In the Long Fall, Walter Mosely introduces Leonid McGill a new protagonist set in modern day New York
Black German Holocaust Victims
So much of our history is lost to us because we often don’t write the history books, don’t film the documentaries, or don’t pass the accounts down from generation to generation. One documentary now touring the film festival circuit, telling us to “Always Remember” is ” Black Survivors ofthe Holocaust” (1997). Outside the U.S., the film isentitled “Hitler’s Forgotten Victims” (Afro-Wisdom Productions). It codifies another dimension to the “Never Forget” Holocaust story – our dimension.
Did you know that in the 1920s, there were 24,000 Blacks living in Germany? Neither did I. Here’s how it happened, and how many of them were eventually caught unawares by the events of the Holocaust. click here to read the entire article
In a unique addition to the literature of life under the Third Reich, Massaquoi, a former managing editor of Ebony magazine, chronicles his life as the son of a German nurse and Al-Haj Massaquoi, the son of the Liberian consul general to Germany. Soon after his birth in Hamburg in 1926, the author’s father returned to Liberia to bolster his family’s failing stature in national politics, leaving his wife and son to grapple with everyday life amid the rise of fascism in Germany. The Reich’s racial politics were so steadfastly drummed into German schoolchildren that the young Hans quickly acquired an anti-Semitic outlook only to realize that he was also subject to discrimination as a non-Aryan. He sought intellectual escape from German nationalism through reading books by Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle and James Fenimore Cooper; in his idealization of African-American athletes Joe Lewis and Jesse Owens; and by learning how to play jazz and his involvement with the “swingboys” officially condemned as purveyors of “degenerate” music and dance. Massaquoi and his mother survived both Nazi rule and the devastating 1943 British bombing of Hamburg. He tells of life after the war, of befriending black American soldiers, of moving to Liberia in 1948 and of his subsequent move to America in 1950, where he came to feel that racism was as prevalent as it had been under the Third Reich. Thoughtful and well written, Massaquoi’s memoir adds nuance to our comprehension of 20th-century political and personal experience.
Read an excerpt click here
The Nazi era in Germany and all of its accompanying atrocities is one of the most documented periods in history. However, this documentation is incomplete in one important area: the history and experiences of people of African descent in Nazi Germany. Did Afro-Germans and other blacks suffer under Nazism? The answer to this question, to the degree it has been asked at all, remains vague even for those scholars and researchers familiar with the Nazi era and the Holocaust in particular.
Drawing on interviews with the Black survivors of Nazi concentration camps and archival research in North America, Europe, and Africa, this book documents and analyzes the meaning of Nazism’s racial policies towards people of African descent, specifically those born in Germany, France, England, the United States or Africa, and the impact of that legacy on contemporary race relations in Germany, and more generally, in Europe. The book also specifically addresses the concerns of those surviving Afro-Germans who were victims of Nazism, but have not generally been included in or benefited from the compensation agreements that have been developed in recent years.
Visit The Black Past for there overview of the Blacks in Germany click here
BlackPast.org, an online reference center makes available a wealth of materials on African American history in one central location on the Internet. These materials include an online encyclopedia of over 1,500 entries, the complete transcript of over 125 speeches given between 1789 and 2008, over 100 full text primary documents, bibliographies, timelines and four gateway pages with links to 50 digital archive collections. Additionally 75 major African American museums and research centers and over 400 other website resources on black history are also linked to the website. The compilation and concentration of these diverse resources allows BlackPast.org to serve as the “Google” of African American history.
Great Resource
kamet Renaissance.com
Kamet Renaissance list a collection of books on Blacks living in Hitlers Germany
Order Destined to witness
What is Poptropica?
Poptropica is a virtual online world in which kids can travel, play games, customize their character, compete in head-to-head competition, and communicate safely with each other.
Who created Poptropica?
Poptropica was created by Family Education Network, a division of Pearson.
When did Poptropica.com go online?
The official launch of Poptropica was September, 2007.
How much does it cost to join Poptropica?
