Urgent News! - African American Collective goes to Cuba

“For those of us who made this journey, the Big Lie of US policy against Cuba (and the Castro regime) is evident, as is the Cuban government's unwillingness to tackle the lingering matter of racism (white privilege) in that nation. “ – Melvin Smith


Dear friends, 


 It is a great honor for me to have permission to present below a statement by an African American collective that has just returned from a genuinely fact-finding trip to Cuba. Additionally, knowing one of its participants, Melvin Smith of MWS Journal, personally, I can assure you that this informative, albeitt concise, declaration reflects a body that represents the highest level of integrity and intellectual capability anywhere, unlike the usual reports we see from the U.S. mainstream media. All African Americans have much reason to be proud. Cheers! 
G. Djata Bumpus
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 MWS Journal 11-July-2012

 Having just returned from a two-week journey abroad, including Mexico and a 10-day visit to Cuba, I want to share with you the summary statement by my travel companions and me regarding our experience and enlightenment in today's Cuba. It was a most unusual and gratifying trip by persons of African descent-- a decided Travel Challenge and research project-- rather than a mere tourist visit. For those of us who made this journey, the Big Lie of US policy against Cuba (and the Castro regime) is evident, as is the Cuban government's unwillingness to tackle the lingering matter of racism (white privilege) in that nation. I will share more details and conclusions soon, but now I present the declaration as agreed and signed by our small group. --MWS
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 A DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF CUBA On June 28, 2012, the African Awareness Association (AAA), composed of U.S. citizens, embarked as a delegation on an educational and cultural tour (ending July 10th, 2012) to get an understanding of Cuba and to challenge the immoral, racist U.S. restrictions imposed on its citizens on travel to Cuba. AAA, upon nearing the end of the process and completion of our 10 days’ travel challenge of the U.S. blockade declared that:

 1. We stand in full solidarity with the Cuban Socialist Revolution and its right to sovereignty, self-determination and self-defense, consistent with the United Nations Declaration of the Right of Nations to Self-Determination and Non-Interference in the Internal Affairs of Nations; and

 2. We therefore assert that we do not support the U.S. Blockade/mbargo of Cuba;

3. We see Cuba as a model based upon their historic support for Freedom Fighters, Anti-Colonial movements, and their worldwide Internationalist Programs;

 4. We demand the lifting of the illegal racist Blockade and the release of the Cuban 5;

 5. We call on Africans and all other people of good will worldwide to support the right of Cuba to self-determination by joining the worldwide demand for an immediate end to the unjust racist U.S. blockade and release of the Cuban 5;

 6. We further urge Africans and all other people of good will to engage in programs of educational and cultural exchange to see for themselves the model that Cuba has created;

 7. We call for support of and encourage institutionalization of the Annual Cuban Appreciation weekend to be hosted the first weekend of March 2013 in Richmond, VA and other cities across the U.S. Signed this 8th day of July 2012:

 Lee C. Robinson Tejvir Kaur Grewall Dedon Kamathi Richard L Clemmons, Sr. Michele A. Tingling-Clemmons Mba Mbulu Banbose Shango Antonio M. Leon Melvin Webster Smith Read full post

Re-visiting Mark Twain's use of the N - word

"Why have we never seen a book that uses the term 'cracker' (or even heard it used) anywhere in broad circulation in this country?..."
(originally posted 3/21/11)
Dear friends,

Last night (Sunday, March 20, 2011), I saw a piece on 60 Minutes about Mark Twain and his use of the word "nigger" in the novel entitled The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The station used a young, I presume, African American male as the interviewer and a Black college professor from Oregon who, get this, claimed that he was proud of both being and being called a nigger (but couldn’t even pronounce the pejorative term comfortably), as the expert being interviewed. Wow!

Anyway, this professor reminded me of Clarence Thomas and other such noted Black intellectuals who the television stations always seem to locate. They must have a list. After all, why didn’t they call someone like my longtime friend and colleague Cornel West who would have made a better account of himself and our people? Worse yet, this Oregon guy even seemed, like Thomas, to have a wife who is a member of the Tea Party. You know the type. Still, at least to me, the real question is: Why have we never seen a book that uses the term cracker (or even heard it used), anywhere in broad circulation in this country? Duh?

Moreover, if racism is defined as simply some type of xenophobia, as opposed to its original meaning which is White Supremacy, then those who practice racism can claim the same moral status as the victims of it. Neat trick. Eh? Of course, the term racism was made popular by African and African American scholars/activists, from Kwame Nkrumah and Franz Fanon to Malcolm x and Huey P. Newton.

Therefore, the idea that Mark Twain is pointing out the inhumanity of slavery is contradicted by his insistence upon the use of the word white. For example, for almost the past three generations, the overwhelming majority of the people who call themselves white, in this country, are those of Irish descent. Yet, the Irish are only of recent whiteness.

