{UAH} OBAMA WAS NOT THE DREAM MARTIN LUTHER DREAMT

Obama Failed Black People – He Was Not The Dream Martin Luther Dreamt

Liberty Writers Africa

 

Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He was the first black president in the history of America. With his coming as president, there was great jubilation among the black community in America and indeed among Blacks all over the world.

He was a symbol of hope for the black American community. Black musicians all over the world made songs in his name. Many saw him as the “dream” of Martin Luther King Jr. They felt “finally, one of us is in the white house. He will bring us redemption.”

But did he bring that redemption? Well, that is what we are about to discuss.   

Looking at black reality in America, each index of black progress, actually regressed during Obama’s tenure as president.

Dropout of black students from school got higher. Unemployment of black people got higher. Incarceration of black people went up in the charts. And police brutality almost doubled and got to the same level it was before and during the Jim Crow era.

Many leaders of thought in the black community said that he didn’t do anything to address these issues.

Barack Obama took care of the rights of homosexuals. He gave them three laws in their favor and a supremecourt justice. He also gave them more than 250 Federal appointed jobs. He gave the Latinos a supreme court judge and unprecedented laws.

He also defended the rights of feminists and gave women the ‘equal pay act’ and put one of them on the supreme court.

These were great achievements for these minority groups. But it didn’t stop him from standing up for the black community. Barrack Obama did all this and neglected his people, the one group who built America with their bare hands from scratch. The one people who he couldn’t have been ignorant of their plight in America.

Obama’s neglect of the African American community while he was president points to the theory of Martin Luther King Jr, which says that “black faces are used to hide the racist agenda of the system.”

This theory is made strong by the condition of black people in America, ever since they started to have more black politicians. Each time a black person is made a senator or a governor, or a mayor, the condition of black people get worse in that area.

These black politicians are financed by the Democratic party and some big white cooperation that the average black American has to challenge. It is then impossible for the same black politician to stand against those who sponsored him/her for campaigns. So, there is no way the black politician can push or fight for a black agenda, when they were elected with white money.

Many believe that this above scenario was where Obama fell in.

Dr Umar Johnson, said that Obama was not a role model to young black men in America. He said that Obamas neglect of African Americans was not something he wanted young black men to emulate.

In a brief chat about Obama with Bo Kambei Ajala, the founder of African Diaspora, a strong group on Facebook that teaches African history, he said:

“I think Obama did more of a disservice than a service. He advocated more for Gay rights and Feminism than he ever did for Black America. In fact, I can’t make one thing he did specifically for us.”

“I can tell you when he was elected, there was extreme optimism, we were happy to see someone who looked and even occasionally acted like us. Very articulate and powerful orator. However, when it came down to action on our behalf there was nothing. As I previously said Homosexuals and Feminist gained more from his policies than the average African American ever did. Initially, the sentiment was ‘Give him a Chance.’ Near the end, some of us began to understand it was all talk. You will find staunch defenders still now, however, the woke few understand we did not benefit.”

These views held by Bo Kambei Ajala, are held by so many black Americans, while there are others who hold a different view. But it is safe to say that the majority thinks he should have done more.

HIS ROLE IN AFRICA

Barack Obama being a black man and ruling the strongest nation on earth, meant a lot to Africans, and African governments. He was looked up to like that person who would right all the wrongs that the west had done to Africa. We expected him to champion the course of Africa’s political freedom from America and Europe, but instead, he reinforced it.

His legacy in Libya still remains the reason why many Africans don’t like him. Obama convinced the world that Ghaddafi was doing something wrong, and with the help of NATO, America destabilized one of the most economically viable nations in Africa.

Obama himself called the aftermath of the 2011 intervention, when Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown, the “worst mistake” of his presidency—and some experts agree.

“The responsibility is on Barack Obama’s administration,” Alan J. Kuperman, associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told Newsweek. “He made the decision to overthrow Gaddafi.”

Human rights violations—including the Libyan slave trade revealed in a CNN investigation—are a result of U.S. interference, according to some experts. CNN released a video of migrants being sold for about $400 in an auction, though there have been accounts of slaves being sold for as little as $200.

In an article titled “Let’s never forget why Muammar Gaddafi was killed, Peter Koenig said:

“Gaddafi was certainly not killed for humanitarian reasons. He wanted to empower Africa. He had a plan to create a new African Union, based on a new African economic system. He wanted to introduce the Gold Dinar to back African currencies, so they could become free from the dollar. He wanted to protect Africa’s vast natural resources from Western looting. The imperialists eliminated him.”

Many Africans looked up to the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. They believed his vision for the African continent was noble and was going to free African nations from the influence of Europe and America.

If anyone was to defend the vision of Gaddafi for Africa, it was Barack Obama. But he sided with the white governments and cooperation to topple Gaddafi’s government and set Libya 50 years backward. Today, that dream for African economic freedom is gone with the wind. Libya is a failed state and Obama is enjoying his retirement.

Martin Luther King Jr would actually role in his grave when he learns of Obama’s failure to better the lives of black Americans, and how he helped to frustrate African economic emancipation.  

Article Written By Chuka Nduneseokwu

EM         -> { Trump for 2020 }

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"

 

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{UAH} HOW BARACK OBAMA FAILED BLACK AMERICANS

How Barack Obama Failed Black Americans

The country’s first black president never pursued policies bold enough to close the racial wealth gap.

