Venezuela’s Anti-Hegemonic Aid In Haiti
In a February 17 article “Venezuela’s Renegade Aid” published in the Huffington Post, freelance journalist Patrick Adams implies that there is something untoward and problematic about the Venezuelan aid effort in earthquake ravaged Haiti.
Venezuela’s main crime appears to be its non-participation in the UN coordinated “cluster system” which Adams argues “has worked fairly well” – never mind that the UN has been an occupying force in Haiti since the United States engineered overthrow of democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004 and never mind that John Holmes, the head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, himself heavily criticised the implementation of the “cluster strategy” in a confidential email leaked on February 16.
“One month into the response, only a few clusters have fully dedicated cluster coordinators, information management focal points and technical support capacity, all of which are basic requirements for the efficient management of a large scale emergency operation,” Holmes said.
Despite the clearly logistical nightmare of organising such a large scale relief operation Adams argues that it is “one group -- such as the National Armed Fores [sic] of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” that is creating “problems for everyone else.”
Adams’ main source for the supposedly problematic behaviour of the Venezuelans is Dr. Tiffany Keenan, “founder and president of Haiti Village Health, which oversees the supply and distribution of private aid from its offices in the airport,” in the port city of Jacmel. As it turns out Adams is “embedded” in Keenan’s guesthouse in Jacmel (though he doesn’t mention that in the article).
“The Venezuelans haven't showed up at a single meeting," complained Dr. Tiffany Keenan,” Adams writes.
"We were all sitting there the other day and someone said, 'Did you hear they just put a bunch of tents in Pinchinat?' Nobody had had any idea they were there. We still don't know how many doctors they have or how long they'll be there." Keenan continues.
However, as Adams later admits, the Venezuelans are coordinating their work directly with the Haitian government (which is ultimately responsible for deciding “how aid is coordinated and who manages its distribution among populations in need”) and in the case of the Pinchinat camp in Jacmel, the Venezuelans were brought there directly by the local mayor’s office, so it’s pretty clear that some people had an idea they were there.
As one perceptive commentator on Adams’ article wrote, “So they chose to work through the local government instead of the North-American run “cluster” system. I guess that makes them renegades.”
It later also emerges that the whole story seems to be concocted around a communication problem as the cluster system meetings are conducted only in French and English, whereas the Venezuelans speak Spanish.
In fact, Adam’s article is one big whine about the Venezuelan aid effort, implying that it is uncooperative, inept and inefficient.
However, occasionally facts on the ground force Adams to take a reality check: “When the Venezuelans first arrived, Pinchinat was a sea of makeshift huts assembled with sticks, bed sheets and scraps of plastic -- whatever could be salvaged from the collapsed homes that many of its residents had fled. Within days, some fifty Venezuelan soldiers in forest green fatigues had erected more than a hundred 40-foot, green canvas tents with "U.S." stamped on the side.”
But again Adams finds something to complain about; he mocks Maximo Tampoa, a 25-year-old engineer in the Venezuelan Civil Defense and another Venezuelan Capt. Chapparo for spray painting the red, yellow and blue colours of the Venezuelan flag on the tents provided by Venezuela and chides them for not knowing that more than two centuries ago “on March 12, 1806, the "Generalísimo" Francisco de Miranda, predecessor of the revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar, whose vision of a unified South America has become Chavez's own, raised the original Venezuelan tricolor on the ship Leander, anchored at the time in Jacmel Bay.”
Then he goes on to list a string of complaints: the tents are hot, and there are no floors. That’s it! That’s the problem with the Venezuelan aid effort!
The Venezuelans haven’t occupied the country militarily, blocked aid supplies from arriving at the airport, tried to impose unfair conditions on reconstruction loans or attempted to kidnap 33 Haitian children a la Laura Silsby and the Central Valley Baptists, BUT…. their tents are hot!
So what are the Venezuelans really doing in Haiti?
Venezuela has certainly differentiated its approach to what Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicholas Maduro described as “the hegemonic, abusive form in which U.S. military has sought to address the issue of Haiti.”
After the disaster struck on January 12, Venezuela was the first country to send aid, with an advance team of doctors, search and rescue experts as well as food, water, medical supplies, and rescue equipment arriving in Port-au-Prince on the morning of January 13.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also announced the cancellation of Haiti’s US$ 295 million debt to Venezuela on January 25, (a fact which Adams does not mention). In addition to thousands of tonnes of food aid Venezuela has also sent 225,000 barrels of diesel fuel and gasoline and Chavez has pledged “all the free fuel that Haiti needs.”
The Venezuelan government has donated 30,000 tents and sent more than 10,000 tonnes of food to Haiti and has pledged to continue shipments of food aid and supplies. Collection points have been set up all around the country for donations to ship to Haiti and Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela has organised dozens of concerts and fundraising events to help out with the Haiti reconstruction effort.
As part of a broader effort in collaboration with the member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA), which also includes Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda, Venezuela and the ALBA countries also pledged $120 million to help reconstruction efforts, and together with the Union of South American Nations (UNSAUR) Venezuela has also agreed to contribute to a $300 million fund, with each country donating according to their GDP.
