UPPER ADMINISTRATION AT THE CAPSTONE NEEDS TO WAKE UP

On 8 November 2016, “We the People” reaffirmed the commitment to white supremacy by voting to institutionalize white nationalism. The Capstone of Negro Education seems not to have grasped the monumental significance of this event. On page 62 of our latest book, Justice or Else at The Capstone, we (“this author”) report:  

            Fascinatingly, four years after The Capstone accepted unquestioningly the judgment of three white colleagues who were junior in rank to this author that OWP was nothing but a vanity press, the upper administration accepted without question the judgment proffered by the same group of colleagues that a self-published work of fiction (one that had been, indeed, coauthored with a dentist) qualifi­ed as outstanding research. The book in question was published by Virtualbook-wo­rm Publishing, which, according to its web­site, “specializes in print on-demand and self-publishing.” (62-63)

It is time for the upper administration of the nation’s premier HBCU (historically black college / university) to wake up. There must be JUSTICE OR ELSE AT THE CAPSTONE

IT’S NOW 48 HOURS

IT’S NOW 48 HOURS

And the pain is beginning to ease. Remember: “vox populi, vox dei” and “It’s no use crying over spilt milk” and “If you can’t beat them, join them” etc. etc.

By the way, I have been working on a book, CAN AFRICAN AMERICANS MAKE AMERICA GREAT? I plan to finish it this weekend, so I can put it out in e-book format by the end of next week. The print version is scheduled for release on January 15, 2017.

My website ianismart.com is undergoing renovations and will be back up by the end of next week. We keep on doing for self and keeping hope alive.

WHITE SUPREMACY HAS COME OUT OF THE SHADOWS

On 8 November 2016, white supremacy came out of the shadows. The (d)evil manifested itself. And this is exceedingly good, because that kind of darkness cannot survive in the light of day.

It is up to us—We the People—of good will, who are the overwhelming majority of the population of this nation and, indeed, the planet to root out definitively this poisonous weed that has invaded Western civilization since the Enlightenment (around A.D.1776).

We have the tools to accomplish the task. And, certainly, Original World Press is one of those tools.

IT’S TIME FOR SOME COMMON SENSE TO PREVAIL

We the people have just chosen “a sick puppy” who is “uniquely unqualified” to be the most powerful leader on the planet. This occurred because of the long standing practice that in the realm of politics, ideology trumps common sense. Critical thinking is replaced by commitment to ideology. It is taken as self-evident, for example, that the Founding Fathers of the United States created the most perfect political system known to mankind. The discordant fact that the supposed paragon of democracy and beacon of freedom was founded on the two most heinous crimes against humanity is simply excluded from consideration.

            Human beings are imperfect. In the face of this, existentialist philosophers see us as condemned to eternal absurdity. Most would deem this position to be too extreme; most would embrace the fundamental optimism of Jesse Jackson’s signature saying: “keep hope alive.” We Americans commonly claim that our nation is the greatest democracy that has ever existed. Undoubtedly, our democracy is a human institution and is therefore imperfect. However, it might well be the least imperfect political system ever created by mankind. It is difficult to defend this assertion now that the election of President Trump has ripped the mask off the vile underbelly of our cherished democracy.

A Setback Is a Set Up for a Comeback

A SETBACK IS A SET UP FOR A COMEBACK—Willie Jolley

DO FOR SELF—The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey

KEEP HOPE ALIVE—Jesse Jackson

SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED

Over fifty years ago Fannie Lou Hamer described with powerful eloquence the emotional state of African Americans. Two hundred and forty years ago, the U. S. Constitution declared us to be three-fifths human; and, even today, we keep on being sick and tired of being sick and tired.

The moneyed white men who founded America generated incredible wealth through the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the genocide of the First Nations people and the unconscionable plunder of their lands. For two centuries there was a trickle down of some of this wealth to the majority white population. About one generation ago, the trickle dried up, leaving the white working classes empty handed. So, they have become sick and tired.

It took the white working class just one generation to become sick and tired of being sick and tired. Donald Trump speaks to their rage and holds out the promise of restoring the benefits of white privilege.

Starting in the early nineteenth century, the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny, the Platt Amendment have made Latinos sick and tired. So Latinos have been sick and tired of being sick and tired from at least as far back as the Alamo. Of course, African Americans have been sick and tired of being sick and tired for nearly four centuries.

Latinos and African Americans can trump Trumpism tomorrow. This is the only way that the nation will finally begin to address the fundamental problems that have made the majority of its citizens sick and tired of being sick and tired. 

