I Am Not Your Negro

Finding meaning in the dark

At the Easter weekend, my friend of 33 years visited and for the three nights that he stayed over we had a social event of sorts which included watching films and having dinner.

Of the films that we watched, I was seeing Moonlight for the second time and I Am Not Your Negro for the first time. On Moonlight, which was a coming of age story dealing with drugs, addiction, relationships and sexuality, there was another element of bullying that I thought I should write about, but that piece has not been conceived yet.

When I did first watch Moonlight, I wrote a blog which not so much a review of the film itself but a reflection of how addiction regardless of the substance or activity does have the same destructive effects on all directly and remotely attached to the said addict. The blog is referenced below:

Blog - My own #Moonlight story is not a movie

A fake quote with sentiments

Now, almost four years ago, I wrote another blog that has garnered over 20,000 page views, I was surprised when just a few days ago, there was a sudden surge in readership that added another 2.700 page views to the blog in a week.

Apparently, the subject of the blog is making the rounds again, a case of Internet Apocrypha, a quote contrived by someone and attributed to a historical figure which then cast as genuine.

Blog - Opinion: Lord Macauley did not address the British Parliament in 1835

With this new activity came a new comment, there have been many comments, many objective, some subjective and others just downright nasty.

I bit my tongue

This new comment that came from Fausto who is probably French going from his other comments on other forums failed to address the topic I blogged about. He started by damning with praise by calling me a ‘Smart Man’, before belittling the context of the blog and then suggesting that I should embark on another scholarly activity which I excerpt and quote below. All grammatical errors left in the text.

“I suggest you spend even more time and your wisdom sir to find out what atrocities were caused to the African continent by the British You owe that to your own kind sir. as black man regardless of your motive you cannot be the devil advocate of the devil.” [Link]

Now, I do have stringent commenting rules on my blog, that might be the reason why I rarely receive that many comments on the blog itself, but I do find engagement on Twitter and Facebook though links to my blogs posted therein.

The audacity of a cretin

Much as I can be quite tolerant of people, there are times when odium and the purveyors of it need to be put in their place. For a stranger to come to my blog, my own personal space to dictate what I opine about is disrespectful, abusive and smacks of the audacity of a cretin.

Then to use the phrase, “You owe that to your own kind, sir, as black man.” Should have me spitting tacks before I descend into acrimonious verbiage eviscerating every notion of his being until it shrinks into completely forgettable ignominy, but I was kind.

In context of sorts

To digress, the second film, I Am Not Your Negro was a construct of the unfinished work of James Baldwin who died 30 years ago and it was a documentation of the history of the African-American Civil Rights Movement through the lives and assassinations of three friends,  Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr.

All of them died in their late 30s leaving young families, James Baldwin compared and contrasted the men, talking about his relationship with each of them and articulating the causes of the Negro as African Americans were called in then in his [published writings and debates around Europe.

I left the showing of the film with a sense that James Baldwin had a compelling mastery of words and communication that people wanted to hear what he had to say whilst the FBI sought to denigrate him for his homosexuality.

Why it matters

Yet, I cannot properly review the film here, only suggest that any opportunity to view the film would provide a teachable moment on the civil rights movement.

As we left the cinema, we discussed the issues of identity, of privilege, of demonstrations and causes and how that affects who we are today.

As the thoughts about the film percolated in my mind for days, the comment left by Fausto seemed to crystallise into what I wrote below, to inform my interlocutor that my wiliness to engage does not confer the right to dictate how I should think, what I should write about, where I should express opinions, what my identity is and how I should express my own thoughts.

To encroach is to invade my territory, disrespect my person and arrogate upon himself an entitlement he could never earn which much be contemned completely, and so my response.

I Am Not Your Negro

The purpose of this blog was to debunk false material being circulated as fact which came within my social media space almost 4 years ago.

Now, I have no idea what the purpose of your comment is apart from attempting to serve as a distraction from that primary aim.

If you had bothered to check other details about me, you would realise that I am both an Englishman by birth and a Nigerian by heritage. If anyone had posted an inversion of the truth about slavery into my social media space, I would have performed the same activity of taking the time to address it as I addressed this matter.

Now, if you have an opinion about what I have written, I would expect you to state those views rather than attempt to project some inferiority complex upon my person.

I am aware of the many atrocities of the British in their colonial fiefdoms and I also have to bear the burden of the fact that I cannot divorce myself from the shared identity of being both British and African.

What I would not do is repudiate one for another to satisfy a victim complex, I am a black man of great privilege and I would not deny who I am.

In the spirit of the recent documentary about civil rights in America, may I clearly state to you without equivocation - "I am not your negro."

