All Articles Tagged "farming"
Remember Adebisi From Oz? Did You Know He Was A Skinhead!
blogs.indiewire.com
If you watched HBO’s hit drama, Oz, you will no doubt remember Adebisi, the tough as nails African prisoner who intimidated almost everyone at least once, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. Well, the England raised actor recently did an interview with The Guardian in which he discussed his new project, Farming, a movie based on his own life. Sounds a bit much for an actor and perhaps even a little cocky? You might not think so when you hear this.
Although he was born in Nigeria, Adewale’s parents gave him to a white family in a practice called farming which is defined as informal fostering. His foster parents who sometimes housed up to 10 African children at a time were what he called “ignorant” because they didn’t understand how to take care of them. They also appeared to harbor certain racist views which lent to their ignorance. Adewale grew up wanting to be accepted in a neighborhood full of Skinheads who beat up anyone who even remotely looked non-white.
So in an attempt to avoid those beatings and also a way to let out his own anger about his birth and foster parents as a confused teen, Adewale became a member of the Skinheads. He hated the fact that he was Black because not only did he not fit in to his “European” world, but he also did not fit in to the “African” world since he hadn’t grown up there. Adewale took on the racist views (and the bald head) of the Skinhead group and participated in various crimes. As he put it:
“When a child wants to be accepted,” he explains, “he’ll do anything. And if it means you’re getting a certain amount of notoriety from a fight, that’s what you’ll do. If all you’ve known is racism, abuse and persecution, then all of a sudden you’re getting some recognition, that’s your new drug. That’s what you want. By the time I was 16 I was someone to reckon with. I was so eager to repudiate any connection with any immigrant race I would go above and beyond. I was desperate to belong to something. That was my drive as a teenager.”
Wow. The story is absolutely compelling and continues to dig deeper about how he got out of that life and the roles both sets of parents played in his life, if any, as he got older. I’ve heard some pretty radical things over the years but it would have never crossed my mind to think that someone could hate themselves so much that they’d join a gang to hurt the very people who look like him.
Please make sure you read the article right here.
5 Years After Katrina, Teacher Tills Soil of Lower 9th Ward
(New York Times) — For an embattled former New York public school teacher and six young African-American men, a wrecked grocery store here has become a place of second chances. Five years after the levees broke in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Lower Ninth Ward remains largely a place where time has stood still. Lots where shotgun houses once stood are empty and overgrown with tall grasses. Gutted homes with smashed windows list to one side. Nat Turner, a former history teacher at the Beacon School in Manhattan, arrived here two years ago. He soon became a familiar and curious sight, driving a blue biodiesel-powered school bus emblazoned with the logo “NY2NO”— for “New York to New Orleans” — and offering his tutoring services in the bus for free.
African Farmers Displaced as Investors Move In
(New York Times) — The half-dozen strangers who descended on this remote West African village brought its hand-to-mouth farmers alarming news: their humble fields, tilled from one generation to the next, were now controlled by Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and the farmers would all have to leave. “They told us this would be the last rainy season for us to cultivate our fields; after that, they will level all the houses and take the land,” said Mama Keita, 73, the leader of this village veiled behind dense, thorny scrubland. “We were told that Qaddafi owns this land.” Across Africa and the developing world, a new global land rush is gobbling up large expanses of arable land. Despite their ageless traditions, stunned villagers are discovering that African governments typically own their land and have been leasing it, often at bargain prices, to private investors and foreign governments for decades to come.
A $1.15 Billion Settlement Reached for Black Farmers
(Richmond Times Dispatch) — The U.S. Senate, after the 10th try, approved nearly $1.15 billion yesterday for the National Black Farmers Association to settle long-standing claims of discrimination in federal farm lending programs. ”It’s been a very, very long fight,” said John W. Boyd Jr., president of the association and a cattle and grain farmer from Mecklenburg County. The money has been held up in the Senate since February as Democrats and Republicans fought over how to pay for it.
Illinois Takes a Hit over Factory Farms
(Chicago Tribune) — Illinois is failing to crack down on water pollution from large confined-animal farms, the Obama administration announced Wednesday in a stinging rebuke that gave the state a month to figure out how to fix its troubled permitting and enforcement programs.
Responding to a petition from environmental groups, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said its nearly yearlong investigation found widespread problems with the Illinois EPA’s oversight of confined-animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. Many of the cattle, hog and chicken operations produce manure in amounts comparable to the waste generated by small towns.
Farmers Struggle to Cultivate Markets
(Chicago Tribune) — You can’t buy those on the street, Tim Ngabtak tells John Thill as he eyes mustard seed plants at the Tibet Farms stand. Intrigued, Thill, a Morton Grove village trustee, picks up the plant, smells it and takes a bite. ”Boy, is that stuff tart. That snuck up on me,” he said. “Your taste is different from my taste.”
Ngabtak smiles, pleased he got Thill to try something unfamiliar. ”I’ve educated a lot of people,” said Ngabtak, who displays his offerings every Saturday at the Morton Grove Farmers’ Market, which opened in May.
Downstate Farmers Supply Chicago Restaurants
(Chicago Sun Times) — Sunrise at Spence Farm in central Illinois, and dew drenches the grass, cats prowl the barns, geese march with purpose single-file through the yard and air is fragrant with a clean, verdant aroma.
Marty and Kris Travis are out back at a walk-in cooler near the barn loading their 1995 Ford diesel van with stinging nettles, green garlic, cattails, wheat berries, chive blossoms, rapini, arugula, asparagus and more.
Black Farmers $1.25 Billion Deal May Fall Through
(Reuters) – Black farmers are worried that a landmark deal to compensate them for discrimination faced over decades could slip through their fingers as a deadline looms without funding approved by lawmakers.
Black Farmers $1.25 Billion Deal May Fall Through
(Reuters) – Black farmers are worried that a landmark deal to compensate them for discrimination faced over decades could slip through their fingers as a deadline looms without funding approved by lawmakers.
U.S. Sees Food Security As Next Big Africa Push
U.S. backed a plan unveiled by the G8 last year to spend $20 billion for African farming.