TRUMPISM, WHITE SUPREMACY, AND THE CAPSTONE

TRUMPISM, WHITE SUPREMACY, AND THE CAPSTONE

Trumpism downplays white supremacy.

The Howard University (The Capstone) administration downplays white supremacy.

ERGO: The Capstone is aligned with Trumpism

The Capstone of what? . . .  Could it be “Negro Mis-Education” (to cite Carter G. Woodson)?

TAKING INSANITY TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL

You are a University facing an existential crisis, a crisis of management. Your Spanish program is on the brink of extinction. So what do you do? You spend precious resources trying to harass, silence, and even fire the most senior faculty member in Spanish, someone who is demonstrably one of the University’s most productive scholars. And then you try to subject him to an incredibly incongruous PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT PLAN (PIP), WHICH, DE FACTO, PLACES HIM UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF A TEMPORARY INSTRUCTOR WHOSE HIGHEST DEGREE IN SPANISH IS THE B.A.

As The Donald would put it: “What the hell is wrong with these people?”

THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION'S ANTI-HISPANIC BIAS

In 1982, when the late Stanley Cyrus and I founded the Afro-Hispanic Institute and the Afro Hispanic Review, Howard University was the leading institution in the world in the field of Hispanophone Africana Studies. It was the only institution which offered the B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in this field. The upper administration of the University, however, had already targeted the Spanish, French, and Portuguese programs for extinction.

Is the upper administration of General Oliver Otis Howard’s university driven by an anti-Hispanic bias?

DEMONSTRATING TO THE HOWARD U ADMINISTRATION THE REALITY OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM

DEMONSTRATING TO THE HOWARD U ADMINISTRATION THE REALITY OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM

STEP ONE: Look at the videos of the gunning down of Mr. Terence Crutcher and   Mr. Keith Lamont Scott.

STEP TWO: Ask yourself: If those two gentlemen had been white, would they be alive today?

STEP THREE: If the answer is a resounding yes, then institutionalized racism is a reality in America.

Q.E.D. 

HOWARD U QUESTIONS THE REALITY OF INSTITUTIONAL RACISM

            The Howard University upper administration has run the University into the ground; the institution is basically broke. So the University administration went, hat in hand, to the National Science Foundation, which doled out some funds on condition that General Howard’s university keep up the dance to their tune, the tune of turning our focus away from white supremacy. And the National Science Foundation engag­es a for-profit white corporation to help the nation’s leading HBCU forsake its misguided preoccupation with white supremacy. In accord with one of the central premises of the Willie Lynch doctrine, the National Science Foun­dation ensures that Blacks love, respect, and trust only Whites. (Cited from Justice or Else at The Capstone, page 19)

ON BRINGING MAAT TO HOWARD UNIVERSITY

“The essence of Maat in the human sphere was not perfect social and economic equality but rather the harmonious coexistence of society’s different levels. Maat did not mean that the rich and powerful should become equal to the poor and weak, or vice-versa: in fact, texts that describe a society without Maat typically say things like ‘The beggars of the land have become rich men and the owners of things, those who have nothing.’ Instead, Maat meant that the rich and powerful should use their advantages not to exploit those less fortunate but rather to help them.” (Allen, p.116)

A situation exists at this moment on the ground within the Department of World Languages and Cultures of Howard University in which junior and inexperienced faculty appear to have been given authority over very senior and very experienced colleagues. The tail appears to be wagging the dog.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE SPIN

A nation founded on the two greatest crimes against humanity is revered as a beacon of democracy and liberty. Is it any wonder that Donald J. Trump would be knocking at the door of the presidency of this nation?

THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF OUR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

Are these pollsters joking or what? Or are they just going along with the elaborate hoax? Are they not familiar with the opening paragraph of chapter 18, “How rulers should keep their promises,” of Machiavelli, The Prince, where the father of Western political thought says:

“Everyone knows how praiseworthy it is for a ruler to keep his promises, and live uprightly and not by trickery. Nevertheless, experience shows that in our times the rulers who have done GREAT things are those who have set little store by keeping their word, being skillful rather in cunningly deceiving men; they have got the better of those who have relied on being trustworthy.”

A ruler, then, can’t be trustworthy if he is to do GREAT things, such as, for example, making America GREAT again. 

DEPLORABLE OR NOT

Would it be deplorable for a presidential candidate to gun down someone in cold blood in the middle of 5^th Avenue?

Would it be deplorable for a supporter to overlook this little irregularity and still vote for the candidate?

