By Gloria Dulan-Wilson
Anyone who knows Sam Dunston, founder and CEO of Brooklyn based, National Allotment Insurance Agency (NAIA), knows him for his smile and friendly, ebullient nature. And if you know Sam, you also know that he doesn’t usually do interviews. He prefers to just do, and let his work do the talking. So getting this interview from Sam is an indication of just how gratified and happy he was to have played a role in taking the donation put together by Brooklyn Hospital staffers to Haiti.
To say that Sam’s smile was wider than usual - if that’s even possible - would be an understatement. When he returned from a weekend trip to Haiti, he was energized, animated, and very happy.
He left on Sunday, April 10, along with eight other members from Brooklyn Hospital’s board of directors, as well individuals from Florida and Canada. They flew into Port Au Prince to present a check for $36,000 -- funds contributed by hospital workers, who worked over time and pooled their pay to make a considerable donation for training in a Hatian hospital.
The fact that these staffers had donated their time, energies and efforts to put these funds together is absolutely amazing and heartwarming. They did it with no fanfare, with no publicity. They did it without bickering, hassling, or concern for who was doing more or less than whom. And the bottom line, is they did it from the goodness of their hearts and for the love of the people of Haiti. While other bigwigs and government agencies are rolling around having meetings and tribunals - panels and forums on how to help Haiti, these people simply banded together and got the job done.
When they presented the funds to the Board to be taken to Haiti, there was no big to do. It was just, “we raised this for Haiti, to be given to their hospital to help train more Haitians to help more Haitians.” That’s all.
Their biggest concern? Making sure the money got into the hands of the people they intended it for. Because of that, they bypassed the Red Cross, and all the other agencies that have purported to help Haiti, but have yet to build a single home, or come up with what is happening to the millions of dollars already donated to help rebuild the stricken country, and sought other means.
When asked if the hospital administrator was surprised at their visit, he responded, “She knew we were coming. We didn’t know where to send the money to to make sure it got in the right hands, and was used for the purposes intended. What happened with the community board, and Dr. Carroll met with the president and said we would take the money to the hospital and tell them what they are supposed to do with it. So that’s what we did. I went and Rev. Jones went. We paid our own way, and we enjoyed it!” He said it in a matter of fact manner.
The Haitian hospital, one of the few that remained standing after the devastating earthquake which took place in January 2010, has been the triage center for many of the victims, as well as the place most Haitians have to go to before embarking on travel to the US and other places.
According to Sam, Dr. Carroll takes a group every three months to work at the hospital and help the patients. He went there right after the earthquake and drove from the Dominican Republic into the hospital. He liked the people. So he went there and performed a lot of surgeries. He still does surgeries. He goes there every three months takes a team and they do surgery and volunteer work.”
“You had to plan for every eventuality“, he remarked, “but you would get more than that back in happiness and joy from there because of the people. They never had an attitude, because they’re just too poor to have an attitude. But most people in our area (New York) who are very poor have an attitude. Mad because they’re poor. But these people were not that way. The minister was nice; and also met a young man from California who donated some medical supplies to the hospital. He had send some stuff to this hospital and to the hospital in Port Au Prince. So that’s what we are going to do, as well.”
Most newspaper accounts give a totally different characterization of the Haitian people from the one Sam Dunston depicted. His statement of the people being nice, humble and grateful, is the complete opposite from the picture that’s being painted a lot of times about Haitians.
His smile got even broader as he recounted an incident where he was standing, and a little girl was sitting. “I gave a girl a dollar to let me sit down in a chair.”
When I remarked that getting the money must have made her happy, because an American dollar will pay for food for a month in certain parts of Haiti, he responded, laughing: “You know what got me? Both of us was happy. I told her to get up, she got up, I sat down - I looked at her and smiled. There were two of them. I gave both of them a dollar. They were so nice. It just shows that you should be humble. When you have problems, you should be humble. You got nothing to get mad about or ashamed about your needs. So they were so nice and I gave them a dollar; if I had sat there longer, I would have probably given her two. When I was there before, they were very nice to me, too! She got up and let me sit down, like folks. I told her that when I got to be her age, I would do the same thing for her. She didn’t know what I was saying.” (She spoke Creole, Sam spoke English, but the spirit of friendship and respect spoke volumes between them). He laughed heartily -- laughter is contagious around Sam Dunston, because he finds so much pleasure in life - the little things as well as the big.
Equally as impressive to Sam were the volunteers themselves. Having originated from North Carolina where Jim Crow was alive and well, as a youth his experiences had been less than congenial: “I’ve never seen white women be as happy to work on Black folks and smile and enjoy it. I never seen that before. Everybody there was jet black. Down where I come from (North Carolina), the (white) Doctor treated you for one thing - high blood pressure - he could tell that by touching your arm, they didn’t check nothing else. So, I had dinner with them (volunteer nurses) and breakfast with them - and they were so happy! They were glad to offer their services.”
It seemed to be a factor that both surprised and perplexed him at the same time. Little wonder, since his last interaction prior to entering the military had to have been during a time of segregation in the Jim Crow South. Most of his current interactions has been primarily for business, never at a level this basic and this close to life and death. Most of the volunteers had to travel half way around the world to provide their assistance, and they did so without fanfare, or funds. Just because they, like the volunteers at Brooklyn Hospital, have a basic love for mankind, regardless of race, economic levels, or status.
When yours truly lived in Haiti in the 70’s (Papa Doc Duvalier was still living and President for Life at the time), the dollar ratio to American money was 5 to 1. According to Dunston it has dropped to 7to 1. That also meant that the donation was the equivalent of $252,000 in Haitian funds, which should definitely go a long way.
In reference to the hospital, which had a very clean, modern appearance, Dunston stated, “This hospital had a line of people they had examined to go to the United States and other countries. Before they leave to go away, they have to be examined by the hospital. The hospital was full of people.”
When asked what they were going to the US for, he responded jovially: “I don’t know. Better life, I guess. If you see everybody sleeping in tents, and somebody told them that if you get to New York you can get a bed, and you’ve been praying all you life for things to be better, somebody said there’s a God on the other side, and you should try to get there; and you can get there in this life, not in the other life - then you go. That’s what I see. I don’t know what they say. That’s what they should have been saying. That was the whole thing that I think.”
Dunston observed the fact that there was constantly a great deal of hustle and bustle in the streets, which appeared to always be full of cars and vehicles going to and from the airport, “The streets are so full of cars and people all the way to airport. And the airport is packed. The plane held about 285 people - there were 250 people on the plane!”
He took a lot of candid shots during his trip. As we went through them, he commented on some of the things that stood out to him - not the least of which were the miles and miles of tents lining the streets, with families still living there a year after the earthquake - giving rise to concern over the fact that so little appeared to have been accomplished over the past few months, despite so many donations pouring in from the US and foreign countries.
My one attempt at getting Dunston to make a political commentary was when I asked whether he had observed any building going on while he was there, any kind of major construction. He commented, sagely: “There was a lot of building. The workers I saw were Haitian people. They were most likely building those cinderblock walls - make four corners and that’s a house. I doubt if any of the major contracts involved the local workers, though. I would assume and I think (outside) contractors would be involved in multi buildings over two or three stories where it would take some plans and stuff like that. But above the one room house about half this size - indicating his office - it doesn’t take any (major) plans. Just give him $500 and he can build a little house and put a top on it and it’s ready.”
