowment of $6 million; across town, Rice University has $3 billion. The best endowed historically black institution, Howard University in Washington, ranks 132nd in the nation with $371 million, according to a survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

--Samuel G. Freedman “Little-Noticed Crisis at Black Colleges” (August 3, 2005)

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High School Dropouts—America’s Education Failures

"Dropouts in America: Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis," a collection of essays edited by Gary Orfield, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, [states the following]: 

"Nationally, only about two-thirds of all students - and only half of all blacks, Latinos and Native Americans - who enter ninth grade graduate with regular diplomas four years later."

In much of the nation, especially in urban and rural areas, the picture is even more dismal. In New York City, just 18 percent of all students graduate with a Regents diploma, which is the diploma generally required for admission to a four-year college. Only 9.4 percent of African-American students get a Regents diploma.

Over all, the United States has one of the highest high school dropout rates in the industrialized world, which can't be comforting news in the ferociously competitive environment of an increasingly globalized economy.

Citing statistics from a variety of sources, officials at the Gates Foundation have noted that: High school dropouts, on average, earn $9,245 less per year than high school graduates.

The poverty rate for families headed by dropouts is more than twice that for families headed by high school graduates.

Dropouts are much more likely to be unemployed, less likely to vote and more likely to be imprisoned than high school graduates.

--“Education's Collateral Damage” By Bob Herbert (21 July 2005) / bobherb@nytimes.com

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Power, Race, & Black Sexuality

There is a saying in Brazil and its meaning has been widely translated throughout the African Diaspora wherever white men exploited the bodies of Black women for pleasure and profit: "A white woman to marry, a mulatta to screw, and Black woman to work." 

Thus the idea of a liberating "sex work" has a precarious implication for Black women for whom the threat of rape was always a part of the job. 

Enslaved Black women were at the mercy of their masters and not much changed when Black women began to earn a wage. While working as cooks and nannies which continues to be the type of work most associated with Black females, they were often brutally raped by the fathers and sons of the families they worked for.

The links between Black women and illicit sexuality began in the antebellum south. White men justified the sexual terror they inflicted on Black people by creating the image of the wanton Black whore who could not be raped or defiled because her sexuality was insatiable and impure by nature. We had no claim to womanhood, motherhood, or humanity. We are the original "dirty girls," the first sex radicals without the sanctuary of gender. We were used for our wombs and still worked like our men. There was no sanctuary to be found in the way our bodies were branded and exploited. They systematically raped Black women and branded us whores even as they'd lynch a Black man for even glancing in the direction of a white woman. In the image of the Black
whore and Black rapist white men had found their authority to terrorize and punish others for the very acts only they committed. --Jennifer McLune “When White Males Attack: Larry Flynt, Racism and The Left” http://www.hustlingtheleft.com/mclune.html

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Black Masses Sacrificed for the Arts

Another generation of Negro writers would argue that the masses failed to support the Harlem Renaissance not because they were stupid but because they were poor. Furthermore, even though they were poor, they did love art -- not the High Art of the Renaissance but the art of everyday life: music, dancing, the oral tradition. Curiously, [Alain] Locke had demanded that this folk art be recognized, that it be treated in literature, but in this he remained ensnared by a version of the genteel tradition from which even Mencken had not freed himself. The written word was superior to the oral word, and literature was still to be spelled with a capital L. Poetry, by definition, was superior to either the blues or jazz,  so Locke used it, and not music, as a means to measure "the present cultural position of the Negro in American life." It, and not music, was "the serious art which can best represent to the world the Negro of the present generation." Both he and Mencken rebelled against middle-class gentility but ended up substituting an aristocratic gentility that would not take the art of the masses seriously. . . .

[Mencken] overlooked the significance of jazz artists like Duke Ellington, Fletcher henderson, and Jelly Roll Morton who had large white followings, and he appeared to miss entirely the purer black artists such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Charley Patton. This last mission is especially ironic since, as we know, as poor as the black masses were, they did support an art that reflected their real culture. . . .

