Nov. 4, 2014

Liberian Women Say 'No' to Ebola Madness With Videos on Twitter

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “I am a Liberian, not a virus.” That’s the loud and clear message of a campaign launched online by a group of Liberian women who refuse to be shamed by thoughtless outbreaks of rejection and cruelty that link African people with the epidemic that has taken thousands of lives.

“If I am Liberian, that doesn’t mean that I have Ebola,” Carolyn Woahloe, a registered nurse, told the Los Angeles Times. “This is not a Liberian problem. This is a world problem.”

Misinformation about the virus has sparked fears around the country and around the world, prompting some national leaders to deny visas to West Africans despite medical guarantees that this was unnecessary and unsafe. As with the AIDS virus in the early days, Africans have been singled out for slurs and rejection even when they present no threat at all.

In Texas, for example, Liberians living in the Dallas area where the first Ebola death was recorded were taunted with “Go back to Liberia.” Students from Rwanda were ordered to stay away from a New Jersey school where they were enrolled. An Oregon high school canceled a planned visit by 18 African students  – all from countries untouched by Ebola – citing a “fluid” situation on the continent.

In response, Shoana Clarke Solomon, a Liberian photographer and TV host, created a hashtag “#IamaLiberianNotaVirus,” (I am a Liberian, Not a Virus) that quickly went viral.

"We are Liberians, Sierra Leoneans, Guineans and Nigerians. We live in a region that has been devastated by a deadly disease, but we are not all infected," she said.

"It is wrong to stereotype and stigmatize an entire people. Remember we are human beings."

Her message was echoed by singing sensation Angelique Kidjo from the West African nation of Benin who found a jeering comment posted on her Facebook page when she announced her concert this week at Carnegie Hall honoring the late South African singer Miriam Makeba, known widely as Mama Africa.

They wrote: “Instead of mama africa it should be mama ebola” and “I wonder if she is bringing any Ebloa [sic] with her?”

“Overnight it seems that all the naïve and evil preconceptions about Africa have surfaced again.” Kidjo wrote on the op-ed page of The New York Times. “Ebola has brought back the fears and fantasies of Africa as the Heart of Darkness and the fear-mongering about the disease threatens to reverse decades of progress for Africa’s image.”

“Stigma is bound to happen,” added Clarke Solomon, “especially when people don’t take the time to learn the facts.”

Still, she said, “I am also grateful for the media. It’s bringing much-needed attention to Liberia and other countries that need help with ending this epidemic. Without press coverage, this situation would be far ... worse.”

Nov. 4, 014

What If President Obama Had Implemented His Own ‘Southern Strategy?’
By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

NEWS ANALYSIS

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “Because what we must now ask ourselves is when we become equal American citizens what will be our aims and ideals and what will we have to do with selecting these aims and ideals? …What I have been fighting for and am still fighting for is the possibility of black folk and their cultural patterns existing in America without discrimination; and on terms of equality.” W.E.B DuBois “Whither Now & Why” - 1960

“… Some people say we got a lot of malice, some say it's a lotta nerve; I say we won't quit moving, til’ we get what we deserve. We've been buked and we've been scourned; We've been treated bad, talked about, as just as sure as you're born. But just as sure as it take two eyes to make a pair, huh, Brother, we can't quit until we get our share. Say it loud, I'm Black and I'm proud. ” - James Brown

In 2012 The New Yorker stated in an essay “…the reason Obama plays it so cool is that he fears alienating white voters by coming across as an angry African-American male.”

Is it possible that by running from the issue of racism in America, President Obama has left us stuck in its middle?

In the late 1960’s, in order to sway disaffected and angry White Southern Democrats into the Republican Party, future president Richard Nixon and Senator Barry Goldwater developed the very effective Southern Strategy. They appealed to the bigoted interests of Southern Whites in states such as Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Kentucky, Virginia, etc. with a narrative that preyed upon their opposition to civil rights, voting rights and support for segregation.

A slightly more subtle Southern Strategy has continued to be used by Republican politicians such as Ronald Regan, George Bush and others as evidenced by the following comments by the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater,  “You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff …Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, Blacks get hurt worse than whites.… ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing… and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’”

What if President Obama had implemented his own Southern Strategy?

What if President Obama had used the power of the presidency and his personality to go on a Southern speaking tour in Kentucky, South Carolina, Virginia, etc. taking on the likes of Senators Graham, McConnell, and former Congressman Cantor head-on the same way Dr. King took on Senator Strom Thurmond (R-Ala.), Gov. George Wallace and Sheriff’s Jim Clark and Bull Connor?

What if, instead of ignoring South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson’s bigoted “you lie” comment President Obama had gone to South Carolina and given a speech about tolerance and understanding?  What if he had said, “…Yes, I am an African-American and I am angry.  My father was born in Kenya and my mother was born in Kansas.  As an American I am angry! As fellow American citizens you should be angry as well. Historically in America the office of President has always been held in higher regard than the man holding the office. It’s the office not the man in it that represents this great country. For a sitting member of the US Congress to allow his dislike of me to outweigh his respect for the office that I was duly elected by the American people to hold is un-American. It violates the very traditions that this great country was founded upon.”

What if President Obama had gone to Kentucky and had a true “Roosevelt moment?”

What if he’d said, “I know there are people here who hate me.  Many may be right here in this audience.  I welcome your hatred of me, that’s your right to do so. But I am here as the President of the United States and as your president I represent all of you. I am here because I want all of the 647,000 uninsured Kentuckians; those who like me and those who don’t, to have access to affordable health care. I challenge Senator McConnell to provide a better and more detailed plan than my ACA or support what I have proposed. Making each of you healthier and stronger makes this great country of ours stronger. Don’t vote your bias or your hatred; vote your interests.”

