“How can a world have at its core a subcommittee that excludes more than 1.4-1.5 billion people of the world and expect it to reflect fairness and transparency in its decision-making” Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley
Commentary by Black Kos Editor Denise Oliver Velez
Once again, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has issued a call for justice in the global battles being fought around climate change, representation and economic equity. In her September 22nd address at the United Nations General Debate during its 77th session, she issued an open challenge to that body to change its antiquated power structure, which excludes a huge chunk of the world’s population.
Here is her entire speech:
MIA AMOR MOTTLEY, Prime Minister, Minister for National Security and the Public Service, and Minister for Finance, Economic Affairs and Investment of Barbados, underscored that: “A Security Council that retains the power of veto in the hands of a few will still lead us to war.” Therefore, the reform of the Council must not simply be in its composition but also be in the removal of that veto. Moreover, the recognition of the Group of Seven (G7) and Group of 20 (G20) countries as the informal subcommittee of governance in the world, if it is to be fair, must include the people of Africa and African descent. “How can a world have at its core a subcommittee that excludes more than 1.4-1.5 billion people of the world and expect it to reflect fairness and transparency in its decision-making,” she asked. Fairness will mean something only when it is reflected in the international community.
She went on to say that the international community must fight for reform so that citizens are not made victims of poverty as a result of the triple crisis of climate, pandemic and of the conflict that is leading to inflationary pressures. Voicing concern for the people of Haiti and the situation in the country, she stressed that any attempt to increase fuel prices in any part of the world by 150 per cent would have been met with great consternation by populations with fixed income. Similarly, she urged the same transparency to occur with respect to removal of the 60-year blockade against Cuba. Addressing the people of the United States, she said: “…there is nothing that justifies further hardship to people because of ideological differences.”
Noting that some are even benefiting from crisis disproportionately and egregiously, she asked whether the time has come for a review of the settlement of the Bretton Woods institutions that no longer serve the purpose in the twenty-first century that they served in twentieth century. “The century in which we live not only demands the eradication of poverty but also equally the protection of global public goods,” she said.
“If companies, multinational companies have contributed to the global public risk or benefit from the solutions from global public goods then they ought to contribute, through a small portion of their profits, funding the needs of countries whether on issue of climate resilience adaptation, biodiversity protection, public health, she added, noting other areas. She commended IMF for its rapid financing mechanism at the beginning of the pandemic and for the to be launched Resilience and Sustainability Trust — the first recognition that middle-income countries should be able to access funding irrespective of per capita income and dependent on climate vulnerability.
Here is her complete speech:
Transcript of the Statement by the Honourable Mia Amor Mottley, S.C., M.P., Prime Minister of Barbados, at the United Nations General Debate, 77th Session
This is not the first time, I’ve highlighted her powerful presence. See:
Caribbean Matters: Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados is a force to be reckoned with
Caribbean Matters: Barbados' Mia Mottley stuns the world again, this time at COP26
One of the things I find extremely problematic about our U.S. mainstream media coverage is it gives leaders from the Caribbean, and Africa short shrift, if covered at all. If I hadn’t been following her on Twitter, and reading Caribbean publications, I more than likely would have missed her recent testimony before our Congress.
There have been some exceptions. Going back a few months, ProPublica reporter Abrahm Lustgarten wrote this very detailed op-ed for the New York Times Magazine, which I strongly recommend you read — this tweet provides a link for you to read it in full without a subscription.
The Barbados Rebellion
Late on May 31, 2018, five days after she was sworn in as prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley and her top advisers gathered in the windowless anteroom of her administrative office in Bridgetown, the capital, for a call that could determine the fate of her island nation. The group settled into uncomfortable straight-backed chairs around a small mahogany table, staring at framed posters of Barbados’s windmills and sugar cane fields. Mottley, who was then 52, can appear mischievous in the moments before her bluntest declarations, but on this evening her steely side showed. She placed her personal cellphone on speaker and dialed a number in Washington for the International Monetary Fund. As arranged, Christine Lagarde, the managing director, answered.
Mottley got to the point: Barbados was out of money. It was so broke that it was taking out new loans just to pay the interest on the old ones, even as its infrastructure was coming undone. Soon the nation would have no choice but to declare itself insolvent, instigating a battle with the dozens of banks and creditors that held its $8 billion in debt and triggering austerity measures that would spiral the island into further poverty. There was another way, Mottley said, but she needed Lagarde’s help.
