As we approach the New Millennium, The National Rites of Passage Institute has been organized to use Rites of Passage as a process for human development and community development. Understanding and utilizing ritual and ceremony for human development and transformation has been an important aspect of the Rites of Passage process; the human development area of Rites of Passage focuses on the spiritual, psychological, social and cultural development of the individual; however, the community development of Rites of Passage focuses on the development of the individual as a servant leader. An important aspect of developing servant leaders is providing them with the necessary information and analysis to understand the social, economic, and political environment that contributes to the condition of the African-American community.
During the early 70's two prophetic writers presented a social and economic analysis of the future of Black America that has revealed itself as truth in the 90's. Sidney Willhelm, Who Needs The Negro, 1971, and Samuel Yette, The Choice, 1971, books focused on the obsolescence and survival of Black America. Both authors addressed the disengagement of the black masses from an exploited labor force into a totally isolated group. Such isolation reflects the growing generation-x. They also discussed Black America's shift of roles from instigators of change during the 60's to victims of change during the 80's and 90's.
During the "Bull Market" of the 90's the disparity between the "haves" and "have nots" is at an all time high. The "wealthy" are "wealthier" and the "poor" are "poorer." The labor intensive economy of the 1940's - 1960's has given way to the capital intensive economy of the 1970's - 1990's.
The majority of externally and internally designated leadership at all levels during this period has been self-serving; and has functioned as "Gate Keepers" of the "status quo." The triple edged razor of racism, classism and sexism in a patriarchal society has devastated the black community in America.
Spiritual and human development through Rites of Passage without community development and an understanding of the social and political economy is contrary to serving the best interests of the black community in America.
This edition of The Drum will feature three articles focusing on the political economy and its relationship to blacks in America. Manning Manable, Columbia University, Barbara Ransby, University of Chicago, and Norma Freeman, Communiversity, Cleveland, Ohio, provide articles with the following themes: Rethinking Black Liberation; Politics of Expendability; and The Purification of a People.
The Drum as of this issue will no longer be printed and distributed through the United States Post Office. The Drum will only be available through the Internet as part of the NROPI website.
Initiate Deborah Wilcox's dissertation, The Rites of Passage Process For African American Youth: Perspectives of Eight Elders, is available. It can be ordered from UMI Dissertation Services, 1-800-521-0600, http://www.uml.com; It is an excellent reference and can be charged with any major credit card. Initiate Deborah Wilcox received her Ph.D. from Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, in August, 1998. She represents a scholar and practitioner.
The Fall, 1998, Volume 3, Issue 1, edition of Reaching Today's Youth, National Educational Services, Bloomington, Indiana features Rites of Passage. Paul Hill, Jr. has an article entitled Afrocentric Rites of Passage: Nurturing The Next Generation, which is featured along with several other excellent articles on Rites of Passage.
Use of the Internet and The National Rites of Passage Institute (NROPI) website at www.ritesofassage.org/ is a must for NROPI initiates! Initiates cannot stay informed and communicate/network effectively and efficiently with the NROPI community if they are not on line and do not use the NROPI website. The only access to The Drum (NROPI Newsletter), current NROPI information and the NROPI message board is through the NROPI website. Interesting links to other sites are available through the NROPI website. Enter the 21st Century by going on line and accessing the NROPI website.
I. Drylongso
II. Rethinking Black Liberation: Toward a New Protest Paradigm
III. Casino Royale Revisited
IV. Us: The Black Poor and The Politics of Expendability
V. The U.S. of A.: A Crucible For Blacks
VI. Journal Seeks a Different Focus on African American Studies
VII. What A Prison Sentence Really Means
VIII. Nketiah Stresses Need For Renewal of Cultural Nationalism (International)
IX. Paul Robeson: Seeker of justice
X. Who is an Ancestor?
XI. Elements to Admire in African Traditional Religion!
XII. Can Christianity Dialogue With African Traditional Religion?
XIII. Review of Microsoft Encarta Africana
XIV. A World Without BlacksI. Drylongso
James Spriggs
Mama Jewell's Restaurant, now at East 79th and Quincy, is an institution for those who know the inner city of Cleveland. And, for those who believe in traveling prayer -- the spiritual power housed in the call for blessings for those compelled to travel. City truckers go to Mama Jewell's -- folks who need protection and comfort between their going and their arriving, and hopefully their returning home. Midnight movers go to Mama Jewell's -- folks who, for a minute, have to stay one jump ahead of last month's landlord. The twice born go to Mama Jewell's -- folks who know what an ass kickin' this country has laid on those who laid its foundations. Yesterday's human garbage goes to Mama Jewell's to laugh at today's menu.
I believe that it is in the recesses of places like Mama Jewell's Restaurant that much of American Black history is made. For, I contend that a peoples history is made as much on its highways and by-ways, and in the houses and kitchens of its people as it is created in the re-told myths of historians and its grand players. In fact, it may be argued that the real history of a people is found in the actions and reactions of ordinary folks conducting ordinary lives in the face of life's turning points. Because, it is the disposition of the masses that determines if armies are raised or resistance greets a call to arms; if a messiah is followed or stoned; and, what value is placed on life -- especially the lives of strangers.
Return to IndexII. Rethinking Black Liberation: Towards a new protest paradigm
by Manning Marable
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up - like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore - And then run?
Does it stink like a rotten meat
Or crust and sugar over - like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags - like a heavy load
Or, does it explode?
Langston Hughes, 'Harlem' from Selected Poems, 1974.
The poet, Langston Hughes once suggested that the black American's search for democracy in the United States was 'a dream deferred.' Perhaps we should now add that this dream has been so long delayed, corrupted and compromised that many black folk now question the viability of the entire political project called American democracy.
Any understanding of American society must begin with the study of the black American experience in this country. This is because the status and existence of black people, the quality of our lives and the range of possibilities which we can realistically achieve through our own endeavors, is the essential litmus test for the viability of American democracy. It is the distance between America's rhetoric versus its reality, between what America says about itself versus what it actually is.
African-Americans are at the center of the definition about what it has meant to be 'an American.' The reality of 'blackness' has all too often been the criteria for determining a series of questions about the relationship between people, the state and civil society: who is a citizen, and who is not? Who has voting rights, and who does not? Who rides in the Jim Crow section of the bus, and who does not? Who lives in the ghetto, and who does not? Who is the first person to get a job, and who is the last?
The basic paradox one must confront in any consideration of the role of race in American life, is the tension between 'marginalisation' and 'inclusion.' Historically, African-American culture has been central to the construction of the cultural and the aesthetic contours of America. Politically, the issue of race has been absolutely central to the major conflicts in the American experience, from the civil war to the civil rights movement. Economically, black labor was essential in the construction of this nation, from the unpaid exploitation of slavery to the underpaid labor of African Americans in central cities in the 1990's. Nevertheless, despite our centrality, we continue to be marginalized by the mainstream of the dominant social order. We are perpetually unequal members of the household, but never members of the national family. In the language of 'hip-hop' culture, we are 'dissed' in the very house we have helped to construct.
From the vantage point of African-American history, from the depths of our sorrow and anger, we ask ourselves, why do we continue to be marginalized? Who benefits from this marginalization? Who is responsible for maintaining the structure of power and privilege which makes this marginalisation an enduring fact of American life?
African-Americans understand that race is not valid biological concept; that it has no genetic validity. Stripped of the rhetoric of superiority and inferiority, the science of race is nothing but a fraud, grounded in power, privilege and violence against those who are oppressed. Yet our lives are defined and circumscribed by the brutal reality of racism, a system that denies the humanity of millions of people, limiting their education, employment, health, housing and future.
This is why all the recent talk about 'reverse racism' is sheer nonsense. When African-Americans control all of the banks and financial institutions in our neighborhoods, all of the real estate and commercial enterprises, we might begin to talk about discrimination against whites. When the institutions of government truly reflect the real percentages of African-Americans, Latinos and other racial minorities within the general population: when the corporations that exploit black, brown and poor consumer markets are actually controlled democratically by those who produce the wealth, then we might seriously discuss the possibility 'reverse racism.' Whiteness in a racist, corporate-controlled society is like having the image of an American Express card or Diners Club card stamped on one's face: immediately you are 'universally accepted.'
The growing trend towards greater inequality within the nation's black communities is actually part of a global stratification and polarization of poverty, privilege and power. Globalization and the information revolution have rapidly transformed the nature of work and the character of production. As traditional industries disappeared and as agricultural production globally moved from labor-intensive to capital-intensive methods, millions of working people were displaced. Hundreds of millions of Third World people migrated from rural areas to cities and from their own countries into Western Europe and North America, in the struggle for survival. Third World countries with socialist and labor parties had few options except to adopt neo-liberal, capitalist policies.
These massive transformations in the structure of the global economy and labor force have generated a sharp increase in income inequality and greater class stratification. The real wages for working-class people have steadily declined and job insecurity now increasingly affects middle-class households as well. In US central cities, millions of jobs which could sustain families have been destroyed. In communities like Central Harlem today, there are fourteen job applications for every available job in the fast-food industry. Members of families confined to the poorest neighborhoods for several generations have never had the experience of a job in their lives. When large numbers of people cannot obtain employment, the quality of life for the entire community suffers: grocery stores and retail establishment close down, social institutions like churches and schools are weakened, the quality of housing deteriorates, and the level of violence connected with crime inevitable increases. Conversely, the same global economic forces have concentrated vast wealth in the hands of a small privileged elite, which is also increasingly multinational in character.
At the national level, this economic and technological revolution has manifested itself in the growing polarization of class. For example, when president Reagan smashed the air traffic controllers' union during its 1981 strike, he sent a clear message to the corporations that union-busting was on the immediate agenda. By 1987, nearly three-quarters of all contracts covering 1,000 or more workers included wage concessions. Approximately 200,000 workers abandoned their unions through decertification elections in the 1980s. By the end of the decade, union membership had declined to 16 percent of the American labor force. Workers lacked an effective, progressive labor movement that could fight for higher living standards.
In the 1990s, as Wall Street stocks reached all-time highs and corporate profits soared, millions of workers were thrown out of work. In December 1991, General Motors announced that it was firing 74,000 workers. Barely one year later, Sears fired 50,000 employees. Soon other corporations began to fire thousands of workers to improve their profitability. In 1993, Boeing dismissed 28,000 workers, Philip Morris cut 14,000 and IBM slashed 60,000 jobs. The next year, Delta Air Lines announced 15,000 layoffs, NYNEX cut 16,800 jobs and Scott Paper fired more than one-third of its total work force, more than ll,000 people. In January 1996, AT&T's Chief Executive Officer, Robert Allen announced that his corporation was firing 40,000 employees. Coincidentally, Allen's annual salary at AT&T was $3.3 million.
Who can expect American workers to feel any loyalty to companies that are concerned only with profits and not people? Corporate executives pay themselves millions of dollars in salaries, fringe benefits, bonuses and stock options, while millions of people are losing their jobs. For example, in 1975, the average chief executive officer of a corporation received about 40 times the salary of an average worker. Today the ratio has jumped to 190 times as much. The typical CEO of America's 100 largest corporations receives about $900,000 in annual salary and $3.5 million in overall compensation.
In the United States, these economic trends towards greater inequality created the political space for an extreme version of conservatism to triumph. In the early 1980s, this reaction was symbolized by the administration of Ronald Reagan. Reaganism was in many ways the mirror opposite of the New Deal: government was the problem, not the solution. Federal programs were abolished; industries were deregulated; affirmative action and environmental laws were not enforced; the capital gains tax was significantly reduced, and taxes on corporate profits virtually disappeared. Key elements within the Democratic Party at first tried to attack and reverse the politics of the Right. The 1983 mayoral victory of Harold Washington in Chicago, and the Rainbow Coalition's presidential campaigns for Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988, illustrated the potential power of a progressive, multi-class, and multiracial opposition.
But liberals, labor, and the Left in the United States failed to consolidate an alternative formation or movement to challenge conservatism. As a result, the political terrain shifted even further to the Right by the 1990s. Although a Democrat was elected to the presidency both in 1992 and 1996, the Clinton administration pursued policies which only twenty years before would have been described as 'liberal republicanism.' The 'mainstream' of the Democratic Party equivocated or retreated on minority economic set-asides, minority scholarships, affirmative action, majority-minority legislative districts, employment legislation, universal health care, and urban development. Clinton embraced the death penalty, passed a repressive crime bill which seriously threatened civil liberties, and, in 1996, signed a Republican welfare bill which will devastate the households of millions of poor women and children.
One might have predicted that these reactionary economic and political trends, nationally and globally, would have revived the organizations and protest movements closest to the masses: civil-rights groups, labor unions, feminists, poor peoples advocates, community activists. Certainly there were numerous examples of resistance across the United States in the 1990s, but a strong, coherent opposition to the Right did not coalesce. Reaganism and the corporations had delivered a devastating blow to organized labor, greatly demoralizing and reducing its ranks. By the early 1990s, the AFL-CIO was losing 300,000 members every year. The growth of non-union jobs in high technology service and other expanding sectors of the economy reduced labor's influence. Politically, when president Clinton signed the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement over the vigorous objections of the AFL-CIO, he sent an anti-union message nearly as devastating as Reagan's 1981 crushing of the air traffic controllers' strike.
Similarly, the civil rights community also failed to mount a significant challenge to the Right. Economic stratification, and, ironically, the successful implementation of reforms like affirmative action, greatly expanded the social base of the black middle class. By the mid - 1990s, one in six black households earned incomes that exceeded $50,000 annually. A small but very class-conscious elite of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Latinos were increasingly represented in corporate management, government bureaucracies, the criminal justice system, and in the armed services. The emergence of three powerful and influential African-Americans general Colin Powell, commerce secretary Ronald Brown, and Supreme Court associate justice Clarence Thomas symbolized the drift towards conservative accommodation within the leadership of minority communities.
The most critical mistake in black politics was the tendency to emphasize electoralism at the expense of activism. For thirty years since the end of the civil rights movement, African-American leadership has come increasingly from elective offices. The vast majority of these officials were Democrats, and were tied to a political party which had begun to distance itself from black interests and issues. The pressure to break from the Democrats briefly increased with the successes of the Jackson presidential campaigns, as it became apparent that a left-of-center bloc of racial ethnic minorities, women, labor and others could be effectively mobilized. But Jackson himself had no desire to renounce the Democratic Party's hierarchy and in effect demobilized his own coalition. Most African-Americans in Congress were elected from black majority districts and, as long as they played the political game by the establishments rules, they could usually win re-election without difficulty. Gradually, the political independence and liberal agenda of the Congressional Black Caucus deteriorated, as many newly elected members pursued their own narrow interests or cut deals undermining a black united front. On major legislative issues such as NAFTA, GATT and Clinton's 1994 Crime Bill, a significant number of blacks in Congress broke ranks to embrace the Right.
The conservative trend was represented within the Republican Party by black neo-conservative theorists such as congressman J. C. Watts of Oklahoma and former congressman Gary Franks of Connecticut. Far more pervasive was the growing pragmatism of African-American leaders in the Democratic Party who espoused a type of 'post-black' or deracialized politics. African-American elected officials like former Virginia governor Doug Wilder or Cleveland, Ohio mayor Michael White, increasingly advocated agendas which were 'color blind': in other words, there was no special responsibility or obligation that black officials should display towards their African-American constituents more than towards the white electorate. A series of African-American politicians were elected as mayors of major cities, such as David Dinkins in New York, Thomas Bradley in Los Angeles, Wilson Goode in Philadelphia, but the quality of urban life for most African-American continued to decline. The black mayors generally came to power in cities experiencing deep fiscal crises, with declining tax bases and severe cut backs in public services. Unfortunately, many mayors carried out policies favoring capital and private investors, by aggressively cutting social services and embracing enterprise zones to attract corporate investment. Instead of trying to mobilize the poorest and most disadvantaged sectors of their urban communities, most of these elected officials and public sector bureaucrats expanded police departments and constructed more jails. Venerable black institutions like the NAACP and National Urban League also seemed increasingly disoriented or in disarray. The chaos surrounding the dismissal of Benjamin Chavis as executive secretary of the NAACP in 1994, followed by the 1995 conflict ousting NAACP president William Gibson, reinforced the widespread impression that the civil rights movement was dead.
