Commentary by Black Kos editor JoanMar
I’d love to see a journalist challenge the lowlife conman from Queens to explain the Louisiana Purchase. I’m willing to bet my dinner money that he knows nothing about the single greatest U.S. acquisition and even less of the events that led to it. What does that have to do with Haiti or Haitians, you may ask? Well, were it not for the blood, sweat, and sacrifice of Black Haitians, the United States would be half its current size, and many of those boasting about being Americans today would be French.
The Louisiana Purchase was one of history’s greatest bargains, a chance for the United States to buy what promised to be one of France’s largest and wealthiest territories and eliminate a European threat in the process. But the purchase was also fueled by a slave revolt in Haiti—and tragically, it ended up expanding slavery in the United States. It would have seemed unthinkable for France to cede any of its colonial territories before 1791. The superpower had built a vast network of colonies in the Americas, capitalizing on European tastes for coffee, indigo and other commodities.None of these held a candle, though, to sugar, which dominated French colonial holdings. And St. Domingue, which is now known as Haiti, was one of the great sugar capitals of the world. A full 40 percent of Britain and France’s sugar, and 60 percent of its coffee, was produced in Haiti, and the lucrative market lent itself to a particularly brutal slave trade.
Nowadays, Haiti is known as the poorest country in the Americas, which racists gleefully point to as evidence of Black people’s inability to govern and, even more damning, as proof of intellectual inferiority. How Haiti came to be in this position is as a direct result of the need to make that country and its people pay for daring to defeat one of the mightiest armies of all time — the French army under Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Historians describe Bonaparte as “a military genius and one of the finest commanders in history.” Yep, Haiti was not always poor. Indeed, it was “known as the Pearl of the Antilles” and “the greatest jewel in imperial France’s crown.” Haiti, or Saint-Domingue as it was known then, was a global leader in the production of sugar, coffee, and other crops which made the island one of the most lucrative colonies in history. A “shithole country” it was not.
In the late 18th century, Haitians began the revolution that would ultimately lead to the defeat of the French and the establishment of an independent Black state surrounded by colonies all of which still had Black people slaving away as beasts of burden. Haiti’s win against the French stunned — and stung — the world. It was a Huge Effing Deal! Losing Haiti dealt a death blow to Bonaparte’s expansion plans for the Western Hemisphere. France could no longer hold or defend the vast Louisiana Territory. Haiti and Haitians did that.
The United States was only too happy to swoop in and relieve France of its burden. In one of the most astonishing deals in history, the USA managed to get the entire Louisiana Territory for a mere $15 million. To put that into perspective, in a 20 miles radius of where I live there are many houses listed for $15M or more. This purchase stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and most of Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Minnesota.
Haiti and Haitians made that happen. And how were they repaid for this monumental contribution to the United States of America? France forced the newly independent nation to pay reparations; other colonial, slave-holding countries were only too happy to join in on the collective punishment of the country; Citigroup (National City Bank) drained the country’s coffers to the tune of some “untold billions.” The money stolen from Haiti was used to enrich NCB’s American (white) clients and executives.
So, when you talk about Haiti and its people, put some respect on their names. When you speak of Haiti and Haitians, whisper their names with reverence and gratitude.
But all that is history, and we all know that Putin’s puppets couldn't care less about that. Let’s look at the existential threat at our doorstep:
A grifting, amoral conman and his couch-humping sidekick cast their jaundiced eyes around looking for red meat to throw to their rabid mob and landed on Haitians. An attack on Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio, is an attack on all Black people. Because it was never about immigration and or Haitians; the real mission was/is to terrorize Black and Brown folks. The aim was to use an honorable, hardworking group of people as dispensable pawns to achieve a nefarious goal. It may even be tied to the Republicans’ effort to pass what they call the SAVE Act and they and Elon Musk’s insistence that “illegals” are voting by the millions.
