Here, we share some insights into Pan-Afrikan Activism and Black activism in more general terms. These will include commentaries, analyses and some news links. Sources will include SRDC Facilitators, members of the media, activists and grassroots Civil Society contributors (the “people on the ground”). Links to relevant Web sites will be included when appropriate and available.
The New African World Newsletter
Edited by SRDC International Facilitator Professor David L. Horne, The New African World is a publication of the UNIA-ACL Rehabilitating Committee 2020 which adds its voice to the discussion around the nature and essence of Pan-Africanism and Pan-African organizing in this often difficult time. We will feature this publication on this Web site as new issues are published. For now, we invite you to enjoy and be informed by the first issue of this new publication:
The New African World Newsletter Issue 1
Who’s In Danger Report
The following report, titled Who’s In Danger? Race, Poverty and Chemical Disasters, produced in May 2014 by the Environmental Justice and Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, provides what they describe as “a demographic analysis of chemical disaster vulnerability zones” and provides in-depth analysis of the correlation between communities of color and industrial sites that are plagued with toxic waste and other environmental determinants of human disease. The report features background and history of environmental justice efforts, followed by several community stories and a demographic analysis of vulnerability zones from industry findings and national studies, concluding with solutions and recommendations. To read the full report, click below:
Whos In Danger Report
Commentaries and Editorials
Several of the following commentaries come from SRDC International Facilitator Professor David L. Horne, who writes a regular column for OurWeekly (David L. Horne, PH.D. | StaffOur Weekly | Black News and Entertainment Los Angeles).
The politics of expecting a rose and getting a toad
Practical Politics
David L. Horne, PH.D. | 12/3/2020, 2:08 p.m.
Included in that is our own fault in giving him the benefit of the doubt. He was overtly counterfeit from the beginning.
Feigning surprise now that he is showing his true rogue colors says more about us than him. He cheated or at minimum accepted the benefits of cheating on his behalf to even obtain the presidency in 2016. Why are many of us still so surprised that he would try to cheat to stay where he is not wanted now? He even used the White House as the vicinity in which he tried to either strong-arm or seduce two Republican state officials to break the law and declare Trump the winner in a territory in which he lost by thousands of votes. We should stop expecting otherwise.
We should ask not why he is conducting himself this way, embarrassing the entirety of the U.S. in the eyes of the world; we should only ask ourselves how long can we stand being so disrespected? No longer will we be able to lecture ANY country with a straight face about the conduct of its democratic affairs. Number 45 is a lump of Christmas coal under the American tree, and he will remain the example of America’s pretense at being better than the meanest run country in the world.
The man is a grifter whose shady expertise just keeps on giving (and taking for himself). He’s now running tweets asking for donations for him to keep fighting a lost cause. This was never the Alamo. It was always a dirty hovel behind the weedy sheen of white-washed make-up with an orange-cropped roof (his hair). A little water easily showed its true colors behind the bushes.
Now there’s the spectacle of having one of his lawyers issue public death threats to a former ally who became a traitor to the cause by publicly stating the truth: there was no election fraud or theft—”the 2020 election was the most secure in modern history.” And now the Trump forces are attacking loyal zealots like the governor and secretary of state of Georgia because they will not act criminally by tossing out the honest votes of state citizens and declaring Georgia’s presidential winner to be Mr. Trump. News reports have stated that the family of the Republican Secretary of State in Georgia has been physically threatened by Trump acolytes in and out of Georgia because that official refused to drink the Kool-Aid of criminal behavior for Mr. Trump.
Really, this has all been a bit too much. Such a shocking display of lack of integrity, lack of good manners, lack of concern about the present and future reputation of the office of the POTUS.
But one thing is certain. He ran, and he lost. He was summarily fired by over 6 million more votes than he could command from the American people. Virtually all the states have already certified the election results. On Jan. 20, 2021, by noon, he will have already absconded (possibly with pieces of the White House’s china and crystal) to Florida (he cannot go back to New York), or, with cameras rolling, he will be summarily evicted from the White House premises, with emphasis. No telling how much the sight of that will instantly heal and unite this country.
Meanwhile, the Georgia election for Democratic control of the U.S. Senate will have already happened by then. From the cacophonous rancor presently of in-fighting occurring among Republicans, there is a very good chance that by January 20, both Republicans will have lost and Congress will be back in safe hands for the American people.
We are due a break.
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.
DISCLAIMER: The beliefs and viewpoints expressed in opinion pieces, letters to the editor, by columnists and/or contributing writers are not necessarily those of OurWeekly.
The Politics of Trump’s continuing theater of the absurd
Action is minimal
David L. Horne, PH.D. | 11/25/2020, 6 a.m.
The basis of the absurdist trope was philosopher Albert Camus’ work, particularly the book-length essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus” and the novel, “The Stranger.” One of the best known presentations of Camus’ principle was the play, “Waiting for Godot.”
In that play, action is minimal. The audience watches many minutes of two characters (and usually one) simply standing or sitting in one place. The announced aim was to visually present the essence of the question: If there is a God or a meaning to life, where is it, and if it is not found, does life actually have any meaning?
