Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

Let’s understand the expectation:

“You emigrate from the Caribbean to the US – to New York City – to give your children – the next generation – a better opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; you automatically assume that the public schools will be excellent, above-average or at least acceptable”. – Book: Go Lean … Caribbean, Page 126.

Sorry to burst your bubble. But the reality is far different than the expectation.

This is the conclusion of the below article, that immigrant students are imperiled more than ordinary in the New York City’s schools. The prospects for the next generation may not be as bright as “you” had hoped. This undermines the whole premise of the “push and pull” for emigration in the first place. (“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).

That “pull” expectation was from before – 1970’s and 1980’s; see Anecdote in the Appendix below – but today the disposition in New York City’s schools is just dire. See the news article here:

Title: City finds most poverty-stricken or homeless public school students are Black, Hispanic
By: Ben Chapman and Lisa Colangelo
Black and Hispanic kids are more likely to face a variety of challenges in public classrooms, according to data the city Education Department released Tuesday.

The majority of students who were homeless or live in poverty are black or Hispanic, according to the report, which is mandated by the City Council.

About 24% of city students in kindergarten through eighth grade who were eligible for free or reduced-price lunches in the 2015-2016 school year were African-American and 46% were Hispanic.

Additionally, about 33% of the K-8 students who live in temporary housing — which includes homeless shelters and those doubled up with friends and relatives — are black and 54% are Hispanic.

City Education Department officials said they have started a number of initiatives to make schools more diverse, including support for LGBT students, helping more black and Hispanic students apply to the city’s elite specialized high schools and encouraging high-performing schools to admit more low-income students.

But Mona Davids of the NYC Parents Union said the city is “skirting the issue of desegregating the city school system.”

“Encouraging schools isn’t enough,” she said. “There needs to be a top-down mandate.”
Source: New York Daily News; Posted November 2, 2016′ retrieved November 13, 2016 from: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/city-finds-black-hispanic-public-school-kids-hardships-article-1.2854566

This – the foregoing – is not the expectation that Caribbean immigrants had, but it is what it is! While this article relates to New York, the anecdotal experience is the same in urban communities across the US.

The majority population in the Caribbean member-states is Black and Hispanic, or more typically classified as Black-and-Brown. So this foregoing article is really referring to “us”, the Caribbean Diaspora living in the US. This strategy – emigrate for education sake – employed by previous Caribbean immigrants now needs a reality check.

The purpose of this commentary is to relate two strong points of contention:

• Dissuade the high emigration rates of Caribbean citizens to the American homeland.
• Encourage the Caribbean Diaspora to repatriate back to their ancestral homeland.

According to the foregoing article, emigrating to New York City (NYC) may be one step forward, two steps backwards. So 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, to foreign cities like NYC. This disposition applies to Caribbean students, yes, but to teachers as well; see the Appendix VIDEO below relating a consistent drama for imported-Caribbean teachers in NYC.

This commentary is the completion of the series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, in consideration of reasons why the Diaspora should repatriate back to the Caribbean homeland. There was an original 3-part series, with these submissions:

1.     Time to Go: Spot-on for Protest
2.     Time to Go: No Respect for our Hair
3.     Time to Go: Logic of Senior Immigration

Now, this new extension to the series considers the additional topics as detailed in this series as follows:

4.     Time to Go: Marginalizing Our Vote
5.     Time to Go: American Vices; Don’t Follow
6.     Time to Go: Public Schools for Black-and-Brown

All of these commentaries relate to the Caribbean disposition in the United States. 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, security and governing optimizations. 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 – including empowerments for education – to support these engines.

The “push and pull” factors do imperil Caribbean life. We push our citizens out. Then the resultant effect is a brain drain and even more endangerment to our society: less skilled workers, less entrepreneurs, less law-abiding citizens, less capable public servants – we lose our best and leave the communities with the rest. This create a crisis.

The Go Lean roadmap posits that the entire Caribbean is in crisis now; so many of our citizens have fled for refuge in the US and other foreign countries, but the refuge is a mirage. The “grass is not necessarily greener on the other side”. Life in the US, in New York City for example, is definitely not optimized for the Caribbean’s Black-and-Brown. There is a challenge to reform and transform the community in the US; and there is a challenge to reform and transform the community in the Caribbean. It is easier to fix the Caribbean than to fix the American eco-system. It is Time to Go! Our Caribbean people can better prosper where planted in the Caribbean.

