OBAMA-NATION-REVISITED: Donna Brazile Sells Out, A Sad Way To End A Career

[Mobolaji Aluko]

My People:

Donna Brazile's book-writing move is shocking.  Clearly, she indeed wants to earn a few shekels, not minding that she would be throwing Obama, Clinton, and the Democratic Party under the bus.

It is her career she has thrown under the bus, I think.

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

HUFFINGTON POST

Donna Brazile Sells Out, A Sad Way To End A Career

Her new book will only hurt the party she claims to love.

11/03/2017 

Only a few weeks ago I signed a petition to keep Donna Brazile on the Democratic National Committee (DNC). I defended her as a good Democrat who worked hard over the years to elect Democrats. What a difference a few weeks make.

Today I am sorry for signing that petition. She has not only bought into the Bernie Sanders campaign story for profit, selling her book, but has hurt the Democratic Party she claimed to love when she spent years as vice-chair of it.

Brazile is too smart not to know releasing her book now wasn’t going to be used by Republicans to block out everything wrong they are doing from tax cuts for the rich to covering up the disgusting behavior of Trump and his campaign. She knew she was going to set Democrat against Democrat once again and for that many will never forgive her.

What is amazing to me is in trying to trash Hillary Clinton for saving the Democratic National Committee she actually throws President Obama under the bus. He was president and controlled the party operations after 2012. He left it millions in debt and owing money to banks. He left Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) in charge knowing she was a disaster, just look at the mid-term elections. He could have changed the leadership of the Party at any time but didn’t want to bother. As early as 2008 he started Obama for America as the way to go around the Party. Now all that is known but did Brazile have to throw him under the bus for it now when he is finally working in tandem with Eric Holderhis former Attorney General to raise money to rebuild state parties and win legislative seats for Democrats fighting gerrymandering.

Let’s start with facts. The DNC, which Brazile claims rigged the primary for Clinton, was the organization saying to states it was OK for Sanders to run in their primaries even though he was not a Democrat. Sanders himself said were he not allowed into the Democratic Primary he couldn’t have run. “He was deemed “extremely disgraceful” by Donna Brazile, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, when he said “In terms of media coverage, you had to run within the Democratic Party,” he observed, adding that he couldn’t raise money outside the major two-party process. The DNC shared its voter lists with him and he knew that was the only way to get them he could afford. In the middle of the primary he fired some staff for stealing Hillary’s voter information from the DNC. Both campaigns signed agreements with the DNC to raise money. They both had the right to set conditions in those agreements with how the money they raised would be spent especially considering how the DNC was broke and had a record of squandering its money under Wasserman Schultz. Sanders really didn’t care about that as clearly he never had any intention of raising a nickel for the party. One fact that people need to remember is Clinton won the primary by nearly 4 million votes. There was no way to rig that. Sanders’s goal was always to tear down the party and that is obviously still his goal if you listen to the leadership of Our Revolution, the group he started after the campaign.

So what does Brazile accomplish by having Politico release a snippet from her book? Maybe she hopes Sanders supporters will run out to buy it? Maybe she hopes Republicans who hate Hillary and Obama will buy it? Maybe she hopes to get hired now that she has trashed the DNC, Obama and Clinton. Whatever it is she has effectively ended her career as a Democrat.

Over the years I have crossed paths with Donna Brazile many times at Democratic events. We were never friends but acquaintances and she would occasionally comment on columns I wrote or comments I made in the press. I don’t expect to hear from her after this column.

What she has done as we move toward the 2018 elections for Congress, governors and state legislatures is try to reignite the fire between the Clinton and Sanders wings of the Democrat Party and re-litigate the 2016 election hurting the Democratic Party which is just beginning to recover. I see that as a career-ending move, even if she makes a few shekels from her book.

Democrats have a real chance to move forward beginning with wins next Tuesday in New Jersey and Virginia. We have a slew of great candidates who announced they are running for Congress next year and great candidates running in the 36 state governor’s races, as well as for state legislature. While the DNC is still struggling to raise money, individual Democratic candidates are doing well, as are the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). The DNC has hired Jess O’Connell as CEO and she comes with a strong record of accomplishment from EMILY’s List. So despite Brazile’s nasty and from the excerpts I have seen half-truths, Democrats will prevail. The Democratic Party and our candidates will stand up to Trump, McConnell, Ryan and Steve Bannon and the hate they spew. Grassroots Democrats will be working hard to ensure decency, equality and telling the truth will once again prevail in the government of the United States.

