Table of Contents

There are 15 chapters in this issue

About BlackCommentator.com

Cover Story: Dangers Associated With The Syrian Proxy War - The African World By Bill Fletcher, Jr., BC Editorial Board

The Re-Obamulator - Animated Political Cartoon By Mark Fiore, San Francisco CA

Who Controls the Food Controls the People - Solidarity America - By John Funiciello - BC Columnist

Globalization Marches On - Left Margin - By Carl Bloice - BC Editorial Board

Black Pride: Distinct and Emblematic – Inclusion - By The Reverend Irene Monroe - BC Editorial Board

Caught Spying - Political Cartoon By Eric Garcia, Chicago IL

Psychological Liberation Must Be a Part of African Liberation - A View from the Battlefield By Jamala Rogers, BC Editorial Board

“Patriotism is the Last Final Refuge of Scoundrels...” and Republicans! - Sharp n’ Blunt - By Desi Cortez - BC Columnist

No Right Time for the Other Battle - The Other Side of the Tracks - By Perry Redd - BC Columnist

Mighty Josh - Art By Kadir Nelson, San Diego CA

Intellectual Genocide in the U.S. & Why Africa Is Important for Humanity - Keeping it Real By Larry Pinkney, BC Editorial Board

Jitu K Weusi - A Great Organizer and Master Teacher - Worrill’s World - By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill, PhD - BC Columnist

What S.N.A.P Cuts? - BC Political Cartoon By Chuck Siler

Quote to Ponder: "Don't Gain The World & Lose Your Soul, Wisdom Is Better Than Silver Or Gold." - Bob Marley

This is an eBook version of BlackCommentator.com - An independent weekly internet magazine dedicated to the movement for economic justice, social justice and peace.

BC Provides commentary, analysis and investigations on issues affecting African Americans and the African world.

BC was established April 5, 2002 and is published weekly on Thursday.

This is Issue 519 which was published Jun 06, 2013.

Executive Editor: David A. Love, JD - Managing Editor: Nancy Littlefield, MBA - Publisher: Peter Gamble

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

Members of the BCEditorial Board represent African Americans and the African world. Theyare dedicated activists, thinkers and writers. The BC Editorial Board includes the following in alphabetical order by last name:

Lola Adesioye, Carl Bloice,Julian Bond, Rose Brewer PhD, Horace Campbell PhD, Imani Countess,Lenore Jean Daniels PhD, Bill Fletcher Jr., James Jennings PhD, BadiliJones, Martin Kilson PhD, Sharon Kyle JD, David A. Love JD, JulianneMalveaux PhD, Manning Marable PhD, Syreeta McFadden, The Reverend IreneMonroe, Leith Mullings PhD, Jacqui Patterson, Larry Pinkney, StevenPitts PhD, Barbara Ransby PhD, Jamala Rogers, Ethel Long-Scott, Amy V.Simmons, William L. (Bill) Strickland, Chuck Turner, Nathaniel Turner,Ron Walters PhD, Emira Woods, Jeanne Woods JD.

Jun 06, 2013 - Issue 519

While it is positive that the USA and Russia have been discussing a peaceful resolution to the Syrian civil war, the reality is that this conflict may grow and spread. Although the US media speaks about this conflict in religious terms, i.e., Sunni vs. Shia, such a description is far too simplistic and does not help us better understand what has been unfolding.

The Syrian civil war started in the context of the so-called Arab Spring. There was a peaceful pro-democracy rising that had little to do with what sect within Islam someone found one’s self. It was a rising against a despotic, quasi-monarchy [the regime of President Bashar al-Assad] that made frequent use of progressive—and even anti-imperialist—rhetoric while it was suppressing its citizenry. The social base for the leadership clique of President Assad was among the Alawites, a Muslim sect related to the Shiites, but it would be incorrect to see the Syrian regime as anything approaching an Alawite theocracy.

The Syrian regime, founded by Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad, was not very different from many of the nationalist-military regimes that took power in the Arab World in the 1950s and 1960s. They were generally anti-imperialist in orientation and aligned themselves with the then Soviet Union. These regimes tended not to be democratic internally and were intolerant of dissent. They were not religious in any particular way, though in the case of Syria, the long-standing persecution of the Alawites ended with the assumption of power by Assad.

The Assad regime—both father and now the son—suffered from the same crisis that Egyptian theorist Samir Amin has referenced regarding many efforts in the global South. These nationalist-populist projects worked to transform and modernize their respective countries, but only so far. Though aligned with the Soviet Union, and in some cases China, they were not committed to a thorough transformation of their respective states, and certainly not a democratization. One could also see this in Qaddafi’s Libya, for instance. The rhetoric of these regimes, however, frequently confused outsiders, leading many progressives in the global North to assume that regimes, such as Assad’s, were on the side of progressive change whereas they were increasingly repressive.

With the collapse of the USSR, Syria found itself in an ever more complicated situation. It retained an alliance with Russia, through which they were supplied advanced weaponry. They had also constructed an alliance with theocratic Iran against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980s, the latter having been a bitter rival of Syria for leadership of the Arab World.

Much as with Saddam Hussein’s regime, ideology drained away from the Assad despotism as time went on, leaving only a regime seeking to retrain power. It is this regime that was confronted by a pro-democracy movement in the context of the Arab Spring.

It is quite possible that Assad could have come to some sort of compromise with the pro-democracy movement. The Syrians, having witnessed the Lebanese civil war, had no particular interest in a turn toward armed struggle. Instead, much like Qaddafi, Assad assumed that he could squash the protest movement, and he attempted to do so quite violently.

Try as they might, the pro-democracy movement, which was never under the leadership of any one organization, found it difficult to retain a commitment to non-violence. This was especially the case once a new factor entered the picture: Saudi Arabia and Qatar. As part of an effort by ultra-conservative Sunni theocracies to both crush a secular nationalist regime plus thwart the alliance between Syria and Iran, Saudi Arabia and Qatar began to supply militaristic elements within the anti-Assad coalition. As Assad upped the ante through repression, the military option became increasingly acceptable to elements within the anti-Assad coalition. In time various European countries entered the picture, supporting the anti-Assad coalition and calling for the introduction of military assistance. The USA was, formally at least, slow to enter the picture, though elements, largely in the Republican Party, have been encouraging direct US military intervention (at a minimum through a no-fly zone). Ironically, the other force to enter the picture against Assad have been the Sunni jihadists, some of which are associated with Al Qaeda.

On the other side of the equation, Assad, increasingly isolated at home, turned outward for support, including to Iran, Russia, and more recently, the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon (the Shiite movement known for its successful war against Israeli invaders in 2006). Reports have circulated that both Assad and the anti-Assad forces have used chemical weapons. Israel, nervous about instability on its northern borders, has launched at least one attack against facilities under the control of Assad allegedly due to the suggestion that weaponry was being transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Which way is up?

