Cairo, where Obama and Malcolm X showed two very different faces of America

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The firebrand Muslim minister struck a blow  for African American civil rights and African liberation
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Thomas L Blair, 5 June 2009

Cairo on the tip of Nubian Africa has played host to two exceptional African Americans. One named Barack Hussein Obama, the son and grandson of Muslims, came as US President this June. The other was the radical African American Muslim minister El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (widely known as Malcolm X) in June 1964.

Both invoked the great Islamic past; both aimed to forge unity on crucial international issues. But what a dramatic contrast. Obama, the suited up, sophisticated new African American in the Office, aimed at calming the volatile Muslim world. However, Malcolm X in Cairo called for an unprecedented joint action by Africans and African Americans against a common scourge – racism and imperialism.

Malcolm came to this revolutionary conclusion after founding the secular, black nationalist Organisation of African American Unity (OAAU). Later, he tested his ideas with political activists in an extensive tour of Africa and the Middle East in June 1964.

The tour strengthened his newly developed beliefs. Officials courted him; he gave interviews to newspapers, and spoke on television and radio in Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sudan, Senegal, Liberia, Algeria, and Morocco. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria invited Malcolm X to serve in their governments.

The scene was set for his unprecedented call for concerted action at the second summit meeting of the Organisation of African Unity, convened from 17 to 21 July 1964.

His arrival was widely noted. To his admirers at the meeting of the fledging African authority, Malcolm X was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans. He was also El-Hajj, a penitent Sunni Muslim aware of the broad humanity of the Islamic faith.

Interviewed by reporters and radio journalists in Cairo, Malcolm X said: “When I arrived here, there was a great deal of publicity in all of the press over here concerning my coming. It was historic in a sense because no American Negroes had ever made any effort in the past to try and get their problems placed in the same category as the African problems, nor had they tried to internationalize it.”
His reference to “colonialism”, and plea for renascent dignity and justice found favour in the highest quarters. Egypt’s President Nasser made specific reference to the condition of African Americans, and hailed the then recently passed Civil Rights Act of 1964, in his opening remarks.

With this cache of prominent supporters, Malcolm X gained acceptance as an observer at the OAU summit of independent African states. His eight-page memorandum warned America of a coming conflagration; it echoed James Baldwin’s eloquent manifesto “The Fire Next Time” (1963). He urged African leaders and freedom fighters to internationalise the plight of African Americans and bring the issue before the UN.

Then, in one of the most remarkable coincidences of the turbulent 1960s, Malcolm X delivered his memorandum on 17 July, a day before what later became known as the “Harlem riots” that rocked New York that summer.

* Thomas L Blair publishes the Chronicleworld http://www. chronicleworld.org. Discover the Internet facts and common visions of the Black world in the author’s just published E-book The Audacity of Cyberspace: The struggle for Internet power by Thomas L Blair (Orders may be placed at 
http://m-ybooks.co.uk/blair/default.html

ONLINE VOICES

South Africa’s homeless turn cyber-warriors
By Thomas L Blair 20 May 2009

There’s an uncompromising web site paving the way for South Africa’s militant poor to lead a grass-roots Internet revolution in South Africa. Led by cyberactivist S’bu Zikode, the online voice of the Abahlali baseMjondolo Zulu movement has declared a radical challenge. It opposes bureaucrats and land speculators planning to evict thousands of shackdwellers to beautify the city in advance of next year’s soccer World Cup.

 
Cyber-militants took to the Internet with a full-throated cry — Umhlaba! Izindlu! Land! Housing! Winning viewers with a rich diet of people’s voices, photographs and stories, they affirm, “Shack settlements are communities to be developed and not slums to be bull-dozed”.

In the process, they forged a template for small group and grass-roots cyber action. First aired nearly two years ago, Zikode sensed a desperate need to broadcast the shackdwellers’s case. He condemned the Zulu-Natal Slums Act of 2007 as the forerunner of mass evictions and disenfranchisement.

Traditional legal housing rights of shackdwellers, more than half of Durban’s African population, were in danger. The Act enforced a heavy penalty. “No Land; No house; No Vote!” said the cyberactivist.

 

Then Zikode and his comrades used their online journalism skills to “help people gain control of the forces that affect their lives”. They trumpeted the success of community leaders, mass meetings and informal schools and health facilities.

