A Black American (daughter of Muhammad Ali), a Black Briton (Los Angeles Times video journalist) and a Black Russian (former Russian television presenter of African-American descent) – all journalists – meet again at the Los Angeles Times. The African Diaspora in its complexity:
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Why I didn’t watch #MarcheRepublicaine today
France is a former colonial power which fought a bitter war against nationalists in Algeria. Most Muslims in France are from Algeria, North Africa and most former French colonies in Africa. Most Afro-French Muslims live in poor “suburbs” on the outskirts of cities like Paris.
France has long played a role in destabilizing and propping up dictatorships in their former African colonies/client states. Chronic racism against Africans and Arabs within France + a paternalistic, antidemocratic attitude abroad = radicalization.
The paternalistic and violent history of UK, France and US in Sunni Muslim Arab, African states gives us our current world. Let’s talk about “freedom of speech” when we begin to listen to speech of those who come from politically-broken peoples. Until then, #MarcheRepublicaine is masturbatory, self-congratulatory, opportunistic, jingoistic nonsense from a country that hasn’t addressed its violently-bigoted history.
The bodies of innocent dead are not yet cold while the defense of historically-racist French “way of life” is ratcheted upward for the world. Attacks like that on #CharlieHebdo and their attackers are useless, wasteful and bloody expressions of ethnic derangement. But that derangement has a long history and does not comes from a deep, dark vacuum.
If we’re so concerned about threats to the French, or European, or U.S. or Canadian “way of life” by way of violent, rhetorically-explosive Sunni Muslim protests against cartoons of Muhammad of Quraysh, then why is it that we Westerners station militaries in, and bomb the shit out of, predominately-Muslim countries? If we’re so concerned about threats to our freedoms, why is it that we’re so glad to invest militarily in conflicts in these regions? If the French people are so concerned about safety and civil peace, why does France go out of its way to maintain corrupt post-colonial relationships with dictatorships and support violent interventions in order to keep post-colonial borders largely intact?
Why is it that we practically invest into the undoing of former colonies as well as, by indirect way of when citizens of these post-colonial states migrate to countries like France, our own undoing?
Why can’t we in the West practice abroad what we preach at home?
We don’t have to have hypocrites in leadership or violently-hypocritical foreign policies. We can enforce our own absolute neutrality in foreign policy and let the chips fall as they may. We can stop investing militarily in post-colonial conflicts. France can end its “Francafrique” relationship with terrible governments on the African continent. We can stop being so invested in the instability of nations, which could result in troubled migrants being invested in their home countries and stable governances there.
But that would take us taking the thumb out of our assholes, stop pitying about our “decline”, rethinking our status quo and treating Black and Brown lives with more dignity, wouldn’t it?
Just found out that Jen, who helped me on the first day of the job at Domino’s Pizza on Fort Benning, is now the GM there. I couldn’t think of a nicer person to serve in that position, so I bought delivery for the first time in nearly a year from there tonight and told the delivery guy to give my congrats to her. It’s also my first from there since I quit.
Meghan Ganey, who was GM when I worked there, got demoted and works, last I heard, works at a Domino’s out in Albany. Good. I still have her texts. I still replay that period sometimes. She was an indiscriminate fire-breather. That is all. #DominosPizza #CowabungaLLC
WATCH: “The Soul Fallacy”: #AppliedSentience Interview with #Rutgers Professor Julien Musolino
His book came out yesterday.
Chris Rohrs
OK, I think I’m better now. I found out that a colleague and member of Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Columbus, GA, Chris Rohrs, just died this morning at home. He’s responsible for letting me create their website in the first place.
He last sent me a message last night, for me to post John Nix’s writeup of the history of UUFC on the site, and I spent much of last night doing that plus other things on the site. From what I was told, he didn’t go to service yesterday (I didn’t go due to base access issues). I’ve called his spouse, Nikki, to offer my condolences.
I’m amazed by this incident, its timing and how much of a blow it was to me emotionally upon reading the email sent out tonight. I am glad that we met, that he frequently and publicly congratulated me on my #WebDesign work, and that he offered a bit of his own life experience to me when he felt like it.
He was also familiar with old-school science fiction works, like those of Terry Pratchett and #LarryNiven; he explained #Ringworld to me, which was a first for me. He was brutally honest to a T, an aspect which I noticed he applied to everyone, no exceptions. He didn’t hold back. And he looked forward to our youth and young adult group – which I found out will be renamed to “Torch” – changing the atmosphere in the UUFC. So we will. And we won’t hold back. Especially not me.
New York Cops Have a Simple Message: “You’re either for me or against me.”
“My country, right or wrong”. #NYPD intransigence intensifies.
