Civil Rights – Page 14 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Tag: Civil Rights

‘Time to Go’ – No Respect for our Hair

Posted on September 27, 2016 in Implementation, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“You cannot beg people to love you, if you are successful, it will not be love that you get, it will be pity; being pitied is pathetic” – Wise counsel.

Who wants to be pitied? Not so welcoming, is it?!

This commentary asserts that when you are being pitied, when that is how people tolerate you, then it is time to go home – where people love you.

This is a hot issue for the topic of hair: Black Hair, for men and women.

The truth about Black Hair is both “art and science”. Science-wise, it is different than the hair of other cultures. All these other cultures, feature natural texture that is straight; but for ethnicities descending from an African heritage, their natural texture is coarse-curly; derisively called nappy, peasy or kinky. The encyclopedic definition relates …

“Because many black people have hair that is thick with tighter and smaller curls than people of other races, unique hair styles have developed. In addition to this, many Black Hair styles have historical connections to African cultures.”

That is the science; all the rest of this discussion is the “art”; the options and choices on Black Hair, that some perceive to force assimilation and devalue culture. This is a heavy issue.

This commentary is 2 of 3 from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, in consideration of the reasons to consider repatriation back to the Caribbean homeland. The other commentaries detailed in this series are as follows:

All of these commentaries relate to the Caribbean image and disposition as a region with a majority Black population. The Go Lean book asserts that our demographics is what it is. There is no need to excuse, hide or assimilate to any other cultural influence. No racial supremacy is advocated – for this race or any other race – in the book or by this movement. We have a beautiful diversity, period. Despite any ethnic differences, the region has the same needs, to optimize the economic, security and economic engines in the Caribbean homeland.

The Go Lean book and movement serves as a roadmap for the introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is set to optimize Caribbean society through economic elevation, security empowerment and governing engagements. Therefore the Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book posits that investment and entrepreneurial opportunities can be created in the region, to the extent of creating 2.2 million new jobs. There will need to be an open, fair and level “playing field” for all these jobs. Assimilating to an alternate hairstyle, to placate some majority view will simply be irrelevant. Diversity will dominate in the business eco-system from the beginning; it will not have to be remediated or retrofitted.

This retrofit is challenging in the US right now. There have been legal challenges and court cases as to discrimination in the workplace regarding Black Hair styles. See a related news article here of a recent federal court ruling:

Title #1: Federal Court Rules It’s Legal Not to Hire Black Woman Applicant Because of Her Locs

Natural Black Hair styles are still seen as deviant and unprofessional in many settings,
and a recent court ruling might make it even harder to fight back against discrimination.

The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that banning employees from wearing locs is not racial discrimination. In a 3-0 decision the Federal Appeals court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Commission which argued that, “prohibition of dreadlocks in the workplace constitutes race discrimination because dreadlocks are a manner of wearing the hair that is physiologically and culturally associated with people of African descent.”

In 2010, Castastrophe Management Solutions, an insurance claims processing company in Mobile, Alabama offered Chastity Jones a job but told her that she would have to cut her locs before beginning work. When she refused, they withdrew the offer.

The HR managed claimed her locs violated the company’s grooming policy, which they say is race-neutral, and employees are required to keep their appearance “in a manner that projects a professional and businesslike image.” Jones was told locs “tend to get messy.”

Judge Adalberto Jordan expressed a hesitancy to expand the legal definition of racial discrimination via judicial action. He wrote in his opinion, “As far as we can tell, every court to have considered the issue has rejected the argument that Title VII protects hairstyles culturally associated with race,” he stated.”

Other related articles: http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/06/steve-perry-black-boys-hair-tweet/ posted June 15, 2016.
Summary: The notion that traditionally Black Hair styles are synonymous with being unsuccessful speaks directly to the pathologizing of blackness that this country is known to do — and our “leaders” are too often the ones elevated to do it.

So according to this foregoing news article, American companies do not have to remediate or retrofit to accept their diverse workforce; they are allowed to assimilate them, to force them to conform to a uniform vision that they conceive … or prefer.

The Borg: Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours. – Movie Quote: Star Trek – The Next Generation (TV Series).

When “they” force you into their mold, it is Time to Go.

The subject of Black Hair has been a frequent topic for this Go Lean movement. Previous submissions describes this topic as related to image and economics. Consider these summaries:

1. ‘Good Hair’ and the Strong Black Woman

Black kinky hair is considered worthless in the global marketplace. But the market for mitigating, treating (chemicals) and covering the hair (wigs & extensions) is worth $9 Billion annually. This seems like such a dichotomy for the Black community, especially among women. This ethnic group prides itself on a proud heritage of Strong Black Women, and yet there is this unspoken rejection of natural Black Hair. This is sad!

The Go Lean book presents strategies, tactics and implementations to elevate the Caribbean’s image and the region’s economic, security and governing engines. The end-goal is so that our people do not feel “Less Than” in their home countries. But if our Diaspora are among those spending the $9 Billion to treat/cover their Black Hair, then truly it is time to consider going home, back to people that love us just the way we are, rather than putting on “false airs”.

The CU will serve as a sentinel for Caribbean “image”. The US is the military and economic Super Power in this hemisphere. Their consumerism dictates the trends in the Caribbean as well; this is the North-South pressure. But the Caribbean has been successful in forging style-taste-trends in a South-North manner. Just consider the life work of these Caribbean role models:

o Sidney Poitier
o Bob Marley
o Oscar De La Renta

2. Caribbean Image: Dreadlocks

Dreadlocks are tied to Caribbean image; many view those with this headwear as inferior or “Less Than“. Many people in the Caribbean, though not a majority in the region, wear dreadlocks, despite their occupation. These “locs” can be an expression of deep religious or spiritual convictions, ethnic pride, a political statement, or simply be a fashion preference. Yet, their wear can be detrimental in job placement and advancement. This was “spot-on” for the issue in the foregoing federal court ruling.

Other ethnic groups also groom their headwear in a way germane to their culture and/or religion – Sikh Indian turban, Jewish yarmulke, or an taqiyah – but their wear is not associated with a “less than” disposition. This is a matter of image. The Go Lean/CU roadmap seeks to optimize the Caribbean economy, culture and image.

The ruling from the US federal court in the foregoing news article is another indicator that it is “Time to Go“. Trying to force acceptance of Caribbean hair traditions may be likened to begging people to love us. We may only get pity.

But the alternative is not easy. This means fixing the broken systems of commerce and the societal defects in the Caribbean. The Go Lean book describes this effort as heavy-lifting. This will address the “push and pull” reasons why people leave the Caribbean in the first place. Once we can fix the defects, there will be no excuse for our people, the Diaspora, to remain in an environment where they are forced to assimilate to a look and style more comfortable for their white neighbors and co-workers.

There is no freedom in this dreaded scenario.

Fixing the Caribbean eco-system has always been a mission of the Go Lean/CU roadmap, to dissuade the propensity for so many Caribbean people who flee from their Caribbean homelands to foreign destinations like the US. In addition, there is a mission to invite many Diaspora members to repatriate. The book contends that the Caribbean must prepare for the eventual return of these native sons and daughter back to our shores. This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 & 13) that claims:

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. …

xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states … will require a concerted effort to integrate the exile community’s repatriation, the Federation must arrange for Reconciliation Commissions to satiate a demand for justice.

xx. Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. …

Fixing the Caribbean defects do not only prepare the region for the return of the Diaspora, it also elevates the region to just simply be a better place to live, work and play. There truly is the need. Our region is not so settled on the issue of Black Hair. We still mandate a “white assimilation” on our people. Consider the story here in the following news article:

Title #2: Prep School in Jamaica Refuses Entry to Boy Because of His Hairstyle

According to a story in the Jamaica Observer, Hopefield Preparatory School in St Andrew has refused entry to Zavier Assam, 3, because of the way his hair is groomed.

Zavier was registered at the school, but his mother Dr. Penelope Amritt, reported that the vice-principal there decided not to admit her son for classes because she refused to cut his hair. The Observer contacted the school about the matter but received no comment. Dr. Amritt said that she submitted an application in June 2016 for her three children to attend Hopefield and included a photo of the three-year-old boy. She was then told by the vice-principal that Zavier could not come to school unless his hair was cut. After thinking about it over the summer, Dr. Amritt decided that she should not be forced into something she didn’t want to do and felt that the school was discriminating against Zavier because of his gender. She said that her five-year-old daughter Zina and her son Zavier have almost the exact, same hair length, which is just below their ears.

According the Dr. Amritt, when the vice-principal saw Zavier she said that she wanted the boy’s hair cut because it was “untidy and dirty,” a description Dr. Amritt strongly denies. The vice-principal also said that Zina’s hair should be tied back. Dr. Amritt challenged the vice-principal about requiring boys to have short hair and was given a lecture about head lice in school. When she brought Zavier for orientation, she was confronted again about the length of his hair and said it was her right to choose how her child’s hair is groomed.

Discussions between Dr. Amritt and the vice-principal have grown increasingly contentious, and ultimately, the vice-principal returned the check she had written to the school for her son’s entry and said she would not admit Zavier regardless of whether his hair is cut or not. Zavier must remain at Fundaciones, his old school, and his mother is unsure if she will pursue legal action on the basis of discrimination. Additionally, Dr. Amritt noted that Zina is having problems with the other children because of her “puffy hair” and that she no longer wants the afro style she has had her whole life because no one will play with her with her hair like that. Dr. Amritt believes the vice-principal is treating her children differently than the Caucasian children at the school.

In response to those who wonder why she would want to send her children to a school with such attitudes, Dr. Amritt said “discrimination is wrong and someone has to stand up and talk about it.”
Source: Posted September 6, 2016; retrieved September 26, 2016 from: http://jamaicans.com/prep-school-in-jamaica-refuses-entry-to-boy-because-of-his-hairstyle/

What are the motives of the school policies in this foregoing article? Perhaps to prepare the students for work and life abroad in the Diaspora. This is not the direction of the Go Lean roadmap: we want/need our citizens to be themselves, to be home, just the way they are:

Long hair? Short hair? Straighten/treated hair? Nappy/Kinky hair?

Its all good! See VIDEO in the Appendix below. These should all be promoted for the Caribbean image.

The art-and-science of image management is among the community ethos, strategy, implementations and advocacies the CU must master to elevate the Caribbean community. These individual roles-and-responsibilities are detailed in the book; see this sample listing here:

Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Caribbean Core Competence	Page 58
Tactical – Forging an $800 Billion Economy – Good leverage for Trade and Globalization	Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Tourism and Film Promotion	Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Communications and Media	Page 79
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Truth & Reconciliation Commissions	Page 90
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media – Managing Image Online	Page 111
Implementation – Trade Mission Objectives – World Outreach for Repatriation Dialogue	Page 116
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization – Exporting Media Productions	Page 119
Anatomy of Advocacies – Models of Individuals Making an Impact to their Community	Page 122
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Image	Page 133
Advocacy – Improve Failed-State Indices – Assuaging the Negatives	Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism – Creating a Demand, Not Dread of Caribbean Culture	Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Market Southern California – A Critical Market for Image	Page 194
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Ways to Protect Human Rights – Weeding-out Prejudices	Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts – Humanities Affect the Heart	Page 230

This subject of image management has been frequently blogged on in other Go Lean commentaries; as sampled here with these entries relating American “push and pull” factors:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9038	Caribbean Charity Management: Not Viewed as Grown Up
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9017	Improve Global Image: Proclaim August 1st as the ‘International Caribbean Day’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8431	Bahamas Issued US Travel Advisory Citing Police Violence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8099	Caribbean Image: ‘Less Than’?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7221	Street naming for Martin Luther King unveils the real America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5527	American Defects: Racism – Is It Over?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5333	Racial Legacies: Cause and Effect
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2025	Caribbean Jobs – Attitudes & Images of the Diaspora

When we succeed on the vision and missions of this roadmap, we must manage the image and communicate to the world, our elevated disposition. The book details how this is to be pursued. See the quotation here from the Go Lean book (Page 133):

Lean in for the Caribbean Single Market & Economy (CSME) Initiative: Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).
This will allow for the unification of the region into one market of 42 million people across 30 member-states, with a GDP of $800 Billion (according to 2010 figures). In addition, the treaty calls for collective bargaining with foreign countries and industry representatives for causes of significance to the Caribbean community. There are many times when the media portray a “negative” depiction of Caribbean life, culture and people. The CU will have the scale to effectuate negotiations to better manage the region’s image, and the means by which to enforce the tenets.

This is all part-and-parcel of the underlying Go Lean community ethos: Greater Good for all peoples, all hairstyles. Equal opportunity, equal employment and equal empowerment.

Black-and-Brown hairstyles? Yes, indeed!

All Caribbean stakeholders are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean/CU roadmap to elevate the Caribbean; to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———

Appendix VIDEO – 30 Beautiful Black Hairstyles for Natural Hair 2016 – https://youtu.be/wBSL71dU-OE

Published on Oct 29, 2015 – 30 Beautiful Black Hairstyles for Natural Hair 2016

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Civil Rights, Diaspora, Gender, Jobs

‘Time to Go’ – Spot-on for Protest

Posted on September 26, 2016 in Implementation, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Here’s an interesting little-known tidbit about Abraham Lincoln – the liberator and emancipator of the American slaves:

Initially, he felt that the freed slaves needed to leave America. He felt that they would never be treated as equals in the land that had previously held them as slaves for 250 years. He advocated for places like the Caribbean (Haiti & British colonies), Central America (Belize & Panama), South America (Guyana) or Africa (Liberia).
Source Book: Colonization After Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement.

Now, 150 years later, perhaps his thinking was “spot-on”.

These 150 years since the formal emancipation has seen a continuous suppression, repression and oppression of the Black race in America. Could they have had a better disposition in the Caribbean, with its Black majority rule?

This commentary asserts that it is easier for the Black-and-Brown populations in the Caribbean to prosper where planted in the Caribbean, rather than emigrating to foreign countries, like the United States.

We agree with Abraham Lincoln’s gut instinct; he was “spot on”.

This point aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which states that while the blatant racist attitudes and actions may now be considered politically incorrect, the foundations of institutional racism in the US have become even more entrenched. The book supports the notion that the Caribbean can be an even better place to live for the Caribbean’s Black-and-Brown populations, once we make the homeland a better place to live, work and play.

There is the need to optimize the economic, security and governing engines in the Caribbean region. This commentary is 1 of 3 from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, in consideration of the rhymes-and-reasons to repatriate back to the Caribbean homeland. The other commentaries detailed in this series are as follows:

All of these commentaries relate to the Caribbean image and disposition as a majority Black region. No racial supremacy is advocated in this book nor by this movement. The motivation is simply for the Greater Good. This is defined as …

“the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.” – Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832).

The Go Lean book and movement serves as a roadmap for the introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is set to optimize Caribbean society through economic empowerment, yes, but there are security and governing dynamics as well. Therefore the Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety, justice assurances and protect the economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap posits that the Caribbean region is in crisis now, and so many are quick to flee for refuge in foreign countries. But the “grass is not necessarily greener on the other side”; life in the US, for example, is definitely not optimized for the Caribbean’s Black-and-Brown. It is “spot-on” that there is need for protest, anguish and outright fear for the interactions of Black men and the American police/law enforcement establishment.

The Go Lean book asserts that every community has bad actors. The Caribbean has bad actors; and the US has bad actors. But because of the obvious need for reform and to transform the region, it may be easier to effect change at home, than in the foreign country of the US.

Besides, many (non-Black) people in the US, don’t even think they need to change anything. They think there is no problem – everything is fine – notwithstanding the proliferation of Cop-On-Black killings. See a related news article here regarding legendary NFL Head Coach Mike Ditka; (despite these developments, Mr. Ditka continues to be honored and esteemed in the Caribbean):

Title: Mike Ditka to Colin Kaepernick: ‘Get the hell out’ if you don’t like America
By: Bryan Armen Graham
Sub-title: Mike Ditka spared no criticism of Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest.

Hall of Fame coach Mike Ditka has leveled blistering criticism at Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem, saying he has “no respect” for the San Francisco 49ers quarterback whose protest has sparked a national discussion over racial injustice, inspired dozens of NFL players to follow suit and landed him on the cover of Time magazine.

“I think it’s a problem, anybody who disrespects this country and the flag,” the longtime NFL coach said in a radio interview on KRLD-FM in Dallas. “If they don’t like the country, if they don’t like our flag, get the hell out. That’s what I think.

“I have no respect for Colin Kaepernick. He probably has no respect for me, that’s his choice. My choice is that I like this country, I respect our flag, and I don’t see all the atrocities going on in this country that people say are going on.

“I see opportunities if people want to look for opportunity. Now if they don’t want to look for them, then you can find problems with anything, but this is the land of opportunity because you can be anything you want to be if you work. Now if you don’t work, that’s a different problem.”

The 76-year-old Ditka, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988, is one of two people in NFL history to win a league title as a player, an assistant coach and a head coach. He graduated from local hero to Chicago icon during an 11-year coaching stint with the Bears that included the team’s only Super Bowl win during the 1985 season, then retired permanently after a failed comeback with the New Orleans Saints in 1999.

A well-known conservative, Ditka publicly flirted with running against Democratic candidate Barack Obama, then a state senator, for the open seat in the US Senate vacated by Illinois senator Peter Fitzgerald in 2004. No one then could have imagined how the election would ultimately propel Obama to the presidency in four years’ time.

