Quiz Thursday

Hello Folks, we will have a quiz Thursday on the following terms:
Historical Materialism, Discourse, and Ideology.
I will talk about them on Tuesday, but please go to wikipedia for more expanded defintions.

Historical Materialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Materialism

Discourse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse

Ideology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology

Peace.

Presentation Handout

Presentation HandOut

Multiethnic mix includes Chinese roots

Multiethnic mix includes Chinese roots

HISPANICS AND WEST INDIANS WHO TRACE THEIR HERITAGE TO ASIA ARE PART OF SOUTH FLORIDA'S MULTIETHNIC MIX
BY NICOLE WHITE AND JERRY BERRIOS, Miami Herald (February 12, 2006)
jberrios@MiamiHerald.com

In a region often defined by hyphenated cultures -- Cuban-American, Haitian-American, Jamaican-American -- some South Florida residents have lived quietly with a trifecta of titles: Chinese-Cuban-American, Chinese-Venezuelan-American and Chinese-Jamaican-American.

They and others share a genetic thread with their Chinese ancestors but grew up in Latin America and the Caribbean, where some of their families may have settled as indentured laborers in the 19th century, once the slave trade had been abolished, and later as immigrants to open their own businesses. Thousands now call South Florida home.

Now, they rarely speak the language of their Chinese heritage, conversing most often in a dialect or language that defies their facial features.

''I would open my mouth and start speaking patois and they would look at me in shock,'' Steve Chin said of the Jamaican dialect he grew up speaking on the island.

''They didn't realize that Jamaica had Chinese people,'' said Chin, who owns a martial arts studio in Miami-Dade. ``They think everyone there is black.''

This weekend, thousands of immigrants of Chinese descent like Chin, with lives richly textured by a palette of many cultures, will gather at Miami Dade College's Kendall Campus to celebrate their storied heritage.

MIXED MENU

Jamaican jerk chicken, fried green plantains or tostones will share space with fried wontons, char siu boa (roast pork bun) and pork fried rice. The festival, once so small it was held in someone's living room, will also mark the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations.

Hispanics and West Indians with Chinese roots are by no means the largest immigrant groups to settle here.

Recent U.S. Census figures show 142,000 people in the United States describe themselves as Hispanic and Asian. Miami-Dade County boasts 1,366 who fit that description; Broward County lists 356.

The number of Hispanic Chinese in Florida reached 5,055 in 1990 but fell to 3,437 in 2000. That decline could be attributed to people identifying themselves with one culture or another now that they live in the United States, said New York University professor Lok Siu, author of Memories of a Future Home: Diasporic Citizenship of Chinese in Panama.

In contrast, the number of West Indian-Chinese residents in Florida grew from 1,966 in 1990 to 2,591 in 2000, according to a Miami Herald analysis of Census data.

No matter their numbers, their presence has left an indelible imprint on a region defined by a variety of immigrant experiences.

Theirs has been an immigration with a strong entrepreneurial streak. Many operate successful businesses, including the Chinese-Cuban Aurora Restaurant in Miami and the Allapattah-based Ocho Rios food company, which distributes food products such as jerk curry and scotch bonnet sauce. The company is owned by Jamaican-born businessman Aston Lue.

Although their business acumen shines, they have not been a force politically.

''Chinese people are a much smaller group, too small to be a factor as far as voting,'' said Wilfred Lai, who is Jamaican Chinese and owns a T-shirt manufacturing company in Miami.

''I think most of us concentrate on being financially independent rather than stepping into politics,'' said Lai, the festival's producer.

Asians are known for being passive politically, NYU's Siu said. Plus, she said, ''Chino-Latinos'' are splintered along national differences and haven't recognized themselves as a cohesive group.

''You don't have that constituency constructed,'' Siu said. ``That takes a lot of mobilization.''

Ivonne Amor, Cuban Chinese and mother of two, relishes her life in South Florida with all its cultural contradictions.

At childhood family gatherings, ''You would see a lot of Asian faces and everyone is speaking Spanish,'' said Amor, a special projects producer at WSVN-Fox 7.

Amor's father is from China and moved to Havana when he was 12 to work in his father's grocery store. Her mother was born in Cuba to a Chinese father and Cuban-Spanish mother.

