Archie Shepp on Obama's "Race" speech of 2008

"Mr. Obama- Barack- is attempting to confront-and resolve -a dichotomy between his political oratory and the simple reality of being a Black man..."
(originally posted 6/8/08)




Dear friends,

Soon after I sent him the text from Senator Obama's now famous speech on "race" that the candidate made, in Philadelphia (2008), the following letter was e-mailed to me, by an old and dear friend (who is also my chief music mentor). He is more commonly known as a legendary leader in the musical idiom known as "jazz". In any case, with the generous permission of this elder, I am sharing the aforementioned letter with you. It appears below.
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Re: Obama's defining speech on "race" in America

Thank you Bro' Bumpus . Perhaps the question is "What Is an American"? Notwithstanding the fact that America is a continent not a country; moreover, that places like Arizona, California, and Texas used to be Mexico and now "Americans" wish to build a wall to keep out the former occupants.

Mr. Obama- Barack- is attempting to confront-and resolve -a dichotomy between his political oratory and the simple reality of being a Black man. He has even fessed up to enjoying a fiery lecture on a Sunday morning, (one worthy of - Jesse- I might add - or the lesser known"Pork Chop" Davis), and why not? The latter are telling our story and they "run it down".

Is it so difficult to be Black and still to admit that fact with all its implications? What would the American cultural landscape look like without the children of the Sorrow Songs, Armstrong, Bird, 'Trane, and "Duke", Mahalia, Nina , Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson? No other people did it-make music the way we do -dance the way we do. We don't have to apologize for being who we are, nor subtly- one might say -subserviently merge our identities with others- ashamed to acknowledge a rich and incomparably diverse history.

As you have yourself rightfully pointed out, we Black folks are proud because we have fought long and hard for freedom going all the way back to the time we were enslaved. Our experience has formed the basis for ensuing struggles- including the fight for women's rights. We don't have to become Americans. We were ready for full citizenship when we arrived in the 17th century. It was they who called themselves, 'Virginians', or Carolinians', who murdered their Black fellow citizens during the 19th century riots in New York. They were not ready for a united people of America.

When Ray Charles sings "God Bless America" I become an "American". It takes a Black man to sing that song, to understand its words. Black folks are as American as the soil along the Misssissippi delta. We built the cities of New Orleans, Charleston and Atlanta. We constructed the East Coast railroads and picked the cotton, which were responsible for the bourgeoning industry in the North.

We sing original folk songs like "John Henry" even 'til today, to commemorate our toil. Richard Wright, the great African American novelist who wrote the book "Black Boy" (very controversial for its time, but went on to become a literary success) indicates 10 subjects - that are taboo when a Black man speaks to a "white" man. The three that stick out in my mind are white women, politics, and race. White people can and should solve the problems that only they themselves can resolve -peacefully - we pray - for it is after all they who have created the chaos in which the world is mired.

Best Wishes,
Bro' A Shepp

Editor's Note: Relating to what Brother Shepp has mentioned above, long ago, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois wrote: "The discovery of personal whiteness among the world's peoples is a very modern thing...The ancient world would have laughed at such a distinction...by emphasis and omission to make children believe that every great thought the world ever knew was a white man's thought, every great deed the world ever did was a white man’s deed..."darkies" are born beasts of burden...Such degrading of men by men is as old as man and the invention of no one race or people...It has been left, however, to Europe and to modern days to discover the eternal worldwide mark of meanness - color!". - "The Souls of White Folks" Read full post

Ronald Reagan's administration conveniently re-wrote the definition of Racism

"If racism is only a xenophobia, then why was it so important for Reagan and his bosses to end any hopes for maintaining peace around the world, by forcing the UN to dissolve?"