Mottley, the first woman to lead Barbados, had been working toward this conversation for nearly two years, consulting expert financial and legal advisers to develop a plan that would restructure the country’s soaring debts in a way that would free up money to invest in Barbados’s economy. Then, nine months before voting day, that plan took on new urgency as two powerful hurricanes ripped through the Caribbean 12 days apart; they missed Barbados, but one of them obliterated nearby Dominica.
Mottley was one of Time’s 100 this year:
I’m hoping we can push to raise her profile, not just here on Daily Kos, but via social media — and in mainstream media, which, imho, does a piss poor job of reportage on powerful Black women.
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NEWS ROUND UP BY DOPPER0189, BLACK KOS MANAGING EDITOR
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If you fall within or are anywhere close to the millennial generation and ended up attending an HBCU, chances are that this decision was highly influenced by the on screen depiction of the experience as laid out by TV sitcom, A Different World. And if you didn’t make it to a Hampton, Spelman, or North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, (Aggie Pride, y’all), you were at least able to feel a sense of familiarity and commonality along with those that did. As we approach the show’s 35th anniversary, many are reflecting on its lasting impact on the Black college experience, as well as Black culture at large throughout the decades.
If you are perhaps unfamiliar, A Different World which aired on NBC from 1987 to 1993 in a primetime slot, featured a cast of undergraduate students attending the fictional (and yet still famous in its own right, Hillman University. As a spinoff of The Cosby Show, the show first focused around the second eldest Huxtable kid, Denise, who audiences thought finally “got her act together” as she enrolled in the college. Despite Denise (who was portrayed by actor Lisa Bonet) not making it past the first season, the show’s legacy had already been cemented.
“We have done so much real things on the show. So many things that felt real—from the AIDS and the apartheid and all of that,” actor Kadeem Hardison who played everybody’s favorite Blerd Dwayne Wayne said in a recent interview with The Breakfast Club.
And while this is true, perhaps the most tangible or calculable impact of the show’s success is evidenced in the enrollment rates at HBCU’s during and after the show’s airing. According to The National Center for Educational Statistics, between 1976 and 1994, HBCU enrollment increased by about 26%. However, the majority of this meteoric rise took place between 1986 and 1994, years where A Different World consistently held a top 10 tv ranking in the nation.
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Chronic heart disease, cancer and diabetes are among the primary reasons why Black individuals have a shorter lifespan than their white counterparts, particularly in Chicago. A free cooking class is now attempting to bridge this disparity.
The Chicago Tribune reported that Good Food is Good Medicine is one of three initiatives of The Good Food Catalyst and was introduced last year. According to its website, GFGM is an innovative program that combines community listening, collaborative education, cooking and coaching to lower high rates of diet-related diseases while reducing associated health expenses in Chicago’s underprivileged communities.
In addition to the free cooking workshops — which are now being provided at a food incubator and test kitchen in Garfield Park — the program will offer free exercise programs, mindfulness/stress seminars and open discussions with doctors and nutritionists.
Dr. Ed McDonald, a co-founder of Good Food is Good Medicine and gastroenterologist at UChicago Medicine, told The Tribune the cooking classes were intentionally offered in areas most impacted by food deserts and redlining.
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In the 2020 election cycle, Democrats’ decades-long dream of winning Georgia finally became a reality. The state voted for a Democrat, Joe Biden, in the presidential race for the first time since 1992, and it elected two Democrats to the U.S. Senate.
Looking back, it’s hard to pinpoint what turned Georgia blue. Was it antipathy toward then-President Donald Trump? After all, anti-Trump sentiment among Democrats was particularly high in 2018 and 2020. Then again, the wheels for a Democratic takeover were already set in motion when the party’s gubernatorial nominee, Stacey Abrams, pioneered a new playbook focused on Black voters in 2018, something that nearly won her the governorship that year and motivated more Georgians to vote blue in 2020 and 2021.
In fact, a lot of what happened in 2020 can be credited to Black voters. In the prior two decades, Georgia slowly tilted toward Democrats, in large part because of an influx of Black Americans moving back to the South since the 1970s, a reversal of the Great Migration that started in the 1910s. This trend has been particularly pronounced in Georgia. More than any other state, it has seen the biggest increase in its share of Black1 Americans 18 years or older.
In other words, new Black voters in the state — and their participation in recent elections — have helped the Peach State make history, and a continuation of that trend could significantly shift the balance of power toward Democrats in competitive statewide races there this year.
