Plus ça Change
News with a little bit of commentary by Chitown Kev
I mean, I do have thoughts nowadays; thoughts that remain a bit jumbled and confused as I seem to be taking in everything that I am reading and hearing about the coronavirus pandemic that we are facing.
But...and particularly after my own scare with my own rising temperature last Thursday evening/Friday morning, I’m doing more news and pundit reading than I ever have...it’s difficult for me to concentrate (I think that the now-nearly daily sweep and disinfecting of my desk is helping somewhat).
1.) So...I was reading this AlJazeera essay by Robtel Neajai Palley and...on one hand, from the standpoint of someone living in a country that puts up with daily assaults of white supremacist braggadocio from a damn fool that doesn’t know what the hell he is doing, one of my instinctual thoughts is that it’s a little to soon for an essay like this.
On the other hand, upon reading the essay, I instantly wanted to edit the headline to read “Who’s the Shi*hole Country Now?”
Call me naive in the heyday of apocalyptic projections about infections and deaths to come, but I prefer to focus on the silver lining. This is in some ways why I have been rolling my eyes at countless doomsday commentaries published by Western media outlets in which so-called Global North "experts" have argued that Africa, a continent of 54 diverse countries rumoured to be the final frontier of coronavirus, desperately needs saving. My response? Puh-lease!
Ordinary Africans, and their counterparts in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, are not navel-gazing or waiting around for the "mighty" Global North - itself in the bullseye of the virus - to come to the rescue. Even in the midst of constraints unheard of in Europe and North America, Global South folks are exemplifying the kind of ingenuity, generosity, solidarity, empathy and civility from which we all must learn. We should be borrowing from this playbook, not casting it aside.
Call me naive in the heyday of apocalyptic projections about infections and deaths to come, but I prefer to focus on the silver lining. This is in some ways why I have been rolling my eyes at countless doomsday commentaries published by Western media outlets in which so-called Global North "experts" have argued that Africa, a continent of 54 diverse countries rumoured to be the final frontier of coronavirus, desperately needs saving. My response? Puh-lease!
Ordinary Africans, and their counterparts in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, are not navel-gazing or waiting around for the "mighty" Global North - itself in the bullseye of the virus - to come to the rescue. Even in the midst of constraints unheard of in Europe and North America, Global South folks are exemplifying the kind of ingenuity, generosity, solidarity, empathy and civility from which we all must learn. We should be borrowing from this playbook, not casting it aside.
Who knows how the COVID-19 pandemic will evolve? For that reason, I do think that this type of essay is a little premature. (I also think that the essay is a little too complementary to the People’s Republic of China).
But yeah, African-descended peoples and other peoples of color have had generations and centuries of preparation in making lemonade out of lemons.
2) I’ll file this next story under that eerie and familiar feeling (of deja vu, perhaps?) that I got when I read the story of the racist backlash against African people in Guangzhou, China.
The Root:
Shaquan Jenkins, the witness who posted the first video to Twitter told Gothamist that the boy had been moving through the subway car selling candy when officers grabbed him.
“They looked like kidnappers, like they were trying to kidnap the little boy,” Jenkins said. “I felt outraged. It’s a little boy. Can’t they talk to him on his level and say it’s not safe, go home? Why did they need three officers to take him to the precinct?
“He’s crying, as they try to close the train doors, they called down extra police officers,” Jenkins continued. “It looked like they trampled him in a pile.” Jenkins also said that bystanders were trying to help by gathering the candy the boy had dropped, but that police took it and threw it in the garbage.
It’s understandable that a child moving through a subway car selling snacks to people isn’t a thing that can be allowed, especially during a pandemic. What isn’t clear is why all of these officers felt the need to swarm around a child and put hands on him rather than simply tell him he needs to stop. It’s hard to imagine police treating some white child selling lemonade in the suburbs the same way under any circumstances. It’s also unclear why, if the boy’s parents were there once the confrontation started (later it was reported that the boy’s stepfather was there as well), the officers couldn’t just deal with them and leave the clearly terrified child alone.
I get the police not wanting activity like candy-selling going on from train car to train car.