[Okechukwu Ukaga]

My brother,

I disagree!  Why would people do what is obviously wrong and expect not to be exposed? I suspect, you would not be equally unhappy if Trump & company are exposed by a former Republican party. Rather than let affinity determine our concern, what we should be concerned about is if what is reported is accurate or not. And if accurate, we should be hard on those who did what is wrong and thank those who exposed them. We should not instinctively always attempt to "protect" and "cover up" for those we consider our own. Where/when folks don't expose and condemn wrong doing by there own, it is impossible for goodness to abound as evil is defended or excused or ignored. The failure of the current war against corruption, due to double standards, insincerity and even corruption on the part of those who should be leading the war while most (not all) of their supporters keep defending/excursing/ignoring the obvious, is a good example. For any organization or society to improve, those who do what is wrong should not be confident that they will never be exposed. 

Regards,

Okey

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[Toyin Falola]

To add to this:

When a machine, in this case a political party, wants to destroy, discredit and damage its former member who reveals the inner workings, is that machine not part of the story in Animal Farm?

TF

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[Mobolaji Aluko]

TF and OU:

Obviously, I disagree with both of you, hence my pre-commentary when I sent out the piece.  I also do not expect everyone, even reasonable people,  to agree on this issue. 

But I have three issues to raise on the matter:

   (1)  use of inside information for private benefit

  (2)  judgment call about the activities themselves

  (3)  timing of disclosure. 

First, Bernie Sanders was not even a member of the Democratic Party, and till today,  I still see him as an opportunist, using the liberalism and magnanimjty of the party to carry out a populist agenda which, one can agree has some good elements in it.  To expect that such an interloper would not be less favored than a long-established party member is to come from the moon. 

The degree of favorability becomes greater when the favored party designs a way to save the party from financial ruination.   That is what Hillary did.

Nothing I have read so far smacks of fraud. The party machine wanted to restrict party membership list from Sanders, - it may have been due to lack of trust more than favoring Clinton.  Suppose he quit the party the next dsy?  When the party saw that he was serious, it relented.    Tge DNC wanted a certain number of debates and debate times - who knows whether Sanders wanted to wear the woman down physically - and the woman Chairman Debbie Wasserman resisted that.   And it is American political dogma to resist debates if you are ahead.

And so on... Is that corruption,?  Fraud? Or even some subtle form of sexism? 

Secondly, exactly what is Donna Brazile's aim in telling all to the world - not just to the Democratic Party - at this time  when Trump is a greater threat to the world even more than to the Democratic Party?  After all Hillary did not win the Presidency.  So is it to provide a parallel narrative -  that otherwise Hillary would not have beaten Bernie in the primaries without  DNC rigging, just as Donald would not have beaten Hillary without Russian intervention?

Is that it? 

Afterall Hillary did not win the Presidency.  However she beat both Bernie and Donald flat in the popular votes in the primaries and genersl elections.  Bernie could not have beaten Donald - his "Communism", "Jewishness", fraud accusations against his wife with complicity accusations would have been plied by Donald, etc.

Finally, did Judas Iscariot lie when he identified Jesus Christ accurately that night on the Mount of Olives?  No, but he may have told some half-lies to the Sanhedrin about Jesus constantly saying He is the Son of God, threatening to destroy the Temple and putting it back together in three days, etc, and then receiving a few shekels for that last  kiss-and-tell.  Now Judas' name is in ignominy for ever.

Oh Donna, I used to thee like!

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

Shakung his head

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Donna Brazile - feeling the heat, as she rightly should.....

HuffingtonPost.com

Donna Brazile Wants To Move On From 2016 Drama And Talk About Hacking

The former DNC chief’s book, however, is getting attention for very different reasons.

By Amanda Terkel

Donna Brazile’s new book is called “Hacks” and is billed as the “inside story of the break-ins and breakdowns that put Donald Trump in the White House.” The former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee said the whole reason she wrote the book was to draw more attention to the Russian hacking of the organization. 

But so far, no one is really talking about those parts of her book. And that is frustrating her. 

