Aspirations, Aaron Douglas, 1936

[info]exiledun

ExiledOne Commentary

Unique View of An African from America

Turvy (Exile 2012)
Aspirations, Aaron Douglas, 1936
[info]exiledun
May 13th, 8:09
Current Location:
Exile
Current Music:
Soul On Fire by LaVern Baker


ONE LAST THRILL:
USA president Nixon

In the Topsy Turvy world I came up in, the economy's seismic movement meant that I graduated from a high ranked high school although our family had no automobile. In America that was like being a surgeon by the sense of feel. At thirteen I was delivering newspapers ten hours a week. During the era headlines were grave noting that the USA president was resigning. He was a crook and this was a storm of controversy for some people.

Shifts in the ordinary standard oppression through the seventh decade of the 20th century allowed me the college (university) experience, where I became friends with international students. A give and take of ideas-life and the Cold War, life and African neocolonialism, apartheid and culture shock, life and meeting other students in the privileged arena from Spanish speaking Central and Caribbean Americas. Culturally I recall a lot of sunshine as I began to know something of the world beyond books, television and determined White teachers exclusively expressing their worldview.

Socially, no doubt a true flip flop of matters was a zone of conflict between our generation of Africans in America born in the mid to late '50s who made society know that we didn't want tokenism, we wanted power. Power to define ourselves in the educational world-Black Studies was the now odd sounding effort to have African peoples philosophies, perspectives and declared worldviews taught and learned in America's public and private Euro American dominated academic universe. Topsy people really didn't like us, a shocking Turvy element flaring up.

HOLLYWOOD TAKES NOTICE:
'Claudine' from 1974 told the story of a single mother

The thunder and mostly lightning was welcomed by the tiny few unwilling to see the 1960s as a sore to be bandaged. What else was Turvy if all the above is truthfully revealed, was that along with the end of popular dissent in the streets, '72 or '73, new ways of deforming women's lives came about. A greater poverty-of pocketbook combined with that of the soul ate away at the lives of women globally. In the West, corporations heeded the time profitwise and flung open a gate or door here and there. Men, unable to or unwilling to stand by their woman (and children by them) increasingly walked out of the family door due to personal, financial or drug problems. The vast areas of the patriarchal USA afforded men a brand new start elsewhere. Single motherhood would define the lives of millions upon millions. Fatherless society also produced a brackish celebratory drink for monumental income gains by the end of the 1990s.

It all depends on one's perspective as to what's the deal today.

It's Turvy, as I see it.

And that's through a hailstorm on the promise of a liberated sunny day.





13 May 2012
From Exile,
Bankole





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http://exiledun.livejournal.com/31203.html




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Knock Out (Exile 2010)
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The Real Big Three (Exile 2012)
Aspirations, Aaron Douglas, 1936
[info]exiledun
May 9th, 17:09
Current Location:
Exile
Current Music:
Nubian Lady by Bobbi Humphrey
SALT

Reduce for your health.  

Sleek or chunky, we all need to 'lose' something.

The 50% mark is a goal for many of us trying to get to the level of better health. The climb to a better life seems impossible and lots of people are overwhelmed by those in place to profit off of the confusion and fear. There are three challenges ahead for anyone working to do better in respect to diet.

Putting aside perfection for a moment and starting with some basics, can we slice in half the amount of these 3 so called nutritional items in our diets?


Sodium (which is not just the salt sprinkled onto meals and the hidden sodium in processed meats, snacks, cereals, foods and drinks)



Sugar (which includes the synthetic sweeteners in processed drinks, cereals, candies, snacks and foods, alcoholic drinks)



Flour (which includes bread, fried battered meats, cakes, pies, pastry, gravy, pasta and some snacks)



If Your Eyes See The Need To Eat Everything You Are In Trouble


Where the replacements are for it all depends on the person who wants to change their diet.

There are thousands of vegetables and fruits to choose from, grains, seeds and nuts. Plenty of water to drink (purify it as much as possible) and fresh air to breathe (go to where the cars are few, the green trees, bushes and and grass outnumber them). Walk before jogging or running. Ride a bicycle in a park before riding in the street. Perspiration lowers blood pressure and regulates blood circulation. But remember, water in, water out! Drink water to replace what is sweated out.

Because many of us are caught in a system that has us hostage to behaviors that aren't the best for us, we suffer. Be careful, the money pressures, time pressures and the habits we have accepted can get the best of us. Forces beyond our control are squeezing us like oranges while they enjoy the nectar.

The last idea to share is that your discipline could mean your life, health or sanity.

Reduce what is extra and not needed.

The Real Big Three.



9 May 2012
From Exile,
Bankole





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Like The Earth (Exile 2010)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/114912.html






Black Bean Express (Exile 2010)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/118534.html
 



Food Security In Perspective (Exile 2012)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/151338.html


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Daylight (Exile 2012)
Aspirations, Aaron Douglas, 1936
[info]exiledun
May 6th, 20:01
Current Location:
Exile
Current Music:
Aunt Nettie B by Lee Morgan

Detroit 1967

"The conflict that existed between the United States and the Black/New African liberation struggle particularly the FBI cointelpro low intensity counterinsurgency against civil rights, Black liberation struggle represented a specific era."


Macro Africa

As the United Nations Year for People of African Descent (2011) fades into the rear view mirror, assessments of the actual situation of the people are necessary. It is true, the United Nations is known for issuing declarations and resolutions that have limited effect in the real world. Now it has to be said that any and every state body and the ruling classes of such also crank out legislation, commemorations and ceremonial gestures by the barrel load. The issues are many and complicated while at the same time simple, for all African people worldwide. To date, the ravages of Typhoid, Malaria, HIV AIDS, Tuberculosis, Hepatitis A and B, Cholera and the killer Diarrhea have been seriously destroying lives, especially in Africa. But there are the non tropical sicknesses, of which (Hepatitis, Tuberculosis and HIV AIDS) continue to wipe out vast percentages of African people in North America, the Caribbean and Western and Eastern Europe. Why Africans lead in death rates in the zones mentioned can not be ignored. With the capitalist banker induced crisis entering a fifth year, less pharmaceuticals than ever reach those in poverty. However it is achieved, the international arena is where these mammoth tasks will be resolved.






