On January 27, the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a symbolic date to commemorate the victims of Nazism. Murderous Nazi terror targeted millions for reasons of biology, nationality, or political ideology. But few people know that the Nazis’ victims included thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who suffered for their Christian faith.
The celebration of Juneteenth nationally took a new turn in its bid to become a nationally recognized Black holiday last year in the context of the intensified struggle against police violence and systemic racism.
In these troubled, troubling, tragic and trying times, more than ever, we must not only be a people in itself but also a people for itself. That is to say, a people who are not only different and distinct, but also self-consciously and actively so.
So, we have come again to a beautiful and hopeful time: Spring, the promise of new and renewed life; Easter and conversations, imaginations and initiatives of resurrection, renewal, repeating life, “coming forth by day” and rising in radiance into the heavens and afterlife. The concept of resurrection, repair and renewal has a long and rich history in the spirituality, ethics and social teachings of African people. It is both a spiritual and social-ethical concept in the intellectual genealogy and social history of Black thought and offers us lessons on how to live and die and rise up and live again in beautiful transformative ways.
Ethnic regimes were largely ignored in the mainstream media of the global North until the early 1990s, even when troubling events, such as genocide in Burundi, were unfolding. It was only with the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s and the Rwanda genocide (1994) that it became more than apparent that another wave of ethnic cleansing and ethno-nationalist regimes were unfolding.
Ambassador Gordon Sondland declared to impeachment investigators Wednesday that President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani explicitly sought a “quid pro quo” with Ukraine, leveraging an Oval Office visit for political investigations of Democrats. But he also came to believe the trade involved much more.
Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader said he does not support reparation for decentness of slaves, concluding “None of us currently living are responsible” for slavery. In a sense, Senator McConnell is right. Reparation is not the responsibility of White Americans or any individuals living today. It is the responsibility of the government. For it was the U.S. government which enacted the legal institution of human chattel enslavement, primarily of Africans and African Americans, in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The recent hearing in the House of Representatives on reparations marks an important step on the long struggle for justice for Black people and accountability from the larger society for the horrendous and harrowing history of enslavement, Jim Crowism and racist oppression of varied kinds. However, in the spirit and speech of Amilcar Cabral, we know we must “mask no difficulties, tell no lies and claim no easy victories.”
As a new and expanded round of reparations discussions and discourse take place in the public square and in the current political campaigns, seeking promised votes and progressive validation, it is vital for us to maintain control of how we define and pursue this world historical project. Indeed, it is important to look back, remember and reflect and not rush forward thinking it’s all over but the shouting. For ours is the most ancient of human histories with an endless library of lessons in life, work and struggle. And we know from this history, there is no easy walk or way to the victory in struggle we seek, not only to achieve reparations, but also a liberated life in which reparation is truly realized.
For movies opening May 3, 2019:
During both the Holocaust of enslavement and the era of segregation, leaving the plantation was a metaphor, mental process and actual practice of freedom. It was a freeing oneself mentally and physically, thinking freedom and then acting in ways that led to its achievement as did Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Fannie Lou Hamer, Messenger Muhammad and countless others in their rejection of and resistance to enslavement and segregation. Clearly, it is rumored and reported in various official and unofficial send-outs and circles that we have all left the plantation and are all free. But today, regardless of official edited and embellished reports; images of mixed couples and company in TV commercials and movies; and our wishing and wanting to believe we are beyond its borders and bondage, the plantation and its politics remains with us.
The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) has launched a global news feature series on the history, contemporary realities and implications of the transatlantic slave trade.
This is Part 3 in a Series on Slavery in America.
For movies opening January 25, 2019:
For movies opening January 18, 2019:
The conception and development of our philosophy, Kawaida, the work and struggle of our organization Us, and the people-focus, cultural groundedness and social consciousness of the leadership and people we seek to cultivate, teach and exemplify, all began with what our ancestors called in the Husia a “courageous questioning.”