“You probably skipped that whole part ― the part that was the hardest for me to write was the Hacker House,” she said, referring to a chapter about the cybersecurity task force she recruited to address the DNC hacking. 

“In reading what people are focusing on, I’m like, ‘Hm. Why didn’t they focus on what kept me up at night? The hacking. But that’s OK,’” she added in an interview with HuffPost on Tuesday.

What people are focusing on is Brazile’s revelation that Hillary Clinton’s campaign signed a memorandum with the DNC in August 2015, agreeing to infuse it with some much-needed cash in return for increased say in the party’s operations. 

“The funding arrangement with HFA [the Clinton campaign] and the victory fund agreement was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical,” Brazile wrote in her book. “If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity.”

Part of the reason it’s getting so much attention is that her book’s excerpt in Politico last week ― which was its first preview ― focused on this aspect. 

“I know,” she said, when HuffPost pointed that out. “They went to chapter 10 when they should’ve started on chapter 11. I had no control over that.”

The other reason it’s getting noticed is because, frankly, it seemed like a blockbuster revelation. It was evidence to many that the DNC had indeed tipped the scales for Clinton in the primary over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). 

But the picture isn’t as clear as Brazile’s book makes it seem. The agreement Brazile referred to, which NBC News detailed after the Politico excerpt, did say the DNC agreed to hire a communications director from “one of two candidates previously identified as acceptable to HFA” by Sept. 11, 2015. It also said the organization was to choose “between candidates acceptable to HFA” for certain other senior positions.

The memorandum also pertained to the general election and did not preclude the DNC from entering into a similar arrangement with Sanders’ campaign. 

Brazile has backed off slightly from the hard-and-fast language in her book, clarifying in subsequent interviews that she does not believe the primary process was rigged to nominate Clinton. .

“I found no evidence that any of the resources raised [from joint agreement] for the technology used or the staff hired impacted the nominating process at all,” she said Tuesday. “Where I took strong disagreement with them was that I wanted to bring all of the resources back within the party, so that the party could make those decisions, the party could raise its own money.”

But the Clinton campaign didn’t even have the control over the hiring that it ultimately wanted. The DNC did finally hire a new communications director in September 2015, a month after it signed the agreement with the Clinton team. It was long overdue ― the party had been operating without someone in that crucial position for months. 

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who was then DNC chair, chose Luis Miranda for the job. Miranda was not who the Clinton campaign wanted, as The Daily Beast’s Sam Stein reported this week. The move showed that the Clinton campaign, despite the agreement, perhaps didn’t have control over what happened in Wasserman Schultz’s organization. 

When asked why the DNC was able to hire Miranda, despite the agreement, Brazile punted and said she didn’t know because she wasn’t involved. 

“You’ll have to ask Debbie. I was not the chair. I was not involved in any of that decision-making,” she said. (Brazile replaced Wasserman-Schultz in late July of last year.)

“The (DNC) officers were not informed of that memorandum,” she added. “So I had no idea about that memorandum until I kept digging to find out how come I couldn’t spend my money, or how come I couldn’t bring in staff people. When I learned what happened, then my job was to ask HFA to release the DNC from that obligation so that we could manage our own operations.”

Brazile’s book came out at a delicate time for the Democratic Party ― on Election Day, with Democrats nervously waiting to see if they can pull out a win in Virginia’s gubernatorial race. She’s faced a significant amount of backlash from some folks who wonder why she had to unveil the book now, unhappy with the fact that it was reopening intra-party wounds from 2016. 

“Folks are pissed. Pissed at the timing,” said a former DNC staffer. “Pissed that she released this particular excerpt instead of something about Russia attacking our democracy. Pissed that she did not include context that Bernie was offered a JFA [joint fundraising agreement] and just didn’t do anything to help the party.”

In an interview with ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Brazile shot back against her critics: “If I released it next year, they would say, Donna, you’re impacting our 2018 [prospects]. ... For those who are telling me to shut up, they told Hillary that a couple of months ago. You know what I tell them, go to hell. I’m going to tell my story.”

“What seems to be lost in talking about my book is the fact that the Democratic National Committee was the victim of a crime,” Brazile concluded in her interview. “And all throughout last year when I was out there trying to warn everybody, trying to say as much as I could say, nobody believed us. Even in doing interviews over the last 24 hours, I’m still sad that nobody still believes that the hacking that took place was serious.”