Georgia, USA has 15,000 prison guards and administrators and more than 55,000 prisoners
1 in 15 state residents is in prison or supervised by a prison.


Artificial Light

If the first thought is that a doctor in the White House is needed, it is obvious that the Barack Obama administration isn't rushing to aid Africa or Africans in the diaspora. If he does, it is in the guise of Hillary Clinton, Leon Pannetta and the new military-surveillance complex now being installed, the Commander in Chief hopes, across the world. From NATO disturbed North Africa to the Congo, the first obvious USA leader of African bloodlines (Read The 5 Black Presidents) has shown little love for his father's ancestral homeland. He has, however, a line up of African Americans: Commerce department boss, AFRICOM military system active there currently (Africa war division) and Chief Ambassador to African nations. Arms, military training and cocaine do however flow as they never did before. Corporate friendly rulers still live, across the African diaspora, in an elite apartheid away from the masses. For Africans in the West, particularly in the decaying American state where Mr Obama intends to mount the throne once more in early 2013, there are other doctors in the house. One, Dr Mutulu Shakur, has the audacity to be prepared to challenge the viewpoint of the African experience in the the murderous 20th century and beyond to the current realities. For years, in his tiny high tech prison room at the mountain Florence, Colorado 'Guantanamo of The Rockies' longterm and now in a California US government fortress, Dr Mutulu Shakur has been a real people's change candidate. Unknown by design to many across the corporate media addicted world of information, Dr Mutulu Shakur has advanced numerous ideas and forward looking suggestions to African so called Americans (also called New Afrikans) in the wider USA society and of course, the African diaspora. In the artificial light, nervous system agitating flourescent lamps flicked on 24 hours a day and under constant camera surveillance, he has continued to try and extend a thread of resistance African people have needed for 500 years.





Dr Mutulu Shakur, b. 1950
"Straight Ahead, Stiff Resistance"

Daylight

In criminalizing the Black Movement for Justice, the US government has on it's domestic front proved that it was out of the sphere of democracy in the last half of the 20th century. African people in America in the general sense were trying to be free of the crude degradation, socially, economically and politically and became organized on a large scale during the 1940-1970 era of protest and rebellion. History exposes that the American state tried forced assimilation in place of addressing the fundamental exploitation of African people, including White 'citizens' using violence to attack Africans of any class, title, for any reason and at any time. Historically, when the high tide of White discontent is upon America, the racists are seen as 'disgruntled personally' and depicted as 'tragic figures'. Today, White and other vigilantes are boldly assassinating Black and Brown youth in the USA, but it is only a reflection on the wider failure of Human Rights in custom and law. No government can make sure that people are free-democracy comes from the people. But the state power to reign in terrorists cannot be managed any longer to suit a racist agenda made for profits. The terrible historical record shows that the life of Indians (Indigenous peoples), and Africans have been meaningless when Euro Americans decided to kill. The American state, then as now, did not stop the White 'citizenry' from the aggression. It can be argued that this was not even slowed: the US federal police (FBI) has admitted tacitly that past Human Rights violations need to resolved. The entire Justice department is even headed by a man of African descent.



Chicago



17,000 lynchings, rapes, burnings and castrations of African 'Americans'
 between 1880 and 1950

The people who had some of the least status took on the greatest task of responsibility of insuring direct democracy for all in the USA in the 1955-1970 era




But there is no indication that progress on anything earthshaking has resulted. A cycle of press conferences is standard for 'the feds', if the matter of pure rampant racists cannot be avoided. Once any media sensation has occurred and subsided, nothing is done. A racist police state grew in complexity, opening the ranks to hundreds of thousands of African 'American' police, prosecutors, judges, prison superintendents, prison guards, television reporters and producers, criminologists and local politicians, mayors and governors. Of course this meant an explosion in size. In the 21st century, there has been a decrease in growth of a bloated system. Nearly all public and private employees are now concerned about getting enough finances to retire (pensions) and America cannot agree on how to provide structurally (education, employment, health, banking services, social welfare, building and maintaining roads and bridges) for it's future generations. All of this has come at a time of unprecedented looting by the global professional financiers. The superpower has admitted that the decline has been speeding up. Daylight is pouring forth as the entire system is seen for what it is. But long before the relatively privileged Whites that now fill the internet and television screens with protests there were the do or die revolutions of Red and Black Nations.


                                                         
                                                                    
Assata Shakur, b. 1947                                                                                                     

Looking For Escape

In every problem situation there exists a solution-even several. A predictable refusal, like most worldwide struggling people in the 1960s to settle for forced assimilation meant that the African population, commonly called African Americans, would be subject to intense forces, within and outside pressures. What criteria are used to argue that the situation of the people in/from the still great branded USA has improved since then? A simple yes or no?

52 years after the Greensboro sit in protests that made news globally, the answer, dreaded or accepted calmly, is that there is no question that it is worse. Many people in America, as in the 1700s during physical captivity, equate African children, women and men with criminality, evil and subhuman status.

With each passing on of those who gave so much to the world from the 'Hells of North America', the entrenchment of the USA government's extralegal attacks (FBI,CIA and city, state and federal agencies) on those seeking democracy becomes clearer. This foreshadowed the intense control of the Western world now done routinely by 'the spyocracy'. Try as it might, the USA can no longer exist in it's fog of legal fantasy apart from the world. More prisoners than all of China's prisoners, Political Prisoners and Political Exiles, an internationally condemned Penalty of Death being used to kill many of the poor and the dark skinned, the first prison right's movement in 40 years-the bursting point is upon Washington DC. Torture to gain false confessions has been documented to 'help' police add to numbers of arrests and convictions in New York City, for instance. This is mass terror by the state. This keeps a giant apparatus in motion and finances profit the police, courts and underscores the racist history of America. Now the system, in the glare of the cyberworld, much less the television that haunted the image spinmasters of the 1960s, reveals that the society would rather erase African 'Americans' systematically instead of face up to international law standards it argues for in Myanmar, Pakistan, China and Venezuela.

