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Tag Archive | "Black consciousness"


Plantation Mindset: Paying The Price For Squandering Resources

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BrotherPeacemaker: Mr. Walker loved to live large. It wasn’t enough for him to drive a Bentley, he had to drive two. And it wasn’t enough for him to drive two Bentley’s. A Bentley is already custom built to its owners specifications. It’s one of the reasons why the car’s starting price is something like three hundred thousand dollars. But Mr. Walker had to take both of his custom built Bentley’s and have them customized even further with tricked out paint jobs and one of those global satellite enhanced sound systems that can compete with the best technology that NORAD has to offer. And to supplement his automotive taste, rumor has it that there were two Mercedes-Benzes, a high end Range Rover, a Hummer, and a Cadillac Escalade for when he wanted to slum around. His entourage was large. His jewelry was large. Mr. Walker bought diamonds for his diamonds. The ring on his finger looks large enough to be used to scramble eggs on. He built a mansion for his mother complete with an indoor pool and ten bathrooms. I don’t care how active your bladder is, ten bathrooms is just a bit much. [ READ MORE ]

   By: James E. Clingman
James E. ClingmanThe latest cases of two Black multimillionaire NBA stars who now find themselves in dire financial straits follow a long line of misguided, uninformed or ill-informed, unprepared, and self-absorbed brothers (and some sisters) who squandered their financial resources.

It is sad to see Kenny Anderson and Antoine Walker suffering from the consequences of their ineptness, ignorance, and cavalier attitudes when it comes to their money and their fame. They are not the first and, unfortunately, will not be the last.

Stupid spending

Walker was robbed at his home in Chicago. Could it have been partially due to his flamboyant lifestyle? — Bentleys, Mercedes, three multimillion-dollar homes, $10 million ‘invested’ in properties mismanaged by one of his boys, and the obligatory entourage of hangers-on and shysters all probably contributed to Walker’s demise.

   Kenny Anderson (Left) & Antoine Walker (Right)
Kenny AndersonAntoine Walker With Girlfriend

Anderson frivolously spent money on material possessions, failed to listen to his financial advisors, and ended up losing much of what he had. Anderson is said to have earned $63 million in the NBA, but he also apparently needed 10 cars in his garage. Like MC Hammer, Anderson and Walker helped a lot of their ‘friends’ by ‘lending’ enormous sums of money to them that was never repaid.

Plantation mindsets

About 15 years ago, I wrote an article titled “Plantation Education.” I pointed out some critical issues related to collegiate athletics and the way our young men are treated as they help earn millions for their respective colleges.

What we see is a lack of Black consciousness, lack of knowledge and understanding of Black history and culture, little or no knowledge of personal finance, and their failure to develop and nurture relationships with a classmate or two who could guide them legally and financially before they sign those multimillion-dollar contracts.

The highest-paid coaches get around $4 million a year. They cut lucrative deals with athletic gear firms and get so many perks on college campuses that you would think they are gods. If someone buys the student a dinner or pays for a bus ticket for him to go home, the student is in jeopardy of losing his scholarship and maybe even losing his opportunity to go pro.

Personal ATMs

Many Black athletes, in college and beyond, are merely ATMs for folks who care very little about them and their families — as long as the cash keeps rolling in. The NCAA could make changes to help our athletes before they graduate, but it is too busy counting its billions of dollars to care about them.

The ramifications of our young millionaire athletes not having a consciousness is the proliferation of non-Black agents, accountants, and financial advisers that prey upon them, and the athletes’ penchant to hire them rather than their own brothers and sisters. An awareness and knowledge of Black history and culture would arm our young brothers against self-destructive behavior. Relationships with college peers who have expertise in finance, business, law, and accounting, would lessen the instances of rip-offs by shady characters.

Anderson and Walker are just the tip of the iceberg. We have seen this situation in boxing, the film industry, the music industry, and virtually across the board when it comes to many of our brothers and sisters.

Don’t get caught up

If you are presently in school preparing for and hoping for a call from the NBA or the NFL, understand that there are only a few hundred of those privileged positions available. Are you prepared to not get the call? If you do get that call, have your act together. Don’t get caught up in the material things.

You only have so many opportunities in life. Make sure you use some of your resources to empower Black professionals and Black-owned businesses. Other groups do so all the time, thus creating and are maintaining their own collective infrastructure and safety net.

References:

1. BrotherPeaceMaker: Antoine Walker And Money Didn’t Mix
2. 25 Rich Athletes Who Went Broke (10-1)

About The Author: James E. Clingman is the nation’s most prolific writer on economic empowerment for Black people. His weekly syndicated newspaper column, Blackonomics, is featured in hundreds of newspapers, magazines, and newsletters. He has written six books, the latest of which is Black Empowerment with an Attitude, and has been the featured speaker for numerous organizations, schools, churches, and events) across the United States.

Former Editor of the Cincinnati Herald Newspaper, Clingman is the founder of the Greater Cincinnati African American Chamber of Commerce, and has been instrumental in establishing several other Chambers of Commerce around the country, as he continues to promote economic freedom for African Americans. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Cincinnati, where he teaches Black Entrepreneurship; he also founded Cincinnati, Ohio’s Entrepreneurship High School in 2001.

His speeches have stirred thousands of conferees and his newspaper articles are sought after by subscribers across the United States and abroad. Mr. Clingman is available for your speaking engagement. You can reach him at (513) 489-4132 or by e-mail jcli...@blackonomics.com for more information.

Clingman’s economic empowerment doctrine stresses consumer education and alliances among African Americans. He offers a refreshing view of the potential within this nation’s Black communities.

Visit his website: www.blackonomics.com, or call him at 513-489-4132.

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More Jamaicans identifying with African culture — Embracing their African roots

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“Some of my students sometimes don’t seem very proud to be called African, they associate the place with poverty, starvation. They often think who’d wanna be an African,” says Barry Chevannes, an anthropologist at the University of the West Indies.

The BBC’s African Perspective programme is investigating what life is like for some of an estimated 20 million Africans who live in the diaspora.Embracing African roots in Jamaica

Nick Davis in Kingston finds out what made some Africans voluntarily make the former slave island of Jamaica their home.

Christopher Columbus landed on the beach at Rio Bueno on Jamaica’s north coast in 1494 and forever changed the history of this island.

The Spanish arrived and brought the Africans with them. They imported slaves throughout their 160-year stay and the practice continued under British rule.

Some of my students sometimes don’t seem very proud to be called African, they associate the place with poverty, starvation — Anthropologist Barry Chevannes, University of the West Indies

Jamaica’s national motto is “Out of many, one people” – a description of the island’s multi-ethnic background.

But with over 90% of the 2.6m population being black, the country looks African.

But does it feel African?

“It looked like home to me when I first arrived. Sometimes I’d make a mistake and speak to people in my Ghanaian language and then I’d suddenly realise, this isn’t a Ghana,” says Sophie Dawes who grew up in what was formerly called the Gold Coast, now Ghana.

‘Jamaica heads, Nigeria tails’

The 74-year-old grandmother met her husband – a well known Jamaican academic and writer, Neville Dawes – when she was at university in Ghana. They eventually moved to the West Indies with their young family more than 40 years ago.

Jamaica heads, Nigeria tails Nigerian Olalekan AbbassNigerian Olalekan Abbass — We basically tossed a coin and said where do we go? Jamaica heads, Nigeria tails Nigerian Olalekan Abbass

For Olalekan Abbass who came from Abelkuta in Nigeria’s Ogun state it was a similar story.

He met and married his wife Arlene, who is Jamaican, in London but they had a dilemma.

“We basically tossed a coin and said where do we go? Jamaica heads, Nigeria tails.

It was heads and we came down.”

Jamaicans have a strong connection with Africa.

The look to the motherland started in the years of slavery. Traditions, rituals, religious beliefs and even language were all reinforced by the waves of Africans shipped in to keep the island’s sugar plantations going.

Story continues below


But after emancipation, it was not really until Marcus Garvey during the 1920s and 1930s that an island with wider black consciousness took hold.

He told his supporters to “look to Africa“, and his message and his calls for repatriation were taken up by descendants of African slaves and became the cornerstone of a new religion, Rastafari.

Miles away

“I was in college in America and whilst studying I became friends with a good brother, he would say to me why are you acting Jamaican, but I would say to him, why are you acting like an African?” says Makonnen who came from Guinea Bisseau and is a follower of Rastafari.

Makonnen’s dreadlocks are covered under a wicker hat.

He is always well dressed but this is a special day. He is in a silk shirt.

The face of Ethiopia’s Emperor, Haile Selassie is proudly emblazoned across it.

Today would’ve been the 116th birthday of His Imperial Majesty – the most important date for Rastafarians.

He works as a herbalist and a counsellor out of a health food store in Ocho Rios, a busy resort town on Jamaica’s north coast but he has taken some time off to show me what reminds him most of home.

We head to a little fishing village. As we arrive the boats are heading back from sea. A scene that Makonnen says is repeated thousands of miles away in Africa.

Shared love of food

African  and Caribbean people share a love of foodAfrican and Caribbean people share a love of food

“The whole scenario here is about the fisherman – they go out in these little locally made boats, they bring in the catch and it has been cleaned.

“The way the huts are built, look it’s just like Africa. They cook the sweetest seafood right here and down the road they turn cornmeal into what we call fufu.”

A love of food is something that both African and Caribbean people share. And for the people who have made Jamaica home, many of the dishes are not that foreign.

“The food is very similar to what we eat in Nigeria. There’s a little difference in how it’s prepared but it’s so close; the ingredients are the same. I went to the doctor the other day he said you need to change your diet.