“Biggest mistake I’ve ever made,” he told the Dickinson Press in 2013. “Not that I would have won, but I probably would have and he wouldn’t be in the White House.”

In March, Ditka called Obama “the worst president we’ve ever had”.

“Barack Obama is a fine man,” he added. “He’s pleasant, he’d be great to play golf with. He’s not a leader.”
Source: The Guardian Daily Newspaper Online Site; Posted September 23, 2016; retrieved September 25, 2016:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/sep/23/mike-ditka-colin-kaepernick-get-the-hell-out-anthem-protest

Photograph: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

The protagonist in this drama is NFL Quarterback Colin Kaepernick; he has started a protest against the treatment of African-Americans in the US. He asserts that too many unarmed Black Men has died, as of recent, by the hands of White Police Officers. While others share this view, including the African-American President of the US Barack Obama, Mr. Kaepernick is voicing his protest by refusing to stand during the singing of the national anthem at the start of his NFL football games. This protest has fostered a lot of attention … and discord to this issue.

The underlying injustice of Cop-on-Black killings is acute. There is a need for community outrage; it is “spot-on” that anyone would protest. Kudos to Colin Kaepernick! Since he started his protest stance on August 26, 2016, at least 15 more “Black men have been killed by law enforcement officers” as of September 20, 2016; (but there has been 2 more highly publicized killings since this posting: Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma).

The foregoing article gives the instruction for people to leave who do not agree with the American status quo. But can they really? Could the liberated slaves in Lincoln’s day leave for elsewhere? How about the countless cries over the centuries and decades for Black American Nationalism; (as in Marcus Garvey)? Was there an alternative homeland for their consideration? This reminds us of the movie dialogue from the 1982 movie An Officer and a Gentlemen. Remember this exchange:

Foley: You can forget it! You’re out!

Mayo: Don’t you do it! Don’t! You… I got nowhere else to go! I got nowhere else to g… I got nothin’ else.

Seriously, for the majority of Black America, they have no where else to go. The Caribbean Diaspora who represent 1 in 11 Blacks in the US, on the other hand, have the option of repatriating home.

We welcome them! We declare that it is “Time to Go“. We are hereby preparing for their return – fixing our defects – monitoring our “bad actors”.

We have to consider that police officers can also be “bad actors”. The book contends that the Caribbean must better prepare for bad actors, that we will see more of them. With the plan for economic success, comes the eventuality of even more bad actors, just as a result of economic success. This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices of criminology and penology to assuage continuous threats against public safety. The Federation must allow for facilitations of detention for [domestic and foreign] convicted felons of federal crimes, and should over-build prisons to house trustees from other jurisdictions.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

The Caribbean appointing “new guards”, or a security pact to ensure public safety and justice assurance is a comprehensive endeavor, that will encapsulate the needs of all Caribbean stakeholders: governments, institutions and residents.

An important mission of the Go Lean roadmap is to dissuade the high emigration rates of Caribbean citizens to the American homeland. Secondly, there is a mission to encourage the repatriation of the Caribbean Diaspora back to their ancestral homeland.

This means being conscious of why people flee – “push” and “pull” reasons – and monitoring the societal engines to ensure improvement – optimization. (“Push” refers to the societal defects in the Caribbean that moves people to want to get way; and “pull” factors refer to the impressions and perceptions that America is better).

An increased perception that “one would be shoot by a White police officer” should lower the “pull” factor. We would think …
See VIDEO here:

VIDEO – I Am Afraid I Will Be Killed By Police – https://youtu.be/9DD64urEx28

Published on Jul 7, 2016 by Kevin OnStage. See more from this commentator here:
http://kevonstage.com/store
http://kevonstage.com/booking

The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to better optimize our Caribbean life (economic and security concerns):

Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Whistleblower Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – CU Federal Agencies -vs- Member-states	Page 75
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Foreign Policy Initiatives	Page 102
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives	Page 103
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Planning – Big Ideas – Regional Single Market	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Better Manage the Caribbean Image	Page 133
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering/Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters – Many flee after disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living	Page 234
Advocacy – Ways to Impact US Territories	Page 244

This subject of “push and pull” has been frequently blogged on in other Go Lean commentaries; as sampled here with these entries relating American “pull” factors:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8431	Bahamas Issued US Travel Advisory Citing Police Violence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8202	Respect for Minorities: Lessons Learned from American Dysfunction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8200	Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8099	Caribbean Image: ‘Less Than’?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7221	Street naming for Martin Luther King unveils the real America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7204	‘The Covenant with Black America’ – Ten Years Later
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6189	A Lesson in History – Hurricane ‘Katrina’ exposed a “Climate of Hate”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5733	Better than America? Yes, We Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5527	American Defects: Racism – Is It Over?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5333	Racial Legacies: Cause and Effect
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Also a European Sports Problem
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=546	American Model: Book Review – ‘The Divide’ – … Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341	Hypocritical US slams Caribbean human rights practices
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Don’t Want from the US: Racism against minorities

Underlying to the Go Lean/CU prime directive of elevating the economics, security and governing engines of the Caribbean, is the desire to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. We know “bad actors” will emerge – even as law enforcement officers – so we need to be “on guard”.

We want proactive and reactive mitigations for abuse of power. We want to ensure our Caribbean communities are safe for our stakeholders (residents and visitors). We entreat the American forces to work towards remediating their own defects. But fixing the US is not within our scope; fixing the Caribbean is our only mission.

Saying that it is “Time to Go“, must mean that we are ready to receive our oft-scattered Caribbean Diaspora. Are we ready, now?

Frankly, no …

… but were are ready, willing and able to start the change process, to reform and transform. This was the intent of the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The book contends that the Caribbean must prepare for the return of all of our people, back to these shores. This means people in a good disposition and bad (sick, aged, unemployed, destitute, imprisoned, etc.). This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 & 13) that claims:

xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states … will require a concerted effort to integrate the exile community’s repatriation, the Federation must arrange for Reconciliation Commissions to satiate a demand for justice.

xviii. Whereas all citizens in the Federation member-states may not have the same physical abilities, reasonable accommodations must be made so that individuals with physical and mental disabilities can still access public and governmental services so as to foster a satisfactory pursuit of life’s liberties and opportunities for happiness.

xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.

xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, prefabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

The book details the needed security provisions that need to be put in place to optimize Caribbean life. See this quotation here (Page 118):

“New Guards” for Public Safety
The CU implements the anti-crime measures and provides special protections for classes of repatriates and retirees. Crimes against these special classes are marshaled by the CU, superseding local police. Since the CU will also install a penal system, with probation and parole, the region can institute prisoner exchange programs and in-source detention for foreign governments, especially for detainees of Caribbean heritage.

This subject of improving the conditions for successful Caribbean repatriation has been blogged in previous Go Lean commentaries; as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5304	Mitigating the Eventual Abuse of Power
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360	Dreading the American: ‘CaribbeanBasin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4308	911 – Emergency Response: System in Crisis

The Go Lean roadmap was composed with the community ethos of the Greater Good foremost; for all peoples – Black, Brown, White, Yellow, Red. We advocate for a color-blind society …

… and justice for all.

This is an American concept … in words only. In practice, America has always fallen short in its delivery of justice and opportunities for its Black-and-Brown populations. There is so much that America does right, that we want to model; there is so much that America does poorly, that we want to mitigate. The “grass is not greener on the other side”. Effort is needed anywhere, everywhere, to improve society. But for the Black-and-Brown of the Caribbean, more success from less effort can be expected in the Caribbean than in the US; the underlying foundation of racism in America may be just too hard to unseat.

All Caribbean stakeholders are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean/CU roadmap to elevate the Caribbean; to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Civil Rights, Diaspora, Power, Security

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The New Smithsonian African-American Museum

Posted on September 19, 2016 in Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The human psyche is consistent; when we have been victimized, we want everyone to remember. But, when we have been the perpetrator – the bully – then we want everyone to forget. This applies to individuals and nations alike.

This experience relates to the history of the New World. Upon the discovery of the Americas by the European powers – Christopher Columbus et al – the focus had always been on pursuing economic interests, many times at the expense of innocent victims. (This is why the celebration of Columbus Day is now out of favor). First, there was the pursuit of gold, other precious metals (silver, copper, etc.) and precious stones (emeralds, turquoise, etc.). Later came the exploitation of profitable agricultural opportunities (cotton, tobacco, sugar cane, etc.), though these business models required extensive labor. So the experience in the New World (the Caribbean and North, South & Central America) saw the exploitation of the native indigenous people, and then as many of them died off, their replacements came from the African Slave Trade.

This summarizes the history of the economic motivation of slavery. The champions of that era may want to be considered as heroes, but with the long train of victims in their wake, are rightly labeled villainous by some. Thusly any population in this drama – consider the United States of America – may not want to be remembered in a negative light. This is why the new museum opening in Washington, DC, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, is such a milestone. It chronicles, commemorates and spotlights this dark episode of American history. (Some consider this history to be not so distant, that vestiges still permeate the nation’s social fabric, especially considering the Criminal Justice system today).

See a full story on this new Museum here from CityLab, the Online Magazine profiled in Appendix A; (posted September 15, 2016; retrieved September 18, 2016 from http://www.citylab.com/design/2016/09/how-the-new-smithsonian-african-american-museum-works/500246/):

Title: How the New Smithsonian African American Museum Works
Sub-Title: A floor-by-floor preview of the most anticipated—and last—museum to come to the National Mall.
By: Kriston Capps

One of the most difficult lessons to learn about racism today is one of the first to be gleaned at the Smithsonian Institution’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opens to the world on September 24. On the lowest concourse, deep in the museum’s basement levels, exhibits about slavery explain that the trans-Atlantic slave trade was not motivated by racism.

Racism came after. This is not new information, but it is not conventional wisdom in America today. “Enslaved Africans, European indentured servants, and Native Americans worked alongside one another as they cultivated tobacco,” reads an exhibit on life in the Chesapeake region. Planters grew fearful of the interracial friendships, marriages, and alliances—and rebellions—that characterized life in the colonies. “Africans were ultimately defined as ‘enslaved for life,’ and the concept of whiteness began to develop.”

The design of the museum, from the bottom up, which is the direction in which it is intended to be seen by visitors, reflects that history. The lowest-level galleries on the slave trade and the Middle Passage are tight and narrow. They eventually open up to an expansive concourse that sets the stage for the fight for freedom that extends even to today. Exhibits in this majestic hall range from a statue of Thomas Jefferson framed by bricks bearing the names of slaves who built Monticello to a house built in a freedmen’s settlement in Montgomery County, Maryland.

The Smithsonian’s new museum—the last to be built on the National Mall—follows the African-American experience through slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights era. The museum proceeds chronologically, escalating from African and pre-colonial history (in the third and lowest basement level) to contemporary art (on the fourth floor). It is a massive undertaking, sometimes breathtaking. And the architecture of the museum both builds and hinders its narrative.

Some 60 percent of the building is below grade; the historical galleries all fall along three underground mezzanine levels. To create exhibition space so far below ground, Davis Brody Bond—the same architecture firm responsible for the largely subterranean National September 11 Memorial and Museum—had to build a concrete container in which the museum sits, a bucket with walls rising 75 feet high that frame the entire historical experience.

“The largest challenge was water,” Anderson says. “Everything west and south of the Washington Monument was infill. It was all swampland. When you dig down 12 feet, you hit the water table. We had to build essentially an inside-out bathtub in order to keep the water out of the building.”

Visitors pass from the narrow hall on slavery into this major space, following a ramp that shepherds them by several iconic exhibits: the pointed Monticello statues, a slave cabin, the Jones-Hall-Sims House, a segregation-era railcar, and a prison tower from the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary (nicknamed Angola) among them. This fairly linear course then deposits viewers at a Reconstruction gallery, on the second mezzanine level, with information-heavy exhibits that characterize most of the rest of the museum.

“We thought the added volume made sense,” says Phil Freelon, one of the principal architects responsible for the building’s design, discussing how the area of the history galleries doubled during the museum buildout. “As you move through history, you’re able to see different aspects of the exhibits from varying perspectives. Which adds another layer of understanding to the overall sweep of history.”

One of the great strengths of the National Museum of African American History and Culture is its heavy emphasis on place. There are rich maps scattered throughout the museum that showcase the many migrations that have defined black history: from the domestic slave trade (after the trans-Atlantic slave trade was abolished in 1807) to the Great Migration during the early- and mid-20th century to subsequent returns to the South. These maps explain how the African-American experience shifted within the states, and how states and the nation changed inalterably as a result.

Where the museum may lose viewers, however, is in its sweeping chronology, which is lost over too many side-by-side displays. Many of the exhibits (designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates) serve as portals, with a chunk of text paired with images, or often a video screen, alongside some essential artifacts. Unfortunately, atomic exhibits about the constituent people, places, and moments from Reconstruction and the Civil Rights era do not add up to clear and comprehensive categories.

Problems are few in number, but the museum’s biggest ones start with the entry procession. It isn’t immediately clear that viewers ought to take one of two elevators down to the lowest concourse to begin. And it isn’t exactly clear how the escalators connect from one level to the next—though these passages offer some of the best vistas within the building and through its exterior filigree, which looks as delicate as lace when seen from the inside.

From design to execution, the largest changes to the museum happened inside the museum’s central hall. The dipping, timber-lined ceiling initially envisioned for the atrium fell off along the way. (The architects say that the space is now more suitable for performance and static art.) Still, one of the museum’s most important metaphors was maintained in the form of its grand vistas: Floor-to-ceiling windows comprise the four walls of the building’s entrance level, opening the museum to the world outside. Portals throughout the the upper floors emphasize the effect.

“What you’re getting is the journey from the very soil—the very depths, the crypts, the chamber—right through to getting a panoptic lens, a panoptic reading of this important juncture of the National Mall and the Washington Monument,” says David Adjaye, the primary architect of the museum. “When you’re going into the upper galleries, you’re getting these windows that are framing the context and bringing [the Mall] into the content of the story.”

The community and culture galleries make up the third and fourth floors of the museum. (The Earl W. and Amanda Stafford Center for African American Media Arts, on the museum’s second level, was not yet finished at the time of the preview.) The exhibits in the community section range widely. There is a display on the legacy of Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to Congress and the first black woman to run for president (her awesome call reading, “unbought and unbossed”). There is an exhibit on Mae Reeves, a legendary Philadelphia milliner. And there is an exhibit on Ben Carson—that guy. This corner of the museum gives an impressionistic overview of community (a rather broad theme to begin with). While these exhibits are, again, very atomic—only loosely interconnected—they offer by and large the most satisfying insights into the lives and achievements of everyday black Americans.

There is no directionality to these floors, no wrong way to do them. Doing them right will take hours, maybe even days. The culture galleries include snippets of film, television, spoken word, and theater that may add up to hours of programming time. (This, in addition to reams of wall text.) With so much media on display—the number of screens seems to rise as a factor of the floor level—the fine art galleries on the fourth floor offer a welcome reprieve to information overload. (The art galleries are stacked, too, with a smart selection of paintings from across American history. In fact, this corner of the museum arrives as one of the finest art collections in the District.)

The museum’s most impressive visual remains its iconic “corona,” which the architects say they drew from a West African caryatid design of Yoruban origin—a column with a base, a figure, and a capital or crown.

“Our general approach to the design of cultural facilities is to try to imbue the architecture with meaning,” Freelon says. “So that it’s contributing to the stories and the vision and mission of the institution. We did that sort of research to say, ‘What would be an appropriate expression, formally, for the building?’ We looked at a lot of different ideas and settled on the corona notion as a strong and powerful idea.”

There are many smaller moments of design excellence, however, that give the museum its grounding. One thoughtful gallery on the lowest level is a simple sidebar, a triangular cutaway space off the main corridor, that surveys the São José Paquete de Africa. The vessel was a slave ship bound from Mozambique to Brazil that wrecked, killing most of the 500 slaves it held as human cargo. Several ballast bars, which balanced the light weight of their bodies, are on display in this dark and intentionally haunting space. That the shape of this gallery reflects the trapezoidal edges of the museum’s exterior is no accident.

There are enough moments like these throughout the National Museum of African American History and Culture to make it a building that demands criss-crossing, back-and-forth viewing. It is not simple to say what the museum offers in the form of answers about progress or freedom or justice. It may be fair to say that it has none. Or that the museum is “making a way out of no way,” to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr. (as this museum does).

According to Adjaye, the windows and cut-outs are key to ensuring that building is not static, but dynamic and responsive to the history around it.

“The idea is to laminate the experience of the outside world with the inside world, so you’re not disconnected from it,” Adjaye says. “It is not a narrative or a fantasy that is hermetically sealed. It’s a real history, that is relating to things that are around you and in you. And that is a very new idea.”

There are many lessons for the Caribbean to glean from this consideration of the ‘National Museum of African American History and Culture’ in Washington, DC: good, bad and ugly lessons. This will hopefully elevate a national discussion to the fore on the full measure of American history with African-Americans. The hope is for more reconciliation.

Here in the Caribbean, we have the same needs. As history relates, the people of our region were also victimized in the Slave Trade; but we were villains too, considering the lessons from the 1804 Massacre in Haiti, as related in a previous blog-commentary:

It was an illogical solution that killing Whites (of 3000 to 5000 White men, women and children) would prevent future enslavement.
The Natural Law instinct was to avenge for past atrocities – “an eye for an eye”.
It was used in a good way to escalate the abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807. It was also used in a bad way to justify further oppression of the African Diaspora in the New World.