[Kennedy Emetulu]

…

 

 

 

Professor Aluko, I totally, totally agree with your analysis and conclusions. This is politics; you don't pee into the pond you drink from. It’s a betrayal of the worst kind, not truth-telling of any sort.

 

 

…

 

On Sat, Nov 4, 2017 at 5:11 PM, Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Kennedy:

Donna Brazile dodged a bullet by the Democrats creating a Blue Wave of election victories across the country yesterday, otherwise defeats might have been blamed on her ill-timed book, rightly or wrongly.

That was a close one for her...

Bolaji Aluko

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Maybe, some of we’all ( especially y'all who live in America) could reserve our judgements until we’ve ripped through

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

James Brown : Living in America

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[Mobolaji Aluko]

CH:

I will read TNC's book for Christmas....in the meantime, I will savor Obama's tenure.....

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Yes, Democrats prefer the polite, sophisticated variant of racism/white supremacy. Meanwhile, African Americans still catching hell. 

All Black Lives Matter, 

kzs

[Kwabena Akurang-Parry]

Do  you mean that Donna Brazile is a sophisticated racist and a white supremacist? 

Professor Kwabena Akurang-Parry, PhD

Director Kwabena Nketia Centre for Africana Studies

African University College of Communications

Adabraka-Accra, Ghana

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of kwame zulu shabazz <kwames...@gmail.com>
Sent: November 11, 2017 11:08 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: OBAMA-NATION-REVISITED: Donna Brazile Sells Out, A Sad Way To End A Career

 

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Brother Kwabena,

No. But Brazile is certainly complicit--a matador for white power. Hillary and Bill Clinton are sophisticated racists/white supremacists and enemies of Black people. 

kzs

===
THE NEUTRAL SCHOLAR IS AN IGNOBLE MAN. Here, a man must be hot, or be accounted cold, or, perchance, something worse than hot or cold. The lukewarm and the cowardly, will be rejected by earnest men on either side of the controversy." Fredrick Douglass, "The Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Considered" (1854).
===
EVERY ARTIST, EVERY SCIENTIST MUST DECIDE, NOW, WHERE HE STANDS. He has no
alternative. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of national and racial superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. This struggle invades the former cloistered halls of our universities and all her seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear. The artist elects to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice! I had no alternative! - Paul Robeson, speech about the Spanish Civil War at the Albert Hall, London,on 24th June 1937

On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 7:05 AM, Kwabena Akurang-Parry <kap...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Do  you mean that Donna Brazile is a sophisticated racist and a white supremacist? 

Professor Kwabena Akurang-Parry, PhD

Director Kwabena Nketia Centre for Africana Studies

African University College of Communications

Adabraka-Accra, Ghana

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[Assensoh, Akwasi B.]

One day a florist went to a barber for a haircut. 
After the cut, he asked about his bill, and the barber replied, 'I cannot accept money from you, I'm doing community service this week.

The florist was pleased and left the shop. 

When the barber went to open his shop the next morning, there was a 'Thank You' card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door. 

Later, a grocer comes in for a haircut, and when he tried to pay his bill, the barber again replied, 'I cannot accept money from you , I'm doing community service this week.

The grocer was happy and left the shop. 

The next morning when the barber went to open up, there was a 'Thank You' card and a bag of fresh vegetables waiting for him at his door.

Then a politician came in for a haircut, and when he went to pay his bill, the barber again replied, 'I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week.

The politician was very happy and left the shop. 

The next morning, when the barber went to open up, 
there were a dozen politicians lined up (led by the President of the country, with his golden hair) waiting for a free haircut! 

And that, my good friends and mentors, illustrates the fundamental difference between the citizens of our country and the politicians who run it. 

Please, share this for a Veteran's Day weekend comic relief!!

😃😃😂😝😜
​

---

​

[Kwabena Akurang-Parry]

Wow clever categorization of democrats! Donna Brazile is complicit and H & B Clinton "are sophisticated racist/white supremacists and enemies of Black!" 