Opinion: How Zwarte Piet is a Subject of Culture, History, but Rarely Race

Some quaint traditions

A number of exchanges on Facebook regarding the Sinterklaas tradition which is the Low Countries' equivalent though contrived of Santa Claus had me rummaging through the memories of my almost 13 year sojourn in the Netherlands.

The topic concerned the helpers of Sinterklaas called Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). These are usually Caucasians with blackened faces in clothes of flamboyant contrasting colours somewhat modelled on the Moors as Sinterklaas is said to visit the Netherlands from Spain.

Much as I understand that the blackening of faces might present a culture shock to foreigners observing this tradition for the first time, it does not remotely pertain to outright racism apart from the general idea of a master-servant relationship between Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet.

Know your history

What bothers me is the tendency for certain people to arrogate to themselves either real or imagined histories of figures and traditions they have no affinity with and in the process they begin to personify the victim complex of those cultures.

On the broader issue of our humanity, we do recognise that we all have a responsibility to seek the institution and enforcement of broad human rights for freedoms and the pursuit of happiness.

However, it is also important that we recognise our core identities such that we do not appear to race ahead of the discussion that pertains to the rights of others in groups that we do not essentially belong due to many factors beyond race and residence.

Too diverse for colour to matter

My view of the black race is that it is just as diverse as any other race. Though we might have shared histories of oppression and indignities suffered through centuries, it is important that we recognise the differences in our history within the compendium of many histories in Africa, in the Caribbean, in North America, in South America and now recently in Europe.

Whilst centuries ago, Africans might have shared in the broader cruel history of slavery towards either the Middle East or the Americas, each destination developed a divergent history where the commonality of race is the only affinity between us after which we are all very different people.

In Africa, Blacks might people the Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone parts of Africa, but within those countries that make up these groupings, we are radically different in culture, tribe, tradition and histories that the artificially cobbled-together nations we belong to are mostly geographical expressions that we have learnt to live with.

How to join a struggle

We can identify with and join a struggle for the liberation of other oppressed members of our race, but we must be careful that in our identifying with a cause we do not lose our identity and history to complete assimilation, uprooted from the ancestry and moorings of who we are.

Other Africans joined together to fight Apartheid, but we fought as free people seeking the freedom of our brothers and sisters; we did not become South African and put ourselves under the influence of Apartheid to stand in the face of the shootings in Soweto.

Quite heterogeneous

In Britain, the tendency to see the black race as homogenous is dangerous. The majority Caucasian indigenous and growing foreign population though white, rarely identify that strongly along racial lines as Africans, African Americans, Caribbean or similar people of colour do.

They have their languages, culture, histories and strong identities linked to regions, customs, traditions and many other common traits that sets each grouping out as unique.

I sometimes fear that we coalesce and school together like fish on issues where we are essentially birds of a completely different feather.

Zwarte Piet is hardly the problem

It is why I could not countenance the apparent righteous indignation bordering on apoplectic rage, of African residents of England to Zwarte Piet. The debate is ongoing in the Netherlands about cultural and politically correct elements of retaining that aspect of the Sinterklaas culture.

It is healthy, interesting and robust, but it is nowhere near the zest for insurrection demonstrated by racial impostors from abroad, who might have found another roller coaster bandwagon to hitch a ride on.

We indeed must have debates about racism, racial equality, race relations, race history and probably revisit history for understanding, appreciation, recognition and reparation of wrongs of the past and present – I do not think that debate can be had with wrestling Zwarte Piet to the ground in either horseplay or mortal combat.

The fight for dignity is paramount beyond race, but we lose focus when we decide to take more offence on issues where our affinity with the people we presume are not liberated is tenuous at best.

Opinion: Tackling the Culture of Blacks Handling Disease

The taboos we must break

I found myself nodding in agreement to literally every line I read in this article published in The Body magazine – The Complete HIV/AIDS Resource – titled Breaking Through: HIV and African Americans.

If we removed HIV and replaced it with cancer, diabetes, hypertension, or misfortune, we would have subconsciously listed a sliding scale in terms in growing confidence to talk about how certain issues affect us.

Someone dying of the complications of HIV might only be able to accept that they are dying of cancer, the visible signs and sometimes along with diabetes means, we never attempt to ask more probing questions.

Our false stories

As I read the article, the writer informed that he had lost three relations, presumably African American to AIDS; two women, including his aunt and a man who insisted he was a heroin user when it was quite possible he was gay.

We have never been able to approach the reality of our diseases for the so many factors raised in that article. It is not just an African American thing; it is particularly African and probably broadly affects all non-Western cultures.

When I write blogs like this, I am wont to excerpting generous portions of the source material to make my points. However, I have decided we need to get the courage to begin to face the many issues that plague our communities as we suffer in silence, perpetuate the stigma and look at disease as the otherness that will never approach our steads.