 
Then came the time for action to reform or repeal the threatening Act. With the power of the web in their hands, Zikode and the shackdwellers carried the protest to the highest constitutional courts.
However, the KwaZulu judicial authorities denied this troublesome plea in 14 May 2009. (Too reminiscent, many say, of Verwoerd’s apartheid doctrine of the 1950s: “If the native is being taught that he will live his adult life under a policy of equal rights, he is making a big mistake”.

 
This set back has not stopped the cyberactivity of the proud heirs of Chief Shaka Zulu, the revered political and military leader of the anti-colonial wars. It emboldens them. Cyber-community organisers rallied the shantytown people left out of the political system. Many live on the edge of poverty or are as badly off as their rural relatives earning less than two dollars a day.

Soon, the Abahlali baseMjondolo web site linked a network of “Internetworks” of the militant poor. One cluster of popular protests is the Landless People’s Movement (Gauteng). Another is the Rural Network (KwaZulu-Natal). In addition, the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign adds its online voice. Together, Zikode and his comrades form the Poor People’s Alliance, “a national network of democratic membership based poor people’s movements”.

Furthermore, publishing their “fight-back” mood in major languages — English, Afrikaans, isiZulu & isiXhosa — has attracted South Africa’s politically influential net-generation to the shackdwellers cause. These include online progressive political and language groups, urban planners, housing experts and lawyers. In addition, anti-poverty campaigners, civil rights groups and grassroots organisations are pledging their aid.

 

The audacity of the Zulu cyber-warriors has merit. Information is power; and online shackdwellers push us towards greater awareness of the social uses of the Internet.
Will this new class in the making forge new, more just policies for affordable housing, living wages and secure futures for their children? Will they build unity with the workers’ and trade union movements? Will students and the net-generation take up the cause of the shack dwellers?
Moreover, will “going digital” prompt action from diverse, minor political forces, for example the Pan Africanist Congress and the Communist Party? What will the KwaZulu-Natal’s prime minister and powerful African National Congress do? Will ANC leader Jacob Zuma, a Zulu himself, and South Africa’s fourth president, intervene?

Answers to these questions will determine the democratic future of South Africa and influence Internet campaigns for people’s empowerment in many other countries.

NOTE: Thomas L Blair publishes the Chronicleworld http://www. chronicleworld.org. Discover the Internet facts and common visions of the Black world in the author’s just published E-book The Audacity of Cyberspace: The struggle for Internet power by Thomas L Blair (Order from http://m-ybooks.co.uk/blair/default.html)

Women of the shackdwellers movement

Notebook on Equality Britain

Quietly, model Black women are building sisterly bonds

 

When Black women sing praisesongs to empower communities across the African diaspora we all ought to listen. Especially when the women are high achieving educators, broadcasters, writers, fashion icons, and  policymakers in Britain, and Africa’s First Ladies.

Witness the paeans of affection for Dame Jocelyn Barrow, teacher and civil libertarian, by prominent Black women at her tribute dinner in London, in April.

Among the celebrants were Baroness Scotland, the UK’s attorney general, Baroness Amos, the ex-leader of the House of Lords and first Black woman British cabinet minister, publisher, author and broadcaster Margaret Busby, and Moira Stuart, Britain’s pioneering Black woman news presenter.

They applauded Dame Barrow’s 50-year career. In the 1960’s when many Black educators were keeping their heads down, she helped lead the earliest civil rights group, the Campaign against Racial Discrimination. Without CARD, some, say the Race Relations Act of 1968 would never have passed.

Later, she rose up in the bastions of power; she chaired the Broadcasting Standards Council, and was the first Black woman to be a governor of the BBC, famously described as “all-white middle class and male”.

In her long career, Dame Barrow received Empire awards for her work in education and community relations, and in European social and economic affairs.

Many praise her report ‘Delivering shared heritage’, for the Mayor’s Commission on African and Asian Heritage (MCAAH) 2005, that defended diversity and the contribution of London’s many communities.

The praisesong for empowerment — one of the most widely used poetic forms in Africa — has its bards across the diaspora.

 Super-rich model Naomi Campbell lent her celebrity to the voices of Africa’s first ladies at a health summit held in Los Angeles in April. The two-day summit brought Campbell and the wives of African leaders together with U.S. experts, key political figures and aid organizations to create ongoing partnerships on health, women’s issues and HIV/AIDS.

The first ladies envisioned a new dawn in African development in their countries: Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Swaziland and Zambia.

