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Volume10 Issue 47…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…November
23, 2007
Venue for an Artist
In Jerusalem
By Mahmoud Darwish
Translated by Fady Joudah
In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,
I walk from one epoch to another
without a memory to guide me.
The prophets over there are sharing
the history of the holy . . . ascending to heaven
and returning less discouraged and melancholy,
because
love and peace are holy and are coming to town.
I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself:
How do the narrators disagree
over what light said about a stone?
Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up?
I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep.
I see no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me.
All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter.
I fly then I become another. Transfigured.
Words sprout like grass
from Isaiah's messenger mouth:
"If you don't believe you won't believe."
I walk as if I were another.
And my wound a white biblical rose.
And my hands like two doves on the cross hovering and carrying the earth.
I don't walk, I fly, I become another, transfigured.
No place and no time. So who am I?
I am no I in ascension's presence.
But I think to myself:
Alone, the prophet Mohammad spoke classical Arabic.
"And then what?"
Then what? A woman soldier shouted:
Is that you again?
Didn't I kill you?
I said: You killed me . . .and I forgot, like you, to
die.
About
Me: Born on March 13, 1942 in Al Birweh,
Palestine, Mahmoud Darwish
is considered Palestine's most eminent poet. He published his first collection
of poems, Leaves of Olives,
in 1964, when he was 22. Since then, Darwish has
published approximately thirty poetry and prose collections which have been
translated into more than twenty-two languages. Darwish
is currently the editor-in-chief and founder of the literary review Al-Karmel,
published out of the Sakakini Centre since 1997.
(Source: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1062)
Palestinian
Peace?
On Tuesday, November 27, 2007,
the US will hold a Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. In the
2006 elections, Hamas gained control of the
Palestinian Authority. Refusing to recognize the democratically elected
government, the West and Israel instituted an aid embargo and Israel subjected
the occupied territories to military crackdowns. This summer Hamas, which has refused to recognize Israel, broke with
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas is not included in the peace conference.
On Friday, the US State Department announced that Saudi Arabia will attend the
conference. Other Arab League nations slated to attend are Egypt and Jordan.
The Arab League has long promoted the creation of a Palestinian state. It has
offered Israel recognition if it leaves land captured in the1967 War and agrees
to solve the Palestinian refugee problem. While the focus of the conference is
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and issues surrounding it, including Israel's
occupation of the Golan Heights, attendees can bring up other specific issues,
according to a State Department spokesman in announcing Saudi Arabia's
participation.
As of Friday, Syria had not decided whether it will attend the conference. Hamas has condemned the Arab League decision, claiming such
talks favor Israel over Palestinian demands.
Howard University
On November 20, 1866, members of the First Congregational Society of
Washington, D.C. resolved to establish a seminary to train black American
preachers. By early 1867, this concept envisioned a liberal arts college and
university. Howard University was established by a charter of the U.S. Congress
on March 2, 1867.
In 1865, Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau to provide practical
assistance to the newly-freed slaves and appointed General Oliver Howard, a
Civil War hero, as Commissioner (1865-1872). Known as the "Christian
General," Howard directed considerable resources towards the school that
bears his name. First called Howard Normal and Theological Institute for the
Education of Teachers and Preachers, it included a 3-acre campus with a Main
Building and Medical School.
Chartered to create "a college for the instruction of youth in the liberal
arts and sciences," Howard's first departments were normal and
preparatory, collegiate, theological, medical, law, and agriculture. It awarded
its first bachelor's degree in 1872. One of several institutions funded by the
Freeman's Bureau to educate freedmen, the Bureau provided most of its early
financial support. The vast majority of Howard's students were blacks, although
four (4) Caucasian women were among it first students. Along with establishing
colleges of Liberal Arts and Medicine at Howard, the Freedmen's Bureau built
forty-five hospitals and facilitated the education of approximately 150,000
former slaves.
