The black community has dealt with the myth of good hair vs. bad hair since slavery. Though the hair texture of people of African descent is prone to be curly, the majority of black women often seek a remedy for their “bad hair”. The “good hair” by definition is straight, long and flowing and easy to get a comb through. “Bad hair” as defined by popular culture is just the opposite, unmanageable, extremely curly, and “nappy”. By definition the hair that our Creator blessed us with at birth should be appreciated and looked upon as beautiful, however in the black community for a large majority of women & men, unlike other ethnicities that take pride in their natural hair, many in the black community look at their natural, “nappy hair” as a burden of disgrace, as socially unacceptable.

Happily Natural Day as a vehicle was created to uplift the cultural and ethnic pride of Africans worldwide and do away with the idea that the natural characteristics of African culture and ethnicity are socially unacceptable. There is a legacy that the black community confronts daily due to its unique history in America, the fact that for decades anything having to do with black people was considered the object of ridicule and looked upon in disdain by Western culture. This phenomenon gave birth to an intense inferiority complex in the Black community and can be identified around the world as a characteristic response to racism, a response in which many begin to negate themselves in an attempt to assimilate into the ways of the West.

How much does the ideal of white supremacy affect us today? How does the acceptance of European standards of beauty as universal reverberate through the African Diaspora? In South Africa, there are large numbers of our black brothers & sisters who are so discomforted by their dark skin that they go to extremes to bleach their skins causing illness in the quest to get light, “fair” skin. Other communities are affected by this phenomenon as well, with East Indian’s bleaching their skin to get lighter to Asian’s undergoing eye surgery to modify the characteristic slant. In adherence to the social mores, status quo, and in conformity to an ideal of beauty characterized by Western society & culture, African’s in America and throughout the world attempt to lighten their skin tone, straighten their hair texture, and through plastic surgery, thin both nose & lips at serious risk to physical health, not to mention the psychological ramifications of not being able to accept the inherent beauty of one’s ethnicity.

50 years ago, psychologist Kenneth Clark’s work with black children became pertinent evidence in the landmark case Brown vs. Board of Education. The now infamous doll test found that black children were identifying with white dolls more so than black dolls showing that segregation of public schools were detrimental to black children, that it bred an inferiority complex. The findings of that study helped to desegregate the schools, an event we are celebrating this year throughout the United States. In the 1980’s the same test was done with the same results, showing that the inferiority complex of black children runs deeper than school. It stands to reason that it was not the segregation of the schools that caused the inferiority complex; it was ideals of white supremacy & the disparity between whites & blacks throughout society caused by white supremacy that bred this syndrome of self-discontent.

wall posting by brothermanifest

The inferiority complex of black children is a societal issue that follows them into adulthood. The natural response to something you hate is to destroy it; to attempt to get ride of it or get away from it in some way shape, form or fashion. Today, throughout the Western hemisphere, black youths are destroying themselves at alarming rates unparalleled. The irony is that during segregation and during the Civil Rights movement, the phenomenon of black on black crime was not nearly as prevalent as it is today. Characteristic of the Civil Rights movement and resulting Black Power Movement was the unity of the black community around various societal issues and the resurgence in Black Pride exemplified by the slogan “Black is beautiful”, natural hair styles i.e. Afros, dashikis, and etc. which was reinforced & permeated through the music, poetry, and culture of the mid 1960’s and early 70’s. It therefore can be reasoned that when we as black people are unified in our community, aware of and giving recognition to our natural beauty, and reverence to our culture as African people, the community becomes a better place. Without a shadow of a doubt, in these turbulent times we live, the black community must revisit the ties that bind us, the ideals that inspire us, and the information that uplifts us so that our future is not exemplified by further mental, spiritual, and sociological oppression. The consciousness of African people is what has to be saved in order for our communities to become a better place.

The purpose of Happily Natural Day is to reaffirm our pride in our culture & ethnicity as African people worldwide, to give our brothers & sisters empowering, uplifting, and eye-opening information in regard to the importance of black culture, natural health and hair care, positive edutainment, and most importantly to unify the black community as we to celebrate our natural selves. As natural hair styles are resurgent in popularity it is important that we dig beneath the surface, and tap into the minds of the masses and wake up the collective mental potential of our African brethren & sisters, for this purpose a significant portion of Happily Natural Day is dedicated to presentations by renowned scholars in the fields of black consciousness, health, & spirit. Also, spoken word poets, musicians, and visual artists from all over the globe are provided a forum to present socially conscious presentations for our patrons to vibe to, be inspired by and meditate on.

We encourage you to be a part of Happily Natural Day this year as we push forward in our mission to raise the consciousness of African people throughout the Diaspora.

Duron Chavis
Founder of Happily Natural Day
http://happilynaturalday.com

Duron “Brother Manifest” Chavis, 29

Eligibility Worker, Richmond Department of Social Services
Founder, Happily Natural Day

Photo by Scott Elmquist

“When people think activist, they think you’re out here ready to picket somebody,” says Duron Chavis, also known as Brother Manifest, who’s been known to hold a sign now and then in support of the cause.

But it’s not in a picket line that you’re most likely to find Chavis. He’s the face of a different kind of social consciousness in the black community, one devoted to positive messages, changed minds and what it means to be black in America.