We shock to numbness

We cannot deny that HIV/AIDS and cancer cuts a swathe through our communities like a wild forest fire that we treat as if it is insignificant, as our silence becomes a coping mechanism of convenience.

This means we fail to access health options and healthcare early enough for radical and timely intervention until it becomes an emergency exceeding effective medical treatment leaving us with just one option of palliative end-of-life care.

The story then becomes one of hospital visits, close family in shock at the apparently sudden deterioration in health of their relation as life slowly ebbs away no one the wiser about the truth until a nurse pulls one of the most affected relatives aside to say exactly what the diagnosis was. AIDS? Cancer? Usually not enemies scheming in the backyard, held at bay with Psalm 35.

There and then, the world collapses around every loved one and the questions start to flood the mind with prefixed inquisitive phrases of how long, how bad, how did, what can, how much – we have experienced this many times and yet we willingly hop on the vicious cycle of the culture of blacks handling disease badly.

The signs we ignore

We ignore the warning signs in the cause of the worry about the loss of our livelihood and the economic distress that accompanies a disease. Then visit our temples hoping and wishing for miracles with mountain-moving faith that had moves nothing more than the air that comes out of our mouths in fervent prayer, because we are in the mortal grip of fear; we rapidly approach an avoidable expiry date.

We listen to stories and conspiracies, we search for Shamanist cures in grottos that have defied the onslaught of civilisation and logic, imbibing awful concoctions too rotten for a recipe list and yet the temporary relief presages a catastrophic relapse before it is passed off in an obituary as a brief illness or a sudden death.

No fairy tale

These are the facts, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the “Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick” died of Karposi’s sarcoma, and it is a form of skin cancer usually brought on by AIDS.

His brother, a prominent AIDS activist and former minister of Health could only talk about AIDS affecting his family after the man had died. Nelson Mandela’s son also died of AIDS, but we only learnt of that after the fact.

As a cancer survivor, I know how much I have revealed about my condition and the secrets that I still keep for the fears, the shame, the stigma and many other attendant issues that dog our cultural outlook to disease.

Yet, as the article states, and this I will excerpt, “Magic Johnson has not been cured by some medicine being kept from us.”

Ignoring our possibility

We can expect better medical outcomes if we talk, if we act or react immediately and seek professional advice when things are changing in our bodies that we cannot account for in our daily routine.

Karposi’s sarcoma as a result of HIV/AIDS complications was already treatable in the 1990s, and anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs manage HIV to the extent that people living with HIV can live very productive lives.

We cannot ignore our way round reality, nor can we bargain away disease with the false comfort of vows and the sudden laying on of hands; we need to accept first by understanding what we have* and that will inform the kinds of interventions that medicine or therapy can help us with, in a timely fashion.

[*This includes, HIV/AIDS, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, depression, mental illness, misfortune – tag anything you want to the list.]

Medicine is not evil and churches are not hospitals, but the beginning of dealing with the problem that plagues our community with the poison of silence is to read an article in a HIV/AIDS magazine about respected black women in the family dying of AIDS in today's America.

Finally, go for that test, it is about your life and keeping it.

Click on the link and read - The Body - Breaking Through: HIV and African Americans

Opinion: Where Do You Stand on the N-Word?

The Education of History

There is a great clamour for education, education that changes the circumstances of a person, lifting them out of situations that tell a compelling story of social mobility where the success we see today is far from the lowly beginnings that will resonate and offer hope to others.

However, with education, I adjure you to get history, a sense of history, the lessons of history that will hopefully ensure that you have learnt from the mistakes of the past and can build on the foundations that were laid before.

Those who carry that sense of history when celebrated can find such inspiring words as were spoken by Oprah Winfrey when she was inducted into the NAACP Hall of Fame in 2005[YouTube] – “Because they were the seed of the free, and because they were the seed I get to be the fruit.”

Getting the Perspective of the N-Word

Beyond the uproar that accompanied the means-profiling of Oprah Winfrey in Switzerland in that CBS-ET interview there is an even more significant aspect of the interview that is being lost, it is in the use and the context of the N-word. See the later part of that video.

This is what Oprah Winfrey had to say:

“I do not run in the circle of people who use the word loosely or use the word because for me, it is out of respect to those people for whom that was the last word they heard while they were being hung, it’s the last word they heard when they were being fired, it’s the last word they heard when their house was being burnt, it’s the last word … it’s the word they heard every day when walking down the street, when they had to step off the sidewalk and let other people pass.”

She concluded by saying, “I owe them the responsibility and honour by not trying to denigrate them as they were by using that word.”

