Haiti, Democracy, Liberation, and The Aristide Foundation

All images above and text that follows is cross posted from *here* at haitiaction.net.

"We want our voices to be heard":
Democracy in Haiti's Earthquake Zone

by Laura Flynn

“We are living in the mud. We are wet and we are hungry. Those in charge have left us without hope. If they have a plan we do not know it. We are asking about the future. And we want our voices to be heard, " Suzette Janvier a resident of St. Martin (a neighborhood of central Port-au-Prince) - April 24, 2010

Each Saturday for the past two months a thousand or more Haitian earthquake survivors have met in the auditorium of the Aristide Foundation for Democracy to talk about the future of their country. Since its founding in 1996 the Aristide Foundation, whose auditorium seats up to 3000 people, has provided a place for grassroots activists and ordinary Haitians to come together to debate and discuss national issues. In response to the earthquake the Foundation is sponsoring weekly public forums in which participants tell their stories, talk about the conditions of their lives, and describe their needs; they receive training or information on the current situation and on their rights under the Haitian constitution, and the United Nations principles on Internally Displaced People; and together presenters and participants brainstorm and discuss actions that can be taken to make their voices heard. Each forum has drawn between 900-1500 participants; the majority of those attending are living in spontaneous settlements across the earthquake zone--as are the majority of the citizens of Port-au-Prince. Delegations come from other parts of the country as well, particularly the South and Southeast – Jacmel and Les Cayes --which were also hit hard by the quake.

Participants at AFD forums have offered vivid testimony about conditions of life in Port-au-Prince since the earthquake. Now that the rains have begun, people describe spending the nights “domi pandeye," (sleeping while balancing upright), standing under their plastic sheeting because there is no room for everyone to be sheltered and lie down, and because water floods the tents. During the rainy season, which has already begun, but will intensify in May, it rains nearly every night. In the morning the sun blazes, the heat under the plastic sheeting—which is all most people have to protect themselves—is stifling. They are now living in “labouye” (the mud) 24 hours a day, in camps almost uniformly lacking in latrines, or other sanitation.

They describe the struggle to feed their families. The price of basic foodstuffs (rice, beans, cornmeal, cooking oil, and charcoal for cooking) have risen 15-30% since the earthquake, while incomes have all but disappeared. Only those receiving funds from family overseas are able to purchase food. For those dependent on international aid, finding food for their families is an unending labor. Coupons for food might be distributed in the camps once a week, though not to everyone and not with predictability. Women who were able to get the coupons must then go to a different site, often miles away, and line up long before the sun rises. If they are lucky, by noon they might receive a 50lb bag of rice, which must then be carried or transported back to where they are living. The next day the same struggle might begin again this time to find cooking oil—one day spent in line waiting for the coupons, another day to travel to where the oil is being distributed, in a completely different location than the rice. Often these ventures yield nothing: there aren’t enough coupons to go around, the rice runs out, the distribution center has been relocated, or it does not open due to security concerns. And with the rains bags of rice get wet and spoil.

Participants describe with horror a dramatic rise in prostitution—young women and girls selling their bodies to feed themselves and their families.

They describe the dire health conditions in the camps where infectious diseases are poised to run rampant. Each Wednesday since March 10, 2010, the Aristide Foundation has held a large free clinic in the auditorium of the Foundation, providing primary care services to 1,200 people every week. What AFD doctors see and hear from patients in the clinics confirms the testimony in the forums—that is, high rates of illness that result from the conditions in which people are living: malnutrition, diarrhea among children, urinary tract and other infections.

The first demand of those who have gathered at the AFD in the forums is for temporary housing in safe and sanitary locations. The second is for food. Beyond this jobs, education, healthcare, and—despite the fact that most of the participants are urban—they are demanding real investment in agricultural for food production that can one day offer food security to the country.

Underlying all of this, participants in the forums are asking to participate in the planning of the nation’s future—the necessary precondition for real recovery. Those gathering at the AFD, feel more intensely than ever before, a profound sense of exclusion.

Certainly there was no attempt at consultation or participation with Haiti’s vibrant and engaged grassroots organizations in the preparation of the PRND (the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment) put forward by the Haitian government to the international donors conference on March 31st. On the eve of the donor meeting, on March 27, over 1,200 people met at the AFD for a debate focused on the constitution – specifically the constitutionality of the creation of the 20-person Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti, dominated by foreigners, which will oversee all international funding. The next, even larger, forum focused on the GOH plan to extend its emergency powers for 18-months in order to allow the Interim Commission to be created and to exercise extra-constitutional powers. Fourteen hundred people gathered, and most expressed deep concern over the repercussions for Haiti’s sovereignty. This was followed by three days of sit-ins of 500-600 people, at the Haitian parliament, to protest the passage of the law.

In addition to preparing the plan and creating this Interim Commission without participation, there has also been almost no communication about what might be in that plan. People coming to the forums at the Foundation have all heard there’s a plan. They have no idea what is in it. They hear billions of dollars were pledged in New York. They have little faith this money will be given, and no faith that what is given will be spent in their interests.