“They say knowledge is power,” Chavis says, “but I say it’s not powerful unless you do something with it.”

Chavis, an eligibility worker for Richmond’s Department of Social Services, is founder and tireless promoter of Happily Natural Day, a yearly festival devoted to rebuilding the self-esteem of the black community. His work is about people knowing who they are, he says, loving who they are and raising their awareness: “If you really love yourself, you’re going to do for yourself.”

Held each August for the past seven years, Happily Natural is more than one day. It’s a year-round social movement, a mind-set and an educational resource built around Chavis’ belief that pride in community and pride in self are the twin roads to success for the black community. He’s brought that to local TV, a lecture series and other events.

Chavis’ commitment to cause — and to education — has not always met with approval, and in one case while still a student at George Wythe High School, he took three bullets during a poetry reading. But he stuck to his belief that education is a powerful changing force in the black community. He recovered, graduated in the top of his class, attended Virginia State University on scholarship and launched his crusade to right nearly 400 years of wrongs.

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The Economic Crisis:
How It Impacts African-Americans and Labor
by Muhammad Ahmad

Lecture delivered at the Economic and Black Labor Forum, the Philadelphia Community Institute for Africana Studies, 22 October 22 2009

The present Great Recession is the latest and largest crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  During the Great Depression over half of all African-American men were unemployed.  The present Great Recession is much deeper because the finance sector of capitalism has exhausted its debt.  The Federal Government is in debt; the states are in debt; most cities are in debt or near debt; and consumers (the working class) are in debt.  This crisis, the worst in 90 years, has a greater impact on African-American workers because they are concentrated in the public sector.

When state governments are in debt and the financial bubble bursts, the future of public-sector workers is threatened, a future they have built through the unionization process.  It is essential that African-American workers, particularly in the public sector, protect their self-interests and power by transferring their labor power into an economically and politically self-reliant form, by creating a black workers’ society.

African-Americas are the majority or near majority of the population in 26 or 27 large cities in America.  Between 1910 and 1970 six and a half million African-Americans left the South.  Today 58-65% live in urban areas.

What I will concentrate on is not only the crisis, but alternatives to the crisis.  In the 1930s unemployment was as high as 25% of the entire population.  Today, “[o]fficial U.S. unemployment is over 9% while real unemployment, taking into account all those wanting jobs and part-timers desiring full-time work, is close to twice that.”¹

It is estimated that 122,000 new jobs need to be created each month in order to come out of the present crisis.²  We should realize that the crisis is great.  It is serious and it will not be the last.  Economic crises tend to reoccur at times that we cannot predict.

In 1963 James Boggs said that with the increase in automation in the production process, capitalists would be able to produce more goods (commodities) faster and with fewer workers, which intensifies unemployment.  Racism in the labor market keeps young African-American males a permanent and marginalized sector of the working class.³  There are not enough workers with buying power to purchase all of the commodities; the stores are full and everyone is in debt.  There is a global glut of overproduction and under-consumption creating this crisis and a falling rate of profits.

This is the structural crisis of monopoly finance capital: the latest of three major stages of capitalism.

The first stage was “mercantilism,” which began in the 16th century continuing into the 18th century.  The second stage, “competitive capitalism,” the outgrowth of the industrial revolution, took hold in the late 18th century until the mid 19th century.  The third stage is called “monopoly capitalism,” which began in the last quarter of the 19th century.  It consolidated in the 20th century and became more global in the late 20th century as finance played a larger role in warding off crisis and stagnation through wars, debt, and speculation.

For instance, the dominant U.S. financial firms of 1909, J. P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and National City Bank are still at the center of the economy one hundred years later.  One notable exception was the failed Lehman Brothers which lasted for 99 years.

The stagnation tendency endemic to the mature, monopolistic economy, it is crucial to understand, is not due to technological stagnation, i.e., any failure at technological innovation and productivity expansion.  Productivity continues to advance and technological innovations are introduced.⁴

In this period from 1974-1975, the U.S. economy and the world economy as a whole entered into a full-fledged structural crisis after a long boom.  Thus began decades of deepening stagnation.  The finance bubble provided a partial fix for the economy, which resulted in mountains of debt and tremendous growth in financial profits.  What also resulted was the increasing dependence of the entire economy on one financial bubble after another, which kept the economy afloat.

Every crisis leads to a brief period of restraint, followed by further excesses.  Other external stimuli such as military spending, continue to play a significant role in lifting the economy, but are now secondary in impact to the ballooning of finance.⁵

Another stimulus to the economy has been the privatization of prisons, a constantly increasing prison-industrial complex and a drug culture/illegal economy that is laundered 24/7 into the legal economy.  This has created the “silent” criminalization and genocide of two million African-Americans and has devastated African-American families and communities.

The official unemployment rate for African American men was 15% as of March 2009.

Over a third of young black men, ages 16 to 19 in the labor market are unemployed.  In fact a recent report found that 8% of all black men have lost their jobs since November 2007.⁶

The Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated that African-Americans in manufacturing jobs fell from 23.9% in 1979 to 9.8% in 2007.

African-American men have been affected by the instability in the automotive industry.  They earn higher wages than in other industries and make up a fifth of the workforce.  Twenty thousand African-American autoworkers were either laid off or took buy-outs from the Big Three in 2008.⁷  Three million jobs could be lost within the next year — a result that would grossly affect African-Americans if one or more of the domestic automakers were to fail.