There is no other history for the N-Word

The N-word is loaded with history that some of us have never learnt and those who have learnt have easily forgotten, but the memory of those it was not a few generations ago to bear the humiliation, carry the repudiation and live the seething hate that denigrated a people to almost insignificance cannot be abolished to a trend and fad that is gaining currency amongst our youth – a people without a history are a people bereft of roots, swept around like clouds in turbulent winds without stay or anchor.

No, my friends, we do have history, documented and living history that should hold a significance in the journey of life that we experience from a record of our ancestry to the gifts that we bequeath those who follow us – there is no respect in the N-word, it cannot be gentrified away from the seed, the tree and the fruits that have ripened and been eaten by those who revelled before as the necks of those before us bore the yokes we can never imagine or fully understand.

If there is anything that we can take away from this, it is that there is no other parallel history of the N-word that means nice, beautiful, acceptable, honoured, revered or desired.

Standing as 10,000

Oprah Winfrey sadly appears to misquote Maya Angelou in Our Grandmothers when she says, “I come as one, but stand as ten thousand”, it is no less significant in the misquote or paraphrase, it is laden with meaning and a clear perspective of history, knowing the road she has walked and where she has arrived today.

This is what the part of that poem says:

No one, no, nor no one million
ones dare deny me God, I go forth
alone, and stand as ten thousand.

Where Do You Stand?

The question then remains, shall we - with the sense of history that underpins the present in which we stand on the shoulders of the many who marched, walked, talked, prayed, were harassed, were beaten, were murdered and were martyred for the cause that gives us the humanity we now enjoy – go forth alone and stand as ten thousand for the shame and humiliation they suffered by celebrating the name that made our history so blackened by suffering and denigration as our new identity?

I say again, with education, get history and with history, get enlightenment for the N-word was given to call our grandmothers worse than the master’s dog, it must not cross our lips again, if we really know who we are.

Childhood: Memories of Natural Hair Care

Note to reader

After a Twitter exchange where I commented on the plaiting of natural African-American hair, I was invited to write about the childhood memories I shared, memories from about 40 years ago where somehow I might have confused names and descriptions of the styles.

I penned a piece for the Natural Ever After site where the full blog with pictures appears, and you are free to post your comments there too.

The main article at Natural Ever After - Childhood Memories of Natural Hair Care

I know what Afro is

Walking down a street in Antwerp, I was happened upon a large shop front sign – Afro Hair Centre – the shop window was pasted with pictures of beautiful African American ladies but I was at pains to notice any that anything remotely natural for hair.

The pictures regaled me with relaxed curls of fanciful design and the amazing reality of globalisation where rural Indian and Brazilian women had travelled the world by reason of their long hair cut to serve an industry of hair extensions – I have felt like I have entered a haunted house each time disembodied lots of hair formed the merchandise of any outfit.

Many evolutions of hair design

It reminded me of when as a young boy hair was natural and the embodiment of amazing beauty, long before combing irons were heated on kerosene stoves and the hair laden with Vaseline was singed to straighten it for a new kind of look.

My aunt after secondary school became a hairdresser and with that came relaxers and all sorts of chemicals and sprays that the African woman punished her hair with to give it an unnaturally synthetic look, but that had become the new look.

Cornrows a plenty

As big brother when we lived in Jos, I had two sisters much younger than I and every fortnight I knew my play time will be usurped for a new kind of duty.

My mother sat on a chair with my sisters on a footstool just between her legs had their hair washed, combed, parted and designed for braided cornrows or plaits.

The cornrows had names, Shuku (bunched up in the middle), Ipako elede (A pig’s nape – with the ends to the nape of the neck), koroba (bucket, designed as a whirl from edges to the centre), kolese (Without legs – with the ends to the front just above the forehead) amongst other designs that did not particularly have names but provided artistic licence, in some cases the cornrows ended up in plaits, it was left to what was fancied at that time.

Threading the clumps

In the case of plaits, my job was to string the black thread from finger to big toe probably about 20 times and then cut the loop at one end to produce lengths of thread.

3 lengths of thread were then knotted at one end, the hair was parted into sectors and then manageable polygonal shapes, each section of hair was then plaited with thread from the base until the hair ends, the threads were then knotted to prevent the threads and hair from coming loose.

Sometimes each plait was left alone kinked into an L-shape a third way up the length, in other cases they were joined up in wigwam fashion or linked together with one popular design being called Eko Bridge – this was named after the new bridges linking the Lagos mainland to Lagos Island over the lagoon. Onile gogoro suggested a tall house, the plaits were bent to different sides of the head to give a different look, the options limitless depending on taste and aesthetics.