There is an escape from the racial dilemma.

Only through a thorough and honest examination of the times gone by  with the parties involved can there be closure.

Does America Need A Truth & Reconciliation Commission?

Through it's first seating of Barack Obama, whether agreed upon or not, a signal event has marked the American government and society's turning point. What of the nonviolent and violent actions taken that transformed USA society and by extension the world's social and cultural landscape? Will Dr Mutulu Shakur, Sundiata Acoli, Herman Wallace, Albert Woodox, Abdul Majid, George Wright, Mumia Abu Jamal, Assata Shakur, Ruchell Magee, Chip Fitzgerald, Kamau Sadiki  and many others of the 60s until the present day Black Movement for Justice be considered freedom fighters and not terrorists as America has done for Nelson Mandela and numerous others who challenged and brought about social change?

Boasting of embedded media reporters, security services privately run and a hulking air, land and sea force in Afghanistan and Iraq during the earlier period has waned. America and her allies now don't deny that negotiations with the Taliban are necessary. What about some internal opposition? Daylight must shine on the whole story and not just that told by one side.


Can America now meet at the table for another silent and critical war's end?



6 May 2012
From Exile,
Bankole


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http://exiledun.livejournal.com/112027.html





Not Glossy: Pelican Bay Strike (Exile 2011)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/150062.html





Dispatch, Prison Nation #6 (Exile 2012)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/150062.html





Resources:


Dr Mutulu Shakur Proposes The Truth & Reconciliation Commission
http://mutulushakur.com/site/2011/05/towards-a-truth-and-reconciliation-commission-for-new-africanblack-political-prisoners-prisoners-of-war-and-freedom-fighters/




Sign The Petition For The Truth & Reconciliation Commission
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/usatrc/signatures




New Wars In Africa, New Media Weapons
http://www.blackstarnews.com/news/122/ARTICLE/8007/2012-03-08.html




No Justice: The FBI & Human Rights Violations
http://www.theskanner.com/index.php/article/FBIs-Civil-Rights-Cases-Remain-Unsolved-2008-09-04
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Wonders Of Wit (Exile 2012)
Aspirations, Aaron Douglas, 1936
[info]exiledun
April 29th, 1:36
Current Location:
Exile
Current Music:
Kathleen's Theme by Les McCann

ExiledOne Cultural Perspectives #8

Gil Scott Heron (1949-2011)

using wit, followed in Langston Hughes' footsteps




"Keep your wits about you!" 


"That was a witty remark." 


"He's witless."


"Sister Souljah" b.1964

Paying the price for being articulate

An activist born in New York City, she was an internationally educated student in Europe and Africa and was well traveled years before the popular album was recorded in 1992


Having a wit means being able to express in a few words, usually swiftly, a thought. This point can be box-cutter sharp and draw mental or emotional blood. Yes, it can lead to humans shedding blood too! Wit, a person or the saying itself, can be a slow drip that reveals itself in the mind of the audience decades later. It can take root as a scolding, a gentle reminder or a booming shout to inspire. The bland simpleness of the spoken utterance-or the flourish-can emerge like a joke bursting in the gut or a downright serious conversation ender, flicked effortlessly by a 'dozens player'.


Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1936-1977)

Played 40 different instruments

Composer Of Many Pieces Full Of Irony And Absurdity




Volunteered slavery has got me on the run
Volunteered slavery has got me on the run
Oh volunteered slavery, oh volunteered slavery
Oh volunteered slavery, slavery

Volunteered slavery is something we all know
Volunteered slavery is something we all know
Oh volunteered slavery, oh volunteered slavery
Oh volunteered slavery, slavery

Mm hmm yeah



The core of the wit is a grave assembling of the facts (whether esteem for facts is appreciated is questionable) in order to deliver a message. That's wit. I've met a number over the years and across the countries, provinces, cities and villages and everywhere in between.  A chance encounter is often the setting for the disclosure of verbal jewels.

Successfully using wits wisely can save a life, including one's own. It's an aphrodisiac, intoxicant and if well timed, a phrase weapon launched from the mouth. A comeback may be futile and it is often wit that brings forth the statement of an adversary's weakness in deed, nevermind her/his spoken position.




It can deflate the might of tyrants by creating an opening, a crack in what appeared to be invincible armor. Given that wit is utilized for good, it has great potential to open eyes and hearts.





A remarkable wit stills the fearful heartbeat of the threatened, restoring confidence and the desire to triumph. Wit can elevate a woman or man or child pitted against a crowd of dominant individuals, their organizations and structures of power. When, Why, Where, How and What wit is used for can never be underestimated.





28 April 2012
From Exile,
Bankole





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South Of The Circle (Exile 2011)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/131938.html








Remembering Attiba (Exile 2012)
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To The Big Aggressors (Exile 2012)
Aspirations, Aaron Douglas, 1936
[info]exiledun
April 25th, 18:45
Current Location:
Exile
Current Music:
Airegin by Sonny Rollins

To The Big Aggressors That It May Concern:


Wounds are one issue. Not treating them is another.



Pakistan



In the course of your activities (build-up of arms) it's been clear that you have insecurity problems. Why else would you choose to group yourselves in order to move against poor nations, "allies" like Afghanistan and Pakistan? When all the blustery sabre rattling is aside, not even a slingshot in aggression against your goliath weapon systems has been made. I suppose the spectacle of democratic elections (your circus every few years) just isn't exciting enough without blasting some nonWhite country in the process.



