Unbelievable, but proof that we haven't made it to the mountain top!!!

Statement by Reverend Al Sharpton, President of National Action Network



New York, NY (February 18, 2009) --The cartoon in today's New York Post is troubling at best, given the racist attacks throughout history that have made African-Americans synonymous with monkeys. One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual inference to this form of racism when, in the cartoon, the police say after shooting a chimpanzee, "now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill."

Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder whether the Post cartoonist was inferring that a monkey wrote it? Given that the New York Post cartoonist has come under heavy fire in the past for racially tinged cartoons including the infamous cartoons depicting 2001 mayoral candidate Freddy Ferrer and me in very unflattering ways (that ultimately was used as a campaign tactic to inflame racial prejudices), one cannot ignore that history when looking at this morning's cartoon.

The Post should at least clarify what point they were trying to make in this cartoon, and reprimand their cartoonist for making inferences that are offensive and divisive at a time the nation struggles to come together to stabilize the economy if, in fact, this was yet another racially charged cartoon.

Israel Declares End to Ethiopian Immigration

Associated Press
August 17, 2008










GONDAR, Ethiopia - Sitting in a leaky, flyblown hut, a few dozen Ethiopian villagers are anxiously waiting to be transported to another world.

They have just been given word that their years of waiting are over and they soon will make a 2,000-mile journey by land and air with what is probably the last wave of Ethiopian immigrants to Israel.

In doing so, they are flying into the teeth of a dilemma that touches the heart of Israel's founding philosophy.

For people like 48-year-old Abe Damamo, his wife and eight children, wrenching change awaits.

Like most Ethiopians with Jewish roots, they have come from the Gondar region of northern Ethiopia. Their remote village uses donkeys for transportation and has no bathrooms. Damamo has no formal education and speaks no language but his own.

He is moving to an industrialized democracy where he will have to learn Hebrew, master a cell phone, commute to work and find his place in a nation of immigrants from dozens of countries.

But to him, being Jewish is all that matters.

"I am so happy to go and live my religion," he says through a translator.

Not everyone at the Israeli end is happy, however. In the initial stages of an immigration that began three decades ago, all the Ethiopians emigrating to Israel were recognized outright as Jews. But those now seeking to make the trip are the so-called Falash Mura, whose ancestors converted to Christianity, the main Ethiopian faith, at the end of the 19th century to escape discrimination.

Initially, Israel balked at accepting their claim of Jewishness, but relented after American Jews led a campaign for the Falash Mura.

About 40,000 moved to Israel, a country of 7 million, joining 80,000 already there. Their presence touched off a fierce debate in Israel over where to draw the line.

Ethiopians with any hope, however faint, of eligibility for Israeli citizenship have descended on camps in the city of Gondar, scrambling to prove their Jewishness. Men in prayer shawls attend makeshift synagogues, and children in skullcaps sit on mud floors learning the Hebrew alphabet and Jewish holidays.

Centuries of intermarriage and a lack of documentation have made it extremely difficult to prove who is a Jew, and the group awaiting their flight to Israel last month was supposed to be among the last. The Israeli government has decided that the influx must stop.

Those able to meet the criteria for immigration will have to undergo conversion to Orthodox Judaism after arriving in Israel.

Besides cutting to the heart of the age-old debate over who is a Jew, the dispute between the Israeli government and the U.S. Jewish activists who finance the Gondar camps raises uncomfortable questions about a central tenet of Israel's founding philosophy.

Israel's Law of Return guarantees citizenship for any Jew in need, and these days the country is especially concerned about boosting its Jewish population to compete with the Arabs. But the Ethiopians have proved the hardest immigrant group to absorb, and the Falash Mura, some critics feel, are pushing the limits.

Like every other immigrant group, Ethiopian-Israelis have made their mark on the human mosaic of Jewish nationhood - giving it top-notch soldiers, funky musicians, world-class athletes and two members of parliament. They also have a powerful backer, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party in the ruling coalition, which capitalizes on the Ethiopian vote.

But as a whole they are poor, plagued by crime, violence and substance abuse, feeling shut out of a world very different from rural Africa.

The steep learning curve is evident even before they depart for Israel.

Those approved for immigration are taught what a refrigerator looks like, how to cook on a stovetop, how to flush a toilet. Nurses teach the women to use female hygiene products. The families are introduced to TVs and are shown videos of life in their new world. They are warned to mind the "magic stairs" - the escalators - at the Addis Ababa airport.

Before leaving, they undergo extensive medical checkups at an Israeli Embassy compound in Addis Ababa, and their African surnames are replaced with Hebrew ones.

But despite all the preparations, most Ethiopian immigrants over age 35 go straight onto welfare after reaching Israel, according to the Jewish Agency.