The Obama administration has expressed an increasing amount of pro-interventionist sentiment. This has included recognizing the anti-Assad forces as the legitimate leaders of Syria, followed by alleged non-lethal assistance to the anti-Assad forces. Republican Senator John McCain, no surprise, has insisted that the USA should do more, though no one is currently suggesting the deploying of US troops, apparently having learned some lessons from the Iraq debacle. In either case, the USA is certainly not an honest broker in the conflict and is working covertly to oust the Assad regime. At the same time, they and Russia are discussing the possibilities of some sort of peace agreement, though Russia continues to arm Assad.

Syria, then, has become something like Spain in its 1936-39 civil war, i.e., a country that is not only carrying out a domestic struggle but has become a focal point for a much larger conflict. The USA should have learned from its experiences in Iraq, and later Libya, that fishing in troubled waters can bring with it very profound consequences. The relatively sudden collapse of the Qaddafi regime in Libya, for instance, with the direct involvement of NATO, resulted not only in destabilization, but also the flooding of North Africa with advanced weaponry from the Libyan armories. Right-wing jihadists enjoyed the benefits of the collapse of Qaddafi in ways that were absolutely predictable, but were ignored by US policy makers. The situation in Syria is Libya…on steroids.

Iran sees itself a target of isolation by both the USA and Europe, but also by the Sunni theocracies in the Arab/Persian Gulf region, and thus continues to support Assad. Efforts to overthrow Assad are interpreted by the Iranians as efforts to further that isolation. Russia sees efforts to remove Assad as weakening its own influence in the region, including weakening its ability to have any impact on the final resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The Sunni theocracies, and their jihadists allies (and sometimes shock-troops) see this situation as an excellent opportunity to not only isolate Iran, but to also crush progressive, secular democratic mass movements, which would actually be the net effect of a victory by either side, ironically enough.

The USA needs to pull back; it is already too involved. To the extent to which it can work with Russia towards a negotiated settlement of the conflict, that would be positive. But further actions on behalf of the anti-Assad coalition run the risks of additional blowback.

As I have noted elsewhere, interventions in civil wars are very risky propositions. A foreign intervention into a civil war brings with it the peril that one side wins not because it has a stronger base but because of outside assistance alone. The result can be a very unstable political arrangement that is entirely dependent on outside forces in order to sustain itself. Civil wars can be very bloody, and in fact be among the most bloody of conflicts, but they ultimately must be resolved by the people themselves. Short of actual genocide, e.g., Rwanda, foreign intervention must be restrained and all sides need to be encouraged to get to the negotiating table.

We, in the USA, must not allow ourselves to be whipped into a frenzy whereby we accept, if not encourage, greater US involvement in the Syrian civil war. To say this does not suggest that I am taking the side of Assad. To the contrary, Assad must go, but he must go as a result of the actions of the progressive forces within Syria rather than through a coalition more akin to a rogue’s gallery of nefarious forces.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfricaForum, and the author of “They’re Bankrupting Us” - And Twenty Other Myths about Unions. He is also the co-author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice, which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.

Jun 06, 2013 -Issue 519

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Pulitzer Prize-winner, Mark Fiore, who the Wall Street Journal has called “the undisputed guru of the form,” creates animated political cartoons in San Francisco, where his work has been featured on the San Francisco Chronicle’s web site, SFGate.com, for over ten years. His work also appears on Newsweek.com, Slate.com, CBSNews.com, MotherJones.com and NPR’s web site. Fiore’s political animation has appeared on CNN, Frontline, Bill Moyers Journal, Salon.com and cable and broadcast outlets across the globe.

Click here to contact Mark

Jun 06, 2013 - Issue 519

People in countries around the world held demonstrations in about 50 countries over the Memorial Day weekend, as part of “Millions Against Monsanto,” protesting the alarmingly fast-growing control by Monsanto over their food supply and the dangers of genetically modified organisms the company is forcing onto the world’s dinner plates.

The remarkable event, that so many could come together for such a specific reason and in such numbers in so many places, is an expression of the power of nearly universal communication that is possible through the use of the Internet and modern technology. But, it was just a start. There is a long way to go, and the struggle against the power of a giant transnational corporation like Monsanto forces us to recall the words of Henry Kissinger, when he said in 1970: “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”

The oil part of Kissinger’s little statement is pretty much finished. The people everywhere, if they are living in a petroleum-based economy, are already under the control of the corporations that own the oil of the world, and they do, indeed, own the oil, even if they do not own the actual ground under which the oil lies. The oil, no matter where it comes from, can be used, sold or otherwise traded, as if it came from one source.

Oil companies and their support corporations own our energy and they can do with their end product (gasoline, diesel, home heating oil, for example) anything they wish to do. It doesn’t belong to the people under whose ground it was taken, rather, it belongs to a small number of oil companies. That’s why it is ridiculous for politicians to spout off about “energy independence” for the U.S. There never had been any independence in oil in the modern era, at least, since the end of World War II, when the “energy companies” became all powerful, because of their control of the oil that was needed to construct one of the most wasteful of human enterprises, the suburb and the Interstate road system that makes suburban life possible. Such a living arrangement has required endless supplies of fuel to get from home to virtually everywhere else.

Monsanto’s intent to corner the market in food and crops is of a more recent vintage. The St. Louis, Missouri-based transnational corporation started out as a sweetener, and then, a chemical company, eventually morphing into a firm producing some of the most toxic substances known: dioxin (in the Agent Orange used extensively in Vietnam), PCBs (polychlorinated bi-phenyls), and glyphosate (the company’s brand-name herbicide, Round-Up). Glyphosate is necessary for use in Monsanto’s genetically engineered crops, such as soybeans, corn, canola, cotton, sugar beets, and alfalfa.

The company fully intends to control as much of the world’s food supply as possible and it has sent its lawyers and lobbyists into the maelstrom of Washington, D.C., where politicians are consumed by the campaign funds of Corporate America (including Monsanto and other giants), and where those engaged in small farm agriculture are eaten up and spat out by the legal and political grinder known as Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Both are not only friends of Monsanto, but many of their members are not only proponents of the company’s products and strategies and tactics, but are or have recently been part of the firm, itself.

For example, Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagan, as solicitor general for the Obama Administration, went to bat for Monsanto in the case involving Round-Up ready alfalfa, against the interests of organic farmers whose crops would be contaminated by the genetically manipulated alfalfa. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was lead counsel for Monsanto sometime before being confirmed to the high court, but he did not recuse himself when cases involving Monsanto came before the court (the court found in favor of the company). Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense in the Bush-Cheney Administration, served on the board of a Monsanto subsidiary, and Tom Vilsack, Obama’s current secretary of agriculture, long has been known as a proponent of the use and promotion of GMOs.

These are just a few of the revolving-door characters who slip easily from Corporate America, to top government posts where they purport to regulate the same companies, to which they return to resume their roles as champions of their employers against government regulation and control. There is an endless supply of people who have followed this same path. Even though they make up a small proportion of citizens, their names can be seen over and over again, as they slip easily from one role to the other, all the while giving the impression that they and their corporations are protecting the health and welfare of all of the people...all 310 million. This, of course, is an illusion. The “leaders” of the nation are hell-bent to maintain the status quo because, being of little imagination and creativity, they cannot envision doing the business of life in the U.S. in any other way than what we see before us. And, that includes corporate control of oil and food.

