Sunday, February 5, 2012

Don't get distracted by our unity from the top of North America, the Caribbean Basin, to the Botton of South America

 

Article:  

Some blacks insist: 'I'm not African-American'

'We respect our African heritage, but that term is not really us,' says one


By

 
updated 2/5/2012 10:44:12 AM ET

The labels used to describe Americans of African descent mark the movement of a people from the slave house to the White House. Today, many are resisting this progression by holding on to a name from the past: "black." 

For this group — some descended from U.S. slaves, some immigrants with a separate history — "African-American" is not the sign of progress hailed when the term was popularized in the late 1980s. Instead, it's a misleading connection to a distant culture.

The debate has waxed and waned since African-American went mainstream, and gained new significance after the son of a black Kenyan and a white American moved into the White House. President Barack Obama's identity has been contested from all sides, renewing questions that have followed millions of darker Americans:  What are you? Where are you from? And how do you fit into this country?

"I prefer to be called black," said Shawn Smith, an accountant from Houston. "How I really feel is, I'm American."

"I don't like African-American. It denotes something else to me than who I am," said Smith, whose parents are from Mississippi and North Carolina. "I can't recall any of them telling me anything about Africa. They told me a whole lot about where they grew up in Macomb County and Shelby, N.C."

Gibré George, an entrepreneur from Miami, started a Facebook page called "Don't Call Me African-American" on a whim. It now has about 300 "likes."

"We respect our African heritage, but that term is not really us," George said. "We're several generations down the line. If anyone were to ship us back to Africa, we'd be like fish out of water."

"It just doesn't sit well with a younger generation of black people," continued George, who is 38. "Africa was a long time ago. Are we always going to be tethered to Africa? Spiritually I'm American. When the war starts, I'm fighting for America."

Joan Morgan, a writer born in Jamaica who moved to New York City as a girl, remembers the first time she publicly corrected someone about the term: at a book signing, when she was introduced as African-American and her family members in the front rows were appalled and hurt.

"That act of calling me African-American completely erased their history and the sacrifice and contributions it took to make me an author," said Morgan, a longtime U.S. citizen who calls herself Black-Caribbean American. (Some insist Black should be capitalized.) She said people struggle with the fact that black people have multiple ethnicities because it challenges America's original black-white classifications. In her view, forcing everyone into a name meant for descendants of American slaves distorts the nature of the contributions of immigrants like her black countrymen Marcus Garvey and Claude McKay.

Morgan acknowledges that her homeland of Jamaica is populated by the descendants of African slaves. "But I am not African, and Africans are not African-American," she said.

In Latin, a forerunner of the English language, the color black is "niger." In 1619, the first African captives in America were described as "negars," which became the epithet still used by some today.

The Spanish word "negro" means black. That was the label applied by white Americans for centuries.

The word black also was given many pejorative connotations — a black mood, a blackened reputation, a black heart. "Colored" seemed better, until the civil rights movement insisted on Negro, with a capital N.
Then, in the 1960s, "black" came back — as an expression of pride, a strategy to defy oppression.

"Every time black had been mentioned since slavery, it was bad," says Mary Frances Berry, a University of Pennsylvania history professor and former chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Reclaiming the word "was a grass-roots move, and it was oppositional. It was like, 'In your face.'"

Afro-American was briefly in vogue in the 1970s, and lingers today in the names of some newspapers and university departments. But it was soon overshadowed by African-American, which first sprouted among the black intelligentsia.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson is widely credited with taking African-American mainstream in 1988, before his second presidential run.

Berry remembers being at a 1988 gathering of civil rights groups organized by Jackson in Chicago when Ramona Edelin, then president of the National Urban Coalition, urged those assembled to declare that black people should be called African-American.

Edelin says today that there was no intent to exclude people born in other countries, or to eliminate the use of black: "It was an attempt to start a cultural offensive, because we were clearly at that time always on the defensive."

"We said, this is kind of a compromise term," she continued. "There are those among us who don't want to be referred to as African. And there also those among us who don't want to be referred to as American. This was a way of bridging divisions among us or in our ideologies so we can move forward as a group."
Jackson, who at the time may have been the most-quoted black man in America, followed through with the plan.

"Every ethnic group in this country has a reference to some land base, some historical, cultural base," Jackson told reporters at the time. "African-Americans have hit that level of cultural maturity."

