PowerPoint; Human Rights, Racial Reconciliation

Production and broadcast of PowerPoint is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is PowerPoint, an Information Age clearinghouse for issues affecting the African American community, the nation and the world, and now PowerPoints Kenneth Walker. When most Americans think of human rights abuses, they think about race relations, poverty, health care, education, police brutality, and misuse of the environment, just to name a few. Maybe we ought to pay more attention to what's happening in our own backyard. A recent poll by human rights USA of 1 ,000 adults showed that 52 % of those surveyed thought America had a poor record concerning human rights issues at home. This time on PowerPoint, a critical look at human rights in

America. Joining us in the dialogue, Loretta Ross, Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights Education, Gerald LaNelle, Deputy Executive Director at Amnesty International, Valeria Caldwell Games, Deputy Director of the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, who is an organizer of the Fifth Theoth Anniversary Conference of the International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies recently held in Hartford, Connecticut. And Darrell Davis, author of Clan Destined, a Black man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan. You can get in on this discussion by calling the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. Call a friend. Tell them PowerPoints on the air. Our conversation about human rights in the United States begins in a moment. But first, PowerPoint news with Werna Avery Brown.

For PowerPoint news and information to empower the community, I'm Werna Avery Brown. President Clinton has ordered the Department of Agriculture to buy 80 million bushels of grain. He's hoping to help struggling U .S. farmers who are facing a crisis from the shrinking Asian markets. Without Asia as a customer, U .S. farm prices have plummeted. The Agriculture Department's role with Black farmers has been far less compassionate. Some 2000 Black farmers are forced to sue the administration for past discrimination that resulted in the disappearance of Black farms nationwide. The administration maintains that a two -year statute of limitations prevents the farmers from mitigating their claims, most of which date back to the Reagan and Bush years. But this past Friday, the Senate passed a bill lifting the statute of limitations. Willie Adams owns a chicken farm in Georgia, and he's a member of the class action lawsuit because, he says, the

Department of Agriculture regularly discriminated against his loan applications. I've never been able to, when I applied for a loan to receive enough money to do anything will. It's not why I use the use of that farm farmer. It's right here at the U .S. Department of Agriculture, what they use is do they loan enough money. In other words, put your eye down on a limb, and then throw a limb off. Removal of the statute of limitations will open the door for an estimated 2 ,500 other Black farmers hoping to qualify for the class action suit. In May, a federal judge ordered the Clinton administration to settle the lawsuit with Black farmers. The USDA has acknowledged there was past discrimination. New light has been shed on what some consider the still unanswered questions of a possible link between the CIA and the sale of crack cocaine and South Central LA. An investigation of the CIA conducted by the Inspector General finds that CIA officials at the top were aware of allegations that contrast working with the CIA were also dealing

drugs in the U .S. According to the New York Times, the classified investigation also concludes the agency failed to properly investigate the allegations and continued to keep the contras on its payroll. The Inspector General investigation was triggered in part by a series in the San Jose Mercury News, which asserted that the CIA, in alliance with the drug dealers, introduced crack cocaine to South Central LA. In a commentary on Pacifica Network News, journalist Gary Webb, who wrote the series, responded to the Times article. The Times, apparently relying on CIA leaks, thoughtfully explained that the CIA was more concerned at the time about the spread of communism in Central America than with the criminal records of their allies, as if this somehow excuses teaming up with drug runners. But as far as I can tell, it wasn't communism that turned South Central LA into the crack capital of the U .S. And it wasn't communism that was providing the gangs of LA with the money and firepower necessary to spread crack and despair from coast to coast during the last decade. It was drug dealers. Some of the very same drug dealers who were out battling the red menace with their friends at

