AfroCROWD on Afrobeat Radio - Listen to podcast!

I was a guest on Afrobeat Radio 10 days ago to discuss AfrolatinoCROWD along with Amilcar Priestley of Proyecto Afrolatino and Regina Bultrón Bengoa and Janet Sackey of Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI).

Listen here: 
PODCAST: Can Black Wikipedia Take off Like Black Twitter http://www.afrobeatradio.com/academic-professional/2015/4/7/can-black-wikipedia-take-off-like-black-twitter

We discussed why Wikipedia can be an empowering tool to Afrodescendants who want to tell their own stories and more.

Find out more about the AfrolatinoCROWD Wikipedia Editathon in Spanish, Garifuna and English taking place this Sunday April 12th  from 1:30 to 4:30PM  at the Brooklyn Public Library  or register here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/afrocrowd-alp-cccadi-present-afrolatinocrowd-412-tickets-16006774694

 All are welcome! The first half hour will be in Spanish.

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Check me out on BK Live for 210th Anniversary of #Haiti Independence

Check me out with Prof. Patrick Delices on BK Live last tuesday to talk about commemorating independence and mourning Jan 12, 2010.

Prof. Delices recently helped me dissect the Declaration of Independence on the first Legacy of 1804 of the year.


BK Live 1/7/14: Haitian Anniversaries from Brooklyn Independent Media on Vimeo.




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Invest in you!

In the cacophony of corporate media, international agency and NGO actors who monopolize the news cycle on Haiti, HAITIANS NEED TO HEAR EACH OTHER AND THEMSELVES.



"Usually created by highly educated individuals residing in the USA or Europe, a number of African and Caribbean blogs have surfaced on the Internet. As illustrated by Alice Backer's kiskeácity, these blogs function as “virtual embassies” of the nation, providing critical information on politics, society, and culture. They also serve as a rallying force for the Diaspora, informing them about local events such as concerts, film festivals, or community functions celebrating an event or holiday from their native land. Last but not least, they promote economic development by informing the Diaspora and any virtual visitors about possibilities in their respective homeland."

A “New” Black Nationalism in the USA and France by Dr. Felix Germain http://ht.ly/pPlhe JOURNAL OF AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES, Volume 17, Number 3, September 2013

Last August marked eight years since this blog was founded in 2005.  Since then, I have scoured the web in search of all that Haitians have to say online culminating into the  FREE daily newsletter which I started two years ago and now 8 episodes of many more to come of  the weekly Legacy of 1804 live podcast radio show.


WHAT HAVE WE DONE? Here are the metrics to date:

• 16,190 Tweets
• 7,604 Followers on Twitter
• 2,000 plus Followers on Facebook
• 388 posts on this blog
• One Black Celebration Award in the Culture Category (Thank you Black Street and Judith Jacques!)
• One presentation on Haitian bloggers at the Haitian Studies Association Conference
• One presentation on Haitian bloggers at the Haiti Cultural Exchange Diaspora In Dialogue Conference
• Over two hundred feeds by Haitians aggregated 
• One appearance on the Melissa Harris Perry Show on MSNBC to echo your sentiments on the UN's handling of cholera in our beloved Haiti

WHY INVEST?

I have amplified Haitian voices since 2005 and I have done so free to the public so far. I want to continue to do so but in exchange for some goodies that you can use as gifts for your friends, I am asking you to invest in the future of this endeavour.


WHAT ARE THE GOODIES?

• All contributions: subscription to Kiskeácity Daily Email Newsletter for you or a friend 

• Contributions of $40 or more: Jazzpora CD by Buyu Ambroise
  
  

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Haiti Film Fest Schedule May 9-12

The Haiti Film fest starts today with tonight's Opening Reception.

Films will be screening FREE Saturday and Sunday starting at noon at St. Francis College.

Here is the schedule



If you haven't yet seen Toussaint and Stones in the Sun by Patricia Benoit, this is your opportunity.

