Voices without Votes » Civil Rights & Ethnicity

African celebrations

Aggregated from: SixFifty — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:08:03 +0000

I’m off to an African Inaugural ball tonight. Hosted by the African Foundation and a range of Maryland African / Afro-Caribbean academics and journalists. There’s an amazing line up of live African music to look forward to. I am interested in just seeing the people there and hearing what Obama’s inauguration means to them and to the perceptions of their home continent.

Prelude to History

Aggregated from: silversavant — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 03:37:00 +0000

Prelude to History

Two conversations today helped me frame my thoughts about the historic inauguration Tuesday of Barack Obama as the 44th President of America. Prior to these conversations, I was probing and searching for a common denominator that would intimately connect me with the pomp, pageantry and purpose of this truly historic moment. What else can be said about this moment, about this improbable avatar that promises so much hope in these difficult and uncertain times? More precisely what else could I say beyond my own exposition Barack Obama: Black Man’s Dilemma, written many months ago, and reprinted below for the record. Not much I thought, until I had the conversations.

The one was with a senior member of the Nigerian cabinet, whose personal and professional experience in my books makes him one of the few people that I have encountered lately in government that “gets it.” The call, made on my dime was supposed to be a follow up call on some other matter, but we easily segued into the Obama phenomena and what it means for all of us.

I provided my own take of the heighten state of warmth, hope and even euphoria that has engulfed the US, contrasting the warm feeling of possibility with the arctic temperatures outside my doorsteps. His insightful comment was to point out that there seemed to be a fatal disconnect between our joyous (Nigerian) embrace of the iconic Obama, a black man as the President of the United States, and our sense that it is possible for us to aspire, work and achieve the kind of monumental change that Obama represents.

And in a remarkable act of candor and openness, referencing his own present existential angst added that perhaps our challenge as Nigerians is more of a personal one; personal in our respective inability to resolve our internal contradictions, fight our demons and fully embrace the possibility of greatness, as individuals working toward a great nation. In short perpetual doubts of whether “Yes we can” or as I prefer to phrase it “Yes we fit?”
Our conversation drifted into his ongoing experience of working in the public sector, and I raised the issue of the tyranny of civil servants, perhaps the most corrupt cadre of the Nigerian elite, and he surprisingly rose to their defense in measured and reasoned tones, explaining that in fact, not all of them as bad as is generally believed. In his experience, there were some competent and dedicated officers embedded in the grime and sordidness of the service, toiling away to hold up the ramparts against the rapacious hoards of politicians and other rent seekers.

So in a sense, his position was that all was not lost and there were increasingly small victories that were adding up potentially to a tipping point. I expressed my perennial concern about Nigeria collapsing under the weight of its own graft and incompetence long before some of the salvage work is done, but he expressed a guarded optimism that all was not lost. I half believed him.

The other conversation was a brief but pithy exchange with my dear friend Chukwudum Ikeazor who called me quite unexpectedly from Atlanta. “Tunji my brother” he said almost breathlessly, “guess where I am calling you from.” I knew he was in Atlanta, but before I could reply, “I am at the Martin Luther King memorial, we’ve just finished the church service and I am standing at his memorial about to sign the guest book.” “Tunji, we must learn to cherish our history” he said as his voice trailed off, “I’ll call you later.”

Anyone who knows Chukwudum would understand the history he spoke about. Not for him this narrow definition of who we are, and against the backdrop of Obama’s inauguration, I knew he would be in the US to partake in some way in this auspicious celebration of the “Rebirth of a Nation,” D.W Griffith be dammed!

So sandwiched between the historical bookends of Martin Luther King and Barack Obama, I can understand why this moment is so important for all of us, and even more so for black people all over the world. As for our laggardly compatriots in Nigeria they better wake up and smell the Obama.