Into the leadership vacuum of black America stepped Louis Farrakhan. To many black working - and middle-class families, Farrakhan's philosophy of conservative black nationalism, economic self-help, and racial pride made sense. As white political parties repudiated affirmative action and dismantled the social reforms of the second reconstruction, Farrakhan pointed to the necessity for black solidarity in the face of racism. To black neighborhoods plagued by crime, Farrakhan's vigorous opposition to black-on-black violence and drugs was widely praised. The overall economic strategy of the Nation of Islam, however, was taken directly from conservative black educator Booker T. Washington. Entrepreneurship and black small businesses may indeed create thousands of new jobs, but at a time when millions of African-Americans, Latinos, and poor people are desperately seeking work at living wages, black capitalism is no solution. Farrakhan's homophobic, anti-Semitic and sexist rhetoric alienated many potential allies for the black freedom movement. More ominously, the Nation of Islam developed an informal political relationship with the notorious white American of the extreme right, Lyndon Larouche. Nevertheless, the levels of desperation and alienation had become so profound within the black community that, when Farrakhan called for a 'Million Man March' on Washington, DC, the popular response was overwhelming. A massive crowd of as many as one million African-American males came to the Washington Mall on 16 October 1995, by far the largest public demonstration of black people in U.S. history.
The enthusiasm and emotion generated by the Million Man March had less to do with Farrakhan's reactionary ideology than with the deep desire among African-American people to move their communities forward. The movement had somehow lost its way, and the masses desperately endeavored to reclaim their own spirit and history. In a time of white conservatism and corporate exploitation from the ghetto to the globe, how could the struggle and advance?
Leaders are not 'born' they are 'made': social movements are the products not only of unpredictable historical forces, but also the result of carefully planned, collective actions. By finding their own voice, by defining their own needs and objective circumstances, oppressed people truly can make their own history. The basic social, economic, and political problem confronting black Americans for nearly a century was Jim Crow segregation. Women and men of uncommon courage built institutions which permitted our people to sustain themselves and to survive. They crafted a complex strategy of resistance. Focusing at first on legal challenges against white supremacy. The struggle in the courtroom gave way to the crusade for justice in the streets, employing the tactics of non-violent direct action. The leaders of this movement recognized the necessity to speak simultaneously to their own constituency and to the larger world. The struggle for black freedom and equality was never narrowly based on parochial needs or racial self interest, but on appeals to a just and more democratic society that were universal. As our strategy and political language gradually captured the imaginations of oppressed people across the globe, our movement acquired the legitimacy and power to overturn the structures of legal racism.
We are again at a decisive moment in black history, where a new paradigm must be developed to advance the boundaries of our politics. We cannot simply duplicate the strategies and tactics of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, because the issues that confront us are fundamentally different. The internal class composition of the black community has been radically altered and is now characterized by an affluent professional and managerial elite, a black working class with declining incomes, and a black ghetto class of the unemployed and single-parent households which is experiencing a social holocaust. The approach suggested by Farrakhan of conservative black nationalism also cannot provide the basis for advancing the movement. Building strong black institutions to provide the goods and services black people need is certainly important, but petty capitalist enterprises will not generate the jobs we need to reduce mass unemployment effectively. Racial separatism does not bring together people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds who nevertheless share common material and social interests. Patriarchy and homophobia serve to divide the progressive community, reducing our politics to the narrow confines of racial identity
The place to begin the reconstruction of the black liberation movement, as well as the larger progressive, left-of-centre movements in the United States is from the nucleus of three crucial sites of struggle: community, class and gender.
By 'community,' I mean the socioeconomic and environmental context of daily life for most families and households. Nearly all of us live in communities of one kind or another, with their own cultural and geographical dimensions, patterns of social interaction and exchange, and even language and tradition. It is from the site of community that many of us wage struggles in the living space, around the materiality of day-to-day existence: access to decent and affordable housing, public health services, crime and personal safety, the quality of the environment, public transportation, the education of our children. These basic human concerns transcend narrowly defined racial interests: there cannot be an effective programme for health care in a community, for example, that addresses only African-Americans, It is where people live that usually defines how they become most active in the civic arena. And if one surveys the actual racial and ethnic composition of most US urban communities, it becomes apparent that neighbourhoods are almost never strictly defined by race. Harlem, black America's most famous community, is today more than 40 per cent Latino. The largest city of the English-speaking Caribbean is, arguably, Brooklyn. In the next decade, Latinos will outnumber African-Americans as the largest group of people of colour in the United States. We must build partnerships across racial identities to serve the broader collective interests of people who live side by side, ride the same buses and subways, send their children to the same substandard schools, and wait for health services in the same overcrowded hospitals and emergency clinics.
By class, I mean more than the stratification of incomes, or the social status derived from various levels of wealth. Class - the divisions based on the relations and forces of production, and the social consequences of the unequal allocation of property and power always prefigures the range of social possibilities and life chances, beyond the social realities of gender, race and community. This is not to suggest that either gender or race can be understood as by-products of rigid economic categories, or exist as secondary factors in the class struggle. They aren't. But what history does show is that the way things are produced and distributed within society, the patterns of ownership and divisions of property, prefigure or set in motion certain consequences which, in turn, impact on everything else. During the period of American capitalist hegemony across the globe, especially from 1945 to the late 1970s, part of the surplus was allocated to US workers, who saw their real incomes dramatically improve. Class as a social category almost ceased to be used in mainstream political discourse.
In the 1990s, the situation regarding class in American life had dramatically changed. For example, families in the upper 5 per cent tax bracket have increased their incomes by 25 per cent since 1979, adjusted for inflation. But for middle-income households, real incomes during the same period declined 1 per cent: for low-income households, real wages have declined 13 per cent. The income decline was even greater for black and Latino families and for households headed by young adults or single parents. The destruction of jobs and lower wages are a direct result of the globalisation of capital, in which businesses relocate overseas in pursuit of low-wage, non-union labour. Even for those workers who have jobs, the pressure of corporate downsizing has created an environment of fear and insecurity. Black and progressive politics needs to focus specifically on the issues of employment and a living wage, initiating a public conversation about the importance of work for all people. The Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now (ACORN) recently initiated a 'Jobs and Living Wage Campaign,' for example, which represents an excellent model of practical class politics. The use of local and statewide initiatives to increase the minimum wage provides an important vehicle for mobilising both the unemployed and low-wage workers. These struggles over jobs and income can also be merged into community-based initiatives around economic development and urban renewal. A new class-centered activism, combined with the potential revitalisation of the AFL-CIO, could generate the basis for effective multiracial protest.
The basis of the politics of 'gender' in the black community is partially the fact that the primary victims and scapegoats of the Right are women of colour and their children. The demonisation of poor and low-income black women is a central theme in the ideological and policy assault against the entire black community. When we talk about mobilising African-American neighbourhoods around community concerns, we must recognise that the majority of our households are single parent families. The majority of neighbourhood activists who focus on improving the quality of public schools, access to decent health care facilities, and the issue of community safety, are overwhelmingly black women. Struggles for the empowerment of African-American women must be at the very centre of how progressive politics is defined. This includes deepening the struggle against sexism within black institutions and political organisations, the advancement of black women as leaders and theoreticians in the overall movement, and greater emphasis on programmatic demands and initiatives speaking to the real issues affecting African-American women. As long as African-American males define the assertion of 'manhood' as a central goal of their politics, and deny the voices and insights of their sisters, the black movement will continue to be fragmented and pulled towards the patriarchy of the Right.
Many might suggest that 'race' still remains the central site for black struggle. Of course, 'race' as a social category directly manifests itself in community, class and gender contexts. Where we live, how we work, and our experience of gender are all profoundly impacted by the inequality of race. Black women's lives and struggles, as scholars such as Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins, and Leith Mullings have told us, are not mirrored in the perspectives and interests of white middle-class women. Working people who are black have, not coincidentally, unemployment rates twice those of white workers. Race matters; but race is most real as a social force when it manifests itself in the social consequences and conditions of inequality and discrimination.
Practical steps which improve the quality of life within communities, such as organising against police brutality and harassment in our neighbourhoods, or taking measures to reduce the level of gang violence, or mobilising parents to improve the curriculum of public schools, all contribute to the empowerment of racial ethnic minorities and other oppressed people. Sometimes activism can be effectively channeled through electoral politics, as in voter registration and education campaigns. But, more frequently, it is through the institutions of civil society, within extended kinship networks, friends, co-workers on the job, and in our cultural and social organisations, that practical political activism is expressed. All constructive forms of resistance and collective mobilisation by black people directly or indirectly challenge and undermine institutional racism. When people recognise that through their collective actions they can change the way things are, they truly feel empowered. Liberation begins by winning small battles, day by day, creating greater confidence among the oppressed, building ultimately towards a democratic vision which can successfully challenge the very foundations of this system.
What is the special responsibility of black intellectuals as we enter a new century? I was trained as a historian and part of my intellectual orientation is to push back from the site of the here-and-now, to acquire the perspective of the long view of history.
The weakness of the historical method is the tendency to make ourselves neutral observers, rather than actors in the making of history. The chimera of scholarly objectivity can lead intellectuals away from an engagement with real issues that people care passionately about. Scholarship must inform and educate, but, for oppressed people, it must do more than this. Social analysis should empower people to acquire a better understanding of their world and how it actually works; who benefits from the existing structure of power, and who doesn't. A critique of social reality is always strengthened by the perspective of history, because patterns from the past can powerfully influence what happens in the future. But the primary purpose of social analysis should not be merely to interpret reality, but to transform it.
There is a belief, within white America especially, that black people are somehow monolithic as social and political groups. African-Americans know better. The entire political history of black America has been, essentially, a series of debates: Frederick Douglass versus Martin Delany in the 1850s; Booker T. Washington versus W.E.B. Dubois in the early twentieth century; Paul Roberson versus Walter White in the 1940s; the competition and conflicts within the civil rights movement of the 1960s, involving the NAACP, the National Urban League, Congress of Racial Equality, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee: Black Power versus integration in the 1960s; the bitter conflict among black activists between cultural nationalism and Marxism-Leninism, characterised in the struggles within the African Liberation Support Committee in the early 1970s; the ideological development of black neo-conservativism in the 1980s, by the likes of Thomas Sowell, Tony Brown, Glen Loury, Robert Woodson and Shelby Steele: the controversies involving the 'black public intellectuals' in the 1990s, including Cornel West, Henry Louis Gates, Bell Hooks, Patricia Williams, Michael Eric Dyson and Gerald Early.
Frequently, there have been leaders within the black community who have utilised the myth of the monolithic black community to stifle internal voices of dissent: 'If we're all black and if we all experience racism in common, there must be unified response and leadership to address our problems. 'But movements of any oppressed people cannot advance unless there is a healthy degree of internal criticism and discussion. For example, one can certainly criticise a Jesse Jackson for all sorts of reasons, but he merits our respect for his important contributions to our movement. I disagree vigorously with the political perspectives of both Colin Powell and Louis Farrakhan, but our profound differences should not keep us from engaging in a serious dialogue with those who share their views within the black community.
I have never believed that scholarship takes place outside the boundaries of society. We live and work in a real world, where triumphs and tragedies occur daily across the divisions of race, class and gender. We are witnesses to the struggles all around us. The task of the radical intellectual is to illuminate constantly the contours of social reality, to challenge those who benefit from unequal division of resources. Through this discourse, we make assumptions of which many in polite bourgeois academic circles might disapprove. They may find comfort in their isolation from the political and economic storms that are sweeping across today's social landscape. But it is only when we stand against the current, confronting the powerful forces of prejudice and inequality, that the tools of scholarship become meaningful. Intellectual work makes real sense to black and other oppressed people when it empowers them to make new history.
Nearly a century ago, W.E.B. Du Bois predicted that the central problem of the twentieth century would be 'the problem of the colour line.' What was clear to Du Bois was that African-Americans would effectively challenge racism only when they understood the dynamics of inequality and oppression on a global scale, and when the politics of racial justice was closely connected with a larger critique of capital and class. So I remain optimistic, despite the recent reactionary victories of the conservative Republicans and the neo-liberal accommodationism of the majority of the Democrats. The vast contradictions of race, class and gender increasingly polarise this nation, as the political space for a progressive alternative becomes more than a possibility.
Radical democratic change within society is not just a question of politics, but of vision. Can we rethink what we mean by black and/or progressive politics, and craft a new, more effective paradigm for activism? Can we construct a theory and practice which challenges racism but also addresses the contradictions and inequalities of gender, class and community? Can we redefine the category of 'blackness' itself, away from its racial and biological concepts and identity-based politics, towards a progressive politics and common language that brings together oppressed people with very distinct ethnicities, cultures and traditions? To paraphrase Malcolm X, the decisive struggle is not between black and white, but between the world's haves and have nots. The future of black liberation is inextricably linked to our ability successfully to answer these questions, speaking to the vast majority of humanity.
Return to IndexIII. Casino Royale Revisited
by William Perryman
We love each other and know it not.
Confined in a ring of ambiguity, Paradox, danger, hunger
and darkness,
Led astray and caged in reality bequeathed us by interlopers.
Counterfeiting our identity to existence controlled and
Defined by hatred and fear.
We love each other and know it not.
Amid easily manipulated consciousness, programmed insensitivity,
and limitation.
Amid human waste and decay of the spirit-
Our values expropriated for immoral purposes.
We bludgeon one another for the perverse excitement of the gallery,
"...A buck and wing to the clatter of condescending coins."
We sink calmly into hell, glorifying the actions of the damned,
Because ... We Love Each Other And Know It Not!
Return to IndexIV. US: the Black poor and the Politics of Expendability
In this presidential election year, as rhetoric about international terrorism heightens, the two major US political parties have united in a campaign of terror against poor and working-class people, especially poor Black and brown people - a campaign consistent with the shifting economic needs of American capitalism. At a time when unemployment and underemployment are at epidemic proportions, we are witnessing a callous erosion of the welfare state as we have known it for nearly two generations. The system was never ideal, but even the most basic services are now being eradicated. Government aid to the unemployed and working poor is being cut to a point where many more families will literally be living on the street without the most basic resources of food, shelter and clothing. This elimination of a basic commitment to those in need corresponds to an economic shift which has virtually eliminated any real possibility for employment for millions of these very same out-of-work Americans. A number of economists and analysts, most notably Jeremy Rifkin and Stanley Aronowitz, have described the devastating impact of the new technological revolution. Downsizing and the introduction of labour-replacing technology (i.e., computer technology, automation and bio-technology) have created a situation in which millions of jobs and prospective jobs in manufacturing and service industries are being rapidly erased. The impact of this retrenchment, which began at the low-skill job levels, has hit Black and Latino workers hardest. Thirty per cent of the manufacturing jobs eliminated by downsizing in 1990 and 1991 were jobs held by Blacks. This economic trend, which has persisted for more than a decade with little abatement, means that there now exists a class of permanently unemployed men and women who are essentially surplus labourers in an increasingly 'streamlined' economy.1 These are the men and women whom social scientists condescendingly refer to as the 'Black underclass.'
