NEO•GRIOT

"The Black History of the White House"   A New Book from Scholar Clarence Lusane  Clarence Lusane is one of America's most thoughtful and critical thinkers on issues of race, class and power. — Manning Marable Official histories of the United States have ignored the fact that 25 percent of all U.S. presidents were slaveholders, and that black people were held in bondage in the White House itself. And while the nation was born under the banner of "freedom and justice for all," many colonists risked rebelling against England in order to protect their lucrative slave business from the growing threat of British abolitionism. These historical facts, commonly excluded from schoolbooks and popular versions of American history, have profoundly shaped the course of race relations in the United States. In this unprecedented work, Clarence Lusane presents a comprehensive history of the White House from an African American perspective, illuminating the central role it has played in advancing, thwarting or simply ignoring efforts to achieve equal rights for all. Here are the stories of those who were forced to work on the construction of the mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the determined leaders who pressured U.S. presidents to outlaw slavery, White House slaves and servants who went on to write books, Secret Service agents harassed by racist peers, Washington insiders who rose to the highest levels of power, the black artists and intellectuals invited to the White House, community leaders who waged presidential campaigns, and many others. Juxtaposing significant events in White House history with the ongoing struggle for civil rights, Clarence Lusane makes plain that the White House has always been a prism through which to view the social struggles and progress of black Americans. Price $19.95 plus $5 shipping and handling. Click here to purchase from the SpeakOut Online Store! Contact SpeakOut to Bring Clarence Lusane to Speak on Your Campus.  Barack Obama may be the first black president in the White House, but he's far from the first black person to work in it. In this fascinating history of all the enslaved people, workers and entertainers who spent time in the president's official residence over the years, Clarence Lusane restores the White House to its true colors. — Barbara Ehrenreich Black folks built the White House in more ways than one. In this beautifully rendered narrative, Clarence Lusane recasts the whole of American history by revealing how slavery and emancipation, racial violence and civil rights, the black freedom movement and white supremacy, and dozens of unsung black heroes shaped the U.S. presidency and federal government in profound ways. — Robin D. G. Kelley Reading The Black History of the White House shows us how much we DON'T know about our history, politics, and culture. In a very accessible and polished style, Clarence Lusane takes us inside the key national events of the American past and present. He reveals new dimensions of the black presence in the US from revolutionary days to the Obama campaign. Yes, 'black hands built the White House' — enslaved black hands — but they also built this country's economy, political system, and culture, in ways Lusane shows us in great detail...Highly recommended! — Howard Winant, UC Santa Barbara In the age of the tea party and the short memory of racism in America, The Black History of the White House is a must read. In bringing to life the histories of racial exclusion and humiliation exercised from within the walls of the nation's most abiding symbol, Clarence Lusane offers a searing reminder of the tenacious personal and political effort from the country's highest office it has taken to uphold racial privilege in the US. — David Theo Goldberg, author of The Threat of Race: Reflections on Racial Neoliberalism Click Below to See the Table of Contents, Introduction and First Two Chapters of The Black History of the White House.   BHWH_front.pdf

 

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1493: An Uncommon History

of How Columbus

Changed the World

 

by Maria Popova

What events from half a millennium ago can teach us about the globalization debate today.

In 2005, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann came to be regarded as the most ambitious and sweeping look at pre-Columbus North and South America ever published. This month, Mann is back with1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created — a fascinating look at one of the lesser-known, lesser-considered aspects of what happened when Columbus and his crew set foot on American soil: the environmental upheaval that began as they brought plants, animals and diseases that forever changed the local biosphere, both in America and in Europe once the explorers returned to the Old World. Known as The Columbian Exchange, this process is considered the most important ecological event since the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the paradoxes at its heart echo today’s polarized views of globalization as either a great cross-pollinator or a great contaminator of cultures.

From the outset globalization brought enormous economic gains and ecological and social tumult that threatened to offset those gains. It is true that our times are different from the past. Our ancestors did not have the Internet, air travel, genetically modified crops, or computerized international stock exchanges. Still, reading the accounts of the creation of the world market one cannot help hearing echoes — some muted, some thunderously loud — of the disputes now on the television news. Events four centuries ago set a template for events we are living through today.”

Mann illustrates the fascinating interplay of organisms within ecological systems and the intricate yet powerful ways in which it impacts human civilization. For instance, when the Spaniards brought plantains to South America, they also brought the tiny scaling insects that live in their roots, which turned out to be delicious new food for the local fire ants. This led to a plague-sized explosion in fire ant population, which forced the terrified Spaniards to live on the roofs of their ant-infested houses and eventually drove them off the islands.

The most striking impact of The Columbian Exchange, however, comes from epidemiology. Because pre-Columbus America had no domesticated animals, it also had no animal-borne diseases. But when the Europeans came over, they brought with them enough disease to wipe out between two thirds and 90% of people in the Americas over the next 150 years — the worst demographic catastrophe in history by a long stretch. While early diaries mentioned these epidemics in describing life in the 1500s and 1600, it wasn’t until the 1960s that epidemiologists and historians realized the true scale of the death toll in the decades following Columbus’s arrival.

NPR’s Fresh Air has an excellent interview with Mann.

From how tobacco became the world’s first global commodity to how forests were transformed by a new earthworm, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created will change the way you look at ecology, economy and epidemiology, and radically shift how you think about “local” and “global.”

Images via Wikimedia Commons

>via: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/08/24/1493-charles-mann/?utm_sour...

 

 

 

 

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Boucan: E-zine on

Caribbean Arts and Culture

 

 

I recently discovered Boucan, a thoroughly captivating cultural E-zine about the Caribbean. Boucan is a collaboration between editor Cédric Francillette and visual artist Frédérique Blaize-Francillette with writers Guylaine Masini, Maxence Alavarna, and Serena Laurent. Each issue focuses on Caribbean art, cinema, literature, music, and other cultural manifestations.