Afro-Netizen

Obama and the Politics of Race and Religion in America

The Ground Didn't Shift

By M. Shahid Alam
CounterPunch

It is perhaps a bit late in the day, nearly two weeks after November 4, to be writing about Barack Obama’s electoral victory. This want of alacrity, however, is intentional.

I thought it would be cruel to write any sooner, when whites and blacks alike were so effusively celebrating Obama’s victory. It would be unseemly to strike a discordant note when a clear majority of Americans was savoring this putative post-racial moment in their history.

Did this victory signal a shift in America's racial tectonic plates?

Memories are so short. In the weeks following his choice of Sarah Palin on August 29, John McCain began closing the gap behind Obama.  The election got closer after Palin electrified the Republican Convention with her line about how “We grow good people in our small towns…”  The message to blacks, Hispanics and Asians in America’s cities was clear: they are not “good people.”

In the absence of the financial meltdown that began in early September, the election could have easily gone the other way. Sarah Palin too may have helped Obama a bit when she began displaying the breathless scope of her ignorance.

Who should we thank for Obama’s victory?

The answer is sobering. We can thank the financial meltdown and, in some measure, the threat of an Armageddon – likely to follow Palin’s succession to a geriatric McCain – for Obama’s victory. There was no shifting of tectonic plates on this continent.

If anything, America’s unquestioning identification of Obama as a ‘black’ candidate is deeply problematic. It demonstrates that the United States remains firmly rooted in ideas of race that go back to the era of slavery and Jim Crow Laws.  

Obama’s mother was white and, apparently, so were all her forebears; while his father was a black African and, apparently, so were all his forebears. Obama is biracial – half-black and half-white. Why did that, automatically, make him black? If being half-black makes Obama black, by the same logic we could identify him as white.

Why didn’t we?

Read more to find out here.

Shoulders to the Wheel of Change

By Rob Okun
Guest Contributor

Barack Obama’s decisive election as the nation’s 44th president sent a jolt of clean, renewable energy around the world. Forty years after the nation was parched in a desert of despair following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., an African American has been elected president. Stunning. Electrifying.

As he did in his remarks in Chicago’s Grant Park on election night, President-elect Obama’s campaign message has consistently encouraged citizens to open the door of “possibility and change.” Now is the time for more Americans to enter, to join in the daunting but rewarding work of recasting America away from bullying and fear and toward cooperation and love. It’s time to begin spreading around the wealth of new ideas and bold programs needed to confront the crush of pressing issues facing our nation and fragile planet.

Make no mistake. President Obama cannot single-handedly create the just new world so many are hungering for; he cannot do so no matter how talented and committed a team he assembles to serve in his administration. It’s up to put our shoulders to the wheel of change, to help turn the American ship of state in a new direction.

We’ll need the same level of commitment, the same blend of idealism and pragmatism, and the same kind of community organizing key to electing Barack Obama president. The legions of dedicated citizen-activists—from rural pockets around the nation to dense neighborhoods in our largest cities—making phone calls, canvassing streets, apartments, and country homesteads, who entering data, making food, offering lodging to out-of-state activists, we’re all still here. We still care. Sure we’re tired, but we’re also “fired up and ready to go.”

This is our moment; this is our time. From graying sixties activists to our age-equivalent peers involved for the first time in a political campaign; from formerly disenchanted (and disenfranchised) citizens of color now engaged; to first-time voters of all ages; from high school and college students to 20- and 30-somethings; to zesty older folks moved to join the campaign. I met scores of them campaigning in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania throughout the fall.

One was a Connecticut man named Gene Black, a retiree in his sixties who for the final month of the campaign moved into a rooming house in Quakertown, PA, volunteering in a swing community in a swing state, working 14 hour days all over Bucks County. Like so many other citizen-campaigners, Gene is back home now resuming his “regular” life but ready to do more for the country. The change America experienced on November 4th was more than just a special moment to savor before returning to business as usual. Barack Obama’s election calls on us to ask ourselves: What else are we willing to sacrifice? What else will we volunteer to do?

Yes, it's a new day in America. And yes, tens of millions of people in the United States and around the world are still abuzz, still savoring for the first time in eight years the sweet honey of victory and its kissin’ cousins, hope and change. But after the celebrating there's always the cleaning up, the morning after.

