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had a friend from the Dominican Republic who came to the University of Alabama and Stillman College on a joint Fulbright appointment years ago. He was a well-known and respected poet and writer in his own land and, after a few months, he remarked to me, “Larry, I didn’t realize I was a black until I came to this country!” The question of race, such a painful and rancorous illness in American society, has not played out the same in other countries with similar historical backgrounds. A few years ago, Carl Degler wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning study titled “Neither Black nor White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the United States.” His theme was summarized in the phrase the “mulatto escape hatch.” Degler compared the role of race in the histories of Brazil and the U.S. Degler was curious: Why was Brazil thought to be a “racial democracy” of sorts, while the United States was fighting its way out of segregation? Both countries had had large African slave populations — Brazil’s much larger than America’s — both had emancipated the slaves in the 19th century, both were functioning republics and both were colonized by European settlers. So, why such different racial trajectories? The difference was the “mulatto escape hatch,” or the ability of people of mixed races in Brazil to rise up and integrate across Brazilian society without their color or background being held against them. In fact, there are many examples of people of mixed racial backgrounds moving up through the political, economic and even social ladders of Latin American society in the past two centuries. There are quite a few, as they are racially classified in Latin America, “mestizos” (people from Indian and white/European unions), occasional “mulattoes” (people with mixed black and white blood) and even pure Indians who have risen to the top of the political heap in Latin America, especially in those countries with significant Indian and/or mestizo populations — Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico. What is different in Latin America is that the barriers that separate whites from blacks are very watered down. This begs the big question, of course: Why is this? Slavery had been embedded in Iberian societies since Roman times, and the institution never receded entirely like it did in England. SEE PORT R AIL | 6D
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here is a colonization connection shared by the indigenous peoples of Australia and America. Both were driven to the brink of annihilation by invaders. Both had their children ripped from their arms and placed into institutional boarding schools intent upon acculturation by whatever means (see the movie “Rabbit-Proof Fence”). Aborigines make up 2 percent of Australia’s population of 22 million and, like their American Indian counterparts, they are their country’s poorest, unhealthiest and most disadvantaged of all minorities. Both governments have spent millions of dollars on housing, hospitals, community programs and educational reforms and worthless experiments over the past decades, but the living conditions of most
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J?C =?7=E Aboriginal and Native American people remain abysmal. Why is that? Try asking an Aborigine or a Native American instead of a government official. Both have severe traumatic problems with alcohol and child abuse. Many indigenous educators believe this can be traced back to the cruelty and abuse they suffered as children at the nation’s boarding schools. As I have written many times, you cannot take innocent children, place them in an isolated institution, abuse them emotionally, physically and sexually and not expect that when they become adults they will not become the abusers. And that is happening right now in many American Indian and Aborigine reservations
and communities. The government of Australia established a program imposing radical restrictions on Aborigines in a crackdown on child abuse. In 2010, James Anaya, a United Nations rapporteur on indigenous human rights was very concerned about this controversial initiative known as “the intervention.” That same year, the Washington Post reported, “The program forced a series of tough rules on Aborigines in the Northern Territory, including bans on alcohol and hardcore pornography, in response to an investigation that found rampant child sex abuse in remote indigenous communities.” Many of the strict measures taken by the Australian government were implemented without consulting SEE I DEAS | 6D
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rue or false? All birds lay eggs. Mammals give birth to their young. Only male deer have antlers. All owls are nocturnal. Hummingbirds and warblers are always diurnal. These statements are true. Mostly. But there are exceptions, and some of them are utterly fascinating. Learning about the ecological and behavioral traits of different animals is one of the most enjoyable pursuits in the field of biology. We have literally millions of species living on earth, and the human tendency is to categorize groups into more manageable units. For example, salamanders, oak trees and starfish have little in common with each other, other than being living things. But within any one group, similarities and consistencies exist. And each group has attributes