Langley. If this case of misplaced priority isn't enough to cause Congress to question the wisdom of the CIA, nothing is. After years of denial, it's good to see both the CIA and the New York Times finally acknowledge something that has been painfully obvious for 13 years. Is this paper so hot for other media to retract their stories these days, now going to retract any of the CIA's been at once considered fit to print? Even more interesting, the media that have pushed long and hard for every detail of the president's sex life, will they pursue with equal vigor the censored report and the facts of the CIA would like to hide? Will they demand the CIA make the report public? Frankly, who called in the bed with Bill Clinton? Is it nearly a sexy story as who was in bed with the CIA? Journalist Gary Webb is currently working for the California legislature. The Clinton administration is seeking Congress's approval to conduct covert operations to weaken and potentially oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. According to a report in Friday's Wall Street Journal, the broad new authority Clinton is seeking would go far beyond past

CIA efforts to spawn internal resistance and to mount covert operations inside Iraq. Unnamed government sources are quoted saying the operation would potentially involve US military personnel and would require over a year of organizing before fully undertaking. One of the highlights of the second annual Al Capoco Black Film Festival this week was the surprise drop -in visit of actor Denzel Washington. Washington arrived in time to help hand out the awards coveted by fresh new talent in the film industry. This year, the award for best director and best film went to independent filmmaker Casey Lemons for her movie, Ease By You. Lemons told PowerPoint News it was rewarding to be honored for her very first effort at directing a feature film. I felt the weight, a tremendous weight responsibility of having to deliver an audience, you know, because I felt like the future of Black cinema in a way, in the future of Black female directors and the future, you know, of, you know, actors that wasn't directed. A whole bunch of people's futures were in some ways writing on my shoulders and, you know, it was kind of an unfortunate

pressure, but extremely wonderful because we were successful. The film Ease By You, starring Samuel Jackson, was overlooked by the Oscars, but received critical acclaim as the highest grossing independent film for 1997. Special thanks to PowerPoint correspondent Cheryl Flowers, who is in Al Capoco at the Festival. For PowerPoint News and Information to Empower the Community, I'm Verna Avery Brown. Welcome back. I'm Kenneth

Walker. Before we launch our discussion on the subject this hour, we have a surprise for PowerPoint listeners. Our senior producer Tony Regustus is in South Africa reporting on the birthday and surprise wedding of President Nelson Mandela Tony. How are you? Ken, good evening. How are you? I guess it's morning for you. It must be morning for you there. Ken, it's 3 a .m. in South Africa. The end of a long, awesome day for yours truly. But let me tell you, buddy, it's also a day culminating an even longer walk to freedom for Nelson Mandela. His life, as we all know, is a triumph over evil from his days of the young lawyer fighting in the South African struggle for human dignity. ANC president and prison freedom fighter in the war against apartheid, Nobel Peace Prize winner, president of a transformation. And now, Ken, at 80 glorious years of age, he gets to start all over again as a newlywed. It's unbelievable, man.

Tell us a little about his birthday celebration besides the wedding. Oh, Kenny, it was just fabulous. That's the only word that really sums this up. It's a one in a lifetime experience. I'm so honored and pleased to be here and to be able to call back and share some of the experience with our listeners. Tonight's celebration was just one incredible experience, 2000 VIPs, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the AMC's, Table and Becky. President Mandela's good friends and co -inmate at Robin Island, Walter Sissulu, and many political and economic dignitaries, Ken, and international celebrities like Nina Simone and our friend, Danny Glover, Motown, Stevie Wonder, and Michael and Jermaine Jackson gathered over the Luxe Champagne, chicken vans bar, Marrakesh Lamb, and Ethiopian coffee to sing and wish happy 80th birthday to Madiba, President Nelson Mandela, fabulous, Ken. Jesus, how are we going to get you back on the farm after having done all that, Tony? I'm out of the barracks now, buddy.