Venezuela has also set up three “community camps”, that together house 3,900 Haitians whose homes were destroyed by the earthquake - the Simón Bolívar and Alexander Petión camps in Leogane, which each house 1,200 people, and the Francisco de Miranda camp in Jacmel, which houses 1,500 people.
The camps provide medical attention, trauma counselling, food, access to sanitation, adult literacy programs as well as sports, education, and music classes and other recreational activities for children. Venezuela’s ambassador to Haití, Pedro Canino, said Venezuela’s 520 aid personnel are also working directly with 219 grassroots social organisations in Haiti to distribute food aid and other supplies to the local communities. The Venezuelans are also helping with reconstruction efforts, digging latrines, clearing rubble, building houses and schools.
Rather than living in hotels or guesthouses like many other aid workers, the Venezuelans are living and working side by side with the Haitian people. Jean H. Charles MSW, JD Executive Director of AINDOH Inc, wrote of the Simón Bolívar camp in Leogane in Caribbean Net News on February 17, “The Bolivarian tent city, is well organized, its a transitional model that should be replicated; the Venezuelan soldiers living with the refugees are social workers, teachers, cooks and community organizers.”
The Venezuelan plan is to work with local communities to multiply the camps to extend access to thousands more people in need. The Jacmel camp is scheduled to be handed over to a team of Cuban doctors, while the Venezuelans will go back to Port-au-Prince, to work on constructing additional camps. The approach of the Venezuelan aid effort is not to impose conditions or win lucrative reconstruction contracts, but rather to help provide Haitians with tools with which they can organise and empower their communities for their own sovereign development.
Of course, efforts can always be improved, and unlimited solidarity with the people of Haiti is urgently necessary right now, but Venezuela, a small underdeveloped country has attempted, in a spirit of internationalism to step up to the challenge to the best of its ability and resources. As Chavez said, “Venezuela’s aid is modest but it is done with a big heart.”
So, rather than attacking the efforts of poor countries engaged in genuine solidarity to alleviate the suffering of the Haitian people perhaps Adams could better spend his time questioning the imperialist intentions of his own country that has sent more than 15,000 soldiers to occupy Haiti, which, incidentally, is thought to have potentially massive untapped reserves of oil and gas. He could also investigate where the billions of dollars in international aid is actually going, what conditions the IMF is imposing on Haiti’s reconstruction loans or what Christian missionaries – who, as with all colonising projects are an essential part of the “hearts and minds” strategy to maintain subordination to Western imperialist and capitalist interests - are really getting up to?
Maybe he could even start with the Christian relief and missions organisation, ORA International, of which Keenan’s NGO, Haiti Village Health, is an affiliate. According to the website Ministrywatch.com, whose stated aim is “educating and empowering donors to support Christian Ministries,” ORA International’s “transparency grade” is “F” and the website posts a “Donor Alert” on the ORA International profile with a warning “Non-Transparent Ministries: Are they Faithful in the Small Things?”
Afrikanism
via youtube.com
InkSpotter's 7th Annual
Finding the Right Words
Flash Fiction Contest
Open Theme
1st Prize: $60 plus publication
2nd Prize: $30 plus publication
Theme: Open
Genre: Fiction
Length: 500 words or fewer
Deadline: July 21, 2010 (postmark)
Entry Fee: $2.00 per story (Paypal preferred)
You may also send your entry and payment by postal mail. (No signature items please.)
Betty Dobson
InkSpotter Publishing
163 Main Avenue
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Canada B3M 1B3PLEASE NOTE: Money orders must be in Canadian funds and negotiable in Canada. Cheques may be drawn on any currency using current exchange rates and must be made payable to Betty Dobson or InkSpotter Publishing.
All dollar figures are quoted in Canadian funds
THE RULES
Write a self-contained short story in 500 words or fewer. No predetermined theme this year, so let your imaginations run wild! Be original. Be concise. Be spelled correctly. Send your story in plain text in the body of an e-mail to contests@inkspotter.com (subject line = "Annual Contest Submission") or to the address above. Do not indent paragraphs. Leave one line space between each paragraph. All stories MUST have a title. Be sure to include your full name and e-mail address. If your story wins, we'll contact you for your preferred method of payment. Enter as often as you like, but payment must be received for each entry. You retain copyright of your story. All entries will be acknowledged if an e-mail address is included. EFFECTIVE MARCH 2008: By entering the contest, you agree to have your name and email address added to the subscriber list for InkSpotter News, our monthly ezine. Contest news and winning stories appear in the newsletter. (Our subscriber list will never be shared with or sold to a third party.)
via inkspotter.com
The Alabama State Poetry Society is accepting submissions for the Annual
John and Miriam Morris Memorial Chapbook Competition. Deadline is May 31.Winner receives $100 and 50 copies of his/her winning chapbook.Poems may be previously published if poet retains all rights. Send 20-24
total pages of poetry, (poems may be longer than one page, but total page
count must be 20-24) with two (2) title pages: one with author identification,
and one with N O author identification.Please send manuscript with a $15 reading fee payable to New Dawn
Unlimited, Inc. Mail to:Jerri Hardesty
ASPS 2010 Morris Memorial Chapbook Competition
1830 Marvel Road
Brierfield, AL 35035Poetry publishing, production, performance, promotion, preservation, and
education.NewDawnUnlimited.com
PoetrySlam.net
AlabamaPoetry.com
UNPUBLISHED WRITER AWARD
“Call for Entries”
The nation?s largest reading group for Black women
The Go On Girl! Book Club, Inc.
invites you to write your way to $500!
