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CONTENTS

• Killer floods devastate Jamaica
• Bahamas elect new PM
• Scary cancer stats in T&T
• CARICOM rebuked as "aimless"
• US nurse recruiters back in Jamaica
• Richie Richardson to become politician
• Xenophobia is not the problem
• Violence in schools rise alarmingly in Jamaica
• Spain contributes to Haiti
• WI take Test series against India
• Music awards for Shaggy
• Mass-produced "pan"
• Merlene Ottey becomes Slovenian citizen
• Simoes quit as T&T coach
• Reader criticises Hot Calaloo on Caribbean Conference in SC
• Michael Moore tells:Who you really should  fear

Killer floods devastate Jamaica

Rain, rain, go away…..
Hurricanes grab the headlines, but floods can be just as deadly and devastating. Over 9 days of heavy rainfall has created such a devastating flood in Jamaica recently. So far:

• Nine people have been killed
• Roads were turned into raging rivers
• Rivers overflowed their banks sweeping portions of roads and cars away
• Landslides have buried roads leaving communities cut off
• Students were forced to miss school including some who were taking the crucial CXC and GCE school leaving exams because schools were closed or were inaccessible. Make-up exams of these critical measurements are rare, but confidence has been expressed that they will be given.
• Poultry farmers saw thousands of their chickens die and had to be buried to prevent disease.
• Banana plantations have suffered severe damage placing the filling of the EU banana quota in doubt
• Sugar factories could not operate for over 5 days, forcing such loss in production that a ship waiting in port for a contracted 14,000 tons bound for the UK would only receive 10,700 tons after that long wait. This could force Jamaica to fail to meet its sugar supply quota and could create serious trade consequences.
• An early estimate of agricultural damage exceeds $J500 million dollars not including banana and sugar.
• It is estimated that 5,000 kilometers of roadway including Parish Council and farm roads have been damaged.
• Eleven of the 14 parishes suffered severe damage with Clarendon and Manchester the worst hit.

The incumbent Free National Movement (FNM) party was severely trounced in general elections by the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) in the Bahamas on May 2^nd. The leader of the PLP, Perry Christie, has been sworn in as Prime Minister. Also sworn in is Cynthia Pratt as the first woman Deputy Prime Minister.

The PLP won a landslide of 29 of 40 seats. The FNM won only 7 seats with the remaining 4 going to independents. Two of these independents are former FNM members. The FNM loss was so bad that :

• It won only 1 of the 24 seats in the capital Nassau
• All Ministers except one and the outgoing PM lost their seats
• FNM leader Tommy Turnquist and his deputy lost
• The FNM has no leader now in the Parliament
• Outgoing PM Hubert Ingraham who led the FNM to twon consecutive victories in 1992 and 1997 has declined resuming leadership of the party

Scary cancer stats in T&T

Statistics have revealed that 1 in 3 persons in Trinidad and Tobago is likely to develop some form of cancer. Medical estimates point to a staggering 4,000 new cases each year. The only facility providing radiation treatment is the St. James Medical facility. Of the two radiation machines, only one is in use as there are no trained personnel to operate the other. So the lack of trained personnel, including radiographers, continue to plague the delivery of health care. Doctors report that approximately 25 new persons per week show up at the radio therapy clinic to seek treatment. Many are turned away as there is a waiting list of over 300.

CARICOM rebuked as "aimless"

Gary Voss, president of the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce, (CAIC), and former chairman of Lever Brothers, chided Jamaica and other CARICOM countries for "drifting aimlessly", while other countries outside the Caribbean were shoring up strategies to gain competitive advantage in world trade.

"The Caribbean as a whole does not have a strategic plan and does not know where it wants to be in the year 2010 and beyond," the CAIC boss said

He made comparisons with the obstacles that the European Union (EU) had to overcome such as wars, completely different cultures and languages. Still they were able to come together and have a single currency. Whereas the 13-member CARICOM lagged far behind and cannot get their act together in a Single Market and Economy.

I think these criticisms are deserved. To be fair I think CARICOM leaders are walking on eggs. For CARICOM to be really effective, countries will have to give up some sovereignty for the single market. In the EU, member countries were told to stop growing a particular product and concentrate on something else. At times that generated strong local protests, but it prevailed and the EU was strengthened ultimately. In CARICOM on the other hand, such an action would surely become a political liability that it probably would not stand a chance.