SPEAKING SPANISH

At her Miami Springs home, Amor and her husband, Henry, speak Spanish to Matthew, 4, and Ethan, 10 months. Amor also plans to enroll them in Mandarin classes so they can be part of China's economic juggernaut if they want.

''It makes me appreciate diversity,'' Amor said of her mixed background. 'People always ask me, `What are you? Where are you from?' I appreciate that.''

Santiago Alan's family moved from China to Cuba hoping to escape communism: ''Imagine what luck,'' Alan said. ``Leaving Mao and getting Fidel.''

The family moved to Costa Rica and eventually to Miami in the mid-1970s.

When Alan arrived, he spoke only Cantonese and Spanish but quickly learned English.

His family, like many others, established businesses in South Florida.

Alan runs the Aurora Restaurant, a Cuban eatery in Miami. After several years, they added a Chinese menu so patrons could mix moo goo gai pan with platanos maduros.

On a recent afternoon, Alan talked to one of his cooks in rapid-fire Spanish, joked with another in Cantonese and served some customers in English.

CUBAN SPIRIT

''We have that Cuban spirit,'' Alan said. ``Tenemos la salsa en la sangre -- We have salsa in our blood.''

Alan says people are shocked when they realize he speaks Spanish fluently.

''It breaks the ice,'' said Alan, a Pembroke Pines resident. ``They find it amusing that I can speak Spanish so well.''

Many admit that their inability to speak Chinese or Mandarin has caused some consternation with those who do. At past festivals, it was common to see a sign declaring: ''Don't speak Chinese'' at some booths.

''Many of us grew up to fit in the community where we were born,'' said the Jamaican-born Lai.

''It was easier for us to speak Jamaican patois. That is the language that all Jamaicans speak, even if they are black, white or Chinese,'' said Lai.

`KEEP LEARNING'

''But we have the festival because we have plenty of respect for our ancestors and we want to keep learning,'' he said, especially since China is growing as an economic powerhouse.

Venezuelan-born Meylin Arreaza, who considers herself more Venezuelan than Chinese, regrets that she does not understand her ancestors' language.

She says fellow Asians have stopped her on the street in Caracas and New York and spoken to her in either Mandarin or Cantonese. She can't tell the difference. She speaks neither.

''I feel badly because I don't speak the language,'' Arreaza said. ``I look like something I'm not.''

Arreaza, Alan and Amor all hope to someday travel to China and delve deeper into their Asian roots.

''I would like to see where my family is from,'' said Amor, ``I want to see that part of me that I don't really know.''

The Art of Saying Nothing

New York Times
February 8, 2006

Editorial
The Art of Saying Nothing

We thought President Bush's two recent Supreme Court nominees set new lows when it came to giving vague and meaningless answers to legitimate questions, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made them look like models of openness when he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday about domestic spying. Mr. Gonzales seems to have forgotten the promise he made to the same panel last year when it voted to promote him from White House counsel to attorney general: that he would serve the public interest and stop acting like a hired gun helping a client figure out how to evade the law.

The hearing got off to a bad start when Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican who leads the committee, refused to have Mr. Gonzales testify under oath. Mr. Gonzales repaid this favor with a daylong display of cynical hair-splitting, obfuscation, disinformation and stonewalling. He would not tell the senators how many wiretaps had been conducted without warrants since 2002, when Mr. Bush authorized the program. He would not even say why he was withholding the information.

On the absurd pretext of safeguarding operational details, Mr. Gonzales would not say whether any purely domestic communications had been swept up in the program by accident and what, if anything, had been done to make sure that did not happen. He actually refused to assure the Senate and the public that the administration had not deliberately tapped Americans' calls and e-mail within the United States, or searched their homes and offices without warrants.

Mr. Gonzales repeated Mr. Bush's claim that the program of intercepting e-mail and telephone calls to and from the United States without the legally required warrants was set up in a way that protects Americans' rights. But he would not say what those safeguards were, how wiretaps were approved or how the program was reviewed. He even refused to say whether it had led to a single arrest.

About the only senators Mr. Gonzales managed to answer directly were the more depressingly doctrinaire Republicans, who asked penetrating questions like whether Al Qaeda is a threat to the United States and whether Mr. Bush is trying hard to protect Americans from terrorists.

