The Final Call: Was Ron Brown Murdered?
Steve Hancock
[ Article reposted from alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater ]
[ Author was Bill Nalty <CBa...@worldnet.att.net> ]
[ Posted on Mon, 15 Dec 1997 10:14:21 -0600 ]
THE FINAL CALL <----- Calypso Louie's Paper
December 16, 1997
WAS RON BROWN MURDERED?
By RICHARD MUHAMMAD
Old fears that the death of former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown may not
have been an accident resurfaced with a series of articles about a
possible bullet wound in Mr. Brown's head.
Christopher Ruddy, a reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, wrote
the stories that appeared in early December, quoting Lt. Col. Steve
Cogswell, an Air Force pathologist who questioned aspects of the case.
Lt. Col. Cogswell, who participated in the April 1996 investigation of
Mr. Brown's plane crash in Croatia, felt an autopsy should have been
conducted and said a circular wound in Mr. Brown's head may have been a
gunshot wound.
By Dec. 5, Lt. Col. Cogswell was under investigation by the Air Force,
facing a media gag order, and near house arrest was imposed, said Mr.
Ruddy, who first wrote stories raising questions about the initial
crash. Official reports of bad weather during the crash were false and
government assumptions the crash was an accident violated investigative
rules for such incidents, he said. In addition, Lt. Col. Cogswell says
original x-rays, showing possible bullet fragments, were scrapped,
according to Mr. Ruddy.
Government officials are "saying they're standing by their findings,
that the x-ray was changed because there was a problem with the x-ray
cassette. What they've done is, they're going after this Lt. Col.," Mr.
Ruddy added.
"I've always felt that Ron Brown's death was murder," said activist Dick
Gregory, who interviewed Mr. Ruddy on WOL-AM, a Black-owned radio
station in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Gregory also contends Black pilots, with the rank of captain, were
substituted for the "high profile" mission usually flown by colonels or
lieutenant-colonels. How in a high-reconnaissance war-zone could a
rescue search focus on plane debris in an ocean and 18-hours later say
the plane crashed into a mountain, he added.
"My shock is the story got out," said Mr. Gregory, who pointed out that
a Dec. 8 New York Times story calling the Tribune-Review a
"conservative" newspaper doesn't mention anything about the Ron Brown
story. The Times story is an effort to counteract the story questioning
Mr. Brown's death, he said.
"If we're not careful and start demanding some serious investigation,
they'll find this Air Force guy (Lt. Col. Cogswell) killed and they'll
say it was suicide," Mr. Gregory said.
If Lt. Col. Cogswell is lying, he should be prosecuted, Mr. Gregory
said. "The problem is if you prosecute him, then he has a right to have
his day in court and subpoena the information," he noted.
The failure of "major" white newspapers to pick up the story shows the
ability of white newspapers to hide the truth, Mr. Gregory said. "This
is worse than Nazi Germany, because they didn't pretend that they had a
right for a free press. Here you have people believe that the press is
independent of the government and they're one and the same," he
observed.
"It's just hard for the truth to come out on the white side of town. The
only thing that's going to fan this is the same thing that happened with
the cocaine-CIA (allegations). They don't have one button they can push
to muzzle the Black press and Black radio," Mr. Gregory continued.
© 1997 FCN Publishing Co.
Alric Knebel
Oh, this is just so royal. Now we have Dick Gregory joining the fray,
adding a racist slant to the whole thing. This is just too good.
You just have to laugh at the hysteria, everybody coming in with his
or her political agenda. All you can do is laugh.
>© 1997 FCN Publishing Co.
_____________________________________________
Alric Knebel
al...@datasync.com
_____________________________________________
Emerson
I've read the Final Call on and off line, and it is nothing but
propaganda. The so-called Final Call journnalist present conspicuous
biases when simply reporting the news. The CIA in fact, is in the drug
business. Mumia is in fact innocent. OJ is in fact innocent. Pratt is
in fact innocent. Ron Brown was in fact assasinated. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Obviously the Final Call wants its black readers to think a certain way.