The issue at the top of everyone’s mind is the question of temporary resettlement, of moving people out of the way of the clear and present danger that the coming more intense rains represent. But three months after the quake, no clear message or plan has been articulated by the Haitian government or international NGOs.

In early April there were several reports of forced removals of people encamped on the grounds of private schools, private property, and from the soccer stadium. At some sites bulldozers arrived without notice to tear down shelters and families were left with no a place to go. To date it appears the only voluntary relocation which has had any success is at Corail, where over the last week or two the Haitian government in collaboration with international NGOs has begun to move people from the Petionville golf course (where more than 45.000 people are encamped) to a relocation center at Corail, but this camp is only intended to hold 7,500 people. Over one million people are estimated to be homeless in the metropolitan area. If there are plans for temporary shelter for anyone other than those on the Golf Course they are not being communicated to the general public. Those gathering at the AFD express fear that they will be forcibly evicted from the camps where they are living. They are also skeptical about plans to relocate people to remote areas, which would leave them cut off from the economic life of the city, meaning cut off from the mutual aid provided by families, communities, neighborhood associations etc, and the informal economy. Mutual aid and the informal economy are the only things that keep Haitians alive. That was true before the quake and it is still true.

Efforts to assist must empower Haiti’s powerful networks of mutual aid and the informal economy—not dismantle, not ignore them. What would it mean to empower them? Community kitchens in the camps, loans to women to restart “ti komès” (informal sector commerce), relocation for those in imminent danger with their participation, finding way of keeping people close to the city if that is what they desire. And if, as we hear, decentralization is a goal for Haiti’s future, then who is talking to the residents of Port-au-Prince about lives they might imagine outside the city? And why out of $12.2 billion dollars requested in the Post Disaster Needs Assessment (the plan) was only $41 million or .3% allocated for agriculture and fisheries, i.e. for local food production?

Forums at the Aristide Foundation, held on March 13, March 20, March 27, April 3, April 17, and April 24, along with the International Women’s Day event on March 8, 2010 (attended by 3000 women) represent the largest indoor gatherings of Haitians to discuss and debate the country’s future since the earthquake. We are not aware of any occasion since January 12 where the Haitian government, the UN or any international NGO planning Haiti’s future and the distribution of aid funds, have brought large groups of Haitians together to ask for their opinions, their input, or their stories.

Finally, those attending the forums at the AFD are unanimous in their call for the return of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti. It is best summed up by Jean Vaudre, a community organizer from Bel Air, who said at the forum on April 17, “If Aristide were here even if he had no money to help us, he would be with us, in the rain, under the tents. If he were here we might believe, we might have hope that we will be able to participate in the future of the country.” Hope is a commodity in short supply right now in Haiti. Is there some way of rebuilding the country without it?

Laura Flynn is a member of the board of the Aristide Foundation for Democracy-US, which supports the work of the Aristide Foundation in Haiti.  AFD-Haiti was founded by Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1996 on the principle that to bring real change, democracy must include those at the margins of society: street children, market women, landless peasants, restaveks (children living in Haitian households as unpaid domestic laborers), and the urban poor. For 14 years the Foundation has dedicated itself to providing educational opportunities, and opening avenues of democratic participation for those who traditionally have had no access to education or voice in national affairs. Since the earthquake the AFD has mobilized its staff, doctors, volunteers and supporters--nationally and internationally.  The AFD is operating Mobile Schools in 5 refugee camps, participating in mobile clinics, and providing medical care to 1,200 people at the AFD each week.

For more on the current work and history of the Aristide Foundation -- and lots of great photos from the mobile schools visit our website: http://www.AristideFoundationforDemocracy.org 

Online Donations to Support the Mobile Schools and other Earthquake Relief Efforts of the Aristide Foundation for Democracy can be made here:

Or mail checks to: Aristide Foundation, PO Box 490271, Key Biscayne, Florida 33149
All donations are tax deductible and will be acknowledged.

If you are interested in establishing sister school relationships between schools in the US or elsewhere and the Mobile Schools in Haiti please email us at AristideFoundation@gmail.com.

Why are Craiglist's Craig Newmark and its CEO Jim Buckmaster Such Pimps?

[image of Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, is from here]

[image of Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster is from here]

Some describe Jim Buckmaster as anti-establishment and even (gasp) a "communist". More power to him if he is either. But promoting and profiting from sexist-racist-classist trafficking in girls and women is about as "communistic" and "anti-establishment" as are the entrepreneurial practices and ethics of Walton siblings of Wal-mart. I accuse both Jim and Craig of being dishonest, intellectually and otherwise, in hiding or masking or disguising the fact that they are pimps, in the most basic definitional sense of that term. They make money from the rental and sale of human beings for other human beings who want to have bodies against and into which they can ejaculate without regard for the humanity of those they treat this way.

It is the ethical and political position of this blog that promotion of openly legal or surreptitious and criminal pimping and procuring of human beings anywhere, imperils girls and women around the world who are and are not part of systems of prostitution, trafficking, and sexual slavery. The economy of my country and in the West generally has been globalised by corporate thieves, thugs, ecocidalists, genocidalists, misogynists, and pimps. It is my belief that anyone with race or class or regional privileges ought to consult with those of us without any of those about how our actions impact them before publicly, socially promoting any form of prostitution or "sex work". That some privileged people choose "sex work" is not the issue here. That such "sex work" has a negative, oppressive, dehumanising, and lethal impact on girls and woman being trafficked and enslaved around the world is the issue, for me.