BARACK OBAMA: Black man’s dilemma.
Tunji Lardner

As a black man, more precisely as an African born black man, I am a bit conflicted about the exquisitely improbable presidential run of Senator Barack Obama. My ambivalence has it roots in a previous run for president by another charismatic black politician, the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

I remember how the news of Jesse running for the presidency of the US in 1984 impacted on our global political consciousness in Nigeria, literally a generation ago. As a young idealistic journalist working for a fledgling weekly magazine, and like the rest of my equally young and idealistic colleagues, the very idea of a black man as the president of the United States was a notion we readily accepted as a possibility After all this was “the United States” —with its self evident truths about the equality of man: the democratic ideal that we all so dearly wished for Nigeria, which was then in the grip of yet another predatory and distinctively vicious military dictator by name Ibrahim Babangida.

Looking back, I marvel at our naiveté and sense of moral certitude about the world ultimately being a good and just place. I suppose we were subconsciously projecting our hope and sense of justice and optimism on that great whiteboard called America. To look too closely at our selves, our country, indeed our continent would have been too painful and depressing. So we cast our eyes far, far over the rainbow to that mythical place where someone like us was running to be the leader of the most powerful nation in the world.
Even so, a little voice now and then whispered in our ears, the cold calculating facts of American electoral politics, there was no way any Jesse was going to beat the “Gipper,” an extremely popular incumbent Ronald Reagan. Nonetheless we persisted in our little game of self-deception, knowing fully well that given the tortured history of race in America, it was highly unlikely that a Blackman, indeed any black man would ever make to Pennsylvania Avenue in the foreseeable future.

“From the outhouse to the White House.” That prospect was heady and intoxicating for all of us. At a deep personal level we understood the semiotics of having a black man in the White House—no matter how naïve or improbable it seemed. We came back to earth soon enough as Jesse’s theatrical run for president turned out to be, well, the audacity of hype.

But today it is different. A remarkable black American with the improbable name of Barack Obama is running for the office of the President of the United States, and that little voice is telling me that he stands a very good chance of becoming America’s next president. A black man who in his own words boldly declares “I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas… I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents.”

And I—even without the colorful heritage of miscegenation and the searing intellect, the laser focused drive, the bold self-assuredness, the charismatic personality, the moral courage, the balance, the poise, the words, or the audacious hope—totally identify with the brother; more or less.

I hesitate to fully identify with Barack Obama because I am still negotiating my way through the dark labyrinths of my own fears and self-doubt—the scars that I, along with, doubtless, millions of other Neo-Diasporan Africans, bear from the painful experience of unfulfilled ambitions at home in Africa, as well as in America. In the dark, arms outstretched I am tentatively feeling my way out by hand, even as I attempt to scrape away one sordid layer at a time, the baked accretion of the fears, uncertainties and doubts of being a black man in this world. With one hand, fingers splayed, I scratch at the indeterminate distrust that others project upon and that periodically shrouds me; with the other hand, claws drawn, I grate at the tectonic uncertainties that seem designed to keep me perpetually off balance; and with both hands, I rip away at the past setbacks that shadow me whenever I reach out to succeed.

Somewhat like Barack Obama, but quite literally, I inhabit multiple worlds as I commute between the US and Africa, and have to constantly weigh and balance my engagement in both. But unlike Obama, who clearly has found his way out of that maze, unified his universe, taken a firm hold on the three fates, woven his own design on the tapestry of his life, and lately stunned the world with the audaciousness of his hope; the worlds I inhabit, inhibit my aspirations in many ways. Or do they?

As I look back at my own continent’s fitful struggle for development and real independence I also wonder about my own culpability in my country and continent’s plight. No, this is not a quixotic desire to want to be like Obama. This cannot be, for after him, the fates broke the mold. Instead, this is a simple and all too human moment of reflective doubt, again, about my place in the world as a black man.

In urging Americans in his seminal speech on race in America, Obama states inter alia that “for the African-American community that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past... And it means taking full responsibility for our own lives…” He might as well have been speaking directly to us in Africa. He certainly resonated deeply with me.