Out of the barracks, you're going to have a hard time getting me back behind that desk and computer. One final thing, Tony, give us your sense of the situation in South Africa, generally, both in terms of cultural, politics, economics, social development as you see. Well, Ken, as you know, I just got here, and I will be looking more into that in a week ahead. I've got some important meetings set up, and we should be getting some good information and setting up some good interviews with people who can tell us exactly that. But I got a really interesting sense, personally, about what remains behind the world view, camouflage, luster of the bloodless coup d 'état, against apartheid that is the legacy of Nelson Mandela and the miracle of South Africa. When I walked into a restaurant here in

Johannesburg with the company of two African businessman friends and colleagues of mine, we walked in. There were nothing but whites out there, sitting in there, and everyone stopped eating and looked at us. And of course, you know that made us go in. So I would say that beyond the luster of the change of the miracle, there is still the remnants of apartheid here. There is still something lurking beneath the surface, and it's going to take more than love of the mighty Nelson Mandela, but an emergence of the people themselves to really move into the 21st century. And we must continue on both sides of the ocean to send good energy here to this country. To say nothing of aid and trade. Tony, thanks a lot, we look forward to.

Before I leave, I should add, including Kenneth, that PowerPoint jazz fans will be pleased to know that the legendary jazz diva Nina Simone has consented to an exclusive live interview with you for PowerPoint in August. So stay tuned, folks. Thank you so much, Mr. Han, about 15. Well, I'll be more than happy to reestablish my acquaintance with Mrs. Simone. I had the pleasure and honor of meeting her of some some. I'm sure that's what did it. Thanks a lot, Tony. We'll talk to you. And thank you. Be well. Okay, thanks a lot. Have a good show. Okay, now back to our, the regular topic for our discussion. The United States imposes sanctions in gauges in covert operations. Sometimes goes to war partly for what it explains are human rights violations. But who is to judge human rights violations in the United States to say nothing of imposing sanctions or going to war? Whether it's illegal discrimination, police brutality,

hate crimes, or even voting rights violations, including the fundamental denial of the right of the citizens of the nation's capital to vote for those who govern them, these are all human rights violations. And that's our focus this hour. Human rights in the United States, as always, we want to know what you think you can get in on this discussion? By calling the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255, that's 1 -800 -989 -8255. To help guide our exploration, we have Gerald Lennel, Deputy Executive Director of Amnesty International, Loretta Ross, Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights Education, and Valeria Caldwell Gaines, Deputy Director of the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. We also have here in the studio, Darryl Davis, author of Clan Destine of Black Man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan. Everyone,

welcome. Hello, thank you. Thank Glad you have you all here. Let me start with you, if I can, Ms. Caldwell Gaines. When most people in America, anyway, think of human rights almost automatically, I think they think some place else. I want each of you, too, if you can, starting with you, Ms. Gaines, to give us your view of the human rights picture in the United States. Well, I certainly would be at a loss to concur with the thinking first of someone else or somewhere else when we think of human rights abuses in the United States. It depends on the extent of which one is willing to engage the word abuses, but certainly at this conference that I coordinated this past weekend, we sought to steer the participants, namely the statutory member agencies of IOR, the International Association of Fisher Human Rights agencies, to begin to think more globally. But that was not to the exclusion of addressing

what we believe to be the more contemporary human rights issues and abuses of the day. We couched them in that language. For example, we talked extensively about prisons, the new triad, punishment, rehabilitation, and economics. And I think if we delve into that subject a little further, if we have the time, then we certainly can see there in a number of human rights abuses. Also a very interesting topic, as it relates to domestic human rights abuses, was the question raised by the workshop entitled codifying civil and human rights violence and violations, which basically asked the question as to whether or not we are in the United States using our courts and our criminal justice system as the sword and a shield to hide behind to get away with these abuses. And I'll break there to see if you have a