Between now and the inauguration is a great time to reconnect with the people you canvassed or phone banked with. It's a two month window to develop an action plan for change in your community, in your neighborhood, in your home. Social change movements are living, breathing embodiments of collective energy that thrive on momentum and deteriorate when static. Remember eighth grade science? A body in motion tends to stay in motion; a body at rest tends to stay at rest. Citizen-activists, let's stay in motion.

Joseph Campbell, who used myth to explain the human experience, said if you want to change the world, change the metaphor. The election of Barack Hussein Obama has unalterably changed the American metaphor.

Although we may have crossed the color line, we have yet to reach the finish line. Our new president has inspired millions with a compelling vision of social change. It is up to us now to summon the courage and the stamina for the next leg of the generational relay race some call the American experiment in democracy.

Rob Okun is editor of Voice Male magazine. For more than 20 yeas op-eds and commentaries on the social transformation of masculinity have appeared in newspapers, in online publications and been broadcast on public radio. His essay, “Confessions of a Premature Profeminist” appears in Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power. He can be reached at raokun at verizon dot

This Week in Blackness celebrates Obama's historic win

[Big H/T to comedian Elon James White and the whole TWiB crew! Y'all gonna be real busy over the next four to eight years!]

Barack Obama's Election Brings Us Into Dawn's Early Light

A moment hundreds of years in the making, brought about by millions of engaged citizens

By Benjamin Todd Jealous

It was 11:30 p.m. the Friday before the presidential elections. Nikita Dawson had persevered in line for hours, vacillating between light banter with other waiting voters and serious talk about why they had to hang in there until they reached the voting machine.

Finally, Nikita marched up to a voting booth at that Clayton County, Ga., precinct to participate in one of democracy's most sacred acts. She would be the last early voter in Georgia to cast her ballot in the presidential race.

No drumrolls ushered Dawson to the voting booth. But as I glanced at the flag hanging in that polling place, I could almost hear "The Star-Spangled Banner." The perilous fight our nation has endured crystallized with images of valiant patriots jailed, beaten, even lynched in their attempts to cast a ballot.

In the long march to this day, I reflect on the role of the unsung heroes captured in sepia tones in history books.

During an election season punctuated with historic firsts, millions of voters around the country braved lines that stretched for hours. In Virginia, where we challenged the antiquated election system and pushed for extended voting hours and paper ballots, even the judge denying our motion confessed that he had waited in line for over two hours to cast an absentee ballot.

In Craven, N.C., there was a failed blatant attempt at voter intimidation when a casket with a likeness of Barack Obama was placed inside a polling place.

We also confronted scores of other voter suppression tactics, including misinformation about the date of the election and polling locations and claims that people could vote by phone, that students voting in their college towns could lose financial aid, or voters with unpaid child support or parking tickets could be subject to arrest.

Thankfully, such despicable measures could not stem the righteous tide of change. And here we are at this astoundingly triumphant moment with the election of Obama, America's first African-American president.

A moment 232 years in the making—from the end of chattel slavery to today—we are witness to the most inclusive election enjoyed by the largest, best-informed, motivated electorate in our nation's history.

Consider that some African-American precincts saw the number of registered voters swell to 95 percent of those eligible. In some locations, more than 90 percent of those registered actually voted, many for the first time and others for the first time in years. They turned out because it finally mattered.

These stunning statistics represent engagement in the political process on a colossal scale. It is proof through the night that democracy is here.

It is fitting to remember race riots in Springfield, Ill., in 1908 that killed scores of black people and drove thousands more from the city. The atrocity moved labor activist William English Walling to take up the cause of the victims, penning an article that demanded: What large and powerful body of citizens is ready to come to their aid? The birth of the NAACP the following year was the response.

It is equally fitting that the man who has desegregated the highest office in the land and transformed the reality for millions of black and brown children by affirming that color need not be a barrier to high pinnacles launched his candidacy for president of the United States in Springfield.

As we bask in the glow of Obama's stunning victory, the battles are still many. Racial and gender-based discrimination continue to warp our housing, employment, and credit markets. Nearly 50 million Americans are without health insurance. Foreclosures spiral upward. Racial profiling persists. No Child Left Behind has abandoned hundreds of thousands of children in underfunded schools. Wars rage on two fronts.