Professor Kwabena Akurang-Parry, PhD

Director Kwabena Nketia Centre for Africana Studies

African University College of Communications

Adabraka-Accra, Ghana

---

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Sent: November 11, 2017 2:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: OBAMA-NATION-REVISITED: Donna Brazile Sells Out, A Sad Way To End A Career

 

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[kwame zulu shabazz]

Kwabena,

Yes, both parties agree on white power and Black subordination. They only disagree on method. In fact in his last book, "Where do we go from here," Martin Luther King said the white liberal was no better than the KKK. Du Bois put the matter more bluntly:

"The two parties have combined against us to nullify our power by a ‘gentleman's agreement' of non-recognition, no matter how we vote ... May God write us down as asses if ever again we are found putting our trust in either the Republican or the Democratic Parties." -- W.E.B. DuBois (1922)

The GOP sold out Black people way back in 1877 (Tilden-Hayes Compromise) which led directly to nearly 100 years of Jim Crow. So every US president until the 1960s was explicitly anti-black and sanctioned white genocidal racial terror. 

That takes us to the 1960s when Eisenhower authorized the assassination of Lumumba (supported by JFK). Next we have LBJ shutting down the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party (MFDP) a vibrant Black grassroots challenge to the racist white terrorists who controlled the democratic party in Mississippi. 

The Clintons evil acts stretch back to 1980s when Bill Clinton sold out Black people to co-found the DLC. The DLC was behind Bill Clinton's anti-black policies aimed at attracting racist white people--the Omnibus Crime Bill and "welfare reform." Hillary Clinton was a key booster for the racist DLC.

kzs

On Nov 11, 2017 4:59 PM, "Kwabena Akurang-Parry" <kap...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Wow clever categorization of democrats! Donna Brazile is complicit and H & B Clinton "are sophisticated racist/white supremacists and enemies of Black!" 

Professor Kwabena Akurang-Parry, PhD

Director Kwabena Nketia Centre for Africana Studies

African University College of Communications

Adabraka-Accra, Ghana

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of kwame zulu shabazz <kwames...@gmail.com>

Sent: November 11, 2017 2:40 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

[Kwabena Akurang-Parry]

Kwame,

I enjoy the across-the-table- banter! May be you should periodize, nuance, and problematize what you have quoted before you polish them as incontrovertible truths. Some were put out there in 1922 and 1960s. It seems to me that you are saying that nothing has changed in America regarding politics and race, but that to me is a stretch.

Kwabena

Professor Kwabena Akurang-Parry, PhD

Director Kwabena Nketia Centre for Africana Studies

African University College of Communications

Adabraka-Accra, Ghana

---

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[Assensoh, Akwasi B.]

Kwame (Modern-Day Osagyefo):

Thank you very much for the great factual lesson in Black History, which you shared in your very useful post below.

In fact, when I served as Director of Research and Associate Editor for  the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project of Stanford University (which is now a major Research Center on the Palo Alto campus), I had the opportunity to listen to former Stanford Provost Condoleeza (Condi) Rice at a couple of campus forums, including one planned for young but distinguished scholars, just like herself at the time; they mostly spoke about how they made certain choices: she unambiguously but diplomatically made it plain that her membership in the Republican Party was simply choosing to belong to a lesser of two evils in partisan party affiliation, whereby she had more choices (or options) as a talented black woman! Would the Democrats have made her a Secretary of State, or tooted her as a possible U.S. VP candidate? As VC Aluko would say in a matter of fact way: There you have it! 

Of course, thanks to MLK and the legendary Dr. DuBois for their candor. Obviously, they also had closer affinity with/to the Democratic Party for reasons that could be similar to those of former Secretary of State Condi Rice. After all, was it not a Democratic Party President, who introduced the punitive "two strikes, and you are out" rule? Imagine the many young U.S. Blacks, who ended in prisons, with long sentences for drug possession, sentences that President Barack Obama later tried to reduce in a variety of ways!

Did Donna Brazille sell out? As a historian, I say emphatic "No"; she did what every past leader of the party has done with published memoirs, but she was a lot more candid, maybe in order to attract more of what Charles Dickens referred to as "Almighty" Dollar for her published memoirs. Again, there you have it!

A.B. Assensoh.