Changes to hair fashion

The plaits could also be coiled on a pencil to look like twirls, this was all natural and beautiful. After a while cotton threads were abandoned for synthetic tubular threads called colloquially called rubber but those plaits were fire hazards even if for a while they were fashionable.

As we moved into the 80s, plaits became unfashionable and most what you would find in rural settings as relaxers became the stock in trade of hairdressers, much as it seemed to make hair more manageable the cost of maintenance was high and where unprofessional services were used lots of women suffered 1^st, 2^nd or even 3^rd degree burns to their scalp.

The relaxers themselves have the most revolving and pungent odours, in some cases people were prone to emesis but after this foray into the unnatural and synthetic, some ladies are returning to appreciating the beauty of low-cuts or naturally braided or plaited hair without extensions or chemicals, and I think that is a good thing.

Holiday Snaps: The length and the cycle

The name of that thing

Continuing on from where we left off the conservation, the last place where I was accosted included introductions that left me thinking there was something sinister and obscene about the name.

As I returned there this morning, I asked after the chaps I met earlier in the witching hour and the waiter laughed out loud, he was the most silent and detached one of the few I saw before but he recognised me.

It transpired that two African-Americans had fallen for a manhood confidence trick. A particular race is on average blessed to a mythical standard but that does mean that there are none of other races that could be exceptionally gifted.

You’ll always draw the short straw

Their mythical status got the better of them when a dare from this young chap that he had more of length and girth was taken up with money on the table, the African-Americans left with less of a tail between their legs as money went to the chap who could call anyone’s bluff and walk away with the money.

Whilst one has had no reason to complain, it has never been the most gentlemanly of stances to attempt the dare of drawing the shortest straw, there is nothing to prove and the entertainment value soon wears away in deflated egos.

In the spirit of Amsterdam

I crossed the street to get a few bottles of water and then hired a bicycle to ride around town just as the spirit of Amsterdam allows.

Mmy Englishness sometimes got the better of me as signs prohibiting riding in certain areas were first obayed and then when I realised the rules meant nothing or no one was enforcing them, I got on my bicycle and rode the whole length of the promenade to the East first and then to the West some 10km away to another little village.

The pedestrian path was unevenly laid with cobble-stones I felt I was on a bone-shaker cum penny-farthing with hardened tyres of metal and no shock absorption.

Tossed and lost

The freedom to ride can lure you into a confidence than ends in defeat; I thought I had the mountains on the right side when I tried to return via another route, in the end, it appeared the mountains were on all sides, my sense of bearing completely lost.

After marauding for some 30 minutes, I found a tourist office and in the process realised I was caught in my own version of the Israelites’ sojourn in Sinai.

I was nowhere on my way out of the village that I returned more or less to the end of the promenade where I first thought I could veer off on another route – lesson learnt; return by the way that lead you there.

Some 8km later, I was back at my hotel, not too spent, not worse for wear but really quite relieved, I have the bicycle until later, I had better get a decent map before I find myself marooned on an island just because the tide came in when I was trying to be geographically smart.

The man by Irving Wallace

Not about colour for me

What enamours Barack Obama to me are his ideas and his powers of organisation coupled with the message of change and hope with the inspiration he offered that draw people, money, favour and interest to him.

The kinship of colour and race is not significant to me because my upbringing gave me the confidence to feel good within my own skin such that my colour only becomes an issue when others point it out [It is usually their problem, not mine] – I have thankfully had no need to have a chip on my shoulder.

Where you are you can be

There is an audacity that allows people to believe that they belong somewhere within the law regardless of what makes others think they do not belong for social, cultural, professional, religious or some other complex or arcane reasons.

In 1982, a neighbour gave me a novel titled, The Man [1], it was written by Irving Wallace [2] and it was about a black man becoming an accidental president by being 4^th in precedence where an attack wiped out all the others senior to him in precedence.

This book was written in 1964, in the middle of the human rights movement era, just within a year after Reverend Martin Luther King Jr’s I have a dream speech [3] and it covered all the issues and prejudices that would have dogged a black president in those times.

The fantasies for reality

There have been all sorts of depictions of black presidents [4] [5] of the United States, but none dared to lay claim to the audacity of hope that persuaded Senator Barack Obama to run against the most formidable political machinery in the United States and come up trumps.

Irving Wallace could not have known that 44 years on, there would indeed be a president-elect who would become the 44^th President of the United States, and he also happens to identify as an African-American, even less so that the man would rise out of Illinois in Chicago where he was born.

If colour does matter

If colour should become an important issue for anyone about this man and his presidency it should be the opportunity to break out and break away from the refuge of race-tinged excuses for not being able to get ahead – the election of Barack Obama is not the death of prejudice, bigotry or racism but it makes the refuge a more difficult place to run into.