A lone police officer stands front as other colleagues turn their backs while Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks during the funeral of New York Police Department Officer Wenjian Liu at Aievoli Funeral Home, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2015, in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
One of the most memorable right-wing rhetorical flourishes that came out of the Viet Nam War war era was, “My country right or wrong.” No doubt the working class patriots who often invoked that sentiment to express disapproval of anti-war protesters really believed that they were the true American patriots at that incredibly divisive, painful moment in our nation’s history. I also have no doubt that they didn’t realize that the notion of “my country right or wrong” is the antithesis of what a democracy that celebrates freedom of speech is all about. But it is a perfectly appropriate sentiment for an autocratic, populist, authoritarian…
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RIP U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke
Brooke died at the age of 95 on January 3, 2015. He was the first directly-elected African-American senator since Reconstruction.
2nd Day of #Kwanzaa: #Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)
Habari Gani? Today’s principle is Kujichagulia. It is the principle which embodies the right to determine the destiny of the self – “To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.” This idea of the “self”, in human history, has applied just as much to the individual as it has to any collective of individuals, as has any act negating this right to determine any self’s destiny. In human society, especially in the history of the concept of individual human rights, the rights of the individual have expanded in number, ranging from the right to equal justice under law (and other expectations of treatment by the state or other prevailing collective) to the right to clean water and fair housing (and other rights to material access). But in respect to yesterday’s Umoja, collectives have often faced difficulties in their ability to collectively determine their own destiny as a group, usually facing opposition from other groups with rivalrous claims to legitimacy. Bids to form new nation-states have faced often-fatal opposition from other established nation-states or, when resorting to armed warfare to solidify their bid, have engaged in violent conflict or maintain standing militaries to protect their sovereignty. Labor unions have faced constant opposition to their existence from corporations and trade groups. (Ir)religious communities have faced physical, bloody opposition to their existences from other, more established religious groups (and single-party or single-ideology states). Demographic “suspect classes” are resented by previously-privileged classes for their demands of justice, freedom and unity. And so on… Yet, the idea that one should be able to choose one’s destiny (not negating the other principles) is an idea that is difficult, yet necessary in the name of justice, to extend to more demographics of people, both individual and collective. Kujichagulia – whether it manifests in choosing what to wear today or choosing what to create tomorrow – places responsibility for how to conduct or govern one’s life with the self, not with an unwilled, nonconsensual third party. Our ability to exercise kujichagulia, however, depends largely on the freedom and dignity which are expected in a society, or in our world at large. If we don’t take the initiative to guarantee the platforms for self-determination within a peaceable, amicable framework which respects our individual (and shared) identities and experiences, then we are not a free community. Let’s be a free, responsible, active, just people. Let’s observe kujichagulia – in our lives and in the world.
1st Day of #Kwanzaa: #Umoja (Unity)
Habari Gani?
December 26th is the day of Umoja (Unity).
It is “E Pluribus, Unum”. It is being the sum of our parts. It is understanding that our individual experiences – by shades of skin color, by ethnonational origin, by historical accident, by circumstance of birth, by the state of our bodies, even by “mere” affinity – are shared by somebody, somewhere, and that they are points at which we can connect and change somebodies’ destinies.
Umoja is the state in which we embrace these shared experiences and understand how these experiences are treated by both ourselves and the larger society.
It is through Umoja that we understand that until all are at peace, none are at peace; until all are treated with justice, none are treated with justice; until all are free, none are free.
It can also imply symbosis and balance. Even one who is an island to oneself is surrounded by a body of water, and the behavior of that water impacts anyone who lives on that island. One who lives in the middle of a vast forest is impacted by whatever impacts the stability of that forest.
In other words, the balance, the state of play, the causality of things, how nothing takes place in a vacuum – all imply that everything in existence is, has been, and will be impacted by another action. In this, there is Umoja.
So whether we embrace or are indifferent to the world around us and the shared experiences which are similar to our own, we have Umoja. We can be united by accidental pain, we can be united by intentional pleasure, we can be united by experiences which impact us or by actions which we wish to carry out.
We are united in our individual bodies, just as we are united in our larger society. And whatever action we take, no matter how isolated it may be, will impact ourselves and likely someone else.
Let’s maximize the positive, ethical actions in our lives within the framework of this Umoja. Let’s recognize the Umoja of all things and all actions.
Harambee.
On Kwanzaa
Wish I could afford a #Kwanzaa #kinara
(Image Credit: Rochester City Newspaper)
Now that I’ve finished my exams and my Winter Break has officially begun, I can begin to actually celebrate the holidays!
There’s one holiday in particular that I’ve heard mentioned countless times during this season but that I really have no knowledge about: Kwanzaa. And I’m genuinely interested in, well, what it is, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to educate both myself and you about this holiday.
Kwanzaa is a pan-African holiday, and there’s a good chance you knew that. So, being an African tradition, it must be thousands of years old, established after some great miracle occurred- kind of like Hannukah or Christmas, right?
Well, no. Kwanzaa was created in America. In the 1960s. But don’t let it loose any credibility because of that.
I guess you could say that Kwanzaa’s roots are old- the name comes from the phrase “matunda ya…
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