Thursday, October 25, 2007

The War on Women



Maria Shuluba, 53, was raped by armed men near Bukavu, Congo, in South Kivu Province, the epicenter of a rape epidemic--one of the aftershocks of a war that ravaged the central African nation.

"With women I have no problem. With women, one threw a clog at me and I kicked her here [pointing to the crotch], I broke everything there. She can't have children. Next time she won't throw clogs at me. When one of them [a woman] spat at me, I gave her the rifle butt in the face. She doesn't have what to spit with any more.'"--Israeli soldier, describing his treatment of Palestinian women during the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

“We don’t know why these rapes are happening, but one thing is clear, they are done to destroy women.”-- Dr. Denis Mukwege, Gynecologist in South Kivu Province, Eastern Congo.

...kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.-- Numbers 31:17-18 (King James Version)

This week two UN officials spoke out on the prevalence of gender-violence as a tactic of warfare. “The woman’s body has become a battleground and it seems to be taken for granted that this should continue,” Rachel Mayanja, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, said at a press briefing at UN Headquarters. Mayanja stresed that member states needed to take up the issue of rape and war and address it head-on.

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Friday, October 19, 2007

The Pervasive Nature of Scientific Racism




Today the TimesOnline is stating that the 79-year-old scientist James Watson who won the Nobel prize for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, is back-pedaling from an interview in which he asserted that black African and Caribbean workers were inferior in ability and intelligence to whites. Watson, who has offered his apology, claims he is "mortified by the public response," and that the Sunday Times who performed the interview somehow misconstrued his words. The newspaper however says the interview was recorded, and is sticking by their story. While outrage and apologies now fill the air, what the Watson controversey has brought to the surface is the sometimes forgotten and neglected stepchild of white supremacy: "scientific racism."

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Waterboarding: Torture or Not?




Waterboarding. We've all heard it now for several years, as part of sanctioned U.S. policy of "enhanced interrogation techniques"--where someone is force fed water to make them feel as if they are drowning. Yet at the same time, American military and administration officials state that it is not torture. Or, as the recent Attorney General nominee put forth by the white house--Mike Mukasey--has stated slyly, he doesn't know if waterboarding is torture, but "If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional." Much of this double-speak is based on the fact that most people have never seen waterboarding. Thankfully (and sadly necessary), there have been more than a few demonstrations of it by individuals who want the public to see this first hand for themselves. The video above shows a few seconds of waterboarding. Look at it, place yourself or someone close to you in the position of the man in the orange jumpsuit, and ask yourself--is this torture?

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Acting White? Myths & Realities on Black Anti-Intellectualism




Since we're on Cosby... one of the key tenets of his argument, and those used by the "black apologetics" is the "acting white hypothesis." Chances are, all of us have heard some semblance of it before, which asserts that black school children do poorly because they undervalue education and perceive those who achieve academically as "acting white." Thus the argument is made: black kids equate "intelligence" with being "white." This idea was first floated by two researchers, Fordham and Ogbu, who in their study of black school children claimed to find an "oppositional culture" that emerged as a backlash to white societal oppression. Hence if dominant white society claimed scholastics was positive, black kids would deem it negative. Since the Cosby rant especially, the "acting white hypothesis" put forth by Fordham and Ogbu has been cited repeatedly, becoming a popular American catch-phrase, uttered by conservatives and liberals alike. Media pundits take it matter-of-factly as accurate, and some educators--seeking to cash in--have written entire tropes on it. Even presidential hopeful Barak Obama has joined in the chorus, denouncing "acting white" at the 2004 Democratic National Convention--to much applause, from black and white delegates alike. The problem however is that Fordham and Ogbu's thesis, which came out in 1986, has been deconstructed and critiqued for almost two decades. It turned out that Fordham and Ogbu had wrongly interpreted their data and there were much more complex understandings that numerous other researchers have pointed out. Even their basic facts were wrong, making absolutely false assertions that the oppositional culture had its rise during slavery, in which blacks shunned education. Any historian worth his or her degree will tell you that not only did slaves and freed blacks value education and intellect, but risked their lives--literally--to get it. But you wouldn't know that, given the reckless way in which the "acting white thesis" is bantered about. It's as if merely repeating it over and over again has given it legitimacy it never really earned, even among those who should know better. Fordham and Ogbu's misguided thesis has become an easy "blame-the-victim" route that posits black academic failings not on an under-funded public school system, but back on the children themselves. The following is by a school administrator who for several years has critiqued the "acting white" argument, using prior studies and his own hands-on observations. As he points out, the notion of some distinct culture of anti-intellectualism among black children is more myth than reality.

