My family entire family is from Trinbago. Though we have been taught that all the indigenous people of the Americas were wiped out by European Imperialism and Genocide against Indigenous people. There are still many areas in the Caribbean and Central/ South America where not only have they survived but thrived and revived the culture of the Carib and Taino People. I have relatives that are Garifunas my paternal Grandmother being one who migrated to Trinidad at age six with her mother from Dominica one of the strongholds of Garifuna people today. I also have  other branches of my family tree in which  Carib blood survives as well including my Maternal Grandfather who was of Ithiopian descent via his father and Carib via his mother. Below is a brilliant treatise by Kim  Johnson about the unknown history of Carib and Taino people. All Indigenous Americans are descendants of the Original Civilization of the Americas called the Olmec who were predominantly an African people.

The story of the ‘Caribs and Arawaks’

Part 1

By Kim Johnson

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Although it is rarely stated there is a clear implication that, for all of its cruelty, the extinction of this people at the hands of the Spanish could almost be seen as a blessing in disguise.

This is because there was another tribe, a ferocious one called the Caribs, who were on the verge of pouncing on the Arawaks and putting them to an even more horrible end. These Caribs were, you see, eaters of human flesh. Following hard on the heels of the Arawaks, they had gobbled their way up the Caribbean archipelago, settling on each island like a swarm of locusts in a field, and only moving on when they had gorged themselves on every available Arawak. By the time of Columbus’s arrival, the Caribs had eaten their way through the Lesser Antilles and already were licking their chops for the meat walking about in Puerto Rico.

And yet, also instinctively, the distastefulness of that story makes it difficult to swallow. Its nightmare quality seems to represent the final, ultimate indignity perpetrated against the first Caribbean people – already victims of the first holocaust unleashed on the world by European civilization. So we wonder, is that what really happened? Could there not have been be another side to it? Now that the 500th anniversary of Colum-bus’s arrival has passed, perhaps we should look again at the chronicles of the time. Because, having taken our place in the modern world, we must define what we have brought to it. And to do so, what better place to start than at the beginning?

Setting our minds to this task, then, the first matter at hand is the business about the Arawaks: who were they? And the first startling fact we encounter is that when Columbus arrived at Hispaniola there were no people who were called ‘Arawaks’, and there never had been. If you were to go to Santo Domingo today people would tell you that their Amerindian ancestors were the ‘Taino’. Actually, Indians of the Greater Antilles did not call themselves ‘Taino’, no more than they called themselves ‘Arawak’ – that name was given them in 1935 by Sven Loven, a Swedish archaeologist, from the word denoting in the Indian lauguage the ruling class of their society. ——-(1) But let us not quibble: seeing as we do not know what the Greater Antilleans called themselves, we shall make do with Taino.

If the people of the Greater Antilles were not Arawaks, neither did they passively accept Spanish depradations. Most of us are familiar with the story of Hatuey, the chief who organized to fight the Spanish and who was, when captured, burnt at the stake. Repent and go to heaven, they told him as they lit the fire. If there are Spaniards in heaven I would rather go to hell, he replied. Nor was Hatuey the only defiant one. There were several others, men like Guarocuya (Enrique) in Hispaniola, Uroyoan in Borinquen (Puerto Rico) and Guama in Cuba, who confronted the strange, terrifying European weapons – the man-eating dogs, the guns, the mounted soldiers, the naval galleons – with great courage and determination.

Part 2

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As we all know, these Indians of the Greater Antilles lost in their war against the invaders. The Ciguayan’s terrorism were a symptom of his helplessnes, for by his time the labour in the mines, starvation, suicide, diseases against which they had no immunity, all of this had almost completely extinguished the Indians on Hispaniola. Although the Indians did not all die on Spanish pikes or under their hunting dogs, it was all premised on the presence of the Europeans, which hinged on military considerations. And the Indians were greatly outmatched by the Spanish in a military sense. It was difficult for them to abandon their crops and wage guerilla warfare. In addition, the Spanish quickly learnt the technique capturing and killing their leaders by trickery. In a general sense we might say that the Indians, whose idea of war entailed not so much killing men as capturing women, were fatally handicapped in responding to the savagery of the Europeans. An analogy might be taken from the Indians of North America who considered a great warrior to be not one who killed the enemy; rather, the hero was one who stole something from him in battle, perhaps his shield, without harming him. The Ciguayan came too late.

Materially, the Indians fought with different weapons from the Spanish; socially and morally, they held different concepts of war.

Thus the ‘peaceful Arawak’ on closer inspection turns out to be nothing other than a dead Taino. “Those who have perpetrated these crimes call the uninhabited places ‘peaceful,” wrote Gonzalo Fernandez de Ovideo y Valdez (1557), who was there at the time and who was far from being an Indian sympathizer. “I feel they are more than peaceful, they are destroyed.” ——–(3)

So now we see where the ‘peaceful’ aspect of the story comes from, but what about the name ‘Arawak’? After all, even the 16th century chroniclers refer to the ‘Aruacs’. Indeed, there are people living in Guyana today called Arawaks. These same people, however, if you enquire, call themselves ‘Lokono’. (That is a word which, in their language, means “the people.” Many, perhaps most, of these tribes call themselves “the people” in the words of their language. What do they call others? The Akawaio, also known as the Kapong, called the Arecuna ‘Kapongbei’ meaning, ‘similar to people’.)

Who were these Lokono? Why were they called Arawaks if, when the Europeans first came, they didn’t call themselves that?

In the 15th century Lokono was just another tribe which lived in villages scattered throughout the northern Guianas, the Orinoco delta, and Trinidad. It was just one tribe among many. In Trinidad alone, in addition to the Lokono, there were the Nepoio, the Yao, the Shebao, the Carinepagoto, and others. Later tribes to migrate to Trinidad included the Kalipunians (California), the Chaimas (Carapachaima), and the Chaguanes (Chaguanas).

There was one distinctive feature about the Lokono, however, (actually the Nepoio – a Cariban speaking tribe – shared this characteristic with them) and that was their close relationship with the Spanish. They exchanged food and slaves for metal tools such as hatchets and by 1520 came to be known as “friends of the Christians.” (4) And one particular Lokono town, described by Oviedo y Valdes as “a famous place, praised by the Indians of the coast,” was called… ‘Aruacay’. (5)

Part 3

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Already Hispaniola was a wasteland, and the Spanish had turned their attention to other places including Trinidad. That is why, when Antonio Sedeno tried to settle here, the chief named Baucunar felt obliged to gather together several tribes and give the Spanish a sound licking they would not forget for many years. Writing from Cubagua in 1534 Sedeno told the King of Spain that “No one here will now go to Trinidad which has become hateful to Spaniards.” ——– (7)

Nevertheless, nobody was safe from the Spanish, nobody on this Pearl Coast except, for a while, those “friends of the Christians” who dwelt in Aruacay. So while it is true that none of the early chronoclers explain why the Lokono throughout the region began to call themselves “Aruacas” the answer seems to stare us in the face: it was a way of saying to the Spanish, we are the same tribe which feeds you, so give us a break. It had nothing to do with being ‘peaceful’. Indeed, according to Antonio Vasques de Espinoza in 1620, “the tribe of the Aruaca Indians is among the most valiant in those parts; feared for their bravery by their neighbors and adjoining tribes.” ——(8) And when Spanish gratitude for Lokono ;friendliness’ wore thin Espinosa reported that: “for these and other well-grounded reasons they cancelled their fealty to the Spaniards, who had sad need of them; indignant over past abuses, they rebelled; and not a Spaniard dares enter their provinces, under risk of no less than loss of life.”