Still, we have proof through the night that an engaged, inspired nation can come together across racial, cultural, and generational boundaries to bring about change.

Real change can happen as we harness the energy that enables us to achieve the extraordinary, even as we fight for simple justice and basic opportunities. These things can propel us forward as we step out into the dawn's early light.

Benjamin Todd Jealous is president and CEO of the NAACP.

A not-so-typical election day in Mt. Airy, Philadelphia

In the deepest of blue dots in the state of Pennsylvania (and Philadelphia), there has been record turn-out in terms of how many people have voted before noon.

As of 10:50amET, over 50% of voters in this division (i.e., precinct) have already voted. And in what is already one of the most active polling places in the entire city, I am confident we will surpass the 90% mark by 8pm.

For some odd reason, the local Fox Channel affiliate has been camped out at our polling place in front of the church here since 4:30am. They have not interviewed anyone -- just kinda sitting in their broadcast truck. I spoke to the on-air guy a couple times to brag at how awesome our 3 divisions are that share this polling place, and he just politely nods his head.

Today has been an amazing day so far, which is saying a lot, given that I have worked every election here for the past 2 1/2 years and voted without fail for the 6 1/2 years I've lived in Philadelphia as Chicago expatriate who grew up in the neighborhood where Barack Obama served as state senator.

After the groundswell of early voters, the polling place became a ghost town by 8:30am, and the only folks left were the election officials, the church staff, the Democratic committeepeople, the older Black man who was the token Republican in this Obama-lovin' sea of nervous excitement and the dozen or so Obama volunteers shipped in from Brooklyn and Vermont. In fact, there were more Obama volunteers at our polling place who had nothing to do than there were actual voters once the tide had ebbed from the morning rush.

I pointed out that sending Obama volunteers to my polling place was like sending sand to the beach. My neighborhood is so Obamalicious, there are more White lesbian couples with Black children than registered Republicans. In fact, there were probably more McCain-Palin lawn signs (2) on the church's lawn than actual McCain voters.

But enough about my wonderfully economically, racially and culturally diverse neighborhood.

The simple fact is that this morning I saw faces of new young voters, first-time elderly voters, Blackfolk coming out so overcome with emotion and recognition of today's import that they could not keep from crying; Whitefolk smiling giddily as though they were keeping a secret they were trying so hard to let out.

I saw children of all ages -- some as young as two who could say with pride, "Rockobama!". Busloads full of students headed to school yelling out of their windows, "Obama, Obama!"

A feeling is in the air that was not there in 2004.

And in under two hours, I will be sharing this moment when my wife and I bring our 5- and 2-year old sons to push the big green VOTE button when we cast our ballots for Obama this afternoon.

They know it's election day. But what they will not know for years to come is just how much their lives will change -- all of our lives -- no matter how subtlely --  just by the very fact that Barack Hussein Obama may be our next president no matter how imperfect the candidate or the political system that has thrust him to this auspicious moment in time.

Dawn approaches on Election Day

I always get emotional on election day.

Today will be my sixth presidential election that I will be voting in, and the most important.

This will also be the first presidential election without grandparents or my father.

Today, I will not be voting alone though. I will be bringing my ancestors with me and my two young sons.

In a few moments I will be getting ready to leave my home and walk a half block to my polling place and meeting my fellow Democratic Committeeperson to set up for what will most certainly be a long day.

My job in this capacity is simple: to make sure my division's (what other cities call a precinct) Democratic voters are informed and assisted as needed towards voting as smoothly and quickly as possible.

My 21-year old first cousin, Houston, has been with us since Sunday, up from Virginia. This is his first presidential election and the first time he has volunteered for a political campaign. He has been working and with incredible enthusiasm.

Houston will be shadowing me today between GOTV runs for the Obama campaign here. I will be teaching him about "machine politics" 101 and letting him see first-hand how grassroots party electioneering works in quite possibly the bluest neighborhood in the entire state of Pennsylvania.

Our late grandmother, an ardent community organizer in Baltimore and my most influential mentor, ran for office several times unsuccessfully. She died a year or so after I was elected as a committeeperson.

She would be so heartened to know that her grandchildren were actively involved in such a historic election.