This discussion of museums and reconciliations align with the objections of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, in that it serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The purpose of this roadmap is to elevate the economy in our Caribbean region, while harnessing the individual genius abilities – as in the arts. This Go Lean/CU roadmap employs strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

While the Go Lean book is primarily an economic elevation roadmap for the Caribbean, it also details the eco-systems surrounding the business of the arts; there is consideration for jobs and entrepreneurship. The book declares (Page 230) that “art can be a business enabler, [while also serving as an] expression for civic pride and national identity”.

There is even a plan to foster museums that commemorate Caribbean history and culture in a new Caribbean Capital District. (The roadmap calls for a neutral location, among the 30 member-states, to host leaders of the Federation’s Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government). See the quotation here from the book (Page 230):

CU Administered Museums
Modeled after the Smithsonian, the CU “mother” (first-tier) museums will be placed in the Capital District. There will also be “child” museums scattered through out the regions with touring exhibitions.

The Go Lean book identified this vision of reconciliations-museums-art early in the book (Page 10 – 14), as implied in the following pronouncements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence:

Preamble: As the history of our region and the oppression, suppression and repression of its indigenous people is duly documented, there is no one alive who can be held accountable for the prior actions, and so we must put aside the shackles of systems of repression to instead formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny.
As the colonial history of our region was initiated to create economic expansion opportunities for our previous imperial masters, the structures of government instituted in their wake have not fostered the best systems for prosperity of the indigenous people.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law.

xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states (for example: Haiti and Cuba) will require a concerted effort to integrate the exile community’s repatriation, the Federation must arrange for Reconciliation Commissions to satiate a demand for justice.

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxxiii. Whereas the cultural arts and music of the region are germane to the quality of Caribbean life, and the international appreciation of Caribbean life, the Federation must implement the support systems to teach, encourage, incentivize, monetize and promote the related industries for arts and music in domestic and foreign markets. These endeavors will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

The commentaries in the Go Lean blogs have previously addressed the wisdom of museums and monuments showcasing the historic sacrifices of the African sons and daughters that have contributed to the great societies of the Western world (Western Europe and the Americas). The people of the Caribbean are all part of this African heritage. We have been affected by events that took place in Africa, the Atlantic Slave Trade and subsequent national histories in the New World. So much of that history is soaked in the blood, sweat and tears of African people, the ancestors and the children. Any symbolism or artistic expression of any country commemorating this history should be acknowledged, promoted and celebrated.

This subject also aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean and its plans to better promote World Heritage Sites (Page 248) in the Caribbean region. This goal is for the very same purpose of acknowledging, promoting and celebrating the special history of Caribbean people to the world’s cultural landscape. The Go Lean book asserts many benefits from these types of initiatives, including economic, cultural and ambassadorial.

Imagine the flow of tourism that can result from our own museums and monuments.
Imagine the commissions to regional artists.
Imagine the positive image the world over of our region reconciling our pasts and forging a bright future despite the historic experiences.

The foregoing news story on the Smithsonian effort to curate the history of the African-American experience and culture presents this project as transformative. Many people in America did NOT want a federal-government backed effort to create a monument of this “dark topic” in America. (The Smithsonian eco-system is funded under the National Parks Service of the US Department of the Interior).

Despite the Emancipation of Slavery in 1863 and the Civil Right Act in 1964, only now in 2016 is America coming to grips with the need to commemorate the history of its African-American people in a formal museum. There have been many museums in the past, but all through private efforts or that of non-governmental organizations (NGO’s). The first African-American museum was the College Museum in Hampton, Virginia, established in 1868.^[2] Prior to 1950, there were about 30 museums devoted primarily to African-American culture and history in the US. These were located primarily at historically black colleges and universities or at libraries that had significant African-American culture and history collections.^[5]

See the full list of museums in Appendix C below.

As of 2010 the largest African-American museum in the United States was the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan. It will be exceeded in size by this Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture^[9] when it opens on Saturday September 24, 2016. This will be the first time there is a formal American Federal Government effort.

The subject of fostering the economic opportunities of artistic endeavors in the Caribbean region have been discussed in other Go Lean blog/commentaries; consider this sample as follows:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4145	The African Renaissance Monument in Dakar, Senegal, Africa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3292	Art Basel Miami – a Testament to the Spread of Art & Culture
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2726	Caribbean Role Model for the Arts/Fashion – Oscar De La Renta: RIP
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=866	Caribbean Music Man: Bob Marley – The legend lives on!

This subject of the Slave Trade, Slavery and Civil Rights – how it related to economic, security and governing functioning in a society – have also been addressed by previous Go Lean blog-commentaries. See a sample list here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8724	Remembering African Nationalist Marcus Garvey: Still Relevant Today
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7682	Frederick Douglass – Pioneer & Role Model for Single Cause: Abolition
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7221	Street naming for Martin Luther King reveals continued racial animosity
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5695	Repenting, Forgiving and Reconciling the Past Bad Deeds
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4971	A Lesson in History – Royal Charters: Truth & Consequence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2297	A Lesson in History – Booker T versus Du Bois
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=451	CariCom position on Slavery/Colonization Reparations

This subject of Slavery and the Slave Trade is a “dark topic” to curate in a museum. But this is necessary. Around the word, the Holocaust memorials – remembering the Nazi’s Jewish annihilation in World War II – help to keep the lessons fresh in the minds of the world’s populations that the horrors were real and should never be allowed again. A similar museum on the African-American experience in the Americas should have a related effect: tell the world the truth, and then try to reconcile between the villains and the victims. Many positive lessons can be gleaned from these dark topics.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean provided thorough lessons from this history, in its compilation of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies. See a sample list here:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification – African Diaspora Experience	Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – High Art Intelligence	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategic – Vision – Integrating Caribbean 30 member-state in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategic – Mission – Celebrate art, people and culture of the Caribbean	Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – CaribbeanParks and Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Implementation – Design Requirements for the Capital District – Museum Model	Page 110
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Libraries – Creative Exhibits & Archives	Page 187
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism – Eco-Tourism	Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources – World Heritage Sites	Page 183
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora – Foreign consumption of Arts and Culture	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Access to the Arts and Culture	Page 234
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Rural Living – Access to the Arts and Culture	Page 235
Advocacy – Ways to Promote World-Heritage-Sites	Page 248

There are lessons to learn from the past; see VIDEO in the Appendix B below. There are benefits – for the future – to many stakeholders for any attempt to reconcile the past with the present.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This is a big deal for our region. It allows us to organize into a Single Market and leverage the industrial output for regional artists and art institutions, like museums. This book provides the turn-by-turn directions for how to create this Single Market, forge the Capital District, establish the federal museum and monetize the entire artists eco-system.

The Caribbean needs these empowerments; we need to remember the great sacrifices of our African ancestors and the blood, sweat and tears they spilled in forging the New World. Though these ones never got to see the fruit of their labors, we can, in a testament to their sacrifice, fulfill the promise of these Caribbean lands being a better place to live, work and play.

This is my island in the sun
Where my people have toiled since time begun
I may sail on many a sea
Her shores will always be home to me

Oh, island in the sun
Willed to me by my father’s hand
All my days I will sing in praise
Of your forest, waters,
Your shining sand …

Song: Island in the Sun by Harry Belafonte

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———————–

Appendix A – What is CityLab?

CityLab – previously known as The Atlantic Cities – is dedicated to the people who are creating the cities of the future — and those who want to live there. Through sharp analysis, original reporting, and visual storytelling, our coverage focuses on the biggest ideas and most pressing issues facing the world’s metro areas and neighborhoods.

————————

Appendix B – VIDEO – John Lewis revisits civil rights history at new African American museum – http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/john-lewis-revisits-civil-rights-history-at-new-african-american-museum/

September 18, 2016 – Saturday marks the official opening of the new Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. CBS’ “Face the Nation” visited the museum with a man who spent 15 years working on its establishment, Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia. (VIDEO plays best in Internet Explorer).

————————

Appendix C – List of museums focused on African Americans

Source: Retrieved September 19, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_focused_on_African_Americans

	City	State	Founded
A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum	Chicago	Illinois	1995
African American Civil War Memorial Museum	Washington	D.C.	1999
African American Firefighter Museum	Los Angeles	California	1997
African American Multicultural Museum	Scottsdale	Arizona	2005
African American Museum	Dallas	Texas	1974
African American Museum and Library at Oakland	Oakland	California	1994
African American Museum in Cleveland, The	Cleveland	Ohio	1956
African American Museum in Philadelphia	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania	1976
African American Museum of Iowa	Cedar Rapids	Iowa	2003
African American Museum of Nassau County	Hempstead	New York	1970
African American Museum of the Arts	DeLand	Florida	1994
Afro-American Historical and Cultural Society Museum	Jersey City	New Jersey	1984
Alabama State Black Archives Research Center and Museum	Huntsville	Alabama	1990
Alexandria Black History Museum	Alexandria	Virginia	1987
America’s Black Holocaust Museum	Milwaukee	Wisconsin	1988
Anacostia Museum	Washington	D.C.	1967
Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum	Lynchburg	Virginia	1977
Arthur “Smokestack” Hardy Fire Museum	Baltimore	Maryland	1995
August Wilson Center for African American Culture	Pittsburgh	Pennsylvania	2006
Baton Rouge African American Museum	Baton Rouge	Louisiana	2001
Banneker-Douglass Museum	Annapolis	Maryland	1984
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute	Birmingham	Alabama	1992
Black American West Museum & Heritage Center	Denver	Colorado	1971
Black History 101 Mobile Museum	Detroit	Michigan	1995
Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia	Richmond	Virginia	1988
Bontemps African American Museum	Alexandria	Louisiana	1988
Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site	Topeka	Kansas	2004
Buffalo Soldiers National Museum	Houston	Texas	2000
California African American Museum	Los Angeles	California	1981
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History	Detroit	Michigan	1965
Clemson Area African American Museum	Clemson	South Carolina	2010
Creole Heritage Folk Life Center	Opelousas	Louisiana	1970’s
Delta Cultural Center	Helena	Arkansas	1991
Dorchester Academy and Museum	Midway	Georgia	2004
Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American History Museum	St. Petersburg	Florida	2006
Du Sable Museum of African American History	Chicago	Illinois	1960
Frederick Douglass National Historic Site	Washington	D.C.	1962
George Washington Carver Museum, The	Tuskegee	Alabama	1941
George Washington Carver Museum	Phoenix	Arizona	1980
George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center	Austin	Texas	1980
Great Blacks in Wax Museum	Baltimore	Maryland	1983
Great Plains Black History Museum	Omaha	Nebraska	1975
Harvey B. Gantt Center	Charlotte	North Carolina	1974
Idaho Black History Museum	Boise	Idaho	1995
International African American Museum	Charleston	South Carolina	2019
International Civil Rights Center and Museum	Greensboro	North Carolina	2010
Isaac Scott Hathaway Museum at Lexington History Center	Lexington	Kentucky	2002
John E. Rogers African American Cultural Center	Hartford	Connecticut	1991
John G. Riley Center/Museum of African American History and Culture	Tallahassee	Florida	1996
Kansas African-American Museum	Wichita	Kansas	1997
L. E. Coleman African-American Museum	Halifax County	Virginia	2005
La Villa Museum	Jacksonville	Florida	1999
Legacy Museum of African American History	Lynchburg	Virginia	2000
Louisiana African American Heritage Trail	Various locations	Louisiana	2008
Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site Visitors Center	Atlanta	Georgia	1996
Mary McLeod Bethune Home	Daytona Beach	Florida	1956
Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site	Washington	D.C.	1979
Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum	Culver City	California	2010
Mississippi Civil Rights Museum	Jackson	Mississippi	2017
Mosaic Templars Cultural Center	Little Rock	Arkansas	2008
Muhammad Ali Center	Louisville	Kentucky	2005
Museum of African American History & Abiel Smith School	Boston	Massachusetts	1964
Museum of the African Diaspora	San Francisco	California	2005
Natchez Museum of African American History and Culture	Natchez	Mississippi	1991
National African American Archives and Museum	Mobile	Alabama	1992
National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center	Wilberforce	Ohio	1987
National Center for Civil and Human Rights	Atlanta	Georgia	2014
National Center of Afro-American Artists	Roxbury	Massachusetts	1969
National Civil Rights Museum	Memphis	Tennessee	1991
National Museum of African American History and Culture	Washington	D.C.	2015
National useum of African American Music	Nashville	Tennessee	2013
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center	Cincinnati	Ohio	2004
National Voting Rights Museum	Selma	Alabama	1991
Negro Leagues Baseball Museum	Kansas City	Missouri	1990
New Orleans African American Museum	New Orleans	Louisiana	1988
Nicodemus National Historic Site	Nicodemus	Kansas	1996
Northeast Louisiana Delta African American Heritage Museum	Monroe	Louisiana	1994
Northwest African American Museum	Seattle	Washington	2008
Old Dillard Museum	Fort Lauderdale	Florida	1995
Oran Z’s Black Facts and Wax Museum	Los Angeles	California	2000
Paul R. Jones Collection of African American Art	Newark	Delaware	2004
Reginald F.Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History & Culture	Baltimore	Maryland	2005
River Road African American Museum	Donaldsonville	Louisiana	1994
Slave Mart Museum	Charleston	South Carolina	1938
Smith-Robertson Museum and Cultural Center	Jackson	Mississippi	1984
St. Rita’s Black History Museum	New Smyrna Beach	Florida	1999
Southeastern Regional Black Archives Research Center and Museum	Tallahassee	Florida	1976
Tangipahoa African American Heritage Museum	Hammond	Louisiana	2005
Tubman African American Museum	Macon	Georgia	1981
Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site	Tuskegee	Alabama	2008
Weeksville Heritage Center	Brooklyn	New York	2005
Wells’ Built Museum	Orlando	Florida	2009
Whitney Plantation	St. John the Baptist Parish	Louisiana	2014

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Arts, Civil Rights, History, WHS

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Lessons from China – Harvesting Organs: Facts & Fiction

Posted on August 27, 2016 in Ethos, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

There are so many lessons from China.

There are so many …

… everything in China.

The country has 1.3 billion people. That’s a lot of people. That’s a lot of lessons, good and bad. This commentary is 3 of 6 in consideration the good and bad lessons from China. The other commentaries detailed in this series are as follows:

History of China Trade: Too Big to Ignore
Why China will soon be Hollywood’s largest market
Organ Transplantation: Facts and Fiction
Mobile Games Apps: The new Playground
South China Seas: Exclusive Economic Zones
WeChat: Model for Caribbean Social Media – www.MyCaribbean.gov

All of these commentaries relate to nation-building, stressing the community investments required to facilitate the short-term, mid-term and long-term needs of our communities.

With 1.3 billion people, a country will have all dispositions and statuses: young, old, strong, weak, healthy, and sick. There will always be the need for a range of health care: from preventative all the way up to advanced trauma. Therefore, the need for organ transplantation will arise, maybe even more often than in smaller-populated countries. We can learn a lot by considering China’s vision and values in this dramatic area of modern life.

China has a lot of mileage in the medical history of organ transplantation and the impact on social values. This is a recent history anywhere, as the medical capability only became viable since the 1970’s.

This commentary is in consideration of the book Go Lean…Caribbean; it serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) to provide better stewardship for the region’s economic and healthcare eco-systems. The book actually conveys that healthcare is an economic consideration. It is a matter of life-and-death that requires community investments even when the issue itself is NOT life or death.

There are a lot of preventative health care decisions that community leaders have to make, for example: vaccinations, hospital availability, nursing standards and trauma center logistics. There is a certain level of delivery for Third World countries – the Caribbean member-states are mostly all Third Word. The goal of this Go Lean roadmap is to elevate the region from this status quo. How does the Third World handle advanced healthcare issues like organ transplantation?

Answer: Not well.

The Go Lean book details the sad reality of abuse and exploitation traditionally experienced in Third World cases involving organ transplantations. The book relates (Page 214):

The Bottom Line on Organ Trade
Organ trade is the trade involving inner organs (heart, liver, kidneys, cornea, etc.) of a human for transplantation. In the 1970s pharmaceuticals that prevent organ rejection were introduced. This along with a lack of medical regulation helped foster the organ market. The problem of organ trafficking is widespread, although data on the exact scale of the organ market is difficult to obtain. (Most organ trade involves kidney or liver transplants). There is a worldwide shortage of organs available for transplantation, yet trade in human organs is illegal in all countries, except Iran.

Many countries had a program for legal transplant exchange, but have all universally abandoned the practice.

Most countries now allow donors to give organs if they are related or emotionally close to the recipient. But in China, there is a program for organs to be procured from executed prisoners. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), international organ trade amounted to 66,000 kidney transplants, 21,000 liver transplants, and 6000 heart transplants in 2005, but WHO estimated that 5% of all those procedures where engaged in commercial transactions.

WHO states that, “Payment for…organs is likely to take unfair advantage of the poorest and most vulnerable groups, undermining altruistic donation and leads to profiteering and human trafficking.”

Imagine China; just recently elevating from Third World status; and only in the urban communities. They have billions of people living in the rural areas. It would not be inconceivable that some “bad actors” may view the masses as prime harvesting grounds for organ transplantation. (The Go Lean book posits that “bad actors” are inevitable in every society; the Caribbean history is littered with stories of the emergence of “bad actors”).

