DOCUMENTARY: WHITE LIKE ME

Post by Maple Heights African American Gazette.

WHITE SUPREMACY: THE FAILURE TO ACKNOWLEDGE AND RECTIFY ITS AFFECTS

Post by Maple Heights African American Gazette.

 

REPARATIONS PAID TO SLAVE OWNERS

Post by Maple Heights African American Gazette.

HOW THE REAL UNCLE TOM BECAME A LIE

Even at my age, I still have a lot to learn.  A friend and I were talking about the Voting Rights Act decision, and I used the words "Uncle Tom" to describe a member of the Supreme Court.  She quickly scolded me, and told me the real story about Harriett Beecher Stowe's main character in "Uncle Tom's Cabin".

 

 

The original Uncle Tom was not spineless or a sellout.  "The original Uncle Tom  was physically strong and morally courageous, an inspiration for blacks and other oppressed people worldwide. In other words, Uncle Tom was anything but an “Uncle Tom.” **

 

 

 

Read David S. Reynold's fascinating article "Rescuing the Real Uncle Tom"

**Rescuing the Real Uncle Tom, by David S. Reynolds, June 13, 2011

NELSON MANDELA AND PAN AFRICANISM

President Obama recently remarked  ... "And what Nelson Mandela also stood for is that the well-being of the country is more important than the interests of any one person," Obama continued. "George Washington is admired because after two terms he said enough, I'm going back to being a citizen. There were no term limits, but he said I'm a citizen. I served my time. And it's time for the next person, because that's what democracy is about. And Mandela similarly was able to recognize that, despite how revered he was, that part of this transition process was greater than one person."

While we mostly get what Obama was saying, the analogy by using George Washington was akin to putting your "foot in your mouth" because George Washington, the first President of the United States, was a slave owner for practically all of his life.

It's always tricky business when Americans praise Nelson Mandela, the most famous of all nationalist African leaders.  You have to be careful not to put your "foot in your mouth" or show ignorance about what Nelson Mandela really stood for, and his embrace of Pan Africanism.  Most folks don't even know what  Pan Africanism is or its history.

 

Pan Africanism: 

"Initially an anti-slavery and anti-colonial movement amongst black people of Africa and the Diaspora in the late nineteenth century, the aims of Pan-Africanism have evolved through the ensuing decades.

Pan-Africanism has covered calls for African unity (both as a continent and as a people), nationalism, independence, political and economic cooperation, and historical and cultural awareness (especially for Afrocentric versus Eurocentric interpretations)."

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Of Interest - Welcome Home:

Steve Harvey, in comical fashion, talked about his visit to Africa, and how he was greeted.  African Americans are often welcomed home (when they visit Africa) ... Africa is the ancestral home to many.

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Related:


Keep up with current news on Mandela HERE

Don't Miss the Pan African Film Festival (July 18 - July 20, 2013)



Nelson Mandela (biography)



Who is Nelson Mandela? Video



Pan Africanism (Wikipedia) 



African Union 



 Pan-Africanism for a New Generation.-Professor Horace Campbell Part 1 (VIDEO)

VIDEO 2 

VIDEO 3  

VIDEO 4



What is Pan-Africanism? by Alistair Boddy-Evans



Pan Africanism Today



The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean World



 
(1962) Nelson Mandela, "Address at the Conference of the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa”




Nelson Mandela: Obama praises his vision of equality and opportunity  July 1, 2013



Up to Mandela’s Legacy: ‘The World Will Be Watching What You Do’ by Mary Bruce, June 30, 2013


Obama Compares Nelson Mandela to George Washington by Jonathan Karl, June 29, 2013



George Washington and Slavery



Pan Africanist Congress (PAC)



African American & African Studies at UC Davis

REGINALD LEWIS FIRST BLACK BILLIONAIRE

We're going to switch gears for the next several months and talk about African American history.  

While on a brief hiatus, a friend and I talked about what it seems most African Americans won't talk about and may be ashamed to talk about because they think African American history begins and ends with Slavery, Abraham Lincoln, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

When it comes to African Americans and their history, far too many Blacks feel that historical  framework is within the confines of slavery, which is painful,  shameful and horrific and a topic that most African Americans in addition to not wanting to talk about (what they think is their history), don't want to even think about it. 

Well, slavery (although significant) is only a small part of African American history.  The rest of African American history is rich, powerful, glorious, and full of heroes and heroines.

One such hero is Reginald Lewis, a businessman who became the first Black billionaire in the 1980s.  Reginald was born in Baltimore, MD, grew up in "a middle class-class neighborhood", and graduated from Virginia State University with a degree in economics in 1965.  