By the mid-20s Race Record companies were selling "five or six million records annually (to a Negro population of about double that number), that "blues records were not cheap" (seventy-five cents to one dollar each for the expensive ones), and that even high prices "did not deter sales of over 20,000 for the more popular Bessie Smith issues." Here indeed was an audience willing to sacrifice a good deal for art. -- Charles Scruggs. The Sage in Harlem: H.L. Mencken and the Black Writers of the 1920s (JHU Press, 1984)

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Africa & The World Economy

Contemporary Africa is totally on the side lines with regard to the world economy: with less than 1 % of world's GDP, 1% of Foreign Direct Investment, 1.5% of world trade; In the external balance of the African countries, 60 to 80 % of exports are accounted for by primary commodities: copper, bauxite, uranium, cotton, cacao, coffee, etc. This is to say the 'Colonial Pact' persists to date.--Theophile Obenga    More Facts

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The Global Power of Western Education

The West dominates the world because of its school: education thought, pedagogical theories and practices, teachings and training, knowledge production, openness to other non-Western cultural worlds. Western education philosophy, which is a huge and wrongly neglected problem, largely explains the place assigned to Africa in the world of collective mentality and that of material wealth.

At the foundation of ideas, values, morals and shared ideology with a human community is education. Globalization also takes place through Western educational System. Globalization is a product of the Western school. Because education has not yet been able to ensure the transition from the state of nature to humanity in the West. --Theophile Obenga  More Facts

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Rich Tribes vs. Poor Tribes in South Africa

Black "African people living in rural areas . . . comprise 12.8 percent of the entire South African  population. 35 percent speak Xhosa as their home language and another 31 percent speak Zulu. 39 percent of them live in traditional huts and some 46 percent of all people who live in huts are part of this group.

More than 93 percent do not have any of the basic living standard measures: no electricity, no running water, no radio or TV, no telephone. They have received very little education. 56 percent have not completed primary school and 20 percent have received no formal education at all. 73 percent of Agrarian Lifestyles are unemployed and 19 percent can find only unskilled labour positions. Only one in three who work--7 percent of the total--have an account of any kind with a bank.

When asked what is most important in life, they indicate overwhelmingly that it is having a job. They place lowest value on stimulation and power and above average importance on tradition and conformity" (pp. 51-52).

At the top end of [the] human development scale [are those] whose "standard of living is the highest in South Africa. Accounting for just 2.7 percent of the population, they live a life of material ease compared to others. They are primarily white people (91 percent) who speak Afrikaans (72 percent) or English (28 percent) in the home and reside in a suburban home (93 percent) located in a major metropolitan area. Their educational and commercial attainments allow [them] to enjoy a standard of living enjoyed by few people in the world. 

It is a lifestyle characterised by all of the modern technical advances and conveniences. Two-thirds of households have personal computers and half of them are connected to the internet. Two-thirds also have MNet (pay TV) and 27 percent have DStv (satellite TV). There are 2.1 cars per household, 89 percent have a cellular telephone and 88 percent a Telkom (landline) phone.

Their value priorities are unique. They place higher importance on self-direction . . . . Benevolence is also of vital importance. Power and hedonism are generally more important to them than others, but do not rise to a higher level than what could be called moderate importance."

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Benin  and child slaves


COTONOU (Reuters) - When she was eight, Rachelle Akawe's aunt sent her from Benin to work as a domestic servant in Niger. After 10 years, Akawe finally returned home, her childhood gone and her dreams in tatters.

"I wanted to be a lawyer. Now at 26, I am learning to read and write," she said. "When you are a child slave, you do not have a choice ... you always feel abandoned ... you have no future. It stays with you for the rest of your life."

Akawe's tale is unfortunately common in Benin, a tiny West African nation with a huge child labor problem fueled by poverty and tradition in a land where childhood is short and the average person can expect to live just 50 years.

But Akawe's lost childhood may yet serve a purpose -- her story is told in a new documentary produced by local director Christiane Chabi Kao and destined to be shown at schools, markets and on state television.

"Through my documentary, I am trying to understand why this happens ... in our country," Chabi Kao said.

The problem is not confined to Benin -- a slim, poor country stretching from the Gulf of Guinea to the barren border of Niger and best known as the ancestral cradle of voodoo.