So, then, what do the Democrats and Republicans propose to do with these excess proletarians? The solutions being advocated are alarming and raise serious challenges for left and progressive forces as we attempt to construct a response tailored to the realities we are confronted with. A three pronged legislative agenda graphically illustrates the virtual convergence of Democratic and Republican ideologies: the passage of a Welfare Bill which blames the poor for their own poverty and denies them basic resources for survival; a willingness to cut taxes and give additional resources to corporate elites; and, finally, the 1994 Crime Bill and the law and order campaign that inspired it. In essence, a major element of the solutions being proposed to address this economic reality - although discussed in euphemistic terms by those in power - involves a redistribution of resources in favour of the wealthy, and containment, coerced labour and imprisonment for large sectors of the Black and Latino urban poor. Clearly, the conditions for slave labour are returning.
Economic terrorism against the poor
The Welfare Bill that has just passed into law signals an unprecedented assault on the well-being and survival of millions of poor Americans. One feature of the bill is its imposition of rigid time limits on how long poor people can receive assistance (five years for an entire lifetime), and its elimination of the social obligation of state governments to try to meet needs of their impoverished citizens. That is, the Bill eradicates the notion that citizens are 'entitled' to basic subsistence resources, despite the fact that they live in one of the richest countries in the world, and that most of them have paid taxes to the same federal government which will now deny them much-needed benefits. There will also be economic penalties for women who have additional children while receiving welfare. And the doors of colleges and universities will be closed even tighter to exclude the poor, as well. The reduction of funds for job training and the elimination of programmes that now enable welfare recipients to attend school in preparation for employment will deny them even the most remote chance to obtain the skills necessary to compete in the shrinking job market. The denial of food stamps and other basic benefits to legal immigrants is another harsh feature of the Bill, which policy analysts estimate will result in an additional 2.6 million people, including 1.1 million children, sinking below the poverty threshold by the year 2000.2
The crux of the problem with the so-called welfare reform programmes is the underlying assumption that the problem lies with the culture, behaviour and morality of the poor, rather than with poverty itself. The mandatory work requirement for welfare recipients after two years ignore the absence of real jobs for unskilled and undereducated workers and, instead, blames unemployed people for not being resourceful enough to find non-existent jobs. In other words, it is poor people who are defective, and not the economy. The alleged moral agenda of the current welfare reform crusade - to reduce out-of-wedlock births and instill a greater work ethic in the poor - applies higher moral standards to poor people than those adhered to by many of our public officials themselves. Moreover, the elitist assumption that poor people are lazy and irresponsible ignores the fact that most of these people have to work harder than most rich people just to survive. Daily life demands a certain resourcefulness, disciple and stamina that is wholly ignored and discounted by the behaviourist arguments against the poor.
The US economy
The promise by both major political parties of substantial tax cuts to the middle class - more like tax breaks for the wealthy - is the selling point of the social spending cuts we are currently witnessing. Despite the rhetoric of uplifting the poor by 'cutting their dependency on government', the underlying economic objectives of the recent social policy initiatives are clear. And what are some of the economic motives at play? A book written nearly twenty-five years ago by Sidney Wilhelm, entitled Who Needs the Negro?, offers a hint.3 In it, Wilhelm outlines the growing marginalisation of Black workers to the American economy, foreshadowing the even more pronounced developments two decades later. During the colonial and early American periods, Black labour was, of course, the unpaid labour upon which the wealth and profit of the slave south and, by extension, much of the north, rested. Later, Blacks were instrumental as exploited farm labour under the sharecropping system and most recently as indispensable factory workers in the industrial marketplace after the second world war. Wilhelm wrote in 1970: 'White American, by a more perfect application of mechanization and a vigorous reliance upon automation, disposes of the Negro: consequently, the Negro transforms from an exploited labour force to an outcast.'4
Jeremy Rifkin in the US and A. Sivanandan in Britain, among others, argue persuasively that the scientific revolution we are experiencing today is bringing about even more dramatic changes - and is changing the very nature of labour and work as we know it.5 Rifkin argues, as the title of his book, The End of Work, suggests, that the direction we are going in will ultimately render a certain section of the population permanently unemployed and wholly superfluous to the economy. The obvious social consequences of such a scenario are profound. He paints the following picture:
Unemployment is rising (sharply) as transnational companies build state of the art high-tech production facilities all over the world, letting go millions of laborers who can no longer compete with the cost efficiency, quality control and speed of delivery achieved by automated manufacturing. In more and more countries the news is filled with talk about lean production, re-engineering, total quality engineering, post-Fordism, decruiting and downsizing. Everywhere men and women are worried about their future.6
And, in response to the suggestion that this economic crisis is cyclical or temporary, Rifkin and his colleagues insist:
In the past, when new technologies have replaced workers in a given sector, new sectors have always emerged to absorb the displaced laborers. Today all three of the traditional sectors of the economy - agriculture, manufacturing, and service - are experiencing technological displacement. The only new sector emerging is the knowledge sector, made up of a small elite of entrepreneurs, scientists, technicians, computer programmers, educators and consultants.7
Abdul Alkalimat and others have written and spoken eloquently on the ways in which this scientific revolution and its economic reverberations have and will continue, directly and ominously, to shape social policy. The bottom line is that, if certain sectors of the workforce and potential work force are no longer needed by an economy increasingly reliant on highly skilled computer experts, what becomes of those left behind by these changes? Even service sector jobs, flipping hamburgers at local fast food chains, or changing bed-pans at hospitals and nursing homes are becoming harder to come by. Union busting, which began with the Reagan administration in the early 1980s, has made decent paying union jobs a thing of the past for all but the lucky few. My mother and father's generation could count on certain hard, gruelling, back-braking work as a ticket to a reliable income and a relatively decent life. No more. Government economic interventions over the past decade and a half have been increasingly and unabashedly geared towards the interests of the rich and upper middle class, offering more tax loopholes and tax breaks to those at the top of the economic pyramid, and ushering in what some economists have labelled a 'jobless recovery.' In other words, economic improvements for corporate elites and nothing for unemployed workers.
These policies are fattening up elite strata already quite pampered by the state. While welfare for the poor is being slashed, corporate perks are growing. Even Clinton's secretary of labor, Robert Reich, has spoken out critically of the undue benefits enjoyed by corporate elites as a result of government policy. In the 1950s, corporate taxes accounted for one third of all federal revenues. That figure had been reduced to a mere 10 per cent in 1995. Corporate agricultural businesses are heavily subsidised by the state, and many companies claim tax exemptions for a whole variety of things, including advertising their products aboard. The 'supply side' economic policies now being espoused by the Republican candidate for president promise to shift the economic policy debate even more to the right and more in favour of big business interests. The net result of all this is that the top 10 per cent of the US population now own nearly two-thirds of all the private wealth, and the top 1 per cent own and control 40 per cent.
Of course, forcing the working class and poor to bear the brunt of economic down turns is nothing new, but the widening and unmediated gulf between rich and poor, with less and less of a buffer in between, coupled with the growing insecurity of a certain stratum of professionals victimised by cuts in corporate bureaucracies, all represent significant shifts in the political and economic landscape. Historically, the notion of American exceptionalism has meant that most US workers embraced an illusory 'middle-class' identity and felt privileged and distinct from workers in other parts of the world. The economic and technological changes we are experiencing threaten to redefine that self-concept, offering both hopeful and frightening prospects for future political mobilizations. Mid-managers who played by the rules, and personified the American dream, are being booted out of their jobs by downsizing. Many of them feel betrayed by a system they once believed in. However, that resentment can go in one of two political directions. These excessed bureaucrats can either become more sympathetic to left critiques of the social order, or join the right-wing militia movement, the conservative Christian Coalition. or endorse the thinly-veiled fascism of Ross Perot.
While surplus managers and professionals can look forward to loss of mortgages and eclipsed career ambitions, the prospects for the poor are much grimmer. At the same time that social service expenditures are being cut and, in the case of some programmes, eliminated outright, prison construction is flourishing. In the state of Michigan, which led the way in spending cuts for services to the poor, a $200 million prison building project is under way. In Missouri, a $94 million prison is being constructed. And a $50 million bond campaign has been launched in Maryland to expand the state's prison system to accommodate overcrowding.9 With this pattern of funding re-allocation throughout the country, it seems clear where most politicians and bureaucrats plan to deposit the excess workforce.
Criminalisation and elimination schemes for poor Black people
In 1994, Bill Clinton, with Republican support, passed a repressive Crime Bill that moved the nation closer to a police state than ever before. Last year, an alarming study by the Washington DC - based Sentencing Project reported that there were more Black men in US prisons than white men, 43 percent and 42 per cent respectively, despite the fact that Blacks comprise a mere 13 per cent of the entire population. This means that the percentage of Black men imprisoned is more than three times their representation in the population at large. Today, 5,000 of every 100,000 Black men are in prison, as opposed to 500 out of every 100,000 in the general population. Even more striking, one in every three Black men between the ages of 20 and 29 is either in prison, or on probation or parole, in contrast to a mere 7 per cent of their white counterparts. More Black men are under the supervision of the criminal justice system in the United States today than were imprisoned in South Africa under the racist apartheid regime. And Black women are not exempt from what prisoner rights activist Angela Davis calls 'the punishment industry.' Incarceration rates for Black women have risen 20 per cent in the last decade.10
One response to these statistics might be that Blacks are simply committing more crimes. The answer is not that simple. Although crime rates have gone down over the past twenty years, the incarceration rate has more than quadrupled, from 200,000 prisoners in 1975 to 1.6 million in 1996. This has largely been a result of stiffer and mandatory sentencing laws, more reluctance to release prisoners on parole, the creation of new crime statutes, and the deinstitutionalisation of mental patients, many of whom end up homeless and eventually incarcerated for one infraction or another. The US now leads the world in imprisoning its citizens.
Much of this 'get tough on crime' and law and order hysteria has been carried out under the guise of the so-called war on drugs. And this is where racism comes into play most clearly. Black urban neighbourhoods have been vilified as drug infested jungles, inhabited by blood-thirsty savages who lack morals, civility or conscience. This is not to deny the fact that crime is a real problem in poor inner-city communities. It is. Kids without jobs or education often turn to the ruthless business of drug trafficking, thereby mimicking the entrepreneurial spirit of capitalism. Like their legal counterparts, they kill, maim and destroy people's lives in the process of making a profit. This grim fact notwithstanding, predatory crimes are still committed by a minute fraction of the Black community, and the racism embedded in the anti-drug laws and enforcement practices is still undeniable.
Particulary ominous, and quite telling, is the blanket criminalisation of entire communities for crimes committed by a few, which suggests that the elimination of drugs is not the objective at all. Rather, containment and control of a potentially rebellious population seems a more plausible explanation. Parenthetically, this type of community-wide punishment is reminiscent of the treatment meted out to Palestinian communities during the intifada in which whole neighbourhoods were razed as retribution against rock-throwing youths. Some examples of this type of group punishment in the US context can be seen in public housing projects where large numbers of the urban poor live. In many of these projects, quasi-military conditions now prevail. Residents have to walk through metal detectors and provide identification on demand. Housing police are often allowed to carry out what are termed 'lock downs' and 'sweeps' which means locking residents in their buildings at night and conducting random searches of apartments to identify 'outsiders.' More often than not, outsiders are individuals staying with public housing resident but are not officially on the lease for that dwelling. This might be a homeless relative, a domestic partner not legally married to the resident, or a child or sibling evicted from their own housing. Having an unlisted occupant in the apartment at the time of the sweep could result in the termination of a lease and the eviction of an entire family. Such practices not only deny poor people basic civil rights, but build tensions within extended families, deter people from helping one another in a crisis, and literally break down survival mechanisms employed by poor people as an adaptation to increasingly adverse conditions. It is important to note that, contrary to the notion that increased policing and repression apply solely to Black men, Black women and children are primary residents of public housing in most major cities and these housing projects increasingly resemble minimum security prisons - at best. The criminalisation of youth, with the emphasis on trying teenagers as adults, and the economically punitive measures against poor single mothers, are additional facets of this larger trend of criminalising the Black urban poor.
Another component of the so-called war on drugs, the battle cry of the Crime Bill proponents, is the racially biased practice of imposing harsher sentences on those forms of drug use and sales most common in the Black community, while handing out lighter sentences for comparable offences committed most commonly by whites. Even though drug use among whites and Blacks is estimated at relatively the same rate, Blacks get arrested fives times as often. And another widely cited discrepancy is the fact that crack cocaine possession is met with much harsher sentencing than the possession and sale of powder cocaine.11 Crack is more common in the Black community and powder cocaine is more popular among wealthy whites. In fact, between 83 and 90 per cent of those convicted of crack possession and sales are Black.12 There is a hundred to one disparity between powder cocaine and crack cocaine sentences as established under the 1986 Narcotics Penalties and Enforcement Act.13 So, for very similar offences, whites either get a shorter sentence or avoid jail altogether. The net result of biased sentencing, increased mandatory sentencing and general increased repression of poor and working-class Black communities is that the entire Black community is placed under surveillance and subjected to greater police harassment. Ultimately, of course, poor Blacks are much more likely to end up in prison.
Another often ignored by-product of the trend of increased Black imprisonment constitutes a reversal of many of the voting rights gains won by the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Prisoners, now mostly Black, are essentially deemed non-citizens. Poor Blacks, therefore, are being systematically disenfranchised and reduced to a non-citizen status reminiscent of slavery. Under slavery, every one of us was deemed three-fifths of a person by the US constitution; today, thousands of Black prisoners and ex-prisoners are not seen as persons at all. Nearly all states deny prisoners the right to vote, over half deny voting rights to individuals on probation, and nearly a third of states deny even ex-offenders the ballot. Today, this racially biased disenfranchisement affects 14 million Americans, disproportionately Black.14 So, in essence, conviction for a single crime can, in many instances, mean lifelong exclusion form the body of politics. Once you have 'a record,' the authorities have information on you and a right to monitor you and restrict you in ways that they do not vis a vis other fully-fledged citizens. Ex-offenders are frequently hauled into police line-ups or designated as suspects because they fit the description of some alleged lawbreaker. All of these factors help to strengthen the state's ability to control a population which has growing reasons to feel angry and rebellious.
Finally, there is the issue of the death penalty. Perhaps the most serious by-product of the current crime fighting crusade is a push to make the death penalty more common, to 'streamline' the appeals process, to deny death row inmates the right of multiple appeals, and to implement quicker, more cost-efficient methods of execution. Capital punishment has always constituted a form of special treatment reserved for the poor and, disproportionately, the Black poor. So, it is not surprising that, even as we see policies that view poor Black people as expendable, we also hear increased demands for the more liberal use of capital punishment. Of the 3,000 inmates awaiting execution 40 per cent are African American, again a figure far exceeding Black representation in the population. After decades of decreased popularity, the death penalty has risen as a part of the battle cry of the new campaign for law and order at any cost. More people were executed by the state in 1995 than in any year since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. ........Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose case has helped to bring attention to the injustice of capital punishment, but this unfortunately has not won Mumia's freedom or that of dozens of other Black political prisoners, like Geronimo Pratt, who have been languishing in US prisons since the 1960s and early '70s.(15)
So the current political climate in the US is one in which repression and criminalisation of the poor are quite compatible with economic shifts that have created a superfluous class of workers. But how are such fascistic policies being carried out, seemingly with popular tolerance, if not support? Let me indicate, as an aside, that the current conservative Congress, led by right-wing icon Newt Gingrich, was not elected by a majority of Americans. The majority of Americans either voted for candidates that lost, or, even more tellingly, did not bother to vote at all. Nevertheless, some of the harshest social policies we have seen in generations are being carried out in the name of the American people. This policy agenda, which hinges on the denial of basic resources to, and mass imprisonment of, poor Black people, is fundamentally racist in its nature. And it is racism and its propagation in the mainstream media that allows such a programme to be carried out, by politicians and bureaucrats of varied skin tones, and by both major political parties.