If I can advise you for a moment, you may want to prepare for a return of strong silent types. They want to rumble, for their own reasons related to the past. Like the scurrying insurgents that forced you to the table, their legions don't mind dying for causes. Like the pre-industrial fighters that erected the superstates of inequality that you sweat about due to the present day collapse, they're hungry. Hunger for respect, a strike for their ancestors, nation pride and just plain stomach hungry-you better get used to negotiating deals. Nobody is about to tip toe into an alley for "a fair one". Russia and China are in the global gym, pumping megaton arms and spoiling for a fight. Don't act surprised. You have been doing this for a lot longer.

I know concentrating on matters like this isn't easy.

As it is, ambushes by "small foes" hurt real bad.

And the onset of gangrene is fatal.





25 April 2012
From Exile,
Bankole





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Belgium Made Of Rubber (Exile 2007)
Aspirations, Aaron Douglas, 1936
[info]exiledun
April 24th, 5:07
Current Location:
Exile
Current Music:
Amadou Diallo by Roy Campbell
From The ExiledOne Commentary Archives...Are wars planned? Can the 'powerful' ones really be thieves? Wars have been on the horizon. The role of commandeering natural resources of Africa is once again at the core of the next aggressions for profit. Yet silence about this among people of the globe is thick as thieves. I wrote the article below in 2007 to illustrate how Belgium 'became wealthy'.



US president John Kennedy and Mobutu Sese Seko

(Photo taken down again and again)




The US arranged with Belgian colonialists the murder of Patrice Lumumba and on 24 November 1965 Mobutu stood as leader of the Congo.

The Association Internationale du Congo had been established 125 years ago when Belgium’s King Leopold II made a bid for his small state’s continued domination of the Congo’s lands and peoples. AIC was a private business entity supplying the rubber that the United States of America required for its nascent automobile industry in the first decade of the 1900s. Leopold’s vicious control of African resources through brutality against Congolese people is only today being explored extensively.

When worldwide rubber marketing had begun in the 1890s, this massive area in the south central of the African continent was an enigma–not quite a state — but managed in a way by Christian churches based in Belgium and powered by shrewd pitting of one clan chiefdom against another. Arabs and Africans loyal to them had first been marginalized.

Notions of Belgians ‘civilizing’ the Congo, later called the Congo Free State, were rampant. Natives, the Waloon and Flemish priests, boers (farmers) and peasants felt, had to come to Christ.



The Western Economy Has Been Flat Before....

Dominate To Serve became a slogan of the CFS. Atrocities against the people were notably debated by other Europeans and the Americans. The racists actually only differed on how to steal and who got what.

From the Aleutians in northern Canada to what would become the nearby racist Republic of South Africa, Whites were flocking to cash in. Seeing others as subhuman was a method to conquer.

Belgium was a friend to them all through the mid 20th century. By 1960 Brussels had even cooperated with the Americans (CIA) to murder Patrice Lumumba, a unifying force for all ethnic and nationalities in Southern Africa.

Belgium itself was founded in 1830 and historically was overrun by Spanish, French and Dutch occupiers. Dwarfed by the European neighbors France and Germany, and less commercially powerful than Holland, Belgium sought a way to prosper. Belgium today has a fracture along Flemish speaking and French speaking lines. Economics has much to do with this. There are also German speaking regions.

Brazil’s Amazon river regions had by 1910 produced hevea rubber, wild grown to the tune of 40,000 tons annually. The human suffering of Indigenous people who were made to do the back wracking work caused a slowdown for the capitalists. Vines and herbal rubber in the Congo then began, though just a tenth of Brazilian tonnage at the time, to be seen as the emerging place for the rubber business. Latex was then gotten for Henry Ford and the rest of the bosses to merchandise. On a grand scale the Human Rights violations of the Amazon were duplicated-the guards, Africans from the previous era of making their Sisters and Brothers captive were used for enforcing discipline.

By the late ’30s through the ’50s, Congo yearly tonnage of rubber was at 40,000. A third Leopold (III) had in the 1930s expanded the possibilities of exploitation.

Belgium’s metropolis, Antwerp, is the harbor city that grew rich partly from Congo diamonds. The ultra hard industrial and polished jewel is famously known symbolically as the country’s main colonial resource. A main traffic artery is the Kennedy tunnel, in honor of the assassinated US president John Kennedy, who had a hand in Patrice Lumumba’s murder.

But rubber, vitally used each day in a new century, also built the Western world’s technological supremacy. Brussels, Belgium has been propelled to political capital of the EU, European Union of several dozen nations. NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a USA driven military force is also headquartered in Brussels.

And the Congo played a key role, it’s people suffering today a repercussion of Belgium and it’s imperial and colonial visions. For the African people to bounce back from longterm war that still engulfs the Congo, a view of what made Belgium is essential.

22 November 2007
From Exile,
Bankole





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African Surinamese Experience In Europe DS3 (Exile 2012)
Aspirations, Aaron Douglas, 1936
[info]exiledun
April 21st, 16:12
Current Location:
Exile
Current Music:
Shining Star by Earth Wind and Fire
This is the third edition of Diaspora Snapshots. The series is one that links Africans in America (commonly called African Americans) with people of the world. I am referring specifically to Africans of the generations (going back continuously 4, 6, 10 or more) in the place called the American state. A recurring question is, who are the ancestral cousins of the Africans in the West in North, the Caribbean and South Americas? What became of them as they developed over the centuries? Part Three is African Surinamese Experience In Europe.



SURINAME



The nature of the experience of a how a people came to be is special. Annals of history written by victors do not always note the formation of a people and each and every declaration of self is downplayed or tempered by the oppressor's stamp on matters. With good reason the accomplishments of the oppressed are denied or qualified by the not so intrepid conquerors. When the story of Suriname is told in the late 21st century it will greatly vary from that which we are familiar with now. A huge reason why this is so is because the people are beginning to be heard. There are many who repeat the oppressor's mantras. But there will also be those daring to search and present truths to the light of factual day.

Suriname, a good 3400 km from the North American continent, sits at the top coast of South America facing the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic ocean. But the people of this beautiful land, the heavily forested gateway to the Amazon Basin, even in 2012, can only be defined by a worldwide examination.