Poptropica is totally free! There are no subscription costs
Eckhart’s profound yet simple teachings have already helped countless people throughout the world find inner peace and greater fulfillment in their lives. At the core of the teachings lies the transformation of consciousness, a spiritual awakening that he sees as the next step in human evolution. An essential aspect of this awakening consists in transcending our ego-based state of consciousness. This is a prerequisite not only for personal happiness but also for the ending of violent conflict endemic on our planet.
Eckhart Tolle illuminates the fundamental elements of his teaching, addressing the needs of the modern seeker by drawing from all spiritual traditions. When the pressures of future and past thinking disappear, fear and frustration also vanish, conquered by the moment
Visit his web eckharttolle.com
Attorney General Eric Holders Comments on Race and Poverty Spark Hope for Poor Children of Color, By Dr. Eric J. Cooper, President of The National Urban Alliance for Effective Education
By Dr. Eric J. Cooper, President of The National Urban Alliance for Effective Education
Many people see Nature’s hand in low test scores of African-American children and poor children of color. They believe that, with rare exceptions, there are intrinsic limits to what these students can learn and achieve. They find their confirmation in low performance, on standardized tests and on the job, of America’s “minorities”—people of color and those who struggle with poverty. But even though these analysts misidentify the cause, the gap that exists between student achievement and life potential is often very real.
This gap is more of a dividing line, if you will, caused by society’s unwillingness to confront discrimination and the forms of institutional and structural racism that continue to plague our nation. Our schools are Exhibit One, with disproportionate numbers of African and Hispanic Americans in special education and in lower academic-tracked classrooms, separated by perceived differences in intelligence. These beliefs lead later in life to disproportionate numbers of African and Hispanic Americans in prisons and substandard housing, out of work and out of hope. But they gain social acceptance in our classrooms and school cafeterias, where the races are divided and a self-selection process has blacks sitting with blacks, whites with whites and brown students with brown. Sadly, rather than implementing programs that bring students together, all too often adults turn a blind eye to this form of in-school segregation.
Now the nation’s highest legal authority is challenging us. Attorney General Eric Holder charged during a recent presentation at the Department of Justice that America has been “cowardly” in confronting race as a factor in American life. Placing himself on the moral high ground gained by the rule of law, Holder, in a provocative statement, seems to want to push a long-overdue conversation about race in America.
The experience of the National Urban Alliance (NUA), driven and deepened by district-led partnerships among superintendents, educators, union leaders, community stakeholders, parents, students, business and faith-based leaders, is that, to be successful, those who are truly interested in “courageous conversations” to address discrimination must embrace a comprehensive and coordinated effort. First, the many parts of a school must be engaged, then the school district and, finally, by extension, the surrounding community. For education reform to take hold, besides the technical interventions which affect teacher quality, a reform program needs to address the political and cultural aspects of the community.
Jean Anyon of New York University has written that “educators are in an excellent position to build a constituency for [sustained social], economic and education improvement in urban, [suburban and rural communities].” NUA continues to witness in urban districts with which it has partnered the power of engaging racism and low expectations in curricula, classrooms and school policies, and this has been extended in some circumstances to the preparation of suburban teachers who receive children of color from inner-city schools.
The benefits affect both academic learning and social development. For example, with the West Metro Education program, a desegregation program where students are bused from Minneapolisto 11 surrounding school districts, students who participated in the integration initiative tripled the achievement gains of eligible students who did not choose the suburban schools that were supported by NUA professional development. Teachers and administrators have also reported improved social interaction in the schools, where schoolchildren and youth seek to bridge the racial divide in lunchrooms, through classroom projects and through community service. When teachers are trained to provide the learning context for using respect of cultural and racial difference as student strengths, they improve student self worth and motivation as well. Implemented correctly, the school experience becomes a win for the publics within and outside of schools.