********************
Founded in 1990, The Go On Girls are a spirited group of sisters who love a good read. We currently boast 29 chapters in 12 states with more than 350 members. Our mission is to encourage the literary pursuits of people of African descent. In this vain, since 1993, we have bestowed our coveted “Author of the Year” award and our “New Author of the Year” award on such talents as Octavia Butler, Gloria Naylor, Valerie Wilson Wesley, Connie Briscoe, Stephen L. Carter and Pearl Cleage, just to name a few. In the year 2010, we will host our annual awards weekend in Birmingham, Alabama. Will you be honored there among our literary giants? Read on for details on how to apply for the prestigious “Unpublished Writer” Award.
Award Guidelines:
· Applicants may reside anywhere within the United States
· Applicant must mail three copies of an original, unpublished fiction work (short story or novel excerpt) not to exceed 2,000 typed words on double-spaced pages
· Applicant must include a cover sheet with the following information: applicant?s name, address, telephone number and e-mail where possible; 250-word biographical sketch, including your writing goals and current status
· Mail your cover sheet, three copies of your manuscript, and your bio by March 15, 2010 to:
GOG Awards Committee
Pat Houser
P.O. Box 1656
New York, NY 10163-1656
· The $500 winner will be notified by March 15, 2010, and will be invited, along with a guest, to attend our annual awards ceremony. The winner?s work may be featured in the Go On Girl! quarterly newsletter and/or on our website.
ALL ENTRIES MUST BE POSTMARKED BY MARCH 15, 2010
For more information about the Unpublished Writer Award, contact pathouser@aol.com.
For more information about the Go On Girl! Book Club, check out our website at
www.goongirl.org or read the book The Go On Girl! Book Club Guide for Reading Groups
(Hyperion), available at bookstores nationwide.
Great Things Happ’nin’
February 2010
Editor: Louis Reyes Rivera
===================
Table of Contents
===================
Part I: Upcoming Events
1. Arts Concert for PS 3
2. Haiti & the Rest of Us (Brooklyn, NY)
3. Haiti & the Rest of Us (Paterson, NJ)
4. CBJC Gala: Pharoah Sanders Returns to Brooklyn
5. Small Press Book Fair in March
Part II: News Upfront
6. Last Call for Manuscripts: Street Smarts
7. Call for Poets: Hart Island Reading
8. NWU Rejects Google Book Settlement
(An Editorial by Louis Reyes Rivera)
======================
Part I: Upcoming Events
======================
1. Arts Concert for PS 3
===================
On Saturday, February 27, 2010, the Chamber Jazz Ensemble, Sojourner, headlines a fundraising Arts Concert at PS 3 (50 Jefferson Ave., at Franklin Ave.) from 5pm to 8pm. The fund raiser to save arts programs at two schools in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant section is sponsored by the PTAs at the Bedford Village School (PS 3) and the Noel Pointer Foundation, both of which promote viable arts education programs.
In a rare collaboration, the two organizations are pooling their resources to raise the money needed to continue their respective arts programming. Located at 50 Jefferson Avenue between Franklin and Bedford avenues, PS 3 includes a 400-seat capacity auditorium, which the organizers hope to fill to its rafters.
Among the oldest public schools in Brooklyn, PS 3 has a long history as a public venue for the arts. On its grounds is a small garden dedicated to former Brooklyn resident and legendary pianist Eubie Blake.
Sojourner is a women's collective of musicians using various string instruments and African American themes to provide performances and workshops throughout the United States and abroad. Its workshops target both public school and college students in urban communities. The ensemble's members include Marlene Rice (violin), Judith Insell (viola), and Nioka Workman (cello).
Performances at the February 27 fundraising concert will also feature youth groups from both organizations, the Phantazia String Players from The Noel Pointer Foundation and the Bedford Village Ensemble, conducted by Jazz trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah. In addition, the concert will feature a guest poetry recital by one of Bedford Stuyvesant’s life-long residents, award winning poet, Louis Reyes Rivera.
With the current economic downturn cutting deeper into public monies and tax revenues, many of the arts programs have suffered budget cuts that leave schools like PS 3 with unprecedented deficits affecting their ability to maintain artistic expression within their academic curricula. Among the programs so affected is PS 3's annual Day of the African Child festival, as well as its partnerships with the Orchestra of St. Luke, Carnegie Hall Link Up Program, Family Day at MOMA, Education through Music (ETM), and other collaborations that have long been used to offer a fully rounded educational experience for its students. Says Principal Kristina Beecher, "The arts are a very important part of our children’s education, and we want to make sure that we keep our vibrant arts programs here at The Bedford Village School in spite of a $40,000+ deficit.”
The Noel Pointer Foundation (NPF), located at Bedford Stuyvesant’s Restoration, was created in memory of celebrated Jazz violinist, educator and humanitarian Noel Pointer. NPF offers string music artist-in-residence programs, teaching children across the ethnic spectrum. Among its curricula are music workshops for students from Pre-K through the twelfth grade, after-school programs for at-risk children, a weekly Saturday program and a Summer Music workshop series. Ms. Pointer says, “The arts are an essential component of children’s basic education. Every child deserves the opportunity to create his own voice through the arts.”