From Wikipedia, *here*:

Significant events for Craigslist

• In January 2000, current CEO Jim Buckmaster joined the company as lead programmer and CTO. Buckmaster contributed the site's multi-city architecture, search engine, discussion forums, flagging system, self-posting process, homepage design, personals categories, and best-of-Craigslist feature. He was promoted to CEO in November 2000.^[19]

• In 2002, a disclaimer was put on the "men seeking men", "casual encounters", "erotic services", and "rants and raves" boards to ensure that those who clicked on these sections were over the age of 18, but no disclaimer was put on the "men seeking women", "women seeking men" or "women seeking women" boards. As a response to charges of discrimination and negative stereotyping, Buckmaster explained that the company's policy is a response to user feedback requesting the warning on the more sexually explicit sections, including "men seeking men."^[20] Today, all of the above listed boards (as well as some others) have a disclaimer.

• On May 13, 2009, Craigslist announced that it will close the 'Erotic services' section, replacing it with an 'adult services' section where the postings will be reviewed by Craigslist employees. This decision came after allegations by several US states that the erotic services ads were being used for prostitution.^[23] Postings to the new category cost $10 and can be renewed for $5.

Criticism

• In July 2005, the San Francisco Chronicle criticized Craigslist for allowing ads from dog breeders, and thereby allegedly encouraging the over breeding and irresponsible selling of pit bulls in the Bay Area.^[26]

• In January 2006, the San Francisco Bay Guardian published an editorial criticizing Craigslist for moving into local communities and "threatening to eviscerate" local alternative newspapers. Craigslist has been compared to Wal-Mart, a multinational corporation that some feel crushes small local businesses when they move into towns and offer a huge assortment of goods at lower prices.^[27]
• In August 2007, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin wrote a letter to Craigslist asking the company to take steps to avoid unwittingly enabling child prostitution through its classified ads.^[28][29]

From Huffington Post, *here*.

Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal compares the sex trade on Craigslist to "an online red light district" that's "as obvious and plain to you as Times Square was in the 70s or 80s."
Sex ads are reportedly big business for Craigslist, and comprise around 30 percent of the site's total revenues.

From Marcella, at the great blog, abyss2hope, *this* opening paragraph to a recent blogpost.

In a comment on my post about the rape of a woman which happened after the victim's ex-boyfriend, Jebidiah James Stipe, posted a Craigslist ad seeking sexual violence while pretending to be her, the man who answered that ad, Ty Oliver McDowell, was positioned by commenter Social Worker as a victim ("In this case, it really does sound like there are two victims here.") and the fact that he changed his plea from not guilty to guilty was used as supporting evidence.

From A.R.P., right here on this site, this: 
Why is it when men do violence to women, the knee-jerk-off reaction is to immediately consider how and in what ways he MUST have also been a victim?

When a man harasses, stalks, batters, rapes, and/or murders a woman, his "whole" humanity must be immediately shored up by the masses. He will be psychologically analysed by society, not politically assessed. No matter the level of atrocities, or the number of times he's committed them, there will always be someone--or hundreds or thousands of someones--at the ready to speak out in support of "us" not forgetting he's "human", as if that's ever really been a social problem with regard to non-poor white het men (forgetting they're human, that is). Every radical feminist I've ever known always sees white het men as human, and everyone else does too, with the possibly exception of fathers of daughters who vow to kill the bastard who touches "their" daughters (unless, of course, the bastard is the father or step-father himself).

So unnecessarily and disingenuously "insecure" are white het men's own sense of themselves that they need and demand, legislate and force, this public propping up of their status as a "really deep down a good and decent person".

I don't give a damn about "decency", and I measure goodness in action, not in hypotheticals and abstract philosophies about the nature of being human. I make no assumptions about anyone's goodness. Show me what a man, any man, does with his life, his time, his attitudes, his values, his habits, and especially his practices--his behaviors--and I'll conclude from all of that whether or not he's going anything "good". And "goodness" is the liberal substitute for something far more important: is he being oppressive? Is he being accountable? Is he being honest and responsible? Because "goodness" is really such an elusive matter, such a projection on the part of others and such an invention and masquerade, too often, on the part of the one who declares himself such.

Which brings us to Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster. They cannot seem to "serve the community" by shutting down options--fully within their right to do--to allow trafficking, pimping, and procuring of women for het men. They clearly view sexist "sexual services" to be something that any liberal society ought to have made available on Craigslist, because, well, they don't have to suck cock or be fucked for money. I welcome them to do both for a few years and let me know, here, on this blog, what impact it has on their sexuality and the degrees to which they feel that sexuality belongs to them and exists for the benefit of the community. And to detail for me how being ejaculated in and on impacts their humanity, their sense of being statused or stigmatised by others; this isn't fair of me: white het men have institutionally bolstered status that even sucking cock and getting fucked by men cannot destabilise. But they should be able to describe to me the degrees to which they are more or less vulnerable to rape, harassment, and gross physical, psychological, and emotional mistreatment. I'm waiting.