Well… well… well!

Trump, Quintessentially “American”

Everybody seems to be freaking out over Donald Trump. But when you come to think of it, how is Trump—as they like to say—“un-American”? Is he not a white male whose mother and wife were born in Europe. Does he not claim to be a self-made billionaire? Is he not committed to expanding his personal net worth by any means necessary? Does he not believe that white people are superior to nonwhite people, because civilization was first developed by the Greeks, who were white? We could go on and on.

So, what’s the problem with Trump, if he is so very, very “American”?

THE VICTOR AND THE SPOILS: “TAKING THE OIL”

Donald Trump advocated “taking” the oil. Indeed, Henry Kissinger has reportedly declared that the oil reserves under Arab land were too important for humanity to be left in Arab hands. Trump and Kissinger are, then, true to the spirit of the Founding Fathers who simply seized the land and the property of the First Nations people in order to create this “great” nation known as the United States of America, the “greatest” nation in the entire history of mankind.

“UNCONSCIOUS BIAS” TRAINING DAY ON THE PLANTATION

            The Howard University upper administration has run the University into the ground; the institution is basically broke. So the University administration went, hat in hand, to the National Science Foundation, which doled out some funds on condition that General Howard’s university keep up the dance to their tune, the tune of turning our focus away from white supremacy. And the National Science Foundation engag­es a for-profit white corporation to help the nation’s leading HBCU forsake its misguided preoccupation with white supremacy. In accord with one of the central premises of the Willie Lynch doctrine, the National Science Foun­dation ensures that Blacks love, respect, and trust only Whites. (Justice or Else at The Capstone, p. 19)

IT’S STILL NOT TOO LATE

Micah Xavier Johnson’s desperate deadly action has just been repeated. For God’s sake, people!

It is claimed that, in America, young Black men are killed—frequently gunned down—by some branch of law enforcement at the rate of one every twenty-eight hours. We African Americans have basically tolerated this outrage. For God’s sake, people!

LET US ALL COME TOGETHER TO RIGHT THE WRONG. We have to do it NOW, while there is still some time—not much, but some time, if we keep hope alive.

In our book, THE GUNNING DOWN OF MICAHEL BROWN: AN AFROCENTRIC APPROACH, we present an approach that is consistent with the love that can bring us peace.

VISIT www.ianismart.com

SELLING OUR INHERITANCE FOR A MESS OF POTTAGE

In many regions of the Americas—North, Central and South—black folks have been selling off their family lands and property at outrageously low prices. Is that what took place when Howard University “monetized” its extremely valuable real estate holding, Meridian Hill Residence Hall, for $22 million? Or could it be argued that it was not a sale but a “99-year ground lease”? Furthermore this sweet, sweet deal benefited District developers Jair Lynch Real Estate Partners. By the way, are we talking about the Jair Lynch, one of a tiny group of black citizens to represent the U.S. in Olympic gymnastic competition?

RESPONSES TO THE GUNNING DOWN OF OUR YOUNG MEN

It is claimed that, in America, young Black men are killed—frequently gunned down—by some branch of law enforcement at the rate of one every twenty-eight hours. We African Americans have basically tolerated this outrage. Two years ago, I published a book, THE GUNNING DOWN OF MICHAEL BROWN: AN AFROCENTRIC RESPONSE. The book still languishes on the shelves, basically ignored by the African American community.

Now Micah Xavier Johnson’s Afrocentric response to the gunning down of our young men has certainly gotten all kinds of attention. One wonders: if even a fraction of that level of attention had been given to Afrocentric responses such as mine, could we have forestalled, prevented young Micah’s desperate, deadly action? 

RESPONSES TO A LONG TRAIN OF ABUSES AND USURPATIONS

Micah Xavier Johnson declared that he was responding to a “long train of abuses and usurpations.” For him, the men in blue represented exactly what the men in red coats represented for the original white Americans.

Micah Xavier Johnson is deemed by the general public to be “deranged.” The general public in England—and many even in the Thirteen Colonies—would have deemed the response to that “long train of abuses and usurpations” inflicted by the King to have been “deranged.” Certainly, in 1916, the general public and the Catholic Church leadership in Ireland deemed the Easter uprising to be the work of “deranged” young hotheads. 

THE WAR HAS STARTED, BUT WE CAN END IT IMMEDIATELY

Micah Xavier Johnson started the shooting war. He was a young African American who simply could not take another minute of the vicious white supremacist oppression. But at the song says: “War is not the answer, only love can bring us peace.”

