Guidelines for Awards 

 

Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry

50-75 page manuscript

$1,000 prize and publication

An entry fee of $25 must accompany the manuscript

Previously published eligible

Deadline: April 30, 2011

 

Click here for international submission payment for both awards.

 

 

Serena McDonald Kennedy Award

No more than 50,000 word novella or 200 page manuscript of short stories will be accepted. Any well written manuscript on any topic will be considered. Previously published works may be entered.

An entry fee of $25 must accompany the submission.

$1,000 award and publication

Deadline: July 31, 2011

 

 

Mailing Address:

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Valdosta, Georgia 31602

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Apr/May 2009

Beyond the Skin Trade

How does black nationalism stay relevant in the age of Barack Obama?

Victor Lavalle

When I was a boy, I prayed for straight hair. You have to understand, I grew up on heavy metal. Iron Maiden and Judas Priest to start. Then Anthrax and Exodus, Megadeth and Metallica. My friends and I gathered in living rooms and basements and empty lots and banged our heads to “Damage, Inc.” and “I Am the Law.” If you nearly snapped your neck, you were doing something right. We were a pretty wild mix: a Persian kid, a Korean, a couple of white guys, and me—the only one with a tight, curly Afro. The rest had straight hair, grown long, and when they thrashed to the music, their hair bounced and whipped like it was supposed to. I’d watch them pull off this casual magic and wish I’d been so blessed. But I was black, and there was no enchantment in that. It actually felt like a kind of curse. I’m so embarrassed to admit any of this.

Now, heavy metal may be to blame for any number of ills (my tinnitus, for instance), but I can’t really say it spawned my self-loathing. Instead, let’s head upstairs, to my family’s apartment in Flushing, Queens. We won’t meet the guilty party there, just another link in a long chain.

My mom grew up in East Africa. Uganda. A member of a tribe called the Baganda, the largest ethnic group in the country. Daughter of a proud and courageous mother and father. They worked to eject the British colonial powers; they were one small part of the Pan-African movement. My grandfather helped oust the British and set up schools in rural Uganda. He made sure his own kids were educated. For college, my mother packed off to Canada. In Kitchener-Waterloo, she was denied housing, mistreated and maligned in school and on the street. Finally, she moved to America to escape the racism. That poor woman—she didn’t understand what was happening to her. What had already happened. Somewhere, flying over the Atlantic Ocean maybe, she’d stopped being a Muganda, a Ugandan, or even African. She had become black.

The original American slaves weren’t black, either. They were Ashanti and Ewe and Fanti, among others. The slaves’ path to Christianity has been told and retold as the great conversion story of Africans in the Americas. But that’s not the only conversion story. There’s the legal conversion: from humans being into chattel. And there’s the cultural conversion: A wealth of ethnicities became one black race. This must have shocked those Africans as much as it did my mother.

With the earliest instances of rebellion against the slave system—whether armed insurrection or covert escape or the liberation of literacy—black nationalism was born. Even before it had a name, it was a practice. Just staying alive was an act of defiance. Thus every black person was a part of the resistance. Up, you mighty race!

My father is white.

As the decades passed, black nationalism created and re-created itself in this country. David Walker and Harriet Tubman’s role in shaping abolitionism; Marcus Garvey’s model of separate but formidable black entrepreneurship; the civil rights struggle; Black Power; the Nation of Islam; the Nation of Gods and Earths. Each can be categorized as a form of black nationalism. But no matter which era or organization, whether they were capitalists or Marxists or advocates of repatriation, they all seemed to assume one basic truth: We’re all in this together.

Rich or poor, southerner or northerner, dark skinned or light, black folks are on the same side. Remember Marcus Garvey’s call: “Africa for the Africans!” And Malcolm X’s line: “When I speak of the South, I mean south of Canada. The whole US is the South.” (Though my mother could’ve schooled him on that.) Our own schools, our own churches; maybe someday even our own state. But check out the sleight-of-hand America had managed. What really held us together besides the system we opposed? What would black nationalism be without a common enemy?

• • •

It seems all Americans are now contractually required to bring up Barack Obama at least once a week. In either wonder or disgust, cynicism or cloudy-eyed glee. As a black person, it’s actually common courtesy to mention my man at least once a day. But right now, I’m more concerned with Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham Soetoro. The white woman from Kansas reminds me of my own mother, the black woman from Uganda. It’s not the wanderlust or the tenacity (though those are comparable, too). Instead, it’s a choice each woman made. About who would father her child. And why.

In Dreams from My Father, Obama recounts going to see Black Orpheus with his mother. Halfway through the movie, he’s pretty tired of it, the depiction of black folks being far from complex or interesting. But then he looks at his mother: “Her face, lit by the blue glow of the screen, was set in a wistful gaze. At that moment, I felt as if I were being given a window into her heart, the unreflective heart of her youth. I suddenly realized that the depiction of childlike blacks I was now seeing on the screen, the reverse image of Conrad’s dark savages, was what my mother had carried with her to Hawaii all those years before, a reflection of the simple fantasies that had been forbidden to a white middle-class girl from Kansas, the promise of another life: warm, sensual, exotic, different.”

My own mother’s life strikes me as a fair capsule summary of the black experience in America. Reaching these shores as an African, not so much proud of this fact as unaware she should feel ashamed. Then made aware. While she didn’t take over any buildings or arm herself, my mother did bring my ailing grandmother over from Uganda to care for her. She worked as a legal secretary while helping her brother get through college. I count these as her years of resistance. But eventually her resistance ran out.