The U.N. children's agency, UNICEF estimates there are some 246 million child labourers around the world, with 70 percent working in hazardous conditions. It says at least 200,000 children are trafficked in West and Central Africa each year.

Children wield machetes on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast, chisel rocks in granite quarries in Nigeria, dig for diamonds in mines in Sierra Leone and sweep and clean homes in Gabon.

Source:  http://today.reuters.com/ / "Bitterness, broken dreams for Benin's child slaves" By Paawana Abalo

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Black History Needed for Graduation 

PHILADELPHIA, June 22 - Angry that public schools here have always taught American history through a Eurocentric prism, parents of black children began pleading with local school officials to offer a course in African-American history.

That was nearly 40 years ago.

This year, their pleas were finally - and emphatically - answered. Starting in September, students entering city high schools as ninth graders will be required to take a course in African-American history, making Philadelphia the first major city to require such a course for high school graduation.

School officials here say the course carries huge benefits for all students and offers a perspective on American history that has been largely absent from most contemporary teaching guides.

"You cannot understand American history without understanding the African-American experience; I don't care what anybody says," said Paul G. Vallas, the school system's chief executive, who is white. "It benefits African-American children who need a more comprehensive understanding of their own culture, and it also benefits non-African-Americans to understand the full totality of the American experience."

Critics of the policy shift say it will further polarize the city by focusing attention on just one race and not dealing with other racial and ethnic groups like Mexicans, Chinese or Poles.

--"Philadelphia Mandates Black History for Graduation." By Michael Janofsky. June 25, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/education/25philly.html

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Lynching in America

Lynching is variously defined as a violent act, usually racial in nature, that denies a person due process of law and is carried out with the complicity of the local society.

The sponsors of the resolution, Landrieu [Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La] and Allen [Sen. George Allen, R-Va], said they were motivated in part by a recent book, "Without Sanctuary, Lynching Photography in America," in which author James Allen collected lynch pictures, mostly taken by those participating in the killings.

"More than a half-century ago, mere feet from where we sit . . . the Senate failed you and your ancestors and our nation," Landrieu told descendants at a lunch in the Capitol.

Among those present was James Cameron, who as a shoeshine boy in Marion, Ind., in 1930 was dragged from a cell and had a rope placed around his neck. Two of his friends, also accused of the murder of a white man and the rape of a white woman, were hanged. Cameron, then 16, was spared when a man in the crowd proclaimed his innocence.

"I was saved by a miracle," said Cameron, who went on to found America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee. "They were going to lynch me between my two buddies," he said, with thousands of people "hollering for my blood when a voice said, 'Take this boy back.'"

The nonbinding resolution apologizes to the victims for the Senate's failure to act and "expresses the deepest sympathies and most solemn regrets of the Senate to the descendants of victims of lynching, the ancestors of whom were deprived of life, human dignity and the constitutional protections accorded all citizens of the United States."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said President Bush talked about slavery and the travails of American democracy in a meeting Monday with five African leaders. The Senate, McClellan said, "has taken a step that they feel they need to take, given their own past inaction on what were great injustices."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who witnessed racial tensions as a child in Alabama, called the apology "a remarkable and wonderful thing" during an interview with MSNBC's "Hardball."

--Senate to Atone for Lynching Ban Delays By JIM ABRAMS The Associated Press Monday, June 13, 2005

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Hatred of Republicans Growing

Dean . . . chairman of the DNC, outspoken and uncompromising, . . . dared to say that he hates Republicans, that the leadership of that party hasn’t worked a day in their lives, that the GOP has become a radical hothouse of right-wing Christians, almost all of whom are white, and that House majority leader Tom DeLay should go back to Texas and get his looming prison sentence over with. . . . . Suddenly, Democrats like Joe Biden and Bill Richardson start knocking over furniture and old ladies in their rush to get to a microphone so they can distance themselves from the wild man. . . .

Of 3,643 Republicans serving in state legislatures across the country, only 44 of them are minorities, amounting to 1.2%. Texas, with a minority population of 47%, has 106 Republicans in the state legislature. There are exactly zero African Americans and exactly zero Hispanics serving in that body as Republicans. In Washington, 274 of the 535 elected Senators and Representatives are Republican. Exactly five are minorities. . . .