If CARICOM is to succeed, every member should benefit from it. Right now Jamaica has a very lopsided balance of trade with the other CARICOM countries. If this was so because of compromises to benefit Jamaica’s trade outside CARICOM, that would be ok, but it does not.

CARICOM does seem aimless. It is easy for a businessman to make those charges because he does not have to deal with the political reality of putting unpopular measures into effect. The bottom line is that governments do not trade anything. The private sector does and it is they who should be leading the charge and governments facilitating the changes.

US nurse recruiters back in Jamaica

They're baaa-ck!
Yes US recruiters are back in Jamaica seeking nurses there. They have promised benefits such as Green Card (permanent residency) sponsorship, free flights and "full support prior and during" nursing contracts. Jamaica is already short of nurses. This offer must sounds very tempting. Nevertheless, last year, both the Ministry of Health and the Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) insisted that the health sector was not in trouble despite the annual trek of Jamaican nurses seeking jobs overseas. It seems baffling that this is not a crisis despite plans to increase the output of trained nurses by 60%. Jamaica loses about 8% of its registered nurses and more than 20% of its specialist nurses annually. Many hospitals already suffer nurse shortages

The Ministry of Health, within the past few weeks, recruited more than 30 nurses from Cuba to fill vacancies. It is nice to have Cuba to come to the rescue. But, it seems inevitable that some time soon in the future, these Cuban nurses will also be lured away by the "yankee dollar" to seek political asylum in the US embassy and end up also in the US. Cuban doctors helping in Zimbabwe did it, so how much longer will Cuban nurses be able to resist the US gravy train?

Richie Richardson to become politician

Former West Indian Test cricket captain Richie Richards has announced that he will be running in the next general elections for Parliament for the ruling Antigua Labour Party. Prime Minister Lester Bird confirmed this and announced plans for Richardson to become a Senator in the upper house immediately. In the words of the cricket hero ""I intend to bat for the Labour Party with the same diligence and fervour with which I served the Antigua and West Indies cricket teams."

Xenophobia is not the problem

Recently Dr. Richard Bernal charged publicly that Jamaica and other Caribbean territories suffer from a bad case of "xenophobia", the deep fear of foreign competition, foreign companies and dislike of foreigners. Dr. Bernal has earned tremendous respect for the job he did as Jamaica's Ambassador to the US. Now he has moved up to become the Director General of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM).

Nevertheless, I have to take issue with that charge. Fear of foreign competition and foreign companies are very real and they deserve to be feared. In Jamaica and other Caribbean countries even agricultural products are spoiling on the ground unharvested because they cannot compete with cheap foreign imports. Just weeks ago it is reported in Jamaica that dairy farmers are killing their cows for beef and pouring gallons of milk down the drain because they can't compete with foreign imported milk powder. It would be nice if someday local producers would be able to compete with these multinational foreign corporations, but not in the foreseeable future. Foreign competition, bit by bit, is killing local industries and is accelerated by globalisation.

Besides it has been my experience that opposite to xenophobia, Jamaicans would rather buy a foreign product over a locally produced one regardless of the quality. That is the real problem, Dr. Bernal.

Violence in schools rise alarmingly in Jamaica

Seems not long ago school children in Jamaica were as if immune to violence committed on them and by them. Sadly those days of innocence are fading rapidly. In recent issues of Hot Calaloo we have seen thugs actually singling out innocent school children for violence and intimidation. Now violence by schoolchildren are on an alarming rise.

In the last few weeks police had to be called in because:

• Rival gangs consisting of about a total of 16 machete-wielding and ratchet-toting students at Frome Technical High School in Westmorland sent teachers fleeing from their classrooms. One student was chopped in the face, treated at hospital and sent home.
• 5 Calabar High school students stabbed a school security guard 13 times accusing him of being an "informer". 13 times!
• A student at Clan Carty High in Kingston stabbed a teacher during class sending the teacher to the hospital in a battle for his life.

These incidents raise some troubling questions. Are we on the path to violence in schools that we thought occurred only in America? Is violence in schools a natural product of the new Jamaican way of life or is it imitated from outside the island?

Spain contributes to Haiti

Spain has contributed US$70,000 to the Organisation of American States (OAS) Special Mission to Strengthen Democracy in Haiti. The funds will be used to support the missions’s work in the area’s of democracy, human rights, security and the administration of justice.