With school district leadership focused laser-like on improving teacher quality, we have learned that education improvement does not have to precede one school building at a time as many reform efforts are presently staged. The most significant resource available to school communities is the adults who have been hired as administrators, principals and teachers. System-wide professional development provides the glue, if you will, helping a district take successful programs to scale. In districts such as Prince George’s County, Maryland, where we partnered for 10 years, we have seen in schools showing high fidelity to the NUA program achievement of three standard deviations in a year (which equates to gains of approximately three grade levels). With professional development as a focus, Seattle Public Schools have gone from 60 percent of the students meeting state standards to 81 percent. Statewide data also suggests significant K-12 gains are occurring in Albany, New York, Birmingham, Alabama, Newark, New Jersey, Indianapolis, Indiana, Bridgeport, Connecticut and the twelve-district integration program with Minneapolis, Minnesota noted earlier. The question of going to scale is answered when commitments are made to nurture and guide teachers, rather than punishing and criticizing them for lack of student progress. Professional development becomes a preferred theory of change and encouragement, rather than the teacher resistance caused when educators fear being blamed for systemic failures.
School and social improvement begins with a new belief in the potential of all of America’s students to achieve at levels that will advance them to the next school grade, and prepare them to tackle post-secondary education or a job that will require post-secondary literacy and thinking in diverse workplaces. This belief should apply to students whether they desire to be an auto mechanic or a technology engineer. Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, Harvard economists, have written in a 2008 publication, “The Race Between Education And Technology,” that “workers now have to read complicated documents, master blueprints, work computers, solve formulas, and use the Internet, among other tasks. Simple literacy and numeracy are no longer sufficient. To be a full-fledged member of the global economy requires higher levels of education for most workers (p.14).” Good schooling can lift students above the limits of physical poverty, above a social environment that is indifferent to striving and success in school and above the dreams dashed by inadvertent policies that continue the sting and separation caused by unintended racism.
Change begins with belief and renewed hope.
Reading Too Much Into Race
By Carleen Brice
www.washingtonpost.com
Sunday, December 21, 2008; Page B04
What, you haven’t heard of it?
Wondering whether it’s a joke?
Well, it is and it isn’t. I’ve got my tongue firmly lodged against my cheek, but I’m really hoping that this holiday season you’ll buy a book by a black author and give it to somebody who isn’t black.
Because as a black author trying to reach a wider audience, I believe that this guerrilla marketing effort — although sort of a stunt — may be one of the only ways writers like me will be able to find white readers.
The accepted wisdom of the publishing industry is that books by black authors should be marketed to black audiences; after that, hopefully, they will cross over to whites and others. This is what a writer friend of mine was told when she wrote her first book. Ten books later, she has yet to cross over, despite respectable sales and favorable reviews. Without that crossover success, she’s having a hard time finding a publisher for her latest literary novel. One editor rejected her latest work with the comment that it was beautifully written, but since there hadn’t been a new “breakout” African American author in years, she would have to pass on it.
It’s not that black readers aren’t buying books. According to the research firm Target Market News, which tracks African American consumer spending, black households spent an estimated $270 million on books in 2007.
But as my writer friend’s situation and that of many others illustrates, it’s extremely hard to have a viable career in publishing without support from a wider (read: not exclusively black) audience. And it’s difficult for black authors, especially of literary fiction, to develop the buzz that sells books. White readers don’t hear our books discussed generally (except, of course, the ones by heavy hitters such as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and a few others). And without media exposure and water-cooler talk, they don’t know which of our books they might like.
Publishers themselves are spending their precious marketing dollars targeting black readers specifically. “As editors and publishers we have to acknowledge that the base audience for these books are African American readers,” said Stacey Barney, an editor with the Penguin imprint G.P. Putnam’s Sons. “Once you’ve secured that base readership, then you can go after other markets for the book.”
But securing that base readership is part of the problem. A trip to one of the major chain bookstores shows what Barney’s talking about. Walk past the general fiction section, and you’ll find the African American fiction section. The shelves there will be lined with all the same subjects you find in the rest of the bookstore. The one thing linking them is that the authors are black. It’s very handy if all you read is fiction by black people. You can go right to your “special section.” Someone like me, who enjoys a wider variety of reading, might look in both general fiction and the black fiction section. I’m black and would never feel out of place browsing in the black books section. A white reader, on the other hand, might not take that same look and might not know that the books exist at all.
Borders developed its stand-alone African American fiction section more than a decade ago, according to buyer Ernesto Martinez. “The stand-alone section is a successful strategy,” he said.
After years of being against the idea, the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, my local independent bookstore, is considering launching an African American fiction section in its flagship location. Black customers asked for one after the store moved to a more diverse neighborhood.
To me, it seems a bit ironic that, at a time when black authors are fighting not to be marginalized, some black readers are asking for African American fiction sections. But I can understand their reasons. Some blacks read only books by black authors out of loyalty or a desire to keep seeing stories about themselves in print. It makes sense that they’d like to find those books in one location, but it also speaks to the way readers have come to expect a dividing line, books clearly marked “us” and “them.”
Marketing black books only to black readers is frustrating in another way. Who says that all black readers are alike? That’s a question Karen Hunter has struggled with. She’s an author who also has her own imprint with Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books, primarily publishing works by black authors. “Black people are not monolithic — we don’t all like the same things,” she said. “So why wouldn’t a white person be interested in some of the same subjects that a black person would?”
Of course, one best-selling black author of the moment happens to be our president-elect. Black writers are hopeful that Barack Obama’s election will help publishers “get a clue about our stories,” as Lori L. Tharps, author of the memoir “Kinky Gazpacho” put it recently in an article on the Root. “Obama has proved, after all, that readers of all races and backgrounds can take to non-mainstream literary portraits of the American experience,” she wrote.
The novelist Bernice McFadden wrote on her blog that Obama’s popularity has the potential to change how black authors are published and marketed. She hopes that the interest in Obama — as president and as an author — might translate into a different approach to introducing black authors to a wide range of readers. “How many other industries practice this [segregated marketing] behavior?” McFadden asked. “I love me some Paul Simon and when I drive through the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn I see Jewish boys pushing Cadillac SUVs blasting 50 Cent and Jay-Z, so why is publishing operating as if this is the Dark Ages?”
Sometimes it seems like the Dark Ages to me, too. But I remember an even darker age. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that the publishing industry thought that black people didn’t buy books. I own a how-to-get-published guide that’s copyrighted 1985. “Your book may be of interest to minorities, the elderly, or the handicapped,” it states, “but stressing these groups won’t help sell your proposal because publishers do not perceive them as important book buyers.”
I purchased that guide in 1992, the same year that Terry McMillan’s blockbuster “Waiting to Exhale” proved to publishers that black people do indeed buy books. I ignored the guide’s advice and wrote a self-help book targeted specifically at blacks.
More recently, I turned to fiction. That’s when I found not only that minorities are “important book buyers,” but that it’s often impossible to predict the universal appeal of a specific story.
My first novel, “Orange Mint and Honey,” is about the adult child of an alcoholic and her now-sober mother. A few months after it was published this year, I got an e-mail from a reader. “I bet you never thought a middle-aged white guy would read your book and cry,” he wrote.
I guess I’m naïve, but yeah, I did kind of hope that I might get a few teary-eyed white-guy readers. While I was writing, I wasn’t thinking about the characters being black, and I certainly never thought of their story as “a black story.”
So although it might not be in the best taste to recommend that particular title for your holiday gift-giving needs (at least, not only that particular title), it would help you mark the traditional season — plus our new December holiday: Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give It to Somebody Not Black Month.
Carleen Brice is a writer and blogger living in Denver.
More (and Better) Books for Black Teens
by Felicia Pride and Calvin Reid — Publishers Weekly, 12/8/2008
Talk to a YA editor or take a stroll through that section at your local bookstore and it’s evident that there’s a growing number of books aimed at the young adult market—and those numbers include more titles geared specifically to African-American teens. As publishers are addressing the lack of material aimed at this market—many African-American teens have turned to popular adult authors because of this dearth—there has clearly been some improvement.
These days publishers are offering black teens books that deal with serious issues, such as drug addiction and pregnancy, as well as pure entertainment; they’re looking to introduce new authors and experiment with graphic novels and even historical fiction for teens, all while looking for creative ways to make sure parents, teachers and librarians—as well as the kids themselves—know what’s on their lists specifically for black teens.
