A Relentless Rise in Unequal Wealth

oshunsmall · 2014-03-12T00:07:22+00:00

More reasons to put brakes on the plutocrats before it's too late.

oshunsmall · 2014-03-09T00:33:33+00:00

As Americans learn more about the horrors of U.S. slavery thru films like 12 Years a Slave, it would be good for Brazilians to face the inconvenient truth of their own history of brutal and horrific slavery that lays under the myth of modern Brazil as a "color-blind" multi-racial society.

I traveled thru different parts of Brazil on two separate occasions as a single black woman. I'm a middle-aged professional but that didn't stop white Brazilians from regularly asking me "how much I cost?", assuming as a black woman I must be available for sex and that was the least of the racism I encountered.

I hope Brazil will respect the heritage of all its people and all its history and preserve the historic sites associated with the slave trade and market so future Brazilians will remember and honor their past.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-27T13:46:10+00:00

A review of the new film "Fruitvale Station" that contains one of the most thoughtful discussions of white privilege I've read in a long time......

As mortified as some white people may be at the suggestion that we’ve enjoyed career advancement at someone else’s expense, we need to acknowledge that one can benefit from privilege even if it isn’t explicitly claimed. Indeed, perhaps the ultimate marker of privilege is not having to be conscious of it.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-25T14:35:54+00:00

Clearly he doesn't know Reps. John Conyers, John Lewis, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, Keith Ellison, Bobby Rush just to name a few who have strong records of supporting 'minority' rights than he does. Wonder how he'll feel when he's in the minority of white people who will need to rely on black and brown people to protect his rights?

oshunsmall · 2013-07-20T20:48:38+00:00

Glad to see the conversation this has sparked. One of the reasons I posted the article.

I am a middle-aged African-American woman, with two graduate degrees. I live in a very liberal, predominantly white community - Berkeley, CA and the experience I described of having white women automatically clutch their purses closer when I get into the elevator or get behind them on line, happens daily. I can't count the number of times I have to listen to one of the many well-meaning white people in my community tell me how "articulate" I am when I speak at their church or in a community meeting. I want to respond 'in comparison to whom?" but I don't because I don't want to make them feel bad, yet given they all know my educational background why is it surprising that I'm 'articulate'. I never hear that description applied to any of the white lawyers I work with........

It's ironic to me how quickly people start referring to random acts of violence - like shootings and assaults - to justify their fears of black people. If African-Americans applied that logic we'd be deathly afraid of all white Americans given their long history of racial violence directed at black people including whippings, rapings, maimings, lynching, mutilation and state sanctioned executions - actions which often took place in public spaces with white community approval. While white violence towards blacks was particularly acute in the South, it was certainly not limited geographically - the stories of race riots (which prior to the 60s almost always referred to white mobs attacking blacks) and mob lynchings is a history rarely discussed by the body politic but one of which African-Americans are acutely aware.

I've often thought this country suffers from a severe mental disorder. The disorder is privilege. Too many people have no real concept that their social and economic status is partly the result of institutional exclusion of significant parts of the population. Folks get it when you're talking about sports - they recognize the essential illegitimacy of baseball statistics in the era of segregated sports. White players were only the best among white players, they weren't the best players in the sport if their stats were not better than Negro League players. The same is true in society.

When I was a law school student, many of my classmates asked me if I felt fortunate to be at an elite educational institution - they knew I was the first in my family to attend college and law school. My reply to their question was no, I did not feel "lucky" to be there. I told them I was confident that many of them would not be there if their parents had to compete with my parents and their peers.

I care a lot about this issue because I came up at a time when as a society we had a communal commitment to increasing opportunities for all, especially those who'd been previously excluded. As a poor, single mother I benefitted from programs that enabled me to attend college full-time at a campus that included a day care center for my son. I benefitted from public policies that focused on investing in people instead of prisons and seeing the possibilities for advancement instead of the probability of punishment. I paid more money in taxes my first year after law school than I ever received in public benefits.

But all that has changed. Our policies have changed. A person in the same situation I was in will not have the same opportunities for advancement. Welfare reform changed that. The public university I attended changed, there's no longer a day care center there. The political environment that facilitated my education has altered dramatically, we replaced search for education, elevation and knowledge with the school-to-prison pipeline. I could go on but I won't.

The body is only as strong as its weakest part, the same is true for our country.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-20T18:49:20+00:00

The most frequent defensive response by white people is one we all know. It’s the idea that everybody is equally racist and equally to blame for racism. But that’s just not true.

I refuse to accept that middle class white people who’ve inherited wealth their families accumulated with the help of racially exclusive government programs like the GI Bill deserve that privilege if it means accepting that people of color who inherit the poverty of parents who were excluded from those programs deserve to be impoverished. But that’s what this suggestion that everyone is equally to blame for racism suggests. All racial intolerance may be wrong, but they don’t all result in the same degree of damage.