William A. Darity Jr.

 

Bill Frakes / AP

Born in 1953, I am a child of the waning years of legal segregation in the United States. My parents, on the other hand, spent about 40 years of their lives under Jim Crow, and all of my grandparents lived most of their lives under official American apartheid. At the time of Barack Obama’s election to the presidency in 2008, my mother and all four of my grandparents were deceased. But my father was alive and well—and absolutely thrilled to have lived to see the election of a black man as president of the United States. Usually deeply cynical about American politics and politicians, my dad could not comprehend my deep reservations about Barack Obama’s leadership. Indeed, he viewed any criticism of Obama as bringing aid and comfort to white supremacists.

My father hardly was alone among black Americans, across all generations. The near complete unanimity of passionate black American admiration for Obama carried with it an absolute resistance to hearing any complaints about the black president. And, indeed, there was much to admire: an exceptional resume, an attractive family with a black wife who is his professional and intellectual equal, handsome and greying toward distinguished maturity, a strategically wise moderate progressive political position, and a place as the—sometimes self-professed—messianic fulfillment of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. For many black Americans, the ascent of Barack Obama to the presidency was equivalent to the moment of jubilee.

An extraordinarily disciplined individual, Barack Obama preempted the smallest hint of scandal by admitting that he had smoked pot during his youth. He even crafted a narrative of a rise from adversity—growing up successfully by the efforts of a single parent despite a missing father—albeit a white single mother with a Ph.D. whose own parents were affluent residents of Hawaii. With every drop of respectability in place, his somewhat icy intellect coupled with his enthusiasm for basketball and for black music across a half century of styles, he was an inordinately appealing candidate, with an ideal combination of the cool and the rational.

For many white Americans his elections confirmed their belief that American racism is a thing of the past. But an underemphasized dimension of each of Obama’s campaigns—a dimension patently relevant to the most recent presidential election—is the reality that he only received a minority of votes among whites who cast ballots. In fact, he would have been swept away in a landslide had only whites been the voters. In 2008, 55 percent of white voters cast their ballots for John McCain; in 2012, 59 percent of white voters cast their ballots for Mitt Romney.

Nevertheless, some of those white voters who did not vote for him took his eight years as president as license to assert that the country is post-racial, even while attacking him with both veiled and overt racial slurs. But racism is organic to American life, and it sits at the core of persistence of racial economic inequality. In his fascinating profile of Obama, Ta-Nehisi Coates refers to the “mark of a system engineered to place one on top of the other”—to place white over black. He offers some examples: the facts that blacks with a college degree have an unemployment rate almost as high as white high school graduates, that completion of a college education leads blacks to carry twice the level of student loan debt than whites four years after the degree, that blacks experience a significantly higher default rate on their loans, that black households have one-seventh of the wealth of white households, and that black families with $100,000 or more in income reside “in more disadvantaged neighborhoods than white families making less than $30,000.”

Sadly, these actually are softer illustrations of “the mark of the system” than findings that have emerged from research I have done with Darrick Hamilton, Anne Price, and other members of the National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Color (NASCC) research team. We find a much higher discrepancy between black and white wealth than the gap that Coates reports. Blacks with some college education actually have higher unemployment rates than whites who never finished high school. At each level of education, the black rate of unemployment is twice as high as the white rate. Moreover, the relative economic position on virtually all indicators, including the racial unemployment rate gap, has not improved since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Estimates generated from the 2013 round of the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances indicate that black households have one-thirteenth of the wealth of white households at the median. We have concluded that the average black household would have to save 100 percent of its income for three consecutive years to close the wealth gap. The key source of the black-white wealth gap is the intergenerational effects of transfers of resources. White parents have far greater resources to give to their children via gifts and inheritances, so that the typical white young adult starts their working lives with a much greater initial net worth than the typical black young adult. These intergenerational effects are blatantly non-meritocratic.

Indeed, the history of black wealth deprivation, from the failure to provide ex-slaves with 40 acres and a mule to the violent destruction of black property in white riots to the seizure and expropriation of black-owned land to the impact of racially restrictive covenants on homeownership to the discriminatory application of policies like the GI Bill and the FHA, created the foundation for a perpetual racial wealth gap.

Blacks working full time have lower levels of wealth than whites who are unemployed. Blacks in the third quintile of the income distribution have less wealth (or a lower net worth) than whites in the lowest quintile. Even more damning for any presumption that America is free of racism is our finding that black households whose heads have college degrees have $10,000 less in net worth than white households whose heads never finished high school. As we point out in our report, “Umbrellas Don’t Make It Rain”, studying hard and working hard does not enable blacks to eliminate the racial wealth gap. Doing the right thing is far from enough.

I had a queasy feeling about Barack Obama’s candidacy from the moment I heard his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech that lifted him into national prominence, a speech that Coates summarizes in the profile. Toward the end of the speech Obama observed that black families in urban centers realized “that government alone can’t teach our kids to learn … that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white.” “The acting white” libel—a myth that will not die—argues that low school performance for black students is a product of a culturally based black opposition to high academic achievement.

I long have been baffled by the tenacious hold this argument has on the American imagination. After all, black families have fought for education for their children against insuperable odds from slavery times. White students who label their high achievers “geeks” and “nerds” have no less a degree of anti-intellectualism. In fact, they may have a higher degree of anti-intellectualism, since black students from families with a given level of parental income or education get more years of schooling and more credentials than white students from families with comparable socioeconomic status. In our research for the NASCC project we discovered that black parents who provide some financial support for their children’s higher education have one-third of the wealth of white parents who provide no financial support for their children’s higher education. Black culture, if anything, has been ferociously supportive of education.

The “acting white” libel is symptomatic of a more general perspective—a perspective that argues that an important factor explaining racial economic disparities is self-defeating or dysfunctional behavior on the part of blacks themselves. And Barack Obama continuously has trafficked in this perspective. Of course, there are some black folk who engage in habits that undermine their potential accomplishments, but there are some white folk who engage in habits that undermine their potential accomplishments as well. And there is no evidence to demonstrate that are proportionately more blacks who behave in ways that undercut achievement, especially since it is clear that blacks do more with less. Nevertheless, Obama consistently has trafficked heavily in the tropes of black dysfunction. Either he is unfamiliar with or uninterested in the evidence that undercuts the black behavioral deficiency narrative. These tropes, in my view, do malicious work.

I worried that it was possible for the symbolic and inspirational aspects of having a black president would be more than offset by the damages that could be done by the messages delivered by a black president. And it has been damaging to have Barack Obama, a black man speaking from the authoritative platform of the presidency, reinforce the widely held belief that racial inequality in the United States is, in large measure, the direct responsibility of black folk. This has been the deal breaker for me: not merely a silence on white physical and emotional violence directed against black Americans, but the denial of the centrality of American racism in explaining sustained black-white disparity.

Apart from black dysfunction, Obama does acknowledge that ongoing discrimination is a partial factor explaining racial inequality and says that anti-discrimination enforcement is the type of black-specific measure that he can endorse. Of course, anti-discrimination laws do not operate exclusively on behalf of black folk. They really are universal measures intended to contain all forms of discrimination, and, while effective enforcement can improve black employment opportunities, it will do little to address massive, inherited racial wealth differences.

Obama’s general position is racial equality can be achieved—or at least approached—via policies that uplift all Americans experiencing poverty and deprivation. Obama has said that “as a general matter, my view would [be] that if you want to get at African American poverty, income gap, wealth gap, achievement gap, that the most important thing is to make sure that the society as a whole does right by people who are poor, are working class, are aspiring to a better life for their kids: higher minimum wages, full employment programs, early childhood education, those kinds of programs are by design universal but by definition, because they are helping folks who are in the worst economic situations, are most likely to disproportionately impact and benefit black Americans.”

But these particular programs—all, even in their diluted forms likely to be under assault under the new regime—are incremental and display no boldness of spirit. Obama’s evocation of the notion that “better is good” and his own acknowledgment that “maybe I’m just not being sufficiently optimistic or imaginative” is testament to his inveterate cautiousness. The timid nature of these policy changes dooms their disproportionate benefit for blacks to be marginal at best.

A higher minimum wage does not ensure individuals, black or white, actually will have jobs nor does it insure adequate hours of work to generate non-poverty incomes. Full employment policies under the Obama administration have meant old-fashioned Keynesian stimulus policies that rely heavily upon the unpredictable response of the private sector to the prompt of government expenditures. Quality early childhood education for all is wonderful, but the racial achievement gap widens most dramatically during comparatively later years of schooling. Furthermore, none of these policies promise any significant effect on the most pernicious economic disparity—the racial wealth gap.

Admittedly, there is one major initiative that the Obama administration has inaugurated that is black-specific, but it is the exception that proves the rule. It exposes all the issues at play. My Brother’s Keeper is a program premised on the view that young black men constitute a social problem and need interventions that will alter their outlook and actions. The focus is on reforming young men rather than directly increasing the resources possessed by them and their families and removing the constraints they face. Again, the underlying ideological motivation is the belief in black cultural deficiency, and, again, this type of initiative is another expression of failure to pursue bold policies that confront the fundamental causes of racial disparity in American society.

The Obama administration never gave serious consideration to aggressive transformative universal policies like a public-sector employment guarantee for all Americans, a federally financed trust fund for all newborn infants with amounts dictated by a child’s parents’ wealth position, or the provision of gifted-quality education for all children. These are universal programs that can have a significant “disproportionate impact and benefit for African Americans,” in the process of helping all Americans—unlike the types of universal programs endorsed by the president.

And the emphasis on exclusively universal programs yields the spectacle of a black president who opposes the most dramatic black-specific program of all—reparations for African Americans. This opposition ultimately seems to amount to a matter of political expediency. In his conversation with Coates, the president appears to acknowledge that there is a sound moral and philosophical case for reparations, particularly if—as Coates presses him to concede—incremental changes in existing social programs will not close the gaps, especially the racial wealth gap. The president ultimately takes the position that it is politically untenable to enact a reparations program. If so—and if nothing comparable can be realized—then I contend that it is impossible to close the racial wealth gap.

But why does the president believe it is impossible? He says “it is hard to think of any society in human history in which a majority population has said that as a consequence [of] historic wrongs we are now going to take a big chunk of the nation’s resources over a long period of time, to make that right.” The United States has taken a small chunk of the nation’s resources over a short period of time to try to make right on the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Malaysia’s New Economic Policy has taken a large chunk of the nation’s resources over a long period of time to correct the inferior position of the native Malays. However, the native Malays are a numerical majority in their country who also are the recipients of the wealth redistribution program conducted there.

There is no doubt that the political obstacles to congressional approval of black reparations are significant. But in 1820 in the United States one might not have been able to conceive that American slavery would ever come to an end, yet there were some who advocated abolition. In 1950 in South Africa one might not have been able to imagine that apartheid would ever come to an end, but there were activists who already had begun to oppose the system. If black reparations is the right thing to do—and I know in the depth of my soul that it is—then we should work to make it happen, no matter how long the odds. We should not bow at the altar of presumed political expediency.

After all, it may be the case that the president simply is wrong about the impossibility of making reparations happen. His deference to achieving “the better” over the determination to achieve “the best” may be a mistake. There are times when the effort to get to “the better”—the marginal change that appears to be an improvement—is so exhausting that its accomplishment becomes a barrier to getting to the best. Mark Gomez at the Haas Institute at Berkeley has said time and again in municipal struggles for minimum-wage increases that the “fight for 15” is easier than a “fight for 10.”

And sometimes Obama’s careful assessments of the political landscape are wrong. For example, he has said repeatedly that you do not win elections by telling the American people that things are going wrong. But that is precisely what Donald Trump did in winning the most recent presidential campaign. Black reparations can become a legitimate policy claim if and when a majority of Americans are convinced that it is an idea with merit. As Obama’s two elections demonstrate it does not necessarily require a majority of white Americans to support such a program. The political challenge is to forge that national majority, presumably with approximately 40 percent of white Americans on board.

Having a black president oppose reparations does not help the cause, particularly when that black president makes the case that an important source of black disadvantage is black folk’s own behavior. But black America should have paid attention to the experience of post-colonial black Africa and the Caribbean; leaders who look like you do not necessarily act in ways that benefit you. So be it. The struggle for reparations—and for black lives and justice—must and will continue, with or without Barack Obama in the fold.

EM         -> { Trump for 2020 }

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"

 

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{UAH} ‘Everyone is lying’: Outrage after Trump retweets TV host who said there’s a Covid-19 conspiracy to make him lose election

'Everyone is lying': Outrage after Trump retweets TV host who said there's a Covid-19 conspiracy to make him lose election https://www.rt.com/usa/494603-chuck-woolery-trump-tweet-covid19/ 

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{UAH} New Zealand lifts all Covid restrictions, declaring the nation virus-free - BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52961539 

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{UAH} 'Black couple 'made to feel like criminals' after being stopped by police

https://youtu.be/aVYmbELMasQ 

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{UAH} Life is but a journey...

Make your bed, lie in it......

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{UAH} AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE ABOUT TO PAY A VERY HIGH PRICE

Soaring disrespect for cops means big trouble for the most vulnerable New Yorkers

By Post Editorial Board

July 12, 2020 | 8:24pm

Enlarge Image

Christopher Sadowski

 

It happened on July 1, but the event captured on Page One of Sunday’s Post captures what’s going horribly wrong across the city right now: a lack of respect for the police, from people on the street, to politicians in their offices.

Two police officers have handcuffed a man and are putting him in their car. He’s resisting, flailing about, while onlookers taunt the police and film them from multiple angles. This is how impossible it is to enforce the laws these days.

As the scuffle continues, one man in the crowd steps right next to the action. The cop pushes him away, to keep him from interfering. Then, when the cop’s body camera falls to the ground, police say the man kicks it away.

The officer rushes the man, who proceeds to put the cop in a headlock. The crowd jeers and cheers; when the man lets go they encourage him to “get out of here” so he isn’t arrested.

What if the police officer had put the civilian in a headlock? If Mayor de Blasio still intends to sign an overreaching City Council bill, the police would be criminally liable not just for using headlocks, but for any action that constricts a civilian’s diaphragm. The mayor insists the NYPD can train officers to avoid such trouble — but any close physical struggle involves that risk. The message to police: Stay completely hands off. Don’t make arrests. And if an angry crowd interferes, step back.

This, when yet another bloody Saturday night saw at least 17 people shot over 24 hours — more than in the same entire week a year ago. And gunfire was far from the only sign of trouble: A Brooklyn drag-racing crash took three young lives — one boy was just 11 — around sunset.

And, as Karol Markowicz notes on the opposite page, cop aren’t the only public servants under attack. Even bus drivers and subway workers face truculent resistance, and sometimes violence, as they try to do their jobs.

 

Yet the NYPD is clearly under orders to hang back, as is clear from the scene around the vagrants’ encampment by City Hall. “Occupiers” at the supposed protest site attacked a Post reporter with a two-by-four on Sunday, demanding he stop filming them with his phone. Police refused to even take a report, despite the reporter’s offer of video evidence.

The main price for this widespread rise in disorder falls firmly on residents of the city’s poorest neighborhoods: As Sunday’s Post reported, violence is rising mainly in just a handful of precincts in Brooklyn and The Bronx. The law-abiding majorities in those areas don’t deserve this — but the politicians are afraid to stand up to the loud, unruly few.

And any police officer who tries to do right is acting at his or her own risk. No wonder retirements are skyrocketing.