It means we have to look up, rise up, believe themselves, believe our abilities, have stacked up the more objective reasons before racism appears as the completely last resort – we need to sail with the wind of amazing opportunity blowing in their sails, we need to lose those chips on our shoulders.

It should not make those with a long hard history forget where we have come from, many of us do not have those burdens of history and hence we may not understand but we cannot sit in the quagmire of history when a sunny beach of hope beckons.

Barack Obama inspires, it should make us aspire, we have to perspire and we might just be ready to acquire – regardless of race, opportunity beckons, seize it and make your own history.

Sources

[1] The Man (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The book – Amazon.com: The Man: Irving Wallace: Books

[2] Irving Wallace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] I Have a Dream - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] The Man (1972 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] David Palmer (24 character) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have a nano-dream

Is America Ready?

As observers of the US Presidential Primaries from afar one hears the question time and again.

Is America ready for a black president?

Is America ready for a lady president?

Frankly, I am still not sure – there are still many White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) males clamouring from every chandelier that can bear their weight that they are the best to run the country – it would take the amazing force of democracy for all these people to defer to these imponderables.

The Grand Old Party still has not been able to produce anything radical, somehow between the strongman, the broker, the preacher, the actor and possibly the mayor, someone might emerge to reset America to its norm.

Little of the great dream

In the week that commemorates the birthday of Martin Luther King born January the 15^th but which is celebrated as Martin Luther King Day, falling on the third Monday of January one has to wonder about the dream that the great man had.

So far, I see one amongst multitudes in every place, it is not like a floodlight over a whole area but a flickering flame way out in the dark.

In government, it is the lone Condoleezza Rice who is the only major African-American figure on the guest list attending the 2008 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland and she would be delivering the opening address.

In entertainment, Oprah Winfrey stands out a beacon of amazing success and an opinion leader because of the media platform she heads.

In business, Stan O’Neal was the lightning rod for the sub-prime crisis at Merrill Lynch and he left with a suitable golden parachute. Kenneth Chenault heads American Express and Richard Parsons heads Time Warner.

The noose is back

The list is hardly exhaustive, there are popular African-American personalities but very few that have an exceptional and outstanding profile – so recently, the top-most sportsman – Tiger Woods – through no fault of his apart from his success got associated with that symbol of American white supremacy – the noose.

It first made an appearance in 2007 with the Jena 6 when “three white students hung nooses from a tree at Jena High School, after a black student asked permission from a school administrator to sit under the tree”.

This act was dismissed as prank and it lead to the beating of a white student by other black kids, court cases, a seeming miscarriage of justice and protest marches reminiscent of 40 years before.

As a result of these protests a noose was found hanging from a door at Columbia’s Teachers College. The noose if may know was one of the means by which barbaric savages in white skin lynched African-Americans up until the 1960s.

According to the Tuskegee Institute, lynchings between 1880 to 1951 took 3,437 African-American victims and 1,293 white victims - such savagery.

Caught in a Noose

So, Kelly Tilghman in idle banter with Nick Faldo on the 4^th of January on The Golf Channel and in response to his joke that younger players should gang up on Woods said, “Lynch him in a back alley”.

Somewhat inferring that Tiger Woods is unbeatable on the field of play but it stirred up a lot more that the flippant comment could have realised. She was suspended for two weeks, she also apologised for the comment.

However, a fuse had been lit as Golfweek magazine made a cover of the episode with the title “Caught in a Noose” and the picture of a noose. They are sorry.

Oh! Brother. Is the overwhelming success of any African-American in danger of being caught in a noose?

I fear that on Martin Luther King Day 2008, we remember that he had a dream and so far, the fulfilment is very much a nano-dream.

The realisation of that dream is still a long way off – as for the two questions I asked at the beginning of this blog – the answer is NO to both, but there is more at work than the few can control – We would definitely end up with either.

African American Lives

African-American Lives 1 of 6

African-American Lives 2 of 6

African-American Lives 3 of 6

African-American Lives 4 of 6

African-American Lives 5 of 6

African-American Lives 6 of 6

Achtung! Schwarz Neger

Coming to your local cinema

As if we were to expect anything less, the proud members of the Aryan race who being the grand-brood of the former Hitler Jugend that grew up to serve in the Panzer divisions that overran Northern France during World War II released their training video to much acclaim.

It featured a lion being taunted or rather, baited with a large juicy piece of bloody fresh meat; the lion snarled and roared then having had enough of the baiting lunged for the chunk of spicy beef, but just missed it by a fraction of an inch – they captured it all on film; what the director wanted was the action-play, even the National Geographic Channel would be put in the shade with this excellent storyboard and real life action.

