‘Mayor of NE Portland’ Honored With Affordable Housing Building
The Paul & Geneva Knauls Building will provide wraparound services for military veterans.
On Steps of US Supreme Court, AG Rosenblum Rallies Abortion Rights Supporters
Speaking at an ACLU-organized rally on the steps of the United States Supreme Court this morning, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum made an impassioned defense of abortion as essential healthcare, and of medication abortion as a key part of those healthcare rights. The rally coincided with arguments being presented inside the Supreme Court in the AHM (Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine) v. FDA (Food & Drug Administration) case.
Should College Essays Touch on Race? Some Feel the Affirmative Action Ruling Leaves Them No Choice
When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action, it left the college essay as one of few places where race can play a role in admissions decisions. Yet the added weight of the college essay has fallen unevenly on students of color, who often feel pressure to exploit their hardships as they compete for a spot on campus.
Bird Flu, Weather and Inflation Conspire to Keep Egg Prices Near Historic Highs for Easter
The cost of filling a basket or completing a Seder plate reflect a market scrambled by disease, high demand and growing costs for farmers. While global prices are lower than they were at this time last year, they remain elevated.
The Portland Art Museum presents Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting-Edge Kicks
Exhibition on view March 30 - August 11, 2024. Programs to include sneaker-focused Summer Camps and in-gallery activities ...
Portland Street Response Hosts Town Hall
PCCEP is seeking community input to help shape their recommendation in support of Portland Street Response. ...
Joint Center Responds to the U.S. House Office of Diversity and Inclusion Disbandment
This decision jeopardizes the establishment of policies to support diverse communities and threatens the pursuit of inclusivity for...
Bonamici, Kaine Praise Billion Dollar Increase for Child Care, Early Childhood Learning
Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) —members of the House Committee on Education and Workforce and the...
Portland Rose Festival 2024 Court Member from Benson Polytechnic High School Announced
The Rose Festival Princess from Benson Polytechnic High School, Laedyn Romero, was selected March 22. ...
4th person charged in ambush that helped Idaho prison inmate escape from Boise hospital
A fourth person has been charged in connection with an ambush that allowed a white supremacist Idaho prison gang member to escape as he was being discharged from a Boise hospital. Tia J. Garcia, 27, of Twin Falls, owned the car that inmate Skylar Meade and his accomplice, Nicholas...
What's keeping egg prices high for Easter? It's not just inflation
Egg prices are at near-historic highs in many parts of the world as the spring holidays approach, reflecting a market scrambled by disease, high demand and growing costs for farmers. It’s the second year in a row consumers have faced sticker shock ahead of Easter and Passover, both...
4th person charged in ambush that helped Idaho prison inmate escape from Boise hospital
A fourth person has been charged in connection with an ambush that allowed a white supremacist Idaho prison gang member to escape as he was being discharged from a Boise hospital. Tia J. Garcia, 27, of Twin Falls, owned the car that inmate Skylar Meade and his accomplice, Nicholas...
What's keeping egg prices high for Easter? It's not just inflation
Egg prices are at near-historic highs in many parts of the world as the spring holidays approach, reflecting a market scrambled by disease, high demand and growing costs for farmers. It’s the second year in a row consumers have faced sticker shock ahead of Easter and Passover, both...
COMMENTARY: Is a Cultural Shift on the Horizon?
As with all traditions in all cultures, it is up to the elders to pass down the rituals, food, language, and customs that identify a group. So, if your auntie, uncle, mom, and so on didn’t teach you how to play Spades, well, that’s a recipe lost. But...
A Full Court Press to Get the Lead Out
With a “goal of identifying and remediating lead hazards in at least 2,800 Lancaster County homes,” LG Health is setting an example for the private sector. And the Biden-Harris administration’s focus on environmental justice and access to clean and safe...
OP-ED: Congress Is Right: Federal Reserve’s Reg II Will Hurt Minority Communities in America
The Fed is taking every effort to promote income equality and workplace diversity and inclusion, but Regulation II would undercut its great work in this respect and cause potential harm to millions of minority families. Now that a congressional coalition has...
OP-ED: A Silent Killer No More
Data from Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City shows that more than 13 percent of African American men between the ages 45 and 79 will develop prostate cancer in their lifetimes. And Black men have a 70 percent higher rate of developing...
Tennessee governor signs bill to undo Memphis traffic stop reforms after Tyre Nichols death
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday signed off on the repeal of police traffic stop reforms made in Memphis after the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols by officers in January 2023, despite pleas from Nichols’ parents to GOP lawmakers and the governor to give them a chance to...
Tennessee politicians strip historically Black university of its board
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Trustees of Tennessee's only publicly funded historically Black university were removed Thursday under legislation signed into law by Republican Gov. Bill Lee. Black lawmakers and community leaders said state leaders, a majority of whom are white, are unfairly targeting...
Beyoncé’s 'Cowboy Carter' reinforces her dedication to Black reclamation — and country music
LOS ANGELES (AP) — First, Beyoncé arrived at the 2024 Grammy Awards in full cowboy regalia — making a statement without saying a word. Then, during the Super Bowl, she dropped two hybrid country songs: “Texas Hold 'Em” and “16 Carriages.” All of that heralded her latest album, “Act...