Inconceivable? Not according to this news article and VIDEO here:

Title: Angry Claims and Furious Denials Over Organ Transplants in China

HONG KONG — Eyes flashing, lips curled in operatic scorn, a middle-aged woman holding a placard reading “Evil Cult Falun Gong!” ordered me off the sidewalk outside Hong Kong’s convention center, where organ transplant specialists from around the world were gathered.

“Go away!” she shouted. “You’re no good!”

My crime? After interviewing her as she stood with a group called the Anti-Cult Association, she had spotted me interviewing a woman at a competing demonstration of practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditation and exercise-based spiritual practice that the Chinese government outlawed as a cult in 1999, jailing many practitioners. The Anti-Cult Association says it is a civil society organization, but its aims closely reflect the Chinese government’s.

Falun Gong adherents say that after the movement was banned, many were blood-typed in detention, and thousands became a secret source of organs for human transplants. The Chinese government and the Anti-Cult Association, which, according to its website, promotes “Confucian thinking and science,” deny this.

The searing debate over forced organ extraction is not new. For about 15 years it has raged, between the Chinese government and its supporters and Falun Gong practitioners and investigators. But as hundreds of the world’s leading transplant surgeons, including from China, gathered at the Transplantation Society’s biennial meeting in Hong Kong this week and last, the issue seemed more explosive than ever — perhaps because the meeting was on Chinese soil for the first time, bringing the debate closer to home.

The accusations of forced organ extraction were “ridiculous,” Huang Jiefu, a former deputy health minister who is in charge of overhauling China’s organ donation system, said in a speech. The Chinese government says that it switched from a system dependent on executed prisoners to one based on voluntary, nonprisoner donations on Jan. 1, 2015.

“I’m in stress,” Dr. Huang said of the accusations. “I couldn’t sleep well enough at night.”

“There is wild speculation” of “100,000 transplants per year from executed prisoners in China,” he added, possibly conflating the issues of using organs from prisoners convicted of capital crimes and organs from prisoners of conscience.

Some investigators and Falun Gong adherents say that their compiled data from individual hospitals shows at least 60,000 organ transplants a year, about six times the official total of about 10,000 last year, and that the difference is made up by forced organ extractions from prisoners of conscience.

In a cafe at the convention center, David Matas and David Kilgour, who first published a report on the issue in 2006, said they were familiar with the widespread skepticism, even hostility, not just from the Chinese government but from many outside China, including the news media. (An update to their book, “Bloody Harvest,” this time with Ethan Gutmann, author of “The Slaughter,” came out this year.)

The statistics cited by investigators and Falun Gong practitioners are overwhelming, they agreed. And, by definition, the victims are dead, and cannot speak.

“Nameless, voiceless,” said Mr. Kilgour, a former member of the Canadian Parliament.

Many Falun Gong adherents have also alienated people with claims tinged with hysteria, a byproduct of the urgency of the topic and an “in-your-face” propagandistic style widespread in China, they said.

“The Falun Gong community, they don’t read the reports” of human rights organizations, said Mr. Matas, a rights lawyer. “They don’t talk the human rights language, and they’re disorganized. Everybody does what they want,” undercutting their credibility, he said.

What if, one day, the allegations were proved to be true, as accusations of Nazi genocide against the Jews were? How would the Chinese government deal with it then?

“Probably they would say this is an aberration, the responsibility of a few people,” Mr. Matas said.

———

Related:

Chinese Claim That World Accepts Its Organ Transplant System Is Rebutted – AUG. 19, 2016

Debate Flares on China’s Use of Prisoners’ Organs as Experts Meet in Hong Kong – AUG. 17, 2016

Doctor’s Plan for Full-Body Transplants Raises Doubts Even in Daring China – JUNE 11, 2016

China Bends Vow on Using Prisoners’ Organs for Transplants – NOV. 16, 2015

———

VIDEO – China’s Shocking Military Secret REVEALED – https://youtu.be/bIxE5kZXjsY

Published on Jul 6, 2016 – For more than 15 years, Chinese military hospitals across China have kept a closely guarded secret. Doctors at private hospitals know about it, and even participate. But no one dares reveal it to the public.

Say it ain’t so…

… that “bad actors” in China may exploit a class of people to harvest their organs. The experience of exploiting a class of people is something familiar to the Caribbean. From the history journals, we are reminded of local examples; our region played host to the ethnic cleansing of indigenous people, African Slave Trade & Slavery, and Piracy. The book Go Lean…Caribbean asserts that the vision and values of a community must be conditioned for a society to endure such exploitation. The book describes this “vision and value” factor as the term “community ethos”:

“… the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period; practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period” – Page 20.

What is the community ethos of China?

… such that the claims of forced harvesting of organs would gain such notoriety?

This question requires an onsite inspection and investigation. The promoters of the Go Lean movement conducted a structured interview with a Caribbean (Bahamas) Exchange Student who matriculated in China; she made the following contributions to this discussion on China’s vision and values. So as to protect her identity, she is being referred to here as “Bahama Mama“. Consider these responses related to her China experiences:

Give us details of your China experience:

Bahama Mama: I participated in a Exchange Program between the College of the Bahamas and Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, in the Peoples Republic of China. That city, while the largest in Jiangsu with its 8,187,828 residents, is not the largest in China, not even close.

Is China a country that you would consider emigrating to?

Bahama Mama: No. They have a lot more jobs in China, but it is not home. I felt foreign and would probably always feel like a foreigner there.

What were you most impressed with while in China?

Bahama Mama: Their infrastructure to accommodate so many people.

Did you perceive that the voluminous population created a sense of worthlessness among the Chinese people?

Bahama Mama: No. The culture in the country created a sense of value for Chinese people among Chinese people. But the perception is different for foreigners among them; their community sense of worth for foreigners is lower.

The Go Lean book conveys that community ethos can be remediated, that new ethos can be adopted. It is not easy but possible. The book likens the process to “the effort to quit smoking”. This roadmap calls on the CU Trade Federation to take the lead in forging the needed changes to the region’s community ethos as it relates to nation-building. This is Step One in rebooting the economic-security-governing engines. The premise is simple: while we are a different culture than China, people are “the same” everywhere, with good and bad tendencies. Classes of people have also been exploited in our region, while not harvesting for organs, we must be “on guard” for this potential threat.

The Go Lean book details an advocacy for organ transplantation in the Caribbean region, with a focus to be “on guard” for exploitation. The book relates (Page 214) how organ transplantation is to be introduced to the region:

Lean-in for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU)
This [confederation] treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, thereby expanding to an economy of 30 member-states, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion (circa 2010). In addition to empowering the economic engines, this treaty calls for a collective security pact for the member-states so as to assuage systemic threats, security risks and organized crime. One CU mission is to eliminate any “black market” viability by installing a regional/federal administration for Organ Donor Registration, Procurement and Distribution for the Caribbean. The CU advocates the policy of presumed consent, (successful in Brazil, US and many EU nations), but different in that “opt-in” is the default setting. Citizens can easily “opt-out” (Drivers License, Medical Directives, Last Will and Testament, witnessed statements to family/friends) or next-of-kin can override [the decision] on-demand.

The challenge for managing an organ transplantation eco-system may be too big for any one Caribbean member-state alone; there is the need for this regional technocracy. The population is far too small in some of our member-states. The whole region is better, while no billions as in China, the 42 million of the entire region is adequate for effective matching. The stewardship for this effort was pronounced in the opening of the Go Lean book, with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 11 – 13):

ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for … disease management, wellness, mental health, obesity and smoking cessation programs. The Federation must [also] proactively anticipate the demand and supply of organ transplantation as developing countries are often exploited by richer neighbors for illicit organ trade.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

The Go Lean book, and previous blog/commentaries, stressed the key community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies necessary to provide better stewardship to the Caribbean medical eco-system for an eventual organ transplantation offering. These points are detailed in the book as follows:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Whistleblower Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Security Principles – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Non-Government Organizations (NGO)	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future – Count on the Greedy to be Greedy	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Mission – Reform our Health Care Industries	Page 46
Strategy – Mission – Provide for Organ Procurement	Page 46
Strategy – Agents of Change – Aging Diaspora	Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union of 30 Member-States	Page 63
Tactical – Separation-of-Powers – Health Department	Page 86
Implementation – Assemble Caribbean Organ Procurement Authority	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Deliver – Quality Assurance	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Creating a Single Market	Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare	Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives	Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice – Regional Sentinel	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications – Foster new ethos	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Organ Transplantation	Page 214
Appendix – Lied Transplant Center – Omaha, Nebraska, USA	Page 339
Appendix – Organ Transplants from Animals: Examining the Possibilities	Page 341

There is a lot to learn from the analysis of medical stewardship of other communities. The lessons of successes and failures of other communities’ medical practices and policies were further elaborated upon in these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7822	Cancer: Doing More
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7586	Blink Health: The Cure for High Drug Prices
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327	Zika – A 4-Letter Word
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6580	Capitalism of Drug Patents
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2522	The Cost of Cancer Drugs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1143	Health-care fraud in America; criminals take $272 billion a year

China has a large population: 1.3 billion people. Many of its cities have large numbers. As previously mentioned, the City of Nanjing has 8,187,828 residents. Other Chinese cities feature even larger populations:

Shanghai: 24,256,800
Beijing: 21,516,000
Tianjin: 15,200,000
Guangzhou: 13,080,500
Shenzhen: 10,467,400
Dongguan: 8,220,207
Chongqing: 8,189,800

Source: Retrieved August 27, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population

Notice the reality for Chinese urban life in the VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Beijing Subway, Line 13, morning rush hour – just a little crowded – https://youtu.be/xG-meaGqg-M

Published on Jul 22, 2013 – July 18, 7:30 am, likely the Xierqi subway station on Line 13. http://beijingcream.com/2013/07/beiji…
Source: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTg0Nzc…

Bullying and class oppression is not so inconceivable with numbers like this.

The Go Lean book relates that this situation is manifested time and again, all over the world. The Go Lean book provides the roadmap to anticipate class oppression, to monitor and mitigate it. The book declares (Page 23):

… “bad actors” will also emerge thereafter to exploit the opportunities, with good, bad and evil intent. A Bible verse declares: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” – Ecclesiastes 1:9 New International Version.

We have so many lessons to learn from China. The large population calls for extra mitigations in the area of organ transplantation. The quest for survival by those that are sick (and rich) will cause them to entertain options … at the expense of others… of the lower classes.

That is not justice.

The lesson learned from China is that we must be “on guard” for threats against justice. There must be a justice sentinel for the Caribbean region.

The Caribbean is hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean confederation roadmap. Everyone – people, institutions and governments – can benefit from the consideration of this roadmap to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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China, Civil Rights, Health, Power

[Top]

Remembering Marcus Garvey: Still Relevant Today

Posted on August 20, 2016 in Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The relations between the Caribbean and the United States of America have had a bumpy ride in the past. Consider just these few incidences:

America’s War on the Caribbean
Subjugation of the people in US Territories as inferior Aliens
Haiti’s Scorn and Abandonment

But now, the people of the Caribbean has forgiven the US and now approve “life” within its borders….

… as so many Caribbean citizens have now fled to life in the US, as residents. There has been some reconciliation of the past … to allow for this normalized status quo.

But there is one more rift in the Caribbean-American history to consider, that of Marcus Garvey. Can this historicity also be re-approached, revisited, redeemed and reconciled? Is there a need for repentance?

In a previous commentary from this Go Lean movement, it was established how we cannot always leave past events in the past. At times, we must re-approach historic injustices so as to recognize the pain and legacy caused; only then can true reconciliation occur.

America had a bad legacy in terms of race relations. Has that country of the US reformed since the days of Marcus Garvey?

Accordingly, some stakeholders in the US Congress want that repentance, in the form of a posthumous pardon. See the story here:

Title: U.S. Congresswoman Wants President Obama to Pardon Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey, Jamaica’s national hero who was charged with mail fraud in the United States could be in line for a presidential pardon if Congresswoman Yvette Clarke gets her way. Clarke is working to ensure that Garvey is exonerated before Obama steps down from his post in January 2017. Clarke announced the potential action in a speech to the Jamaica Diaspora after receiving the first Talawah Award for Politics. According to Clarke, two other congressional representatives – Charles Rangel and John Conyers – will join her in making sure that Garvey receives a pardon and that his name is cleared.

In 1923, Garvey was arrested in the U.S. on charges of mail fraud and spent two years in a federal prison before being deported back to Jamaica. In the years following, a number of governments and organizations lobbied authorities in the U.S. to expunge the record of Jamaica’s national hero. Clarke was one of seven Jamaicans presented with the Inaugural Talawah Awards for their contributions to both their homeland and their adopted home.
Source: Jamaicans.com – Lifestyle E-zine; posted: 05/15/2016; Retrieved 08/19/2016 from: http://jamaicans.com/u-s-congresswoman-wants-president-obama-pardon-marcus-garvey/

The subject of Marcus Garvey – see Appendix & VIDEO below – is very important from a Jamaican perspective. He is considered a National Hero in his homeland, where he was awarded the “Order of National Hero” posthumously in 1964; an esteemed honor awarded by the government (Parliament) of Jamaica and one of its first official acts after independence.

But the story of Marcus Garvey is more than just a “treasure to one, trash to another” consideration. Recognizing Jamaican value and worth, means recognizing Jamaica’s endurance despite a history of oppression, repression and suppression. Remember, there was a world, not very long ago, of no civil rights and intensed colonization. Marcus Garvey transcended that world. In effect, Jamaicans are saying to the world: “You see Marcus Garvey; you see me”.

Garvey was given major prominence as a national hero during Jamaica’s move towards independence. As such, he has numerous tributes there. The first of these is the Garvey statue and shrine in Kingston’s National Heroes Park. Among the honors to him in Jamaica are his name upon the Jamaican Ministry of Foreign Affairs; a major highway bearing his name and the Marcus Garvey Scholarship tenable at the University of the West Indies sponsored by The National Association of Jamaican and Supportive Organizations, Inc (NAJASO) since 1988.

Garvey’s birthplace, 32 Market Street, St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, has a marker signifying it as a site of importance in the nation’s history.^[64]His likeness is on the 20-dollar coin and 25-cent coin. Garvey’s recognition is probably most significant in Kingston, Jamaica.
Source: Retrieved August 20, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey

The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that any attempt at unification of the Caribbean 30 member-states must consider the ancient and modern injustices some member-states have experienced (within themselves and with other nations). The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). A mission of the roadmap is to champion the cause of Caribbean Image. For far too long, Caribbean people have been classified as “Less Than”, as parasites rather than protégés. Therefore an additional mission of the roadmap is to facilitate formal reconciliations, (much consideration is given to the model in South Africa with their Truth & Reconciliation Commissions (TRC)). But this commentary posits, that we need reconciliations in foreign relations too, (i.e. Caribbean / United States).

The approach is simple, correct the bad “community ethos” from the past. The African-American and African-Caribbean populations were oppressed, repressed an suppressed in the “White” world of the 1920’s. A good “community ethos” now is to repent, forgive and reconcile from that legacy.

“Community Ethos” is described in the Go Lean book as the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; the dominant assumptions of a people or period. America has surely transformed – the current President, Barack Obama is of African-American heritage. Has that transformation advanced to the point of taking ownership of past misdeeds.

We truly hope so! But show us, by recognizing and redeeming the bad acts of the US federal government against Marcus Garvey. This year marks the 8th and final year of the Obama administration. He has always had the power to grant a pardon to the “good name” of Marcus Garvey. When requested before in 2011, his stance was that it is his policy not to consider requests for posthumous pardons. His assertion is that they should be enjoyed only by the living.

But more is involved, Mr. President. A pardon would send a message to the world about African-American and African-Caribbean heroes:

In hindsight, they should be held in high esteem for doing so much in a world that valued them so little!

The historicity of Marcus Garvey is a powerful role model for today’s Caribbean. He was truly an Advocate for the African race universally. (This race represents the majority of the population of all the Caribbean member-states except the French Overseas Territory of Saint Barthélemy). He championed this cause in words (speeches and writings), actions, commitments and sacrifice. He truly gave a full measure of blood, sweat and tears. He presented his vision and values in his quest to unify and elevate the Black race.

Our emulation of Marcus Garvey is a lot less ambitious, rather than the African-ethnic world, our scope is just the elevation of the 30 Caribbean member-states. Rather than the narrow focus of Blacks in general, our scope involves all current Caribbean ethnicities and languages. We are trying to “raise the tide in the Caribbean waters so that all boats will be elevated”. Further, as communicated in previous blog-commentaries, we are not trying to impact the United States of America – beyond help to our Diaspora – nor the continent of Africa – beyond providing them a great model of our technocratic deliveries. Our mission is a lot more laser-focused than that of Marcus Garvey; we are simply trying to make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play.

This CU/Go Lean mission is to elevate Caribbean society through cutting edge delivery of best practices, strategies, tactics and implementations. The prime directives of this movement is defined as the following 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus for public safety and to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book speaks of the Caribbean past, as it relates to the American past. The legacy of the common sufferings of slavery and racial repression should create a common bond; this bond should unite all of the Black World. It should also unite the Caribbean into accepting a premise of interdependence for solutions in the economic-security-governance eco-systems. This common need was defined early in the book (Page 10) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

Preamble: As the history of our region and the oppression, suppression and repression of its indigenous people is duly documented, there is no one alive who can be held accountable for the prior actions, and so we must put aside the shackles of systems of repression to instead formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny.

