Ebola in Liberia, how race affects travel, and Global Notes: Festival Cubano

Liberians received good news that the U.S. will aid in sending them experimental Ebola drugs. Two doctors will receive the treatment, making them the first Africans to receive the medications. This week, the World Health Organisation announced that over 1000 people had died from the West Africa Ebola outbreak . We’ll talk with Artemus Gaye, an historian and activist in Chicago’s Liberian-American community. They’re putting together shipments of much-needed medical and other humanitarian supplies to Liberia. And Gaye just returned from President Obama’s U.S.- Africa, where Ebola dominated the agenda. He also participated in a Chicago town hall which featured Liberian government officials.
Then, in a recent New York Times article called ‘Traveling While Black,’ author, journalist and frequent commentator on race, politics and culture, Farai Chideya, writes about travel: ‘It was the first time I felt a specific comforting heart-song, repeated over the years in places like the outdoor terrace cafe of the Louvre in Paris to the top of Mount Tamalpais in Northern California. That feeling can take on particular meaning because it disrupts double-consciousness — the term coined by W. E. B. DuBois to explain the necessity of African-Americans to constantly regard themselves through others’ eyes. As a black traveler, I seek liberation through exploration and find myself seeming freer, at least in mind and heart, on the road than at home. Many others feel that way, too.’ Although travel experiences that disrupt double-consciousness can liberate, Chideya also writes of some of the racial challenges and worries that keep people from exploring the world. We’ll talk to Chideya about her article, and why people should release their hangups and travel more.
And, if you like the hot music sounds of Cuba and the Caribbean, then Chicago's 5th annual Festival Cubano may be your destination. This week on Global Notes, Jerome McDonnell and Morning Shift and Radio M host Tony Sarabia, are joined by festival press coordinator, Alejandro Riera, to preview the sounds we can expect at this year’s event.

(photo: Health workers carry the body of a man found in the street, suspected of dying from the ebola virus, in the capital city of Monrovia, Liberia, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2014. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh))