Met Dick Gregory Last Night

Photo from Smithsonian.com magazine

Civil Rights Icon Starting a Fast for Haiti

I was just sitting in the lobby of a Washington DC hotel enjoying an adult beverage and the football games when I look over and at the next table is Civil Rights icon Dick Gregory. I was in DC for the National Coalition for the Homeless Board meeting. I am not a star struck/autograph type of person , but this was Dick Gregory. I played his comedy routines on a radio show in college and used many of his anti-war speeches in my activism. He spoke frequently in the 1980s and 1990s about the problems facing the African American community in America.

This is the guy who did the heavy lifting so that kids today can wear their pants on the ground or choose a college based on the amount of zeros in their bank account and not the color of their skin. He was in DC because he was starting a fast on Monday for raising awareness about Haiti. I would have never recognized him, but I watched the Mark Twain Prize for Bill Cosby and he was a presenter. He is 77 years old and doing a fast to push Americans to continue to help this country as the shock of the initial tragedy wears off. Gregory is doing 7 days without food or liquids and then 23 days with only liquids. This is not his first hunger strike. He is amazing.

He talked to the three NCH Board members about the history of the Haiti and his theories about poverty in America. He says that he uses the sale of Alpo, Spam and Hamburger Helper as a gauge for the food security of a neighborhood. When the sales of these low priced "food" items increase in a neighborhood that means that people are having a hard time, according to Gregory. He said that in some extremely poor communities, people resort to eating dog food, and to avoid the embarrassment they remove the labels. Gregory claimed that the marketers at Alpo have realized that some people buy this food to eat, and so they removed the picture of the dog from the cans. The one good side of this, according to Gregory, was that dog food has more regulations on it than most human food.

Dick Gregory integrated comedy clubs and marched against the racist wars of the United States. He ran for president in 1968 and fought against corporate control, racism, and pay inequality for women. He looks like he has weathered many struggles in his life, but still looks good for 77 years. Gregory was sitting with an advisor and his doctor planning this fast for Haiti on Sunday night. All I said was thanks for all that you have done for the United States and good luck in raising awareness about Haiti.

Brian
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Looting vs. Survival?

Photo by Cheryl Jones of the Grapevine photo project

In Haiti, is this Really Looting?

I really need some clarity on the definition of looting from the media. I do not understand how this fits in Haiti in which for the last week government has for all purposes collapsed. If there is no way to get supplies in and people are starving and need water, how is it looting if they go in and "take" those items from stores. I asked friends at the National Coalition for the Homeless to define looting and they seemed to believe that it was the theft of extraneous items that have nothing to do with the emergency (plasma tvs, furniture, house decorations, etc.). So, the theft of items for survival should not be considered looting. I have also heard that theft associated with violence would be considered looting. But this blanket statement about looting seems misguided in the case of Haiti. A guy stealing materials for clothing or night time covers or to make a tent for shelter as pictured in the Washington Post does not seem to be looting to me.

I heard some discussion about this on NPR yesterday, but have not seen much discussion in print about looting with a definition. The report today was that 1.5 million people are now homelessness in Haiti or half of the Port-au-Prince.

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Haiti

It is Difficult to Imagine

I have read the Washington Post and New York Times every day regarding Haiti. It is hard to imagine an entire city that is now homeless. I have listened to the impressive coverage from the BBC and NPR; both doing amazing work in the area. Even with the rush of media down to Haiti, it is hard to wrap my head around the scale of destruction. One way to look at this disaster is to put it in the context of the United States.

If a similar natural disaster were to strike Northeast Ohio, it would have an effect on the citizens in Cuyahoga, Summit, Lorain, Lake, Medina, Geauga, Ashtabula, and Stark Counties to equal the population struggling to survive in Haiti. And it would be similar to everyone in the city of Cleveland Heights dying in this disaster.

To see similar numbers effected by the Haitian earthquake in the United States would be like a disaster hitting the entire states of Iowa or Mississippi. How long would it take to recover if nearly every building and all the infrastructure in Iowa were ruined?

The impact on the country of Haiti is similar to a disaster hitting every single state including every single resident of every state on our Eastern coast. Would the United States ever be the same if the entire Eastern United States were struck by a destructive event of the magnitude of the Haitian earthquake? Port-au-Prince contains basically one third of the population of the country. So, if a natural disaster struck the United States and knocked down buildings in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida that would be similar to the disaster that struck Haiti. From the tip of Miami to Edmundston, Maine all the way over to Buffalo and the heart of Appalachia in Virginia would all need rebuilding. From the panhandle of Florida to the Lake Champlain coast in Vermont, would all need new roads, sewers, and school buildings to be similar to the scale of the issues in Haiti. For the United States to see the same number of fatalities as they have experienced in Haiti would be for every single person in South Carolina or Colorado dying in a natural disaster.

We hope that you will support the Unicef Haitian Fund, American Red Cross, MercyCorps, Oxfam America, AmeriCares, Doctors without Borders, or the International Medical Corps in this time of extreme need.

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.