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[Kwabena Akurang-Parry]

Opanyin AB,

From my considered opinion, I don't think Kwame's explanation is a "factual lesson"? It is just his opinion and ideology, not that both are devoid of lessons! What is a factual lesson - that which can be substantiated with a story and which also fits into opposing frameworks? My point is any Black Democrat can make the same claim  that "her membership in the DEMOCRATIC Party was simply choosing to belong to a lesser of two evils in partisan party affiliation, whereby she had more choices (or options) as a talented black woman." The Democratic Party has more Black women than the Republican Party so what is the logic of choices and options, or is that Black women in the Democratic Party hate options and choices the pave the way for vertical mobility. I have not read Brazile's book and for this reason can't say whether she is a sell out or not. And I think as scholars, we should be careful in stigmatizing dissent or opposing perspectives!

Kwabena

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Assensoh, Akwasi B. <aass...@indiana.edu>
Sent: November 12, 2017 10:07 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: anthony....@gmail.com; Dawn; rig...@yahoo.com; Godwin Ohiwerei; ovau...@bowdoin.edu; afaug...@yahoo.com; Philip Aka; Samuel Zalanga; Ford, T Michael; Afoaku, Osita; Doyin Coker-Kolo

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Kwabena,

The US government is at war with its Black citizens. African Americans have been in a centuries-long genocidal state of emergency. The methods of oppressing Native Americans and African Americans have changed. The methods now are generally less brutal because we the oppressed have constantly resisted white brutality. We continue to resist but the two most oppressed groups in America remain last by most quality of life indicators. In fact, the incarceration rate of Native Americans is higher than the African American race. What has remained constant is that the group who did the oppressing (white people), still control the economic, political, juridical systems.

Also see:

"Have black historians been wrong all along? With American racism and black history, there are no happy endings" by Donald Earl Collins

http://www.aljazeera.com/amp/indepth/opinion/2017/08/black-historians-wrong-170816071925403.html

kzs

On Nov 12, 2017 7:07 AM, "Kwabena Akurang-Parry" <kap...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Kwame,

I enjoy the across-the-table- banter! May be you should periodize, nuance, and problematize what you have quoted before you polish them as incontrovertible truths. Some were put out there in 1922 and 1960s. It seems to me that you are saying that nothing has changed in America regarding politics and race, but that to me is a stretch.

Kwabena

Professor Kwabena Akurang-Parry, PhD

Director Kwabena Nketia Centre for Africana Studies

African University College of Communications

Adabraka-Accra, Ghana

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of kwame zulu shabazz <kwames...@gmail.com>

Sent: November 12, 2017 4:17 AM

[Salimonu Kadiri]

You force me to break my leave from the forum, when you, Kwabena Akurang-Parry, wrote :Some were put out there in 1922 and 1960s. It seems to me that you are saying that nothing has changed in America regarding politics and race, but that to me is a stretch.

In reality, the cumulative result of the political and racial games played between the Blacks and the Whites in 1922 was 1 to 10; in the 1960s, it was 2 to 20; and now it is 8 to 80. Judging from those results, the strength between the Blacks and Whites in political and racial games in America remains the same, in spite of more goals scored by each racial side. Consequently, Kwame will be correct to say nothing has changed in America regarding politics and race, since 1922.

S. Kadiri   
 

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Skickat: den 12 november 2017 13:36
Till: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: OBAMA-NATION-REVISITED: Donna Brazile Sells Out, A Sad Way To End A Career

 

[Kwabena Akurang-Parry]

Kwame.

Thanks for coming to terms with my questions! Yes, times have changed and redefined the genealogies of political ideology and racial politics in America. This is why I asked you not to divorce periodizing, nuancing, and problematizing from your discursive praxes. Of course, no one is saying that America is a paradise of equity and racial equality. And neither has anyone disputed the marginalization of Native Americans and Blacks. In short, radicalism that traumatizes the processes of social change in structuration is bad history.   

Kwabena 

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Sent: November 12, 2017 4:55 PM
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[kwame zulu shabazz]

Brother Salimonu,

Yes, African Americans are in a constant state of emergency.  I call it a slow genocide. Many of our scholars have failed to sound the alarm because they live relatively comfortable lives. Our collective status didn't change much post 1960s because many of the modest gains of the civil rights movement were reversed. One indicator that racism/white supremacy is pushing us backwards is the projection that African Americans are headed towards zero wealth:

"Median wealth of black Americans 'will fall to zero by 2053', warns new report"

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/sep/13/median-wealth-of-black-americans-will-fall-to-zero-by-2053-warns-new-report

"Blacks and Latinos Will Be Broke in a Few Decades"

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2017/09/19/racial-inequality-wealth-gap-america

On Nov 12, 2017 3:33 PM, "Salimonu Kadiri" <ogunl...@hotmail.com> wrote:

You force me to break my leave from the forum, when you, Kwabena Akurang-Parry, wrote :Some were put out there in 1922 and 1960s. It seems to me that you are saying that nothing has changed in America regarding politics and race, but that to me is a stretch.