As has been written, I am among the most privileged people on Earth. Not-so-lucky me. This is entirely due to being white in the West and also due to being male. I met a man in motel rooms for years to satisfy him sexually. He paid for the room, always. He didn't pay me anything. So this was, according to liberals and others with shallow understandings of what consent means, "consensual" activity. He didn't force me to do anything, ever. But there was profound coercion in place, for many reasons. Too many to get into here right now.

My case of being damaged  by these "meetings" for sex are meaningful only when set next to the stories of hundreds and thousands and millions of women who are coerced in many ways to satisfy men sexually. Taken together, patterns emerge. Seen in isolation, only some conclusions can be drawn. I prefer to analyse my own experience when placed next to and with those without the privileges I have.

I abhor the social practice of pretending individual actions are not social. Of pretending that civil liberties are very meaningful in a society where legally and militarily enforced social hierarchies which oppress and harm the poor, people of color, women, non-heterosexual men, intersex people, transgendered people, the disabled, and the elderly and children are in place with no sign of budging, and with no comprehension of the relationship between civil liberties, civil rights, human rights, and the global atrocity called non-Indigenist industrialised, kyriarchical, plutocratic civilisation.

No Good: "Bad cop, Bad cop". The Rapist, Racist WHM Immigration Police Officer: Bradley Stewart Wagner

Good Bad cop, Bad cop.

TRIGGER WARNING: Accounts of gross sexual assault by a California WHM police officer follow. (He is no longer a police officer.)

This is the horror of the normal misogynist-rapist cop, whose photo was unavailable, conveniently for him. If you think this won't be replicated in Arizona when the new law takes effect, you might want to reconsider how systemic and interpersonal abuses of power work.

This is a cross post. Click on title to link back to source on OCWeekly (Orange County News).

Immigration

Bradley Stewart Wagner, Ex-Anaheim Cop, Convicted of Threatening Women With Deportation if They Did Not Have Sex With Him

By Matt Coker, Tuesday, May. 18 2010 @ 12:30PM

To hear supporters of Arizona's controversial immigration law tell it, local law enforcement officers will do no more than follow federal law in arresting people who are in this country illegally.

Those arguments assume these are "good cops" they're talking about. You don't hear much about "bad cops" who could dangle the threat of deportation over those they encounter to coerce information, confessions or degrading sexual acts out of them.

After all, 62-year-old Anaheim cop Bradley Stewart Wagner did that without the powers of a new immigration law.

Check out the Orange County District Attorney's Office statement on the now-former APD officer's conviction after the jump, and think about similar tarnished badge holders in Arizona.

May 17, 2010

FORMER POLICE OFFICER CONVICTED OF VICTIMIZING THREE WOMEN, INCLUDING FORCING ONE TO ENGAGE IN SEX ACTS UNDER THREAT OF DEPORTATION
A former police officer for the Anaheim Police Department (APD) was convicted today of victimizing three women while on duty in a marked police patrol car, including threatening to have two of them deported and forcing one to orally copulate him. Bradley Stewart Wagner, 62, Perris, pleaded guilty to one felony count each of forcible oral copulation and oral copulation under the color of authority for Jane Doe #1, one felony count of sexual battery by restraint for Jane Doe #2, and one felony count of false imprisonment by violence or deceit and one misdemeanor count of being an officer acting without regular process for Jane Doe #3. Wagner faces a sentence of four years in state prison at his sentencing on July 14, 2010, at 8:30 a.m. in Department C-55, Central Justice Center, Santa Ana.

Jane Doe #1
Shortly after midnight on Nov. 11, 2005, Wagner turned on his overhead lights and pulled Jane Doe #1 over on Kramer Boulevard while on-duty in a marked patrol car. The victim, who is primarily a Spanish speaker, was driving home alone from work in her van and pulled over in a parking lot.

Wagner approached the victim's window and asked if she had any legal papers or a driver's license. Upon learning that Jane Doe #1 did not have any legal papers, the defendant told the victim that he could have her deported and instructed her to move her car across the street into another parking lot on East La Jolla Avenue. The defendant followed Jane Doe #1 across the street, had her get out of her vehicle, and fondled her breasts under the false pretense of searching her.  He told the crying victim that he wanted sex from her in exchange for not having her deported.

Wagner again instructed Jane Doe #1 to move her van, this time leading her to a dark, secluded industrial area. He had Jane Doe #1 get out of her van, pulled up her shirt to expose her bra, and forced her to pull down her pants. The victim pleaded for the defendant to stop and told him she was married with children. The defendant exposed his erect penis and forced Jane Doe #1 to orally copulate him by repeatedly pushing her head down as she gagged and struggled to pull away. The defendant finally released the victim as she began to vomit. He then wrote a phone number on a lottery ticket, gave it to the victim, and left.

Jane Doe #1 reported the sexual assault the following day to APD. As a result of media coverage on this case, two additional victims came forward. None of the three victims know each other or the defendant.

