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The World Trade Organization talks imploded in Cancun, Mexico, this week, as the developing world finally just said “no” to the ever-escalating demands of wealthy nations intent on fine-tuning a global market to their infinite advantage.

African cotton-exporting nations had planned to seek $300 million in reparations to make up for trade lost to heavily subsidized U.S. and European cotton agribusiness. The symbolic action was pre-empted by what Global Trade Watch’s Lori Wallach called the “fury factor” – the combustion of Third World anger and rich men’s indignation. Accustomed to obedience, U.S. trade representative Robert B. Zoellick exploded in frustration when uppity developing nations refused to accept the Euro-American agenda. "The harsh rhetoric of the `won't do' overwhelmed the concerted efforts of the `can do,'" Zoellick huffed, with characteristic arrogance.

Tanzanian delegate Beatrice Matumbo had planned to engage in serious negotiations in Cancun, but the rich countries’ imperiousness left the developing world no choice but to quit the talks. "I was afraid I would have to go back to my people and say we didn't gain anything," Matumbo told the Los Angeles Times. "But instead we stood up to the manipulation. I am very happy."

Jamaica’s Richard Bernal spoke for the Caribbean Economic Community. "There is nothing for us small countries in this proposal," he said. "We don't want any of this."

The dramatic display of Third World unity in Cancun is of profound importance to American working people, who have also been shanghaied into finance capital’s global race to the bottom. The bottom is finally standing up.

In urban America, the best hope to resist capital’s destructive, Black displacement schemes lies with Black trade unionists, who “are comfortable with taking on an adversary role with capital, as a matter of routine.” As we wrote in Part II of our series, “Wanted: a Plan for Black Cities to Save Themselves,” September 4:

In the near term, African American labor’s most effective contribution to transforming Black politics in America – and thus, recasting progressive politics overall – would be to advance the necessity of labor’s immersion in city and regional planning.

For more than 30 years, urban leaders have begged capital to return to the cities, trading off or giving away precious public assets in desperation to fit into corporate development plans, yet having no comprehensive plans of their own. “Consequently, there is little substance to urban politics, since the actual development of the cities is planned in corporate boardrooms and presented as a fait accompli, through the offices of the mayor,” said .

Moreover, “capital has converted every social initiative to its own service,” most notably the federal HOPE VI program, which in many cities has devolved to a public housing demolition scheme. Los Angeles community activist Sabrina L. Williams reported the betrayal of the tenants of Boston’s Clippership housing project:

“The Clippership development in East Boston, for example, was called a ‘jewel’ of public housing by the local housing authority administrator only two years before the housing authority sought HOPE VI funding to demolish it, characterizing it as severely distressed…. According to the residents, Clippership did not suddenly become 'severely distressed.' Rather, East Boston's real estate boom prompted the BHA [Boston Housing Authority] to realize that the real 'jewel' of Clippership was not its tight-knit and safe community, but rather the land under the townhouses, with its spectacular harbor views." (“From HopeVI to Hope Sick?” Summer Issue, Dollars and Sense.)

Fred McGhee knows the HOPE VI program all too well:

Your excellent writing on the crisis facing urban Black America has brought me out of the closet. I especially appreciate your mention of HUD's long-standing urban nightmare, the HOPE VI program. I participated in two HOPE VI "redevelopment" efforts in Texas in the mid 1990's, the first in Austin while I was an employee of the Austin Housing Authority, and the second in Houston, where the Houston Housing Authority eventually destroyed most of Allen Parkway Village, a historically significant public housing complex in Houston's Freedmenstown section of Fourth Ward, and have since had the opportunity to study the program in some greater depth. I've been forced to conclude that a significant portion of Black America's "leaders" ought to be ashamed of themselves for what they have actively and passively done and are doing to the Black poor and working classes.

In Houston, one can place a significant part of the blame on the city's preacher class, and also on the footstep of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee, who in some ways has spent the last few years trying to make up for the fact that she grabbed her ankles when Tom DeLay came calling. I vividly recall one of a series of meetings at a historic Black church in downtown Houston, where the congresswoman spent a few hours "listening" to pleas from community members, as well as Native Americans from Oklahoma, about why the city and the housing authority's "renaissance" of Fourth Ward should not unfold by enriching Houston's development sharks and their Black hangers-on. It was an emotional spectacle, like so many of these meetings. I have now taken heart from the prospect that Black Texas "leaders" such as Garnet Coleman and Rodney Ellis have now found their souls and have been willing to break quorums in the Texas legislature. The sad part is that it may now be too late.