At the Unite for America Rally last night, with soon-to-be President Kamala Harris and chaired by Oprah Winfrey, Oprah said that the attack on Haitians living in Springfield “endangers the lives of all those who look Haitian.” I heard that and wondered what exactly do people think Haitians look like? The truth is, Haitians, like the rest of the Black diaspora, come in every shape and shade on the continuum of “Africanness.” It’s worth noting that the initial bit of evidence offered to confirm the supposed depravity of Haitians was in fact that of a Black American with his legally acquired geese. Racists didn’t care about that minor detail. Point? All of us who “look” Black have been endangered by this act of deplorable mendacity.
The attack is on all of us. When they come to gather up Haitians for deportation, all melanated people are at risk. When they attempt to stop “illegals” from voting, all Black voters will be forced to show their papers.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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A new book takes a deep look at the stark wealth gap between Black and white Americans. The authors, Ebony Reed and Louise Story, followed the lives of seven Black Americans over the last three years. USA TODAY: Fifteen Cents on the Dollar: How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap
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A sweeping, deeply researched narrative history of Black wealth and the economic discrimination embedded in America's financial system through public and private actions that created today's Black-white wealth gap. The early 2020s will long be known as a period of racial reflection. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Americans of all backgrounds joined together in historic demonstrations in the streets, discussions in the workplace, and conversations at home about the financial gaps that remain between white and Black Americans.
This deeply investigated book follows the lives of seven Black Americans of different economic levels, ages and professions during the three years following this period of racial reckoning. Drawing on intimate interviews with these individuals--three of whom are well known and four of whom most readers will learn about for the first time in the book--the authors bring data, research and history to life.
Fifteen Cents on the Dollar shows the scores of set-backs that have held the Black-white wealth gap in place--from enslavement to redlining to banking discrimination--and ultimately, the set-backs that occurred in the mid-2020s as the push for racial equity became a polarized political debate. Fifteen Cents on the Dollar is a comprehensive, deeply human look at Black-white wealth-gap history, told through the lives Black Americans as well as through the development of a new bank intended to help close the Black-white wealth gap.
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New Jersey's OceanFirst Bank will pay $15.1 million, including at least $14 million to fund a loan subsidy fund, to settle a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit accusing it of illegal redlining in the central part of the state. Reuters: New Jersey's OceanFirst Bank settles US redlining charges
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New Jersey's OceanFirst Bank will pay $15.1 million, including at least $14 million to fund a loan subsidy fund, to settle a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit accusing it of illegal redlining in the central part of the state.
A proposed settlement with the unit of OceanFirst Financial (OCFC.O), opens new tab was filed on Wednesday in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, and requires a judge's approval.
The Justice Department said that between 2018 and 2022, OceanFirst discouraged borrowers from obtaining home loans and other services in majority-Black, Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods of Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean counties, while serving the needs of borrowers in majority-white areas.
According to the government, these practices violated the federal Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
OceanFirst's five-year consent order also calls for the 122-year-old bank to improve compliance and training, and spend $1.1 million on education, credit counseling, foreclosure prevention, other loan services and advertising.
The settlement "will help to ensure that future generations of Americans inherit a legacy of home ownership that they have been too often denied," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. "Redlining is unlawful, it is harmful, and it is wrong."
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When she was a child growing up in Kenya, Margaret Nyamumbo learned about a custom that took place on her grandfather’s coffee farm: every few weeks, the women who worked there would gather around a table and drop money into a large pot. Anyone who had contributed had the right to later retrieve funds in the form of a small loan.
This so-called “table banking” system, which is a custom in Kenya, helped women involved in the coffee trade support one another. Kenyan women, who historically are denied land ownership and therefore the ability to take out loans, provide 90% of labor on coffee farms but own just 1% of the land.
A decade after she immigrated to the US, Nyamumbo launched her own coffee startup that takes table banking one step further – by bringing overseas coffee drinkers to the table. “I thought, what if we could have consumers pitch into this ‘virtual pot’ and then farmers can have money to go around?” said Nyamumbo, who lives in New York City.
Named after the Swahili word for coffee and the year that commercial coffee production took off across Africa, Kahawa 1893 sources beans directly from collectives and family farms in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Congo. It also supports female coffee farmers through a bitcoin-powered tip fund. Through a QR code printed on each bag of beans, buyers have directly contributed $45,000 to the “virtual pot”. The company matches the funds, which have made their way to more than 500 women and girls in Africa.
