Showing posts with label Africans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Africans. Show all posts

Monday, March 17, 2014

The Beyoncé Effect and the Re-Negrofication of Black America



Recently I have been thinking, that I am glad South African apartheid was gone before Alicia Keyes, Rihanna & Beyoncé were born because I really believe that they would have performed there just to get a check.  Now I am not holding the aforementioned to the platitudes of others like Stevie Wonder or an AliceWalker or MayaAngelou, who in their youth and currently were more conscious and global than the three cited previously, but I am questioning how lost one has to be to take a stance against nations and regimes that treat people like cattle?

 
Recently I just learned that Beyoncé has just informed the world that she will be performing in Israel in this year on June 15. Now I am certain that many who have been hammered and for lack of a better word Beyonceified, do not see this as a big deal.  But I would also speculate that the same folk were not even around let alone born when Apartheid was alive and well in South Africa.

We should all be aware of the issues that presently and historically confront Palestinians, in particular children whom are frequently used as targets while walking to school by West Bank settlers and the Israeli military.  This I hope is a given, but what I am more concerned with, which is rarely addressed, is the manner in which Blacks and Africans are treated in Israel.

Over the past few years, the Israel government, under the panoply of Zionism and the desire for a pure Jewish state, have been rounding up Africans and placing them in detention camps they way Hitler rounded up Jews and placed them in concentration camps. The only reason why, is because they are black and Africa and politicians openly state this to the public. The official policy is to treat them as animals in the exact same fashion South African Whites treated blacks during apartheid and this is not an over statement. This short film can show you in images what my words will never be able to convey.


Africans in Israel are frequently attacked violently in the streets of Israel and there homes, apartments and businesses are often the targets of arson and fire bombings, just like blacks were targeted in the South in the United States during the 1960s. But the Israel government even takes it back to the way in which the United States treated many black women and force sterilize African women in Israel today without their knowledge or permission. Just a few weeks ago, CCTV recorded an Assailant caught beating an African refugee at Tel Aviv port for no apparent reason.

I would go on, but my goal is not to belabor but rather question how could a person not realize that playing in Israel is giving tacit support and approval to an apartheid regime, the same way such was during Apartheid in South Africa?  I really do wonder what many of the entertainers of this generation think (if they think at all) about what they do and what their actions represent. Whether it is Nicki Minaj defacing Malcom X or Lil Wayne denigrating Emmett Till, or Yo Gotti taking the classic ‘I AM A MAN” sign used in the Memphis garbage strikes in which Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and changing it to “I AM A GANGSTER.”


Albeit consequential, I have decided to call this the Beyoncé effect. She is no different than any of the other examples have mentioned, it just so happen she is the latest to show her ignorance regarding how blacks outside of New York and Houston are being treated today. It is this Beyoncé effect, in my opinion that is causing the re-Negrofication of Black America. And by re-Negrofication I mean the dumbing down of a community to the extent where being informed, well read and supportive of proactive self-determination is a worthless morality when compared to the dollar bill. Re-negrofication takes effort because as Benjamin Franklin said, "We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid."  


Tuesday, August 19, 2008

contours of a tragedy

Point of Order: 1] Somebody inform Jones how he can correct an error in Wikapedia. Suggesting that Euclid was Greek when he was born in Africa, died in Africa, and never left the continent a day in his life.

2] Shouts out to my folk at Just Kiss N make-up for giving me the Kreative Blogger award.

I hate to do this but I am gonna leave the pestilence of politics for a moment to dive into an area I love greatly, well two really, history and math. I was reading someone’s blog yesterday and I am sorry I cannot provide the link. But in essence they were talking about the incarceration rates in NYC. I was taken back by their conclusion for although true, they were some what fatuous in their implications. In addition, they seemed to just be thrown out into the blogosphere for no other reason than that (my opinion) but it was a good read.

Without a firm historical presentation, the numbers in social research seem to, really often end up meaning nothing. For me, through the Euclidian structure of how I visualize thought, it is possible to decussate axioms of outcomes, both in time and practice. And I use Euclidian for it references the understanding of relationships with respect to distance (history) and angles in both planes and space. This is constant regardless of geography, region or time if space is seen as the constant. For this it says that prison and slavery are one in the same.

In the blog post, the author seemed amazed. But one should not be if a descent purview of history and thought is held in command. The Spanish government for example started out with the prohibition of having to many male slaves and in 1503, around the start of the Spanish Caribbean Empire, they enacted by philosophy and math a design that would approximate one slave for every three free white men. This was under the reign of Emperor Charles V. Other countries desired an even higher ration of white me (one African slave for every four free white men).

