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Conversations
with Miriam
How we go about
rebuilding New Orleans?
& the Trauma of Being Displaced
& Government Neglect
Hold
the United States Accountable
Rudy, those are good
(essential) questions. Apparently, a survey was done of
evacuees in the DC area recently and 43% of them said that they
would remain in the area and not return to N. O. I wonder
what impact the decision not to return will have on the
reconstructuring of the city. It looks like a half of the
people will not relocate.—Miriam
do the displaced want to go home?
Miriam, I'd like to have
more information on this kind of information. I don't know who's
doing the counting, who's doing the polling. Who's doing the
asking? What game is being played with this kind of response.
Like E I want to know what is rumor and what is real.
These networks are
important. With speed and precision we can sift thru
what is being said. And said by people in truama. I'm constantly
changing my mind about things just depending on my moods. And
they're constantly here and there, all over the place. There was
a time I didn't want to go back to that VA country house I was
raised in that didn't have running water, and an indoor
toilet, and no telephone. And no nothing for too much of a good
time.
But, my god, that house,
that place means so much to me, now. When I'm laid to rest I
want to be buried there with my folks.
Stick a microphone in the
face of a traumatized person, what do you get? Talk to her next
week after she has had a sedative, some food, some water, some
conversation. Relaxed a bit. And she might have a different
story to tell.
That someone wants to make
political hay out of these kind of sentiments can't be lost from
sight.—Rudy
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240,000
want to go home
Rudy, I, too, took
it with a grain of salt, but we have to realize that there are
people who have been too traumatized to want to return.
And return to what? After all, Kalama announced in his
first report that he was not going to return, because, for him,
New Orleans is the people and not the place. I suspect,
though, that he'll probably change his mind. I do, every
day, about every thing--as I get more information, reflect some,
and sit on it a while. For one thing, some of the evacuees
are being treated like heroes--being given food,
apartments/houses, jobs, health care--no substitute for
dislocation and all the trauma they've been through, but they're
things some of them have never had because for the first time
many of the poor and Black are VISIBLE and have VOICES that
others will listen to. I try to put myself in their shoes
and I know there will be all kinds of choices that they'll make
and have to make--some of which you and I wouldn't agree
with--but, hey, that's their right.—Miriam
I'd lived in New
Orleans
If it were different, I'd
be there. I'm not at my country VA home, either, because
there just ain't no way for me to make money there. They ran me
away from my home. The wise guys. I had to be away from my
family. To do anything.
But we have two
issues, here. One, Building New Orleans for a Black New Orleans,
which means "living wages" or $10 minimums; and Two,
supporting individual choices of people to make their homes
where they will. I ain't against that, Two. Let's say that 40
percent is halved to 20 percent which might be a more reasonable
number. Let's say New Orleans had 300, 000 black residents. That
leaves 240,000 Negroes who want to go home -- who want to be out
of shelters, out from under the military -- free to return to
their homes and a better life.
My suspicion is that they
who do these polls do not want black people to have a
say in the rebuilding of New Orleans, and to question the
economics of New Orleans and speak of its need for serious
reform, we still have not talked about the local politics
that created a 30 percent underclass.
This whole emphasis of
resettling New Orleans folks has to do with disfranchising
New Orleans residents, keeping them on the run, like Ellison's
Invisible Man.—Rudy
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Writing in Madness
I just clicked on to
ChickenBones because you said you were posting various articles,
and oh me, oh my, I saw my photo & words, in dialogue with
you and Kalamu. I am honored to be in yall's company, two
righteous brothers whose views I respect. There are many
other voices there that I plan to listen to. I've been
trying to get back to my work--the book that's been on the back
burner for so long--but I can't focus; someone calls or I
get a long e-mail that deserves response or something else comes
up. How do you write in the midst of this madness?—Miriam
You don't make bad coffee
Miriam, leaving
New Orleans in mid-July I had many plans. I planned to
write a journal about my six-day trip. Then I got to reading
Tom's Southern Journey and there I came across you. I did write
a review for that book. That was a wonderful experience.
And I was gonna do an anthology THE BEST OF CHICKENBONES. And an
anthology of the writings of blacks who have been to
Africa. And I was learning how to write poetry.