Significantly, they all agreed: “Empowering Africa’s first ladies is an innovative approach to bettering the lives of millions of Africans.”

Quietly, Black women are laying the foundations of innovative cooperation. Black communities everywhere, hammered by the recession, credit crunch and underemployment, need the high-flyers to represent their cause before hope evaporates and fears thrive.

Hailing Black women in education, broadcasting, politics and public affairs should give them inspiration. Black critics offer words of caution, however: “Do their sentiments foster actions to alleviate the problems of Black people in hostile environments? Joining the ranks of power and privilege is all for naught if leading personalities fail as drum majors for Black achievement.

 If, however, the emerging “sisterhood” can ramp up the levels of shared expertise, resources and skillsets, in Africa and the diaspora, and if this ultimately translates into political influence and social capital, then a chorus of new voices will be heard in the praisesong for Black people.

© Thomas L Blair, Chronicleworld weblog 2009

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The Audacity of Cyberspace — USA case study

Black experts add diversity to the hi-tech world

The evidence is that African Americans have matured in their Internet priorities as well as the ways they access and use the Internet. They know that overcoming the perils of information poverty is one of the essential tasks for future success. This fact is evidenced by the increasing growth of Black web sites shown in Prof Abdul Akalimat’s book The African-American Experiences in Cyberspace: A resource Guide to the Best Web Sites on Black Culture and History (Pluto, London 2004).

 

Furthermore, there is a welcome surge of interest in the hitherto unrecognised contributions of Black Internet innovators, computing scientists, media executives, and professors.  “Black kids might embrace technology with more enthusiasm if they knew someone like Dr. Mark Dean was already leading the way,” says Tyrone D Taborn of the Careers Communications Group, Baltimore, Maryland.

 

Dean is a trailblazer, says Taborn in US Black Engineer & IT magazine, “Hi-Tech’s Invisible Man,” Jan 17, 2004. He is a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is in the National Hall of Inventors. He has more than 30 patents pending. He is a vice president with IBM.”

 

Enthusiastically, he continues: “Oh, yeah. And he is also the architect of the modern-day personal computer. Dr. Dean holds three of the original nine patents on the computer that all PCs are based upon. And, Dr. Mark Dean is an African American”.

 

Further investigation reveals that Taborn’s comments are not an overstatement. “Blacks have played a pioneering role in the hi-tech world,” says the popular Black magazine, Ebony, “Black Pioneers in the High-Tech World,” 2 June 2000, Chicago, Il. Moreover, in 2002, researchers from the University of California-Santa Barbara, MIT and the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center explored “race in digital space” and celebrated the work of Black activists, journalists, entrepreneurs, engineers and scholars using digital technologies (See http://web.mit.edu/cms/Events/race/press.html). 

 

 

Ø  Info Point  Leading Black personalities in US hi-tech  also include:

·         John H Thompson, the first Black chief executive officer of a major Silicon Valley firm

·         28-year-old Darien Dash, who runs  Digital Mafia Entertainment, the first Black-owned publicly traded Internet company

·         US Air Force veteran Earl Stafford, founder of Unitech Inc, a multimillion-dollar military technology firm

·         Yvette Moyo, president of www.mobe.com, a forum promoting the use of information technology in the Afro-American market. See “Black Pioneers in the high-tech world,” Ebony Magazine June 2000; also Tyrone D Taborn, “50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology List” in Black Engineer www.blackengineer.com/events/50_ top_African_Americans_in_Technology.shtml

 

On the horizon

Soon, without doubt, more Black people will be attracted to using the Internet as income and educational levels rise, and as prices of computers and network access fall. Community activists will promote the survival and development of Black neighbourhoods, churches, schools, families and small businesses.

 

The tendencies towards change are apparent. The state of the information revolution in Black America is advancing in strength and purpose. Key factors in this advance were identified by Michael Marriott, in his New York Times article Blacks Turn to the Internet Highway, and Digital Divide Starts to Close”  March 31, 2006. They are:

 

·         Rising Black aspirations to get “wired up” for work, education, politics, leisure and social interaction, associated with

·         More computer and Internet accessibility in schools and libraries, and

·         Greater use of cell phones and hand-held devices that connect to the Internet

 

But the transformation to full access and use of the Internet by Black communities will not be easy. And, the signs are that the struggle for African Americans to get onto the 21st century information superhighway will not cease until their terrestrial rights are fully attained.