Kahawa 1893’s collection of roasted beans, packaged in bags with colorful renderings of African savanna wildlife, quickly took off among US coffee aficionados. Home-brewed coffee boomed in the last few years thanks to the rise of remote work culture. In 2021, the company became the first Black woman-owned coffee brand to be sold at Trader Joe’s, enabling Nyamumbo to pay herself a salary for the first time since her company’s launch four years earlier. Last year, the startup brought in $3m in revenue, two-thirds of which came from wholesale channels. An appearance on Shark Tank led to Nyamumbo, 36, securing a deal with Keurig, whose single-serve coffee makers are in 40m US households.
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A Black mother died in Georgia after the state’s strict anti-abortion laws caused an almost 24-hour delay in her care.
In August 2022, Amber Nicole Thurman, 28, traveled to a North Carolina clinic to have an abortion, People magazine reported. She could not have the procedure done in the state of Georgia, where she lived, because she was six weeks pregnant — and following the 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade, the state had enacted a ban on abortions after six weeks’ gestation.
The clinic gave her the pregnancy-ending pills mifepristone and misoprostol, which she took back home in Georgia. Days later, Thurman developed a rare complication where she didn’t expel all of the fetal tissue, according to ProPublica, the outlet that first reported her case.
Thurman, a medical assistant and mom to a 6-year-old boy, began experiencing heavy bleeding and pain before eventually losing consciousness at home. Her boyfriend called an ambulance and she was taken to Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge. The tissue that remained had caused her to develop an extremely dangerous infection known as sepsis.
However, due to Georgia’s anti-abortion laws, doctors didn’t proceed with a D&C (dilation and curettage). Despite her losing consciousness in her hospital room and her condition worsening rapidly, she did not receive treatment for nearly 24 hours.
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Officials in the French Caribbean island of Martinique have imposed a 9pm to 5am curfew in parts of its capital to quell escalating violent protests over the high cost of living.
According to Radio France International (RFI), at least 14 people, including 11 police, have been injured – some by firearms – as alarming scenes on social media showed vehicles engulfed in flames, gutted buildings and heavily geared riot police marching towards the protests.
Standing outside a completely destroyed McDonald’s, the chain’s Martinique director, Marie-Kelly Roussas, told France 24 that it would take months to rebuild the restaurant, affecting dozens of low-income workers.
The office of Martinique’s France-appointed prefect, Jean-Christophe Bouvier, said the curfew will extend to 23 September and was intended to protect the population and businesses and restore law and order.
But demonstrators say they were forced to protest after authorities and businesses turned a blind eye to petitions to bring down the cost of living.
French national statistics show marked disparities between the cost of living in mainland France and overseas territories, with Martinique residents paying an estimated 30% to 42% more for food.
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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres says he’s prepared to do what is necessary to address the disastrous gang and humanitarian crisis unfolding in Haiti once there is agreement between the Haitian government and the U.N. Security Council on the next steps to take.
But he still doesn’t understand why there is no money to support the current Kenya-led armed mission, which was launched as an informal security mission that operates only on voluntary contributions from the international community.
“We see crises, wars, arms proliferation,” Guterres said, “there’s always billions and billions of dollars available to do what needs to be done. However, when it comes to just a small operation in Haiti, where all it takes is just a few hundred millions of dollars in order to guarantee the presence of this mission, there’s no money for that, and that’s something I can’t accept. And then, we say, ‘Well, since there’s no money, let’s bring in a peacekeeping operation, because then we have mandatory contributions for that.’ But I must say, for me, it’s a moral issue.”
“If the Security Council and the Haitian government are agreeable and there’s no other solution, then in that case, we are prepared to work in line with the mandate of the Security Council,” Guterres added.
The United States, which is the largest contributor of the current Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti, is seeking to transform the current mostly police-led mission into a formal U.N. peacekeeping operation. That designation would open the door to adding more military troops to the effort and — perhaps more important —- guaranteed financial support from U.N. member states and standard equipment like helicopters, which the current MSS mission doesn’t have.
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