WI take Test series against India

The pride is back!….maybe
The West Indies cricket team won the recently completed Test series against the touring India team by 2-1 in the 5-game series. It was a convincing win after trailing 0-1. Chanderpaul was voted Man-of-the-series.

Victories in the 2 tests by 10 wickets (Test 3) and by 155 runs (Test 5), along with dominant positions in the drawn games indicate hopefully that the West Indies cricket is back. Maybe. However, but bear in mind that India has never defeated the West Indies in the West Indies.

3^rd Test WI vs India (WI won by 10 wickets)
India 102 (Dillon 4 for 41); WI 394 (Hooper 115, Chanderpaul 101 n.o,, Sarwan 60, Lara 55)
India 296 (Ganguly 60 n.o., Dillon 4 for 82); WI 5 without loss

4^th Test (Draw)
India 513 for 9 dec. (Laxman 130, A. Ratra 115 n.o., R. Dravid 91, W. Jaffer 86) WI 629 for 9 dec. ( Chanderpaul 136 n.o, Hooper 136, R. Jacobs 118, W. Hinds 65, Sarwan 51)

5^th Test(WI win by 155 runs)
WI 422( WW Hinds 113, Gayle 68, Sarwan 65, R. Jacobs 59, Chanderpaul 58, H Singh 5 for 138); India 212 ( V Laxman 65 n.o., Dillon 5 for 71)
WI 197 (Chanderpaul 59, Khan 4 for 79); India 252 (Tendulkar 86)

Music awards pile up for Shaggy

Jamaican reggae artist, Orville Richard Burrell, better known as Shaggy, continues to accumulate an impressive haul of music awards. Among his awards are:

• Male Artiste of the year by Billboard.
• Male Album Artiste of the Year by Billboard
• Worlds best selling male artist, by Worlds Music Awards, beating out Michael Jackson, Enrique Iglesias, and Robbie Williams
• The worlds best-selling American artist, by Worlds Music Awards
• The world's best-selling pop male artist , by Worlds Music Awards
• Best Selling Album, foreign or domestic by Canadian Juno Awards

Shaggy hosted the World Music Awards along with actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, and singer Mark McGrath. The World Music Awards is an annual event under the patronage of Prince Albert of Monaco.

Mass-produced "pan"

So far steel band instruments have been produced by skilled craftsmen who have developed their skills into a fine art. But, recently a development that might have a big impact on steel band instruments has taken place. George Whitmyre and Harvey Price, two American inventors have secured a patent for mass-producing "pan". They say they have no plans to "steal" pan from T&T, but lets face it, the power of the buck is very seductive and that could change. The verdict of "panmen" as to the quality of these mass-produced pans is yet to come.

Merlene Ottey becomes Slovenian citizen

The greatest female sprinter Jamaica has ever produced will run for Jamaica no more. She has not retired, but instead, on May 7 2002, she became a citizen of Slovenia. So, take out your atlas. The government of Slovenia authorized Ottey's naturalization under a special law which enables foreigners to become Slovene citizens if they possess outstanding skills.

Although she has never won an Olympic gold medal, many consider her among the greatest female sprinters ever. She is certainly the most enduring, competing for Jamaica from when she was only 14.

She is the most winning female athlete at the Olympics with 8 medals and she holds the record for both sexes with 14 World Championship medals. Indoors she has a record of 6 medals at World Championships. Still she lacks an Olympic gold medal and a gold medal over the 100 metre distance, but it has been so close a couple of times. Counting all the medals Ottey won in different championships you reach an amazing number of 46 (5 junior medals). Her remarkable 57 100 metre finals (from September 1987 to August 1991) and 36 200 metre finals (from 1989 to August 1991) without losses stands out as a unbeatable mark in the women’s sprint.

She was born in a little country town of Cold Springs in Jamaica in 1960. So at the ripe age of 42, she intends to resume competition in early June 2002, but for Slovenia. She will be coming back from injury, but she will be Jamaica's Roving Ambassador no more.

Simoes quits as T&T coach

Rene Simoes, the Brazilian coach, who guided Jamaica's reggae boyz soccer to the finals of the 1998 World Cup in France has resigned as the coach of T&T. He was disappointed with the lack of funds to support the program and was especially dismayed by the denial of funds for the national team to play against top foreign competition.

