On President Jovenel Moïse's assassination--and the ghosts of American covert ops past
The Thursday Thoughts!
Haiti's President Moïse assassinated
It is rare that I get jolted by news, but yesterday's headlines that Haiti's President Jovenel Moïse had been assassinated hit me like a punch in the gut primarily because such brazen attacks on political leaders are rather rare these days. That Mr. Moïse was killed in his home is all the more concerning because on a deeply humanistic level, while I love to think of myself being secure (and well armed) within my residences, as one who has received violent threats in the past due to my advocacy, if such could happen to a head of state with security—then surely it could happen to me as well.
But what serves as the crux of my sympathy for the Moïse family and my Haitian friends across the diaspora in that we do not yet know who is responsible for an attack that left Moïse shot 12 times—and sent his wife, Martine, to the hospital as well. By late yesterday evening CNN was reporting that security forces had killed four of the attackers and taken two alive, but the other reports that the attackers were yelling "DEA"—the acronym for the U.S. Drug Enforcment Agency, leaves me wondering.
Lest we forget that for all of the chest thumping and "We're #1" that many Americans just love to do, that we are surely highly ranked in meddling in foreign affairs and helping to overthrow regimes worldwide since the end of World War II. Now, I will reserve judgment until more evidence hails forth, but suffice it to say that I am deeply interested in getting to the bottom of why Moïse, a leader whose country is still reeling from a devastating 2010 earthquake, other natural disasters since then, AND the deadly Coronavirus that has taken its toll, was targeted for murder.
Stay tuned...
Worldwide Covid death toll
The world reached a grim statistic—4 million deaths and counting—almost 18 months after the first Coronavirus cases were reported. These numbers are likely inaccurate due to underreporting by some nations, and the fact that others may have died far earlier than the point that scientists realized that a full-scale pandemic had erupted.
But what doesn't make much sense to me is the fact that while infections and deaths are down across the globe, that many nations, including the United States, have become extremely lax on protocols such as mask wearing and social distancing. While over a billion vaccine doses have been distributed worldwide, such is far from sufficient and in some ways, harkens back to the earliest days of the epidemic when some politicians and scientists argued for "herd immunity" that would allow the pandemic to run its deadly course.
I considered lax "herd immunity" rhetoric wrong then—and still do, but with the realization that fewer than 48% of Americans are fully vaccinated, and knowing that demand for vaccines is down across the country (particularly in the South), it seems as if local, state, and even some national leaders are willing to shrug their shoulders and allow folks to return to pre-Covid gathering en masse ways.
As such, as we do here frequently at the Hobbservation Point Newsletter, I encourage my readers to get the facts, get vaxxed, and help hasten the day that we all can return to some semblance of normalcy.
U.S. military may mandate vaccinations
In other Coronavirus news, the Pentagon is considering mandating that members of the U.S. Armed Forces take the Coronavirus vaccine, and I fully support this idea!
While the last thing that the military needs is for the Pandemic to soread through the ranks, I was somewhat surprised, and definitely pleased, to learn that voluntary vaccinations among the services exceeds civilian numbers! To date, 77 percent of Navy personnel, 70 percent of Army personnel, 61 percent of Air Force personnel, and 58 percent for the Marine Corps have been fully vaccinated through voluntary efforts!
Still, I look forward to the day that this number reaches 100 for the military, and at least within the 80th percentiles for the civilant population.
Howard University and political activism
As a proud graduate of Morehouse College, I always remind my Howard University friends that their first Black president, Dr. Mordecai Johnson, was a Morehouse Man who was considered one of the leading public intellectuals of the early 20th Century!
While such is good natured fun banter between academic rivals, suffice it to say that I have always held Howard in high esteem for its role in hiring educators and producing leaders in every field of endeavor, particularly with regards to the dismantling of Jim Crow laws. Some HU luminaries include legal titans such as Howard Law Dean Charles Hamilton Houston and his greatest pupil, eventual Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and civil rights leaders Andrew Young and Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael).
In recent years, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump's advisers Dr. Omarosa Manigault Newman and Ja’Ron Smith, all boast about their Bison bona fides while working in the political world (to differing objectives and ends). While the jury is out as to what degree of long-term success these three will have on the state of Black America, the fact remains that much of their spirit of activism stems from their time at Howard being inspired by the school's legacy and commitment to addressing the greater arc of the Black struggle. To that same end, the recent additions of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nahesi Coates should only serve to push the narrative of Black protest and advocacy in the present age even further!
In reflecting on his school's legacy, Howard University President Wayne Frederick, MD, reminded this week that, “The (Howard) mission is to make a better opportunity for other people every single day. It doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum they come from..."
Indeed! If nothing else, President Frederick's words remind us all to take pride in seeing America's HBCUs in the headlines for producing graduates that are at the vanguard of public service leadership!
Throwback Thursday: U.S. covert ops past
I know that with all of the talk these days about teaching whole history, including my own posts here and on Facebook that tell it true and raw, that such can cause stress for some whites who see their ancestors literally or figuratively in my posts and by so seeing, feel differing levels of shame by what has been wrought against Black people since 1619. My perspective is that these ones cannot change what their forebears did, but they can ensure that within their own ambit, that the lingering vestiges of white supremacy and racism get destroyed root and stem. Thus, the term "ally" in this connotation is a person who is willing to place it all on the line in furtherance of equality.
The late actress Jean Seberg was certainly an ally; one seldom discussed Federal Bureau of Investigations COINTELPRO campaign initated by racist Director J. Edgar Hoover involved Seberg, star of such films as Saint Joan, Breathless, Airport, and Lillith.
Seberg, pictured above, regularly provided financial support to the NAACP and the Black Panther Party in the 1960s. This made her a target for Hoover’s minions and not long thereafter, Hoover decided to “neutralize” Seberg by creating a false story that alleged that she became pregnant during an extra-marital affair with Black Panther Raymond Hewitt.
The Los Angeles Times and Newsweek magazine both ran with the allegations and the scandal allegedly caused Seberg to go into premature labor in August of 1970. Seberg’s child—a baby girl—died two days later, and the actress and her husband held an open casket funeral to show the world that the child’s skin was white and not the result of an illicit affair.
Seberg later successfully sued Newsweek and the Times, but the harassment from the FBI did not stop; her telephones remained tapped, she was constantly stalked, and her residences often showed signs of break-ins that would suggest that agents were seeking information. Director Hoover personally kept then President Richard Nixon informed about the nature of the Seberg surveillance and not long thereafter, she was black-listed in Hollywood.
In 1979, Seberg died in Paris; authorities deemed her death a “suicide” despite the fact that her decomposing body was found wrapped up in a blanket in the back of her car replete with a "suicide note." Seberg, 41 years old at the time of her death, slowly lost her livelihood and her life because she decided to become an ally and help finance the fight for civil rights for Blacks in America.
Lest we forget...
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I had the exact same reaction to the news of the Haitian President’s assassination. On a positive note, I screamed with excitement when I found my Mother-in-Law’s senior picture in the Howard Bison Year Book (online scanned copy.)