Tickets for the concert range from $50 (for VIP seating) to $20 for adults and $10 for children. Tickets can be purchased at PS 3,50 Jefferson Avenue (718) 622-2960, or the NPF, 1368 Fulton Street, (718) 230-4825.
=============================
2. Haiti & the Rest of Us (Brooklyn, NY)
=============================
On Thursday, February 25, 2010, Louis Reyes Rivera will offer an historical overview of Haiti’s revolutionary and hemispheric impact upon the century-long struggle to abolish chattel slavery throughout the Americas (1791-1888) as part of the bi-monthly discussion and lecture series named after long-time Brooklyn resident/educator/activist Professor William Mackey [Mackey to the Third(3)]. The group meets at 103 Quincy Street’s basement community room (just off the corner of Quincy and Franklin) starting at 7 p.m. Free and open to the public (donations encouraged).
==============================
3. Haiti & the Rest of Us (Paterson, NJ)
==============================
The Paterson, New Jersey chapter of the U.N.I.A. will host a community conversation on Haiti today this coming Saturday, February 27, 2010, at the Paterson Museum, 2 Market Street, with Louis Reyes Rivera, Samuel Solomon, Kamau Khalfani plus invited members of Paterson’s City Council and of the Haitian community discussing Haiti's past and present.
Part One: Historical Overview (starts exactly at 4:30 p.m.)
An historical overview of Haiti’s revolutionary and hemispheric impact upon the century-long struggle to abolish chattel slavery throughout the Americas (1791-1888) will be offered by poet/radio host Louis Reyes Rivera.
Part Two: Update on the Current State (starts exactly at 6:00 p.m)
An open discussion on the latest conditions in Haiti with Samuel Solomon, Kamau Khalfani and other guests, including several ofPaterson’s elected officials (TBA). For more information, call Brother Kamau at 1.973.684.5023.
==========================================
4. CBJC Gala: Pharoah Sanders Returns to Brooklyn
==========================================
The 11th Annual Central Brooklyn Jazz Festival opens with a gala at the Boys and Girls High School Auditorium featuringPharoah Sanders, on Saturday, March 27, 2010, beginning at 7:30 p.m. Joining the legendary saxophonist are the dancers and drummers Yoruba Folkloric ensemble, Omi Yesa, and poet Louis Reyes Rivera.
This year’s theme, “Expressions of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” includes more than thirty venues cooperating with one another in hosting and promoting the month-long April festival.
Joining the Central Brooklyn Jazz Consortium (CBJC) to bring Pharoah Sanders to Brooklyn is the International African Arts Festival Inc. (IAAF), which hosts the Brooklyn-based annual Arts Festival every July.
Boys and Girls High School is located on Fulton Street (between Troy and Utica Avenues) on the edge of the Bedford-Stuyvesant community. General seating is available on a first come/first served basis. Tickets in Advance go for $35.00 per person (more at the door). Interested supporters can purchase tickets on line at Brown Paper Ticket: www.brownpaperticket.com, or by calling either the CBJC office (1.718-773-2252) and/or the IAAF office (1.718.638.6700).
==========================
5. Small Press Book Fair in March
==========================
Mark your calendars for the 22nd Annual Indie & Small Press Book Fair scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, March 6-7, 2010. This year’s event celebrates National Small Press Month at the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen Library, 20 West 44 Street (between Fifth and Sixth avenues in midtown Manhattan).
The fair annually features book exhibits from innovative, alternative and small presses from various parts of the country, state-of-the-art panels discussing nuts-and-bolts issues and concerns. It’s a great place to purchase several one-of-a-kind books and where writers looking for potential publishers can network with a range of experts. Doors open at 10 a.m. and close at 5 p.m. For more information, email at contact@nycip.org or call 212.764.7021.
===================
Part II: News Upfront
=================================
6. Last Call for Manuscripts: Street Smarts
=================================
Please Note: Louis Reyes Rivera and Bruce George, co-editors of the critically acclaimed The Bandana Republic, are still accepting submissions for Street Smarts: An Anthology of Urban Survival Strategies. Because of the large numbers of requests by people still working on their submissions, the editors of Street Smarts have agreed to extend the current deadline to March 15, 2010. Please be advised that no materials will be accepted after that date.
This is bound to be another literary first, focusing on the urban working class and the ability of the underemployed to enhance its own earning power despite social conditions.
How do lower paid workers make ends meet? How do the unemployed survive once they’ve used up their benefits? What happens to them once they disappear from official statistics? What tactics have they developed? Is there another economic system at work that is totally outside of mainstream standards? What does the underclass and the fair-to-middling do to feed the family within a hostile economic and social environment? Are the strategies they devise parts of yet another working standard? To what extent is there an underground economy that is not exactly illegal, yet for which there is no yardstick by which to measure its effectiveness?
Given the current economic downturns and consistent losses of jobs, are the strategies and options that have long ago developed among the working poor still viable? What are they? Are they legal, extralegal or illegal? What common threads hold the underclass together? Do they bear their own ethics? How applicable are they?