I will be moderating/translating at two Q&A's, one each day. 

One is on Saturday at 12pm – with Frantz Voltaire & Kendy Verilus.  The films are about the degradation of Port-au-Prince and environmental issues related to garbage.

Lineup:
Zafè Fatra (2012,  8 Minutes, Kreyòl with English subtitles) by Kendy Vérilus
Exclusive New York Premiere
Port-au-Prince, Ma Ville (2000, 57 minutes, Kreyòl & French with English Subtitles) by Rigoberto Lopez

The second one is on Sunday at 5 pm with Romel Jean-Pierre.

Lineup:
Anita (2012, 15 Minutes, Kreyòl with English Subtitles) by Ricardo Tranquilin, Ciné Institute
Plezi Gede Credit (2012, 6 Minutes) by Romel Jean-Pierre
Anita (1981, 45 Minutes, Kreyòl with English Subtitles) by Rassoul Labuchin


Full Film descriptions http://haiticulturalx.org/hcx-haiti-film-fest-2013-schedule




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Presidential Politics and The Global African Community 11/7 Columbia U.

UPDATE NOV. 7: CANCELLED for tonight because of inclement weather. New date to be announced soon.

I will be going back to my alma mater  tomorrow Wednesday to speak about US presidential politics, Haiti and the global African community. This will be my first visit to the Malcolm X Lounge in 16 years!


Post presidential election panel discussion
Hosted by the Caribbean Students Association
Columbia University, NYC
Wednesday, Nov. 7  from 9-11pm.
Hamilton Hall
Malcolm X Lounge
Moderator: 
Patrick Délices

Panelists:
Brandon Brice
Vince Morgan
Basil Smikle Jr.
Alice Backer 

(Please click on each panelist's name for more info.)

 

















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Speaking at Columbia U. (11/7) and at HSA 2012 at York College (11/10) next week

I'll be speaking at two panels next week. I hope to see you there!
(Please  stay tuned to my twitter @kiskeacity for exact room locations and links.)

Panel 1

"Presidential Politics and The Global African Community"
Post presidential election panel discussion
Caribbean Students Association
Columbia University, NYC
Wednesday, Nov. 7 from 7-9pm. from 9-11pm. [UPDATED]
Hamilton Hall
Malcolm X Lounge
Moderator: Patrick Délices
Other panelists:
Brandon Brice, Vince Morgan, Basil Smikle Jr.
I will be called on to speak about Obama and Haiti during the past 4 years.

UPDATE NOV. 7: CANCELLED for tonight because of inclement weather. New date to be announced soon.

Panel 2

"Haiti and the new media: From Blogosphere to Twittersphere"
Annual Haitian Studies Association conference 
York College, Queens NY
Saturday Nov. 10 from 9-10:15am
Chair: Régine Jean Charles, Boston College
Other panelists:
Gina Ulysse, Wesleyan University
Thomas Spear, Graduate Center, CUNY
Shadine Menard, Haitian International Pulse Magazine
Nadève Ménard, Université d’État d’Haiti







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Spotlight on Haiti Episode 1 - Dual Citizenship @SOHaiti #Haiti #Diaspora #VIDEO

Introducing the first episode of Spotlight On Haiti, a new online video show hosted by yours truly and produced by Natasha Gaspard and Marc Enette.  


In the first episode, I tackle dual citizenship under Martelly with guests Jocelyn McCalla, Reginald Toussaint and Ilio Durandis. We had a fun time on set discussing this topic back in Fall 2011 and we hope you'll join into the discussion on the YouTube channel and Twitter (@SOHaiti and @kiskeacity).

You can catch me on the Melissa Harris-Perry Show on MSNBC this morning at 10 am.

Enjoy!














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RECONSTRUCTING HAITI: WOMEN AT THE CENTER (MAY 4)

This is tomorrow Tuesday. Hope to see you there!

