It's Fat Tuesday!
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver Velez
Today is Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, or Carnival - the last day of celebration before people give up meat for Lent, and though the practice came from Europe it has now become a major part of African-diasporic tradition- from New Orleans, to Trinidad and of course Brazil, where the largest celebration in the world is held in Rio.
In Brazil the government has launched a major Carnival effort in the war against HIV/AIDS and will be distributing 70 million condoms
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — With Carnival celebrations officially underway across Brazil, the country is ready to help its citizens and the more than one million tourists visiting the country prevent the contraction of HIV/AIDS.
According to RankBrasil, health ministries will distribute over 70 million free condoms across the country in order to promote safe sex during the famously lustful celebrations.
There will also be free HIV tests available on-site at Carnival, particularly in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, São Paulo, Recife, Olinda and Ouro Preto, where the most tourists set down for some of the biggest parades and parties during the week-long festivities.
So while the samba schools show off their moves, and Brazillians take to the streets to celebrate, here's hoping the condoms will provide safe fun.
Join in with the Sons of Gandhi in Bahia.
The first Sons of Gandhi were dockworkers on strike in Salvador who were inspired by Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy of equality and nonviolent resistance to oppression. When they heard of his assassination, they decided to march at Carnival in his name.
They needed costumes, of course, so the prostitutes from the docks gave them their sheets to use as robes, and towels to wrap around their heads. Dressed up to look vaguely Indian, the men marched through Brazil's first colonial capital.
The chants they still sing honor the Yoruba gods worshipped by many Afro-Brazilians. But 60 years ago, African religion was still systematically repressed by the dominant Catholic society. By garbing themselves in their namesake's philosophy of peaceful resistance, the Sons of Gandhi were able to bring their beliefs into the streets without provoking the police.
Today, taking African rituals, music and dance out of the temples and into the streets is an old and respected part of Carnival in Salvador.
Or follow the rhythm of the steel bands in Trinidad.
Watch the Black Indians of New Orleans
as they dress for mock battle.
Maurice M. Martinez' documentary gives us a glimpse into Black Indians tradition.
This documentary examines the Black Indian tribes of New Orleans and their Mardi Gras celebration which began in the 1880's. It describes the origins of the tribes as well as Mardi Gras, and focuses on the distinctive folk art features of the celebration -- including the songs, dances and particularly the elaborate costumes --which hold great social significance are a form of artistic expression for the Black Indians. The program includes comments by several of the participants in which they express the historic symbolism and intense relationships expressed in the celebration.
Listen to them play the familiar beat of Iko Iko.
Grab a Zulu Coconut
One of the most famous and the most sought after throws, is the Zulu Coconut also known as the Golden Nugget and the Mardi Gras Coconut.[5] The coconut is mentioned as far back as 1910, where they were given in a natural "hairy" state. The coconut was thrown as a cheap alternative, especially in 1910 when the bead throws were made of glass. Before the Krewe of Zulu threw coconuts, they threw walnuts that were painted gold. This is where the name "Golden Nugget" originally came from. It is thought that Zulu switched from walnuts to coconuts in the early 1920s when a local painter, Lloyd Lucus, started to paint coconuts. Most of the coconuts have two decorations. The first is painted gold with added glitter, and the second is painted like the famous black Zulu faces. In 1988, the city forbade Zulu from throwing coconuts due to the risk of injury; they are now handed to onlookers rather than thrown. In the year 2000, a local electronics engineer, Willie Clark, introduced an upgraded version of the classic, naming them Mardi Gras Coconuts. These new coconuts were first used by the club in 2002, giving the souvenirs to royalty and city notables.
or a string of beads.
Carnival is a festival for us all today. We can worry about tomorrow later. ;)
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News by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Denied jobs, blacks in Iowa test new bias theory. Times Union: 6,000 African Americans Sue Iowa for Discrimination.
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In a case closely watched by civil rights activists, an Iowa judge will soon decide whether to grant thousands of black employees and job applicants monetary damages for hiring practices used by Iowa state government that they say have disadvantaged them.
Experts say the case is the largest class-action lawsuit of its kind against an entire state government's civil service system, and tests a legal theory that social science and statistics alone can prove widespread discrimination.