Never forget Kissinger’s words: “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.” This is from a man who apparently would do anything to achieve a political end, and who did just that throughout his career. According to many legal scholars and others, his war crimes include the massive bombing of peoples and nations, with which the U.S. was not at war, but it was all done (in secret, no less) for the same ultimate purpose, control of those nations and peoples.

A goal of Monsanto seems to be to eliminate all of those engaged in small farm agriculture, whether organic or conventional…anyone who wants no part of the company’s patented seeds. Without the ability of modern science to test DNA, there would be no lawsuits against family farmers whose fields have been contaminated or polluted by pollen drift from nearby fields that have been planted with Monsanto seeds.

Courts have decided that, no matter how the crops have been pollinated by patented seeds, the fault lies with the farmer whose crops have been polluted by the GMO, and courts have decided in favor of the giant transnational. Monsanto, with its deep pockets, does not hesitate for a moment to sue every small farmer it can to make its point and to consolidate its control over the seed markets of the world. Just a few corporations control seeds for such staple crops such as cotton, corn, soybeans, canola, sugar beets, and alfalfa and Monsanto is the world leader in this concentration. As in other aspects of modern life (food, finance, banking, insurance, housing, jobs and employment, education, to name a few), power is inexorably being concentrated in a handful of corporations.

That kind of concentration is power and it is the power to cut off the people from control of their country and their government. There are several other major issues that provide a smokescreen in the struggle by Corporate America (including same-sex marriage and the denial of climate change and global warming) to finally consolidate their power, but control of the food supply by the corporations and their lackeys in government is something that should sound the alarm bells for everyone in the U.S., even though, for the most part, we are not talking about real food raised on organic and small conventional farms, but we’re talking about food-like substances hatched in laboratories and foisted on the people by giant agribusinesses. Considering that the food that is presented is what the corporations tell us we will eat, we apparently will eat what they give us. Monsanto is a big part of that control of food.

GMO foods are essentially untested over the long term and the government has allowed corporations to grow them and put them on the market, without any regard for what the long term results might be in the health of the people and animals who eat the substances. For example, we see sickness and maladies among the people that were rare in decades recently past, but are now commonplace. To many of us, it is a combination of the degradation of the environment (air, soil, and water) and the manipulation of the food we eat. Research is being done constantly, but many of the scientists who are doing what we would call scientific research that shows the folly of our government’s GRAS (generally regarded as safe) policy do not have the money or the backing of a free press to show the people the dangers of manipulating our food supply.

Rather than taking the more conservative approach to introducing new and possibly dangerous elements into the biosphere by Corporate America, the government “regulators” declare that the new, untested elements are allowed under the GRAS policy. The people and the environment pay the price and the profits keep rolling in. And the people lose more power in what is supposedly their democracy.

The Memorial Day weekend demonstrations in so many countries show that the people are waking up, even if no more than a fraction of 1 percent participated. Their presence in the streets provided opportunity to educate millions more people about the dangers of Monsanto and the concentration of the power of all of Corporate America.

More and more people should be in the streets, demanding peaceful change from government at all levels, because the concentration of power in the U.S. is in all areas of the national life. There needs to be more coordination of study, analysis, and protest of all of these elements, which seem to stem from the one thing that connects them: The concentration of power by the corporations and those who do their bidding in the government at all levels. The illegitimate power of Corporate America must be curbed and the power over the direction and policies of the U.S. must be returned to the people. Just because you have the vote does not mean that you have democracy.

After the vote, the politicians need to be forced to do what needs to be done to make sure that the people are in charge of their country. No less is acceptable.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a long-time former newspaper reporter and labor organizer, who lives in the Mohawk Valley of New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.

Jun 06, 2013 - Issue 519

Earlier this year, when the young boss of Fiat appeared in Turin to mark the Tenth Anniversary of the death of the automaker’s founder, Gianni Agnelli, he noted the company’s roots in the northern Italian city. Afterwards, a journalist stood up and said, “You want us to be happy about Fiat now being an international company. Fine, we are. But what about the people in Termini Imerese? They no longer have jobs.”

The exchange was reported by Rachel Sanderson in the Financial Times, May 31 as a lead into a story about how Fiat is considering “moving its main corporate headquarters to the US from Turin after a merger with Chrysler that is expected later this year.” The “roots” comment, by 37-year-old Fiat Chair, John Elkann, Sanderson wrote, “have been remembered with some bitterness in Italy in the last few days as Fiat and its sister company Fiat Industrial crank up what appears to be the final stages of a push to become US-listed multinationals.”

The journalist was referring to the auto plant in Sicily that closed two years ago after it was sold to a Chinese firm that, in cooperation with an Israeli firm, is reportedly planning to put it back in operation sometimes next year.

“Like the takeover of UK chocolate maker Cadbury by Kraft of the US, Fiat’s withdrawal from money-losing Italy as it becomes part of a global group has created a national sense of loss at a time when the country is struggling with a deep two-year-old recession and unemployment at a near-20 year high.” wrote Sanderson.

Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne told the paper he “is looking at primary listings for the two groups in New York to gain better access to capital markets.”

Max Warburton, a global autos analyst, told Sanderson that Marchionne’s relocation plan is “genius.” “This guy is saying, it is my job to run a profitable business,” he said. “I’m a capital allocator and I’m not willing to sit here in Italy and burn cash into (sic) perpetuity. Leaving aside the national politics, no investors are going to complain about that, nor is the [Agnelli] family, nor should Fiat engineers and staff who will be part of a bigger and more secure business,” Mr. Warburton says.

“Other analysts argue that Fiat has not gone far enough and should be closing more of its under productive factories in Italy and focusing on its 100 per cent productive plants in Brazil or Eastern Europe,” wrote Sanderson.

Where, of course, wages are lower and benefits fewer.

The closure of the Sicilian auto plant and the corporate departure for New York underscore an essential truth about the economic and political situation in Europe today. Although most of commentary in the major mass media paints a picture of mismanaged and profligate countries in the southern part of the continent unwilling to carryout “reforms” necessary to overcome the effects of capitalism’s contemporary crisis, the reality is something else indeed. What is underway is a drive to shift the burden of overcoming the system’s malaise onto the backs of working people while maintaining the privileged position of the fortunate few – the one percent.

Last week, the front page of the New York Times revealed that that there is such a thing as a “ruling class” in Turkey.

Well, there are ruling classes in Common Market countries as well. And just as the proponents of austerity in the U.S. and Britain insist that working people and the poor make the sacrifices to overcome the havoc created by the profit hungry banks and other centers of high finance, there will be no pay cuts, reduced benefits or cutbacks in retirement security for the ruling classes of Europe.

