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May 24 - May 30, 2010 • MN Metro Vol. 36 No. 21 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • www.insightnews.com
HAITI SLAVERY: The Creation of non-persons Notes on the Struggle
By Mahmoud El-Kati
Candy Pettiford:
Part 2 After the arrival of Christopher Columbus to Haiti in 1492, the heralded “Captain of the Ocean Sea” became the centerpiece of a turning point in the history of a new age in human life. This pristine island of native people would never be the same. They, along with the Africans who were forced to come to Haiti would now and hereafter be defined as units of labor and articles of merchandise. In short, non-persons. It can be convincingly argued that the four “discovery voyages of Columbus is what triggered the unfolding drama that begins with wanton violence, spread of certain diseases, brutality, death and genocide. This is a critical part of understanding a naked, tell-all background of what we know today as the modern world. By the turn of the 18th century (the 1700s) Haiti had become the most prized possession in the French
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Screens dominate children’s lives
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Suluki Fardan
Nii Ora Hoakes, granddaughter Terrachel Smith, 3, and University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks at UROC open house.
Nurturing our own future By Ivan B. Phifer Technology Reporter
africanancestry.com
Gina Paige
AfricanAncestry.com
Discover your African roots By Al McFarlane and B.P. Ford, The Editors This Spring, a television series called, “Who Do You Think You Are?” which is based on a popular BBC Television series of the same name in the United Kingdom, aired in the US further fueling the unquenchable thirst for knowledge about personal identity and family history. The American version was the work of producers Sarah Jessica Parker and Lisa Kudrow. An African American firm that specializes in DNA-based genetic research participated in the television series enabling Emmitt Smith, the football player and “Dancing with the Stars” contestant to trace his ancestry. Using DNA, AfricanAncestry.com was able to determine Smith’s family origins in a present day country on the continent of Africa. Gina Paige is vice president and co-founder for AfricanAncestry.com and was my guest via telephone interview on “Conversations with Al McFarlane” on KFAI FM90.3.
University of Minnesota's Urban Research and Outreach/Engagement Center (UROC) officially opened Wednesday, May 12, with an Open House Information Fair and Ribbon Cutting ceremony. The community gathered at UROC in honor of this achievement and to "celebrate a very tangible milestone in advancing the urban vision laid out by President Bruininks and Senior Vice President Jones" said University Board of Regents chair, Clyde Allen. Allen, Dr. Robert Bruininks, Dr. Robert Jones and UROC founding director, Dr. Irma McClaurin, proclaimed and welcomed a future of service and change for North Minneapolis. "It is rare to have the opportunity to translate a vision into reality," McClaurin said. "I feel privileged to have been a part of this process." She said she was honored "to have had the opportunity to put my spin on the development of the first Urban Research and
Outreach/Engagement Center as an anthropologist, as a creative thinker, as a poet, a writer, a scholar, and of course, University of Minnesota administrator." McClaurin gave special praise to the Regents, to Bruininks and Jones. "In my travels to other Universities who are doing this type of partnership, I have found that it is leadership from the top that makes the difference." She acknowledged the UROC staff, consultant Erline Belton of the Lyceum Group, Alicia Belton of Urban Design Perspectives, Chuck Levin of Charles Levin Architects, Stahl Construction, and MN Best, a workforce company, all of whom "worked with me in the trenches to make this vision a reality." McClaurin's strongest praise, however, was for the residents of North Minneapolis. "None of what we see here today, and the possibilities for UROC in the future, would have been possible without the community of North Minneapolis" she said. "I thank you for your criticisms, and for holding us accountable; I thank you for the
Amtrak’s National Train Day blues connection
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Mahmoud El-Kati (left) and William English hopes and dreams you have held forth for this community, and which have inspired us all," she said. Calling UROC a new model for public, land-grant, urban universities, Allen said it "is exciting to see a renewed emphasis on engaging the community so University faculty and staff can better understand the needs of Minnesotans while also being enriched by their knowledge and perspectives. "Through UROC we will have a hub for collaborative activities that makes it easier UROC TURN TO 9
Suluki Fardan
Childhood Obesity Task Force unveils action plan Tom Foley
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Dr. Irma McClaurin
Ivan Phifer reports on broadband initiative Ethnic media technology news beat examines broadband opportunity
Al McFarlane: Like most other African Americans I have always yearned to know more about my past. The middle passage and enslavement destroyed a certain amount of knowledge of lineage.
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Award-winning broadcast journalist, Ivan B. Phifer
Suluki Fardan
Ivan B. Phifer this week joins McFarlane Media as a technology reporter supporting efforts to expand broadband awareness and utilization in communities of color. Phifer’s work will appear in newspapers serving African and African American, Latino, Asian and American Indian communities. The newspapers are members of Minnesota Multicultural Media Consortium, which, in partnership with University of Minnesota’s innovative Urban Research and Outreach Engagement Center (UROC), and the U’s Office for Business and Community Economic Development, have created a network of community public computer centers (PCC) that provide jobs, training and access to high speed internet technology. A 5th ward resident, PHIFER TURN TO 3
Forget ‘wet hair’ worries... teaching Black children to swim is not optional, but mandatory
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