Sorry, I must be writing about something else; I meant, the lion was a recruit being goaded into aggressive soldier behaviour and the bloody fresh meat was really a narration given to incense the soldier enough to show raw aggression, as one would expect at war.

A black narrative

That narration went thus – “You're in the Bronx, a black van pulls up in front of you and three African-Americans get out and start really insulting your mother... act!”

Now, that is some imagination the instructor has, the stuff that good German military prowess is made of.

From that narration, one would suppose the Bronx is one hell-hole, a black van is a vehicle of aggression, African-Americans are savages and this soldier loves his mother. To have abuse heaped on his mother by black strangers would have been enough to get any soldier-boy to ACT – I suppose that means charge with a gun and kill all the black men – amazing how words can create pictures in ones mind and urge you to express an aggressive emotion.

The habit of generations

Well, it was the same German army that had holiday snaps from Afghanistan posing with skulls, dare I say, the skulls once belonged to living members of the human race, the same troop had a World War II symbol on their vehicle – what skullduggery.

This is becoming a very long story being fleshed out in needless translation, I would say, the instructor simply bellowed with a very loud voice pointing the forward direction – “Achtung! Schwarz Neger” – you do not need much more to get the best out the German Army.

African-American women caught in race and racism rows

Advisory: These are comments and views on a contemporary and developing situation, the analysis is general rather than specific and it does not cover all issues that are either attendant or related to the topics discussed. Reflect, if you do have to comment. Thanks.

The American People

America is one peculiar place, a people from all sorts of places with views and ideas that sometimes leave the rest of the world startled.

We have heard too many times that America is the land of the free, the land of opportunity even there is something called The American Dream - the relentless pursuit success through perseverance and determination where the story even becomes more interesting if by the scale of the American class system you have travelled so far from the lower rungs of society to some exclusive position of prominence; prominence being the ability to create wealth beyond your peers.

In bondage to race and religion

However, this is not the complete American story, whilst many can exercise rights and privileges that more than half the world aspires to, they are in deep bondage, shackled to their history with chains moor them to the past like they still live in those past times.

Race and religion always seems to have a way of cheapening and denigrating American values; beyond this, one has to contend with that great divide between the conservatives and the liberals - words that have a completely different meaning in America from the accepted English meanings.

In the last three weeks the race Pandora's box began to unravel into some international news story, a long going battle for justice, atrocious remarks from a radio talk show host and the pervasive American music culture and this all converging on African-American women.

Chilling out after lacrosse

Just about a year ago, three members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team were accused of rape at a party organised by one of the accused where an African-American lady had offered her services as part of the evening's entertainment.

Charges were swiftly brought against the men even though other evidence that showed that the laboratory samples from the lady included male semen from multiple partners which did not include traces from the accused.

It also transpired that the prosecuting attorney was remiss in offering this information to the defence and he also had not interviewed the accuser closely enough to determine the veracity of her claims.

However, these men who probably have people in high places had the privilege of members of Congress and other influential assail the prosecuting attorney that he recused himself from the case and eventually the men were cleared not just from the lack of evidence but significant inconsistencies in evidence, account and the unmentioned covert politicking for re-election that might have been a conflict of interest on the part of the prosecutor.

Stop and think - I

The men however helped us learn a few lessons about America.

1. Seemingly well brought up kids do have an underbelly of lascivious and wanton living as paying for entertainment where a lady denigrates herself by erotic dancing and they are titillated to the point of plausible risqué and possible illegal activity.
2. Many well-off middle-class Americans are completely oblivious of the injustices and miscarriages of justice where the legal profession through negligence, incompetence, slothfulness, acquiescence or even stupidity mess up other innocent people's lives and never get sanctioned for these atrocious activities because no one investigates them.
3. Justice is not an equitable right; you need resources as money and influence to obtain justice.
4. Women are still abused and many offer themselves up to abuse because of other pressing socio-economic issues as need for a livelihood, fees to get through university and so on. In fact, some African-American leaders offered to sponsor the lady through University if the reason for her strip-dancing was to earn money to get through university despite the fact that she had allegedly made false accusations.
5. Reviewing this case fell across race lines, the believability that Caucasian men might indeed take advantage of an African-American lady, the victim complex of African-Americans who think everything that involves them is a continuation of white oppression, the fact that the men could muster a credible and well-resourced legal challenge which too many cannot.

Hos! But not Santa Claus

Until a few weeks ago, nobody outside America knew who Don Imus was; a radio talk-show host of the unpalatable shock-jock genre.

People whose popularity stems from speaking the unspeakable, being offensive, breaking taboos and pandering to the innate intolerant, bigoted, prejudiced and jaundiced views that we in civil society work hard to conceal about ourselves.