As the colonial history of our region was initiated to create economic expansion opportunities for our previous imperial masters, the structures of government instituted in their wake have not fostered the best systems for prosperity of the indigenous people. Despite this past, we thrust our energies only to the future, in adapting the best practices and successes of the societies of these previous imperial masters and recognizing the positive spirit of their intent and vow to learn from their past accomplishments and mistakes so as to optimize the opportunities for our own citizenry to create a more perfect bond of union.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xiii. Whereas the legacy of dissensions in many member-states (for example: Haiti and Cuba) will require a concerted effort to integrate the exile community’s repatriation, the Federation must arrange for Reconciliation Commissions to satiate a demand for justice.

The Go Lean book details a lot more, a series of assessments, community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to glean lessons from history and impact the Caribbean-side of the common Black experience:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification – Example of Black America of Olden Days	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Turn-Arounds	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating a Non-Sovereign Union of 30 Member-states	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Keep the next generation at home; Repatriate Diaspora	Page 46
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Truth & Reconciliation Courts	Page 78
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Anatomy of Advocacies	Page 122
Planning – Ways to Improve Image	Page 133
Planning – Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice – Truth & Reconciliation Commissions	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Hollywood – Managing Image through Films	Page 203
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218

The foregoing article relates the second request to US President Obama to extend a pardon to the legacy of Marcus Garvey. This is important to “us” in the Caribbean.

Just do it!

Obama claims to be a friend of the Caribbean, though many times his policies have worked contrary to the Caribbean’s best interests. Consider these examples:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7689	Obama – Bad For Caribbean Status Quo
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4935	A Lesson Learned from Obama’s Caribbean Visit
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1674	Obama’s Plans for $3.7 Billion Immigration Crisis Funds

The Go Lean/CU roadmap addresses the past, present and future challenges of Caribbean empowerment and image.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. There is reason to believe that these empowerment efforts can be successful. We have the legacy of so many National Heroes; we can now stand on their shoulders and reach even greater heights.

The Go Lean roadmap conveys how single causes have successfully been forged throughout the world (Page 122 – Anatomy of Advocacies) by individual Advocates. There is consideration for these examples:

Frederick Douglass – A role model for Marcus Garvey
Martin Luther King – Influenced by Marcus Garvey -see Appendix.

Please note, while this movement petitions for reconciliation of the sullied past in race relations, there is no request for reparations. The Go Lean book punctuates this point with the following quotation:

We cannot ignore the past, as it defines who we are, but we do not wish to be shackled to the past either, for then, we miss the future. So we must learn from the past, our experiences and that of other states in similar situations, mount our feet solidly to the ground and then lean-in, to reach for new heights; forward, upward and onward. – Page 5

The new ethos being developed for the Caribbean by this Go Lean movement, is to reconcile conflicts from the past; to repent, forgive and hopefully forget the long history of human rights abuses from the past. All of this effort is heavy-lifting, but the Bible gives us an assurance that makes all the effort worthwhile:

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. – John 8:32; New International Version

🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

=============

Appendix VIDEO – Marcus Garvey — Look For Me In The Whirlwind (Review) – https://youtu.be/hS3Y5RhBPd8

Published on Oct 8, 2012 – Black History Studies team (BHS) presents their Marcus Garvey screening, at the Marcus Garvey Centre in Tottenham. Sis Sonia Scully interviews film goers in the break, to find out how they’re receiving the Friday Black History Month screenings.

=============

Appendix – Marcus Garvey Biography Wiki

Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., (17 August 1887 – 10 June 1940),^[2] was a Jamaican political leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a proponent of the Pan-Africanism movement, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL).^[3] He also founded the Black Star Line, a shipping and passenger line which promoted the return of the African diaspora to their ancestral lands.

Prior to the 20th century, leaders such as Prince Hall, Martin Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Henry Highland Garnet advocated the involvement of the African diaspora in African affairs. Garvey was unique in advancing a Pan-African philosophy to inspire a global mass movement and economic empowerment focusing on Africa known as Garveyism.^[3] Promoted by the UNIA as a movement of African Redemption, Garveyism would eventually inspire others, ranging from the Nation of Islam to the Rastafari movement (some sects of which proclaim Garvey as a prophet.)^[4]

Garveyism intended persons of African ancestry in the diaspora to “redeem” the nations of Africa and for the European colonial powers to leave the continent. His essential ideas about Africa were stated in an editorial in the Negro World entitled “African Fundamentalism”, where he wrote: “Our union must know no clime, boundary, or nationality… to let us hold together under all climes and in every country…”^[5]

…

After years of working in the Caribbean, Garvey left Jamaica to live in London from 1912 to 1914, where he attended Birkbeck College, taking classes in law and philosophy. He also worked for the African Times and Orient Review, published by Dusé Mohamed Ali, who was a considerable influence on the young man. Garvey sometimes spoke at Hyde Park‘s Speakers’ Corner.

In 1914, Garvey returned to Jamaica, where he organized the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).

The UNIA held an international convention in 1921 at New York City’s MadisonSquareGarden. Also represented at the convention were organizations such as the Universal Black Cross Nurses, the Black Eagle Flying Corps, and the Universal African Legion. Garvey attracted more than 50,000 people to the event and in his cause. The UNIA had 65,000 to 75,000 members paying dues to his support and funding. The national level of support in Jamaica helped Garvey to become one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century on the island.^[13]

After corresponding with Booker T. Washington, head of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and a national African-American leader in the United States, Garvey traveled by ship to the U.S., arriving on 23 March 1916 aboard the SS Tallac. He intended to make a lecture tour and to raise funds to establish a school in Jamaica modeled after Washington’s Institute. Garvey visited Tuskegee, and afterwards, visited with a number of black leaders.

After moving to New York, he found work as a printer by day. He was influenced by Hubert Harrison. At night he would speak on street corners, much as he did in London’s Hyde Park. Garvey thought there was a leadership vacuum among African Americans. On 9 May 1916, he held his first public lecture in New York City at St Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery and undertook a 38-state speaking tour.

The next year in May 1917, Garvey and thirteen others formed the first UNIA division outside Jamaica. They began advancing ideas to promote social, political, and economic freedom for black people. On 2 July, the East St. Louis riots broke out. On 8 July, Garvey delivered an address, entitled “The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riots”, at Lafayette Hall in Harlem. During the speech, he declared the riot was “one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind”, condemning America’s claims to represent democracy when black people were victimized “for no other reason than they are black people seeking an industrial chance in a country that they have laboured for three hundred years to make great”. It is “a time to lift one’s voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy”.^[14] …

Garvey worked to develop a program to improve the conditions of ethnic Africans “at home and abroad” under UNIA auspices. On 17 August 1918, he began publishing the Negro World newspaper in New York, which was widely distributed. Garvey worked as an editor without pay until November 1920. He used Negro World as a platform for his views to encourage growth of the UNIA.^[15] By June 1919, the membership of the organization had grown to over two million, according to its records.

On 27 June 1919, the UNIA set up its first business, incorporating the Black Star Line of Delaware, with Garvey as President. By September, it acquired its first ship. Much fanfare surrounded the inspection of the S.S. Yarmouth and its rechristening as the S.S. Frederick Douglass on 14 September 1919. Such a rapid accomplishment garnered attention from many.^[15] The Black Star Line also formed a fine winery, using grapes harvested only in Ethiopia. During the first year, the Black Star Line’s stock sales brought in $600,000. This caused it to be successful during that year. It had numerous problems during the next two years: mechanical breakdowns on its ships, what it said were incompetent workers, and poor record keeping. The officers were eventually accused of mail fraud.^[15]

Edwin P. Kilroe, Assistant District Attorney in the District Attorney’s office of the County of New York, began an investigation into the activities of the UNIA. He never filed charges against Garvey or other officers.

By August 1920, the UNIA claimed four million members. The number has been questioned because of the organization’s poor record keeping.^[15] That month, the International Convention of the UNIA was held. With delegates from all over the world attending, 25,000 people filled Madison Square Garden on 1 August 1920 to hear Garvey speak.^[16]Over the next couple of years, Garvey’s movement was able to attract an enormous number of followers. Reasons for this included the cultural revolution of the Harlem Renaissance, the large number of West Indians who immigrated to New York, and the appeal of the slogan “One God, One Aim, One Destiny,” to black veterans of the first World War.^[17]

Garvey also established the business, the Negro Factories Corporation. He planned to develop the businesses to manufacture every marketable commodity in every big U.S. industrial center, as well as in Central America, the West Indies, and Africa. Related endeavors included a grocery chain, restaurant, publishing house, and other businesses.

Convinced that black people should have a permanent homeland in Africa, Garvey sought to develop Liberia. It had been founded by the American Colonization Society in the 19th century as a colony to free blacks from the United States. Garvey launched the Liberia program in 1920, intended to build colleges, industrial plants, and railroads as part of an industrial base from which to operate. He abandoned the program in the mid-1920s after much opposition from European powers with interests in Liberia.

Sometime around November 1919, the Bureau of Investigation or BOI (after 1935, the Federal Bureau of Investigation) began an investigation into the activities of Garvey and the UNIA. … Although initial efforts by the BOI were to find grounds upon which to deport Garvey as “an undesirable alien”, a charge of mail fraud was brought against Garvey in connection with stock sales of the Black Star Line after the U.S. Post Office and the Attorney General joined the investigation.^[36]

The accusation centered on the fact that the corporation had not yet purchased a ship, which had appeared in a BSL brochure emblazoned with the name “Phyllis Wheatley” (after the African-American poet) on its bow. The prosecution stated that a ship pictured with that name had not actually been purchased by the BSL and still had the name “Orion” at the time; thus the misrepresentation of the ship as a BSL-owned vessel constituted fraud. The brochure had been produced in anticipation of the purchase of the ship, which appeared to be on the verge of completion at the time. However, “registration of the Phyllis Wheatley to the Black Star Line was thrown into abeyance as there were still some clauses in the contract that needed to be agreed.”^[37] In the end, the ship was never registered to the BSL.

Garvey chose to defend himself. In the opinion of his biographer Colin Grant, Garvey’s “belligerent” manner alienated the jury. … Of the four Black Star Line officers charged in connection with the enterprise, only Garvey was found guilty of using the mail service to defraud. His supporters called the trial fraudulent, [a miscarriage of justice].

He initially spent three months in the Tombs Jail awaiting approval of bail. While on bail, he continued to maintain his innocence, travel, speak and organize the UNIA. After numerous attempts at appeal were unsuccessful, he was taken into custody and began serving his sentence at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary on 8 February 1925.^[41] Two days later, he penned his well known “First Message to the Negroes of the World From Atlanta Prison”, wherein he made his famous proclamation: “Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for, with God’s grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom and Life.”^[42]

Garvey’s sentence was eventually commuted by President Calvin Coolidge. Upon his release in November 1927, Garvey was deported via New Orleans to Jamaica, where a large crowd met him in Kingston. Though the popularity of the UNIA diminished greatly following Garvey’s expulsion, he nevertheless remained committed to his political ideals.^[44]

Garvey continued active in international civil rights, politics and business in the West Indies and Europe.

Garvey died in London on 10 June 1940, at the age of 52, having suffered two strokes. Due to travel restrictions during World War II, his body was interred (no burial mentioned but preserved in a lead-lined coffin) within the lower crypt in St. Mary’s Catholic cemetery in London near KensalGreenCemetery. Twenty years later, his body was removed from the shelves of the lower crypt and taken to Jamaica, where the government proclaimed him Jamaica’s first national hero and re-interred him at a shrine in the National Heroes Park.^[52]

Influence

Schools, colleges, highways, and buildings in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States have been named in his honor. The UNIA red, black, and green flag has been adopted as the Black Liberation Flag. Since 1980, Garvey’s bust has been housed in the Organization of American States‘ Hall of Heroes in Washington, D.C.

Malcolm X‘s parents, Earl and Louise Little, met at a UNIA convention in Montreal. Earl was the president of the UNIA division in Omaha, Nebraska, and sold the Negro World newspaper, for which Louise covered UNIA activities.^[53]

Kwame Nkrumah named the national shipping line of Ghana the Black Star Line in honor of Garvey and the UNIA. Nkrumah also named the national football team the Black Stars as well. The black star at the centre of Ghana’s flag is also inspired by the Black Star.

During a trip to Jamaica, Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta Scott King visited Garvey’s shrine on 20 June 1965 and laid a wreath.^[54] In a speech he told the audience that Garvey “was the first man of color to lead and develop a mass movement. He was the first man on a mass scale and level to give millions of Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny. And make the Negro feel he was somebody.”^[55]

King was a posthumous recipient of the first Marcus Garvey Prize for Human Rights on 10 December 1968, issued by the Jamaican Government and presented to King’s widow. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Garvey on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.^[56]

Source: Retrieved August 20, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Garvey

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Civil Rights, History, Jamaica, Model

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The Movie ‘Hidden Figures’ – Art Imitating Life

Posted on August 16, 2016 in Ethos, Social

#GoLeanCommentary

** August 26, 2016 **

This day is the 98th birthday for “Katherine Johnson”.

Who is Katherine Johnson? And why is she important in the discussion of Caribbean empowerment?

Katherine Johnson (1918 – ) was a rocket scientist, physicist, and mathematician before there were rocket scientists. Why is this important? It is as 19th century Essayist Oscar Wilde dubbed it:

“Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”.

The focus here is on the “Art imitating Life”; no, even further than “art” is the “science”. The “art” in this case is the movie “Hidden Figures”. The “science” is the mathematics associated with rockets and trajectory: Rocket Science.

The movie HIDDEN FIGURES is the incredible untold story of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe)—brilliant African-American women working at NASA, who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation’s confidence, turned around the Space Race, and galvanized the world. The visionary trio crossed all gender and race lines to inspire generations to dream big. – 20 Century Fox Studio

This is the power associated with film. It’s an art that can promote a science. This is in harmony with a previous blog/commentary – by the Go Lean … Caribbean movement – regarding Caribbean Diaspora member and Hollywood great, Sidney Poitier, it was declared that …

… “Movies are an amazing business model. People give money to spend a couple of hours watching someone else’s creation and then leave the theater with nothing to show for the investment; except perhaps a different perspective”.

The untold story of Katherine Johnson is not so “unfamiliar” to the African-American experience. There has been millions of similar tales, where those with genius-qualifying abilities had to languish in a world where they were considered “less than“. (See the Appendix VIDEO below).

Oh, how wrong that world was!

Today, we tell the tale of Katherine Johnson. We celebrate her for her accomplishments and inspiration she provides to future generations of scientists, mathematicians, African-descendents and women. She is the definition of “Shero”; she is all of that! See how this is portrayed in the new film here, opening in January 2017:

VIDEO: Movie Trailer ‘Hidden Figures’ – https://youtu.be/RK8xHq6dfAo

Published on August 14, 2016 – Watch the new trailer for [the movie] #HiddenFigures, based on the incredible untold true story. Starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer & Janelle Monáe. In theaters this January [2017].

Why is this discussion of Katherine Johnson important in the discussion of Caribbean empowerment?

This is a story of one person making a difference! Her accomplishments required a resolve, determination and conviction to not buckle under the acute pressure to maintain the status quo. Her efforts and life’s pursuits helped to forge change in her homeland for her and all others that followed. The book Go Lean … Caribbean identified subjects like this as advocates; relating that their successful completion of their advocacy tend to benefit more than just them but the whole world (Page 122).

The story of Katherine Johnson is now being told as a movie. Movies can be effective for the goal of displaying a better view of people … and the community failings they have had to overcome. Previous Go Lean commentaries presented details of other movies that had the potential of reflecting and effecting change in society. See this sample here:

‘Concussion’ – The Movie; The Cause

Lesson from ‘Star Wars’ – ‘Heroes can return’

The Movie ‘Good Hair’ and the Strong Black Woman

Movie ‘Tomorrowland’ – Feed the Right Wolf

Documentary Movie: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ – Scary Proposition

Movie Lesson: ‘Only at the precipice, do they change’

The heroism of Katherine Johnson is against the backdrop of America’s segregation past. There is no way to justify America’s days of racial separation and oppression. Good riddance!

Surely, today our communities reflect a more inclusive environment. Surely?

Unfortunately, no!

America, still, and the Caribbean more, is plagued with a “climate of hate” in too many places. Far too often, in our own backyards, a class of people is oppressed, repressed and suppressed just because …

… the reasons do not even matter. It is just plain wrong and unwise and unproductive for our mission to retain our local geniuses.

Our community needs all hands on deck, with everybody contributing: all races, all genders, all ages, all classes of people. This point has also been conveyed in previous Go Lean commentaries; consider this sample here:

Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate

Gender Equality Referendum Outcome: Impact on the ‘Brain Drain’

The Plea for Women in Politics

A Lesson in Civil War History – Compromising Human Rights

Socio-Economic Change: The Demographic Theory of Elderly Suicide

LGBT & Buggery in Jamaica – ‘Say It Ain’t So’!