That we have at this point in time another avatar rising from our collective blackness is quite profound. Obama is much more than the poster child that some in the mainstream US media so blithely describes, he has become the whiteboard or is it blackboard upon which the grand narrative of the black man is being written, and will continue to be so until another comes our way.

Nelson Mandela once remarked about how African men (and by extension Black men) are tentative about fully embracing their potential greatness, but not this brother.
As I marvel at the sheer chutzpa of the man, trying hard not to “hate the player, but to hate the game”—almost like loving the sinner and hating the sin—that niggling little voice is back, again. It is saying, and I render this with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, and bearing in mind the properly contextualized, albeit widely misunderstood rhetoric of Reverend Wright, “Damn you Obama… Damn you! Damn you for blowing our collective alibis as black men… Damn you for kicking away our pathetic crutches, now we must stand tall, with no excuses, and grab and shape the destinies of our people!”
This time I am responding to the imperative rather than the fearfulness beneath the surface of this dubious little voice. It is a new day. And there is work to be done.

Jindal won’t run in 2012

Aggregated from: Rantings of a Sandmonkey » American politics — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:45:44 +0000

The GOP's new poster boy is way smarter than those who run the GOP, and he just proved it by stating that he won't run in 2012. He is giving himself time to prove himself, and he knows that the american public is ready to forgive Obama anything and everything for his first 4 years in office because it will all be blamed on the aftermath of the Bush years. But it all can chnage in a heartbeat. God knows I remember a certain freshly elected Illinois senator stating in 2005 that he wasn't going to run for President in 2008. Remember him? The one with the funny name?

A way that Latin@s are targeted

Aggregated from: VivirLatino — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:19:41 +0000

The idea that Latin@s are being targeted for arrest (and deportation) under public-intoxication laws--it's just almost too much to bear. Nothing like playing up the stereotype of the drunken Mexican to better get rid of us all.

Amid the swirling controversy over the San Jose Police Department's practice of arresting large numbers of people — especially Latinos — under the state public-intoxication law, the department is damaging its reputation by choosing secrecy over transparency.
Before the city council hearing on Nov. 18, the American Civil Liberties Union submitted a formal request that these arrest reports be made public under the state open-records law. But days after the mayor and council said they wanted "broad-based community input" on the issue, the police department refused to publicly release the arrest records.

The council has directed the city manager to form a task force of community stakeholders to address this issue. But how will the task force members accurately identify the scope and nature of the problem if they are denied access to the most important records documenting it?

Indeed. Either way, however, I'm glad to see that the community is confronting this together and that they have the support of the media in doing so.

via the Mercury News

For a Growing Number of Latinos It's Not Spanish Only

Aggregated from: VivirLatino — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:29:10 +0000

One of the ways that nativists in the U.S. spread fear about immigration and Latinos is buy talking up the point of the loss of English and other so-called cultural markers that allegedly make the country what it is. More and more however, this myth is being countered demonstrating that the anti-immigrant movement has less to do with "national pride" and more to do with racism.

More Spanish speakers are speaking English very well despite a steady influx of immigrants this decade — a sign that they are blending in at least linguistically, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Census data released Tuesday.
The drop in the percentage who struggle with English is most noticeable in some of the largest counties and cities that have attracted immigrants for decades.

So once we speak "your language", we'll be more acceptable right? We'll fit in more and won't seem so "other", verdad? Latinos, like myself, who have always spoken English know that this goes way beyond language.

Via / Hispanic Tips and USA Today

And the Hate Keeps on Coming : Hate Crime Against Latinos in Brooklyn

Aggregated from: VivirLatino — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:29:00 +0000

It becomes emotionally exhausting having to write about hate crimes against Latinos, having to read and rehash the disgusting details, and being reminded in very tangible ways of how far people will go to hurt someone who could easily be someone I care about. And here we go again.