Already, however, there had become fixed in Spanish eyes, two groups of ‘peaceful’ Indians: the dead Taino and the friendly Arawaks. Strangely enough, though, it took the genius of later centuries to equate the two and label the erstwhile inhabitants of the Greater Antilles ‘Arawaks’. Briefly, in 1782 F.S. Gilij, a missionary, studied 39 languages of Venezuela. He identified nine language families including Cariban and Maipuran. Shortly after him another linguist, Von den Steinen, changed the classification ‘Maipuran’ to ‘Arawakan’ after realizing that the Lokono spoke a dialect of the Maipuran language tree. When Daniel Brinton in 1871 realized that the dialect of the Taino was also an offshoot of Arawakan, the matter was settled: those living in Guyana were henceforth “True Arawaks” and those in the Greater Antilles “Island Arawaks”. But both were ‘Arawaks’!

Why not? Aren’t Frenchmen, Spaniards and Italians really quite alike and could be equated by their common Latin roots? Ah, but France, Spain and Italy have societies more or less similar in economy and in politics. The differences between the Lokono tribal clans and the Taino chiefdoms were vast, more akin to the differences between India and those other societies which speak dialects of Sanskrit, namely the Latins, the Slavs, the Rus-sians, the Celts and the Gauls. Could you say that an English-man is really an Island Indian?

Part 4

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Who were these Caribs? They first entered the picture as a rumor Columbus had heard from the Taino. “All the people I have met here,” he entered in his diary, “have said that they are greatly afraid of the ‘Caniba’ or ‘Canima’.” ——- (9) Actually we cannot know what Columbus was told because he had a remarkable ability for seeing what he wanted to see and hearing what he wanted to hear. And, after all, the caniba could be “nothing else than the people of the Great Khan, who must be very close by.” ——–(10)

Ovideo y Valdez suggested that the word meant ‘brave’ in Taino language. As much as a century later ‘Carib’ was still sometimes used as an adjective to describe different tribes. Thus, in 1620 Vasquez de Espinosa could say: “The island of Granada is thickly peopled with Carib Indians called Camajuyas, which means lightning from heaven, since they are brave and warlike.” ——(11)

By then, somehow, Columbus’s ‘Caniba’ were being called ‘Caribe’. The English used ‘Caribbees’ ‘Charibs’ or ‘Caribs’, the French used ‘Caraibes’ and, for those on the mainland, ‘Galibis’. Fr. Raymond Breton, who lived amongst the Indians in Dominica from 1641 to 1655, said, however, that the men called themselves ‘Callinago’ and the women called themselves ‘Callipunam’. Today, among anthropologists, the favoured name is ‘Kalina’ but those still living in St. Vincent call themselves ‘Garifuna’.

But if the linguists have clouded the issue of Arawaks with their palaver about Arawakan language speakers, they have also demystified the vulgar ideas about the Carib race, since, we are told, these ‘Caribs’ spoke a dialect of the Arawakan language family. In other words, linguistically the Caribs were really Arawaks and ironically, according to the linguist, Douglas Taylor, “the various but similar words referring to ‘Carib’ may go back to an ancestral kaniriphuna, meaningful in Arawakan but not, I think, in Cariban.”——–(12)

Either way, such was the impression created by the Lesser Antillians that the Spanish and other Europeans took the matter of their eating humans quite seriously. For instance, the story was spread in the 16th century that some Dominican Caribs, after eating a Spanish friar, all fell ill. Thereafter, the Spanish, whenever they stopped off at Carib islands, they made sure to dress their sailors in sackcloth, just in case. The Caribs, it was thought, found Spaniards to be stringy and grisly, as opposed to the French who were rather delicious and the Dutch who tended to be fairly tasteless.

For all its seeming detail Spanish knowledge of Kalina culinary habits was actually negligible, far more so than that of the French. It is true that the Kalina and the Lokono raided each other’s settlements for captives or revenge. And there was practiced, by both tribes, some degree of ritual cannibalism. In the 17th century account of Adriaan van Berkel who lived with Lokono in Berbice, and the 16th century account of Luisa Navarrete who was a Kalina ‘slave’ in Dominica, both tribes after successful raids killed one or two male captives in a victory ritual and put pieces of their flesh into the pot. An arm or a leg was preserved to remind them of their hatred of the enemy. That was more or less the extent of it.

There has a never been found any archaeological evidence as would indicate widespread and systematic cannibalism, evidence such as scorched human bones, bones with knife or saw cuts or which are unnaturally fractured, bones widely scattered. Nevertheless, such niceties were less than appreciated by the conquistadores who needed slaves. And if Queen Isabella had in 1503 prohibited any man “to arrest or capture any Indians… or to do them any harm or evil to their persons or possessions,” she had also consented to the exception of, “a people called Cannibales …(who) waged war on the Indians who are my vassals, capturing them to eat them as is their custom.” What could be more practical for a Spaniard, then, than to discover as many ‘Canni-bales’ as there were Indians. After all, the Queen had explicitly ordered that “they may be captured and taken to these my Kingdoms and Domains and to other parts and places and be sold.”———(13)

In her order Isabella specifically mentioned the coast of Tierra Firme in the region of Colombia, an area which was only visited once previously by Rodrigo de Bastidas who had been peacably received. The Queen’s information, it seems, had come from Uraba la Cosa who deliberately misled her to justify his 1504 voyage of plunder and slaving from Cumana to Uraba.

“If they were cannibals in those days,” queried the french pirate- priest Pere Labat (1722) who knew the Caribs of Dominica intimately, “why are they not cannibals now? I have certainly not heard of them eating people, whether Englishmen with whom the Carib are nearly always fighting, or Allouages Indians of the mainland near the Orinoco with whom they are continually at war.” ——-(14)

The symbolic cannibalism which, it seems, certainly existed must have declined, ironically, after the Europeans arrived on the scene. Thereafter war ceased to be a ritual and became a matter of desperation. No Indian needed a white arm or leg to invoke a hatred for the new enemy.

But the raiding continued, increased even.

Part 5

I

In a sense, women were, actually and symbolically, the first commodities. Thus, the earliest precious items of exchange, almost functioning, centuries before Columbus, as a money for the diverse tribes reaching from the Amazon to the Greater Antilles, were described by Pierre Barre in 1743 as follows: “This stone is of olive color, of a slightly paler green… The most common shape one gives to this stone is cylindrical, length of 2, 3, up to 4 inches, by six or seven lines in diameter, and drilled their whole length. I have seen some of them that were squaraed, oval, to which one had given the shape of a crescent and imprinted upon it the figure of a toad, or some other animals.” —–(17) Such a stones, the price of a slave, were believed to be the products of a mythic tribe of women who later came to be called the Amazons. They were made of a maleable rock from a special lake – only when taken into the sunlight did the ‘piedras hijadas’ became hard. Frogs, water, greenness, softness, the longditudinal bore, these were the universal Indian symbols of the female.

