Updates on Haiti and South Africa

Editing and formatting the book have taken up a lot of free time, so tonight we'll resume with posting. Thanks for still visiting, despite the silence on our part the past few days.

In going back over a lot of the posts, it was interesting to read about two stories that were discussed at length: the earthquake in Haiti and the World Cup in South Africa.

Haiti, a nation that was on the verge of a major tourism boost prior to that deadly earthquake, is having a difficult time emerging from the rubble. Despite the billions of dollars in aid sent to Haiti and the billions of tears shed by white people for the sorrowful state of the people in that developing nation, those who we call Haitians have done little to remove the debris:

From the dusty rock mounds lining the streets to a National Palace that looks like it's vomiting concrete from its core, rubble is one of the most visible reminders of Haiti's devastating earthquake.

Rubble is everywhere in this capital city: cracked slabs, busted-up cinder blocks, half-destroyed buildings that still spill bricks and pulverized concrete onto the sidewalks. Some places look as though they have been flipped upside down, or are sinking to the ground, or listing precariously to one side.

By some estimates, the quake left about 33 million cubic yards of debris in Port-au-Prince – more than seven times the amount of concrete used to build the Hoover Dam. So far, only about 2 percent has been cleared, which means the city looks pretty much as it did a month after the Jan. 12 quake.

Government officials and outside aid groups say rubble removal is the priority before Haiti can rebuild. But the reasons why so little has been cleared are complex. And frustrating.

Heavy equipment has to be shipped in by sea. Dump trucks have difficulty navigating narrow and mountainous dirt roads. An abysmal records system makes it hard for the government to determine who owns a dilapidated property. And there are few sites on which to dump the rubble, which often contains human remains.

Also, no single person in the Haitian government has been declared in charge of the rubble, prompting foreign nongovernmental organizations to take on the task themselves. The groups are often forced to fight for a small pool of available money and contracts – which in turn means the work is done piecemeal, with little coordination.

Projects funded by USAID and the U.S. Department of Defense have spent more than $98.5 million to remove 1.2 million cubic yards of rubble.

"There's not a master plan," Eric Overvest, country director for the U.N. Development Program, said with a sigh. "After the earthquake, the first priority was clearing the roads. That was the easiest part."

Overvest said the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission – created after the earthquake to coordinate billions of dollars in aid – has approved a $17 million plan to clear rubble from six neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince. The neighborhoods have not yet been selected, however, and it's unclear when debris will be removed from other areas...

It's not for lack of trying. The nonprofit organization CHF International spent about $5 million of USAID money on heavy machinery and paying Haitians to remove rubble from specific sites.

Dan Strode was the rubble-removal operations manager for CHF for three months; some dubbed him "the rubble guy" because of his enthusiasm for the job.

"Rubble isn't sexy," the Californian said. "And clearing it is not as simple as people think."

Strode's big worry: that debris won't be cleared fast enough and that the piles of rocks and garbage and dirt will be overtaken by tropical growth.

"If we don't clear it, what we will leave behind is something that is worse than before," he said. "If you come back in a year, and the rubble hasn't been cleared, it will be grown over, subject to landslides and unstable.

One has to ask: how much of the debris that hasn't been cleaned up was there BEFORE the earthquake? The nation was one big shanty town before the earthquake and you have to wonder if the debris resting untouched isn't a foreign sight to those Haitians who dwell in its midst.

Maybe the debris remains untouched and unmoved because of the presence of gangs, similar to the ones that kept aid workers from helping many in devastated areas right after the earthquake hit in January.

The Christian Science Monitor has written numerous stories on Haiti's attempt to emerge from the rubble of both the earthquake and its 200-year history of consistent stagnation and reliance on foreign aid and sympathy to endure.

If -- if -- all cameras, outside organizations and foreign influence were to depart from Haiti today and the great experiment of a nation becoming a "time capsule" experiment was instituted, what do you think researchers returning a year from now would find? What would the cameras show the world upon landing in Port-au-Prince?

Would The Christian Science Monitor still write stories about that nation's inability to rise from the debris? Would the debris miraculously be moved or would it still be in the same place?