The answers to these questions serve as the parameters for Street Smarts. Our target audience includes the hundreds of thousands who, like never before, are faced with new challenges – unemployment, loss of homes, credit card debts, etc., with homelessness and public shelters ever increasingly a viable and realistic given.
Here’s an opportunity for the entire planet to hear your truth, our truth, about both our desperate and our aspirate states, straight up from the streets. This anthology will offer real life stories of how folk who have come from or find themselves suddenly at the bottom have developed their own ways and means to survive.
The editors of Street Smarts welcome you to submit your own story of survival. It can come in the form of poetry or drama, as biographical and/or fictional accounts of ways in which citizens will make ends meet – how we work a hustle or cook those meals on a shoestring budget or how we use borrowing and lending to keep that household going (even via pyramid schemes or other forms of community banking, or working the numbers racket and/or relying on the bolita).
We want to hear from freelance writers and artists, from consultants who no longer work a regular j-o-b, even from street pharmacists and drug dealers. We want to hear from those who still host Rent Parties and poker games or organize poetry readings, who rent dance halls for weekend events or loan shark their way through life. We want to hear from anyone who finds a way to cut the price down or makes use of old home remedies instead of going to the pharmacy, from those who’ve survived prisons in every way imaginable, and how they adapt to street and prison codes in order to fend for themselves.
We will consider material on any topic, in any form and according to how each contributor interprets factual events and strategies, even when couched with fictional characters. What matters most is that you’re helping to illustrate how creative humans really are, no matter what the odds against us.
Artwork, photography and transcribed interviews are welcomed. Email your submissions to Louisreyesrivera@aol.com in simple word format. If you have to use snail mail, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope to Louis Reyes Rivera, GPO Box 16, New York City 10116.
File Formats:
All material submitted must be the author’s original work. Use of work that was done or created by others without permission is a violation of copyright laws. Send us your best work and in simple word format! Please use your program’s spell check option or manually check your work before sending it. The editors reserve the right to make minor grammatical changes so that all materials conform to our guidelines. We want this to be a work of art both for general markets as well as for schools.
Material submission guidelines:
Poems and letters cannot be more than up to three (3) pages in length (single spaced).
Short stories, interviews and essays (political or social) should not be more than ten (10) pages in length and must be double-spaced, typewritten.
Artwork and photographs should conform to a 6″ by 9″ format.
Requirements:
Please include with your submission your name/address, P.O. Box and/or e-mail along with a brief bio. Any questions or concerns about your submission can be sent to the editors at Louisreyesrivera@aol.com.
Terms & Conditions:
A submission implies that you agree with the following terms: No submission will be returned without your inclusion of a self-addressed stamped envelope. If your work is not accepted, we will either return it in your self-addressed stamped envelope or we will discard it (and/or delete it from our computer).
Submissions may not have been published before or appeared in any other commercial publication. None of the contents may be derived from previously created documents unless specifically noted.
You agree to authorize publication of your work to appear in Street Smarts
and in any manner that the editors deem appropriate to the format of the book. By submitting your work, you also grant permission for the editors to distribute it throughout the world.
You agree to hold harmless the editors and publisher from any and all claims, suits and damages based on international copyright laws, including plagiarism or unauthorized use, or any other legally related issues.
Having read the Terms & Conditions for submitting your work, you understand that these Terms constitute the basis for accepting your work and that you agree to such Terms & Conditions.
Submission Deadline:
We should have received your materials no later than March 15, 2010. Entries submitted after that date might not be considered.
SASE: We prefer that you email your submissions. If you decide to snail mail your work, include a stamped self-addressed business-sized envelope so that your work can be returned to you if it is not accepted.
=============================
7. Call for Poets: Hart Island Reading
=============================
Mother’s Day 2010, from 2 to 4 p.m.
Bowne House Historical Society
37-01 Bowne Street
Flushing, NY 11354
Hart Island, located in the Long Island Sound, is a potter’s field where an estimated 800,000 people, half of them children, are buried with no headstones, no markers, and bare records.
To raise public consciousness over this situation, Rosalind Maya Lama and Melinda Hunt have begun the Hart Island Project in order to pay homage to those children and to urge changes of the manner in which young unwed mothers and their offspring are treated. To help raise public awareness of this issue, Maya and Melinda are co-hosting a Poetry Reading on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 9, 2010, at the Bowne House Historical Society in Flushing, Queens, from 2 to 4 p.m.
Poets interested in participating should immediately contact Louis Reyes Rivera at the following email address:Louisreyesrivera@aol.com. Space is limited, so all participants, poets and audience, are asked to RSVP their attendance.
Poets are asked to read from their original work and to include a recital of the names of children taken from their mothers by the state, institutionalized and, in the cases of those who died young, buried in such a place.
Says Maya, “This potter's field dates from the Civil War and is under the supervision of the New York City Department of Correction. Prisoners bury the dead, who include the homeless, the destitute, stillborns, and children who were in the care of the city's services and whose parents' rights had been terminated. In these cases, the parents were not informed of the death of their children. During the 1980s, burials swelled at Hart Island due to the AIDS epidemic. It is closed to the public and press, except for a one-time visit by a relative of the deceased, with permission of the Correction Department.”