In our book, THE GUNNING DOWN OF MICAHEL BROWN: AN AFROCENTRIC APPROACH, we present an approach that is consistent with the love that can bring us peace.

VISIT www.ianismart.com

The Ruling Oligarchy Is Pleased with Howard

The Washington Post reported on 27 June that Moody’s is pleased with Howard’s progress in its struggle to right its finances. However, is our dear University, under the leadership of its current president (a “foreign Black” Howard-trained physician with a Howard MBA) selling us out in order to do right by the ruling oligarchy? This is the kind of issue we discuss in JUSTICE OR ELSE AT THE CAPSTONE

BOOK SIGNING—JULY 7: 6:00-8:00 P.M—SANKOFA 2714 GEORGIA AVE, NW—202-234-4755—CONTACT AARON SMITH 202-569-0785

RULE BRITANNIA, BRITANNIA RULES THE WAVES

Remember that? Remember when “the sun never set on the British Empire”? The Fall of Rome came after half a millennium. The heyday of the British Empire spanned the period between the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression, that is to say, at most two centuries.

Now, as the great Caribbean bard, the Mighty Sparrow, sang: “London Bridge is falling down.” Brexit appears to be the final nail in the coffin.

The British Empire was an enterprise of global proportions that created incredible wealth for the island nation. People from the plundered nations have come to the center of the fallen Empire to reclaim some of what was stolen from them.

What goes around comes around. 

0-3 FREDDIE GRAY v. THE “JUSTICE” SYSTEM

0-3  FREDDIE GRAY v. THE “JUSTICE” SYSTEM

Yesterday, for the third time straight, the “Justice” System failed to avenge the killing of Freddie Gray. Two years have passed since Michael Brown was gunned down. Our book presented “An Afrocentric Response” to that atrocity. Visit our website for more information.

www.ianismart.com

MY LATEST BOOK

MY LATEST BOOK WAS PUBLISHED ON JUNETEENTH (19 JUNE) 2016. HERE IS THE BACK COVER BLURB

Justice or Else at The Capstone

The United States of America was founded on the principle that Africans are only three-fifths human and therefore could be reduced to the status of chattel in perpetuity. The election and reelection of a Black man to the highest office in the land utterly wiped out the final lingering theoretical underpinnings of this principle. The current process to elect a successor to the first Black president is laying bare all of the bloodcurdling bigotry generated by over two centuries of white supremacy. Not surprisingly, the undercurrent of xenophobic rage masquerades as an attempt to find a way back to a so-called “greatness.” At this juncture of the nation’s troubled history, there is need for the premier historically Black college / university (HBCU) to live up to its call to provide “Leadership for America and the Global Community.” In order to live up to the challenge, “The Capstone of Negro Education” must fix itself. There must be “Justice or Else at The Capstone.”

“ORIGINAL INTENT” AND THE THREE-FIFTHS HUMAN DECLARATION

Wikipedia defines “Original Intent” as: “The theory of interpretation by which judges attempt to ascertain the meaning of a particular provision of a state or federal constitution by determining how the provision was understood at the time it was drafted and ratified.” Well, just in case we had any doubt, the U.S. Supreme Court in its Dred Scott decision (March 6, 1857) stated quite clearly that those Founding Fathers (they should really be called “mothers”—if you know what I mean) understood that Africans by virtue of their three-fifths human status were chattel, pieces of property, objects of trade to be bought and sold.

Where was that much vaunted “moral compass” of those “Founding Fathers”? Of course, what a naïve question! Machiavelli laid out for us the real deal in his opening paragraph of chapter 18 of THE PRINCE: “experience shows that in our times the rulers who have done great things are those who have set little store by keeping their word, being skillful rather in cunningly deceiving men; they have got the better of those who have relied on being trustworthy.” 

WHITE PRIVILEGE AND “JUSTIFIABLE” ANGER

Everyone seems to accept that white working class Americans are “justifiably” angry because of the steep decline in their standard of living. The U.S. Constitution decrees that Africans are only three-fifths human. And on March 6, 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court with its dread Dred Scott decision reconfirmed the “original intent” of the Constitution, declaring that Africans are nothing more than simple property. Furthermore, the Constitution guaranteed to white Americans the right to keep their property, EVEN THE PROPERTY THAT IS THREE-FIFTHS HUMAN.

The Black American’s standard of living continues to be, PER THE CONSTITUTION, at best three-fifths that of white Americans, even of the “justifiably” angry white working class. Whereas white working class anger is acceptable, Blacks are expected to bear their considerable burdens with patience and resignation.