My mother and I have always had a good relationship, very forthright, and whenever I used to ask her why she married my father, she would offer only one answer: “So you would be light-skinned.”

My mom is going to beat my ass if she ever sees this. I can’t imagine anything that would embarrass her more. It’s not that she never said it, not that it isn’t true, but to say it out loud. To print it. And in a place where white folks might read it! These expressions of self-loathing go on, but you don’t admit them in mixed company. If you do, well, what the hell kind of black person are you?

And here’s why Ann Dunham Soetoro reminds me of my mother: Blackness was more of an idea than a reality for both, yet one of the most important choices of each woman’s life was based on it. One woman yearned for it, while the other wished to escape. Either way, blackness (and whiteness) defined them.

I’m not saying my mother, or Obama’s, made her choice consciously. My mother’s answer to my paternity question always seemed like insight she’d gained after the fact. Maybe a way to recast loss as a kind of victory. But consciously or not, she wanted her child to be lighter than she was. She believed my life in America would be easier that way. And she was right. It has been.

Faced with her life’s evidence, she couldn’t have imagined a rat-fuck, heartless, shit-stain system like this country’s would ever die. Resist or surrender: Those were a black person’s only choices in these United States. That would never change.

But then it did.

I remember watching Obama’s victory speech on a JumboTron out on 125th Street. I watched him at that podium in Grant Park while I stood in a mixed-race crowd in the middle of a revitalized Harlem. What world is this? I wondered even as I hooted and hollered. Who could’ve imagined such sights and wonders? When I finally reached my mother on the phone, she sounded even more awestruck than I was.

• • •

I’m sick of discussing black nationalism. I’m tired of all the dourness and doomsaying; of the grimace that’s required whenever we discuss it and blackness in general; of the countless humorless men and women who scold every impulse toward comfort or laughter or, dare I say it, optimism. I’m sick of the same old forecast for blackness: gloom followed by clouds of hail.

On January 20, 2009, the president of the United States was a black man, or blackish if you want to nitpick. On January 30, 2009, the head of the Republican National Committee was a black man. And in the 2008 election race, a black woman ran as the presidential nominee of the Green Party. What is black nationalism to make of all this? A system of thought, a method of living, that sought empowerment through opposition now looks a lot like the leaders of the system it opposed. I’m not suggesting that the existence of these few black leaders indicates the end of hard times for black Americans. What I’m wondering is this: If a disempowered black person opposes an empowered black person, which one is the black nationalist?

This essay was supposed to be an obituary, a eulogy, for black nationalism, but I’ve spent a good deal of it going on about my mother. She might not believe me, but I mean all these admissions and revelations as a testament to her and, by extension, to black nationalism. Who can judge what he can’t understand? Not me. And our elders battled through some genuinely incomprehensible shit.

But if the final goal of black nationalism is freedom and autonomy for black folks, then maybe that even means becoming liberated from our debts to our forebears. Not to forget them, but to bury them with honor. Then maybe we’ll get to devise new solutions to old problems. Even my silly little headbanging woes turned out to have a pretty simple solution, one I figured out only years later. I didn’t need straight hair to thrash, I just grew dreadlocks. Voilà—free to be a black metalhead.

I imagine telling all this to my mother. I can see us in her living room, on her powder-blue couch. She listens to my desire, my need, to think differently about our place in the world. To set the old burdens down. She nods, and when I’m done, she reaches out to touch my cheek. She smiles, but not with joy, just wistfulness. I see the back of her dark brown hand in contrast to the side of my honey-colored face. She sighs. Then she speaks. Only five words: “Easy for you to say.”

Victor LaValle is the author of the novel The Ecstatic (Crown, 2002).

Film Preview: Sinking Sands leads African Movie Academy Awards (watch trailer)

 

Posted on March 5, 2011 under sinking sands film

The film, produced by Turning Point Pictures, LLC, is a feature-length, psychological drama that tells the story of a couple, in a loving marriage that turns into one of violence and abuse when Jimah becomes disfigured in a domestic accident. The project is intended to create awareness on the continuous existence of abuse among today’s households. It is an effort to show a side of defense that is proactive.

 

Region in turmoil

Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain: A roundup of the popular protests that have swept the region over the last two months.

 

Last Modified: 22 Feb 2011 16:05 GMT

The world’s attention has been focused on a handful of countries - Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Libya - since the first popular protests broke out in Tunisia in December. But nearly a dozen countries in the region have seen political unrest, and the protest movement shows no signs of stopping.

Below is a summary of the demonstrations so far, and links to our coverage. You can also click a country on the map above for more information.

Tunisia

Protesters in Tunisia ousted Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, their president for more than 23 years, after nearly a month of protests.

The protests started when a street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire after his cart was confiscated by police. His anger - over unemployment, poverty and corruption - resonated in Tunisia, and led to weeks of street protests against Ben Ali’s autocratic government. Security forces cracked down brutally on many of the protests, with more than 200 people killed. But the rallies continued, and Ben Ali eventually fled the country for exile in Saudi Arabia.

His departure on January 14 has not stopped the protest movement, though: Many Tunisians continue to demand the ouster of Mohamed Ghannouchi, the prime minister, and fellow members of the Constitutional Democratic Rally (Ben Ali’s party) who remain in power.

Egypt

After Ben Ali, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was the second Arab autocrat to resign, his nearly 30-year rule brought to an end by 18 days of protests.