For a glimpse at the lifestyle of those on the upside of globalization, consider this. In September 2004, on the Island in the middle of Italy’s second largest lake, Fiat’s John Elkann married the Italian countess, Donna Lavinia Borromeo. The ceremony was followed by a reception that featured a 5 meter long chocolate cake depicting the Lingotto auto plant in Turin and a unicorn, the heraldic symbol of the Borromeo family, which owns the lake. According to press reports the guest list including Henry Kissinger, Former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security to former President Richard Nixon; Michel Platini, president of the Union of European Football Associations; fashion superstar Valentino Garanani, wealthy Australian model Elle Macpherson, and “technocrat” Mario Monti, Italian Prime Minister from 2011 until a couple of months ago.

These are a few of the people who move their money around the globe in a never ending search for greater profit, who close plants in one country and move to lower wage areas abroad, who try to weaken or smash labor unions wherever they can, and have their hands in the pockets of politicians across the planet.

Last month, thousands of people protested in Rome against austerity policies and high unemployment, urging new Prime Minister Enrico Letta to focus on creating jobs to help pull the country out of recession.“We hope that this government will finally start listening to us because we are losing our patience,” stated Enzo Bernardis, who joined the sea of protesters waving red flags and calling for more workers' rights and better contracts.

Italy is in a recession and unemployment has skyrocketed with youth unemployment at around 38 percent. “We can’t wait anymore” and “We need money to live” were among slogans on banners held up by the crowds.

Labor leaders told the media that Letta needed to shift away from the austerity agenda pursued by former prime minister Monti, who Reuters reported “introduced a range of spending cuts, tax hikes and pension reform to shore up strained public finances.”

“We need to start over with more investment. If we don’t restart with public and private investments, there will no new jobs,” said Maurizio Landini, secretary-general of the left-wing metalworkers union Fiom.

“This government will last a very short time,” said demonstrator Marco Silvani. “What we need is a new leftist party that fights for the rights of the people.”

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist Carl Bloice is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for a healthcare union. Bloice is one of the moderators of Portside. Other Carl Bloice writing can be found at leftmargin.wordpress.com. Click here to contact Mr. Bloice.

Jun 06, 2013 -Issue 519

Black Pride reaffirms our identity. And it dances to a different beat.

What started out in Washington D.C. in 1990 as the only Black Gay Pride event in the country has grown to over 35 gatherings nationwide. Each year, celebrations start in April and continue until October. Over 300,000 LGBTQ people of African descent rev up for a weekend of social and cultural events celebrating their queer uniqueness. In 2007 alone, over 350,000 attended Black Gay Pride events throughout the U.S. The largest events are held in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Atlanta, and smaller Black Pride events (like Boston’s) provide an important sense of identity and cultural heritage.

Sunday gospel brunches, Saturday night Poetry slams, Friday evening fashion shows, bid whist tournaments, house parties, the smell of soul food and Caribbean cuisine, and the beautiful display of African art and clothing are just a few of the cultural markers that make Black Pride distinct from the dominant queer culture.

Just like in the mainstream of American society, cultural acceptance and inclusion of LGBTQ communities of color in larger Pride events is hard to come by. Many can experience social exclusion and invisibility in the big events. Segments of our population will attend separate Black, Asian, and Latino Gay Pride events in search of the unity that is the hallmark of Pride.

The themes and focus of Black, Asian, and Latino Pride events are different from the larger Pride events. Prides of communities of color focus on issues not solely pertaining to the LGBTQ community, but rather on social, economic, and health issues impacting their entire community. The growing distance between our larger and white LGBTQ community and these LGBTQ communities of color is shown by how, for an example, a health issue like HIV/AIDS that was once an entire LGBTQ community problem is now predominately a challenge for communities of color.

Also, with advances such as hate crime laws, the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the legalization of same-sex marriage in many states, and with homophobia viewed as a national concern, the LGBTQ movement has come a long way since the first Pride marches four plus decades ago. Many note the perceived distance the LGBTQ community has traveled in such a short historic time - from a disenfranchised group on the fringe of America’s mainstream to a community now on the verge of equality. But not all members of our community have crossed the finish line. Some are waving the cautionary finger that within our community to note that not all are equal.

Pride events can be public displays of those disparities.

Mainstream Prides have themes focused on marriage equality for the larger community where Prides organized by and for LGBTQ people of African descent have focused not only on HIV/AIDS but also unemployment, housing, gang violence, and LGBTQ youth homelessness. After decades of Pride events where many LGBTQ people of African descent asked to be included and weren’t, Boston Black Pride was born. Boston Black Pride this year will neither be a formal gathering of folks nor will there be a display of scheduled festivities. But it will groove on as it always has for the community, with more individual and impromptu events.

By 1999, Black Pride events have grown into the International Federation of Black Prides, Inc. (IFBP). The IFBP is a coalition of twenty-nine Black Pride organizations across the country. It formed to promote an African diasporic multicultural and multinational network of LGBTQ/ Same Gender Loving Pride events and community based organizations dedicated to building solidarity, health, and wellness and promoting unity throughout our communities.

Also in understanding the need to network and build coalitions beyond its immediate communities, IFBP created the formation of the Black/Brown Coalition.

Black Pride is an invitation for community. Like the larger Pride events that go on during the month of June throughout the country, Black Pride need not be viewed as either a political statement or a senseless non-stop orgy of drinking, drugging and sex. Such an “either-or” viewpoint creates a dichotomy, which lessens our understanding of the integral connection of political action and celebratory acts of songs and dance for our fight for our civil rights.

While Pride events are still fraught with divisions, they, nonetheless, bind us to a common struggle for LGBTQ equality.

Black Pride contributes to that struggle for equality, demonstrating an African diasporic aspect of joy and celebration that symbolizes not only our uniqueness, but also affirms our commonality as an expression of LGBTQ life in America.

Happy Pride!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion columnist, theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of the African-American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific School of Religion. A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe is a graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African-American church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for her doctorate as a Ford Fellow. She was recently named to MSNBC’s list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible Prayers for Not’So’Everyday Moments. As an African-American feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Her website is irenemonroe.com. Click here to contact the Rev. Monroe.

Jun 06, 2013 -Issue 519

BlackCommentator.com cartoonist/artist Eric Garcia produces "historically based, politically charged criticism, with the goal of creating dialogue about contemporary issues”. That’s how Garcia describes his artwork. A versatile artist working in an assortment of media, from paintings, to hand-printed posters, to sculpture installations, Garcia’s art has a common goal of educating and challenging. Click here to contact brother Eric. His website is southvalleyart.com. Follow Eric on twitter garciaink@twitter.com or friend Eric J. Garcia on facebook.

Jun 06, 2013 - Issue 519

[Adapted from a presentation on Malcolm X’s birthday.]

We’re here today in celebration of the birthday of Malcolm X and to lift up Pan-Africanism in the context of our international liberation struggles. El Haj Malik el Shabazz would have been 88 years old; May 25 is the 50th anniversary of African Liberation Day.

Today I come before you not only as an organizer and freedom fighter but as a woman and village mother. As I thought about my remarks for this occasion, I kept coming back to the notion of psychological liberation. Our movement has often put the focus on cultural, political and economic liberation. I suggest that until we also address more seriously the historical question of our mental health, our full and total liberation cannot be fulfilled. We cannot build a movement of holistically healthy people to fight for their own future if they are emotionally crippled.

What brought me back to this question which I visit from time to time in my head and in my writings was the tragic end for Malcolm Shabazz, the 28-year-old grandson of Malcolm X and sole male heir to his legacy. If ever there was a case study for the psycho-social impact of being black in the U.S., the Little-Shabazz family is it.

There has been intergenerational terror and trauma for Malcolm X’s family as far back as the late 1920s. Qubilah Shabazz, Malcolm Shabazz’s mother, witnessed the murder of her father at four years old. We saw the level of internal chaos of young Malcolm when he set a fire that took the life of his grandmother Betty Shabazz in 1997.

The mental illness of people of African descent caused by psychological terror and actual violence is real, rampant and basically undiscussed, undiagnosed and untreated. And that’s whether that violence is from the state or within our families or our community. What I’m urging us to do today is to make psychological liberation an integral part of both the narrative and strategy of African Liberation. The implications are tremendous for us as organizers as we struggle to build healthy families and healthy communities within the context of fighting for cultural dignity, economic justice and political power.

Black scholars like Joy Degruy Leary have dutifully documented the effects of post traumatic slave syndrome. The accumulative impact of current conditions plays out daily in our communities. “Living while Black” is one of the greatest contributors to PTSD in the Black community because racism brings with it a high level stress from dealing with oppression, injustices and marginalization.

There’s a significant body of research that tells us that nearly 80% of children in urban cities have seen someone else being shot, stabbed, sexually assaulted, physically assaulted, or threatened with a weapon. Tragically, the same percentage has been victimized as well. PSTD rates in the hood are greater than those of soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. PSTD has undeniable effects on learning, getting and maintaining a job, developing healthy social relationships and other factors.

The continent of Africa is faring no better. Generations of violence were first perpetrated by white colonialists only to be replaced by neo-colonialists, and then experienced through tribal wars. Angola’s civil war led to many casualties but it will have visual reminders of the human devastation for years to come. Because of landmines, the country has one of the highest populations of amputees-100,000 Angolans.

In Rwanda, conciliation efforts to address the country’s healing after a brutal tribal war have objective limitations. Although many Tutsis may want to move on from their genocidal past, others express the difficulty of having to look at a Hutu neighbor responsible for the murder of a father or who forced a brother to rape his mother while the family was compelled to watch. We know all too well that the tribalism is exacerbated by the western powers just like we know the origins of internalized oppression but that doesn’t stop the deep and powerful pain inside that sometimes bubbles over.

Whether it’s surviving the Middle Passage or witnessing a police shooting, black people in this country have gone through and are going through more than any human being should. The medical and social institutions are failing us in this area and so it will be up to those of us who are organizing in these communities everyday to name and embrace the issue of mental health as an integral part of our people’s overall health and as our organizing strategy for power.

As Bob Marley reminded us, when it comes to psychological or emotional health “none but ourselves can free our minds.”

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Jamala Rogers, founder and Chair Emeritus of the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis. She is an organizer, trainer and speaker. She is the author of The Best of the Way I See It – A Chronicle of Struggle. Click here to contact Ms. Rogers.

Jun 06, 2013 - Issue 519

There’s little, if any, surprise that America’s aging, withering, nonetheless entrenched, WASP establishment is looking for a “Trojan Horse” - some form of camouflage in which to disguise themselves. Any manner, theme or simpleminded slogan that can somehow make half-mad lunatics appear to be motivated to their damn near lunatical stances by blind patriotism and not racism, sexism and classism will do.

Apparently they’ve found it in the Paul Revere and Minuteman costumes they’ve donned...America, love it or get the hell out.

It’s all so predictable. With a Black man as President, an enlightened lady like Hillary waiting to take the baton, and her inevitable Latino VP waiting to run the next leg...the “sky is fallin’” segment of US society - that angry, paranoid Republican TEA Party card-carrying demographic - are draping themselves in flags, and branding themselves the Sons of Liberty.

America...land of the free? Home of the brave, indivisible with liberty and justice for who...? All? Are you kiddin’ me?

Ponder the calculated patriotic point Conservatives have carved out for themselves: they’re draping themselves in the flag - be it some varying version of the US flag “Ol’ Glory” or even the crimson n’ gray stars n’ bars of the treasonous 1861 Confederacy. Regardless, the “Right” has successfully anointed themselves the lone, last Red, White n’ Blue bastion of true, genuine, authentic frontier patriots who love their country.

Call it the “New” but Old Republican TEA Party.

This is the ideological and spiritual home of most Euro-Americans and they believe America is a White nation - made by n’ for White people. And all of us who’re 3rd n’ 4th class American residents - as far as they’re concerned - we’re the “help” who ought live on the other-side of the train tracks, be seldom seen n’ hardly ever heard.

Only speaking when spoken to.

In pure desperation, the Right has concocted this notion; if they strategically adopt and endlessly embrace the code words, symbols and visual elements of American patriotism...then God is on their side, and their mission to take-back their land and cultural, by any typically barbaric means, is authorized and supported by a divine entity and this John-Wayne-at-the-Alamo imagery will motivate and mobilize the angry White masses.

Unbelievable isn’t it?

The Grand Ol’ Tea Party has monopolized the flag and the birth of the nation as their personal Davy Crockett narrative, and it’s not only inaccurate, it’s a damn lie. Undeniably US history is not all glorious - it’s arguable if the “good” outweighs the “bad” when debating the tall-tale called “America.”

Nonetheless, tragically and erroneously, any talk of so-called social/economic reform, and of the Constitution itself can now also be considered right-wing driven. Now note: its the Right which has opposed the Constitution - applying it to and protecting all Americans. And it is the Right which is economically undermining the best interest of the American worker/citizen by abandoning the investment and upkeep in this nation’s infrastructure - from schools to bridges to National Parks.

The “Paper Patriots” are purposefully pushing the country towards a race war.

Might we be truthful about “where” we are as a nation, right here n’ now; mild, symbolic, token Integration has produced mild forms of inclusion and diversity... and most of White America isn't comfortable with the transformation.

Am I lying?

The human/civil/economic gains of the 1960s “Multi Culturalism,” have these “Real Americans” tell it, eroded, if not-already destroyed the Shangri-la that was the US in 1952...when everybody knew their place. The “Right” yearns for their one-time dominance of all relevant levels and aspects of US society.

Fortunately, at the moment, the US is still a place where American Exceptionalists/White Supremacists still feel inclined to mask their simple-minded hatred as nationalism. Now how long is that gonna last?

More troubling...it’s not merely that they’ve branded themselves Daniel Boone, the Conservative entrenched establishment has branded “the Left” as socialist/marxist/communist traitors who don’t “love America.” We’re interlopers who hate Archie Bunker’s individual freedoms and despise Capitalism. These Defenders of Freedom depict those on the “Left” as delusional Utopians with miniscule respect for their land of liberty or its “founding great White fathers” and their timeless documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill Of Rights.

As an American ...Of-Color, I’d beg to differ.

We recognize these beautifully big-worded pronouncements... we just know they didn’t apply to us, and every effort to include people-of-color in the “American Dream” has met with overt, over-the-top opposition from the political Right. And obviously US history is replete with scoundrels n’ scallywags who said their God and country were are on their side...

If we’re going to call a “spade a spade,” which much of White America yearns to do... then let’s call a Cracker a Cracker, a Redneck a Redneck.

In our world, “image is everything” - why ought we on the Left - the “permanent underclasses,” the descendants of the survivors, the conquered - why allow the ruling class to present themselves as innocent victims who’re being forced to pick up a assault weapon because we want their money n’ women?

Yes, it’s that primitive...

The real goal of real Americans is to continue “intercontinental Colonialism,” put barefoot, pregnant women back in their kitchens, reinstitute Rand Paul’s racially Separate n’ unequal America, break the back of organized labor, strip mine the Grand Canyon if need be, and if they have to...don the gear of Lexington Minute Men, Christian soldiers or Klansmen...then so be it.

I thought the real Revolutionaries in the room were Nat Turner, John Brown, WEB DuBois, Cochise, Mary Elizabeth Lease, Frederick Douglass, Cesar Chavez, Eleanor Roosevelt, A. Phillip Randolph, Helen Keller, Huey P. Newton, Mary McLeod, Che Guevara, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, Crazy Horse, Malcolm X, harriet Tubman, Sitting Bull ...individuals who fought the Power.

All Power to the People!!

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Desi Cortez, was hatched in the heart of Dixie, circa 1961, at the dawning of the age of Aquarius, the by-product of four dynamic individuals, Raised in South-Central LA, the 213, at age 14 transplanted to the base of the Rockies, Denver. Still a Mile-Hi. Sat at the feet of scholars for many, many moons, emerging with a desire and direction… if not a sheep-skin. "Meandered thru life; gone a-lot places, done a-lot of things, raised a man-cub into a good, strong man, produced a beautiful baby-girl with my lover/woman/soul-mate… aired my mind on the airwaves and wrote some stuff along the way." Click here to contact Mr. Cortez.

Jun 06, 2013 - Issue 519

Is there any such thing as a right time for justice? It appears that in America, everyone is clamoring for their piece of the justice pie…and rightfully so. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere.” So why is it we resist the move to right the wrongs done - and being done - to Black Americans?

I’ve seen this country, the land on which and into which I was born, pay reparations to races of people it has wholly wronged. I’ve seen this country support reparations to races and ethnicities of people upon whom it has had a hand in executing gross injustices. But when it comes to the Black men & women of American birth, the telephone line goes dead, not only among the power structure of the country, but also among its white inhabitants.

When you think of the tenacious efforts of white Southerners in stopping Blacks from voting - an American right - why wouldn’t discussion on reparations be in order? Lives lost, domestic terror and forced emigration. Reparatory action is in order, but conservatives - Black and white - evoke the “let’s move forward” mantra whenever that topic is brought up. Jim Crow laws of the 1860s set in place conditions which ail Black folks today – such as unemployment.

There will be no moving forward when the unemployment rate is so very disparate: for men between the ages of 20-24, its 11.7% for whites, 24.1% for Blacks; unemployment is at 5.7% for white males 25-54, but 11.7% for Black men in that age range. This is not to mention the rates in isolated enclaves of hard-to-hire individuals, such as the under-educated and formerly incarcerated persons.

My fellow Americans - white Americans - turn a deaf ear to the very thought of making a more just society…when it comes to race. Sure, many of my Progressive (or at least they label themselves Progressive) peers care deeply, and act on issues of global warming, irresponsible government and even unjustified military incursions, but when it comes to the injustices being exacted upon populations of Black Americans, their voices deflate to a whisper.

Young people pride themselves on being the ones to “get past” issues of racial disparity and discrimination. Though it may be true that the Millennial Generation cares less about race and gender politics than those preceding it, that doesn’t make it helpful. It’s akin to whitewashing truth. It may get us through today, but we’ll have to face the devil again tomorrow. We never run out of racist instances to remind us of the thing we failed to address yesterday.

I see all kinds of activism for all manner of worthy causes: oil fracking, wildlife preservation, environmental degradation, civil liberties, immigration reform, gay, lesbian & transgender rights - white liberals are all over those issues, but when it comes to America’s first - and longest lasting transgression, racism - they are immobilized. Funny how that happens. Is it because white libs are complicit? Or is it because they “resemble that remark?” Injustice is injustice wherever you find it, so why can’t this issue reach the front burner?

We see it in police-sanctioned racial profiling, extrajudicial killings, attack on entitlements, denial of employment opportunities. We all know it when we see it, but are beaten back by conservative commentators who direct you to just move on to the next topic. This is the next topic! Unfortunately, it was the first topic and the last topic, but we’ve simply swept it under the rug. When Rodney King was beaten before our eyes, when Henry Louis Gates was arrested, when Hurricane Katrina was flubbed, when Shawn Bell, Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin were murdered, when mass incarceration was growing exponentially and continues, when Barack Obama became President, we all saw it. We just refused to address it - again.

So if now isn’t the right time to address racism, when is? I find it insulting to think we can address every other ill of the American psyche, but refuse to attack the racist nature that gnaws at America’s flesh. Yet, we attack international terrorism and domestic animal cruelty with the viciousness of a ferocious pit bull. Why, then, are we afraid to confront and dismantle racism?

Could it be because it would end the quality of life for millions who’ve passively and tacitly benefited from the heartless, brutal nature of racism? Could an end to racism usher in metaphorical New Jerusalem, where streets would be paved with gold - no more crying, no more sighing, where justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream?

The prospect sounds quite inviting, so why are Americans really so resistant to the prospect? I guess we’ll wait until the time is right, ’cause it’s obvious that time is not now.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Perry Redd, longtime activist & organizer, is the Executive Director of the workers rights advocacy, Sincere Seven, and author of the soon-to-be-released on-line book, “As A Condition of Your Freedom”. He is also the host of the internet-based talk radio show, Socially Speaking in Washington, DC. Click here to contact Mr. Redd.

Jun 06, 2013 - Issue 519

From the New York Times Best-Selling book, "WE ARE THE SHIP:

The Story of Negro League Baseball,"

by Kadir Nelson, the intimidating slugger, Josh Gibson (sometimes called "The Black Babe Ruth")

Giclee on Canvas

Edition Size: 100 CANVAS LE / 20 CANVAS HE

Image Size: 48" x 24"

Certificate of Authenticity

HE $1943 - CV $1000

Kadir Nelson is an award-winning American artist whose works have been exhibited in major national and international publications, institutions, art galleries, and museums. Many of Nelson’s paintings are in the collections of notable institutions and public collections, including the U.S. House of Representatives and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, as well as in the private collections of actors, professional athletes, and musicians.