Would this “Obama” Southern Strategy win over McConnell, Graham, and their ilk?  No! But, Dr. King did not win over racists like Thurmond, Wallace, Bull Conner and Jim Clark. By taking the fight directly to the opponent and allowing those to show themselves as the bigots and racists they really were, Dr. King and the nonviolent movement won over the soul of America.  The vestiges of bigotry still exist in the South but America is a better place overall.  Goldwater’s strategy worked in the South but he lost the rest of America with the exception of his home state of Arizona.

In his failed attempt to sooth the American savage racist beast and appease the concerns of White American voters by not appearing to be “too Black”, President Obama avoided seeking council from true African-American political warriors like former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder, former California House Speaker Willie Brown and the late Dr. Ronald Walters. Omitting these political giants from his “kitchen cabinet” has proven to be to his detriment.  Their experiences in successfully navigating treacherous political waters would have proven to be invaluable to the first African-American president.

As the African-American community deals with the killing of its unarmed men, wealth disparity, voter id laws, mass incarceration, the militarization of police forces, inadequate schools and health care, President Obama should be an angry African-American man.  I know I am and I have good reason to be.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the Sirisu/XM Satellite radio channel 126 call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Wilmer Leon” Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription at Facebook.com © 2014 InfoWave Communications, LLC 

Oct. 2, 2014

New Orleans Projected to Become More ‘Chocolate’

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Louisiana Weekly

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - For all the colorful traditions and multicultural nuances associated with life in New Orleans, throughout its history the Crescent City has essentially been a Black and white city flavored with a wide array of spices.

That was the case in 1960 when Orleans Parish was the most populace parish in the state of Louisiana. Whites comprised 62 percent of the population. After several decades of white flight to neighboring parishes and Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans became a majority-Black city surrounded by majority-white parishes.

“Well, I think we’re there now as a practical matter,” demographer Greg Rigamer told WWL-TV last week. “Sixty percent of our population is African-American, we have a growing Hispanic population and when you look at the white population, it’s somewhere only in the range of 33 percent.”

Despite those numbers, New Orleans has a white mayor, white district attorney and until recently, a white police chief and majority-white City Council.

New Orleans has high levels of poverty, unemployment and violent crime, and a three-tiered school system that many have described as “educational apartheid.”

Despite those challenges and many others, Rigamer says New Orleans is growing and that most of its growth is being driven by money.

Telltale signs of the city’s economic growth and expansion include its replacement of Hollywood as the most popular destination for making feature-length films and the influx of young professionals seeking high-tech jobs or opportunities in the city’s burgeoning healthcare industry boom.

“There’s no question about that,” Rigamer told WWL-TV. “Dollars motivate people, and think about it, we had a huge influx of people and money post-Katrina in the rebuilding initiative. This real spike in young professionals into New Orleans, it is a derivative of the recovery period.”

While some neighborhoods are being changed by gentrification, their complexion is staying essentially the same, some say, with Blacks, whites, Asians and Hispanics living in clustered communities.

According to Census figures, the Black population was about 37 percent of the population in 1969. Now it’s 60 percent, and over the next 50 years Blacks are expected to comprise 65 percent of the population.

Overall, Orleans Parish is expected to experience major growth. By 2040, New Orleans is expected to surpass Jefferson Parish as the most populated parish in Louisiana.

“The implications are huge, positively and negatively,” New Orleans City Councilmember Jason Williams told WWL-TV last week.

While Williams was pleased about the projected growth of Orleans Parish, he said that the city needs to become more inclusive in order to address the needs and aspirations of all of its residents.

“Yes the city is growing— the region is growing, our city is definitely growing — but we’re not growing the opportunities for the folks that we have right here.”

While opportunities to make money are drawing transplants to the city, there is a glaring need to address chronic problems that plague a large segment of the city’s Black residents, among them crime, poverty and access to quality education.

Asked about frustration among African Americans about continuing to struggle to live a decent life in a majority-Black city, Erika McConduit-Diggs, president of the Urban League of Greater New Orleans, told WWL-TV, “I think that would be true in terms of being able to access jobs at the same rate, being able to access entrepreneurship opportunities at the same pace. When you look at the physical development, the infrastructure development that’s happening in this community, I think that it is very fair to say that there is frustration.”

She added that the near doubling of the Black population will underscore the need for policies and initiatives to empower the African-American community.

“African Americans still ac­count for a majority of high school dropouts, they still account for the majority of the unemployed in our community, and so we really need to be making sure that our policy decisions and our employer decisions and our finance decisions, quite frankly, all align with making sure we are paying attention and serving and bringing along all segments of our community,” McConduit-Diggs said.

She said those decisions will directly impact the number one issue for just about everyone living in New Orleans — crime.

“You talk about unemployment, you talk about violent crime and you talk about the number of times that there’s a Black face attached to that,” Councilman Williams said. “That’s a personal issue for me. As a Black male, as somebody who grew up in this city, as somebody who is raising two Black children in this city, it’s a personal issue for me. I think as we grow, I think that folks who live in the Garden District, folks who live in the Lower 9th Ward, are all realizing this is their issue. When we’re dealing with violence, regardless of who the victim is, regardless of who the perpetrator is, it’s a problem for the entire city and we need everybody personally engaged in that issue if we’re able to overcome it.”

A resurgence in New Orleans’ population could have far-reaching effects. But while the projections look to the future, to a metro area in 2060, it doesn’t factor in hurricanes and the dangerously vanishing Louisiana coastline,” WWL-TV reported. “They are two issues that could put everyone in the same boat, regardless of race.”