On early Sunday morning Jose Sucuzhanay from Ecuador and his hermano Romel Sucuzhanay, were walking arm in arm in Bushwick, Brooklyn, just a block away from home, when a carload of men pulled up nearby. A man who got out of the car yelled anti-gay and anti-Latino epithets at the brothers, then broke a bottle over the 31-year-old man’s head.
His brother ran, and at least three other men who were in the car set upon the 31-year-old, beating him with a baseball bat and kicking him. The beating stopped when the brother returned, holding his cellphone, and told the attackers he had just called the police, the official said.

Jose is now on life support at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens and it looks like the family has had to make the heartbreaking choice of not letting Jose suffer anymore.

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Obama lawsuit dismissed by Supreme Court

Aggregated from: Kiwiblog — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 03:27:10 +0000

The Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge to the citizenship status of Barack Obama. Hopefully this is the end of the issue. Mind you, I don’t know why the authorities in Hawaii don’t let people see the original birth certificate, just to make this go away.

But the record is very clear that he was born in Hawaii, and two years after Hawaii was a state.

Talking of Obama, he officially gets elected on December 15 by the electoral college, and them confirmed by the House of Reps in early January.

Tags: Barack Obama, United States

Last Blow On Obama Citizenship Question About To Land

Aggregated from: PoliGazette — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:00:01 +0000

The U.S. Supreme Court is about is consider and then immediately dismiss a lawsuit challenging Obama’s citizenship on the basis of a bunch of half-baked conspiracy theories from the loonier fringes of the far right. Hopefully, this will put this issue to rest among all but the black-helicopters crowd (who will be distracted as soon as the next RonPaul! campaign gets underway anyway).

Donklephant has cobbled together a fairly definitive list of all the ways in which these theories have been debunked and even Obama’s strongest critics at Hot Air don’t want any part of this nonsense.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: All comments which spew “Obama is a Muslim” nonsense are automatically deleted. Don’t even bother.)

An Open Letter to Obama on Racism in Denmark

Solana Larsen — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:31:07 +0000

Two popular Danish writers and provocateurs, Jakob Holdt and Rune Engelbreth Larsen, have created a video letter to president-elect Barack Obama asking him to do something about the growing amount of racism against Muslims in Danish politics and media.

The video is primarily critical of anti-immigration politicians from the Danish People's Party, who yield a great deal of power as part of the Conservative government coalition, and have been known to say things like, “Islam is a new totalitarian plague sweeping Europe.”

After a few thousand views on YouTube, critics apparently managed to get YouTube to remove the video by repeatedly flagging it as “inappropriate”. It has since been moved to Blip.tv and has also been re-posted on YouTube by others.

Click to play

The video was first released on Panhumanism.com. See the full text of the video here.

On Konflikten.dk, bloggers Troels Heeger and Søren K. Villemoes deliver a scathing attack on the video and its creators, calling it “pathetic amateur video-art by two professional cry babies”. They say:

… Det er i øvrigt også komisk, at Obama som forandringens budbringer åbenbart ifølge de to apostle har en rolle at spille i dansk indenrigspolitik, når de samtidig har gennemkritiseret Bush-administrationens indflydelse på Fogh-regeringen. Men det er naturligvis noget ganske andet…

… It's also comical, that according to these two apostles, Obama the harbinger of change apparently has some role to play in Danish internal politics, when they at the same time have thoroughly criticized the Bush administration's influence on the current government. But that is of course something different…

Many have applauded the initiative and re-posted the video, including the blogger Provo. But even on this blog some commenters were less than enthusiastic.

“Border-Collie” says:

Lad os håbe, Obama har noget bedre at lave. Altså hvis vi endelig skal tro på, at den påtænkte modtager af budskabet faktisk hedder Obama … hvilket er mere end tvivlsomt. Men hvad fanden, kunstnerisk frihed og alt det der…

Let's hope Obama has something better to do. I mean, if we are even supposed to believe that the intended recipient of this message is actually Obama… which is doubtful. But what the hell, creative freedom and all that…

“Vogter60″ says:

Jeg tror Obama skal koncentrere sig om Amerikansk politik, ellers ender han måske med at blive lige så ” Populær” som den afgående præsident.