Click here to contact Mr. Nelson

Jun 06, 2013 - Issue 519

“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.”

- Malcolm X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz]

“...I feel as close to the wretched victims of the rubber plantations in Putamayo and the blacks of Africa with whose bodies the Europeans play ball...I have no special corner in my heart for the ghetto: I am at home in the entire world, where there are clouds and birds and human tears.”

- Rosa Luxemburg

The wondrous rainbow of humanity on Mother Earth emanates from Africa. Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people all come from the womb of the African continent.

Humanity's great thinkers and strategists did not begin with Plato, Socrates, Alexander 'the Great,' Julius Caesar, Leo Tolstoy, or Karl Marx, etc. Long before the births of any of the aforementioned persons there were scientists, builders, strategists and thriving civilizations in what has now become commonly known as 'Africa.' Africa's significance, both past and present, is not limited to its enormous material resources and its natural wealth. Africa's often ignored or forgotten significance continues to be the pivotal role that it has played in the birth of human civilization itself.

Why is this of enormous importance to everyday ordinary people of all colors in this 21st century?

The narrative of the U.S. and global power elite is one that keeps people ignorant, divided, manipulated, and controlled based upon a warped and distorted presentation of everyday ordinary people's national and global history. The systemically manufactured color, economic, and/or social status divisions are potent weapons that are utilized to keep people in a perpetual state of psychological, political, and economic servitude. Over many centuries, as humankind spread throughout the four corners of our precious Mother Earth there were often those greedy few who sought to elevate themselves as masters over their fellow human beings by utilizing social control and manipulation mechanisms. Thus, certain humans were said to be 'primitives,' 'savages,' 'barbarians,' or 'uncivilized' – while others were ingrained with the utter nonsense that they were somehow innately superior by virtue of some supposed unique divine right or destiny. This of course was, and remains, an integral part of utilizing social control and manipulation mechanisms. For example, wholesale physical and cultural genocide was committed against the Indigenous Native peoples on this North American continent in the name of so-called 'progress' and the 'Manifest Destiny.' These atrocities however, were NOT simply based upon color, as there were many horrible pogroms carried out, in Europe and elsewhere, by and against people of the SAME color - in the fallacious name of eliminating the inferior 'barbarians' through supposed 'ethnic cleansing,' etc.

The distorted narrative of and by the U.S. power elite (through its corporate-stream media and 'educational' institutions) continues to the present day. For example, the very bloody U.S. civil war, which was fought primarily between people of the same color, was a contest between the U.S. power elites of the north and the south for economic power. Nonetheless, the myth continues to be propagated by the present-day U.S. power elite that the civil war was fought first and foremost to free black slaves in the southern United States; when in fact that bloody contest was fought over money – economic power – plain and simple. Framing the civil war around the narrative of the freeing of black slaves was nothing more than a means to keep certain European powers (most notably England and France - both of whom had already officially abolished slavery) from aligning themselves with the power elite of the southern Confederacy whose economy was blatantly based upon institutionalized slavery. Abraham Lincoln, and the northern U.S. power elite were by no means in favor of equality for black people. In fact, prior to the outbreak of the U.S. civil war, Abraham Lincoln, on September 18, 1858, speaking before an audience of 12,000 persons in Charleston, Illinois, made his position crystal clear regarding his firm belief that there should never be “social and political equality” between black and white people. He said, in relevant part, “...I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race...” Once again it was the everyday ordinary people of all colors and on both sides of that conflict who were the canon fodder of the power elites in that bloody 'civil war.' And still the distorted narrative of the power elite continues.

Today in the year 2013, the everyday people on the African continent continue to be the pawns of external power elites whose objective remains that of dividing, robbing, and economically exploiting the continent, at the horrible expense of the ordinary people. Former blood suckers and butchers such as Mobutu Sese Seko (of the African nation formerly known as Zaire) are being replaced by various other puppets of external power elites throughout the African continent. Drone man Barack Obama's AFRICOM is busy militarizing Africa for the purpose of controlling the vast natural wealth of the continent. Once more it is the everyday people who are the canon fodder of the avaricious national and global power elites whose contemporary African puppets do the bidding of external elites for their own personal gain.

We must ALL understand that Africa IS important. What happens there is a direct reflection of the corporate / military elite's insatiable greed and lust for power – not only in Africa – but throughout Mother Earth. What happens there is happening to us all.

Intellectual Genocide In the Alleged 'Age of Information'

The long and protracted liberation struggles, particularly of the latter part of the 20th century on the African continent, are part and parcel of everyday people's struggles for political, economic, and social equity around the globe. Yet, far too few persons of any color, especially in the U.S. (and sadly in Africa itself) are aware of the urgency and ongoing and protracted nature of these struggles.

In the U.S. many people can readily tell you who Oprah Winfrey, Steve Harvey, Whoopi Goldberg, or the current 'stars' of American Idol, etc. are. But if asked about the likes of Nzingha (Jinga), Nehanda Nyakasikana, Sekou Toure, Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral, Agostinho Neto, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe, Lillian Ngoyi, Steve Biko, or Sam Nujoma – you will receive only a blank stare. Yet, these and other such persons, gave so very much to the struggles on behalf of ordinary people on the African continent, and concomitantly, throughout Mother Earth. Had it not been for the sacrifices of these persons the situation in Africa would be even worse. We must not let drone man Barack Obama, and his cohorts of the U.S. power elite, erase the enormous contributions to Africa, and humankind as a whole, by these intrepid women and men.

There is a deliberate and ongoing intellectual genocide being waged against everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in the U.S., and most especially against young people. Everyday people in this nation are being intentionally and callously miseducated by a system bent on controlling and manipulating what we know, how we think, and ultimately what we do.

The just, necessary, and legitimate struggles against the global power elite by everyday people in Haiti, Palestine, Ireland, Bahrain, Venezuela, Greece, Portugal, Australia, the UK, and elsewhere – including right here in the U.S. – are of immense importance. But let us also remember the intense struggles for self-determination being waged by everyday ordinary people throughout the African continent, for Africa is the mother of civilization and her well-being IS important to humanity as a whole.

The power elite's corporate-stream 'news' media (including much of the so-called 'alternative' media) and its 'educational' institution plantations will not teach us our true histories or tell us how that history relates to the ongoing people's struggles of today. We must do our own research, create our own media, and learn from as well as teach one another. We everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people are the only ones who can and will put an end to this intellectual genocide. It must be stopped!

Mother Earth is our home and Africa is our foundation.

Remember: Each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. Onward, then, my sisters and brothers. Onward...!

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil / political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.) Click here to view Larry’s interview of October 26, 2012. Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.

Jun 06, 2013 - Issue 519

My long time friend for over forty years and comrade in the struggle for African Liberation worldwide, Jitu Weusi, made his transition into eternity on Wednesday, May 23, 2013 at his home in Brooklyn, New York on Fulton Street. Brother Jitu had been diagnosed with renal (kidney) cancer in January of this year and struggled mightily as this cancer began to spread throughout his body. In vintage Jitu, master teacher style, he penned a composition chronicling his health struggles titled, “Cancer and the Biggest Fight of My Life.” This article was a profound documentation of Jitu and his fight against cancer.