Dear friends,

Until the Eighties, the word racism was used almost exclusively by Black intellectual and social activists. The more moderate members of society, including most African Americans, still used the term "racial prejudice".
In fact, the term racism was offensive to the overwhelming majority of European Americans, as it was synonymous with White Supremacy. Now, along with groups like the accommodating NAACP, the government- and corporate-controlled mainstream media have re-defined it as a xenophobia or disease of some sort, making it very convenient to have fingers pointed at Us - African Americans, the historic victims of racism. Neat trick. Eh?

Finally, I mentioned the Eighties, because that period coincides with super-racist Ronald Reagan coming into office. This is the same Ronald Reagan who held back US dues owed to the United Nations, almost crippling that body, until they withdrew the proclamation that "Zionism is Racism". Once again, as is the case with Iran, the murderous Israeli government and its American sponsors prevailed. If racism is only a xenophobia, then why was it so important for Reagan and his bosses to end any hopes for maintaining peace around the world, by forcing the UN to dissolve? In any case, after the UN retracted its position about Zionism, the US government and its sponsor corporations then re-defined racism..WE must not let our enemies define our conditions. If we do, then we'll never free ourselves from the endless oppression.

"Dare to struggle - Dare to win" - Frederick Douglass

G. Djata Bumpus Read full post

Racism is in the NFL and everywhere else in America!

Dear friends,

Currently, there is a controversy going on in the NFL, regarding the suspension of Richie incognito, a guard for the Miami Dolphins, as he has been harassing a player named Jonathan Martin, in a number of ways, including making racial epithets towards the latter. Of course, this happens to African Americans every day, whether in school or at work...

Still, it reminds me of how insensitive so many European Americans are, regarding their racist behavior. Moreover, at least to me, it shows why the late, great Miles Davis made the comment here, some years back... “If somebody told me I had only one hour to live, I’d spend it choking a white man. I’d do it nice and slow.” [Miles Davis, Can’t Shake Boyhood Racial Abuse, Jet magazine March 25, 1985.] G. Djata Bumpus Read full post

Uncle Barry or Uncle Tom?

Dear friends,

The kind of racist behavior that has been shown by far too many European Americans, including those who call themselves “liberal”, since Barack Obama was first elected in 2008, points to the fact that neither he nor the super-Uncle Tom, Eric Holder, have done anything about redirecting the values of White Supremacy that have dominated this country ever since the Civil War.

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/18/north-carolina-school-board-bans-ralph-ellisons-invisible-man/ Read full post

Is a "Race War" in sight,, in North America?

"...all North Americans need to build genuine communities of love and prosperity - not just African Americans."

Dear friends,

Due to the current tensions being created by the mainstream government- and corporate-controlled media, the idea that there will be more so-called "Race wars" is a false abstraction, because there have never been any here, per se. For example, back in 1921, there was a criminal assault - not a war, by the Tulsa police and many renegade "whites" against African Americans (most of them unarmed). The despicable criminals even found support from the US military. However, that was an assault that African Americans there withstood, ultimately.

Today, things are quite different, because, thanks to the Black Panther Party especially with our fight for "community control of police", there are now many Black cops in this country. Moreover, history is a constantly progressing phenomenon. In fact, it is happening as we engage in dialogue right here. Therefore, history is always evolving. Sometimes similar mistakes are seemingly made. However, we cannot resolve the past, because we cannot duplicate it.

The issue then becomes: Will the fact that there is far more interaction between European Americans and African Americans than even, say, 30 years ago direct us to inform our actions accordingly? I can only imagine that that will be the case.

Finally, all North Americans need to build genuine communities of love and prosperity - not just African Americans. After all, both the lie and mass illusion of being "white" is betrayed every time a European American loses his or her job, or house to foreclosure, or any number of other injustices. The mass illusion of Whiteness just mentioned will be shattered, when folks decide to be honest with themselves and rejoin humanity, as opposed to continuing to estrange themselves from the rest of us due to their bigger guns, so that we can all move against the "organized minority" that rules us all. Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus Read full post

Re-visiting Harry Reid's Remark about the "Negro dialect" (originally posted 1/13/10)

"Think about it. Have you ever listened to an ordinary European American person do a voice impression of an African American? No matter what the voice of the latter actually sounds like, the European American just mentioned ALWAYS imitates the 'Southern twang'."