The Israeli government, lacking a universally accepted definition of Jewishness, has long welcomed immigrants whose links to Judaism were tenuous, many of them among the hundreds of thousands who came from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

Israel has struggled for years to figure out which Ethiopians should be admitted. Each time it has tried to end the immigration by emptying the Gondar camps and airlifting their inhabitants to Israel, thousands more have flooded into the camps, scrambling to prove their Jewishness.

The argument now seems to have come down to numbers: Israel says the last of the Falasha Mura who qualify for immigration arrived in Israel this month; the American groups say 8,700 have been left behind.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has upheld the Israeli list.

Lopez Lomong to carry U.S. flag

Associated Press

DALIAN, China -- Eight years ago, Lopez Lomong didn't even have a country. Now he'll be carrying the flag for his adopted nation, leading the U.S. Olympic team at opening ceremonies Friday night. Lomong, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, won a vote of team captains Wednesday to earn the honor of leading America's contingent into the 90,000-seat Bird's Nest Stadium.

The 1,500-meter track runner will be the flagbearer only 13 months after becoming a U.S. citizen.

"It's more than a dream," Lomong said in an interview with The Associated Press moments after he got the news. "I keep saying, I'm not sure if this is true or not true. I'm making the team and now I'm the first guy coming to the stadium and the whole world will be watching me carry the flag. There are no words to describe it."

He was born in Sudan, separated from his parents at the point of a gun at age 6, and with the help of friends, he escaped confinement and made it to a refugee camp in Kenya. In 2001, he was brought to America as part of a program to relocate lost children from war-torn Sudan.

Earlier this week, Lomong, 23, said he was mounting a campaign to be nominated by the track and field team for the flagbearer's position. He said the honor would be memorable, but he also was thrilled to be part of the democratic process that might get him there.

"In America, everyone has a chance to do all these things," Lomong said. "You follow the rules, people will choose, and if I'm blessed to get that opportunity, I'll get it."

In 2004, Dawn Staley did the flagbearer's honors. In 2000, they went to kayaker Cliff Meidl, who survived a 30,000-volt jolt of electricity in a construction accident and became an Olympian.

Lomong's story is every bit as inspiring.

He knew nothing of the Olympics in 2000, when his friends at the refugee camp in Kenya talked him into running five miles and paying five shillings to watch Michael Johnson on a black-and-white TV set with a fuzzy screen.

At that point, Lomong knew he wanted to be an Olympic runner. He earned his spot at the Olympic trials on July 6, exactly one year after he gained his U.S. citizenship.

All three Americans in the 1,500 are naturalized citizens -- Lomong, Bernard Lagat (Kenya) and Leo Manzano (Mexico).

"I feel great," Lomong said Wednesday night. "I feel happy, honored. I'm feeling so blessed to get an opportunity to present the United States of America, to present the United States flag in front of my team."

Blackfaced Children in UNICEF Ad

A blog called: Black Women in Europe wrote:



This is an actual ad-campaign by UNICEF Germany!

This campaign is "blackfacing" white children with mud to pose as "uneducated africans“.

The headline translates "This Ad-campaign developped pro bono by the agency Jung von Matt/Alster shows four german kids who appeal for solidarity with their contemporaries in Afrika"

The first kid says:

"I'm waiting for my last day in school, the children in africa still for their first one."

second kid:

"in africa, many kids would be glad to worry about school"

third kid:

"in africa, kids don't come to school late, but not at all" (!)

fourth kid:

"some teachers suck. no teachers sucks even more."

Besides claiming that every single person in "Africa" isn't educated, and doing so in an extremely patronising way, it is also disturbing that this organisation thinks blackfacing kids with mud (!) equals "relating to african children". Also, the kids' statements ignore the existence of millions of african academics and regular people and one again reduces a whole continent to a village of muddy uneducated uncivilized people who need to be educated (probably by any random westerner). This a really sad regression.

Bottom lines of this campaign are: Black = mud = African = uneducated. White = educated. We feel this campaign might do just as much harm as it does any good. You don't collect money for helping people by humiliating and trivializing them first.

Unfortunately, if it was clear to the average German that this is wrong, UNICEF and the advertising agency wouldn't come out with such a campaign.

Please write your opinion and help make clear and explain why it is wrong to use "blackface with mud", and write to UNICEF at publicrelations@unicef.de as well as the advertising agency at info@jvm.de with a copy to Black German media-watch-orgaiztion info@derbraunemob.de what you feel about this campaign and why. Please include a line that you’re going to publish your mail and the response.

by the way, the slogan of the advertising agency who came up with this, reads
"we communicate on eye-level".

sincerely,

Noah Sow

NOTE: The pictures uploaded here are not in the same order in which they appear on the UNICEF site

Zwarte Piet - Modern Blackface in the Netherlands

America is not the only place in the world where Blackface has manifested. However; because of the popularity of the minstrel shows here, the world has come to adopt it.