The effect was immediate. "Back in those days we didn't talk about things going viral, but that's what you would say today. It was quite remarkable," said the columnist Clarence Page, then a reporter. "It was kind of like when Black Power first came in the '60s, there was all kinds of buzz among black folks and white folks about whether or not I like this."

Page liked it — he still uses it interchangeably with black — and sees an advantage to changing names.

"If we couldn't control anything else, at least we could control what people call us," Page said. "That's the most fundamental right any human being has, over what other people call you. (African-American) had a lot of psychic value from that point of view."

It also has historical value, said Irv Randolph, managing editor of the Philadelphia Tribune, a black newspaper that uses both terms: "It's a historical fact that we are people of African descent."

"African-American embraces where we came from and where we are now," he said. "We are Americans, no doubt about that. But to deny where we came from doesn't make any sense to me."

Jackson agrees about such denial. "It shows a willful ignorance of our roots, our heritage and our lineage," he said Tuesday. "A fruit without a root is dying."
He observed that the history of how captives were brought here from Africa is unchangeable, and that Senegal is almost as close to New York as Los Angeles.

"If a chicken is born in the oven," Jackson said, "that doesn't make it a biscuit."

Today, 24 years after Jackson popularized African-American, it's unclear what term is preferred by the community. A series of Gallup polls from 1991 to 2007 showed no strong consensus for either black or African-American. In a January 2011 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 42 percent of respondents said they preferred black, 35 percent said African-American, 13 percent said it doesn't make any difference, and 7 percent chose "some other term."

Meanwhile, a record number of black people in America — almost 1 in 10 — were born abroad, according to census figures.

Tomi Obaro is one of them. Her Nigerian-born parents brought her to America from England as a girl, and she became a citizen last year. Although she is literally African-American, the University of Chicago senior says the label implies she is descended from slaves. It also feels vague and liberal to her.

"It just sort of screams this political correctness," Obaro said. She and her black friends rarely use it to refer to themselves, only when they're speaking in "proper company."

"Or it's a word that people who aren't black use to describe black people," she said.

Or it's a political tool. In a Senate race against Obama in 2004, Alan Keyes implied that Obama could not claim to share Keyes' "African-American heritage" because Keyes' ancestors were slaves. During the Democratic presidential primary, some Hillary Clinton supporters made the same charge.

Last year, Herman Cain, then a Republican presidential candidate, sought to contrast his roots in the Jim Crow south with Obama's history, and he shunned the label African-American in favor of "American black conservative." Rush Limbaugh mocked Obama as a "halfrican-American."

Then there are some white Americans who were born in Africa.  Paulo Seriodo is a U.S. citizen born in Mozambique to parents from Portugal. In 2009 he filed a lawsuit against his medical school, which he said suspended him after a dispute with black classmates over whether Seriodo could call himself African-American.

"It doesn't matter if I'm from Africa, and they are not!" Seriodo wrote at the time. "They are not allowing me to be African-American!"

And so the saga of names continues.

"I think it's still evolving," said Edelin, the activist who helped popularize African-American. "I'm content, for now, with African and American."

"But," she added, "that's not to say that it won't change again."

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Haiti: Emergency Management.

Haitian Government Establishes Partnership with Louisiana National Guard

January 18, 2012
Three men (DOS)
Deputy Chief of Mission Daniel Foote, Secretary of State for Local Communities Fritz Jean Louis and Brigadier General Glenn H. Curtis.
Haitian and American authorities announced the establishment of the State Partnership Program between the Government of Haiti and the Louisiana National Guard (LANG).
Haitian Secretary of State for Local Communities Fritz Jean Louis, and the Adjutant General of the LANG, Brigadier General Glenn H. Curtis, made the announcement at a ceremony in Tabarre. The agreement creates professional and institutional linkages between the LANG and Haitian authorities, focused on support to Haiti’s emergency management agency, the Direction de la Protection Civile, as well as the Haitian National Police and Coast Guard.
Brigadier General Curtis said “We are truly committed to Haiti, and we know that we will gain as much as we give from this relationship with our Haitian colleagues.”
Secretary of State Jean Louis said “Louisiana and Haiti have a common understanding of the challenges of our environment.  Haiti will bring to bear all of its assets and capabilities to this partnership.”
The State Partnership Program brings together National Guard units from 46 U.S. states and territories with 65 partner-nations from around the world to increase capacity in the areas of homeland security, disaster response and mitigation, crisis management, border, port, and aviation security, and emergency medical response.  Partner-nations include countries with large military forces, like Chile and Poland, to Costa Rica and Dominica, which do not have armies.
U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission Daniel Foote noted that strengthening Haiti’s capacity to protect its citizens from threats like crime, drug trafficking, and natural disasters was a priority for the U.S. government and said, “We believe that this partnership between Haiti and Louisiana and the relationships that will be formed between professionals will help make Haiti stronger and its people safer.”
In May 2010, then-Minister of Justice Paul Denis requested a partnership with the LANG for Haiti. 

