Afro-Netizen

The Jena in us

Since the day of protest in Jena, Louisiana, there has been a flurry of interest in reporters from the mainstream press in contacting some of us in the Black netroots/blogging community about how and why the massive organizing and presence of Blackfolk in this small rural town represents a fulcrum for social media in Black America.

I've spoken at length to various reporters and academics since September 20th, and I have said many things no more eloquently as the many profoundly gifted activists and bloggers who have covered the Jena matter far longer and more consistently than I.

The reporters that have contacted me, all of whom have been White men, have appeared to express surprisingly nuanced and thoughtful approaches to covering this story and its much larger implications. However, from their laptops to their editor's desks is a treacherous journey that reinforces the need, beauty and power of social media like blogging which disintermediate the politics of the gatekeeping class from the writer and the reader.

The cogent vignettes that linked the visceral impact of the Jena trials for Blackfolk and the OJ verdict for many Whitefolk somehow were eviscerated before making it to print.

Then, just this morning, my wife handed me a draft of a writing project she's working on. And there at the top of Page 1 was this:

That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing which we black are wise.
Her bandage hides two festing sores
That once perhaps were eyes.

--Langston Hughes

Deep within the being of Blackfolk is a shared wisdom and maturity about what Justice feels like, and equally important, how Injustice wracks our centuries-battered collective soul. This sixth sense is borne of oppression and our cultural fortitude and improvisational gifts that allows our spirit to remain indomitable, even in this most adverse situations.

This sense bespeaks the clearly felt vulnerability of our citizenship and our intimate familiarity with living in a land of abundance and great opportunity frought with the complexities and paradoxes associated with how much of this abundance and opportunity was created on our backs.

Prophet Hughes wrote many years ago what I felt much of the time I was too paralyzed to write about the Jena Revolt: Jena has been in us long before protesters were in it.

The Global Clinton Summit in Review

By Mary Dillard
Guest Contributor

I once saw an interview with Bill Clinton where he was asked “What do you think of the American people?”  His response was, “Give them enough time and they always get it right.”  That struck me as wildly optimistic, but stayed in my mind because I felt that it gave real insight into the man.  Witnessing two days of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)  reminded me of that interview.  Former President Clinton seems determined to use his political capital in order to bring attention and resources to bear on some of the world’s most serious problems. And he’s as optimistic as ever. 

The idea behind CGI is to get a range of people together discuss global issues, come up with action plans and steps towards action.  Each morning began with a plenary session followed by working group meetings in which CGI members and invited guests met to brainstorm action items, make suggestions and most importantly, make commitments.

While the press was not allowed in the working sessions, we were able to watch video feeds of the panel discussions. I chose to watch the feeds on education in order to see what would be discussed about Africa.  I knew that Bill Clinton has been extremely inspired by Kenya’s efforts at providing Universal Primary Education to all of its school age children. Kenya’s Education Minister George Saitoti reported on the popularity of the school program and what his country is doing to ensure its success.

Kenya is emphasizing teacher training, parental involvement in budget decisions and multi-age classrooms so that older students don’t feel segregated and stigmatized.  Since this initiative was first announced in 2003, enrollments have skyrocketed and Minister Saitoti mentioned that the countries oldest primary school enrollee is 75 years old! At a time when over 100 million school age children around the world are not in school, this is an ambitious undertaking and Kenya’s efforts are being watched closely to see whether its program can be replicated. 

On Friday’s panels, Andre Agassi touted the success of his charter school in Las Vegas which serves a 96% African American student population.  Dr. Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), spoke of BRAC’s expanded initiatives in Uganda, Tanzania and Southern Sudan and John Wood of Room to Read discussed his organization’s efforts to create 10,000 bilingual libraries around the world by 2010.  Author Toni Morrison attended the working sessions on education, while actor Jeffery Wright participated in the special sessions on poverty alleviation and highlighted his efforts to support the recent elections in Sierra Leone.