Learned On The Ground

Enormous stacks of the Suriname story that we think we know exist. How many speak from a global perspective is questionable. In seeking answers and finding more questions about Suriname the inevitable was encountered: The Netherlands or Holland, where Dutch people call those lowlands in the North Atlantic home (a dense 16.7 million in population) has a central role. A man of Dutch/Surinamese background emerged to share his views and form the basis of this article. It's a valued opinion that those who act as well as study provide sharp analysis. With family throughout the Dutch speaking world (Suriname has as it's official language Dutch) in places such as The Netherlands, Indonesia, Malaysia (Dutch East Indies) and Suriname, Scotty Gravenberch extended the picture further to the Cape Coast of Africa (former Cape Colony in South Africa), North America (Nieuwe Amsterdam preceded New York City), to Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao north of Venezuela, to the Antilles (so called Dutch West Indies) in the Caribbean, Brazil (Palmares, the African freedom city state of the 1600s defeated the invading Dutch as well as the later arriving Portuguese) and beyond. New strategies to figure out what has gone on, what is going on now cannot be gotten only through books, films and listening to lectures. Travel is a high form of education.





New York City (New Amsterdam) 'traded' for Suriname


The African diaspora is wide and ancient. Many so called historians will marvel at this while even more unite to deny such a concept. More stay away from admitting the sensitivity of African failings along with the glory tales. In the end there are facts to be looked at, facts to grapple with, lined up and put into circular form in order to make something resembling the truth. Abubakari II of Mali in West Africa is acknowledged, however quietly today, as having predated Columbus in reaching North America by ship, in the 1300s.



When Suriname gained flag independence from The Netherlands in 1975 after nearly 150 years as a colony and a further 200 years before that as an Anglo-Dutch economic territory, a treasure of information was about to cascade. Besides forces that destroyed most of the Indigenous peoples, there was a complex story to be told. The English would extend their control in the region to draw the geopolitical lines for Guyana (1966) and the French, who also imposed their White settlers long ago, saw that French Guiana never became independent. Somehow, the approach to the Amazon, French Guiana is still today considered an extension of Paris.


Suriname is today home to just under nearly a half million (400,000) people. The tropical country is 90% forest and is marked at 163,000 square km, with more water area than France, Suriname has a population that resides mainly in Paramaribo, a capital of about one quarter of a million. 76% of the men, women and children live in the city or a town. A growing population rate that exceeds that of most European countries by three or four times, the Surinamese are a people of the future. Suriname is greater in actual area than The Netherlands. But just who are the Surinamese and what shaped their experience?


Africans In The Dutch World

Surinamese means blackness, from untold nations of Africans. But the four other peoples that infused the society were from India, the Amazon 'Indians', people from Indonesia and those from lands called The Netherlands, once the way tribes there were termed (Batavieren) by the Roman ruler Caesar. At Dutch slavery's end in 1863 many Africans in the Antilles islands in the Caribbean and in Suriname and across this lesser known empire of global captivity were kept on plantations via 'contract'. At this time the Dutch made a deal with their on again off again enemy, England, to bring in the Indonesians and Indians. It should be noted that the two empires had been fighting it out for 'markets' around the world for at least 200 years. The Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West Indian Company, beginning around 1600 were some of Europe's first transnational corporations, influencing Dutch governmental policy at home and in foreign lands. The infamous Dutch man 'o war with Angolans in chains at Jamestown, Virginia underlines the role of the depth of profitmaking from inhumanity. English colonists 'bought' Africans. Money resolved inter European tensions.


The People, In English & Dutch Language Terms

Amazon Indigenous                "Indianen"
Africans                                    "Bosnegers" (Maroons)     "Creoles"
Indians                                     "Hindus"
Indonesians                             "Javanen"
Dutch                                         "Boeroen"




Dutch power had them at one point with their own United Kingdom, dominating what is today Belgium, parts of Germany and  the Dutch overseas empire. Forcing the Portuguese out of the way, it was the Dutch who controlled many 'slave castles' on West Africa's coasts in the horrible 1400s-1600s era of human trafficking. Main competitors in the grim 'business' were Denmark, Sweden and England by the late 1600s. The Dutch transported at least 500,000 Africans to the Antilles, Brazil and other places in the following years of terror. While the Dutch were intent more on merchandising goods, natural resources and keeping people under a yoke, they differed from most other Whites in that they did not usually intend on developing settler colonies.  Indirect rule in places like Indonesia became a pattern, radically opposed to the English/American idea. This didn't keep them from capturing and enslaving Portuguese, Indonesian and Japanese people who got in their way. The geopolitical extension reached the level of using Surinamese colonial sailors and soldiers to destabilize other peoples' lands around the world, such as bases in Indonesia. By the 1940s the last of the major Dutch sea supremacy had collapsed. The Americans' massive naval presence took over.

The Dutch Cape Colony (South Africa) model was structured on their control of Java. Indeed, the first captives in South Africa under the Dutch were Burmese, Indonesians and people from Madagascar, before the Khoi Khoi or Bushmen were aggressed on. Dutch Boers (peasant farmers) and English clashed over South Africa. The English eroded their power by 1800. Dutch influence remains today in Afrikaans, a Dutch based language that is easily understood by native Dutch speakers. The imposition of Afrikaans was a major reason why the Soweto uprising took place in 1976 closing the period of nonviolent protest in South Africa, leading to the fall of apartheid.



A Note On Zwarte Piet In America


The sight of White men strolling around downtown Amsterdam painted black was strange, back then during visits in 2003-04. I wasn't approached by the grinning men, in a costume seemingly from hundreds of years ago. For some reason I wasn't one of several Africans that were stopped by them, babbling Dutch and seeking a response from their baffled passerby.

For the most part, New Year's Day parades in Philadelphia in the early 1960s excluded African people (negroes they called us). Still, the memories I have of the times are vivid. Even at a preschool age I knew that 'mummers' or 'mimers', Whites in blackface and dressed as Indigenous people, meant us no good. What Italians and Irish (the American part of their designation came much later) were trying to get across to the public must have been comical only to themselves because I saw none of our folks amused. Public outcry and boycotts ended the mummer's blackface by the late 1960s.