I just became aware of the practice in the Netherlands of Zwarte Piet-- Santa Clause's servant. It is still common-- if not more common for people to dress up in ridiculous costumes and paint themselves pitch black. Check this out from Wikipedia:

"During recent years the role of Zwarte Piet has become part of a recurring debate in the Netherlands. To this day, holiday revellers in the Netherlands blacken their faces, wear afro wigs and bright red lipstick, and walk the streets throwing candy to passers-by. As at Carnival, some of the actors behave dim-wittedly, or like buffoons, and/or speak mangled Dutch as embodiments of Zwarte Piet."

Wow! Our legacy runs deep, and it really makes me question --even more-- how Hollywood can think it's somehow okay for Robert Downey, Jr. to act in Blackface in "Tropic Thunder". It's ridiculous.

Watch this sample from Youtube of a "comedy" spoof in the Netherlands (it's from 2007!!!):

Family Days at MoAD

In the 19th century, photography inflicted a certain amount of pain. Cameras were expensive, so few people owned one. Those who wanted portraits had to sit in studios for long periods with their heads clamped so they wouldn't move. No wonder people were rarely smiling in old-timey portraits.

Photography has come a long way, and the Museum of the African Diaspora is focusing on the big picture. The museum's current exhibition displays early photographs, such as tintypes and daguerreotypes, as well as photographs on linen, wood and felt. The 90-plus images in the exhibition include depictions of slavery, 20th century civil rights conflicts, African American soldiers and family life.

On the 3rd Saturday afternoon, each month, at the museum, children can experiment with an early photographic technique by making cyanotypes, or blueprints. They can compose images by laying flat objects on chemically treated paper. The museum will provide feathers, but kids can also bring and use their own flat objects. After pressing the objects and paper between sheets of glass, kids will take the assembly outside, exposing it to sunlight. Whatever they've covered will remain white. Anything else will soon turn a brilliant lapis lazuli blue. Kids take home whatever they create.

"It's a simple, fun, rewarding process," says MoAD education program manager Demetrie Broxton. "It's quick, and you get great results."

The event is part of the museum's Family Day, held one Saturday a month to allow kids to engage with the content of exhibitions. The current exhibition - "Double Exposure: African Americans Before and Behind the Camera" - delves into the double-edged relationship that African Americans have had with photography.

In the 19th century, white institutions photographed African Americans with the intention of proving that they were inferior in anatomy and intelligence. In 1900, when Eastman Kodak developed cameras that were relatively cheap (just $1!), photography became widely accessible. Suddenly, African Americans could record the realities of their everyday lives.

"The photos show a more complex view of African Americans than just slaves, laborers and poor people," says Broxton.

The photos on display show African Americans through the lenses of others and through their own collective lens. Some compositions by contemporary artists (including Gerald Cyrus) allude to works by early African American photographers, such as Roy DeCarava, who captured people as they danced on Harlem streets. And contemporary photographer and artist Carrie Mae Weems has reappropriated old, degrading images of African Americans, suggesting that there's another history.

1-4 p.m. Sat. Free with museum admission ($10 for adults, free for younger than 12). Education Center, 3rd floor, Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St., S.F. (415) 358-7200, http://www.moadsf.org/.


- Eve Kushner, 96Hours@sfchronicle.com


Photo Credit:
Hank Willis Thomas' "The Oft Forgotten Flower Children of Harlem," part of his series "Unbranded," is on display at the Museum of the African Diaspora.

"Nigger", Nigga, Negro by Nas

Text by Tamara of Rice N Peas Films

The word "nigger" is arguably the most controversial and offensive racial slur to ever be invented, racists use it to belittle and dehumanise people of African descent, yet many black youths have appropriated its usage, flipped the context and reinvented its meaning.What’s in a word? Those standing in the sticks and stones corner will say not a thing. Words are a bank collection of letters to which meaning is applied depending on how, to, and by whom they are used. See the transmutation of words like wicked, cool, and sick for reference. But while the context theory is a reasonable one, it doesn’t quite work when you try to apply it to a word like, say, nigger.