This prehistoric attitude might have logic foreign to our overcrowded world but, within limits, the prosperity of the neolithic clan was directly in proportion to its size. The wealth and power of a man were judged by the extent of his family. High mortality rates placed a premium on fecundity. Consequently, women were valued for their reproductive capacity. Here lies the true reason for their exclusion from the dangerous business of warfare and hunting even, or rather especially, when it was a matter of survival or extinction. It has nothing to do with women being a weaker sex. And here lies too the true origin of sexual, and all subsequent forms, of inequality.

“The men only hunt, fish, and cut down trees when a new clearing has to be made, which does not happen often, and do other small jobs,” observed Pere Labat, “The women have to do everything else. When the men return from hunting they just throw their game down in the doorway of the carbet, and the women pick it up and cook it, or if they come back from their fishing, they leave the fish in the canoe and not even mention it. The women have to run to the canoe to get the fish and cook it at once, for they are expected to know that the fishermen are hungry. In a word, the women are born servants and remain servants all their lives.”—— (18)

This changed, lost its primitive character, with the appearance of the Europeans. The attrition which the tribes suffered made raiding more vital to augment their declining numbers. At one time the Kalina of Dominica held over 70 captives – Spaniards and negroes, men and women – some of whom had been captured from the ‘Arawaks’ of Trinidad.

Part 6

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The process Luisa witnessed in 17th century Dominica had taken place centuries before at the fringes of the Roman empire and was well underway in western and central Africa: tribes primitive enough to have been relatively egalitarian were evolving into more complex societies. By this process a sexual division of labour geared to reproduction was evolving into a social division of labour geared to commodity production. And this entailed the emergence within the tribes of different classes of people, some of whom exploited the labour of others.

And yet, we must not overstate this case. It was precisely the pristine primitiveness of the Kalina, the fluidity of their societies, which allowed them to wage guerilla warfare for three centuries. The hierarchic Taino chiefdoms of the Greater Antilles, the Aztec state society of Mexico, both having hereditary leaders, were paralysed when these leaders were captured or killed – something the Spanish quickly learned. Even without this, they would have been incapable of resisting for any length of time once their economies were disrupted. That is why many of the Taino died of starvation. Not so the Kalina: they just ran up into the bush, chose a new war leader and returned for revenge.

Thus, in 1560 at Rouen Montaigne met three Indians brought by a navigator from the Amazon. What are the privileges of chiefs, he asked one who had been himself a chief. The Indian replied, “it was to march forward in any time of warfare.”——- (21)

No wonder the Garifuna, a tribe of mixed Carib-African stock, were able to keep the Europeans at bay in St. Vincent until well into the 18th century. They only acceeded to being deported by the British to Honduras in 1797, and even so skirm-ishes continued on the island until 1799. Only in 1803 did the British feel confident enough to offer a reward of $20 “for each Charaib man or woman killed or brought in prisoner.” ———(22)

To my mind, people have not really understood the nature of revenge, seeing it as an aspect of the Indians’ vindictiveness. Imagine a tribe, one so simple that there is really no police or leader or council of elders. How did a man redress an injustice? He took personal revenge, a course of action which easily turned into a feud. Lex talionis, said William Hilhouse describing the Arawaks of Guyana in 1825, “is observed rigidly… Most of the blood feuds originate in jealousy, and the revenge of connubial injuries, of which they are highly resentful.” —–(23) “If anyone among them suffers an injury or affront without endeavouring to revenge himself, he is slighted by all the rest and accounted a coward, and a person of no esteem,” said Rochefort (1658).—–(24) Pere Labat, speaking of the Kalina, was more forceful: “Frown at an Indian and you fight him. Fight an Indian and you must kill him or be killed.” ——- (25)

This individualism was not, as often thought, just a matter of spite ‘it was condition of the Indians’ mode of existence as much as the courts of law are of ours and as such it was practiced quite apart from the varying cultural attitudes, the differences in tribal temperament, such as those noticed by most observers. And consequently this had to be impressed upon the mind of the Spanish. The primitive individualism of the Indians, then, in ways came close to being a definition of freedom.

“Many carib Indians,” complained Antonio de Herreira (1547), the last of the great chroniclers, “were coming from the islands, of Trinidad, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Santa Cruz, Matino, and other islands, causing great damage.” —–(26) And this continued for quite some time. Take the example of the Nepoio named Hierreima whom the Spanish in Trinidad enslaved: he ran away, killed two Spaniards, and thereafter dedicated his life to killing the rest. In 1636 a Netherlander, Jacques Ousiel, wrote: “This Hierreima came to Tobago… offering his services in driving the Spaniards out of the aforesaid island with 100 or 80 white musketeers and 400 Indians that he would add thereto, declaring that as an assurance of his good intentions and purposes, he would leave all their women and children and old men as hostages.” ——-(27)

The ensuing years did see the Spaniards being driven out of all but the three largest islands of the Caribbean. But the spoils of those victories went to the English and the French, not the Indians. So Hierreima is as forgotten as is the Ciguayan. The Lokono and the Kalina, although they are still to be found in the Guianas, their memory has been covered with calumny. And now, looking back, we wonder what was this all about? What remains? Did it only mean that Spain got a few less gold trinkets and pearls and the smaller islands were preserved for the English and the French to later turn them into sugar factories powered with African blood? That the word ‘anthropophagi’ could be replaced by ‘cannibal’? And the memory of the past linger on only as a demeaning myth of peaceful Arawaks and warlike Caribs?

There is another story to be told, one so subterranean that at times it seemed only exist as a dream. We pick up the trail in the writing of Thomas More who set his fictional island of Utopia in the Caribbean where was also located Erasmus’s Fortunate Isles. It was plaited of a thread inspired by the courage and egalitarianism of both Arawaks and Caribs. It first found expression in the startling idea of Las Casas that, “the inhabitants (of Cuba) had the right to wage war on the Admiral and his Christians in order to rescue their neighbors and compatriots.” Symptomatically, it was the French, who colonised the Carib islands, who took it up – Montaigne, Voltaire and then Rousseau’s noble savage. By 1776, the year of the American Revolution, when Abbe Raynal picked up the thread, the Indians had been replaced by Africans. “The slave, an instrument in the hands of wickedness, is below the dog which the Spaniard let loose against the American,” he wrote: “A courageous chief only is wanted.” Those lines were closely read, over and over, by a middle-aged black slave in San Domingue who shared the same dream. His name was Toussaint L’Ouverture and his dream was no less than the dream of freedom.

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Young women protesting apartheid in South Africa (credit: jpbervoets.com)

Malcolm X said in the video below So I will let him tell it.

Obama and His Family Tied to CIA for Years

By Sherwood Ross

President Obama – as well as his mother, father, step-father and grandmother – all were connected to the Central Intelligence Agency – possibly explaining why the President praises the “Agency” and declines to prosecute its officials for their crimes.

According to a published report in the September Rock Creek Free Press of Washington, D.C., investigative reporter Wayne Madsen says Obama’s mother Ann Dunham worked “on behalf of a number of CIA front operations, including the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Ford Foundation.” The East-West Center had long been affiliated with CIA activities in the Asia-Pacific region, Madsen says.

What’s more, Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr., arrived in Hawaii from Kenya as part of a CIA program to identify and train Africans who would be useful to the Agency in its Cold War operations against the Soviets, Madsen says. Obama Sr. divorced Ms. Dunham in 1964.