Still, I’d bet that if this was a good little white kid the age of Donald Trump, Jr...(and you can finish the rest of that sentence).
3.) The United States isn’t the only country where people of color are being disproportionately by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the BBC.
There is "emerging evidence" to suggest coronavirus is having a disproportionate impact on people who are black, Asian and minority ethnic.
Research suggests that more than a third of patients who are critically ill in hospital with the virus are from these backgrounds.
It comes after Labour called for an urgent investigation into why these communities are more vulnerable.
The government said it was committed to reducing health inequalities.
Only 14% of people in England and Wales are from ethnic minority backgrounds, according to the 2011 census.
However, the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre found that 34% of more than 3,000 critically ill coronavirus patients identified as black, Asian or minority ethnic.
Last I checked, the UK does have universal health care and a National Health Service.
4.) If there is one world leader that has mishandled the coronavirus pandemic worse than America’s own Damn Fool, it would be The Damn Fool’s Brazilian twin, Jair Bolsonaro...and the favelas are catching the brunt of it.
Guardian:
Community leaders, activists and organisers of social projects in favelas in São Paulo, Belém, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Manaus, Belo Horizonte and São Luís have been delivering food and hygiene kits to desperate residents as hunger begins to bite.
They worry that coronavirus could spread rapidly in the crowded houses and alleyways, where there is often no basic sanitation, health services can be precarious and diseases such as tuberculosis and Zika have thrived.
The pandemic has exposed how little the Brazilian state knows about its poorest citizens, with the government grappling for weeks over an emergency monthly payment of $116 for three months to up to 25 million “informal” workers and the unemployed before launching an app last Tuesday. It also froze electricity bills for low-income Brazilians for three months.
People unable to access the payment
reportedly queued at tax offices and government banks in cities across Brazil. Some lacked the right social security numbers and as activists noted, not everybody has a mobile phone or credit for internet access.
Worldwide anti-black racism seems as inexorable as ever, even during this time of worldwide crisis.
So everyone: Stay home, wash your hands, clena and disinfect and...always stay aware!
Have a good afternoon!
P.S. Oh, I forgot something
It was nice to hear from The President today.
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NEWS ROUND UP BY DOPPER0189, BLACK KOS MANAGING EDITOR
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Minority business owners have always struggled to secure bank loans. Now, many banks want to deal only with existing customers when making loans through the government’s $349 billion aid package. New York Times: Black-Owned Businesses Could Face Hurdles in Federal Aid Program
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After she was forced to temporarily close Diaspora because of the coronavirus pandemic, Ms. Young tried to get an emergency loan under the federal government’s $349 billion relief program for small businesses. But Bank of America, one of the biggest banks participating in the program, refused to consider her application. Because Ms. Young had a credit card from Capital One, Bank of America said, Capital One was her primary bank. And Capital One was not yet accepting emergency relief loan applications. As of Friday, a week after the program was started, Capital One’s website still advised borrowers to keep checking back for updates and said its online application would be available “shortly.”
Ms. Young is among the thousands of small-business owners at risk of being shut out of the government effort, known as the Paycheck Protection Program, because of limits set by lenders grappling with overwhelming demand. These loans, which do not have to be repaid if the money is used for payroll, rent or mortgage expenses, could be a lifeline for struggling businesses — if they can get them.
And for small-business owners like Ms. Young, who is black, the hurdles could be much higher. That’s because minority-owned businesses often have weaker banking relationships than their white-owned counterparts — one legacy of the practice of redlining, or refusing to lend to people in communities of color. Research shows that black and Latino business owners are denied loans at higher rates.
Anticipating that minority business owners could struggle to tap federal aid, some lawmakers are proposing ways to earmark additional funds specifically for minority-owned businesses. And on Wednesday, a group of prominent black investors, including John W. Rogers Jr., the billionaire co-chief executive of Ariel Investments, a mutual fund manager, sent a letter to lawmakers expressing concern that the emergency loan program was already leaving black borrowers behind.