On Monday, May 21st, Jitu Weusi’s extended family son from the East, Adeyemi Bandele, telephoned me from Brother Jitu’s bedside. The spiritual energy of this call instructed me to say to my dear friend, “I love you.” And I was able to hear Jitu, who had been in an unconscious state to that point, say to me, “I love you too!”

Jitu Weusi was one of the great, unsung activist, organizer, educator, and thinker that came out of our movement in the 1960s. Upon graduation in 1962 from Long Island University, Jitu earned his bachelor’s degree in history. He pursued his teaching passion and became a social studies teacher in Bedford-Stuyvesant at Junior High School (JHS) 35, where he found the white supremacy foundation of the curriculum stymying the growth and development of his African descended students. He felt these students needed an understanding of their heritage and a sense of their place in history and the world.

As it has been written, Jitu “Weusi was not alone in his concerns. Other teachers at JHS 35 included Al Vann, Oliver Patterson, Leroy Lewis, Randy Tobias, Joan Eastman, and Ola Cherry. These were young Black teachers who were new to the public school system and who were speaking about the need for changes in the New York City public school system. They joined with Black teachers in other schools to form the African American Teachers Association.” Further, as Jitu wrote, “the African American Teachers Association joined with the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Alliance around the concept of community control. With the teachers and community members standing side by side, the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Movement unfolded. During this period, 1968-1969, Jitu describes this movement as the “most underrepresented yet most impactful era of Brooklyn history.” Jitu went on to explain, “the teachers and the community battled the Board of Education and the predominately-white United Federation of Teachers in a struggle that they hoped would finally create a structure for the empowerment of local communities. The result was the establishment of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Governing Board, a community school board that served central Brooklyn’s Black Community.”

As a result of the controversy surrounding his great contributions in the leadership of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville battle, the white controlled media, the Board of Education, and the United Federation of Teachers attempted to mutilate Jitu’s reputation and his contributions to the movement. As a result, Jitu officially left the New York City Board of Education in April 1969.

The youth involved in the movement working with Jitu and community members began establishing The East “as a self-determining cultural-educational organization for African people in central Brooklyn, New York, and was armed with the theme ‘Freedom Now!’ and the philosophy of self-reliance under the leadership of Jitu K. Weusi and the East Family.”

As noted in Kwasi Konadu’s book, Truth Crushed to the Earth Will Rise Again!, “Jitu was/is a central figure in the design, expansion and governance of The East organization, in both concrete and ideational terms. Conceptually, The East was a counter hegemonic act toward European cultural and political imperialism through its embodiment of African cultural resistance and reconstruction in the American context.” It was during this period that the organizing skills of Jitu emerged nationally and internationally as he participated in the Black Power conferences, the Congress of African People, and the African Liberation Support Committee that led to African Liberation Day (ALD) activities throughout the United States.

It was in 1972 that Jitu provided organizing leadership in establishing the Council of Independent Black Institutions (CIBI). CIBI was made up of other independent African centered educational, cultural, and community-based institutions that were emerging, at that time, throughout the United States. Jitu helped shape the Black Liberation Movements organizing around the armed struggles in Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Namibia, and South Africa. Jitu and The East family were on the cutting edge of linking these struggles to the Pan African context of our connections as an African people worldwide.

Jitu always used his understanding of culture and the arts in his organizing work in our movement and is best remembered in the East’s early weekly musical performances by well known artists such as Freddie Hubbard, Betty Carter, McCoy Tyner, Max Roach, Sun Ray, Lee Morgan, Dewey Redmond, Roy Ayers, Pharoah Sanders, Rahsaan Roland, Kirk and Leon Thomas. As the Black Power phase of our movement emerged and the evolution of Black consciousness and our reconnection with the struggles of African people worldwide, Jitu Weusi was at the forefront of this movement.

Because of the government, through their counter intelligence programs’ disruption of our movement in the late 1970s, Jitu was able to forge a series of meetings in an effort to evaluate and analyze the period of the 1960s and 70s. Out of these discussions and the rampant cases of police brutality and the increase in deaths of youth at the hands of the New York Metropolitan Police Department, the Metropolitan Black United Front began to emerge under the leadership of Rev. Herbert Daughtry and the organizing genius of Jitu Weusi. The New York Black United Front gave rise to the National Black United Front (NBUF) at its founding convention in Brooklyn, NY at the Old Armory in June 1980 where 1,000 activists from thirty-four states and five foreign countries attended. The organizing work of Jitu Weusi in facilitating the establishment of NBUF was testament to his skill as “Master Organizer.” Thirty-four years and three chairmen later, starting with Rev. Daughtry (1980-85), Dr. Conrad Worrill (1985-2009), and Kofi Taharka (2009 to present), NBUF is still standing.

With the closing down of The East in the mid 1980s, Jitu returned to the public school system, went back to earn his masters degree and continued his organizing work in numerous electoral campaigns including David Dinkins’ successful effort to become New York City’s first Black Mayor and Jesse Jackson’s two presidential elections bids. Jitu worked closely with all the major leaders and organizers in this country in the Black Movement including the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.

Jitu’s work continued in the 1980s and 90s as a major participant in NBUF. Jitu helped organize the Brooklyn Central Jazz Consortium, which led to the Brooklyn South African Cultural Exchange Project. This project culminated in the formation of the Jazz African Heritage (JAH) Day that was held at Medgar Evers College on August 4, 2006. The result of this exchange led to a delegation of many of the musicians from the African community in the United States attending and participating in the Jazz African Heritage Concert in South Africa in 2007.

The life of Jitu Weusi was so full of the African Spirit that his contributions cannot be summed up in an article of this nature. However, a glimpse of his life demonstrates his profound impact as he leaves his legacy to his wife Angela Weusi, eight children, twelve grandchildren, hundreds of young men and women he has mentored, and a host of comrades, colleagues, and friends around the world. Jitu K. Weusi has now become a Great African Ancestor whose spirit will live on forever. Jitu Weusi, Maa Kherew (True of Voice)!

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Conrad W. Worrill, PhD, is the National Chairman Emeritus of the National Black United Front (NBUF). Click here to contact Dr. Worrill.

Jun 06, 2013 -Issue 519

BlackCommentator.com artist/cartoonist Charles E. "Chuck" Siler's works feature a variety of themes ranging from New Orleans' lively and unique jazz scene to its lively and equally unique political scene. He uses his art and political cartoons to comment on life's complexities, warts and beauty marks.

His creations include fine watercolors and acrylics and pen and ink cartoons. His cartoons are featured on a regular basis in The Louisiana Weekly.

A Katrina evacuee, Siler has spoken on New Orleans history across the USA at universities and culural events.

Click here to contact Mr. Siler

Jun 06, 2013 - Issue 519

More about Bob Marley