Howard's charter was amended in 1928 to authorize an annual federal
appropriation for construction, development, improvement and maintenance of the
University. For the first 59 years of its existence, Howard's presidents were
white. In 1926, Dr. Mordecai Wyatt Johnson became its first black president.
The University was comprised of eight schools and colleges, none of which were
accredited. It had an enrollment of 1,700 students and a budget of $700,000.
Dr. Johnson retired 34 years later, leaving Howard with 10 schools and
colleges, all fully accredited; while boasting of an enrollment of 6,000
students; a budget of $8 million, and a larger faculty made up mostly of prominent
black scholars. Howard's academic status was enhanced in 1955 with the addition
of graduate PhD programs.
Today, Howard University is one of only 48 U.S. private, Doctoral/Research
universities. It comprises 12 schools and colleges, 12,000 students with
undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees in120 areas. Since 1998,
Howard has produced a Rhodes Scholar, a Truman Scholar, six Fulbright Scholars
and nine Pickering Fellows, as well as producing more black American PhDs than
any other university in the world.
Among Howard's notable alumni are the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; the first black American governor L.
Douglas Wilder and the first female mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin. Nobel
Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison; Savage Holdings LLC
CEO and Howard Board of Trustees Chairman Frank Savage; opera singer Jessye Norman; actress, producer and director Debbie Allen;
the first African-American president of the American College of Surgeons, Dr.
LaSalle Leffall, Jr.; attorney and Wall St. executive
Vernon Jordan, and former mayor and United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young.
Howard's list of distinguished faculty reads like a "Who's Who in Black
America:" Statesman Ralph J. Bunche; Dr. Charles
R. Drew; Sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, writer Alain J. Locke; Historian
Carter G. Woodson; Civil Rights Attorney Charles H. Houston, and Artist Lois Mailou Jones. (Sources: www.aaregistry.com
and www.howard.edu)
The Dark Knight-Batman/White
Ninja/Zorro spent the week of November 12 in the nation's capital with his
grandfather, who gave him a video camera to record the experience. Because this
was his first visit to the nation's capital, there was a great deal to see; it
was a tremendous learning opportunity. In addition, he participated in the
historic March for Justice on Friday, November 16. When asked to sum up his trip,
the Dark One/Ninja/Zorro succinctly said, "It was great! I am lucky to
have granddaddy for a hero!"
The March and a New
Novel
Those who attended the march for justice in Washington DC last weekend
(11-16-07) saw a huge Jena 6 banner with an angel against a big red heart
engulfed in a fiery inferno. That banner was the public's introduction to
Archangel: A Hip Hop Vision of Love and the Battle of Good Versus Evil, a new
novel by John Burl Smith. Known for his biting commentary published in The DISH, Smith's first
foray into the fictional world of romance, mystery, action and adventure is a
mix of unusual bonds between some strange bedfellows held together by passion,
deception and treachery.
An adventure that begins in the mountains of Virginia, Archangel brings a dark
stranger and a mysterious woman together under some very unusual circumstances.
Both are being chased by the same demons but have no idea of their connection.
On the run from the law and hiding out, our would-be hero is cast in the role
of protector and savior of this seemingly helpless woman lost in a fog of
confusion about her good-girl upbringing and her worldly passions stirred by
this handsome stranger.
Bedazzled by what could be Lucifer's temptress and besieged by demons, our hero
is caught in a web of intrigue and treachery. Unclear whether the mysterious
woman is a sinner or a saint, their circumstances force an alliance that swings
between the hope of true love and the possible doom of our star-crossed hero.
Hoping to avoid disaster, he dives head-long on a roller coaster ride of
passion and deception.
Trying to stay one step ahead of the evil that is hot on their trail, the plot
thickens as it moves to Washington, DC, where the real mystery unfolds. This
cliff-hanger poses the question, can true love overpower greed, envy and the
lust for power or will evil draw our unwitting but love-struck hero into its
devious web of temptation, lust, and deception?