Yasmine Young, owner of Diaspora Salon, which she established in 2015 without any loans. She joined a lawsuit against Bank of America filed by borrowers whom the bank turned away because they had credit cards from other banks. Credit...André Chung for The New York Times
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As states have begun to release data on coronavirus deaths by race, what Spratling sees among her own community, and what she and others across the country have feared is confirmed: Black people have been particularly vulnerable to the ravages of the pandemic. Though African Americans make up nearly 14 percent of the population in Michigan, they account for around 40 percent of the state’s 1,076 coronavirus deaths as of April 9.
The disproportionate deaths from coronavirus among African Americans is a recurring pattern nationally. In Chicago, 67 percent of deaths have been black people. In Louisiana, that figure is 70 percent, with one-third of the state’s population being black. The death rates from Covid-19 by race are also disproportionate in places like Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and New York City. Even in states like Georgia, which has not released infection rates and deaths by race, the pattern re-appears: A large concentration of infections and deaths are in the southwestern part of the state, in a county that is nearly three-quarters black. A Pew Research Center report found in March that nearly half of black people see coronavirus as a major threat to their health, compared to a fifth of white people.
Detroit has one of the largest African American populations in the country — 79 percent of the city’s residents are black. And as residents like Spratling have noted, the city has seen a sudden, drastic rise of Covid-19 cases over the past week and a half. More than 80 percent of the state’s coronavirus cases are now in metro Detroit, making it Michigan’s epicenter. Even the country’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told ABC last week that “Detroit is starting to show some signs that they’re gonna take off.”
Residents, as well as health and elected officials, point to the city’s underlying inequalities as a reason.
The health disparities are stark for the community: Black people, from infants to older individuals, already die in disproportionately higher numbers than white people in Detroit, according to the city’s health department. The risk of diabetes is 77 percent higher for African Americans than white or Latinx communities in the city, a 2016 National Medical Association report found. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said higher blood pressure is more common among black people than white, Asian, or Latinx populations.
Leonard Edwards, 70, left, visits his father Will Edwards, 97, in Flint’s north side on March 20, 2020. Leonard, who recently had vertebrae surgery and has a cough, attempts to keep a safe distance for his father’s safety.
Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press
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While coronavirus has brought tragedy to many American households, the virus has an insurmountable toll on one Michigan woman after the disease claimed her entire family.
Sandy Brown, a resident of a Flint suburb, lost her husband, Freddie Lee Brown, Jr., and their only son, Freddie Brown III, to COVID-19 just days apart from one another, according to The Detroit News.
The elder Freddie was 59 years old when he succumbed to coronavirus complications on March 26. The younger Freddie was only 20 when he passed away on March 29.
“There’s not even a word created to describe my pain. It’s unimaginable,” Sandy Brown told the newspaper.
The father and son both had underlying conditions that made them vulnerable to the virus. The senior Freddie, whose lungs collapsed prior to his death, had a kidney transplant in 2012. The younger Freddie had asthma.
The couple had been married for 35 years. Freddie Brown, Jr., was a church elder of the Church of God and Christ and retired produce clerk at a grocery store. Freddie Brown III was attending Mott Community College and had plans to walk on the Michigan State University football team.
Sandy called Freddie III a miracle child. After giving up on having a child following two miscarriages, she gave birth to him at age 40.
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Economic crisis and covid-19 are forcing hard choices on most of the world. But the dilemma facing indebted poor countries is particularly acute. They can either pay foreign creditors or allow more of their citizens to die, say experts.
This dilemma is not new. In 2016 Angola spent nearly six times as much servicing its external debt as it did on public health care. Fifteen countries in sub-Saharan Africa spent more money paying creditors abroad than they did on doctors and clinics at home. But now, faced with a slump in revenues and skyrocketing borrowing costs as investors seek relative safety, many African governments are struggling to find the money to fight the pandemic and shore up their economies. Whereas rich countries are borrowing to spend about 8% of gdp on stimulus measures, African ones are spending just 0.8% of gdp.
This is because the virus has thrown petrol onto a slow-burning debt crisis. The countries most at risk of default—and, by definition, the least able to borrow affordably—are those with limited domestic savings and large external debts, such as Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana and Zambia. But they are not the only ones in trouble. Since 2010 average public debt in sub-Saharan Africa has risen faster than in any other developing region, from 40% to 59% of gdp in 2018. Most African countries have borrowed more than is prudent, said the imf last year; 18 were classed as being in debt distress, or at high risk of it.