Mr. Lewis was a member of the Black fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi, and in 1968, graduated from Harvard Law School. 

Mr. Lewis also wrote a book titled "Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun". 

According to Wikipedia, "in 1992, Forbes listed Lewis among the 400 richest Americans, with a net worth estimated at $400 million. He also was the first African American to build a billion dollar company, Beatrice Foods."

Related:

Reginald Lewis (Wikipedia)

Kappa Alpha Psi


Marcus Garvey (2)


Chronology Of The History Of Slavery: 1619-1789


Black Wall Street  (2) See also the video
 

THE GERMANTOWN PROTEST

Lonnie Bunch, museum director, historian, lecturer, and author, is proud to present A Page from Our American Story, a regular on-line series for Museum supporters. It will showcase individuals and events in the African American experience, placing these stories in the context of a larger story — our American story.     A Page From Our American Story   “Pray, what thing in the world can be done worse towards us, than if men should rob or steal us away, and sell us for slaves to strange countries; separating housbands (sic) from their wives and children.” — from The Germantown Protest (against slavery).   In 1565, the Spanish colony of St. Augustine, in what is now Florida, became the first permanent European settlement in North America. Among the settlement's population were some of the first enslaved Africans brought to the New World.   The first permanent settlement of African slaves in British Colonial North America arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, via a Dutch slave trading ship in 1619. It wasn't long before the American colonies found themselves economically dependent on slave trading and enslaved labor.   Reproduction of the Emancipation Proclamation at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. More than two hundred years later, on January 1, 1863, in the midst of our civil war, Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation would free slaves in the rebellious southern states. The Proclamation, along with the voices and actions of individuals such as Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison, and others, would ultimately lead to the passage of the 13th Amendment two years later, ending slavery in the United States and freeing nearly four million African Americans.   Reaching that milestone, however, was a long, painful, and bloody process. One of the earliest recorded actions toward ending slavery was taken by a small group of Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania Colony, in 1688. Before slavery truly became institutionalized in the colonies, some Africans were sometimes treated more like indentured servants who were freed once their service ended or debt had been paid, a practice employed at times by various early Dutch and Spanish explorers and settlers. However, this changed dramatically in 1641 when Massachusetts became the first British mainland colony to legalize slavery. From that time forward, colonial slave laws became more restrictive, further codifying the institution.   Not everyone was blind to slavery's immorality. Although slavery played a major role in the economy of colonial Rhode Island, there were some who tried to temper the practice with a 1652 law that placed restrictions on slave owning and prohibited enslavement of any person for more than 10 years. However, the effect was limited. Slave holders simply sold anyone nearing the deadline and took ownership of new slaves, thus continuing the cycle.   Bas-relief portrait of Francis Daniel Pastorius, c. 1897. From the Library of Congress. In 1688, Francis Daniel Pastorius, and three of his fellow Quakers, drafted the first, formal anti-slavery resolution in America. The resolution raised objections to slavery on both moral and practical grounds during a period when Pennsylvania Quakers were nearly unanimous in their acceptance of the practice.   The decree is referred to as “The Germantown Protest,” or “1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery.” It articulated themes of justice and equality that would be echoed throughout the long, painful period of slavery in America.   The authors’ premise was based on the biblical “Golden Rule” — treat others as you wish to be treated. Additionally, the authors recognized that colonial slave treatment mirrored the persecution Quakers had seen in Europe, and, to an extent, in the colonies.   "There is a saying, that we should do to all men like as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent, or colour (sic) they are... To bring men hither [to America], or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against.”   Sadly, “The Germantown Protest” did not spark a significant change in the Americas against slavery. Even within Quaker communities the declaration was ignored, at least initially. But a seed had been planted. A belief shared silently by many was given voice.   This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. While it is tempting to view the Proclamation solely through the lens of Civil War events, in order to grasp the full context and importance of Lincoln’s decision, we must examine the issue of slavery in the North American colonies from its beginnings. From the Spanish colony in St. Augustine, to the first Dutch ship sailing into Jamestown, and to the Civil War waged to end it, slavery was a 300-plus year institution in America, leaving scars, fortunes, and repercussions we deal with still today.   All the best, Lonnie Bunch Director

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the newest member of the Smithsonian Institution's family of extraordinary museums. The museum will be far more than a collection of objects. The Museum will be a powerful, positive force in the national discussion about race and the important role African Americans have played in the American story — a museum that will make all Americans proud.

THE TRAUMA OF SLAVERY

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Breaking the Psychological Chains of Slavery




Featuring: Dr. Joy DeGruy, researcher, educator and author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing; Belvie Rooks, educator, author and co-founder of Growing a Global Heart.

THE ABOVE IS 20 MINUTES OR SO OF AN HOUR AND A HALF TALK BY DR. DeGruy.  The rest of the talk is on the National Radio Project site.  

SUPPORT THE NATIONAL RADIO PROJECT



Related:

You may want to also read Danielle Belton's article for Clutch Magazine - Safety Versus Independence: For Black Parents Sometimes You Can’t Have Both

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MYTH OF A BLACK PRESIDENT

"the Atlantic" fascinating and deeply insightful article by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a must read.   Please read the entire article on "the Atlantic" website.
 

 

"As a candidate, Barack Obama said we needed to reckon with race and with America’s original sin, slavery. But as our first black president, he has avoided mention of race almost entirely. In having to be “twice as good” and “half as black,” Obama reveals the false promise and double standard of integration."
 

 

"The irony of President Barack Obama is best captured in his comments on the death of Trayvon Martin, and the ensuing fray. Obama has pitched his presidency as a monument to moderation. He peppers his speeches with nods to ideas originally held by conservatives. He routinely cites Ronald Reagan. He effusively praises the enduring wisdom of the American people, and believes that the height of insight lies in the town square. Despite his sloganeering for change and progress, Obama is a conservative revolutionary, and nowhere is his conservative character revealed more than in the very sphere where he holds singular gravity—race.

 

Part of that conservatism about race has been reflected in his reticence: for most of his term in office, Obama has declined to talk about the ways in which race complicates the American present and, in particular, his own presidency. But then, last February, George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old insurance underwriter, shot and killed a black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman, armed with a 9 mm handgun, believed himself to be tracking the movements of a possible intruder. The possible intruder turned out to be a boy in a hoodie, bearing nothing but candy and iced tea. The local authorities at first declined to make an arrest, citing Zim­mer­man’s claim of self-defense. Protests exploded nationally. Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea assumed totemic power. Celebrities—the actor Jamie Foxx, the former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, members of the Miami Heat—were photographed wearing hoodies. When Rep­resentative Bobby Rush of Chicago took to the House floor to denounce racial profiling, he was removed from the chamber after donning a hoodie mid-speech."

 

"The moment Obama spoke, the case of Trayvon Martin passed out of its national-mourning phase and lapsed into something darker and more familiar—racialized political fodder. The illusion of consensus crumbled. Rush Limbaugh denounced Obama’s claim of empathy. The Daily Caller, a conservative Web site, broadcast all of Martin’s tweets, the most loutish of which revealed him to have committed the un­pardonable sin of speaking like a 17-year-old boy. A white-­supremacist site called Stormfront produced a photo of Martin with pants sagging, flipping the bird. Business Insider posted the photograph and took it down without apology when it was revealed to be a fake."
 

 

Read the entire article, complete with an excellent interview with Ta-Nehesi HERE 
 

 

 

Related:

The Fifth Column dedicates page to Trayvon Martin

 

Follow the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case

 

How America's Police State Controls Black People

I cried when I read this:


AlterNet / ByNicholas Powers

'They Think We Are Animals': How America's Police State Controls Black People

Racism in America's police force is linked to cops' role as keepers of the status quo in an unequal society.

May 11, 2012 |

“Get out of the fucking car,” he yelled. I dashed to my apartment window, looked down and saw a cop aiming his gun at a car. Slowly, hands trembling above his head, a black man stepped out and kneeled on the road. Is he going to kill him? I wondered. If he so much as twitches the cop will blast his brains out.

As the afternoon mist thickened into rain, I saw the officer blinking droplets from his eyes. His face was a knot of rage and fear. Thankfully the young man being arrested didn’t twitch as he was handcuffed. After they left and my panic ebbed, I knew it wouldn't be long until someone somewhere was blown into oblivion by the police.

It wasn’t a knee-jerk anti-authority reaction but a heavy feeling based on history. Months later I read of the NYPD killing 18-year-old Ramarley Graham and 68-year-old Vietnam veteran Kenneth Chamberlain. They join Duane Brown, Sean Bell, Timothy Stansbury, Patrick Dorismond, Michael Stewart and others on the growing roster of black men killed by the police.

Once the smoking guns cool and the body is buried, mainstream media repeat the same words, “accident” or “tragic.” But we, who are black or Latino or politicized, hear the slurs and threats shouted in the background. Progressive news show Democracy Now reported that when cops banged on Chamberlain’s door and he told them he was fine, one shouted, “I don’t give a fuck nigger!” In 2011, cops created a Facebook page to complain about working the West Indian Day Parade, on it they called the black partiers “animals” and “savages,” and one wrote, “Drop a bomb and wipe them all out.” Repeatedly, journalists or lawyers smuggle out of the Blue Code of Silence evidence of police using racist, animal imagery to describe the very people they are supposed to serve.