Worse, without the massive amounts of foreign aid to Haiti to keep that island nation afloat, what would become of the people?

No amount of aid - in terms of dollars, tears, prayers or time - could lift that nation from the state it has been in since the glorious revolution that started in 1791.

The blessing of eradicating the white colonialists from the island to create the first Black Republic in history is Haiti's ultimate curse.

It was assumed that the World Cup in South Africa would turn out to be a disaster, based on the empirical evidence of crime and astronomically high murder rates present there. We were wrong, as for one glorious month South Africa put its best face on for the world to see.

That makeup is now running, showing that the true face of South Africa is still the same it was before the World Cup:

The farewell supper at a church in this city's northern suburbs had just begun when two men burst upon the small gathering of parishioners. They demanded jewelry, cellphones, cash and car keys from the pastor and his dinner guests. After corralling the group into the clergy vestry, the men drove away in a stolen Mercedes Benz.

The Aug. 25 church robbery lasted no more than thirty minutes. It was made public not in newspaper headlines the next day, but in a two-paragraph note at a Sunday church service.

Yet the incident is one of many, small and large, playing out in communities across South Africa, that has re-awakened a sense of national unease following the World Cup.

In the weeks since the soccer tournament ended in mid-July, jubilation has turned to jitters; self-congratulations to self-analysis. Sublime confidence in South Africa's future has, for many here, morphed into blind hope that the country will ride out another turbulent period with minimal damage to the economy and social psyche.

The month-long World Cup brought out the best of South Africa. Heavy police presence on the streets curbed crime. Big unions refrained from debilitating labor strikes. The world heaped praise on South Africans of all stripes for hosting a spirited sporting event.

Consider what's happened since.

Soon after the World Cup ended, the ruling African National Congress touted plans for a media watchdog, empowered to punish transgressing journalists with undefined penalties and overseen by a parliament the party controls. That proposal, along with a controversial "Information Protection bill" before parliament, has ignited an acrimonious national debate and attracted criticism world-wide from free-speech advocates.

The ANC's war of words with the media was still in full swing when public-service workers walked off their jobs. The wage strike emptied teachers from public schools, nurses from state hospitals and workers from government offices. On Tuesday, unions suspended the three-week strike to weigh a government salary increase.

The spotlight has also returned to South Africa's violent streets, now that a well-known white rugby player has been put on trial for killing a black police officer. The rugby player claimed he was a victim of a robbery—by the police. There's an investigation into the alleged use of his credit card at a McDonald's after the incident.

That's not all. The ANC itself appears in disarray as leaders jockey ahead of policy conclave later this month. The party's youth wing has criticized President Jacob Zuma's leadership and promoted its agenda of nationalizing South Africa's mines.

Most South Africans are trying to shrug off the post-Cup gloom and predictions of doom. Many harbor a deep belief that South Africa, like democracies elsewhere, can self-correct, that politicians and unions can be reeled in, that a collective survival instinct will save the nation once again.

"We've walked up to the brink before and looked over," said a Johannesburg-based mining executive. "We always manage to walk back."

That's not an unreasonable assumption, given what South Africa has come through in the past two decades. It's gone from an apartheid state pariah with a broken economy to a well-lauded host of the World's largest sporting event. But if the World cup fueled aspirations of what South Africa can accomplish at its best, the weeks since have shown what can go wrong when it's not.

The shaken churchgoers, robbed during the going-away party of a friend, suggest a sense of perspective will be needed in the days ahead. The church letter expressed gratitude that nobody was hurt; noted the recovery of the abandoned Mercedes; and explained a few new security measures.

"Beyond that," the letter summed up, "we are not going to get paranoid about this."

But hey, at least South Africa has Crusading White Pedagogues intent on uplifting those intellectually crippled by nature and inexcusable neglected by those who could provide nurture.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Though you might not like it, life is about change, progress, innovation and ultimately evolution.

These concepts are foreign and alien to Haiti and South Africa, places that are in a constant state of devolution.

The update on Haiti and South Africa? There is no hope for either nation.