(I will be doing a commentary on Haiti's reconstruction in upcoming blogs)
He continued, “So far as the trip I was concerned - the people were nice and appreciative. And when you can tell when people are appreciative, it makes a difference. You don’t owe nobody nothing, but they’re appreciative; you weren’t expecting that. So you did what your heart say do. I can say it was an enjoyable and warm trip because the people were so humble and thankful. They were thankful just for your presence. It was a good experience.”
The real take away from this is that all it takes is our own ingenuity, sincerity, and collaborative efforts, and we can move mountains. We tend to overlook the fact that it was through humble beginnings many of us have made it to where we are today. A lesson Sam Dunston and the staffers at Brooklyn Hospital have not forgotten. And a good example for us to follow - and teach our kids as well.
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
Gloria Dulan-Wilson Blog/ ECLECTICALLY BLACK NEWS
For Eclectic Black People
VIP: Views . Interests . Perspectives
4.25.2011
4.22.2011
Social Security- An Entitlement??!?? Repughblicans: Public Enemy #1
By Gloria Dulan-Wilson
The following was sent to me by a dear friend of mine. As a rule I don't use profanity in my blog - but, given this particular situation, I let it slide - just this once - primarily because I totally agree with everything this person said. It's good to know that, contrary to the meanstream press, there are really other people out there who are not buying to the tea-party or the rep-ugh-blicans line of garbage.
I would be interested in your feedback on the following communique.
“Social Security is an entitlement!?”
These are some preliminary comments already received):
"A little truth being spoken. Sent with much love and hope. All I can say to this is...WOW! I hope this is a real letter." "I really like the guy who wrote the letter below." " THIS SENIOR CITIZEN NAILED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
“Social Security is an entitlement!?”>
>
> "Alan Simpson, (REP-UGH-BLICAN) Senator from Wyoming , Co-Chair of Obama's deficit commission, calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared "Social Security" to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats.
> > Here's a response in a letter from a unknown fellow in Montana ... I think he is a little ticked off! He also tells it like it is!
>> "Hey Alan, let's get a few things straight..
> 1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY YEARS.
> 2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).
> 3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.
> 4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown , you and your ilk pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.
> 5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills.
> 6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.
> To add insult to injury, you label us "greedy" for calling "bullsh-t" on your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullsh-t, I have a few questions for YOU.
1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?
> 2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?
> 3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?
> 4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?
> It is you, Captain Bullsh-t, and your political co-conspirators called Congress who are the "greedy" ones. It is you and your fellow nutcases who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That's right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.
>
> And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a b---h."
> ------------------------------------------------
> >If you like the way things are in America, delete this. If you agree with what a fellow Montana citizen says, PASS IT ON!!!!
Well I'm passing it on -
I totally agree with what he said and then some. In fact, I'm sure there are many who could add even more. I just want to put my two cents worth in for those who don't yet get the big picture - the next time you guys in Montana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and other states think about voting rep-ugh-blican - DON'T. Just remember who got you into this mess called the economic down turn; remember who is trying to drag you deeper into the swill while they continue to suck the blood out of you ( I guess that's why Vampire stories are so popular in the US, in honor of the blood suckers among us that now permeate congress going under the guise of representatives - but they don't represent you or me. They represent their fellow blood suckers. They are now getting a massive transfusion from our tax dollars and social security.
So, I am co-signing what the fellow said in Montana - and telling you to pass it on to two friends; and have them do the same, and so on and so on; I'd like to see us get a little (read whole lot) more outraged a'la Wisconsin and start pulling them back out of these positions that they now hold before they can do any further damage.
Can you say recall and impeach, boys and girls? It's like the sign of the cross, or sun light - you know Vampires can't stand either of them. So let's shed some light on their true nature, and cross them out of office forever.
We have a lot at STAKE - "STAKE!" GET IT??? Oh, well - so much for vampire folklore.
I, also would be totally remiss if I didn't include this additional piece I received from my friend Judy of Eduadvocate. It seems as if Eric Wattree is also reading my mind. I totally concur with his conclusions. What do you think? Read the following and give me your feedback:
Is the GOP Really America’s Domestic Enemy?
- by Eric Wattree (of course my answer to that question is YES)
"Many of my conservative friends are advising me that by implying that the GOP is a domestic enemy of America that I’m being unnecessarily divisive, and I’m doing myself a disservice. One particularly good friend said, “Contrary to what you and Gordon love to espouse, the GOP is not the 'devil incarnate.' It may be politically convenient and divisive for you to call it that, but it is just not true.”
"Sorry Tom, but I beg to disagree. The fact is, I’m neither implying, espousing, nor equivocating. I’m stating a demonstrable fact. The GOP leadership is un-American, period. And they specialize in holding the American people hostage. Their total disregard for America is made quite evident by the fact that every time the GOP wants to push one of their unpopular initiatives they begin to strangle a segment of the American people for leverage.
Two of the most recent examples of that are the way they held unemployed Americans and first responders hostage in order to push through the extension of the Bush tax cuts to benefit the wealthiest 2% of the population. Thereafter, they threatened to shut down the entire government in an attempt to push through initiatives that would have brought severe hardships upon the poor and middle class.
"Both the methods and propaganda of the GOP are not only un-American, but right out of the Nazi playbook. The GOP leadership has calculated that the more miserable they can keep the American people, the better chance they have of regaining power. That, in turn, would allow them to get on with the business of totally enslaving the American people. So they routinely employ tactics from right out of Joseph Gobbels’ handbook on the effective use of propaganda to keep us so angry and divided that we’re blind to their concerted effort to keep America ignorant, distracted, and miserable."
http://wattree.blogspot.com/2011/04/is-gop-really-americas-domestic-enemy.html
Eric L. Wattree Http://wattree.blogspot.com Ewattree@Gmail.com Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
I dare say I couldn't have said it better myself. And I truly hope Americans are now beginning to wake up to the truth. Those who voted for the Rep-ugh-blicans for the racist reasons of thwarting President Obama, may find that their plans have backfired and are now coming back to bite them in the butt in more ways than one. Also consider everytime the rep-ugh-blicans have had their hands on the US government, they have screwed things up big time - Watergate; the Savings and Loan debacle; the Oil debacle; the silver debacle; mortgage, foreclosure, economic downturn debacle (all by Bushes by the way). And when someone - i.e. President Obama, shows a humane face, and tries to restore - no elevate - America to its purported greatness, you actually allow yourselves to be seduced by these miscreants who have appealed to your baser natures, and let the very Vampires back in that he had gotten rid of.
I could say that you deserve every bit of hell you are about to face; but I live here too, and I'm really not up to going through four years of their crap. So, a word to the wise should be sufficient. The people in Wisconsin should be the beginning of correcting the biggest mid-term election mistake ever in the history of the US. And while we're at it, let's change the Rep-ugh-blican symbol to Snake instead of Elephant. Elephants all over the world have to be really insulted to be hijacked as their symbol. They have done nothing to deserve that. They are loyal, family oriented creatures. Better yet, let's change the symbol to Vulture - more befitting the real nature of their party and their outlook.
Anywaaaay, regardless of the symbol you chose to use for them - let's stop being their victims and have some victories of our own. If your kid, or a neighbor's kid is turning 18, take them personally to register to vote. Make sure all your family members, neighbors and friends are registered. We are going to be dealing with some interim elections prior to Obama's re-election. We have to make sure we stay in the majority from now on. We cannot leave the President hanging and then expect him to make miracles with no back up. We have to be about it 25/8!!!!! Cause when it comes to the Rep-ugh-blicans, 24/7 is not enough!