Tom
l...@tiac.net
The Amistad: The Black Viewer's Movie Review
From the Blacks and Jews Newspage
http://www.tiac.net:80/users/lhl/
When one takes to heart the Dick Gregory adage – that Hollywood has
never spent a penny to entertain us – one can more accurately
view Steven Spielberg's, Amistad. Bro. Gregory, of course, meant that
every flickering image has a purpose and function to maintain
the balance of power for White people. The Amistad is a textbook example
of this well-established principle. The following is a guide
for the conscious viewing of this pernicious production. Motown's Norman
Whitfield provides the rule of thumb: "People, believe
half of what you see, Oh, and none of what you hear."
1) Even before the movie begins, indeed in the promotional movie poster,
Spielberg exonerates the White man in the crime of Black
slavery. Above the title is the movie's ambiguous operating premise:
"Freedom cannot be given. It is our right at birth. But there are
moments in time when it must be taken." If freedom MUST be taken,
Spielberg reasons, then, of course, the takers are within their
rights and even have a responsibility to participate in the slave trade.
Its offensiveness is most acute if one considers that such a
premise could never be applied to the Jewish Holocaust.
2) When the Amistad crew is subdued and the ship taken over by the
Africans, the first filmed act is a primitive battle between two
African rivals who yell at one another while angrily vying for power.
They do not appear to have the ability to strategize and
communicate among themselves about their opportunity to refocus on the
common need to escape. This theme of tribalism and
savagery is one that is constantly reinforced throughout the film. In a
scene where the White attorney first visits the captives in their
dungeon, the Africans have staked-out "territory," presumably along
tribal lines. The subtle message is that these Africans deserve to
be slaves. This concept is central to the movie's true purpose. The
"American" Blacks (who are never explicitly identified as slaves)
are starkly different in carriage and comportment than the "savage"
Africans. The "Americans" are refined and even genteel, festooned
in the British style with powdered wigs and ruffles. Though of the
servant class, they are well-treated and content and pointedly
civilized. They are in training, one is led to assume, to be like Morgan
Freeman. This image-juxtapositioning by Spielberg is central to
a pro-slavery argument advanced by Whites in the mid-1800's. Are not
Africans better off in slavery in America than as
spear-chuckers in the jungle? Spielberg's answer is: "Clearly, Yes."
3) The Amistad Africans themselves are almost immediately turned into
props by Spielberg's script. Once these Africans are deposited
into the dungeon, the rest of the Black Holocaust is played out in
courtrooms and parlors among White people. They alone have the
power to determine the fate of the Africans regardless of the desires of
the Africans themselves. This makes White viewers
comfortable. Firmly in chains, the life and death matters of these
simple Africans can now be litigated by White people. Ultimately,
Spielberg's goal is to fortify and exonerate a system and a people that
profitted from the despicable trade in Black humanity even at the
expense of its Black victims. The point here is never to compromise, or
even question, America's heritage and worldwide image as
having been "founded on freedom, justice and equality." Slavery, in
Spielberg's vision, is merely a bump in the road.
4) True to the "good Nazi" theme of Spielberg's Jewish Holocaust movie
Schindler's List, the Amistad is offered up with a group of
historically bizarre creations of the Hollywood propagandists-a good
White man and a 19th century "free" Black aristocrat. Contrary
to Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of the cantankerous former president John
Quincy Adams, who represented the Amistad rebels in the
Supreme Court, he was no lover of the Black man. His home state of
Massachusetts was making so much money on slavery that
Adams absolutely favored it. The cotton mills of Lawrence and Lowell and
the banks of downtown Boston all would have collapsed
without slavery and the money it generated. He has other racist
credentials:
-When Adams was a diplomat after the Revolutionary War he went to the
British on behalf of slaveholders to attempt to get their
slaves back.
-He believed that Congress had no right to abolish slavery where it
existed.
-He believed that the ultimate solution for the Black Man would be
widespread interbreeding, which he said "would be the extirpation
(extermination) of the African race upon the continent, by the gradual
bleaching process of intermixture, where the white portion is
already so predominant..."
-He believed that another possible solution would be a race war.
-Adams also believed that the American Indian was "an inferior
race...and perhaps not worth preserving."
The fact is that there is no evidence that he ever even met the Amistad
rebels though the film portrays them as becoming friends. But
Spielberg is probably unaware that his White hero was a Jew-hater as
well. According to Jewish author Nathaniel Weil, Adams "often
spoke of Jews in such a way as to suggest a strong anti-Semitic
prejudice."
5) Spielberg uses Morgan Freeman to perpetuate another destructive myth.
