rootsandculture

Conversation with Donisha Prendergast,  Reggae Mountain,  Kingston, Jamaica

By Clairmont Chung The Admission In the sad aftermath of the Zimmerman verdict, former federal prosecutor, Sunny Hostin incredulously admitted on CNN that she had not ‘seen race’ in the Trayvon Martin case. She went further, adding that she had never seen race in her 20 plus years as a prosecutor. I had heard similar statements before and, though always incredible, dismissed its owners as ignorant and without any power to seriously hurt anyone anyway.  But Hostin had to have hurt many people in her capacity as prosecutor and now had a certain power as legal analyst and frequent commentator on TV with CNN’s Anderson Cooper and others. This essay is not about the specifics of racial inequality and its parents: white supremacy and monopoly capitalism. I am not writing about unequal pay, access to health care, mass incarceration, homelessness, joblessness and sub prime mortgages. It is too complex a subject to cover in an essay. I make brief references and recommend a few sources

by clairmont chung Barclays Center moored on Atlantic Avenue (Getty Images) The subway train shook me from my half-sleep as we jerked to a stop. It was as if it wanted to show me something. Then I read in bold letters on the station’s walls: Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center. At first, I did not understand what was happening. This was some kind of trick, payback for the things I said about capitalism. Maybe I had made a mistake and taken the wrong train. I had never heard of a station by that name in New York or anywhere. The underground dimness looked familiar. Then the conductor’s cackle announced that we were on the “2 train to Flatbush”. I relaxed a little, even smiled. This was no mistake. Then he said the name of the stop, “Barclays Center, Atlantic”. It felt like a slap so hard that I did not hear the name of the next stop: Barclays-Bergen. I was fully awake then, but train sick. Imagine, not one but, two stops in Brooklyn renamed Barclays in 2012. Barclays Bank was n