question or someone else want to come in on that. Well, let's go to Loretta Ross and see what her point of view might be. Well, thank you. First of all, I want to say that I'm with Human Rights USA and we commissioned that study that you open the show with. Not only do we think that we have human rights violations here, like welfare reform, threatening to not feed people, not to educate children, is a violation of their human rights. But more importantly, Americans don't even connect what happens to us to human rights. That guy that got dragged to death in Jasper, Texas, did anyone say his fundamental right to a life which is a human right was violated? All of that breathless media coverage, but nobody said the word human rights and relationship to that incident. So we have all of these things happening in our lives that are human rights violations, but our government in my opinion has failed to educate us about human rights. And I have the Clinton administration tell me

directly to my face if we did, we couldn't do welfare reform. And so we have a major problem in this country of perception in my mind and my mind neglect in terms of teaching people about their human rights and in our own attitude because we really think the civil rights is all there is. That your right to be treated as an equal to anybody else in the society is what we fought and died for. No, we fought for justice civil right is just one aspect of it. We have economic human rights, the right to a job in a livable way. We have social human rights, the right to education, the right to health care, the right to practice, the religion of our choosing is our cultural human rights. Malcolm said it so long ago, I'm just sorry we ain't got off the dial. I mean that's the whole of this opinion. All right, Gerald and now what about you? Well we at Amnesty International really feel that human rights violations in the United States has been

neglected for the most part. We are and have been concerned at least in my office that we focus too much on human rights violations committed by the blacks and browns and not necessarily on human rights violations committed in the western countries. And particularly the United States. We have documented severe human rights violations in the area of police brutality, death penalty, refugees, prison system, juvenile justice, and the transfer of military security and other torture equipment to countries overseas. And the United States has always defended these kind of things by politicizing human rights as Mr. Ross just mentioned, the Clinton administration said well we can't get a welfare reform. I mean that's the kind of foolishness that the people have allowed to go on for too long. And it's time we call the question put a stop to it. Donald Davis you have spent much of your

early life abroad and of course the author is the you are the author of a clandestine a black man's Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan which is fascinating book about your experience with some of the most notorious violators of black people's human rights in America. What's your view on on where human rights are in the US today? Well I think they're out of stand still for one. I'm in complete agreement with with with I miss Ross and I think you know it goes back even before you know World War II or whatever you know when where this country was taking Japanese Americans who'd given up their Japanese citizenship to become full fledged Americans and and incarcerating them putting them in an interment camps out in California because Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor anybody who resembled an Asian orient or orientals we call them then were incarcerated for fear of retribution or whatever. Why because we were at war

with with Japan but yet we also went to war with Germany. We also went to war with Italy Mussolini and Hitler but yet we did not incarcerate German Americans. We did not incarcerate Italian Americans so I mean you know we we have been at the forefront in this country of abuse and other human beings and it's not always. It's not the beginning since the beginning absolutely and it's still going on and I think you know that to the man in in Jasper Texas. James Bird I believe his name was throughout the death. You know we have to start treating crimes as crimes. Let's forget the hate aspect you know if you kill a man I don't care if he's black or white or Asian you do something like that to him you have killed a human being. Let's forget what we'll call somebody is and let's punish that individual severely for committing those crimes. We're talking with Gerald Lennel deputy executive director of Amnesty International Loretta Ross executive director of the center for human rights education and Valeria called well gains

deputy director of the Connecticut commission on human rights and opportunities to get in on this discussion about human rights in the United States called the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255 that's 1 -800 -989. 8255. How resistant Mr. Lennel do you think the United States authorities are to even a discussion to say nothing of remedy for human rights problems in the United States. I'm reminded for example that North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms gets particularly anxious whenever the United Nations issues its report on capital punishment in the United States just just how receptive are U .S. officials to this discussion. Well the sad part is there are some officials who actually are receptive and

we usually get in the door with some of these officials but by the end of the day the Jesse Helms is have enough cloud and intimidation power to influence Congress to do either do nothing or in fact antagonize the situation even further. The U .S. the homes of the world have been constantly defending human rights violations here and then suggesting that anybody who is trying to impose some sort of international human rights standards is pandering to international primacy or international supremacy or whatever have you and they're able to back moderate or concerned policy. I'm sorry but we need to connect this to anti -humanism and the

