Being Informed: A Proactive Inconvenience to the Cruelty of the Times

The viral photo of 2 year old Honduran girl crying while her mother was searched at the Mexico border in McAllen Texas.  She was not taken from her parents at the border. © John Moore/GETTY

Of course we are all immensely relieved that an Executive Order was signed this week...which prevents future family separations from occuring. Thank God! BUT, I will not express gratitude or offer backpatting for crazymaking.

If you manufacture chaos in your nation, then sweep in to reverse it, that is a gross abuse on the psyche your people. Period. Not to speak of the FACT that the very serious psycho-emotional and social damage done to these families and children cannot be reversed with an EO. So no, you will not be normalized with a Thank You DJT. Now you are to be critically and strategically examined, and swiftly dismissed with our collective focus and with the full democratic legal scope available to us like never before.

You bet your ass #ThisIsAmerica, and this is also the World…and the World expects better, because America’s long decree to the World is that it will grow up to do better. This man is the burden of #ThePeople who must fight like hell to keep our emotional stamina up and never to accept or normalize ANYTHING he does, because he does not care about this country, he does not care about the law, he does not care about this world, he does not care about #ThePeople — aside from the inconvenience we may be to him, in any given moment.

So,

…let us become very inconvenient.

But we have to be focused. The mere fact that all this whiplash inducing immoral madness came to such a head in the same week as Juneteenth and World Refugee Day makes reality dip into head-burning surreality. 

The spin cycle of chaos and distraction is indefatigable and they are making emotional puppets of us all.

What is supremely important going forward in this, is understanding how the withdrawal from the UN Council on Human Rights affects this situation,and other social justice concerns that may not be in the headlines today, or remain in the headlines tomorrow. This withdrawal positions the US to begin shaping isolationist policies free of international law pressures...especially with regard to the children it now houses in cages and tender-age tent cities.

PLEASE NOTE — the US is the ONLY country which has not ratified the 1989 UN Convention of the Rights of the Child...

a convention swiftly and widely voted on by a total now of 196 countries since it was created. It is why America(despite admonishnishment over the years from various human rights commissions and NGOs domestically and internationally) gets away with imprisoning more youth than any nation on earth;

• why it is still legal within several States in the US to have child brides;
• why asylum seeking children…both accompanied and unaccompanied have been treated the way they have; 
• why young people are saddled with a lifetime of stress inducing debt just for going to school;
• why meals in schools can include high sugar servings and other ingredients known to cause ill health in brain development, etc.;
• why universal care or oversight in foster care is administratively stressed, under-resourced, and difficult to standardize across the country; 
• why children can be knowingly exposed to high levels of lead in their drinking water with little done to correct this;
• why kids can be targeted consumers for big pharma drugs;
• why the threat of gun violence does little in the debate of reforming gun laws, even though this affects increasing numbers of children across the country. 

The list goes on, all definitively describing the endangerment of the welfare of children.

And though I list these things…it is not off topic, for this growing culture of endangerment is what was immediately and most horrifically inherited by these poor children ripped from their asylum-seeking families and are now lost in the system across the country. And though it is within every sovereigns legal right to guard its borders, it is also a domestic and international human legislated right to seek asylum. Yes, it is US Law, - safeguarded by our constitution — and upheld by SCOTUS in 1886 in Wong Wing v US.* It is the law that these families be granted due process/hearings, even if their cases result in deportation. It is also their right to not be held stateless in detention for an undetermined period, especially when cleared as innocent civilians and non-threatening to the State - an important distinction that is repeatedly dismissed at our borders and entry points and in detention centers across the country. How is it right to criminalize human beings who are fleeing for their lives?!

And given the rampant issues that were already present in how cases are handled, the backlog paired with a scarcity of legal counsel and translators, the additional challenge of assigning separate 'Alien numbers' to the parents and children will make reuniting these families -in some cases- next to impossible. This practically defines endangerment, as many of the 2300+ children have been wrecklessly set on an unthinkable course of long-term risks and actions against their well-being by this terrifying no-tolerance policy. 

It is clear that the presumption of safety means being a white American — meaning having white privilege, right? 

