Insight News ::: 1.30.12

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February 3rd - 26th, 2012

Adapted by Kim Hines from the book Almost to Freedom by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson.

SteppingStone Theatre, 55 Victoria Street North, in the Historic Hill District of St. Paul. Performance times and tickets are available at (651) 225-9265 or www.steppingstonetheatre.org

Paula Keller

Essence Stiggers and Cearah Hamilton

INSIGHT NEWS January 30 - February 5, 2012 • MN Metro Vol. 38 No. 5 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • www.insightnews.com

No Investment, No Recovery Leaders praise Obama’s State of the Union Address

Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN) said, “Tonight the President delivered a powerful plan for action. Congress and the American people were given a clear blueprint rebuilding Congresswoman for our economy, Betty McCollum strengthening the middle class, and restoring tax fairness for hard-working Americans who are not millionaires. Looking ahead, the choice for Congress is between an agenda for action for the middle class or more political obstruction. I know Democrats are to ready to get to work re-building America, and I hope my Republican colleagues join us.” Congresswoman Gwen Moore (DWI) said, “His vision for restoring the

economic security to the middle class by focusing on American manufacturing, energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values was a very timely message for Congress and the people of this country.” “I was particularly pleased to hear him focus on the need for reviving our manufacturing sector. After years of watching American companies ship jobs overseas, we are finally beginning to see entrepreneurs and manufacturers deciding to keep factories and production facilities here in the United States. This is Congresswoman evident in my home state of Wisconsin Gwen Moore (D-WI)

STATEMENTS TURN TO 2

Creative Commons

President Barack Obama

Urban League job growth policy in alignment with Obama vision President Obama’s vision for “An American Built To Last,” as described in the January 24th State of the Union address, stands firmly upon National Urban League policy proposals for job growth, education and economic empowerment, Marc H. Morial, National Urban League President and CEO, said tonight. The President’s focus on the importance of job training coincides with the release of the National Urban League’s Plan to

Educate, Employ & Empower, which can be found at www. iamempowered.com. “The President’s vision for a nation where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules is possible only students are prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st Century economy,” Morial said. “That means a robust Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) curriculum in every

classroom. It means redesigned funding formulas to balance the level of investment among states, districts and schools. It means raising the urgency of employment and education reform to the top of our national news headlines.” Through its network of 97 affiliates, the Urban League Movement serves as economic first responders, touching the lives of more than 2.1 million people each year. The President reaffirmed

a commitment to the basic American promise that if you work hard, you can do well enough to raise a family, own a home, and put a little away for retirement. “The President talked about a renewed economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values,” Morial said. “Two of the key pillars of the National Urban League 12-Point Jobs Plan focus

on manufacturing and clean energy. We have long advocated for incentives that promote the purchase of American manufactured goods by federal, state and local governments, agencies and authorities, and the encouragement of investment in businesses that promote alternative energy and conservation.” The National Urban League’s 12-Point Plan calls for targeted tax inducements for clean energy investment in urban areas,

programs encouraging urban building retrofits for improved energy efficiency, and initiatives to increase the efficiency of regulatory approvals . “It all comes down to opportunity,” Morial said. “Most Americans that hard work should pay off, and responsibility is rewarded. We must commit to knocking down barriers, educational and economic, that block the path to the American Dream.”

The Slave System:

Aspects of its economic and social structure By Professor Mahmoud El-Kati One of the first things to understand and appreciate about what we know as slavery is that it is an institution which goes back to antiquity. What we know or think of as slavery was old when the world was young. Slavery has come in many forms. The make up of a given society, the time and context in which this institution exists, its laws, its codes, its values, customs, and habits will give slavery many faces. Thus there have been many forms of subjugation of what we loosely call slavery.

What evolved as the institution of slavery (subjugation) in the United States is peculiar to its national heritage. In the U.S. enslavement of people, through its own set of complex laws, values, beliefs, and myths, and even “race” and color became the determining factor for enslavement for life. Enslavement in America meant that enslavement was hereditary, a cradle to grave reality. In short, enslavement was fixed in law and without fundamental human rights: No right to family and the sacrament of marriage and no right to a trial in a court of law. These two examples are but a few of the myriad of the restrictions from life, liberty and the pursuit

Aesthetics

WWII saga recounts heroic exploits of Tuskegee airmen

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of happiness. “The peculiar institution,” as American slavery was called, was quite different from enslavement in ancient societies, wherein the enslaved never lost rights to human personality, never lost rights to family hood. Only the labor, not the personhood, of the enslaved was “owned”. The 12-, 14-, or 16-hour work day of the field hand was tied to a gang labor system, the forerunner to the assembly lines. As articles of merchandise and units of labor, the field laborer in the American system was devised to get the maximum degree of production. The servant class, or house slave, replaced the thralldom of

Education

Being culturally conscious when teaching history

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serfdom in Europe. The skilled artisan resembled vassals on the Lord of the land, the task slave in America resembled itinerant laborers, or bondsmen of European serfdom of the 16th and 17th centuries. The labor of the American enslaved was exploited to the fullest. The enslaved furnished the basic and vital energy and skill that produced American wealth from a) tobacco, b) sugar, c) rice, d) indigo and e) “king cotton”. The production of these cash crops accounted for more than half of the National wealth, in addition to creating wealth for investors

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George K. Warren

Frederick Douglas (1818 - 1895), abolitionist and freed slave

Business

Working from home? Make it work for you

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Business leadership profile

Dr. Tara Watson

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