Race LogoA9RE77.jpg

June 18, 2011 – January 2, 2012.

National Museum of Natural History

Lonnie Bunch, National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) director will moderate a discussion on how the museum will treat issues of race.

Panelists include Clement A. Price, PhD, Rutgers University, Nell Irvin Painter, Professor of History emerita, Princeton University and author of The History of White People, Creating Black America, and Southern History Across the Color Line and Mia Bay, PhD, professor at Rutgers University. Professor Bay is the author of two books: To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells and The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas About White People 1830-1925.

This program is part of the Smithsonian-wide conversation about race. The exhibition RACE: Are We So Different? will be at the National Museum of Natural History June 18, 2011 – January 2, 2012.

Books will be available for sale and signing at the program.

For more information please call (202) 633-0070

Help us Build Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and
Culture by becoming a Charter Membertoday! If you are already a Charter Member, would you consider helping us with
another donation today?

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Millions disenfranchised …by Rashad Robinson, ColorOfChange.org

12/14/2011 Nativegrl77 1 Comment

For years, the right wing has been trying to stop Black people, other people of color, young people, and the elderly from voting for partisan gain — and now some of America‘s biggest companies are helping them do it.

These companies have helped pass discriminatory voter ID legislation by funding a right wing policy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Voter ID bills linked to ALEC have already passed in seven states,1 and similar voter ID bills have been introduced in 27 other states.2

Supporters of discriminatory voter ID laws claim they want to reduce voter fraud (individuals voting illegally, or voting twice). But such fraud almost never actually occurs, and never in amounts large enough to affect the result of elections.3 What is clear is that voter ID laws prevent large numbers of eligible voters from casting a ballot, and could disenfranchise up to 5 million people.4

ALEC’s voter ID laws are undemocratic, unjust and part of a longstanding right wing agenda to weaken the Black vote. Major companies that rely on business from Black folks shouldn’t be involved in suppressing our vote. Please join us in demanding that these companies stop funding ALEC:

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/alec

ALEC’s right wing agenda

The American Legislative Exchange Council is a behind-the-scenes group whose membership consists of legislators and corporations who work together to push legislation that benefits their interests. ALEC crafts model legislation, which its member legislators then introduce in statehouses across the country, without mentioning its corporate ties. The group has written legislation to impose harsher criminal penalties on juveniles, to privatize education, and to break unions.

ALEC is funded in part by the Koch Brothers, the same family that funds the radically conservative tea party. It also receives funding from large corporations, many of which are household names.

“Voter fraud” and discriminatory voter ID laws

Supporters of discriminatory voter ID laws say they’re needed to stop “voter fraud.” The fact is that voter fraud rarely occurs, and when it does occur it does not happen at a scale that would change the outcome of an election. The kind of voter fraud addressed by the ALEC voter id bill happens as infrequently as death by lightning.5

Over and over again, the myth of widespread voter fraud is used to justify stronger restrictions on voting and voter registration (like voter ID laws), as well as voter roll purges. It has also been used to attack organizations which register large numbers of low income and minority voters, by painting simple mistakes made during registration drives as organized efforts to commit voter fraud. These kind of made up scandals have helped the right wing convince the public that voter fraud is real and voter ID laws are necessary to protect the integrity of elections.

The truth is that voter ID laws are discriminatory — Black people, Latinos, the elderly, students, people with disabilities, and the poor are all less likely to have the photo IDs necessary to vote under these laws.6 For example, if you’ve recently moved because of foreclosure or some other economic circumstance, you’re more likely to have recently ended up in a new state which won’t accept your out of state driver’s license. If you don’t have a car, you’re less likely to have a driver’s license in the first place.

In many states, it can be expensive and time consuming to secure the proper ID. Even when the ID itself is free, it often requires supporting documents like a birth certificate which cost money to achieve. There are already stories of voters who have been eligible for years struggling to navigate a frustrating bureaucratic maze in order to vote. Requiring ID to vote amounts to a modern day poll tax. And that’s the real purpose of voter ID laws – they are an important part of the modern effort to suppress the votes of groups that usually vote against right wing politicians.

These laws are part of a long history of voter suppression directed at Black folks and other underrepresented groups. No longer is the Black vote suppressed through violence, intimidation and literary tests. It’s now suppressed through laws that make it burdensome and difficult for many Black folks to vote.

