Larry suggests we celebrate Black History Month eve with ‘Whitey Gras’

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Morgan Freeman on Race and Black History Month — Oscar winning actor,
Morgan Freeman, speaks out on Black History Month and how to end racism.

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Writes: James N. Kariuki

Obama, nuclear weapons and the race factor — Given the history of nuclear weapons relative to the non-white world, and noting the ongoing ‘loose talk about nukes’ in the US regarding Iran, it is fitting that Barack Obama should aspire to eliminate all nuclear weapons, American and otherwise. Perhaps, he owes it most to his ancestral Diaspora.

In early August 1945, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The indiscriminate damage of life and property was immeasurable. It was a massive collective punishment, a classic case of the power of modern civilisation without its mercy.

Ever since, the world has been haunted by two questions. Was the use of nuclear devices necessary? Would the US have used nuclear weapons against white Germany? Critics remain deeply divided.

President Harry Truman’s sympathisers however, support his logic that the bombs were vital to shortening the war in the Pacific and saving American lives.

Doubters insist that by mid-1945, Japan was virtually a crippled enemy. Nazi Germany had already surrendered in May 1945.

Combined bombardment

How much longer could Japan have endured under the combined ‘conventional’ bombardment of the Allies and, possibly, Russia?

In short, the American use of atomic weapons was unnecessary, prompted and made easier by the fact that the victims were non-white. Indeed innuendoes abound that America used the Japanese as guinea pigs to demonstrate the ravaging power of its new, barbarous weapon.

Twenty years later, the same US was bogged down in the protracted Vietnam War, and language of nuclear weapons resurfaced in American politics. The 1964 Republican presidential contender, Barry Goldwater, openly recommended using low-yield nuclear weapons for defoliation of Vietnamese woodlands.

Goldwater’s ‘nuclear reckless talk’ ultimately cost him the presidency. But in the hunt for it, he had arrogated to himself the right to entertain nuclear language that could have resulted in annihilation of a Southeast Asian nation.

Again, the collective victims would have been non-whites — men, women and children alike.

Castro’s autobiography

In a 2007 autobiography, Fidel Castro: My Life, the Cuban icon narrates the story that for Angola’s freedom, Cuban and Angolan troops fought against an apartheid army and government that had eight Hiroshima/Nagasaki-size atomic bombs secretly “provided by the US through … Israel.” Were those weapons developed during the South African-Israeli nuclear collaboration or were they US-made? In either case, the targets were black people.

As SA approached freedom, the West became increasingly nervous over the prospects of blacks inheriting a nuclear state.

Accordingly, Nelson Mandela and his associates were vigorously coaxed into dismantling the bombs and signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Racist SA could be nuclear; democratic one could not.

Given the history of nuclear weapons relative to the non-white world, and noting the ongoing ‘loose talk about nukes’ in the US regarding Iran, it is fitting that Barack Obama should aspire to eliminate all nuclear weapons, American and otherwise. Perhaps, he owes it most to his ancestral Diaspora.

By Ali Mazrui

Prof. Ali Mazrui
Barack Obama, the US Democratic presidential aspirant, has philosophised about a new post-racial America. In his campaign, he has emphasised not merely Martin Luther King’s dream of racial equality, but a more advanced dream of post-raciality.

If Obama were elected the first Black President of the United States, that would of course not be the end of race-consciousness in America, let alone the end of racism. But it would be a major step towards a future post-racial America.

Africa gave birth to the human race; Europe cultivated racism millennia later. What has now arisen is whether America will be the final resting place of racism and race-consciousness. If Africa was the garden of Eden that gave birth to the human race, will America be the garden of Eden that inaugurates a world beyond racism?

In tracing the transition from that first African Eden cradling homo sapiens to the last American Eden cradling the post-racial age, let us briefly stop at the well-trodden path of Francis Fukuyama’s thesis about the end of history.

Fukuyama saw the end of history in ideological terms. He characterised liberal capitalism as the climax of the ideological biography of homo sapiens. He regarded political culture as being at its most triumphant when in pursuit of life, liberty and profit.

Our thesis here is a different kind of ‘end of history.’ We are seeking to trace, not the end of ideological history, but the end of racial history; not soon but hopefully before the end of this 21st century. Perhaps this is what Senator Barack Obama had in mind when he started dreaming about a post-racial America.

Ethnicity in its ‘tribal forms’ started where the human species originated: that is, in Africa. Indeed, Africa invented the human family and therefore the human clan as a unit of biological kinship. But if Africa was the cradle of the human race, the human family and the human clan, Europe eventually perfected colour-prejudice and elaborate racial discrimination.

Is the United States, under the egalitarian leadership of Americans of colour? Is the United States destined to become the final resting place of ethno-racial stratifications?

Francis Fukuyama is almost definitely wrong about the end of ideological history worldwide. But is there better evidence for the proposition that the end of racial history is on the horizon — and its final culmination will occur in the United States of America, led by the struggle of African-Americans?