Rich, poor, middle-class …

The Go Lean book asserts that every community has poor people. The Caribbean has poverty; and the US has poverty. With the empowerments in the Go Lean roadmap, it will be easier to elevate from poverty in the Caribbean. Education is one such empowerment. The US still has some societal defects – racism for example – that are so imbrued that they are tied to the country’s DNA. As alluded to in the foregoing news article, segregation, de jure or de facto, is a deterrence to optimized educational opportunities. This is why the Go Lean movement posits that it is easier to effect change at home in the Caribbean, than in the foreign country of the US.

Education is key … in the Go Lean roadmap. We cannot effect an elevation from poverty to middle-class without education. Research by Economists have established that every additional year of schooling an individual increases their earnings by about 10%. This is a very impressive rate of return. The Go Lean book quotes these proven economic studies, showing the impact that additional years of education have had on individuals’ earning power (Page 258).  If the Caribbean Diaspora, the Black-and-Brown in New York City cannot get fair educational opportunities in New York, then we declare that it is “Time to Go“. We are hereby preparing for their return – fixing our defects – rebooting our education eco-system.

The Go Lean book posits that Caribbean stakeholders made many flawed education decisions in the past, both individually and community-wise. (Consider the example of Government grants, loans and scholarships for students that ended up never returning “home”). The vision of the CU is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean to do the heavy-lifting of championing better educational policies. There is the structure of a separation-of-powers between CU agencies and the individual member-states.

The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to reform the Caribbean education systems, economy, governance and Caribbean society as a whole. This roadmap admits that because the Caribbean is in crisis, this “crisis would be a terrible thing to waste”. As a planning tool, the roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the approach of regional integration (Page 12 & 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.

Change has now come. The driver of this change is technology and globalization. Under the tenants of globalization, the Caribbean labor pool is a commodity; their talents are subject to the economic realities of supply-and-demand. The Go Lean book posits therefore that the governmental administrations of the region should invest in better education options, and as much technological education advances (like e-Learning) as possible, for its citizens. The bottom-line motive should be the Greater Good – “the greatest good for the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong – not profit nor emigration.

How exactly do we accomplish this goal? The book details those policies; and other ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the education eco-system in the Caribbean region:

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

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. Saying that it is “Time to Go“, must mean that we are ready to receive our Caribbean Diaspora from New York City and other destinations. Are we ready, now?

As related previously: frankly, no …

… but we are ready, willing and able to start the change process, to reform and transform the Caribbean. This is the intent of the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This subject of improving the conditions for successful Caribbean repatriation has been blogged in previous Go Lean commentaries; as sampled here:

The Go Lean/CU roadmap asserts that America should not be presented as the panacea for all of the Caribbean ills – we must reform and transform our own society. While America does so many things right, the country acts poorly towards its Black-and-Brown citizens. Our people, the Black-and-Brown of the Caribbean, can expect more success from less effort in the Caribbean region than in the US, especially education-wise.

It is Time to Go … back home.

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 the roadmap to elevate the Caribbean; to make our homeland a better place to live, work, learn and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Appendix – Anecdote # 15 – Repatriated Resident: Pearline Anglin (Page 126)

Bold = Author

Pearline Anglin has returned to Jamaica after living abroad (New York City, United States) for over 35 years. Why leave NYC and go to Jamaica, when so many Jamaicans would rather emigrate to New York? Simple, she never envisioned spending her “golden” years in America. She is now retired and has to contend with all the challenges of growing old. In her mind there are challenges everywhere; she would rather face her challenges at “home” rather than be a constant “alien’ in a foreign land. At home, her accent does not set her apart; her preference for food and drink is common among all her neighbors and is consumed by everyone else. Most importantly, she has no unbearable winters to contend with.

