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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 5, 2020)
Page 2 The Skanner Portland & Seattle August 5, 2020 ® Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Da 5 Bloods and America Abroad Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor I Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2019 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association 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. ©2020 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar LOCAL NEWS BRIEFS LOCAL EVENTS Updated daily online. n F ebo m me • nts TheSkannerNews o k • learn • co in y o u r c o m m u n d ay ! • L i ke u s o ac it Hear about it first. Sign up for Breaking News and Events at to y • Opinion get an ache in my heart every time someone who learns that I am a Vietnam veteran, says “Thank you for your service.” Even before I returned to the United States from my combat tour in Vietnam, I had decided that we were fighting an unjust war. More than 50 years later, watching Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” set off my internal alarm bells, warning against African Americans blindly participating in U.S. foreign policy. Lee’s latest movie is an ex- cellent commentary on some of the complexities of the Vietnam war for African Americans, which he boils down to a single line spoken by a central character: “We fought in an immor- al war that wasn’t ours… for rights that wasn’t ours.” I am a big fan of Spike Lee, and Da 5 Bloods (view trail- er below) is among his best work, but the film points out how Black folk were victims of America’s foreign policy while understating our com- plicity in it. I do not fault Lee for this because this war was too broad in its social and po- litical ramifications to fit into a single movie. But it omits two lessons Black folk should have learned from this pain- ful bloodbath. Oscar Blayton NNPA Columnist First, the American War in Vietnam was an attempt to maintain white supremacy in Southeast Asia. U.S. involve- ment in that part of the world did not ramp up until after the Vietnamese had forced out their former colonial masters – the French. “ ‘We fought in an immor- al war that wasn’t ours… for rights that wasn’t ours’ Having abandoned Vietnam to Japanese invaders during World War II, France re- turned at the end of that war and demanded – with an out- rageous sense of entitlement bourne of white supremacy – that it be allowed to contin- ue its rule. The bloodied and proud Vietnamese, who had engineered their own resis- tance to the Japanese, were having none of it. After the Vietnamese rid themselves of the French in 1954 at the cost of many more lives, the United States – in its role as the Chicken Little of anti-communism – raised the alarm that the sky was fall- ing. Self-proclaimed “foreign policy experts” in the United States warned that Southeast Asian countries would fall like dominos if communists were allowed to gain control of all of Vietnam. North Korea had securely established itself as a communist nation a de- cade earlier and foreign pol- icy advisors in Washington reasoned that preventing the spread of communism was in America’s national interest. When we make a critical examination of Vietnam to- day, we see a trading partner of the United States and a re- spected member of the global community. We see economic and social progress under a communist government that exposes the lies of American demagogues who, foaming-at- the-mouth, protested the rise of communism. In the late 1950s and early 1960, with Blacks being mur- dered with impunity and denied basic constitutional rights in America, the U.S. government chose instead to focus on the “rights” of people half a world away. But “free- dom” was not what Washing- ton was seeking to establish in Southeast Asia; it was “com- pliance.” The United States wanted to bend that part of the world to its will – a world order based upon white su- premacy. If one ignores the rhetoric and examines America’s ac- tions towards Africa, Asia and South America, the ev- idence is clear that white supremacy has driven U.S. foreign policy throughout its post-World War II history. Secondly, African Ameri- cans have been complicit in U.S. aggressions towards peo- ple of color around the world. Handicapped by the blindfold of anti-communist rhetoric, Black folk have too often been enablers in America’s efforts to keep whiteness perched upon its global pedestal. Even those of us who knew that Washington’s anti-Commu- nist zeal made no sense, par- ticularly as it related to Africa and South America, did not make the connection between U.S. foreign policy and white supremacy. It was not the rise of commu- nism that these demagogues feared; it was the loss of white privilege around the world. Read more at TheSkanner.com Falling Behind: COVID, Climate Change, and Chaos COVID-19 and the protests for racial justice have drawn attention away from the mostly bad news about the environment. Yes, the skies in most parts of the world are a lot clearer these days as people stay home and auto emissions decline. But as one study points out, even if lockdown measures continue for the next several months, global carbon emissions will only drop by between 4 to 8 percent from last year. That drop would not be enough to make a dent in overall warm- ing trends—and as the US and other economies recov- er, it will be back to “normal.” “Normal” isn’t good, as in the following warning in Novem- ber 2019: “we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivo- cally that planet Earth is fac- ing a climate emergency.” As environmental security worsens, so does human secu- rity. The reason is simple: the intersection of worsening cli- mate conditions and the pan- demic. Floods, drought, and other calamities compound the vulnerability of popula- tions already hit by the virus, especially the poor, the elder- ly, the unemployed, ethnic minorities, and health care workers. Governments are put under intense pressure Mel Gurtov Professor Emeritus of Political Science PSU in terms of emergency pre- paredness, public health fa- cilities, long-term unemploy- ment, and internal security. Food security is likely to be especially hard hit by the combination of climate change and COVID-19. Arif “ As environ- mental secu- rity worsens, so does hu- man security. Husain, chief economist for the World Food Program, writes that “the pandemic could drive 130 million more people [beyond the tens of millions already facing ‘acute hunger’] into that state by De- cember. More than a quarter of a billion people are likely to be acutely hungry in 2020.” People working in the infor- mal economy and export in- dustries; people dependent on remittances from relatives working abroad; people in the fossil fuel sector—these are among the groups whose access to food will be deeply affected by COVID-19. And if they also happen to live in conflict zones, or areas hard hit by climate change, they face insecurity that goes well beyond food. Goals and Obstacles Achieving ambitious hu- man-security goals such as eradicating poverty and hun- ger, realizing gender equality, and promoting clean energy sources looks increasing- ly remote. When the http:// w w w. s c i e n c e d i re c t . c o m / global-governance-by-goal- setting-the-novel-approach- of-the-UN-Sustainable-Devel- opment-Goals.pdf. Click or tap if you trust this link.”>UN in 2015 announced 17 Sustain- able Development (SD) goals, the world looked tolerably better than it does now. The UN took a novel approach to meeting the goals, moreover, deciding not to embed them in a legal document and mak- ing the goals applicable to all states without distinction as to level of development. The process of creating the goals and identifying paths to achieving them was also different from previous at- tempts through interminable discussion among govern- ments. In 2013, a UN Open Working Group in which 70 countries participated was established to draft the SDGs. Developing countries, local governments, civil society, and the private sector provid- ed significant input into the content. Since states are not obligat- ed to implement the goals, there has naturally been slip- page. The UN itself says: “The 17 Goals are all interconnect- ed, and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve them all by 2030.” (Goals: No Poverty; Zero Hunger; Good Health and Well-Being; Quality Ed- ucation; Gender Equality; Clean Water and Sanitation; Affordable Clean Energy; Decent Work and Economic Growth; Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure; Reduced Inequality; Sustainable Cities and Communities; Respon- sible Consumption and Pro- duction; Climate Action; Life Below Water; Life on Land; Peace and Justice, Strong In- stitutions; Partnerships to Achieve the Goal). By 2017, however, the Sustainable De- velopment Goals Report de- termined that progress was “slow” on achievement of most of the goals. Now, clear- ly, the timeline will have to be reconsidered again. Read more at TheSkanner.com nt • lo c a l n e w s • eve