Corporate-backed voter suppression

Some of the companies supporting ALEC may simply be unaware that the group is involved in voter suppression. Others might think that voter suppression will benefit their political interests, and hope that they can get away with supporting it because so few people have even heard of ALEC.

We’ve started reaching out to these companies to make sure they know what they’re supporting, and to demand that they stop. Adding your voice to this campaign will help us convince these companies that continuing to support ALEC will hurt their reputation with consumers. We hope that many of them will simply do the right thing and stop supporting ALEC. If they don’t, we’ll be prepared to shine a spotlight on them and make sure the world understands what they’re involved in.

Please take a moment to join us in standing up to corporate-backed voter suppression. And please ask your friends and family to do the same. It takes just a moment:

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/alec

Thanks and Peace,

— Rashad, James, Gabriel, Dani, Matt, Natasha and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
December 8th, 2011

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU—your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don’t share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

http://www.colorofchange.org/donate

References

1. “New Evidence of ALEC Connections in All Successful Voter ID Legislation,” Campus Progress, 09-08-11
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1065?akid=2314.1174326.9Z8yxY&t=7

2. “First, show your face,” The Economist, 09-17-11
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1066?akid=2314.1174326.9Z8yxY&t=9

3. “The Myth of Voter Fraud,” Washington Post, 03-29-07
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1067?akid=2314.1174326.9Z8yxY&t=11

4. “GOP, ALEC Could Make It Harder For 5 Million To Cast Ballots,” Mother Jones, 10-3-11
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1068?akid=2314.1174326.9Z8yxY&t=13

5. See reference 3.

6. “Citizens without proof,” Brennan Center For Justice, 11-2006
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1069?akid=2314.1174326.9Z8yxY&t=15

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Send a clear message now: “No help for the jobless? No vacation for Congress!” AFL-CIO

12/13/2011 Nativegrl77 2 Comments

Chris from South Carolina used to work in an unemployment office. Then he was laid off. Here’s his warning:
You should know that Congress has let the emergency benefits lapse several times in the past few years and always when a break is scheduled for them. It happened last Easter and last Christmas. They don’t care about the unemployed. They take their holiday break and deal with it when they return to Washington.
We can’t assume Congress will renew unemployment in time for the millions who are hanging by a thread before extended benefits expire Dec. 31. That’s why we’re pulling out all the stops. More than 2,000 jobless workers, activists and clergy are on Capitol Hill, right now—demanding a clean and immediate extension of emergency unemployment benefits. Thousands more are in district offices across the country.

As we gather on Capitol Hill and at district offices, activists across the country are flooding Congress with messages.

Add your voice: Help make sure the voices of America’s jobless can’t be ignored by Congress. http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=NNlhbPw0buvN0Kq3T7aq%2F2C84X%2BQ3emC

Diane from Michigan worked in the newspaper industry and is now unemployed. Here’s how she describes her situation:

Every job opening has hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants. It is almost impossible to get a job—especially if you also face age discrimination. Retraining is too costly. Meanwhile, we are hanging on by a thread. No health insurance….My current unemployment benefits are the only thing saving me from the street. I have faced food insecurity for the first time.

We must not let people like Diane be forgotten.

Make Congress hear the stories and see the faces of jobless workers. Contact Congress now and demand an immediate, clean extension of emergency unemployment benefits.

Momentum is building—but we can’t take the passage of emergency unemployment aid for granted.

Obstructionists like House Speaker John Boehner—who has nearly absolute control over what comes up for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives—continue to block a clean, immediate extension of emergency jobless aid. There’s no excuse for that. Especially when our economy is so bad and budget cuts in our communities are so dire.

Chris, a now unemployed unemployment office worker, asks a powerful question: “Don’t they realize they work for us?”

Tell Congress: “You work for us. Renew emergency unemployment aid now.”

Will obstructionists like Speaker Boehner really let benefits lapse yet again, take a vacation, come back and play partisan games?

Will the obstructionists let families get thrown out of their homes? Will they force kids to go hungry to extract cuts and concessions that hurt our most vulnerable people?

Send a clear message now: “No help for the jobless? No vacation for Congress!”

Thank you for all the work you do.

In Solidarity,

Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO

P.S. Our unemployment stories website has been covered by the media in publications lawmakers read while in Washington, D.C., including The Washington Post and The Hill—plus papers they read at home.

But we need your help to make sure every lawmaker feels the heat and sees these stories. Take action now.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Starbucks general counsel retires to work on Obama campaign …by Melissa Allison

12/13/2011 Nativegrl77

Starbucks general counsel retires to work on Obama campaign

Paula Boggs leaving Starbucks.