#262. Onus on Barbershops

At a time when Black unemployment is rising to unprecedented levels, one is hard-pressed to come up with any viable vocational alternatives for those out-of-work or underemployed. Levels of Black unemployment were reaching 25-year highs back in January, now they approach a critical stage that might require the involvement of the United Nations to decide if this represents a Human Rights violation:

Well, the nation-wide suffering for African Americans has just intensified with the recent unemployment data delivered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's most recent report showed that while white unemployment only went up from 8.6 percent to 8.7 percent, black unemployment went up from 15.6 percent to 16.3 percent. This increase is at a rate that is 700 percent higher than the increase for white Americans.

The numbers tell an interesting and sad story about the forgotten economic hardships being felt by black people all across America. First, black unemployment is nearly double that of white Americans. While the rest of America finds itself screaming in pain over unemployment rates between eight and nine percent, black America is asked to remain silent about unemployment rates as high as 15 - 16 percent. While U.S. government officials are not acknowledging African American economic hardship, the United Nations is. As of April, the UN announced that it is investigating whether consistent black unemployment in America is a human rights violation…

The worst group of all are black teenagers. Their unemployment rate already stood at a startling 40.6 percent last month. This month, it rose to 45.4 percent, which is not only the highest unemployment figure of any group, it is also 90 percent higher than the unemployment rate for white teenagers, which held steady with a modest increase from 23.5 percent to 23.8 percent.

One can look at the rate of Black teenage unemployment as a distressing sign for the future job prospects of Black people once they reach adulthood. The truth of Black unemployment is probably far worse than anyone could imagine considering the high rates of incarceration and dependence on the government to subsist through the deft redistribution of tax-funds and, more importantly, job creation.

Job creation under the auspices Black Run America (BRA) comes in many forms, most importantly in the overrepresentation of Black people in the public sector. In spite of the existence of BRA, Black unemployment continues to lurch upward; shocking when one considers the inherent value proposition that a diverse workforce provides, according to a multitude of major corporations and colleges that promote – above all else – the unremitting importance of both a Black presence and Black involvement in every aspect of 21^st century life.

Why do Black people find employment so difficult to maintain when a position with the government (Federal, State or Local) is all but assured and guaranteed in BRA? The answer might be available in the US Department of Labor’s recent Labor Force Characteristics by Race and Ethnicity 2009 report:

In general, the labor market problems experienced by Blacks and Hispanics are associated with many factors, not all of which are measurable. Some of these factors include a tendency to be employed in occupations with high levels of unemployment, lower average levels of schooling, greater concentration in the central cities of urban areas where job opportunities may be relatively limited, and the likelihood of discrimination in the workplace. These factors and others may help explain the acute labor market difficulties Blacks and Hispanics encounter, especially during economic downturns.

From this report, we learn the top 10 occupations in America with the largest percentage of Black employment (for those wondering, the lowest is here):

1. Barbers—35.0%

2. Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides—34.0%

3. Residential advisors—29.6%

4. Security guards and gaming surveillance officers—28.6%

5. Postal service clerks-28.3%

6. Baggage porters, bellhops, and concierges—27.1%

7. Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators—26.4%

8. Taxi drivers and chauffeurs—25.7%

9. Bus drivers—24.9%

10. Parking lot attendants—24.4%

Outside of the United States Postal Service, all of these private-sector fields of employment yield high growth potential and an obvious financial windfall befalling those Black people who pursue these illustrious vocations. Better still, the performance requirement for none of these jobs require an overabundance of education.

The US Postal Service (a virtual jobs program for Black people) continues to lose billions, though the outstanding contributions of the Black employees are routinely highlighted as a source of great pride, despite the looming threat of insolvency and the potential displacement of those Black employees:

“We view diversity as a winning business strategy and use it as a tool to deliver results,” said Susan LaChance, vice president, Employee Development and Diversity. “It makes good business sense.”

Forty percent of postal employees are minorities as compared to 32.8 percent in other federal agencies. Fifteen percent of executives are African-Americans. The Postal Service employs approximately 124,000 African-Americans, 52,000 Hispanics, 50,000 Asians, 1,300 native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders and nearly 4,000 American Indian/Alaska Natives.