Of course, I in no way subscribe to the historical notion that, the worse things get, the better the climate for radical social movements to develop. If this were the case, we would never have witnessed the development of full-fledged fascism in Europe or the emergence of Third World dictatorships today. But the sobering political and economic reality we are confronted with has led to a resurgence of organising efforts among American leftists, especially Black and Latin activists. Student and youth activism on American college campuses never died out completely, despite rumours to the contrary. But recent years have witnessed a renewed phase of campus organising which, perhaps, has even greater promise of making links with off-campus struggles. The union campaign by Yale University graduate students this year garnered national attention and support from left intellectuals and trade unionists alike. Columbia University students led a militant campaign for an ethnic studies programme last spring, taking over university buildings and forcing the administration to bring New York City police on campus for the first time in over a decade. The Columbia students also lent support to the clerical workers' strike at adjacent Barnard College, which occurred around the same time. And California students have led the fight back against the state's reversal of affirmative action and its attacks on largely Latino immigrants, in the form of Proposition 187, which has become a national model for denying all public services, including health care and access to schools to undocumented workers. (16)
Not all youth organising is confined to the campuses. Hundreds of young people, most of them students, participated in a union organising drive this summer which was labelled Union Summer, reminiscent of the civil rights movement's historic Freedom Summer campaign of 1964. Some former student organisers have also made a priority of doing community level youth organising with high-school-age young people. The Southwest Youth Collaborative in Chicago is one example of this effort. Led by an African American organiser, Jonathan Peck, and a Palestinian activist, Jeremy Lahoud, the project does mass political education of youth and offers workshops on political organising. One of the key issues on which they have done an impressive amount is the criminalisation of youth.
On a national level, despite two decades of largely single issue organising campaigns, Black left forces are once again attempting to organise on a national level, some in interracial formations and some exclusively in the Black community. A contingent of veteran Black organisers and intellectuals have involved themselves in, and influenced the formation of, such groups as the New Party; the Labor Party, which just had a highly promising founding conference this summer, and Committees of Correspondence, a group that grew out of the break-up of the Communist Party but has reached out to include other sectors of the progressive and left communities.17 Black left intellectuals and organisers are talking to each other more these days as well, across organisational and ideological boundaries. The number of national dialogues, conferences and summits which have taken place, or are being planned, include a national gathering of Black radical activists in 1997; a National Black Leadership Summit, which involved some radicals, but many mainstream leaders as well; and a number of Black feminist initiatives such as the New York based, Agenda 2000 - A Black Feminist Network (formerly African American Agenda 2000). and the Washington DC-based Black Black Women for Justice. Finally, a series of conferences, involving a core of African American workers and academics, resulted in the publication of a book, Jobs? and Technology: the impact of technology on society, which is serving as a basis for ongoing national discussions and course outlines for teachers.
The political situation is serious, but not hopeless. The real challenge in this country at this juncture seems to be threefold. The first challenge is to build a national network, if not organisation, to coordinate local and overlapping national efforts but to insist on anti-racism and leadership by people of colour as a priority to avoid the elitism and isolation that has plagued such efforts in the past. Second, we seriously need to create a constructive and inclusive conversation about the internal weaknesses of our own movement, historically and today. Paramount in the list of discussion items has to be the persistence of sexism and homophobia; the need to ally across the boundaries of academy and the community, and the need to combat egocentrism and hold even our most eloquent spokespersons accountable for what they say. Finally, we need to build upon, and take more seriously, efforts at creating a sustained international alliance. The demise of socialist experiments and the socialist movement worldwide, and the globalisation and increased cross-national operation of capitalism, demands that we take this task to heart. The challenges of the twenty-first century are formidable, but the potential is tremendous.***
References
The author would like to acknowledge Adabul Alkalimat, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, for his contribution to this article.
1 Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work: the decline of global labor force and the dawn of the
post-market era (New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1995); also see Aronowitz and DeFazio, The Jobless Future, for similar observations regarding the situation in Britain, see A. Sivanandan, 'All that melts into air is solid: the hokum of New Times,' Race & Class (January-March 1990), and A. Sivanandan, 'New circuits of imperialism,' Race & Class (vol.. 30, no. 4. April-June 1989).
2 New York Times (23 August 1996), p. A10.
3 Sidney Wilhelm, Who Needs the Negro? (Cambridge, MA, Schenkman, 1970).
4 Ibid., p. 162.
5 Rifkin, op. cit., pp.xv-5.
7 Ibid.
8 Chuck Collins, 'Aid to dependent corporations: exposing federal handouts to the wealthy.' Dollars and Sense (May-June, 1995).
9 Richard V. Ayre, 'The prison crisis: an essay on the social and political foundations of criminal justice policy.' Public Administration Quarterly (V0l. 19, no. 1, Spring, 1995). pp 42-57; David Kaplan, 'Prison building boom a bust for bankers.' The Bond Buyer (6 April 1995).
10 These statistics were obtained in various forms from the following sources: Larry Gossett, 'Bringing balance to our justice system,' Seattle Times (24 June 1996), p.B5; Paul Finkelman, 'The crime of color,' Tulane Law Review (No. 67, June 1993): Ted Gest, 'A shocking look at Blacks and crime,' US News and World Report (16 October 1995), p. 53; for statistics on prison population in Britain and the Criminal Justice White Paper published by home secretary Michael Howard, see David Rose, 'Back to the chain gang,' The Observer (4 February 1996), p.13.
11 Ronald Brownstein, 'Why are so many Black men in jail?' Los Angeles Times (6 November 1995, p. 5A.
12 Gary Fields, 'Blacks, now a majority in prisons,' in USA Today (4 December 1995), p. 1A; and Larry Bivins, 'Black men in America: prison rates rise...'. Detroit News (8 October 1996).
13 Jefferson Morley, 'Crack in black and white: politics, profits and punishment in America's drug economy,' Washington Post (19 November 1994), p. Col..
14 Andrew Shapiro, 'Giving cons and ex-cons the vote,' The Nation (20 December 1993); for more information, see Andrew Hacker, 'Malign neglect: the crackdown on African Americans,' The Nation (10 July 1995); Marc Mauer, 'Americans behind bars: a comparison of international rates of incarceration,' a report issued by the Winning Hearts and Minds: British governments, the media and colonial counter-insurgency, 1994- 1960 by Susan Carruthers (Milan Rai) 96.
Return to IndexV. The U.S. of A.: A Crucible For Blacks
(The Purification of a People)
It is a terrible thing to be forced to live another peoples' reality. It is much worse to become unbalanced to the point one prefers and adopts that alien reality and rejects one's own. From the time we were taken into bondage, until roughly the mid-1950s, Blacks have been compelled to simultaneously live dual realities. Almost immediately it became clear to us that we were trapped in a society based on the dominant group's conception of reality and for survival's sake we accept (at least in form) the norms and values produced by that reality. At the same time, Blacks knew their "real world" was quite different and grew out of their experiences (external and internal) of this world and the universe. Balancing these two world views, (views as different as night and day) without becoming totally psychotic has been one of the great achievements of black people in America. However, bearing the burden of this dual-reality has resulted in Blacks having schizoid personalities. We have had to bend ourselves out of shape to stay alive. A comparison can be made with sickle cells developing in our bodies to minimize the threat of malaria. Necessity, always, generates a response: mutations, abnormalities, quantum leaps, innovations and improvisation.
The 1950s were a significant time for Americans and especially for Blacks. The winds of changer were beginning to be felt in all aspects of society. It was during this era that integration, as we presently know it, was set in motion. Since the inception of chattel slavery the survival of black folks in this country has been, to put it mildly, precarious. Here we are primarily speaking of physical survival. With the advent of so-called integration our survival has been endangered on the psychological, mental and spiritual levels. Enforced segregation (with all its ills) provided us a collective haven where we were able to protect and nurture our non-physical selves. Integration has relentlessly eroded that protective "oasis." Thus the danger of mental and spiritual genocide is great and those realms are where the battles are being waged and the outcome will determine whether black people will realize their destiny. Integration has opened the door to the seductions of this society: creature comforts; status celebrity; sensual gratifications; wealth; the illusion of power. These seductions have conquered many Blacks, although the price is very high. One is required to "marry" the status quo and consummate that marriage by committing one's time and energy to living and promoting the values of egoism (individualism), hedonism (gratification of appetites) and materialism (physical-based reality). These values are antithetical to the collective well-being of black people and can never lead to black liberation. Hence to consummate this marriage, is to be party to one's own enslavement. This has made the last fifty years the most challenging time for Blacks since we have been a captive people.
The cultural and political awakening of Blacks in the 1960s was a collective, intuitive and intellectual response to the seductive spell encompassing and permeating the consciousness of black folks. We began to fight this phenomenon in every way possible. Many of us understood that if we, as a people, succumbed to the spell, we would be doomed. This society has fought and attempted to either eliminate or co-opt our awakening every step of the way. In the 60s we woke up everybody. The American rulers almost lost their own children to the truths we unleashed on this planet. This country has not been the same since those heady times. That impact was just an intimation of things to come in the twenty-first century when Blacks will have returned to a state of Health and Wholeness.
All of the above are stages of a process that has been unfolding for a long, long time. A war has been raging on this planet for hundreds of years, America is the major battle ground and Blacks are at the very center of the battle. We are the key being fashioned to unlock the door leading to a "higher" and "finer" way of life. This role, in the affairs of Humanity, does not signify Blacks being "better" than the rest of man and mankind. Rather, it is the outcome of having endured what we have endured in our captivity. At this particular moment in time, Blacks are the people who have paid the requisite dues to be the KEY. We have been broken, molded and are being reshaped in ways seen and unseen and this has made us the prime candidates to become the human bridge necessary to carry all people to a more harmonious mode of existence. Thus, it is both an honor and privilege to be the descendants of Black slaves in America.
Many will take offense at the above statements, especially those who have benefitted most from Blacks' oppression in this country. In this age of Multicultural-Diversity obfuscation and hypocrisy, the majority of non-Black Americans envy, resent and are attempting to derail, deny and/or usurp our future. They also are reluctant to assume any responsibility for Black suffering and exploitation (past and present), although their relatively comfortable existence has been under girded by this Holocaust. Yet, it does not matter, because Truth is ultimately the victor over denial and distortion regardless of the might of the perpetrators. What is important, is how Black people are responding to the call of our collective destiny.
As has been stated, the last third of the twentieth century has been both the most exhilarating and the most difficult stage of our subjugation. The Crucible (subjugation in the U.S.A.), that we have labored under for so long, is about to be consummated. It has called forth the best and the worst within us. It has compelled us to use our spiritual gifts, in ways we have never done before, in order to survive and flourish in spite of extremely oppressive circumstances. In the process of struggling to survive, we have become alchemists. We have become masters at transforming the Ugly (pain, deprivation, rejection, etc.) into Beauty. Our music (a gift to the entire world) is a supreme example of this collective mastery. Our Crucible has ben a blessing because in responding to its demands we have been made aware of that which is highest in us and consequently should be developed to the optimal level. On the other hand, our lowest possibilities have also been made plain and our experiences dictate it is our duty to either transform, transmute or transcend these base proclivities. These proclivities must be left behind (in the twentieth century), not because they are "bad" but because they are no longer useful.
Our Crucible has necessitated that we (Blacks in the U.S.A.) be stripped of everything: culture, land, history, religions, stable families, language, names, cosmologies. We were left with only each other and our mostly deeply imbedded inner resources (those that torture, seduction, persecution, psychological manipulations, historical distortions could not reach). These resources and our communal relationships enabled us to create a life, with meaning, for ourselves and our posterity. Against incredible odds, we fashioned a way of life that is secretly envied and openly emulated by people (our dress, language, music, religious expression; our "modus operandi") all over this planet. The stripping was necessary to teach us that with "nothing" we contain everything. Without a place on this earth to call our own, we have discovered that locality resides within us and therefore where ever we are is "home." Inner space has become our fertile land and, through cultivation, it has yielded remarkable fruits.
On the surface, Blacks' five hundred years of bondage appears to have been to the benefit of those who have oppressed us. However, as this century draws to a close, it becomes apparent that on a deeper, more profound (non-physical) and cosmic level the beneficiaries have been the oppressed. This period of captivity was required to set Black people on a path of purification. Without the Black Holocaust we would have been content to bask in the afterglow of dimly remembered past glories, and thus continue our downward slide toward mediocrity and degeneracy. For, as a people, we were already in decline when we were taken into bondage. Slavery and the attendant after effects have been a spiritual 'wake-up' call.
The purification process: What does it entail? What does it demand of us? Why is it necessary? It must be stressed, that despite all that has happened to, for and by Blacks, we still are allowed the choice of embracing or rejecting the path of purification. We can move on toward Human Perfectibility or we can stay put and settle for the rewards, goals and aspirations of the present World order. And that is exactly what is happening: Some are choosing the "high" road, others of us are choosing the "low." These opposing responses are accelerating because as this century races to its end, the cosmic energies are forcing a choice. We translate our response to these energies as doing what is necessary to "survive" into the twenty-first century. Those of us who have chosen or are choosing to remain with the status quo have been captivated by the oppressor's reality. Having internalized the values of Western (U.S.A.) Civilization, we believe survival is not possible without guidance, protection, direction, and acceptance of the present rulers of this world. We need their "stamp of approval" to validate our value as human beings. Those of us in this camp did not (could not?) hear Sam Cooke when he sang: "A Change Is Gonna Come." These brothers and sisters have been eloquently analyzed and understood by our brilliant brother Franz Fanon in his classic book: The Wretched Of The Earth. These words are not written in mockery or ridicule. Our five hundred year journey has been painful, heart-breaking (and for some, spirit-breaking, as well) and indescribably demanding on all levels of our being. Perhaps the Blacks, who out of expediency, have aligned themselves with the Power-Brokers of this society have paid the highest price of all. These are powerful lessons to be learned from their choice and it would benefit us all to study those lessons.
From the beginning of our enslavement, we have always had men and women who refused to accept an alien concept of reality as their own. They understood that nothing earthly is eternal and that includes the enslavement of a people. These Black men and women knew that "the wheel turns" and those, who strive to "keep the faith" and "do the right thing" to the best of their ability, will be rewarded in kind and degree. To refuse to pledge allegiance to the norms and values of a society one has been forced to be part of, requires great courage. One is persecuted and ridiculed in subtle and obvious ways. The highly principled life is very, very lonely. The price is so high, many capitulate despite deep convictions and a desire to live an authentic life dedicated to truth. Those who maintain become our Heroes/Sheroes because their heroic response to our existential circumstance reminds us of our latent capabilities to determine how and for what we will live our lives.
