Grupo Afro Descendiente, a network of young professionals, businesses, and non-profit organizations is hosting Black Brown Solidarity "In Action", May 11 - May 17, 2008 in Washington, DC. Please click on the link to learn more.

Download black_and_brown_solidarity_week_may_11_17_2008_washington_dc_.pdf 

This initiative is the labor of many, including myself, in efforts to progress the dialogue between people of African and Latino heritage in Washington, DC. It's especially significant that young adults are taking leadership in this arena. Tired of media sound bites and pundits perpetuating largely false stereotypes of Black and Brown discord, we're taking back our voices and lifting up the truth: we have more in common than not.

Black Brown Solidarity in Action Week

PRESENTED BY:  Grupo Afro Descendiente
CONTACT/RSVP:  202.558.7230, all events are free and open to the public

Interfaith Service and Unity Brunch: Celebrating our Mothers and Motherland

Date:  Sunday, May 11, 2008

Time: 11:00 am - 12:30 service, 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm brunch

Place: Wesley United Methodist Church, 5312 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.

Dynamics of Cultural Diversity in Venezuela 

Date:  Monday, May 12, 200

Time: 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
Place: TransAfrica Forum, 1629 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.

Sponsored by: Embassy of Venezuela

Performance by internationally renowned Vasallos del Sol, an Afro-Indigenous folkloric group from Venezuela

Date:  Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Time: 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Place: National Museum of the American Indian, 4th Street and Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C.

Black+Brown Town Hall Meeting 

Date:  Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Time: 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Place: All Souls Unitarian Church, 2835 16th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.

"Cuba: An African Odyssey" Film Screening and Discussion

Date: Thursday, May 15, 2008

Time: 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Place: "Cuba: An African Odyssey" Film Screening and Discussion, Sankofa Cafe, 2714 Georgia Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.

Black+Brown Happy Hour: United Culture and Commerce

Date:  Friday, May 16, 2008

Time: 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Place: Ultra Bar, 911 F Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.

Focus on Youth Chess Tournament

Date:  Saturday, May 17, 2008

Time: 11:00 am - 7:00 pm
Place: Lincoln Middle School, 3101 16th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.

Fiesta Tipica: Pan-African Rhymes, Rhythms and Roots in Motion

Date:  Saturday, May 17, 2008

Time: 9:30 pm - 1:30 pm
Place: 3145 17th St. NW, Washington DC 20010

About Grupo Afro Descendiente:

Grupo Afro Descendiente is a coalition of individuals, non-profits, businesses, activists, and educators committed to bringing about awareness and education of persons of African descent in Latin America.

The Washington Post has the best article I've read yet about the global food crisis, and it's pretty f***ing scary, to put it mildly.

The food price shock now roiling world markets is destabilizing governments, igniting street riots and threatening to send a new wave of hunger rippling through the world's poorest nations. It is outpacing even the Soviet grain emergency of 1972-75, when world food prices rose 78 percent. By comparison, from the beginning of 2005 to early 2008, prices leapt 80 percent, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. Much of the increase is being absorbed by middle men -- distributors, processors, even governments -- but consumers worldwide are still feeling the pinch.

The convergence of events has thrown world food supply and demand out of whack and snowballed into civil turmoil. After hungry mobs and violent riots beset Port-au-Prince, Haitian Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard Alexis was forced to step down this month. At least 14 countries have been racked by food-related violence. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is struggling for political survival after a March rebuke from voters furious over food prices. In Bangladesh, more than 20,000 factory workers protesting food prices rampaged through the streets two weeks ago, injuring at least 50 people.

To quell unrest, countries including Indonesia are digging deep to boost food subsidies. The U.N. World Food Program has warned of an alarming surge in hunger in areas as far-flung as North Korea and West Africa. The crisis, it fears, will plunge more than 100 million of the world's poorest people deeper into poverty, forced to spend more and more of their income on skyrocketing food bills.

As I do not have an econ background (beyond undergrad macro classes that were not analysis-heavy enough for this), my analysis is going to be pretty non-existent on the food crisis. I wish I knew what to write here, but I just don't, other than my gut-reaction, which is basically "holy s***!"

Billions of reconstruction dollars paid to contractors  in Iraq were misspent, or are unaccounted for in Iraq.

Via the AP:

WASHINGTON — Millions of dollars of lucrative Iraq reconstruction contracts were never finished because of excessive delays, poor performance or other factors, including failed projects that are being falsely described by the U.S. government as complete, federal investigators say.

The audit released Sunday by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, provides the latest snapshot of an uneven reconstruction effort that has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $100 billion. It also comes as several lawmakers have said they want the Iraqis to pick up more of the cost of reconstruction.

Because the Iraqi Government is really in a position to do that right now. What. Are. They. Thinking!?

[...]

The audit comes amid renewed focus in recent months on potential abuse in contracting government-wide, such as Iraq reconstruction.

Renewed focus, good. Will there be any vigorous follow-through? Any serious hearings? Something tells me not while this Administration still holds power.

Last year, congressional investigators said as much as $10 billion _ or one in six dollars _ charged by U.S. contractors for Iraq reconstruction were questionable or unsupported, and warned that significantly more taxpayer money was at risk.

In recent weeks, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., has been working with Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, on legislation that would restrict future reconstruction dollars to loans instead of grants; require that Baghdad pay for fuel used by American troops and take over U.S. payments to predominantly Sunni fighters in the Awakening movement.

I'm really not sure where to even begin with this paragraph.

Under current US immigration law, a person with HIV is barred from entry into the United States and barred from becoming a permanent resident.  The U.S. is one of thirteen countries that has such a harsh restriction on the admission of persons with HIV.  The other countries include: Armenia, Brunei, China, Iraq, Qatar, South Korea, Libya, Moldova, Oman, Russia, and Sudan.

Normally the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) makes a determination as to whether a certain disease is communicable and a danger to the public's health.  Unfortunately, the United States' immigration laws specifically lists HIV as a communicable disease that does not allow entry.  This section of the U.S. immigration does not specifically mention any other disease.

A bill pending before Congress would strike HIV from being specifically mentioned under the immigration law.  Instead, the determination would rightfully be made by HHS.  The bill has a good chance of becoming law this year.  It should be carefully watched and supported.

This really should be getting more media attention. Or at least as much as, say, Amy Winehouse's drug problems.

The era of cheap food is over. The transition to a new equilibrium is proving costlier, more prolonged and much more painful than anyone had expected.

“We are the canary in the mine,” says Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme, the largest distributor of food aid. Usually, a food crisis is clear and localised. The harvest fails, often because of war or strife, and the burden in the affected region falls heavily on the poorest. This crisis is different. It is occurring in many countries simultaneously, the first time that has happened since the early 1970s. And it is affecting people not usually hit by famines. “For the middle classes,” says Ms Sheeran, “it means cutting out medical care. For those on $2 a day, it means cutting out meat and taking the children out of school. For those on $1 a day, it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating only cereals. And for those on 50 cents a day, it means total disaster.” The poorest are selling their animals, tools, the tin roof over their heads—making recovery, when it comes, much harder. [The Economist]

Stay tuned.

I'm not sure what to think about this bellicosity from Clinton toward Iran over the prospect of nuclear armament, but I will venture the thought that saying we'll "obliterate" Iran in a tit-for-tat strategy over Israel will prove extremely unhelpful. At the least.

For those who haven't heard, a member of Congress recently introduced legislation to cut off federal funds to the Carter Center, a publicly funded institution founded by its namesake, Jimmy Carter.

The Carter Center is a reflection of that president's human rights-focused foreign policy, and has proved essential to impartial observations in free and fair elections worldwide. Some of its accomplishments include working with the Chinese government to begin implementing grassroots democratic processes and monitoring recent referenda on Chavez's initiatives in Venezuela.

This recent strike at the Carter Center benefits from the media circus surrounding Jimmy Carter's trip to Palestine, where he engaged with Hamas leaders and laid a wreath at former Palestine Liberation Organization president Arafat's tomb. Whereas I sharply disagree with Carter dignifying Arafat's burial place, I find even greater issue with this legislation, which demonizes Hamas without taking into consideration the various education and health care benefits it provides to Palestinians and, as such, treats it as an extension of al-Qaeda - which it is not.

I urge everyone to call their elected officials and ask them to dismiss this legislation!

Australia recently launched a national "idea summit," where Aussies of all colors, creeds, and interests pulled together to create proposals to outline a stronger Australian future. What an encouragingly democratic notion!

Which begs the question: Why not here in the United States? We certainly seem to need it. Maybe AID could take the lead on this?

I thought this article interestingly points to some very thought-provoking questions about continuing U.S. involvement in Iraq.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Malaki drew comparisons between the present turmoil between armed ethnic and religious militias in Iraq, the predictive future of that country, and those that led to Somalia's current situation as an anarchic society without a nationally recognized central government. This, I think, strikes at the heart of confused and sometimes cross-pollinating justifications for the American occupation.

Case in point: the Bush administration has alternately called the invasion and subsequent occupation a search to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, a fight to prevent de facto control of Iraq by the terrorist network al-Qaeda, and an all-important theatre in the almost-evangelical pursuit of democracy (self-determination by gunpoint, I suppose). His would-be successor and ideological bedmate, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (AZ-R), recently went further by painting the predictive consequences of a sudden withdrawal of U.S. forces in terms of "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing," undercutting the mission to spread to democracy but underscoring this continuing realist-turned-idealist approach to foreign policy.

Which leaves a preponderance of questions in the wake of an extremely confused objective in Iraq: Is a continuing military occupation for the United States a moral obligation or a matter of national self-interest? Would leaving Iraq, a country in conflict, simultaneously and recklessly abandon the Iraqi people to acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing by diverse factions?

It calls into light the contrast between foreign policy objectives behind President Clinton's short-lived 1993 venture into Somalia and his administration's subsequent decision to remain quiet about the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

Another predictive model finds use here: what U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker has described as "Lebanonization," or the usurpation of one state's sovereigny to another's intervention. The term denotes Syria's de facto control of internal Lebanese politics through military presence and sponsorship of various political parties, and has been used to describe a post-U.S. occupation role for countries like Syria and, more importantly, Iran, which continues to ship Iranian-made arms to Iraq and allegedly trains and funds Shi'ite militias.

I draw on this because it eerily reflects the conditions on which different factions in Somalia relied to initiate clan-based civil war and oust that country's dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre, between 1986 and 1992. Militias and clans then existing received outside funding from Ethiopia, which enabled them to fight pro-Barre parties, internal factions, and subsequently amongst themselves for control of Somalia, ultimately paving the way for that country to become a failed state circa 2008.

Another potential consequence of U.S. withdrawal is hereby illustrated: Does leaving also mean opening an unstable Iraq to outside control and subjugation by local powers interested in arrogating sovereignty of that country to themselves?

By no means should we narrow opinions to a predictive outcome for Iraq. I think these questions should more carefully delineate our responsibility and subsequent concerns about long-term involvement in Iraq. Otherwise U.S. citizens and their elected leaders lend themselves to a stated hypocrisy, with sides on one hand clamoring for more attention and intervention in the ongoing genocide in Darfur, and others speaking truth to power about strategic failures in Iraq and the need to withdraw, even precipitously, in the name of U.S. national interest.

These things in mind -- the threat of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and outside state control -- is the Iraqi occupation an obligation to keep for Iraqis, preventing their state's potential collapse and transformation into another Somalia, or an undertaking irresponsibly taken and just as easily ended?

I suppose we'll see our foreign policy become clearer in 2009.