African-American workers suffered from a severe decline in decent employment opportunities and have also faced decreasing rates of unionization related to the shrinking manufacturing industry.  The median unionized African-American worker earned about $17.51 per hour from 2004-2007, compared to $12.57 per hour for his non-union counterpart.⁸  The unionized workers were also more likely to have health insurance and pension plans.

Black men have traditionally held the highest union membership rates of all demographic groups.  In 2008, 15.9% of black men were members of unions, the greatest participation of all groups and higher than the national average of 12.4%.  However, black union membership has been declining at a faster rate than membership among whites since the 1980s.⁹

Thus African-Americans are impacted by the military-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex, and finance capital.  C. L. R. James, in his article “Black People in the Urban Areas of the United States,” says,

. . . The Black people in the United States are the most socially united group in the country, they all have one unifying characteristic — they suffer from that historical development which has placed them in the role of second-class citizens.  There is no other national group which automatically constitutes one social force with a unified outlook and the capacity to make unified moves in politics and to respond to economic problems.¹⁰

Henry Nicholas says, “The only thing we own is our labor power.”  We should learn to use our labor power to serve ourselves, African-American workers.  We should use the unions we are in for the benefit of our people.  We should use our spiritual power to develop economically self-reliant projects through our churches and masjids (mosques).  Thus unions, churches, and mosques should be our bases of power.  If we utilize them for economic self-reliance and unite with progressive allies, we will have a collective financial basis for workers’ “people power” wherever we reside.

Dr. James Garrett says we need five ingredients for economic self-reliance:

1. Development of a core group to generate capital formation or accumulation that would develop industrial companies.
2. Utilization of land where we are.  Dr. Grace Lee Boggs in her article, “A New Kind of Organizing,” talks about community land trusts (CLTs).  These are unique forms of common-based property rights where a block of land is removed from the real estate market and owned by a people’s board of trustees, possibly a community development corporation.  These community land trusts could be investment projects of African-American workers’ funds, which can be negotiated with a developer, to grant seed money to undertake a development which includes individual houses, sites for businesses, parks, and community centers, etc.  Within this utilization of land where we are is the movement that Dr. Boggs has implemented in Detroit, Michigan: the formation of organic community urban gardens.  The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Philadelphia has a Black Farmers Market where the produce of Black farmers is sold.  The institution of neighborhood installation of solar paneling in homes, the establishment of health food stores and other co-ops and fish farms, as Dr. Claude Anderson has advocated, is essential.  All this develops at least a three-day supply of food in times of crisis.  In the area where we live, we should think about water: purification, treatment, and harnessing.  Eventually we should turn our community into Green communities; and we should invest in wind energy.  During the 1930s, Ella Baker organized Housewives Leagues into collective buying cooperatives where neighbors bought in quantity, cutting down on costs.
3. Consolidation of capital, which can be done through credit unions.  There are 43-50 credit unions in Philadelphia.
4. An organization — every project needs organization.
5. People who are willing to be trained to make the project theirs and willing to accept the awesome responsibility of leadership to take over and continue the organization.  They must be willing to sacrifice and be dedicated, sincere, principled and willing to do the work.

Dr. Grace Lee Boggs states that in a new kind of community organizing we need housing groups to assert the right of people to remain in their homes by blockading residences threatened with foreclosures and evictions, forcing banks or lenders to renegotiate loan terms.

Dr. Boggs explains that we can have local production for local needs.  We can create health and wellness, public gathering places, youth development, and conviviality.¹¹  We can grow our own food; live healthier lives, (eat to live rather than living to eat as Elijah Muhammad used to say); create enterprises that will sustain the family and the community; create neighborhood programs (mural painting, theater, dance, sports — Philadelphia has the Black Star Games every summer, sponsored by the Poor and Righteous Nation).

We can create a green economy by bringing together environmentalists, labor unions and the community organizations, to improve the environment.  We can practice energy efficiency by biking or taking public transportation, converting power sources to renewable energy, restoring wetlands and riverbanks, and creating high quality jobs in the modern energy economy.

Dr. Boggs goes on to say that we can bridge the gap between the middle and upper classes who have moved to the suburbs by creating regional councils that struggle to reduce inequities by sharing revenues and reallocating investments.  She calls for a new kind of governing: a movement much like the civil rights movement, that is grounded on a new concept — what it means to be a human being.  This movement empowers citizens with new concepts of ownership, of democracy, to engage in transformative activities, depending on themselves, rather than elected officials.

Here we must start with the concept of Umoja circles.  We can develop a holistic, dialectical, humanist culture and re-education process by creating communiversities that implement the study of progressive African-American labor, world history, and political theory, combined with practice.  It is through a revolutionary politicized culture that the ethos of mass organized struggle resistance movement is passed on to the forthcoming generation.  C. L. R. James said,

I believe that black people in America must recognize the opportunities which history has placed in their hands, not only to record the advancement of their own situation but in regard to the ideas and activities of oppressed people the world over.¹²

A people united will never be defeated.  We will win!  As Salaam Alaikum.

1  John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney, “Monopoly-Finance Capital and the Paradox of Accumulation,” Monthly Review, Volume 61, Number 5, October 2009, p. 1.

