-Abdurratln
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We need to learn these facts. Haiti was the first black Republic in the Western Hemisphere. Haitian created a very successful revolution against French imperialists, but many Western nations harmed Haiti via trade barriers, coups, and subsidy policies that harmed the Haitian economy even in modern times. Today, some Brothers and Sisters are in many organizations fighting the neoliberal policies harming Haiti. The Maroons were heroic in fighting for liberation. They utilized guerrilla warfare strategies and excellent maneuvers to fight the oppressor. We have to fully understand our history from the actions of George Padmore to others. Malcolm X was right in saying that he have to understand history, our culture, and African political developments. In the final analysis, we are all Africans as Kwame Ture said on many occasions.
-By Timothy (Me)
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Yes. We are talking about an attitude, an attitude of respect for our ancestors and our history. Our people have always called ourselves Africans. The first indisputable example is probably Olaudah Equiano. Another would definitely be the First African Baptist Church. Nowadays nobody even knows that the first Baptists called themselves Africans. Most of that history has been hidden from us. Another example is the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is not until Jesse Jackson that we have come to deny such history on such a massive scale. That is why you do not see me recommending comic books here. We need to know our history. I did not recommend Amos and Andy type films in the black films discussion. One of the first ones I recommended was the Senegalese brothers performing a Grammy Awards winning concert with Egyptians.( http://www.youtube.com/watch... ) They proved the same kind of Pan-Africanist love between the Egyptians and West Africans that Kwame Nkrumah proved when he married an Egyptian Christian girl. She is sleeping besides him right now in a place of honor in Ghana. Her daughter Comrade Samia Nkrumah is likely to be the next president of the Republic of Ghana.(Week 7 – March 3rd: MIDTERM & Screening of Basil Davidson’s “That Magnificent African Cake” March 10th: Spring Break – NO CLASS Week 8 – March 17th: Colonial Rule: Assimilation vs. Indirect Rule & The Second World War PAPER PROPROSAL DUE Shillington: Chs. 24, 25) How can we in the USA ignore this? Every African in America ought to be donating money to Samia's campaign to be president of Ghana.
-Abdurratln
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Brothers and sisters, today, it is with great honor excitement and pleasure that I present to you one but two books of speeches by His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie:
1) Selected Speeches of Haile Selassie: http://www.ewfaddis.org/selected-speeches-of-his-imperial-majesty-haile-selassie-i/
2) The Lion Roars: His Majesty's Speeches: http://rastaites.com/speeches/speeches.html .
I came upon these two books by "At the League of Nations, June 30 1936" which is contained in Selected Speeches. When I googled Selected Speeches, The Lion Roars also appeared. It is amazing that we as African intellectuals have never heard of these two books before now. The power and dignity of His Imperial majesty's speech to the League of Nations, to the "whole world" cannot be denied. It shows Africa's role as peacemaker to the world and its role as founder of the League of Nations and later of the United Unions. These are must reads for every intelligent African on earth. Both books are free downloads as African classics. I do not care what your particular ideological or religious persuasion you hold, there is something in these two books for you. But they are particularly relevant to Pan-Africanism and the Civil Rights Movement. When Haile Selassie spoke to the League of Nation, the world has not been the same since. This is considered to be the beginning of the African Revolution. .
-Abdurratin
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And on the basis of those two experiences you ask "why are black guys ALWAYS broke"? I've a question: "Why do people continue to make these STUPID GENERALIZATIONS about Blacks on the basis of their limited experiences?" Also, why are so many of these kinds of threads concocted anyway? Do you know about any issues of more fundamental importance? Have you even heard about the Moral Mondays movement, which may be the beginning of new progressive movement in the South such as we've not seen since the 1960s? Do you understand the implications of the new restrictions on Black voting rights recently upheld by the Supine Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965? In fact, have you even heard of the Voting Rights Act, or know its significance and what is at stake with its loss? Have you ANYTHING on your mind besides dating?
-Savant
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will be ordering this book.
-Dragaonpat
As a Black woman you might find especially interesting Lynne Olson's FREEDOM'S DAUGHTERS: UNSUNG HEROINES OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1830--1970. Also check out Barbara Ransby's ELLA BAKER AND THE BLACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT: A RADICAL DEMOCRATIC VISION. And also by Rosa Parks, ROSA PARKS: MY STORY. There a Black Woman philosopher named Joy A. James whom I've worked with, and who has written a lot. Among the titles that come to mind are RESISTING STATE VIOLENCE, TRANSCENDING THE TALENTED TENTH. She wrote an essay whose title I forget, but which was interesting in its critique of white supremacy, It appeared in George Yancy's anthology WHITE ON WHITE/BLACK ON BLACK. Joy James also edited a volume called IMPRISONED INTELLECTUALS. She, like Michelle Alexander and Angela Y. Davis have been devoting a good deal of attention to the critique of the racist "prison industrial complex." She also edited a volume of Angela Davis' writings called the ANGELA DAVIS READER. In that volume is found Davis' essay (written in 1971 from prison) about the role of Black women in the slave community. And, of course, there are the works of Angela Davis herself, among which are WOMEN: RACE AND CLASS, ARE PRISONS OBSOLETE and THE NATURE OF FREEDOM AND OTHER DIFFICULT DIALOGUES. Davis also has an interesting study of Black women and the blues music tradition. But I don't recall the exact title.