We will not be alone in the voting booth.

In light of the passing of Obama's dear grandmother, no doubt, he knows this, too.

Working class Black and Brown folks caused the housing crisis & the global economic meltdown. Huh?!

Such baseless, blame-the-victim allegations are nothing less than scapegoating of Jim Crow proportions.

Blaming inner-city dwelling "high-risk borrowers", ACORN, CRA and others for America's housing crisis is akin to charging rape victims for the rape kit. It's simply unconscionable.

Did the working class own predatory lending outfits?

Did the working class dream up the Adjustable Rate Mortgage?

Did the working class own the media conglomerates and other institutions who since the end of World War II have pounded into every American's skull that home ownership is part and parcel of the increasingly elusive American Dream?

Did the working class run the real estate industry? The insurance industry? Wall Street? Madison Avenue? K Street? 1600 The White House/Capitol Hill? Hollywood? Or Silicon Valley?

Oh, one last thing:

Did the working class buy all those now-foreclosed McMansions in suburbia?

The following Lending Tree commercial from a few years back was a (now not-so-humorous) augur of America's precarious house of cards that rested on good old-fashion industry- and government-fostered consumerism and addiction to credit.

See for yourself . . .

McCain-Palin "white appeal" tactic resurrects the ghost of Jim Crow

By Walter Fields
Courtesy of North Star News

With the McCain campaign growing desperate by the day as polls show Senator Barack Obama making significant progress in key battleground states, the presidential election is now turning on John McCain’s not so subtle “white appeal.” Over the last ten days we have watched McCain and his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, unleash a torrent of racially coded attacks that has given their followers license to resurrect hate that we had hoped had been buried with Jim Crow. Apparently the crow flies.

With the active encouragement of both Senator McCain and Governor Palin, speakers and supporters at their rallies have been motivated to shout “kill him” and “off with his head,” in reference to Senator Obama. Thought Senator McCain eventually tried to calm his bloodthirsty brood, it is apparent that the genie is out of the bottle. For almost two years running, the specter of race has hung over this presidential campaign and, up until now, every time it surfaced well meaning individuals in political circles and the media worked feverishly to temper the rhetoric. Now, with less than a month to go, the issue of race and racism has come back with a vengeance as a desperate campaign throws one last “Hail Mary” pass hoping to sow seeds of doubt about Senator Obama in the minds of white voters.

Congressman John Lewis is absolutely right. What we are witnessing is straight from the George Wallace-Lester Maddox playbook. When all else fails, remind working class white voters of the need for racial solidarity; despite the fact that it could work against their vested interest. Senator McCain’s contemptuous reference to Senator Obama as “that one” was his call to arms to those paranoid white voters whose guilt would have them to believe that a Black president will turn history’s table back on white America. The McCain team’s spiteful invocation of “Who is Barack Obama?” attempts to portray “that one” as a covert, anti-American, Black Muslim Arab sympathizer who is an undercover agent for terrorists abroad. It is conspiracy theory run amok and only capable of taking root when the appeal is made in the context of an anti-intellectual framework. The McCain campaign is hoping that a hate filled, sound bite driven volley as the campaign winds down will give their ticket the boost it needs among those white voters still burdened by race.

It has been sobering to watch Governor Sarah Palin, the poster girl for cut and paste politics, attack someone far more educated, accomplished and qualified to serve than she could ever hope to be. And it has been revealing to see Senator McCain hide behind his running mate as she makes baseless accusations that are an affront to the American public. If there ever was a time for Senator McCain to demonstrate real courage, it would be now. But he can’t because he has awakened the beast and history teaches us that once the lynch mob gathers, someone has to get lynched. He can’t play the voice of reason now with his angry mob because they have been promised a lynching and will now turn on him if their thirst for blood cannot be satisfied.

Read more . . .

Walter Fields is the CEO and Executive Editor of North Star News. Mr. Fields has been an award-winning journalist who has written extensively on matters of race and public policy as a columnist for the New Jersey Reporter, MSNBC.com, The City News and the Record (Bergen County, N.J.).

Clinton Global Initiative 2008 Focuses on Global Health

By Mary Dillard

Guest Contributor

Today is the third day of the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative.  This year I decided to focus on listening to the global health panels, which have emphasized the goal of expanding the global health workforce. 