The United States is still one of the most racist societies in the world. Four policemen can shoot an innocent black man 41 times in front of his own house and be acquitted of all charges.

It is inconceivable that if the policemen had shot a white man 41 times they would have gotten off scot-free. Subsequently in 2007, a black man was shot 50 times on his wedding day by three New York policemen. The victim was unarmed. The policemen have also been acquitted of all charges.

But although the United States is still so steeped in racism, most indications seem to single out this country as the most promising theatre for a racial and ethnic compromise before the end of the 21st century. This is so provided that all Americans join hands and are converted to the dream of a post-racial age.

We might call this entire odyssey from the birth of the clan in Africa to the end of racial history in the United States ‘A Tale of Two Edens’-the African Eden of human genesis, on one side, and the American Eden of human egalitarian dispersal, on the other.

Historical times

There is a sense in which all Americans, of any race, are part of the African Diaspora — since their ancestors all originated in Africa. But there is the other sense of ‘African Diaspora’ when the Diaspora refers to people of colour whose ancestors came from the African continent in more clearly defined historical times.

The generic African Diaspora is the one which makes Bill Clinton an ‘African President’ of the United States. The specific African Diaspora is the one which makes Martin Kilson, Toni Morrison, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., African-Americans.

Africa is where the human species began. A persistent question in world history is whether the United States will become the final post-racial Garden of Eden before the end of the 21st century. Will it evolve into the nearest approximation of a genuine post-ethnic role model for the world? It will need African-Americans to achieve such a moral stature.

The Christian doctrine has had two Adams: the Adam who fathered the human species and the Adam who finally saved the human species. In the words of the 15th chapter of the First Corinthians: “Thus it is written: There was made the first man, Adam, living soul, the last Adam life-giving Spirit.”

In our more secular imagery, the first Adam was Africa-the cradle of human kind. Will the last Adam be the United States, a potential secular savior of the human race? We need to see the Edenisation of the United States as the beginning of post-raciality.

At the moment the United States is far from being a collective secular savior of the human race!

On the contrary, there are times when the United States displays the symptoms of evolving into a collective anti-Christ. Is that what Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, meant when he said “God damn America”?

But, in reality, the twenty-first century brings the United States to the critical crossroads. Will this country evolve into a collective savior (the second Adam) or a collective anti-Christ? Will the United States realize its potential of becoming humankind’s post-racial Garden of Eden, completing the odyssey from Africa as the first Garden of Eden? Or will this country waste that opportunity through bigotry, prejudice, and conflict?

Our children and grandchildren as homo sapiens are burdened by the gravity of that responsibility, by the weight of that momentous choice.

By James N Kariuki

The world is increasingly divided into great beneficiaries and great casualties. The worst casualties of the divide are Africans and Black people worldwide.

To address these gross inequalities between the global North and the South, prolific Prof. Ali Mazrui has consistently advocated that the African Diaspora should include the strategy of counter-penetration.

The West through colonialism or other forms of domination once exploited black folks. It is now time for them to turn the tables and occupy positions of influence within the West itself.

The Mazruis, Chinua Achebes, Ngugi wa Thiongos, and Wole Soyinkas are classic illustrations of this strategy at work. As prominent educators in US universities, they have access to thousands of American students, a golden opportunity to sensitise America’s upcoming decision-makers to the realities and aspirations of Africa. Post-colonial Diasporans are vital to this specific assignment.

Equally critical is the role earmarked for the Diaspora of enslavement: descendants of those Africans who were transplanted to the West against their will into slavery. They are now part of Global Africa lodged in the privileged West.

Counter-penetration perspective attaches much credence to the idea of the African-American Dr. Jendayi Frazer making an on-site visitation to last year’s election related violence in Kenya and reporting her findings to her Black boss, Dr. Condoleezza Rice. After all, Frazer studied in Kenya; her doctoral dissertation was on Kenya. To her, Kenya has a human face.

In this logic, it is progressive that a Black person like Colin Powell reaches the pinnacle of American military hierarchy and then becomes the Secretary of State. Similarly, it is advancement that African-American Rice, her ideology notwithstanding, follows suit and becomes the US Secretary of State. Granted, she is not a flag-waving black activist, but her skin is black. At some point one black concern or another will touch her. How realistic is this perception?

Ten days ago, Rice, urged the US Senate to pass a law to remove the African National Congress (ANC) categorisation as a terrorist organisation from the US database. This dubious distinction was originally attained because of ANC’s activities in the struggle against apartheid. As a result of this stigma, individuals associated with the ANC still cannot obtain visas to enter the US without a special waiver by the US Secretary of State. In most cases, the mere requirement amounts to visa denial.

Rice told the Senate hearing that she found it awkward to have to personally waive visa restrictions for her South African counterpart. Additionally, it was downright embarrassing to do the same for the dignified world’s icon of peace, Nelson Mandela.