What will it take for the mayor and City Council to stop frittering away two decades of gains in public safety?

EM         -> { Trump for 2020 }

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"

 

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{UAH} JOE BIDEN ADVISOR ON THE CRIME SURGE IN NEW YORK

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says NYC crime surge due to ...

 

EM         -> { Trump for 2020 }

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"

 

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{UAH} NOT JUST POLICE, PUBLIC SERVANTS ARE UNDER ATTACK TOO

It’s not just police: Public servants of all stripes are now under assault

By Karol Markowicz

July 12, 2020 | 8:23pm

Enlarge Image

Gregory P. Mango

‘Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?” So asks Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker while meeting his social worker, motioning to Gotham outside the window.

It isn’t just you or the stuff of superhero thrillers. Gotham — the real Gotham — is in chaos, and disrespect for authority, and not just police authority, is sinking it deeper.

New York is suffering a serious slide in livability. Those who can have already fled the city, and it’s a big question mark whether they are coming back. Each day brings a new barrage of online-message-board pleas, from people wondering if they can get out.

For many, it’s the radiating disorder. We watched the New York Police Department stand down as riots smashed neighborhoods in June. We watched our elected ­officials cower in the face of violent radicals; many stores remain boarded up.

Mayor de Blasio continues to pretend everything is OK. Instead of calming a worried city, he trolls President Trump by painting street murals. Only his enormous ego surpasses Hizzoner’s incompetence.

Last week, The Post reported that the NYPD is experiencing a 411 percent spike in early retirements. So many officers tried to retire early that the department had to limit the number of permitted daily applications. This is a crisis.

The #DefundPolice fools don’t get it: It isn’t just the police that will suffer as they push the city to the brink.

There have been more than 400 incidents since mid-April “in which transit workers have been battered, spit on or threatened by riders,” according to The City news site, citing Metropolitan Transportation Authority figures. These “unruly person” reports are telling a story of mass lawlessness.

The line between “unruly” and “violent” is razor-thin. In March, a subway operator was punched after asking a man not to ride ­between the cars. In May, ­another operator was stabbed by a woman who got into his cab. Last week, a bus driver was hit in the head from behind and woke up in the hospital.

An MTA subway operator told me he has noticed a lot more graffiti — and a curious shift in the people who give him trouble. He said these aren’t “the usual nuisance drunks,” but increasingly people fired up by rage, ideological or otherwise. “The cops are slowing down [enforcement], and certain people on the edge are ­noticing,” he says.

One veteran bus driver told me he recently faced a threatening and confrontational rider, who ­refused to get off at the end of the line. The incident had rattled the driver so badly, he took time off to recuperate.

All the civil servants I spoke with told me they were proud of their roles and felt that part of their job was to handle incidents with the public to the best of their ability. No one wanted to tell me a “sob story.” All were concerned about the increasing chaos and tense atmosphere.

One firefighter told me he’s seen an uptick in aggressive ­behavior that “crosses the line” but said that firefighters generally brush off risks as part of the job. “This is stuff we should be able to handle and mitigate,” he said, “and we have enjoyed a comfortable ­relationship with the public for many years.”

He noted that he senses “a pushback against institutional authority right now,” and it’s disrupting relationships firefighters have formed in communities. He added that the anti-authority attitude “puts people at odds with us, where normally we would have no problems.”

If our mayor is done with his coloring project, perhaps he can notice that the city is falling apart and the people who keep things running are in danger.

I’m a lifelong New Yorker, and I remember our bad old days. Disrespect for anyone in any kind of authority — MTA employees, teachers, police and firefighters — was the standard. Crime went hand-in-hand with that disrespect. We desperately need new leadership to bring us together and pull us back from this moral precipice.

If we love New York, we have to fight for it, starting by choosing leaders who encourage respect for our civil servants. The ones we have now do not.

EM         -> { Trump for 2020 }

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"

 

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{UAH} CORONA VIRUS SUFFERING IN ISRAEL

Israel is also quietly suffering from Corona virus (see photo attached). A crippled economy, countless newly unemployed Israeli's, and a new spike in confirmed cases means the Children of Israel must be locked down again. Meanwhile #Uganda has "zero deaths".

Is God saying "All Lives Matter"?

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{UAH} THE 3 LOVE PORTIONS ANY WOMAN CAN GIVE A MAN.

THE 3 LOVE PORTIONS ANY WOMAN CAN GIVE A MAN.

Have you wondered why your relationships are not lasting? have you wondered why he keeps cheating on you? Have you wondered why he nags and threatens to break up? There are three love portions that can kidnap the heart of a man forever.

1. A GOOD CHARACTER: Your boobs, curves and indecent dressing will only seduce a dog that wants to hit and run but A good character seduces a real man. Everybody has back and front there's nothing different from your own, God did not add sugar to your Virginia is still the same thing stop shooting out your bombom and posting it as WCW every woman has it. Go for what they don't have. When there's an increase in the supply of indecent ladies then there's an increase in the demand of Ladies with good character. In the market of single ladies there is surplus of Bad girls you can't afford to join the crowd be different.

2. HARDWORKING WOMAN: Everyman needs a support system that can help him achieve his goal and vision in life, if all you can bring to the table is sex then you don't have any value, when last did you pray with your partner, what are you doing presently? You can't be lazy and expecting a man to be your everything, no man is praying to marry a liability, the same way you are looking for who will take care of you that's the same way every man is looking for who will take care of them go and work!!! When you have your own money it will reduce certain insults and rubbish.