Dr. McGhee is an archeologist specializing in the African American historical presence.

The voucher-driven coup

Republicans are only a Senate vote away from imposing school vouchers on the unwilling citizens of Washington, DC. As we explained in last week’s Cover Story, “D.C. Voucher Passage is Huge Defeat: Right-funded Black Leadership Ascending,” vouchers are central to the GOP’s plans to stage a “coup” against established Black leadership.

Vouchers are the Right’s wedge issue, carefully chosen to create divisions between the Democratic Party’s two strongest pillars: Blacks and public employees unions, most notably, teachers. Keenly aware of African American reverence for education, the very people who wage relentless war against the public schools wave vouchers under the noses of the poor, knowing full well that private schools cannot possibly meet the needs of the vast bulk of Black children. Private capital has no interest in taking on the responsibility of educating the masses of Black kids. Rather, their strategy is to sow dissension in Black and progressive ranks while setting up contra outposts in scattered, publicly funded private schools, places of employment and propagandizing for new waves of African American mercenaries. These hirelings will then form the core of “alternative,” “conservative” Black leadership in all those places [Black Chicago Congressman Danny] Davis cited: “… Chicago tomorrow, St. Louis, New Orleans, Los Angeles next week, then it's all of America.

At the time of this writing, it is unclear when the U.S. Senate will vote on school vouchers. Activists don’t trust the official calendar, having been ambushed by Republicans in a surprise vote, sprung on House members last week while much of the Congressional Black Caucus was in Baltimore for a Democratic presidential candidates debate. Vouchers passed by one vote.

The Baltimore debate was co-sponsored by the Black Caucus and Fox News, one of the many global media properties owned by right-winger Rupert Murdock. Murdock’s involvement set reader Peggy Hirsch to wondering. She smells foul collusion.

Thanks for clearing up the confusion I experienced when I saw Fox TV co-sponsoring the Democratic presidential candidates debate. See, I thought Fox was just making nice, pretending to be fairly balanced while awaiting their next important assignment. But lo, what utter skunks they are, manipulating a vote on vouchers while pretending to do a civic duty. But that's something I've learned about these R-wingers: they always get a twofer. When they do something wretched, don't await accountability, wait for the other shoe to drop.

I am a newly minted fan of your site.

Newly minted is good. We hope not to tarnish ourselves in Ms. Hirsch’s estimation.

A free debate on Zimbabwe

Our July 31 Cover Story, “The Debate on Zimbabwe Will Not be Throttled” was one of ’s more difficult pieces, both because of the complexity of the subject and our felt obligation to present a range of angles on the issue. We are, therefore, pleased that readers continue to discover the five-part piece, and to find it useful. The commentary began:

George Bush doesn’t want you to talk about empowering the people of Africa – and neither do some African Americans. Issuing thinly veiled threats, these individuals and organizations appropriate to themselves the colors Red, Black and Green, and label as treasonous all Black criticism of their current Strong Man of choice, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

’s position is that Mugabe’s repression of civil society has helped to create a chemistry that “leads to civil war and imperialist intervention,” and that elements of the opposition are, indeed, inviting such intervention.

Frances M. Beal is a prolific writer-of-substance (“Peace and Justice Forces Rally to McKinney,” July 25, 2002) and a member of the Bay Area Steering Committee of the Black Radical Congress:

I write to thank you for your courage in taking on the Zimbabwe debate. Black fascists in Africa and within Black America must learn that open and honest debate will not be silenced, even when we have to take on some Blacks passing themselves off as revolutionaries or Africanists.

A Deep South Tale

When Condoleezza Rice compared the civil rights struggles of the Sixties to the American occupation of Iraq (!), she was attempting to tap into the wellsprings of Black memory. For some of us, Rice’s blasphemy felt more like a spinal tap.

Bob Saboski, of Hoboken, New Jersey, recollects some of his own experiences from that era.