The "fictional composite" Freeman plays is a free Black
aristocrat in New England and is the character under dispute in the
plagiarism lawsuit against Spielberg. The idea that the North was
"free" and that the Northern Black population enjoyed equal relations is
a bombastic falsehood. "Free" Blacks did not exist in the
North or South in the 19th century. This unfortunate segment of Black
society was often in worse condition than slaves whose White
masters had an economic interest in their survival. There was a good
reason why Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad stayed
underground in New York and New England, moving instead to British
Canada. Abolitionists were viciously denounced, tarred and
feathered, and generally terrorized for their opposition to slavery.
They were, in fact, an insignificant minority among Whites until
guilt-ridden historians gave them a prominence they could never have
dreamed of in their lifetimes. One might read Lorman Ratner's
Powder Keg, for an enlightening account of the Northern attitude against
Blacks at the time of the Amistad affair. The Spielberg
movie shows Freeman in a top hat, riding around in a carriage casually
dining with his White friends. In fact, all of the "American"
Black people/props calmly intermingle with White people. Spielberg
covers up the fact that there was extraordinary White violence
directed against Black people for simply being Black and certain death
for merely talking against slavery at this time in the North.
6) Amistad Film Note: Spielberg filmed much of the movie in Newport,
Rhode Island, the very center of the Jewish-run slave trade.
Rum, of course, was central to the wicked trade in Black flesh and
Newport was its center of production. At one point, all 22 stills
were owned by the Newport Jews. Aaron Lopez and Jacob Rivera were among
the Jewish leaders of the trade and dominated
Newport's business community. One Jewish historian wrote of the Newport
Jews: "[They] traded extensively in Negroes." The pious
Newport Jews prayed at a synagogue that was built by Black slaves "of
some skill," and all the Newport Jews owned domestic
slaves-Lopez, who the Anti-Defamation League calls "beloved and
respected," had 27.
7) A British Navy officer who wants to see an end to the trans-Atlantic
slave trade testifies on behalf of the Africans. In the end of the
movie, he is seen bombing the slave fortress in Africa – presumably
ending the African slave trade. There are two falsehoods being
proffered here.
a) The British wanted to end the slave trade, alright, but not for the
noble purpose implied by Spielberg. The British wanted to stop
the export of the slave labor, because Black bodies were required in
Africa to colonize and exploit Africa for the British!
b) Long after the Amistad Africans were returned to Africa the slave
trade continued in America. The profits of slave dealing were
shocking. The slave ship Espoir made a profit of $436,200 on one trip.
Kidnapper C.A.L. Lamar estimated that his African
expedition would bring a $480,000 profit. He wrote in 1860 (twenty years
after the Amistad affair), "The trade cannot be checked
while such great percentages are made in the business. The outlay of
$35,000 often brings $500,000....No wonder Boston, New
York and Philadelphia have so much interest in the business." With the
introduction of steel-hulled steamers into the trade, the profits
were even greater, for these vessels were able to carry many more slaves
than even the horrifically overcrowded sailing ships.
8) The John Williams score is a heavy-handed ET out-take that is
designed to usher a viewer through the range of emotions that
Spielberg cannot elicit with his visual images. Williams' ethnic
interpretations land him somewhere between Europe and China, never
once visiting the rich musical heritage of Africa. It is especially
overbearing during a pitifully trite Christian conversion scene where a
once proud African is willing to accept a White Jesus and a new religion
(!) from a series of drawings in a Bible! Here, Spielberg
again intends to show how simple-minded the Africans are. It is patently
offensive and plainly malicious. As for the musical score,
Williams is simply unqualified.
Steven Spielberg, who once said that he "could never forgive"
entertainer Michael Jackson for introducing his Jewish children to
anti-Semitic epithets, has no such reservations about introducing our
Black children to all manner of falsehoods about their own
history. Spielberg's open assault on Black history is inexcusable. He
has wagered heavily that Black's are as ignorant as his Black
characters.
Oliver Karp (GD 1995)
The saddest part of this kind of
polemic is that it
nearly assures that 1) people will continue to write off any legitimate
critique of the way whitefolks have written black history and 2)
garantees that the extent that Jews did participate in the international
slave market will *never* be accurately measured. Scholars left a
vacuum by not incoroprating the well documented history of jewish
participation. To fill it with hokum continues the disservice to us all as
we try to sort out this part of our history.