Jane Doe #2
Between Oct. 31, 2005, and Nov. 5, 2005, Wagner pulled over Jane Doe #2, an unlicensed Spanish speaking woman, on two occasions while on-duty in a marked patrol car. The second time Jane Doe #2 was pulled over, Wagner had the victim follow him into a secluded alley behind a business. The defendant asked Jane Doe #2 for sex after telling her that she could be deported or be sent to jail, and rubbed her vagina over her clothes. Wagner asked the victim for sex, but let her go after she resisted and agreed to meet him the following night. The victim did not return to meet the defendant.

Jane Doe #3
Between Sept. 1, 2005, and Nov. 10, 2005, Wagner pulled over Jane Doe #3, an undocumented Spanish speaking woman, on four occasions while on-duty in a marked patrol car. The defendant asked the victim personal questions, including whether she was married or had children, and let her go each time without writing her a ticket.     

Deputy District Attorney Lynda Fernandez is prosecuting this case.

Remembering Malcolm X on his 85th Birthday, and Be Clear about What is Happening Right Now

[photo portrait of Malcolm X is from here]

"We declare our right on this earth...to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary."

-- Malcolm X [source: here]

I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X almost 30 years ago. My, how time flies, and how little changes. Anderson Cooper this week has been focusing on a CNN study which is a variation of a study by Mamie and Kenneth Clark from the 1940s identifying the degrees to which white supremacist/anti-Black and anti-Brown racism finds its way into the hearts and minds and attitudes and actions of U.S. citizens white and of color. Here is a video from a more recent study using dolls:



The Clark's study was used to make a case for desegregating primary and secondary schools. The U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous decision, Brown vs. Board of Education was delivered on May 17, 1956, fifty-four years ago this week.

What CNN will not likely tell you is how systems of oppression work, how white supremacy is deliberately manufactured and sold, how and where and in what ways it is bolstered, fed and fostered, in a country that was built on land soaked in the blood of 75 to 90 million American Indians by the blood, sweat, and tears of enslaved West Africans. One wonders, really, given the ecocidal failures of white Western companies like BP and other major oil corporations, what it will take for these corporate heads to be held fully to account and what that would even mean, given the levels of human, non-human animal, and environmental destruction.

One wonders how it comes to pass that white men on Wall Street pay each other millions in bonuses to run companies into that bloody, poisoned ground, then rehire each other to continue to do abominable work. Can someone name for me ten or one hundred (or however many corrupt Wall Street and banking and loan institution executives there are in the U.S.) Black women or men who get so rich by working so poorly?

Where does our rage go when millions of non-rich people have lost or are losing their homes, and in response to the reality that many people in the U.S. will never have safe and secure housing and will never be able to get a loan in the first place even from morally bankrupt banks? Where does our rage go when these corrupt white executives are allowed to keep their many homes, for summering and wintering, falling and springing back, leaving each empty for months at a time while others are homeless or packed into ghettos?

Where, please tell me, is the outwardly expressed, organised rage over straight white men pimping and raping women of all colors with impunity?

--over wealthy white men with corporate media on their side (and in their stock portfolios) promoting themselves as the heroes, the brains behind any good idea that isn't really any good at all, such as getting this country back on the right track by strengthening straight white male supremacy.

--over older white men in universities being tenured more than any other demographic while bemoaning the plight of the few white men who don't get into their first choice college, ignoring those who got in for utterly unethical reasons including because their grandfathers once attended and have since contributed to the college's endowment?

--over rich white men receiving medals of honor for orchestrating and ordering the slaughter of Iraqi and Afghan citizens?

--over rich white men being praised for donating money to "good causes" that, if examined closely, will only promote more destruction of Indigenous societies on continents like Africa?

Why is praise also being given to "selfless" white U.S. Christians for "adopting" Haitian children whose parents still live in poverty in Haiti? Why, one wonders, don't those well-meaning, upper middle class people take a bit of the money they will spend on that child and give it to the Haitian parents to raise their own child? The money would do a lot to support the entire family, to allow that whole family to remain whole. The answer is that doing so would preserve, rather than destroy, Black families and Black communities; support for communities of color has never been the agenda of the white members of my beloved country.

From the bloody start, the U.S. project has been for straight white men to rape and sexually dominate all women and destroy people of color--women and men. There's more sexual and wage slavery now than ever before. But do we really want to know about it? And will corporate media allow us to know it, to see it as such, rather than what Fox News tells you these misogynist-racist mass murders are: "defending and promoting democracy globally"? In response to this outright lie that the U.S. is promoting democracy anywhere, instead of a "Hallelujah" can we have a collective "Bullshit!" Because what the U.S. is promoting is corporate-sponsored, militarily-backed white het male supremacy. It won't be called this. It will be called promoting free speech by making sure that rich white straight men get richer by pimping pictures of exploiting girls and women around the world. It will be called liberating a country from an oppressive dictator. It will be called fighting the war on drugs, when the U.S. has interests in Afghanistan because it is a source of opiates and poppies, in one form or another, will put us all to sleep. What we, the good privileged citizens of the greatest country ever, are in fact doing is committing genocide, gynocide, and ecocide. The evidence is all around you, if you're willing to see what's actually going on and not be misled by morning talk show hosts and a very unfree press. When Time and CNN are conspiring to lie to us, you'd better be sure you're not getting the truth about much.