Ms. Dunham married Lolo Soetoro the following year, a man Madsen says assisted in the violent CIA coup against Indonesian President Sukarno that claimed a million lives. Obama’s mother taught English for USAID, “which was a major cover for CIA activities in Indonesia and throughout Southeast Asia,” Madsen reports. That USAID was a cover for CIA covert operations in Laos was admitted by its administrator Dr. John Hannah on Metromedia News. Madsen says the organization was also a cover for the CIA in Indonesia.

Ms. Dunham worked in Indonesia at a time when Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities(MUCIA) – a group that included the University of Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Minnesota and Indiana – was accused of being a front for CIA activities in Indonesia and elsewhere. Ms. Dunham traveled to Ghana, Nepal, Bangladesh, India and Thailand “working on micro-financing projects” for the CIA, Madsen reports.

And Ms. Dunham’s mother, Madelyn Dunham – who raised Obama while his mother was on assignment in Indonesia – acted as vice president of the Bank of Hawaii in Honolulu, which Madsen says was used by various CIA front entities. She handled escrow accounts used to make CIA payments “to U.S.-supported Asian dictators” including Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu, and President Suharto in Indonesia, Madsen says.

“In effect, the bank was engaged in money laundering for the CIA to prop up covertly its favored leaders in the Asia-Pacific region,” Madsen writes. “It is clear that Dunham Soetoro and her Indonesian husband, President Obama’s step-father, were closely involved in the CIA’s operations to steer Indonesia away from the Sino-Soviet orbit after the overthrow of Sukarno.”

“President Obama’s own work in 1983 for Business International Corporation, a CIA front that conducted seminars with the world’s most powerful leaders and used journalists as agents abroad, dovetails with CIA espionage activities conducted by his mother,” Madsen says. “There are volumes of written material on the CIA backgrounds of George H.W. Bush and CIA-related activities by his father and children, including former President George W. Bush. Barack Obama, on the other hand, cleverly masked his own CIA connections as well as those of his mother, father, step-father, and grandmother,” Madsen points out.

A review of the influence on the Oval Office by the CIA, particularly since the presidency of Bush Sr., a former director of the Agency, it becomes apparent the Agency has played a major role in the shaping of U.S. foreign policy – a role that has been largely kept secret from the American public and one which most Americans would not have approved. The CIA’s overthrow of the democratic government of Iran in 1953 is an example. The overthrow occurred after the Iranian government nationalized the oil industry following alleged cheating on payments by contractor British Petroleum, then known as Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. For another, the CIA’s widespread use of illegal rendition and torture of suspects is repugnant to Americans who still believe in their Constitution.

Sherwood Ross has worked for major dailies and wire services and served in an executive capacity in the U.S. civil rights movement. He currently is active in the anti-war movement and operates a public relations firm for good causes.

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Afro-Chileans seek recognition in Census

By Daniela Estrada

Graphic: Tamiko G. Muhammad

SANTIAGO (IPS) – Concentrated mainly in the arid northern region of Arica y Parinacota, Chile’s small Black population is seeking formal recognition as an ethnic group and inclusion on the 2012 census form, to put an end to what they describe as “structural discrimination.”

“People of African descent have always fought against structural racism, not only in Chile but throughout the Americas,” Cristián Báez, head of Lumbanga, one of the three groups that make up the Afro-Chilean Alliance, told IPS. “The fact that we do not even exist in the statistics is a result of that racism.”

In his view, “Chile has failed to really see itself as a country where different cultures coexist,” even though eight indigenous groups were legally recognized in 1993. (A ninth was added in 2006.)

Chileans who identify as Blacks live mainly in Arica y Parinacota, the northernmost region in this long narrow South American country. The region is known for its cultural diversity. There are also Afro-Chilean families in the north-central region of Coquimbo, principally in the towns of Salamanca and Ovalle, Mr. Báez said.

Last year, the three organizations comprising the Afro-Chilean Alliance—Lumbanga, Oro Negro (Black Gold) and Arica Negro (Black Arica)—carried out a survey of 500 families. Although the final results are not yet available, the preliminary estimate is that there are more than 8,000 people of African descent in Arica y Parinacota.

Fabiana Del Popolo, an expert on population issues with the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), pointed to the high poverty levels among Blacks in Chile.

“We know very little about the situation in Chile precisely because we don’t have statistics,” she commented to IPS. “What I have been able to observe on my field visits is that people of African descent definitely suffer significant poverty and marginalization.”

The Afro-Chilean community is “invisible and ignored at the national level,” concurred José Manuel de Ferrari with Corporación Participa, a non-governmental organization that supports the Afro-Chilean Alliance in its efforts to influence politics.

“Their institutional and legal inexistence leads to their exclusion from public policies that target other vulnerable groups, like indigenous peoples,” and this translates into “marginalization and discrimination,” he told IPS.

Mr. Báez said that when he travels to Santiago, people think he is from another country, like Peru, Ecuador, Brazil or Cuba. On one occasion he was nearly attacked by a group of neo-Nazis because of the color of his skin, he said.

“People of African descent have been in Chile since the dawn of colonialism,” Mr. de Ferrari said. “Towards the end of the colonial period, Blacks were estimated to represent more than 12 percent of the population, and up to 20 percent in some regions.”

Later, as a result of the 1879-1883 War of the Pacific, which pitted Chile against Peru and Bolivia, the Peruvian province of Arica was annexed by Chile and its significant Black population became part of this country.

“Lastly, towards the end of the 20th century there was a new wave of immigration to Chile from other Latin American countries, mainly of people coming here because of economic troubles—an influx that has included people of African descent,” he said.

“The situation is thus both strange and unfair,” Mr. de Ferrari said. “Afro-Chileans are here, they exist, but we don’t see them or take them into account.”

As one of the country’s few Black public figures, Chilean footballer Jean Beausejour has helped bring visibility to the Afro-Chilean community. Mr. Beausejour, a midfielder for Mexico’s America club and a member of Chile’s 2010 FIFA World Cup squad, has a Haitian father and a Mapuche mother.

In their argument that they should be included as a category in the next census, Afro-Chileans point to their shared African ancestry, and to the survival of certain traditions, such as the ones based on religious syncretism.

They also stress that Chile has signed and ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and International Labour Organization Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples.

A draft law that would recognize the existence of the Afro-Chilean ethnic group, introduced in Congress in August 2009, states that the country’s folklore, music and national dances contain “African features” and that the national language and cuisine have also been enriched by the heritage of African slaves.

This “silent past has not been taken into consideration in formal educational programs,” says the draft law, which would incorporate the subject in school curricula.

The country’s first Afro-Chilean community development office began to function in June in the city of Arica, headed by Mr. Báez, who described it as “a historic achievement.”

The Afro-Chilean Alliance has met with the official in charge of the 2012 census form in the National Institute of Statistics (INE), and will participate in a seminar in August where different social groups will outline their demands for the census, which is carried out every 10 years.

Latin America is home to some 120 million people of African descent, 23 percent of the regional population, according to ECLAC estimates cited in the book “Afrodescendientes en América Latina y el Caribe: del reconocimiento estadístico a la realización de derechos” (Afro-Descendants in Latin America and the Caribbean: From statistical recognition to the realization of rights), of which Ms. Del Popolo was one of the authors.