Smith's appeal to the hip hop
generation is not a play on words with catchy slang, bling-bling and
anti-social behavior, rather it illuminates the plight of black families as
they continue to rise out of slavery and their struggle to build productive
lives. Archangel's spiritual backdrop immerses the reader in the story's
underlying theme of how faith sustains and rewards their efforts. And, therein
lies the significance of the Jena 6/Archangel banner at the March for Justice
in Washington, DC. Although a fiction, Archangel recapitulates the day-to-day
struggle of slave descendants trying to survive the hostile environment of the
United States of America in the 21st century
The hip hop symbolism of Archangel is a re-enactment of the passing of the
torch of leadership from the old civil rights generation to the new hi-tech
video/radio generation of today. This is not to say the civil rights generation
no longer has a role to play, but it makes clear the transition is underway. If
the march for justice demonstrated anything, it was that a new generation of
black leaders is on the scene and Archangel proudly heralds their entrance! To
learn more about Archangel or order a copy, go to www.archangelworld.com or email archangelworld@ga.net.
Keeping the March for Justice Real
By John Burl Smith
Every generation experiences a
defining moment when everything changed! This was true for the civil rights and
black power movements. The 1963 march on Washington marked a turning point and
became an event people point to as a new beginning. It blew away the fog
surrounding who best could provide direction and leadership for blacks as they
struggled for liberation in America. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged as the
unquestioned drum major keeping the beat as slave descendants marched toward
equality.
Again in the late 1960s, for those who came to raise a clinched fist and shout
"black is beautiful," clearly the emergence of Stokley Carmichael and
H. Rap Brown heralded the new paradigm of black power. Their fiery rhetoric and
bold actions brought a different perspective to the black movement. Young
blacks were no longer willing to subserviently wait for whites to grant what
was supposedly provided by the 13th, 14th and 15th
Amendments.
Black power advocates believed, if the US Constitution was truly the law of the
land, then neither individuals nor states could stand on customs and traditions
to deny and prevent slave descendants from gaining parity. No longer willing to
satisfy whites by climbing over hurdles used to block their progress, black
power was a demand from slave descendants for their rights then and now.
A veteran of the black power movement standing in the crowd near the stage
holding up my Jena 6/Archangel banner, it was clear to me that change had come
and the transition was definitely underway. Friday, November 16, 2007 was
another point of demarcation. Called by Rev. Al Sharpton, the march for justice
in Washington, DC around the US Justice Department became the new generation's
defining moment. Beginning the week, church rallies led by pastors like Delman
Coates, Willie Wilkson, James Coleman, Perry Smith, Henry P. Davis and Bishop
C. L. Long pumped up the march.
Absent from the stage on march day, except for Rev. Sharpton, were the big
names from marches past. In their places were new faces like Att. Warren
Ballentine, Tom Joyner, Joe Madison, Steve Harvey, Rev. Willie Wilson, Att.
Malik Zulu Shabazz and Judge Joe Mathis. This new crop of leaders grew from
seeds planted by the civil rights/black power movements, but they brought new
flair, technical skills and a fresh perspective to our struggle.
Previous marches took months of planning to execute. They relied on national
groups, such as labor unions, large churches and national social activist
organizations, to bring large numbers to the nation's capitol. These new
justice partners and truth fighters responded to the call of Rev. Sharpton in
just three weeks. This unprecedented mobilization put 100,000 plus black souls
in the streets and their shining pentacle rose without competition between some
very big personalities.
Some supporters, like Michael Baisden, had commitments made months in advance
of the call to march deserve stars beside their names, because they kept the
march on blast. They overpowered the lack of coverage by national news media,
which did everything they could to kill the turnout by denigrating Rev.
Sharpton and belittling the need for a march. All those involved deserve a
great deal of credit for remaining steadfast and keeping the focus on our
problems. They did not get drawn into side issues and personality conflicts.