So why leave when you have such an obvious love for your country/culture? Ms. Anglin intimated that her decision to emigrate was based on the need to give her children a better life, a better future. (She has 7 children, all of whom live in the US; plus an additional son that died as an infant). The children needed opportunities for education; such as would not require a large investment for private schools. She knew that the public education systems in the US were better than the public education  system in Jamaica. And then there were the economic realities. Ms. Anglin first emigrated to Canada, as it was easier to expatriate there. Then she returned to Jamaica for a short period. Her mother, now deceased, had US residency at this point and was able to sponsor Pearline, and then later Pearline sponsored her children. (The time apart from the children required that she remit monies back home, at least monthly, for their care).This started the flow of all the family “abandoning” their homeland. (Ms. Anglin has 2 siblings who also emigrated to the NYC area). To this day, her 7 children and 19 grand and great-grandchildren all live abroad.

How would you feel if your children or grandchildren decide to return to their Caribbean roots? Ms. Anglin revealed that while she feels “good” about a decision like that, there must be more to such a plan. They must prepare for such a return thoroughly, and responsibly; they would have to consider all aspects of life and living in the islands. She is not holding her breath.

How do you feel about Caribbean Security? Most disappointed – considering what life used to be like in Jamaica, she is troubled at the pervasive crime in or near the cities, like Montego Bay. As an older woman she has to live very cautiously, she does not go out at night and takes many other precautions. This is a beloved vision for her, where security would be more assured for Caribbean people. Other areas of concern for the future would include better health care facilities nearby so that she does not have to venture so far from her Black River area home (St. Elizabeth Parrish) to seek professional medical attention.

How do you feel about Caribbean Economy? Same as the economy in New York – recessions and economic downturns affect everyone. There are problems in Jamaica, there are problems too in the US. One cannot run away from economic challenges, rather one must equip themselves with the tools to compete, wherever they are.

Do you long for life back in the US? She really loved New York; but do not consider it an ideal lifestyle for the elderly. The hustle-and-bustle is perhaps too great!

Where do you consider to be the best place to live? For her considerations, there is no place like home, Jamaica.

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Appendix VIDEO – Caribbean Teachers Treated Like ‘Indentured Servants’ by NYC Board of Education – https://youtu.be/kPmVuoH1xsQ

Uploaded on Apr 18, 2011 – Judith Hall, who heads the Association of International Educators and also teaches at Marie Curie High School in the Bronx, and Bertha Lewis from the Black Institute, an advocacy organization, voiced concerns on Monday’s “Inside City Hall” about what they call false promises by the Department of Education to Caribbean teachers.

Go Lean Commentary

Sex, …
Drugs …
… and Rock-n-Roll.

America has taken the lead in the fostering of these vices for the rest of the world. 🙁

For the Caribbean looking to American leadership, the stern advice here is to not follow these American vices:

Sex

While natural and normal, there is a distortion in America with the promotion of pornography. Comedian Bill Maher joked “that America invented the internet, then filled it with porn”; see Pornhub profile here and “List of Websites By Traffic” in the Appendix below:

Pornhub, part of the Pornhub NETWORK campaign, is a pornographic video sharing website and the largest pornography site on the Internet.^[4][5] Pornhub was launched in Montreal, providing professional and amateur photography since 2007. Pornhub also has offices and servers in San Francisco, Houston, New Orleans and London. In March 2010, Pornhub was bought by Manwin (now known as MindGeek), which owns numerous other porn websites.…As of 2009, three of the largest porn sites “RedTube, YouPorn and PornHub -collectively make up 100 million unique visitors”.^[12]
Malvertising – Researcher Conrad Longmore claims that advertisements displayed by the sites were found to contain malware programs, which install harmful files on users’ machines without their permission. Longmore told the BBC that two popular sites – XHamster and PornHub – pose the greatest threat.^[28] – Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornhub retrieved November 12, 2016.
[On the List of Websites By Traffic in the Appendix below, pornographic sites are # 57, 60, 67, 78, 139 and 190]

Drugs

Marijuana legalization is now the norm for 40 percent of the American population. (A previous blog-commentary details the challenges of decriminalizing drugs in the Caribbean region). See the story here:
Title: A Bunch of States Just Legalized Weed, Which Is Great Because We All Need It Now
California’s referendum to legalize marijuana in the world’s sixth-largest economy passed Tuesday night. So did voter measures in Massachusetts and Nevada. Maine’s referendum was still being counted early Wednesday morning, and Arizona’s was poised to lose. Three other states passed medical marijuana reforms, and a fourth appeared likely to do so. This means that in eight states (plus Washington, D.C.) weed will be legal for recreational purposes, and in sum, 28 will have some kind of legalization on the books.

