In her book Louisiana, Erma Brodber reflects on the alliances that should exist between the African American and Afro Caribbean peoples, symbolically repairing the fissures that exist between the two, while addressing an uncommon subject in Caribbean migrant literature. Brodber's literary themes toward the unification of the relationships shared amongst the black diaspora articulate the legal tensions and national differences that can impede these alliances. Although Brodber's novel approaches this by creating a reconnection of the African diaspora in a borderless and nationless transmigration, and sometimes through a spaceless spirit world, Page argues that in reality this reunification is affected by the rules of the state that simply cannot be ignored.;
The last week of January 2005, the Fifth Annual World Social Forum was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, bringing together 150,000 grassroots leaders, intellectuals and activists to discuss how the world can be made more free and more just. The conference's theme was "Another World Is Possible," and the speakers and participants showed that another, more fair treatment of Haiti is possible. The conference's keynote speaker, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, discussed the debt that the world owes Haiti in a press conference. He acknowledged that Haiti's Constitutional President had been kidnapped, and declared that he and other Latin American Presidents understood that there could be no solution to Haiti's crisis without President Aristide. At a workshop in Porto Alegre, called "Haiti, the International Community's Dictatorship," speakers from Haiti, the U.S. and the Caribbean led a discussion of the human rights crisis in Haiti, and explored ways that people from outside Haiti could promote the country's sovereignty and the return of its democracy.
In his farewell address as outgoing Caucus chair, U.S. Representative Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to serve as chairman during the 108th Congress and praised [Melvin L. Watt]'s intellect, skill, and balanced approach to solving today's public policy challenges. The new officers of the CBC for the 109th Congress are: Watt, chair; U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, 1st vice chair; U.S. Rep. Carolyn C. Kilpatrick, 2nd vice chair; U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis, secretary; and U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, whip. "We have to have dialogue, and we're trying to create opportunities for that dialogue to take place," said Watt, who admitted that it's hard sometimes for the CBC to take aggressive positions in the areas of trade because of differing views among its own constituents. "We have not been aggressive in the area of trade, advocating one trade policy over another, as we have on some of the more core issues."
"The U.S. government would prefer to tell Haiti what to do and when and how to do it," said Eugenia Charles, the Haitian-born director of Fondasyon Mapou, a Washingtonbased group that seeks to improve the quality of life for Haitians. The group sponsors weekly demonstrations in front of the Haitian Embassy demanding that political prisoners be freed and democracy be restored in Haiti. Thomas Griffin, a Philadelphia attorney and human rights advocate who traveled to Haiti last year, presented details of his findings to members of the Congressional Black Caucus on March 2. His report, released by the Center for the Study of Human Rights at the University of Miami School of Law, found that "Haiti's security and justice institutions fuel the cycle of violence. Summary executions are a police tactic, and even wellmeaning officers treat poor neighborhoods seeking a democratic voice as enemy territory where they must kill or be killed." [Barbara Lee]'s Haiti TRUTH (The Responsibility to Uncover the Tuth about Haiti) Act would form a TRUTH commission to investigate United States involvement in [JeanBertrand Aristide]'s removal.
Dzidzienyo,Anani (Author) and Oboler,Suzanne (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2005
Published:
New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
323 p, Contents: Flows and counterflows : Latinas/os, blackness, and racialization in hemispheric perspective / Suzanne Oboler and Anani Dzidzienyo -- A region in denial : racial discrimination and racism in Latin America / Ariel E. Dulitzky -- Afro-Ecuadorian responses to racism : between citizenship and corporatism / Carlos de la Torre -- The foreignness of racism : pride and prejudice among Peru's Limeños in the 1990s / Suzanne Oboler -- Bad boys and peaceful Garifuna : transnational encounters between racial stereotypes of Honduras and the United States (and their implications for the study of race in the Americas) / Mark Anderson -- Afro-Mexico : Blacks, indígenas, politics, and the greater diaspora / Bobby Vaughn -- The changing world of Brazilian race relations? / Anani Dzidzienyo -- Framing the discussion of African American-Latino relations : a review and analysis / John J. Betancur -- Neither white nor Black : the representation of racial identity among Puerto Ricans on the island and in the U.S. mainland / Jorge Duany -- Scripting race, finding place : African Americans, Afro-Cubans, and the diasporic imaginary in the United States / Nancy Raquel Mirabal -- Identity, power, and socioracial hierarchies among Haitian immigrants in Florida / Louis Herns Marcelin -- Interminority relations in legislative settings : the case of African Americans and Latinos / José E. Cruz -- African American and Latina/o cooperation in challenging racial profiling / Kevin R. Johnson -- Racial politics in multiethnic America : Black and Latina/o identities and coalitions / Mark Sawyer -- Racism in the Americas and the Latino scholar / Silvio Torres-Saillant -- Witnessing history : an octogenarian reflects on fifty years of African American-Latino relations / Nelson Peery