The courage to be in charge of our own lives sets us on the path of purification. Cowards cannot embark on this path because it requires "letting go" of all that would slow us down and hold us back. The crucible we have endured has prepared Blacks to be the prime, collective, candidate most likely to successfully complete the process of Purification and become the prototype for the New Man and New Woman fit to create a new World Civilization. The "old" must give way to the "new" in all spheres of life. A new taxonomy of human existence, based on Wholeness and Health, has arisen our of the essence of a changed (improved) Humanity. Purification is simply a means to the end of becoming entities capable of manifesting Wholistic Health. When Blacks speak of liberation, on the deepest (soul) level, we are yearning for the time and space to experience and be: Love, Beauty, Truth, Peace and Joy - in other words, Wholeness. Fragmented lives, a product of the present bankrupt civilization, engenders escapism: drugs; promiscuity; consumerism; religiosity; careerism; hedonism, intellectualism occultism, etc. All these "hiding places" have to be given up (purged) if we are to move forward.
It should be clear that purification is a major part of a Healing Process. Blacks in America are the forerunners of this process all will ill have to undergo, or perish. This vanguard position has been obvious, since the 60s, to all who would give an honest appraisal of social and political changes in this country in the last forty years. Practically all the gains of women, people of color (red, yellow and brown), the elderly, the poor and gays have been achieved, on the backs of Black people. we are the only people whose collective back could have bore such a burden. We have paid the heaviest dues; knocked down doors; sacrificed thousands of lives, and others have reaped the lion's share of the benefits. That's a fact!
Black people's present duty is to summon the collective courage to joyfully, in a conscious and determined way, learn the final lessons our Crucible affords us; embrace and consummate our further purification and thus justify our honored position as the present vanguard in the evolutionary march toward "Heaven on Earth." If we can do that, then all we have suffered will have been a small price to pay. We are blessed.
Norman J. Freeman - 1998
Return to IndexVI. Journal Seeks a Different Focus on African-American Studies
'Souls,' edited by Columbia's Manning Marable, will try to link scholarship with difficult urban issues.
by Jennifer K. Ruark
Is Rudolph Giuliani, the conservative Mayor of New York, aiding and abetting the militant black activist Khallid Abdul Muhammad? That is the kind of question that Souls, a new quarterly, will ask as it tries to make room for itself in the growing crowd of black intellectual journals. Manning Marable, the editor, is director of Columbia University's Institute for Research in African-American Studies. He hopes to set Souls apart from such journals as Transition, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, and the Journal of Black Studies by focusing on urban social and political issues -- and the role black scholars should play in addressing them.
'Scholars have a broad responsibility to link rigorous scholarship with the real problems of power and equality that challenge people today," says Mr. Marable. In the journal's inaugural issue, released this month (January '99), Mr. Marable observes that Mayor Giuliani's denunciation of Mr. Muhammad's Million Youth March last September "immediately generated unmerited yet widespread support throughout Harlem for Mr. Muhammad's efforts." Both men, he writes, "are guilty of irresponsible misleadership."
Elsewhere in the issue, which is devoted to Harlem, Eric Foner, a historian at Columbia University, explores the meaning of black freedom, and a physician and a historian examine the impact of the crack-cocaine epidemic. Future issues of Souls will also be thematic, examining subjects such as race and revolution in Cuba, black people and criminal justice, and black radical historiography. The issue scheduled for this fall will include an interview with the historian John Hope Franklin, chairman of President Clinton's Advisory Board on Race, and comments from 10 prominent scholars on the President's race initiative.
In the New York Times and elsewhere, Mr. Marable has challenged the reluctance of scholars such as Harvard University's Henry Louis Gates, Jr., to politicize scholarship, casting himself as truer to W.E.B. DuBois's model of the activist-scholar. Mr. Gates edits Transition with Kwame Anthony Appiah, also of Harvard.
"Gates, as brilliant as he is," says Mr. Marable, "does not accurately characterize the black intellectual tradition." which Mr. Marable argues has always sought to transforms well as to describe black experience. A democratic socialist, Mr. Marable also sets himself apart from Afrocentrists such as Temple University's Molefi Kete Asante, the editor of the social-science Journal of Black Studies. souls, he says, will be "objective and rigorous but also committed to the project of social justice."
Souls is published by Westview Press, which just entered the arena of journal publishing and is heavily promoting the quarterly. The press initially planned to take on Mr. Marable's Race and Reason, an annual collection based on symposia at the Columbia Research Institute, and modeled on a journal that DuBois published while teaching at Atlanta University. But "Race and Reason flowered into Souls," says Andrew Day, the Westview editor in charge of the journal.
More than just a new name, "Souls is a much more ambitious project," says Mr. Marable, who adds that he has dreamed for 20 years of editing such a journal. "It's meant to encourage debate and dialogue among scholars and the general public about critical issues confronting black Americans and the black diaspora."
Mr. Marable's hope of reaching beyond academe is clear from the list of advisers and contributing editors to Souls, which, in addition to scholars such as Harvard's Cornel West and Columbia law professor, Patricia J. Williams, includes the actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, the singer and activist Bernice Johnson Reagon, and Bill Fletcher, Jr., director of education at the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
But aiming for a general audience is not enough to distinquish Souls from the competition. The semiannual Black Renaissance-Renaissance Noire, which made its debut just two years ago and is edited by Manthia Diawara, director of the Africana studies program at New York University, has similar goals. Is there not a danger of glutting the market? "Never," says Robin D.G. Kelley, a professor of history and African studies at N.Y.U. who is on the editorial board of Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire and serves as a contributing editor of Souls. 'There are so many young geniuses who are coming up and need a place to publish," says Mr. Kelley. He contrasts the current number of outlets for black progressive scholarship with the "desert" that existed when he was setting our as a scholar several years ago.
Mr. Marable argues that there are still ar fewer black intellectual journals today than there were before African-American studies made inroads into academe. "It's a paradox," he says. African-American studies now has the greatest influence it ever has had within the curricula. Yet there are very few academic journals based on interdisciplinary research in this field." Adds Mr. Kelley, "Different journals offer more avenues for debate." He notes that an article he wrote with a graduate student about Mao Zedong's influence on black radical thought, originally commissioned by Transition, was rejected by that journal and will appear in Souls.
And while Mr. Kelly acknowledges that black scholars have finally begun to gain access to mainstream publications, he says, "it's amazing how much of a wall there still is for black scholars who don't have a national name." Even if that wall came down, Mr. Kelley says, black intellectual journals would have an important role to play. "The journal of American History would never focus an issue on the urban plight of American workers, for example, or publish poetry," he says.
Return to IndexVII. What a Prison Sentence Really Means
by Jeff Goodman
When I was sent to prison, the judge mentioned just the length of my sentence. Had he included the entire scope of my punishment, he may have said it differently:
"Mr. Goodman, I sentence you to take responsibility for every social ill- past, present and future. Each time American runs out of foreign enemies, it apparently turns on itself to find more. By way of media, politics and indifference, people who break the law, good law or bad, become those enemies and are then responsible for every social malady. Whether this is logical, you are the culprit.
"You are sentenced to live in a maladaptive, alien environment that defies description. You'll be stripped of your work skills, your self-worth and your humanity while at the same time face the daily threat of assault, rape, false accusations and unjustified punishment. You will live like this for seven years. If you manage to reenter society as a productive person, some will say prison was just what you needed. If not, others will say, 'I told you so.'
"Because of counterproductive prison policies, you are sentenced to live in a world of cruelty and indifference that engenders the very behavior it purports to alleviate. If you share this with those outside of the prison system, you will be called a liar; most won't believe that millions are spent on the proliferation of facilities that perpetuate harm, not repair it.
"You are sentenced to consume $150,000 in taxpayer dollars for your prison stay. While lawmakers cite the ever-growing cost of incarceration as a public necessity, you will learn that 10 percent of that amount goes towards your daily needs, while the other 90 percent pays for a bloated prison bureaucracy immune from an y cost-benefit analysis. These tax dollars will be siphoned from school programs, child care and job training, all of which do make our communities healthy and safe and save millions in the process. Despite the media frenzy that portrays society as seething with crime, you'll learn that relatively few prisoners represent a danger to our communities; we're (mad?) at most felons, not scared of them. So you'll wonder why the majority of prisoners aren't on home arrest, a logical move that would save millions of dollars and obviate the need for more prisons.
"Practical education programs, universally proven to drastically reduce recidivism, will be almost nonexistent. In fact, you will be disciplined for possessing more than 10 books. Therefore, you will live in an environment where recidivism if tacitly encouraged, a fact not lost on those who want to run prisons for profit.
"It is true that there are some counseling programs in prison and some people will benefit from them. Yet, if you attempt to describe the futility of a therapeutic environment placed within an atmosphere replete with dehumanizing policies, you will be told that your intentions are distorted and without merit.
"You are sentenced to bear the wrath of a misinformed society. While you're experiencing everything I just said, you will be told how easy you have it. The media will find your Christmas meal more newsworthy than the damage caused by lawmakers who jostle for the next 'get tough' policy at the expense of society's welll-being. your privilege to have this once-a-year meal will be prevented as so outrageous, a debate will ensue over which 'luxury' to take away next. Politicians will focus on violent sociopaths and pronounce their horrific crimes as a yardstick to measure the innate danger and incorrigibility of all law-breakers, including you.
"Finally, as perhaps the most perverse component of your sentence, I hereby prohibit society from ever listening to you. Your comments on crime and punishment will be ignored. You, as well as others, will see the big picture, but few will care about the politics of crime and its role in our growing prison population. You will know that most prisoners are guilty of breaking the law, but only a few need to be separated from society. You will know that it is the reporting and sensationalism of crime that has skyrocketed, not crime itself. Unfortunately, though you will one day return to society with firsthand knowledge of our prison system, few will care; most see only the door leading into prison, not the one leading out.
"Therefore, if your opinion ever gets printed in a newspaper, you will not only be perceived as just another lawbreaker unable to accept the consequences of his actions, but of being manipulative as well. Society will know this to be so because you once broke the law.
"You are hereby sentenced to be a messenger whose message will be forever perceived as tainted, self-serving and disingenuous, regardless of its veracity and accuracy.
"No one will believe you. You have been sentenced to be a criminal."
Jeff Goodman, of Eagan, is a software engineer. He spent time in prison as a first-time non-violent offender.
Return to IndexVIII. Nketiah stresses need for renewal of cultural nationalism (International)
Bolgatanga, Ghana, Nov. 3, - Professor J. H. Kwabena Nketiah, of the International Center for African Music and Dance in Legon, has stressed the need for periodic renewal of "cultural nationalism or consciousness of identity."
He said, "cultural nationalism or consciousness" can no longer be taken for granted. Every generation should develop a positive attitude towards traditional cultures merely because an earlier generation had subscribed to the philosophy of African personality.
Prof. Nketiah was speaking on "The challenge of cultural preservation in a dynamic social environment" on the third day of the National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFAC 98. The symposium on the theme, "The Challenge of Cultural Preservation: the strengthening of our national identity in the next millennium," is being attended by artists throughout the country.
He pointed out that cultural preservation which was ardently pursued in the immediate post-independence years has lost its momentum and its impact on creativity "because cosmetic changes now abound in the people's creative field and their approach to institution-building."
"The challenge we face today, therefore, is not only that of recognising the validity of our traditional cultures of purposes of generating appropriate levels of consciousness but also a redefinition of the place our own cultures should occupy in our social, political, and religious life as well as in our contemporary institutions."
Professor Nketia said social upheavals such as chieftaincy disputes and the influx of foreign cultures as well as the increasing geographical and social mobility in the country today, suggest that the task of cultural preservation should be approached on all-fronts, using oral methods which would ensure continuity through practice and participation.
He advocated the development of cultural archives throughout the country, stressing that efforts should be made to disseminate materials from those archives in a form that can be of value to the nation's artists and educators. "The way forward lies in our ability to build meaningful bridges between the old and the new; for a society that lives in a dynamic environment does not operate on the basis of the achievement of the present alone, but also those of the past that have contemporary relevance,
Speaking on "The Ghanaian identity as an integrating factor in national development," Dr. Barfuo Akwesik Abayie Boaten, of the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ghana, said Ghanaians as one people, they should live in peace for national development. He said a national identity can serve as an integrating factor for national development on account of their geographical location and political affiliation.
Dr. Boaten said for a vibrant Ghanaian society, the nation's youth, should be in a position to contribute to national development rather than becoming a liability. He warned that the permissiveness of modern society was gradually destroying the moral fibre of the nation and called on the adult population to inculcate moral values into the youth.
"In order to achieve the full benefit of education for the purpose of national youth and development, our pupils must be taught the truth, honesty and honour, and especially the history of this country's heroes and heroines." Such studies will make the past relevant to the present and the future, and enhance the people's national identity.
Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia, chairman of the Council of State, who presided, stressed the need for Ghanaians to preserve their culture and national identity in the face of world-wide foreign cultural infiltration.
Return to Index
IX. Paul Robeson: Seeker of Justice
by Eugene Kane
He was Michael Jordan before there was a Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson before Michael Jackson. He was also Muhammad Ali. He was the most famous, the most talented, the most outspoken black person in the world, but today many don't really know him at all. His name was Paul Robeson, and he'd be 100 years old if he were alive today. Which makes this as good a time as any to remind everybody who wants to celebrate Black History Month what he was all about.
Last week, PBS aired a captivating look at Robeson's life. "Paul Robeson: Where I Stand," and if you saw it, chances are you learned more in the two-hour broadcast than you'd ever heard previously.
Born in 1898 and dead in 1976, Robeson was a complicated historical figure who changed the way black people were viewed during his lifetime. He was a man who fought against racial stereotypes -- in fact, fought against any limits being placed on him at all. The son of a former slave (his father escaped to freedom at the age of 15), Robeson excelled early in life.
As a college student at Rutgers, he was both an All-American jock and a scholar. He became a lawyer but soon tired of the regimentation and decided to try his hand in the theater. Because of his striking physical presence (6 feet 2 inches), the stage became a natural way to display his artistic side, which included a booming bass voice.
In 1924, he appeared in a revival of playwright Eugene O'Neill's "The Emperor Jones" and stepped into his new role as one of America's most popular artists. During the 1930s and '40s, Robeson became famous for his acting in Hollywood movies but also because of his singing at concert halls around the world. Perhaps you have heard his rendition of "Old Man River," which he turned into a powerful allegory for the rights struggle.
But the reason Robeson is a 20th-century icon is because of his unswerving dedication to human rights. He spoke up against injustice, loudly and often, and if he wasn't 100% on target all of the time, he never stopped searching for a perfect society, color-blind and equal for every human being. And this is where it gets complicated, because while I wager many classrooms teach students about Robeson the singer or Robeson the actor, it is Robeson the activist whose image has been blurred and discarded over the passage of time.
He left America to live abroad -- in Europe and the Soviet Union -- several times, which was considered tantamount to treason for many Americans. To make things worse, Robeson went abroad and talked about the vicious racism and discrimination that existed in America, and it made him a target of the anti-Communist movement in America.
His most famous statement was this one, attributed to him by The Associated Press in 1949: "It is unthinkable that American Negroes would go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against a country (the Soviet Union) which in one generation has raised our people to the full dignity of mankind."
During the postwar years in America, the lynching of black men in the South increased even though blacks had faithfully served in the fight against fascism. Robeson became a villain after that statement was publicized. Even prominent black leaders, the NAACP and baseball great Jackie Robinson turned against him, mainly out of a fear that if they didn't, they also would be painted as Communist sympathizers.
In re-examining his life, the PBS special made it clear Robeson's attraction to the Soviet Union as being much more committed to equality among the races than the United States. Of course, during his many visits to that country, care was taken to keep him unaware of the human rights violations taking place, including mass killing of political opponents and artists.