This is precisely what white privilege is all about.

WHITE POWER, THE LEADING HBCU, AND BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2016

Once there was a PhD.program in Spanish at the nation’s leading HBCU (historically black college / university); now we are struggling to keep the undergraduate major. A slightly built white woman appears to have been the most effective weapon employed by the upper administration in this process of debasement and destruction of the academic program in Spanish.

It is not too late to reverse the process. Black History Month 2016 would be a good time to start.

JUSTICE SCALIA, VERY ROMAN CATHOLIC AND VERY WHITE

The doctrine of the absolute continuity between the Kingdom of the Living and the Kingdom of the Dead is as central to Roman Catholicism as it is to every traditional African spirituality system, from the Mystery System of Kemet to the spirituality systems of the Yoruba, the Akan, etc. Justice Scalia was very Roman Catholic; his son is a priest. But Justice Scalia was very, very, very, white—were there any Blacks in the group of 98 who had clerked for the Justice?

Roman Catholicism is the most African of the so-called world religions of our times. Roman Catholicism is, then, more Black than White. Justice Scalia in the Kingdom of the Ancestors must now understand this. Would that his loved ones still in the Land of the Living would be open to this understanding.

JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA AND THE THREE-FIFTHS HUMAN QUESTION

Now that Antonin Scalia has passed to the other side, he sees clearly that, as it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be, Africans are the most fully human of human beings. Africans are the original human beings—who were made in God’s image and likeness. Africans are the originators of civilization; so much so that Homer and the ancient Greeks deemed Africans—also known as Cushites, Nubians, Aithiops (the burned faced people)—the blackest people on the planet, to be the holiest and most beautiful of human beings.

The best way to honor Antonin Scalia’s memory would be to ensure that the fundamental error on which this nation was founded be corrected forthwith.

NOW THE “MIMIC WOMEN”

V. S. Naipaul portrayed our society as one of “Mimic Men.” Now the “Mimic Women” have taken over. In this society where talking stupidness is the order of the day, a lynch mob of “Mimic Women” is hounding a black man out of office for saying something stupid; as if saying stupid things were not the norm for politicians all over the world.

Our “Mimic Women” hear that feminism is the big thing, the “in-thing,” in the metropolitan countries. So they have jumped on the band wagon. In unthinking mimicry, they have created their Womantra organization. And they have decided to flex their muscles by gang-banging—politically, at least—the current mayor of Port of Spain, Raymond Tim Kee, an African with a Chinese last name.

I say with David: “Oh, how I love this country”

JUSTICE SCALIA, GENERAL HOWARD, AND PRESIDENT FREDERICK

Justice Scalia, RIP, declared that the 2640 universities in the United States are of two kinds: the more advanced (the University of Texas, for example) and the less advanced or slower paced, which latter are more suitable to Blacks. When, in 1867, General Oliver Otis Howard, a white man, founded his institution for Negroes, he called it a “university,” as distinct from a “college.” President Frederick interprets this as Howard’s intention to create a more advanced university. And President Frederick notes that the highly respected Georgetown University was founded as a “college” and not a “university.”

Interesting!

BERNIE JOINS TRUMP IN CRITICIZING PRESIDENT OBAMA

Bernie and Trump are both championed by the white working class. Trump’s popularity with the white working class is based on his outrageous criticisms of President Obama. Now Bernie has begun to criticize President Obama, although not with the same outrageous vitriol as Trump.

Is this a case of Bernie consciously or unconsciously signaling to the white working class that if push comes to shove he’s one with them? What does this signal to African Americans? 

BLACK MEN AND BOOKS

It is said that if you want to hide something from a black man you should put it in a book. However, it was his contact with books by and about black people that significantly enriched young Ta-Nehisi Coates during his student days at Howard University. The classrooms at Howard, on the other hand, were, for him, “a jail of other people’s interest.” There was an unbridgeable gap between books by and about black people and the books used in the classrooms at Howard University.

We established the Afro-Hispanic Institute, the Afro-Hispanic Review, the Afro-Hispanic Review Press, and finally Original World Press specifically in order to bridge this gap. And, wouldn’t you know it, the upper administration of Howard University has done everything it can to frustrate our efforts. It would seem that the Howard University upper administration is bent ensuring that books continue to mean little or nothing for black men.

