From 1992 - We The People a Post Dispatch Community Forum

This piece was part of a 1992 series titled "We the People" local residents gave their views and messages to the 1992 Candidates for President. I had already started an essay when I was approached by Jabari Asim who the worked for the Post, so I modified my piece for the PD Series - Interesting to compare my views of 1992 to the ones 18 years later:

What does true empowerment mean? Also what must a President do to show that he is truly committed to the cause? First, a President must come to understand that true empowerment should mean more than memberships in country clubs. For African Americans, empowerment should mean a fundamental change in the status quo, a change both in the distribution and access to wealth and opportunity in America.
Hopefully, this change would reflect a human rights agenda, not merely a rehash of appeasement policies of the past.

In 1992 many our brothers and sisters live in Third World conditions. A presidential commission should deal directly with the long standing question of reparations to African Americans, and the president must be prepared to carry out such a program. A president who is truly committed to change will also be prepared to make a change in the allocation of federal revenue. Too often, budgetary priority has gone to NASA and the Pentagon for some of their projects i.e. the planned Mars mission or the numerous pork barrel military programs. The military industrial complex must take a bigger budgetary hit, especially since the global challenges are not economic, not military.

Further redistribution must be focused on the billions of tax dollars that never make it to the national coffers because of the myriad of legal loopholes that wealth families and corporations have at their disposal. Empowerment must also occur in politics. Historically, African Americans have been relegated to lower level cabinet posts and shut out of most top level regulatory appointments and white house staff positions e.g. chief counsel or office of management and budget. The ideas that I write about are not new. African Americans from Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X, to Louis Farrakhan have spoken or written at length on these and related topics. Unfortunately, these leaders have been labeled “radical” or “extremist”. They were typecast as spewing racism and hate. Worse, many “mainstream” leaders in the African American community chose to distance themselves from those “radical” leaders and their views. That choice however, was not without a price.

When our mainstream leaders decided that it was better to assimilate rather than agitate, to identify with their oppressors instead of their oppressed brothers, the rift in the African American community grew wider. The visceral anger displayed in the streets following the Rodney king verdict and played out in music by rap stars like Ice T is not just a response to an unjust and oppressive system, but more importantly to a civil rights community that the masses believe has grown soft.
There seems to be justification for this anger. For more than 30 years the masses have hear the civil rights community talk of patience, compromise and reconciliation, yet this TV generation sees pictures of change occurring worldwide and the perception continues to grow that the African American leadership is unwilling or unable to produce change here. The brothers and sisters in the streets perceive the African American leadership as too “removed” from the struggle and the day to day stress of being black in America, too “elitist” to care. The growing popularity of Malcolm X among the young is a reflection that they are now rejecting the old school of thought.

Our options are limited as we allow them to be. The African American community must look toward a new era with caution. While Governor Bill Clinton, for instance promises relief for the middle class, little suggests (except for his health care proposal) that a Clinton administration would reach out to those who have been historically disenfranchised. Little evidence suggests that African Americans will play a major policy making role in the next administration. I hope African American leaders remind the next president what change means.

Dispatch from Haiti

Greetings all,

I am writing to you from Haiti. I am here to volunteer for six weeks and will return March 23rd. Thus far, it has been indescribable, mind blowing, eye-opening and yet, massively rewarding. To say that Haiti is in desperate need would be an understatement. I came alone with no agency I simply picked up the phone made an reservation and went from there. After multiple cancelations, a few days lay over in Miami and flying into the Dominican Republic and then busing into Haiti , I have arrived and have been here for 2 weeks. Finally, the shock is over. I am in my second hotel and have identified one person to help.