“I said change it to what? Everything they have here is the same as what we eat back home,” says Nigerian Olalaken Abass.

“Nigerians talk about nyam – to eat, and Jamaicans say the same word in Patois [Jamaican creole language] so there’s lot of similarities in how we speak,” says Sophie Dawes

Like wildfire

Jamaicans are slowly identifying with African cultureJamaicans are slowly identifying with African culture

But despite some of the cultural and historical links between Africa and Jamaica some people do not want to accept the link.

“Some of my students sometimes don’t seem very proud to be called African, they associate the place with poverty, starvation. They often think who’d wanna be an African,” says Barry Chevannes, an anthropologist at the University of the West Indies.

But Olalaken says that the people in Jamaica need to look beyond the poverty, corruption and HIV and Aids headlines to the real Africa.

By doing so, they will be able to more easily embrace their African roots.

“There needs to be a little bit more of an introduction to the real African culture. Recently the Jamaican public have been watching African movies which have caught on like wildfire – they haven’t seen things like this before and slowly they are identifying with African culture.”

A Slaving Voyage to Africa and Jamaica: The Log of the Sandown, 1793-1794

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Aime Cesaire emphasized Africa’s dignity

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Poet Aime Cesaire
Poet Aime CesairePoet Aime Cesaire of Martinique passed away last week. He was an iconic co-founder of Black consciousness, long before Steve Biko.

Surprisingly, of all the non-French speaking African heads of state, only South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki sent a message of condolences to the Cesaire family.

Why the silence?

In the realm of ideas, Mbeki has been particularly adept at provoking public debates. He did so in 1996 when, as the country’s vice president, he stood before the South African Parliament and proclaimed: “I am an African“. Shortly thereafter, he launched an equally vibrant discourse on African Renaissance. Two years ago, he raised issues relating to Afrocentricism. It dominated public interest for months.

It would have been ridiculous for any other African president to stand before his Parliament and declare to be African.

In White-ruled SA, however, indoctrination against Africa was so thorough that countless Black South Africans believed that Africanness was something to be scorned. Even after political liberation, it was necessary to keep reminding them that they were indeed Africans — that South Africa is part of Africa. Hence the imperative for Mbeki’s proclamation: “I am an African”.

Evidently, it was part of Mbeki’s unwritten job description to confront the arrogance of Eurocentricism by affirming the validity of Africanness. This preoccupation thrust him into the world of ideas regarding African identity. In this course, it was inevitable to encounter the ideas of Cesaire, hence, Mbeki’s affection for the great poet.

Discourse on ColonialismIn context of colonialism, English-speaking global Africa was dominated by political means.

British form of colonialism involved actual control, direct or indirect. This systems denigrated Africans, it was perceived as racist and English-speaking Africans transformed their anti-racist sentiments into political movements that revolted and brought about independence to Africa.

Conversely, the French colonial policy was based on assumption of French cultural superiority. Black French colonies responded culturally by questioning the cultural condescension of assimilation. To challenge the arrogance, they embarked upon romanticising blackness and its attributes.

It was at the early stages of this process that Cesaire coined the term negritude. Leopold Senghor, Senegal’s founding-president, later expanded the view intellectually and popularised it.

Assimilated Black French-speaking intellectuals in France in the 1930s encouraged themselves to ask, are we really French? The answer was clear: “We have never been French, we are not French and we shall never be French”.

While at first they had been so proud to be assimilated, they now declared war on the same assimilation policy. By the late 1950s, they were demanding political independence from France in order to safeguard their culture, their negritude.

The bid to enhance Africa as a maker of history, Afro-centricity, has taken two forms. The first is Gloriana Afro-centricity that emphasises the great and proud accomplishments of people of African ancestry. These embrace castle builders, those who built the walls of Zimbabwe or the castles of Gondar in India or the sunken churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia; many would include those who built the pyramids of Egypt as well.

The other is Proletariana Afro-centricity that emphasises the sweat of Africa’s brow, the captured African as a co-builder of modern civilisation – the enslaved as creator, the slave as innovator. Slaves helped build the industrial revolution in the western world and fuelled capitalist transformation of the northern hemisphere.

What about the colonised peoples, as victims and builders of the industrialised modern world? African resources have been used for factories that have transformed the contemporary world. Without those resources today’s global economy would be vastly different.

Negritude is a kind of proletarian Afro-centricity, at least when it indulges in romantic primitivism. Negritude salutes the African cattle herder not the African castle builder. To that extent, it is part of Afro-centricity Proletariana.

About The Author(s): Ali Mazrui and James N Kariuki — Prof. Ali Mazrui is Chancellor of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture, Kenya. James N. Kariuki is head of the African Diaspora Unit at the Africa Institute of South Africa in Pretoria.

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