2  John Wojcik, “Needed: 122,000 Jobs Per Month,” People’s Weekly World, Volume 24, Number 15, September 12-18, 2009, p. 1.

3  James Boggs, The American Revolution: Pages From A Negro Worker’s Notebook(New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009), p. 46-61.

4  Foster and McChesney, op. cit., p. 9.

5  Ibid, p. 15.

6  Alexandra Cawthorne, “Weathering the Storm: Black Men in the Recession,“ Center for American Progress,p. 2.

7  Jonathan Mahler, “GM, Detroit and the Fall of the Black Middle Class,” The New York Times, June 28, 2009, p. 3.

8  Cawthorne, op. cit., p. 4.

9  Ibid, p. 4.

10  Anna Grimshaw (ed.), C. L. R. James Reader (Oxford, U.K. and Cambridge, U.S.A.: Blackwell, 1992), p. 375.

11  Grace Lee Boggs, “A New Kind of Community Organizing,” The Michigan Citizen, July 5-11, 2009, p. A10.

12  Grimshaw, op. cit., p. 377.

The Haiti response: Guns or doctors?

by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Hundreds of Cuban doctors and Cuban-trained Haitian doctors had long been working in Haiti. Since the earthquake, they’ve been joined by hundreds more … “doctors, not soldiers!” in the words of Fidel Castro.

As Haitians engage in their latest war for survival, it is instructive to see how certain neighboring nations responded to this crisis, for a nation’s response unveils its motive, its fears and its hopes.

The U.S., Haiti’s wealthiest northern neighbor, is a country which has had an outsized history of political, military and economic intervention, rushed in armed troops, like the 82nd Airborne – young men with weapons and war training – to a land facing a natural disaster from earthquake.

Cuba, although its next largest neighbor, is a country of modest means, with a GDP closer to African states than European ones. It sent 500 doctors, equipped with medical supplies, who helped to mobilize nearly 400 Haitian doctors, all graduates of their Latin American Medical School. The Haitians, like students from all over the world, trained for free in this Cuban medical school, now had the opportunity and chance to help their people.

Fidel Castro, a fervent writer since leaving office, wrote within days of the Jan. 12 earthquake:

“Hour after hour, day and night, the Cuban health professionals have worked nonstop in the few facilities that were able to stand, in tents and out in the parks and open air spaces, since the population fears new aftershocks. Cuban doctors worked to find and help their Haitian colleagues who lived in earthquake ravaged neighborhoods.”

Seven young Cuban-trained women doctors from the U.S. – two are from Oakland and the others from New York and Houston – just returned from a month in Haiti, where each of them treated 100-150 patients a day and slept a few hours a night on the ground, along with the people they served. To learn more about the Cuban medical school that trains doctors from all over the world who promise to return home to serve the poor, visit IFCONews.org.

And the former Cuban head of state turned to Haitian history: “Haiti is a net product of the colonial, capitalist and imperialist system imposed on the world. Haiti’s slavery and subsequent poverty were imposed from abroad. That terrible earthquake occurred after the Copenhagen climate change summit, where the most elemental rights of 192 member states were trampled upon.”

In a pithy end to his essay, Fidel summed it up thus: “We send doctors, not soldiers!”

Source: “Fidel Castro on Haiti: Cuba Sends Doctors, Not Soldiers!” Labour & Trade Union Review, February 2010, pages 3-4. [London, England]

© Copyright 2010 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read Mumia’s brand new book, “Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A.,” available from City Lights Publishing, www.citylights.com or (415) 362-8193. Keep updated at www.freemumia.com. For Mumia’s commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.org. For recent interviews with Mumia, visit www.blockreportradio.com. Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia’s commentaries and interviews. Send our brotha some love and light at: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Greene, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg PA 15370.

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Last rites for the USA

by Cindy Sheehan

When this commentary was published in the first issue of Correo del Orinoco English Edition, Venezuela’s first and only English-language weekly newspaper, this cartoon illustrated it.

A U.S. Supreme Court case decision from 1886, County of Santa Clara v. the Southern Pacific Railroad (SPRR), is the reason today that the U.S. is a corporate empire.

Many people mistakenly believe that corporations were given the same rights – not just privileges – as persons in this Supreme Court decision, but nothing could be further from the truth. The reason my nation is such a dysfunctional system now is not because of a Supreme Court decision, nor a law passed by Congress, nor a referendum of the people: It’s because of a single statement, one sentence, spoken by a Supreme Court chief justice before the hearing even began.

The founders of the U.S. did not like corporations and for the first few decades of the existence of this nation, corporations were only given limited “privileges” and not “rights.” But after the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1868 – which extended equal protection under the law to all male citizens of the U.S regardless of race – attorneys for the corporations recognized the opportunity that had been gifted to them and started to scheme for corporate personhood.

After many assaults against common law, finally a perfect test case came up before the Supreme Court, the previously referenced case. The case was brought before the Supremes because the SPRR – the Halliburton of the 19th century – objected to the fact the state of California would not allow it to deduct mortgage costs on its vast holdings from its before tax income as could private citizens.

The Supreme Court did not even try that case to grant corporate personhood. The reason corporations now have 14th Amendment protections is because of a statement made by Chief Justice Waite: “The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.”