 

 

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A decade before Barack Obama’s “net generation” ignited his journey to the White House,  Black communities in the USA, Britain and sub-Saharan Africa went online for equality and social justice. Discover the facts, and their common visions and priorities in –

THE AUDACITY OF CYBERSPACE: The Struggle for Internet Power by Thomas L Blair  tb@thechronicle.demon.co.uk

 

 

 

THE AUDACITY OF CYBERSPACE

 

 Black demand for web-democracy predates Obama’s net-generation

By Thomas L Blair, tb@thechronicle.demon.co.uk, 20 January 2009 

Barack Obama’s “net-generation” ignited his journey to the White House as 44th President of the US – and its first Black leader. On the campaign trail, young “net-geners” attracted millions of donors and volunteer in a multicultural political coalition. 

The brilliant tactic of Internet social networking was clear, however, at least a decade before. Globally, the “net-roots” commitment for change swept the Black World – Africa and the Diaspora. Black communities were adapting the instruments of the digital age– the Internet and computers — for equality and social justice as early as 1996.

 

This surely must have impressed the young Obama, when organising community action in the politically volatile, working poor voting districts of Chicago.

 

 In Britain, online Black communities promoted “digital cities” that value citizen participation. African communities trained cyberactivists and challenge media companies and Internet providers to close the “digital divide” between the “info-haves and have nots”.

 

 In America, the early Black cyberorganisers were blooded by “dreams” for a changed America — from the civil rights pioneers Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer, and Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X to Rev Jesse Jackson’s rainbow campaigns of 1984 and 1988 for jobs, education and health care.

 

Armed with the rousing anthem “We shall overcome”, and Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” may have provided the highlight, cyberorganisers preached the radical idea of “net-working with your neighbours”. They carried their Internet-based redemptive message into schools, universities, churches, clubs, beauty parlours, community halls and workers’ unions.

 

Obama’s net-geners and Internet-savvy voters inherit this demand for change and thrust the revolutionary idea of power sharing into electoral politics. From the rise of Obama 2006 to 2008, they forged the biggest user-friendly, special interest group in the nation. Undoubtedly, the first truly “wired” presidency owes its origins in no small part to the precursors of Internet social action, Black communities.  

 

Hands that once picked cotton now “internetwork” for social change and participatory democracy.

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Thomas L Blair publishes the Internet journal Chronicleworld.org and is the author of the forthcoming book Audacity of Cyberspace: The struggle for internet power. See book content and details at http://www.thomblair.org.uk/audacity.htm 

 

All enquiries, comments and expressions of  interest will be gratefully received tb@thechronicle.demon.co.uk

 

 

 

Cyberblack

Wiring-up Black Britain

Community-oriented web sites are defining the emerging Black British experience in cyberspace.
Black Britain is not the most outstanding example of wired up communities. African Americans are closer to this vaunted ideal. But “going digital” is increasingly the preferred option of African-Caribbeans in the UK.

Mutual aid and self-help
Overcoming the worst effects of information poverty is a typical theme. Patrick Vernon’s Every Generation serves as an “online community resource,” says the Labour councillor and race equality chief in London. “We aim to empower young people and link them with the older generation through history, family genealogy and heritage,” he says. Notably, Every Generation won the Commission for Racial Equality 2003 Race in the Media Award for best website. www.everygeneration.co.uk/

There is an urgent need for Black-led Internet initiatives. Leaders of the African British organisation, ACFF, aim “to raise the aspirations and achievements, academically, professionally and economically for people of African and Caribbean descent”. www.acff.org
Furthermore, Afro-British communities use the Internet to channel aid to their kith and kin in far-off homelands. AFFORD – Africa Foundation for Development “aims to involve Africans abroad more directly in Africa’s development”. www.afford-uk.org

Politics and civil rights
Campaigning groups are starting to make an impact. LIGALI, the Pan African Human Rights Organisation, challenges the misrepresentation of African people, culture and history in the British media. “We produce progressive Africentric media and education programmes that actively work for self determination, socio-political freedom, physical wealth and spiritual health”. www.ligali.org/
The Africa Reparations Movement demands reparations from the former colonial powers for the harm done to Africa and the African Diaspora “through enslavement, colonisation, and racism”. www.arm.arc.co.uk/home.html
Cultural activities
The Africa Centre projects a positive face of Africa in London. The directors use the Internet to broadcast their meetings, talks, exhibitions, cinema, literature, and performing arts. www.africacentre.org.uk
British Black Music has its staunch defenders, too. The online home for the Black Music Congress is the hub for information regarding the state of the African British Music industry.www.britishblackmusic.com
Business and professionals
Web site organisers are catering for a new class of Black achievers. The EPN is an online forum for networking and socialising amongst African British business owners and professionals working in London and environs. www.theepn.co.uk. The 100 Black Men of London, mobilise African British professionals to raise the aspirations of youth and their communities. www.100bmol.org.uk

