April 27, 2015

April 27, 2015

First Genocide of 20th Century Was in Africa, Says Nigerian Writer, Correcting Pope

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – An Anglo-Nigerian writer has respectfully urged Pope Francis to look beyond Armenia for the first genocide of the 20^th century.

In an essay in the British Guardian, David Olusoga wrote: “When the media analysts at the Vatican scrutinize the social media traffic of the past seven days, their eyes might well be drawn away from Turkey and the Armenian diaspora towards a cluster of tweets, comments and Facebook posts that emanate from Africa.

“There, another debate raged last week,” he said. “The pope’s description of the Armenian massacre as “the first genocide of the 20th century” was simply incorrect. That grim distinction belongs to the genocide that imperial Germany unleashed a decade earlier against the Herero and Nama, two ethnic groups who lived in the former colony of South West Africa, modern Namibia.”

Olusoga pointed out that the Namibian genocide, 1904-1909, “seemed to prefigure the later horrors of that troubled century.” The systematic extermination of around 80 percent of the Herero people and 50 percent of the Nama was the work both of German soldiers and colonial administrators; “banal, desk-bound killers.” The most reliable figures estimate 90,000 people were killed, he said.

In the case of the Herero, he recalled, “an official, written order – the extermination order – was issued by the German commander, explicitly condemning the entire people to annihilation. After military attempts to bring this about had been thwarted, the liquidation of the surviving Herero, along with the Nama people, was continued in concentration camps, a term that was used at the time for the archipelago of facilities the Germans built across Namibia.”

“Some of the victims of the Namibian genocide were transported to those camps in cattle trucks and the bodies of some of the victims were subjected to pseudoscientific racial examinations and dissections.”

Recollection of this horror comes as a conference on reparations winds up in New York. However, unlike in the U.S. which apologized for slavery by resolutions in the House and Senate a decade ago, “All of this is now well known and widely accepted in Africa and even in Germany,” says Olusoga.

“In 2004, the German government apologized to the Herero and admitted that what Germany had done to their ancestors constituted a genocide,” he said. “As the co-author of one of the more recent histories of the genocide, I am regularly invited to attend conferences and give lectures on the subject in Germany and the word is spreading. A decade ago, my co-author and I described what took place in Namibia between 1904 and 1909 as “Germany’s forgotten genocide”. That phrase is now past its sell-by date, everywhere, it seems, other than in the Vatican.”

Olusoga wondered if the pope’s statement was made in ignorance or if the Vatican was guilty of the sin of deliberate omission. “Catholicism is growing faster in Africa than anywhere else,” he observed – “200 million Africans are followers of the faith. But awareness of history is also increasing in Africa and crimes such as the Namibian genocide can no longer be ignored, whether by accident or design.”

David Olusoga is the co-author, with Casper Erichsen, of The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism

April 27, 2015

Blackonomics

Shocked—Again

By James Clingman

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “America leads the world in shocks.”  Those immortal words were spoken by the late Gil Scott-Heron during the Nixon “H2O Gate” era.  Forty years later, Black people lead the world in shocks.  We are shocked every time a Black person gets killed or abused by a police officer; we are shocked at the absence of indictments and convictions for those acts; we are shocked that our government will only give these acts lip-service; and we are shocked by the endless rhetoric, excuse-making, and rationales put forth as a response to Black lives being treated like they don’t matter.

We are so shocked that we continue to roll out the same old tactics, chant the same phrases, and make idle threats that we know we will not fulfill.  We are shocked that society will not change this endless parade to the graveyard for Black men especially.  We are also shocked at the rate of our deaths and the nonchalant attitudes of those who kill us.  And we are shocked by the fact that even though these killings are caught on cameras, there is still no punishment for the perpetrator.

Rodney King’s butt-whuppin’ was caught on camera in 1992, and so was Nathaniel Jones killing in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2003.  Heck, White folks photographed the lynching and burning of many Blacks over 100 years ago.  Why are we so shocked now?  I have come to the conclusion that we just like to be shocked.  It’s like the old tale of a boy constantly hitting himself in the head with a hammer.  When asked why he did that, he replied, “Because it feels so good when I stop.”

Do we really want this lunacy, this evil, this abuse to stop just so we can catch our breath for a little while, and then return to business as usual?  One thing for sure is that it will not stop simply because it ought to, as folks always imply when the news reporter poses the question, “What you think about the latest incident of police abuse?”  Inevitably, as was the case in the latest abuse in Baltimore, Maryland, a sister said, “It’s got to stop.”  Others chimed in and said the same thing, as was said in the case of Eric Garner, John Crawford, Ezell Ford, Oscar Grant, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and many of the others I could name.

Let me try this again, after so many years of saying the same thing.  The vast majority of the problems Black people face in this nation can be solved through the utilization of economic power.  That’s what runs this country and, therefore, that’s what gets desired outcomes.  The lack of economic power results in a perverse weakness and subordination of any group of people.  Thus, Black folks are always shocked at our position, our mistreatment, and our dependency on the very political entities that care very little, if at all, about us. That’s backward and wrong-headed thinking.