3. A SPIRITUAL WOMAN: I didn't say God fearing, see, you can be God-fearing but you are not deeply spiritual. Every man needs a woman that can train his children in the way of the Lord, a woman that can fast and pray, a woman that can take care of the affairs of the home when he is not around. Not a woman that will be calling him honey pls come home your son is dying that adds so much pressure in the man. Have you wondered why most men die before their wives because he is carrying so much load, you are meant to be a helper not necessarily someone that needs help but a helper if you don't help him he will die and leave you to help yourself.

When you have these three qualities, any man that leaves you, actually lost!! just celebrate because he actually lost a Gold, I bet you no man will mess up with a woman who has these three qualities in them. Stop looking for who is right for you work on yourself!!!

Do you know that while some ladies are looking for suitors that other ladies are praying to God for guildiance to choose between the 20 serious suitors on ground!!! The difference is clear there's something those men have seen that they can't see else where. Work on yourself.

For You Men: Never use a woman's poor background to control and abuse her! Be a man and support your woman! 

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Allaah gives the best to those who leave the choice to Him."And if Allah touches you with harm, none can remove it but He, and if He touches you with good, then He is Able to do all things." (6:17)

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{UAH} Covid-19: Man arrested for publishing rumours | The New Times | Rwanda

https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/covid-19-man-arrested-publishing-rumours 

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{UAH} Uganda ranks 6th most popular African destination for international conferences

https://capitalradio.co.ug/uganda-ranks-6th-popular-african-destination-international-conferences/ 

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{UAH} This is why some people are defecting to NRM ahead of the 2021 elections!

It's not surprising that some people are defecting to NRM before the 'scientific' elections organised by the chairman of the NRM, with an EC headed by Justice Simon Byabakama(NRM cadre). This is Mr.Museveni's chance to weed out any opposition candidates that have been causing him headache for a long time and rewarding most of those sympathetic to him. There will be nothing like safe seats in the 2021 elections apart from, obviously, the presidency. For instance, I would not be surprised if the Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago, Hon. Beti Nambooze, et al, end up losing to surprise candidates from nowhere.

Museveni will definitely have a supermajority in the next parliament and a qualified majority in the local elections (LC1 to LC5). Anybody standing for MP and he has a good relationship with the president will definitely go through. This explains why there's a lot of defections to NRM at the moment, because politicians know that, without rallies, it will be easy for Museveni to decide who wins and loses.

There won't be a spoiler in the presidential elections among the opposition candidates, as some People Power supporters keep alluding to it that other candidates will spoil the performance or success of Bobi Wine. However, I can see Bobi Wine being given a better % at the end of the electoral process to make it look like he's done better than Besigye's first time, and to keep the hope among his supporters that elections will, eventually, remove Museveni and NRM from power. It will be a mistake for Museveni to embarrass Bobi as he did with Amaama Mbabazi in the 2016 elections by giving him 1% (132,574 votes) despite the crowds the latter was attracting.

The game plan for opposing political parties must be beyond 2021 elections. There is no need for unity for purposes of elections, anymore—that train has left its station, already. Any party that unites behind a certain candidate now risks going into smoke after the 2021 elections. Every party should use presidential elections to sell themselves to the grassroots. As such FDC, which is the biggest opposition party, have five choices:

1- Persuade Dr. Kiiza Besigye to run as a presidential candidate again. This will help them to reawaken their support on the grass roots, since Besigye is already a home brand out there. Unfortunately, Besigye will only have to do this by appearing on various radio and TV stations, rather than doing rallies due to Covid19 guidelines. He could use these programs to sell his 'defiance' again, which was derailed by the coming of Bobi who has spent the last three years selling elections to the public. FDC has been weakened by the coming of Bobi and the formation of ANT by Mugisha Muntu.

2- Front a new face as a presidential candidate. This could be a problem considering the kind of elections we shall be having, and the little time left.

3- Not taking part in the elections.

4- Mass mobilisation of people to remove the Museveni government.

5- Negotiating with Museveni not to come back in 2026.

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*Abbey Kibirige  Semuwemba*

Stalk my blog at: http://semuwemba.wordpress.com

"Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive." - Henry Steele Commager 1902-98

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{UAH} Fleeing Idi Amin: the long journey to a new life

Fleeing Idi Amin: the long journey to a new life

Following the expulsion by Idi Amin of Uganda's Asian population in the summer of 1972, some 28,000 people arrived in Britain in a matter of weeks – to a mixed reception from their new neighbours. Becky Taylor charts their story

January 24, 2019 at 7:16 am

Accompanied the BBC Four series A Very British History

When, in the summer of 1973, the Muhammed family stepped off the train at Wick, 20 miles south of John o'Groats, they did not know it, but they had the distinction of being the northernmost Ugandan Asian family in Britain. At five o'clock in the evening, the Muhammeds – mother, father, and five children aged from five to 14 – had set off from Hemswell, an ex-RAF base in North Lincolnshire that had been serving as a resettlement camp. Arriving by train in Wick 16 hours later, disorientated and with only a limited grasp of British geography, the first question they asked on arrival was: "Are we far from London?" What were the steps that had taken the Muhammeds, who only months before had been living in Uganda, to the far reaches of north-east Scotland?