Take care and
STAY BLESSED &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
>
>
The following was sent to me by a dear friend of mine. As a rule I don't use profanity in my blog - but, given this particular situation, I let it slide - just this once - primarily because I totally agree with everything this person said. It's good to know that, contrary to the meanstream press, there are really other people out there who are not buying to the tea-party or the rep-ugh-blicans line of garbage.
I would be interested in your feedback on the following communique.
“Social Security is an entitlement!?”
These are some preliminary comments already received):
"A little truth being spoken. Sent with much love and hope. All I can say to this is...WOW! I hope this is a real letter." "I really like the guy who wrote the letter below." " THIS SENIOR CITIZEN NAILED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
“Social Security is an entitlement!?”>
>
> "Alan Simpson, (REP-UGH-BLICAN) Senator from Wyoming , Co-Chair of Obama's deficit commission, calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared "Social Security" to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats.
> > Here's a response in a letter from a unknown fellow in Montana ... I think he is a little ticked off! He also tells it like it is!
>> "Hey Alan, let's get a few things straight..
> 1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY YEARS.
> 2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).
> 3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud.
> 4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown , you and your ilk pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.
> 5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills.
> 6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.
> To add insult to injury, you label us "greedy" for calling "bullsh-t" on your incompetence. Well, Captain Bullsh-t, I have a few questions for YOU.
1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?
> 2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?
> 3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?
> 4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?
> It is you, Captain Bullsh-t, and your political co-conspirators called Congress who are the "greedy" ones. It is you and your fellow nutcases who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That's right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.
>
> And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a b---h."
> ------------------------------------------------
> >If you like the way things are in America, delete this. If you agree with what a fellow Montana citizen says, PASS IT ON!!!!
Well I'm passing it on -
I totally agree with what he said and then some. In fact, I'm sure there are many who could add even more. I just want to put my two cents worth in for those who don't yet get the big picture - the next time you guys in Montana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and other states think about voting rep-ugh-blican - DON'T. Just remember who got you into this mess called the economic down turn; remember who is trying to drag you deeper into the swill while they continue to suck the blood out of you ( I guess that's why Vampire stories are so popular in the US, in honor of the blood suckers among us that now permeate congress going under the guise of representatives - but they don't represent you or me. They represent their fellow blood suckers. They are now getting a massive transfusion from our tax dollars and social security.
So, I am co-signing what the fellow said in Montana - and telling you to pass it on to two friends; and have them do the same, and so on and so on; I'd like to see us get a little (read whole lot) more outraged a'la Wisconsin and start pulling them back out of these positions that they now hold before they can do any further damage.
Can you say recall and impeach, boys and girls? It's like the sign of the cross, or sun light - you know Vampires can't stand either of them. So let's shed some light on their true nature, and cross them out of office forever.
We have a lot at STAKE - "STAKE!" GET IT??? Oh, well - so much for vampire folklore.
I, also would be totally remiss if I didn't include this additional piece I received from my friend Judy of Eduadvocate. It seems as if Eric Wattree is also reading my mind. I totally concur with his conclusions. What do you think? Read the following and give me your feedback:
Is the GOP Really America’s Domestic Enemy?
- by Eric Wattree (of course my answer to that question is YES)
"Many of my conservative friends are advising me that by implying that the GOP is a domestic enemy of America that I’m being unnecessarily divisive, and I’m doing myself a disservice. One particularly good friend said, “Contrary to what you and Gordon love to espouse, the GOP is not the 'devil incarnate.' It may be politically convenient and divisive for you to call it that, but it is just not true.”
"Sorry Tom, but I beg to disagree. The fact is, I’m neither implying, espousing, nor equivocating. I’m stating a demonstrable fact. The GOP leadership is un-American, period. And they specialize in holding the American people hostage. Their total disregard for America is made quite evident by the fact that every time the GOP wants to push one of their unpopular initiatives they begin to strangle a segment of the American people for leverage.
Two of the most recent examples of that are the way they held unemployed Americans and first responders hostage in order to push through the extension of the Bush tax cuts to benefit the wealthiest 2% of the population. Thereafter, they threatened to shut down the entire government in an attempt to push through initiatives that would have brought severe hardships upon the poor and middle class.
"Both the methods and propaganda of the GOP are not only un-American, but right out of the Nazi playbook. The GOP leadership has calculated that the more miserable they can keep the American people, the better chance they have of regaining power. That, in turn, would allow them to get on with the business of totally enslaving the American people. So they routinely employ tactics from right out of Joseph Gobbels’ handbook on the effective use of propaganda to keep us so angry and divided that we’re blind to their concerted effort to keep America ignorant, distracted, and miserable."
http://wattree.blogspot.com/2011/04/is-gop-really-americas-domestic-enemy.html
Eric L. Wattree Http://wattree.blogspot.com Ewattree@Gmail.com Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
I dare say I couldn't have said it better myself. And I truly hope Americans are now beginning to wake up to the truth. Those who voted for the Rep-ugh-blicans for the racist reasons of thwarting President Obama, may find that their plans have backfired and are now coming back to bite them in the butt in more ways than one. Also consider everytime the rep-ugh-blicans have had their hands on the US government, they have screwed things up big time - Watergate; the Savings and Loan debacle; the Oil debacle; the silver debacle; mortgage, foreclosure, economic downturn debacle (all by Bushes by the way). And when someone - i.e. President Obama, shows a humane face, and tries to restore - no elevate - America to its purported greatness, you actually allow yourselves to be seduced by these miscreants who have appealed to your baser natures, and let the very Vampires back in that he had gotten rid of.
I could say that you deserve every bit of hell you are about to face; but I live here too, and I'm really not up to going through four years of their crap. So, a word to the wise should be sufficient. The people in Wisconsin should be the beginning of correcting the biggest mid-term election mistake ever in the history of the US. And while we're at it, let's change the Rep-ugh-blican symbol to Snake instead of Elephant. Elephants all over the world have to be really insulted to be hijacked as their symbol. They have done nothing to deserve that. They are loyal, family oriented creatures. Better yet, let's change the symbol to Vulture - more befitting the real nature of their party and their outlook.
Anywaaaay, regardless of the symbol you chose to use for them - let's stop being their victims and have some victories of our own. If your kid, or a neighbor's kid is turning 18, take them personally to register to vote. Make sure all your family members, neighbors and friends are registered. We are going to be dealing with some interim elections prior to Obama's re-election. We have to make sure we stay in the majority from now on. We cannot leave the President hanging and then expect him to make miracles with no back up. We have to be about it 25/8!!!!! Cause when it comes to the Rep-ugh-blicans, 24/7 is not enough!
Take care and
STAY BLESSED &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
>
>
4.20.2011
The New Rep-ugh-blican Vampire Landscape: Bloodsuckers on the Rise
By Gloria Dulan-Wilson
A friend of my emailed me a New York Times Editorial that appeared in their Sunday, April 17 Edition. It's interesting how "clear" they appear to be now, after the damage has been done. Some of that "wisdom" and "intelligence" could have been helpful to the voters (now victims) before they went to the polls back in November.
My comments are in bold"
" Six months after voters sent Republicans in large numbers to Congress and many statehouses, it is possible to see the full landscape of destruction that their policies would cause — much of which has already begun. Interesting the New York Times could not see this ahead of time the way the Black press could. Perhaps we would not now be facing an even more severe period than we did under the heinous mismanagement of the Bush I and II administrations."