After reading “Condoleezza Rice and the Birmingham Bombing Victims,” by Margaret Kimberly, I was distressed at the National Security Advisor’s ill-timed invocation of the 1963 bombings. I realize that Dr. Rice suffered the loss of a schoolmate. She has my sympathy. But the context of her remarks reflect the same pandering style employed by the rest of the Bush team.

I'd like to share a story along those lines. I was in Alabama at the time of those bombings. I attended a small – and all white - college near Birmingham. As a reporter for the college newspaper, I had interviewed Julian Bond not long after that tragic event. I was impressed at his humble yet no-nonsense style. I am proud to have met a man who has risen so far.

There was another white student who had also been impressed by Mr. Bond. She’d posed for a photo with him, smiling at his side. She’d had no way of knowing the stir this would cause.

Her mother, a teacher at our school, had phoned me a few nights later. Her call had awakened me. It was hard to understand much of what she’d said, but there was great fear in her voice. She’d pleaded with me to bring the newspaper staff out to her house. She’d said to bring a camera.

What awaited us there still brings me shivers.

While most of the flames had gone out, dark smoke still rose from three tall crosses staked into her lawn. Scattered over the yard were re-prints of the photo of her daughter with Julian Bond. The woman stood in her doorway shaking, a small revolver in hand as we photographed the burnt crosses. I had been frightened and outraged. A few moments later a pick-up truck passed slowly, a team of men riding in its bed. They held shotguns in their hands. They grinned and shouted at us. They left after a few passes, and no shots were fired.

The horror of that night remains etched in my mind. I would be angered if that image were abused by an administration only to further its own agenda.

Writer Margaret Kimberley produces a steady flow of wit and insight on her blog, Freedom Rider. We encourage you to visit.

Political beat

Back in the day when Co-Publisher Glen Ford operated the nation’s first Hip Hop radio syndication, “Rap It Up,” (1987 – 1993), corporate boardrooms had yet to discover the mega-profits of Gangsta Rap, and politics rocked the house. Last week, we republished an interview with the Political School artist, Paris. The Q&A was conducted by the staff of Playahata.com, and first appeared on Davey D’s excellent site. As Davey D’s introduction stated, “Paris hails from the San Francisco Bay Area and was catapulted onto the national scene in 1990 with his hit single “The Devil Made Me Do It” and album of the same name. Since then his uncompromising stance on political issues and biting social commentary have both aided and hindered his quest to bring solid music and messages to the masses.”

Reader Craig Arie called our attention to another interview with Paris, whose LP “Sonic Jihad” comes out on September 23. We think the artist’s conversation with thaformula.com should be of interest to those who bemoan the current state of Hip Hop and Black culture, generally. Here’s a slice from the interview:

Paris: Really what it is now is that everything has become so corporatized that black culture is being dictated to black people by white corporations ‘cause they’re the ones who select who gets exposure, and consequently they are the ones who reward a particular type of behavior - and that's what we see. Every time you turn on the television, every time you look at BET (which is a white owned corporation), anytime you look at MTV or any of these video channels that have videos that are manufactured by white-owned corporations, you see this imagery that 9 times out of 10 is negative for us, and 9 times out of ten reflects us in a way that we don’t necessarily behave.

It’s a catch-22 type of situation because, in so-called minority communities, life imitates art, so we act the way that we see on TV. Most kids in school - high school and middle school - know the lyrics to songs more then they know their schoolwork. Everybody that’s reading this interview knows how influential music is when it comes to us, and so when there is almost a type of a blanket negativity that exists in the music then you see it havin’ negative ramifications on us in real life, and that's the most disturbing thing. I mean everybody that came from my era who was puttin’ it down when it was me and PE and X-Clan and Krs and a whole lot of folks, we saw the positive impact the music that we did had. I get emails to this day from people who say that "The Devil Made Me Do It" and "Sleeping with the Enemy" were life-altering experiences for them because it made them look at things differently and made them approach situations differently. It made them become more aware of themselves and how they fit in America's racist structure. I can only imagine what kind of influence that a lot of what is going on now is havin’ on folks that's comin’ up. It's a frightening thing. It's genocidal actually.

Our thanks, again, to reader Craig Arie.

Keep writing.

gratefully acknowledges the following organizations for sending visitors our way during the past week:

Buzzflash

Black Voices

Counterpunch

Black Planet

Liberal Oasis

 

 

September 18, 2003
Issue 56

is published every Thursday.

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