I think Obama should concentrate on American politics, or he will end up as “popular” as the last president.

Both Larsen and Holdt are well-known in Danish media. Rune Engelbreth Larsen is a columnist for a Danish national newspaper Politiken, and Jakob Holdt is a photographer who received international acclaim for his photos of poverty in America in the 1970s: American Pictures

Obama Latino Cabinet Picks : Cecilia Muñoz of NCLR

Aggregated from: VivirLatino — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:22:59 +0000

With many Latinos in the mainstream blogosphere feeling snubbed by President Elect Obama passing over Bill Richardson as Secretary of State, the focus is shifting to who are the other Latinos in Obama's cabinet, feeling that a Latino in the cabinet will mean that our interests are looked out for. Apprently no one learned from Alberto Gonzales's time that having a Latino in and of itself doesn't guarantee a damn thing.

Another Latino in the Obama White House is Cecilia Muñoz, senior vice president for the Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). She was named as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, coordinating the White House’s relations with local and state governments.

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On the Fence with Richardson

Hoa Quach — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:03:21 +0000

American minorities are on the fence with President-elect Obama’s decision to appoint New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as Secretary of Commerce.

Chinese-Americans throughout the nation have began a petition opposing Richardson’s appointment because of his handling of the case against Taiwanese-American Wen Ho Lee. The petition calls for the President-elect to disregard Richardson from his Cabinet, completely.

Chinese-American Guy Wong writes that the Richardson appointment will cause difficulty in dealing with the Chinese government.

“As you may know, Richardson singlehandedly caused Dr. Wen Ho Lee his job and his reputation, not to mention his freedom. I expect him, if confirmed as the Secretary of Commerce, to have a tough time with the Chinese and China is one of our biggest trading partners.”

Another Chinese-American, George Koo, also comments on Richardson as Secretary of Commerce.

“The last cabinet post he held was as Secretary of Energy under the Clinton Administration and his performance was decidedly dismal.

Instead of courage, he showed cowardice under pressure. Instead of challenging the right wing for outrageous accusations of the Clinton administration, he appeased them by leaking the name of Dr. Wen Ho Lee to the media as the alleged spy for China.

To this day, he stands by his misconduct.”

On the other side of the fence, Mexican-American Stace Medellin writes that Richardson seems to be a “perfect fit.”

“Okay, so Gov. Bill Richardson will become Secretary of Commerce. Notwithstanding my comments earlier this week on the “snub,” I actually do feel Richardson is a good choice for the post, considering his ability to lead New Mexico through a jobs creation phase.

During his campaign, Richardson boasted creating 80,000 jobs, and that New Mexico was 6th in the nation in job growth. Of course, FactCheck.org challenged his number–which they said was 69,000, and the upped it as growth continued. (Those folks can be so annoying).

So, if Obama's plan is to create green jobs, then I see Richardson being part of that equation.”

Medallin ends his post with another possible nomination for Richardson.

“Maybe now, he'll qualify for a Nobel nomination in International Economic Development, or something like that!”

Armenian Bloggers Hail Power Return

Simon Maghakyan — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:22:17 +0000

While most people know Samantha Power as an Obama adviser who has called Hillary Clinton a “monster,” many genocide awareness and prevention activists consider the Harvard professor a hope they can believe in. The Associated Press has noticed that Power, who officially resigned from Obama’s campaign during the Democratic primaries, is on US President-elect Obama’s transition team. This news has encouraged several Armenian bloggers who now feel assured that the author of “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide” (2002) will remind President-elect Barack Obama to keep his promise of officially recognizing the WWI Armenian Genocide committed by Ottoman Turks.

Arsineh, a Yerevan-based designer, photographer and blogger, writes on her blog (also posted on Cilicia):

My hope continues… Samantha Power is back, not only as part of Obama's trasition team, but as part of the State Department agency review team on the president-elect's official Web site. I hope she bites Clinton's head off. Now let's get a real position on Genocide.