Ask Nas, he’ll tell you. The 37-year-old rapper from Queensbridge, New York is no stranger to controversy; remember this is the man who burst onto the hip-hop scene with the infamous line, “When I was 12, I went to hell for snuffing Jesus.” But nothing could have prepared him for the furore he met when he tried to name his ninth album “Nigger.” Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Bill Cosby and the NAACP spearheaded a campaign of public condemnation, accusing Nas of ignorance and inflammatory behaviour, forcing Def Jam and Nas to rename the album Untitled. But Nas didn’t back down completely. The album’s defiant lead single, “Be a Nigger Too,” features the sing-a-long chorus:

"I’m a nigger, he’s a nigger, she’s nigger, we some nigger’s

Won’t you like to be a nigger too?

Too all my kike niggers, spic niggers, guinea niggers, chink niggers

That’s right y’all my niggers too

They like to strangle niggers, blame a nigger, shoot a nigger, hang a nigger, still you wanna be a nigger too?”

For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Nasir Jones, oldest son of the jazz musician Olu Dara, you may dismiss this as the crass utterings of another dumb rapper shottin’ ignorance as entertainment. But Nas is no idiot. Straddling the seemingly disparate fields of conscious hip hop and reality rap, he is one of the foremost lyricists of our times. He’s read his history books. He knows what ‘nigger’ means, a word described by American journalist Farai Chideya as “the nuclear bomb of racial epithets.” His gun was fully loaded. Though it would seem Nas has misfired.

Talking to MTV News late last year, Nas responded to the controversy over his album title by saying:

"I wanna make the word easy on muthafuckas' ears. You see how white boys ain't mad at 'cracker' 'cause it don't have the same [sting] as 'nigger'? I want 'nigger' to have less meaning [than] 'cracker.' With all the bullshit that's going on in the world, racism is at its peak. We're taking power [away] from the word.

"But how can a word that has been used for the last 400 years to dehumanise one section of the human race, a process which resulted in slavery, colonialism and continued economic, physical, mental and spiritual subjugation suddenly become a catch-all term of endearment for anyone who chooses to use it? Changing the meaning you give a word does not change its history. Though Saul Williams, a spoken word artist/actor/poet who collaborated with Nas on the track “Black Stacy” seems to think otherwise. Speaking to me during a pre-promotional tour for his Niggy Tardust project, I ask him how he felt about the public use of a very private word. He replied:

“When I used the word ‘nigger’ I essentially mean everybody because I believe that you can’t curse the part without damning the whole. I am a firm believer in the meaning that was used by the European John Lennon when he said ‘women are the niggers of the world.’ It speaks to the idea of being disenfranchised and being overlooked by governments and oppressed, but essentially, especially in relation to the African-American experience, I think of the word ‘nigger’ as a portable hard drive, that if we were to try and streamline our experience and all that we’ve known and been through as a people on this land, we could do away with a lot and simply keep that word and all of the history would be embedded in it.”

Does that make it okay to use? You can change ‘nigger’ to ‘nigga’ but its origins as another word for ‘less than human’ remain. And I don’t think you can ever take away the sting. On researching this article, I went to a library to enquire after a copy of Randall Kennedy’s thought-provoking work, “Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word,” and found myself unable to ask the white librarian for it. The words just wouldn’t come out of my mouth, because I was conscious of the fact that less than 100 years ago someone who looked like him would have been calling someone who looked like me that very word without the slightest hint of humanity. Yet Williams is a firm believer in our ability to infuse the word with a new meaning.

“We have to keep history in its place. Even what we know of history is partially barricaded from us, so what a lot of people don’t talk about is the fact that the Niger River existed as the Niger way before Europeans ever came, and in that Niger Basin there are over 200 languages spoken and in just about every one of those languages there are words that sound exactly as the word ‘nigger,’ meaning anything from God to river to grass. ‘Nigger’ may be the only word in the English lexicon that is of actual African origin. And when I look at a generation of young people that have chosen to reconnect to that word, I wonder what is the subconscious process of healing? What does it take? Perhaps it is something like the way old schoolers would say about the way you heal from a snakebite. Having to spit out the venom again and again until there is no more. Suck it up and spit it out. Perhaps its some sort of process like that. I’m not sure.”

It’s quite clear that Nas hoped to expose the hypocrisy of a racist, white-run music industry which has flaunted the word like a dysfunctional peacock but done nothing to question its meaning, its reception or its history. An industry that deems it acceptable for black artists to tell tales of shooting and killing ‘niggas’ quickly shoots down a man who tries to have an open debate about what the word means. For this I commend Nas, but it’s not a debate we should be having because it’s not a word anyone should be using. It should be confined to history along with the legal lynchings and enslavement from whence it came. Because until the conditions which allow certain people of a darker hue to be treated as sub-human, as ‘niggers,’ disappears, then the word should too. No matter how you spell it, or what you may mean by it, it’s painful past and present always remains.1st July 2008

You be the Judge: