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CJSR FM88 www.cjsr.com 6 PM Mountain Time Beginning in January and finishing in July, Edmonton and the surrounding area hosted the shooting of Fear Itself , an A merican network summer horror anthology. Ernest Dickerson , who helmed Juice and Never Die Alone among many features, directed the episode “Something With Bite,” which debuts tomorrow night on NBC. Che ck your local listings. I’ve written a featu re story on film and television production in Alberta with Fear Itself at the centre for the issue of Unlimited magazine , s o check your newsstands in August, and the Bro-Log. Actor Wendell Pierce , best known as Detective Bunk Moreland on HBO’s The Wire , plays the world’s first veterinarian to become his own patient. I caught up with both gentlemen on and off-set during their shoot at the end of April and the beginning of May. In the seco nd half of the show, we'll go to South Africa , and a story of democratic s uccess being crushed by corporate power. Sou...

Paul Street writes: "Walking in JFK's cautious and calculating footsteps on race, the technically black Obama has been careful to distance himself from the fact and claim that racial oppression and white supremacy continue to pose steep barriers to black advancement and racial equality in the U.S. "He talks about the racism that stokes the fires of living black anger as if it was merely a troubling overhang from the past (Rev. Jeremiah Wright's ancient era). "Obama advances no relevant or explicit policy agenda to take on the deeply entrenched institutional racism that lives on beneath white America's readiness to elect a president who is 'black, but not like Jesse.' "He has made numerous speeches and comments suggesting the black Americans are personally and culturally responsible for their disproportionate presence at the bottom of the nation's steep socioeconomic and institutional hierarchies. "He has failed to link himself strongl...

Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report writes: "The United States is directly complicit in what the United Nations has called the 'worst humanitarian disaster' in Africa. "The Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, launched in late 2006 with massive air, naval and logistical support from the Americans, has resulted in the displacement of 3.5 million people, 700,000 from the capital city of Mogadishu, alone. "More than two-and-a-half million Somalis face starvation – a figure that could rise to three-and-a-half million by the end of this year. "A recent Amnesty International report on human rights violations in Somalia, said Ethiopian soldiers have begun “slaughtering Somalis like goats” – meaning, killing them by cutting their throats. Amnesty International’s Deputy Africa Director put it this way: 'The people of Somalia are being killed, raped, tortured; looting is widespread and entire neighborhoods are being destroyed.' "The U.S. has made Ethiopia it...

Tyrone Simpson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Vassar College. He is also part of the Urban Studies Program, Africana Studies Program, and Program in American Culture. Prof. Simpson can be contacted at tysimpson@vassar.edu . He writes: "This dream of the Obamas bringing the Cosby fantasy to the White House signals what should be the true fear of progressives: the possibility that the election of Obama will conclude the process of politically sedating African Americans begun during the Clinton years. "Though no longer embraced by blacks as the nation's 'first African American president' because of his race-baiting during his wife's campaign, Bill Clinton was once deeply beloved by the black electorate. "We showered him with unconditional affection while he expanded the prison system, destroyed welfare, and exported solid jobs beyond our borders. His uncanny ability in public to make us feel good about ourselves, to pawn off sym...

CJSR FM88 www.cjsr.com 6 PM Mountain Time When South Africa ’s revolution finally overthrew Apartheid in 1994, few of the revolutionaries knew then that they were about to be betrayed by some of their own leaders, who had been collaborating behind the scenes to create Neo-Apartheid. Under that system, South Africa created the largest middle class on the Afrikan continent, but continued the economic exploitation of the majority of the population. Many have described the current economy as Thatcherite and Neo-liberal. Clearly—and in a lesson that Afrikan-Americans should note very carefully—the complexion of the president says nothing, in and of itself, about the complexion of justice. To discuss the imposition of Neo-Apartheid, we’ll hear today from poet, revolutionary and former political prisoner Dennis Brutus . Brutus was born in Zimbabwe in 1924, and later taught English and Boer Dutch in South Africa for fourteen years. Drawn into the anti-Apartheid movement, he became p...

CJSR FM88 www.cjsr.com 6 PM Mountain Time Her name is Chika Udok. Udok is a Nigerian visual artist living in Edmonton . She studied at tg University of Nigeria at Nsukka under acclaimed Ghanaian artist and professor El Anatsui. She's young, but already achieving excellence in painting and wall-mounted paint-sculptures. Her work speaks to crises affecting Nigeria , women, the various Afrikan communities in Canada , and also the beauties of the Afrikan and natural worlds . She’s recently turned her house into a gallery, which features her most recent show for the next month or so. If you’d like to see the work that’s about to be described, email her at chikamodum@yahoo.com . El Anatsui “ El Anatsui was born 1944 in Anyako, Ghana. El earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Sculpture and a Postgraduate Diploma in Art Education from the University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. He is Professor of Sculpture at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he has lecture...

CJSR FM88 www.cjsr.com 6 PM Mountain Time Tokunbo Oke is a historian and member of ALISC , the African Liberation Support Campaign Network. “ALISC is a UK-based solidarity group set up by Africans forced int o exile in the 1980s because they opposed Structural Adjustment Programmes. ALISC supports groups in Africa fighting to get power into the hands of the African majority, which means out of the hands of transnational profit-making companies, international banks and the wealthy African elite. "One of ALISC Network’s jobs is to publicise what these groups are doing - and to expl ain the history of resistance in Africa , which hardly anyone knows. During slavery and colonial occupation, African women and men didn’t sit around waiting for someone to save them - they fought.” When many people look at Afrik a , they see only the present, and assume t he present ex plains everything about the past. But a glance at 19th Century Greece would say littl e about the wonders of an...