The media did and still will tell you the problem religion is Islam. The media did and still will tell you the thieving, diseased, dirty, immoral people are Black women and men, the poor, Mexican immigrants, and homosexuals threatening the moral fabric. The truth, however is that the slave-picked cotton cloth of Amerikkkan society was and still is cross-woven into face-masking white sheets and lynching rope. The media will not even mention American Indians, hoping they will all die off, making the manifestation of a destined project of genocidal slaughter something that can, finally, be located in the past. Finally, then, contemporary whites can say, with less guilt, "That didn't happen while I was alive, so why are we still talking about it?"

Malcolm X knew what was going on in the U.S., and what the it truly stood for. He knew that it stood for whiteness standing on the bodies of people of color in order to have its leader's heads rise up and be seen as strong and wise and proud. A white head on a dark body. The bald eagle is a fitting symbol. The wings, after all, allow flight; the body allows the symbol to soar. Malcolm called for those wings to serve another mind, another system of thought, another course of action toward another vision, one not seen through white eyes, nor invented and governed by a white man's mind.

[image is from here]

Malcolm was prepared to lead racially oppressed people to use any means necessary to achieve for Black people what has not yet been achieved in this terribly racist society. In the U.S., however, no outspoken leader is allowed to use any or all means necessary, unless they are working for military and corporate interests, working to maintain and promote the ideologies and institutions imbued with white het male supremacy. Any and all means necessary are being used to rape and sexually enslave women and girls, and traffic them internationally. Any and all means necessary are being used to commit genocide and ecocide globally. These supposedly "moral endeavors" are being expressed, organised, and led by U.S. and other Western and Christian (not Muslim) straight white men.

Remember Malcolm X and what he stood for. Be clear about what is happening right now and what you will and will not stand for.

*          *          *

Some of my womanist and feminist sisters have also blogged about Malcolm X today. Here are some of those links:

Womanist Musings, here.
La Reyna's Journal, here.
Feministe, here.

One Unnamed U.S. Citizen is Annoyed Their Tax Dollars are Going to Address Het Men's Sexual Violence Against Women

[image is from here]

There is never any single approach that will adequately address and effectively end men's sexual violence against women, well, other than radically uprooting racist heteropatriarchal systems and institutions and identities and values and practices all at once.

In the mean time, there is never anything that shouldn't be tried if it is seriously aimed at the source issues: men's entitlements, privileges, heterosexist and homosocial power, lack of accountability, and lack of negative consequences for very normal perps. So leave it to some to chime in with cynical boos and the promotion of booze when efforts are announced to cut back on het men's "fun".

It is standard liberal fare on television to state that "even if one person is helped by what I'm doing...". And applause generously follows. And, well, yes, if someone's actions help one person, great. I won't put down that. But I'll add that when half a continent of people on Africa are dying, or when a significant percentage of Indigenous women are raped by white men, and when WHM supremacist/pro-corporate profits patriots are sending troops to places like Afghanistan and Iraq to commit mass murder, genocide, in fact, then we'd best set our sights a bit higher than helping one other person. And men practicing the ethic of "do no harm" would be a nice start.

In the category of those who helped millions to register and identify when they were being sexually harmed by men, allowing them to confront, challenge, protest, leave, or whatever made the most sense at the time, is writer Andrea Dworkin, who, rather than being thanked and applauded--perhaps even a standing ovation?-- for helping a million times more than one person, is derided as "the reason feminism in the U.S. failed" or reprimanded for creating "censorship" in the U.S. To believe this nonsense about a human rights activist one had to pretend white het male supremacists don't work very hard to crush any dissent, to censor the voices of women who speak truth to men's disgusting forms of corrupt power. Note comments #1 and #2. My reply to commenter #2 is at the bottom.

What follows is from *here*.

UMD’s New Sexual Assault Education Program Draws Some Early Skepticism

Posted by Amanda Hess on May. 19, 2010 at 10:40 am

The University of Maryland has begun planning a “mandatory sexual assault prevention education program” for the upcoming school year. The details of the program are still in the works, but UMD student newspaper the Diamondback is already skeptical.


The Diamondback reports that the new education program will be funded with a $500,000 grant from the Department of Justice, and that it will be targeted at “expanding existing programs, educating students, training public safety officials and training administrators.”

It’s the “educating students” part the Diamondback is concerned about:

Though the details of the education aspect are still being worked out, health center officials said it will likely be incorporated into freshman orientation and be similar to the university’s online alcohol education program, AlcoholEdu.

. . . Some students, however, were doubtful the effort will have the desired effect.

“Taking a collaborative approach is a great way to help decrease the amount of sexual assault that goes on campus, as it is not possible to tackle the problem if not everyone is involved,” junior marketing major Stephanie Nguyen said. “But if the education program is similar to AlcoholEdu, then I can guarantee that no one will pay attention.”

AlcoholEdu, for the uninitiated, is an “interactive online program” about the effects of alcohol that all University of Maryland students must complete. On-campus skepticism of the alcohol abuse education program is encapsulated in this University of Maryland Facebook group, entitled “AlchoholEdu Is Way More Interesting When DRUNK!!!!!!!!” The group, which currently only has five members, describes itself this way: “group is for anyone who has had to sit through that 3 hour bullshit that encouraged me to drink way more.”