Generally, Mr. Gonzales stuck to the same ludicrous arguments the administration has continually offered for sidestepping the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expressly forbids warrantless spying on people in the United States. He said that the president could make his own rules in time of war and that Congress had authorized warrantless spying in giving the president the authority to invade Afghanistan. Only the panel's most blindly loyal Republicans bought that argument.

To his credit, Mr. Specter pressed the attorney general hard on a legal position that, he said, "just defies logic and plain English." Mr. Specter forcefully pointed out that this isn't just an issue of public relations, but of the bedrock democratic principle of checks and balances. He said it is not possible to judge a program without knowing what it involves and said Congress's intelligence panels should review the domestic spying "lock, stock and barrel."

"Because if they disagree with you," he said, "it's the equilibrium of our constitutional system which is involved."

Mr. Gonzales seemed to brush off this idea, something that should surprise no one since Mr. Bush clearly sees no limit to his powers. But even Bush loyalists on the Senate panel seemed at least faintly troubled. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas said it would be simple to amend the wiretapping law if it's too confining. And Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona suggested that some group — maybe even Congress — review the spying program regularly.

One hopeful sign of nonpartisan sanity came from the House yesterday. Representative Heather Wilson, the New Mexico Republican who heads the subcommittee that supervises the National Security Agency, told The Times that she had "serious concerns" about the spying and wanted a full investigation. With Karl Rove reported to be threatening Election Day revenge against anyone who breaks ranks on this issue, Ms. Wilson deserves support for a principled stand.

Hegemony: he·gem·o·ny n

Hegemony: he·gem·o·ny n
control or dominating influence by one person or group over others. Hegemony has been understood as being constituted by a combination of coercion or force and consent (ideas). A strong hegemony is one that does not depend on force, since those being dominated accept their domination. In this case, hegemony is established through the use of education, the media, religion, and other means which influence a person’s / group’s thinking. In other words, “if you can control a person’s thinking, then you can control his or her actions.”

Looking for the Woolworth's Lunch Counter of 2006

Published on Saturday, February 4, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

Looking for the Woolworth's Lunch Counter of 2006

by Cynthia Bogard


Remember when protest was allowed to happen? When protest riveted the country and changed it too? In these dark days, when a grieving middle-aged mother is roughed up, removed and arrested for silently wearing the wrong t-shirt to a speech about how free we are, it's necessary to remember that it wasn't always this way.

Forty-six years ago this week, a silent protest by four young black men started a revolution. Remember?

It was on February 1, 1960 that Ezell Blair, Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and David Richmond, four freshmen enrolled at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, walked into the local Woolworth's in Greensboro, sat down at the lunch counter and asked to be served. They weren't, but they weren't arrested either and they remained seated at the counter, waiting, until the store closed that evening. By then, a crowd had gathered outside the store and news of the four young men's actions had spread throughout the state. The next day there were more than 20 students asking to be served. The following day other people showed up to sit-in at other lunch counters in Greensboro. By the sixth day the protests had attracted hundreds of participants, both black and white.

Newspapers all over the state ran banner headlines and some described in detail the strategies that the protesters used. Intense coverage of the sit-ins by newspapers and radio helped the protests to spread. Sympathizers in other cities scoured these stories of protest and then they replicated them in their own towns.

In the next two weeks sit-ins had spread to 15 other cities. By April, sit-ins - these straightforward and highly symbolic protests for recognition, justice, for equal treatment as American citizens - were taking place in more than 70 American cities.

A few months later, some of these protesters formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), one of the pivotal student protest groups of the era. SNCC members and many other Americans continued to protest for the cause of civil rights. Three years later, President John F. Kennedy asked for legislation that would give all Americans "the kind of equality of treatment which we would want for ourselves." That same summer, on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King thrilled a crowd of more than a quarter million protesters in Washington with his dream for a future of racial integration and equality. Less than a year later, in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, Congress passed, and President Lyndon Johnson signed, the Civil Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act came the following year. Both bills passed with bipartisan majorities in Congress.