For example, in the Boltwood Collection of Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts, local genealogist and historian James A. Smith makes an interesting point in his work titled Black People in Early Amherst, in relation to the designation of "whiteness" in the historical town. You see, less than 100 years or four generations ago, Smith writes: The town vital records show an undeveloped and random method of describing racial identities...clerks sometimes listed the person as being Irish in the section used to list race other than white.

Lo and behold! Irish people, surely the single largest group of European Americans in this country, are only of recent "whiteness" - according to their own "race".

Published in nearby Greenfield, almost 200 years or eight generations ago, Howe's Almanac, the only periodical distributed in the area at the time, featured a regular "humor" section in the back of each issue. The following two passages give further evidence to the way that the ruling class' media in this country have consistently been used as instruments for shaping public opinion (in favor of ruling class ideas, of course), as opposed to being the organs of objective journalism that they profess to be.

"An Irishman looking around the horizon, observed with a grave countenance, 'It looks fair for foul weather.'

And

"An Irishman on being asked whether his Sister, (who had gotten to bed) had a son or a daughter; - Answered, 'I cannot tell yet, whether I am an Uncle or Aunt.'"

This is all very confusing, isn't it? Actually, none of the aforementioned passages should be a surprise. Historically, British rulers practiced this sort of "racism" against the Irish, long before English pirates like John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake even thought of the Americas. In an essay called "Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the U.S.A.", Barbara Jeanne Fields indicates: "...the rationale that the English developed for suppressing the 'barbarous' Irish later served nearly word for word as a rationale for suppressing Africans and indigenous American Indians."

But why isn’t any of the aforementioned material about the Irish taught in either public or private schools in North America? Why isn’t it taught that slavery was a class institution, not a race one, and that there were thousands of Black slave masters, especially, in the antebellum South whose descendants today are called Hip=hop moguls, along with the makers/actors of obnoxious Black plays and films – like those produced by Tyler Perry.

Still, some argue that Mark Twain's book is a classic. Therefore, it should be left unchanged. Really? The Holy Bible has been read far more than any book in history. Yet, there are many versions of that book that have been published, since the original English vernacular  tome was published under the name "King James version" (a book about which that monarch didn't even know, until two years after its publication). Did someone say, "Racism"? But racists and their cowardly Black stooges argue, "But the Bible isn't a work of art, like Twain's work." That's interesting, because the 54 scholars who were commissioned by Queen Elizabeth 1st, for the most part, didn't know a lot of Hebrew. Consequently, they had to be quite artsy in translating what would eventually become a book. Besides, since when is any kind of published writing not an art? One has to use techniques that involve metering and phrasing, even doing expository writing.

Finally, what did Twain’s contemporaries like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tibman think of Mark Twain’s work? To be sure, that would be a better starting point than having some idiot "professor" from Oregon calling himself the unthinkable.

"Dare to struggle – dare to win", Frederick Douglass
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post

Why Obama Deserves the Nobel Peace Prize

My initial reaction was “For what?”…However, when I sat down and thought about it, I realized that if we look at past Nobel Peace Prize recipients, they have often been those whose work is not yet finished…”

Dear friends,

On Friday, October 9th, 2009, the Nobel Committee announced that it had selected President Barack Obama as the recipient for its 2009 Peace Prize. My initial reaction was “For what?” After all, he has not even had a full year to accomplish much. Moreover, to be sure, there are a number of other individuals and groups who represent causes that have been in operation for some time and have yet to receive due notice.

However, when I sat down and thought about it, I realized that if we look at past Nobel Peace Prize recipients, they have often been those whose work is not yet finished, but who, nonetheless, through that international “voice” called the Nobel Committee bring light to genuine issues that will mean a tremendous amount of human uplift should the former succeed.

In other words, the Nobel Peace Prize is often used to put issues on the world stage that have gone unnoticed for too long.

For example, when Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, the Voting Rights Act that changed the lives of millions of African Americans who lived in the South at the time had not been signed (until a year later).

Also, King was awarded Nobel towards the end of the so-called Civil Rights Movement and the beginning of its successor, the more lasting and successful Black Consciousness Movement, that was based upon the work and wisdom of Black leaders of the distant past (that is, preceding the Civil War). They were freedom fighters like: Richard Allen, Gabriel Prosser, Nat Turner, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Martin Delaney, and Harriet Tubman. Again, these folks represented some of the earlier stages of the overall “Freedom” Movement of African American people that began on the first plantation that became “home” to African captives (so-called “slaves”), during the early 17th Century.

In the 20th Century, the newer stage of the Movement was originally led, at least intellectually, by, to name a few, everyone from a number of Black historians/activists that included W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey to the likes of Franz Fanon, Robert Williams, Kwame Nkrumah, and Imari Obadele, to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad through personalities like Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, to community activists like Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael), H. Rap Brown, Maulana Karenga, and, later, Jesse Jackson, to artists/activists like Imamu Imari Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, Toni Cade (Bambara), Francis Beale, Elaine Brown, Curtis Mayfield, and Gil Scott Herron, as well as athletes like Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith.