If it was not clear before, it is obvious now that the party is fully engaged in a project to dismantle the foundations of the New Deal and the Great Society, and to liberate business and the rich from the inconveniences of oversight and taxes. That was also as clear as glass to us. Talk about transparency!! We could see this crap coming a mile off. We could smell the sulphur in the air. Unfortunately, no accolades can be given to the Democrats, who failed to hold the line while they were in the majority; and who failed to have the insight needed to rally their bases to expand and not be bulldozed by the propaganda put out by the meanstream media - the propaganda that made the mid-term shift from Democrat to Republican a self-fulfilling prophesy. The sad thing about it is in those states where the Democrats are in charge (read New York) they still don’t have the backbone to tax the rich. They are still penalizing the poor for the transgressions of the rich. And apparently the middle class has no more effect there than they do in the Rep-ugh-blican dominated states. The effects of the Great Society have almost completely been decimated by Nixon, Ford, Regan, Bush, Bush already.
At first it seemed that only a few freshmen and noisy followers of the Tea Party would support the new extremism. But on Friday, nearly unanimous House Republicans showed just how far their mainstream has been dragged to the right.
Does anybody remember the original Tea Party? You know, the so-called Boston Tea Party? What happened there was that some whites who were too chicken to take a stand against the Brits taxation policies, disguised themselves as Indians - painting their faces, and sneaked on board several ships. They took the tea that had been shipped there from England and dumped it overboard as an act of defiance against British tax laws. Why did they disguise themselves as Indians? To escape punishment and identification. I was to appear that the “savages” had marauded the ships -- racist as usual. So why would we not understand that those were the same kinds of individuals in modern times - pretending to be one thing, while they were actually something else. It’s clear that the mainstream does not know their own history, or these turkeys would not have gained any currency in our modern times. What they are currently doing is not heroic, but undermining.
We should have garnered all our forces to make sure they got no credence - to make sure they were not able to make inroads into the progress we made. Instead we let the news media hype them; to the point that we began to believe that they were really powerful. We sat on our keesters and let them win. Our fault.
They approved on strict party lines the most regressive social legislation in many decades, embodied in a blueprint by the budget chairman, Paul Ryan. Now isn’t that special? The Dems had the majority - and they fumbled the ball. Kind of makes us look dumb, don’t you think. Instead of using our majority, we came up with some kind of lunatic fringe who called them “blue dog” Democrats. I began calling them Dummycrats - because they were as much a problem as the Rep-ugh-blicans were. They are as much a reason why we no longer hold the majority, as the propaganda from the meanstream media.
The vote, from which only four Republicans (and all Democrats) dissented, would have been unimaginable just eight years ago to a Republican Party that added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.
Mr. Ryan called the vote “our generation’s defining moment,” and indeed, nothing could more clearly define the choice that will face voters next year. This year should be filled with more Wisconsin type of activities in each and every state where the Rep-ugh-blicans are trying to dismantle benefits and programs that are in the public’s interest. But more than demonstrations, I strongly suggest that they hire their own lawyers to launch class action suits; have immediate recalls of all Rep-ugh-blicans who are actively working against the public interest. Even if there are no laws on the books for how to recall the incumbent, public outrage goes a long way in changing things. They really can’t fight a majority whose mind is made up. It’s either that or prepare to see your children, families, on the streets begging for food; educational facilities decimated - while their cronies are driving Rolls Royce and Aston Martins from the monies shifted from the public need to their private pockets.
If there are to be demonstrations, they have to be made at the Rayburn Building - during the times of the votes - by the busloads, from all the states. It makes no sense to demonstrate in the state without concomitant demonstrations taking place in DC. These dudes think that as long as they are in Washington, you’re not going to show up, so your complaints will only be gestures. Make sure you start with Ryan - and take it across the board.
His (Ryan’s) bill would end the guarantee provided by Medicare and Medicaid to the elderly and the poor, which has been provided by the federal government with society’s clear assent since 1965. This means that by the time of the Presidential Election of 2012 you had better have at least 20 Vote Vans per precinct to physically pick up those seniors and carry them to the polls. It means that you had better be hitting each and every senior citizen center, home, and assisted living center now and get them registered. It means that you had better be keeping them abreast of the fact that these Vampires mean to suck what’s left of their blood out of them. They had already decided that they are no longer useful and deserve nothing. You need to be about hammering this point to them. They have to be involved in voting as much as the youth who stand to loose financial aid for college.
The elderly, in particular, would be cut adrift by Mr. Ryan. People now under 55 would be required to pay at least $6,400 more for health care when they qualified for Medicare, according to the Congressional Budget Office. You had better be backing AARP who have been sounding the alarm bells for quite some time. Those who think President Obama’s health care plan is too expensive need to look at what the Rep-ugh-blicans are allocating to the Pentagon.
Fully two-thirds of his $4.3 trillion in budget cuts would come from low-income programs. I would be willing to bet that no one is working on making sure those from the low income segment are being registered to vote en masse. And once they lose the safety net they need to survive and begin turning to acts desperation, we will see them criminalized in the papers; thrown into prison - instead of being given the training and employment they need and deserve.
In addition to making “entitlement” a dirty word, the Ryan bulldozer would go much further in knocking down government programs to achieve its goals. It would cut food stamps by $127 billion, or 20 percent, over the next 10 years, almost certainly increasing hunger among the poor. “Entitlement” is not really a dirty word to Ryan - at least as long as it’s applied to his cronies - to him they are “entitled” to as many tax breaks they can get; they are “entitled” to be given a pass for their transgressions against society; they are “entitled” to go on living at their original standard, even though it means the rest of America starves. He loves “entitlement” for his henchmen.
It would cut Pell grants for all 9.4 million student recipients next year, removing as many as one million of them from the program altogether. As long as their kids and grandkids can go to college, the hell with the rest of society. There are already plans to make sure their children don’t have to worry about their futures. To them Pell Grants are for “minority kids” and “Minority kids” don’t matter.
It would remove more than 100,000 low-income children from Head Start, and slash job-training programs for the unemployed desperate to learn new skills. So, as long as they have nannies - most of whom are Black or Latino whose own kids actually need to go to head start -- need these vouchers so they can work for them. Vicious cycle isn’t it? If they wanted to go to school to improve themselves, they may have to strap their babies on their backs to do so, because it’s against the law to leave them home unattended.
And it would do all that while preserving the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and even expanding them. I’m a New Yorker - and I know that as much of this problem rests at the feet of Wall Street as it does anywhere else. However, our previous governor, David Patterson, and our present Governor, Andrew Cuomo, appear to be afraid to call them to task, and to tax the Wall Street moguls for the ill gotten gains which has made is possible to live a very comfortable life. The apparent threat is that if they are taxed they would move out of New York - well we say - let them move. Tax them and penalize them - just get our money back.
Regulation of business and the environment would be sharply reduced. When you come from an environment of fire and brimstone like they do, you definitely want to curtail those businesses that would cause them to really do some ethical things - you know, like give back 40% of those bonuses; like stopping the foreclosures on properties where the real predatory lenders were the banks themselves. Environment! What environment? Does it involved the Cayman Islands? If not, they will continue to dump in the surrounding communities with impunity.
The mania for blindly cutting has also spread to statehouses, many with new Republican governors and legislatures. Several states have cut their unemployment benefits below the standard 26 weeks. Told ya! Better get your lawyers lined up, and make sure they are working for you, not the bogus elected officials. Time to vote for the community. Time to do massive recalls of those elected officials who are not acting in the community’s best interest.
Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona has proposed removing 138,000 people from Medicaid. Give the Governor a $5000 deductible on her insurance so that she will have to understand what it’s like when you place them in peril of their lives.
Many recession-battered states, including some led by Democrats, have been forced to cut other services because Republicans have made it so politically difficult to raise taxes. Make sure the cuts are across the board - not just in the impoverished areas. Tax the rich!
Education, mental health and juvenile justice funds have been particular targets. Back to my previous statement, they have their own private funds and sources to take care of their own and themselves- and guess where they got them from? Us!!
In Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Maine and Florida, Republican governors have used the smokescreen of a poor economy to pursue a long-held conservative goal of destroying public and private unions. The resident/victims of these states should band together and go to each other’s state to demonstrate. There’s strength in numbers. Make it pay.
This has nothing to do with creating jobs, of course, and it has shocked many blue-collar voters who are suddenly second-guessing their support for Republicans last November. Hindsight is 20-20 vision. Foresight is rare. But memory and lessons learned are supposed to be indelible. Somehow or other our collective minds appear to be made of sixty second pop culture instead of dealing with those things that really affect us.
Several states are also adopting Arizona-style anti-immigrant laws. Didn’t President Obama state it was against the law? Is't it unconstitutional???
President Obama, after staying in the shadows too long, is starting to illuminate the serious damage that Republicans are doing. President Obama was definitely not in the Shadows. He was studying what his next step will be. No doubt it was incredulous to him just how much more racist Congress was than even he realized. He had already taken a calculated risk in putting himself in harms way as the first Black leader of the world - it must amuse him to watch how difficult it is for Congressional Dems to make a choice between their racism and their interest. Had they not been so torn between their racist proclivities and their responsibilities as statesmen, they would have maintained a majority in congress; the bills he proposed would have been passed with a struggle - after all, they were once in the majority - it would have been easy. Now they have to deal with their own possible extinction if they don’t make a decision to really work together to support Obama. He wasn’t in the shadows - he was just observing what happens when the shadowy spectre of Racism finally forces their hands. What are they really going to do - take a stand or lose?
Their vision, he said last week, “is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America.”
President Obama was really stating the obvious, since it was apparent that the rest of the Democratic party refused to enunciate it. Vampires in Congress.
Other Democrats are also beginning to stand up and reject these ideas, having been cowed for months by the electoral wave. It’s about damned time. It’s either than or join in the melee with the rep-ugh-blicans,. Cowed is too nice a word.
Their newfound confidence will give voters a clearer view of this bare and pessimistic landscape. What confidence are you speaking of. Voters, by the way, in the main, have not been so innocent - ignorant, yes; but innocent? Definitely no. Maybe gullible; on the part of Black lazy and divided; on the part of whites, racist and divided. Now, however, they are about to be legislated into permanent poverty, they are beginning to feel the heat from the brimstone, smell the sulphur from the evil, and feel the very blood being sucked out of them by these political vampires, they are now reaching for the sign of the cross- X marks the spot on the ballot that votes them out. But they’d better hurry. 2012 is a long way a way, and the devil is busy now. They have the double duty of rallying their forces on the home front, while holding the line in Congress. The sad thing is, after the Nixon-Regan-Bush-Bush, you’d think they’d have learned by now, wouldn’t you?
Well, this so-called mid-term take over by the Rep-ugh-blican vampires should be the whack upside the head needed to clear the cobwebs from their frontal lobes.
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
A friend of my emailed me a New York Times Editorial that appeared in their Sunday, April 17 Edition. It's interesting how "clear" they appear to be now, after the damage has been done. Some of that "wisdom" and "intelligence" could have been helpful to the voters (now victims) before they went to the polls back in November.
My comments are in bold"
" Six months after voters sent Republicans in large numbers to Congress and many statehouses, it is possible to see the full landscape of destruction that their policies would cause — much of which has already begun. Interesting the New York Times could not see this ahead of time the way the Black press could. Perhaps we would not now be facing an even more severe period than we did under the heinous mismanagement of the Bush I and II administrations."
If it was not clear before, it is obvious now that the party is fully engaged in a project to dismantle the foundations of the New Deal and the Great Society, and to liberate business and the rich from the inconveniences of oversight and taxes. That was also as clear as glass to us. Talk about transparency!! We could see this crap coming a mile off. We could smell the sulphur in the air. Unfortunately, no accolades can be given to the Democrats, who failed to hold the line while they were in the majority; and who failed to have the insight needed to rally their bases to expand and not be bulldozed by the propaganda put out by the meanstream media - the propaganda that made the mid-term shift from Democrat to Republican a self-fulfilling prophesy. The sad thing about it is in those states where the Democrats are in charge (read New York) they still don’t have the backbone to tax the rich. They are still penalizing the poor for the transgressions of the rich. And apparently the middle class has no more effect there than they do in the Rep-ugh-blican dominated states. The effects of the Great Society have almost completely been decimated by Nixon, Ford, Regan, Bush, Bush already.
At first it seemed that only a few freshmen and noisy followers of the Tea Party would support the new extremism. But on Friday, nearly unanimous House Republicans showed just how far their mainstream has been dragged to the right.
Does anybody remember the original Tea Party? You know, the so-called Boston Tea Party? What happened there was that some whites who were too chicken to take a stand against the Brits taxation policies, disguised themselves as Indians - painting their faces, and sneaked on board several ships. They took the tea that had been shipped there from England and dumped it overboard as an act of defiance against British tax laws. Why did they disguise themselves as Indians? To escape punishment and identification. I was to appear that the “savages” had marauded the ships -- racist as usual. So why would we not understand that those were the same kinds of individuals in modern times - pretending to be one thing, while they were actually something else. It’s clear that the mainstream does not know their own history, or these turkeys would not have gained any currency in our modern times. What they are currently doing is not heroic, but undermining.
We should have garnered all our forces to make sure they got no credence - to make sure they were not able to make inroads into the progress we made. Instead we let the news media hype them; to the point that we began to believe that they were really powerful. We sat on our keesters and let them win. Our fault.
They approved on strict party lines the most regressive social legislation in many decades, embodied in a blueprint by the budget chairman, Paul Ryan. Now isn’t that special? The Dems had the majority - and they fumbled the ball. Kind of makes us look dumb, don’t you think. Instead of using our majority, we came up with some kind of lunatic fringe who called them “blue dog” Democrats. I began calling them Dummycrats - because they were as much a problem as the Rep-ugh-blicans were. They are as much a reason why we no longer hold the majority, as the propaganda from the meanstream media.
The vote, from which only four Republicans (and all Democrats) dissented, would have been unimaginable just eight years ago to a Republican Party that added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.
Mr. Ryan called the vote “our generation’s defining moment,” and indeed, nothing could more clearly define the choice that will face voters next year. This year should be filled with more Wisconsin type of activities in each and every state where the Rep-ugh-blicans are trying to dismantle benefits and programs that are in the public’s interest. But more than demonstrations, I strongly suggest that they hire their own lawyers to launch class action suits; have immediate recalls of all Rep-ugh-blicans who are actively working against the public interest. Even if there are no laws on the books for how to recall the incumbent, public outrage goes a long way in changing things. They really can’t fight a majority whose mind is made up. It’s either that or prepare to see your children, families, on the streets begging for food; educational facilities decimated - while their cronies are driving Rolls Royce and Aston Martins from the monies shifted from the public need to their private pockets.
