GHOSTBUSTERS IN HISTORY 1

Home Directory Framed?

• Lemon Grove 1930
  Small citrus town near San Diego. Separate school for Mexican children. Mexicans parents kept their children home from the new "school," a dilapidated barn outside of town. Despite deportation threats brave Mexican ghostbusters sued the school district and won the right to send their children to white schools. Most local whites welcomed their Mexican neighbors. Willing, able witnesses and a decent, honest judge sided with them. This and similar cases set precedents for 1954's Brown vs Board of Education suit.

  Scottsboro Alabama 1933-34

  12 black youths leaving home rode the rails looking for urban employment. Two white women riding their boxcar to the next town claimed they were raped. Top lawyers flocked to Alabama in vain. The boys were automatically convicted, never again leaving custody.

  1950 Zinctown Arizona mining strike.

  1954 film Salt of the Earth (DVD) cast and crew deported or blacklisted.

  1954 Chicagoan Emmet Till, 14, visiting relatives in Mississippi is lynched for looking at a white woman.

  The angry headline is shown to Cassius Clay, 10, at the back of a segregated bus

  1968 Riots in Watts, Newark, Detroit and other cities; Mexico City Summer Olympics

  Black ghostbusters won the war against housing and other discrimination women still fought

  Fists of Freedom: the story of the '68 games about Tommy Lee Smith and Juan Carlos at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City

  University of Chicago 1980

  U S Congressman Tom Campbell's doctoral thesis the first quantitative study of gender inequality. Campbell's female relatives were denied jobs men got despite similar qualifications.

  Moscow 1991

  Mikhail Gorbachev rescued from abductors when ghostbusters nationwide rose in mass protests led by Chief Ghostbuster Boris Yeltsin.

  San Jose Mercury News 1993-94

  Reporter Gary Webb's drug traffic article "Dark Alliance" drew complaints, was withdrawn from the paper's archives and got him fired.

  Historical Figures

  Socrates and Balboa were falsely accused and executed.

  John Paul Jones: Jealous rivals gave false reports to Empress Catherine of Russia.

  1920s Sacco and Vanzetti (and fellow inmate, separate case) railroaded

  Recent evidence

  Benefit recovery and asset garnishment reduce us to unwanted dependency

  Bill Clinton framed, Al Gore discredited by tobacco interests

  Ungentrified children harvested for prison industry

  Retaliation for not signing papers

  Term limits take away freedom of choice

  Pay toilets replace free portables. Still a good film location but germs and other problems remain.

  Michael Jackson hush money is a cliche

  Propositions 187, 209, 227

  Ungentrified Ghostbusters and voters dispersed

  R1 rezoning laws remove group homes, apartments and the homeless from certain areas

  Reinstating vagrancy laws the U S Supreme Court already struck down

  Social Services Dept

  Offered to register white voters. Others saw forms in the lobby but weren't offered registration.

  Diplomatic interests take precedence: Elian Gonzalez returned to Cuba

  2004: High school student matches schoolmates' DNA with DNA of a common ancestor born 100,000 years ago in Asia.

National Debt Clock turned off on birthday of New York developer Seymour Durst, its inventor and sponsor. Douglas Durst, now president of his father's company, said the national debt is nearly $5.7 trillion and dropping.

Blacks and AIDS

Harvard's W E B DuBois Institute conference on AIDS 1998

• Although found on college campuses nowadays, blacks and Latinos as a group still receive less education than whites.
  Schools no longer de jure (by law) segregated remain segregated de facto (after the fact) often inferior to white schools and receiving less funding. Sometimes books and movies highlight exceptional schools demanding high student achievement.

  Blacks and Latinos receive less job training and earn less money than whites.

  Many trade unions exclude nonwhites, leaving them to form their own unions. Latinos formed LULAC and the G I Forum to fight discrimination against Latino veterans and others.

  Blacks have less access to health care.

  Drugs are deliberately introduced to nonwhite communities. Crack epidemics drew government attention only when crack invaded white communities. Free needle exchange is nationally disliked.

  Churches remain the most powerful institutions in black communities. Many black elected officeholders and communitiy leaders are ministers. Anti-promiscuity and anti-gay theology made blacks less likely to realize the need for adequate health care. Black churches overcome this cultural barrier and educate blacks about AIDS, teenage pregnancy and sexual disease prevention.

  In 1998 40% of HIV cases were black, while blacks are 13% of the population.

AIDS in Africa and worldwide

3/4 of AIDS cases worldwide are in Africa, male-female ratio 50-50. Prevention problems include:

• 1880s - 1950s Colonial legacy of weak economies.
  Raw materials taken from Africa were processed in Europe, preventing Africans from developing strong economies. Africa still depends on Western nations for aid.

  Under apartheid men left their families to live in work camps, only going home once a year.

  Prostitution is still common because men must leave home to find employment.

  Ethnic conflict is caused by arbitrary colonial boundaries placing tribes in conflict.