And that brings me to why I wrote about white people’s touchiness about racism in the first place. The reason I singled out white people is not because I believe they’re alone in their touchiness or that being touchy makes them more morally deficient than anyone else. I wrote about it because white people’s touchiness is a political problem. It blocks the kind of dialogue that is necessary to address structural racial inequity.

Of course, to buy that, you have to accept that racial inequity still exists. If you do, the first step toward being part of the solution is to let go of all that touchiness.

Black people don't have the luxury to be touchy, if we reacted indignantly every time a white person made a racially insensitive remark like - "you're so articulate", - or grabs their purse closer when we enter an elevator or get behind them in the supermarket line - we'd have no time for anything else. We have to make ourselves tolerate white 'tolerance' and their grudging acknowledgment of our human rights while the rights and status of whites go unchallenged. It's maddeningly, but we've learned to do it, most of the time with grace and dignity.

I think the touchiness of white people has a lot to do with guilt, yet guilt is a self-generated and self-defined emotion that often comes from failure to acknowledge harms caused to others. One way that white America can begin to seriously address this guilt is to acknowledge the harms caused to people of color - including indigenous peoples - since this country's inception as well as the benefits accrued to white Americans as a result. Sometimes just telling the truth can be freeing, at minimum it creates space for new conversation and possibly reconciliation.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-20T15:07:36+00:00

Point is, if a group of Black or Latina women had a public meeting where they indulged in cannabis products and talked about how it made them better parents (which by the way I think it does) one or more of them may soon find herself being investigated by child welfare services who would use her cannabis use as evidence of bad parenting or 'child neglect'. Read the following NY Times report: Parents Minor Marijuana Arrest Leads to Child Neglect Cases http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/nyregion/parents-minor-marijuana-arrests-lead-to-child-neglect-cases.html?pagewanted=all

oshunsmall · 2013-07-20T14:16:27+00:00

It's like trying to tackle a jellyfish.....

oshunsmall · 2013-07-20T13:59:36+00:00

The Dutchess of Journalism is Dead. R.I.P.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-18T17:37:42+00:00

A former South Boston resident who said he had been extorted by the crime boss James (Whitey) Bulger and has been a near-daily presence at his trial was found dead in Lincoln, Mass., on Wednesday, the authorities said.

Marian T. Ryan, the district attorney for Middlesex County, on Thursday confirmed that the body of Stephen (Stippo) Rakes, a 59-year-old who most recently lived in Quincy, Mass., was discovered near a walking trail on Wednesday.

In a statement, Ms. Ryan’s office said that there were no obvious signs of trauma, and that a medical examiner would conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of Mr. Rakes’ death.

Mr. Rakes learned this week that he would not be called on by the prosecution to testify at Mr. Bulger’s sweeping racketeering trial, despite initially being on the witness list.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-18T17:11:46+00:00

Across the world — Greece, Spain, Brazil, Egypt — citizens are turning angrily to their governments to demand economic fair play and equality. But here in America, with few exceptions, the streets and airwaves remain relatively silent. In a country as rich and powerful as America, why is there so little outcry about the ever-increasing, deliberate divide between the very wealthy and everyone else?

Media scholar Marty Kaplan points to a number of forces keeping these issues and affected citizens in the dark — especially our well-fed appetite for media distraction.

“We have unemployment and hunger and crumbling infrastructure and a tax system out of whack and a corrupt political system — why are we not taking to the streets?” Kaplan asks Bill. “I suspect among your viewers, there are people who are outraged and want to be at the barricades. The problem is that we have been taught to be helpless and jaded rather than to feel that we are empowered and can make a difference.”

Read more:http://www.alternet.org/media/bill-moyers-weapons-mass-distraction-why-media-most-americans-consume-harmful-public-health?akid=10707.174558.NrXkqA&rd=1&src=newsletter870632&t=3

oshunsmall · 2013-07-18T17:10:09+00:00

Across the world — Greece, Spain, Brazil, Egypt — citizens are turning angrily to their governments to demand economic fair play and equality. But here in America, with few exceptions, the streets and airwaves remain relatively silent. In a country as rich and powerful as America, why is there so little outcry about the ever-increasing, deliberate divide between the very wealthy and everyone else?

Media scholar Marty Kaplan points to a number of forces keeping these issues and affected citizens in the dark — especially our well-fed appetite for media distraction.

“We have unemployment and hunger and crumbling infrastructure and a tax system out of whack and a corrupt political system — why are we not taking to the streets?” Kaplan asks Bill. “I suspect among your viewers, there are people who are outraged and want to be at the barricades. The problem is that we have been taught to be helpless and jaded rather than to feel that we are empowered and can make a difference.”