In retribution for his alleged treason, American turned its back on Robeson. He couldn't work anymore as an entertainer in concert halls or movies. The State Department took away his passport -- illegally -- and for eight years he struggled to support himself and his family. By the time Robeson was an old man, some segments of American society had softened their views about whether he was a traitor. By then, Robeson had begun to suffer from mental instability; many believe he had been manic-depressive for years. He dropped out of sight until his death, largely ignored by a growing civil rights movement that consisted of young black men and women who were his ideological children in their attitudes toward social justice.
Robeson's legacy is that of a supremely talented black man who put his commitment to social justice above his personal situation. He came before the age of today's millionaire black athlete and entertainer, and it's probably a good thing because I suspect he would be ashamed to see how many of his descendants have accepted their own responsibility. Put it another way: Have you ever heard any of today's black superstars taking a stand against injustice?
That would be like Michael Jordan speaking out about the racist killing of a black man in Texas, or a movie star like Will Smith protesting attempts to eliminate affirmative action. It seems unthinkable. Which is precisely why Robeson's life was so incredible.***
(c) 1999 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Return to IndexX. Who is an Ancestor in the African Traditional Religion?
It is not possible to speak of traditional religion without touching on the subject of the ancestors. Because they are nowhere and yet everywhere, it is difficult to speak of them comprehensively.
However, an ancestor is a person:
-who died a good death after having faithfully practised and transmitted to his descendants the laws left to him by his ancestors.
-who contributed to the continuation of the line by leaving many descendants.
-who was a peacemaker, a link, that fostered communion between the living and the dead, through sacrifices and prayers.
-A person who is the first-born is a candidate 'par excellence' to become an ancestor because he is able to maintain the chain of the generation in a long genealogy. The right of the first born is thus an inalienable right.***
Excerpts from the document released after the 24th meeting of the IMBISA Standing Committee at Mahalapye (Botswana), 16-20 September , 1996, published by AMECEA Documentation Service, Nairobi (Kenya).
Return to IndexXI. Elements to Admire in African Traditional Religion
IN THE RELIGIOUS SPHERE
* There is widespread belief in a supreme God, unique and transcendent.
* Africans have a sense of the sacred and a sense of mystery; there is high reverence for
places, persons and objects; sacred times are celebrated.
* Belief in the afterlife is incorporated in myths and in funeral ceremonies.
* The invisible world of spirits and ancestors is always present and the intentions of'
these spirits can be ascertained; care is taken to ascertain the will of the spirit to
whom sacrifices may be due or from whom protection may be sought.
* Religion enfolds the whole of life, there is no dichotomy between life and religion.
* Ancestors mediate between God and man.
* Belief in the efficacy of intercessory prayer is widespread.
* bodily purification is required before one may approach to offer sacrifice to God;
there are nevertheless provisions for spiritual purification also.
* It is believed that sin harms the public good, hence there are periodical
purification rites in order to promote public welfare.
* Worship requires a fundamental attitude of strict discipline and reverence.
* Pardon is final and acknowledged by all: an offence, once forgiven, is never recalled.
IN THE RITUAL SPHERE
* Rites form an essential part of social life.
* Ancestors and the dead are invoked by rites.
* The seasonal cycles and the stages of life are sanctified by ritual action. Ritual
attention is given to crisis situations.
* The whole person, body and soul, is totally involved in worship.
* In worship and sacrifice there is co-responsibility each person contributes his share
in a spirit of participation.
* Symbols bridge the spheres of the sacred and secular and so make possible a balanced
and unified view of reality.
* Rites of passage, of initiation and of consecration are widespread.
* There are many rites of purification of individuals and communities.
* The sick are healed in rites which involve their families and the community.
* Religious sacredness is preserved in ritual, in dress and the arrangements of the places of worship.
* Some of the traditional blessings are rich and very meaningful.
IN THE RELIGIO-MORAL SPHERE
* There is respect for life: children are treasured, abortion is an abomination.
* The sacredness of human life is guarded by taboos and rituals.
* There is respect for the dignity of man; each man has his own inalienable chi ("selfhood," "destiny").
* To be faithful in undertakings is regarded as becoming a man.
* That life makes moral demands is accepted, and this is shown among other things by the sense of the person and attachment to life itself.
* Sin is perceived in both its personal and communal dimensions.
* Moderation in the use of alcohol is inculcated: only adults may drink. Drunkenness is shameful. Indeed moderation is required in every aspect of human behaviour.
IN THE RELIGIO-CULTURAL SPHERE
* Attention is given to locating man within his environment and making him feel at home in it.
* Tradition is handed down through stories, poems, hymns, proverbs, riddles and art.
* The whole community is involved in the training of the young, and education itself has a necessary community and social aspect.
* The moral education of youth is taken seriously.
* Life has a festive dimension and is celebrated in adequate rites.
* Old folk are held in high esteem. The community regards their wisdom as prophetic, that is, as able to give direction for living in the circumstances of the present day.
* Silence is treasured as a value.
* Marriage is an alliance between families and persons; cultural provisions are made to uphold its stability.
* Youth is given a gradual initiation to life and society.
* Blood alliances bind with a bond that is rarely broken.
IN THE RELIGIO-SOCIAL SPHERE
* Hospitality is a duty and is the most common value in African Traditional Religion all over Africa.
* Between kith and kin and people of the same clan there is a very strong sense of sharing and of solidarity and belonging.
* Efforts are made to secure and promote justice and peace within the community.
* Respect for authority, sanctioned by the ancestors, is strong and represents the common will.
* The poor and the sick are taken care of, widows and orphans are looked after.
Return to IndexXII. Can Christianity Dialogue with African Traditional Religion?
by Peter K. Sarpong
PREAMBLE
Many things surprise me. But nothing amazes me more than the debate on the question of inculturation. I just do not see how the need for inculturation can be questioned. But, of course, I am not immune to error in whatever form.
My conviction in this issue is, however, unshaken. God, in his goodness, has created us social beings. Before we knew of other societies, we had been immersed in our own.
It is true that all human beings are rational and free. We are all subject to the same moods and aspirations. Joy and sadness, gaiety and melancholy, patience and anger, extroversion and introversion are found everywhere on our planet. We all want to be loved. We all dislike lies. Granted that physically there is little to choose between a Kikuyu and a Thai, subject as both are to the laws of nature; it is also admitted that anywhere in the world a human person can be cruel or kind, sinful or virtuous, selfish or generous, hard-hearted or hospitable. In short, we all fall under the species homo sapiens we are all human.
INFLUENCE OF SOCIETY
But this is only one side of the coin. On the other side is the fact of our being conditioned by our environment. We are the children of our surrounding. We speak different languages. We eat different foods. Our ideas are shaped by what we see around us. Our imagery and metaphors are meaningful only in the context of what we experience constantly. Our concepts of time, space and religion are all tinted by our ecological glasses. It is hardly possible, for example, for the land-locked Burkinabe' to owe allegiance to a god of the sea.
It is this social conditioning that forms a people's culture. Culture comprises that complex or sum-total of ideas, behaviour patterns linguistic tradition, legacy of institutions and concepts of life, of the human person and of the world around that have been learned and passed on from generation to generation in given society. The culture is going to make him what he is: a Maori and not a Navaho. Christian thinking would assert that it is the will of God the Creator that person be part of that culture.
INCULTURATION
Inculturation simply means making use of this God-given gift to praise and thank God. Culture determines my being. I am an Asante not a Croation, not because of my colour or because the Asante and the Croatian are different brands of homo sapiens, but because of the way I behave, think, speak and generally relate, in other words, because of what my culture has made me.
In inculturation, I am giving back to God the most important gift he has given me. In any case I can really know and understand him only through the medium of that gift.
Hence, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) is right in saying: "We recognise as well the challenge of inculturation of Christianity in Africa, an evangelization in depth of the African Christian; which respects and affirms his specific cultural identity and seeks to bridge the gap between faith and culture. In this important and delicate task, we are determined to proceed with courage, faith as well as with due sense of pastoral responsibility." In sum then, inculturation deals with contextualization. It makes relevant the Word of the Lord in a given milieu.
ANIMISM
The term animism too, appears to be the choice of many. Coined by the great Taylor of Britain, animism is derived from the Latin word anima. The thinking behind the use of that word to describe African traditional Religion is that Africans believe that objects and animals have souls or spirit-anima.
While this may be true, it cannot be said that Africans believe that every object and every creature has such a spirit the Asante do not believe that the cocoa tree, or the plantain tree or for that matter the palm tree or the grasscutter has a spirit. Yet these are all items of the animal and vegetable kingdoms that are of empirical interest to the Asante. In any case, again, the idea that some objects have spirits is not peculiar to Africa. It is simply incorrect to call African traditional religion animism.
IDOLATRY
Idolatry simply means the worship of idols. The ideas found in African traditional comprise the belief in a Supreme Being, the ancestors, the lesser gods and powers and potencies.
Why such a religion can be linked with the worship of statues, pictures or images representing divinities which is how the Pan English Dictionary defines the word "idol" - is another of those inexplicable stereotypes. Even if, for the sake of the argument, it is admitted that lesser gods are idols one worshipped, then they form only part of the religion and, therefore, cannot be made to represent the whole religion. It is obnoxious to call African religion idolatry.
PRIMITIVE AND NATIVE
Primitive is a derogatory term. It may mean first in time or it may mean "backward" or "savage." African religion is not backward nor does it precede any other religion. It evolved as human beings came to live in Africa. African religion should not be described as primitive. In the English language, the term native has come to connote uncivilized, somebody from Africa or one of the so-called "primitive" societies. This is an unfortunate understanding of the word native. The Italian is as native to Italy as the Maori is native to New Zealand. Every religion, therefore, is native to where it is founded. African traditional religion cannot be singled out and "honoured" with the word "native."
ANCESTOR WORSHIP
But probably the worst of the epithets used to describe African traditional religion is ancestor-worship. As has been mentioned, ancestors doe form part of the religious thought of the African. But the existence and the veneration of saints too form part of the thinking of Christians, of whatever denomination.
No Christian would accept it if Christianity were termed "Saint worship." Christians would rightly protest. The reason would not simply be that there are much more important aspects to Christianity than the Saints. The protestation would be justified on the grounds that indeed Saints are not worshipped, Saints are not deified, Saints are not the ultimate object of our petition and praise or adoration. We honour Saints as having lived our lives and being worthy of emulation and we pass our petitions through them to the Almighty God. We impose their names on ourselves to remind us of their lives which we would then be urged to imitate.
This is exactly the same idea in the veneration of ancestors in African traditional religion. Ancestors are not divinized. My father who dies and is regarded as an ancestor remains my father and I refer to him as my father. I honour him and I respect him for what he has done for me and others. By reason of the radical change of mode of existence, it is believed ancestors have acquired a power that is higher than human. But neither they nor the lesser gods can act independently from the will of God, the all-poare not divinized.
POLYTHEISM
What is going to follow about the concept of the Supreme Being should make it clear that the word Polytheism should not be used to describe African traditional religion.
Polytheism, in the classical sense, connotes a situation where two or more divinities are believed to hold an equal status. In a polytheistic situation the pantheon of gods comprises deities none of whom is thought to be greater tan others, even though one may be considered as primus inter pares. This is not the case with African traditional religion where the Supreme Being is the creator of all other divinities and does not form part of the pantheon of divinities but holds a position unique to himself.
TOTEMISM
Totemism is the belief that there is a relationship between human beings or groups of human beings on the one hand and creatures of the animal and vegetable kingdoms on the other.
Totemistic ideas are strong in the African traditional religion. But this does not justify our labeling the whole religion totemistic. Indeed, totemism, in relation to the other concepts, is only an insignificant of African traditional religions.
GOD IS KNOWN
Unfortunately, the foregoing and other misconceptions regarding traditional religion have persisted and caused a lot of confusion. The religion is seen by the skeptics only in terms of what is visible and observable and of worship. Consequently, they come to describe it in the most uncomplimentary terms. they observe only the externals, the slaughtering of sheep and cows, the breaking of eggs, dancing and weird acrobatics, sometimes frightening and "savage display of sheer physical power. In its Constitution on the Church, even Vatican Council II speaks of "those who in shadows and images (emphasis mine) seek the unknown God." Apparently this is in reference to primal religions. But God is known in these religions.
This is where the mistake lies. Religion is essentially something imperceptible, spiritual. It touches the human person inwardly. It helps to answer fundamental questions in life. This applies to all religions.
INDESTRUCTIBLE ELEMENTS
In African traditional religion, there are certain abiding principles which promote human values and good living. They defy time. These are the values upon which the Creator designed things in such a way that the African could survive. These are principles and values which have seen the African through difficult, sometimes seemingly impossible times in the past. these values do not die. They last forever and they are sublime.
IS DIALOGUE POSSIBLE?
Some have questioned the wisdom or even feasibility of the Catholic Church having a dialogue with African traditional religion. Some have even contended that it is impossible for such a dialogue to take place. They argue that there are no structures, no personalities to deal with. in any case, African traditional religion is a passing phase. Social change will soon sweep it into total oblivion. The religion is simply disappearing, dying. People must be converted to Christianity and not be left in delusion. some who favour dialogue, however nebulously they perceive it, only think in terms of conversion. African traditional religion must not be pushed aside because it is a friendly religion. Most converts from Africa are from it: for the rest it has not much to offer. When they talk about philosophical and religious principles, they do not think of African traditional religion.
The fact is that African traditional religion is not dying. Many of the values it enshrines are lasting values. They are not ephemeral, to be dismissed lightly. Christianity has been the worse for not taking this into account when it first made its appearance on the Black African scene in the 15th century.
TRADITIONAL RELIGION
For Africa, the role of traditional religion in determining the modus vivendi has been vital. African cultures are known for their religious orientation. In fact, African cultures are religious cultures. It is not possible to study African culture in isolation from religion, therefore, comes into play in the shaping of the African's future. We have to know the past in order to understand the present and be better equipped to plan the future. We cannot know the past of the African if we neglect his religion. Traditional religion is part of the African's ethos and an understanding of it should go hand in hand with Christian evangelization.
MISREPRESENTATION
Unfortunately, African traditional religion which should be employed for its potentially salutary effect has been misunderstood and is still misrepresented. the misconception is amply evident from the any wrong names by which traditional religion has been described. It is difficult to understand the tenacity with which African traditional religion has been termed a primal religion. Evidently the use of the term is to distinguish it from the so-called great or world religions. A primal religion is supposed to have no founders. It is without a literary source.
One cannot but wonder whether it is the written word and an identifiable founder that make a religion a religion. In any case, it is an assumption of dubious validity that one cannot at least point to a dominant historical figure in the past in relation to African traditional religion. the Asante of Ghana can, without hesitation, indicate Okomfo Anokye as the source of most of the religious injunctions of three ancient kingdom.
PILLARS OF RELIGION
Without trying to sound too simplistic, it can be argued that all religions are built on three major pillars: faith, morality and worship. Religion deals with belief in some higher power or being who is accepted as having some influence on devotees. This conviction enables or even compels the adherents to comport themselves in their socio-cultural life in a manner they believe will please the object of their worship. Here we have moral or ethical behaviour. This, in turn, leads to the believers meeting from time to time to express in public their faith in and their dependance on, their spiritual overlord. this is worship or liturgy.
These three elements common to all religions, are not in any way linked to a written word. A religion is not a religion or a high religion because its tenets are written down. On the contrary, the tenets are written down because it is already a religion. To, as it were, insist on the book as the evidence of religion or, worse still, classify religion as great or small on the basis of scripture would appear to be wrong.