One can only laugh at a company that continues to trumpet its racially diverse workforce at a time when it posts billion dollars losses; all on the tax payer’s dime.

It appears that any stimulus plan to benefit Black people and create sorely needed jobs must start in the one industry that is already a vocational path for many Black people and a constant source of community pride and entrepreneurial activity –the barbershop.

Though they might not like their own hair, Black people find a trip to the barbershop or hair salon a necessity of life and important monthly ritual:

Barbershops are a pulse of black America — a place where the frankness of what the men and women who frequent them say is exceeded only by the passion with which they speak. They are one of the places white politicians should go to gauge the thinking of black America. And they ought to be the sounding board for any black politician who wants to do more than just pay lip service to the idea of representative government.

"When you leave the barbershop, you look better, but you also want to feel better," the elderly owner of Randolph-Wright's fictional barbershop says. I know what he means.

In France, the bourgeois once spent their time in salons debating important issues of the day. Black people gather in the local hair salon to discuss these issues:

“To fully appreciate the political thought and action of African Americans, it is imperative to understand that these interactions are more than social. They are the spaces where African Americans jointly develop understandings of their collective interests and create strategies to navigate the complex political world,” wrote Harris-Lacewell in her forthcoming book, Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought, to be published in March by Princeton University Press.

The conversations reveal ideologies, which are tied to black intellectual traditions and linked to African-American public opinion, she said.

Harris-Lacewell was joined in her work by graduate student Quincy Mills, a black male doctoral candidate in History, who spent four months hanging out in an African-American barbershop on Chicago’s South Side to listen to the patrons’ conversations.

“They talked about white power structures and the relationship of African Americans to the state and to capitalism. They critiqued black leaders, discussed the political power of the black church, argued about reparations and cheered on African-American Olympic athletes,” Harris-Lacewell said.

The 2002 film Barbershop inadvertently showed why high unemployment rates are found in the Black community, conversely showing the importance of the barbershop – both culturally and economically – to the Black community:

On a cold winter Saturday in Chicago, Calvin Palmer, Jr. (Ice Cube) decides he's had enough of trying to keep open the barbershop his father handed down to him. He can't borrow enough money to keep the place open, it's not bringing in enough revenue, and he's more interested in coming up with get-rich-quick schemes to bring in easy money. Without telling his employees or the customers, Calvin sells his barbershop to a greedy loan shark named Lester Wallace (Keith David), who lies about keeping the place the same and suddenly makes plans to turn the place into a strip club.

Sadly, the barbershop cannot supply an unlimited number of jobs and careers to an increasingly beleaguered segment of the Black community, who find themselves separated from their former vocations.

The undue stress on barbershop owners to shoulder the job creations burden for jobless Black people when a multitude of other vocations apparently lack the alacrity for diversity that the public sector maintains is worrying and a major cause for concern when considering their future job prospects.

Of course, one look at the jobs that Hispanics perform with the highest percentages should provide enough fodder for an immigration reform movement to arise among Black people. A direct correlation should be obvious between high Black unemployment and high levels of illegal and legal immigration, though those bemoaning the continued proliferation of out-of-work Black people steadfastly refuse to acknowledge or even discuss.

Thus, the onus is on Barbershops to continue to support the dreams and aspirations of Black people everywhere. They must continue to the bedrock of Black employment, a place where a haircut is only one facet of the job performed, and the center of cultural vitality of the community.

If not, what industry will pick up the slack?

Stuff Black People Don’t Like includes the onus on barbershops, the primary industry that must continue to off-set the high rates of Black unemployment. Without barbershops, one can only shudder at the high rates of Black people who would be considered not economically viable and worsening the bleak economic outlook for Black employment.

But barbershops cannot shoulder the load forever. The United Nations already questions the potential human rights violation inherent in the high unemployment rates for Black people now, so another industry must step up to the plate.

10-10 -10: Let the Hype Begin

Let the hype begin. On October 10, 2010 (hence, 10-10-10) two huge changes come to the Web site.