Many native Americans, non-white immigrants and black Americans have used this moment to voice personal or collective historical accounts of this happening before though. Children being ripped from families is not new in the founding historical record of this country. But given the poor congressional response to safeguarding white kids from gun danger in recent years for instance,can we really expect that children of asylum-seekers/asylees will ever be prioritized? Point is, why is America withholding itself from international scrutiny and jurisprudent accountability where universal child protections are concerned?

Power when unchecked will eventually cease to discriminate. No precedent set by this administration should ever go unchecked. Everyone can be ‘othered’.

My mother who’s life work has been in the international legal arm of Human Rights advocacy has never failed to refer to the Convention on the Rights of the Child consistently and frequently for years. I have absorbed it as my own personal outrage and a marker of what leadership will or will not stretch to care about regarding its citizens, let alone immigrants and refugees. I highly recommend reading it for a broader grasp of our governments activities regarding children.

This is also why the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) concern of Trump even threatening that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) destroy records of abuse in detention centers and by border patrol officers matters even more sharply now too. Because many children and families remain there right now, needing our sober witnessing and acute aid.

Sure the world is watching, but the rule of law along with shifting economic realities among allied states, have precluded the success of global pressure to shift how America conducts itself...for years now. As a major economic contributor to many of these organisations it is very tricky -for ALL of us- for America to pull out of any of them, and it is believed that more withdrawals are imminent.

And one has to ask….what would it mean to be isolated in a wealthy well-armed nation that once proclaimed itself with the role and responsibility of policing Human Rights conduct and policy around the world? 

Who would come to our aid? Who could? (These are not rhetorical questions…I just have no idea…)

It is my most earnest interest that we increase our understanding of how international law works and its governing bodies; the inefficiencies and successes. And of course, we need to be better informed of our own laws. ***[Edit - June 25th] Because if our very own president is calling for the dismissal of legal proceedings at the border, on twitter no less, which is patently unconstitutional, then he can call for a lot of other changes too. A number of federal lawsuits will be filed against this administration by the families, and rightly so!  But are we confident our current SCOTUS will uphold the rights we’ve come to take for granted?  With midterms coming up, we should vote with this in mind.*** It has never mattered more, because given this extreme moral crisis within this land of Hope, we may very well be looking at the beginnings of the remapping of World alliances as we know it.

We all need to grow up quick and wrap our heads around deeper research, and continue to work however we can, as health and wellness practitioners, legal professionals, teachers, mothers,  artists, cooks, fathers, entrepreneurs, construction workers, writers, curators, small business owners, engineers, farmers, yogis, digital creators, advocates and activists, designers, basket weavers, whoever... 
we all need to mix in more history and global + civic studies into our work. The times, and this madman who has waged war against facts, critical thinking and general well-being demands it.

Something spiritual about this all really…

I’ve long believed that it was his destiny to be in that office,

...perhaps to awaken us to our own.

no one leaves home unless

home is the mouth of a shark

you only run for the border

when you see the whole city running as well

you only leave home

when home won’t let you stay

Excerpt from HOME, read below by poet Warsan Shire

#nomoresleep #livetolearn #webelongtoeachother #remember #reConnect #GetThoseVotesReady #Midterms2018

#thework

Mobilizing Miracles 

Additional links for donations and volunteer calls

• Here's a list of organizations for asylum advocacy and legal aid that are working at the border and around the country to represent children separated from their families.  They need volunteer lawyers, trauma care specialists, and funding. 

• Here's a great list of important groups working to protect kids separated from their parents. Multiple donations made easy, where you can split your donations among several organizations you believe in.  http://ireallydocare.com

Women and children at a bus station in McAllen, Texas, following their release from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images | SOURCED from The Cut

Embedded Links and Additional Reading: 

UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, the most committed agreement comprised of 196 countries. The last latecomer Somalia joined in 2015: 

-  Definition of the Convention

-  The Articles of the Convention


The threat of destruction of records-of-abuse in detention centers: https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/ice -and-border-patrol-abuses/ice-plans-start-destroying -records-immigrant

History of family separations in the US: 
https://theintercept.com/2018/06/20/family-separation-immigration-history-slavery-mass-incarceration/

***The challenge of reuniting children with parents:
https://www.thecut.com/2018/06/reunite-immigrant-parent-with-child.html

America’s Child Brides: 

https://www.bbc.com/news /av/world-us-canada-41727495/why-does-the-us -have-so-many-child-brides

BigPharma drugs and kids: 
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article /big-pharma-s-manufactured-epidemic-the -misdiagnosis-of-adhd/

Lead blood levels of Flint Kids from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6525e1.htm

….