The plaintiffs — up to 6,000 African-Americans passed over for state jobs and promotions dating back to 2003 — do not say they faced overt racism or discriminatory hiring tests in Iowa, a state that is 91 percent white. Instead, their lawyers argue that managers subconsciously favored whites across state government, leaving blacks at a disadvantage in decisions over who got interviewed, hired and promoted.
Judge Robert Blink's decision, expected in coming weeks, could award damages and mandate changes in state personnel policies or dismiss a case that represents a growing front of discrimination litigation.
"Whenever there is a case like this that goes to trial, it's of interest to all of us," said Jocelyn Larkin, executive director of the Impact Fund, a Berkeley, Calif.-based nonprofit that supports employment discrimination lawsuits and has followed the case.
Des Moines lawyer Thomas Newkirk looks over files from a class-action lawsuit that tests the theory of "implicit bias" against blacks in Iowa state government, in Des Moines, Iowa. (Charlie Neibergall / AP)
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In the 1st season of his hit reality show "Chef Roble' & Co" culinary savant Roble' Ali seriously brought the heat. Ebony: Roblé Rising
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On Roblé Ali’s glamorous, sometimes over-the-top, yet gritty and emotional reality show, each episode is packed with pop stars, confetti and candid conversations. (“There’s no crying in catering!”) The vigorous and purposeful chef keeps it all—barely—under control. But when Roblé wants comfort food for himself, he leans toward a good Reuben sandwich.
“It’s hard,” says the chef de cuisine sporting a modified-faux ’hawk, “to find a good Reuben.” Thinly sliced corned beef, tangy sauerkraut, piquant Russian dressing. “The secret is to make it without [it being] soggy.”
Sandwiches, however, didn’t put the Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-born, Houston-raised Roblé on the road to being one of the most exciting young chefs in the country. He’s created culinary experiences for Jay-Z, Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Jackson.
It may have been jelly donuts that started him on his way.
Those yeasty sugared treats fascinated young Roblé. His grandfather, Jesse Harris, who died in 1999, created them by hand in his own Texas home. Grandpa didn’t let him near the hot grease, but Roblé tried his hand in the kitchen soon after, when he was about 13. “I picked up a pastry cookbook at a book fair because there were cookies on the cover,” he says. Inside, there was a recipe for brownies. “I thought I could handle it, but pastry is not for the cavalier.”
Neither is being a reality-television star. Chef Roblé & Co. features his sister and business partner, Jasmine Ali, as well as clients such as Vanessa Williams and Kandi Burruss, as he navigates the tribulations of launching, from his loft apartment, his very chic Brooklyn-based catering and event-planning company. The show garnered enthusiastic responses from the Twitterverse, on the Today show and in USA Today, because the food looks luscious, yes, but also because the company’s catering adventures are funny, sometimes profane and often wrenching. His frank talks with his sister put the “real” in reality.
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The turn around in this country is so inspirational! LA Times: How did Rwanda cut poverty so much?
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The small African nation of Rwanda recently announced that it had cut poverty by 12% in six years, from 57% of its population to 45%. That equals roughly a million Rwandans emerging from poverty -- one of the most stunning drops in the world.
It's a remarkable achievement for Rwanda, which has emerged from civil war and a bloody ethnic genocide in the 1990s. How did it happen? The Times quizzed Paul Collier, director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, about the numbers.
Q: Are there any doubts that the drop is real?
No doubts; I know the economics professor who did the data analysis, and he is highly experienced and painstaking, so it is genuine.
Q: How did Rwanda cut its poverty so much?
There were one or two helpful events, notably the rise in world coffee prices, which pumped money into the rural economy, but, of course, overall the global economy since 2005 has not provided an easy environment for success. Hence, most of the achievement is likely due to domestic policies.
Rwanda is the nearest that Africa gets to an East Asian-style “developmental state,” where the government gets serious about trying to grow the economy and where the president runs a tight ship within government built on performance rather than patronage.
There were strong supporting policies for the rural poor -- the “one cow” program [that distributed cows to poor households free of charge], which spread assets, and the improvements in health programs.