The New York Women's Foundation

The Haitian Roundtable

Equality Now

BelTiFi

PotoFanm+Fi

cordially invite you to

RECONSTRUCTING HAITI: 
WOMEN AT THE CENTER

Where are the voices of Haitian women in
the post-earthquake recovery of their country?

Introduction: Ana Oliveira, New York Women's Foundation

Remarks: Rosemonde Pierre-Louis, Manhattan Deputy Borough President

Panelists: Alice Backer, Lawyer and Blogger, PotoFanm+Fi

Taina Bien-Aimé, Executive Director, Equality Now

Nancy Dorsinville, Senior Policy Advisor, UN Office of the Special Envoy to Haiti

Moderator: Maria Hinojosa, President, Futuro Media

May 4, 2010

6:30-8:30pm

New York Women's Foundation,

434 West 33rd St, 8th Floor, New York, NY

Media Sponsors:

Caribbean Life; Tele Image; CaribNews; The Root; Amsterdam News; Radio Soleil; Optimum; HaitiXchange

View PDF: http://www.worldpulse.com/files/upload/658/haiti_discussion_invitation.pdf

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Speaking to High School Students about Barack

I had the pleasure of doing just that twice in the past two weeks, on behalf of Brooklyn for Barack and New York for Obama. First at Bushwick School for Social Justice's Social Justice Day, I showed students this film about the impact of Barack's message on fellow high school students in the Bronx. Then last wednesday, I was at the Jewish Community Center on the Upper East Side debating Stephanie Hauser, the Secretary of Young Democrats of America, who was representing Hillary. In both cases, students were eager to find out whether I'd actually met Barack. But they also enjoyed seeing pictures of getting out the vote, voter registration and election day.

(Social Justice Day at BSSJ is organized in conjunction with Make the Road By Walking.)



Technorati: make the road by walking - Bushwick School for Social Justice - BSSJ -

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Tabou Combo's Yves Joseph serves Yes We Can! cake to benefit Obama

Tabou Combo vocalist Yves Joseph and his wife Nadja, pictured below to the left, organized a fundraiser for Obama at their home in Teaneck, NJ. (Tabou Combo is the most famous Haitian Konpa band and one of the oldest.)



My sister Laurette, pictured in the middle below, and her friend Hilde (left below) helped organize it and I was asked to speak about my experiences volunteering for the campaign in Brooklyn, NY, Milwaukee, WI, Cleveland, OH and Philly, PA.



NJ State Senator Loretta Weinberg and NJ State Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (both pictured at the top to the right of the hosts) spoke as well. Luckily, Dwa Fanm, a Haitian women's empowerment organization, had recently interviewed me about my experiences as an Obama volunteer for their newsletter and the Josephs thought it would be a good handout for the event. To my surprise, fundraiser-goers really enjoyed hearing picture by picture anecdotes and by the time I went through Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania, they were asking for more! (I needed a cold drink.)

It was all very thrilling but most would agree that the Yes We Can cake was the highlight of the evening!



Host Yves Joseph introduced me to the cake's architect, pictured below:



Over 100 people attended.

Senator Weinberg who had attended a similar grassroots fundraiser the day before talked about the very first press conference she and Assemblyman Gordon held in support of Obama early in 2007 when few believed he had a chance. Less than 10 people showed up, she recalled.

A student from New York traveled all the way to NJ to give a speech on Obama and a local real estate agent showed up to hand out free Obama T-Shirts. Most of the guests had been personally invited by the Josephs but some, like the couple from nearby Englewood pictured below, found out about it from www.barackobama.com.



One of the guests claimed that Haitians in New York voted mostly for Barack's opponent because they were not sure back then (Feb 5th!) whether he could win. I have yet to get my hand on the stats but since I had made appearances to speak about Obama on Radio Tropikal while volunteering with Brooklyn for Barack, I was a bit disappointed. This is to be further investigated.

Here is the slideshow. This view may be better if you want annotations of each picture.