It’s a good thing that a large chunk of America will soon be able toke up at their leisure, because for the next four years, we are really going to need it.

The conventional wisdom about the 2016 ballot measures was that their approval would make federal legalization truly inevitable — millions of Americans are already using marijuana within the letter of state law. This has created a $6 billion industry, and those figures are only likely to continue to multiply. While the Obama administration has continued to go after some growers and sellers, it has largely allowed state legalization to take its course. The state policies certainly aren’t perfect, but they’re ultimately good and just: Currently, there are hundreds of thousands of marijuana-possession arrests every year, and they disproportionately affect (read: ruin the lives of) poor minorities. Treating marijuana more like alcohol and less like heroin changes that.

Of course, now all that could go up in smoke. If it wanted to, a Trump administration could undo the progress marijuana regulation has made in an instant. As one reform advocate told the Washington Post: “The prospect of Rudy Giuliani or Chris Christie as attorney general does not bode well.” Sure doesn’t! But what policy implication of a Trump presidency does?

Someone pass me some of the strong stuff.
By: Jonathan L. Fischer, Slate senior editor.
Source: Slate Online Magazine; Posted November 9, 2016 from: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/11/09/a_bunch_of_states_just_legalized_weed_good_we_all_need_it.html

————

VIDEO – Big Pot: The Commercial Takeover – http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/big-pot-the-commercial-takeover

November 7, 2016 – CBSN Originals explores the rapidly changing landscape of legal marijuana, traveling to five states and Canada to interview key figures on all sides of the issue.

Rock-n-Roll

America gave birth to this musical art-form; but is now leading the music industry into a downward spiral of dissolution, dissension and dysfunction. The sad state of the music industry is a frequent topic for this commentary and the underlying book Go Lean…Caribbean. This subject was exhausted in a “Lessons Learned Case Study” regarding Music Piracy: See Appendix ZT – To Catch A Thief –  Page 351. Many previous blog-commentaries have detailed the sad state of the music industry:

• Record/retail stores are non-existent,
• Concerts have become inexplicably expensive, and
• Internet streaming is the only viable business model.

The vice associated with Rock-n-Roll is that of cultural nullification. The Go Lean book details this debate as deliberated in France: cultural preservation versus cultural nullification from American Rock-n-Roll. France held its ground … and today, the city of Paris enjoys 30 million tourists and $25 Billion in culture/tourism spending …annually.

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

But, globalization being what it is, means that left unchecked, we will see all of these American vices in our communities, whether we want them or not.

This commentary declares: We do not want them.

This point aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean, which states that American leadership is not always focused on the best interest of America, but rather the best interest of special interest groups. We cannot submit, yield and follow their lead in fostering our own society. The book supports the notion that the Caribbean can be an even better place compared to America for Caribbean people if we adhere to the community ethos of the Greater Good, “the greatest good for the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.” – Page 37.

If we succeed at adopting this community ethos – underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of our society – then we can make our 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 to pursue these goals, not American values.

This is a continuation from the previous 3-part series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, in consideration of reasons why the Diaspora should repatriate back to the Caribbean homeland. The previous commentaries detailed:

1.     Time to Go: Spot-on for Protest
2.     Time to Go: No Respect for our Hair
3.     Time to Go: Logic of Senior Immigration

Now, this new extension to the series considers the additional topics as detailed in this series as follows:

4.     Time to Go: Marginalizing Our Vote
5.     Time to Go: American Vices; Don’t Follow
6.     Time to Go: Public Schools for Black-and-Brown

All of these commentaries relate to the Caribbean disposition in the United States. 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, security and governing optimizations. 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 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”. Considering the actual vices in American society – which will only get worse with time – life there is definitely not optimized for Caribbean people. As mentioned in the foregoing, the Black-and-Brown of America are the ones that have been imperiled the most because of the drug eco-system. The Go Lean book asserts that because every community has bad actors – the Caribbean has bad actors and the US has bad actors – there is the obvious need to reform and transform the region, security-wise. 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 apparatus to ensure public safety and justice assurance is a comprehensive endeavor, that will encapsulate the needs of all Caribbean stakeholders: governments, institutions and citizens (residents and Diaspora).