BERNIE, TRUMP, AND THE WHITE WORKING CLASS

Yesterday’s New Hampshire primary clearly manifests that the WHITE WORKING CLASS is overwhelmingly committed to Bernie and Trump. Trump is a mean-spirited bigot; Bernie is a big-hearted socialist. They are polar opposites. However, they both have the overwhelming support of the WHITE WORKING CLASS. And the one thing that Bernie and Trump have in common is the fact that they are both older white men.

Are there, then, two fundamentally different white working classes: one bigoted and racist, the other socialist? African American voters would be well advised to take a long hard look  at things before rushing in to “feel the Bern”

IS HOWARD UNIVERSITY “MORE ADVANCED” OR “LESS ADVANCED”?

The evidence appears to support the conclusion that the Howard University upper administration has resolutely refused to climb to the pinnacle of Academe in the field of Hispanic Studies. Indeed, the upper administration has done everything to ensure that when it comes to the field of Hispanic Studies, Howard University remain in the category of what Justice Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court described as the “less advanced” or “slower-paced” institutions of higher learning.

In 1978, with much fanfare, a PhD program in Romance Languages (specifically French and Spanish) was inaugurated at the University. This would have placed the University beyond any doubt in the Justice Scalia category of “more advanced” institutions of higher learning. There is compelling evidence that, over the past three decades, the Howard University upper administration has taken measures to degrade the program in French and Spanish; so much so that the undergraduate major in French has been effectively eliminated and the undergraduate major in Spanish is also well on its way to extinction.  

HOWARD UNIVERSITY AND BLACK CONSCIOUNESS

Ta-Nehisi Coates in his Between the World and Me (2015) makes a distinction between Howard University, the institution of higher learning with its classrooms which were a jail of other people’s theories, ideas and Howard University, the Mecca, “the crossroads of the black diaspora.” Whereas the Mecca nurtured his black consciousness, the institution of higher learning disabused him of his hopes and dreams generated by Howard University as The Mecca.

Coates says quite clearly that he has the History Department of Howard University to thank for disabusing him of his fantasy black consciousness. He writes: “My history professors thought nothing of telling me that my search for myth was doomed, that the stories I wanted to tell myself could not be matched to truths. Indeed, they felt it their duty to disabuse me of my weaponized history” (52). Coates singles out Linda Heywood, whom he remembers as “slight and bespectacled, spoke with a high Trinidadian lilt that she employed like a hammer against young students like me who confused agitprop with hard study” (54) The entire scholarly edifice of Cheikh Anta Diop, even Martin Bernal, James P. Allen is debunked as “agitprop,” “fantasy history.”

Heywood is guided by the views of her husband John Thornton, a white man from Virginia, whom the white supremacist Academy has transformed into a black history expert. Thornton is proud of having concocted his thesis and first book The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition, 1641-1718 (Madison, 1983) “by mining carefully the extensive documentation of the Capuchin missionaries in the country… [and] deliberately [ignoring] using either earlier or later materials and much of the ethnographic materials so as to determine continuity and change in the kingdom” (Wikipedia).

FREEDOM ISN’T FREE

The young black writer Ta-Nehisi Coates in his celebrated book, Between the World and Me (published 2015), speaking of his beloved Howard University writes: “It was still a school, after all. I wanted to pursue things, to know things, but I could not match the means of knowing that came naturally to me with the expectations of professors. The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books. I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests” (48).

Our slogan at Original World Press is: Scholarship to the People, the People to Scholarship. Our publications bring to African descendants—and, indeed, ultimately, to all humanity—the freedom that is the pursuit of knowing. But FREEDOM ISN’T FREE. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to publish our books; and they are priced to ensure accessibility to our students. We consistently subsidize the publication of these books with OUR PERSONAL FUNDS.

FREEDOM ISN’T FREE  

GENERAL HOWARD AND THE HOMELAND OF THE FIRST NATIONS PEOPLES

There are 103 HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges / Universities) in the United States—just 4 percent of the total number. The premiere of these institutions, the veritable “Capstone” of Negro education, was founded by and is named after Major General Oliver Otis Howard, a white man from New England. The propagandistic biography provided by the PBS piece “New Perspectives on the West” speaking of Howard’s exploits in the campaign against the First Nations people, tells that in 1877, ten years after founding The Capstone, the founder, General Howard, was sent by the United States government “to persuade a Nez Percé band led by Chief Joseph to leave their homeland in the Wallowa Valley for the reservation assigned to them in Lapwai, Idaho. Howard found himself agreeing with Joseph that his people had never signed a treaty giving up their homeland, but in Howard's view this did not change the fact that eastern Oregon was no longer a place where Indians could roam free.”