Oh and for those unfamiliar with Tabou's music, here's a bit of Tabou goodness performed on one of the band's numerous France tours. Let's see if you can spot the host Yves Joseph aka Fanfan Tibot or Herman Nau, who was also at the Obama event, in here:



Technorati: obama - new jersey - teaneck - tabou combo - herman nau - yves joseph

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Back to India: My Delhi Travel Tips

You may or may not remember my blogging about GVDelhi2006, Global Voices' annual summit which took place in India last December. It was a wonderful experience for which I still have unpublished pictures but just as I was forgetting I still owed them to the blog and to the world, GV colleague Khamla Batt posted a video chat she had with me during the conference on her blog If You Go To. In it, I rave about the markets and the shawls that I spent much time praising here but also talk about taxi cab woes... You may not care but I think this is some sort of debut for me. Yep, video debut. :-)

Technorati Tags: delhi, india, dilli haat, gk-1 m market, lodi gardens

Voices of Freedom Forum: The Wrap-Up

My notes from the Voices of Freedom Panel on which I spoke Saturday. The Panel was subtitled: "The Role of Black Newspapers from 19th Century Weeksville to the Present." My job was to bring the blogger's perspective to that conversation.


From Left to Right: Dr. Pat Young, Allison Keyes, yours truly, David Greaves.

The Panel

Weeksville Heritage Center Exec Director Pam Greene introduced the panel.

2:23 pm The moderator Allison Keyes is being introduced. She is a longtime journalist who works for NPR. She now has the mike and is explaining that she became a journalist to tell stories about the black-american community.

2:24 pm She is introducing my co-panelist Dr. Patricia Young who is a phd and education professor. She will talk about the Freedman's Torchlight, the historic African-American Weeksville paper.

2:25 She is introducing David Greaves, publisher of Brooklyn paperOur Time Press, a Brooklyn Native.

2:26 She is introducing me. I realize after the intro that kiskeyAcity can be hard to pronounce for non-Haitians who don't know the meaning of Kiskeya. (Which by the way means "mountainous land" in Arawak/Taino and is, along with the word "Haiti" a name given to the country by its Taino/Arawak natives.)Either that or Ms. Keyes --a consummate radio personality and professional enunciator-- was playing a practical joke on me when she mispronounced kiskeyAcity. Maybe a little bit of both?

2: 29 Patricia Young starts her presentation about the Freedman's Torchlight. Started in 1865, right after emancipation of American slaves. Was not just a newspaper but also one of the 1st Black instructional products designed for Blacks: it provided literacy lessons. Publishers of the Torchlight were African Civilization Society. Dr. Young would like to use elements of design of Torchlight as elements of instructional design today. Believes that African-Americans should be producers of information technologies that affect children, including the entertainment ones (video games etc.)

2:48 David Greaves is up. Our Time Press is a community paper and is more likely to publish church basement events than those happening at the Marriott Marquis. Small Black papers create networks between small business owners and local readership. He says Rupert Murdoch now owns even local paper Caribbean Life (!!!) and they are posing problematic competition to papers like Our Time Press because they are so much better financed. Future of black print media is grim unless there is black financing, he concludes.

3:08 I come on and talk about what I do at Global Voices and at kiskeyAcity, namely that I offer more complex facets of Haiti and other francophone African, Caribbean and Oceanian countries by amplifying the voices of their bloggers. I talk a little bit about the 3-part Kevin Sites Watch I did earlier this year. I showcased bloggers I cover for Global Voices such as Le Blog du Congolais (DRC), Pierrot Dupuy (La Reunion) and Le Blog de Moi (Martinique).

What Future for Small Black Presses?

The Q&A started out with lots of questions about what blogging and blogs are. The audience was by and large made of boomers and some seniors so I was asked to provide the nitty gritty. Then the discussion veered to the problems of small black presses and their (grim) future. There were questions about blogs too, of course and their accuracy and reliability. I explained that blogs, like the mainstream press should be read with a critical eye but that ultimately they offered a more varied set of voices and perspectives that can supplement or at times supplant mainstream media.

