BUT WHAT IF YOU DO NOT LOVE YOURSELF?

The Good Book enjoins:  “love your neighbor as yourself.” However, in his fascinating work, “Of Water and the Spirit,” Malidoma Patrice Some draws these conclusions from his horrendous experience of fifteen years is a Jesuit mission/concentration camp:

“Religious colonialism tortures the soul. It creates an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, and general suspicion. The worst thing is that it uses the local people to enforce itself. Our teachers were Black, from the tribe, yet they were our worst enemies. The question I often asked myself in later years, when I thought about how Black nationals are leading our country, is whether a person schooled in an atmosphere of such abuse can actually lead with compassion, justice, and wisdom. My experience was not uncommon. Today, Africa’s leaders are mostly people who were educated in this manner. Is it surprising that there is so much instability in so many African countries” (p. 95). 

CRISIS TIME AT THE “CAPSTONE,” THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND

By all accounts, Howard University is facing a serious crisis. They have finally gotten rid of the chairman of the board of trustees, who allegedly ran the institution like it was his own personal corporation. The only one of this disgraced chairman’s henchmen who has survived is the current interim president. This interim president was trained in medicine exclusively at Howard and even went on to earn his M.B.A. from Howard. All of his knowledge of the ways of Academe was garnered from his Howard University experience.

The new kid on the block has just appointed as his acting provost a man who more than three decades ago was spirited to the upper ranks of academic governance with a meteoric rise from librarian to vice president for academic affairs and chief academic officer. The favored son of over three decades ago remained an anomaly as the “chief academic officer,” because, try as he might, he was never promoted to full professor. About two decades ago the “failed” chief academic officer rode off into the sunset of an early retirement.

Now he’s back and at the behest of an inexperienced interim president. What is going on here? Are the blind leading the blind? 

EMANCIPATION /AFFIRMATIVE ACTION VS. SELF-AFFIRMATION, “DO FOR SELF”

June 19, JUNETEENTH, is a legitimate Emancipation Day; and Affirmative Action is the contemporary iteration of Emancipation. However, the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey called upon us to “do for self,” invoking self-affirmation rather than Affirmative Action.

SO, DON’T FORGET:

To Commemorate JUNETEENTH 2/014, SANKOFA BOOKSTORE proudly announces

A FORUM:  “Occupying Western Civilization as Emancipation from Mental Slavery”

Focusing on:

Ian Isidore Smart. Occupying Western Civilization: Debunking the White Supremacist Narrative. Washington, D.C.: Original World Press, 2012. ISBN 0964192993. $20.00

                                                            And

Algris Xiomara Aldeano. Bunde and Bullerengue: Popular Oral Literature from My Native Region, Darién. Washington, D.C.: Original World Press, 2011. ISBN 09394231917. $20.00

Professor Smart’s latest book presents the theoretical road map for achieving the definitive emancipation from mental slavery by reclaiming Western civilization, which Cheikh Anta Diop incontrovertibly established to be of African Origin. Consequently, for Professor Smart, this emancipation amounts to an occupation of Western civilization.

Algris Xiomara Aldeano is one of Professor Smart’s students whose work on the popular oral literature of her native region, Darien is informed and inspired by Smart’s insights. Her book “blazes an entirely new trail in the field of literary studies by focusing on the cultural expressions of Afro-descendants not as exotic folklore proper to a marginalized population, but as central elements of the national culture.”

These recent publications evince Original World Press’s unwavering commitment to scholarly rigor, in accord with its motto, “scholarship to the people, the people to scholarship.” As Howard University moves towards inaugurating a doctoral program in Africana Studies, the work undertaken by Professors Smart and Aldeano will place the institution at the cutting edge in the unique specialty, Hispanophone Africana Studies.

THURSDAY, JUNE 19: 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

SANKOFA BOOKSTORE and CAFÉ, 2714 GEORGIA AVE, NW, WASHINGTON D.C.

202-234-4755

AMERICAN INHUMANITY

Progressive commentators claim to be utterly surprised by the vicious inhumanity of the Righties who have turned on Sgt. Bergdahl and his parents. For those with a sense of history such manifestations of vicious inhumanity are as American as the proverbial apple pie. Remember those huge crowds of white supremacist barbarians—men, women, and children—taking delight in the hanging of a black man? Remember the vicious slaughter, in 1955, of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, whose father Louis Till had been hanged a decade earlier by the U.S. army?

DO THE FACTS EVER MATTER?

“Progressives” are all over the “Righties” for their practice of creating their own versions of reality. In these days, the practice is made manifest in the matter of the POW swap of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahi for five high value Taliban detainees from Guantanamo. (By the way, “guantanamero/a” is the adjective meaning “originating in Guantanamo”)

Today, on the 70^th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, President Obama affirmed solemnly that the allied forces fought Hitler and gave their lives to preserve freedom and democracy. He claimed that there in Normandy they established a beach head for democracy and freedom. . . Really? In 1945, the U.S. army hanged Louis Till—Emmett’s dad—for murdering an Italian woman and raping two others. Was that an execution or a lynching?

Do the facts ever matter?

THE KOCH BROTHERS, GEORGIA-PACIFIC, THE UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND

The two Koch brothers together have a net worth of $100 billion. Koch Industries owns and operates Georgia-Pacific. About three years ago, all of the restrooms at Howard University were overnight retrofitted with Georgia-Pacific products. Howard is the nation’s premiere historically black college/university (HBCU). How many of the other 102 HBCUs made the switch to Georgia-Pacific products in the past five years?

Yesterday it was announced that the Koch brothers made a contribution of $25 million to the United Negro College Fund. Was this motivated by disinterested philanthropy?