If there are to be demonstrations, they have to be made at the Rayburn Building - during the times of the votes - by the busloads, from all the states. It makes no sense to demonstrate in the state without concomitant demonstrations taking place in DC. These dudes think that as long as they are in Washington, you’re not going to show up, so your complaints will only be gestures. Make sure you start with Ryan - and take it across the board.
His (Ryan’s) bill would end the guarantee provided by Medicare and Medicaid to the elderly and the poor, which has been provided by the federal government with society’s clear assent since 1965. This means that by the time of the Presidential Election of 2012 you had better have at least 20 Vote Vans per precinct to physically pick up those seniors and carry them to the polls. It means that you had better be hitting each and every senior citizen center, home, and assisted living center now and get them registered. It means that you had better be keeping them abreast of the fact that these Vampires mean to suck what’s left of their blood out of them. They had already decided that they are no longer useful and deserve nothing. You need to be about hammering this point to them. They have to be involved in voting as much as the youth who stand to loose financial aid for college.
The elderly, in particular, would be cut adrift by Mr. Ryan. People now under 55 would be required to pay at least $6,400 more for health care when they qualified for Medicare, according to the Congressional Budget Office. You had better be backing AARP who have been sounding the alarm bells for quite some time. Those who think President Obama’s health care plan is too expensive need to look at what the Rep-ugh-blicans are allocating to the Pentagon.
Fully two-thirds of his $4.3 trillion in budget cuts would come from low-income programs. I would be willing to bet that no one is working on making sure those from the low income segment are being registered to vote en masse. And once they lose the safety net they need to survive and begin turning to acts desperation, we will see them criminalized in the papers; thrown into prison - instead of being given the training and employment they need and deserve.
In addition to making “entitlement” a dirty word, the Ryan bulldozer would go much further in knocking down government programs to achieve its goals. It would cut food stamps by $127 billion, or 20 percent, over the next 10 years, almost certainly increasing hunger among the poor. “Entitlement” is not really a dirty word to Ryan - at least as long as it’s applied to his cronies - to him they are “entitled” to as many tax breaks they can get; they are “entitled” to be given a pass for their transgressions against society; they are “entitled” to go on living at their original standard, even though it means the rest of America starves. He loves “entitlement” for his henchmen.
It would cut Pell grants for all 9.4 million student recipients next year, removing as many as one million of them from the program altogether. As long as their kids and grandkids can go to college, the hell with the rest of society. There are already plans to make sure their children don’t have to worry about their futures. To them Pell Grants are for “minority kids” and “Minority kids” don’t matter.
It would remove more than 100,000 low-income children from Head Start, and slash job-training programs for the unemployed desperate to learn new skills. So, as long as they have nannies - most of whom are Black or Latino whose own kids actually need to go to head start -- need these vouchers so they can work for them. Vicious cycle isn’t it? If they wanted to go to school to improve themselves, they may have to strap their babies on their backs to do so, because it’s against the law to leave them home unattended.
And it would do all that while preserving the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and even expanding them. I’m a New Yorker - and I know that as much of this problem rests at the feet of Wall Street as it does anywhere else. However, our previous governor, David Patterson, and our present Governor, Andrew Cuomo, appear to be afraid to call them to task, and to tax the Wall Street moguls for the ill gotten gains which has made is possible to live a very comfortable life. The apparent threat is that if they are taxed they would move out of New York - well we say - let them move. Tax them and penalize them - just get our money back.
Regulation of business and the environment would be sharply reduced. When you come from an environment of fire and brimstone like they do, you definitely want to curtail those businesses that would cause them to really do some ethical things - you know, like give back 40% of those bonuses; like stopping the foreclosures on properties where the real predatory lenders were the banks themselves. Environment! What environment? Does it involved the Cayman Islands? If not, they will continue to dump in the surrounding communities with impunity.
The mania for blindly cutting has also spread to statehouses, many with new Republican governors and legislatures. Several states have cut their unemployment benefits below the standard 26 weeks. Told ya! Better get your lawyers lined up, and make sure they are working for you, not the bogus elected officials. Time to vote for the community. Time to do massive recalls of those elected officials who are not acting in the community’s best interest.
Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona has proposed removing 138,000 people from Medicaid. Give the Governor a $5000 deductible on her insurance so that she will have to understand what it’s like when you place them in peril of their lives.
Many recession-battered states, including some led by Democrats, have been forced to cut other services because Republicans have made it so politically difficult to raise taxes. Make sure the cuts are across the board - not just in the impoverished areas. Tax the rich!
Education, mental health and juvenile justice funds have been particular targets. Back to my previous statement, they have their own private funds and sources to take care of their own and themselves- and guess where they got them from? Us!!
In Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Maine and Florida, Republican governors have used the smokescreen of a poor economy to pursue a long-held conservative goal of destroying public and private unions. The resident/victims of these states should band together and go to each other’s state to demonstrate. There’s strength in numbers. Make it pay.
This has nothing to do with creating jobs, of course, and it has shocked many blue-collar voters who are suddenly second-guessing their support for Republicans last November. Hindsight is 20-20 vision. Foresight is rare. But memory and lessons learned are supposed to be indelible. Somehow or other our collective minds appear to be made of sixty second pop culture instead of dealing with those things that really affect us.
Several states are also adopting Arizona-style anti-immigrant laws. Didn’t President Obama state it was against the law? Is't it unconstitutional???
President Obama, after staying in the shadows too long, is starting to illuminate the serious damage that Republicans are doing. President Obama was definitely not in the Shadows. He was studying what his next step will be. No doubt it was incredulous to him just how much more racist Congress was than even he realized. He had already taken a calculated risk in putting himself in harms way as the first Black leader of the world - it must amuse him to watch how difficult it is for Congressional Dems to make a choice between their racism and their interest. Had they not been so torn between their racist proclivities and their responsibilities as statesmen, they would have maintained a majority in congress; the bills he proposed would have been passed with a struggle - after all, they were once in the majority - it would have been easy. Now they have to deal with their own possible extinction if they don’t make a decision to really work together to support Obama. He wasn’t in the shadows - he was just observing what happens when the shadowy spectre of Racism finally forces their hands. What are they really going to do - take a stand or lose?
Their vision, he said last week, “is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America.”
President Obama was really stating the obvious, since it was apparent that the rest of the Democratic party refused to enunciate it. Vampires in Congress.
Other Democrats are also beginning to stand up and reject these ideas, having been cowed for months by the electoral wave. It’s about damned time. It’s either than or join in the melee with the rep-ugh-blicans,. Cowed is too nice a word.
Their newfound confidence will give voters a clearer view of this bare and pessimistic landscape. What confidence are you speaking of. Voters, by the way, in the main, have not been so innocent - ignorant, yes; but innocent? Definitely no. Maybe gullible; on the part of Black lazy and divided; on the part of whites, racist and divided. Now, however, they are about to be legislated into permanent poverty, they are beginning to feel the heat from the brimstone, smell the sulphur from the evil, and feel the very blood being sucked out of them by these political vampires, they are now reaching for the sign of the cross- X marks the spot on the ballot that votes them out. But they’d better hurry. 2012 is a long way a way, and the devil is busy now. They have the double duty of rallying their forces on the home front, while holding the line in Congress. The sad thing is, after the Nixon-Regan-Bush-Bush, you’d think they’d have learned by now, wouldn’t you?
Well, this so-called mid-term take over by the Rep-ugh-blican vampires should be the whack upside the head needed to clear the cobwebs from their frontal lobes.