Rosemary Vietor, President of the Bowne House Historical Society, will serve as hostess for the two-hour program which, thus far, includes poets Stacy Szymaszek, Jackie Sheeler, Steve Turtell, Ilka Scobie, Louise Landes Levi, Ira Cohen; Edward Field, and Louis Reyes Rivera. There’s still time for others to contact Rivera and get on board.
In addition, a one-hour Silent Prayer Vigil will be held at the Quaker Meeting House, located next door to the Bowne House, beginning at 11 a.m. This will be followed by a lunch and then the reading program at 2 p.m.
Both Bowne House and Quaker Meeting House were among this city’s critical places in the formation of both the Manumission Society and Underground Railroad in New York as well as in founding the first school here for Black children.
Collaborating with these two historical institutions for the Mother’s Day program is the Lewis H. Latimer House, another historic site in Queens. The three are among the co-sponsors for the Hart Island Project, along with the New York Foundation for the Arts and The Canada Council for the Arts.
The principle organizers of the Hart Island Project want to continue to co-host poetry readings throughout the city at different venues. Interested parties may contact Maya at mayalama@hotmail.com. She says, “the city's poets should take up the responsibility, as bards and troubadours and griots, of reciting the names (of the children) with relevant poems so that not even one person's name, or absence, is unspoken in public places.”
Maya became involved as the result of her own attempts to locate the remains of her son, born in 1959, and “lost to the city's draconian treatment of unwed mothers.”
The mother of a biracial child, she had legally lost her son to authorities on the grounds that she was too young at the time. Her son was taken from her and placed under local institutional and foster care. Years later, when she learned of her son’s death, she immediately began her quest to find his remains. In the process, she discovered that she was not alone. She writes, “I wondered where they [the other children suffering the same fate] were buried, if they died while in the city's care, or afterward, if they died homeless, destitute, or imprisoned.”
She delved into the archives which helped to confirm that their likely final resting place was Hart Island.
“I requested copies of the names of all the deceased, with the intention of reading them aloud and praying for them. The Archives let me know that Melinda Hunt [her compatriot with the Hart Island Project] has been collecting the names, so I contacted her, and this joint project evolved.”
Melinda Hunt has been photographing and writing about Hart Island since 1991 and has a website, www.hartisland.net, through which to propagate on behalf of the thousands of children buried in those graves.
Says Ms. Lama, “We are planning to work togethe
Steven Hahn. The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom. Cambridge
Harvard University Press, 2009. xvii + 246 pp. $21.95 (cloth),
ISBN 978-0-674-03296-5.
Reviewed by Martin Hardeman (Eastern Illinois University)
Published on H-Law (February, 2010)
Commissioned by Christopher R. Waldrep
Emancipation, Rebellion, and Self-Determination
I read and was duly impressed by Steven Hahn's 2004 Bancroft and
Pulitzer Prize-winning _A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political
Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration_.
Frankly, I expected _The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom_
(based on his 2007 Nathan I. Huggins lectures at Harvard) to be a
slightly popularized reprise. It was that, but it was also much more.
_The Political Worlds_ is a provocation and a challenge to the
American historical profession. Hahn calls on us to re-think our
periodization of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and
re-analyze it from a series of new perspectives.
The book is divided into three chapters, a preface, an appendix,
fifty-six pages of notes, and an index. The first chapter, "'Slaves
at Large': The Emancipation Process and the Terrain of African
American Politics," begins with a question. If the traditional view
that there were two emancipations--one as a result of the Revolution
and the other as an integral part of the Civil War--was wrong and if
instead there was one prolonged emancipation process beginning in
1777 and ending with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment,
how would this affect the interpretation of the nation's antebellum
history?
The author concludes that conditional slavery would be a reality for
all black Americans in all parts of the nation. Even in those states
and territories where the "peculiar institution" was officially
banned, both local and federal law would make African American rights
tenuous, at best. He writes that black communities in the "free"
North would ultimately be akin to the maroon settlements in Brazil
and the Caribbean. Like them, the freedom and independence of their
inhabitants would be provisional.
And, like the provisionally free in other slave societies, the Free
Negroes of the North would also see themselves as under siege.
Virtually unprotected by the law, any white could claim them as
runaways. While the actual percentage of fugitives is unknown, Hahn
points out that according to the 1850 federal census just under 25
percent of the inhabitants of Boston, Providence, Brooklyn, and New
York City and as high as 90 percent of those in the rural counties of
southern Ohio had been born in the slave states, proportions that
generally increased over the decade. Thus, the connections between
the nominally free and actively enslaved was an unbroken chain and
its links transmitted information, aspiration, and social perception
in both directions.
The concept of a long, gradual emancipation significantly challenges
the orthodox view of both the antebellum United States and of the
Civil War. The implication of the country as a whole in slavery casts
doubt on any interpretation of an "irrepressible conflict." It
reopens questions of causality, contingency, and formal and informal
politics. It demands a re-imagining of American history, modifying
the revolutionary drama definitively ending slavery.