Reader criticises Hot Calaloo on Caribbean Conference in SC

Hi
I am truly sorry that you are advertising Bridge to the Future at a time when the NAACP is boycotting SC. This certainly is not the time to undermine what the Afro Americans are doing.......
Lana Berry

Editor's Reply:

Thanks for your email. You have raised a real dilemma. I forgot about the boycott and I am sure or hope the organisers of the conference did too. I included information about it in Hot Calaloo as a free service, not as a paid ad. Let me assure you I would not accept an ad which went against NAACP policy. I will place a link to the NAACP site regarding the boycott in an effort to make up for my error.

Michael Moore tells: Whom should you really fear

The article below was emailed to me. It is long because I have reprinted it in its entirety. I thought that to shorten it by a single word would do it an injustice. The article originated from the British Guardain, and is exerpted from Michael Moore's new best-selling book (currently #1 on NY Times list), Stupid White Men: And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation  .
Michael Moore is white but he is not stupid. If you are tired of the distorting brainwashing drivel from the mass media, then read this article and the book. He tells it like it is and wages a war of truth on behalf of the underdog. He lampooned General Motors Corporation in his acclaimed movie "Roger and Me". He took the job-stripping corporations to task in his other book Downsize This! .... 
You can buy Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry...…" here from Amazon.com and also support Hot Calaloo by clicking on either the title or book picture links.

Michael Moore writes.... I don't know what it is, but every time I see a
white guy walking towards me, I tense up. My heart starts racing, and I
immediately begin to look for an escape route and a means to defend myself.
I kick myself for even being in this part of town after dark. Didn't I
notice the suspicious gangs of white people lurking on every street corner,
drinking Starbucks and wearing their gang colours of Gap turquoise or J Crew
mauve? What an idiot!

Now the white person is coming closer, closer - and then - whew! He walks by
without harming me, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
White people scare the crap out of me. This may be hard for you to understand - considering that I am white - but then again, my colour gives me a certain insight. For instance, I find myself pretty scary a lot of the time, so I know what I'm talking about. You can take my word for it:

if you find yourself suddenly surrounded by white people, you better watch out. Anything can happen. As white people, we've been lulled into thinking it's safe to be around other white people. We've been taught since birth that it's the people of that other colour we need to fear. They're the ones who'll slit your throat!

Yet as I look back on my life, a strange but unmistakable pattern
seems to emerge. Every person who has ever harmed me in my lifetime - the
boss who fired me, the teacher who flunked me, the principal who punished
me, the kid who hit me in the eye with a rock, the executive who didn't
renew TV Nation, the guy who was stalking me for three years, the accountant
who double-paid my taxes, the drunk who smashed into me, the burglar who
stole my stereo, the contractor who overcharged me, the girlfriend who left
me, the next girlfriend who left even sooner, the person in the office who
stole cheques from my chequebook and wrote them out to himself for a total
of $16,000 - every one of these individuals has been a white person.
Coincidence?
I think not.
I have never been attacked by a black person, never been evicted by a
black person, never had my security deposit ripped off by a black landlord,
never had a black landlord, never had a meeting at a Hollywood studio with a
black executive in charge, never had a black person deny my child the
college of her choice, never been puked on by a black teenager at a Mötley
Crüe concert, never been pulled over by a black cop, never been sold a lemon
by a black car salesman, never seen a black car salesman, never had a black
person deny me a bank loan, and I've never heard a black person say, "We're
going to eliminate 10,000 jobs here - have a nice day!"

I don't think that I'm the only white guy who can make these claims.
Every mean word, every cruel act, every bit of pain and suffering in my
life has had a Caucasian face attached to it.

So, um, why is it exactly that I should be afraid of black people?
I look around at the world I live in - and, I hate to tell tales out
of school, but it's not the African-Americans who have made this planet
such a pitiful, scary place. Recently, a headline on the front of the
Science section of the New York Times asked Who Built The H-Bomb? The
article went on to discuss a dispute between the men who claim credit for
making the first bomb. Frankly, I could have cared less - because I already
know the only pertinent answer: "It was a white guy!" No black guy ever
built or used a bomb designed to wipe out hordes of innocent people, whether
in Oklahoma City, Columbine or Hiroshima. No, friends, it's always the white
guy. Let's go to the tote board:

* Who gave us the black plague? A white guy.
* Who invented PBC, PVC, PBB, and a host of chemicals that are
killing us? White guys.
* Who has started every war America has been in? White men.
* Who invented the punchcard ballot? A white man.
* Whose idea was it to pollute the world with the internal combustion
engine? Whitey, that's who.
* The Holocaust? That guy really gave white people a bad name.
* The genocide of Native Americans? White man.
* Slavery? Whitey!
* US companies laid off more than 700,000 people in 2001. Who ordered
the lay-offs? White CEOs.