Thanks largely to the generosity of readers, one major change will be introduced on 10-10-10.

Better yet, October 10, 2010 is the date that SBPDL: Year One is introduced to an unsuspecting world.

Mark your calendars now. 10-10-10 is the date Stuff Black People Don't Like goes deadwood.

Don't expect to see the book in stores, but do expect to see the book available here.

10-10-10 -- SBPDL: Year One will be made available.

A backlog of posts will be coming tomorrow, so stay tuned. After all, 10-10-10 is right around the corner.

Did They Leave a Tip? The Tragic Death of Richel Nova

Black people don't like to tip. This monetary peculiarity is a well-known fact in the service industry and one that we have discussed before here at SBPDL.

The following story omits if a gratuity was left or not, but it does relate the tragic tale of a Domino's pizza delivery man being killed for merely performing his duty of transporting the restaurants wares to the consumer:

Boston police have arrested three suspects who they say stabbed a Domino's pizza delivery man and drove off in his car.

Two teenangers and a 20-year-old are charged with homicide in what investigators described as a brutal crime.

Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley said 58-year-old Richel Nova's death "was chilling in its callousness and violence."

CNN affiliate WCVB reported that the three suspects broke into a vacant home Thursday night and then made a call for pizza to be delivered, according to police.

When Nova arrived, he was stabbed multiple times at the kitchen door, police said.

The group drove off in Nova's car, then left it in a church parking lot, WCVB reported, citing a police report. They took about $100 Nova was carrying -- and the pizza -- with them.

"Richel Nova was a hard-working man, making an honest living to provide for his family when he was preyed upon by three vicious thugs," Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis told reporters. "For a small amount of money, these suspects committed unspeakable acts of violence while showing Mr. Nova no mercy."

Friends told WCVB that Nova, a Dominican immigrant who moved to Massachusetts more than 20 years ago, worked three jobs to provide a better life for his son and twin 20-year-old daughters.

"It's a shame," friend Rafael Hernandez told WCVB. "You come here to change your life and do better, and that's what happens to you."

Michel Andre St. Jean, 20, Alexander Emmanuel Gallett, 18 and Yamiley Mathurin, 17 are accused of homicide, armed robbery and armed breaking and entering of a dwelling.

They are scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday, WCVB reported.

For those wondering, Yamiley Mathurin's Myspace profile can be found here. The three "people" took $100 from Nova and absconded with the pizza. They left him to die, an immigrant who came to America to perform one of the many jobs that Black people simply refuse to perform.

It's not that there are certain jobs Americans won't do; it's just there are certain Americans who won't perform the jobs. Nova wanted a better life for himself, but was cut down by a certain type of American that doesn't have that same mindset, drive and ambition.

However, the world outside the United States is filled with billions of people who would drop everything at a moments hesitation and move here to perform ANY job, no matter the task. Filling menial jobs is part of the reason that the Black unemployment is so bad:

On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the while the country gained 162,000 jobs in March, the overall unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.7 percent. And it's much tougher for teenagers; The jobless rate for those between ages 16 and 19 rose to 26.1 percent. For African-American teens, it's even worse: That rate stands at 41.1 percent.

"They are competing with people who have experience, and they simply don't have it," says Deborah Shore, founder of Sasha Bruce Youthwork, a group that provides housing and workforce training to homeless kids in Washington, D.C. "It's the worst unemployment for teens ever."

The longer they go without work experience, the harder it will be for them to find jobs in the future, she says.

Even when businesses start hiring in large numbers again, the younger generation will be the last to see that benefit.

"The basic story is that young people are going to be at the end of the queue — and particularly African-American young people," says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

He says that because they lack job connections or good transportation — or because of racial discrimination — black American teens are the last to be hired after any recession.

"People find ways to fill their time," he adds, "and, if they can't work, probably most of the ways they're going to end up filling their time are not good ways."

