June 5, 2018
When it Comes to the Vote, We’re Fighting a Second Civil War 
By Jesse Jackson

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The talk shows are filled with the latest rumor about WikiLeaks and Russian interference in our elections. What was done still remains a mystery. But Republican tricky leaks — the systematic efforts to suppress the vote — are an established fact, and a far greater threat to free elections. 

The facts are not in dispute. A recent report by the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty notes that in addition to suffering the most extreme inequality in the industrial world, the U.S. ranks among the lowest for voter participation. Voter registration levels, for example, are 64 percent in the U.S., compared with 91 percent in Canada and the United Kingdom and 99 percent in Japan. 

This isn’t an accident. As The New York Times reports, conservatives have openly stated for years that they do better when fewer people vote. In the South under segregation, the power structure used any number of tricks — poll taxes, and special quizzes, intimidation and just plain murder — to keep blacks from voting. Now, Republicans are clear that they must suppress the vote if they are to keep power.

As professor Donald Jones stated at a Florida hearing of the National Commission for Voter Justice, “When it comes to the vote, we are in the Second Civil War.” 

The National Commission for Voter Justice was launched by RainbowPush early this year to undertake a 2-year mission of documenting the status of voting rights in the U.S., educating the public about ongoing threats and inspiring reforms to reaffirm the right to vote. The NCVJ has held hearings in four states — Michigan, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida — and produced research from six states. 

The NCVJ found that systematic efforts are underway to make voting more difficult in state after state. Voter purging and voter caging is being conducted on a much larger scale since 2016 than is popularly recognized. In Georgia in 2017, 320,000 voters who had been purged from the voter rolls had to file a lawsuit to regain the right to vote. In Florida, black voters are being purged after being labeled “inactive,” by not responding to a mail request for confirmation of address.

The Interstate Crosscheck System, invented by Republican attorneys, is used by 27 states and is estimated to lead to the wrongful purging of hundreds of thousands of voters. States also work to make voting harder. They limit the days of early voting, reduce the number of polling places, leading to long lines and frustrated voters, and relocate polling places to distant communities.

Georgia is notorious for moving polling sites from black communities to inaccessible locations with poor advance notice. Ex-felons who have served their sentence are still disenfranchised in Florida and other states; student face more and more barriers designed to keep them from voting. Republican state legislators have pushed to pass voter ID laws across the country; 34 states now enforce these laws. Eleven percent of U.S. citizens — 21 million people — lack a governmental issued photo ID, the ACLU reports. One in four African-Americans lacks this form of ID.

The Government Accountability Office found that strict photo ID laws reduce turnout by 2 to 3 percent. Open voter suppression laws had a far greater effect on the 2016 election than whatever the Russians did. Wisconsin’s right-wing Gov. Scott Walker had previously signed into law new voter ID requirements, some of which a Federal District Court had found discriminated against minority voters. Conservative judges at the appellate level upheld the law. Republicans openly bragged that this would make the difference in the election.

The result, by the state’s own records, was that 300,000 eligible voters lacked the proper ID. AfricanAmerican turnout was down dramatically and Hillary Clinton lost the key state by only 22,700 votes. We should take steps to ensure that no foreign power can interfere with our elections, but we should also act boldly to ensure that the right to vote is not undermined by zealous partisans at home. Voter registration should be automatic. Voting should be facilitated, not made harder. Early voting days should be extended; polling booths easily available; hours extended.

No one should have to wait for hours in a line to cast a vote. In the end, we should amend the Constitution to specifically establish the right to vote. This basic democratic value is now contested. We have public officials openly bragging about their schemes to suppress the right to vote. There is no greater threat to a democracy. Now it is up to patriots to defend the most basic right of all.

U.S. Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority Names Kamal I. Latham Chief Executive Officer 
Native New Yorker is credited for helping to facilitate more than $5 billion in economic growth over 20 years
By Semele George

Kamal I. Latham

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from USVIEDA

June 4, 2018

The Disturbing Flip Side of the 'Black Panther' Movie
By A. Peter Bailey

NEWS ANALYSIS

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - In the late 1960s several young brothers, including myself, had the mind-expanding experience of studying propaganda analysis under the tutelage of the brilliant Professor Mamoud Boutiba. During those sessions we met once a week for nearly a year. His main point was for us to remember that there is no such thing as a movie, television or radio program, newspaper or magazine article, school textbook, or play without a message. It was up to us, he noted, to discover what that message was.

I had those lessons in mind when I went to see “The Black Panther.” By the time I saw it, it had already been in movie theaters for nearly a month and was receiving overwhelmingly positive reactions, including from people whom I knew and whose opinions about such things, I respected. They raved about its unprecedented showing of the beauty and strength of Black people, especially dark-skinned ones. They were much impressed with its use of ancient African cultural and spiritual symbols. They marveled at the talent of the Black folks who put the film together.