Apparently he had a clear conscience about his right to impose the rule that “eastern Oregon was no longer a place where Indians could roam free.” In contrast, by their failure to take any action against the lawlessness of Cliven Bundy and his white supremacists, the United States government—and implicitly the goodly general—have established that white people do have the right to roam free over all of the vast territory stolen from Chief Joseph and his people, the First Nations people. On January 2, 2016, encouraged by the success of his father’s gang, Cliven’s son Ammon led a band of armed insurgents—who happen to have been Mormons—in the takeover of a federal wildlife refuge in Burns, Oregon. The federal authorities basically allowed the white insurgents to “roam free” in that section of Oregon for a full three weeks before finally taking action on January 26.

CARNIVAL IS “WE THING” - PART 22

Treasuring Our Carnival

     In Trinidad and Tobago, Africans have not been as powerless as their brothers and sisters in Latin America. For this reason, our nation has respected and has been guided by the African approach to and understanding of Carnival. Our Carnival has maintained its fundamental inclusiveness. Our nation has understood that civilized existence would be impossible without festivals and that Carnival is the ultimate pan-African festival.

     On this basis, then, Trinbagonians are right in thinking of Carnival as we (our) thing.  They are right, too, in believing that the festival known as Carnival is special to Trinidad and Tobago and that our version of the festival is the best in the world. We here in our twin-island republic have developed Carnival into an extremely valuable treasure. Many of our ancestors paid with their lives to create this national treasure. We must be extremely vigilant to ensure that we do not allow others to steal this treasure from us.

I PLAN TO TRAVEL TO T&T TOMORROW AND TO BE THERE UNTIL FEBRUARY 16. I’LL KEEP YOU POSTED ABOUT SEMINARS, ETC. DURING MY STAY THERE.

CARNIVAL IS “WE THING” - PART 21

The Spirit of Carnival Betrayed

     Historians tell us that this acceptance of all, the temporary suppression of the normal class boundaries, was a feature of the Carnivals of Latin America from the earliest colonial days (that is, from as early as the sixteenth century C.E.). However, as the Carnivals of Latin America became more and more developed, they lost their spirit of inclusiveness. In our nation, one finds a similar tradition of exclusiveness, snobbishness, in the Carnival celebrations developed by the French Creoles, who constituted the local elite.

     Today, the Carnival in Barranquilla is an activity of the middle and upper classes. Africans have become marginalized. The Carnival bands have morphed into corporations. The mas players are members of an exclusive club who begin their rehearsals for the “parade” as early as October. It is inconceivable that a tourist would come quite from Australia just in time for Carnival and would be allowed to jump in the band to play mas in the Barranquilla Carnival.

     In Rio de Janeiro the situation is even worse. The mas players are generally professional dancers like the performers in Las Vegas shows. The Carnival parade is a grand extravaganza for tourists who pay big money to be spectators. There is generally no question of a tourist playing mas in Rio. Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule, and so there are cases of visitors being permitted to play mas in Barranquilla and even in Rio. The important point is that whereas in Trinidad and Tobago participation by tourists is encouraged, in Barranquilla and Rio, it is not.

     Our ancestors from the Nile Valley knew that civilized existence, what we call civil society, would be impossible without festivals. For this reason, the Pharaoh made it his sacred duty to have the festivals celebrated regularly and properly. There are one hundred and fifty million people of African ancestry in Latin America, and most of them understand the importance of festivals. Even though Africans and their descendants constitute the majority of the population in Latin America, they are basically powerless.

TO BE CONTINUED

CARNIVAL IS “WE THING” - PART 20

No One Is to Be Excluded

     Without these festivals there could be no established society, since it was during the festivals that human beings made contact with the Creator, the center of their existence. It was crucial that every human being be allowed to participate fully in the festival. It was considered a God-given right. So much so that it would have been a serious sin for any Egyptian to prevent someone from participating in the festival and following the image of his patron orisha as it was paraded through the streets on a float. The festival belongs to the people, to put it another way, “the road make to walk on Carnival day.”

     The festival is an important mechanism for renewing society, for healing and strengthening society. It is essential that it be open to all, that it be inclusive. The Greeks never got fully with the program. In general, Europeans have whittled away at the spirit of the festival. In Trinidad, for example, Europeans of French extract kept themselves apart from the sweaty African masses. They played their mas around the Savanah and on trucks. When they did come down off the trucks, they would rope themselves off from the sweaty masses.

     We, the people of Trinidad and Tobago, have kept faithful to the tradition. Shadow is just one of the many great oral poets our country has produced. In his 2002 composition entitled “Stranger,” he reaffirms the distinguishing feature of the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, as he advises a visitor on how to play mas:

         

          Buy a little rag and put it in your pocket.

          Buy a little flag, that’s the way they do it.

          Find yourself a band, find a good position.

          When the music blast, you’ll find out how to play mas.

     The tourist to whom Shadow gives this essential lesson in playing mas had come quite from Australia. Over the years our great bards have declared in their songs that the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival is open to all. Our festival conforms fully to the specifications imposed by our earliest ancestors in the Nile Valley. Lord Kitchener, for example, sang:

          A tourist dame, I met her the night she came.

          Well, she curiously asking about my country.

She said, “I heard about bacchanal and the Trinidad Carnival,

          So I come to jump in the fun.

          And I want you to tell me how it is done.”

Kitch gives the formula. It is a very simple one, and it is the same one given by Shadow some three decades later.

          Ah said, “Doudou, come in town Jouvert morning.

          Find yourself in a band.

          Watch the way how the natives moving.

          Hug up tight with a man.

          Sing along with the tunes they playing.

          And now and again you shouting,

          “Play mas bacchanal, Miss Tourist.”

          That is Carnival.

     Come one, come all, regardless of race, color, creed, or class, and certainly of national origin. The special feature of our Carnival is this magical formula for instantly converting a rhythmically challenged foreign tourist into a full-fledged participant in the festival.

TO BE CONTINUED

CARNIVAL IS “WE THING” - PART 19

Why

     The people of Barranquilla are convinced that their Carnival is the best in the world. Haitians, in their turn, believe that they have created the most impressive Carnival in the universe. Needless to say, the Rio de Janeiro Carnival is thought by Brazilians and, indeed, by many people throughout the world, to be the greatest. We, of course, in Trinidad and Tobago fervently believe that all of these views are fundamentally misguided. It is through the “Why” of the festival that the matter of which Carnival is the best will finally be resolved.

The Spirituality of Festivals

     The historical record indicates that Africans were the first human beings to celebrate festivals. These festivals were specially established events which enabled mortals to come into the presence of the divine. Africans in the Nile Valley instituted mankind’s earliest civilized societies. These Africans societies were centered on the Creator, who was worshiped, for the most part, through the forces of nature deemed to be manifestations and aspects of the Creator. These manifestations and aspects of the Creator were seen as persons in their own right, that is, as gods and goddesses. The gods and goddesses of the Egyptians exactly correspond to the orisha of the Yoruba people.

     The Egyptians approached the Creator through these gods and goddesses, these orisha, these intermediaries. There were special places, shrines, temples, “palais,” in which symbols or images of the gods and goddesses were housed. However, for the most part, only specifically designated individuals had regular access to these shrines. It was during the festival that the Creator walked among the people, that the symbols or images of the manifestations and aspects of the Creator were brought forth from their shrines to the streets.

TO BE CONTINUED

CARNIVAL IS “WE THING” - PART 18

Carnival in Barranquilla, Colombia

     A considerable portion of the South American nation of Colombia is washed by the Caribbean Sea. In fact, the cultures of Trinidad and Tobago and of all the nations washed by the Caribbean Sea are very similar. And this is not really surprising, since the most important defining element of these cultures is the African heritage. Very few Trinbagonians realize that our term “mamaguy” comes from the Spanish expression “mamagallar.” This expression is dear to Colombians from the Caribbean region of that nation.

     It should come as no surprise that those Caribbean Colombians who pride themselves on being “mamagallistas” [mamaguyers] are also fiercely proud of their Carnival. The city of Barranquilla is one of the most important cultural centers of Caribbean Colombia. In the year 2000, the Fundación Carnaval [Carnival Foundation](the equivalent of our National Carnival Comission [NCC]) of Barranquilla, in conjunction with the nation’s Ministry of Culture, organized the Primer Encuentro Internacional de Carnavales [The First International Conference on Carniaval]. Twenty-three scholars from Latin America and the Caribbean as well as from Europe were invited to present papers on Carnival.

     The organizers of the June 2000 Carnival conference in Barranquilla did not know that in 1999 the city of Port-of-Spain was host to what was billed as the third of a series of world Carnival conferences. Our NCC, which was primarily responsible for the 1999 conference, was unaware of the existence of the Barranquilla Carnival Foundation. Reciprocally, the Barranquilla Carnival Foundation knew nothing of our NCC.

TO BE CONTINUED