***Edited.
   Last Edited: 26th Jun 2018

Psychopathic Privileges v Life Affirming Principles: The Young Are Reclaiming Their Lives in America

I am not a parent of high school students but I am living with someone who is.  I know many of you are parents and teachers, and I too have been a teacher in high schools where safety was an issue. 

In just over two years of living in Washington, my partner Dale and I have had to process three shootings involving the schools his children attend.  To hear a young person cry in the middle of the night while we all sit on twitter live with her, tracking posts to see if there is anyone else she knows who was shot, is not something you soon forget.  But this of course was not an isolated incident, thus the task force subsequently commissioned to conduct comprehensive student/teacher training sessions and drills as the new norm. 

The day before the Florida school shooting, an eighteen year old was apprehended in my little town of Everett. His grandmother, disturbed by his behavior, read his diaries and found terrifying entries of his plans to “get the biggest fatality number”. He wanted to make it “infamous” by using his semi-automatic AK rifle at one high school,  while triggering strategically placed homemade timed explosives at another (where, incidentally Dale’s son currently attends).  This would-be shooter apparently studied the “past shooters/bombers mistakes”, intending for his chosen date of attack - set for April 19th, to rival those of the Oklahoma City Bombing (04/19/1995) and the Columbine High School attack (04/20/1999).

The grandmother reported her grandson to the police and turned in his diaries - and thank God, because she potentially saved scores of children by making that call.  The lucky part here is that he was caught before he killed. The frightening part is that he was armed to do it, planned to do it, and - that his story hit the news the same morning as the shooting on the far opposite end of the country. The cops were all over the schools, with bomb sniffing dogs; the kids all on lockdown. The usual.  Or I should say, full blown epidemic.  

This young man played online video games with Dale’s son; and he should be freaked out of his mind by this, but like us, he is apparently numb from the shock...and why, because he's been through this before. His sister, prior to her graduation, had been through this before. Their friends have all been through this before.  It is to be expected. This is life for high school kids in America. And this cannot be stereotyped by city or State, because Washington is a state (along with Oregon and California) renowned for a broad and progressive local legislative portfolio which much of the country has yet to catch up to.  And yet, for unfortunate contrast, Washington is an open carry State with less than preferable gun control measures. We have at least 11 gun and ammo shops within a 10 mile radius of our suburban home, where with relative ease Dale and I could purchase semi-automatic weapons if we wanted to - and that includes two Wal-Marts.  

 signage on glass gun cases at nearby Wal-Mart store

Last year while traveling in Canada, during a time when I was researching gun violence for a related article, I discussed at length the vast difference in gun control legislation there with my gun-owning uncle who all but spelled out how difficult it is to get one, much less multiple guns even as a “responsible” citizen. 

Based on categories of "prohibited", "restricted", and "permitted" guns in Canada, he informed me of legally mandated articles per gun type when applying for a permit: 

You must get references to apply, permits must state specific use of the weapon, and permit-checks are regularly enforced; there are rules for assembly, and double and triple lock storage and transportation; signed spousal agreement is required for guns to be present in the matrimonial home; mandatory courses in usage and safety procedures must be passed along with thirty to sixty day waiting periods before permits are issued for purchase; and, repeated psych-assessments are conducted to ensure you continue to be a responsible owner at licensing, and for every subsequent renewal. 

You cannot just openly carry weapons, nor is there a lifetime guarantee that you will be granted renewed permits to carry them.   And of course there is a logical list of people who just cannot get one at all - like the mentally ill, substance abusers, and domestic abusers. No free-for-alls there.  And how many mass/school shootings does Canada have? Far fewer than us!  And keep in mind they have a robust gun owning culture too - which makes them the best comparison for what the culture of prohibitive gun laws can prevent.  