peculiar to it that can be used in most instances to differentiate it from other groups, even more closely related ones, such as frogs from salamanders, pine trees from oaks and PABM sea urchins from @B;;HGL star f ish. But our rules for distinguishing among biological groups often dissolve in the face of scrutiny. Exceptions are rampant. The once commonly held belief that no mammals lay eggs is one of those exceptions. Which brings us to the aquatic duckbill platypus of Australia. Platypuses easily qualify as one of the strangest mammals in the world. The female lays one to three eggs that she
curls around in a burrow for about 10 days before they hatch. The mother has mammary glands that produce milk for the babies for more than three months. The males are one of the few venomous mammals in the world. The venom glands are located on the hind feet, which have a sharp, protruding, grooved spur. Platypuses also use special organs on the flat, ducklike bill to detect electrical impulses created by prey such as worms, insect larvae and crayfish in dark, murky waters. The other egg-laying mammals, found in Australia and New Guinea, are spiny anteaters, also called echidnas. With their rounded little bodies, which are covered with spines, these terrestrial creatures look pretty much like hedgehogs. Depending on which scientist you talk to, two to five
species exist. Echidnas typically lay one egg, which is incubated in a body pouch. Not to be outdone by their duck-billed, web-footed relatives in being strange, echidnas have no teeth. The mammal group most commonly encountered by us on an everyday basis is composed of the placental mammals, which are most of those outside of Australia. Most people are also familiar with marsupials, such as kangaroos and possums, which raise their young in pouches. Platypuses and echidnas qualify as an exception among mammals. They fall into an evolutionary tangent distinct from either placental mammals or marsupials and are placed in a third, less commonly known category of mammals known as monotremes. SEE E COVIEWS | 6D
resident Barack Obama got a lot of grief for his admission a couple of weeks ago that he didn’t really have a strategy for dealing with the threat of the Islamic terrorist group ISIS, which has taken over parts of Iraq and Syria. Well, he came back Wednesday night in a televised address from the White House with a four-point plan he said would, with the assistance of allies in the region and the United States’ Congress, “degrade and ultimately destroy” this growing threat to the Middle East and perhaps eventually the U.S. itself. The first part of the strategy, Obama said, would be to continue to hit ISIS with airstrikes, not only in Iraq, but also in Syria where the militant organization was formed and is still headquartered. Second, the president said he would continue “to support fighters on the ground” and add another 475 U.S. special forces personnel to train and coordinate those fighters. But, he emphasized, “we will not get dragged into another war in Iraq.” The third point in his plan will be to work with our allies to cut off support, military, financial and otherwise, to the terrorists in an effort to strangle the movement. Finally, Obama said, he will lead a broad-based coalition of friends and allies in providing “humanitarian aid” to the displaced and warravaged people who have taken the brunt of ISIS savagery. At this point, he said vaguely that he would “welcome congressional support” while leaving it unsaid that he will go it alone if he has to. Obama added that he will personally preside over a United Nations Security Council meeting in two weeks to call for international support for his plan and condemnation of ISIS. Between now and then, Secretary of State John Kerry will travel extensively in the region, lining up support for the president’s plan with the aim of a unified front when Obama goes before the U.N. While all the polls show that the nation has no stomach for another ground war in Iraq — or anywhere else, for that matter — the brutal televised beheadings of two U.S. journalists by ISIS has certainly gotten the public’s attention. The same polls show support of Obama’s efforts to degrade and destroy ISIS. For all its good intentions, however, Obama’s plan contains some peril, especially when it comes to his stated intention to take the air war into Syria. It is ironic that Obama’s initiatives come only a year after he was thwarted by Congress in his plan to fight against Bashar al-Assad. Now we find we share with the Syrian regime similar objectives in Syria, although the U.S. remains firm in its pledge that Assad must go. We will be walking a fine line in Syria, where there is a chance that a sudden end to the regime there could create a failed state along the lines of the one in Lybia, where our support of the ouster of Moammar Gaddafi has created a home for various violent militias. Obama’s efforts to build a coalition of Middle Eastern countries willing to commit boots on the ground to join the nearly 1,500 American advisers (who presumably are wearing tennis shoes or maybe ruby slippers) are also suspect. Finally, it remains to be seen if Congress will get on board with Obama or, led by obstructionist Republicans, simply sit on their hands. As one outgoing Republican put it, if Obama fails in his efforts, the GOP can say we told you so or if he has success they can complain that it should have come sooner. But at least there is now a strategy on the table. Tommy Stevenson is the retired associate editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Readers can email him at beebranch@ yahoo.com or call 205-292-2236.