This one sentence changed the frame of North American politics in a very corrupt way. 1886 is when the “noble experiment” of representative republicanism died. Despite some populist stabs at “anti-trust” laws and labor unionism, today we find that the U.S. system of government is “by and for” the corporations.

On Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010, a (little noticed) U.S. Supreme Court decision took our critically ill republic that has been on life support and effectively murdered it.

Our elections have been compromised and the presidential candidates have been chosen for us by the tyranny of the oligarchy for many decades, and we the people of the U.S. are allowed to cast our votes to give us the appearance that we have a voice in our nation. But now with the decision in the recent United Citizens v. Federal Elections Commission even any appearance of representation for the people has been overturned.

In this decision, the Supreme Court removed limits from corporate campaign expenditures stating that even limiting these contributions in the first place put restrictions on a corporation’s First Amendment rights to free speech.

Corporations have long held sway over our government, and the soft fascism of corporate control has been running things behind the scenes.

However, the decision in United Citizens v. Federal Elections Commission that expanded a mouth-less and mindless corporation’s freedom of speech has effectively gagged 300 million more of us that don’t have billions of dollars to buy the votes of our politicians who are just extensions of such crime cartels as Goldman Sachs anyway.

I believe that United Citizens v. FEC will go down in the history books as one of the most important – and most destructive – Supreme Court decisions in U.S. history and we should just drop all pretense at democracy and call our leaders President Goldman and VP Sachs.

Cindy Sheehan is a peace activist and founder of Peace of the Action, an anti-war organization that promotes profound structural change in the U.S. This commentary originally appeared in the first issue of Correo del Orinoco English Edition, Venezuela’s first and only English-language weekly newspaper. Keep up with Cindy at Cindy Sheehan’s Soap Box.

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Of Titanic proportions: Hunters Point Shipyard Superfund site and early transfer in the name of ‘development’

by Nyese Joshua

Nyese Joshua – Photo: Carol Harvey

Naturally occurring asbestos (NOA), short fibers v. long fibers, hundreds of named and unidentified chemical compounds mixed with condos, parks, recreation, people and – oh, yes – a state-of-the-art stadium all at the Hunters Point Shipyard in San Francisco. Chemical compounds combined with parks and people – what is it all about?

This question was profoundly answered on Thursday, Feb. 18, when San Francisco was graced with Ms. Wilma Subra, whose credentials as a chemist, microbiologist, MacArthur Genius Award recipient, board member of EARTHWORKS and work with grassroots groups put her in the leadership of the environmental justice movement. Ms. Subra came to San Francisco via the Environmental Protection Agency’s Technical Assistance Services for Communities. After years of struggling with the mayor, the Supervisors, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the Navy, the EPA and other public agencies and officials, finally those engaged in this struggle for environmental justice were told about this program funded through the EPA.

When her advice was requested, Ms. Subra had only about 11 days to review the 4,000-plus pages of the “Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard Phase II Development Plan Project Draft Environmental Impact Report” from the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. She presented her comments and review to a captivated audience of some 200 persons. The entire presentation can be found at

for the audio and www.realasponse.com/wilma.ppt for the slides.

Here are just a few excerpts:

“The draft EIR provided limited information regarding the adequacy of oversight and enforcement requirements outlined in the site’s Early Transfer Cooperative Agreement and Administrative Orders on Consent, as well as the RODs [Records of Decision] and remedial designs for each parcel at Candlestick Point and HPS [Hunters Point Shipyard] Phase II. “

• “The draft EIR states that ‘relatively few individuals would be exposed to the potential contaminated materials during the initial construction’ phase of redevelopment.”
• “However, ‘during later periods of construction … an increasingly greater number of people could be affected by construction activities involving the disturbance of contaminated soils or groundwater.’”
• “This could be a particular issue in the residential portions of HPS Phase II where construction in contaminated soils may occur near occupied residential units.”
• “The draft EIR did not evaluate and assess cumulative human health and environmental exposure impacts from hydrocarbons, volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds, PCBs, pesticides, heavy metals, asbestos and radionuclides.”
• “The draft EIR did not identify a mechanism to disseminate information on institutional controls and exposure avoidance to new occupants, construction workers, and shoppers, visitors and other workers on site.”

For a clear, easy to understand description of what BVHP is up against, watch the slide show, at www.realasponse.com/wilma.ppt, presented by Wilma Subra, whose advice to the community is facilitated by EPA’s TASC program.

Excuse me while I pause to dry my eyes as I imagine what the hell is really going on. What a sad day we are at when in San Francisco – arguably the most beautiful city in the world – kowtows to drunken greed driven by pressuring principality political figures and others.

Why do I have to dry my eyes because in the face of all this information the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in San Francisco says FULL SPEED AHEAD with the process of early transfer – transfer before cleanup is complete – of the Shipyard from the Navy to the City and Lennar.

However, for the purposes of enlightening and encouraging you, the reader, to take immediate action with regard to joining this struggle to insist that San Francisco’s “political powers that be” stand up for their constituency, as well as insisting that the EPA in San Francisco live up to its name – specifically “Protection,” its middle name – and protect the future of San Franciscans by not continuing to support the theory of early transfer.