Publishers Weekly talked with a number of editors and category buyers as well as an agent specializing in titles for African-American teens in order to get a better view of the past, present and future of titles aimed at black teenagers.
There is also a selected listing of adult and children’s African American titles online.
Supply Versus Demand
Although black teens read plenty of books that feature no prominent black characters—Stephenie Meyer’s titles, for example—the emergence of more young adult publishing programs geared toward African-Americans is in many ways a response to demand. Most editors contacted by PW agree that the publishing industry is starting to understand that black teens not only want to read about themselves but are also an economically viable readership. “The aha! moment is unfolding slowly,” says Andrea Pinkney, v-p and executive editor at Scholastic, “but it is happening.” “I didn’t see enough books out there for the constituency that I was teaching,” says Stacey Barney, a former educator and now an editor at Penguin. Barney acquired the first titles in Kensington Publishing’s Drama High series during her tenure at the publishing house. “When I would ask my male students why they weren’t reading,” she adds, “they would reply they didn’t see anything worth reading.” This need for more relatable titles aimed at African-American teenagers is also being spurred by parents, according to Cheryl Hudson, cofounder of Just Us Books, an African-American house focused on children’s titles that is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. It was feedback from parents that motivated the publisher to start releasing young adult titles in addition to the picture books it is known for. “It’s important that young people have books to read that resonate and are age-appropriate,” says Selena James, who helped to launch Pocket Books’ YA African-American program in 2006 before landing her current job as executive editor at Kensington’s Dafina imprint. “So many young people are reading [adult authors] like Zane and Eric Jerome Dickey. We need to provide young people with stories that are toned down but still resemble them and their experiences.”
What’s Available
Hands down, Walter Dean Myers continues to be a leading author in the YA market. Edited by Pinkney at Scholastic, the prolific author is published by a number of houses. One of his most recent books, Sunrise over Fallujah, about an African-American young male who goes to fight in Iraq, was a 2008 PW Best Book of the Year.
“Most of Walter Dean Myers’s books are on school reading lists, so he’s a given in our stores,” says Sandra Wilson, kids’ and teen buyer at Books-a-Million. But while there are some major African-American young adult authors, like Myers, Sharon Draper and Sharon Flake, most publishing professionals agree that there’s still a need for new, diverse and sometimes even younger voices.
Hudson believes that publishers must honestly engage young adult readers, who often are more knowledgeable and more interested in adult writers, if they expect to attract and hold them. Just Us Books recently released 12 Brown Boys, the first foray into YA literature by commercial fiction author Omar Tyree, generally considered a pioneer in the street fiction genre.
Launched as an African-American teen imprint at BET Books before being acquired by Harlequin in 2005, Kimani Tru was just what the romance publisher was looking for, according to editor Evette Porter. “The YA category was booming, Harlequin was looking to get into it and we started to look for multicultural titles,” Porter says. “But what we saw were black kids reading street lit.” She says the challenge for teen imprints like Kimani Tru is to offer young readers a “bridge”—quality titles that address “the mature stuff that kids today have to deal with. Books that are realistic but offer reasonable answers to serious issues.”
The house offers a mix of stand-alone titles and series, which serve to bring readers back for more.
Inspirational Titles and more: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6620241.html
As librarians who work in big cities with teens, we know that kids are crazy about street lit. But as we were researching the genre for our collection-development class at Pratt Institute, in New York, we wondered how other librarians felt about street lit. Is it offered in most libraries across the country? Do teens in rural communities also crave street lit? Do most librarians tend to shelve these titles in the teen section or in the adult section?
Street lit is so popular that it’s often stolen, and the high theft rate makes it even more difficult for librarians to justify purchasing the controversial genre. Not surprisingly, many respondents are concerned about the money “wasted” on books that sometimes disappear before they’re even checked out. Some library users are too embarrassed to request or check out street lit titles—so they steal them. But by making street lit easy to find, and being open and helpful when teens and adults request the genre, librarians can help patrons feel more comfortable asking for street lit. click for more