An important mission of the Go Lean roadmap is to dissuade the high emigration rates of Caribbean citizens to the American 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). A second mission is to encourage the repatriation of the Caribbean Diaspora back to their ancestral homeland, where the dangers associated with these vices are less intense.

There is risk to security and justice assurance on all sides of the issue of vices – this is heavy-lifting. The book details this complexity, with a focus on the community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to monitor, manage and mitigate the security risks to Caribbean society. The following is a sample list:

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.

For a long time these vices that are now being unleashed on American soil were heavily regulated by other societies; the governments and leaders were protecting the people from destructive behavior. These vices are still destructive despite any American Stamp of Approval. This is not the lead we want to follow.

“Disregard them! They are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”. – Matthew 15:14 Berean Study Bible.

America has lost its moral high ground. It is Time to Go!

As reported in previous commentaries, justice – for its Black-and-Brown populations – is already a fallacy in the US. Now personal virtue is also becoming frivolous in their society. The country is so duplicitous: there is so much that America does right, but there is so much that America does poorly – and people that they do not respect – that we want to mitigate those influences in our homeland.

It is the conclusion of this Go Lean movement that the “grass is not greener on the American side”. We can do better. We can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. All Caribbean stakeholders are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean/CU roadmap to elevate the Caribbean. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Appendix – List of Websites By Traffic

Go Lean Commentary

The US Election is now over.

Yippee! Now, the country – the world for that matter – can get back to business as usual.

The business as usual in the United States is the business of the United States, not necessarily the business of the rest of the world, and definitely not the business of the Caribbean. This commentary has always maintained that the Caribbean needs to take its own lead, rather than depend on American leadership; we do not want to be parasites – anymore – rather, we want to be a protégé. Parasites are people, not policies, so the Caribbean political leadership must be concerned about Caribbean people, not just policies.

It is parasitic of the Caribbean to have the affinity to abandon our homeland so readily. For those that go to the US – as reported in a recent blog-commentary: the estimate of the number of Caribbean Diaspora living in the US is projected up to 22 million – the refuge they seek in America may be elusive or non-existent, especially politically. Why is this the case?

The answer is that the destination, the United States, does not value Black-and-Brown people en masse. Sure, one or a few persons can find success and respect, but in general, this people is marginalized.

Is this a fair judgment?

Yes, indeed. This manifestation is so bad that the United States should not be considered a refuge for the Caribbean Diaspora. What’s more, those of the Diaspora in the US should seriously consider that its “Time To Go“.

This marginalization of the Black-and-Brown population is evident in how the country’s allows them to vote. The Black Vote is monolithic. 90+% of the Black population belong to one partisan alignment, the Democratic Party.

All Blacks are Democrats and the Democratic Party caters to Blacks. Why and how did this come about? See the full story here:

AUDIO PODCAST – http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/14/331298996/why-did-black-voters-flee-the-republican-party-in-the-1960s

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Title: Why Did Black Voters Flee The Republican Party In The 1960s?
By: Karen Grigsby Bates

If you’d walked into a gathering of older black folks 100 years ago, you’d have found that most of them would have been Republican.

Wait… what?

Yep. Republican. Party of Lincoln. Party of the Emancipation. Party that pushed not only Black Votes but black politicians during that post-bellum period known as Reconstruction.

Today, it’s almost the exact opposite. That migration of Black Voters away from the GOP reached its last phase 50 years ago this week.

Walking through the Farmer’s Market at 18th Street and La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles, a mixture of Angelenos strolled the asphalt parking lot, surveying rows of leafy produce and ripe stone fruit. Virtually all the people I approached who were registered voters were registered to one party.

“I’m affiliated with the Democratic party, of course!” laughs Arthur Little, a thin man in shorts and electric turquoise-framed sun glasses.

“Why ‘of course’?” I asked.

“Because I think of it as the party that is at least officially interested in putting people’s rights before corporate rights,” Little shakes his head. “I don’t even know why a black person even would be a Republican,” he muses, as he walks off with his teenaged son.