The LANG deployed to Mandrin, Artibonite Department in 2010 and 2011 as part of the New Horizons mission, where it provided medical care to local residents and carried out school and water well construction.

So you're an analytical type? Put them to good use. Intelligence Industry

Intelligence, in military science, information concerning an enemy or an area.

The term is also used for an agency that gathers such information.

Military intelligence is as old as warfare itself. Even in biblical times, Moses sent spies to live with the Canaanites in order to learn about their ways and about their strengths and weaknesses.

In the American Revolution George Washington relied heavily on information that was provided by an intelligence net based in New York City, and in World War II the results of a lack of good intelligence were realized in the destruction of the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Today, nations have at their disposal information collection and processing systems that permit gathering and producing intelligence more rapidly and more accurately than ever before. Satellites, ultramodern aircraft, electronic systems, human sources, cameras, imaging and electronic devices, and a host of other systems permit the amassing of information on a scale that was unheard of in the past.

Levels of intelligence

Intelligence is conducted at two levels, strategic and tactical. Strategic intelligence is information that is needed to formulate policy and military plans at the international and national policy levels. Tactical intelligence is intended primarily to respond to the needs of military field commanders so they can plan for and, if necessary, conduct combat operations. Essentially, tactical intelligence and strategic intelligence differ only in scope, point of view, and level of employment.

Whether tactical or strategic, military intelligence attempts to respond to or satisfy the needs of the operational leader, the person who has to act or react to a given set of circumstances. The process begins when the commander determines what information is needed to act responsibly. Several terms are used when discussing these requirements.

On the national level they are usually called the essential elements of information and are defined as those items of intelligence information about a foreign power, armed force, target, or physical environment that are absolutely vital for timely and accurate decision making.

On the tactical level intelligence needs are defined in a similar manner; often called information requirements, they are those items of information concerning the enemy and his environment that must be collected and processed in order to meet the intelligence needs of the military commander.

Sources of intelligence

It is critical for the intelligence analyst to know the source of information. Depending on the nature of a problem, certain sources are of great value and are therefore considered of high quality, while other sources, although contributing to the production of intelligence, are supportive rather than critical in nature.

Following are the major sources of intelligence.

Acoustics

This is information derived from analyzing acoustic waves that are radiated either intentionally or unintentionally. In naval intelligence, underwater acoustic waves from surface ships and submarines are detected by sonar arrays. These sensors are extremely accurate and are a major source of information on submarines in the world’s oceans.

Imagery

This is information gleaned from analyzing all types of imagery, including photography as well as infrared and ultraviolet imagery. The examination of imagery, called imagery interpretation, is the process of locating, recognizing, identifying, and describing objects, activities, and terrain that appear on imagery.

Imagery collected by satellites and high-altitude aircraft is one of the most important sources of intelligence. It not only provides information for a huge number of intelligence categories (such as order of battle, military operations, scientific and technical developments, and economics), but it is indispensable for successfully monitoring compliance with arms-limitation treaties.

The Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987 allowed the United States to periodically request that the Soviet Union open certain intercontinental ballistic missile sites so that U.S. satellites (referred to as “national technical means”) could verify that the sites did not house intermediate-range missiles banned by the treaty.

Tactical infrared imaging devices can often identify camouflaged tanks and armour because the materials used to cover them—trees, branches, and leaves—often register different infrared signatures than does the surrounding foliage. Infrared satellites can register heat through clouds, producing imagery on enemy forces, equipment, and movements.

Signals

Gained from intercepting, processing, and analyzing foreign electrical communications and other signals, signals intelligence (often called SIGINT) comprises three elements: communications, electronics, and telemetry.