When the Titanic was facing its ultimate fate, the captain was forewarned as to the imminent danger facing his ship, but he made the decision to continue full speed ahead. Well, this is not that time and space and San Francisco is not in the hands of one captain in a position to hold back imperative information from the thousands who will be affected by decisions made in City Hall, Congress and the Pentagon.

No, San Francisco thankfully has Wilma Subra and a slew of organizations and informed community participants prepared to visit the captain at the wheel and say, “Hold on!” Our lives, our children and our future are worth more than a few promised millions of dollars in the name of so-called development which we may never see in any case.

The dirt is in the details. Dirty early transfer, dirty development, dirty politics is not the answer to any of the conditions that plague Bayview Hunters Point or San Francisco as a whole. With the economy in the state that it is in, we the people have to step up to the peddlers of political wiles and demand creative thinking to increase our city’s long term economic outlook.

Ms. Subra came to us as an uninvested economic and political adviser. Now it is our call, our time to get involved to say no to the dirty onslaught upon BVHP and San Francisco.

If you are interested in learning more, you may email me at nyesej@yahoo.com. You are invited to attend the Town Hall meetings every Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. They’re held at 195 Kiska Road in Hunters Point, San Francisco.

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OBAMACARE: a dream deferred?

by Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, M.D.

“What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? / Or fester like a sore and then run?” – Langston Hughes

Dr. Ahimsa Sumchai was backed by Cynthia McKinney and Cindy Sheehan at a large gathering in the Bay View’s back yard on Oct. 6, 2007, during the good doctor’s campaign for mayor of San Francisco. – Photo: John Morton

Back on the front burner! The Obama White House has taken the “bull by the horns” in an effort to move the momentum of national health reform forward in the midst of stagnation, charges of political corruption and back room deal making and a shifting tide of public opinion regarding the need for massive overhaul of our nation’s health care system. On Thursday, Feb. 25, I watched the proceedings of the historic Blair House bipartisan summit on health reform. In advance of that televised forum, the White House released a blueprint health care plan drafted by the Obama administration.

The 10 year, $950 billion plan would allow the federal government a greater role in regulating the private health care industry to control premium hikes. The plan does not offer a government run public option but creates state health exchanges that allow states to offer consumers a shopping place for coverage. Abortion activists have been appeased by revisions within the plan that allow states to decide whether to provide abortion services.

The White House summit was successful in bringing key players in the health care debate to the table. There was consensus only in recognition of the need for change of the current system. The president exercised strength and dominance in providing irrefutable evidence that his plan will ultimately lower health insurance rates for most consumers.

There has been great media debate centered on the costs of uncompensated care for the uninsured. Currently the federal government ultimately pays about 75 percent of the estimated $6 billion a year spent in providing primary, specialty and emergency care services to the uninsured in our nation. The question remains, is the national health reform effort a dream deferred?

Perhaps even more historic than the White House summit was the Congressional hearing carried live on C-Span Wednesday, Feb. 25, on repealing the antitrust exemption the health insurance industry has enjoyed in our nation. This exemption has allowed insurers to act in “collusion” to increase rates, to act as a monopoly within states to block competition and to lobby elected officials to engage in legislative malpractice.

The Republican opposition to expansion of coverage to meet the needs of 30 million uninsured Americans is based in the belief, expressed in a CNN interview by economist Ben Stein, that Republicans contribute a greater percent to the U.S. tax base. While the Republicans have failed to produce a comprehensive plan to counter the Democrats, the idea of offering a refundable tax credit up to $5,700 for families to purchase health insurance is circulating.

The House health care plan includes a requirement that individuals over a certain income level obtain coverage or face financial penalties of either a flat fee or a percentage of their income. The penalty for failing to get health insurance would increase to 2.5 percent of an individual’s annual income or a flat fee of $695. Both progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans have failed to eagerly embrace the White House plan.

WellPoint Inc., the nation’s largest health insurer, announced plans to increase insurance premium rates by 39 percent in California on 700,000 individual policy holders. State Attorney General Jerry Brown announced intent to investigate rate hikes of health insurers and, on Feb. 22, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner accused WellPoint subsidiary Anthem Blue Cross of 700 violations of law including failure to pay claims, consumer fraud and “belligerent” failure to cooperate with regulators in the state insurance commissioner’s office. Obama called the WellPoint rate hike a “preview of coming attractions if national health reform fails.”

“Maybe it just sags / like a heavy load.”

Bay View Health and Environmental Science Editor Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai can be reached at (415) 835-4763 or asumchai@sfbayview.com.

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Ethnic Studies resolution passes School Board unanimously

by Coleman Advocates

The struggle for Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State, the first such program in the country, took a five-month student strike, from November 1968 through March 1969, and many clashes with police. – Photo: Gordon Peters, SF Chronicle

“How can I learn who I can be, when I don’t even know who I am? Ethnic Studies provides me the foundations to learn who I AM!” declared Monet Wilson, a Y-MAC leader at Balboa High School.

Over 125 youth, parents, teachers and supporters packed the Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 23, to urge the board to vote in favor of the Ethnic Studies resolution. This resolution would continue and expand an Ethnic Studies pilot program for the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to take place in five high schools next year.