“Black” or “Afro-descendant” is one of the racial categories on census forms in other Latin American countries like Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

“In the current round of censuses, more countries are incorporating the category, like Panama, which carried out its census in May, Argentina, Uruguay, and probably Bolivia,” said Ms. Del Popolo, who underlined how important it is for all countries to provide such information.

“This is a crucial moment,” said Mr. Báez, noting that this year Chile celebrates the 200th anniversary of its independence from Spain, and that the United Nations and the Organization of American States declared 2011 as the International Year for People of African Descent.

source

The National Anthem of Trinidad and Tobago

The National Anthem was written to celebrate Trinidad and Tobago’s independence from Great Britain on August 31, 1962. A nation-wide contest was held in search of the best anthem to accompany this momentous occasion. The winner of the contest was Patrick Stanisclaus Castagne. Apart from composing our national anthem, Castagne wrote other songs like “Kiss Me for Christmas,” “The Iceman” (a popular Road March hit in 1960), “Nimble like Kimble” and “Hyarima: A Caribbean Rhapsody”. Castagne has held several posts in the government of Trinidad and Tobago. He is also the holder of a Chaconia medal and the British MBE.

Patrick S. Castagne

Download Real Player to listen to the National Anthem

Steel Orchestra

Choir with Police Band

Conventional Orchestra

source

A Documented History Of the Massacre which occured at Rosewood, Florida, in January 1923, was submitted to the Florida Board of Regents on December 22, 1993 from The Rosewood Report

A burning cabin near Rosewood, Florida,
January 04, 1923

A Chronology of Events

Date

08/05/20
Four black men in McClenny are removed from the local jail and lynched for the alleged rape of a white woman.

11/02/20
Two whites and at least five blacks are killed in Ocoee in a dispute over voting rights. The black community of Ocoee is destroyed, 25 homes, 2 churches, and a Masonic Lodge.

02/12/21
A black man in Wauchula is lynched for an alleged attack on a white woman.

12/09/22
A black man in Perry is burned at the stake, accused of the murder of a white school teacher. A black church, school, Masonic Lodge, and meeting hall are burned.

12/31/22
On New Year’s Eve a large Ku Klux Klan Parade is held in Gainesville.

01/01/23
Early morning: Fannie Taylor reports an attack by an unidentified black man.

Monday afternoon: Aaron Carrier is apprehended by a posse and is spirited out of the area by Sheriff Walker.

Late afternoon: A posse of white vigilantes apprehend and kill a black man named Sam Carter.

01/02/23
Armed whites begin gathering in Sumner.

01/04/23
Late evening: White vigilantes attack the Carrier house. Two white men are killed, and several others wounded. A black woman, Sarah Carrier is killed and others inside the Carrier house are either killed or wounded. Rosewood’s black residents flee into the swamps. One black church is burned, and several unprotected homes.

Lexie Gordon, a black citizen of Rosewood, is murdered.

01/05/23
Approximately 200-300 white men from surrounding areas begin to converge on Rosewood. The negro section is destroyed by fire.

Mingo Williams is murdered.

Governor Cary Hardee is notified, and Sheriff Walker reports that he fears “no further disorder.” The Sheriff of Alachua County arrives in Rosewood to assist Sheriff Walker.

James Carrier is murdered.

01/06/23
A train evacuates refugees, the Rosewood families, to Archer and Gainesville.

01/07/23
A mob of 100-150 whites return to Rosewood and burn the remaining structures.

01/17/23
A black man in Newberry is convicted of stealing cattle. He is removed from his cell and lynched by local whites.

02/11/23
A Grand Jury convenes in Bronson to investigate the Rosewood riot.

02/15/23
The Grand Jury finds “insufficient evidence” to prosecute.

02/15/37
The first mention of the Rosewood riot in a religious publications, by Nathaniel Scippio and his wife Delia, in the Church of God by Faith Handbook, 2nd Edition.

07/25/82
Gary Moore and Joe Tonelli, published the first detailed account of the massaere to reach the general public, Floridan, St. Peresburg Times Newspaper

07/1/85
The Rosewood Family Reunion was established in Lacoochee, Florida.

FOR EXTENSIVE DETAILS OF THE TRAGEDY VISIT
THE ROSEWOOD REPORT

	A Documented History Of the Massacre which occured at Rosewood, Florida, in January 1923, was submitted to the Florida Board of Regents on December 22, 1993 from The Rosewood Report A burning cabin near Rosewood, Florida, January 04, 1923
Lynching unknown man KKK Rally Sylvester Carrier Sarah Carrier Evangelist Nathaniel Scippio, Church of God by Faith Back to Top		A Chronology of Events Date 08/05/20 Four black men in McClenny are removed from the local jail and lynched for the alleged rape of a white woman. 11/02/20 Two whites and at least five blacks are killed in Ocoee in a dispute over voting rights. The black community of Ocoee is destroyed, 25 homes, 2 churches, and a Masonic Lodge. 02/12/21 A black man in Wauchula is lynched for an alleged attack on a white woman. 12/09/22 A black man in Perry is burned at the stake, accused of the murder of a white school teacher. A black church, school, Masonic Lodge, and meeting hall are burned. 12/31/22 On New Year’s Eve a large Ku Klux Klan Parade is held in Gainesville. 01/01/23 Early morning: Fannie Taylor reports an attack by an unidentified black man. Monday afternoon: Aaron Carrier is apprehended by a posse and is spirited out of the area by Sheriff Walker. Late afternoon: A posse of white vigilantes apprehend and kill a black man named Sam Carter. 01/02/23 Armed whites begin gathering in Sumner. 01/04/23 Late evening: White vigilantes attack the Carrier house. Two white men are killed, and several others wounded. A black woman, Sarah Carrier is killed and others inside the Carrier house are either killed or wounded. Rosewood’s black residents flee into the swamps. One black church is burned, and several unprotected homes. Lexie Gordon, a black citizen of Rosewood, is murdered. 01/05/23 Approximately 200-300 white men from surrounding areas begin to converge on Rosewood. The negro section is destroyed by fire. Mingo Williams is murdered. Governor Cary Hardee is notified, and Sheriff Walker reports that he fears “no further disorder.” The Sheriff of Alachua County arrives in Rosewood to assist Sheriff Walker. James Carrier is murdered. 01/06/23 A train evacuates refugees, the Rosewood families, to Archer and Gainesville. 01/07/23 A mob of 100-150 whites return to Rosewood and burn the remaining structures. 01/17/23 A black man in Newberry is convicted of stealing cattle. He is removed from his cell and lynched by local whites. 02/11/23 A Grand Jury convenes in Bronson to investigate the Rosewood riot. 02/15/23 The Grand Jury finds “insufficient evidence” to prosecute. 02/15/37 The first mention of the Rosewood riot in a religious publications, by Nathaniel Scippio and his wife Delia, in the Church of God by Faith Handbook, 2nd Edition. 07/25/82 Gary Moore and Joe Tonelli, published the first detailed account of the massaere to reach the general public, Floridan, St. Peresburg Times Newspaper 07/1/85 The Rosewood Family Reunion was established in Lacoochee, Florida. FOR EXTENSIVE DETAILS OF THE TRAGEDY VISIT THE ROSEWOOD REPORT

Centuries BEFORE the coming of Islam and before the days of the Songhay, Mali and Ghana Empires (and thus before Timbuktu was built), there were some massive cities in the Niger Delta region which rivaled those of Mesopotamia

Historian Basil Davidson looks how kingdoms such as Ghana, Mali and Songhay provided a strong centralised governmental structure within which trade across West Africa thrived. In particular, he looks at the great city of Timbuktu and the influence of Islam.
http://www.lincoln.edu/history/his307/

America’s Ten Dead Cities: From Detroit To New Orleans

The economy has evolved so much since the middle of the 20th Century that many cities that were among the largest and most vibrant in America have  collapsed. Some have lost more than half of their residents. Others have lost the businesses that made them important centers of finance, manufacturing, and commerce.