Of course, there are ethnic and religious minorities within the rank and file of the GOP, but every demographic analysis of the party’s makeup clearly shows the vast majority of Republicans fit exactly into the description offered by Mr. Dean.  

His point, by the way, was not that white Christians are bad people. His point was that, in this pluralist society made up of so much diversity, the Republican Party does not represent the true face of this country. He was also pointing out that the GOP has been taken over by that small, radical minority of white Christians who believe separation of church and state is evil, and who believe Biblical law is a better tool of governance than that pesky Constitution.

--"Dean Was Right,"  By William Rivers Pitt. t r u t h o u t | Perspective Saturday 11 June 2005

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A steeper ladder for the have-nots 

In 1973, the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay was 43 to 1. By 1992, it was 145 to 1. By 1997, it was 326 to 1. By 2000, it hit a sky-high 531 to 1. The post 9/11 shakeouts and corporate scandals of recent years on the surface narrowed the gap back to 301 to 1 in 2003. But a much worse parallel global gap is emerging in the era of outsourcing. United for a Fair Economy published a report last summer that found CEOs of the top US outsourcing companies made 1,300 times more than their computer programmers in India and 3,300 more than Indian call-center employees.

Such groups say if the minimum wage kept up with the rise in CEO pay, it would be $15.76 an hour instead of its current $5.15. Looking at it another way, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, another often written-off liberal think tank, published a report last month that in the last three years, the share of US national income that goes toward corporate profits is at its highest levels since World War II, while the share of national income that goes to wages and salaries is at a record low.

--Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist, Boston Globe

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Rich Countries & Corrupt Officials Killing Africa

By the end of 2004, external debt of Sub-Saharan countries stood at US$ 231 billion. At the same time, the Gross Domestic Product of these countries was just about US$350 billion. In other words, African countries cannot pay back their debts and sustain development. Most countries have to spend more than twenty percent of their revenues to service the debt, i.e., to pay annual quotas of debt and the interests generated so far. The debt has helped the recovery and growth of rich countries, but denied the development of poor countries. . . .

Kenya has been the recipient of a cumulative total of 17 billion US$ in loans and aid; this equals to 1,275 billion shillings, or an average of 40,000 Kenya shillings per each citizen. In spite of his huge amount of money, Kenya has witnessed a progressive decline of its economy. Today, the vast majority of Kenyans live below the poverty line, while a small minority enjoys a life style higher than that of developed countries. . . .

Debt servicing is hampering our struggle for development and social justice. We should remember that the official poverty line is placed at earning less than US$1 per day per person. We all know that this limit is in itself a masquerade. No person can be expected to live with less than 80 [Kenya] shillings per day, especially in our urban areas where the cost of life is no lower than that of many European or North American countries. To pay people according to the salary structures applying to most of our workers is tantamount to exploit their work in the pretence of legality.

A Pastoral Letter of The Catholic Bishops of Kenya (May 17, 2005)

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Educational Attainment Levels -- African Americans & Hispanics

Only 18% of African Americans and 10% of Hispanics complete a 4-year degree by age 29, compared with 34% of whites. Native American students are less likely to complete a college degree than any other ethnic group. Only 3 in 5 will graduate from high school, and of those less than 3% will go on to earn a Bachelor's degree. . . .

A young person whose family income is from the lowest socioeconomic quartile has less than a 6 percent chance of earning a 4-year college degree compared to 40% among those in the highest quartile. About 7 times more likely. . . .  

Nearly 29% of Hispanic youth and 12.6 percent of black youth age 16 to 24 have dropped out of school compared with 7.3 percent of whites. . . .

In 2003 white/black gaps were approximately 10 points wider (about a year's worth of learning) than they were a decade ago. By the end of high school, African American students have math and reading skills that are virtually the same as those of 8th grade white students. . . . 

In half the schools located in urban areas  in the 35 largest US cities, nearly 50% of the students in those schools do not graduate from high school in four years.