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Let's Do it Again- The Cos is Back!



It's been a while since America's favorite father turned "denouncer of black morality" has been in the headlines. But have no fear the Cos is back, touting a new book called Come on People: On the Path from Victims to Victors. The work marks a new salvo in the one-time comedian's bitter old man routine, in which he chastises the black poor, single black mothers and black youth killed while allegedly stealing pastries. When Cosby first made his tirade a few years back, there were a few of us who found his hate speech distasteful. Many other black people however seemed to give in. Deciding that Cosby's "blame-the-victim" classist rant was spot on, they applauded his Colbert type "truthiness." Thankfully to sane minds everywhere, the past few years have seen a debunking of the "Cosby Thesis." Historians like Jelani Cobb would point out the fallacies in Cosby's claims, and others like Michael Eric Dyson questioned his sanity. Even academic studies have deconstructed Cosby's claims. But this didn't stop white America--and the mass media--from applauding the former comedian and philanthropist, that seemed to say everything they'd always believed and wanted to hear. Not surprisingly, with the release of this new book, Cosby is getting alot of airtime to explain why the black poor and black people in general are to blame for their own problems. Thankfully, once again, saner black minds are speaking out in criticism. A few of their articles are posted here.

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Saturday, October 13, 2007

Che: Ode to a Revolutionary Saint




This Oct 9th marked the anniversary of one of the last century's most culturally influential figures--Che Guevara. The revolutionary theorist and fighter who carried on struggle from Cuba to the Congo, was captured in his last fight somewhere in Bolivia in 1967. One day later, he would be executed. Rumor had it his final words were to his very executioner: "Shoot, coward, you're only going to kill a man." Since his death Che has achieved a type of revoutionary sainthood on a global scale, his image appearing on struggles against varied oppressors in far-flung locales. Today the daunting face of this Argentinian one-time medical student turned world revolutionary can be found nearly everywhere. His imperfections smoothed over, or selectively omitted, wearing him on a t-shirt has come to symbolise everything from the rebelliousness of suburban white teens in designer jeans (whom comedian Bill Maher sarcastically calls merely "ironic"), to the struggle against neoliberalism to anarchism and more. In death, Che has come to stand for much more than he himself probably ever endorsed in life. The following from Democracy Now! includes an early 1960s interview with Che and a modern interview with a Latin Americanist, on the legacy of a man who died and was reborn an icon.

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Clarence Thomas- The Anti-Black



I was young in my political years when the drama erupted over Clarence Thomas. Back then I was scrambling to figure out what was meant by terms like "high tech lynching" and why anyone would so wantonly abuse a coca cola can. Years later I would see Thomas depicted on the cover of the now defunct Emerge magazine, in one instance wearing an Aunt Jemima "hanker-chief" on his head, and on another refashioned as a modern-day Lawn Jockey. Clarence Thomas was and remains what one writer called "the most despised black man in black America." After years of watching Thomas in action as a Supreme Court Justice, I am no longer remotely confused by the resentment he garners in the black community.

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Friday, October 5, 2007

Hooked on War




Hooked on War: Thomas Friedman's Deadly Addiction by Norman Solomon is a thought-provoking piece that examines the so-called "liberal" Friedman's penchant for war-mongering. I thought it was worth reposting on the blog. I fear Thomas Friedman's addiction may be America's addiction--hooked on an idea of nationalistic exceptionalism melded with a reverence of militarism. This is a country where figures who *serve* the people, like say General Petraeus, are elevated to a form of worship far *above* the people and thus immune from criticism. This is a country that bemoans the violence in its streets and society, and yet cannot connect it to its state-sanctioned violence on a massive scale, that parades and takes prideful joy in its technological capacity to harm, maim and kill.

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Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Billions Over Baghdad



Sometimes a picture speaks for itself, so I won't give much of a foreword here. Just keep two things in mind: (1) Most of this money belonged to the Iraqis- so add reckless theft to our list of gross crimes committed upon that country's populace- and (2) YOUR money is being sucked into this mindless hole of incompetence, colonialism and death- in the tens of $thousands- every second. In case you need a reminder, the countdown clock labeled Cost of the Iraq War is to your right. I guess we're "Spending it over there, so we don't have to spend it here."

Disgusted yet?

Reposted here from Vanity Fair.

Billions over Baghdad

Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in U.S. currency—much of it belonging to the Iraqi people—was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Some of the cash went to pay for projects and keep ministries afloat, but, incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. Following a trail that leads from a safe in one of Saddam's palaces to a house near San Diego, to a P.O. box in the Bahamas, the authors discover just how little anyone cared about how the money was handled.

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