The defense of the 'right' to mock other races while barring them from being in the 'fun' struck me then and still strikes me as bizarre.


Resistance Was Key


Resistance Is Key


Decaying Records

Scotty Gravenberch's ancestor, his great grandfather Adolf Frederick Gravenberch, was 'educated' in Suriname before the so called emancipation in 1863. Paramaribo has a street named for AF Gravenberch, who became a plantation owner and medical doctor treating Surinamese people into the 20th century. He was not acknowledged as an certified doctor until King Willem intervened. Just one of the figures whose life story is being rescued from decaying records in Germany, The Netherlands, Indonesia, Suriname and across the world.


Natural Resources


Today's Picture


Just as the African world had been tragically globalized centuries ago, the steady stream towards where the wealth was brought took the captive and colonized peoples to the colonizer's doorstep. Surinamese were no different and today populate Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Den Haag (The Hague). Close to 336,000 Surinamese call The Netherlands home, a rich European Union partner, with several generations having been born there since an immigration surge in the 1970s. The Netherlands is at least 10% nonWhite. Government policy towards Surinamese has been Accomodation and not Assimiliation. Poverty and unemployment are social problems. Historical wrongs, if seen as a poison tree, have produced a bitter harvest of institutionalized current day difficulties. "Bijlmermeer", the tall housing towers similar to "the projects" exist in The Netherlands. Though they are 'citizens', the racist imagery of Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) continues to demean Surinamese and other African peoples.



The Surinamese community in the Netherlands in 2008 according to the Dutch CBS
counted 335,779 members. In 2008  Suriname had 475,996 people. It is estimated that about 48% of the Surinamese population were Creoles in the Netherlands and 43% were Hindus.
The remaining 9% were Surinamese Javanese, Chinese, Jews and others.



Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Holland)


Scotty Gravenberch made it plain that the recent beating by police of Quincy Gairo in late 2011 only highlights a long term resistance to racism in the Dutch speaking home country, in Suriname and beyond. In The Netherlands, Quincy wore a Zwarte Piet Is Racisme t shirt during the Christmas 2011 holidays. There is a vigorous discussion of these problems, especially in Amsterdam, the capital of The Netherlands. Because the Quincy Gario assault was filmed and circulated on Youtube and other internet networks, an increase in debate over the racist Zwarte Piet imagery continues. This imagery and costuming by Whites is done throughout The Netherlands and northern Belgium in Flanders. Zwarte Piet cakes, chocolates, statues and figurines such as dolls are routinely used alongside Sinterklaas (Santa Claus in Dutch) in December and 'the holidays'. The activities take place in tax payer supported community centers, schools, holiday parties in public buildings and in business offices. Strutting and dancing through the streets while painted black is a 'celebration of the season'. Scotty reported that the imagery and idea of Dutch men annually painting themselves black along with the harsh immigration laws in The Netherlands has become too much for positive people of various backgrounds to tolerate. Denouncing the racist society is now out into the open and young people are speaking up, using technology to find allies. Scotty mentioned that many look towards Africans in America for inspiration. The idea of a Europe wide unity is complicated by realities. He also shared that the mental colonial lines are as strong as ever: French speaking Africans tend to cluster in Brussels and Paris, English speaking in London or Birmingham etc, limiting the unity efforts of Africans pulling together. As is current in Europe, pride and integrity in African ancestry brings a serious backlash. The far right Dutch government party politician Geert Wilders is part of a strong movement hostile to those who will not conform to their ideas. The unprecedented historical experience of Surinamese people cannot be ignored or belittled.


Thirty seven years after Suriname's flag independence, the challenges are great. The corruption in Suriname, mirroring all governments, is ongoing. Drugs, cocaine especially has impacted society. As the new century progresses, Surinamese Human Rights, culturally, politically and economically surely must be protected. Here the attempt has been to present the broad view of the situation, with a focus on The Netherlands, where the Surinamese are the largest and most significant African presence.




21 April 2012
From Exile,
Bankole



Resources:


Blacks In The Dutch World
by Allison Blakely

(English, 1993)


Wij Slaven van Suriname
by Anton de Kom

{We Slaves of Suriname}

(Dutch & English)




Buku Books (Specialist On Suriname)

http://bukubooks.wordpress.com/




Zwarte Piet Is Racisme
http://zwartepietisracisme.tumblr.com/



BBC Article On Suriname, The Netherlands And Government Corruption
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17620920



Zwarte Piet Is Racisme  (Videos of Quincy Gario)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSwHoFCq58Y


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8J7ejEkxNQ







See Related Articles:



Stride Through Amsterdam (Exile 2008)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/47443.html




Fable Interrupted (Exile 2008)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/49976.html




Pedro Albizu Campos (Exile 2011)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/147964.html




Constant World: Cuba DS2 (Exile 2011)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/130977.html

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Melba Liston Tribute (Exile 2012)
Aspirations, Aaron Douglas, 1936
[info]exiledun
April 20th, 8:27
Current Location:
Exile
Current Music:
Cool Breeze by Melba Liston

Melba Liston (1926-1999) Kansas City Missouri First prominent woman trombonist music mates with Dexter Gordon, Eric Dolphy. Composer Arranger Educator famous for collaboration with Randy Weston

Moved to Los Angeles in 1937




In the spring of '99 there was a thaw. Cold, cold winds lessened, not from the place called Toronto, Canada where my wife and I lived but from "Down Below." The first year had been harder. Becoming a UN Convention refugee claimant in the middle of trying to recuperate from the longterm attempts at discrediting us, surveillance and economic retaliation and plain flat out resistance fatigue. With the dawn of the new year, the questions continued about what we were doing in the huge coastal city along Lake Ontario. The idea for the formation of The Soulful Expression began to gel. One of our own questions were, why do we have the feeling that we've been here before?