And then Joyce King told me
I had to read THE AFRICAN by Harold Courlander and I just happen
to have a copy of it. And I read it. And my world has not been
quite been the same, since. I was writing a review of that work
when the saga of New Orleans took over all our hearts, souls,
and minds. And so I been living Wes Hunu . . .
My friend Arthur Flowers of
Rootsblog was writing
a novel when this enormity came to be. I told him not to worry
that this work he doing in connection with Katrina would
enrich whatever task he undertook hereafter so he shouldn't
worry that anything will be lost. I do not know whether
this will apply to you or not. For me I relish these times despite
the misery and death brought negligently into existence. This
for me is a wonderful time to do great things, for
great men and greater women to come to the fore, the
battlefield.
Yes, I have become quite
fond of you. And they say there's no love in
cyberspace. Here's a poem I just read by Lansana Sekou, one of
those island writers, "mariposa"
the mornings are fewer /
the nights longer / love is fine and full / and everybody else
but you / makes bad coffee.
So there's how my
sentiments run. It's very important you be in/on ChickenBones. I
am honored. Thank you—Rudy
posted 16 September 2005
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The State of African Education
(April 200)
Attack On Africans Writing Their Own History Part 1 of 7
Dr Asa
Hilliard III speaks on the assault of academia on Africans writing and
accounting for their own history.
Dr Hilliard is A teacher,
psychologist, and historian.
Part 2 of 7
/
Part
3 of 7 /
Part 4 of 7
/
Part 5 of 7 /
Part 6 of 7 /
Part 7 of 7
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Basil Davidson
obituary—By Victoria Brittain—9 July 2010—Davidson [(9
November 1914 – 9 July 2010) a
British
historian, writer and
Africanist] was enthused early on by the end of British
colonialism and the prospects of pan-Africanism in the
1960s, and he wrote copiously and with warmth about newly
independent
Ghana and its leader, Kwame Nkrumah. He went to work for
a year at the University of Accra in 1964. Later he threw
himself into the reporting of the African liberation wars in
the Portuguese colonies, particularly in Angola,
Mozambique, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. . . . In the
1980s, with most of the African liberation wars now
won—except for South Africa's— Davidson turned much of his
attention to more theoretical questions about the future of
the nation state in Africa. He remained a passionate
advocate of pan-Africanism. In 1988 he made a long and
dangerous journey into Eritrea, writing a persuasive defence
of the nationalists' right to independence from
Ethiopia, and an equally eloquent attack on the
revolutionary leader Colonel Mengistu and the regime that
had overthrown Haile Selassie.
Guardian |
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Basil Davidson's "Africa Series"
Different
But Equal /
Mastering A Continent /
Caravans
of Gold /
The King and the City /
The Bible and The Gun
West Africa Before the Colonial Era: A
History to 1850
By
Basil Davidson
African Slave Trade: Precolonial History,
1450-1850
By Basil Davidson
John Henrik Clarke—A Great and Mighty Walk
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The Price of Civilization
Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
The Price of Civilization is a book that is essential reading for every American. In a forceful, impassioned, and personal voice, he offers not only a searing and incisive diagnosis of our country’s economic ills but also an urgent call for Americans to restore the virtues of fairness, honesty, and foresight as the foundations of national prosperity. Sachs finds that both political parties—and many leading economists—have missed the big picture, offering shortsighted solutions such as stimulus spending or tax cuts to address complex economic problems that require deeper solutions. Sachs argues that we have profoundly underestimated globalization’s long-term effects on our country, which create deep and largely unmet challenges with regard to jobs, incomes, poverty, and the environment. America’s single biggest economic failure, Sachs argues, is its inability to come to grips with the new global economic realities. Sachs describes a political system that has lost its ethical moorings, in which ever-rising campaign contributions and lobbying outlays overpower the voice of the citizenry. . . . Sachs offers a plan to turn the crisis around. He argues persuasively that the problem is not America’s abiding values, which remain generous and pragmatic, but the ease with which political spin and consumerism run circles around those values. He bids the reader to reclaim the virtues of good citizenship and mindfulness toward the economy and one another. |
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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update 20 April 2010
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