“Not only do you have a higher percentage of Black people coming in, but they are geographically dispersed. And they’re largely voting for Democrats. So, from a political perspective, the map is changing every day. I wouldn’t necessarily call Georgia a blue state, but it certainly is purple, and it can go blue during any given election,” said Andre Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
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Wairimu Mukuru started sharing TikTok videos about Kikuyu culture earlier this year. Within months, the 26-year-old had gained more than 60,000 followers and received at least 1m views of her videos, where she talks about her ethnic group’s traditional practices and beliefs on topics such as mental health and sex.
Mukuru, a Kikuyu language teacher, is one of a small but growing number of Kenyans from the country’s largest ethnic group, the Agīkūyū, who are trying to revive precolonial cultural and spiritual practices. The belief systems were suppressed and marginalised during British colonial rule in the 19th century, and as Christianity became more entrenched.
“Westernisation was entangled with Christianity,” says King’ori wa Kanyi, a member of the Agīkūyū Council of Elders. “A good African convert had to take a European name, dress like a European and visit the clinic instead of the herbalist.”
About 85% of Kenyans identify as Christians and the religion has become an entrenched part of the country’s political and cultural fabric, marking naming, birth, marriage and political ceremonies.
“There’s a new kind of Pentecostalism that has consumed much of how we understand ourselves,” says Kamau Wairuri, a socio-political researcher at the Edinburgh University. “Since people are not familiar with other alternatives, those looking to practise a different kind of spirituality might not know where to begin.”
Adherents of Kikuyu spirituality say it is inseparable from their culture and is treated as a way of life. During colonial rule, the community fought to retain their spiritual systems but the practices were labelled as “savage” pagan religions and ultimately pushed to the margins.
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Voices and Soul
by Justice Putnam, Black Kos Poetry Editor
When Pharoah Sanders died recently, and I was putting my Sunday night music show together in a little honor to his genius and influence, I pulled up Bobbi Humphrey’s “New York Times” from the Seventh Annual Watts Festival in 1972. We might look back at rare footage of the event and wax nostalgic about a Los Angeles Summer of What Once Was and the vibe moving the large Black crowd in a dance of smooth slide hip bumps, how so much had changed since the Watts Riots in 1965. But critics cite evidence of that largest of crowds as a concerted effort to memory hole the whole meaning of the Watts Festival. The merch tents and food booths, even the recruitment tents for the LAPD and military made it to the Festival, and were roundly pilloried. Complaints rose of how the culture was again being appropriated and the Revolution forgotten in a feel good sense of misplaced place.
Donny Hathaway was a thirty-three-year-old Grammy‐award winning singer and composer of pop tunes with blues and gospel undertones who was raked over the coals by an industry filled with talent scouts who had no talent, save for the talent of capitalizing off the immense talent of others, at their expense. He toiled hard and partnered with some of the great luminaries of the day, he composed and performed some of the most revered tunes that are still revered. And still the industry stole from him while promising the moon, promising him riches tied to unit sales and radio programmer bribes, all the while silently keeping him off the charts. Hathaway died on 13 January 1979 after jumping from his fifteenth floor Essex House suite at Central Park in New York.
and then there are the one-hit zombies
cursed to an eternity of Monday nights
who runs our music does not make it
controls manufacture and marketing of rhythm
schemes on and fixes the charts. it’s polyphonic
from the dark of the chitlin to solid gold dawn
doublecrossed over
a love come down
after the plunge
sloshing around in limbo
that too sweet gospel splash
- Wanda Coleman
“Ode for Donny Hathaway”
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Special Agent DJ Justice is manning the dials, spinning the discs, warbling the woofers, putting a slip in your hip and a trip to your hop.
"Polyphonic from the Dark of the Chitlin”
1 - Pharoah Sanders - Thembi
2 - TK Blue - Frozen Mist (from Wise Eyes of the Elders)
3 - Bobbi Humphrey - New York Times (from the 7th Annual Watts Festival 1972)
4 - Joseph Smith - Winelight
Station Break
5 - Lonnie Liston Smith - Expansions
6 - Ramsey Lewis - Sun Goddess
7 - Donald Byrd - Lansana's Priestess
8 - Grover Washington, Jr - A Secret Place
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Listen to “Polyphonic from the Dark of the Chitlin” from The Justice Department on the Spreaker player
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