It never fails to amaze me that the blackest of black "nationalists" are
still stuck in the nineteenth century white abolitionist fantasy of an
innocent (ie primitive and childlike) Africa. An Africa unburdened by
the unfortunate aspects of "civilization" which define Europe and Asia
ie civil-wars, nationalism, oppression. Fact is African Princes and
generals did quite as
well as their white peers in carving up territories, colonizing vast
regions over land and river and
carting their enemies off in ropes and chains. This was done out of
personal initiative and increasingly under white duress, the market
becoming so lucrative that slaving itself became the driver of culture and
politics.
Moreover lhl sees white conspiricy in
the very real national (can we lose the word tribal unless we are willing
to apply it to franks and goths as well) distinctions which africans made
between one another. Without such rivalries, a trade on the scale which
took place would never have been possible. We might thank spielberg for
making a step (perhaps awkward) in the direction of according Africans
the full humanity which allows a range of
characters and emotions. It is contemporary black americans who put a
value on racial unity not 19th century africans who had no use (before
coming to America) for such a racial categorization. Moreover, We
know, and are not bothered by the fact, that at various times the spanish
hated the english hated the dutch hated the germans. Yet racists
of all colors insist that Africans must be some
kind of flat monolith. Usually just the flip side of the white racist
coin.
Whites were able to kidnap 5%
of the slaves which they took to the new world. Didn't have the fire
power or the immunology or the knowledge of the interior until the mid
1800's. The height of the trade was the 1700's. Africans were not, as the
black neo-white liberals ultimately
believe, the pathetic dupes of the all-knowing all-powerful white man.
And the final, all too common unconscious
admission; Simply showing Europeans or African-American blacks in wigs
implies their refinement and gentility. I never saw it that way, but then
I don't secretly covet the man and his culture because I know that it
belongs to me as well. That is blacks living in the west can be just as
good or better westerners as whites. Why wouldn't 19th
century blackamericans wear
wigs? Are blacks who use the internet sell-outs to the motherland?
Maybe Spielberg (who I admit is a
heavy-handed moralist-- which is why I refused to see shindler's list) was
showing the corruption of white society. Wigs,
because they are the embodiment of artifice are often used on
the stage to make such a point.
I would hardly be suprised if Spielberg, like the average self-styled
nationalist,
romanticizes black culture as being more natural and unaffected-- at the
same time nursing a secret passion for the "white mans" big toys. Ever
meet an afrocentrist whose interested in the nok culture which
florished at the turn of the first millenium? No. because even though
the nok made their home in West Africa and are the most direct
descendents of blackamericans, they didn't build any big
buildings.You will never meet a brother selling insence talking about
the glories of the Nok. Its like the brothers who claim
that any depiction of the Ituri rainforest is racist because it shows
blacks in loin-cloths or that Independence Day was rcist becasue it showed
africans with spears.
I wonder whose values shape that concern,
: 1) Even before the movie begins, indeed in the promotional movie poster,
: Spielberg exonerates the White man in the crime of Black
: slavery. Above the title is the movie's ambiguous operating premise:
: "Freedom cannot be given. It is our right at birth. But there are
: moments in time when it must be taken." If freedom MUST be taken,
: Spielberg reasons, then, of course, the takers are within their
: rights and even have a responsibility to participate in the slave trade.
: Its offensiveness is most acute if one considers that such a
: premise could never be applied to the Jewish Holocaust.
Thought this is only slightly coherent, I know what you mean. I could,
howevr, very easily see a movie about Jewish partisans under this same
slogan.
: 2) When the Amistad crew is subdued and the ship taken over by the
: Africans, the first filmed act is a primitive battle between two
: African rivals who yell at one another while angrily vying for power.
: They do not appear to have the ability to strategize and
: communicate among themselves about their opportunity to refocus on the
: common need to escape.
This is only suprising to someone who either doesn't know, or (as I
suspect in your case) doesn't want to know about the linguistic,
political, social, religious diversity of West Africa. Why wouldn't a
spaniard and an englishment thrown together in a stinking hold then fight
one another for power over a revolt. Why wouldn't the sounds of french or
dutch sound savage and unintelligible to a Yoruba or a Fanti ear.