One statistic that was mentioned yesterday is that Africa has 11% of the world’s population, over 20% of the world’s disease burden, but only 3% of the world’s health workers.  This has not always been the case and there are a number of reasons the numbers of health care workers have diminished so precipitously over the past thirty years. These include the Structural Adjustment Programs imposed on a number of African countries during the 1980s and 90s that forced African governments to decrease the amount of money that went into public health.

A second factor was the so-called brain drain- a controversial term referring to the migration of skilled professionals from developing countries to fill human resource needs in wealthier countries.  This process began in the 1970s but accelerated due to the decline in working conditions for health workers in the 1980s and 90s.   

Over the past two days, several panel participants have called for private investors to pay more attention to partnering with the public sector, thus challenging the legacy of structural adjustment.  The clearest call for this came yesterday from Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health who reminded the audience that the CGI goals (Poverty Alleviation, Energy and Climate Change, Education and Global Health) are particularly relevant for impoverished countries in the global south. 

While Farmer was technically on the panel to speak about global health, he emphasized that the recent devastation that Haiti has faced is due to climate change.  Although this has been little reported in the U.S. corporate press, Haiti has been battered by four hurricanes in the past two months.  These storms have resulted in the deaths of over 1000 people and displacement of close to a million people. 

Farmer argued that with the splintering of NGO groups, it has been more difficult than ever to coordinate efforts or to share best practices of health care delivery but that it is crucial for people to pay attention to what is happening in Haiti in order to avoid an increasingly dire humanitarian crisis.   

Given the fact that there are many immediate healthcare crises occurring in the world, it may seem strange to focus the theme of the Global Health panels on recruiting healthcare workers.  However, this need was echoed by most panel participants over the past two days.  Yesterday, Dr. Nancy Aossey, President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Medical Corps (IMC) argued that this is a crucial priority for post-conflict and active conflict zones where IMC works including Chad, the Central African Republic, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Today was “policy-wonk day” on the health panels.  Most of the speakers on the smaller panels were very well versed in health policy and there was a clear emphasis on practical, replicable solutions to challenges facing health care workers around the world.  This morning’s global health panel featured Craig R. Barrett, Chairman of Intel Corporation,
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Minister of Health, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 
Aruna Uprety, Director, Rural Health and Education Service Trust of Nepal and Dr. Lola Dare, Executive Secretary of African Council for Sustainable Health Development (ACOSHED).

The Ethiopian Minister of Health reported on initiatives that his government is doing to expand the medical corps.  According to Minister Tedros, when the government set priorities,  “We decided to focus on trying to reach the Millennium Development Goals, particularly the goal of ending poverty by 2015.”  Ethiopia’s per capita health expenditure is only one dollar per person.  With such limited funds directed towards the healthcare, increasing the numbers of low and mid-level providers (traditional birth attendants, nurses, physicians assistants) became a priority and the Ministry decided to strategically allocate resources. 

The current national health plan focuses on what he calls  “Flooding and Retention”.  Flooding refers to exponentially increasing the number of trained doctors, while retention refers to efforts to keep trained healthcare professionals employed in that capacity.  In too many impoverished countries, salaries for health care providers are so low that people cannot afford to work in the sectors where they were trained.  This contributes to skilled workers either leaving the country or finding other employment.  The largest outlay of funds in the health budget will go towards “Flooding” with  the hopes that at least a fraction of the doctors trained will continue to live and work in Ethiopia. It’s a risky strategy but clearly one that the government believes it must take.

Dr. Lola Dare made one of the most compelling arguments to not only increase the number of health care providers but also to provide those workers with the necessary supplies. She reminded the audience, “I worked in pediatric health and I left because I had no supplies in order to do my job.”  Her comments highlight the fact that the best intentions mean nothing to workers on the ground unless they have the supplies necessary to provide the kind of care that they were trained to provide. 

Africa has the highest disease burden but also has the lowest number of health workers.  Clearly the Continent has faced tremendous challenges in providing adequate health care over the past thirty years.  Since CGI is about creating “political will” my hope is that one day we will see real progress, by convincing governments around the world to make their health budgets more important than their military budgets.

Mary Dillard is Associate Professor of African History at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.