The ‘Luck of the Irish’ – Past, Present and Future Lessons

10 Things We Don’t Want from the US: #7 Discrimination of Immigrants

The book Go Lean…Caribbean (and subsequent blog/commentaries) relates that we must do better than the American history. We have a problem now with societal abandonment for “push and pull” reasons. In order to encourage people to stay home and impact their homeland, we need to protect and promote those with genius qualifiers. There is a lot at stake.

This Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). Fostering genius is very important to this movement. The book states (Page 27):

The CU assumes a mission of working with educational and youth agencies to identify and foster “genius” in our society, as early as possible. Geniuses are different from everyone else, although they maybe fairly easy to spot, defining exactly what makes one person a genius is a little trickier. Some researchers & theorists argue that the concept of genius is too limiting and doesn’t really give a full view of intelligence; they feel that intelligence is a combination of many factors; thereby concluding that genius can be found in many different abilities and endeavors. The CU posits that any one person can make a difference and positively impact their society; so the community ethos of investment in this specially identified group, geniuses, would always be a worthwhile endeavor.

Fostering STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers is integral to the Go Lean/CU roadmap. The goal is to identify students early with high aptitude in STEM areas, then develop them through academies and science fairs. The CU will even fund free tuition for these ones at local colleges/universities or forgive-able loans for those wishing to matriculate abroad. This is a matter of community ethos, defined as in the book as the fundamental spirit of a culture that drives the beliefs, customs and practices of a society. The book refers to this spirit motivating our Focus on the Future. This spirit would be embedded in every aspect of the Go Lean/CU roadmap. See here how the prime directives reflects this:

Optimization the economic engines of the Caribbean to elevate the regional economy to grow to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new (direct & indirect) jobs, including STEM-related industries with a projection of 40,000 Research & Development direct jobs and 20,000 Technology direct jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the people and economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these economic and security engines.

The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to reform Caribbean STEM education initiatives – also the economic and governance aspects as a whole. The roadmap opens with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the approach of regional integration (Page 13 & 14) as a viable solution to elevate the region’s educational opportunities:

xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores …

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

The Go Lean book envisions the CU – a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean chartered to do the heavy-lifting of empowering and elevating the Caribbean economy. The mission is to mitigate further brain drain of Caribbean citizens with STEM abilities. The book details the economic principles and community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize STEM initiatives in the Caribbean region:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier – Indirect Jobs from Direct Ones	Page 22
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future – Foster a Future Focus	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius – For STEM & other fields	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Close the Digital Divide	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Anecdote – Valedictorian and Caribbean Diaspora Member	Page 38
Strategy – Customers – Citizens, Business Community & Diaspora	Page 47
Strategy – Meeting Region’s Needs Today, Preparing For Future	Page 58
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Patent, Standards, & Copyrights	Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Education Department	Page 85
Implementation – Assemble all Super-Regional Governing Entities	Page 96
Implementation – Trends in Implementing Data Centers	Page 106
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Better Manage Debt – Better Student Loans Dynamics	Page 114
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade	Page 128
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Student Loans – Forgivable Provisions	Page 160
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Empowering Immigration – STEM Professionals	Page 174
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217

The Go Lean movement celebrates Katherine Johnson today as a role model in STEM. (Though she is an African-American with no Caribbean connection). She is recognized worldwide – just wait until the movie is released – as a woman of accomplishment – in 2015 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom:

“So if you think your job is pressure-packed, hers meant that forgetting to carry the one might send somebody floating off into the solar system.” – US President Barack Obama said in honoring Katherine Johnson on November 24, 2015.

This day – August 26 – is also Women’s Equality Day – commemorating women being granted the right to vote in the US on August 26, 1920.

So we celebrate all women that strive to achieve; there are those that do a lot; there are also women that choose to do little, or nothing. We celebrate them too. That is their equal right!

Yes, we can all do better than the past experiences from our communities. The Caribbean can be better!

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, women and men, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This roadmap will result in more positive socio-economic changes throughout the region; it will make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

——-

Appendix VIDEO: Celebrating Katherine Johnson’s Great Mind – Human Computer – https://youtu.be/Bdr9QBRcPEk

Published on Sep 1, 2015 – In the early days of spaceflight, if NASA needed to plot a rocket’s path or confirm a computer’s calculations, they knew who to ask: Katherine Johnson.

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Arts, Civil Rights, Gender, History

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Bahamas Issued US Travel Advisory Citing Police Violence

Posted on July 11, 2016 in Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The news in the below article is common … the other way around.

The United States government frequently post Travel Advisories for tourists to foreign countries, even the Caribbean in general and the Bahamas – the country of focus – in particular. But this time, the tables are turned. See the Travel Alert preceded by a related news article here:

Title: The Bahamas Just Issued A Travel Advisory For The U.S., Citing Police Violence
By:Salvador Hernandez, BuzzFeed News Reporter

Sub-title: “Young males are asked to exercise extreme caution in affected cities in their interactions with the police. Do not be confrontational.”

The Bahamas on Friday issued a travel advisory [as follows] for citizens planning to go to the United States, warning them about the tensions in some cities over the shooting of young black men.

“Do not get involved in political or other demonstrations under any circumstances and avoid crowds,” the government warned.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration specifically warned young males to be aware of how they interact with U.S. police officers, telling them to “exercise extreme caution.”

“In particular, young males are asked to exercise extreme caution in affected cities in their interactions with the police,” the advisory states. “Do not be confrontational and cooperate.”

The advisory comes after five officers in Dallas were shot and killed Thursday by a sniper targeting police. Seven other officers were injured in the attack.

About 800 protesters were marching in the Dallas after police killings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota. On Friday, protests against police violence against black men also occurred in Atlanta, New York, and Phoenix.

The warning from the Ministry of of Foreign Affairs was also posted on the government’s Ministry of Environment and Housing Facebook page, and Consulate General’s New York website, and its own Facebook page.

The U.S. issues similar advisories when violence has broken out in other countries. For example, the State Department issued travel advisories for France after the terror attacks in Paris, in Bangladesh after 20 hostages were killed, and Mexico during a wave of drug cartel violence.

While some countries have warned its citizens about crime in foreign cities, a warning about possible unrest in the U.S. is uncommon.

An official with the U.S. Department of State declined to comment on the warning issued by the Bahamas.

———–

Alert!

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Issues Travel Advisory for Bahamians traveling to United States of America

For Immediate Release

8 July 2016

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration has taken a note of the recent tensions in some American cities over shootings of young black males by police officers.

At the commencement of the Independence holiday weekend, many Bahamians will no doubt use the opportunity to travel, in particular to destinations in the United States.

We wish to advise all Bahamians traveling to the US but especially to the affected cities to exercise appropriate caution generally. In particular young males are asked to exercise extreme caution in affected cities in their interactions with the police. Do not be confrontational and cooperate.

If there is any issue please allow consular offices for The Bahamas to deal with the issues. Do not get involved in political or other demonstrations under any circumstances and avoid crowds.

The Bahamas has consular offices in New York, Washington, Miami and Atlanta and honorary consuls in Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago and Houston.

Their addresses are on the Ministry’s website – mofa.gov.bs

Pay attention to the public notices and news announcements in the city that you are visiting.

Be safe, enjoy the holiday weekend and be sensible.

Source: Posted July 8, 2016 from: http://mofa.gov.bs/ministry-of-foreign-affairs-and-immigration-issues-travel-advisory-for-bahamians-traveling-to-united-states-of-america/

——————-

VIDEO – Officer lashes out at ‘racist’ cops in viral video – http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/07/09/officer-lashes-out-racist-cops-viral-video-newday.cnn

Cleveland police officer Nakia Jones posted a video on Facebook strongly criticizing “racist” police officers. Source: CNN

This is not a “cry wolf” scenario; there have been some real tragic episodes impacting the American social order… especially this week. Consider this recap:

A Facebook video vent viral showing white police officers killing a black man, Alton Sterling, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Tuesday.
A Facebook video vent viral showing a white police officer killing a black man, Philando Castile, in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Wednesday.
On Thursday, a sniper – Micah Johnson, a Black man – opened fire on white police officers protecting a protest rally in Dallas, Texas by the Black Lives Matter movement, killing 5 officers and injuring 7 others, claiming to be enraged by the Cop-on-Black killings above.

Yes, there is the need for this unprecedented* advisory.

According to the book Go Lean…Caribbean, advisories of this sort need to be permanent, not just temporary. This is due to the many societal distresses incurred by Bahamians and Caribbean citizens traveling to the US for permanent residency; these ones should be warned. This book posits that it is easier for the Black-and-Brown populations of the Caribbean to prosper where planted in the Caribbean rather than fleeing to the US for refuge.

Neither societies are perfect! But the Go Lean book asserts that the societal engines in the Caribbean are easier to optimize than the societal defects in the American homeland.

The Go Lean book and movement serves as a roadmap for the introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). With the word ‘Trade‘ in the CU‘s branding, obviously the CU is set to optimize Caribbean society through economic empowerment; but the truth of the matter is that the security dynamics of the region are inextricably linked to this economic endeavor. Therefore the Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap posits that the Caribbean region must work to optimize its society. So the request is that all Caribbean member-states form and empower a federal government to execute a limited scope on Caribbean nations and territories. The goal is to confederate under a unified entity for both economic and security causes. The Caribbean’s public safety must be holistic!

The Go Lean roadmap puts the focus on the Greater Good. This is defined as “the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.” – Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832).

The US has bad actors.

The Caribbean has bad actors.

The Bahamas has bad actors.

The book contends that bad actors emerges just as a result of economic success. This point is pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices … to assuage continuous threats against public safety.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

The Caribbean appointing “new guards”, or a security pact to ensure public safety is a comprehensive endeavor, encapsulating the needs of all Caribbean stakeholders: governments, institutions and residents.

As the Bahamas Ministry of Foreign Affairs give a travel advisory to Black Bahamians (90% of population) traveling to the US to avoid danger in interacting with the US police establishment, the planners for an elevated Caribbean society, the Go Lean movement, give warning that the presence and practices of our American neighbors are not always benevolent for us in the Caribbean.

This is a mission of the Go Lean roadmap, to dissuade the high emigration rates of Caribbean citizens to the American homeland.

Why do they flee?

“Push” and “pull” reasons.

Where as “push” refers to the societal defects in the Caribbean that moves people to want to get away, “pull” factors, on the other hand, refer to the impressions and perceptions that America is better.

These travel advisories now say to Caribbean people: America could be harmful to your health and welfare!

Touché …

Let’s hope these advisories lower the “pull” factors.

The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to provide better optimized Caribbean life (economic and security concerns):

Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Privacy –vs- Public Protection	Page 23
Community Ethos – Intelligence Gathering	Page 23
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens	Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – CU Federal Agencies -vs- Member-states	Page 75
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Foreign Policy Initiatives	Page 102
Implementation – Start-up Security Initiatives	Page 103
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Planning – Big Ideas – Regional Single Market	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Better Manage the Caribbean Image	Page 133
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Leadership	Page 171
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Reduce Crime	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering/Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters – Many flee after disasters	Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living	Page 234
Advocacy – Ways to Impact US Territories	Page 244

If only we had Caribbean member-states giving travel advisories to Caribbean citizens in the past; with warnings like:

Caution: Abandoning your homeland is bad for you … and your homeland.

… or …

Caution: The grass is not greener on the other side.

This subject of “push and pull” has been frequently blogged on in other Go Lean commentaries; as sampled here with these entries muting American “pull” factors:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8202	Respect for Minorities: Lessons Learned from American Dysfunction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8200	Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8099	Caribbean Image: ‘Less Than’?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7221	Street naming for Martin Luther King unveils the real America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7204	‘The Covenant with Black America’ – Ten Years Later
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6189	A Lesson in History – Hurricane ‘Katrina’ exposed a “Climate of Hate”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5733	Better than America? Yes, We Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5527	American Defects: Racism – Is It Over?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5333	Racial Legacies: Cause and Effect
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5304	Mitigating the Eventual Abuse of Power
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4863	Video Evidence of American Injustice
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4360	Dreading the American: ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	A European Sport’s Problem with Blatant Racism – Also Relevant
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=546	American Model: Book Review – ‘The Divide’ – … Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341	Hypocritical US slams Caribbean human rights practices
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Don’t Want from the US: Racism against immigrants

Underlying to the prime directive of elevating the economics, security and governing engines of the Caribbean, is the desire to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. We know “bad actors” will emerge – they always do – so travel advisories will continue to be issued on both sides: Caribbean and American. We want proactive and reactive mitigations to ensure our Caribbean communities are safe for our stakeholders (residents and visitors). We entreat the American forces to work towards ensuring safety for our Caribbean citizens when they are visiting or studying in the US. We do not want “bad actors” in either homeland disrupting the peace.

The Go Lean roadmap was composed with the community ethos of the Greater Good foremost; “the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few” (Page 37). All Caribbean stakeholders are hereby urged to lean-in to this roadmap. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

—————

* Appendix – Unusual Advisories on Travel to the United States

News Article Title: 25 Unusual Foreign Travel Warnings for Visiting the U.S. By: Shaunacy Ferro

What do foreign tourists worry about when they visit the U.S.? Expensive emergency healthcare, overly sensitive attitudes towards nude sunbathing, and gross tap water, apparently. That’s according to travel warnings for potential U.S. tourists from around the world. These government-issued advisories can seem like common sense for Americans, but they also reveal significant cultural differences between the U.S. and other countries.

Most countries warn their citizens of America’s high rates of both firearm possession and crime. Don’t anger Americans, several countries subtly hint, lest they have a gun. Many warn visitors to get travel insurance since, unlike at home, they won’t be covered by a national healthcare system should they get injured. Others provide even more specific advice to avoid certain neighborhoods and businesses. Here are 25 unexpected travel warnings from around the world aimed at those visiting the U.S. [(Click here for the actual details of each of these headlines)]:

1. DON’T GET RIPPED OFF AT AN ORLANDO GAS STATION (UK)

2. TAKE CARE OF THE FLOWERS (CHINA)

3. DO NOT USE HOTMAIL OR GMAIL (AUSTRALIA)

4. DO NOT STALK ANYONE (GERMANY)

5. WATCH OUT FOR GUNS AT NIGHTTIME (CANADA)

6. STAY AWAY FROM THE EAST COAST (CHINA)

7. REALLY, WATCH OUT FOR GUNS (GERMANY)

8. DOORS MIGHT BE CLOSED (RUSSIA)

9. DO NOT INSPIRE ROAD RAGE (CHINA)

10. DO NOT TALK TO PROSTITUTES (GERMANY)

11. DON’T PEE IN THE STREET (SWITZERLAND)

12. DON’T JOKE ABOUT BOMBS (UK)

13. TRY TO AVOID BEING NAKED (GERMANY)

14. FEEL FREE TO SHACK UP (AUSTRIA)

15. DON’T CUT IN LINE (CHINA)

16. DON’T EXPECT AIR TRAVEL TO BE SAFE (CANADA)

17. VACCINES DON’T CAUSE AUTISM (MEXICO)

18. THE TAP WATER TASTES GROSS (AUSTRIA)

19. THE AMERICAN DREAM ISN’T REAL (RUSSIA)

20. EXPECT HARASSMENT IN ARIZONA (MEXICO)

21. YOU MIGHT GET EXTRADITED (RUSSIA)

22. WATCH OUT FOR EXPENSIVE DOCTOR VISITS (AUSTRALIA)

23. DON’T LEAVE TRASH IN YOUR CAR (CANADA)

24. TAXI DRIVERS KNOW NOTHING (RUSSIA)

25. PAY YOUR TRAFFIC TICKETS (GERMANY)

Source: Retrieved July 9, 2016 from: http://mentalfloss.com/article/68276/25-unusual-foreign-travel-warnings-visiting-us

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Bahamas, Civil Rights, Diaspora, Power, Security

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Respect for Minorities: Reconstruction then Redemption

Posted on June 15, 2016 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

This subject of “Respect for Minorities” is dominant in the news right now. This commentary is 3 of 3 in this series on lamentations for defective social values. The complete series is as follows:

Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’
Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate – ‘It Gets Worse Before It Gets Worse’
Respect for Minorities: Reconstruction then Redemption – A Lesson in History

There are these familiar proverbs:

1. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. – The Bible; Ecclesiastes 1: 9

2. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

There is a lot of history in the United States regarding “Respect for Minorities”; and the lessons from that history apply for the Caribbean. In this case, there is the history of the 2nd Reconstruction and 2nd Redemption that applies directly to Caribbean people living in the US. Life in the US for our Diaspora has been a familiar theme for the publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean; this theme has been exhausted in the book (Page 118 – Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean) and in countless blog/commentaries (see list below), within the quest to dissuade Caribbean people from emigrating to the US and to encourage many of the existing Diaspora to return to their homelands, to repatriate.

Why is this so important? The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) have been consistent: it is easier for the people of the Caribbean – a majority Black and Brown demographic – to prosper where planted in their homelands than to endure as alien residents in foreign countries. This commentary asserts the key ingredient for reforming and transforming societies with diverse demographics: “Respect for Minorities”. This commentary seeks to learn this lesson based on life (and history) in the US; though the principles here can easily apply to Canada and the many western European countries that receive our citizens. Consider this analogy:

Do you want to go a party – that you hear is a lot of fun – uninvited? What if you hear the host really wants you at the party, and then when you get there you discovered that they want you to serve and work and cater to the other preferred guests; you are just there as support staff?
Want to go home yet?