Spielberg may not be a great artist but he was trying to make a point
about unfamiliarity. As you should no anyway from your black holocaust
playbook, white and black (oops) slavers mixed and matched nationality on
purpose to avoid the possibilty of untiy. How many successful slave
revolts were there? Do you know this was not the case?
I can't go on point by point because I don't have the time or the energy.
I think I remember you anyway. You're something of a professional
anti-semite with a lot of time, a little learning, and one issue. You see
Jews behind everything which is typical of the zionist-envy crowd. Funny
thing how you both come out of German romantic tribalism.
Your resoning about africa reenforces to me the tragedy of racism which is
that it can make people crazy enough to turn agains themselves and their
interests (you no doubt feel the same about me; uncle tom, house negro
blah blah blah).boring. You are keeping alive more that any klansman
very old
and harmful stereotypes which in the end don't let black people have more
than 2 dmentions.
Peace,
OBK
Rick Hodges
l...@tiac.net wrote:
>
> The Amistad: The Black Viewer's Movie Review
>
> From the Blacks and Jews Newspage
> http://www.tiac.net:80/users/lhl/
>
> When one takes to heart the Dick Gregory adage – that Hollywood has
> never spent a penny to entertain us
Maybe true years ago, but hardly supportable today.
> – one can more accurately
> view Steven Spielberg's, Amistad. Bro. Gregory, of course, meant that
> every flickering image has a purpose and function to maintain
> the balance of power for White people. The Amistad is a textbook example
> of this well-established principle. The following is a guide
> for the conscious viewing of this pernicious production. Motown's Norman
> Whitfield provides the rule of thumb: "People, believe
> half of what you see, Oh, and none of what you hear."
>
> 1) Even before the movie begins, indeed in the promotional movie poster,
> Spielberg exonerates the White man in the crime of Black
> slavery. Above the title is the movie's ambiguous operating premise:
> "Freedom cannot be given. It is our right at birth. But there are
> moments in time when it must be taken." If freedom MUST be taken,
> Spielberg reasons, then, of course, the takers are within their
> rights and even have a responsibility to participate in the slave trade.
> Its offensiveness is most acute if one considers that such a
> premise could never be applied to the Jewish Holocaust.
You completely misunderstand the meaning of that statement. It means that freedom
must be "taken" by those who want to be free, i.e the Africans on the Amistad. It
doesn't mean "taken away" by whites. That is so absurd that you should have
caught it.
> 2) When the Amistad crew is subdued and the ship taken over by the
> Africans, the first filmed act is a primitive battle between two
> African rivals who yell at one another while angrily vying for power.
> They do not appear to have the ability to strategize and
> communicate among themselves about their opportunity to refocus on the
> common need to escape. This theme of tribalism and
> savagery is one that is constantly reinforced throughout the film. In a
> scene where the White attorney first visits the captives in their
> dungeon, the Africans have staked-out "territory," presumably along
> tribal lines. The subtle message is that these Africans deserve to
> be slaves. This concept is central to the movie's true purpose. The
> "American" Blacks (who are never explicitly identified as slaves)
> are starkly different in carriage and comportment than the "savage"
> Africans. The "Americans" are refined and even genteel, festooned
> in the British style with powdered wigs and ruffles. Though of the
> servant class, they are well-treated and content and pointedly
> civilized. They are in training, one is led to assume, to be like Morgan
> Freeman. This image-juxtapositioning by Spielberg is central to
> a pro-slavery argument advanced by Whites in the mid-1800's. Are not
> Africans better off in slavery in America than as
> spear-chuckers in the jungle? Spielberg's answer is: "Clearly, Yes."
You really beleive that this film is pro-slavery, don't you. And I guess you
think Spielberg was secretly pro-Nazi in "Schindler's List." I haven't seen
Amistad (I assume you have), and it may have faults, but Spielberg's message is
Africans are "clearly" better off in slavery? You're off your rocker.
> 3) The Amistad Africans themselves are almost immediately turned into
> props by Spielberg's script. Once these Africans are deposited
> into the dungeon, the rest of the Black Holocaust is played out in
> courtrooms and parlors among White people. They alone have the
> power to determine the fate of the Africans regardless of the desires of
> the Africans themselves. This makes White viewers
> comfortable. Firmly in chains, the life and death matters of these
> simple Africans can now be litigated by White people. Ultimately,
> Spielberg's goal is to fortify and exonerate a system and a people that
> profitted from the despicable trade in Black humanity even at the
> expense of its Black victims. The point here is never to compromise, or
> even question, America's heritage and worldwide image as
> having been "founded on freedom, justice and equality." Slavery, in
> Spielberg's vision, is merely a bump in the road.