If Black folks in Baltimore or anywhere else want to be empowered to the degree that politicians finally move beyond merely saying what they think we want to hear, to doing what we need done for our security and progress, we must make drastic changes in our behavior.  Our reactions to all the killings and beat-downs have been so predictable, so much so that the authorities know they just need to wait us out for a while, like the Eric Garner case, and we will go away.  They know the shock value of their actions is impotent and only temporary.

The Fraser Institute released an article titled, "External Shocks and Political Parties' Attempts to ‘Buy’ Votes Can Affect Levels of Economic Freedom", that noted, “Economic freedom is one of the main drivers of prosperity, resulting in improved wealth, health, and education for individuals and their families.” said Herbert Grubel.

“…external shocks (think wars and revolutions, economic depressions or recessions) prompt the public to gravitate to political parties promising change and dramatic new directions… Changing public views allow progressive politicians to buy votes by creating a narrative that government is better at looking after citizens than citizens are at looking after themselves. That inevitably leads to larger government, more regulation, higher taxes, and crony capitalism,” Grubel said.

Extrapolating from that article, I would say that Black folks have come to depend on politicians for so long now that even when our people are killed by police, we run to them to solve the problem.  It’s not going to happen until we wield power with our dollars and our votes.  The “external shock” necessary to prompt political parties to appropriately respond to our needs must be felt by them rather than by us.  That shock must be one that reverberates throughout the corporate board rooms, the halls of Congress, and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:  NO MORE BUSINESS AS USUAL!

April 27, 2015

Black Women's Lives Matter Too
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - You know their names -- Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice -- because these African American men were unarmed and killed by “law enforcement” officers.  Their names have been part of a litany invoked when police shootings are discussed.  Their deaths have been part of the impetus for the Black Lives Matter movement, especially because the police officers that killed these men (and a little boy) have paid no price for their murders. You are far less likely to know about Rekia Boyd, shot by an off-duty police officer in Chicago.  While the officer that killed Ms. Boyd’s was acquitted, her killing sparked few protests, and little national attention.

Kate Abbey-Lambertz of Huffington Post identified 15 women who were killed during police encounters when they were unarmed, including Tanisha Anderson (Cleveland), seven year old Aiyana Stanley-Jones (Detroit), and Yvette Smith (Bastrop, Texas).  The killing of Miriam Carey was especially egregious.  Carey drove her car into a security checkpoint near the White House.  The Secret Service fired multiple shots at Carey, killing her and putting her year old daughter at risk.  Meanwhile, a White man scaled the White House fence without a shot fired.  Another made it into the White House residence without encountering a gun.  A few people protested Carey’s death, but the protests fizzled out.

AlterNet and Clutch Magazine, online sources like Huffington Post, reported on some of the unarmed black women who were gunned down. Again, these killings were barely protested, and garnered no national attention.  Little seems to have changed since Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith wrote But Some of Us Are Brave:  All the Women Are White, All the Blacks are Men. The book, written in 1993, addressed the invisibility of African American women.  While the majority of the unarmed African Americans killed by police officers are men, about 20 percent of those killed are women.

The publicized killings of African American men have happened all too frequently in the past 12 months.  Each killing strikes our collective community like a body blow, especially when officers are poorly trained, have records of brutality, and are acquitted.  When the roll of recent killings is called, women may be absent because there has been little publicity about assaults against women in the past year.  Based on the record, however, we know such assaults are likely to have happened.

Contemporary African American women are not the only ones who history has swallowed.  Fannie Lou Hamer was beaten so many times, and so severely that she developed a blood clot and lost much of her sight in one eye.  One kidney was injured and her entire body covered with welts and bruises.  She never regained her health, yet when people call the roll of civil rights leaders and icons, her name is too often excluded.  There is a historical precedent for the invisibility of African American women.  Fannie Lou Hamer is but one of many women whose lives and sacrifices are often ignored.

Public policy also ignores the plight of African American women.  President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative is well meaning, and ignores the status of young African American women. While young Black women are more likely to go to college than young Black men, those who do not go to college face some of the same job challenges as men do.  Young women can benefit from the same efforts that young men are offered through My Brother’s Keeper, such as mentorship and initiatives to develop pathways to education and employment.

Focusing on young black women should not minimize efforts to improve the status of young black men.  There ought be no competition, but efforts for inclusion.  The Black Lives Matter movement must recognize the killing of black women as well as black men.  To do any less, to ignore the unarmed black women who are shot, suggests that only black men’s lives matter.  Any African American who is shot and killed by police officers deserves our attention.

Both African American men and African American women have economic, psychological, and physical wounds because of the racism we experience both now and historically.  Our economic wounds manifest as higher unemployment rates and lower wages.  Our health wounds are illustrated through the health disparities we experience, along with differences in life expectancies.  Our psychological wounds include dysfunction in our organizations and relationships.   We won’t have healthy and functional communities until we focus on healing wounds among all of us -- black men and black women.

Julianne Malveaux is a writer and economist.  She can be reached at www.juliannemalveaux.com.