Reversing Progress

The generation born to today's unemployed teens may also be affected, says Algernon Austin, director of race, ethnicity and the economy program at the Economic Policy Institute. Joblessness, homelessness and instability hurt a child's ability to get a good education, Austin says. And because of that, the economic progress African-Americans made during the 1990s is effectively being erased.

"I believe in the next 10 to 20 years, we may see declines in the academic performance of black high school graduates," Austin says.

The above article (from NPR) doesn't offer an optimist picture for future Black employment prospects, considering the quote regarding Black academic performance declining in the next 10, 20 years (considering the amount of money spent trying to rectify this, one quickly should ascertain the increasingly expensive negative ROI building up).

This is why the South must be left. Interestingly, the article claims racial discrimination plays into Black unemployment.

Black Run America (BRA) exists to sniff out discrimination toward Black people in its every form and manifestation and any small business daring to practice such draconian measures as racial discrimination would quickly have its doors shuddered by the EEOC and other bureaucratic minions of BRA on the County, State and Federal level.

Sigh. Does this story showcase the job prospects for the future?:

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Human trafficking, drug dealing and prostitution are all part of a five-month-long investigation by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. Undercover Metro detectives say a grand jury has indicted three people for felony charges after they learned a woman was being held against her will and used for sex.

24-Hour News 8 spoke with undercover Vice detective Laura Smith who says the initial police run was for an alleged rape but what officers found in a couple of rooms at the Motel 6 on Indianapolis’ east side was evidence of prostitution. That investigation turned into a Human Trafficking investigation.

Now, three people facing felony charges in the case:

• Chris Smiley, 27
• Ayannah Willis, 26
• Latoya Harlin, 21

Court documents detail the relationships of the three, who called themselves "Team Smiley."

The victim says Smiley gave her parents drugs, but they didn't pay for the drugs. So, she says she was forced to pay for her parents’ drug debt.

The Chicago Sun-Times is running a series by John W. Fountain on the horrible rates of Black-on-Black violence in that city. One of the stories, entitled A Plea for Black People to Stop Killing Each Other, has mysteriously vanished from the Web site.

This column by Fountain, is still available:

Dear young black man, You are a prince, a descendant of ancestors who survived the humid hell of slave dungeons and the unforgiving sun of southern plantations, whips and chains, castration, pain.

And even if you never knew the man whose seed you are -- that man who was supposed to be your father -- you are more than a mistake or statistic. You are life, blood and soul.

You are wondrously made by the creator in the image of Him who has a plan and a good destiny for your life.

And yet, I stood a few days ago inside the Destiny Worship Center on the West Side, the sanctuary filled with teenagers, some wearing memorial T-shirts, and a shiny, mahogany, rose-draped casket that bore Robert Freeman's 13-year-old body. I stood unable to reconcile the truth with the facts.

The fact is, Robert is dead, shot 13 times, one piercing bullet for each year of life.

The truth is, he shouldn't be.

The fact is, Robert's killer was likely a young black man. Fact is, after my plea to you last week to put down your guns, the next day I was greeted by news of 17 people shot overnight, two fatally, and on Sunday morning, news of 15 more people wounded in overnight shootings, one fatally. Even as I write, the fact is that 8-year-old Tanaja Stokes, is dead -- fatally shot in a crossfire while she jumped rope with her cousin Ariana Jones, 7, who was critically wounded.

Chicago is a war zone, awash in Black-on-Black crime. So is Baltimore. In Detroit, Jesse Jackson recently had his SUV stripped down by some of that cities fine inhabitants.

When thinking about those who alleged killed Richel Nova, one is reminded of a much derided scene from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Bill Cosby is wrong to crusade on behalf of a people that Disingenuous White Liberals consider mere pets -- pets that they can display at a moments whim to showcase their moral superiority to everyone else, though they do little to help the situation by encouraging reckless behavior that creates a more than 70 percent out-of-wedlock birthrate and a shockingly high incarceration rate.

RIP Richel Nova. Your death is on the hands of the ultimate enablers -- Disingenuous White Liberals -- who daily bathe in the cleansing waters that being the main proponents of Black Run America provides.

The underclass that Thugreport.com profiles daily is dying, by their own hand. Let them die.