Darlene Lee-Bolgen, eyeballing fresh fingerlings and young onions, said she was worried about income inequality, and she didn’t believe that was a Republican concern. “It doesn’t seem like they’re for the regular people, for civil rights… they’re not doing anything to help the people. They’re all for themselves.”

Black Voters began supporting the Democratic party in greater numbers almost a century ago. But the events of 1964 marked a dramatic shift in voting patterns that’s still with us today.

A More Even Distribution
Vincent Hutchings, a political scientist who studies voter patterns at the University of Michigan, says the first major shift in black party affiliation away from the Republican Party happened during the Depression. Franklin Roosevelt’s second administration — led by the New Deal — made the Democrats a beacon for black Americans deeply affected by the crushing poverty that was plaguing the country.

But many Black Voters stuck with the party of Lincoln.

“The data suggests that even as late as 1960, only about two-thirds of African-Americans were identified with the Democratic Party,” he says. “Now, two-thirds is a pretty big number. But when you compare it to today, that number hovers at about 90 percent.”

Ninety percent. So what happened?

Well, according to Hutchings and to TuftsUniversity historian Peniel Joseph, Barry Goldwater happened.

“Barry Goldwater, for Republicans, becomes a metaphor for the Republican response for this revolution that’s happening in the United States,” Joseph says.

The “revolution” was Freedom Summer, the period 50 years ago when hundreds of college students, most of them white, had journeyed to Mississippi to help black Mississippians become registered voters. The state’s response to that integrated movement had been swift — and violent. Less than a month before the GOP met for its national convention in San Francisco, organizers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney (who was African-American and Mississippi-born) and Michael Schwerner had been kidnapped on a dark back road in NeshobaCounty. The only hint that they’d existed was Schwerner’s charred Ford station wagon.

The media attention that followed the men’s disappearance roiled the entire South. (Their bodies would be found in early August, buried in the shallow earthen works of a dam.)

Then, two weeks after the men’s disappearance and mere days before the GOP convention opened, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law, making discrimination in public venues illegal.

Peniel Joseph says the events outside the GOP’s convention hall affected what went on under its roof. Supporters of the presumed front-runner, liberal New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, were blindsided by the party’s well-organized conservative wing, which nominated Arizona’s Sen. Barry Goldwater. His nickname was “Mr. Conservative.”

Goldwater can be seen as the godfather (or maybe the midwife) of the current Tea Party. He wanted the federal government out of the states’ business. He believed the Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional — although he said that once it had been enacted into law, it would be obeyed. But states, he said, should implement the law in their own time. Many white southerners, especially segregationists, felt reassured by Goldwater’s words. Black Americans, says Vince Hutchings, felt anything but:

“African-Americans heard the message that was intended to be heard. Which was that Goldwater and the Goldwater wing of the Republican party were opposed not only to the Civil Rights Act, but to the civil rights movement, in large part, as well.”

An Abrupt Exit From The GOP
When Goldwater, in his acceptance speech, famously told the ecstatic convention “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” he was speaking of “a very specific notion of liberty,” says Peniel Joseph: “Small government, a government that doesn’t give out handouts to black people. A government that doesn’t have laws that interfere with states’ rights. A government that is not conducting a war on poverty.”

It was a signal both sides heard loud and clear. Goldwater attracted the white Southern votes his advisers thought were essential, paving the way for the “Southern Strategy” that Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan would use successfully in later years. And the third of black Republican voters remaining speedily exited the party.

“It was an abrupt shift,” says Hutchings. “For [the] relatively few — but still not trivial — fraction of blacks, they moved aggressively, and almost unanimously, into the Democratic Party.”

And Black Voters have stayed there, in increasing numbers, ever since. Not that all of them want to be.

Back at the farmer’s market, Jasmine Patton-Grant, in a flower-patterned sundress, sells lavender soap and lotions to passers-by. She says she grew up in a family of Democrats, going into the voting booth with her father when she was a toddler and voting in elections — national and local — since she was legally able to vote. She considers voting a privilege and her civic obligation. And she says she’s sick of the choices she sees before her.