News, views and commentaries
Cyberactivists are convinced that sharing information is the key to a better future. The Black Presence in Britain highlights the lives of the African /Caribbean people since the 1950’s. www.blackpresence.co.uk Black In Britain bridges the digital gap with news, views, and lists of cultural events. www.blackinbritain.co.uk.

The common view is that using the Internet and new information technologies is “liberating”. Moreover, this has global implications. Online Black cyberactivists everywhere are using the Internet to encourage community cohesion, promote alliances, and to prod uncaring politicians in to action on equality demands.

Of course, we cannot ensure that new technologies — the personal computer, the World Wide Web, the all-powerful smartphone — will help set beleaguered minorities free or merely give us that illusion. My forthcoming book The Audacity of Cyberspace explores the issues behind the astonishing trend toward Black cyberpower. It includes:
• Articles by leading specialists and cyber activists from America, Britain and Sub Saharan Africa
• Profiles of more than 100 online community organisations
• The 50 best innovative strategies by governments and infrastructure companies
• Get the facts from 500 internet sources on health care, xenophobia, workers’ rights, or the depiction of minorities in the mass media.

Me, my children, Chicago and Obama

A Black man’s thoughts on Barack Obama’s election, which I did not predict. A sign of my age. Exclusive extracts from C Gerald Fraser’s private notebook

My children, scattered across the United States, called me election night. One was overjoyed. One sought my reaction, what did old, cynical, no-faith-in-America’s-white-voters-Dad think. Dad was stunned. One asked the question directed, I learned, to many older people, “Did you ever think you would see this in your lifetime?”

 

Of course, my answer was no. I had envisioned a ballot-box lynching. After the votes were tallied, I thought, thank God for the ghastly economy, Americans have been forced to cope with reality. There was also, from my perspective, something that most people didn’t talk about, or realize, that I thought had at least a bit of significance.

As a resident of New York for many decades, I have often thought of my adopted hometown as a city of unrivaled eminence. If you thrive on knowing that your needs and wants are, figuratively, never far from your doorstep, New York is the place to be.

Politically, however, New York City is hopeless. Harlem had the reputation of being the “Black capital of the world.” But it has proven over the years to be a castrated community whose impotence has crippled its Black residents who once stood proud.

 

 

Obama’s victory underscores Chicago’s premier position as a city of vigorous, earnest, smart Black people. And, alas, that is nothing new. The Black Chicagoan–past and present–is who I thought played a critical role in the making of this new President.
In politics, Chicago always seems to be in front. The first Black member of Congress in the twentieth century came from Chicago, Oscar De Priest, who served from 1929 to 1935. As corrupt and unyielding as the legendary Chicago political machine was, in it Black Chicagoans had a place.

Chicago, in the twentieth century, has sent two Black individuals to the U.S. Senate to represent the state of Illinois: Carol Moseley Braun (1993 – 1999, the first Black woman U.S. Senator,), and Barack Obama (2004). No other state has done that.

Chicago elected its first, and only, Black mayor, in 1983, the tough-minded, hard-hitting Harold Washington. Seven years later, New York City, playing catch-up, put David N. Dinkins, “a nice man,” in the mayor’s chair.

Furthermore, the company that created the world-renowned Ebony (in 1945) and Jet (in 1951), Johnson Publishing Company, got off the ground with local Black Chicagoans’ support and in 1949 built its showcase headquarters on one of Chicago’s downtown main streets, Michigan Avenue.

 

The former spiritual home of Malcolm X, the organization now led by Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam, or the Black Muslims, has its national center in Chicago.
                                             
Oprah established Chicago as the base for her billion-dollar empire.

When Jesse Jackson, the astute yet often-maligned survivor of the 1960’s civil rights movement, the “shadow senator” from Washington, D.C., the presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988, put down roots for his political base, Rainbow/PUSH, he chose Chicago.

