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Vol. 12 Issue 27…Dedicated to the Dialogue on
Race…July 5, 2009
Movies are powerful propaganda
tools. They create visual images and psychological stereotypes that take on a
life of their own.
With Tarzan still playing in
their heads, film-makers exploit the agony of
Rising above propagandizing,
Abderrahmane Sissako, a Malian movie director, trained in
Reducing the international pea
and shell game down to the hustle it is, Sissako returns to the house of his
late father in Bamako, the capital of Mali, where he puts the World Bank on
trial for its role in the rape of Africa. Now occupied by a young singer named
Melé (Aïssa Maïga); her husband, Chaka (Tiécoura
Traoré); and their young daughter, the house serves as a backdrop for a
courtroom drama. A table becomes the bar of justice, set in a picturesque
courtyard surrounded by the day to day procession of life. Unfolding over
several days, the courtyard represents the heart and soul of Africa, ravaged
and embattled after decades of World Bank policies, which are sucking the
continent dry with privatization and the rape of its natural resources, while
burying many African nations under mountains of debt.
Bamako's central question is - has the ostensible good intentions of the
West, in particular the World Bank and similar institutions, contributed to the
impoverishment and demoralization of the continent? Sissako uses
real judges, lawyers, and activists plus ordinary people as participants in the
mock hearing where
One eloquent witness after another testifies that Africa's countries are poorer
than they were 20 years ago, with life expectancy declining, infant mortality
rising and literacy rates dropping. Ordinary Africans through their patient,
angry speeches lament the cruel consequences of debt servicing and
privatization, emigration, loss of control over infrastructure and natural
resources, rampant political corruption and a precipitously declining standard
of living. Sissako declared, "If we take into account the total capital
flow and wealth transfer, African countries have more than repaid their debts
to rich countries."
The courtyard scene, as life goes on around it, dramatizes the fact that these
are not
Abderrahmane Sissako: In His Words
If I try to explain the decision
I made one day to become a filmmaker, I must go back to that period in my life
where I felt at a loss, having gone to
Someone leaves because someone
else has to stay. The one who leaves is not better or worse than those he
leaves behind. So, that the one who leaves comes back to share what he has
found. I come back and help my younger brothers and sisters, as my elder
brothers have helped me. And that always brings me back to my roots and basic
education.
When I go to
So, my story is also the story of
many other people. A feeling which is very hard to express is the sense of
rejection, it is beyond racism -- this disregard for other people. It's a very
strong and typical trait of Western culture. I am often asked whether Russians
are really racist. Europeans prefer to think that it is others who are the
racists. But my point was not to talk about racism, it was more about
rejection, about the disregard for others that paradoxically one finds in
societies where you also find the most beautiful books, the most beautiful
paintings, the best music, societies who have the monopoly over everything that
is valued today. And yet this does not create universality. Those who are
profoundly universal are from societies where knowledge is not a matter of
quantifying data, where knowledge belongs with the oral tradition, with things
immaterial and imperceptible. This open-mindedness was paradoxically given to
me by my culture and not by those cultures which despised me precisely for my
tolerance.
US Debt Crisis
The
The national debt has expanded
during times of war and usually contracted in times of peace, while staying on
a generally upward trajectory. Over the past several decades, it has climbed
sharply -- except for a respite from 1998 to 2000, when there were annual
budget surpluses, reflecting in large part what turned out to be an overheated
economy.
The debt soared with the wars in
Some budget-restraint activists
claim even the debt understates the nation's true liabilities. The Peter G.
Peterson Foundation, established by a former commerce secretary and investment
banker, argues that the $11.4 trillion debt figures does not take into account
roughly $45 trillion in unlisted liabilities and unfunded retirement and health
care commitments. That would put the nation's full obligations at $56 trillion,
or roughly $184,000 per American, according to this calculation. And, it is
expanding by over $1 trillion a year. (Source: www.msnbc.msn.com)
Moses Grandy (1786-????)
Moses Grandy was born a slave in
During the late 1700s, Moses Grandy, along with other slaves, freemen and
laborers, worked to clear and dig out a portion of the Dismal Swamp to create
the
In addition to working as a
laborer in the Dismal Swamp, Grandy worked as a carboy driving lumber and
crewed for a time on a schooner that served the small ports of the
Later, Grandy was given a pass to
work for himself. He became a seaman and took some canal boats on as shares and
ran the small boats back and forth to
Grandy saved his money and used
it to buy his freedom. Three times he paid his master the price demanded. According
to his memoir, he paid his masters a total of $1,850, before finally gaining
his freedom. Two masters promised the enterprising Grandy his freedom once he
paid them off. In each case, after raising the required sum, Grandy was
rebuffed and his masters pocketed the money. The first time Grandy gave six
hundred dollars to James Grandy, Billy's son, who took the money and betrayed
him by selling him to Mr. Trewitt. The second time Grandy paid Trewitt the
amount demanded but was freed only after several white men petitioned his
owner. In 1827, Grandy at last bought his freedom.
Grandy continued to work as a
seaman on various cargo vessels and until he saved enough money to buy freedom
for his second wife and the children he was able to locate; others bought their
own freedom. Soon after gaining his freedom, with the aid of the Anti-Slavery
Society, Grandy, along with many other freemen, left
In 1843, Grandy published his
autobiography - "Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy: Late a Slave in
the
In August 2006, descendants of Moses Grandy held a family reunion. A new
four-lane road was named the Moses Grandy Trail in his honor. The road is a
connector between Deep Creek and
The Fourth of July (1852) (Excerpts)
By Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
Fellow
citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here
today? What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence?
Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied
in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore,
called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess
the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from
your independence to us?
Fellow citizens, above your
national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains,
heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the
jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not remember those
bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her
cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!"
To forget them, to pass lightly
over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most
scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.
My subject, then, fellow citizens, is "American Slavery." I shall see
this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view.
Standing here, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I
do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of
this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July.
Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the
present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting.
At a time like this, scorching
irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I
reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting
ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not
light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We
need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation
must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety
of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed;
and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.
What to the American slave is
your Fourth of July? I answer, a
day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice
and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a
sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling
vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your shouts of
liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and
thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere
bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up
crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the
earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these
Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the
Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you
have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of
this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and
shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
About
Me: Frederick Douglass was the best known and most influential black
leader of the 1800s. Born a slave in
Race to the Bottom (Excerpts)
By Drew Westen
Is the Supreme Court justifying
discrimination? In a 5-4 decision on Monday (Ricci
v. DeStefano), the Supreme Court, splitting along ideological
lines, ruled that resegregating fire departments based on a procedure known to
do so when other procedures are available is not only reasonable but
irreversible by a city as long as the rules for doing so were set out in
advance and bear any relationship, however distant, to the requisites of the
job. Overturning the opinions of all the lower courts that had reviewed the
case, along with decades of legislation and case law since the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, the court opined that the city was concerned about the results only
because it was worried about lawsuits from black firefighters, and in so doing
"turned a blind eye to evidence supporting the exams' validity."
Thus, the underlying assumption of the majority decision is that an exam that
produces racial differences that other tests do not similarly find is a valid
exam.
Until the Ricci decision, if you had reason to believe that reliance on one
criterion or test had led, or is likely to lead, one group of people to be
unfairly affected, you had an obligation to try to find or design a better way
of making the decision that didn't build in that bias--whether that bias
produced a leadership team resembling a cross-section of the NBA or the PGA
before Tiger Woods.
The question the Supreme Court was actually ruling on was a simple one: Is it
really plausible that only members of one racial group are capable of
leadership, particularly in a diverse city with a diverse fire department? The
majority concluded that it is. It argued not only that the multiple-choice exam
was a valid predictor of performance, but that one can assume it is at least as
valid as the procedures used by most other fire departments that don't produce
such racially lopsided results, even more real-life assessment procedures akin
to a firefighting "flight simulator."
I don't personally know the five
justices in the majority on the Ricci decision, although I feel reasonably
confident that they, like most Americans, are people of good faith, who
strongly believe that no one should be discriminated against in this country
based on their race, ethnicity, or gender. But the Supreme Court demonstrated
this week that you don't have to hold consciously racist beliefs to make
decisions that promote discrimination based on race-- stridently validating a
test whose outcomes precisely match the outcomes reached 50 years ago when
employers were purposefully using discriminatory procedures.
Their decision seems to
illustrate the unconscious prejudices that psychologists have been studying for
two decades, which could explain the readiness of the majority of the court to
believe that in a racially diverse city with a racially diverse fire
department, it is perfectly plausible that the best candidates for leadership
are all white.
These kinds of unconscious biases, which most of us share to one degree or
another (as when I reflexively check my wallet if a young black man
accidentally bumps into me in a crowded train), are the contemporary legacy of
Jim Crow in a society that has come a very long way since 1964. They are the
kinds of biases that lead to stiffer sentences for criminals who commit the
same crime depending on the darkness of their skin and the extent to which
their facial features are more African; the greater likelihood that a young
white male with a criminal record will get called for a job than a young black
male without a record; or the fact that presenting the face of a black man
subliminally leads to activation of fear circuitry in most white people's
brains.
That is where most prejudice lives today--in the dark recesses of our minds,
not in our conscious values. Unfortunately, the right to make decisions based
on unconscious prejudices, which produce outcomes identical to those made by
people with consciously racist intent five decades ago, was affirmed today by
the Supreme Court. Perhaps Judge Sotomayor is more badly needed on that court
than any of us could have imagined.
Drew Westen is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at
Beef Recall
On Wednesday, federal health
officials reported that at least twelve people have been hospitalized in
connection with E. coli in beef. This latest E. coli outbreak comes on the
heels of a Toll House refrigerated cookie dough recall, and it expands a June
24 recall of more than 41,000 pounds of beef
In the latest beef recall, at
least two of the twelve people hospitalized suffered kidney failure. People
have been reported sick in nine states. The suspected beef was produced by JBS
Swift Beef Co. of Greeley,
On Sunday, JBS Swift recalled
about 380,000 pounds of beef. As part of the recall, the Kroger Co. said
earlier this week that it is recalling packages of meat with "sell
by" dates of April 27 to June 1 in the Cincinnati-Dayton region that
includes northern
Kroger-owned Food 4 Less stores
in the
Other grocery retailers also affected include Scarborough, Maine-based
Hannaford Supermarkets and Quincy, Massachusetts-based Stop & Shop.
Hannaford has urged customers in
Disgruntled says: The
Founding Fathers codified white supremacy by legalizing slavery. In drafting
the
Disgruntled
feels: Fat! On Wednesday, the Trust for
Disgruntled
wants to know: A tennis fan, I watched as much of the past fortnight of