I also read articles with headlines such as “The Black Panther Revolution,” “The Afrofuturism of Black Panther,” “A Hero of Diversity,” “The Panther: A Superhero for Black Youth,” “#BlackPantherChallenge Seeks to Send Thousands to Theaters Nationwide,” “Black Churches Across the Nation Host Screenings of ‘Black Panther,’” “Upcoming ‘Black Panther’ Comic Garners New Fans,” “Black Panther Paves Way for Investment in South Africa,” “The ‘Black Panther’ Happening,” “Finally, A Chance Just to Enjoy a Black Film,” and “Searching for Wakanda.”

What I didn’t read in all of those articles and didn’t see or hear in television or radio commentaries about the film were three things that, in my opinion, reinforced ongoing negative stereotypes about people of African descent. The first and most disturbing of those was that in a film about an African superhero, it is a white man in the CIA who shoots down the machine that is a threat to the entire world. In other words, when it comes to crunch time, one has to rely on the White man to take care of business. And when the White man is saving the world, the African people are busy fighting each other.

Which brings me to the second point. The film basically has a message that African people on the continent and people of African descent from the continent of North America (aka USA) can’t get along with each other. After the climatic battle led by King T’Challa of Wakanda and Erik Killmonger, who represents the African-American position, the king makes a conciliatory proposal that they should seek ways to work together. Killmonger rejects his proposal and instead kills himself. This must have been very pleasing to those White forces and even some Black ones who don’t want any kind of mutually beneficial spiritual, cultural, economic and political connection between people of African descent throughout the world. Killmonger’s rejection of overtures from King T’Challa reinforces that position.

My third problem with “The Black Panther” is the name “Killmonger,” given to the character played by Michael B. Jordan. After seeing the film I looked up the word “warmonger” in a dictionary. A warmonger was described as “a person who is strongly in favor of war or as one who wants to bring about war.” One can only conclude that someone named Killmonger is strongly in favor of killing. It is not surprising, all things considered, that the name is given to the film character who represents African-Americans.

I saw the MSNBC television special on “The Black Panther,” during which key contributors to it were interviewed. Every single one of them came off as being talented, intelligent, committed and thoughtful. That’s why it’s so puzzling to me that neither of them comprehended that it is not positive or productive to have a White man destroy the threat to the world instead of the African superhero, to have a main character with the name Killmonger and to deliver a message that Africans and African-Americans can’t connect together against the forces who regard all Black people as inferior beings.

One article I read, “The Panther: A Superhero for Black Youth,” quotes a youngster as saying “I love Black people and this is about black power.” Another said “Black Panther never stopped fighting for his culture, his people and his country.”

A “Rolling Stone” cover story notes that “Black Panther is about many things: family, responsibilities, fathers and sons, the power of badass women, borders, refugees, what it means to be black, what it means to be African. What it means to be a citizen of the world.”

The above are all positive messages which are unfortunately undermined by the three damaging messages of the type of which Professor Boutiba taught us to be aware.

####

May 27, 2018

Women's Groups Plead for Clemency for Sudanese Teen Sentenced to Hang

(TriceEdneyWire.com/GIN) – A Sudanese court has upheld a judgment of execution for a teenage girl who fought off the forcible sexual advances of her arranged-marriage husband, leading to his death.

Noura Hussein has been imprisoned in Omdurman, Sudan, since the murder of the man she was forced to marry, who she says raped her as his relatives held her down.

The case has highlighted the issues of forced marriage and marital rape in Sudan, where the legal age of marriage is 10 (as long as the girl is married by a guardian) and marital rape is legal. Approximately 1 in 3 girls in Sudan are married before their 18th birthday, according to the coalition Girls Not Brides.

Zaynub Afinnih, a 16 year old activist living in France, responded to Noura’s story. “I don’t know her … I’ve never spoken to her,” Afinnih said in a press interview. “But she is my sister in humanity. I can’t let her die for defending herself against the man who raped her.”

"I couldn't read the story and go back about my normal day," Hussein said. "After that, I made the petition. I felt like I had to do something."

Another activist, Sudanese-Australian blogger Yassmin Abdel-Magied, described the #JusticeForNoura campaign in a piece published in the UK Guardian. She explained: “I’m aiming it at all those folk who want to tell us this is the fault of our faith, when Muslim women are the ones fighting for their own rights, everywhere around the world.

“I don't ask for people to sign petitions very often, but it would be great if you could give this one your support: https://www.change.org/p/zaynub-afinnih-justice-for-noura-marital rape

Since Hussein was sentenced on May 10, calls for mercy have mounted.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanded Sudan stop any attempt to execute Hussein and urged respect for her claim of self-defense against attempted rape.

Amnesty International has collected 174,000 letters from people around the world asking for her release -- they've sent 150,000 of those letters to Sudan's Ministry of Justice.

Calls for clemency have also come from UN Women, the UN Population Fund and the UN Office of the Special Advisor on Africa who wrote: “Speaking as the voices of women and girls of the world, we plead with the government of Sudan to save the life of Hussein.”

GLOBAL INFORMATION NETWORK creates and distributes news and feature articles on current affairs in Africa to media outlets, scholars, students and activists in the U.S. and Canada. Our goal is to introduce important new voices on topics relevant to Americans, to increase the perspectives available to readers in North America and to bring into their view information about global issues that are overlooked or under-reported by mainstream media.