Let’s hope that UMD’s sexual assault education program does not produce similar results.

Well, it looks like AlcoholEdu haters are in for some good news. The sexual assault education program “will not be anything like AlcoholEdu,” says Kelly Kesler, Assistant Director for Health Promotion at the university. “The comparison is actually not correct.”

Outside the Classroom, the organization that developed AlcoholEdu, has also created an online program for addressing sexual assault on campus: SexualAssaultEdu. Kesler says that UMD’s program will be not at all be related to that initiative. (Outside the Classroom, for its part, says that several independent studies have found its programs effective).

So what will UMD’s student education piece look like?

It’s a video. Kesler says the project is still in the beginning stages, but the proposed content of the work has largely been defined: “The objective is to educate students about the scope of the problem on campus in terms of sexual assault, relationship violence, and stalking,” says Kesler. “It will teach students about the contributing factors. . . . It will educate students about bystander support skills, about making a positive peer influence, and about the resources that are available for victims and how to make use of them.”

Kesler says the university is researching how best to relay that information—two possibilities are through “vignettes and expert interviews.” The video will likely be shown at new resident orientation programs for students living on-campus, in selected classrooms, and online.

Comments

1. 
   
   Northwesterner May 19th, 2010
   11:37 am
   #1
   The issue here is that you appear to be demanding a complete end to crime on the UMD campus. This simply will not happen. There are criminals and people raised to become criminals and the criminally insane in any group of people, particularly when they’re 40,000 of them and they do way more substance abuse than the normal population (as college students do).
   
   If the program reduces these crimes by 25% I think it will be well worth it to the 25% of victims, probably women, who wake up next to someone after passing out and everyone’s still dressed or the dude who goes and sees a counselor when he can’t resist the urge to follow, stalk or humiliate women in public so he avoids flashing or committing assault.
   
   I was in a highly volatile relationship at age 20 and I thank god that I was exposed to enough Andrea Dworkin back then that when I got slapped and called names I snapped to attention, walked out, and never looked back. Because my natural inclination was not to walk away from getting slapped. Boys need to be trained to look for the warning signs and get the hell out asap.
   
   I don’t know how many times I intervened with other guys when they appeared to be stalking friends who weren’t interested. 5 or 6 times. this stuff needs to be taught and if it stops 25% of the incidents so that 40 guys don’t become alcoholics who hate themselves and 40 girls don’t have to go through counseling, then that’s a good thing.
   
   But anyone who judges the program based on the behavior of truly psychotic criminals is missing the point of society on the whole.
   
   
2. anon May 19th, 2010
   11:53 am
   
   #2
   A half-million dollars…. So that’s where my tax money is going….
   

   
   
3. 
   
   Rayne May 19th, 2010
   11:54 am
   #3
   While I think it is a good cause, and probably much needed. I do know that most students do not care for videos. Just by personality. Interactive mediums such as lectures, or interactive plays I think tend to work better.
   Just my two cents
   

   
   
4. 
   
   Northwesterner May 19th, 2010
   12:20 pm
   #4
   If you think your tax money funds the majority of UMD expenses… where do I start?
   

   
   
5. 
   
   Katie May 19th, 2010
   1:20 pm
   #5
   Yeah, ew. Who wants their tax money going to programs designed to help prevent crime? I want all of mine going to guns and WARS and shit, because I’m an AMERICAN goddammit.
   

   
   
6. 
   
   kza May 19th, 2010
   2:26 pm
   #6
   No one will give a shit about a video. I’ve seen a few of these cheap ass sexual assualt videos. There more laughable then informative. Save the money and just make them read this blog.
   

   
   
7. 
   
   Wagatwe May 19th, 2010
   4:55 pm
   #7
   A VIDEO? They’re getting a half a million and they’re only going to have a VIDEO? How is that going to be able to properly address and prevent sexual violence at all? I’m sorry but (wait, no, I’m NOT sorry) just a video during freshman orientation will do very little-if anything at all-to properly educate students about campus sexual assault.
   

   
   
8. 
   
   Julian Real May 19th, 2010
   8:46 pm
   #8
   @all
   I wish more colleges and communities took more seriously the sexual abuse that occurs on and off campus.
   @commenter #2, anon
   May 19th, 2010
   11:53 am
   re:
   A half-million dollars…. So that’s where my tax money is going….
   
   No, anon, your tax dollars are paying for U.S. soldiers to rape and kill Afghan and Iraqi women and girls.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Fighter and Amazing Artist, Lena Horne (1917 - 2010)

I have already posted once on the passing of the Great Lena Horne, *here*, singing the classic original version of "Stormy Weather". But one post cannot suffice. No number is sufficient, so please find her work and enjoy it. Here are two performances and a synopsis of some of what this woman endured, breaking barriers that I hope feel inconceivable to you today. Compare, if you will, the version of "Stormy Weather" sung so many decades earlier, to this version here just below. And later, at the end of this post, see what a person on a stage can do, when welcomed to do so.