The board’s unanimous vote marks a victory for a several-year campaign to have SFUSD prioritize curriculum that explores the history of people of color, which often is marginalized in mainstream history textbooks. In a city with a powerful history of winning Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University and in a district with a student population that is 90 percent students of color, this move was a long time coming. But we want to recognize every member of the Board of Education for making the right choice, particularly Commissioners Fewer, Kim and Maufus, who co-authored the resolution.

According to the resolution, Ethnic Studies “steers youth away from truancy and the juvenile justice system by making their educational experience more personal and relevant. It fosters strong ties between students and their families, neighborhoods, and schools, thus encouraging a sense of civic engagement and social responsibility.”

Students organized in large numbers to appear at the meeting to say that Ethnic Studies makes school more relevant and empowering for them. Over 60 high school and college students as well as teachers testified in front of the Board of Education about the benefits of the classes.

The dean of San Francisco State’s College of Ethnic Studies also testified that the university will provide students who take Ethnic Studies at SFUSD up to six units of college credit that may be used for general education requirements. This year is the 40th anniversary of the creation of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State.

Coleman leaders voted to push for Ethnic Studies as part of our Coleman’s “College and Career for All” A-G policy implementation campaign because students have a right to learn about their history and be engaged in meaningful learning that validates their own life experiences! We are especially excited that the board will be looking into getting the classes certified as A-G courses in the future.

The vote was a strong statement of district priorities; we recognize that investing $250,000 in a new equity-centered class in the midst of a tremendous budget crisis is politically challenging. No one is happy about impending layoffs, but we want to challenge the idea that we must choose between saving teachers or teaching Ethnic Studies.

Congratulations to the other organizations who put in so much work: POWER, Filipino Community Center, Pinoy Education Partnership, Chinatown Community Development Center and HOMEY. We again want to recognize all seven board members – Commissioners Kim, Fewer, Maufus, Yee, Wynns, Norton and Mendoza – for their leadership. But more importantly, we need to celebrate the incredible, brilliant and powerful youth who did the work, told their stories, and got organized to fight for the kind of schools that will help them be successful.

To learn more and get involved in the work of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, visit www.colemanadvocates.org. SFUSD contributed to this story.

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House vote imminent on Rep. Maxine Waters’ bill to cancel Haiti’s debt

by Michael Levin

In Haiti, people are scavenging building materials to use or sell. Because neither the people nor the government have the resources for relief or recovery, Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ debt cancellation bill calls for any new aid to Haiti to come in the form of grants rather than loans. – Photo: AFP

Washington – Legislation introduced by Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., to cancel all debt owed by Haiti to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and other multilateral institutions was passed by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade during a markup on Thursday, March 4, following a subcommittee hearing on debt relief for Haiti. The legislation could be voted on by the entire House of Representatives as early as this week.

A longtime advocate for Haiti, Congresswoman Waters introduced the Debt Relief for Earthquake Recovery in Haiti Act (H.R. 4573) shortly after the devastating earthquake struck Haiti.

“Haiti faces enormous challenges now, and the burden of paying off foreign debt would prevent the nation from taking necessary steps to help its people at this perilous time. I introduced H.R. 4573 so that Haiti can use its limited resources to make both immediate and long-term investments in essential humanitarian relief, reconstruction and development efforts,” said Congresswoman Waters.

H.R. 4573 requires the Secretary of the Treasury to instruct the U.S. executive directors at the World Bank, the IMF, the IDB and other multilateral development institutions to use the voice, vote and influence of the United States to do the following:

1. cancel immediately and completely all debt owed by Haiti to these institutions;

2. suspend Haiti’s debt service payments to the institutions until the debt is canceled completely; and

3. provide additional assistance to Haiti in the form of grants so that Haiti does not accumulate additional debt.

On Feb. 21, 2004, eight days before he was forced out of office and out of Haiti by U.S. Marines, President Jean Bertrand Aristide speaks at a press conference flanked by his wife, Mildred, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters. The Presidential Palace, where they are standing, collapsed in the Jan. 12 earthquake. – Photo: Pablo Aneli, AP

H.R. 4573 also requires the Secretary of the Treasury to commence immediate efforts to urge other bilateral, multilateral and private creditors to cancel immediately and completely all debts owed by Haiti to such creditors.

The subcommittee also passed a Manager’s Amendment to Congresswoman Waters’ legislation offered by Subcommittee Chairman Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and drafted in conjunction with Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass. The Manager’s Amendment adds a provision directing the U.S. executive director to the IMF to advocate that some of the excess profits from the sale of IMF gold, which Congress approved last year, be used to provide debt relief and grants to Haiti. The amendment also adds updated statistics on Haiti’s debts to the bill’s findings and makes other technical changes.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, owes $828 million to multilateral development institutions according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. This includes $447 million to the IDB, $284 million to the IMF, $39 million to the World Bank and $58 million to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations.

Congresswoman Waters has previously helped Haiti and other poor countries obtain debt relief and just last year was instrumental in encouraging the World Bank and the IMF to cancel $1.2 billion of Haiti’s debt.

Congresswoman Waters said, “Haiti had been making progress since suffering extensive damage caused by a series of hurricanes in 2008. The government of Haiti successfully developed and implemented a comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, under the direction of the IMF and the World Bank, in order to qualify for debt relief, and last year’s debt cancellation helped to move Haiti in the right direction. We must help Haiti continue to move forward despite the considerable obstacles it now faces, and this is only possible with additional debt cancellation.”