Communications intelligence is gleaned from foreign communications that are intercepted by other than the intended recipients. Such intelligence can be of the greatest value to a nation’s fighting forces because it allows them to be privy to the strategies, weaknesses, and attitudes of the enemy. For example, before and during World War II, the U.S. Navy’s breaking of the Japanese PURPLE code allowed the United States to know of Japanese moves in advance. It even provided warning of the attack on Pearl Harbor, although this intelligence was not sent to Hawaii quickly enough to prevent the debacle.

Electronics intelligence (also called ELINT) is technical and intelligence information obtained from foreign electromagnetic emissions that are not radiated by communications equipment or by nuclear detonations and radioactive sources. By analyzing the electronic emissions from a given weapon or electronic system, an intelligence analyst can very often determine the purpose of the device.

Telemetry intelligence is technical information that is derived from intercepting, processing, and analyzing foreign telemetry data. For example, by intercepting the telemetry signals emitted during foreign ballistic missile tests, an intelligence agency can calculate the range, accuracy, and number of warheads of the weapon.

Radiation

This source of intelligence does not include energy emanating from nuclear detonations or radioactive sources. Rather, it concerns unintentional emissions of energy from electronic systems (while ELINT is based on intentional radiations from the same systems). Inadequate shielding of electronic systems, or the following of incorrect procedures, may result in inadvertent energy emissions, which, when analyzed, may reveal a great deal about a system’s purpose or capabilities.

Foreign matériel

In 1976 a Soviet air force lieutenant, wishing to defect to the West, flew a MiG-25 Foxbat to Japan, where Japanese and U.S. technicians pored over every detail of the supersonic fighter before reassembling it and handing it back to its owners. Such analysis of a foreign weapon system can prove invaluable in producing systems to defeat it, and intelligence derived from any foreign matériel is of great value in assessing enemy capabilities.

Human agents

Often called HUMINT, human intelligence is provided by people rather than by technical means and is very often provided by spies and covert agents. Spies are often a prime source of information about a nation’s political leaders, strategies, and political decisions. The Soviet colonel Oleg Penkovsky, for example, was a very important source for British and U.S. intelligence until he was arrested and executed in 1963.

The political, scientific, and technical information he provided included data on the capabilities of Soviet intermediate-range missiles during the Cuban missile crisis. Likewise, the Philby–Burgess–Maclean spy ring, which penetrated the highest circles of Britain’s MI-6 intelligence agency, provided the Soviets with a tremendous amount of information on British and Allied military and counterintelligence operations during and after World War II. In the United States, the Walker family sold the Soviet Union classified reports on the tracking of Soviet submarines and surface ships.

Operating from 1968 until it was broken up in 1985, this spy ring did irreparable damage to the submarine warfare capabilities of the U.S. Navy.

Types of intelligence

In most situations, intelligence production involves the assessment of conflicting pieces of incomplete information, the attempt to determine the correct items, and then the processing and assembly of these accurate items into a complete, understandable document that responds to the needs of the operational leader. More often than not the resulting product, which is usually called an intelligence appraisal or intelligence assessment, contains some incorrect information.

In order to structure this production, analysts divide intelligence into types. While all types of intelligence are valuable, in any given situation some may be of greater worth than others, may be more accurate, and may provide a more complete view of the situation. By dividing intelligence into types, analysts and commanders arrive at a better understanding of the value and accuracy of a given piece of information.
Following are some important types of intelligence.

Armed forces

Information on a potential enemy’s armed forces—that is, personnel, training, equipment, bases, capabilities, manpower levels, disposition, readiness, and other factors pertaining to strength and effectiveness—is crucial for a nation that is about to enter combat. If the weaknesses can be exploited, then the conflict may be won more quickly and with fewer casualties.

Toward the end of World War II, owing to incomplete intelligence it was predicted that Japan would fight resolutely against a U.S. invasion and that the United States might suffer up to one million casualties. This was a major factor in the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In reality, though, Japanese resolve was grossly overestimated, and Japan could probably have been conquered with far fewer Allied casualties.

Biographical

This is information collected on the views, traits, habits, skills, importance, relationships, health, and professional history of the leaders and important individuals of a nation. Biographical intelligence is important to those who must decide whether to support a foreign leader. For example, when Fidel Castro first came to power in Cuba in 1959, he claimed to be a nationalist and was even allowed to conduct a speaking tour in the United States. Subsequently, however, Castro revealed that he was a communist who intended to transform Cuba into a Soviet-style state. More accurate intelligence on Castro might have revealed his intentions more promptly, and U.S. foreign policy could have been revised accordingly.