At the center of the second chapter, "Did We Miss the Greatest Slave
Rebellion in Modern History?" is a comparison between the actions and
attitudes of African Americans during the Civil War and French Saint
Domingue's Negroes during the Haitian Rebellion. While recognizing
their differences, Hahn notes that both began with a profound
disruption of the white elite and both ended with black men taking up
arms to successfully end the institution of slavery. Yet, what
happened and why is not the essential question. It is rather why
Americans, white and black, professional historians, and the general
populace have so absolutely rejected any idea of a slave rebellion as
a component of the Civil War.
Clearly, this was not the case, particularly for white Southerners
between 1861 and 1865. They saw slave flight, assistance to Union
raiders, and most especially enlistment in the Union forces as
manifestations of servile insurrection. But in the years following
the war, reconciliation seemed to demand a reconsideration of the
matter.
If the war really was a clash of great and noble principles, a
brothers' war with glory enough for the blue and the gray, then there
was no room left for black insurgents. In both popular literature and
historical monographs, African Americans became the comic relief with
little real agency and even less influence on the American _Iliad_.
While African Americans refused to accept the image of blacks as
passive during the war, they were equally reluctant to see themselves
or their progenitors as slave rebels. According to Hahn, they saw
African American actions and attitudes as an adherence to the
fundamental principles of American freedom, as a model of civilized
behavior, and as proof of their loyalty to the United States. At the
same time, these perceptions were part of black resistance to the
negative racial stereotypes of the white majority, a majority whose
nightmares were populated by African American men with guns.
The great exception to these "interpretive sensibilities" was W. E.
B. DuBois. Regarding African Americans in both slavery and freedom as
consequential political actors, when they had determined that the
federal army would not or could not return fugitive slaves, when they
were convinced that their masters were uncertain of victory, DuBois
concluded that African Americans acted collectively, fleeing bondage
and offering their labor and themselves to the Union.
Many of DuBois's insights have become part of the mainstream
orthodoxy over time. Yet there is still a reluctance to incorporate a
conscious slave revolt into the interpretation of the Civil War. Hahn
suggests that this reluctance is quintessentially American. A belief
in formal politics with their elections, party platforms, and
official institutions, blinds American historians to the reality and
influence of the ad hoc, grassroots politics of slaves, the poor, and
the disenfranchised.
The third chapter, "Marcus Garvey, the UNIA, and the Hidden Political
History of African Americans," presents a problem of historiography
and analysis. The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) was
founded in Jamaica in 1914 by Marcus Garvey. By the mid 1920s, it was
indisputably the largest mass organization in the history of the
African Diaspora. However, Hahn points out that it has received less
serious investigation than the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, the black membership of the Communist
Party, or African American participation in the early
twentieth-century labor movements. His question is why.
He proposes three interrelated answers. The first and most damning is
mere laziness. Although he admits that resources on the UNIA are
relatively scarce, he condemns his fellow historians for their
failure to investigate even those resources, as well as their failure
to conduct oral interviews with surviving members of the
organization, their families, and their critics.
The second answer returns to the underlying theme of _The Political
Worlds_, the American inability to incorporate or even imagine the ad
hoc, the grassroots politics of outsiders.
The third answer is that the alternative goals of the UNIA seem so
foreign to the assimilationist mainstream that the organization is
simply dismissed. The UNIA and its followers are seen as an
aberration roughly akin to the Ghost Dances of the Plains Indians.
"Not surprisingly," Hahn writes, "many of the major historical works
on Marcus Garvey and the UNIA have been produced by scholars born and
educated in the Caribbean and Britain" (p. 161). Garvey and his
movement electrified black America during the 1920s, together with
much of the black Atlantic world. Given the numbers of those people
who identified themselves as Garveyites, Hahn concludes, "we
condescend to Garvey and the UNIA at our own loss and our peril" (p.
162).
_The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom_ is a very important
book. Steven Hahn is brash, intemperate, and critical of the American
historical profession. Occasionally, he is over the top.
Occasionally, he may be wrong. But, all of his questions are good
ones. He has spit on the ground, drawn a line in the sand, and placed
a chunk of wood on his shoulder. It is up to his fellow historians to
step up to the mark, knock the chip off his shoulder, and answer the
challenges he has proposed.
Let the best combatants win!
Citation: Martin Hardeman. Review of Hahn, Steven, _The Political
Worlds of Slavery and Freedom_. H-Law, H-Net Reviews. February, 2010.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25764
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
License.
Medgar Evers College
'Film & Culture Series'
Presents:
"Before They Die"The Story of Black Wall Street and the Survivors
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2010
Founders Auditorium
1650 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11225
Doors Open At 6:15 P.M.
Open Mic At 6:30 P.M.
Film & Culture Series Begins At 7:00 P.M.
Take the #2, 3, 4 or 5 train to the Franklin Ave. stop.
The auditorium is between Crown & Montgomery Sts.
After the film we will have an Inter-Generational Community Education Dialogue The focus being:
Seniors/Leaders/Elders - Share your wisdom and view of the World.
What would you like to see from the younger generations?Working/Adult/Professionals - What guidance do you need from the Elders?
How can you be the bridge between the Youth and the Elders?
How can the Youth and Elders help you, to help them?Youth/Students/21+ - What do you value?
How can older generations help you develop your life chances?
What do you want the older generations to respect about you and learn from you?