The revolt began on January 25, when tens of thousands of protesters marched against Mubarak’s government. A “day of rage” on January 28 drew even larger crowds in downtown Cairo, where they were attacked brutally by Egyptian security forces. They stood their ground, though, and the police eventually withdrew, ceding control of Tahrir Square to the protesters.

That led to a two-week standoff between the protesters and the government, with the former occupying Tahrir Square and fending off a sustained assault from government-sponsored thugs. Mubarak was at first defiant, pledging reforms - he sacked his cabinet and appointed a vice president, longtime intelligence chief Omar Suleiman - but vowing to remain in office. In a televised address on February 10, he promised to finish his term.

Behind the scenes, though, Mubarak had clearly lost the support of the military, and Suleiman announced his departure in a brief statement less than 24 hours later.

Egyptians have continued to stage rallies, though, with hundreds of thousands demanding that the new military government pursue real democratic reforms.

Libya

Longtime autocrat Muammar Gaddafi has reportedly lost control of eastern Libya, and his army, supported by foreign mercenaries, is waging a savage war against civilians.

Small protests in January led to larger rallies in mid-February, mostly in the east - in Benghazi, Libya’s second city, and other towns like Al-Bayda. The protests continued to grow over the next few days, with thousands of people in the streets on February 17 and 18 - and dozens dead, many killed by snipers.

Less than a week later, Benghazi was reportedly in the hands of the protesters, and demonstrations had spread to the capital Tripoli. Eyewitnesses reported Libyan military jets bombing civilians, and gangs of mercenaries roaming the streets, firing indiscriminately.

Gaddafi’s 42-year rule, the longest in the Arab world, has been sustained by widespread political repression and human rights abuses. Protesters are also angry about his economic mismanagement: Libya has vast oil wealth - more than half of its GDP comes from oil - but that money has not filtered down. Unemployment is high, particularly among the country’s youth, which accounts for more than one-third of the population.

Algeria

The Algerian government has so far kept a lid on protests, most of which have been centered in the capital, Algiers.

Demonstrators staged several scattered rallies in January, mostly over unemployment and inflation. They planned a major rally in the capital on February 12, when a crowd - estimates of its size vary between 2,000 and 10,000 - faced off with nearly 30,000 riot police who sealed off the city. Dozens of people were arrested, but the rally remained peaceful; demonstrators chanetd slogans like “Bouteflika out,” referring to president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria’s ruler for the last 12 years.

A second rally, on February 19, attracted a smaller crowd - in the hundreds - which was again outnumbered by riot police. The government also suspended train service and set up roadblocks outside the capital. Several people were arrested.

Bouteflika has tried to head off further protests by promising to lift the country’s decades-old emergency law.

Bahrain

Anti-government protests have continued for a week, and show no sign of stopping. The demonstrations began on February 14, when thousands converged on Pearl Roundabout to protest against the government; they were later dispersed by security forces who used deadly force.

In the following days, funeral marches and other rallies also came under fire by police; they have since been withdrawn, and the army has allowed peaceful rallies to continue in the roundabout. Tens of thousands of protesters converged downtown after Friday prayers on February 25.

Protesters started out calling for economic and political reform, but many demonstrators are now calling for the ouster of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

The protest movement largely draws from Bahrain’s Shia population, a majority group that often complains of oppression from the country’s Sunni rulers. They argue that the king’s economic policies favor the Sunni minority. Khalifa tried to defuse tensions by giving each Bahraini family a gift of 1,000 dinars (US $2,650), but the move won him little support.

Morocco

The first significant protests in Morocco broke out on February 20, when tens of thousands of people (37,000, according to the country’s interior minister) took to the streets. They were organised by a loose coalition of human rights groups, journalists and labor unions.

Demonstrators demanded not the ouster of King Mohammed VI, but instead a series of more modest reforms. They want the king to give up some of his powers - right now, he can dismiss parliament and impose a state of emergency - and to dismiss his current cabinet. “The king should reign, not rule,” read one banner held by protesters.

The rallies were peaceful, though acts of vandalism did happen afterwards: Dozens of banks were burned down, along with more than 50 other buildings. (The culprits are unknown.)

Mohammed has promised “irreversible” political reforms, though he has yet to offer any specifics.

Lebanon

Hundreds of people staged a rally on a cold and rainy February 27, demanding an end to Lebanon's sectarian political system.

A decades-old power-sharing system requires Lebanon to have a Maronite Christian president, a Sunni prime minister and a Shia parliament speaker. Protesters argued that the system perpetuates sectarian tensions in Lebanon.

Jordan

Protests in Jordan started in mid-January, when thousands of demonstrators staged rallies in Amman and six other cities. Their grievances were mostly economic: Food prices continue to rise, as does the country’s double-digit inflation rate.

Jordan’s King Abdullah tried to defuse the protests earlier this month by sacking his entire cabinet. The new prime minister, Marouf Bakhit, promised “real economic and political reforms.”

But the firing - Abdullah’s perennial response to domestic unrest - did little to dampen the protests. Thousands of people took to the streets once again on February 18 to demand constitutional reforms and lower food prices. At least eight people were injured during that rally.

Yemen

Rallies in Yemen have continued for nearly two weeks, with the bulk of the protesters concentrated in Sana’a, the capital; the southern city of Aden; and Taiz, in the east. Their grievances are numerous: As much as one-third of the country is unemployed, and the public blames government corruption for squandering billions in oil wealth.

Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh conceded little during a news conference in the Yemeni capital on Monday. He promised reforms, but warned against what he called “coups and seizing power through anarchy and killing.” He also offered a dialogue with opposition parties, an offer that was quickly rejected.