“I’m a Democrat only because I’ve inherited that from my family,” she explains. “It’s not as if I’d ever be a Republican, but I’m completely dissatisfied with both parties.”

Which suggests if an alternative comes along that Patton-Gant and others find attractive, the Black Voter party affiliation percentages might change yet again.
Source: National Public Radio (NPR); Published July 14, 2014; retrieved November 4, 2016: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/14/331298996/why-did-black-voters-flee-the-republican-party-in-the-1960s

If Blacks do vote, they are expected to vote Democrat. This monolith allows any opposition to neutralize their vote by the simple strategies of Redistricting & Malapportionment; see Appendix A below.

The 2016 Election is now over and the winner for President is the Republican’s Donald Trump. He won the Electoral College vote, despite his opponent Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote. This is the fact, despite Mr. Trump exhibiting blatant racist, misogynist and abusive behavior. Very few Black people voted for him. But the marginalization of the Black Vote, allows the Republican Party to completely disenfranchise the entire Black participation in the political process. The Democrats have the majority registration of the US population, yet the Republicans have won the Presidency and the Congress (with majorities in both chambers: House of Representatives and the Senate).

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 the United States. It would be better too, for this population to repatriate to their Caribbean homelands. Based on the 2016 Presidential campaign, no doubt it is “Time to Go“.

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 and the presence of a Black President, 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 people, once we make the homeland a better place to live, work and play. At least out votes count and matter.

This is a continuation from the previous 3-part series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, in consideration of reasons why the Diaspora should repatriate back to the Caribbean homeland. The previous commentaries detailed:

1.     Time to Go: Spot-on for Protest
2.     Time to Go: No Respect for our Hair
3.     Time to Go: Logic of Senior Immigration

Now, this new extension to the series considers the additional topics as detailed in this series as follows:

4.     Time to Go: Marginalizing Our Vote
5.     Time to Go: American Vices; Don’t Follow
6.     Time to Go: Public Schools for Black-and-Brown

All of these commentaries relate to the Caribbean image and disposition as minorities in the United States, while being a majority in the Caribbean region. The quest is to reform and transform the Caribbean member-states so that they can be better societies to live, work and play. Then, only then, can the trend of emigrating to the US end. The US should not be a land of refuge for Caribbean people; we need to find refuge at home.

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, security and governing optimizations. The Go Lean roadmap thusly 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 public safety and protect the economic engines.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap posits that the “grass is not necessarily greener on the other side”; life in the US, is definitely not optimized for the Caribbean’s Black-and-Brown people.

The Go Lean book asserts that every community has bad actors and the Caribbean region needs to prepare, to remediate and mitigate for bad actors. But the problem of marginalization of the Black Vote,  is not just a factor of “bad actors”, it is a bad foundation in the American DNA.

Let’s consider one example – in the Appendix B below – in the city of Houston, Texas. First, these are the demographic facts:

Racial composition	2010[94]	1990[25]	1970[25]
White	50.5%	52.7%	73.4%
Black or African American	23.7%	28.1%	25.7%,[96]
Hispanic or Latino	43.7%	27.6%	11.3%[95]
Asian	6.0%	4.1%	0.4%

Source: Retrieved November 11, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston#Demographics

With these numbers, the normal expectation is that half of the Congressmen representing the Greater Houston area would be Black-or-Brown, 4 of the 8 seats, but instead the actual number is 2, or 25 percent of the actual seats; see photos in Appendix B below. Why? “Gerrymandering” to link together all the Black neighborhoods – despite their location – so that they can all be represented by only a few Democratic congressional seats, and then all the other seats would go to the White Republicans.

This practice is obvious and unapologetic in Texas.

Unfortunately other American cities – North and South, East and West – feature this same practice. This portrays a deficiency in democratic justice – the precept of one man one vote.

This fact supports the Go Lean assertion: It is “Time To Go“. We can and must do better in promoting justice for Caribbean people than the Americans do. 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 … to assuage continuous threats against public safety.

The Caribbean appointing “new guards” to ensure justice assurance is a comprehensive endeavor, that will encapsulate the needs of all Caribbean stakeholders: governments, institutions and citizens (residents and Diaspora alike).