Music was different in Toronto. I was less than amused by the hundreds of radio hosts of all races in the city trying to sound like they were from deep Brooklyn. For Aisha whose natural music leadership led her to form a few bands and book her own gigs, there were all kinds of discoveries too. She would overcome many barriers and stand firm for the culture in the face of some big enemies before we were illegally ordered out of the Great White North.

But in 1999, even as we exposed Canadians to the way dignified African people in and from America dealt with music and business, there was the news of some giants passing on. Making his transition early in '99 at age sixty-five was Horace Tapscott. I had admired Horace for piano and political reasons. He had been scheduled to appear at one of the universities where Aisha and I had spoken in Ontario. A few years later in Europe I wrote one of my most requested spoken word pieces done to Aisha's original composition Horace's Blues which is dedicated to both her father Horace and the LA based master teacher.


Melba's early recordings began in the 1940s. From 1958: Melba Liston and Her ‘Bones (leader, soloist, composer/arranger, w/ Benny Powell, Benny Green, Al Grey and others

1958

”I was a slow player, a ballad, and blues player.  My ear was alright, but I was involved in arranging all the time and didn’t go jamming and stuff like that.”


Regarding the sexual harassment and assaults, Melba states, (Gillespie bands of 1948 and ’56-’57):

”When I started going with Gerald Wilson I was okay because I had his support so I didn’t have to worry.  But when I got back into Dizzy’s band it was the same thing all over again.”



A couple of months later, April brought news of Melba Liston's passing on from this life after some serious illness, including a series of strokes. While I had heard of her central role in the music as a trombonist and composer and arranger, it would be a number of years before I got the real story. Born in 1926 in the region that was soon going to be a hotspot for creativity, Kansas City, Missouri, Melba's career was largely buried under the wastes of sexism, racism and ignorance. In the heavily traveled seasons of the first decade of the 21st century I would find out how much of a dynamic person, musician and professional Melba Liston was. Friends since musician student days with Dexter Gordon, Clora Bryant, Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Gerald Wilson, Vi Redd, Buddy Collette and Horace Tapscott, Melba eventually had a career extending from playing trombone from age eight to touring the world performing, arranging and composing and becoming an educator in Jamaica for a university. Such was the life of a woman who had the 'chops' to perform the new, quick blues and African structured music of the 1940s that made Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie famous. In between the great floods of musical jewels were hard times in 'all girl bands' where women of elite talent were reduced to pretty novelties sometimes featuring a woman nearly naked out front to sell the idea of trapset players and saxophonists wearing dresses. With her 1950s afro hairdo and slender figure Melba got a few roles in Hollywood but that didn't pay the bills, so it was on to Los Angeles city administration work. Being stranded in cheap hotels and on roadsides with Billie Holiday was equally as disheartening as running out of money with co-writer Quincy Jones in Europe. Disbanding with Dizzy's short lived super bop group despite popular demand, and eclipsing all of the negativity later in life with Randy Weston, Melba Liston had done it all, arranging for crooner Marvin Gaye and singing sensation The Supremes at Motown, soulful Ruth Brown and the talentedGloria Lynne. She was inspiring women musicians even in a wheelchair in her seventies. April 23 1999 marked Melba Liston's transition.




Cultural Worker

...Also in 1957, New York City born pianist/composer/conductor Randy Weston, a six foot eight man who could play two grand pianos at once, with his immense wingspan, recorded with a large group.  The second vinyl disc would be finished in 1960, and featured Melba Liston as arranger.  Reminiscent of his admiration for early 1900s conductor James Reese Europe’s penchant for gigantic orchestration, Randy employed nearly three dozen for the project. This was the double LP titled Bantu (and later, Uhuru Africa)


Respected Arranger

Widely popular and musically excellent, the Weston-Liston tandem were known to the world.  Melba was now established, and after years of freelancing, she become an ace arranger and a respected trombonist. From the early times of KC bounce tempo and her absorption of big band and so called bebop and hard bop styles, Melba Liston had done what few musicians, what few African women could achieve.  Milt Jackson, the vibraphone player out of Detroit, with perfect pitch, was a customer for Melba’s compositions.  Duke Ellington, who reportedly had written 5,000 tunes that had never been performed, showed up for Melba’s creativity.  Aminata Moseka, Clark Terry and others lined up.



I learned the facts of Melba's journey later though, as I was in Aisha's whirlwind, The Soulful Expression during 1999. In Canada and then Europe, music that my wife created, music that she introduced and reintroduced people to was done in excellence as the greats would perform it. Beyond that level were women who stood in dignity, come what may to preserve the culture. This same music that I spoke of, wrote of and experienced, paved the way to a degree of freedom and self determination. Exile could not crush that.

It's the essence of a Melba Liston, a Betty Carter, an Aisha.

And the legacy lives on.



 
Randy Weston

  
"She is with me every second of my life. What a great, great woman. Her commitment to her people, like Duke and Basie and all the older people, they not only just made music, but their music was also a commitment to African people and African-American people. That is why she was so rich. She has written for Motown and for Dizzy and she did concerts with symphony orchestras with me. She was a total arranger, but she had the commitment of her people and this is the key because you can play great, but if you lose your people, something is missing. She paid for that. She sacrificed for that."

Randy Weston, on Melba Liston



Some Trombonists of Note:
This list has all men but it is up to everyone to find out about the women trombonists!