In essence, the characters waited for hope in otherwise meaningless lives. The human condition itself, too often dependent on individual choices to be good, bad, indifferent, or outrageous, had no accurate measure or strictures. Life simply was.
In Donald Trump’s presidency, he preyed on people’s need to believe in something….to have faith in things getting better. While he surrounded himself with inept or actually criminal (and corrupt) officials throughout his nearly four years in office, he constantly lied to the public about what was going on and what people saw for themselves. “Do not believe your lying eyes, only believe what I tell you,” a street concept, was an artful dodger technique he frequently used. His Theater of the Absurd was not a comedy and it was not a dirge. Instead, it was a political treatise on how to fool the people most of the time for fun and profit.
In Trump’s America, there was meaning and significance in political affairs only if and when he said they were. That led to his extremely irritating display of “not losing” the latest election, even though the popular vote indicated over 6.5 million more people than he generated told him it was time for him to move on. The list of states won was overwhelming.
Seeing himself as both the author and the lead character in an absurdist play about American government got us to this apparently meaningless moment of his political demise. Trump’s purpose in life seems to be how best to keep the shiny objects in people’s faces while he fleeces them, and to otherwise get a large audience to believe that life is only what he tells them it is.
Well, the curtain is coming down, the audience has clapped without requesting an encore, and the Electoral College votes in a few days (after states have already certified the election). The play and the act are over.
But we must stay aware. Many are still ‘Waiting for Godot,’ and some may take to the streets, armed and ready, to hurry the time along. I, for one, am only waiting on the New York authorities to re-up their criminal investigations of Mr. Trump that have been waiting in abeyance. All hope is not lost. In fact, seeing him taken to Rikers Island Prison in New York is a particularly meaningful hope for the near future of us all.
Camus was wrong. Life does have meaning after all. Wrong-doers (sometimes) do get what they deserve.
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.
DISCLAIMER: The beliefs and viewpoints expressed in opinion pieces, letters to the editor, by columnists and/or contributing writers are not necessarily those of OurWeekly.
The politics of myth, mistakes and misinformation in the Reparations Movement
Practical Politics
David L. Horne, PH.D. | 11/5/2020, midnight
First, there’s the omnipresent myth—actually as the base of the whole movement in the U.S.—that there is a broken promise to provide former slaves “40 acres and a mule.” General William Tecumseh Sherman’s famous Field Order 15 never made such a promise, nor, according to Sherman’s memoirs, did he ever intend it as such.
Much heat, agitation and anger have been dispensed in arguing this point with true believers. But the facts are clear: Sherman did not have the legal authority as military field commander, to grant ownership of the southern land he dispensed to eager Black supplicants in January, 1865. The 400,000 + acres out of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida that he distributed was land confiscated from rebellious southerners, yes, but the property ownership of that land could not be transferred by either a presidential decree nor an order from the officer-in-charge.
Sherman clearly stated that what he was ordering was “land possession” not land ownership, “until Congress shall regulate their title.” All land acquired by Special Field Order 15 would acquire “a possessory title in writing,” and Order 15 would provide “titles altogether as possessory.”
Before his assassination, President Abraham Lincoln did not try to push Congress into legislating such land titles, and his successor, President Andrew Johnson, promptly ordered the legal removal of all Blacks who had settled on that land.
Secondly, there actually is a real Reparations Movement, with a specific starting date and organizational effort. This was an official start-up prior to the 20th century efforts of Marcus Garvey, Queen Mother Moore, or Congressman John Conyers. This was the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association (1897-1930), led by Callie G. House and Isaiah Dickerson. Mary Frances Berry’s history of that phase of the movement is outstanding (“My Face Is Black Is True”).
Thirdly, exactly who reparations should be for remains a sticking point. Some argue that whatever reparations solutions are finally accepted and distributed should only be to those who can prove descent from a slave in the U.S. or from a slave ship. This belies the point that reparations are to cover the Reconstruction Period, including tenant farming and sharecropping, massive discrimination against all Blacks in the U.S. to and through the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights legislation and beyond, from Black vagrancy laws to mass incarceration, etc.
Besides that, there were numerous free Black folk never enslaved in this country, but who were redlined and discriminated against nonetheless.
The push for reparations must also address whether any and all solutions must be financial. The most recent discussions (such as William Darity and Kirsten Mullen’s 2020 book, “From Here to Equality”) are adamant on that point, but that view is not universally shared.
Whatever reparations solutions turn out to be, who will be responsible for them? Only the federal government? Until the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, slavery was essentially a state issue in this country, and all states were not slave states.
The reparations issue in this country (and in others) is thus complicated and hard to pin down. Getting to a reasonable set of solutions—as the California Reparations Commission must do—will be an exhausting and exasperating task. But California’s leadership in this endeavor will surely be critical, given we are the first state to mandate such a process (although several cities have come up with a range of individual solutions)
Hold onto your hats, this may be a wild ride !!!
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.
DISCLAIMER: The beliefs and viewpoints expressed in opinion pieces, letters to the editor, by columnists and/or contributing writers are not necessarily those of OurWeekly.