Culture and Dangerous Optics

There is nothing new here. We know the numbers, we have over 300 million guns out there.  The threat of this was contextualized thoroughly in an important work made 16 years ago by Michael Moore after the Columbine shooting in Littleton, Colorado - which was the sister school of one of my best friends.  The heartlessness of years of disregard by our leaders after every school shooting since, (especially Sandy Hook - given the number and age of the victims) has left a nation nearly paralyzed in fear and confusion, feeling undervalued and helpless. I know I lost hope after Sandy Hook in particular - because it confirmed in a gruesome and dissonant way for me as an immigrant of color, that if little white children were treated as less valuable than gun sales, then these lobbyists and every old white guy official paid by them certainly cared nothing for anyone else in this country.  That incident alone showed the transcendence of their greed beyond any racial reasoning we often put on our many social troubles.  They value only their profits and no one else - which attacks the very mythology of exceptionalism they wish this nation to uphold.  And when you combine this with Trump’s bill reversing gun control measures for the mentally ill last February, in a nation that has, in the same 16 year period since Columbine, defunded mental health programs nationwide, we see how this has all run amok  - and there is nothing but absolute cruelty to blame this on. 

And the thing is, this isn’t only about being scared for your child being at risk of being killed. There is also the fear of your child  being the killer?! A frightening contention.  What about helping out those parents and family members, who certainly are not aided by an open market for weapons! The shooter in Florida was on watch lists, yet he was able to get weapons.  Conversely, this young man in our town was not on any watch lists, neither was he suspected by even his own friends!  No one saw it coming - except grandma.  I do not know his mental condition - compared with the Florida school shooter, as some may debate, but one thing is clear, he was disconnected and very angry.  And he was able to get advanced weaponry to work that anger out just as easily, because leadership failed again to make that difficult. 

And let’s look at that - we have a very young generation who sees through every promise society has broken.  

Leadership has failed to propose any new gun control laws much less getting any passed - after all these deaths - in every facet of our so-called free lives.  And in that time a whole generation has grown up knowing their leadership does not value their lives, our lives.  

When you teach kids this, then you say to them that they are powerless, and the more violent or angry among them unravel and reach with ease for weapons that give them what they think is power.  They fear nothing.  They have no innocent bubble to burst.  This is not only about immediate safety, this is about a deeply rooted cultural value for LIFE.  

Worst still, this culture exports, and can infect the thinking of children elsewhere who look to America as the arbiter of power in the world. 

As James Baldwin said:  “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”

In any other context the NRA and organizations like them would be called a terrorist group or at the very least, sympathizers to terrorists.  In ANY other context. And this includes anyone in their profit stream - especially too as it pertains to jurisprudent action to support their function. But no, in the American context it is called a right as a citizen.  Touting the 2nd amendment alongside your semi-automatics makes you patriot.  

Gun violence in the name of ‘self-defense’ cannot be defended as a culture, it is a violent dogma that is ABSOLUTELY and murderously insane.  

The Youth Revolution of Safeguards

I would LOVE to see every student, teacher, and parent from coast to coast in this country take to the streets, ON A WEEK DAY, or a whole school week to march on their respective Capitols - LEAD by the YOUTH to scare the shit out of these assholes to change this madness. And it is coming. 

A nation of children marching in defense of their lives is the most powerful thing that can happen, and who can deny them this? These kids and educators cannot live this way, and parents should not be helpless and terrified to send their children to school. We should not be terrified to go out with our friends to see a movie, dance at the club, watch our favorite musicians on stage.  This is a sure way to sink this place into total incivility...into civil war.  Yes I will say that - again.

Congress and lobbyist thugs, if you will not protect the children of your nation, you will have not nation. This could actually be a moment when our NRA funded so-called President could create sound, enlightened, historical legislation in his dark destructive portfolio. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said: “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”

This is an awful burden leaders have placed on the backs of their young. It is not fair to them, but these young, articulate, and impassioned teenagers are about to take this country back and they have their own leading voices to guide them. And, they will be old enough to vote soon.   

THIS MOMENT IS POWERFUL.
It is the most hopeful moment I have felt in years. 