By Melissa Allison

Seattle Times business reporter

Starbucks general counsel and secretary Paula Boggs will retire April 2 to join President Obama’s re-election campaign. She has been at the coffee company since 2002.

Boggs will be based in Seattle and Santa Fe and work for the campaign in communities across the country.

In 2010, Obama appointed Boggs to the White House Council for Community Solutions, which has worked on community-developed solutions to youth development, education and employment.

Boggs is well-known at Starbucks headquarters for her singing and songwriting. She is a voting member for the Grammy’s and serves on the advisory board for KEXP.

Her legal career began in 1984 when she was a U.S. Army officer assigned to the Pentagon. She was a staff attorney for the White House before leaving the service in 1988, after which she served as assistant U.S. attorney in the Western district of Washington prosecuting fraud and regulatory crimes.

Boggs was a partner at Preston Gates & Ellis in Seattle from 1995 to 1997, working as a trial lawyer specializing in corporate civil litigation.

She was an executive at Dell Computer from 1997 to 2002

STARBUCKS

Paula Boggs

KEVIN P. CASEY / BLOOMBERG, 2010 … Paula Boggs, left, Starbucks general counsel and secretary of Starbucks, left, and Howard Schultz, chief executive officer, make a presentation at the 2010 annual shareholder meeting.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @AllisonSeattle.

~ Culture & History

The Untold Story … Horne of Africa

12/13/2011 Nativegrl77

The recent images of men, women and children starving in the Horn of Africa tell a painful story of famine and suffering. How does a nation recover from a devastating food crisis? To find out, Chip Duncan and Salim Amin returned to a Ethiopia, to a place where famine caused a massive death toll over 25 years ago. What they discovered was surprising and hopeful. In partnership with One, they created a documentary showing the contrast between 1984 and present-day Tigray. Read their words below, view a preview and watch their powerful short film. << click on link for VIDEO

In Somalia, innocent people are dying needless deaths due to a famine driven by politics and war. Those who are dying need our help and our voice.

Drought is a challenge faced by people around the world. Climate change is now making droughts more common and less predictable. But drought shouldn’t equal famine. Famine is the outcome of poor infrastructure, corrupt governments and warring factions who choose to use food as a weapon.

During our recent work in Ethiopia, we had a chance to revisit the site of the 1984 famine. Our film uses footage and stills from that famine to remind us of the suffering and of its causes. Our story also chronicles the policies and infrastructure put in place during the last two decades to build sustainable agriculture. Water retention systems, irrigation, improved transportation systems, terraced farming, training programs, improved seeds and fertilizers – this is the new legacy in Tigray Province. It’s a story worth sharing so people everywhere can promote small scale agriculture while motivating governments to make similar investments in the future.

Chip Duncan
Director, “The Untold Story”

I made a journey following the footsteps of my father from 25 years ago. When Mohamed Amin made that journey a quarter of a century ago, he never imagined it was one that would change his life forever. He had covered every major story in Africa over four decades, but nothing prepared him for what he saw in Korem in October 1984.

A famine of biblical proportions, with more than 5 million people on the verge of starvation. A famine that was, to a large extent, man-made. The ruler of Ethiopia at the time, Colonel Haile Mariam Mengistu, was using the famine as a tool to suppress the rebel movement that was rising against his brutal regime from the north of the country. He didn’t want the world to know this famine existed.

The pictures that my father shot on the plains of Korem changed his life and changed the world. They prompted the greatest single act of charity of the 20th century and saved the lives of millions of Ethiopians. After this story, he changed the way he looked at news coverage. He cared for the first time in his life and did everything he could to keep the story in the headlines. Those images were amongst the most powerful and iconic images in television history.

I was expecting to see Korem still reeling from the effects of that massive famine. It takes generations to repair that kind of damage, but I was in for a shock. I went in with the best TV production team I had ever worked with, and what we saw stunned us all! A massive drought is taking hold of the Horn of Africa once again, but Korem and Tigray Province is an oasis of crops. Irrigation schemes that have been put in place over the last decade. There’s also a new awareness of the types of crops to grow and how to market and sell them for the best prices; and new resilient seeds have all transformed a community from being “takers” to being “providers”.

The farmers of Tigray Province have proved that drought doesn’t have to equal famine, and smart aid can work.

Salim Amin
Chairman Camerapix/A24 Media