Originally posted April 27, 2008
Emotional students described a culture of racial intolerance and misunderstanding at Sonoma State University in a town hall meeting Monday that followed a campus election marred by racist graffiti.
“It’s intimidating,” said Christina Albert, a black student. “You’re singled out when you’re the only one in the class. The teacher looks at you when you’re learning about slavery or crime rates.”
April 22, 2008
A hundred years ago, in communities across the U.S., white residents forced thousands of black families to flee their homes. Even a century later, these towns remain almost entirely white. BANISHED tells the story of three of these communities and their black descendants, who return to learn their shocking histories. Read more »
Dr. Boyce Watkins: Agitate the hell outta it, Doc…
So my question is, how do we deal with the issue and make sure Fox News is held accountable on it?
Art by Nate Williams at http://www.n8w.com/newweb/
It may have lasted lasted 22 years, claimed 2 million lives and displaced 4 million people, but Sudan’s north-south civil war that ended in 2005 was scarcely noticed in the West. But as the conflict threatens to resume, it could wreak havoc with U.S. and international efforts to stabilize the region.
To many observers, the city of Abyei, on the fault-line between North and South Sudan, is the key to the country’s future. On May 14, it exploded. What appeared to have been a small incident between rival militias on its outskirts quickly escalated into full-scale fighting, and there was little a small band of U.N. peacekeepers could do to contain it.
“We’re seeing a full frontal and rear assault,” a peacekeeper screamed into his radio as white U.N. helicopters dropped down into their base in the town and whisked civilians and other aid workers out. Mortar, artillery and rocket exchanges flattened much of the market town over the next few days. As 60,000 civilians fled into the bush, others darted into their mud huts to retrieve assault rifles and join the fighting. By its end several days later, much of Abyei was a smoldering ruin. Fighters continued to loot and torch thatched huts in rival areas. The northern army said 21 of its men had been killed. The southerners refused to give a death toll, but the bodies of several of their guerrillas lay in the streets, their boots removed.
The Abyei clash marked the first time that Sudan’s northern army and their proxies and the former rebels from the south and their allies —now all part of the same Sudanese government of national unity — had turned their guns on each other since they signed a U.S.-brokered peace deal three years ago. Still, north-south enmity runs deep, and the new fighting has pushed the region back to the edge. “We are on the brink of a new war,” was the assessment of Pagan Amum, secretary-general of the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). Tensions have been building for months. In a report on the region in March, the International Crisis Group (ICG) warned the situation “could quickly become national… It is uncertain whether the SPLM-NCP [National Congress Party, which dominates the north] partnership could survive a scenario in which the two parties supported their respective Abyei allies.”
We’re bickering over who will pay Hill’s campaign debt (cuz it won’t be her), yet as trite as it sounds, children ARE still starving in the world.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) has appealed for extra resources to help thousands of severely malnourished children in Ethiopia.
The organisation says more than 126,000 children could be affected. The World Food Programme says nearly 3m Ethiopians will need emergency food aid this year because of late rains and the high cost of food.
A BBC correspondent who visited a feeding centre says she saw a child whose arm was as thin as a man’s thumb.
Some aid agencies running food and medical units say they are being overwhelmed with cases. Consecutive failed rainy seasons, increases in food prices and a lack of resources for prevention and response mechanisms are all contributing factors in the drought-prone districts of Ethiopia, Unicef says. It says the situation is the worst since the major humanitarian crisis of 2003, and is rapidly deteriorating.
The organisation says $50m (£25m) is urgently required for health, nutrition and water and sanitation.
“We had nothing to eat after the corn crop failed,” said Dureti Degefi, one of the mothers at a feeding centre in Ethiopia’s Siraro District. “My stomach is hungry. And my baby is sick. We need help.”
Unicef’s deputy representative in Ethiopia, Viviane Van Steirteghem non-governmental organisations were working in 55 districts and, with the government, managing to provide for about 50% of the cases. “But there is a big capacity gap to take care of the remaining children,” she said. “A child with severe malnutrition is in immediate danger of death.”
Hungry season
The BBC’s Elizabeth Blunt visited a centre for malnourished children at Bisidimo hospital not far from the eastern town of Harar. Showing her around the centre and the queues of children, Unicef’s Indrias Getachew told her: ”These children come in with severe malnutrition, some of them are oedemic, their bodies are almost consuming itself , they don’t have any appetite.”
Our correspondent says the country has not even reached the normal hungry season yet. The next harvest will not be until August or September.
She adds that the numbers of children who need help before then could be very large, stretching Ethiopia’s ability to cope and the generosity of donors to supply the food that these very fragile children need.
Report from the BBC
87 years ago today the Tulsa Tribune story hit the streets and ignited the Tulsa riot of 1921. The story–called by the Oklahoma City Black Dispatch “the false story that set Tulsa ablaze”–
The history of the United States has produced much in the way of race riots, from the New York City riots of 1862 to the Los Angeles riots of 1991, this country has experienced much civil unrest between blacks and whites. The year 1919 was particularly noted for the large number of riots in the urban areas of the North where returning white veterans of WWI competed with Southern Blacks for jobs during the post-war depression. Again, in 1923, a racial confrontation erupted in Rosewood, Fl. There eight blacks and two whites died during the destruction of the Black community of Rosewood. However, the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 was perhaps the costliest incident of racial violence in American history. At the same time, it is perhaps the most marginalized, being almost forgotten until this decade.
The Riot began on May, 31,1921 because of an incident the day before. A black man named Dick Rowland, stepped into an elevator in the Drexel Building operated by a woman named Sarah Page. Suddenly, a scream was heard and Rowland got nervous and ran out. Rowland was accused of a sexual attack against Page. One version of the incident holds that Rowland stepped on Page’s foot, throwing her off balance. When Rowland reached out to keep her from falling, she screamed. The next day, Rowland was arrested and held in the courthouse lockup. Headlines in the local newspapers inflamed public opinion and there was talk in the white community of lynch justice. The black community, equally incensed, prepared to defend him. Outside the courthouse, 75 armed black men mustered, offering their services to protect Rowland The Sheriff refused the offer.
A white man then tried to disarm one of the black men. While they were wrestling over the gun, it discharged. That was the spark the turned the incident into a massive racial conflict. Fighting broke out and continued through the night. Homes were looted and burned.
Though they were outnumbered 10 to 1, Black’s, many of whom were veterans of WWI, started to form battles lines and dig trenches. The conflict shifted to the northern part of Tulsa in the Frisco tracks area. The Tulsa police force was too small to stop the rioters, so the mayor, T. D. Evans, asked the governor to send in the National Guard. While the National Guard was on its way to Tulsa, whites set fire to houses and stores. Fire companies could not fight the fire because rioters drove them away.
On June 1,1921, a big cloud of smoke covered The northern region of Tulsa. Later that morning, the last stand of the conflict occurred at foot of Standpipe Hill. According to the Tulsa Tribune, the National Guard mounted two machine guns and fired into the area. The black groups surrendered and were disarmed. They were taken in columns to Convention hall, the McNulty Baseball Park, the Fairgrounds and to a flying field. Some survivors later alleged that planes were involved in the destruction of Greenwood City.
Many black residents left Tulsa to the Osage Hills and its surrounding towns. According to an official estimate 10 whites and 26 blacks were killed. However, later reports, never verified, raised that number to 300 killed. After, the Riot had ended, relief started to come the survivors, especially from The Red Cross. Hospitals were set up to treat the wounded. Food and clothes were given out. People received temporally shelters to live in while their houses were rebuilt.
It took the better part of the next ten years to recover from the physical destruction and to rebuild and repatriate the residents to their homes. This event, however, is barely mentioned in history books and is particularly absent from Oklahoma history books. The documents gleaned from an initial inquiry held shortly after the riots, mysteriously disappeared. But human memory survived. George Monroe, a survivor of the Riot, now 83, said ” I want people to know [about the riot], I want my children to know, that their daddy went through something.” And as for Dick Rowland? Charges against him arising out of the incident in the elevator were never brought.
In 1997, The Tulsa Race Riot Commission was formed to investigate the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.
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