My next blog was interestingly enough going to be about my prediction on when the Genocide issue achieves recognition in the United States under an Obama administration. Given the inevitable appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, my hope was diminishing. I started to imagine a different scenario, one that would delay proper Genocide recognition into a second term, and eventually call for recognition without proper reparations (a risky precedent… admit genocide without risk?).

[…]

Dr. Power, I salute you.

Unzipped, an England-based Armenian blog, also writes that Power is back and gives background on the Harvard professor's stance on Armenian issues.

Few weeks ago I wrote about speculations on potential return of Samantha Power to Obama’s foreign policy team. Samantha Power is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and renowned anti-genocide and human rights activist. She is pretty influential and considered as “pro-Armenian”. In February 2008, Samantha Power has taped a “powerful 5-minute video reviewing presidential hopeful Barack Obama's support for Armenian issues, and encouraging Armenian Americans to vote for him in the upcoming primaries”, as reported by the Armenian National Committee of America.

[…]

The video Unzipped is referring to is available on YouTube and was prepared by Samantha Power to gain Armenian-American support for Barack Obama during the Democratic primaries. Armenians consider Power a friend, especially when she was one of the few Americans to stand up to nationalist sentiment in Fall 2007 when it came to recognizing the Armenian Genocide. Writing in Time magazine on October 18, 2007, Power said it was in America's best interest to recognize the Armenian Genocide instead of arguing that America should not anger its ally Turkey by bringing up bitter history. While Obama was able to stay out of the controversial debate in 2007, several months after her Time article Power argued that the Illinois Senator would have the nerve to recognize the Armenian Genocide as president.

Power’s powerful YouTube message to Armenian-Americans paid off. Armenians throughout America organized in large numbers to support Barack Obama.

Back with Obama, Power has reignited hope among many Armenians. But some have wished for more. Joseph at the ArmenianGenocide forum:

Samantha Power is back on the Obama team and will be working at the State Department. This is good for Armenians, as she will give a direct challenge to Hillary Clinton { Hillary WILL betray us} and will be a honest broker in a institution where honesty and integrity is a very rare commodity. Still, would have loved to have Samantha Power as our Sec. of State.

While You Were Eating Turkey, The President Elect Speaks

Aggregated from: VivirLatino — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:27:31 +0000

Would it have been so bad for the President Elect to mention Indigenous People?

The Obama bandwagon

Aggregated from: England for Obama — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:24:57 +0000

Get Your War On is a running series of short animations over on 23/6, in which two office-workers… erm… talk about stuff. Funnily. I’ve seen about half a dozen or so, and they’re excellent - although I notice from the Wikipedia entry that I’ve joined the Get Your War On bandwagon quite late (it’s been going in comic strip form since 2001 - although the online animations didn’t actually start until this year).

And speaking of bandwagons (see what I did there?) - here’s the latest GYWO:

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

And here’s a great one from back in August (*Explicit Language Alert*):

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Make Up Your Minds About Latina Women and Their Uteruses

Aggregated from: VivirLatino — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:39:26 +0000

You can't have it both ways. You cannot in one breath say that abortions are the cause of illegal immigration and criticize a woman's decision to have a child outside of marriage especially if both decisions are based in "American uteruses". You can't pick and choose your female reproductive organs.

Latina Congresswoman Linda Sanchez is receiving criticism for her decision to have a child for the simple reason that she is not legally married.

Twenty years ago, it simply wouldn't have been possible -- pregnant, single and a member of Congress? Oh, the scandal! But Hester Prynne has morphed into Juno MacGuff . . . and "unwed mother" has been recast as "single mom."
Who do we have to thank for that? Thousands, from Madonna to Dan Quayle. In 1992, Quayle waged moral warfare on the sitcom character "Murphy Brown" -- famous, rich, single and pregnant. . . . And, of course, Bristol Palin.

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