Congresswoman Waters traveled to Haiti this weekend, her second trip there since the earthquake, in order to assess relief and reconstruction activities. She is particularly concerned about the need to provide shelter to hundreds of thousands of Haitians whose homes were destroyed. Many Haitians are living outdoors in makeshift camps, but the rainy season will arrive soon putting them at greater risk. Congresswoman Waters has called on the international community to distribute durable tents to Haitians to help meet their immediate needs for shelter, and on her upcoming trip she will monitor the progress of efforts to provide tents.

Michael Levin, communications director for Congresswoman Waters, can be reached at Michael.Levin@mail.house.gov.

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John Prendergast’s selective outrage at African crimes

Black Star News editorial

Ugandan President Yoweri K. Museveni

If a person really cared about human suffering – torture, mass rape, pillage, torching of homes with people alive inside, targeted rapes to spread HIV/AIDS, burying people alive, chopping off of limbs – then such a person would condemn these acts wherever they may occur in Africa and demand that the perpetrators of the crimes be brought to justice.

What if a person is selective in their condemnation of such crimes? What are we to make of a person who condemns such crimes in one African country but ignores them in a neighboring country? What are we to make of a person who calls on the world, correctly, to help put out a huge fire which is devouring innocent victims, while ignoring an even bigger conflagration in the next building?

Wouldn’t we have to question either the sanity or the motives of such a person? There would have to be answers for such behavior.

Certainly, such a person cannot be “attacking” the type of crimes outlined above out of a pure and genuine sense of moral outrage alone. This wouldn’t be possible. A person truly horrified by the nature and extent of such crimes against humanity wouldn’t exercise selective condemnation.

Regrettably, this is the context in which condemnation of crimes by John Prendergast, who runs an outfit called Enough, needs to be placed. There is a huge fire in the Sudan and the primary arsonist is President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. An even bigger arsonist is the formerly U.S.-backed Ugandan President Yoweri K. Museveni.

How is it that Prendergast can tirelessly campaign to have Bashir indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and yet turn a blind eye to the Ugandan arsonist whose crimes, by many accounts, exceed even Bashir’s horrors?

Certainly Prendergast can’t argue that his organization doesn’t have the resources to campaign against both arsonists?

Only a callous and pitiless denier would maintain that crimes against humanity haven’t been committed in the Sudan by militias allied with the Bashir government in Khartoum, as well as crimes by the various and numerous rebel groups in the Darfur region.

Poster: FreeUganda.Wordpress.com

But Prendergast loses credibility and commits a grave disservice to human rights fighters throughout Africa when he tirelessly agitates against Bashir – and excludes Museveni – through his lobbying efforts in Congress, through public events, campus events and non-stop press releases.

He creates the impression, correctly and effectively, that countless innocent Africans have perished due to Bashir’s tyranny. At the same time, by not directing similar outrage against the Ugandan arsonist Museveni, whether by design or otherwise, those who are unfamiliar with the continent may get the wrong impression that Museveni has not orchestrated an even greater holocaust.

After all, Enough’s stated mission is to “end genocide and crimes against humanity.” And, since Prendergast and Enough have yet to conduct any campaign against Museveni, the less-informed might understandably conclude that Museveni’s not associated with any genocide – when in fact he has been a principal architect.

A simple Google search will confirm that the evidence is out there about Museveni’s holocaust against Uganda’s ethnic Acholis and against innocent Congolese who stood in the way of his imperial vision and quest for Congo’s gold, coltan, diamond and timber.

The first is the detailed findings of a 2005 World Health Organization report that shows that about 52,000 Ugandans were starved to death – or allowed to die from treatable diseases – in concentration camps operated by Museveni’s government for nearly 20 years in the northern part of Uganda, the ancestral home of Acholis. One million Acholis may have been liquidated.

Where are the press releases and campaigns by Prendergast condemning these atrocities? Where are the calls by Prendergast to International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo to pursue Gen. Museveni? Where are the YouTube postings by Enough calling for the Obama administration to take action against Museveni’s regime?

Another damning report is the 2005 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – the highest international arena for resolving disputes between nations – which found Uganda liable for crimes against humanity when its army occupied Congo’s Ituri region between 1998 and 2003.

John Prendergast

More than 7 million Congolese are estimated to have perished through the Uganda and associated atrocities. The ICJ granted Congo $10 billion in reparations and The Wall Street Journal reported on June 8, 2006, that Gen. Museveni urged then U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to quash the ICC’s own separate probe.

Had Prendergast and his cohorts launched a similar campaign to expose Museveni’s crimes – as he, laudably has campaigned to expose Bashir’s and the Lord’s Resistance Army’s Joseph Kony’s – the ICC’s Ocampo might have taken action against Uganda’s arsonist by now.

As it is, we are left to ponder about Prendergast’s motives. Are we to conclude that to Prendergast the blood of Museveni’s victims – Ugandans and Congolese – is somehow less valuable than those of Al-Bashir’s victims?

Are there other nefarious agendas in play?

This is a question that only Prendergast can answer.

This story originally appeared at http://www.blackstarnews.com/news/135/ARTICLE/6322/2010-03-02.html. Black Star News Publisher and Editor-in chief Milton Allimadi can be reached at Milton@blackstarnews.com.

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