Thank you #EmmaGonzalez, you brave #SoulJah

#StudentsDemandAction
#StudentsStandUp 

#WeCallBS 

#TimesUp

#thework

#theywontsleep

#midterms2018

#votethemout

#calledit

#castlestormers

#studentwalkout

#nationwide

#newgunlaws

#guncontrolinAmerica

#gunregulationsnow

Important sites: 
Moms Demand Action

Everytown for Gun Safety

Everytown Research 



Updates: 
Feb 20 - Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/20/how-rightwing-media-is-already-attacking-florida-teens-speaking-out

#NeverAgain

Justice Reform discussions with NAACP and POTUS: Long Game

Back to the grassroots of community organizing to address Justice Reform.  "Back to" I say -  if you actually thought Obama ever left.  I've always thought he was busy gathering and establishing and clearing grounds of power to check some political mates.  Impatience always obscures the view of many and often creates disconnected forgetfulness or... selective memory. But for a few there is that thing called The Long Game.




And here we are now…tackling the problem of the School to Prison Pipeline.  Going down the VERY long list of judicial issues and injustices visited upon the Black and Latino population in particular.  We cannot expect any effective change in equalizing opportunity for education, growth, or sustainable success - or at least a shot at it, if the way we apply law and punishment isn't also equalized.

"If you are a parent, then you know there are times when boys and girls are gonna act out in school. So the question is: are we going to let principals and parents deal with one set of kids while we call the police on another set of kids? That's not the right thing to do." - President Obama




I find it interesting that we live in a country and a time where much of the fodder around this latest headline speech is that our President is becoming what we feared he'd become... Huh?  

#schooltoprisonpipeline #stopthecycle #newdayslavery #disciminatoryincarceration #massincarceration #mybrotherskeeper #juvenilesentencing #futurecitizens #notsustainable #HumanRights #EqualRights #mandatorydiscretion #JusticeReform
#logic

Pride and The New Norm: Equal Rights

I grew up IN JAMAICA in an African/British influenced household run by two lawyers; one, an atheist and the other, a practicing Catholic. We had a constant influx of visitors from around the world, many of whom hosted us in their homes when we traveled.  Among our guests were committed gay couples who are together to this day. 

Because of how my parents socialized me - it frankly never occurred to me that there was anything different or untoward about "Auntie and Auntie" or "Uncle and Uncle" compared with "Auntie and Uncle".
(Note: In my culture - out of respect we address our elders as "Auntie" and "Uncle"  even when they are not blood relatives.) 
They were our family of friends and THAT was THAT.

In all the years that followed when living out in the World and encountering other view points - I was constantly shocked that anyone saw my Aunties and Uncles any differently because they were gay.  Being a total ham and hag - I amassed my own gay friends, and many, and frankly felt no need to explain this to the few confused objectors in my life - except to point out that their philosophy of love was flawed if they missed the beauty of a soul based on righteous principle. 

Without realizing that I had inherited a wide emotional girth of activism from my parents, this issue almost immediately spilled onto the pages of the first college papers I wrote with indignant vehemence. (Along with issues of global acceptance of multiculturalism and the legalization of weed.)  I argued that couples in the #LGBTIQ community had the right not only to marry, but to adopt children.  I smile at this now, as adoption was at issue for gay couples in the late 90s; just this year I attended the baptism of two beautiful natural children of a gay friend…just to illustrate our growth since then. 

Every #pridemarch I've gone to in different cities, or to conferences I've been lucky enough to attend, I strongly believed of course in the fight for #equalrights and supported it with a clear heart, but I must admit that I wondered how this would work in a World so bent on the isms and religions which pronounce what is right or wrong.  In the last year especially, I confess to an unusual phase of quiet that came over me from the numbing shocking wave of fear-induced violence and hate in every sphere across this globe.  And no doubt there is a lot of work still to be done. But I am sucker for reinforcements.  We all are.  I weep ecstatically that I am now old enough to speak like my parents have in saying -
"I never thought I would live to see the day that the World could shift this significantly while I am energetic enough to participate in the new norm." 

The New Norm. 

The fact that THIS in ways unseen opens further rights and protections to the full extent of the law for people, for families... is what was at stake here!! Families!! The  fact that this shall become so ordinary a truth and way of life that the Labels we separate each other and ourselves with can, must, and will fall away. That our differences will only be details of delightful interest to be celebrated.