These acts of protest and their effects inspired the hopes of millions of Americans and gradually gave rise to the women's movement, the disabled persons' movement and the gay rights movement. And civil rights expanded significantly for all of us.

What a contrast with our nation's trajectory today, sliding fast into the dark waters of civil rights repression, even abrogation.

Today, protest is contained in advance.

Our unpopular president gives speeches to audiences specially selected for their inability to criticize him. When he's not talking to members of our armed forces, he's regaling his tuxedoed funders or pre-screened loyal members of his fan club. And occasionally, he speaks before that august body, our elected Representatives, who find it too unseemly, in their gentleman's fashion, to disrupt the man who would be monarch. So he speaks without opposition and admonishes the other side to mind their manners. And they do.

At contentious events, protesters face police-created "free speech zones" - chain-link and cement-barricaded cordons far from the action - where would-be protesters can complain - to nobody.

The Republican PR machine regularly rolls out dismissive or derogatory names for progressive protesters before they even open their mouths. They are "French," "unpatriotic," even "traitors." We have a name now for what will happen to those who dare protest: They will be swift-boated.

The mainstream media finds protest a yawn. They barely cover it. Peaceful protest, by today's standards, is insufficiently dramatic. When more people than ever marched against the Vietnam War take to the streets to protest the invasion of Iraq, newspapers bury it on page 23. The all-news channels spare 15 seconds in the wee hours to inform their viewers. And word of protest is contained.

Today's college students, the bulwark and often the shock troops of the movements of the sixties have been pre-contained too. They live at home with their parents until their late 20's (what could be more stultifying?), they work full-time, they take overloads to minimize their years in college. They mostly do these things because they must - the cost of an education is obscene these days and the widespread federal college education grants that gave the baby boomers the freedom and free time to protest no longer exist. Though many of today's students are dissatisfied with things as they are, most no longer believe in the potency of protest. So they don't.

The average American's response to protest has been contained too by the unrelenting cynicism that has become our cultural currency. Fed on a diet of television shows that revolve around glorified violence or humiliating the weak and nonconforming, our culture has seen to it that nothing shocks, nor impresses, nor moves the American heart anymore. We are indifferent. Thus are the potential effects of protest contained.

And in these days of massive technological abilities to snoop almost into our very thoughts, even those who still define themselves as citizens might hesitate to voice a protest. They self-censor and are contained.

We who continue to plan and participate in protests (and I do) knowing in advance that mostly we'll be unheard and contained, bear some of the blame too. It helps us through these hard times to gather with one another. But protests have become predictable rituals and we haven't often found the recipe to make them fresh again.

As Marcuse observed at a similar moment in our history, we have become a society without opposition.

America can't go back fifty years and regain the propriety that made that lunch counter protest a discomfiting act of persuasion. And we who would protest must keep faith with Gandhi, with Martin, with the Greensboro protesters and all those who were committed to non-violent social change.

But given the state of our union, it's crucial to free protest from the many ways it has been contained and find a way to make it shake up the nation again.

Where will we find the Woolworth's lunch counter of 2006?
Cynthia Bogard is a professor of sociology at Hofstra University in New York.

On Historical Trauma

COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
PATRISIA GONZALES & ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ
© Feb. 6, 2006
Trauma, Love & History
By Patrisia Gonzales
Paztin: venerable medicine in Nahuatl
(a monthly feature on indigenous medicine)

I've tried to write about historical trauma for 10 years. How can anyone write about the effect that history has had on our bodies, our families, our lands, our plants, animals and rivers in 700 words? Can oppression kill love? And why is it some of us, but not all, assume the burden strap and carry the grief for our peoples' sufferings? Start with Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart's definition that helped to establish the very idea? Historical trauma (HT) is cumulative, collective wounding across generations “emanating from massive group trauma.”

For decades, native peoples have sought to address this wounding as part of mental health, also calling it intergenerational trauma, or multigenerational unresolved grief. As Choctaw scholar Karina Walters notes, “The trauma is targeted to the collective and the collective experience it …The trauma is held personally and transmitted over generations. Thus, even family members who have not directly experienced the trauma can feel the effects of the event generations later.” However, Walters' research shows that not everyone experiences “historical trauma response.”