Maybe it "makes white viewers comfortable." Maybe it doesn't go far enough in
acknowledging the horror of slavery or America's responsibility for it. I'll
concede that (haven't seen the film, as I said). You can't expect a two or three
hour film to cover four or five hundred years of history. But Speilberg's point
is "never to compromise, or even question..." America's heritage of freedom?
Again, you go way to far on that. If he'd wanted to do that, he wouldn't have
made this movie, he'd have made "Leave it to Beaver."
Assuming all you say is correct, I can't argue with it and I wouldn't want to. If
Adams is portrayed as overly sympathetic, it's unfortunate.
> 5) Spielberg uses Morgan Freeman to perpetuate another destructive myth.
> The "fictional composite" Freeman plays is a free Black
> aristocrat in New England and is the character under dispute in the
> plagiarism lawsuit against Spielberg. The idea that the North was
> "free" and that the Northern Black population enjoyed equal relations is
> a bombastic falsehood. "Free" Blacks did not exist in the
> North or South in the 19th century. This unfortunate segment of Black
> society was often in worse condition than slaves whose White
> masters had an economic interest in their survival. There was a good
> reason why Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad stayed
> underground in New York and New England, moving instead to British
> Canada. Abolitionists were viciously denounced, tarred and
> feathered, and generally terrorized for their opposition to slavery.
> They were, in fact, an insignificant minority among Whites until
> guilt-ridden historians gave them a prominence they could never have
> dreamed of in their lifetimes. One might read Lorman Ratner's
> Powder Keg, for an enlightening account of the Northern attitude against
> Blacks at the time of the Amistad affair. The Spielberg
> movie shows Freeman in a top hat, riding around in a carriage casually
> dining with his White friends. In fact, all of the "American"
> Black people/props calmly intermingle with White people. Spielberg
> covers up the fact that there was extraordinary White violence
> directed against Black people for simply being Black and certain death
> for merely talking against slavery at this time in the North.
I don't know enough about this. But I can't beleive that in every part of the
North, for whites as well as blacks, talking against slavery was "certain death."
Possible death, sure. But heck, Lincoln advocated abolition in public speeches on
the street and he wasn't stoned by an angry mob. There was lots of violence
against abolitionists, and maybe Speilberg doesn't show that, but how much can
you show in a two-hour movie?
>
> 6) Amistad Film Note: Spielberg filmed much of the movie in Newport,
> Rhode Island, the very center of the Jewish-run slave trade.
> Rum, of course, was central to the wicked trade in Black flesh and
> Newport was its center of production. At one point, all 22 stills
> were owned by the Newport Jews. Aaron Lopez and Jacob Rivera were among
> the Jewish leaders of the trade and dominated
> Newport's business community. One Jewish historian wrote of the Newport
> Jews: "[They] traded extensively in Negroes." The pious
> Newport Jews prayed at a synagogue that was built by Black slaves "of
> some skill," and all the Newport Jews owned domestic
> slaves-Lopez, who the Anti-Defamation League calls "beloved and
> respected," had 27.
What does this have to do with anything? So some of the slavers were Jews. Some
weren't. Lots of the slave-traders who culled blacks from Africa to sell to
traders were Muslims Arabs. None of it is relevant.
>
> 7) A British Navy officer who wants to see an end to the trans-Atlantic
> slave trade testifies on behalf of the Africans. In the end of the
> movie, he is seen bombing the slave fortress in Africa – presumably
> ending the African slave trade. There are two falsehoods being
> proffered here.
>
> a) The British wanted to end the slave trade, alright, but not for the
> noble purpose implied by Spielberg. The British wanted to stop
> the export of the slave labor, because Black bodies were required in
> Africa to colonize and exploit Africa for the British!
True. And it gave them a noble-sounding excuse to forcibly take African territory
from the Arabs and Portugese using it to extract slaves. I've been to the forts
on the coast of Kenya and to Zanzibar (whose name means "blacks in chains").
>
> b) Long after the Amistad Africans were returned to Africa the slave
> trade continued in America. The profits of slave dealing were
> shocking. The slave ship Espoir made a profit of $436,200 on one trip.