-Savant
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Anti-Black racism in UK and other parts of Western Europe is probably more connected with colonialism and slavery in British (or other European) territories external to the country. Slavery was in the Caribbean. not in the national boundaries of England. In America, racism developed in the context of racial slavery bred internal to the country--beginning in the English colonies that would become the USA. Blacks were not a servile population living elsewhere. Black existed in the millions within the USA. Whereas your country practiced a racist colonialism in Africa or the West Indies, the USA created a racial caste system which led to a kind of "domestic colonialism" within the body of the USA. The racial paranoia is much deeper here than in England or France because the perceived "black threat" has always been much closer. And the measures taken to contain and subjugate us has unavoidably led to deeper fear (or contempt) on the part o dominant whites, and resentment and anger on the part of subjugated Blacks. In the 1800s, a slave revolt in the Caribbean, however frightful, was for an Englishman troubles that happened "over there in one of our colonies." A slave revolt in the USA might for a white American mean an immediate danger to his own life and property. Nat Turner slew his master and his master's family. That, for American whites, happened "here"-- -not "over there." Even when anticolonial movements happened in British colonies, then didn't mean London was under siege. In America, we might well take our protests to Washington, the nation's capital. Also, no European country ever created anything like our system of segregation, Jim Crow, political disfranchisement. At least not within your national borders. IN America, we had a system very similar to the apartheid regime in South Africa. This history means that racism, and racial paranoia is much deeper in America than in England or other parts of Europe. I don't believe--though I'm unsure--that you have segregated neighborhoods in England. You can still see the racial divide in neighborhoods, schools and churches in America. I recall a French visitor with SOS who in the 1980s was shocked to find that 20 years after the civil rights crusade most American neighborhoods were still racially stratified. And it struck me as a surprise that this would be a surprise. America and Europe are different worlds.
-Savant
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http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/TKKMMJHT2MVFU7IKH/p48
Yes, CLR was a great historian, a philosopher and man of letters. He was also a devoted revolutionary. I've heard him speak a number of times, the first time when I was about 18 or 19. I was so impressed that I went searching for his books. BLACK JACOBINS was initially the only one I could find, but it was enough to get me started. Later I discovered SPHERES OF EXISTENCE, BEYOND A BOUNDARY, NKRUMA\H AND THE GHANA REVOLUTION, and numerous other of his works.(I also discovered his correspondence with Dr. KIng when I was working on my King research. CLR James saw a striking similarity between King's methods and Nkrumah's "positive action."). James was a REVOLUTIONARY NATIONALIST---yes, the are reactionary nationalists like Papa Doc, Mobutu, Karenga, etc--but also revolutionary nationalists like Malcolm (especially post-NOI), Lumumba, the Panthers, and CLR. James himself. He had no problems being a Marxist and a Pan-Africanist, a scholar in what might now be called Africana studies who also was knowledgeable of Western and Eastern history and culture as well. When he spoke at my undergraduate school we young brothers and sisters (I was 18) stood and gave him a long standing ovation. The old man was awesome! I was at a meeting in Delaware of a conference called "Black Philosophers and the Black Underclass," when suddenly we got news of his passing. We all had to have a moment of silence, and even the very talkable Cornel West kept quiet. I must return to my study of CLR JAMES, in particular to his NOTES ON DIALECTICS.
-Savant
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That is great to know. Ironically, when Venezuela's leader was Hugo Chavez, Chavez made many progressive policies that actually improved Venezuela's economy, literacy rate, educational rate, and other social conditions in that nation. Maduro holding up a copy of Malcolm X speaks signifies the power, reach, and influence of the black liberation struggle in the world. Many of us comprehend the international impact of the Black Freedom Movement of America. One issue is that we have to counterreact the false stereotypes that the Western corporate media place on black Americans. Black Americans are diverse and we are highly intellectual. So, this struggle is an international one as Malcolm X realized. Also, Malcolm X realized the truth that the struggle of people of color against Western imperialism is an INTERNATIONAL one (and he acknowledged the Afro-Brazilians and those of black African heritage in South America fighting for revolutionary social change too).
-By Timothy (Me)
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Maduro is trying to maintain the revolutionary path pioneered by Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution. From what I hear and read from articles, and from info I've gotten from a colleague (who's really into Latin American revolutionary movements), the Chavistas are creating new experiments both in socialism and direct democracy. She reject both capitalism and the old Bolshevik centralism (which has wrecked so many socialist efforts in the past). And the movement seems to be wildly popular among the poor and working class masses (and part of the middle class and intelligentsia). This revolutionary class movement also has some very definite racial dimensions. The poor there belong to all "races," but are disproportionately Black, Native American, mestizo, etc. The privileged classes are disproportionately (if not totally) white. The most fervent support for the Bolivarian Chavista movement comes from the poor, and therefore predominantly Black (or mulatto, mestizo) parts of Venezuela. The class struggle on the part of the rich has aspects of a racial struggle, or so I've heard reported. However, the ruling class in Venezuela has not been able to dupe poor white Venezuelans as the US ruling class has so often duped poor American whites. So you don't see large numbers of poor white Venezuelans flocking to the Right under racist motivations as we've seen poor whites do in the USA for centuries. The poor whites are also down with the Chavista revolution, and mainly stand side by side with African descended Venezuelans.(Of course, Latin American racism was probably not as rigid as the US version. Nothing quite like Jim Crow or the "one drop" rule. Race doesn't always trump class though racism is very present and malevolent as always). Yes, I think we need to support the revolutionary movement in Venezuela. And as long as Maduro keeps to a democratic revolutionary path of popular power, he will have my support and solidarity.
-Savant
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What we do is critique and protest ths system of racial injusticed in its CONTEMPORARY forms, though we acknowledge the historical character and formation of such injustices as well. Unfortunately, the racism that blinds so many whites and erodes their critical faculties renders them incapable of critical thought, and makes them see our critiques and morel protests as merely a reflection of their own childish behavior of "whining. " Usually, when a white person accuses us of whining we can pretty much size him/her up as a bigot whose bigotry has eroded his critical faculties.
-Savant
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