Racism in America's police force is linked to their role as keepers of the status quo in an unequal society. They enforce laws written by politicians on behalf of the wealthy -- laws that end up trapping poor and working-class people in desperate lives. Racial and sexual minorities, legal and illegal immigrants are seen as threats to the social order. When we protest the law and “occupy” a space we are beaten and arrested. When we commit a crime to “get some” we are beaten and arrested. And when we do neither but simply live we’re busted to make a cop’s stop-and-frisk quota.

Language plays an essential role here. It starts with a defensive joke, a “perp” profile that becomes so blurred it encompasses nearly everyone on the street and a constant sense of danger. Each builds on the other until the change is complete and one day, they casually listen to NYPD Capt. James Coan give a racist hurrah speech to detectives executing warrants in Brooklyn. “They’re fucking animals," he repeatedly said of black people from 2008 to 2010, “If you have to shoot, you shoot them in the head.”

A Shot in the Dark

“He was obliged to keep watch all night long with his guns at hand,” wrote slave trader Robert Durand in 1733. “The negroes were continuously ready to force open his hut to rob him…as they were only looking to avenge the kidnapping of their friends.” During the Atlantic slave trade, 12 million people were stolen from Africa and shipped to the Americas. Slave traders herded them from ship plank to the market, where once bought, they shuffled in chains to plantations. And with each jangling step, slaves were circled by men with guns and whips who did not see them as human beings but as dangerous dark animals.

If your job was to herd, whip and sell people like animals then you must see them as such or risk your sanity. From the auction block, jokes and imagery of Africans as savage heathens and apes, swept through cotton fields and upward into the halls of power. Racial ideology, the belief that a physical difference between humans determines their place in society, rose from the material practice of slavery. In his 1781 book Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson equated blacks to animals, writing that they don’t feel love or pain. “Their griefs are transient,” he wrote “Those numberless afflictions…are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them.”

The continuous association of blacks to monkeys created a culture of violent policing of brown bodies. In his 1845 autobiography, abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrote of an overseer named Mr. Gore who used his whip like a tongue as if to speak with leather. One day he lashed a slave named Demby who ran into a creek and refused to come out. Douglass writes, “Mr. Gore then…raised his musket to his face, taking deadly aim at his standing victim, and in an instant poor Demby was no more. His mangled body sank out of sight, and blood and brains marked the water where he stood.”

Slavery By Another Name

After the Civil War ended, African Americans had a brief season of freedom during Reconstruction. But the sight of their former slaves walking the streets terrified Southern whites. In the book and PBS documentary, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of African-Americans from the Civil War to World War II, reporter Douglass Blackmon explained how the Southern ruling class, which wanted the return of free labor, created the Vagrancy Laws. If blacks couldn’t be owned they could be jailed and forced to work. Historian Talithia LeFouria said it meant that, “Anything from spitting or drinking or being found drunk in public or loitering in public spaces could result in confinement.”

Before the war, images of blacks in newspapers were of lazy watermelon-chomping coons or blissful mammies or silent Uncle Toms. After the war they changed into lewd jezebels and fierce brutes. The shift came as slavery gave way to the convict-lease system. Racial ideology still pivoted on the concept of blacks as animals, once safely shackled, now free and dangerous.

Nearly 900,000 black people were arrested and channeled into the convict-lease system, where once incarcerated they were “sold” or “rented” to industries. In this era, police took over for slave catchers and prison guards for overseers as the reactionary force used to turn back history.

Stop and Frisk

“When I was ten, and didn’t look, certainly, any older, two policemen amused themselves by frisking me, making comic (and terrifying) speculations concerning my ancestry and sexual prowess,” James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time (1963). If you read black writers of the past one truth becomes clear: an “unofficial” stop-and-frisk policy has always been in effect, though the entire nation.

read the rest Here

Nicholas Powers is an assistant professor of literature at SUNY Old Westbury. His book of poetry, "Theater of War" was published by Upset Press in 2004. He has written for the Village Voice and the Indypendent.


Update:

Wealth Gap Among Races Has Widened Since Recession, April 28, 2013



Related: 
5/16/2012
Stop And Frisk Lawsuit Gains Class-Action Status, Judge Slams NYPD Over Policy

New York City Police Infiltrate Sharpton’s Organization, Reporter Says by AFRO staff, February 16, 2012

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