There seemed to be particular interest in supporting the rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans.  On Thursday, President Clinton personally pledged $500,000 as a matching grant to support housing construction for displaced residents.  By Friday, Brad Pitt’s “Make it Right” campaign increased the money directed towards New Orleans by an additional $5 million.  In making his announcement, President Clinton stated, “Anyone who wants to return home to New Orleans ought to be able to do so, and we want to do everything that we can to make that possible.”

It is difficult to describe the range of emotions that I felt at this event. The energy of the conference was electric.  It was exciting to hear world business, governmental and non-profit leaders talk enthusiastically about their commitments to create social change. I left Thursday’s sessions buoyed by a “Clintonesque optimism”.  Each day he announced more commitments from CGI partners and pledges to date total over $10 billion. At the same time, I couldn’t help wondering what happens next?  How does CGI insure that the commitments that are made reach the organizations that need them? How many times have global conferences inspired pledges only to find that the funds never materialized six months later?

At home, while I was turning these questions over in my head, I turned on the TV and there was Clinton again!  This time at the Apollo theater in Harlem, announcing the creation of CGI-U, an initiative directed towards college students.  I decided at that moment that I would suspend my academic cynicism and get my students on board.  I guess optimism is contagious. Plus, it will give me an opportunity to blog some more and see firsthand how these initiatives are working. 

Sharp Words from Ethiopia's Prime Minister Zenawi at Clinton Summit

By Mary Dillard
Guest Contributor
Afro-Netizen

This week, coinciding with the opening session of the United Nations, the Clinton Global Initiative is holding its third annual summit, inviting attendees from around the world to discuss what can be done about some of the most serious issues of our day. The main themes addressed by this year’s conference are: poverty alleviation, education, climate change and global health.  I attended the conference on behalf of Afro-Netizen and was charged with the task of identifying which of the issues discussed would be relevant to Afro-Netizen’s audience. 

It was an interesting day.  This morning’s plenary discussed the issue of climate change. Included on the panel, moderated by Tom Brokaw, were former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of Norway, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

Often in discussions of development and climate change, Africa is treated as a footnote or as the world’s forgotten stepchild.  PM Meles was the only panelist from a developing country, and fortunately for Africa, he held it down.  Each of his remarks drew applause from the audience, which wasn’t true of the other panelists.  While Blair and Harlem Brundtland talked about the need to create incentives for conservation in countries like China, the United States and Britain, the Ethiopian Prime Minister highlighted his country's leadership in organic farming methods, efforts at creating biofuel alternatives and success in generating electricity through hydroelectric power.  According to Meles, Congo and Ethiopia combined have the ability, through the level of hydroelectric power that they produce, to fuel the energy needs of the entire continent.  The main reason why this has not happened is that the infrastructure to allow this type of energy sharing to occur is not in place.

He was direct in his advocacy for Africa. “Africa contributed nothing to global warming because we did not develop in the way that the large industrialized nations did.”  It needed to be said because most people in the room knew that Africans are already paying the price for the environmental effects of global warming, and this is expected to get worse.  “Africa’s only option,” according to the Prime Minister, “is to grow in a carbon neutral fashion.”  And guess what?  Ethiopia is a pioneer in Africa in creating ethanol from sugar or corn.  But, the trucks and cars currently on the roads in Ethiopia can’t run on the biofuels that the country produces.  In order for this to change, developed nations are going to have to convince car manufacturers to partner with African nations and create flex fuel cars, allowing Africa to profit from its own agricultural production. 

The Prime Minister’s remarks raise the issue of fair trade policies in relation to Africa.  It is one thing for North Americans and Europeans to sit around and expound upon issues associated with global warming and sustainable development.  It is another thing altogether to hear African leaders say “Hey, we are not asking for your charity”  or, in the exact words of the Prime Minister, “This is an issue of rights, not a question of philanthropy.  We did not pollute and we deserve the right to sell our sugar here.” (an obvious dig at the farm subsidies and protectionist tariffs that the U.S. and European countries use to keep African crops out of their markets.) 

Applause again.  Go ‘head Meles!  It was refreshing to hear the perspective of an African leader and know that there were so many in the audience who agreed with him.  Let’s hope that participants at this forum will take his intervention seriously and truly partner with African nations so that Africans can reap the benefits of their own natural resources.

Mary Dillard is an Associate Professor of African History at Sarah Lawrence College.  Her research interests are education, health care, and gender studies in Africa.  She lives in New York City. 

 

We protest

We protest because the boys of Jena 6 and their families need to know they are not alone.

We protest because the Jena travesty is not about a nooses that were hung on a now-felled tree, but the noose of injustice that remains around the neck of Black America.

We protest because few people know "state-sponsored terrorism" like Blackfolk.

We protest because Jena is not a rural Southern town, it is a state of mind -- not from the 1950s, but of the here and now in every American town, suburb and city from South to North and sea to shining sea.

We protest because Jena exemplifies with such brutal clarity the racialization of crime in our society.

We protest because what happened in Jena is worthy of substantive national attention and action and OJ's most recent transgression is not.

We protest because the media we trust most are the media we control -- directly or indirectly -- traditional and digital alike.

We protest because society at-large needs to know that the American Dream will remain just that -- a dream -- without aggressively committing to the fight for racial justice long after Jena fades from the far too few headlines it has received compared to much lesser matters.

We protest because so often the Black accused are guilty before proven innocent, and the White accused (a la the Duke LaCross angels) so often are given the benefit of the doubt and relevant facts about their backgrounds are omitted to conform to the racial mythologies that serve the status quo.

We protest because we are moved to do so, not because any charismatic leader told us to do so.

We protest because we are following our our consciences, not polls.

We protest because we know that leaders do not draw crowds, crowds attract (more) leaders.

We protest because "we are the leaders we have been waiting for".

We protest because we know that large groups of organized Black people help disabuse our fellow Americans of any faulty notions of mass complacency in our communities.

We protest because we draw strength and comfort from the fact that just by showing up in unity behind the most humane and reasonable of missions represents one of the greatest perceived threats to so-called peace and the safety of the privileged and their property.

We protest because we believe in Frederick Douglass' salient words that "power concedes nothing without a demand" -- especially from an equal or greater power.

We protest because we believe that power, in the words of Dr. King, is "the ability to achieve purpose".

We protest because we believe that our leaders are not who corporate media say our leaders are, but those who speak up, stand up and organize when it is often inconvenient and unpopular to do so.

We protest because we know that this is an inter-generational struggle led by Blackfolk and inclusive of all who stand for justice irrespective of hue or heritage.

We protest because we believe -- and history has shown us -- that everyone has a role in the struggle for long-term social change.

We believe that "we" is whomever sees reflected in these words something that affirms or inspires them to act for the common good.

We protest not to beg, implore or seek permission or validation from those who fear us or abuse our trust, but to symbolize the work we have already done thus far and will continue to do when all the camera crews have left the scene to follow OJ or Paris Hilton.

We protest in peace for justice because America still knows neither, and the ghosts of Selma abound with every needless incarceration of our youth.

We protest on behalf of our boys and girls who have become society's poster-children for criminality and dysfunction because it is in our centuries-old tradition to resist all forces that have sought to cage our spirit, from the Middle Passage to Hurricane Katrina.

We protest because if not now, then when?

Segregation Affects Blacks' Nursing Home Care

(September 11, 2007) -- ABC News reports on a study which indicates regional segregation affects the quality of care for African Americans in nursing homes. The study is published in the journal, Health Affairs.

Researchers from Temple University and Brown University found problems not in the South, but in the Midwest which was found to be the most segregated.

“The South was actually the least segregated, with nursing homes there more likely to have racially mixed resident populations.” The report continues:

“Study co-author Jacqueline Zinn, professor in the Fox School of Business at Temple University, notes that the differences in the care received by black nursing home residents and their white counterparts were not ‘within-home’ differences.

‘The care provided within the facility is consistent,’ she said. ‘It's just differences across [regions] with regard to the degree of segregation.’"