This is the experience for so many Caribbean Diaspora when they ‘come to America’. Just take a quick tour at so many tourist/travel facilities at America’s principal cities. So many of the “serving” staff are of Caribbean heritage. One would talk to taxi drivers, hotel maids, waiters and retail store clerks and you discover that these ones descend from the Caribbean.

You think: They came here for “this”? They are minorities among a majority that has little respect for them.

There is this above scenario, and then … there is “prosper where you’re planted”:

Just like a tree planted by the rivers of water
That bring forth fruit in due season
Source: The Bible – Psalms Chapter 1 verse 3 – King James Bible

This was the strong point made by one of the key figures in African-American history, Booker T Washington. He asserted that the African-American community must work to prosper in its own hometown, that they must seek reconciliation with their White neighbors and find a way to co-exist. This was a good plan for Black America, the minorities; but White America, the majority population didn’t always cooperate. The effort to reconcile was attempted before, immediately following the Civil War, during the period of Reconstruction; 1865 – 1877. This period of time actually featured some real progress in liberating and promoting the previous enslaved minority population – an enfranchisement of all freedmen. But then, at the end of the formal Reconstruction period, there was redemption…

… redemption: a return to American original values, that is “White supremacy” and the repression of the African-American race.

During this Redemption period: Jim Crow laws – segregation in public places – were implemented, as the follow details depict:

The end of Reconstruction … was followed by a period that White Southerners labeled Redemption, during which White-dominated state legislatures enacted Jim Crow laws and, beginning in 1890, disenfranchised most Blacks and many poor Whites through a combination of constitutional amendments and electoral laws. The White Democrat Southerners’ memory of Reconstruction played a major role in imposing the system of white supremacy and second-class citizenship for Blacks. – Sourced from Wikipedia.

That was then, 130 years ago; how about now? The notion of an Encore/”Second Take” seems unthinkable; and yet this is the historicity of events and experiences after this 2nd Reconstruction – the Civil Rights movement of the 20th Century: think Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Affirmative Action, Minority Set-Asides, etc.. See the encyclopedic reference here:

Reference Title: Second Reconstruction
Second Reconstruction is a term that refers to the American Civil Rights Movement. In many respects, the mass movement against segregation and discrimination that erupted following World War II, shared many similarities with the period of Reconstruction which followed the American Civil War. The period of Second Reconstruction featured active participation on the part of African-Americans to regain their rights that they had lost during the period of Redemption and Jim Crow segregation in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

During Second Reconstruction, African-Americans once again began holding various political offices, and reasserting and reclaiming their civil and political rights as American citizens. Unlike Reconstruction, however, most African-Americans abandoned the Republican Party for the Democratic Party. A noteworthy feature of Second Reconstruction was the political realignment that occurred in 1965, which transformed the nature and composition of both the Republican and Democratic Party’s, eroding the Democratic Solid South.

In the same way, however, that Reconstruction was followed by Redemption, some have also claimed that period following Second Reconstruction could be termed a Second Redemption characterized by more conservatism on the part of the federal government, and several Supreme Court decisions that weakened the scope of civil rights reforms, especially in the Northern States

The years between 1954-1972 have often been called the Second Reconstruction, since it has noteworthy similarities with the First Black Reconstruction (1865-1877), which began with the abolition of slavery by the enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment. Both periods saw African Americans making tremendous gains in the fields of politics and civil rights. Three major Supreme Court decisions (the Brown decision on school desegregation (1954), desegregation of public transportation (1956); bussing to achieve school desegregation (April 1971), two legislative enactments (the Civil Rights Act, 1964, and the Voting Rights Act, 1965) and the March on Washington, D.C. (April 28, 1963), many demonstrations and riots, resulted in major alterations in race relations. There was “change within change,” and America would never be the same.

While the Second Reconstruction destroyed the legal foundations of the segregationist system, it also highlighted the further and more difficult challenge of translating legal victories into real change. Moreover, the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., removed a key symbol and source of unity in the nonviolent freedom struggle. According to one activist, King was “the one man of our race that this country’s older generations, the militants, and the revolutionaries and the masses of black people would still listen to.” As the limitations of the Civil Rights movement became more apparent, growing numbers of young African Americans advocated Black Power as an alternative to nonviolent direct-action strategies. Partly because revolutionary black organizations like the Black Panther party (formed in 1966) emphasized the mass mobilization of poor and working-class blacks, armed struggle, and opposition to the Vietnam War, they came under the combined assault of federal, state, and local authorities. Under the weight of official and unofficial white resistance, the Black Power movement fragmented and gradually dissipated by the early 1970s.

Late Twentieth Century Developments. As the civil rights and Black Power movements weakened, white resistance to the gains of the Second Reconstruction intensified. Opposition to affirmative-action policies in employment and education were closely related to the deindustrialization of the nation’s economy. The loss of jobs to mechanization and low-wage overseas factories affected all industrial workers, black and white, but the persistence of overt and covert discriminatory employment practices rooted in white kin and friendship networks made black workers and their communities especially vulnerable to economic down swings. African-American unemployment rates persisted at well over the white rate, especially among young black males. At the same time, the beneficiaries of existing affirmative-action programs–the middle class and better-educated members of the black working class–experienced a degree of upward mobility and moved into outlying urban and suburban neighborhoods. They left working-class and poor blacks, disproportionately single women with children, concentrated in the central cities, where violence, drug addiction, and class-stratified social spaces intensified, causing acute tensions in day-to-day intraracial as well as interracial relations.

Perhaps even more than in the industrial era, the post- industrial age challenged African Americans to develop new strategies for coping with social change and the persistence of inequality. Some of their emerging responses built upon earlier struggles. Institution-building, marches, participation in electoral politics, and migration in search of better opportunities all continued to express black activism and resistance to social injustice. Yet, much had changed in the nation and in African American life, and such time-tested strategies took on different meanings in the 1980s and 1990s. Rising numbers of southern- born blacks returned to the South during the 1970s. After declining for more than a century, the proportion of blacks living in the South increased by 1980. Other African Americans rallied behind the Rainbow Coalition and supported the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s bid for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. Still others endorsed Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March (MMM) in 1994. Calling the march a “day of atonement” for black men, leaders of the MMM encouraged black men to earn and reclaim a position of authority in their families and communities. Four years later, many black women responded to the MMM’s gender bias with their own Million Woman March, which emphasized the centrality of women in the ongoing black freedom struggle. Through these various actions and many more, African Americans continued to resist shifting forms of inequality and gave direction to their own lives as a new century began.

These same years saw the emergence of a new generation of African-American academics, musicians, performers, sports figures, and writers. Such diverse men and women as the scholars and public intellectuals Henry Louis Gates, Cornel West, and Stephen L. Carter; basketball superstar Michael Jordan and track-and-field athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee; film actors Eddie Murphy and Denzel Washington; jazz musicians Joshua Redman, Herbie Hancock, and Wynton and Bradford Marsalis; television celebrity Oprah Winfrey; and an array of novelists and writers including Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison enriched American life and gave voice to the black experience.

By the 1990s, the nation’s more than 30 million African Americans, representing about 12 percent of the total population, had transformed themselves from a predominantly rural people into an overwhelmingly urban people; from a southern regional group to a national population living in every part of the nation; and, perhaps most importantly, from a group confined to southern agriculture, domestic service, and general labor to a work force with representation in every sector of the nation’s economy.
Source: Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia – Retrieved May 26, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Reconstruction

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VIDEO 1 – Henry Louis Gates assesses the black community today – https://youtu.be/g8XcWodA47g

Uploaded on Oct 28, 2011 – www.twaintrip.com

——————

VIDEO 2 – Powell Comments On Gates Arrest, Admits Being Profiled “Many Times” – https://youtu.be/sVelDpz5ZT0

Uploaded on Jul 28, 2009 – Gen. Colin Powell talks about the Henry Louis Gates arrest with Larry King. He said the story “went viral” when President Obama commented on the story. Also, Powell thinks that America “isn’t quite post-racial” at this time. “These problems still exist in post-racial America.” However, he suggested that Gates should not have argued with the policeman arresting him. “You don’t argue with a police officer,” he says.

Powell also called the arresting cop, Sergeant James Crowley, “an outstanding police officer.”

Also, at 5:10, Powell admits he’s been profiled “many times” [even] as the National Security Advisor.

This conclusion of a 2nd Redemption is not so far-fetched!

Just consider the current campaign of Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump: “Make America Great Again“. It bears to mind the question: “just when was America great before”? Answer: After the first Redemption.

It should be hard to justify migrating to this American climate/eco-system, rather than the quest to prosper where planted in the homeland. The societal defects in the Caribbean – that “pushes” many to flee – must be that acute!

The book Go Lean…Caribbean declares that the “Caribbean is in crisis”; but asserts that this crisis is a terrible thing to waste. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); an initiative to bring change, empowerment, to the Caribbean region; to make the region a better place to live, work and play. This Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The book describes the CU as a technocratic administration with 144 different missions to elevate the Caribbean homeland. This underlying goal is stated early in the book with this pronouncement in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12):

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law…

Change has come to the Caribbean. The Go Lean book declares that for permanent change to take place, there must first be an adoption of new community ethos of the Greater Good; this term community ethos refers to the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. This Greater Good ethos, with genuine concern and respect for minority groups, is what was missing in previous American generations … and current Caribbean population. This point of “Respect for Minorities” is therefore our biggest lesson from this consideration in history – the foregoing encyclopedic reference.

The Go Lean roadmap was constructed with this and other community ethos in mind, plus the execution of strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to forge the identified permanent change in the region. The following is a sample of these specific details from the book:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification – Historic Motivation of Black America	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Security Principles – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship	Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property	Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Anecdote – LCD versus an Entrepreneurial Ethos	Page 39
Strategy – Vision – Confederation of the 30 Caribbean Member-States into a Single Market	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Celebrate the Music, Sports, Art, People and Culture of the Caribbean	Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers: Federal Administration versus Member-States Governance	Page 71
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy Initiatives at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean	Page 118
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Ways to Better Manage Image	Page 133
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance in the Caribbean Region	Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism – Anti-Bullying Mitigations	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways Impact the Diaspora	Page 217
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231

Previous Go Lean blog/commentaries stressed issues relating to respect for minority rights and full societal inclusion. The following sample applies:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8099	Caribbean Image: ‘Less Than’?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7221	Street naming for Martin Luther King unveils the real America
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7204	‘The Covenant with Black America’ – Ten Years Later
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6722	A Lesson in History – After the Civil War: Birthright Mandates
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6434	‘Good Hair’ and the Strong Black Woman
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5784	Buggery in Jamaica – ‘Say It Ain’t So’!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5733	Better than America? Yes, We Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5527	American Defects: Racism – Is It Over?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5333	Racial Legacies: Cause and Effect
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4935	A Lesson in History – the ‘Grand Old Party’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2222	Sports Role Model – Playing For Pride … And More
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1918	Philadelphia Freedom – Some Restrictions Apply
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1896	The Crisis in Black Homeownership
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1596	Book Review: ‘Prosper Where You Are Planted’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Lack of Respect in European Sports – A Lesson; A Role Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=789	America’s War on the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=546	Book Review: ‘The Divide in American Injustice’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=341	Hypocritical US slams Caribbean human rights practices

The purpose of the Go Lean movement (book and blogs) is not to fix America; it is to fix the Caribbean. We want to learn important lessons from this advanced democracy who have endured a bitter history but has now emerged as the richest, strongest and most-prosperous nation in world history. The US is now a “frienemy” of the Caribbean. As we lose so many of our Caribbean citizens to life in the Diaspora in the US.

Some reports are that the Diaspora and their heirs amount to over 20 million American residents. America’s population and economy grows while our region is in crisis.

Our people leave our homelands due to “push and pull” reasons; “push” as in societal defects that cause many to seek refuge abroad, and “pull” in the presumption that American life is now optimized for the Black-and-Brown people. But a consideration of this commentary helps us to understand the “DNA” of American society, that while “Respect for Minorities” is improved, it is far from optimized.

The recommendation from this commentary and the Go Lean book in general is:

“stay home” in the Caribbean and work toward improving the Caribbean homeland.
And for those who have left, please consider repatriating home and bring us your “time, talent and treasuries”; help us reform and transform our society.

The US should not be considered the panacea of Caribbean hopes and dreams”. With the adoption of the appropriate community ethos, strategies, tactics and implementations of the Go Lean roadmap, we can make all Caribbean member-states better places to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate

Posted on June 14, 2016 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

This subject of “Respect for Minorities” is dominant in the news right now: there was a terrorism attack in the US city of Orlando, Florida. The assailant targeted a night club (The Pulse) frequented by the LGBT community. On Saturday night/Sunday morning June 11/12, 2016, one man killed 49 patrons and injured another 53 in a hate-filled rampage.

This commentary is 2 of 3 in this series on lamentations for defective social values. This commentary applies to this terrorist attack/hate crime in America and also to other practices of “institutional hate” around the world, like in the Caribbean. The complete series is as follows:

Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’
Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate – ‘It Gets Worse Before It Gets Worse’
Respect for Minorities: Reconstruction then Redemption

The actions of this one “bad actor” is a direct consequence of a “climate of hate”. The assailant pledged his allegiance to the fringed fundamentalist Islamic terrorist group ISIS; a group that has expressed their hatred time and again to targets like gays, non-Muslims and symbols of Western civilization. This hatred has manifested in their home territory of Iraq and Syria in the MiddleEast, and “on the road”, in places like Paris-France, Germany, England and San Bernardino-California.

When there is a “climate of hate”, the situation on the ground “gets worse before it gets worse”.

The US has confronted the issue of hate before; they have manifested a laboratory – the Civil War – for a comprehensive lesson to a watching world. The country had such a bad legacy of hate with the issue of racial supremacy and racism. The African American community suffered, along with the rest of the country where over 600,000 deaths – mostly Whites- were tallied. So first, there was slavery, and the “climate of hate” that propagated it; then there was the Civil War for the abolition of slavery, while still “hot” in a “climate of hate”. Yet, despite these lessons, the “climate of hate” continued for over 100 years with the systematic oppression, suppression and oppression of the African-American/Black population.

In many respect, the climate continues. This incident in Orlando is being hailed as “the worst massacre in US history”, though this is far from the truth. Remember:

Is the nullification of these events, a fault in memory or lack of respect for the affected minority group – Blacks?

Without a doubt, the American experience with a “climate of hate” should be a cautionary tale for the rest of the world.

Planners for a new Caribbean, the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, see fitting applications from these American events, from this “climate of hate”, for the Caribbean.

Our Caribbean society, far too often, promotes a “climate of hate”. Consider these three examples:

Haitian Immigrants – Many Caribbean countries express vitriol towards Haitian migrants.
LGBT – Still clinging to the archaic “Buggery” laws, many countries persecute gays in their society as degenerates.
Equality-seeking Women – Just last week, a referendum failed in the Bahamas 3 to 1.

The Caribbean member-states, collectively and individually, need to curb its “climate of hate” and to pay more than the usual attention to the lessons from Orlando. See details here:

Title: What do we call the attack in Orlando? ‘Hate crime’ or ‘terrorism?’
Source: (Posted 06/13/2016; retrieved 06/14/2016) retrieved from: http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-13/what-do-we-call-attack-orlando-hate-crime-or-terrorism

President Barack Obama has called the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando both a hate crime and terrorism. But experts can’t agree about whether there’s a connection to Islam.

“I have to say,” says GeorgiaStateUniversity professor Mia Bloom, “I think that the president was very on point as far as saying that it doesn’t have to be one thing at the exclusion of others. It was definitely a hate crime, and it was an act of terrorism.”

Bloom has devoted her 27-year career to the study of terrorism and is the author of several books on the subject.

“The extent to which it might have either been directed or inspired by ISIS remains part of the mystery that is unfolding,” she says.

Forty-nine people died and 53 were wounded by the time police took down the single suspected perpetrator, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, around 5 a.m. on Sunday. The nightmare at the popular gay club began around three hours earlier, just as the bartenders were taking last orders.

Mateen was a US citizen, born in the US to an Afghan family. He attended a mosque, but it’s not clear whether he was especially devout. It wasn’t until he was in the midst of the massacre in Orlando that Mateen dialed 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIS.

ISIS has claimed him as one of their own, although there is no evidence yet of any prior connection. An FBI investigation in 2014 found no substantial link.

What is becoming clear — from his ex-wife, and from past and present co-workers at G4S, the security firm where Mateen worked — is that he had a history of violence, homophobia, anti-Semitism, racism, and he was accused of mental instability.

Citing a report in the Daily Beast that Mateen was friends with at least one drag queen and had been comfortable hanging out with gay people in his teens, Bloom says, “I don’t know if part of the homophobia is an extreme interpretation of his own sexual repressedness. This is not someone who grew in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. This is someone who grew up in the United States, watching TV, being exposed to things like ‘Will and Grace.’ This is not someone who’s never seen two gay people kiss before, especially if he’s hanging out at clubs with people who are cross-dressing.”

Bloom also notes that Mateen started casing gay clubs at least two weeks ago, when he tried to get on the VIP list at another club.

“So he’s basically had two weeks to make his pledge of allegiance [to ISIS] and he didn’t,” she says. “This attack looks to me a lot more like San Bernardino, where you have an individual who has pre-existing issues, and then the veneer of the ISIS affiliation provides either a seriousness or a street-cred, or even — in their perverse way of understanding it — a legitimacy to their actions.”