Over the years, I've attended several conferences on historical trauma. The conferences of the Takini Network of native healers, scholars and therapists convened people such as Birgil Kills Straight, Nadine Tafoya, Larry Emerson, Lemyra DeBruyn, Bonnie Duran and Walters, who have helped establish an indigenous application of HT. Much of the development of HT theory for native peoples has its origins in this network when its members in the 1970's became conscious of their own unresolved traumatic grief.

On one occasion, Brave Heart recounted how she looked upon the photograph of her ancestors and began to “sob uncontrollably.” A Jewish mentor understood immediately, “That's genocide.” The experience of Jewish Holocaust survivors and their offspring has helped native peoples understand the Native American Holocaust. The grandchildren suffered trauma just from having heard the stories of their Jewish elders. And they are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder following a stressful event, thus leading to intergenerational transmission of historical trauma. In ceremonies, Brave Heart released the deepest grief and these experiences lead her to develop the theory of Historical Trauma, which now is one of the foundations of indigenous knowledge and mental health, and as Walters says, is a “fact that needs to be considered in post-traumatic stress disorder.” Walters has developed a related concept to HT, that of Colonial Trauma Response in either individuals or the collective. “Living under colonialism and colonial structures puts you at risk,” she told a Medical College of Wisconsin conference on the topic. And she's referring to the racism and politics of the here and now of the United States, the memories triggered in the s-word, native mascots, or other desecrations, such as the road being built through native shrines in Albuquerque and terminator seeds. Yes, the earth is also a survivor of historical trauma.

The intellectual development of HT is far more than can be addressed here. For myself, it has led me to a most basic conclusion, that historical trauma has shaken our ability to love. I'd like to know, what happened to love? The ability to love -- to give it and receive it and to know it beyond a fantasy jewel. I wonder what love was like before boarding schools and forced conversion. Trauma corrodes the better part of us, eating away at the generosity still found among elders, a generosity of spirit, of accepting and welcoming people on their own terms, the sharing of yourself and the gifting of kindness.

Perhaps it's as Eduardo Duran says, that trauma is a spirit that must be left offerings so that it will be at peace. Leslie Marmon Silko has written that there are spirits in stories and history. HT is like the phantom pain of an amputated limb. Despite it all, it's a miracle that we can, and do love, and still see the goodness in another. Love may not be talked about, but it speaks in our actions. Yes, to enjoy good relations, with our selves and others, to care and to love is to change history.

I leave a few teas to help as we seek to release the grief and wounding. Drink boraja/borage during times of grief. It feeds the adrenal glands. Drink tea of rosemary flowers to calm the brain. Drink estafiate/mugwort, tila/linden and magnolia flower for the liver, nerves and heart in a 1:1:1 ratio. A teaspoon of herbs to one cup hot water. The plants will know what to do.

© Column of the Americas 2006

* We can be reached at: 608-238-3161 or XColumn@aol.com or Column of the Americas, PO BOX 5093 Madison WI 53705. Our bilingual columns are posted at: http://hometown.aol.com/xcolumn/myhomepage/

* For a copy of our trilingual Amoxtli San Ce Tojuan documentary, Cantos Al Sexto Sol and the Mud People, or more info re future screenings contact us at XColumn@aol.com - 608-238-3161 - or go to: http://hometown.aol.com/aztlanahuac/myhomepage/index.html

At Burial Site, Teeth Tell Tale of Slavery

January 31, 2006
At Burial Site, Teeth Tell Tale of Slavery
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
While remodeling the central plaza in Campeche, a Mexican port city that dates back to colonial times, a construction crew stumbled on the ruins of an old church and its burial grounds. Researchers who were called in discovered the skeletal remains of at least 180 people, and four of those studied so far bear telling chemical traces that are in effect birth certificates.

The particular mix of strontium in the teeth of the four, the researchers concluded, showed that they were born and spent their early years in West Africa. Some of their teeth were filed and chipped to sharp edges in a decorative practice characteristic of Africa.

Because other evidence indicated that the cemetery was in use starting around 1550, the archaeologists believe they have found the earliest remains of African slaves brought to the New World.

In a report to be published in The American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the archaeology team led by T. Douglas Price of the University of Wisconsin concluded, "Thus these individuals are likely to be among the earliest representatives of the African diaspora in the Americas, substantially earlier than the subsequent, intensive slave trade in the 18th century."

