(writing from internet cafe, must write quick - lots of cig smoke)

I’m in Wuhan, China. Wuhan is the capital of Hubei Province. It is not an internationally known city like Shanghai or Beijing or even Shengzhen - but it is a city on the rise - a mega-city in the making.

If you were to go to a port city in China - you would hear lots of stories about how exports have totally fallen - shipment containers are empty - the whole world economy has slowed down. But if you come to the middle of China - you would hear a slightly different story. Industries are now moving inland, away from port cities. Inland cities in Wuhan are part of China’s transition away from being a primarily export country. There is a strong sense here the Chinese people are producing for the Chinese.

Wuhan is crass - Wuhan is noisy - Wuhan is changing - VERY quickly.

right now the entire city is under construction. A new subway system will be running by the end of 2009. China’s subway construction teams are world famous for their expertise in building entire subway systems in 2 weeks :) In Wuhan - the sidewalks are ripped up with food vendors selling boiled eggs and stinky tofu with twirling pink ribbons to keep the flies away (stinky tofu is the official name of the tofu because the smell is unbearable). Workers old and young, from government firms to rural village are working away 24 hours a day remaking the city.

Wuhan i’m in love with you!

I LOVE WALTER E. WILLIAMS! YOU ARE A KING OF HAPPY WOLF WORLD!

Read Walter William’s article, Race Talk, that breaks down the whole concept of calling blacks “African Americans.” It’s a term that white people use so that they feel comfortable with referring to “blacks.” In America, we have a CRAZY history of racial politics and practice -  but that’s my point- slavery is uncomfortable - racism is uncomfortable - how do you comfortably refer to a whole population of people who are American - but were bought, kidnapped and forced to work in a place that they didn’t chose?

so instead of hiding from the uncomfort of our slave history - why don’t we just look to black people and see what they say NOW? What are their feelings when they are called nigger, negro or African American?

I totally agree with Walter - I ‘ve always all along said that the American problem of treating Africa as one big homogenous continent creates many problems.

First it devalues the diversity within Africa - Africa is filled with nations and regions with diverse histories, peoples, ethnicities and leaders.                                                  Second, it perpetuates the whole trend that Americans and Europeans need to help them poor AFRICANS. So we devise buy a water bottle and feed a African child campaign - or consumeristic ploys that convince you to buy products to that .00000001% goes to some African AID/HIV fund where the marketing costs more than what is donated.  Third - using the term African American is retarded b.c it takes away from the concept that Blacks ARE Americans - they are more American than anyone else who claims to be  American because they built this country - they built up our profits, our surplus - they literally built Wall Street in NYC! They gave America culture - and all along dominant America stole their bodies, their labor, their minds and their rhythms - so this time around can we at least not try to steal their identities? If Blacks are telling us the term “african-American” doesn’t make sense -we should listen!  Wouldn’t it sound retarded to call white Ameircans “European Americans”? It non-sensical to add a pre-fix to their “Americaness” because doing so takes away their Americaness.                   Fourth - Blacks whose ancestry date back to slavery are not from all over the African continent - mostly they were captured and sold from African’s gold coast  - Western Africa fight - the label “African-American” is very inappropriate because many blacks trace their ancestory to the Carribeans - or to Brazil - or to Mexico.

So read Walter’s article in it’s entirety here.  Walter is a professor of Economics at George Mason University. I have always thought that this man is a FREAKING GENIUS!!!!!  This man has a million degrees and is STILL ABLE TO WRITE AND SPEAK to the non-academic 99% of our society! Yes you are my hero! I loved you on PBS and LOOOVED your writing on socialism, capitalism and governance and I love your work even more now.  Well this particular piece on race really stands out in its simplicity and relevance. Read his bio here. Walter I LLLOOOVE YOU! LOOVEE YOU!  I wish you were my father!  (thanks christian for referring me to this article!)

“What to call black people has to be confusing to white people. Having been around for 73 years, I have been through a number of names. Among the polite ones are: colored, Negro, Afro-American, black, and now African-American. Among those names, African-American is probably the most unintelligent. You say, “What do you mean, Williams?” Suppose I told you that I had a European-American friend or a South-America-American friend, or a North-America-American friend. You’d probably say, “Williams, that’s stupid. Europe, South America and North America are continents consisting of many peoples.”

You might insist that I call my friend from Germany a German-American instead of European-American and my friend from Brazil a Brazilian-American rather than a South-America-American and my friend from Canada a Canadian-American instead of a North-American. So would not the same apply to people whose heritage lies on the African continent? For example, instead of claiming that President Barack Obama is the first African-American president, it should be that he’s the first Kenyan-American president. In that sense, Obama is lucky. Unlike most American blacks, he knows his national heritage; the closest to a national heritage the rest of us can identify is some country along Africa’s gold coast.

Another problem with the African-American label is not all people of African ancestry are dark. Whites are roughly 10 percent of Africa’s population and include not only European settlers but Arabs and Berbers as well. So is an Afrikaner who becomes a U.S. citizen a part of United States’ African-American population? Should census takers and affirmative action/diversity bean counters count Arabs, Berbers and Afrikaners who are U.S. citizens as African-Americans and should they be eligible for racial quotas in college admittance and employment?”

Are black Americans a minority group? When one uses the term minority, there is an inference that somewhere out there is a majority but in the United States we are a nation of minorities. According to the U.S. Census Bureau 2000 census, where people self-identify, the ancestry of our largest ethnic groups are people of German ancestry (15.2 percent), followed by Irish (10.8 percent), African (8.8), and English (8.7) ancestry. Of the 92 ethnic groups listed, in the census, 75 of them are less than 1 percent of our population.

Race talk often portrays black Americans as downtrodden and deserving of white people’s help and sympathy. That vision is an insult of major proportions. As a group, black Americans have made some of the greatest gains, over the highest hurdles, in the shortest span of time than any other racial group in mankind’s history. This unprecedented progress can be seen through several measures. If one were to total black earnings, and consider black Americans a separate nation, he would find that in 2005 black Americans earned $644 billion, making them the world’s 16th richest nation — that is just behind Australia but ahead of Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. Black Americans are, and have been, chief executives of some of the world’s largest and richest cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. It was a black American, Gen. Colin Powell, appointed Joint Chief of Staff in October 1989, who headed the world’s mightiest military and later became U.S. Secretary of State, and was succeeded by Condoleezza Rice, another black American. Black Americans are among the world’s most famous personalities and a few are among the richest. Most blacks are not poor but middle class.

On the eve of the Civil War, neither a slave nor a slave owner would have believed these gains possible in less than a mere century and a half, if ever. That progress speaks well not only of the sacrifices and intestinal fortitude of a people; it also speaks well of a nation in which these gains were possible. These gains would not have been possible anywhere else.