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has said that President Obama needs to be more blunt in his characterization of the Orlando attack as an act of “radical Islamic terrorism.” But Daveed Gartenstein-Ross says using this phrase is not particularly important.

“I do think it’s important that one not disguise the motivation that the attacker had in this case, or to deny its connections to other strands of theological thought,” Gartenstein-Ross says, adding that Trump has gone too far with this rhetoric.

“The fact is that this is not an attack that represents the American Muslim community,” he says. “The American Muslim community has a right to grieve with all of the rest of us and shouldn’t be singled out as being different.”

At the same time, Gartenstein-Ross says the suspect “may be many other things as well, but he claimed this attack on behalf of ISIS. And he went after a set of victims that groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda have been known to target.”

“Factually, you cannot get around the notion that [Mateen] is a radical Islamist,” he says.

It seems irrelevant, however, for policy makers to be arguing about phrases like “radical Islamic terrorism” so soon after the Orlando massacre, says Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution.

Hamid says Trump’s rhetoric “is actually a stand-in for something darker.”

“This is a way of essentially castigating Muslims without explicitly doing it,” says Hamid, the author of a new book called “Islamic Exceptionalism: How Islam is Shaping the World,” which argues that US policy makers are not very good at talking about religion, especially in the Muslim world.

“Someone like President Obama, [a] self-styled technocrat who doesn’t like to be aroused by the passions of politics, he has, I think, a lot of trouble taking these motivations seriously,” Hamid says. “The way he’s traditionally talked about ISIS … is problematic, where he dismisses them oftentimes as a bunch of thugs and fanatics, as if he can’t even bring himself to take them seriously as a global force.”

For her part, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton appeared to shift her rhetoric on Monday. Clinton said she would not hesitate to describe the attack in Orlando as “radical Islamism,” something she has been reluctant to do in her recent rhetoric.

Clinton went on to say that she will not, “demonize and demagogue,” like Donald Trump, because “it’s plain dangerous.”

————-

AUDIO – Orlando: ‘Hate crime’ or ‘Terrorism’? – http://www.pri.org/node/89888/popout

Listen to the Story from PRI or Public Radio International, a not-for-profit aggregator and distributor of Public Broadcasting content.

The tragedy in Orlando provides a number of lessons for the Caribbean. This is an issue of economics, security, governance and overall spirit in society. These are all important subjects for the book Go Lean…Caribbean. The book serves as a roadmap for elevating Caribbean society – for its 42 million residents and 80 million visitors, across the 30 member-states – by introducing and implementing the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).

The quest of the Go Lean roadmap, to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. The CU, applying best-practices for community empowerment has these 3 prime directives, proclaimed as follows:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and ensure the respect of human rights and public safety.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

Despite any leanings on the question of homosexuality, a massacre against 100 people in one incident is first and foremost a tragedy. Consider these direct lessons from this tragedy:

This attack in Orlando will surely affect the city’s tourism through put. In a previous blog-commentary, it was detailed that the Disney World attraction enjoys 53 million visitors, alone.
This is a terrorism case study. The Go Lean roadmap is designed to mitigate the threats of terrorism. Consider too, the issue of gun controls; the need for reform may be too big to resist … this time.
The governing officials – city, county, State of Florida and the US President – see/listen to the AUDIO) – are campaigning against the ‘climate of hate’ that propelled this assailant and others in society that may have refused to tolerate and integrate with their LGBT neighbors. This ‘climate of hate’ is being discouraged towards any minority group.

How exactly can the Go Lean/CU roadmap impact the community spirit, so as to dissuade a ‘climate of hate’?

This relates to community ethos. The Go Lean book (Page 20) defines community ethos as the national spirit that drives the character and identity of its people. It is revealed that changing community ethos is hard, heavy-lifting, but there are effective strategies-tactics for accomplishing this.

We have a ‘climate of hate’ in the Caribbean, the Go Lean book therefore details a series of community ethos to adopt, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute to forge permanent change in the homeland:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Community Ethos – Minority Equalization	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Manage Reconciliations	Page 34
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Integrate region into a Single Market Economy	Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization	Page 57
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Department of Homeland Security	Page 75
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid	Page 115
Planning – 10 Big Ideas … in the Caribbean Region – Haiti & Cuba	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices	Page 134
Planning – Lessons from East Germany – European Post-War Rebuilding – Attitudes	Page 139
Planning – Lessons from the US Constitution – Progressive & Evolutionary	Page 145
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Empowering Immigration – Case Study of Indian Migrants	Page 174
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Justice	Page 177
Advocacy – Ways to Remediate and Mitigate Crime	Page 178
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Gun Control	Page 179
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Terrorism	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis	Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Protect Human Rights	Page 220
Advocacy – Ways to Help Women – Mitigate Gender-based Violence	Page 226
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth – Message new Community Ethos – Inclusion	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Dominican Republic – Climate of Hate against Haiti	Page 237
Advocacy – Ways to Re-boot Haiti – Regional Climate of Hate against Haiti	Page 238
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Trinidad & Tobago – Indo versus Afro Climate	Page 240
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Guyana – Indo versus Afro Climate	Page 241
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Belize – Cross Border Climate with Guatemala	Page 242
Advocacy – Ways to Impact US Territories – Interracial Climate	Page 244

The related subjects of human rights and civil rights dysfunction in the Caribbean and other communities around the world have been a frequent topic for blogging by the Go Lean promoters, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8099	Caribbean Image: ‘Less Than’?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7682	A Lesson in History – Frederick Douglass Single Cause: Respect!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7345	Caribbean “Climate of Hate” Inviting to ISIS
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7221	Street naming for Martin Luther King unveils a “Climate of Hate”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7204	‘The Covenant with Black America’ – Ten Years Later
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6937	Women in Politics – The Fight for Gender Equality
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6722	A Lesson in History – After the Civil War: “Climate of Hate” Continues
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6720	A Lesson in History – During the Civil War: Principle over Principal
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6718	A Lesson in History – Before the Civil War: Human Rights Compromise
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6189	A Lesson in History – Hurricane ‘Katrina’ exposed a “Climate of Hate”
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5784	Buggery in Jamaica – Blatant LGBT Bias in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5527	American Defects: Racism – Is It Over?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5333	Racial Legacies: Cause and Effect
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5123	A Lesson in History – Royal Charter: Zimbabwe -vs- South Africa
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4971	A Lesson in History – Royal Charter: Truth & Consequence
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4935	A Lesson in History: the ‘Grand Old Party’ of American Politics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2297	A Lesson in History: Booker T versus Du Bois
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1531	A Lesson in History: 100 Years Ago Today – World War I
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=789	A Lesson in History: America’s War on the Caribbean

All of the Caribbean needs to learn from the experiences of our American neighbors, like in Orlando. The Go Lean book asserts that a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste” (Page 8).

Notice how the Orlando community is coming together! This is a crisis! It is not being wasted!

This is not the first time the LGBT community has been targeted for violence; they have frequently been bullied – this is Terrorism 101. Their demographic is a minority group that needs more respect.

When is enough, enough?

Fixing the American eco-system is out-of-scope for the Go Lean roadmap. Our focus is fixing the Caribbean. Considering the acute and pronounced “climate of hate” in our region, we have a lot of work to do to garner more respect for our minorities.

The Go Lean/CU roadmap specifies best practices to effect change in society, the attitudes and actions. Success in these efforts will reform and transform our climate, and assure public safety and justice for all. This quest is worth all our efforts.

When is the right time to start these efforts? Now…

Now … is the time for all of the Caribbean to lean-in to this roadmap and learn the lessons from history or other communities – successful, plus unsuccessful. The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean is in a serious crisis, but asserts that this crisis would be a terrible thing to waste. The people and governing institutions of the Caribbean region are hereby urged to assimilate this Big Deal for the Caribbean region; this is a real solution to change the climate. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’

Posted on June 10, 2016 in Ethos, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

This subject of “Respect for Minorities” is dominant in the news right now. This commentary is 1 of 3 in this series on lamentations for defective Caribbean social values. The complete series is as follows:

Respect for Minorities: ‘All For One’
Respect for Minorities: Climate of Hate – ‘It Gets Worse Before It Gets Worse’
Respect for Minorities: Reconstruction then Redemption

There is this impactful quotation from the Bible:

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? – The Bible; Matthew 18:12 – New International Version.

But someone might argue: “the needs of the many out-weight the needs of the few”. This is the principle of the Greater Good. Yes, this is true! This principle is very familiar to the publishers of the book Go Lean … Caribbean; the principle is foremost in the book (Page 37) as a community ethos, the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a society. The region needs to adopt this ethos to forge change in the Caribbean. But it turns out that the Greater Good is not just a priority on the majority, it is very much reflective of minorities.

All For One … and … One For All!

This expression is from literature, the book: The Three Musketeers, by the nineteenth-century French author Alexandre Dumas – it represents “art imitating life” in it’s meaning:

All the members of a group support each of the individual members, and the individual members pledge to support the group. Note: “All for one and one for all” is best known as the motto of the title characters in the book. Source: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/all-for-one-and-one-for-all

Since everyone is unique, we may all be minorities in some respects. Consider (these previous blogs):

There is the need for the majority to protect the basic rights of minority groups; this is in effect protecting the rights for life, liberty and pursuit of happiness … for all.

What’s more, the minorities should not have to beg the majority for these rights; the rights should be an automatic entitlement.

Let’s consider the example here of the “peanut“.

It’s a great little snack; a lot of people enjoy them. But, for some – a small but growing minority in any society; see VIDEO below – the peanut is deadly, due to their allergic reactions. Should a majority of people be inconvenient due to allergies of just a few people, or sometimes, just one. Consider this model here:

Title: Customers with Disabilities – Peanut Dust Allergies
Source: Southwest Airlines Website – Customer Service Policy; retrieved 06/09/2016 from: https://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/unique-travel-needs/customers-with-disabilities-pol.html

Because it is nearly impossible for persons who have an allergy to peanut dust to avoid triggering a reaction if peanut dust is in the air, Southwest Airlines is unable to guarantee a peanut-free or allergen-free flight. We have procedures in place to assist our Customers with severe allergies to peanut dust and will make every attempt not to serve packaged peanuts on the aircraft when our Customers alert us of their allergy to peanut dust.

We ask Customers with peanut dust allergies making reservations over the phone to advise our Customer Representatives of the allergy at the time the reservation is made. If the reservation is made via a travel agent, the Customer should telephone 1-800-I-FLY-SWA (1-800-435-9792) afterward to speak with a Customer Representative. If the reservation is made via southwest.com, the Customer may advise us of the allergy on the “Southwest Airlines Payment and Passenger Information” screen by clicking on the link to “Add/Edit Disability Assistance Options.”

We suggest that Customers with peanut dust allergies book travel on early morning flights as our aircraft undergo a thorough cleaning only at the end of the day.

We ask the Customer with the allergy (or someone speaking on the Customer’s behalf) to check in at the departure gate one hour prior to departure and speak with the Customer Service Agent (CSA) regarding the Customer’s allergy. Please allow enough time to park, check luggage and/or receive your boarding pass, and to pass through the security checkpoint. Our CSA will provide the Customer with a Peanut Dust Allergy Document and ask him/her to present the document to the Flight Attendant upon boarding. If the Customer has a connection, the CSA will provide the Customer with two documents, one of which should be retained to present to the Flight Attendant on the connecting flight.

Our CSA will advise the Operations (Boarding) Agent so that service of packaged peanuts can be suspended for that flight. Our Operations Agent will notify the Provisioning and/or Ramp Supervisor to stock the aircraft with a sufficient supply of pretzels or alternate snacks. The Operations Agent will also notify the Flight Attendants of the Customer’s final destination and advise them that we cannot serve packaged peanuts until the Customer deplanes.

As some of our other snack items may contain peanut particles, peanut oil, or have been packaged in a peanut facility, Customers who have allergic reactions to eating/ingesting peanuts should read the ingredients on any packaged snack before consumption. Of course, all Customers are welcome to bring their own snacks with them.

Southwest cannot prevent other Customers from bringing peanuts or products containing peanuts onboard our flights. In addition, Southwest cannot give assurances that remnants of peanuts and/or peanut dust/oil will not remain on the aircraft floor, seats, or tray tables from the flights earlier in the aircraft’s routing.

In addition, Southwest Airlines cannot guarantee that a flight will be free of other allergens such as perfumes, lotions, cleaning solutions, etc.

The publishers of the book Go Lean…Caribbean wants to forge change in the Caribbean; we want to change the attitudes for an entire community, country and region. As depicted in the foregoing article, but on a larger scale, we want to ensure that one peanut allergy sufferer can be assured of best efforts to not deprive them of life and health. But this quest is more than just peanuts; it is the attitudes of the people. We need majority populations to sacrifice, however small or large, to allow minority populations every opportunity to participate fully in society.

Besides, how much of a sacrifice is it truly to forego peanuts … for a short period. There are other alternative snacks. This is the full definition of a reasonable accommodation.

The “peanut” is this case is truly a metaphor. The seriousness of the allergy – life-and-death – is representative of the seriousness for the rights of minorities in a community. But at the same time, peanut allergies have increased in western societies. Why? See VIDEO in the Appendix below. So for peanuts and other aspects of societal life, what may only be an inconvenience for the majority may actually be “life-and-death” for the affected minority. This is why the requirements for someone’s quality of life, should never be subject to a popularity contest. This is the Greater Good.

So the community ethos of the Greater Good must be tempered with the ethos of National Sacrifice. The Go Lean movement (book and blog-commentaries) posits that these new community ethos must be adopted by the Caribbean; they are undoubtedly missing. This is evidenced by the fact that every Caribbean member-state suffers from alarming rates of societal abandonment: on average 70% of college educated ones in the population have fled in a brain drain, while the US territories have lost more than 50% of their general populations). Why do people flee?

“Push and pull” reasons! “Push”, as in people fleeing to find refuge from abuses tied to their minority status, and “pull”, as in the perception (though many times false) that life is better on foreign shores.

The term National Sacrifice is defined here as the willingness to sacrifice for a greater cause; think “patriotism or love of country”. This spirit is currently missing, in that many in the community refuse to extend some reasonable accommodations so that others who may be minorities or differently-abled can participate in the out-workings of their community. As it turns out, “All For One and One For All” is also a recipe for forging successful communities.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU); a confederation of the 30 member-states to bring change, empowerment, to the Caribbean region; to make the region a better place to live, work and play for all stakeholders (residents, tourists, visiting Diaspora and trading partners). This Go Lean roadmap also has initiatives (strategies) to foster solutions for the Caribbean youth. Any attempts to change Caribbean society’s community ethos (Greater Good and National Sacrifice) must start with the youth in order for the changes to be permanent. We are embarking on the effort to fix our Caribbean culture:

What is it that young people want in their society, so as to map a future for themselves at home: opportunity!

More specifically, equal access to opportunities – despite any minority status – to pursue their passions in life; whichever fields of endeavor they might pursue. This includes the strategies of education, jobs, entrepreneurial options, sports, and aspects of culture (art and music). Young people who cry, sweat, and bleed for their communities – embedding a desire to sacrifice for the Greater Good – are less inclined to flee. While these strategies are important, there is something else even more vital: a culture of inclusiveness; as follows:

Our community’s values, how we treat each other, our citizens, and stakeholders, and a healthy inclusive culture are more important than the elevation strategies executed.

Yes, when we make reasonable accommodations to be a more inclusive society, we invite “more people to the party” and elevate our society.

An African proverb brings a lot of solace to this discussion:

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

This also corresponds with the next verse in the above Bible scripture:

“And if he finds it [the one errand sheep], truly I tell you, he rejoices more over that one sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.” – Matthew 18:12 – New International Version.

The purpose of the Go Lean book/roadmap is more than just the embedding of these new community ethos, but rather the elevation of Caribbean society. In total, the Caribbean elevation roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure protection to the economic engines, public safety and justice for all.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these societal engines.

The roadmap details the following community ethos, plus the execution of these strategies, tactics, implementation and advocacies to expand inclusiveness – to go together – and forge permanent change in Caribbean society:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Choose	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives	Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact a Turn-Around	Page 33
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing	Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Enact a Defense Pact to Defend the Homeland	Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Keep the next generation at home	Page 46
Tactical – Confederating a Permanent Union	Page 63
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Implementation – Assemble – Incorporating all the *existing* regional organizations	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Foreign Policy at Start-up	Page 102
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean – Confederation Without Sovereignty	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract	Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security	Page 181
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 186
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities – With Reasonable Accommodations	Page 228

All in all, there are certain successful traits (community ethos) associated with populations that have endured change, like the Greater Good and National Sacrifice. These are focused more on deferred gratification; on the future more so than immediate impact.

No sacrifice; no victory.

Now is the time for all stakeholders – majority and minority – to lean-in to this roadmap for Caribbean elevation, as depicted in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. “We need all hands on deck” to make our homelands better places to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

——————

Appendix VIDEO – Why Are Peanut Allergies Becoming So Common? – https://youtu.be/Mjr9h_QmdeM

Published on Oct 3, 2014 – Peanut allergies are becoming more and more common, and researchers are trying to find the cause. Trace is here to discuss this unique allergy, and how we might have finally found a cure.

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