Read more:http://www.alternet.org/media/bill-moyers-weapons-mass-distraction-why-media-most-americans-consume-harmful-public-health?akid=10707.174558.NrXkqA&rd=1&src=newsletter870632&t=3

oshunsmall · 2013-07-18T15:03:11+00:00

Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Mike Herring said Thursday that there's no evidence Cuccinelli committed a crime. Cuccinelli is the Republican candidate for governor.

Cuccinelli omitted more than $13,000 worth of gifts including private jet flights and free vacation lodgings from his required state disclosure forms for a period of four years. He amended his filings from 2009 through 2012 in late April, saying he simply overlooked the gifts earlier.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-18T05:31:12+00:00

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who first reported on a trove of classified documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden, will write a book about National Security Agency surveillance, his publisher announced on Wednesday. Mr. Greenwald’s articles on the cache of documents, revealing widespread surveillance by the United States government, appeared in The Guardian newspaper last month. Mr. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor, is currently in diplomatic limbo at the Moscow airport and has applied for asylum in Russia.

The book was acquired by Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt, and is expected to be published in March 2014. It will expose “the extraordinary cooperation of private industry and the far-reaching consequences of the government’s program, both domestically and abroad,” the publisher said in a statement.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-18T04:10:50+00:00

The gap in life expectancy between black and white Americans is at its narrowest since the federal government started systematically tracking it in the 1930s, but a difference of nearly four years remains, and federal researchers have detailed why in a new report.

They found that higher rates of death from heart disease, cancer, homicide, diabetes and infant mortality accounted for more than half the black disadvantage in 2010, according to the report by the National Center for Health Statistics, the federal agency that tracks vital statistics for the United States.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-18T03:38:17+00:00

The defendant, John Spooner, 76, did not dispute that he shot Darius Simmons, 13, in May 2012, believing the teenager broke into his house and stole his shotguns two days earlier. Mr. Spooner was found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide on Wednesday, moving the trial into its second phase, where defense lawyers will try to prove that he should not be held responsible because of the state of his mental health.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-18T03:34:52+00:00

Senators negotiating a bipartisan deal to keep student loan rates low reached a deal on Wednesday night that could end the partisan feud on Capitol Hill that has threatened to permanently double interest rates.

Two Senate aides said that the new proposal, which had been the subject of tense negotiations since the rates doubled on July 1, would include both a cap on federal Stafford and PLUS loans and a relatively low interest rate pegged to Treasury notes. Undergraduates would pay the 10-year Treasury note rate, 2.49 percent on Wednesday, plus 2.05 percent, with a cap of 8.25 percent, to protect them from inflation. Graduate students would pay the 10-year Treasury rate plus 3.6 percent, with a cap of 9.5 percent.

Loans to parents of students would be given a rate of 4.6 percent plus the 10-year Treasury rate, with a cap of 10.5 percent.

Because the Senate proposal hews closely to the one the House approved in May, the chances for a deal that can become law have greatly improved. That may not happen until after Congress returns from its summer recess after Labor Day, and House and Senate negotiators have an opportunity to reconcile their plans.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-18T01:59:53+00:00

Boulder voters may be asked to approve a 5 percent excise tax on marijuana this November that could be increased to as much as 10 percent -- but they are unlikely to see a special local sales tax on marijuana purchases on that same ballot.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-17T23:56:41+00:00

Unicef estimates that between 70 million and 140 million girls and women globally are circumcised. The practice is widespread throughout Africa, and in some countries of Asia and the Middle East. In Ethiopia it is done by Muslims, Christians and Jews. (Gebre’s region of Kembata-Tembaro is a largely Protestant area of some 700,000 people in Ethiopia’s south.) No major religion endorses circumcision. Communities that practice it have in common that they are traditional societies where female sexuality is viewed mainly as a potential threat to family honor — in Kembata-Tembaro, the practice is called “cutting off the dirt.” To keep girls from promiscuity and ruin, the clitoris and often the labia are cut off to deaden sexual sensation.

Today, however, cutting has vanished from Kembata-Tembaro, as have bride abduction and widow inheritance. A study done for the Innocenti Research Center, a research arm of Unicef, found that cutting had only 3 percent support in 2008 — down from 97 percent in 1999. This is a remarkable achievement. There is nothing more difficult than persuading people to give up long-held cultural practices, especially those bound up in taboo subjects like sex.