You name the problem, the disease, the human suffering, or the abject
misery visited upon millions, and I'll bet you 10 bucks I can put a white
face on it faster than you can name the members of 'NSync.

And yet, when I turn on the news each night, what do I see again and
again? Black men alleged to be killing, raping, mugging, stabbing,
gangbanging, looting, rioting, selling drugs, pimping, ho-ing, having too
many babies, fatherless, motherless, Godless, penniless. "The suspect is
described as a black male... the suspect is described as a black male... THE
SUSPECT IS DESCRIBED AS A BLACK MALE..." No matter what city I'm in, the
news is always the same, the suspect always the same unidentified black
male. I'm in Atlanta tonight, and I swear the police sketch of the black
male suspect on TV looks just like the black male suspect I saw on the news
last night in Denver and the night before in LA. In every sketch he's
frowning, he's menacing - and he's wearing the same knit cap! Is it possible that
it's the same black guy committing every crime in America?
I believe we've become so used to this image of the black man as
predator that we are forever ruined by this brainwashing. In my first film,
Roger & Me, a white woman on social security clubs a rabbit to death so that
she can sell him as "meat" instead of as a pet. I wish I had a nickel for
every time in the past 10 years that someone has come up to me and told me
how "horrified" they were when they saw that "poor little cute bunny" bonked
on the head. The scene, they say, made them physically sick. The Motion
Picture Association of America gave Roger & Me an R [18] rating in response
to that rabbit killing. Teachers write to me and say they have to edit that
part out of the film, if they want to show it to their students.

But less than two minutes after the bunny lady does her deed, I
included footage of a scene in which police in Flint, Michigan, shot a
black man who was wearing a Superman cape and holding a plastic toy gun. Not
once - not ever - has anyone said to me, "I can't believe you showed a black
man being shot in your movie! How horrible! How disgusting! I couldn't sleep
for weeks." After all, he was just a black man, not a cute, cuddly bunny.
The ratings board saw absolutely nothing wrong with that scene. Why?
Because it's normal, natural. We've become so accustomed to seeing black
men killed - in the movies and on the evening news - that we now accept
it as standard operating procedure. No big deal! That's what blacks do -
kill and die. Ho-hum. Pass the butter.

It's odd that, despite the fact that most crimes are committed by
whites, black faces are usually attached to what we think of as "crime".
Ask any white person who they fear might break into their home or harm them
on the street and, if they're honest, they'll admit that the person they
have in mind doesn't look much like them. The imaginary criminal in their
heads looks like Mookie or Hakim or Kareem, not little freckle-faced Jimmy.

No matter how many times their fellow whites make it clear that the
white man is the one to fear, it simply fails to register. Every time you
turn on the TV to news of another school shooting, it's always a white kid
who's conducting the massacre. Every time they catch a serial killer, it's a
crazy white guy. Every time a terrorist blows up a federal building, or a
madman gets 400 people to drink Kool-Aid, or a Beach Boys songwriter
casts a spell causing half a dozen nymphets to murder "all the piggies"
in the Hollywood Hills, you know it's a member of the white race up
to his old tricks.

So why don't we run like hell when we see whitey coming toward us?
Why don't we ever greet the Caucasian job applicant with, "Gee, uh, I'm
sorry, there aren't any positions available right now"? Why aren't we
worried sick about our daughters marrying white guys? And why isn't Congress
trying to ban the scary and offensive lyrics of Johnny Cash ("I shot a man
in Reno/just to watch him die"), the Dixie Chicks ("Earl had to die"), or
Bruce Springsteen ("I killed everything in my path/I can't say that I'm
sorry for the things that we done").

Why the focus on rap lyrics? Why doesn't the media print lyrics such
as the following, and tell the truth? "I sold bottles of sorrow, then chose
poems and novels" (Wu-Tang Clan); "People use yo' brain to gain" (Ice Cube);

"A poor single mother on welfare... tell me how ya did it" (Tupac Shakur);
"I'm trying to change my life, see I don't wanna die a sinner" (Master P).

African-Americans have been on the lowest rung of the economic ladder
since the day they were dragged here in chains. Every other immigrant group
has been able to advance from the bottom to the higher levels of our
society. Even Native Americans, who are among the poorest of the poor, have
fewer children living in poverty than African-Americans.