Most of America’s Ten Dead Cities were once major manufacturing hubs and others were important ports or financial services centers. The downfall of one city, New Orleans, began in the 1970s, but was accelerated by Hurricane Katrina.

Notably, the rise of inexpensive manufacturing in Japan destroyed the ability of the industrial cities on this list to effectively compete in the global marketplace.  Foreign business activity and US government policy were two of the three major blows that caused the downfall of these cities.  The third was the labor movement and its demands for higher compensation which ballooned the costs of manufacturing in many of these cities as well.

24/7 Wall St. looked at a number of sources in order to select the list. One was the US Census Bureau’s list of largest cities by population by decade from 1950 to 2000 with estimates for 2007. Detroit, for example, had 1.9 million people in 1950 and was the fifth largest city in the nation. By 2000, the figure was 951,000. The city was not even on the top ten list in 2007.

The Census data also describes the shift of much of the population to cities which were not considered large at all in 1950. Most of these are in the southern part of the US.  Rising populations in these locations has been driven by the growing number of retired people and a relocation of the nation’s workforce.  This is how San Diego, Phoenix, and San Antonio have moved onto the list of the ten largest cities in America.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did a study of what they described as America’s 150 forgotten cities. The municipalities on their list were medium-sized and ranked by measurements that included poverty. The reason for their demise largely match the cities on the 24/7 Wall St list. The MIT research work goes beyond a mere list of statistics and points out reasons why some of these cities will never recover. In almost every case, tax bases have disappeared, which has undermined the ability of local governments to spend money on revitalization. Abandoned areas of these cities have high crime rates, which not only keeps people from relocating to these areas but is actually an incentive for them to move away.  This in turn, leads to the image of these cities as desolate urbanscapes.

(Read 24/7 Wall St.’s Piece On “The Real Labor Shortage: Skilled Blue-Collar Workers”)

1. Buffalo

In 1900, Buffalo was the eighth largest city in America. It was located on one of the busiest sections of the Erie Canal, the terminus of the canal on the Great Lakes. Thanks to its location, Buffalo had huge grain milling operations and one of the largest steel mills in the country.  Buffalo prospered during WWII as did many northern industrial cities. After the WWII, the manufacturing plants returned to the production of  cars and industrial goods. The population rose to more than 500,000 in the mid-1950s. It is half that today. Buffalo was wounded irreparably by the de-industrialization of America.

2. Flint.

Flint was once a major industrial city and the birthplace of GM, then went into receivership — the equivalent of municipal bankruptcy–in 2002. The city had almost 200,000 residents in 1960 and has fewer than 100,000 today. The downfall of Flint can be described in a sentence.  In 1960, GM employed 80,000 people in Flint and it employs fewer than 8,000 today. Flint was the headquarters of GM’s Buick division for years, but these operations were moved to Detroit in 1998.

3. Hartford

The city was once the “insurance capital of the world.” In 1950, the city’s population peaked at more than 177,000 and has dropped to 124,000 recently. Hartford was, beyond being an insurance center, also home to a number of manufacturing and publishing businesses. Hartford lost some of its insurance firms as they moved to new locations, primarily because of consolidation in this sector.  Five large financial firms have downsized their workforces. These include Met Life, Cigna, Lincoln Financial, Mass Mutual, and, perhaps most depressing of all,  The Hartford.

4. Cleveland

Cleveland became a major port and land transportation hub, due to its central location on Lake Erie. A number of the largest rubber companies in the world and other manufactures for the car and steel industry were also located near or in the city. Cleveland had 914,000 residents in 1950. The figure is below 480,000 today. A number of the large manufacturing operations have left the region or downsized based on the transfer of  the steel, rubber, and car industries elsewhere, particularly to Japan.

5. New Orleans

The location of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi made it one of the most important ports in America for more than 200 years. Oddly enough, New Orleans remains a massive port, but a number of the jobs which were once performed by laborers are now automated. A great deal of the commercial traffic which once moved by river is now transported more efficiently by truck, rail, and air. The city had also been a financial capital of the south because of the cotton and river trade. Faster growing southern cities like Atlanta became more important financial centers as their populations grew. One of the industries that began to offset the faltering trade and financial sectors was tourism which rose throughout the second half of the last century. But the city suffered from its location, part of it below sea level, and several hurricanes that hit the city, particularly Hurricane Betsy in 1965. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina dealt the city a nearly fatal blow. In the year after that, the population dropped to just above 250,000, down from 627,000 in 1960. The BP oil crisis has already begun to damage what might have been a nascent recovery, post Katrina.

6. Detroit

The Motor City was the fifth largest city in America with a population of almost 1.9 million in 1950. The number of residents increased sharply from the 1920s when Henry Ford created the assembly line and set a wage of $5 a day. Workers streamed in from the deep South and other parts of the Midwest. The huge car companies became defense contractors during WWII. The auto industry grew abundantly after the war as the American middle class was created by an expanding economy built on the US’s ability to take its vast natural resources and turn them into finished products. During the 1960s, American car companies had nearly 90% of the domestic market, and GM had 50% to itself. Detroit’s demise began with the rise of Japanese imports in the 1970s. The Arab oil embargo increased the appetite of US consumers for high-mileage cars. The Big Three (Big Four before American Motors was bought by Chrysler) built products that were acceptable to consumers until they saw higher quality Japanese cars which began to flood the markets in great numbers in the 1980s. Detroit’s car manufacturing base was nearly destroyed, symbolized by the Chapter 11 filings of GM and Chrysler.

7. Albany

Albany is still the capital of New York State. It was once one of the largest “inland ports” in the world sitting near the place where the Hudson River meets the Erie Canal. This helped it become a major center for finished lumber and iron works. Perhaps because of the influence of the politicians who worked in the city, several universities and colleges were built there. The city’s manufacturing industry helped the population to rise to 134,000 in 1950. it is now under 95,000. The higher education institutions in the region have begun to help Albany become a regional center for information technology and the biotechnology industries, but these are not large enough to offset declines in the city’s fortunes which began in the 1960s.

8. Atlantic City

Now known mostly for its gambling business, Atlantic City was dying before legislation allowed gaming companies to operate there. The city was created as a tourist location in the 1880s and a number of massive hotels were built there. Atlantic City’s hospitality industry also made it a favorite for trade shows and conventions. The Democratic National Convention was held there in 1964. The city’s appeal to tourists was damaged primarily by two things: the first was the availability of inexpensive air travel to southern resorts areas like Florida. Vacationers could fly from New York to Miami, Ft Lauderdale, and Palm Beach in less time than it took to drive to Atlantic City. The second,the rise of Las Vegas as the gaming capital of the world, made it the preferred destination for many conventions. Atlantic City got into the gambling industry in 1978–too late.

9. Allentown

This Pennsylvania city had two advantages in the middle of the last century. It was well located for railroads that moved freight from the Midwest through Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the Eastern seaboard. Its proximity to iron ore made it a major manufacturing center and refiner much like Bethlehem to its east and Pittsburgh to its west. Like many other Northeastern manufacturing cities, Allentown watched its major product, in this case steel, being produced in greater and greater volumes and at lower prices in Japan.

10. Galveston.

This Texas city was one of the largest ports in the US a hundred years ago. It was also the location of one of the greatest natural disasters in American history. In 1900, a hurricane killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people. In the decades after the hurricane, Galveston became a major tourist center due to its location on the Gulf and proximity to several larger Texas cities. Galveston was also a major military recruitment center during WWII. The cause of Galveston’s demise is unique. It had become something of the Sodom and Gomorrah of the southern US. There was a large gambling industry there, some of it illegal, which was controlled by criminals. In the late 1950s,Texas state authorities successfully attacked local organized crime. The regulated tourist trade could not replace the illegal business. Galveston’s port and hospitality industries had begun to improve, but where trampled by the effects of Hurricane Ike in 2008. The event destroyed a large part of the city’s tax base, and set back the tourism industry once again.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Demystifying The Issue Of Repatriation

By: Ras Jahaziel

REPARATIONS and REPATRIATION for the descendants of slavery and colonialism are two inseparable twins that hold between them the cornerstones for the formation of a new international morality. If one is stripped from the other, JUSTICE fails, and the evil slave-master triumphs once again. Without Reparations, repatriation is more likely to become the repatriation of the privileged.

One should never forget that once upon a time there was an argument amongst the slave-masters about what should be done with the slaves after Emancipation. Some said “Let us see to it that they will never be able to really OWN anything, because we cannot afford to let them become independent. Keep them so busy working that they will never have much time to think, and saddle them with debt so that they will never progress. They can stay here, but they will always be kept busy in the pursuit of powerless-ness.” Some said “But we need to keep this place ALL WHITE, so let us bring in more Caucasians and pack these niggers on a boat and send them back to Africa bare-back and empty-handed the same way how they came.” The descendants of slavery therefore find themselves today in a situation where the man that is tossing the coin is doing so on one condition “HEADS, I WIN, TAILS, YOU LOSE.” Whichever way the coin falls, it represents the triumph of injustice.

There is no escaping it. Historical consciousness is the faculty that causes one’s eyes to truly see. Without it, one is virtually blind. A knowledge that has no proper grounding in the trails and trials of the African experience under slavery and colonialism, is therefore like a branch disconnected from its roots. Such knowledge has to go beyond the mere assimilation of facts learned in college and university. It has to be empowered by THE PASSION FOR JUSTICE that naturally flows from an at-oneness with those that have long borne the white cross. From this level of spiritual attunement, one’s eyes will then behold the truth that REPATRIATION IS MERELY A COMPONENT OF REPARATIONS. To teach otherwise would surely grant the ole slave-master much pleasure and satisfaction.

It should also be clearly understood that the same ole slave-master who raped Africa and enslaved her children is very much interested in maintaining his grip on stolen property. For this reason the people in Africa have to be kept smelling Hell, and to see to it that they never escape, certain educated Negroes have been put in charge to keep the profits from the plantation flowing smoothly. This is the neo-colonial situation that presently exists in Africa and the Caribbean where there is a Black majority totally dominated and controlled by white invisible minorities. When one is aware of this situation it becomes clear why, despite the appearance of outwardly Black governments, the movement of people has always been tightly curbed and restricted just as in the old days on Hell plantation. Speaking from personal experience as a Rastaman, I have on two occasions been denied the right to set foot on two different Caribbean islands. On neither occasion was I ever even asked my name. Just one look was all it took. On one of those occasions in 1975, I was restricted to the boat until it was ready to leave the harbor. On the other occasion in 1998 or thereabouts, I was taken off the boat, stripped of shoes and all personal belongings, and then held in a jail cell until the boat was ready to leave. All of this with no questioning. After that particular experience, I had the occasion to speak to a sympathetic white woman who was married to a Black Rastaman, and here is what she said: “I can understand your experience, because my husband (the Black Rastaman from another island) was only able to visit the island BECAUSE HE WAS WITH ME.”

Now this is the Caribbean where all authority is visibly Black, but it is insightful in terms of the workings of the neo-colonial mentality. It explains why Repatriation has so far been only a vision yet to be materialized. A Caucasian can travel anywhere in the world without let or hindrance. Check the same scenario in this excerpt from a lecture by Haile Gerima the famous Ethiopian film producer of the movie “Sankofa”:

“I went to Ethiopia to quickly record as I was doing pre-production for BBC, the documentary film I did for BBC called Imperfect Journey. And here I was with this Niagara, not a new Niagara recorder and I felt I should record my uncle with good equipment instead of what this brother is trying to record with. I felt it was important archival material. When I got to Ethiopia the customs office, they were all these privileged European people with their privileged white trust fund skin in front of me. They went through with all their computers and cameras and here I was with my — you know, Ethiopian citizen but illegal still in the actual context of transactions in airports. I’m illegal in every airport. I’m not complaining.

It makes you connect. That’s when you know you’re like the Pakistanian, the Indian, because in London you look around, you’re kept — you know where you belong and language is not important, just you know where you are on this planet. And it’s educational. But, any how, here I was, excited with this equipment going to go through this customs and I was stopped. Also an Ethiopian guy with me was also a filmmaker, his machine was taken and mine was taken.

Here I was, when I was supposed to go to the village for the time period I have, I’m at the Custom’s office stranded trying to liberate the equipment. I stayed there trying to fight for a whole week, two weeks doing nothing and my relatives are all in Ghanda. So, I just left it and visited friends and took some pictures and got back in the airport and then they handed me my Niagara to take it out. Now, that is not explainable in any logic. I just want you to keep that in mind. It will connect somewhere. That’s why most people don’t know how to follow my movie.

My thought processes is a very primitive and organized thought process. So, here again, I come back to Ethiopia with now what we call the ‘White Visa’. I had my white people from England. I made sure I had three white people in front of me, and I went through the visa and immigration and customs, straight without any problem through their power. I went through every check point in Ethiopia just fronting them in the Land Rover. I made them look like they were the boss, though they were my employees. And the driver always has to have a white person in front of him at every check point. The driver has to quickly point “_________’ ________’” the new World Bank IMF power. And the government has told everybody, don’t stop (foreigners) don’t mistreat them, give them everything, don’t stop them.

So here I am going any where I wanted to go with this power, armed with this power. Went to every dungeon and made my film. I recorded people who are afraid for their life, hidden in a covert way. And left. We tried in Ethiopia and that is to interview the president. The president refused to be interviewed by me although he is accessible to every beginning white filmmaker that I met who were there from Germany, Holland and. They always say, “We like your film. And I hope I can work with you.” But they are in charge of my country. And I always ask them to do me a favor, to get me around.”

There are two things that neo-colonial governments despise most, poor people and culturally conscious people.