We could trace the first step on their journey back to the late 19th century. This was the time when Britain, as an imperial power, started encouraging migration from one of its holdings, India, to its new acquisitions in east Africa. Finding much of the local populace unwilling to engage in paid labour, the colonial government solved the manpower shortage by shipping workers across the Indian Ocean to build the new railways and other infrastructure needed to develop the territories. Accompanying them, and in their wake, came Indian clerks, traders and an emerging professional class who quickly created a new layer of society – servicing not only the newcomers, but the African population and colonialists too.

Fast forward half a century and we reach the second step on the Muhammeds' journey to Wick. Demands for African independence brought growing criticism of east Africa's Asian population, who were described as the "Jews of Africa" and "bloodsuckers" who dominated the civil service, the professions and the urban economy. Aware of the tensions, and to reassure east African Asians that independence wouldn't result in catastrophe, the British government pledged to allow those in Uganda and Kenya to retain their UK passports (to which all citizens of Britain's colonies were eligible) and their right of entry to Britain.

Amid demands for independence, nationalists called east Africa's Asian population the 'Jews of Africa'

All too soon this was needed. First in Kenya, followed quickly by Uganda (which became independent in 1962), a series of 'Africanisation' policies were enacted. These banned non-citizens from the civil service and running businesses, and were accompanied by street violence and intimidation. Britain responded to the resulting exodus of Kenyan Asians by tightening immigration law: the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, strengthened by the Immigration Act 1971, introduced a requirement to demonstrate a "close connection" with the UK either via birth, or through parents or grandparents. In doing this, it excluded most Asian UK passport holders from unrestricted entry to Britain and reneged on the promises made to east African Asians on independence.

By the time Idi Amin announced, in August 1972, that all Ugandan Asians had 90 days to leave the country and could take with them the equivalent of just £50, they no longer had any automatic right of entry to the UK. It was only as a result of intense international pressure that Ted Heath's Conservative government accepted responsibility for all UK passport-holding Ugandan Asians and allowed them to enter Britain. The new arrivals became the responsibility of the rapidly assembled Ugandan Resettlement Board (URB), which was charged with finding homes and employment for those forced to flee.

Economic hardship

This was no small task. The arrival of 28,000 Ugandan Asians in Britain in the autumn and winter of 1972–73 happened at an unpropitious time economically. After three decades of postwar prosperity, near full employment and economic growth, things were changing. Housing was limited and unemployment was the highest it had been for decades. This gave ammunition to opponents of immigration and prompted anti-immigration demonstrations in cities across Britain. The National Front was only one of a range of anti-immigrant groups capitalising on such attitudes, tying rising prices, economic difficulty and uncontrolled immigration together into a toxic mix of racism and street action.

There were those who argued that families such as the Muhammeds were unwelcome immigrants, taking housing, jobs and resources from hard-pressed Britons. Indeed, a few days after the Muhammeds arrived in Wick, a local family in a nearby village had their house burned to the ground. The next day the mother came into the local social work department demanding a new, fully furnished house. "After all,'' she said, "it is my right, isn't it? You did that for a Ugandan Asian family."

And it was the government's response to these kinds of attitudes that created the third step on the Muhammeds' journey to Wick: the policy of dispersal. Anxious to diffuse tensions over the new arrivals, the URB divided the nation into "red" areas, which should receive none of the expellees, and "green" areas, to which the newcomers should be directed. Red areas, which included the major towns of the Midlands and most areas of London, were places that already had significant populations of newly arrived international migrants, including established and growing Asian communities. Not only did these areas have significant opportunities for work, but they also had existing shops, places of worship and cultural events catering for their new Asian populations. Yet rather than seeing these as reasons to encourage Ugandan Asians to settle in these areas, the URB instead declared them "full".

Leicester City Council gained particular notoriety during the crisis for placing an advert in the Ugandan Argus newspaper warning Ugandan Asians who were coming to Britain of no houses, no jobs and full schools in the city: "In your own interests and those of your family you should… not come to Leicester." And so it was to Scotland, all of which was designated green, and to Britain's new towns, provinces and rural areas that the URB looked to house the expellees. Despite this, many of the expellees simply bypassed the official reception and resettlement programme and went straight to friends and relatives in Leicester.

A warm welcome

It's important to recognise that this image of Britain as a hostile, grudging host of its former imperial subjects is only half the picture. Britain was changing. As much as postwar immigration, the counter-cultural movements of the 1960s were reshaping the country, making it more diverse, open to new ideas and people. For every person complaining that the expellees were threatening British jobs, there was someone else ready to give up their time to welcome the newcomers, and to try to make them feel at home.

Volunteers were drawn from all strata of British life, and more than 30,000 people became involved in reception and resettlement efforts. Showing the richness and diversity of British life at the beginning of the 1970s, volunteer rosters included representatives from the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Catholic Committee for Racial Justice, the Indian Workers' Association, the Zoroastrian (Parsi) Association of Great Britain and the British Council of Churches, as well as from newer groups such as the League of Overseas Pakistanis and the West Middlesex British Asian Relief Committee. Although the URB provided core funds and an administrative structure for the reception effort, volunteers worked as advisers, baggage handlers, clerical workers and telephone operators, and ran activities and social events. Gujarati-speaking volunteers became crucial interpreters as expellees sought to make sense of their new surroundings.

Today, Britain's Ugandan Asian population is seen as one of immigration's success stories

And this was to create the fourth and final step on the Muhammeds' path to Wick. The URB had no powers to force councils or individuals to allocate housing or employment to the expellees. Rather, the URB relied on goodwill and sympathy with the Ugandan Asians' plight to generate offers of homes or work from councils or employers. It looked to local voluntary organisations to prepare those houses for habitation and to make expellees feel at home.

In many towns, it was the WRVS (Women's Royal Voluntary Service) that worked to source clothing, bedding, electric fires and heaters, while the dietary needs of the newcomers led local volunteers to put some effort into finding specialised kitchen equipment and utensils for cooking Indian food. No small part of settling in expellees involved introducing them to the vagaries of the British weather: "Coming from the warm climate in Uganda to the depths of a wet… winter, means that most Ugandans have inadequate clothing on arrival… The families had never known weeks of constant cold weather… [We tell] them exactly what to wear to keep warm, how to make fires that would warm all the rooms, what food would help to build up protection against colds…"

As well as getting help to tackle these practical difficulties, families also had to seek work and get their children into schools, often while facing language barriers and what could feel like an immense cultural divide. In Preston, local volunteers arranged for a female English tutor to visit women in their houses, while the local churches, led by the Methodists, 'adopted' individual families, visiting them regularly, inviting children to join the youth and sports clubs and acting as an informal point of contact. Such efforts at hospitality and welcome were vital to those making their first steps in their new lives in Britain.

Sudeep Kaur Bone's family moved into a council house in Thetford, an experience that she remembered very positively: "The local community gathered up, I think through the church and all that, and we were given a council place and completely furnished… to a point where they even got the food for the first week… And there was another, a Punjabi family, they came and they brought the lentils and… the dahls and the spices and everything for us."

Even the Muhammeds, up in Wick, were less isolated than it first appeared. The north of Scotland, too, was changing. They found in the town five families of Pakistani traders and shopkeepers, people who worked hard to make them feel welcome.

Food writer Meera Sodha, presenter of the BBC Four documentary, describes her grandfather's dramatic escape from Uganda

My family's Ugandan history began with my great-grandfather who moved there from Gujarat in 1913, sold on promises by the British Raj, which had pitched Uganda and Kenya as lands of opportunity for hard-working Indians. His five sons, including my grandfather, followed in the 1940s and the family built a thriving business empire that included an orange juice factory and printing press.

When Idi Amin announced the expulsion of Asian families from the country, the family embarked on a dangerous journey to Entebbe, where, as British passport holders, they could take a flight to the UK. My grandfather had heard rumours that Ugandan Asian girls were being raped as they fled the country, so he wrapped my 16-year-old mother in bedsheets and hid her in the back of the van. Despite being stopped by armed guards en route to the airport, they made their flight and ended up at Stradishall camp in Suffolk with just one suitcase of belongings between the five of them

Within two weeks of their arrival, my grandfather had accepted a job as a lorry driver at Scunthorpe Steelworks and the family moved to a council house in Winterton, five miles from Scunthorpe.

Having an Asian family in the area caused quite a stir and there was even an article about them in the local newspaper. Some people were anxious about having an Indian family nearby; others were ambivalent. But people were mostly welcoming – some brought cakes or offered use of their washing machines. The headmistress at the local school even invited my mother and younger brother into her garden to show them English flowers and teach them how to take tea.

My mother has always said she was excited to move to the UK – the family had always considered themselves Indian and British, even when living in Uganda. My grandfather, too, was determined to make the best of the move. He became one of the many success stories of the Ugandan-Asian immigration, saving hard to open a new business and prove his worth in the country that had offered him refuge.

Opening doors

Today, Britain's Ugandan Asian population is celebrated as one of immigration's success stories, seen as central to the economic and cultural strength of cities such as Leicester. But this outcome was by no means clear 45 years ago. To what can we attribute their success? In part, it was down to the reception and resettlement programme. While certainly flawed, it found people homes and work, while the massive voluntary effort far surpassed the activities of rightwing groups, and created a genuine atmosphere of welcome and friendship.

Crucial, too, was the support they found within the existing British-Asian population, who opened their doors to relatives and friends until the newcomers were able to establish themselves. Atul Pattni, who came to England as a child, remembered that on arrival his family stayed with his aunt in Leicester in a "three-bedroom terrace house with, oh, nearly what 16, 17 people" living in it for three months before his father was able to find a house for the family to rent. People found work for expellees in their businesses, or went into partnership with them, building up an enterprise from scratch. And, of course, there was the hard work and resilience of the Ugandan Asians themselves. Idi Amin may have forced them to leave behind their material wealth, but he could not take away their education, their skills or their determination to build a new life in Britain.

Becky Taylor is a reader in modern history at the University of East Anglia. She was the historical consultant on two episodes of the BBC Four series A Very British History, which includes an episode on Ugandan Asian refugees. The programme, presented by Meera Sodha, aired on BBC Four in February 2019

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On Linkedin: Peter-Rhaina Gwokto (La'Kitgum)

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall building", Jim Hightower

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