Dr. Price said last week that a more precise dating would be attempted soon with radiocarbon analysis of the excavated bones. Maps and other records of Campeche, on the Yucatán Peninsula, indicate that the burial ground was used from the mid-16th century into the 17th. A pre-1550 medallion was found in a grave.

Other archaeologists and historians who were not involved in the research said they knew of no earlier skeletal remains of African-born slaves that had been found in the Americas. Dr. Price said that a colleague in the research, Vera Tiesler of the Autonomous University of the Yucatán, who is a historian of the colonial period, thought the slave burials occurred in the cemetery's first years. She directed the excavations.

The fact that the burials were found in ruins of a colonial church could mean "that they had some kind of status or were converted to Christianity," said Richard H. Steckel, a professor at Ohio State University who studies health and nutrition of pre-Columbian American Indians.

Although ample records attest to the presence of African slaves in the New World at this time, Dr. Steckel, who had no part in the discovery, said: "Much less is known about their health. So, if researchers can document the stature, degenerative joint disease, dental decay, trauma and so forth, then it could be quite interesting."

William D. Phillips, a University of Minnesota professor who is a historian of Old World and New World slavery and who was not involved in this research, said it was not surprising to find African remains in the Yucatán at this time.

Dr. Phillips and other historians said colonial Campeche was an important Spanish gateway to the Americas and would have had substantial traffic in slaves. Within a few years of the first voyage of Columbus, in 1492, they noted, Africans were shipped to the Caribbean and then the mainland. Their numbers increased steadily as sugar plantations were established by the Spanish on the islands, then in Mexico and coastal Peru.

"Some experts suggest that more Africans than Europeans went to Spanish America in the period up to 1600," Dr. Phillips said.

Herbert S. Klein, a historian of Latin America at Stanford and an author of studies on slavery in the region, said, "The slave trade was in full development by the mid-16th century and would have brought African slaves to Mexico, though the primary work force remained Amerindians."

In time, as European diseases reduced Indian populations, the demand for labor from Africa increased. Over a span of four centuries after Columbus, it is estimated, as many as 12 million Africans were placed in bondage and brought across the Atlantic to ports throughout the Americas.

If any older slave burials have been excavated, Dr. Klein has not seen reports of them in the professional literature, he said. The most likely places for any earlier finds, he added, would be in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic or in Cuba, where African slaves were first introduced.

The site in Campeche was discovered in 2000. As researchers examined the remains, they determined that some belonged to Europeans and Indians. Then they were drawn to a few with the distinctive dental mutilations, their first clue that these were probably people born in Africa.

Upon further examination, James Burton, the third member of the team, said four of the individuals "were like something we'd never seen."

Dr. Burton and Dr. Price, who are colleagues at the Laboratory of Archaeological Chemistry at Wisconsin, and Dr. Tiesler embarked on the strontium studies, supported by the National Science Foundation. Such strontium research, often applied in physical anthropology, is a part of their broader investigation of social mobility — where people were born and how near or far from home they eventually settled — in ancient Mexico and Central America, known as Mesoamerica.

At least 10 skeletons appeared to be African, the researchers reported, and four had teeth with "unusually high" combinations of two isotopes of the element strontium. An isotope is a slight variation of a chemical element, with a different mass but otherwise the same as the basic element.

In this case, the ratios of the isotopes strontium 87 and strontium 86 were consistent with those in the teeth and bones of people who were born and grew up in West Africa. A comparison with strontium measurements of people born in Mesoamerica showed no similarities with the four specimens.

These strontium signatures enter the body through the food chain as nutrients pass from bedrock through soil and water to plants and animals. Different geologies yield different isotopic strontium ratios. This is locked permanently in tooth enamel from birth and infancy, an important tool to trace the migration of individuals.

The researchers said the findings showed that these four appeared to be original migrants to the New World, not their children. Five other individuals thought to be African slaves had isotope ratios expected for people born around Campeche, hence from a later generation.

"In a community occupied for several generations, only a relatively small proportion of the individuals in a cemetery would be expected to come from the first generation," they wrote in the report.