Yet we have entered the paper culture. what is written down is glorified. Some take what they read in the newspapers as the Gospel-truth. We need certificates to prove our ability. We require tickets to board a plane. If at the last check-point we do not produce the boarding card, we cannot enter the plane. We insist on receipts.
These pieces of paper are needed for empirical reasons. They may serve as records for the future. they remind us of what has happened. they help to prevent mistakes. But, by and large, they indicate the decadence of the present age. In most cases they are meant to prevent fraud. we are in a world where one could, without any qualms of conscience, pose as a medical doctor when one does not know the first letter of the dictionary of anatomy. Without a ticket or a boarding pass, few would feel obliged to pay for their travels. So in a way, written evidence exhibits the worst in humanity.
Religions with scripture make sure that their teachings are not distorted, and that they are obeyed. This does not make them, therefore, superior to others.
POWER OF THE WORD
In the hey-day of traditional religion in Africa, the word of mouth was considered much more sacred than the written word is now. Written wills are being constantly contested in Asante as elsewhere with a disgraceful frequency. A hundred years ago, there was no way in which the verbal last testament of a dying person would be subtracted from, added to or disputed. Only one person may have heard it, yet it would be honoured. It was certain that one person would not put into the mouth of the dying person what he had not said.
The word was powerful. I suppose Jesus taught this power of the word clearly. He never wrote down a word of what he said; but he founded a religion. African traditional religion does not tamper with the spoken word. Ceremonies of vital importance such as enstoolment of a chief, the marriage rite, the initiation of a priest or a youth into a secret society, the commissioning of a warrior, are all performed with ritual and words; nothing is written down. To break a verbal oath is one of the greatest down a word of what (? sentence incomplete).
In my own life-time, Asante has seen a time when one could take food items from another person's farm without the latter's knowledge or consent. It was sufficient for the one who took the plantain or pepper to inform the rightful owner afterwards that he took it for personal consumption. He was believed, ad would not abuse the trust by selling what he had taken.
The is what religion is about. Religion is about fidelity and conviction, not about interpretation and analysis of ideas. African traditional religion has a message for us here. Its lack of scripture has not, in any way, meant lack of effectiveness. Religion is to be practised not just to be talked about. this, of course, does not mean that doctrine and ideology are useless. But doctrine need not be doctrine because it is written, and doctrine devoid of practice is meaningless.
PAGANISM
Besides the negative view of African traditional religion based on its lack of scripture, African traditional religion has suffered other injustices especially in the way it has been named.
It has been called pagan. That this is a misnomer is easily seen from the origin of the word 'pagan.' The Latin root suggests that a pagan is originally a rugged, country person. Later on, "paganism" was employed to refer to any religion that was not Islam, Judaism or Christianity. It is an injustice to call West African traditional religion, with a strong belief in a God who is unique, incomparable and a Creator, paganism.
HEATHENISM
The word heathenism too is a misnomer when applied to traditional African religion. A heathen is somebody who is supposed to not know God - one steeped in the worship of idols. Nobody with the least knowledge of Africa can honestly say that Africans do not know God. In any case to designate a whole religion as heathenism is, to say the least, uncharitable.
FETISHISM
Why the word fetishism has caught on as a description of African traditional religion is again one of those mysteries. The word derives from the Portuguese word feitico which means an object or an article. discovering that the West Africans they met on the coast were wearing objects of religious value like charms, talismans and amulets, the Portuguese imagined that the religion of West Africans was a worship of such objects. One need not labour the point that this is a great injustice. what about the wonderful names given to the Supreme Being and the honorific appellations he enjoys among us?
The truth of the matter is that there is no religion in the world that can be called fetishism.
And if because sacred objects are found in African traditional religion the religion is fetishistic, then we find ourselves in deep waters. There is no religion in which such objects are not found. In Christianity we respect statues and crucifixes, medals and rosaries. they, too, are objects. But we understand that these are a secondary aspect of the Christian religion. Do they not also use prayer-beads? Do the Muslims not venerate the Kaaba?
African traditional religion still influences people's thinking. Many highly educated men and women in all walks of life, Christians and Muslims, are affected by it, though sometimes unconsciously. It can be said that traditional religion is present in many places in Africa, if at times it is to be found only in a different, sometimes subtle form. This being the case the need for the Church to "dialogue with African traditional religion becomes imperative.
DIALOGUE DIFFERS
Dialogue need not be the same for every religion. In one case like, say, Islam or Buddhism, it may take the form of encountering people, especially religious leaders, organising seminars and conferences, writing letters and books, exchanging visits. In the case of African traditional religion, the form it can and must take should challenge Christians to live our Christianity better. Knowledge and the use of African traditional religion, far from distorting the message of Christ, should enrich it.
If, as holy scripture says, everything was created in, through, and for Christ, then in traditional religion, Christ must be found in some form, no matter how embryonic or seminal. One is tempted to submit that Christ is found in African culture and religion in an overt way. It is inconceivable that God would allow millions of Africans of the past and of the present who did not and do not know the Christian way to perish for such ignorance. There must be a way in which Christ is present in African traditional religion.
It has been suggested by Dulles, for example, that Christ is there in the symbolic form. This is not the place to go into the in-depth analysis of the notion of symbolism. But such a proposition is, to say the least, interesting. We shall take up this issue of symbolism later when we consider it in relation to this discussion of dialogue with African traditional religion.
CONCEPTS
An examination of African traditional religion reveals certain concepts of God that stand out clearly as, indeed, Christian. We begin with the very concept of God. In Judaism, we are told that there is n o God apart from Yahweh. So unique is Yahweh that no other God is called Yahweh. It is an impossibility to have a lesser Yahweh or a minor Yahweh. Yahweh is Yahweh and that is that.
He is unique, incomparable, superlatively high, almighty, and so on. Deutero-Isaiah would say unhesitatingly that there is no god whatsoever apart from Yahweh. All idols are the work of human beings and those who follow them are foolish. They are as useless as their idols. This is also the thinking of Muslims. In their case, the concept of God is clearly expressed in the first pillar of their religion. "There is no god but God."
In any African language, we find exactly the same situation. God has a name and there is no question of qualifying that name to apply to another being. The writer's own people call God Oyankopon. It is totally inconceivable and ridiculous to have a lesser or minor Oyankopon. The other spirits whom in English we would refer to as lesser gods, have their generic name: Obosom (singular), abosom (plural), and specific ones. Mmieh, Kyenekye etc. The Ewe have one name for God, Mawu. They have a totally different name for the so-called lesser deities (Vudu). It will be unthinkable for a Yoruba to have more than one Olodumare or Olorun or for an Igbo to have a Chineke of any description other than their one and only Chineke.
The Supreme Being in Africa enjoys a status immeasurably higher than any other being's. He is the Creator of all other beings. He is designated by his own name or names. All Creator of all other beings.
ATTRIBUTE
The confusion created by so-called modern languages like English, therefore, is a linguistic problem which is totally not of the African's making.
It is the English language that calls some creatures lesser gods or minor gods or divinities. A thing like that is unheard of in African traditional religion. The idea of the uniqueness of God is so central to Christianity that one would have thought that the African's linguistic sensitivity to it should have been adopted long ago and made use of to explain the nature and attributes of the Christian God. Apart from the names given to the Supreme Being of the African which he shares with none other, there are certain attributes which all African peoples assign to this Supreme Being as his sole prerogative. I cannot think of any other being in the world being called Birskyirehunuade (Omniscience), and so on, by my people, the Asante. What is more, these names and attributes speak more about what God actually does for us rather than what God is. They bring God into our life. God is of practical importance to the African.
This is where religion touches the African. God is the "Leaf that covers the whole world," God is the "Fountain of water that never dries up;" God is the "Source of full satisfaction," and so on. This is concrete and a little different from just saying God is good, God is powerful.
ENRICHMENT
Encounter with traditional religion, therefore, means Christianity permeating the culture and allowing itself, thereby, to be enriched in its attempt to evangelize it. This enrichment can take on many forms. African traditional religion challenges Christianity to re-appraise itself with regard to the many concepts which once were its pillars, but now are disappearing or becoming irrelevant.
WHOLENESS
Wholeness is an idea that is an idea that is highly theological, Jesus Christ was man and God at the same time. That one person had the nature of God and the nature of man. He was God m made visible and he was man, the victim of our sin. Yet he did not draw a rigid dichotomy between his God-head and his humanity, He was at the same time both. He was whole, not truncated. This concept of wholeness is found very clearly in African traditional religion. To the African the rigid dichotomy between the sacred and the profane, the secular and the religious, the material and the immaterial, is artificial. A human person is a composite of spirit and body and must be treated as such. If he were body alone, he would be a brute animal. Were he only spirit, he would be an angel. He is a human being precisely because of the inseparable combination of body and spirit. Hence disease does not affect the body alone, it has to do with the spirit also.
Politics is not divorced from ordinary life. Whatever a person is doing in the ideal traditional set-up, he is involved in religion. Religion is part of life. It permeates a person's life from cradle to the grave. A person is born into a religious atmosphere and from his conception to his death, there are major religious rituals to mark the major turning points of his existence.
There is little doubt that many of the problems of the world today stem from the artificial barrier we have placed between the religious and the profane. We no longer see human beings and phenomena in holistic terms, as undivided unity.
We speak of and deal piecemeal with, economic problems, political problems, moral problems, instead of thinking in terms of human problems. In the last analysis, every problem is a human issue not easily amenable to dissection. This is a theme that African traditional religion could enrich universal Christianity with.
SYMBOLISM
Following on the idea of unity in phenomena, is the very important concept of symbolism. Symbols are indispensable in any religion. Jesus Christ himself can be said to be the Sacrament of God. He symbolised the Father's love for humanity but he also symbolised human being's response to that immense love of the Father.
Some clever scholar has shrewdly described Jesus as the first audiovisual aid! The point is that coming in contact with Deity is not in the normal course of things. Deity has to be reached by means of a kind of bridge between humanity and Deity. The bridge may be words, gesticulations, objects, postures, signs, etc. These are not the reality itself. They are symbols which give us an idea of the reality. They are the connecting links between the seen and the unseen. Every religion has them. Indeed, it would appear that without symbols, religion would be impossible. The sacraments are very concrete examples of symbols and their use. In the sacraments, we use objects and words to stand for a spiritual reality and to cause it. We are proud to use flags, college blazers and crests and insignia of office.
Flags stand for patriotism and in a way cause it; we salute flags fly them half-mast to show grief and on ships to indicate country of origin. College blazers and crests indicate and sustain loyalty to the alma-mater. In all African cultures, symbol play a vital role in the life of the people. Our culture is a symbolic culture. We find symbols in our dances, in our language, in our art and craft, in our institutions such as marriage and chieftaincy- everywhere. There was a time when the Church rightly emphasized the importance of symbols; but the present Western world has inherited a host of symbols that appear to be meaningless to it. Having lost the true meaning of symbols, it is no wonder that the Western world is also gradually losing the sense of religion itself. The Church itself is a sacrament of the risen Lord. The church symbolizes Christ and his salvific activity among us, and at the same time makes Christ present to us. Here again, traditional religion could be a challenge to orthodox Christianity and could enrich the latter enormously.
SACREDNESS OF LIFE
One other concept vital to African traditional religion is that of respect for sacredness of life. Life is held to be sacred. To give birth to a child is on the part of both man and the woman, the greatest thing that can happen to a human being. Life must be given, life must be lived, life is to be enjoyed, life is to be whole, life is to be honorable, life is to be long and peaceful. Therefore, in the true setting of the African, willful abortion or eve contraception was a rarity, if not an impossibility.
The modern world plays around with life. The modern world, placing the cart before the cart before the horse, equates good life with productivity and ingenuity. It has lost the sense of the true humanity of the person. It has allowed itself to be dominated by crude technocracy. We are in the civilization of science and technology. While nobody can deny the importance of the (sentence incomplete).
A better knowledge of African traditional religion could bring a corrective to the anti-life mentality which is developing in some parts of the world. It could provide a reminder of God's original intention in creating the human being to his own image and likeness. Contrary to the opinion of many non-Africans, it is a fact that even in the past, the life of human beings was not just got rid of without reason. Among the Asante, a person could be killed only by the highest authority and a person was killed when he had committed a crime that demanded the death penalty. The second occasion was when a chief or king died. It was though proper for the king to be accompanied by subjects since the belief was that he was going to be ruler in the next world. These two occasions apart, the taking away of human life met with capital punishment. The earth was believed to abhor bloodshed. Even when one killed an enemy in war, one had to undergo ritual ablutions to purify oneself. these practices were religiously-based, and it is, indeed, a sign of present-day loss of a deep sense of religion that human life can be taken with impunity.
IMMORTALITY
Closely following on the concept of the sacredness of life i s the concept of the immortality of the soul. These concepts are all interlinked. The person is a knit unit. He is body and soul at the same time. His dignity and his immortality are symbolized in the great respect that is held for his life. Death is not considered to be the end of man. It is believed to be a change of state. Death is a journey into a better world where a person lives forever. In that world, the person is not just indifferent to what happens among the living. He is so alive that he is interested, and actually takes part, in the affairs of the living.
Flowing from this idea of the immortality of the soul is the notion of retribution. A person will be judged after his death in accordance with his deeds on earth. God, the judge, is just and will not look at persons but will mete out to each and everyone what he deserves. African traditional religion "told" the African all this long before Christianity reached the various regions of Africa.
The corollary to the concept of the immorality of the soul and the interest of the dead in the affairs of the living is the belief in the Communion of Saints. True, African traditional religion does not use the terminology "Communion of Saints." However, an analysis of the relationship between the living and the dead show clearly that there is an affinity with Christian belief in this respect.
The living are still struggling. They have to meet the ups and downs of life. they have to overcome temptations and obstacles in order to be able to enter the world of the dead. The dead, on their part, are doing everything possible to assist the living to observe faithfully the injunctions that they have left them as a lasting legacy. There is, therefore, constant interaction between the dead and the living. It is for this reason that one African scholar has called the ancestors "the living-dead." The ancestors are approached in a human pragmatic way with problems. The African knows the answer can ultimately only come from the Supreme Being himself. But it is believed that the Supreme Being has left certain things in the hands of his lieutenants to deal with. It is his right to delegate.
Again, a close and objective analysis of the situation shows that there is a parallel between the Christian concept of the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant on the one hand, and the ancestors and the living on the other. It looks as if God, in his ineffable providence, has provided in the African soil a providential preparation for the seed of Christianity.
COMMUNITY
This brings us to the concept of community in Africa. This was made a special topic of discussion to African Bishops by Pope Paul VI of blessed memory.
The African lives in community. It has been said that Descartes wrote: Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). The African would say: Cognatus sum ergo sum (I am related; therefore I am). The African lives in community. His father is not just the person biologically responsible for his conception. His mother is not necessarily the woman who physically gave him birth. He may have as many as fifteen "fathers" and "ten" mother's. In the ideal situation, each one of these would treat him as his biological father or mother would. Since he has several "mothers" and "fathers," obviously he has many more brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces. In fact, in some African languages, the words "cousin," "aunt," "uncle," do not exist. One's father's brother is one's father and one's mother's sister is one's mother. Therefore, the African family is very much extended. This is what Christianity is supposed to effect - extended families.
Baptism incorporates us into the family of Christ which has no racial or national or even continental boundaries. St. Paul would say: In Christ there is no slave or free man, no Greek of Roman; we are all members of his Mystical Body. Moreover, the African family comprises also the dead and the unborn. Therefore, it can never decrease; it can only increase all the time. Through marriage, other relationships are contracted which widen one's circle of intimate contact.