He has also likened the protests to a “virus” sweeping the country. His security forces have responded to the rallies with deadly force, particularly in Aden, where at least ten people have been killed.

Saudi Arabia

King Abdullah has tried to head off unrest in the kingdom with a series of economic reforms valued at 135 billion Saudi rials ($36 billion).

The new initiatives, aimed at Saudi citizens, include housing subsidies; unemployment benefits; and a programme to give permanent contracts to temporary government workers. State employees will receive 15 per cent raises.

The programme was announced on February 23, as Abdullah returned to Riyadh after back surgery in the United States and four weeks spent recovering in Morocco.

Saudi Arabia has not seen the popular protests that have swept other Arab states, but there is still a call for more changes in the tightly-controlled kingdom: A group of more than 100 prominent intellectuals and academics issued a statement calling for wide-reaching political and economic reforms. It demands an elected "consultative council"; an independent judiciary; and a serious anti-corruption push.

Abdullah is also expected to reshuffle his cabinet in the coming days.

Oman

This normally-sleepy Gulf state saw deadly protests on February 27, when at least two people were killed during a rally in the industrial town of Sohar.

Roughly 2,000 people attended the rally, according to witnesses. Police officers used tear gas, batons and rubber bullets on the crowd.

Protesters were angry about corruption, unemployment and the rising cost of living in Oman. Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the country's ruler since 1970, tried to head off further unrest by announcing a new job-creation programme and expanded subsidies to the unemployed.

A separate rally also took place in the southern city of Salalah.

Iraq

Thousands of people have rallied in the northern province of Sulaymaniyah during four days of protests over corruption and the economy. At least five people were killed, and dozens more injured, by Kurdish security forces who opened fire on the crowds during those rallies.

Several other small protests have popped up across the country in recent days: Nearly 1,000 people in Basra demanded electricity and other services; 300 people in Fallujah demanded that the governor be sacked; dozens in Nassiriyah complained about unemployment.

Protests reached a crescendo on February 25, when thousands demonstrated in the capital and elsewhere. At least six people were killed in two demonstrations in northern Iraq.

Iraqi protesters, unlike their counterparts in many other countries, are not (yet) calling for the government’s ouster. Instead, they’re demanding better basic services: electricity, food, and an effort to stamp out corruption.

In response to the unrest, the Iraqi parliament adjourned for a week, its members instructed to travel home and meet with constituents - an odd response, perhaps, given that the government’s inaction is a leading cause of popular anger.

Iran

Opposition movements in Iran have tried to stage several protests in recent days, and the movement’s two unofficial leaders - Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi - remain under house arrest.

The first round of protests, on February 14, drew people to the streets for the first time in months. At least two people were killed, and several others wounded, according to Iranian officials.

Tens of thousands of people then tried to rally on Sunday, but were met by riot police wielding steel batons and clubs. Three more people were killed. More protests may be planned for the coming days, and Iranians have resorted to "silent protests," small marches aimed at avoiding conflict with the security forces.

 

Source:

Al Jazeera

'Left of Black': Episode #24 featuring Pierre & Jamyla Bennu and Rebecca Walker

Left of Black Episode # 24

w/Pierre & Jamyla Bennu & Rebecca Walker

March 7, 2011

***

Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by filmmaker and conceptual artist Pierre Bennu and his partner Jamyla Bennu. Latter writer Rebecca Walker joins Neal, also via Skype, from her home in Hawaii.

→Pierre Bennu is a filmmaker and conceptual artist. Among his work is the full length film Red Bone Guerillas (2003) and film shorts including “Sun Moon Child” (2007) and the “Black Moses Barbie” (2011) series. Bennu is also the author of BS or Fertilizer. Bennu runs the small business, Oyin Handmade, making natural skin and hair care products and the production company ExittheApple.com with his wife and partner Jamyla Bennu.

→Rebecca Walker is an award-winning speaker, teacher, and bestselling author. She presents ideas about race, class, culture, gender, and the evolution of the human family that challenge ideological rigidity and encourage fresh approaches to enduring conflicts. Time Magazine named her one of the fifty most influential leaders of her generation. Walker is the author of two memoirs, Black White and Jewish: Autobiography of the Shifting Self (2002) and Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After A Lifetime of Ambivalence (2008).

***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

 

2011 V-Day Spotlight: Women & Girls in Haiti

In 2011, V-Day’s Spotlight Campaign will be on the Women and Girls of Haiti. The Spotlight will highlight the high levels of violence against women and girls in Haiti, and will focus on the increased rates of sexual violence since the devastating earthquake that took place in January 2010. All funds raised through the Spotlight Campaign will be used to support a revolutionary national program in Haiti lead by a coalition of women activists - including longtime V-Day activist Elvire Eugene - that will address sexual violence through art, advocacy, safe shelter, and legal services.

According to the Haitian government, 230,000 people died as a result of the earthquake, 300,000 were injured and over 1,000,000 were left homeless. Basic amenities like medical care, food, water, and electricity were out of reach for countless Haitians. Days after the quake, Michele Lebrun Pavana, speaking for Marjory Michel, Minister of Feminine Condition, reported to V-Day that women were at heightened risk for sexual assault.