An important mission of the Go Lean roadmap is to dissuade the high emigration rates of Caribbean citizens to the American 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). There is the need for good messaging that the Black Vote is only marginalized in the US. In addition to this messaging, there is also a mission to encourage the repatriation of the Caribbean Diaspora back to their ancestral homeland.

To attract our Diaspora for repatriation, we must be better in the Caribbean, than in the past. How do we accomplish that? The Go Lean book details how; with a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to better optimize our Caribbean life (economic and security concerns):

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

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 for all. We do not want to marginalize any segment of our populations. For this, we must remain “on guard”.

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to remediate and mitigate any abuse of power of any majority group against a minority segment. We want to ensure our Caribbean communities are more appealing than the American counterparts; we do not want American defects here. While we entreat American leaders to work towards remediating their own defects, fixing the US is not within our scope; fixing the Caribbean is our only charter.

Once we have our reformations in place, then it is “Time to Go“.

The intent of the book Go Lean … Caribbean is to prepare the region for the return of all of our people, back to these shores. This point is also pronounced early in the book with the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 13 & 14), as stated:

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.

xxxiii.   Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of [such] communities …

The Go Lean book was composed with the community ethos in mind of the Greater Good, “the greatest good for the greatest number of people” – Page 37. This is NOT the based community ethos for the United States – too bad! We can and must do better!

The disenfranchisement of the Caribbean’s Black-and-Brown in this week’s federal election, is a reminder that “grass is not greener on the American side”. While an earnest effort is needed everywhere to improve society, such efforts will be more successful in the Caribbean than in the US for the Caribbean Diaspora. The underlying legacy of racism in America may still be too hard to assuage.

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!

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Appendix A – Redistricting & Malapportionment

Each state determines its own district boundaries, either through legislation or through non-partisan panels. “Malapportionment” is unconstitutional and districts must be approximately equal in population (see Wesberry v. Sanders). Additionally, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits redistricting plans that are intended to, or have the effect of, discriminating against racial or language minority voters.^[11] Aside from malapportionment and discrimination against racial or language minorities, federal courts have allowed state legislatures to engage in gerrymandering for the benefit of political parties or incumbents.^[12][13] In a 1984 case, Davis v. Bandemer, the Supreme Court held that gerrymandered districts could be struck down on the basis of the Equal Protection Clause, but the Court did not articulate a standard for when districts are impermissibly gerrymandered. However, the court overruled Davis in 2004 in Vieth v. Jubelirer,and Court precedent currently holds gerrymandering to be a political question. According to calculations made by Burt Neuborne using criteria set forth by the American Political Science Association, about 40 seats, less than 10% of the House membership, is chosen through a genuinely contested electoral process, given bipartisan gerrymandering.^[14][15]

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Appendix B – Houston’s Congressional Districts

Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area (after Alaska) and population (after California). While California has 53 Congressional seats, Texas has 36. Houston is its largest city, within city limit dimensions; (see the table below). But the Greater Metropolitan Area of Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land is the country’s 5th largest urban-suburban area; (behind New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and the Greater Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex). The recorded population is 6,490,180 as of the 2010 U.S. Census. There are 8 representatives for this area in the US Congress, 2 of them are Black.

The City of Houston has historically voted Democratic except for its affluent western and west-central portions, including the River Oaks, Westchase, Memorial, and Uptown areas, as well as the Kingwood and Clear Lake City master-planned communities on Houston’s far northeast and southeast sides, respectively. All these areas, populated mostly by wealthy WASPS (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants), favor and are almost entirely represented both in Congress and in the Texas Legislature by Republicans. Democrats’ strongest areas are within Loop 610, and in the largely poor and minority northern, eastern, and southern portions of Houston. Most of these areas have sizable Hispanic populations, though some northern and southern parts of the city have mostly notable African American communities. Democrats are also stronger in the more liberal Neartown area, which is home to a large artist and LGBT community, and Alief, which houses a sizable Asian American population.^] In 2008, almost every county in the region voted for Republican John McCain; only Harris County [(Houston)] was won by Democratic candidate Barack Obama, by a small margin (51%–49%).^[59] Galveston has long been a staunch Democratic stronghold, with the most active Democratic county establishment in the state.^[60]

Texas Top 10 Cities – By Official Population

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_delegations_from_Texas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Houston