Alongside this, the economy was well managed, with inflation kept low, and the business environment improved, both of which helped the main city, Kigali, to grow. Growth in Kigali then spread benefits to rural areas -- the most successful rural districts were those closest to Kigali.
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George Derek Musgrove chronicles efforts to suppress African-American political power. The Root: Black Politicians Harassed, Book Shows
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For black elected officials serving over the past five decades, race-related challenges haven't ended with getting voted into office. In Rumor, Repression and Racial Politics: How the Harassment of Black Elected Officials Shaped Post-Civil Rights America, author George Derek Musgrove chronicles these politicians' allegations of disproportionate harassment and repression by the state and the news media. It's not about whether there was a conspiracy against them, but rather about the impact of the well-documented surveillance, adversary journalism and government investigations on black political life in the post-civil rights era.
The Root talked to Musgrove, who interviewed 25 sitting and former black members of Congress, about what his unsettling findings can teach us about race and politics, and what repression of black elected officials looks like today.
The Root: Your book examines black elected officials' allegations of repression by the state and the news media. What did this look like?
George Derek Musgrove: What black elected officials came to call "harassment" looked different at different times. In the years between 1965 and 1974, it looked like police and intelligence-community surveillance and counterintelligence, politically motivated audits by intelligence units within the IRS and "dirty tricks" by the Nixon White House. Approximately three-fourths of the African Americans who sat in Congress during these years experienced at least one of these types of state repression.
In the late 1970s, "harassment" looked like adversary journalism by white reporters desperate to be the next Woodward and Bernstein. These media investigations are hard to count, but they had a huge impact on black elected officials.
And in the 1980s and early 1990s, what black elected officials called "harassment" was the racially disproportionate investigation of official corruption by the Reagan and Bush Justice Departments. One third of the blacks that served in Congress during this period faced a federal criminal investigation, though only two were indicted and none convicted.
Michelle Musgrove
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When MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan announced late last week that his time at the network had “come to an end,” he took special pains to call out the left-leaning online activist groups that had dogged him for years. ColorLines: The Old School Organizing Approach That Took Down Pat Buchanan.
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Among the groups on Buchanan’s list were ColorofChange.org and Media Matters, who the conservative talking head called “thought police” that “seek systematically to silence and censor dissent.”
But for the groups who took on Buchanan, his message wasn’t anywhere close to thoughtful dissent. In their estimation, it was hate speech, packaged and delivered for a modern network audience.
“While there’s political debate we may not always agree with, Pat Buchanan has a history of passing off white supremacist ideology as mainstream political thought,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of ColorofChange.org and board member of the Applied Research Center, which publishes Colorlines.com.
Buchanan had long been a target for his extremist conservative views. He has lamented openly about the “end of white America” and called interracial sex “white genocide.” In 2008, he insinuated that slavery was the best thing to happen to black people. Buchanan’s startlingly anachronistic views were out of sync with MSNBC; the network had already begun its ideological drift to the left, and in recent years have offered groundbreaking shows to white and black liberal hosts like Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Melissa Harris-Perry.
Given that track record, it’s no surprise that Buchanan is one of a handful of conservative talk show hosts who’ve been targeted by online activists in an effort to hold them accountable for the bigoted views they display in the media. Lou Dobbs was booted by CNN in 2009 after Presente.org led a successful campaign against him, focused on his vehemently anti-immigrant views. Glenn Back left Fox after ColorofChange.org pressured over half of his show’s advertisers to jump ship and viewers grew tired of his outlandish conspiracy theories.
The efforts paint a fascinating picture of the changing landscape of political organizing for people of color, particularly those working toward media accountability. Though online activism, once labeled “clicktivism,” has at times been derided for seeming too easy compared to the in-your-face direct action of previous movements, these successful campaigns have uncovered just how malleable organizing can be, particularly when facing the veiled persistence of systemic racism. The NAACP used social media as a primary way to connect with its members during the effort to save Troy Davis from Georgia’s death penalty last September. The state executed Davis, but anti-death penalty campaigners say the case reinvigorated the movement to end capital punishment.
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We're throwing beads off the Front Porch today
Celebrate!