Black History Film 'Before They Die!' Screening and Discussion
Press Release The 'Film & Culture Series' and the School of Liberal Arts and Education at Medgar Evers College will host a screening of the documentary 'Before They Die!' on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 7 p.m. in the Founder's Auditorium, 1650 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11225. The film tells the story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot and the survivors journey for justice. The screening is open to the public.Reginald Turner, a Los Angeles entertainment lawyer, and his cousin, Denise Clement, co-produced the documentary upon prodding by Turners college friend, Charles Ogletree who was representing the survivors in litigation seeking reparations. Through interviews of survivors, the film chronicles the two days of death and destruction set off by an event which took place on May 31, 1921, in an elevator in the Drexel Building in downtown Tulsa. The incident between a 17-year-old white female elevator operator and a 19-year-old black shoe shiner, the details of which remain uncertain, may have started as innocuously as the young man accidently stepping on the foot of the young woman in the elevator.What followed for the next two days is likely the worst racial violence in our nations history, but yet it is a story unknown to most citizens. A mob, fueled by inaccurate, exaggerated and inflammatory reports which spread across a city already experiencing racial tension, destroyed 35-square blocks of the African-American neighborhood of Greenwood. White rioters looted residents homes and set them on fire. Over 1,000 homes along with churches, schools, a hospital and a library were burned or destroyed. Nearly 9,000 people were left homeless and an estimated 300 people were killed.The survivors of this horrific chapter of Oklahoma history have yet to be compensated for their losses. Ogletree, a Harvard law professor, has led the legal team representing survivors through the court system. In 2002 when the project to obtain reparations began, there were 151 survivors. Less than half of them are still alive and the youngest is 92 years old.In explaining why he took years away from his law practice to make this film, Turner explained, Our goal is to make sure that this story, which has been hidden from history for over 80 years, is not allowed to go untold.
It is important for us to have this program, because the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot has fallen through the cracks of U.S. history and there are students who do not hear about this tragic event until college, if at all. Our goal is to inform the public about black history that affects the mind and touches the soul.Prior to the screening, there will be an Open Mic period for community presentations and a performance by new young orator 'Jair'.
For more information about Before They Die! and the program go to
http://www.mec.cuny.edu/filmandcultureseries
The Holla from www.SeeingBlack.com, February 22, 2010
Death toll revised to 230,000. Rainy season approaches. US sets May 1 target for shelter, long after rainy season begins. Judge calls for release of detained missionaries. women protest lack of aid. US firms lobby for reconstruction deals.
President Obama hosts civil rights leaders on African American unemployment. Study: lowest-income Americans face 30 percent unemployment. Appeals court to hear arguments in cell-phone tracking case. Student files suit over detention for English-Arabic study materials. Insurance company sued for denying treatment to 5-Year-Old cancer patient. Top insurers post record profits while dropping 2.7M policyholders. Survey: quarter of job losses will be permanent. US, UK lose bid to censor docs in British torture case. Palestinian families appeal to UN over Israeli construction of "Museum of Tolerance" on Jerusalem's historic Mamilla Cemetery. And MUCH more! Check the REAL news!
New Blog--Dogging Obama
Jackie Jones writes:
"...A brother was holding a poster with a Hitlerian moustache on Obama's face. Okay, a little silly, I'm thinking, but free speech, all that. But as I came closer I heard the words that sent me straight into the building without stopping to hear his point: "Don't you want to know about the bastard?"
The language got worse from there.
I don't have any beef with those who have one with the president. I'm all for free speech, the right to vigorous and rigorous debate. Anyone in public office, and particularly the president, ought to get close scrutiny. That said, the way to get my intention is not to denigrate someone in order to convince me that his policies are wrong..."
Haiti confirms toll of over 200,000. Also,1M earthquake survivors lack food aid. One million remain homeless in Haiti. US missionaries charged with kidnapping Haitian children. G7 nations pledge to forgive Haiti's debt. Clinton to coordinate Haiti relief for UN. Plus: links to organizations continuing
Visit Our New Blog!
Welcome to Ari Merretazon and his new blog BLOG--Reparations Now! Let the Healing Begin!
A blog on the reparations movement for African Americans and related news and topics.
Here are some of the topics he has posted. Remember to register to at the message board
first (if you are not already registered), before you try to post a comment/repsonse on the blog.
Do you know why it's so cold?
Re: Open Email to Congressman Bob Brady
The Frator Heru Institute offers a practical model...I am just saying, I forgot Obama was Black - too
Apologies for crimes against humanity
Memorial Funeral Services for Dr. Imari Obedele"We are humbled by the tribulations of the people of Haiti. At this time of destruction, suffering, death, and survival, we offer our condolences, our prayers, and our aid. At the same time, as scholars of the African and African-American experience, we are dismayed by the inhumanity of those who have used this tragedy as an opportunity to espouse groundless explanations for Haiti's troubles..."
--the Department of African & African American Studies at Duke UniversityThanks for being a part of the SeeingBlack.com Family. Thanks to those who have supported our paid subscriber drive. If you can't give, join the SeeingBlack.com homepage drive! Make SeeingBlack.com your homepage and get your family, friends, co-workers etc. to do the same. This simple act goes a long way to support Black-owned, grassroots media in an era of corporate giants. Click this post for more info. and more ways to help...Didn't I tell you that we won't stop? :>