Yes.

WE are on our way.
On our way back.
To the beginning.
To ourselves.

I congratulate and celebrate EVERY HUMAN BEING. 
What we see evidenced before us, WE can manifest again and again if we just reMember to Love.

#LOVEWINS along with mutual #RESPECT.

#enlightmentisabigbang #offwego  #tippingpoint #criticalmass #letskeepthisgoing #loverevolution #theonlyway
#excusemewhileIlightmyspliff

Another Robin Hood Capitalist Goes to Africa

“This is a relationship that could bring us all the things we desire,” Jeffrey Wright said. [from NYT Article]
 Will it really?  Not from what I can glean.

Michael Christopher Brown/Magnum, for The New York Times

A few days ago a dear friend sent this New York Times Magazine Article: Jeffrey Wright's Gold Mine, and I had to sit with it for a bit because quite frankly I didn't want to express too soon my innermost reactions of utter distaste.

I am all for the worldwide excitement that now swirls around Africa; I'm overjoyed and inspired by the throngs of Afropolitans who are relocating  there in record numbers to reclaim and rebuild. They, we, have her best interest at heart in investing in her growth and resurgence as the power that she always was - due to her most abundant bossom and talented children.  And make no mistake, this is a very significant event that has created such terms as "reverse migration" or "reverse brain drain" which are being used to describe a very specific socio-economic effect.  Once the Westernized educated classes of third world nations would leave their countries to help build the already powerful industrial nations from which capitalist driven standards hailed.  The effect of this was brain drain (human capital flight) which often left the poorer nations struggling to compete effectively in any international industry due to a lack of skilled work forces.  In turn this would of course affect a nations GDP (gross domestic product) growth.  Now for the first time in the LONG and (still debated) complicated history of world economics, the reverse is occurring.  The wide significance of this can be sourced to many publications and statistical reports, not least of which by the World Bank citing in 2013 that the fastest growing economies belonged mostly to African nations - and Sierra Leone is sustaining her top ranking position on this list.  Time Magazine and The Economist actually had the

same Africa Rising cover issue titles when reporting this phenomenon! There is no coincidence in the fact that the(current) race for Mama Africa (headed by China over 10 years ago) reawakened Europe's interest, and now supposedly 'concerns' that of the USA; - a crazed rush of which her own children are keenly aware.  Africans want ownership interest in her future - OBVIOUSLY.  No child of hers wishes to see her raped and robbed again!  Which brings me back to the responsibility of the individual, and this move by actor Jeffrey Wright and his gold mining project - which sorry, does not have the appearance of real interest in development or profitable investor growth FOR MY country Sierra Leone.  It looks like just the opposite.  

Is it me, or does his pet gold mine project have all the earmarks of the old imperialist model of exploitation for industrial and western profit?! And worse still because he does it under the guise of his right and spiritual destiny as a black man coming to do his part to help rebuild a chosen African nation which he has tricked himself into believing he has interest in!  How can it be real interest if you offer partnership to outside investors (he included) for profits to be removed from the very country you dig up for your personal enrichment?  Unless I'm misinterpreting something here - it seems he's recycling damaging strategies that put Sierra Leone in the very mess he proposes to be aiding to clean.  What fucking hypocrisy!

There are many well-meaning celebrities who have put their face, and sometimes time, effort, or money into charitable pots created by humanitarian organizations - and sometimes unfortunately to little avail.  The model of charity is indeed being reexamined as one that doesn't ultimately help to lift a troubled nation out of poverty. The old adage is true - better to teach one how to fish.   “Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.” [from NYT article].  Agreed.  Wright cites this quote  in the article - and yes this is true in many cases, but certainly the alternative is not to repeat models of exploitation behind the cloak of a radical Robin Hood capitalist digging for gold instead of diamonds.  And especially not if you're robbing the poor you propose to be educating and empowering Jeffrey! Hello! Ugh - this man, this artist is in the specific performing profession of the empath - that's what you do as an actor, but all I see from this article, as I frankly have seen in some of his performances, is one of an arrogant self-appointed massah.