Dear friends,

Imagine. This whole media frenzy is all about Harry Reid using the term “Negro dialect”. What is the Negro dialect? For example, the so-called Southern dialect or twang, as it were, is simply the evolution of the vocal expression of West African captives as they tried to communicate with Europeans. (see Melville Herskovits’ New World Negro)

Think about it. Have you ever listened to an ordinary European American person do a voice impression of an African American? No matter what the voice of the latter actually sounds like, the European American just mentioned ALWAYS imitates the “Southern twang”.

Therefore, considering the above, many European Americans, especially Southerners, speak the “Negro dialect” - each moment of their lives.

So why all of the ruckus over a typical, stupid, inept Washington pol’s faux pas? Does the issue of “race” still fire people up - especially those who embrace the moniker “white”? In fact, who are “white” people? After all, not only people of European descent, but many Asians as well as many Latinos call themselves “white” too. Why is that? What does being “white” do for a person?

Well, by calling yourself “white”, you become part of an artificial “majority” group that mean-spiritedly pits itself against a body of then smaller groups who are labeled “minorities”. Moreover. the artificial group mentioned above automatically inherits privilege over the so-called “minority” groups.

But what if the “whites” started calling themselves Irish American, or Polish American, or Italian American instead? Except for the Irish Americans who, by the way, have only been considered “whites” for a few generations, Polish Americans and Italian Americans each, by themselves, would become a “minority”, at least compared to either the African American or Latino population. Consequently, they would lose privilege. That also means that calling one’s self “white” is in and of itself discriminatory, because it deprives African Americans the same privileges, particularly, equally so, in many areas of our lives. If that is not true, then why do people who call themselves “white” feel that they are being disempowered if they stop identifying themselves that way?

Considering all of this here-to-mentioned, it’s fairly easy to understand why the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. insisted: Discrimination is a hell-hound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

Have you seen a McDonald’s commercial lately?

G. Djata Bumpus Read full post

Obama's Re-election Temporarily Beats Racism

“About two decades ago, while venting to a very wise man from India about racism (the euphemism for White Supremacy), he offered, ‘Yes, Djata, but everyone likes to inherit property – not guilt.’ “  

Dear friends, About two decades ago, while venting to a very wise man from India about racism (the euphemism for White Supremacy), he offered, “Yes, Djata, but everyone likes to inherit property – not guilt.” 

Back then I immediately countered, “That’s for sure…However, racism is an active agent that is enmeshed in the total social fabric of American culture…It is not a thing of the past.” And while, as I had predicted both on Facebook and in public, for the past week, that President Obama would win re-election by a landslide, he has yet to address the fundamental issue of racism in this culture. 

More importantly, that also means that he has not helped to create social conditions in America that will provide a chance for another qualified person of African, Latino, or Asian descent to have a chance of repeating such an astounding victory. 

That is not only inappropriate for him to be behaving in that manner, but, as well, at least to me, it gives off the stench of opportunism. For African Americans, from Daddy Grace to Reverend Ike to Al Sharpton, we’ve already experienced too much of that, as a people. Moreover, racism didn’t only get an undeserving liar like Mitt Romney millions of votes. Even worse, every single day, it (racism) affects our ability to acquire fair and reasonable housing, jobs, and health care, to name a few things. And every adult African American, Latino, and Asian knows exactly about what I am talking. 

 Finally, the biggest victory in President Obama securing his re-election over the unashamed racist Republican Party is: Education won’t be slashed, and access to health care will continue to grow in its availability. But President Obama should consider developing programs for the youth that focus on having them accept value judgments that reject people using each others as means to ends. After all, 25 years from now, most middle-aged Americans will be dead. Yet, those aforementioned young people will be here to keep the society going. Otherwise, except for benefiting a few – that is, the organized minority of each country, what’s the point of defending human civilization anymore? Cheers! 