> Kidnapper C.A.L. Lamar estimated that his African
> expedition would bring a $480,000 profit. He wrote in 1860 (twenty years
> after the Amistad affair), "The trade cannot be checked
> while such great percentages are made in the business. The outlay of
> $35,000 often brings $500,000....No wonder Boston, New
> York and Philadelphia have so much interest in the business." With the
> introduction of steel-hulled steamers into the trade, the profits
> were even greater, for these vessels were able to carry many more slaves
> than even the horrifically overcrowded sailing ships.
>
Agreed.
> 8) The John Williams score is a heavy-handed ET out-take that is
> designed to usher a viewer through the range of emotions that
> Spielberg cannot elicit with his visual images. Williams' ethnic
> interpretations land him somewhere between Europe and China, never
> once visiting the rich musical heritage of Africa. It is especially
> overbearing during a pitifully trite Christian conversion scene where a
> once proud African is willing to accept a White Jesus and a new religion
> (!) from a series of drawings in a Bible! Here, Spielberg
> again intends to show how simple-minded the Africans are. It is patently
> offensive and plainly malicious. As for the musical score,
> Williams is simply unqualified.
That will probably offend me, too.
>
> Steven Spielberg, who once said that he "could never forgive"
> entertainer Michael Jackson for introducing his Jewish children to
> anti-Semitic epithets, has no such reservations about introducing our
> Black children to all manner of falsehoods about their own
> history. Spielberg's open assault on Black history is inexcusable. He
> has wagered heavily that Black's are as ignorant as his Black
> characters.
While you go a little overboard at first, you are rigth that a short fictional of
any event will fall short on enlightenment. The bottom line is nobody should go
into a film and expect to be completely enlightened. Unfortunately, few people
read these days.
-Rick
l...@tiac.net
Hey, I remember you - Jupiter Hammon. You need not try to convince me of
your loyalty, I'm not voting on your tenure bid.
Tobas
What I find interesting is that this moron thinkks that HE needs to tell
black folks " how to interperate the film " as though they are incapable of
doing so for themselves. So if not everyone see's it through your " jade
coloured glasses " their interperetation would be wrong??? Get a grip AND
a life buddy.......
We2chefs
Was Ron Brown (and therfore the pilot and crew)murdered? There is in fact no
evidence to support this, and - by the way- does anyone have a suggestion of
MOTIVE. Any correspondent who replies along strictly race (black/white) lines
is diqualified, and there lies my problem with this forum.
I love DIck Gregory. He is wildly intelegent and usually very careful to pick
his public frays. Alas, he's way off this time, and some folk seem to think
Gregory's interest makes the whole thing a legit issues and the conclusions
obvious. I am so sorry for Mr. Gregory, becuase he is sounding off like Pierre
Salinger after the flight 800 deal. Lets move on !!!
20/we2chefs
Susan Cohen
Oliver Karp (GD 1995) wrote:
> The saddest part of this kind of
> polemic is that it
> nearly assures that 1) people will continue to write off any legitimate
> critique of the way whitefolks have written black history and 2)
> garantees that the extent that Jews did participate in the international
> slave market will *never* be accurately measured. Scholars left a
> vacuum by not incoroprating the well documented history of jewish
> participation. To fill it with hokum continues the disservice to us all as
> we try to sort out this part of our history.
Dr. Cornel West managed to accurately pinpoint it to 3% of Jews in the
American South.
> [truths about the sale-trade snipped for brevity]
> Maybe Spielberg (who I admit is a
> heavy-handed moralist-- which is why I refused to see shindler's list) was
> showing the corruption of white society. Wigs,
> because they are the embodiment of artifice are often used on
> the stage to make such a point.
> I would hardly be suprised if Spielberg, like the average self-styled
> nationalist,
> romanticizes black culture as being more natural and unaffected-- at the
> same time nursing a secret passion for the "white mans" big toys.
Or maybe he's making a cinematic point? (Then again, I haven't seen it, yet)
Heck, I didn't! Thanks for the info!
j adams
YOU WROTE: In a scene where the White attorney first visits the captives in
tribal lines. The subtle message is that these Africans deserve to
be slaves.
WRONG! There is no subtle messege here. It was most likely reality that the
tribal savages acted this way. They were from a stone age tribe. How did you
expect them to act!?