When it comes to business and politics, New York can’t hold a candle to Chicago. Why?

People I’ve talked to focus on the nature of Black Chicagoans. They have deep-South roots in Mississippi and Arkansas; their forbears came up the Mississippi River to work in steel mills and meat packing houses and equally inelegant but paycheck-producing employment.

 

Chicago forged tough people. The white people (many immigrants from Ireland and Eastern Europe) were tough and the Black people were tough also and had to unite to survive…

This is part of what I believe it took to create the community organizer heading for the White House. New Yorkers are too couth, too individualistic–New York City’s fabled “melting pot” sapped our spirit, produced entertainers, a few athletes, and thousands of wannabees–Chicago produces doers. Hats off, Chicago.

Now what? What’s the next move for America’s Black population–the young and the old, the urban, suburban, and rural, the middle class (whomever), and the working poor?

Among the myriad activities we confront, I think invigorating, energizing, and waking up the Congressional Black Caucus should be high on our agenda. Forget that most of its 41 members (with the exception of the President-elect) were running after Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential primary dawned.

Forget that Black Caucus elders espoused, for example, the impeachment of President George Bush and the defunding the Iraqi war when they were out of power in the Congressional hierarchy. But when voters anointed them in 2006 with the might to do, or even try to do these things, they backed off. 

Now it behooves those of us who send Black men and women to Congress to individually and collectively light a fire under them to push the new President in the proper direction and to use the bully pulpit to let their constituents and the country at large know what is happening in the nation’s capitol.

(Let’s hear from them beyond their self-serving newsletters and taxpayer-paid-for communiques to the faithful constituents. Let’s see them force their way, if they must, into the media–print and broadcast. Let’s hear from them.)

We want transparency, we want to be able to hold elected and unelected movers and shakers responsible. We kept hope alive, now we want change.

C Gerald Fraser, Chronicleworld Occasional Correspondent, is a senior journalist and cultural critic.

    

    

 

 

Black History goes digital

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We lost sight of the true worth of Black History
Now let’s get it back — and digitise it

October is a month of mighty memories for Black communities. Their computers are brimming over with the treasures of Black history. However, what are we doing to preserve Black heritage electronically for the next decade, much less for the ages?

Fortunately, in my new series Black History Goes Digital, I offer some answers to this vexing question. You’ll discover that digital preservation is more than a matter of expensive software in the hands of technocrats. It is content that really counts. That is people gathering, creating, storing and digitising Black Heritage for advancement.

Furthermore, in my view, the challenge of the 21^st century is overcoming information poverty. We need to know what Black communities are doing to tackle the problems and increase the prospects of “Going Digital”. How are they “Crossing the Digital Divide” and “Training cyberarchivists and organisers”?  And, crucially, what are the best methods of Internet action for “Decolonising euro-centric history”, “Creating social capital”, and “Networking the Black World”.

Drawn from diverse sources and reprints from the ChronicleWorld web site, the series has one over-riding purpose. It supports the view that Black History is an irreducible web of experiences that unite Africa and Diasporic communities. Not separate, but equal to others in the human quest for fraternal, peaceful and cooperative relations between all peoples.

By Thomas L Blair, 20 October 2008

 ___________________________________________________________________

 Have you heard the news!!  The Chronicleword.org and its publications are an important “representation of British Culture”, says the national British Library, leader in “conserving world knowledge”. 

Ø  Top-class commentary on policy issues, problems, pride and power of Black Britain and Afro-Europe is our secret of success. Cyber Social Action and Bridging the Digital Divide are constant themes.

Ø  Readers benefit from more than a Decade and a 1000 pages on our website founded in the UK domain in 1997.

Ø  Go to http://www.chronicleworld.org –

Contact details for Prof Thomas L Blair: e-mail: tb@thechronicle.demon.co.uk

 

 

 

 

Is “Post-racial Britain” the End of Black Politics?

 

 How can a handful of people – politicos, media chiefs, business and institutional leaders and downright opponents of equality – manipulate our perspectives on race, and make suckers of us all?

Simple. The new ideologues claim this century’s emerging Black British politicians are radically different from the civil rights and Black Power leaders of the 1960’s. These trendsetters win their elections and appointments by favouring “universal” interests rather than affirmative action policies that can aid Black communities, proponents say.