Celebrity birthdays for the week of March 31-April 6
Celebrity birthdays for the week of March 31-April 6: March 31: Actor William Daniels (“St. Elsewhere,” ″Boy Meets World”) is 97. Actor Richard Chamberlain is 90. Actor Shirley Jones is 90. Musician Herb Alpert is 89. Actor Christopher Walken is 81. Comedian Gabe Kaplan...
How to make an Easter ham last all week
The beauty of making a baked ham for Easter (or any holiday or large gathering) is that there's bound to be leftovers. Leftover ham, which will last for up to five days in the fridge, can be a springboard for other meals during the week. Of course you’ll want a sandwich or two, but...
Book Review: 'Glorious Exploits' turns classical history into an endearing comedy about tragedy
Best friends Lampo and Gelon are potters by trade, but their souls are filled with poetry. It’s 412 B.C. and the city of Syracuse doesn’t know what hit it when these two hatch up the best worst idea: They’ll put on a play using the Athenian prisoners of war who are starving to death down in...
Schools in the path of April's total solar eclipse prepare for a natural teaching moment
CLEVELAND (AP) — Seventh-grade student Henry Cohen bounced side to side in time to the Beatles’ “Here Comes...
Tennessee governor signs bill to undo Memphis traffic stop reforms after Tyre Nichols death
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday signed off on the repeal of police traffic stop...
US changes how it categorizes people by race and ethnicity. It's the first revision in 27 years
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — For the first time in 27 years, the U.S. government is changing how it categorizes people...
China's latest EV is a 'connected' car from smart phone and electronics maker Xiaomi
BEIJING (AP) — Xiaomi, a well-known maker of smart consumer electronics in China, is joining the country's...
US journalist marks a year in a Russian prison as courts keep extending his time behind bars
For Evan Gershkovich, the dozen appearances in Moscow's courts over the past year have fallen into a pattern. ...
Putin says he won't start a war with NATO. But Western bases hosting Ukraine F-16s would be targets
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin scoffed at the possibility of his country launching an...
In December 2009 the airliner I was on touched down in Hanoi, Vietnam. That was my first time to Vietnam. As the plane approached the field, I thought about how this very territory had once been a battleground with dogfights taking place between North Vietnamese planes and U.S. planes high overhead, and U.S. bombers dropping their payloads, incessantly trying to convince the Vietnamese that they – the Vietnamese—could not win a war with the USA.
Vietnam is, today, a very different place than in the 1960s and 1970s. It has a growing economy, tourism, and an ever-increasing educated population. Yet, while many people in the USA know of Vietnam as, at best, a moment in history, the war that the U.S. brought to the Vietnamese is very much part of the continued reality of the people of Vietnam.
his May there are commemorations in many parts of the U.S. of both the 1965 U.S. escalation of involvement and the May 1975 final end to the war. There are many families who lost loved ones to the war. Some 58,000 U.S. servicemen and women were killed in the war, and many more were injured physically and/or psychologically. Some have never fully recovered.
The Vietnamese lost somewhere between 2 million and 5 million people to the war, of which approximately 1 million were combatants. While not minimizing the loss of U.S. lives, the loss of Vietnamese lives was nothing short of catastrophic as a percentage of their overall population. Additionally, Vietnam, Cambodia/Kampuchea, and Laos suffered the on-going effects of Agent Orange, the toxin poured from U.S. airplanes on the jungles to destroy the foliage. The illnesses and birth defects from Agent Orange haunt those three countries, and they also haunt the U.S., where many veterans brought this demonic substance back, having been contaminated when it was used against the “enemy.”
What remains striking is that the U.S.A. has failed to apologize for the war, let alone truly own up to its genocidal consequences. For years, we have not even wanted to have a serious conversation about the war. The U.S. government reneged on its promises to the Vietnamese after the withdrawal, and though there has been a near demagogic obsession with finding prisoners of war and MIAs, so little has actually been done to address the on-going needs of the U.S. veterans who returned home after putting their lives on the line. The hypocrisy is both amazing and frightening.
In failing to have a real national discussion about Vietnam, we fail to address not only why the U.S.A. got involved in the first place, but the brutality with which the U.S. fought a war against a people who sought independence. Just as in the early 20th century when the U.S fought a genocidal war to subdue the Filipinos in which approximately 1.5 million Filipinos were killed, in the case of Vietnam the fact that the numbers killed by the U.S. so dwarfs the numbers of American soldiers killed is completely ignored and treated as insignificant.
While we must understand what led to the U.S. intervention in Vietnam in order to not repeat that course—as we have in several subsequent wars—more importantly we must face a very uncomfortable fact: the USA must be held accountable to and by the people of Southeast Asia for an extent of devastation that should never have been visited upon humanity.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the host of The Global African on Telesur-English. He is a racial justice, labor and global justice activist and writer. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and at www.billfletcherjr.com.