"Sierra Leone was one of the world’s most failed states. And it is ringed by war-ravaged Liberia and by Guinea, whose government was fast collapsing. To all but the most intrepid, Sierra Leone’s gold didn’t seem worth the gamble." [from NYT article].  And being among the most intrepid gives you no credibility in my book if you can go into such a state nonetheless and take resources and personally control trade in the name of nation rebuilding.  It absolves you of nothing.

Guess I still haven't cooled off yet...

Thank you Bea - this woke me from my personal silence. xo

"The narrative will always glorify the hunter until the lion learns to write."
Just like you said Komla Dumor
#VoiceOfAfrica 

Full New York Times article here

Jamrock Talk, Jamrock Walk

Got a few posts building up in me and while I'm getting all caught up in drafting them... the weeks are going by.  So forgive the slight incongruity here - but I need to quickly put up a couple of thoughts and 'shares'.

As some of you know for the past few years - and stemming out of my public school teaching experience with ALATetc and Art for Progress -  I've been working in a volunteer capacity to create educational art workshops/community projects with a couple of organizations; namely CITYarts, Studio 174, and INSCAPE Foundation.  It's all been a bit slow, but the relationships built have been steady and consistently inspiring.  My 'fave orgs' you see listed always in the sidebar is a record of my alliances thus far, and new to the list is Save Our Jamaica - founded by a most passionate soul and loyal Jamrocker - Raxann Chin.   

foto by SeBiArt

Raxann and I have partnered in deep conversation and intention to merge our efforts where ever needed to compliment/assist groups we are individually affiliated with.  The promise and potential of this is invigorating and inspiring to say the least.  With SOJ, Raxann is passionately trying to create a stable financial platform of support for established and new community building organizations on the island of Jamaica. 

foto from SOJ website

Please visit her website here: Save Our Jamaica

Check and LIKE the SOJ Facebook page.

Please spread the word - and volunteer what you can in this movement, whether it be contact resources, donations - financial or goods, consultation services, field work in workshops, PR, or any other talent or tangible gesture you can offer! 

 

There is great potential here for true collaboration with visual and performing artists, writers, educators, entrepreneurs, tech specialists, etc, and a host of community advocates in all fields to build up a nation of unspeakable talent, potential, and spirit.

---

The next item - just to get this up - is: with the tsunami of protests racing around the globe, it was a matter of time before it hit the US shores.  The Occupy Wall Street protest (sparked originally by Adbusters back in July [great magazine btw!]) is strong, expanding exponentially, and inspiring.  It makes me think of a rant I put up last year (the e-Con Highway) during the midterm elections about the economic disparities in the world, and the vulgar division of wealth and poverty that glows blindingly on a daily basis - and created a good chunk of the messes we're all swimming in now.  Naturally it makes me think of my countries Jamaica, and Sierra Leone - both of which (but SL even more so), are near breathlessly struggling to stay at the surface of this tank, let alone above it!  So I had to share a post from a fellow blogger, which was written specifically from a Jamaican point of view about the London riots.

For further reading about the Occupy Wall Street Protest:
1) The Demand List
2) Growing Support for OWS - Day 19 Support from Unions 10/05/2011

Jamaican Till I Die!: Whites have become Black ...WTF?

foto from Jamaican Till I Die blog

RELATED JOURNEY POST:  The e-Con Highway (Nov 2010)

foto by SeBiArt

 

Power to the People

Mass, en masse, united in purpose and a clear non-violent vision for change, and we mean change - 5000 years of one way, ...to a new way.  That's DEEP!  

These people have proved a most important philosophy to a world that often seems exhausted by or allergic to true activism.   Inspired by Tunisia's revolution, they now inspire the world with their demand for free expression.  

Photo Source: Travel Guide

Photo Source: Flickr

Congratulations to Egypt - Land of the Ancient Kingdoms, Land of the Pyramids, may you continue to beguile, seduce, and expand our minds with your mysterious history, and the enthusiastic valor with which you tread the path of your future. 

Photo Source: Travel Pod

NB.  I've posted this before, but Ben Okri's Lines in Potensis is I think a perfect toast to this historical moment.  (Thanks Sean for sharing this - it's never lost its potency for here it is again.)