Opinion
Celebrating Marcus Garvey
“Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
B ERNIE F OSTER
Founder/Publisher
B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER
Executive Editor
T ED B ANKS
Advertising Manager
J ERRY F OSTER
Account Executive
L ISA L OVING
News Editor
H ELEN S ILVIS
Multimedia Editor
D AVID K IDD
Graphic Designer
M ONICA J. F OSTER
Seattle Office Coordinator
J ULIE K EEFE
S USAN F RIED
Photographers
The Skanner Newspaper, established
in October 1975, is a weekly publica-
A
ug. 17 will mark the 125th
Birthday of the most for-
midable Pan Africanist
leader the world has ever known,
the Honorable Marcus Mosiah
Garvey. And, 2012 is the 50th
Anniversary of Jamaica’s inde-
pendence. What better time to
renew the call for Marcus Gar-
vey’s birthday to be proclaimed
Universal African Flag Day as an
act of Kujichagulia/Self-Determi-
nation? This is not a new call. For
years I have attempted to make the
case that people of African descent
should take at least one day to
proudly and massively display the
flag Marcus Garvey bequeathed to
African people as one of his great-
est gifts.
Speaking of “audacity of hope,”
Marcus Garvey burst upon the
global scene at a time when the
vast majority of Africans suffered
under the boot of white supremacy
either through ruthless, exploita-
tive and humiliating forms of
European colonialism or segrega-
tion/apartheid in the Diaspora. As
his life’s commitment, the
Jamaican-born national was deter-
mined to use his extraordinary
gifts as a visionary, orator and
organizer to uplift the African race
and propel Black people to their
rightful place in the forefront of
civilization. To achieve his goal,
however, he had to find a way to
“keep hope alive.” One of Gar-
vey’s greatest gifts was his keen
appreciation of the role that sym-
W ORLD 21 ST C ENTURY
Dr. Ron Daniels
bols play in inspiring, uplifting
and motivating disadvantaged and
oppressed people. There was hard-
ly a more daunting challenge than
finding a way to give hope to the
ethnically disparate and virtually
universally despised sons and
daughters of Africa. Never one to
be discouraged by the difficulty of
the task, Garvey boldly declared
cials with the President General at
the top. But, Garvey did more than
conceive of structures for an
African government, he created a
National Hymn, rituals and cere-
monies and most importantly a
Flag as critical ingredients in his
formula for inspiring, uplifting
and unifying the African peoples
of the world. Indeed, in part Gar-
vey was responding to a popular
white Supremacist song of the era
“Every Race Has a Flag but the
Coon.” This was no laughing mat-
ter for Garvey who said: “Show
People of African descent should take
at least one day to proudly and
massively display the flag Marcus
Garvey bequeathed
that he would give Black people a
vision of a “government,” men of
“big affairs and a “flag!”
The master organizer built the
Universal Negro Improvement
Association (UNIA) into the
largest mass organization of
Africans in history, with hundreds
of chapters in the U.S., Canada,
Central and South America,
Europe and Africa. The genius of
the UNIA was that Garvey organ-
ized it as a virtual government in
waiting with social, economic,
political and military structures
and a chain of command of offi-
me the race or the nation without a
flag, and I will show you a race of
people without any pride.” The
red, black and green flag was not
only an answer to the white
supremacists, it was intended to be
a meaningful cultural-historical
symbol encapsulating the pain of
the past, the struggle for freedom
and the promise of the future of
African people.
Though there are varying inter-
pretations of the colors, at Institute
of the Black World 21st Century
forums and celebrations we
describe the Red for the blood and
suffering of African people, the
Black for the color and culture of
African people and green for the
land we will reclaim to build our
nation. We believe this interpreta-
tion captures the essence of Gar-
vey’s definition of the meaning of
the flag. Over time, particularly
during the rise of Black conscious-
ness, Black Power and Black
Nationalism in the 60s, the flag
became closely associated with
the Black Liberation Movement in
the U.S. But, Garvey never intend-
ed the flag to be for Africans in
America exclusively. His goal was
to create a substantive unifying
symbol for Africans everywhere,
an overarching symbol of the
power, potential and possibilities
of Pan Africanism.
In the red, black and green
African people have a universal
flag and Africans everywhere
should understand its origins,
meaning and significance and dis-
play it or the colors with cultural,
political pride and conviction. At a
time when Africans in America are
in the throes of a State of Emer-
gency and our sisters and brothers
on the Continent are still afflicted
by neo-colonialism, intensified
exploitation and internal divisions,
there is an urgent need for a cul-
tural offensive to inspire Black
people to understand the vision of
Marcus Garvey.
Read the rest online at
www.theskanner.com
tion, published each Wednesday by
IMM Publications Inc.,
415 N. Killingsworth St.,
P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228.
Telephone (503) 285-5555.