 G. Djata Bumpus Read full post

Ronald Reagan's administration "conveniently" re-definded Raciam

"If racism is only a xenophobia, then why was it so important for Reagan and his bosses to end any hopes for maintaining peace around the world, by forcing the UN to dissolve?"

Dear friends,

Until the Eighties, the word racism was used almost exclusively by Black intellectual and social activists. The more moderate members of society, including most African Americans, still used the term "racial prejudice".

In fact, the term racism was offensive to the overwhelming majority of European Americans, as it was synonymous with White Supremacy. Now, along with groups like the accommodating NAACP, the government- and corporate-controlled mainstream media have re-defined racism as a xenophobia or disease, making it very convenient to have fingers pointed at those of us who are the historic victims of racism. Neat trick. Eh?

Finally, at the outset, I mentioned the Eighties, because that period coincides with super-racist Ronald Reagan coming into office. This is the same Ronald Reagan who held back US dues owed to the United Nations, almost crippling that body, until they withdrew the proclamation that "Zionism is Racism" (that had been declared during the Jimmy Carter presidency.) Once again, as is he case with Iran, the murderous Israeli government and its American sponsors prevailed. If racism is only a xenophobia, then why was it so important for Reagan and his bosses to end any hopes for maintaining peace around the world, by forcing the UN to dissolve? In any case, after the UN retracted its position about Zionism, the US government and its sponsor corporations then re-defined racism..WE must not let our enemies define our conditions. If we do, then we'll never free ourselves from the endless oppression.

"Dare to struggle - Dare to win" - Frederick Douglass
G. Djata Bumpus Read full post

60 Minutes television program likes Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, and 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?..."


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 relationship 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.

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
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African American child in Ohio used to spread lie about Slavery in North America

“Both Indian and Negro, besides white servants were bound out to a master for a term of years and received no wages. Of these there were a few in the Pilgrim group.” - Commonwealth History of Massachusetts, Vol.1

Dear friends,

Aside from the fact that a European American or so-called "white" kid could have just as easily been depicted as a "slave", since everyone watching knows that it's only a skit. Consequently it is a pretty uninformed teacher who thinks that only African Americans have a slave past here. Additionally, the notion that using an African American child in Ohio to play a captive worker or so-called slave in a classroom play of some sort, for the purpose of providing himself and his classmates with a more realistic account of North American history is a hideous assault on the truth.

After all, a voluminous amount of literature proves otherwise. For example, in British settlements like Massachusetts Bay Colony, Charlotte M. Waters wrote, "The colonies were used too as dumping ground for prisoners and undesirables generally, in spite of protests from the colonists. Criminals, prisoners of war, and inconvenient Irish were thus got rid of. Royalist prisoners after Worcester shared the fate with 2,000 Irish girls and boys deported by order of the Government. Kidnapping was not uncommon. Such emigrants were sold by auction..." (Waters, An Economic History of England).

Indentured servitude is the name applied to Europeans, particularly the early British settlers, who traded both their human and civil rights to British merchants, usually for a term of four years, in order to gain access to North America, mbecause these indentured servants were unable to feed themselves in their European homelands.

In the Commonwealth History of Massachusetts, Vol.1 it is pointed out about early New Englanders including the famous "Pilgrim" group that landed at Cape Cod, that there was a small servile population. The official document reads: “Both Indian and Negro, besides white servants were bound out to a master for a term of years and received no wages. Of these there were a few in the Pilgrim group.” Huh? The school books lie when they said the Pilgrims came here for religious freedom. If they did, then why were some of them temporary slaves? The so-called Pilgrims came here to get loot. Plain and simple. As a matter of fact, the Pilgrims came then left. They didn’t settle here. Therefore, anyone who says that they had relatives on the Mayflower is a liar, just as the lying mother or grandmother who told them that nonsense.