I just saw a biography on television about Lena Horne. I had learned about her life years ago, have known and admired her work for decades, but had missed learning some of the details of how this country, this endlessly wretchedly amoral country that so prides itself on being Great, worked so hard to keep her down.

What you ought to know, if you don't already, is that virtually everywhere she went in Hollywood, Hollywood's color barrier kept her out. She could only appear in movies if the cast was all Black, as no interactions among characters of different races was allowed, unless the Black performer played a maid or butler, porter, or shoe shiner "serving" the white characters. If you watch just about any movie with both white and Black actors from the 1930s, you'll be hard pressed to find an African American in any other role, and you'll also notice, if you wish to, that even when the actors had speaking parts, they were usually not listed in the credits. But Lena's father made sure that MGM would never cast her in such a role. Which meant, really, the studio couldn't do much with her. How MGM showed off her talent besides giving her parts in two all-Black films, was to have her perform solo, singing one number in an otherwise all-white film, a number which would be cut out for the films' showings in movie theaters throughout the South.

The white Ava Gardner was cast in a role Lena was meant to play, in a classic MGM musical film called Show Boat; Ava wore make-up to make her skin a bit darker, and had someone else entirely sing her songs to her mouthing the lyrics. Imagine the insult to Lena.

On tour with the U.S.O., she was made to perform for U.S. soldiers with the white ones up front, close to her, and the Black soldiers in the back. She did what the U.S.O. organisers hoped she wouldn't consider doing: she walked into the audience, right to that color line, and performed with her back to the white soldiers, for the Black soldiers up close. (She was never allowed to part of another U.S.O. show after that one.)

She found success as a singer on the stage, free of the racist restrictions of the U.S., in Europe, but when she returned she'd been "blacklisted"--a term from the McCarthy Era that only adds insult to injury. On U.S. television, a white man was not allowed to make physical contact of any kind, including a handshake, with a Black woman performer. The first time this rule was broken was due to Lena Horne being on TV--her hand and a white performer's hand greeted each other in a shake. In the 1960s, many, many great singers had their own variety shows, but no network would allow a Black performer to have her or his own show. Imagine the indignity.

Lena Horne learned both how to fight and how to keep her deepest feelings inside, away from the harsh and mercilessly critical glare of the very white spotlight. This came at a price, as having to cordon off parts of yourself because dominant society doesn't want to know who you are inevitably does. She met with James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, so many other great colleagues in the Civil Rights movement. The movement gave her some strength and began to bring her more fully into contact with parts of herself she was not allowed to show to white folks.

Only into her sixties, seventies, and eighties was she allowed to be herself on the U.S. stage, and that happened only when a mixed race audience was truly ready to embrace her. Then she did open up and allowed others to see the depth of who she was--a extraordinary talent, a powerful person, a singer with years of fierce resistance and painful stories and wellsprings of emotion available to be expressed from the entirety of her being. These two videos show THAT Lena Horne, the woman who was no longer bound to laws and customs designed to keep white supremacy safe by keeping her silent.

In the Category of Not Practicing What You Preach: Republican Christian Married WHM Mark Souder's Affair with Female Aide with whom he made an Abstinance Video

[image of U.S. Republican House of Representatives member Mark Souder is from here]

This piece is from *here*.

Rep. Mark Souder Resigns Over Affair With Female Aide

11 hours ago

Patricia Murphy

Columnist

Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) resigned from Congress on Tuesday after revelations that he had an affair with a part-time staff member. Souder is married and has three grown children.

The eight-term congressman, who is a well-known Christian conservative, spoke at length in a statement issued Tuesday about the honor and privilege of serving in Congress, and repeatedly spoke of God and his family before finally saying, "I sinned."

"I sinned against God, my wife and my family by having a mutual relationship with a part-time member of my staff. In the poisonous environment of Washington, D.C., any personal failing is seized upon, often twisted, for political gain," Souder said. "I am resigning rather than to put my family through that painful, drawn-out process."

He also spoke cryptically about the challenges of holding public office. "I do not have any sort of 'normal' life -- for family, for friends, for church, for community," he said. "To serve has been a blessing and a responsibility given from God. I wish I could have been a better example."

At a press conference Tuesday announcing his resignation, Souder added a comment not in his prepared statement. In a video posted by Talking Points Memo, the congressman said, "My family were more than willing to stand here with me -- we are a committed family. But the error is mine and I should bear the responsibility. And, quite frankly, I'm sick of politicians who drag their spouses up in front of the cameras, rather than confronting the problem that they have caused."

Souder has been married to his wife, Diane, since 1974. They have three adult children and two grandchildren.

Mediate.com reports that Souder, a proponent of abstinence education, once taped an interview on the subject with the woman he had the affair with.

Souder represents Indiana's third congressional district. In resigning, effective Friday, he set off a scramble for his seat in Congress, which may be filled by a special election. He won the Republican nomination in the Indiana primary two weeks ago.

Souder was first elected to Congress in 1994. He focused on homeland security issues and also led the fight to give federal funding to faith-based organizations. He was named "a conservative true believer" by Congressional Quarterly magazine. He was also one of four House Republicans to vote against impeaching President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Filed Under: The Capitolist