Many homeowners in Western countries are getting a mortgage holiday because of the pandemic. Might governments in Africa get the equivalent? The previous big round of debt relief for the continent came via the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, which reduced foreign public debt of recipient countries from about 100% of gdp in 2005 to 40% by 2012. At the time Western governments and multilateral organisations, such as the imf and World Bank, were the biggest lenders to Africa. Now, though, China is the continent’s biggest bilateral creditor. Having signed loans worth more than $146bn to African governments since 2000, it may not be as forgiving.
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In 1960 alone, 17 African countries celebrated their independence from former colonial overlords. From Mauritania to Madagascar, national movements won the day, nearly doubling the number of people on the African continent living in independent nations.
No sea change like that is a coincidence, and none starts at an exactly pinpointable moment. But to understand 1960, you have to go back to December 1958, to that most yawn-inducing of all events: a conference.
December 8 in Accra saw the opening of the first-ever All-African People’s Conference (AAPC). And the connections made, anger stoked and rallying done in the subsequent week would bear fruit just two years later in the form of a global power shift.
Just one year before, Ghana had made history as the first state in sub-Saharan African to extricate itself from the clutches of its colonial masters. In his inaugural speech in March of 1957, Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah spoke about his longing for freedom not just for his own nation but for other colonized areas across Africa. “The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent,” he told a crowd of supporters.
And so Nkrumah, a staunch pan-Africanist, got to work with his chief adviser on African affairs, a Trinidadian intellectual named George Padmore. They’d previously had their own convictions reinforced at the Pan-African Congress in Manchester in the U.K. in 1945. Now they hoped to catch lightning in a bottle again — and help other would-be revolutionary leaders achieve their goals.
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We’ve known for a long time that Toyota’s Land Cruisers and Hilux pickup trucks are the go-to vehicles for armed groups of dubious legitimacy. You see them on the news all the time in locations across the Middle East and Africa. But how do these trucks, usually called technicals, make it from Toyota’s factories to the fleets of armed militants?
Global Witness, an organization that works on understanding and subverting the intersection between resource exploitation and human rights abuses, thinks they have the answer, at least when it comes to some of the Land Cruisers and Hiluxes operated by the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, a government-aligned militia group in Sudan largely composed of Janjaweed militias, the groups accused of committing genocide during the War in Darfur, sometimes called the Land Cruiser War for the heavy use of these Toyotas on all sides.
According to Global Witness, the Rapid Support Forces obtained more than a thousand Toyota vehicles in the first half of 2019. Global Witness alleges that these vehicles, a mixture of Land Cruiser 70 and Hilux pickup trucks, were purchased from a dealer in Dubai, transported across Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea and into Sudan where the RSF could put them into service.
But how did Global Witness track these Toyotas down? How do they know that they’re the same allotment of pickups? It’s rather impressive, actually.
Global Witness came into possession of an RSF spreadsheet detailing the purchase of vehicles from Dubai and managed to corroborate the details from the spreadsheet largely using images from social media, both from the RSF itself and others as well.
Starting with the spreadsheet itself, Global Witness contacted and confirmed that the dealers mentioned did indeed conduct transactions matching the prices, quantities, models, and other details mentioned in the documents. Some of these details were quite obscure, like the fact that some of the vehicles were 2019 models yet covered with decals from the prior model year. Those distinctive decals would prove crucial to identifying the pickups as they moved westward towards Sudan.
From there, Global Witness tracked the vehicles using social media posts. Tell-tale Gulf Cooperation Council emissions stickers placed on the drivers-side window helped identify the Hiluxes as social media posts captured the trucks in photos taken later on in June 2019, shortly after the June 3rd Massacre committed by the RSF and other government-aligned groups. Those same trucks had the out-dated decals on them as well.
Similar Toyota pickups being used by militants in Libya.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
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WELCOME TO THE TUESDAY’S PORCH
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE BLACK KOS COMMUNITY, GRAB A SEAT, SOME CYBER EATS, RELAX, AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF.