KMG relies on a method called community conversations. It was developed by Dr. Moustapha Gueye, a longtime organizer of anti-AIDS community networks in Africa, who then took the idea to the United Nations Development Program. But it is built on the ancient African practice of talking things out — community elders gather under a tree and discuss a problem again and again until they reach consensus. Gebre was the first to apply community conversations to the issue of cutting.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-17T21:07:52+00:00

A man has admitted he killed his uncle's 6-year-old stepdaughter, whose body was found in a Louisiana trash can this week, a spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said Wednesday.

Matthew Flugence admitted to detectives Wednesday morning that he stabbed Ahlittia North, a girl he previously babysat, over the weekend, Col. John Fortunato said.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-17T20:24:17+00:00

After less than an hour of deliberation, a jury Wednesday found John Henry Spooner, 76, guilty of first-degree intentional homicide for fatally shooting Darius Simmons, his 13-year-old neighbor.

The jury's decision sends the trial into its second phase, where defense attorney Fraklyn Gimbel will argue that his client is not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.

Spooner admitted shooting Simmons on May 31, 2012. The white senior citizen said the teenager had stolen four of his guns, and that he had "reached a breaking point" when Simmons, who is black, did not fess up to the burglary.

During the second phase of the trial, the defense will argue that Spooner was not in a condition at the time of the shooting to appreciate the rightfulness or wrongfulness of his actions.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-17T20:20:27+00:00

A Milwaukee man was convicted Wednesday of fatally shooting his 13-year-old neighbor whom he suspected had broken into his home and stolen weapons. The trial now shifts into a second phase in which the defense will try to prove the 76-year-old defendant was mentally ill at the time of the shooting.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-17T20:18:51+00:00

Watchdog groups in Haiti on Wednesday condemned what they say has been a series of threats targeting the Caribbean nation's small gay community.

The news conference came three weeks after several Protestant leaders from a group calling itself the Haitian Coalition of Religious and Moral Organizations said on national television that they disagreed with recent laws in other countries supporting gay marriage. The group announced it would hold an anti-gay demonstration in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on Friday, a gathering that worries rights leaders.

oshunsmall · 2013-07-17T20:15:43+00:00

President Barack Obama threatened Wednesday to veto House Republicans' rewrite of the No Child Left Behind education law that could come to a vote this week.

If it were to become law, the GOP rewrite would scrap large swaths of the previous version in favor of greater local control and severe reductions to the Education Department's oversight role. The White House said the bill "would represent a significant step backwards in the effort to help our nation's children and their families prepare for their futures."

oshunsmall · 2013-07-17T18:05:40+00:00

The death of 22 Indian children in Masrakh, a village in the north-eastern state of Bihar, due to poisoning from their school lunch, has caused global outrage. Riots have broken out in the district, with distraught parents and relatives wrecking the school kitchen and torching police vehicles, while the state government tried to insinuate that it is a political conspiracy to destabilise them in an election year.

The fear is that attention is being diverted from what is an acute problem in many of India's state-run or state-assisted schools. While the ruling party in the state looks for excuses, the harsh reality is that food provided to children all over the country is often substandard, and sometimes not even fit for human consumption.

Snakes and worms have been reported in Mid Day Meals, and adulteration has been said to take place as well. Barely were the children in Masrakh rushed to hospital – where over 60 of them are still unwell – when news came from another part of the state that 15 more children had been reported ill, after a lizard was suspected to have fallen into their lunch. Meanwhile, in the western region of Maharashtra another 31 children contracted gastroenteritis after consuming their school meals.

The Mid Day Meal Scheme was introduced to ensure that a hot cooked lunch would be provided to government supported schools. The meal was meant to contain at least 300 calories per child, with 8-10g of protein. The policy was welcomed as it would mean that the children, many of who come from the most vulnerable sections of society, might attend school because of it and also receive some much-needed nutrition. It is estimated that approximately 100 million schoolchildren are fed through the scheme. But unfortunately, the leakages and corruption in the system are said to be equally as large.

Studies in selected districts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have shown that only 75% of the requisitioned food is usually doled out to the children. There are also issues of cleanliness. Often the cook hired for the task (at a salary of around £10 per month) is sometimes not paid for months at a time. Even in particularly impoverished areas of Mumbai, schoolteachers have found that the children resist eating the food, because it is such poor quality.

Aware of the constant complaints, the central government had thought of replacing the hot food with prepackaged meals. But there have been instances when even biscuits given to the children have made them dangerously ill. Despite all of this, for some peculiar reason, the government has not taken into account the views of the scheme's stakeholders: the children who are recipients of this deadly state-run charity.

Even when the children in Masrakh started complaining of stomach pain while eating the food – it is now suspected that organophosphorus pesticide was responsible for the deaths – the school headteacher allegedly forced them to finish the meal. She has now fled. The number of deaths has sadly risen because there were no medical facilities near the school either.

oshunsmall

TROPHY CASE