The four individuals, the researchers said, appeared to have come from the area around Elmina, Ghana, a major West African port in the slave trade.

This was also the region of origin of some of the slaves found in the 17th- and 18th-century African Burial Ground, uncovered in 1991 in Lower Manhattan.



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Cindy Sheehan

Some folks might see this picture of proof of Cindy's un-Americanness, but how more American can she be when she defends our right to freedom of speech, which includes protesting against war. Also, she gave her son to this war, can she at least voice her pain and concerns?



Published on Wednesday, February 1, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
What Really Happened
by Cindy Sheehan


Dear Friends,

As most of you have probably heard, I was arrested before the State of the Union Address tonight.

I am speechless with fury at what happened and with grief over what we have lost in our country.


Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan is escorted out of the House chamber by security personnel, January 31, 2006. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
There have been lies from the police and distortions by the press. (Shocker) So this is what really happened:

This afternoon at the People's State of the Union Address in DC where I was joined by Congresspersons Lynn Woolsey and John Conyers, Ann Wright, Malik Rahim and John Cavanagh, Lynn brought me a ticket to the State of the Union Address. At that time, I was wearing the shirt that said: 2245 Dead. How many more?

After the PSOTU press conference, I was having second thoughts about going to the SOTU at the Capitol. I didn't feel comfortable going. I knew George Bush would say things that would hurt me and anger me and I knew that I couldn't disrupt the address because Lynn had given me the ticket and I didn't want to be disruptive out of respect for her. I, in fact, had given the ticket to John Bruhns who is in Iraq Veterans Against the War. However, Lynn's office had already called the media and everyone knew I was going to be there so I sucked it up and went.

I got the ticket back from John, and I met one of Congresswoman Barbara Lee's staffers in the Longworth Congressional Office building and we went to the Capitol via the undergroud tunnel. I went through security once, then had to use the rest room and went through security again.

My ticket was in the 5th gallery, front row, fourth seat in. The person who in a few minutes was to arrest me, helped me to my seat.

I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled; "Protester." He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs. I said something like "I'm going, do you have to be so rough?" By the way, his name is Mike Weight.

The officer ran with me to the elevators yelling at everyone to move out of the way. When we got to the elevators, he cuffed me and took me outside to await a squad car. On the way out, someone behind me said, "That's Cindy Sheehan." At which point the officer who arrested me said: "Take these steps slowly." I said, "You didn't care about being careful when you were dragging me up the other steps." He said, "That's because you were protesting." Wow, I get hauled out of the People's House because I was, "Protesting."

I was never told that I couldn't wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things...I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later. I was immediately, and roughly (I have the bruises and muscle spasms to prove it) hauled off and arrested for "unlawful conduct."

After I had my personal items inventoried and my fingers printed, a nice Sgt. came in and looked at my shirt and said, "2245, huh? I just got back from there."

I told him that my son died there. That's when the enormity of my loss hit me. I have lost my son. I have lost my First Amendment rights. I have lost the country that I love. Where did America go? I started crying in pain.

What did Casey die for? What did the 2244 other brave young Americans die for? What are tens of thousands of them over there in harm's way for still? For this? I can't even wear a shrit that has the number of troops on it that George Bush and his arrogant and ignorant policies are responsible for killing.

I wore the shirt to make a statement. The press knew I was going to be there and I thought every once in awhile they would show me and I would have the shirt on. I did not wear it to be disruptive, or I would have unzipped my jacket during George's speech. If I had any idea what happens to people who wear shirts that make the neocons uncomfortable that I would be arrested...maybe I would have, but I didn't.


There have already been many wild stories out there.

I have some lawyers looking into filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the government for what happened tonight. I will file it. It is time to take our freedoms and our country back.

I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether he/she has paid the ulitmate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government. That's why I am going to take my freedoms and liberties back. That's why I am not going to let Bushco take anything else away from me...or you.

I am so appreciative of the couple of hundred of protesters who came to the jail while I was locked up to show their support....we have so much potential for good...there is so much good in so many people.

Four hours and 2 jails after I was arrested, I was let out. Again, I am so upset and sore it is hard to think straight.

Keep up the struggle...I promise you I will too.

Love and peace soon,
Cindy
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