As there are now 1,300 refugee camps across Haiti, we know that thousands of women and girls are being forced to live in high-risk situations. While women have spoken of widespread rape in the camps and the fear of being attacked, hard data on the number of rapes that have occurred is hard to come by. The most current and startling data comes from a recent Refugees International report that was published in October 2010 which states that cases of rape and abortions performed on children as young as 10 years old have tripled in Haiti since January. Refugees International also reported heightened gang-related violence, as well as reports of women being forced to trade sex for food. Few cases of rape are being prosecuted. As human rights lawyer Jane Flemming reported from the ground, survivors of rape are afraid to report to police; for the few who do their rapists are prosecuted at a lower than 2% rate. Haitian women lawyers are working to change this reality so that more women use legal avenues available to them and justice is reached. V-Day’s campaign will be addressing this issue.

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 8 March 2011 Last updated at 15:54 ET

Ivory Coast: Anti-Gbagbo protesters killed in Abidjan

Four people have been shot dead in Ivory Coast's main city, Abidjan, after a march to protest about the killing of seven female demonstrators last week.

Journalists have seen the bodies of three men and a woman in clinic.

The shooting has been blamed on rogue army officers supporting disputed President Laurent Gbagbo.

He refuses to cede power although his rival Alassane Ouattara is internationally recognised as the winner of last year's poll.

News of the latest trouble came as the US said Mr Gbagbo's order for the government to take control of all cocoa purchases and exports "amounts to theft".

The protesters wanted to mark International Women's Day

"It is another desperate act in his campaign to cling to power," US state department spokesman PJ Crowley told journalists.

Ivory Coast is the world's biggest cocoa producer - the cocoa sector accounts for 40% of global supplies and is currently dominated by multinational companies.

Last month, Mr Ouattara called for a temporary ban on exports to try to force Mr Gbagbo from power.

The UN-backed electoral commission says Mr Ouattara won presidential elections in November, but the Constitutional Council overruled it, citing rigging in the north.

The protest march in Abidjan's central Treichville district had passed off peacefully before shots were heard, journalists say.

Hundreds of demonstrators had planned to march to mark International Women's Day.

"They were hit by bullets," said a medical official who declined to be named, reports the AFP news agency.

"Two arrived dead and two died at the clinic from their wounds."

The AP news agency says the clinic was overwhelmed.

Some 300,000 people have fled their homes in Abidjan following fighting in the city in recent weeks, according to the UN refugee agency.

Another 70,000 have fled violence in the west, seeking sanctuary across the border in Liberia.

Meanwhile, Mr Gbagbo has declined an invitation to attend an African Union meeting in Ethiopia on Thursday.

He had been invited along with Mr Ouattara to hear the AU's intended resolution to the crisis; instead he is sending the head of his party and his foreign minister - two known hardliners.

The BBC's John James in Abidjan says if the AU mission fails, it is likely to increase the chances of a return to civil war.

Continue reading the main story

Ivory Coast

• World's largest cocoa producer
• Once hailed as a model of stability, slipped into internal strife several years after death of first President Felix Houphouet-Boigny in 1993
• An armed rebellion in 2002 split the country between rebel north and government south
• A power-sharing government took over in 2007 with the ex-rebel leader as prime minister
• 2010: First presidential elections in 10 years - supposed to be culmination of the peace process
• UN says Alassane Ouattara won, Laurent Gbagbo refuses to cede power

He says things remain calm along most of the former ceasefire line between the pro-Ouattara New Force former rebels in the north and the pro-Gbagbo army in the south.

But in the far west, where the former rebels have been taking territory, movement seems aimed at securing areas around the town of Toulepleu, which was captured on Sunday.

Publicly the New Forces says their objective is to cut off access to Liberian mercenaries rather than to move on to bigger towns in the south and east.

Our reporter says cocoa goes right to the heart of the conflict between Mr Gbagbo and his rival Mr Ouattara.

The price of cocoa has been trading at its highest levels for a year, as supplies have been strangled by recent sanctions and the near collapse of the banking system.

The European Union, US and West African states have adopted various financial sanctions against Mr Gbagbo and his closest allies.

Exporters have stopped registering new beans for export - as a result, there is close 500,000 tonnes of cocoa piling up in port warehouses. Up country, the market has collapsed for the estimated 700,000 small holder cocoa farmers.

Given the financial crisis since the election, it is very difficult to see how the government will be able to implement its radical reforms of the cocoa sector, our reporter says.

>via: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12682492

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 EQUALS

WeAreEquals on Mar 5, 2011

JAMES BOND SUPPORTS INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2011
www.weareequals.org / www.weareequals.org/blog
The two-minute short, specially commissioned for International Women's Day, sees 007 star Daniel Craig undergo a dramatic makeover as he puts himself, quite literally, in a woman's shoes.

Directed by acclaimed 'Nowhere Boy' director/conceptual artist Sam Taylor-Wood, scripted by Jane Goldman ('Kick Ass') and featuring the voice of Dame Judi Dench reprising her role as 'M', the film will be screened in cinemas and streamed online in a bid to highlight the levels of inequality that persist between men and women in the UK and worldwide. It is the first film featuring Bond to be directed by a woman.

Director: Sam Taylor-Wood. Producer: Barbara Broccoli. Scriptwriter: Jane Goldman. Director of photography: Seamus McGarvey. Featuring the voice of Dame Judi Dench.

Editor: Mel Agace
Post production: Michael Sollinger
Post production coordinator: Harriet Dale
With thanks to all the team at Ascent, including Patrick Malone, Dean Harding, 
Grading: Robin Pizzey
Deluxe grade production: Rob Farris 
Effects fix: Emily Greenwood
Sound producer: Hannah Mills
Sound: Simon Diggins and Peter Gleaves at Goldcrest

The EQUALS partnership and Annie Lennox would like to thank all the production team, cast and crew that donated their time, vision and energy in the hope of a more equal world for women and girls.