A liberal lawmaker, representative Howard Berman of California, sponsors the legislation under Senate review. His language is even more incisive. “It is shameful that the US still treats the ANC this way, based solely on its designation as a terrorist organisation by the old apartheid South African regime.”

Regarding Mandela requiring a special waiver for a US visa, his words were, “What an indignity. This legislation will wipe it all away.”

Lest we forget, this is not the first time that African Diasporans have waged a fight for South Africa within the American political system. One of the major landmarks in the demise of apartheid was the passing of the 1986 Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. The legislation was formulated and sustained by the US Congressional Black Caucus. Notably, the passage was an override to President Ronald Regan’s veto.

This month marks the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death. One of the most memorable acts in his life was to declare publicly his opposition to American war in Vietnam.

When asked why he risked alienating the US President Lyndon B Johnson by that action, he responded that, to him, justice was indivisible, “injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.”

He could not oppose racial injustice in America and turn a blind eye to injustice in Southeast Asia.

Before King, Black Americans in the American South could not vote, much less become legislators . In forty years, African-Americans have occupied virtually every position. Today, even the US presidency is up for grabs by an African-American. We have come a long way since Reverend Martin Luther King.

About The Author: James N. Kariuki – is head of the African Diaspora Unit at the Africa Institute of South Africa in Pretoria.

In America it would be unthinkable to have a football, baseball or basketball team without Blacks. But it has not always been that way; Blacks have had to struggle to penetrate virtually every sport, including boxing.

August was a landmark month in Historic African Diaspora in more ways than one. It was the month that saw James Seale sentenced to three life terms for the murder of two Black youth 34 years earlier.

The week after, the world of tennis honoured Althea Gibson for her contribution to the game, 50 years after that courageous Black woman won Wimbledon, the most prestigious event in that sport.

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In 1964 James Seale was a white supremacist, who oversaw the execution of two Black teenagers caught hitchhiking through the racially brutal state of Mississippi. Seale had them beaten up then stuck into the boot of a car and pushed into the Mississippi River while still alive. In the view of the sitting judge, it was “a horrible and unspeakable crime that only a monster could inflict upon these poor youths”. Motive? To intimidate civil rights activists to beware that Mississippi was out of bounds for their ‘agitations.’

Seale expected to walk away from his crime with impunity. After all, Mississippi is the heartland of Dixie where taking a Black person’s life was once less of a ’sin’ than killing a dog. Without a word being uttered, the entire local law enforcement and judicial system were expected to shield Seale to the hilt.

This atmosphere started to change in the early 1960s. Matters came to a head over the question of whether Black Americans had the constitutional right to attend public schools of their choice. Southern states such as Kansas and Alabama insisted that they did not. Under President John F Kennedy, Federal Authorities thought otherwise.

In Alabama matters approached crisis level when the Governor, George Wallace, physically blocked Black students from entering the University of Alabama to register. But Kennedy was equally determined that America had to honour the constitutional rights of Black Americans. He dispatched Federal marshals to ensure that those rights were indeed safeguarded at the University of Alabama.

It was reminiscent of the run-up to the American civil war but, fortunately, Governor Wallace backed off. After Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson formally institutionalised the civil rights and voting rights acts in support of Black Americans. LBJ perhaps had an easier time of it than JFK would have; he was a master political manipulator and he was himself a Southerner.

Is it the laws that changed Mississippi or is it the attitude of Mississippians towards the rights of African-Americans that improved? A case could be made that it is the American laws that changed. Yet, it has to be remembered that predominantly white jurors convicted Seale and others for their crimes of the days gone by.

Historically, Blacks have used their superior athleticism to defy racism. Today, the presence of Black people in all major sports is undeniable. To the Europeans the presence of Africans in European football has elevated the game to higher levels; that presence has enriched the game.

In America it would be unthinkable to have a football, baseball or basketball team without Blacks. But it has not always been that way; Blacks have had to struggle to penetrate virtually every sport, including boxing.

The penetration has not been universal. Tennis has remained defiantly white. Yet, when Althea Gibson was honoured earlier this week at the opening night of the US Open, that event took place at a stadium named after another Black tennis superstar, Arthur Ashe.

Both Gibson and Ashe are classic symbols of defying racial odds. Athletically, they conquered the Mount Everest of tennis by winning Wimbledon in 1957-58 and 1975 respectively. Yet, tennis is a white man’s game precisely because it is extremely expensive to groom a player to become a world-class player. It takes patience, persistence, endurance and, yes, lots of money. These are rare luxuries for Blacks.

Gibson and Ashe were by no means rich as they grew up. Neither were the current Black tennis superstars, Venus and Serena Williams sisters. They all grew up poor yet rose to reign supreme in a game they did not own. Gibson cracked the door for them and they walked in. Honouring her this week did not come a day too soon.

References:

[1.] The Althea Gibson Website.

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