The Honorable Jewel C. Scott-In Honor of Caribbean American Heritage Month

2005 was a land mark year for Clayton County, Georgia.  For the first time in this county's history a Black District Attorney, Black Sheriff, and Black Solicitor General were sworn in to take the reigns of legal power.  Jewel C. Scott was sworn in not only as the first Black Attorney General, but she is the first Caribbean American to hold the DA's office in Clayton County.  Originally from Mandeville, Jamaica West Indies she spent her formative years in the Parish of Hanover, finishing her comuplsary schooling at Manchester High School in Montego Bay, Jamaica.  She went on to graduate from Manley Law School, University of West Indies, Mona in 1984.  She entered private practice and moved forward to work for Fair Trading Commision in Jamaica.

District Attorney Scott immigrated to the United States and obtained a J.D. Degree from Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Georgia.  She is a member of the Clayton County Bar, Georgia Bar, American Bar Association, and New York Bar, yet most of all District Attorney Scott has brought a sense of humanity to the District Attorney's office of Clayton County.  She has implemented the Deferred Prosecution Program that takes into consideration the person and circumstances involved with certain cases that allows for a person to make changes in their lives and get on the right path rather than serve time in the jail system.

Edwidge Danticat-In Honor of Caribbean American Heritage Month

Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian born, now United States citizen author known by many for her written work Krik Krak (a sound used by many francophone Caribbean Island story tellers), a book of short stories, The Dew Breaker published in 2004, Breath, Eyes, Memory published in 1994, memoirs of her immigration from Haiti to Brooklyn, NY. But, most notable for me, was her work The Farming of Bones, published in 1998. Ms. Danticat tells the story of the massacre of tens of thousands of Haitians at the hands of their sister islanders the Dominican Republic.

In 1937 Rafael Trujillo, then president of the island nation of the Dominican Republic ordered his army to massacre Haitians living in the Dominican Republic on the basis that Dominican citizens complained of Haitian thefts (sounds a lot like the WMD selling to the U.S. citizens on Iraq). In fact, President Trujillo wanted to garner the favor of the United States, that recently occupied Haiti, and to ensure a complete separation between the people of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, in effect “lightening” (the skin tone) [of] his country. Tens of thousands of Haitians were killed, primarily by machetes even while the Haitians were crossing the border back into their country.

Unfortunately in 2004, Ms. Danticat’s Uncle Rev. Joseph Dantica at 81 years old fled Haiti to the United States seeking asylum and was immediately detained/arrested. Two days after his detention in Miami, Rev. Dantica was attending his asylum hearing and fell deathly ill. He passed out on the floor, the attending Physician’s Assistant ignored Rev. Dantica’s convulsions stating “he is just faking.” After four hours past, they finally got outside medical assistance for Rev. Dantica who died a day later.

Ms. Danticat’s goal in writing The Farming of Bones was to never let the memory die concerning the 1937 massacre by the Dominicans. Yet, we will always be reminded of the ill treatment of Black people in her uncle's death.

Dr. Walter Rodney-In Honor of Caribbean American Heritage Month

June is Caribbean American Heritage Month.

Have you heard of Dr. Walter Rodney, revolutionary and scholar? He was assassinated on June 13, 1980 when he was given a walkie talkie by a member of the Guyana Defense Force, one Gregory Smith. Dr. Rodney was born on March 23, 1942 in Georgetown, Guyana. After finishing primary school he won an open exhibition scholarship to attend Queens College as part of early working class beneficiaries of concessions made by the ruling class. He later won a scholarship to the University of the West Indies in Jamaica in 1960 and completed his PhD with honors at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in 1966.

This is not about a Black man that got his and moved on, as the 1960’s was not an era of me, myself, and I as we witness today in the 21^st century, but of a sense of uplifting the masses. Dr. Rodney returned to Jamaica and took his wisdom and experience to the roots, the working poor and the despised Rastafarians. Horace Campbell, professor of African American studies and Political Science at Syracuse University reports that Dr. Rodney, while attending UWI, “Rodney was active in student politics and campaigned extensively in 1961 in the Jamaica Referendum on the West Indian Federation.”

Dr. Rodney was so love by the working poor of Jamaica after attending a Black writer’s convention in October of 1968, in Canada found upon his return to Jamaica that he was not allowed back into the country. This ignited  widespread riots and revolts in Kingston where several people were killed and injured by the police and the Jamaican Defense Force. Dr. Rodney’s life with the Rastafari of Jamaica, was published in a pamphlet entitled “Grounding with My Brothers” and became somewhat of a bible for the Caribbean Black Power movement.

By 1974, Dr. Rodney returned to his home country of Guyana to create an opposition movement to the government, the Working People’s Alliance. The WPA offered an alternative for the working class of Guyana, and he emerged as a leader in the WPA until his death on June 13, 1980. In July of 1979 he and seven others were jailed for the burning of two government building and he was constantly harassed up until his assassination in 1980.

Dr. Rodney was a shining light that was blotted out for simply uplifting the working class of Black people.

These are the leaders that are truly by and for the people, and are hated by governments for their work on the grassroots level.

Dr. Rodney was survived by his wife Dr. Patricia Rodney and his three children Shaka, Kanini and Asha. Dr. Patricia Rodney now resides in Atlanta, Georgia U.S.A.