 

>via: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gkp4t5NYzVM

 

__________________________

 

Haunts: Black women prisoners haunt International Women’s Day

Mar 8th, 2011 

by admin.

Stacey Lannert grew up in the middle of the United States, in Missouri. Her father sexually abused her, starting when she was eight years old. On July 5, 1990, at the age of 18, Lannert walked into her father’s bedroom and shot him, twice, killing him. The `final straw’ was her father raping her younger sister. Two years later, in December 1992, Lannert was sentenced to life in prison without parole. In January 2009, at the age of 36, Stacey Lannert was released, thanks to the outgoing Missouri governor, Matt Blunt, who commuted her sentence: “After eighteen years, I was allowed to be Stacey Ann Lannert instead of Offender #85704. I’ll never completely shed the number, but I did start over.”

Wilbertine Berkley would like to start over as well, but the State of Florida has other plans.

In the United States, over five million people cannot vote because of past criminal offenses. One million of those people live in Florida. In one state alone, a million people who have served their time are disenfranchised. Of that million, almost 300,000 are African American.

Wilbertine Berkley is a Black woman in Florida who struggled with drug abuse, spent time in jail, turned her life around, joined a program, got clean, went to college, and gave back to the community in volunteer work. She was awarded the Presidential Volunteer Award. She did everything she was supposed to do and more, and the State response has been to `alienate’ her, to identify her as frozen in the past. Her good work counts for nothing.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 9, 2011, the Florida Board of Executive Clemency will vote on whether to make it even more difficult for former prisoners to be re-instated. The proposed change would include a five-year mandatory waiting period before being able to apply for `clemency’. Florida’s Attorney General sees this as a fight against entitlements: “I believe that every convicted felon must actively apply for the restoration of his or her civil rights and that there should be a mandatory waiting period before applying. The restoration of civil rights for any felon must be earned, it is not an entitlement…The burden of restoring civil rights should not fall on the shoulders of government, but rather it should rest on the individual whose actions resulted in those rights being taken in the first place.”

Wilbertine Berkley wants and deserves respect for who she is today, for who she has become, for what she has made of herself and of her world. She made a mistake. She worked hard. She paid her debt.

But for Black women, the debt of incarceration is the gift that keeps on giving.

Ask BobbyLee Worm. BobbyLee Worm is a 24 year old aboriginal woman prisoner in the Fraser Valley Institution, a Canadian federal prison that describes itself as “a multi-level facility for women…. Programs focus on the particular needs of women offenders, including Aboriginal inmates and those with psychological problems or learning disabilities.”

One of these particular programs is called Management Protocol.

Management Protocol is “a special program for handling women prisoners who have been involved in a major violent incident or threat of incident while in the system.” Established in 2005, seven women prisoners have been on Management Protocol. All seven have been aboriginal women.

Management Protocol is open ended, unrestricted solitary confinement. Twenty- three hours a day for as long as the prison deems `adequate’ and `necessary.’ How does one leave Management Protocol? One earns one’s way out. How does one earn? What are the wages? No one knows.

BobbyLee Worm entered prison June 7, 2006. She is a first time offender, sentenced to six years, four months. She has spent the majority of her time in segregation, paying off the debt of years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse and trauma. For Black women, the debt of incarceration is the gift that keeps on giving.

These stories are typical of the conditions of women, and girl, prisoners around the world. Girls whose only `crime’ is being the daughters of asylum seekers, or of being born into oppressive communities, are stuck into detention centers, such as theInverbrackie Detention Center in Australia. Once there, they suffer nightmares, turn violent, and refuse to eat. What is their crime, what is the debt to society that must be paid? They were born in Iran, they sailed to Australia.

Around the world, women of color, Black women, and their daughters, sit in prisons. Their debt grows incrementally by the second. Their numbers grow incrementally by the day. Today is March 8, 2011, International Women’s Day.  These women prisoners haunt International Women’s Day.

Dan Moshenberg, dmoshenberg@gmail.com

>via: http://www.womeninandbeyond.org/?p=809

__________________________

 

In Juarez, women just disappear

Al Jazeera visits the border city where more than 800 women have been murdered in a wave of gender violence. Chris Arsenault Last Modified: 08 Mar 2011 17:17 GMT Email Article Print Article Share Article Send Feedback