In clandestine operations, one of the most difficult problems is assessing the validity of an individual who volunteers his services to an intelligence organization. Very often, information on the family life, education, travels, and professional and political affiliations of such a person provides great insight into motivation and can help in verifying authenticity.

Cartographic

Derived from maps and charts, cartographic intelligence is crucial for all military operations. During the Falkland Islands War, for example, British forces depended heavily on cartography. They also interviewed schoolteachers and scientists who had recently left the islands so that they had the most accurate information possible on road conditions, towns, and facilities. This prepared invading troops to meet the obstacles caused by rough terrain and poor roads, and as a result the invasion went remarkably well.

Economic

This is information concerning the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, as well as labour, finance, taxation, and other aspects of a nation’s economy or of the international economic system. Economic intelligence allows a nation to estimate the magnitude of possible military threats and is also valuable in estimating the intentions of a potential enemy. In wartime, economic intelligence is a prime indicator of an enemy’s ability to sustain a war.

This is particularly important when analyzing small nations, such as Israel, where a conflict requires total mobilization and cannot be sustained for long without creating severe economic problems.

 

$10M. Why not Haiti? Port of Prince is not the only department (region) in Haiti

USAID Policy come on! 

Does Uganda really need the funding?
           Check the following CIA The World Factbook for Uganda:    
                            https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ug.html
  Is there a similar grant for tourism for biodiversity and economic growth grant for Haiti?
      Haiti has a ten department (regions) areas that could benefit from tourism from the U.S. that could
          benefit by building an emergency management infrastructure for each department.

Why not promote small businesses within the U.S. to promote tourism in Haiti to help rebuild the country.

What are the number of African-Americans (North-South America, Caribbean Basin) businesses that will be a part of the tourism to the recipients of this grant award?

USAID
Agency for International Development
Uganda USAID-Kampala
Tourism for Biodiversity and Economic Growth Grant

The synopsis for this grant opportunity is detailed below, following this paragraph. This synopsis contains all of the updates to this document that have been posted as of 02/03/2012 . If updates have been made to the opportunity synopsis, update information is provided below the synopsis.

If you would like to receive notifications of changes to the grant opportunity click send me change notification emails . The only thing you need to provide for this service is your email address. No other information is requested.

Any inconsistency between the original printed document and the disk or electronic document shall be resolved by giving precedence to the printed document.
Document Type: Grants Notice
Funding Opportunity Number: RFA-617-12-000004
Opportunity Category: Discretionary
Posted Date: Feb 03, 2012
Creation Date: Feb 03, 2012
Original Closing Date for Applications: Mar 20, 2012   
Current Closing Date for Applications: Mar 20, 2012   
Archive Date: Apr 19, 2012
Funding Instrument Type: Cooperative Agreement
Category of Funding Activity: Community Development
Environment
Natural Resources
Category Explanation:
Expected Number of Awards: 1
Estimated Total Program Funding: $10,000,000
Award Ceiling: $10,000,000
Award Floor: $0
CFDA Number(s): 98.001  --  USAID Foreign Assistance for Programs Overseas
Cost Sharing or Matching Requirement: No

Eligible Applicants

Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled "Additional Information on Eligibility"  

Additional Information on Eligibility:

Agency Name

Uganda USAID-Kampala

Description

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Uganda is seeking applications to fund one or more organizations through a Cooperative Agreement for a four-year USAID/Uganda economic growth program in Uganda. Subject to the availability of funds, USAID intends to provide approximately $10 million in total USAID funding to be allocated over the four-year period. USAID reserves the right to fund any or none of the applications submitted and expects one award as a result of this solicitation; however, more than one award may result. The activity aims to use eco-tourism to reduce threats to biodiversity. Biodiversity conservation is the primary goal of USAID/Uganda’s environment program activities. The program will help develop Uganda’s nature-based tourism industry to deliver an improved experience for visitors and improved stewardship of the natural resources necessary to sustain Uganda’s economic development. Tourism revenues resulting from the enjoyment of biological diversity, often located in the world’s less-developed regions, are a significant source of income and employment for local communities. It is important to involve frontline communities and ensure that they learn to manage and protect natural resources, and share in the potential economic benefits of Uganda’s natural resources.

Link to Full Announcement

If you have difficulty accessing the full announcement electronically, please contact:

SARAH ACIO A&A SPECIALIST Phone:+256414306001 sacio@usaid.gov

Synopsis Modification History

There are currently no modifications for this opportunity.

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