Don Imus it appears already has form in these areas but the audience figures and sponsorship kept him about in what one commentator said was supporting and rewarding bigotry and reprehensible behaviour.

However, on the 4^th of April 2007, Mr. Imus swept his bacon off the table with this exchange between him and some guests on his show.

"IMUS: So, I watched the basketball game last night between -- a little bit of Rutgers and Tennessee, the women's final.

ROSENBERG: Yeah, Tennessee won last night -- seventh championship for [Tennessee coach] Pat Summitt, I-Man. They beat Rutgers by 13 points.

IMUS: That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos and --

McGUIRK: Some hard-core hos.

IMUS: That's some nappy-headed hos there. I'm gonna tell you that now, man, that's some -- woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like -- kinda like -- I don't know.

McGUIRK: A Spike Lee thing.

IMUS: Yeah.

McGUIRK: The Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes -- that movie that he had."

Once said the consequences are grave

Nappy-headed hos was the seeding of the storm that first started as a two-week suspension, the withdrawal of sponsorship, the withdrawal of syndication and finally a sacking.

This thing got as far as Don Imus together with his wife meeting the basketball team at the New Jersey Governor's mansion; the governor who was on his way to mediate at the meeting got caught up in a accident and ended up in hospital in a critical condition.

Mr. Imus' apology has been accepted by the ladies but there is a lot to this whole matter than meets the eye.

Stop and Think - II

Questions like

• What makes it right for black hip-hop performers to use this kind of language in their multi-million dollar record releases but the same words are offensive from a white man?
• Is the African-American woman in America primarily seen as a sexual object ready for all sorts of abuse until proven otherwise?
• Why can we not take this opportunity to address wider issues within the African-American community about self-respect and positive identity?
• Who are these preachers who get rolled out to incense and ignite the atmosphere whenever an issue like this occurs?
• Now that the man has been sacked, would he be able to get on with his life?

Losses unquantifiable

Unfortunately, Don Imus has done himself a bad turn because beyond his despicable radio persona is a work of charity where he has raised over $40 million to help children and he also founded the Imus Ranch which is a charitable organisation for children with cancer and sibling of victims of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

This episode might lose him sponsorship to carry on this good work effectively, though it is unlikely that that ranch would close because the good work is still well worthy of supporting.

It was however disingenuous for some commentator to try and use the good works in another realm of activity to gloss over the gross misdemeanour on radio.

It is however instructive to know that Don Imus is licensed to carry a concealed weapon in New York and New Mexico for his own protection - I do wonder how people cannot express their views in such a way as not to attract personal violence - this is a topic for another discussion.

Don Imus would be back sometime soon to your airwaves, he has recovered many times before.

The minority of the truth

I have many times written about a fashion amongst the youth where their trousers with hefty belts still cannot be held above the knees, decency is maintained almost exclusively by the long tops or coats they wear with their hoods up even in the blazing sun.

A commentator on Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN helped me out of my misery of understanding why people have adopted such fashion.

Where everyone has been baying for blood and the resignation of Don Imus to the extent that they have been gleeful with the developing results, a lone voice wrote about something deeper.

The influence of hip-hop

The hip-hop culture comprised of the music and lifestyle, the music which sells well with lyrics which are at times too offensive to repeat get bought and listened to by white kids in the comfort of their insulated suburban homes.

The African-American kids however live out that life of aggression, violence, the denigration and abuse of women, the clothing all very much like ill-fitting clothes in a prison.

The bitterness, the hate, the pain, the need for respect at the barrel of a gun or edge of a knife in a dog-eat-dog world is all borne of a prison driven mentality.

Why would a 15 year old kid say to a girl, I want you to have my babies? I almost fainted when I heard that in Milton Keynes a few weeks ago.

Where is he going that he thinks he cannot be occupied with more productive activity like finishing school, starting a career and really working to be a useful member of society?

Preparing for disaster

It is like the foreboding of war, they mate now to forestall the wiping out of humanity, however, closer to home it is the preponderance of neighbourhood crime and getting involved in gangs whose activities skirt the limits of legality and sometimes run foul of the law leading to a life of running the gauntlet of prison.

The women however who have seen men earn money from doing nothing like an honest day's work offer themselves as objects of abuse to be able to dip into those deep pockets and spend without knowing the value of money.

It is a feeding frenzy that is also getting played out in England where over the last few months 6 teenagers have been killed with guns or knives in this rough prison that is now played out in our communities.

This is the challenge to our community leaders and the one many would never be courageous enough to address head-on and save our communities of the sorrows of loss, the denigration of our women and careers that thrive in get-rich-quick schemes of expressing prison culture as everyday live.