You probably thought things had got better for blacks in this country.
After all, considering the advances we've made eliminating racism in our
society, one would think our black citizens might have seen their standard
of living rise. A survey published in the Washington Post in July 2001
showed that 40%-60% of white people thought the average black person had it
as good or better than the average white person.

Think again. According to a study conducted by the economists Richard
Vedder, Lowell Gallaway and David C Clingaman, the average income for
a black American is 61% less per year than the average white income. That is
the same percentage difference as it was in 1880. Not a damned thing has
changed in more than 120 years.

Want more proof? Consider the following:
* Black heart attack patients are far less likely than whites to undergo
cardiac catheterisation, regardless of the race of their doctors.
* Whites are five times more likely than blacks to receive emergency
clot-busting treatment after suffering a stroke.
* Black women are four times more likely than white women to die while
giving birth.
* Black levels of unemployment have been roughly twice those of
whites since 1954.

So how have we white people been able to get away with this? Caucasian
ingenuity! You see, we used to be real dumb. Like idiots, we wore our
racism on our sleeve. We did really obvious things, like putting up signs on
rest-room doors that said WHITES ONLY. We made black people sit at the back
of the bus. We prevented them from attending our schools or living in our
neighbourhoods. They got the crappiest jobs (those advertised for NEGROES
ONLY), and we made it clear that, if you weren't white, you were going to be
paid a lower wage.

Well, this overt, over-the-top segregation got us into a heap of
trouble. A bunch of uppity lawyers went to court. They pointed out that the
14th Amendment doesn't allow for anyone to be treated differently because of
their race. Eventually, after a long procession of court losses,
demonstrations and riots, we got the message: if you're going to be a
successful racist, better find a way to do it with a smile on your face.

We even got magnanimous enough to say, "Sure, you can live here in our
neighbourhood; your kids can go to our kids' school. Why the hell
not? We were just leaving, anyway." We smiled, gave black America a pat on
the back - and then ran like the devil to the suburbs.

At work, we whites still get the plum jobs, double the pay, and a seat in
the front of the bus to happiness and success. We've rigged the system from
birth, guaranteeing that black people will go to the worst schools, thus
preventing them from admission to the best colleges, and paving their way to
a fulfilling life making our caffe lattes, servicing our BMWs, and picking
up our trash. Oh, sure, a few slip by - but they pay an extra tariff for the
privilege: the black doctor driving his BMW gets pulled over continually by
the cops; the black Broadway actress can't get a cab after the standing
ovation; the black broker is the first to be laid off because of
"seniority".

We whites really deserve some kind of genius award for this. We talk
the talk of inclusion, we celebrate the birthday of Dr King, we frown upon
racist jokes. We never fail to drop a mention of "my friend - he's
black..." We make sure we put our lone black employee up at the front
reception desk so we can say, "See - we don't discriminate. We hire
black people."

Yes, we are a very crafty, cagey race - and damn if we haven't got
away with it! I wonder how long we will have to live with the legacy of
slavery. That's right. I brought it up. SLAVERY. You can almost hear the
groans of white America whenever you bring up the fact that we still suffer
from the impact of the slave system. Well, I'm sorry, but the roots of most
of our social ills can be traced straight back to this sick chapter of our
history.

African-Americans never got a chance to have the same fair start that
the rest of us got. Their families were wilfully destroyed, their language
and culture and religion stripped from them. Their poverty was
institutionalised so that our cotton could get picked, our wars could be
fought, our convenience stores could remain open all night. The America
we've come to know would never have come to pass if not for the millions of
slaves who built it and created its booming economy - and for the millions
of their descendants who do the same dirty work for whites today.

It's not as if we're talking ancient Rome here. My grandfather was
born just three years after the Civil War. That's right, my grandfather. My
great-uncle was born before the Civil War. And I'm only in my 40s. Sure,
people in my family seem to marry late, but the truth remains: I'm just two
generations from slave times. That, my friends, is not a "long time ago". In
the vast breadth of human history, it was only yesterday.

Until we realise that, and accept that we do have a responsibility to
correct an immoral act that still has repercussions today, we will never
remove the single greatest stain on the soul of our country

(c) Michael Moore, 2002.

Remember: You can buy Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry...…" here from Amazon.com and also support Hot Calaloo by clicking on either the title or book picture links.

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