Afro-Netizen covers the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative: What a difference a year makes

By Mary Dillard
Guest Contributor

On Wednesday morning, I attended the first full day session of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), an annual meeting of world leaders, corporate executives, NGO representatives, foundations and research institutions.  Timed to coincide with the opening session of the UN General Assembly, CGI’s goal is to link these various organizations in an effort to direct resources towards sustainable solutions to some of the most vexing global problems. 

This is my second time blogging for Afro-Netizen about CGI.  I attended last year and was impressed by Bill Clinton’s ability to assimilate a wide range of information, to bring disparate perspectives together in the same room and to speak intelligently on a wide range of topics.  Last year, I diligently followed the education panels because I wanted to hear up close and personal about the latest innovations in girls’ education, especially in Africa. 

What a difference a year makes. 

Last year, Clinton sang the praises of Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki for his efforts to provide universal primary education to all of Kenya’s children.  Today, Kenya is still recovering from its own political crisis at the end of 2007 which displaced thousands of families and set the country back tremendously in terms of its educational and development goals.

The opening panel session featured Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Queen Rania al-Abdalla of Jordan, former U2 member and co-founder of the ONE campaign Bono, E. Nevill Isdell the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Coca Cola, and former Vice President Al Gore.  President Clinton heaped praise on President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson for the tremendous growth of Liberia’s GDP since she became Africa’s first female head of state in 2006, after the country ended fourteen years of civil war.  President Sirleaf-Johnson’s background as a senior loan officer at the World Bank has certainly enabled her to tap into the various multinational entities that are interested in participating in Liberia’s postwar recovery. 

Investors have flocked to Liberia because as President Johnson-Sirleaf stated “We are not a poor country, we have tremendous natural resources.”  She argued however, that the country still faces tremendous challenges, particularly in rebuilding infrastructure. In addition, the lack of coordination among donors has hampered smooth implementation of redevelopment efforts. 

Surprisingly, the most fiery speaker of the morning session was former Vice President Al Gore who linked the current economic crisis in the United States to the continuing climate crisis.  Gore suggested that for years, the American public received misinformation about the potential hazards of sub-prime lending practices.  The Vice President argued that similar misinformation is still being spread by entrenched fossil fuel industry interests about the dangers of climate change and suggested that these companies were committing a type of securities fraud by telling investors that their products were not harmful to the environment.  He then called for civil disobedience by young people to fight the building of any new coal burning power plants.

Bono began his statements by pointing out that the U.S. government can find $700 billion to bail out Wall Street, but the entire G-8 can’t find $25 billion to make sure that thousands of children don’t continue to die every day of preventable diseases.

His comments highlight the fact that part of the potential of CGI is that it can help to create the political will to divert more resources to alleviate poverty, bolster global health initiatives, support education and address the question of climate change.  In this respect, CGI is a very important forum for bringing key players together.  However, there also tend to be a lot of contradictions in these types of gatherings.  The winner of today’s “Clueless Africa Comment” prize must go to Bono. 

Addressing Queen Rania al-Abdallah of Jordan as “your majestyness”  he said, “The biggest problems of your continent are three types of extremes: extreme politics, extreme poverty, and extreme ideology.”  He continued, “Take a situation like Darfur.  I’ve been there. There is nothing there.  It’s just dirt.”

Clearly, his point was not well made but his words are also a reminder to many Africa specialists of the problems that arise when moderately informed celebrities end up being the last word on African politics.  First of all, Jordan is NOT in Africa.  Secondly, this kind of language obscures the real roots of political conflicts in Africa, giving the impression that Africans are once again fighting over things that don’t really matter.  Do the people of Darfur think there is nothing there? 

The Chinese government clearly sees something other than dirt in Darfur, or else it would not be continuing to expand its political and economic relationship with the Sudanese government.  Most troubling to me in the many invocations of Darfur that occurred today, was the complete silence on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s largest war to date.  Could it be because Canadian and American companies (among others) are still benefiting from their trade relationships in Congo?

There is obviously a lot of good that can come from this summit.  The rest of the week will feature announcements by CGI partners of funding commitments that they will make this year.  I for one, have returned more skeptical this year and will attend the remaining events hoping to hear more informed analyses about Africa and the Caribbean. 

Mary Dillard is Associate Professor of African History at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.