This dogma fuels the notion that the “race problem” has been transcended. Buttressed by the “Obama phenomenon”, it is said that “Black politics is fading into British politics the same was Jews, long ago, joined the political mainstream. The mood is, “We don’t need to talk about discrimination any more. They’re one of us”.  Hence, we have entered a post-racial future.

All is not as it seems
But here’s the sting.  When the new acceptable Blacks are elected to a place at the political table, they are said to prove there has been satisfactory progress. However, as in slavery and colonial times, the large mass of Blacks who toil gain little.  

Concerns about the post-racial ideology have been widely discussed in weblogs and a flurry of e-mails in America. One posting strikes a chord in Britain. It’s from Linda Burnham on “Obama’s Candidacy: The Advent of Post-Racial America and the End of Black Politics?, H-Afro-Am@H-Net.MSU. EDU).

Importantly, we can garner some clues about the strategies that frame national debates about race and public affairs, and block Black political energies.

How post-racial ideologues control debate
There is “Double-bind racism”, in which anyone who condemns the actual existing racial regime is charged with extremism. Similarly, advocates for anti-racist practices and policies, are accused of being racist, and of ‘playing the race card’ to win special treatment, sympathy and favour.

There is “Dog-whistle racism”, in which racist messages are broadcast through racially coded words and phrases, to reach ears that have been primed and highly attuned to them. (Political leaders that praise “a Britannia of hard-working Britons steeped in British family values and speaking the Queen’s English” are sending a coded message: “Don’t vote for a black”).

Then, there is “Colour-blind racism”, in which supposedly race-neutral policies are used to mask, sustain and defend the unbalanced racial status quo. (The colour-blind assertion –“Who me? I’m not prejudiced; some of my mates are black” — leads many otherwise worthy people to fail to see injustice. It is also the favourite tool used by opponents of affirmative action for racial equality.)

Furthermore, there is “Visually evocative racism”, in which pictures and graphic imagery are purposefully used to trigger deeply embedded racial stereotypes.  (Historically, subservient dancing and prancing Golliwogs and “nigger minstrels” served this purpose admirably. So do today’s persistent images of  aggressive, menacing Blacks prowling the streets, so popular in the media, television dramas and documentaries).  

How racisms are used
End of race ideologues skilfully manipulate four stratagems to control race debates; and here’s how.

·       They serve to confuse and divide Blacks from potential allies across race, class and faith lines. They make it difficult build friendly networks with progressive leaders in minority ethnic groups: Africans, Asians, Irish, Jews, Poles, Muslim. The stratagems create false distinctions between the so-called assimiable immigrants of the past and the doubtful integration of the new immigrants, asylum-seekers and economic migrants from Eastern Europe and world regions. (Scholars and Orientalists say this “divide and rule” strategy has proved a useful tool in the colonies and Britain.)  

 

·       Furthermore, the proponents of the end of race future throw roadblocks in the drive for racial justice and advocacy initiatives. (Though there are no laws explicitly upholding racial inequity, the stratagems used aim to roll back the fragile gains made by legislation and equal opportunity procedures.  

 

·       Proponents use the stratagems to filter out progressive Blacks who take a stand against the status quo. Thus, they undermine the potential influence of anti-racist and empowerment organisations in the corridors and boardrooms of power.  (Come back Black political mavericks: Bernie Grant, Claudia Jones, Learie Constantine, and Lord Pitt, and other partisans for a political humanism that embraces rather than excludes Black communities.)

However, what if you could convert opposition to these stratagems into social power? What if you could blunt their impact on the Black body politic? Inadvertently, the end of race ideologues have, in fact, pinpointed many policy issues in which race is a factor. Confronting and overcoming these issues can help us answer the puzzling question: How will we know when post-racial Britain has arrived?

Reading Burnham’s e-mailed article suggests to me that change will not be by benign governance, top-down bureaucratic diktat or heavenly intervention. It will arise from dedicated efforts to define and support political leaders and policies that add genuine social value.  

The markers of change will be the end of race-based disparities in health, education, housing, income distribution, and wealth. Changing widely contested police, prosecution, criminal justice and mental health practices, sentencing and incarceration policies will be important milestones, too.

 

Greatly increased political participation, representation and commitment to social justice are essential hallmarks.  There is an excellent opportunity to challenge the habitual pessimism of political pundits and survey researchers, say many observers. Simon Woolley, who heads Operation Black Vote (OBV) has said:  “Never before in British history has the black vote been so powerful. In over 70 mostly inner-city seats, such as Battersea, Bristol, and Luton, black communities could determine who wins and who loses”.