Besides, the African values friendship greatly. In some cases, friendships are institutionalised to an extent where the bond between one and one's friend becomes even stronger than the bond between one and one's own blood sister or brother.
In the African social structure, therefore, we have all the ingredients that could go into the preparation of the Christian family soup. The pity is that this has not been fully recognized or exploited. I submit that the advantages and values of the nuclear family do not outwiegh the benefits to the individual of the extended family - and this is an understatement.
HUMANITY
There is no doubt that African traditional religion promotes humanity. It deals in a pragmatic way with human existence. In that religion, we are each other's keeper. What you do concerns me and what you refuse to do is my affair. I can ask you, as a member of my society, to keep the religious injunctions of that society because I know that your refusal to comply with the religious rules of the society has effects that involve me.
African traditional religion pervades life. I is not a fashion. Neither is it like clothes that you wear today and change or discard tomorrow. Religion is like your skin. You take it wherever you go. Hence religion is not participation in religious rites and just being an African. African religion promotes human values such as hospitality, kindness, love, unity, gratitude, hard work and, above all, self-help. It promotes fidelity in human relationships. It moulds and shapes the character of human persons.
FIDELITY
One of the most serious charges that can be leveled against a human being is that he is a traitor. In "advanced" so-called civilized nations, treason carries with it the severest of penalties, including death, even where capital punishment is otherwise abolished. One has to be faithful to one's pledge or obligations. African traditional religion lays the emphasis on fidelity. It stresses the horizontal dimensions of life. Once that is in order, it is believed that the vertical relationship of man to God will then be regularized. One is reminded here of what St. John says: "How can you say you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neigbour whom you see? African religion insists on love of the neighbour whom we see as a prelude to, a sign and, indeed, a proof of, the love of God whom we do not see.
African traditional religion insists on faithfulness as a concrete indication of love: faithfulness to one's religious duties, authority, relations, civic obligations, etc. One who fails to be faithful and therefore does not love is described as not being a human being. He only wears the skin of a human being. A person who constantly and persistently causes havoc in society, thus betraying his people by exposing them to suffering, ridicule and disdain, is simply a beast. Many an African language has such a highly uncomplimentary expression to describe people whose behaviour is tantamount to treachery of the highest ideals of the society.
As these and others are the principles underlying African traditional religion, it is surprising that people should be speaking of the death or irrelevance of African traditional disease.
If this "death" or "irrelevance" were possible, it would be a tragedy to the whole of humanity. It would spell the final doom of the African already precariously hanging onto life under the stranglehold of oppression, domination, material poverty, hunger and disease.
The interaction or dialogue between Christianity and African traditional religion, therefore, should be centered on the areas where the enrichment of Christianity itself can take place. When this encounter takes place then the African culture itself will be further elevated to a plane higher than where it has reached. The exercise amounts to helping one's helper. For African traditional religion cannot attain to certain heights in religion. It was, for example, impossible for African traditional religion to have discovered the Trinity by itself. African traditional religion could not have attained the knowledge of the Incarnation. Suffering, for African traditional religion, is an evil. It is the cause of personal sin or some other people's wickedness. The love of the neighbour is entirely acceptable to African traditional religion. The love of the enemy preached by Christ is an entirely different proposition. These and others are beyond the grasp of African traditional religion, as, I suppose, they are beyond the grasp of many other religions, so-called world or great religions not excepted. The contention, therefore, is that African traditional religion should be allowed to be explored to assist in the process of the propagation of the Message of Christ.
Return to IndexXIII. Review of Microsoft Encarta Africana
(edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K. Anthony Appiah, 1999.)
Reviewed By Molefi Kete Asante, Temple University
"Africa slaves or enslaved Africans?" That is the question that has caused so much African controversy around Microsoft's Encarta Africana. The issue is far more complex than the choice of words; however, the choice of terms does signal how this project was poorly conceptualized. Encarta Africana announces itself as the "comprehensive encyclopedia of black history and culture with authoritative content," but is far from comprehensive or authoritative, and worse, has numerous inaccuracies and incomplete articles. One would have thought that with a reported three million dollars, the editors, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Kwame Appiah, would have been able to deliver a much more polished product, both technologically and scholarly. Originally conceived as a completion to the famed project, Encyclopedia Africana, devised by Kwame Nkurmah and W. E. B. DuBois, the Microsoft Encarta Africana project was embroiled in controversy with Ghana over the name itself. Thus, Encarta Africana was chosen as the name of the present project.
Among the impressive features of the interactive encyclopedia are articles, audio clips, videos, and virtual tours. But these are features that can be bought for the price of money. What cannot be bought and therefore is missing, although it is essential for a project purporting to be comprehensive on the African world, is an accurate and rational point-of-view. Encarta Africana is more like a collection of documents from someone's attic, put together without any real order, organization, or objective. In this respect, it is little more than the sum total of the numerous article, some clearly dated, and audio visuals presented in the encyclopedia, a grab bag of cultural and historical artifact.
To be fair to the editors and writers of the Encarta I have examined the project from an Afrocentric point-of-view, that is, from the standpoint of the agency of African people and the centrality of Africa in its own story. My views, therefore, will be severe on any project that ostensibly claims to be about African culture and history but is really the projection of Europe on and in Africa. I do not claim that this is a conscious activity on the part of the editors and authors; rather it is a default position in any intellectual adventure in the West if one is not self-consciously directed toward a corrective. Some writers have escaped the noose more easily than others; some remain oblivious to the danger. The writers of Encarta are frequently trapped into arrogant Eurocentric postures because they have little understanding of the totality of the story that they are trying to tell. so in telling a European story of the history and culture of Africa they become, more than anything, appendages to Europe; thereby peripheralizing Africa while writing about it. Neither Europeans nor Africans can really appreciate a project that rehashes so many sterile ideas.
This is certainly not the project that DuBois envisioned. It is not the project that should have been developed at this juncture in African history. In many respects it is a great disservice to the African people and is once again an indication what happens to our own story when it is told by someone else. Of course, there are some African writers in this project, but the overwhelming list of writers seems to indicate that the work was done primarily by European writers, despite the impressive board of black advisors. If this proves to be so, as I suspect simply by the name and credential list of the authors, then we are setback, by this process, for a generation. Fortunately the Afripaedia and other products do exist as correctives.
I am not saying that whites cannot write about Africa. Indeed whites often do write well about Africa, particularly if they are Afrocentric in their methods and approaches to African phenomena. However, since most whites tend to be Eurocentric in their perspective then what they write will reflect how Europeans see Africa and Africans. The same can be said of Africans who have imbibed an Eurocentric world view. It is not race, but perspective that matters in the process of analysis. Where one stands has a lot to do with what one sees and how far one sees.
There are some serious problems with Encarta. My own analysis shows four areas that quite deficient: conceptual, linguistic, factual, and political.
The conceptual problem, I believe, stems from the fact that neither of the editors, Gates nor Appiah, is a historian. Gates is a rather accomplished literary critic and Appiah is a professor of philosophy. Now I am the first to say that one can overcome these deficiencies but one must have worked at the craft of historical writing in order to achieve some perspective. I do not see any historical imagination in this work and the evidence of literary and philosophical interests override what should be a strong historical underpinning. This project suffers because the editors have little appreciation either point-of-view or historiography and have even less appreciation for proper periodization. Take the piece on Costa Rica. There is a paragraph that describes the country in the same way you would find in any encyclopedia. You would not even know African people lived in Costa Rica if you read the account. You would not even know the population of the country, not to mention how many Africans live in Costa Rica. Where is the discussion of the Limonenses? Fortunately there is a good essay on Quince Duncan written by Dellita Martin-POgunsola that explains much about Costa Rica, but you cannot get to Quince Duncan from the entry on Costa Rica
When a project of this monumentality is produced there should be ample checks on the nature of the writing. While it is true that the Afrocentrists make a big ado about language liberation, it is for reason. You cannot use language that minimizes, penalizes, or degrades African people or concepts. to that end, when Encarta speaks of African kingdoms and calls them "great chiefdoms," this is not an aberration but rather it is the default Eurocentric position that claims kingship for Europe and chiefships for Africa and Native Americans. More critical, however, is the way Encarta speaks of African Religions as developments "South of the Sahara." There is no place in Africa that is not Africa. The Sahara itself is Africa and numerous peoples and settlements exist in the Sahara. Indeed one of the greatest legacies of the ancient world was the religion of the Nile Valley, and the Nile flows through the desert. One would have expected that even if the editors did not appreciate the Afrocentric theoretical perspective they would have examined it in detail to see where they could have corrected their text. clearly there were no "African slaves" brought to the Americas and Caribbean; there were only African people, farmers, blacksmiths, fishers, and members of royal families, brought and then enslaved.
The factual problem is a little bit worrisome because the facts could have been checked or double-checked even if some of the 40 members of the advisory committee or 400 writers would have been asked to serve as hands-on-editors. Of course, the editors must know what they are looking for and at what they are looking. There is no reason for someone writing on Kwanzaa to speak of the US organization as "United Slaves," when it never referred to itself that way and the nomenclature is probably that of the COINTELPRO. If I may be permitted, under the entry on "Afrocentrism" it is claimed that I coined the word in 1976. As far as I can tell I never used the word, "Afrocentrism." It remains a word used by those who seek to attack Afrocentricity. My book, Afrocentricity, was published in 1980. While I am on Afrocentricity, let me also say that the most significant intellectual movement in the African world for the past twenty years has been the Afrocentric movement and not to have a thorough and intelligent discussion of it is a major flaw in this project. Robert Fay, the graduate student who wrote the piece on "Afrocentrism" spent most of his time attacking Professor Leonard Jeffries. This leads me to the political agenda. I did not find a bibliography to indicate what was read by the writers before they wrote their entries; Robert Fay surely suffered from the lack of reading.
The index itself is quite revealing. Amadu Bamba, the greatest writer, in terms of quantity in the African world, is not included. Furthermore, the leading contemporary African thinkers by objective standards are Pan Africanists and Afrocentrists. They are no where to be found in this project. Names such as Colin Palmer, Vincent Harding, Asa Hilliard, Maulana Karenga, Kariamu Welsh Asante, Marimba Ani, Yosef Ben-Jochannon, Cheikh Anta Diop, Herbert Vilakazi, Theophile Obenga, Chinweizu, Wade Nobles, Na'im Akbar Manning Marable, John Bracey, William Strickland, and Ronald Walters do not appear in the index. If they appear elsewhere, they are very difficult to find. Even if you do not agree with someone's perspective or orientation you must demonstrate as a scholar that you are fair in your presentation of the historical information. The Encarta project is woefully lacking in spectrum. One could argue, although weakly, that this was a problem of space, that is, that some people were bound to be missed. However, it is suspicious when the people who are missed are Afrocentrists and when the medium has cyber space capability.
This product is clearly an instruction for future producers of such works on how not to proceed with an interactive encyclopedia on the African world.
It is true that this is the first such interactive encyclopedia on African culture and history, and that is why it should have given us more, but we are fortunate that this is not the last. Much like Carter G. Woodson's famed statement that it took him nearly forty years to get Harvard out of his brain, we will be trying to get Encarta out of our brains for several years. It is useful, perhaps, that Encarta was done; it is bad certainly that it was done badly. ***
Molefi Kete Asante is Professor, Department of African American Studies, Temple University, Philadelphia. Asante is the most published contemporary African American scholar with more than forty books and nearly 250 articles.
Return to IndexXIV. A World Without Blacks
This is a story of a little boy named Theo, who woke up one morning and asked his mother, "Mom, what if there were no Black people in the world?" Well, his mother thought about that for a moment, and then said, "Son, follow me around today and let's just see what it would be like if there were no Black people in the world." Mom said, "Now go get dressed and we will get started." Theo ran to his room to put on his clothes and shoes. His mother took one look at him and said, "Theo, where are your shoes? and those clothes are all wrinkled son, I must iron them." However, when she reached for the ironing board it was no longer there. You see, Sarah Boone, a black woman, invented the ironing board and Jan E. Matzelinger, a black man, invented the shoe lasting machine.
"Oh well," she said , "please go and do something to your hair." Theo ran in his room to comb his hair, but the comb was not there. You see, Walter Sammons, a black man, invented the comb. Theo decided to just brush his hair, but the brush was gone. You see, Lydia O. Newman, a black female, invented the brush.
Well, this was a sight, no shoes, wrinkled clothes, hair a mess, even Mom's hair, without the hair care inventions of Madam C. Walker, well, you get the picture. Mom told Theo, "Let's do our chores around the house and then take a trip to the grocery store. Theo's job was to sweep the floor. He swept and swept and swept. When he reached for the dust pan, it was not there. You see, Lloyd P. Ray, a black man, invented the dust pan. So, he swept his pile of dirt over in the corner and left it there. He then decided to mop the floor, but the mop was gone. You see, Thomas W. Stewart, a black man, invented the mop.
Theo yelled to his Mom, "Mom, I'm not having any luck." "Well son, she said, let me finish washing these clothes and we will prepare a list for the grocery store. When the wash finished, she went to place the clothes in the dryer but it was not there. You see, George T. Samon, a black man, invented the clothes dryer. Mom asked Theo to go get pencil and some paper to prepare their list for the market. So Theo ran for the paper and pencil but noticed the pencil lead was broken. Well, he was out of luck because John Love, a black man, invented the pencil sharpener. Mom reached for a pen,, but it was not there because William Purvis, a black man, invented the fountain pen. As a matter of fact, Lee Burridge invented the type writing machine, and W. A. Lovette, the advanced printing press.
Theo and his mother decided to head out to the market. Well, when Theo opened the door he noticed the grass was as high as he was tall. You see, the lawn mower was invented by John Burr, a black man. They made their way over to the car, and found that it just wouldn't go. You see, Richard Spikes, a black man, invented the automatic gear shift and Joseph Gamel invented the supercharge system for internal combustion engines. They noticed that the few cars that were moving were running into each other and having wrecks because there were no traffic signals. You see, Garrett A. Morgan, a black man invented the traffic light.
Well, it was getting late, so they walked to the market, got their groceries and returned home. Just when they were about to put away the milk, eggs and butter, they noticed the refrigerator was gone. You see, John Standard, a black man, invented the refrigerator. So, they just left the food on the counter.
By this time, Theo noticed he was getting mighty cold. Mom went to turn up the heat, and what do you know - Alice Parker, a black female, invented the heating furnace. Even in the summer time they would have been out of luck because Frederick Jones, a black man, invented the air conditioner. It was almost time for Theo's father to arrive home. He usually takes the bus. Bus there was no bus, because it's precursor was the electric trolley, invented by another black man, Elbert R. Robinson. He usually takes the elevator from his office on the 20th floor, but there was no elevator because Alexander Miles, a black man, invented the elevator. He also usually dropped off the office mail at a near by mailbox, but it was no longer there because Philip Downing, a black man, invented the letter drop mailbox and William Barry invented the postmarking and canceling machine.
Theo and his mother sat at the kitchen table with their head in their hands. When the father arrived he asked, "Why are you sitting in the dark?" Why? Because Lewis Howard Latimer, a black man, invented the filament within the light bulb.
Theo quickly learned what it would be like if there were no black people in the world especially if he were ever sick and needed blood. Charles Drew, a black scientist, found a way to preserve and store blood, which led to his starting the world's first blood bank. And what if a family member had to have heart surgery. This would not have been possible without Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a black doctor, who performed the first open heart surgery. So if you ever wonder, like Theo, where would we be without US?? Well, it's pretty plain to see.
We would still be in the DARK! ***
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