Print Vs. Blogs: A Fake Problem

I found it a bit regrettable that some seemed to want to oppose print to blogs. No need really. The internet can actually help the dissemination and availability of historic print publications. Case in point: Marcel Salnave Jr. who, from Haiti, uses his blog Parlons Peu to publicize his father's journalistic writings from the 40s and 50s. I mean, could he really get the same exposure through print, especially with a Haiti-based publisher? Doubtful. His blog makes him searchable on google and hence accessible to the average Joe of any age googling from home. Can a copy or two of his Haiti-published book lingering in one or two specialized collections in the United States and France have the same reach?

(P.S.: Special thanks to Terry and Jennifer Scott. And thanks Jennifer Carr for being such a diligent photographer and last minute forgotten wallet substitute. Long story...)


Technorati: Voices of Freedom - Weeksville Heritage Center - Brooklyn Public Library - Caribbean-American - Our Time Press - Small Black Press - Haiti -

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Voices of Freedom Forum / Brooklyn Nov.18.

I'll be contributing the global/blogging/caribbean perspective to this forum on Brooklyn journalism this Saturday November, 18 at the Brooklyn Public Library. I'll be making a presentation with slides. Should be fun! You can click on the flyer to enlarge but here's the info just in case:
###


A WEEKSVILLE HERITAGE CENTER 35TH ANNIVERSARY SPEAKERS' SERIES PROGRAM

PRESENTED IN ASSOCIATION WITH BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY

Voices of Freedom

The Role of Black Newspapers from 19th Century Weeksville to the Present

Saturday, November 18, 2006 • 2 pm • Free

Central Library, Brooklyn Public Library • Grand Army Plaza

The Freedman's Torchlight, a publication of The African Civilization Society, originally founded by African Americans as an antislavery organization and later became solely dedicated to educating Black citizens, was one of America's first Black newspapers. Today, many Black newspapers exist. What shapes the content of Black newspapers and how have they transformed lives? What types of social, political, economic and spiritual networks have been created through print media? What is the future of Black journalism? What is the potential of Black media? These and other topics are the focus of this fascinating panel presentation. Panelists include Alice Backer, blogger and Francophonia editor, Global Voices • David Greaves, cofounder, Our Time Press • Patricia Young, Ph.D., professor, University of Maryland • Moderator: Allison Keyes, reporter, National Public Radio.

Directions to Central Library: Subway—2/3 to Grand Army Plaza or Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum; Q to 7th Avenue • Bus—B41, B69, B71 (B45, B48, B67, 2-4 blocks)

718.756.5250•www.weeksvillesociety.org


Technorati: Weeksville Society - brooklyn - caribbean -

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Global Voices Won the Knight-Batten Award!

Photo by Georgia Popplewell.

This morning in DC, Rebecca McKinnon, Georgia Popplewell and I (pictured in that order) represented Global Voices Online at the Knight-Batten award ceremony in DC.

We won!!! Our 6 co-finalists were all amazing and came from all over the country so it was quite an honor to go home with the main prize. They included an impressive hurricane information site by the Sarasota Tribune and several interactive community-based news sites. (See Knight-Batten press release.)

It was both exhausting (we each made a presentation) and exhilirating but in the end all the emotions were worth the while. I talked about starting my blog to amplify a more complex set of voices from Haiti than usually featured in mainstream media. Then I showcased three of the bloggers in Francophonia: Tony Katombe from the DRC, Pierrot Dupuy from La Reunion and Le Blog de [Moi] from Martinique. Hopefully video of the presentation will be up soon on the Knight-Batten site.

Georgia live-blogged the conference over at Caribbean Free Radio here, here and here. The Global Voices community is ecstatic! Rachel Rawlins, our Managing editor, posted this on the GV website to announce the news.

It is great to see all the hard work that gets put into GV rewarded.

See more photos from this morning.

global voices - knight-batten

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