militia. That's why the spectrum of us is on this call too. Well and I was having a thought as I was listening to the brother speak this miss call well gains from Connecticut and relative to the question and my thought was that the United States resistance is measured by in my opinion the loss or the perceived loss of two things those being money and power. One of the speakers this week was a doctor Peri Fakassian who was a former head of the United Nations New York and she talked about essentially about the universal declaration of human rights and two charters there under and she talked about the reluctance of the UN to enforce the economic and cultural rights charter because unlike the political and social rights charter. That one brought with it necessarily brought with it the need to go into the the purse strings and so that where there is a loss or a perceived loss I believe in this country

of money or power there and we can find our resistance. Miss Caldwell gains you mentioned earlier for example human rights violations in prisons in the United States let's that's an area where most Americans think prisoners have no constitutional rights whatsoever but let's talk about some of these human rights issues in some of the non -traditional or at least non -familiar areas like the economic let's start with the prisons. What is the state of human rights in American prisons? Well with respect to the prisons I think there's a sad commentary with respect to human rights abuses. When you can see prison guards people in charge of the institutions prodding young men with with the electro shocks and all manner of devices and simplitating them like animals. That coupled with the fact that we

know who is making up the prison population is just really unthinkable and I don't know what it will take to get this country to move. I really think we need to be looking at what it is we need to do to get this country to move when we see these blatant abuses right before our eyes. The other piece of that the economic pieces that we know prisons are big business now and so that there is no longer any talk about rehabilitation. It's strictly punishment and economics and I think that when you combine those two abuses are inevitable. Let's try to let me first of all go down this list I have a pamphlet from your program from your workshop that you had up there and one workshop entitled Human Rights into the next millennium and it lists eight categories which many people would not normally or at least immediately associate with human rights. The first is old age security,

human rights and US immigration reform, clean water, blue skies, home away from home, refugees and asylum, human rights at the trading table, child labor, global human resources, employment labor issues, technology, communication and the media, the West and the rest of us, where democracy, whose development. If I could if I could ask you Miss Ross to take to begin in these economic issues like welfare reform which has already been mentioned but old age security, how do they become human rights violations. The government has an obligation and the reason I say the government has an obligation is because we did author, help author the universal declaration of human rights and we have find and ratified one of the treaties that goes with it and we're in the process resisting finding the other. So that's why I think we have an obligation to respect these human rights. There are very

particular instances I just finished helping to bury my father who was a retired serviceman from the United States. Instead of the government as it promised him guaranteeing his health care till he died they kicked him into an HMO. When he became terminally ill they wanted to kick him out of the nursing home. That is a human rights violation. We're going to pick up on these other issues when we come back. We're coming up on 29 minutes after the hour and we're talking about human rights in the United States. You can join the discussion 1 -800 -989 -8255. Powerpoint will continue when we come back. Internet Services for Powerpoint are provided by World African Network, offering news, information, sports and entertainment for African and African -American communities through broadband and new media technologies.

The web address is www .waenonline .com. That's www .waenonline .com. You're listening to Public Radio and this is Powerpoint with Kenneth Walker. Welcome back. Let me come back with you before the break. Ms. Ross was talking about the

human rights violation involved in the denial of adequate health care to her father or retired member of the U .S. Service. Most people think of human rights as universal, fundamental to humans everywhere. Now if you're in a country where pensions and health care were not promised and cannot be afforded, then human rights would seem to be a different thing in that context for that country than it would be for the United States. Is there a different standard? It may seem to be a different thing in that the right is not, let's say, statutorily accorded. However, it represents no different need and no there should not be a distinction or a difference, although we recognize that there are. But I think this is where we need to shift our thinking to some extent as human rights workers in terms of the global need. Yes, I agree that we need

to focus on domestic human rights. But one of the things as a part of planning for this conference, I had the opportunity to do, was to travel to a CROG Ghana as the second site for the second component of the conference, do some meetings and so forth. And human rights, particularly if we relate to the medical issue that got us into this aspect of the discussion, certainly needs to be fundamentally accorded to every man, woman and child who I saw in all of CROG just living in conditions that we're shocking to my conscience. So we know that they are not global, but does that mean that they necessarily need not be? No, if I answered your question. What you did, we're talking with the Gerald and L. Deputy Executive Director at Amnesty International, Loretta Ross, Executive Director of the Center for Human Rights Education and Valeria Caldwell Gaines, Deputy Director of the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities.

You can join this discussion about human rights in the United States by calling the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. We're going to go to the phones now and talk to Barry in Houston with Sister Station KTSU. Welcome to PowerPoint Barry. Good evening, Mr. Walker and your guests. I'm going to pick up on what the host said. I think the guests are confusing senses of entitlements and human rights, and that's such a really making trivial human rights. You don't have any human rights to medical and health care. I spend a lifetime smoking and drinking and surfing and facemia. That's my own problem. The United States has taken the lead in human rights, and I think that the fact that we can come on the radio and discuss it and announce our government, if it has valid in human rights, says a lot about our country. Do you know anywhere in Africa or in Middle East or in Challenging, you can come on radio and discuss human rights violations with the far more horrific than they are here?

As far as the poor little prisoners go, I'm all broken up because they have air conditioning, cable, TV, and the right to suit the state and federal government. I fail to see where their rights are valid, and the fact that we have laws against child labor law, against forced sex, against the host of other things that other countries take for granted. That speaks wonders about the USA. I'm hearing a lot of political correct script reading, but I'm hearing very little evidence other than stories about human rights, and the United States. Now, I'm not very far from the horrific situation in Jasper, and that was three knuckleheads, three thugs that took it upon themselves to commit a crime. That's holly and dice the United States government, but I think we need to clear and definition what a human rights violation is. State sponsor try to be not individuals. Okay, Barry, we're going to give our guests a chance to respond, and we're going to thank you for calling the best to you and Houston in the KTSU.

Anyone? Well, all of us, probably. Yeah, I had a little reddit. Well, first of all, I think that the caller really indicates one of the things that our surveys point out. 92 % of the American public has never even heard of the human rights, the universal declaration of human rights. So it's understandable that the caller is confusing or calling things, we're calling human rights entitlements, because that's the spin that people oppose to human rights has put out there. That somehow expecting to earn a decent living, expecting to have a decent education and health care is a privilege. It's not your right just because you are a human being, and I beg to differ. If I'm going to live a life of dignity, I point to the government because many other issues in my life, like how corporations behave, are also affected by government behavior. Even though they're private actors in this, whether or not a bill commits a crime, it's

also affected by government posture. What about the policy that refuse to have summer job programs for youth? And then once they incarcerate those youth, because they have nothing to do on a hot summer day, but get into trouble. And let me just pick it back on that can if I might. To educate people about what human rights are so that we can have not a rhetorical discussion, but a real discussion of what public policy initiatives are we going to propose that are fundable with the same existing money that protects our human rights rather than violate them. And I think what I'm sensing has happened or does happen to us is that we are very easily conditioned, and so that to make the statement that because a prisoner has an air conditioner or access to a television, thereby make it okay for the kind of horrific acts that we

saw, prison guards perpetrating on prisoners to say that that's okay because they got an air conditioner and television, really says that we've been, we're caught up in the subliminal messages. One of the things that we talked about on civil and human rights day at the conference was decoding the language, reclaiming the real advocacy relative to human and civil rights. I mean, thoughts is the new buzzword, brother, I mean, Barry, I'm sorry, called the three men who did the dragging in Texas, knuckleheads. And if you can violate someone's human rights to that extent and simply be passed off as a knucklehead, then I've certainly misused that term sometimes in reference to my own side. Yeah, this is Gerald Lemel from Amnesty. I, you know, one of the fundamental questions we ask if you're going to start comparing is what happens to a prison guard

who rapes a woman in prison in Nigeria or in China or in Indonesia, and what happens to them in the United States? Study after study by Amnesty International and other organizations has shown it virtually nothing. What happens when there is misuse or abuse of a prisoner with electric shock equipment here in the United States or anywhere else? Again, study has shown virtually nothing. This has nothing to do with cable television and air conditioning. It has to do with the way the state allows its agents and these are agents of the state to treat prisoners. For whatever reason the founding fathers did put in a cruel and humane treatment clause in the Constitution with regards to prisoners and whether we like it or not, they do have certain rights under U .S. law and international law that need to be respected and their conditioner does not take that away. Our focus this hour is human rights in the United States and you can

join this discussion by calling the PowerPoint hotline at 1 -800 -989 -8255. That's 1 -800 -989 -8255. We're going to go to the phones now and talk to Barbara in Philadelphia with station W -H -Y -Y. Welcome to PowerPoint, Barbara. Oh, hi there. It is really good to speak with you and to everyone there. I'm calling from Philadelphia and as I'm sure everyone who is at all concerned all about human rights understands that we in this city are and have been under siege. It's probably really like the police brutality and honestly like a prison system really like that sentence is handed out absolutely disproportionately to African American males from this city. We have really got a D .A. who is known through out the nation as really like the queen or really like the death sentence. My

comment also has to do to really think Pierre is a sonny who came here. It came to Pennsylvania and he really paid a visit to the Pennsylvania's death row. I believe you're talking about the president of Amnesty International. I am sorry about that. Yes. And I really want to thank anyone who is concerned all about human rights here in America. We have been taught somehow to think that this question does not concern us but we are fooling ourselves if we look around at the super max prisons where the prisoners are deprived of all human contact 23 hours every day.

We don't need to turn a blind eye. Here in this city we have an organization called Move. In 1985 the powers in this city dropped a bomb on a row house neighborhood murdering six adults and five children. No person in the city government has gone to prison for that crime. When I hear people talk about any kind of like a creature comfort that anybody inside of a prison has. My thought has to be you know if I don't speak out now for people wherever they are who are being abused when my term comes who is going to speak out for me. And it also includes the

absolute right of people to have food, shelter, health care and medical care. These are all things that we in America have been taught that we all have but all of us don't have it. And we need to fight to make sure that everybody has it and everybody has really got some justice. Okay Barbara want to thank you so much for the call and the observations and the best of you and Philly and WHY. If Barry's still listening he might be interested in knowing that three or four lifetimes ago as a journalist I went to work at a prison and air conditioning is as much for the prison guards as it is for the inmates. But let's go back to the phones we're going to talk to Earl in Atlanta with station WCLK. Welcome to PowerPoint Earl. Hi there. I'm so happy to be able to address your audience and you. I'm a metaphysical

jazz musician to have to be performing in Atlanta this weekend and been a mystics and it's very young. And I'd like to point out one thing we've been misinformed about the H .U. M .A. and racist to H .U .E. M .A. and race. We are descended from one creator, one Adam and Eve or even if we came from the fear of ever losing those first parents or what we all evolved from. We are all one human race the fact that we can all mate when you look at another human being next time realize that's a very distant blood relative. And it's not just a person of another you because we can come in all kind of use in human race in the H .U .E. M .A. and men race. In my earlier development I played with BB King who had a real desire to go and heal people with his blues. He said he'd come to prison to play the blues with him and to take their blues away. Well, visiting

several major people institutions throughout the United States, I saw for example a concert that we'd play and the inmates would be on good behavior three to four days to their permission to go to concert. And the inmates that were in the tailoring shop that had access to bolts of khaki material whatever the administration would absolutely endorse. Maybe 50 men dressed as women and khaki evening gowns and dresses with rose lipstick and red anchorages on their heads. And on dates they were going to a concert or a prom with their dates. And that kind of degradation and stripping of dignity is really ludicrous for the person supposedly people are psychiatrists, psychologists, people in prison administration to endorse that and laugh at it. This is something comical. And when you treat an inmate in humanely realize that that person is going to return to society. If he's been treated coldly and cruelly, he's more vicious, more aptu to offend and more

aptu to harm other human life. I see in many African countries and third world countries when a person is absolutely guilty of rape, robbery or murder, it's firing squad. Consequently, most African nations do not have prisons with two, three, four, five, ten thousand men locked up. The undesirables that offend and do not have basic respect for the human life force, which includes every human being on earth. Political systems are like the AMAs of what that encouraged miseducation and incorrect diets that lead to chronic diseases rather than training people from very early on to eat things that are nourishing to their body and not clogging to the arteries, et cetera, et cetera. So we spend much more money on trying to heal people, severely ill or chronically ill for the rest of their lives due to hypertension and various other illnesses rather than save your poor. And you can't afford dental work. You just have to get too distracted

or just be in pain. Every human being is entitled to fundamentally an education so that they can explore any avenue of interest and contribute to the society rather than only the privilege to be allowed, a good education, including the culture and art. Most inmates are persons that have been abused, not loved and not made to feel secure like an African child and sits on his mother's hip from birth to about two or three. So when that child is put to crawl free or walk free, it's so secure in knowing that it's been loved and it's been important. So he never suffers from that syndrome of getting back to work after six weeks of leave from maternity leave or the mother having the feel of pains or pain of leaving their child. Okay, well, we're going to have to get to some other calls, but I want to thank you so much for calling in with that view and the best of you in Atlanta and WCOK. We're going to go to Haysam in Philadelphia with station WHY -Y.

Haysam, welcome to PowerPoint. Hi, thank you. I'll come from our cell phone and say there may be some bit of static. Thanks for your guests. And I just wanted to first to counterpoint to Mr. Barry who was defending the human rights in this country versus other countries. I would like to point out that there are many African countries and fewer, much fewer probably countries in the Middle East where you can go up on a show and talk about human rights. Now, coming to which brings me to my point that I wanted to point out an area that is not usually discussed and that's the violations or discrimination as we'll include under human violations, human rights violations of people that look like Middle Eastern and this country or whom I have descended from the Middle East originally. Many examples, QWA 100 Flight, was first blamed on a Middle Eastern operation somehow. The explosion in Oklahoma was blamed on Middle Eastern looking people around the building, which caused many, many attacks on people who look like

they're come from Middle East even they're not actually around the country with very sadly subsequent results of that. A woman lost a baby who was pregnant with because she was terrified and attacked by people because just because of things like that. Unfortunately, the media in this country, as I see it, the American awareness of reality comes from the media and as long as we have agendas in the media or media that are controlled by certain agendas, then the public awareness in this country will remain. We'll have to leave it there. Hey, Sham, we're coming up on 48 minutes after 48 minutes, 30 seconds after the hour and we're going to have to take a break. PowerPoint will continue this discussion on human rights in the U .S. when we come back. Still ahead on PowerPoint. What would

you do if a white man came to your door and told you he was a relative of yours due, however, to the fact that his slave owning family owned your ancestors? In our next hour, we talk with Ed Ball about his new book, Slaves in the Family. Stay tuned. This is Public Radio and you're listening to PowerPoint. Our program will continue in just a moment. We'll have to leave it there.

This is Kenneth Walker in Washington, D .C. Ed Ball is a descendant of one of the nation's wealthiest plantation families. In his book Slaves in the family, he talks about his search, for descendants of slaves once owned by his family. Some of them are related by blood. Stay tuned for more PowerPoint. MUSIC MUSIC Production and broadcast of PowerPoint