Jimmy Cleveland (1926-2008)


Curtis Fuller b. 1934


Don Drummond b. (1932-1969)


Urbie Green b. 1926



Dick Griffin b. 1939


Al Grey (1925-2000)


Slide Hampton b. 1932


Craig Harris b. 1953


Quentin Jackson (1909-1976)


JJ Johnson (1924-2001)


Julian Priester b. 1935


Fred Wesley b. 1943


Trummy Young (1912-1984)




20 April 2012
From Exile,
Bankole

See Related Articles:





Quincy Who? (Exile 2006)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/65915.html





Nellie Lutcher: Tall Respect (Exile 2008)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/35259.html





Max Roach, Legacy II (Exile 2008)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/21589.html





10th Anniversary Of The Soulful Expression (Exile 2009)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/91055.html

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Loose Change (Exile 2012)
Aspirations, Aaron Douglas, 1936
[info]exiledun
April 14th, 18:12
Current Location:
Exile
Current Music:
Control by Janet Jackson
From Another Planet Came A Corporate Brother



What I remember about '87 was the painful feet I had for a couple of months since my shoes were too small. Sure, there were the exciting days: a gunshot or two flying by, denying the allure of a woman friend, standing up to a physical threat six foot eight in height. Oncoming were the faintest breezes of twenties' energy waning away. Calculating my ticking away youth's value was measured by the up and coming ones' level of scrutiny of me as much as the raking examination of those a few years older. The first twenty five years of life were history and a becoming foggy memory.


JAMES BALDWIN (1924-1987)



One powerful flowering was the generations behind mine finding political consciousness. They weren't just louder than many of us had been, the cultural customs of rebellion were centered around technology of the home and the public stage: turntables and microphones. For a furious number of Reagan era reasons, the book was replaced by the vinyl record, the same for the musical instrument. The second piece of metal and wires was something I hadn't gotten to use until I was 21 years old. And that was permitted and restricted by my activist elders. Youth wanted their voice heard and got it at 15 now.

Corporations jumped to the cry of the oppressed.



PUBLIC ENEMY   1980s


Being heard, even at the street level was tied to who knew you as much as what you had to say. Satellite dishes were the competition and someone said the computer was going to outdo everything.


No Coins Needed


A quarter century ago, the scaled back view of actual community was nominally still visible. Returning to what was didn't seem possible and it wasn't going to happen either. Were the wheels safely attached or would there be a crash? The question was when. But through the kaleidoscope of remembrance I still can see bright and many sided forms, an era ending, exposing truths and lies, comical and cruel life merging with the ultimate scavenger, death, as it always had, always will, in colorful fusion.


Another clock clicked but I was meditating and I barely heard it. I sure heard the second one.


The first 25 went fast.


There was no loose change.





14 April 2012
From Exile,
Bankole





See Related Articles:





Free And Literate (Exile 2006)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/107354.html







Ear To The Ground (Exile 2008)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/35071.html







Betty Carter & Bop Vocalese (Exile 2011)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/123808.html







An 80s Diary Pt2 (Exile 2011)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/144004.html




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Doing All Right (Exile 2012)
Aspirations, Aaron Douglas, 1936
[info]exiledun
April 13th, 22:12
Current Location:
Exile
Current Music:
Stormy Weather by Ben Webster


'I'm working on my first million.' That was more than a joke to a lot of people during the last thirty or forty years.

Some made it to that terrain and far beyond.




Buffett & Gates...
Their Money Is Still Safe... Or Is It?

Currently, the monetary fate of anyone not keeping watch on their finances month to month seems to be everywhere in the media controlled by corporations. In the face of most of our struggles, the multimillionaires or those newly fallen from that status hog the headlines. By our constantly discussing how interesting they are over and above the battle of ordinary people we lessen importance of those who have to put food on the table, keep the house itself from being hauled away by collection agencies. For sure, there is protest. The screeching against banksters inevitably turns towards a focus on how their lives (the crooks!) are progressing, before and after the year now acknowledged as the crash point, 2007. It's a loop many can't free themselves from. E-news to pacify the evicted.

Five years ago, the cascade of news about your wallet/purse had not really yet started. Even though this wasn't the case, too many told themselves that they were "doing all right." But somehow the signs bubbled up like the increasing doubts about any Western reason for invading Iraq and Afghanistan. A close look through the gaseous clouds of Bush & Blair's lies and the drone of escaping motor boats could be heard. These were the ones who made clowns of many of us with the excuses for rushing into the sun and sand against people that history had shown just don't lose wars. The ships had sailed that contained the loot taken while some thrilled at the spectacle of a statue of Saddam pulled down here, an Iraqi battalion burned alive there.

In the painful grip of today, seeing that the glorification of the rich and even worse, the success of governments and companies using the peoples' money to 'fix' what cannot be fixed has many in the streets or getting ready to hit the asphalt. When all else fails, in the West too, the police will be met by popular anger. Behind them, they know, are the tricksters who were trusted to cradle the homes and livelihoods of those who once watched the news in between the supposed comfort of 'doing all right.'






Tony & Cherie

From a now forgotten newspaper source

"As the (2007 elections across England, North of Ireland, Scotland and Wales) results rolled in, it emerged that Mr Blair will abandon politics within weeks and pocket a record £10million in his first year out of office....Sources claimed Mr Blair and his wife Cherie are eager to cash in on their fame, and do not want to have to make their earnings public. Resigning as the MP for Sedgefield would relieve him of the obligation to record details of his earnings in the Register of Members' Interests. Mr Blair has been criticised in the past for failing to record details of his free holidays and other perks. Experts predict that he will easily make more money than Bill Clinton or John Major on the back of book deals - his memoirs could fetch £8million - speaking tours, property investments and fees from high-profile companies that he has ruthlessly courted. Mrs Blair is also expected to pocket around £2.5million a year from speeches.

As a former Prime Minister, Mr Blair will get an immediate pension worth £117,500 a year. The Blairs will also enjoy a £90,000 a year taxpayer-funded "public service" allowance to help them cope with life after Number Ten."



In the event that the reader has a mounting dislike for the author of this piece, it's unfortunate. Anyone who can feed thousands and chooses to feed himself/herself and a few others rates as a criminal.

Doing all right has never been easy anyhow, when this opinion was shared.




13 April 2012
From Exile,
Bankole




See Related Articles:



Dungeon Of Freedom Headquarters (Exile 2006)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/8410.html





Run Game (Exile 2011)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/133307.html





Inverted Replies (Exile 2012)
http://exiledun.livejournal.com/149904.html

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