This is one in a series of post I will do in honor of Caribbean American Heritage Month. Dr. Walter Rodney did not live in the U.S., however his inspiration was based on the strength of the U.S. Black power movements spearheaded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr- SCLC, Stokely Carmichael of Trinidad & Tobago-Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (mother from Grenada)-Organization of African Unity, Huey P. Newton-Black Panther Party for Self Defense.

Scott Mcclellen is an Angel of Deception!

This action by Scott Mcclellen to come out as a “whistle blower” in his book What Happened, actually furthers the deception perceived by many people about the Federal government. He is not a “whistle blower”, but an angel of deceit. Much of the deception is to continue to usurp the rights of U.S. citizens using the ignorance of the public. Admittedly, the problem lies in the lack of knowledge the average citizen chooses to place themselves. The idea of the Constitution was to maintain a hold on how much authority the Federal government could exercise over the citizen of each state. However, the Bush administration has moved ever more closely to making the position of the president into a dictatorship and making the Constitution null and void. The Patriot Act, (by the way democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama voted for the continuation of this the Patriot Act, to supposedly “protect” U.S. citizens) and yet the Patriot Act is the main instrument used to strip the people of their Constitutional rights. And, guess what?  Sen. Obama is a constitutional lawyer.

Take for instance the “backscatter” X-ray machine being implemented at ten airports around the country that can virtually see through your clothing, making visible your private parts.

However, the TSA says they have adjusted the machine so that personal areas can be blurred. Can you not see this person’s rear end very clearly? With all this information about the machines coming out none of the articles I read mention the amount of radiation you will be exposed to. “Backscatter” is X-ray technology!

We are being deceived on a continual basis by the Federal government and “Backscatter” is just one of the drops that’s been sold to us as something protecting us all the while it could be poisoning us.

Scott Mcclellen says in his interview on Anderson Cooper that he believes President Bush “..really believes that he—that this—that Iraq could be the lynchpin for transforming the Middle East and spreading democracy.” Mcclellen says that he believes the president really believes this, and he himself believes fully in the fact that the Middle East could be transformed by invading Iraq. But, here is what is awful, false and makes him an angel of deceit. Mcclellen says though he believed this and though the president believed this there was put in place the White House Iraq Group. “The White House Iraq Group, for your viewers, they might want to know, is—it’s something I talk about. It was this group set up specifically for the marketing or selling (emphasis mine) of the war to the American people. And that was the sole objective.”

You see, here is the deceit. Mr. Mcclellen is presenting himself to be one that knew the truth about the Iraq war. He presents himself and others working in Washington as wide eyed hopeful “youth”, that got caught up in the “Washington bubble” that “manipulate the narrative to their advantage.” If this is the case Scott Mcclellen, there would be no need for a marketing group to sell the war to the American people. If Mr. Bush had good intentions to “transform the Middle East into a democracy”, then why the marketing group? Scott Mcclellen is an angel of deception continuing to push the idea that they were all good guys with good intentions, including the president that just got caught up. This is to try and dispel the idea that there was a pre-plan (conspiracy) to invade from the beginning.

The Death of Education

Education in the United States appears to no longer be a tool for the benefit of uplifting the minds of the populace, for creating an advanced nation if it ever was. Essentially government education, commonly referred to as public education, is failing if we are to judge the society by the academic advancement of the populace. The United States is leading the world in the incarceration of its citizens, more than any other nation on Earth at this time. And yet, there is a direct correlation between those that are imprisoned and those that cannot read. However, the government has moved forward in placing tethers on school systems by forcing the students to take yearly testing that’s been shown to have little to do with their actual studies and is causing high levels of anxiety in the already Ritalin dosed students, to pass these useless test to move on to the next grade or graduate.

But what about those that graduate and move into the working ranks of the economy? There seems to be a shift in the corporate world concerning the “new” supervisors coming into the work force. These “new” supervisors tend to be in the age range of 29 to 35 years of age, many have college degrees from Bachelors, to Masters, to holding a CPA. Yet, their use of imagination, the ability to offer suggestions, or move their teams into a different realm to accomplish the company goals, are much less creative. The “new” supervisor tends to be more of a parrot, one that is more likely to go along to keep their positions rather than offer real opposition to a plan by upper management should the plan not truly be beneficial for the team or the department. This is what makes me question what education really is.

Albert Einstein said “The ruling class has the schools and press under its thumb. This enables it to sway the emotions of the masses.” I am beginning to believe this may be the case. It appears the ability to think critically is lacking. The actions of our youth are truly reactions and not a response in a fashion where one has thought out the consequences of possible actions if they take certain steps at any given moment. These same symptoms appear in the population of the U.S. when the emphasis is to run and vote for a person without great scrutiny after living in the aftermath of the past two elections and the reign of Bush. What does it really mean to be educated today?

I will offer this from Frederick Gates the Director of Charity for the Rockefeller Foundation 1913. “In dreams, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or science. We are not to raise up from among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.” “The economic well being of a nation depends on the presence of a large number of men who are content to labor hard all day long. Because men are naturally lazy they will not work unless forced by necessity to do so. The education of the poor THREATENS (my emphasis) to rob the nation of their productivity…Every hour those poor people spend at their books is so much time lost to society. Going to school in comparison to working is idleness.” Bernard De Mandeville, The fable of the Bees, 1714.