It has long been known to the wise, and to those that have been put in charge of the neo-colonial system in Africa, that “ONE POOR PLUS ONE POOR EQUALS TOO POOR.” What this really says is that if one repatriates without ever breaking the cycle of persistent poverty here, one is more likely to be considered an additional burden on reaching there. That is why no head of state is ever willing to permit large-scale immigration of more poor people. Even between neighboring states in Africa, immigration authorities have been placed in the road to prevent the influx of MORE POOR PEOPLE. Every place where you go in the so-called third world or developing world today, in every harbor and every airport there is an invisible sign saying “WE DON’T WANT NO MORE POOR PEOPLE HERE.” In smaller writing there is another that says “and conscious people are not welcome either, because they are potential threats.”

This brings us to the real truth that THE EDUCATED NEGRO IS THE MAIN BARRIER TO BLACK PROGRESS. He has been placed in a comfortable position by invisible puppeteers who are very skilled in the art of pulling strings. Whether he does it consciously or unconsciously, the educated Negro is generally a facilitator in the centuries -old project of Black exploitation. His greatest concern is to keep his personal safe place secure, and by his actions, he displays a greater kinship with the white exploiter.

When REPARATIONS and REPATRIATION are examined under the clear microscope of consciousness, one will see that their full attainment will only come after serious revolutionary changes in the present status quo. Moses has to take the message to the powers that be, and the foundations have to be shaken so severely that little puppet heads will roll. This is not to say that everyone should sit patiently and wait for the earthquake. A concerted effort should still be made meanwhile to attain some level of poor people’s empowerment, for as Marcus Garvey once said, a people without real power will always be a people without respect. This is why after so many years in the Caribbean where the Rasta people are the poorest, they are still the least respected and the most oppressed.

This brings us to the most current issue that the conscious people should be addressing …the issue of self-empowerment or poor-people’s empowerment. When a people have been robbed of their land and its natural resources, the only other resource that is available to them is THEIR NATURAL CREATIVE TALENT. If these talents have not been fully developed and mobilized, such people will forever continue to spend their lives laboring to make the slave-master rich. Even those few talents that they have discovered will continue to be exploited by others.

In the absence of REPARATIONS, this development and mobilization of the people’s creative talent-base would have to precede Repatriation. Where this has not been done, REPATRIATION will be nothing more than the movement of a people who have been able to serve the slave-master long enough to BUY their freedom of movement. And it ought to be considered that the slave-master has set up his system in such a way, that by the time you bow and serve him long enough to buy your freedom, your mind is no longer much different to his. If such people are repatriated to Africa, they will quite easily keep silent and non-involved in the struggle for justice there. They will betray the down-trodden, and by their non-involvement, make common cause with Africa’s neo-colonial stooges. By attaining the presently required financial resources, such repatriates would have achieved something that is almost impossible for the average African to achieve. It is not good to be viewed as an island of prosperity in a sea of poverty. In places like Nigeria, such Black achievers usually live behind large iron gates with guards at the door, and high walls with barbed wire strung on top.

True Repatriation must therefore be accompanied by a total revolutionary change in the African social, political, and economic system that allows prosperity to be more broad-based. Otherwise, repatriation will be just a matter of RELOCATING HELL.

Apocalyptic doctrines should never be allowed to put common sense to sleep. Those that step in the right should never be guided by fear. Each one must ask themselves, “What is my particular role in this battle to lift Black humanity from the dust of disadvantage, scorn, and perpetual servitude? What are my unique talents, and how can they best be utilized to accomplish these goals in this generation?” When these questions are properly answered, everyone will know what his or her divinely-appointed station is in this final battle to restore the right. Some may be called sooner than others to make the journey now to help spread the light of consciousness, with the full knowledge that they will be opposed by Black oppressors. Others may have to fight in the lands of the white oppressors to give more power to the truth by galvanizing a movement similar to the days of the civil-rights movement.

Whether Hell is in the east or in the west, it is still Hell, so the battle will remain the same in either place. When this consciousness comes home fully, one will not be motivated in one’s efforts to repatriate by the feeling that one is making an escape for a safe place. On the contrary, one will be relocating with the full knowledge that one is moving into place to take over the baton of struggle from the likes of Haile Selassie, Muguabe, Mbeki, Mandela, Steve Biko and all those who fought to bring Africa this far from the clutches of colonialism. The struggle for African liberation must now be taken to its ultimate conclusion, and that is the task that has been prepared for this generation.

Seeing that white-skin preference and rich man preference still overshadow the doors of return, it should be plain to see by now that there are a few righteous steps that must be taken if REPATRIATION is to come anywhere close to the idea of GOING TO ZION.

THE STEPS THAT MUST BE TAKEN FOR REPATRIATION TO MEAN GOING TO ZION

The battle to regain economic independence as a group must start now. This could be said in another way: The battle to regain African manhood must start now. The reason why this battle is so very much connected to spiritual integrity is that it ushers in a generation who can speak fearlessly without wondering if they will lose their jobs.

Because of long DOMESTICATION and continued subjugation under a rigorous slave system that was designed to benumb the soul, many slave descendants know nothing about their own creative talents, and many doubt that they even have them. Therefore most of their waking hours are spent in the mundane activities that have been prescribed by the slave-master for the purpose of suffocating and stifling the genie within. Every effort has to be made therefore to uncork the bottle and let out the genie(us). This is a process that should start from the very first arrival of true consciousness. Because of this reorganization of self, the Zion train will be carrying GENIUSES, well equipped and well prepared to do the work of rebuilding Zion. If you have already discovered your talent, no effort should be spared in sharpening, polishing, and shining it, so that it reaches its full potential. What ought to emerge from this process is a group of people, who despite their origins in the dust of society, have secured by their collective and individual works, that measure of respect that the world will have to recognize. This is a mission that is achievable. Marcus Garvey showed us how.

The people’s creative talent is a yet un-UN-DEVELOPED TREASURE. It is a treasure that has been buried by slavery, and it is now kept in a coma by the mundane day to day chores of slave life. It has to be developed and mobilized to generate the kind of power that will command respect. Not only will it provide spiritual and material wealth, but it will also break the yoke of the 9 to 5 slave-master.

When this awakening has taken place, no one will have to be convinced about the essential role of I-NITY, NETWORKING, AND COOPERATION. The present blindness only happens because of faith in the pay-check.

The wide scattering of the people must also be turned into an asset, for it can be made to facilitate product-distribution which is so vital in the capitalist system. If this network is not developed, the present trend will continue where OTHERS are the main sellers and therefore the main profit-makers. Right in our midst, there are products that can be made to benefit more than just a few, but their full potential has not been realized because the words COMPANY AND CORPORATION are still believed to have been copy-written and reserved exclusively for the white man.

This is the time to make manifest THE PEOPLE OF POWER.

And while this vital NATION BUILDING project is being implemented, the battle for Reparations must be waged unceasingly, for that is the only way to resurrect justice from the dead. By struggling for Reparations, one draws closer to the heart of those countless numbers of African ancestors who were brutalized, worked to death, and buried like dogs, who now sit on the other side anxiously awaiting the restoration of their humanity. In effect, what one will be doing by whole-heartedly embracing the struggle for Black reparations is DEMONSTRATING THAT THE BLINDNESS IS OVER, AND NOW ONE CAN TRULY SEE. No generation can claim that their humanity is fully recognized and respected while the humanity of their ancestors is denied and neglected. UP, ye mighty people, you can conquer whatsoever you will.