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
4.18.2011
EVENT ALERT: Harlem 4 Japan At Aaron Davis Hall, Tuesday April 19 - Be There
By Gloria Dulan-Wilson
Hello to all my friends - just to let you know that I have been so actively involved in things community, I have not posted upcoming events in recent months because I tend to be right in the middle of them in some form or fashion - whether covering them, or helping in some other manner.
But the upcoming fund raiser for Japan, which takes place TOMORROW, APRIL 19, 2011 at AARON DAVIS HALL on the Campus of The City College of New York 133rd & Convent Avenue 6:30 PM -- is one that I must make sure I get before the community.
We want this turn out to be humungous - stupendous. Why? Because Japan was one of the first major contributors to Haiti in their time of need - and continues to be so, despite what they're going through.
Also because so many of our friends and associates here in the US from Japan have families are now facing serious perils. And because we, as Black people, are loving, generous, giving, sharing beings, who don't want to see others in peril without reaching out a hand of support and a heart of concern.
My own personal friends from Seicho No Ie, a Japanese/Christian worship center here in New York; as well as my friend, vocalist Tomoko Fukuda of Far East Soul, and jazz keyboardist, Yoichi Uzeki, have all been doing our parts, individually and collectively, to help families in distress.
My friend Voza Rivers, of the Harlem Arts Alliance, has been working tirelessly, along with so many other major community based and global organizations, including -The City College of New York, the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce, Community Works, Dwyer Cultural Center, International Artists for Peace and World Harmony,
Council Member Inez E. Dickens, State Assemblyman Keith Wright, Voza Rivers/New Heritage Theatre Group, and Katsuya Abe - to put this wonderful event together.
Now we must do our part by showing up, enjoying the performances (free) and contributing generously to helping the Japanese victims of this horrible earth quake and the devastating tsunami that followed.
Among the stellar artists who are gathering to give their time and talent to this event are: R&B Star Alyson Williams, NAACP Image Award Nominee Jazz Pianist & Composer Onaje Allan Gumbs; Rhythm and Blues legend and Grammy nominee Chuck Jackson, International artists Yuichiro Oda, Yuko Darjeeling, and Toya, Soh Daiko, nationally renowned Japanese Taiko drummers, The New York African Chorus Ensemble, National Jazz Museum in Harlem All Star Band, Oscar and Grammy nominated IMPACT Repertory Theatre, jazz trumpeter Joey Morant, saxophonist Lonnie "the Prince of Harlem" Youngblood, 15 year old guitarist Solomon Hicks, Harlem vocalists: Claude Jay, Janice Marie Robinson, Lady Cantrese, Annette St. John, Lee Olive Tucker, and Queen Esther, winner of the 2008 Jazzmobile Vocal Competition, organist Matthew Whitaker, Harlemwood Records recording artist Lainie Cooke, Choreographer Obediah Wright and the Balance Dance Company, the Manhattan School of Music, the New Amsterdam Musical Association, and Keith "The Captain" Gamble and the list is still in formation as I write this.
While there is FREE ADMISSION Any and all donations accepted at the door - we're hoping that you will give generously.
Below is a letter from Voza Rivers in reference to the importance of this upcoming event:
Dear friends and supporters,
Since 1987 Japanese producer Kats Abe and I have created a partnership, presenting cultural exchanges between Japan and Harlem. For more than twenty years these exchanges, produced by Mr. Abe and myself, have included performances by renowned artists Dionne Warwick, Ray Charles, James Brown, Mary J. Blige, Count Basie Orchestra, Ben E. King, Boy George, the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, as well as many other Harlem based artists and beyond. These performers graced the stages of Japan's largest arenas including the Nagoya Dome, Osaka Dome, and the Tokyo Dome with capacities from forty to fifty-five thousand.
We have also presented on Harlem stages the Japanese orchestras of Waseda University Big Band with the Count Basie Orchestra and the Tocho Big Beats All Star Orchestra with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem All Star Orchestra under our Jazz for Peace, East Meets West series. These presentations contributed greatly to New Heritage's international and ever expanding global exchanges between Harlem and Japan.
Today, Japan has experienced a series of horrific natural disasters and needs our aid. We are requesting all of our communities and all New Yorkers to come out and support this initiative, enjoy a great evening of music, and share your appreciation and concern for Japan and its people.
Checks can be made payable to any one of the three organizations: The Japan Chamber of Commerce (J.C.C.); The Japan Society; The Consulate General of Japan. Or you can go online and make your contribution via this website: www.newheritagetheatre.org
All funds received go directly to supporting Japan's recovery. For information and to RSVP please call 212 926-2550.
Sincerely,
Voza Rivers
Executive Producer
New Heritage Theatre Group
So make Tuesday, April 19, 2011, the night you show up for Japan.
See you there
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
Hello to all my friends - just to let you know that I have been so actively involved in things community, I have not posted upcoming events in recent months because I tend to be right in the middle of them in some form or fashion - whether covering them, or helping in some other manner.
But the upcoming fund raiser for Japan, which takes place TOMORROW, APRIL 19, 2011 at AARON DAVIS HALL on the Campus of The City College of New York 133rd & Convent Avenue 6:30 PM -- is one that I must make sure I get before the community.
We want this turn out to be humungous - stupendous. Why? Because Japan was one of the first major contributors to Haiti in their time of need - and continues to be so, despite what they're going through.
Also because so many of our friends and associates here in the US from Japan have families are now facing serious perils. And because we, as Black people, are loving, generous, giving, sharing beings, who don't want to see others in peril without reaching out a hand of support and a heart of concern.
My own personal friends from Seicho No Ie, a Japanese/Christian worship center here in New York; as well as my friend, vocalist Tomoko Fukuda of Far East Soul, and jazz keyboardist, Yoichi Uzeki, have all been doing our parts, individually and collectively, to help families in distress.
My friend Voza Rivers, of the Harlem Arts Alliance, has been working tirelessly, along with so many other major community based and global organizations, including -The City College of New York, the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce, Community Works, Dwyer Cultural Center, International Artists for Peace and World Harmony,
Council Member Inez E. Dickens, State Assemblyman Keith Wright, Voza Rivers/New Heritage Theatre Group, and Katsuya Abe - to put this wonderful event together.
Now we must do our part by showing up, enjoying the performances (free) and contributing generously to helping the Japanese victims of this horrible earth quake and the devastating tsunami that followed.
Among the stellar artists who are gathering to give their time and talent to this event are: R&B Star Alyson Williams, NAACP Image Award Nominee Jazz Pianist & Composer Onaje Allan Gumbs; Rhythm and Blues legend and Grammy nominee Chuck Jackson, International artists Yuichiro Oda, Yuko Darjeeling, and Toya, Soh Daiko, nationally renowned Japanese Taiko drummers, The New York African Chorus Ensemble, National Jazz Museum in Harlem All Star Band, Oscar and Grammy nominated IMPACT Repertory Theatre, jazz trumpeter Joey Morant, saxophonist Lonnie "the Prince of Harlem" Youngblood, 15 year old guitarist Solomon Hicks, Harlem vocalists: Claude Jay, Janice Marie Robinson, Lady Cantrese, Annette St. John, Lee Olive Tucker, and Queen Esther, winner of the 2008 Jazzmobile Vocal Competition, organist Matthew Whitaker, Harlemwood Records recording artist Lainie Cooke, Choreographer Obediah Wright and the Balance Dance Company, the Manhattan School of Music, the New Amsterdam Musical Association, and Keith "The Captain" Gamble and the list is still in formation as I write this.
While there is FREE ADMISSION Any and all donations accepted at the door - we're hoping that you will give generously.