They did the black community proud.
The next star goes to those who showed up. Anyone can talk a good game but wins
are based on those who show up to play. And, black people showed up big time.
These were not the rich and famous; they were people who took money needed to
survive out of their family budgets to make the trip to Washington. And to
their credit, our people have always made sacrifices for the next generation
and this march was all about the next generation.
The march for justice was about direction today and leadership tomorrow. This
point was made clear by Rev. Sharpton's insistence that students like Edward
Williams, Damien Robinson and Lawrence S. Goodman of Howard University play
major roles in the march. Students from all over the nation came to represent
youth leadership at colleges and high schools. No matter what one thinks of our
children, they will be the leaders of tomorrow. They are all we have, so we had
better teach them well!
Disgruntled wants to know:
Listen closely and you will hear talking heads say the "r" and/or
the "s" word, i.e., recession and stagflation. The same can be said
for a growing number of journalists writing about the nation's economic ills.
All this talk and no action raise a serious question. When he assumed the reins
of the world economic powerhouse, George W. Bush convinced Congress and the US
public of the need to cut taxes to prevent the economy from sinking into
recession. Over his six plus years in office, Bush has pointed to those tax
cuts and proclaimed his bold leadership was responsible for the good economic
times the nation was experiencing. Now that his administration must face the
reality of historic budget deficits, soaring debt, historically high trade
deficits, rising foreclosure rates and prices, a deteriorating dollar, etc.,
none of which sounds like a healthy economy, he is missing in action, much like
he was during the Vietnam conflict. It all makes one wonder, where is that much
ballyhooed CEO Bush leadership on the current economic malaise?
Disgruntled
feels: Deception! In 2003, then White House Press Secretary Scott
McClellan told reporters that he had personally spoken to White House political
adviser Karl Rove and Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter"
Libby about the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. According to McClellan,
these "good individuals" told him they played no role in leaking the
agent's name to the press. George W. Bush promised the public that he would
fire anyone involved in the leak. As the investigation progressed and White
House staffers Rove and Libby were found not so innocent, Bush revised his
pledge. Eventually, he commuted Libby's 30-month prison sentence for lying
about his involvement. Rove narrowly escaped an indictment, but now we know he
was one of the original sources for news articles that leaked Plame's identity.
With a book due out in April 2008, McClellan blames Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby
and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card for knowing he was providing
reporters with erroneous information. This revelation is just more evidence of
the wholesale deception practiced by the Bush administration. They lie to
everyone, including one another!
Disgruntled
says: We have much to be thankful. For the longest time, our formerly
middle-class neighborhood has been in a state of steady decline. There are
vacant houses on every street; many more have been converted into rental
property. Even as our neighborhood declined in the 1990s, the county raised our
property taxes. Now that property values are obviously falling, there has been
no corresponding decrease in property taxes. On last Wednesday, a family three
blocks away were forcefully removed from their home by the DeKalb Country
Sheriff's Department. People being set out on the streets are signs of the
times, which are rough and expected to get worse. My family still has a roof
over its head; we can afford to pay for heat and have plenty of food to eat. On
this Thanksgiving, we have much to be grateful. We pray for world peace and
fervently hope conditions will improve for those less fortunate.
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and
Phone Calls
Email www.msnbc.msn.com...Conservative
Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands
of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign
the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia's combat troops
from Iraq. Labor Party head Kevin Rudd's pledges on global warming and Iraq
move Australia sharply away from policies that had made Howard one of President
Bush's staunchest allies. Rudd has named global warming as his top priority,
and his signing of the Kyoto Protocol will leave the U.S. as the only
industrialized country not to have joined it.
Email vikingjohn@juno.com ...The End of
America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf...There are ten
steps that are taken in order to close down a democracy or crush a
pro-democratic movement, whether by capitalists, communists, or right-wing
fascists. The Ten Steps to Dictatorship are: 1. Invoke an external and internal
threat, 2. Establish secret prisons, 3. Develop a paramilitary force, 4. Surveil ordinary citizens, 5. Infiltrate citizens' groups,
6. Arbitrarily detain and release citizens, 7. Target key individuals, 8. Restrict
the press, 9. Cast criticism as "espionage" and dissent as
"treason" and 10. Subvert the rule of law. Bush has done all 10.
Email www.fortune.com
Uh-oh! It's Enron all over again. Everything was supposed to be different in
the post-Enron era. So why does it feel like someone hit rewind?...By Bethany McLean...Start with the headlines about
off-balance-sheet entities known as structured investment vehicles, or SIVs (or sieves, as some wags are calling them). As Gertrude
Stein never said, an off-balance-sheet vehicle is an off-balance-sheet vehicle
is an off-balance-sheet vehicle. Just as Enron's off-balance-sheet vehicles
were propping up its stock price by camouflaging the company's real financial
results, so SIVs were inflating the credit market by
providing demand for the complex securities created out of mortgages and loans
used to finance buyouts. Just as Enron's investment-grade rating -- which it
kept until four days before its bankruptcy -- turned out to be an illusion, so
did the investment-grade ratings on many mortgage-backed securities.
Email http://money.cnn.com/ ...U.S. mortgage-related
losses likely up to $300 billion: OECD...By Mike Dolan...Overall losses from
the U.S. mortgage market crisis could be up to $300 billion but financial firms
and policymakers need to buy time to ensure an orderly work-out, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said
on Wednesday. The OECD said the super fund being set up by Citigroup, Bank of
America and JPMorgan Chase to pool asset-backed
securities of ailing special investment vehicles -- thus preventing a further firesale of these assets -- was one mechanism for buying
that crucial time....the Paris-based forum said the worst of the U.S. housing
market downturn had not yet been seen and would continue to depress
mortgage-related debt products and derivatives held by banks, hedge funds and
insurance companies.
Email www.reuters.com/...Squalor,
crime follow wave of foreclosures...Middle-class, new developments reeling from
vacant homes, shady renters...Eighty-five bungalows dot the cul-de-sac that
joins West Ontario Avenue and East Ontario Avenue in Atlanta. Twenty-two are
vacant, victims of mortgage fraud and foreclosure. Now house fires,
prostitution, vandals and burglaries terrorize the residents left in this
historic neighborhood called Westview Village. As
defaults surge on mortgages made to borrowers with spotty credit and adjustable-rate
loans, more people are noticing that their neighbors are caught up in the
meltdown. Their misfortunes are haunting those left living on the same streets.
The effects aren't confined to just low-income or redeveloping communities;
they are seeping into middle-class neighborhoods and brand new developments.
Georgia has the eighth largest foreclosure rate in the nation, one filing for
every 142 households, according to a third-quarter report from foreclosure
tracker RealtyTrac Inc. The rise in crime in Westview is typical of a neighborhood struggling with
numerous foreclosures, according to a recent study by Dan Immergluck
of Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and Geoff Smith of Woodstock
Institute in Chicago. That study showed that when the foreclosure rate
increases one percentage point, neighborhood violent crime rises 2.33 percent.
Email www.afterdowningstreet.org
...Radioactive Ammunition Fired in the Middle East May Claim More Lives than
Hiroshima and Nagasaki...By Sherwood Ross...By firing radioactive ammunition,
the U.S., U.K., and Israel may have triggered a nuclear holocaust in the Middle
East that, over time, will prove deadlier than the U.S. atomic bombing of
Japan. So much ammunition containing depleted uranium (DU) has been fired,
asserts nuclear authority Leuren Moret,
"The genetic future of the Iraqi people for the most part, is
destroyed." "More than ten times the amount of radiation released
during atmospheric testing (of nuclear bombs) has been released from depleted
uranium weaponry since 1991," Moret writes,
including radioactive ammunition fired by Israeli troops in Palestine.