Suspiciously, this Movement that was so popular with Black youth (that is, the “baby boomers” of World War 2) had yet to draw much attention, much less support from the US government- and corporate-controlled mass communications media – let alone their worldwide counterparts.

However, it (said Black Consciousness Movement) eventually became largely responsible for creating the actual social awareness and conditions that led to the recent election of Barack Obama as president of the United States of America. Moreover, the global recognition brought, in part, by the Nobel Committee’s awarding of their Peace Prize to Dr. King showed that the plight of African American people spilled over to giving more notice to the struggles of African and other peoples everywhere.

So the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize, sometimes, has had great effects - eventually. Proof? Let us not forget that apartheid in South Africa had gone on for generations when Bishop Desmond Tutu was awarded Nobel, in 1984. Still, the scurrilous system of oppression and exploitation that was apartheid continued for almost ten years after Tutu accepted the Prize. In addition, during 1993, then newly-elected President Nelson Mandela and his immediate predecessor, the former South African president F. W. de Klerk, were each awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their “peace”-ful transition from apartheid to a “free state”, although, now many years later, there remains serious, if not great, doubt about the integrity of the “freedom” that has been won by either black South Africans themselves or their new government.

And, do you remember the Nobel Peace Prize being given to Yasir Arafat, along with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, in 1994? There has been no settlement in the conflict between Palestine and Israel to date. In fact, there are not even negotiations of any kind going on these days, years later. As well, I wonder why there were not so many murmurs of disapproval by so many citizens in this country when the two aforementioned officials from Israel (the euphemism for Occupied Palestine) received the Nobel Committee’s nod, considering both the mass murder and expropriation of arable land by Jewish “settlers” that the here-to-mentioned officials’ own government at that time, and all other past and present Israeli regimes have sponsored, for, roughly,  three generations, against the Palestinian people.

Also, whereas gargantuan problems like violence against women and girls, worldwide hunger and poverty, and humankind’s suicidal proliferation of nuclear weapons seem, at least to me, to be far more immediate concerns than “global warming”, did not the Nobel Committee award former Vice President Al Gore and some scientists the Peace Prize anyway, in order to make the overall worldwide public more aware of the dilemma? Racism already existed in America, when Dr. King was awarded Nobel. Apartheid already existed when Bishop Tutu was awarded Nobel. Leprosy already existed there, when, in 1979, Mother Theresa was awarded Nobel for her work in Calcutta. Additionally, many renowned scientists, as well as philosophers of science such as myself, have issues with the whole concept of “global warming”, but should the Nobel Committee have waited until all of the plants and creatures in the Pacific Ocean might have been cooked, before they gave the issue notice?

At any rate, in less than ten months, President Obama has changed the image of the United States from being what his predecessor George Bush and his Republican cohorts had made us look like: notorious bullies who were hated everywhere, as “Bring it on!” dares were spouted from a nationalistic voice of domination.

Instead, President Obama has insisted upon us having dialogue with all other nations so that we can all share in our combined resources. Because of that, we are no longer seen as we were when Bush and the Republicans bullied their way around the world, while making more or less unilateral declarations of war against tiny nations, for instance.

Of course, these days, Americans who travel around the world, as all three of my own progeny do, are much safer. Also, more nations may now become involved with us. Do you know of any other North American politicians or even world leaders, for that matter, who could have done that? Would either Hillary Clinton or John McCain (or Sarah Palin LOL) have been able or even wanted to do that, had s/he become president?

Nevertheless, as was apparent with his speech to the US Congress, with the entire world watching, as he very articulately appealed to both the humanity and anemic intellects of almost all of those who belong to the just mentioned US Congress, in asking them to overhaul America’s health care system, even as the more openly racist members of that legislative body made cries like “That’s a lie!” or booed him, President Obama remained a “peace”-ful statesman, and did not allow himself to join the latter in their vulgar displays of ineptitude and unkindness. It is that type of behavior by our president, of being intelligent and civilized, that has made this country and the world a different place already.

Finally, no one should try and second guess the members of the Nobel Committee. As both history and reason have shown us, they are simply trying to promote world peace, fellowship, and safety by, again, providing an international forum (AKA “voice”) for those who are fighting for freedom from affliction whether biological or social. Besides, rushes to judgment tend to reveal human inadequacy as opposed to our competency. And, when I say “inadequacy”, I am defining it in the context of the great Freud as a process that ranges from “short-sighted apprehensiveness to selfishly narrow interests to conclusions that are based on insufficient premises.”

So, let us all say, “Yes…Congratulations, Mr. President, for a job that has not been completely fulfilled as of yet, but seems to be taking this country and the world in a brand new and positive direction”.

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus Read full post