Woolley says empowerment campaigners can spell out an agenda for the politics of hope. OBV activists have toured the nation spreading the news of the “Equality in our Lifetime” manifesto along with the 1990 Trust and the National Assembly Against Racism,   

When we reach and surpass these milestones, and when the day comes that all Black people are free, secure and can walk the streets everywhere without fear or hindrance, you will know the post-racial society has arrived to stay.

Read more in my article “What’s so “post” about post racism? We’re all right” gaffe by Windrush author deserves vigorous response”, to be published in The_Latest citizens’ journal www.the-latest.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can East London projects win gold for Britain’s 2012 Olympics?

Post-Beijing there’s a compulsion to better the Chinese and deliver a Games that “was   just as fantastic, just as memorable”, said Mayor Boris Johnson when he accepted the Olympic flag as host for the the 2012 Games. But pride from making East London a better living cityscape will garner more world praise than medals and sporting. 

 

It’s been called “the backside of the city”, “a colony of depressed labour” and a “multi-racial ghetto”. However, the 2012 Olympics Committee could make East London a showcase of urban development with a human orientation. This action, nay, ideology, can carry the mood of Olympics sport and sponsorship to another dimension.

 

To do this, the great and the good of London’s 2012 world tournament will have to up their game. Olympics sports chief Lord Sebastian Coe and builder-developer David Higgins are key players. The government factotums, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, will certainly have to provide leadership to end the pernicious pattern of benign neglect of London’s East End.

 

In this regard, the past is an eloquent teacher. Olympics planners and financers should study the commentaries of dedicated East End observers.

 

Benign neglect is a serial occurrence in the Olympic boroughs. Way back in 1991, the compassionate doctor David Widgery showed how we blame the victims of impoverishment rather than the real villain, the inequality of the “free market metropolis”. The flagship projects of the multi-national commercial developers of the 1980s and 1990s — Canary Wharf, the Isle of Dogs, and the London Docklands (LDDC) — caused wide spread havoc on people and the cityscape.

 

This upheaval threatens to scratch the thin veneer of racial tolerance. The talents of newcomers from Africa, Bangladesh and Vietnam are grossly under-employed, says senior sociologist Michael Young and his colleagues in The New East End: Kinship, race and conflict (2006).

 

After Beijing, Britain faces a formidable challenge. But it lies not in breath-taking fireworks and claiming more medals and glory. Team Great Britain must ensure that the creativity of the people gains expression within the Games and around the Olympics sites. Some basic questions must be anwered. 

 

Will costumed Elisabethans, Jack the Rippers,  and the gaslights of Edwardian days, fish and chips, fruit scones be the main British cultural features in the opening ceremonies, with photos of past medal-winning Black athletes parading around the stadium wrapped in the Union Jack flag?

 

Alternatively, can the Olympics organisers make sure that the festivities are a genuine display of the myriad cultures that make up East London, an exceptional part of one of the world’s great cosmopolitan cities?

 

Furthermore, the Coe-Higgins-Burnham-Jowell team Great Britain, backed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, must be seen to be paragons not only of sporting prowess, but also of corporate responsibility and accountability. They must make effective preparations to uplift communities and their environment. 

 

Olympic cities have always struggled with their social image. “In Athens, a mere three years after their Olympics… I passed some elaborate Olympic project, already crumbling and abandoned to the weeds”, wrote Philip Hensher in The Independent. China’s government and Olympics authorites were widely criticised for displacing people and destroying homes to make way for its 2008 Games. 

 

If by 2012 British Olympics organisers do not help identify and change the inequities that plague East Londoners – benign neglect and malevolent intervention — their critics will be proved right.

 

Indeed, critics will see the failure to aid the reconstruction of East End life and living as the “mask of a species of social apartheid”.  An apartheid that bars the aspiring “people of the abyss” as Jack   London called them, from competing in sports and participating in the economy. (Note: Beijing Olympics gold medallist, Christine Uhuruogu, was born,  raised and still lives in East London). 

 

A disputed Games that supports the invasive computer-age, affluent athletes and workers and excludes long suffering East Londoners is no symbol of a modern, democratic urban society. 

 

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For a further exploration of this topic, see my article “Vital economic link between Carnival and the London Olympics” in the citizens’ journal http://www.The-Latest.com submitted  Sun, 24/08/2008