E-mail: info@theskanner.com
World Wide Web site:
http://www.theskanner.com
Fax: (503) 285-2900
The Skanner is a member of the
National Newspaper Pub lishers Associ-
ation and West Coast Black Pub lishers
Association.
All photos submitted become the
property of The Skanner. We are not re -
spon sible for lost or damaged photos
either solicited or unsolicited.
© 2012 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED.
REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART
WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED.
To see The Skanner
News on your smart
phone go to
theskannermobile.com
or scan this QR code
with your app.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Local news
Opinions
Jobs, Bids
Sports
Entertainment
Music reviews
Bulletin board
RSS feeds
Ryan: A Nightmare for Poor and Minorities
I
n an apparent off the cuff
remark, Wisconsin Rep. Paul
Ryan gushed that he thought it
was a “cool thing” that an African-
American was president. But
Ryan’s rapture with President
Obama didn’t last past the first
sentence. In the next breath he
quickly added that he didn’t like
much else about Obama. The
much else was how Obama has
spent on health, education and job
development programs that would
help the poor and minorities. That
spending has been fiscal heresy for
Ryan.
His savage cost cutting plan is
well-known. He’d cut tens of bil-
lions from Medicaid and
Medicare, and more than a trillion
from everything from food stamps
to welfare over the next decade.
The Ryan slash and burn plan mer-
cifully hasn’t happened during his
tenure as House Budget Commit-
tee chair. But as Vice President
Ryan, he would be in a command-
ing position to make his cost cut-
ting plan a nightmare come true
for the poor and minorities.
The key to that is winning the
vice-presidency. In distant times
past, the vice-presidency was little
more than a ceremonial, title-laden
position that carried little authori-
ty, and almost no power to make,
shape or change public policy.
Presidential candidates picked
vice-presidents mostly to shore up
their perceived political or ideo-
logical weakness, be it sectional-
ism, inexperience, image, or on
domestic or foreign policy expert-
ise. The VP was there to balance a
ticket, and help a presidential con-
Page 4 The Portland Skanner August 15, 2012
T HE L AST
W ORD
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
tender win, and nothing more. But
that was in the distant past.
The vice presidential pick has
morphed into a high stakes game
in the evolution of presidential
politics. The VP is now much
more than just a standard dressing
up of the presidential ticket. He or
she must be able to actually help a
presidential candidate win first
enough to give Reagan a little
edge with moderate Republicans.
But the vice-president has become
much more than that.
A vice president is now directly
involved in discussing, imple-
menting and even helping to for-
mulate domestic and foreign
policy. Vice-Presidents chair pres-
idential committees and commis-
sions. They are consulted and
make recommendations on major
policy decisions and changes.
They are often the hit men on con-
troversial policy issues and during
elections they are on the campaign
trail to say what the president
often can’t say. Clinton’s VP Al
Gore and Bush’s VP Dick Cheney
The poor are not only getting poorer,
they are also more numerous than
any time in the last half-century and
have slipped even further behind in
wealth and income disparities
and foremost, or at worse not help
him lose. There were times in past
elections when VPs have made a
difference. Lyndon Johnson in
1960 is the textbook example of
that. He brought legislative savvy,
he was a Southern then still in
good stead, and he could deliver
two or three Deep South states. He
did his job. Bush Sr. also helped
Reagan in 1980. He brought expe-
rience, insider connections, and as
a transplanted Southerner, the
regional balance that Reagan
needed. And he was moderate
played the role of advisor and
point man on key issues. Obama
VP Joe Biden plays the same role.
In any case, the VP is now often
right in the center of presidential
politics and the national political
debate.
Ryan would be even more at the
center of that debate and decision
making. He was picked in large
part not to balance the Romney
ticket, but because of his budget
hammering big stick. A Romney
White House will not only listen to
him, but rely heavily on him on
policy decisions involving spend-
ing slashes, almost all of it involv-
ing crucial domestic programs.
This would come at the worst
possible time for the poor and
minorities. The poor are not only
getting poorer, they are also more
numerous than any time in the last
half-century and have slipped
even further behind in wealth and
income disparities. Other reports
repeatedly confirm that a dispro-
portionate number of the poor are
blacks and Hispanics. The single
biggest reason for their plunge
downward is the relentless peck-
ing away at federal spending on
enhancement programs in health
care, education, job and skills
training, and the massive cutbacks
and downsizing in the public
employment sector.
This has been coupled with a
colossal leap in the fortunes of the
rich and major corporations. Their
wealth bounty has soared through
a benign and porous tax and regu-
latory system that has given the
taxpayer company store away to
them. The Ryan plan would be a
dream come true for them. It
would shove out even more of the
tax cut bounty to the wealthiest,
and do absolutely nothing to
insure that any of the tax cut give-
away go toward investment in new
job creation. The cuts would leave
the tattered safety net for the poor
in even greater tatters. It doesn’t
take a soothsayer to predict that
the number of poor will skyrocket
even more under the Ryan plan.