You can not began to know the magnitude, everyone lives on the street a million or more! Some have tents. There is every NGO in the world here. There is every army in the world here. The streets are filled with cars, motorcycles,(this how i travel they are cabs) buses(haitian) children wondering(heart breaking) and too often pigs, goats,cats and dogs. We are all wading together and there is no room to walk in the streets or the sidewalks which are all cracked and filled with piles of buildings. The air quality is so hazardous and buildings are collapsed yet leaning all at once.(very dangerous)

The camps near the media are descent for that reason but God help the camps away from the public eye. I will not describe but use your imagination!. Haiti itself in the mountains and other parts even in Port Au Prince, is sooooo beautiful, and spiritual and colorful and lively and the women are beautiful and colorful and protective and helpful and the men are passionately outspoken and sooooooo angry(understandably) It looks like China with the people on the streets and selling of goods which hardly anyone buys. The filth is shocking! There is NO money not a dollar. The NGO's, Unicef, USAID, Save the Children and 100 others from France, Germany, Latin America, Norwegian, Sweeeden, China and more are swamped but trying. Unfortunately the needs are so vast and they are trying to figure out how to spend the money in the mean-time everything came to a hault. In 2 weeks I have not seen one line for food , water, or medical supplies I am sure there are some but I am always down in the heart of Port Au Prince and everyone is on their own. It is survival of the fittest!!!

I went to the embassy when I arrived , they told me to go home that evening on the USA Army plane immediately! I said no so the took me to a hotel and got me a somewhat reasonable rate (although now inflated) and began to call NGO's, gave me food (MRE'S)and phone numbers, and a quick lesson on the money. They were not supposed to do all this but they did because I refused to leave! UNICEF said to come in the next day and the rest is history. I worked with the Director of Child Protection and last week made an exit! They are helpful but too slow. I was always helping to prep for meetings and entering data of child disasters. I have great contacts from them and others and now I am on my own . I check in when I need to speak or ask for something! I am hitching my wagon to the Hatian, German and many other NGO's nation wide or other US citizens trying to make since of it all and doing what we can.

Finally I have found a women named Nadine and she and her husband are haitian lawyers (not legal means had professional jobs) They have an Orphanage of women aged 11-20ish They were able to fine 100 of them on the street 50 are in hospitals in the Dominican and now they all live on the streets. Their orphanage is ruble. Nadine's house is gone but the office front exist. You can not go in the building because it may collapse. The girls sit in the door front during the days and and at night the 100 girls and 6 or 7 adults go to bed on the streets. They hover together and get up at 5am to start again. The entire street is on the ground so this is normal. Everyone I met is on the ground in front of there tiny flattened home or in a camp!! It is crazy but this is the reality. The poverty before the earthquake was obviously humungous. I think some have more now if they have tents and free MRE's(meals ready to eat). There is never enough food--never. We are heading into the rainy season and I can't imagine the disaster which is looming. The UN is trying to migrate quickly. I have UN access so I go to the building of the hub where everything happens, all supplies, all NGO's and all military bases. The Us Army has been sooo great and they are good and protective of their citizens. They are here for security and is not part of the UN Log building operation. They are leaving in 5 weeks and are very cognizant of not being seen as occupiers. There are protest against the government and they say that Obama is their president they LOOOOOOOVE him. Well I will go bot before I do I need your help! Please!!!!

Look people I know times are hard in the states but I am asking anyone who can to send a small care package.

1st choice Urgent-Urgent-Urgent

Beans
Rice
Spaghetti
cans of spaghetti sauce
candy for the girls(it makes their day I brought some from the states and they look forward to it)
This is their diet now and it stretches
I have been buying food for them along with Nadine and her husband but unable to keep doing so
I am trying to be their mouth peice to the agencies it is hard but I am plugging away

2nd Choice
unused clothing(non-winter) and shoes
used sheets for the ground they will get tents oneday (hopefully and will use them)


3rd choice
ladies underwear 10to 20yrs old
deoderant(ladies)
journals and pens(they need something to do during the day I am trying to get them to journal and do something creative during the day
Drawing pads and markers

If you can please send one of the following choices it doesn't have to be large they can use every single thing
will send a quick mailing address monday night. UPS is free to Haiti I was told completely 50lbs or less


Thank you in advance,

Godspeed
Yvette in Haiti