Source: Rossana, "Is Mexican Fox Racist?" Friday, May 20, 2005 rossanamj@comcast.net

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The 15th, Black Men, & Gifts 

BULLETIN -- One Million Black Men Denied the Vote: "On Nov. 8, 2004, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear cases from New York and Washington states, according to an article in the New York Times (Nov. 10, 2004). Linda Greenhouse stated that an estimated '3.9 million felons, more that one third black men' have been affected by this decision. In light of the latest election results, this would mean that nearly one million African men will not be allowed to exercise their right to vote in 2008."

Source: Amin Sharif 

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Counting Nappy Heads

There are nearly two million more black adult women than men in America, stark testimony to how often black men die before their time. With nearly another million black men in prison or the military, the real imbalance is even greater -- a gap of 2.8 million, according to U.S. Census data for 2002. On average, then, there are 26 percent more black women than black men; among whites, women outnumber men by just 8 percent. – “Where have all the black men gone?”

Source: Jonathan Tilove 

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The Rise of Africans in America

Nationally, the proportion of blacks who are foreign born rose to about 7.3 percent from 4.9 percent in the 1990's. In New York City, about 1 in 3 blacks are foreign born. . . . In the 1960's, 28,954 legal immigrants were admitted from all of Africa, a figure that rose geometrically to 80,779 in the 1970's, 176,893 in the 1980's and 354,939 in the 1990's. In 2002, 60,269 were admitted, including 8,291 from Nigeria, 7,574 from Ethiopia, 4,537 from Somalia, 4,256 from Ghana and 3,207 from Kenya. – “More Africans Enter U.S. Than in Days of Slavery,”

Source: Sam Roberts 

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The Military-Industrial Complex Rules  

Next year, reports Jane's Defense Industry, the United States will spend as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. Yet the Pentagon now admits that our military is having severe trouble attracting recruits, and would have difficulty dealing with potential foes - those that, unlike Saddam's Iraq, might pose a real threat. “Staying What Course?” 

Source: Paul Krugman, NYTimes, May 16, 2005 

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J.P. Morgan's Link to Slavery

COVINGTON, La. -- Hired by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., historian James Lide descended on this quiet hamlet last year and began digging into the 170-year-old records of Citizens Bank of Louisiana, a predecessor of the New York bank.

After 3,500 hours of research, he confirmed what his client didn't want to hear: Between 1834 and 1861, Citizens had secured loans with mortgages on land -- and thousands of slaves.  

After months of research, Mr. Lide and his team submitted a detailed report to the bank, listing the slaves attached to the mortgages and the foreclosures that led to the Citizens' slave ownership, as well as those of another Louisiana bank of the era, New Orleans Canal & Banking Company. All in all, the two banks linked to J.P. Morgan used more than 13,000 slaves as collateral and wound up owning about 1,250 of them when borrowers defaulted.

Source: “Bank's Distant Predecessor Took Human Collateral For Rich Client's Debt” by ROBIN SIDEL Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL May 10, 2005; Page A1

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Sex at the Margins Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry By Laura María Agustín This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London

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Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid By  Frank B. Wilderson III Wilderson, a professor, writer and filmmaker from the Midwest, presents a gripping account of his role in the downfall of South African apartheid as one of only two black Americans in the African National Congress (ANC). After marrying a South African law student, Wilderson reluctantly returns with her to South Africa in the early 1990s, where he teaches Johannesburg and Soweto students, and soon joins the military wing of the ANC. Wilderson's stinging portrait of Nelson Mandela as a petulant elder eager to accommodate his white countrymen will jolt readers who've accepted the reverential treatment usually accorded him. After the assassination of Mandela's rival, South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani, Mandela's regime deems Wilderson's public questions a threat to national security; soon, having lost his stomach for the cause, he returns to America. Wilderson has a distinct, powerful voice and a strong story that shuffles between the indignities of Johannesburg life and his early years in Minneapolis, the precocious child of academics who barely tolerate his emerging political consciousness. Wilderson's observations about love within and across the color line and cultural divides are as provocative as his politics; despite some distracting digressions, this is a riveting memoir of apartheid's last days.—Publishers Weekly

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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)

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Ancient African Nations

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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 / George Jackson  / Hurricane Carter

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