These actions tended to dictate not only population and how slave institutions (including prisons) functioned numerically, but also the philosophical beliefs that would maintain such disparities as evinced currently with prison populations. From David Hume, the supposedly noted philosopher to Thomas Jefferson, we can see how such transpired. Especially if you read Hume’s essay “Of National Character” (1754) or Jefferson’s “Notes on Virginia” (1781). Both claim the natural inferiority of the African with Jefferson even suggesting that Africans were barely above the level of thought of narration. Both said a lot more foul shit but I will not venture any further while attempting to make my point that the numbers we see are the result of historical practices and have been consistent since the days of Alexis DeToqville.

Moreover, such has been manifest by views as the previous to the extent that the belief in natural inferiority and dimness of Africans obviously would mean that education would be impossible and that a system of education, based on the liberal arts (European culture and history) would result in what I wrote in a blog post in February 2006:

If more than 50% of students drop out from high school generally, speaking, how many do you think will be coming from our schools in our neighborhoods? Take it a step farther, if 80 percent of high school drop outs end up in prison and 40 percent of all inmates are darker people, yet these people make only 13 percent of the population, what kind of educated populous will remain to do battle, represent and demand that what we put in we should get back?

There will be none for they will be enslaved, this time in prison. In actuality, I astonished myself at how simplistic the trigonometry regarding these angles connect. So in summary, this is why we see the numbers we do regarding black males in prison; this is why we should not be astonished; this is why we should not be amazed when we see more of us in prison than graduating high schools or attending college. These unfortunately are the contours of a tragedy from a Euclidian perspective, for prison is the higher education in many respects in the US for men of African descent. For with prison, they can maintain a 1 to 3, or even 1 to 4 ratio - for we outside the walls may as well be slaves too. vote

Monday, May 12, 2008

speaking with forked tongue

I am always amazed at the vehemence and disdain that many in the west have directed towards the Arab nations of the world and even their religion. It is difficult for me to understand this in many respects. Sure I am aware of (911 and of the recent wars and invasions that we have taken the liberty to impinge upon these countries, their citizenry and the culture of these folks). However, in many respects, it is unjustified, for I feel that there is no right for us to be so hateful towards a people unless our history was one that had no hate present at all. I mean, why be so vile toward folks because of one event?

Now having a total dislike for ones government and their policies is on thing, but a group of people for their beliefs, or because their beliefs are juxtapose to ours is plane old foul.
I know some would say that these are folks that will send women and children, with bombs around their bodies to blow up innocent people. True, But I recall that her in this country, the same occurred, when General Amherst gave Indians blankets infected with Small Pox. Now we over here venerate Jones and have even named a prestigious university after him and a major city in New York. Although Jeffery was officially an English Lord by my recollection of history, he was the one that first introduced germ warfare. I know of this via reading Carl Waldman's Atlas of the North American Indian. In the book, while referencing a siege of Fort Pittsburgh by Chief Pontiac's in1763, he pointed out that General Amherst had via letter, suggested to Captain Simeon Ecuyer to give the Indians smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs (BTW this started an epidemic among them

I can continue and I will because the Indian Boarding Schools were just as bad as the schools we criticize in Saudi Arabia. They were designed to mandate forced assimilation as well as destroy the culture of native Americans – it was always funny to me how a person can discover a place where people already live, talk about arrogance. These schools too were made popular by another American historic Icon of sorts - Richard Henry Pratt. Pratt started the Carlisle Indian School in 1879 and set the standards for such schools to follow. And just like the Muslims abroad, here Christian denominations were allowed to build them on reservations (thanks to another hero’s peace plan - Ulysses S. Grant).

And like the Christian’s were with Africans, their Christian like nature tended to display act more akin to: physical, mental, and emotional abuse that often resulted in death. From promoting poor sanitation and hygiene to washing Indian children in kerosene to prove their point – whit is the only way and right.

They would cut their long hair – the main reflection of their culture pride) had to where the clothes of the “white man.” But I imagine the worse thing was being bound and beaten or even burned for speaking their language. And I won’t even mention slaves. But if there is a point I am trying to make is, don’t be so hateful for others because they are different and don’t let the beliefs of a few produce generalizations to all. More importantly, don’t have double standards, be two faced or speak with a forked tongue for we all have dirt behind our ears.
ps - i aint 4got, the love post will be up this week, its written and saved, but such is tha of an infamous and diabolic mind