Below is a letter from Voza Rivers in reference to the importance of this upcoming event:
Dear friends and supporters,
Since 1987 Japanese producer Kats Abe and I have created a partnership, presenting cultural exchanges between Japan and Harlem. For more than twenty years these exchanges, produced by Mr. Abe and myself, have included performances by renowned artists Dionne Warwick, Ray Charles, James Brown, Mary J. Blige, Count Basie Orchestra, Ben E. King, Boy George, the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, as well as many other Harlem based artists and beyond. These performers graced the stages of Japan's largest arenas including the Nagoya Dome, Osaka Dome, and the Tokyo Dome with capacities from forty to fifty-five thousand.
We have also presented on Harlem stages the Japanese orchestras of Waseda University Big Band with the Count Basie Orchestra and the Tocho Big Beats All Star Orchestra with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem All Star Orchestra under our Jazz for Peace, East Meets West series. These presentations contributed greatly to New Heritage's international and ever expanding global exchanges between Harlem and Japan.
Today, Japan has experienced a series of horrific natural disasters and needs our aid. We are requesting all of our communities and all New Yorkers to come out and support this initiative, enjoy a great evening of music, and share your appreciation and concern for Japan and its people.
Checks can be made payable to any one of the three organizations: The Japan Chamber of Commerce (J.C.C.); The Japan Society; The Consulate General of Japan. Or you can go online and make your contribution via this website: www.newheritagetheatre.org
All funds received go directly to supporting Japan's recovery. For information and to RSVP please call 212 926-2550.
Sincerely,
Voza Rivers
Executive Producer
New Heritage Theatre Group
So make Tuesday, April 19, 2011, the night you show up for Japan.
See you there
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
4.08.2011
Malcolm and Marable
by Gloria Dulan-Wilson
The death of Black historian and scholar Manning Marable saddened a great many of us. It appeared to be particularly poignant, since it was on the eve of the launching of his new, so called definitive re-look at Brother Malcolm X.
But it’s beginning to look as though Marable may have dodged a bullet. Because he is conveniently and permanently not here to answer some serious questions, and to face the outrage of six very much alive descendents of Brother Malcolm in the personages of his daughters.
It may also be that he has dodged having to deal with many of us who have revered Malcolm X - and continue to do so - as to why he would pen such a mean spirited tome.
In speaking with one of Malcolm’s youngest daughters, Malaak Shabazz, I asked what she thought of the book. She had had some time to review a preliminary copy, and felt that there were so many distortions and outright lies - the fact that he deliberately tried to attack the image of Sister Betty Shabazz, Malcolm’s widow. One wonders who Marable wrote this book for?
I recall when Ralph Abernathy, who was once right hand to Dr. Martin Luther King, shortly before his demise, appeared on the TODAY Show to “expose King and the SCLC.” His big hue and cry was that he was the real hero, and that King could have done nothing had it not been for him. He ranted and raved on national television for about 5 minutes, while a shocked host, and an equally shocked Black viewing audience - and an even more zealously pleased white racist audience - watched.
To my mind, this 500 page tome is akin to what I call the Abernathy Syndrome. When you’re closer to your death, than you are to your life, and you feel that you’ve not been given you due, some become bitter and use those last days to heap resentment, instead of joy and pleasure for what they’ve experienced. Instead they end up leaving behind a legacy of bitterness and acrimony.
While a great deal that Marable has accomplished through his works and his tenure at Columbia is laudable, on the balance, throughout his career, there have been questions as to his blackness, when it really came to issues African Americans face. I can't be the judge in this instance. It's just sort of sad to know that with all that brain, all that intelligence, all that time spent, that this is the upshot of what he was working on, a denouement of Brother Malcolm X!
However to rant and rail against what Marable has done will only make the book more popular, and give it more readership. So I for one will not be a party to that. I know of one group of people - and I’m sure I don’t have to name them, we all know what time it is - who are extremely pleased that this book has been penned. No doubt they will be including it in their upcoming lesson plans.
But as far as I am concerned, this puts a big white mark on the powerful legacy that otherwise would have been Marable’s (notice I did not say a “black” mark?).
Of course with the passing of any of our brothers and sisters, one must give a moment of silence. I just hope that having lived in the cold climes of New York as long as he did, he does not have an aversion to the very tropical climate in which he will be resting in from now on.
If on the other hand he actually finds himself in the more temperate climates where brothers Malcolm X, Frederick Douglas, WEB DuBois, Martin Luther King and Carter G. Woodson reside, he'd better be prepared to explain to them why he did what he did. And I can assure you that answering to them is going to be even more difficult that it would have been had he lived to face Malcolm and Betty's daughters.
STAY BLESSED &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
The death of Black historian and scholar Manning Marable saddened a great many of us. It appeared to be particularly poignant, since it was on the eve of the launching of his new, so called definitive re-look at Brother Malcolm X.
But it’s beginning to look as though Marable may have dodged a bullet. Because he is conveniently and permanently not here to answer some serious questions, and to face the outrage of six very much alive descendents of Brother Malcolm in the personages of his daughters.
It may also be that he has dodged having to deal with many of us who have revered Malcolm X - and continue to do so - as to why he would pen such a mean spirited tome.
In speaking with one of Malcolm’s youngest daughters, Malaak Shabazz, I asked what she thought of the book. She had had some time to review a preliminary copy, and felt that there were so many distortions and outright lies - the fact that he deliberately tried to attack the image of Sister Betty Shabazz, Malcolm’s widow. One wonders who Marable wrote this book for?
I recall when Ralph Abernathy, who was once right hand to Dr. Martin Luther King, shortly before his demise, appeared on the TODAY Show to “expose King and the SCLC.” His big hue and cry was that he was the real hero, and that King could have done nothing had it not been for him. He ranted and raved on national television for about 5 minutes, while a shocked host, and an equally shocked Black viewing audience - and an even more zealously pleased white racist audience - watched.
To my mind, this 500 page tome is akin to what I call the Abernathy Syndrome. When you’re closer to your death, than you are to your life, and you feel that you’ve not been given you due, some become bitter and use those last days to heap resentment, instead of joy and pleasure for what they’ve experienced. Instead they end up leaving behind a legacy of bitterness and acrimony.
While a great deal that Marable has accomplished through his works and his tenure at Columbia is laudable, on the balance, throughout his career, there have been questions as to his blackness, when it really came to issues African Americans face. I can't be the judge in this instance. It's just sort of sad to know that with all that brain, all that intelligence, all that time spent, that this is the upshot of what he was working on, a denouement of Brother Malcolm X!
However to rant and rail against what Marable has done will only make the book more popular, and give it more readership. So I for one will not be a party to that. I know of one group of people - and I’m sure I don’t have to name them, we all know what time it is - who are extremely pleased that this book has been penned. No doubt they will be including it in their upcoming lesson plans.
But as far as I am concerned, this puts a big white mark on the powerful legacy that otherwise would have been Marable’s (notice I did not say a “black” mark?).
Of course with the passing of any of our brothers and sisters, one must give a moment of silence. I just hope that having lived in the cold climes of New York as long as he did, he does not have an aversion to the very tropical climate in which he will be resting in from now on.
If on the other hand he actually finds himself in the more temperate climates where brothers Malcolm X, Frederick Douglas, WEB DuBois, Martin Luther King and Carter G. Woodson reside, he'd better be prepared to explain to them why he did what he did. And I can assure you that answering to them is going to be even more difficult that it would have been had he lived to face Malcolm and Betty's daughters.
STAY BLESSED &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
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