At any rate, the following passage was written by a priest who wanted to see for himself exactly what European peoples had to go through on the ships that transported them to British North America. This particular six months-long voyage took place around 26 years before the start of the War of Independence (about ten generations ago). "...during the voyage on these ships terrible misery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting, many kinds of sea-sickness, fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and the like, all of which come from old and sharply salted food and meat, also from very bad and foul water, so that many die miserably. Add to this want of provisions, hunger, thirst, frost, heat, dampness, anxiety, want, afflictions and lamentations, together with other trouble, as c.v. the lice abound so frightfully, especially on sick people, that they can be scraped off the body...Children from 1 to 7 years rarely survive the voyage; and many a time parents are compelled to see their children miserably suffer and die from hunger, thirst, and sickness, and then to see them cast into the water." (English Historical Documents, Vol. 9, edited by Merrill Jensen)

Although the above passage resembles the description of an enslaver's ship leaving Africa, obviously, it is not. To be sure, being in bondage was nothing new to any Europeans, especially the British. For instance, during the so-called early Saxon period - this began presumably around 1600 years or 49 generations ago and was supposed to have lasted for about 400 years or sixteen generations. Edward P. Cheyney points out, "In many ways England had gone back to much the same state of barbarism as that in which it had been before the Roman conquest...Gregory, a Roman deacon, in going to the market place and seeing some boys with white skins, fair faces, and fine hair exposed (naked) by a merchant for sale as slaves, was struck with their beauty and asked their race - he was told they were Angles." - (Cheney, A Short History of England)

In the so-called 'later' Saxon period, which has been said to have begun about 1200 years or 48 generations ago - lasting for, perhaps, 200 years: "There were many slaves, some being born bondmen, others captured in war and sold into slavery, and still others reduced to slavery for debt or for crime." (Cheyney, op. cit.)

Apparently, neither whiteness nor Anglo-Saxonism had been invented yet. Another thing proven in Cheyney's last passage - "some being born bondmen" - is that hereditary slavery was not invented by Europeans for Africans as is often claimed by uninformed European American social theorists and a few of their gullible African American counterparts.

Nevertheless, in a few respects, the way that Black captive workers (so-called slaves) were treated in New England was quite different than their Southern counterparts. For one, the concentration of work was, usually, on small farms as opposed to huge plantations. As well, while many were skilled artisans, a number of the Northern captive workers were trained to do things like operating grocery stores, printing presses, and other businesses (see Lorenzo Greene's timeless work, The Negro In Colonial New England). Factually speaking, there was hardly a single occupation that African Americans did not hold in either colonial or post-colonial periods.

In 1656, a Black man named Bus-Bus bought a slave named Angola from a Mrs. Kearney, in the Dorchester section of Boston. In the same book mentioned above Greene pointed out:: "...slaveholding was a class rather than a racial institution is suggested by the fact that at least one Negro family owned slaves in colonial New England, "...he continued, "while six Negro slaveholders were reported from Connecticut" in the first Federal census 202 years or eight generations ago (Greene, ibid.)

Finally, in The Myth Of Black Capitalism, based upon the research of the noted historian John Hope Franklin, author Earl Ofari (now Hutchinson added to his surname) noted that by around 1830 there were an estimated 3, 777 African American slavemasters in the United States. It is believed that some of these folks were merely "buying" their brethren out of bondage and were registered as slave owners. However, there were a number of those who actually held slaves for profit. Some of them held so many captives that they were the envy of their "white" counterparts.

Let’s stop teaching garbage to children and start telling the truth. Then African Americans and European Americans alike can see what these crooks in both government and corporations are about really.

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/03/04/2011-03-04_bad_lesson_ohio_elementary_school_in_trouble_after_black_student_made_to_play_sl.html
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