Attacks on women have been lumped into general drug violence in Juarez [GALLO/GETTY] Juarez -  Two days after Christmas, Jazmin Salazar Ponce went downtown in Juarez, Mexico, to apply for a job. She never came home. "She was just 17. She wasn’t a partier. She always came home until now," said Concepcion Ponce, Jazmin’s mother, her lips quivering. "I went to the authorities and filed a police report. I put up posters, and called all her friends. My girl would only go to church and come home," Ponce said. The story of young women who simply disappear is all too common in this border city, but in the last two years, gendered violence has been drawn into the broader blood pool in Mexico’s murder capital. A grisly drug war has claimed at least 7,800 lives in the city since 2008. But femicides, or targeted attacks on women represent something different from the killings affecting all residents, activists say. 'International shame' The Mexican government does not keep official statistics on these femicides, says Flor Cuevas, a member of the Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission. "There is a negative attitude from government towards the problem," Cuevas said during an interview in her Juarez office. "Femicides must be covered up, as they are an international shame." El Diario newspaper, the most respected daily in this city of about 1.2 million, has estimated that 878 women were killed between 1993 and 2010, although activists think the figure is far higher and well into the thousands. Jazmine Ponce went missing while going to apply for a job she had seen advertisied at a  "very nice boot store", her mother said. Many of the young women who disappeared in the 1990s worked in Juarez’s infamous maquiladoras, factories paying a minimum wage of about $5 per day in a city where housing and food costs are not much less than in the US.  Alejandra Garcia Andrade left for work in a maquiladora fabricating plastics on February 14, 2001. She never returned. "Every day, she had to cross a field in the desert to get to the bus to come home," said her mother, Norma Andrade.  On February 21, police found her body, left in a field with the wounds of physical assault and rape. "The police said she was lucky,” Andrade said, crying during an interview at her small home. "She was only agonising for six days."  Many causes After her daughter's murder, Norma Andrade became an activist for women's rights in the city, and started drawing attention to the cases of other missing girls. She thinks her daughter was killed as part of a gang initiation. "The heads of this criminal organisation wanted new members to do this, so they can say ‘now your hands are dirty; you won’t rat on us now'." She holds this belief because of a phone call that came to emergency services two days before police found her daughter's body. A witness saw a naked woman fitting Alejandra's description running away from two men. They grabbed her and threw her in a car, the witness told emergency services. Security services published the car's license plate number. The owner was linked to a TV repair shop, where Andrade believes her daughter was held. After spending days watching the shop, Andrade concluded the place was a front for a drug gang in "late night smuggling" and other illicit activities. Elements within the security forces in Juarez are frequently linked to various drug cartels. When they discuss the murders, police tend to favour the idea that a serial killer is prowling the streets of Juarez, acting alone to murder and rape women. Several people, including Abdel Latif Sharif, an engineer who worked at one of the maquiladora plants, along with former bus drivers for factories, have been charged with committing murders. But activists do not entirely buy that explanation.   "It isn't just about one or two killers, the causes are diverse," said Malu Garcia Andrade, a human rights activist and sister of Alejandra Garcia Andrade. A climate of impunity and machismo, teamed with widespread violence and a large population of women deemed disposable by the city's power brokers all contribute to making the situation worse.   "To justify their inefficiencies and corruption, police try to discredit the [missing or murdered] woman, saying she was like a prostitute, a drug addict or a gangster," said Norma Andrade. Police problems In 1999, Arturo González Rascon, the then Chihuahua attorney general, blamed murder victims for dressing provocatively and thus encouraging men to abuse them. But the institutional rot runs deeper than comments from powerful individuals, activists say. Alicia Duarte quit her post in the attorney general's office as Special Prosecutor for Attention to Crimes Related to Acts of Violence Against Women three years ago "out of shame for belonging to a corrupt system of justice". Police forensics in Juarez, and the city’s broader justice system, have been slammed by rights groups like Amnesty International. After visiting the scenes of four separate shootings in the span of a week, Al Jazeera never saw a police forensics team scouring for DNA evidence or searching for finger prints. It seems there is no CSI Juarez. Drug violence has worsened in Juarez since Felipe Calderon, Mexico's president, declared an all-out assault on drug cartels in 2006. Since then, the profile of missing women may have changed. In the 1990s, a high proportion seemed to work in maquiladoras with many arriving from Veracruz and other impoverished region's in Mexico’s south. But as the drug war worsenes, a larger number of young and attractive middle class women have disappeared from stable homes. Jazmin Salazar Ponce fits this new profile and some believe women like her are being trafficked into prostitution, perhaps being forced to serve the new narco elite. "The difference between femicide and the rest of the drug war is the way in which the girl is killed," said Malu Garcia Andrade. "Women are kidnapped, tortured, raped, then murdered. The drug violence is extortion, robberies and murder."  Celebrity activists For some, the murder of women is a branding opportunity. Last year, the international cosmetics firm MAC had to discontinue a make-up line, offering products named "Quinceanera" (Sweet 15), "Juarez" and "Pueblo fantasma" (Ghost Town), seemingly referencing femicides for profit and outraging women’s groups. Protests against the impunity with which women are murdered in Mexico has sparked an international outcry. Movie star Jennifer Lopez starred in the film Bordertown about a journalist sent to investigate the killings, while author Jane Fonda, actress Salma Hayek and play-write Eve Ensler have joined protests in Juarez. In December 2009, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights slammed Mexico, initiating sanctions against the country for: "The impunity … gender-based violence, which in turn feeds women’s sense of insecurity and their abiding mistrust of the administration of [the] justice system." Reyes Baeza, the governor of Chihuahua State where Juarez is located, once condemned international attention focused on the killings, accusing activists of tarnishing the city’s public image. But smearing the image of Mexico’s murder capital does not worry Norma Andrade or other women’s rights campaigners, who have relentlessly organised protests and memorials regardless of the attention paid by famous feminists. Protests seemed to reach their peak prior to 2006 and the all-out declaration of war on the cartels that turned Juarez from a violent city into one of the world’s most dangerous. Most average citizens are now too scared to go out into the streets, let alone to attend a political protest, as total war sweeps across the city.  When celebrity appearances and official institutions fail, mothers take a bleak view of justice in a city devouring its young women. "You can just beg," said Malu Garcia Andrade, "that within this drug war, these killers and rapists get shot." Follow Chris Arsenault On Twitter: @AJEchris

A Short History of Five Notes

Last updated: 25 february, 2011 - 14:36 GMT

A Short History of Five Notes

Sean Paul, Missy Elliot and Habib Koite all use a deceptively simple but hypnotic beat from the heart of Africa in some of their biggest hits. But what is it? Music journalist Rita Ray journeys to Ghana to find out.

• Duration: 23 minutes

  ListenDuration: 22:30

• Download (mp3)

  Download

• Master drummer

  Hear the clave in an Afro-Cuban style

  ListenDuration: 01:51

• In Search of Fela

  Rita Ray's portrait of Nigeria's biggest music icon

• World Music

  The best of World Music on BBC Radio 3

• The five notes go by many names in different countries and although their origins lie in West Africa, they have travelled back and forth across the Atlantic. In most cases they form a powerful underlying rhythm which is repeated throughout a song during a performance: a group of three beats, answered by another two beats, followed by three beats, answered by two beats, and so on.

  On this map, you can explore a few of the places and musical styles mentioned in the documentary which draw their strength from the five notes.

  

   

  • Chicago, USA
  • Accra, Ghana
  • New York City, USA
  • New Orleans, USA
  • London, UK
  • Havana, Cuba
  • Kingston, Jamaica
  • Detroit, USA
  • Bamako, Mali

The Pinch Literary Awards in Fiction and Poetry 2011
Sponsored by the Hohenberg Foundation

Fiction First Prize: $1,500.00.  Judged by Rick Bass.
Poetry First Prize: $1,000.00.  Judged by Jeffrey McDaniel.

ENTRY PERIOD:
January 1 – March 15.  Entries not postmarked within the reading period will be discarded unread.

PUBLICATION:
All entries are considered for publication. First, second, and third place winners will be selected from each category. The first place fiction winner, along with all three poetry winners, will be published in the Spring issue following announcement. Second and third place winners in fiction will be given high-priority consideration for publication, but because of space, cannot be guaranteed. Due to the high volume of submissions, any prize winners will be ineligible for contest participation for three years.

CONTEST RULES:
Only unpublished work will be considered. Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but notify us immediately if work is accepted elsewhere. No refunds will be issued.  Manuscripts will not be returned.  You may submit entries online via the link below or via mail.  Emailed entries will not be considered.

INELIGIBLE:
No translations will be considered.
Current students and faculty of The University of Memphis, as well as volunteer staff members for The Pinch, are not eligible.

ENCLOSE THE FOLLOWING WITH EACH ENTRY:

1. $20 for the first entry; $10 for each subsequent entry. Fiction entries should not exceed 5,000 words. An “entry” in the poetry contest is 1-3 poems, and please include $10 for each group of three after the initial entry. Poems need not be related. Please make checks payable to The University of Memphis Foundation. No cash, please. The $20 entry fee also includes one issue of The Pinch. Additional postage charge for international subscriptions.
2. A cover sheet with the author’s contact information: name, address, phone number, and email address. The author’s contact information should not appear on the manuscript itself. Entries that do not adhere to this policy will be discarded unread. Please notify us if your address or email changes.
3. An optional self-addressed stamped postcard for notification of receipt of entry and entry number.

SUBMIT ENTRIES ONLINE AT:

SUBMISHMASH.

OR

MAIL ENTRIES TO:

Fiction Contest
The Pinch
Department of English
The University of Memphis
Memphis, TN 38152-6176

or

Poetry Contest
The Pinch
Department of English
The University of Memphis
Memphis, TN 38152-6176

Young Christian

 SHORT STORY CONTEST

$2,250 in cash awards! 

Living Lights Publishing wants to inspire young Christians to take up the pen and write from the heart.  The purpose of this writing contest is first and foremost to glorify the Almighty and, secondly, to create a culture of quality writing, reflecting a Biblical world view.

THEME:   In today's world, we see economic hardship and other troubles all around us, whether in Europe, North America, or the developing world.  How has your faith grown through difficult situations and hard times?  How has God helped you or your family with a particular great need?  Judges will be looking for well-written, heart-warming, realistic stories that portray the importance of family, sincere Christian values, and faith in God.

 

 

~SHORT STORY CATEGORIES~

Young Professional (17 thru 90+):

• 1st Prize: $600
• 2nd Prize: $300
• Three Runner Ups: $150 each.
• Two Honorable Mentions

Aspiring Writer (12 thru 16):

• 1st Prize: $300
• 2nd Prize: $200
• Three Runner Ups: $100 each.
• Two Honorable Mentions

English as Second Language (International):

• 1st Prize: $100
• See Rules and Requirements for more info.

NOTE:  Every entrant will receive a copy of the winning entries in booklet form at no additional cost (actual shipping extra).

 

 

~SUBMISSION GUIDELINES~

• Genre: NonFiction -- Short Story
• Cost:  $10 for early birds (if submitted by January 15, 2011); $15 standard entry fee.
• Discounts available for MOMYS.com families and groups of 7+.  Click here for details. 
• DEADLINE: March 15, 2011.  We are accepting entries NOW.
• Length: 1,500 to 3,000 words.
• Content:  First or third person true story accounts of how God has helped you and/or your family in a time of great hardship.
• Time:  Winners announced April 15, 2011 on this website. Writing awards disbursed with a booklet featuring the winning entries on June 15, 2011.
• Rules:  See the Contest Rules page for more details.

Group rates for multiple submissions (Sunday school/Sabbath school teachers, pastors, youth directors, etc.) are available. For more information email Naomi O'Donovan at editor@livinglightspublishing.com or call 353 (0) 28 34546, leaving a message if necessary.

 

 

~COPYRIGHT INFORMATION~

Simultaneous submissions are allowed.  Authors retain copyright; submitting manuscript in contest indicates the author grants LLP one-time rights to publish the winning entries in booklet form.  See the rules and requirement page for more details.