In reality, the cumulative result of the political and racial games played between the Blacks and the Whites in 1922 was 1 to 10; in the 1960s, it was 2 to 20; and now it is 8 to 80. Judging from those results, the strength between the Blacks and Whites in political and racial games in America remains the same, in spite of more goals scored by each racial side. Consequently, Kwame will be correct to say nothing has changed in America regarding politics and race, since 1922.

S. Kadiri   
 

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Skickat: den 12 november 2017 13:36

Till: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: OBAMA-NATION-REVISITED: Donna Brazile Sells Out, A Sad Way To End A Career

Kwame,

I enjoy the across-the-table- banter! May be you should periodize, nuance, and problematize what you have quoted before you polish them as incontrovertible truths. Some were put out there in 1922 and 1960s. It seems to me that you are saying that nothing has changed in America regarding politics and race, but that to me is a stretch.

Kwabena

Professor Kwabena Akurang-Parry, PhD

Director Kwabena Nketia Centre for Africana Studies

African University College of Communications

Adabraka-Accra, Ghana

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of kwame zulu shabazz <kwames...@gmail.com>

Sent: November 12, 2017 4:17 AM

[Kwabena Akurang-Parry]

Hello,

If my sing-song could kick-start you mind to forgo your precious leave to return to this forum, then I have melody if not choreographed noise! So where did you get those "cumulative result"? I guess they are just opinions like mine as well as those of Kwame. As we say in Akan, when a lion is passing by and overhears a dog barking, the former  just walks away. Let me say Akwaaba (Welcome). Please, don't take another leave. Stay and share your opinions. 

Kwabena

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com>
Sent: November 12, 2017 9:32 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: OBAMA-NATION-REVISITED: Donna Brazile Sells Out, A Sad Way To End A Career

 

[kwame zulu shabazz]

BrotherKwabena,

You wrote, "In short, radicalism that traumatizes the processes of social change in structuration is bad history."

As the young people say, "you got it twisted." The radicalism of King, of Malcolm, of Robeson, of Ida B. Wells, of Fannie Lou Hamer and countless others, known and unknown, have exposed the white liberal fallacy of social progress. Many of those radicals were killed, jailed, tortured, smeared, raped.

kzs

On Nov 12, 2017 4:03 PM, "Kwabena Akurang-Parry" <kap...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Kwame.

Thanks for coming to terms with my questions! Yes, times have changed and redefined the genealogies of political ideology and racial politics in America. This is why I asked you not to divorce periodizing, nuancing, and problematizing from your discursive praxes. Of course, no one is saying that America is a paradise of equity and racial equality. And neither has anyone disputed the marginalization of Native Americans and Blacks. In short, radicalism that traumatizes the processes of social change in structuration is bad history.   

Kwabena 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of kwame zulu shabazz <kwames...@gmail.com>

Sent: November 12, 2017 4:55 PM

[Kwabena Akurang-Parry]

Kwame, 

If you read radicalism to mean ideology then it was a reference to yours and yours only. I have been in the trenches long enough to know that I can't dismiss the works of the scholars you mentioned. I could only interrogate their ideas. Anyway, good night. Sleeping time in Ghana.  

Kwame. 

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of kwame zulu shabazz <kwames...@gmail.com>
Sent: November 12, 2017 10:37 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

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[Samuel Zalanga]

I just came across this discussion that was initiated by Professor Kwame I assume, if my reading is correct. I have no historical repertoire of knowledge like Professor Assensoh and all others but this conversation provoked my thoughts. I share Kwame's concern and I saw the discussion on CNN of Donna Brazile's book. Yes, I felt very uncomfortable with some of the details and it may be that she definitely wanted to make money. I remember Carl Jung saying that much of what we know in this world is about the outside world. We are still trying to understand the complex inner-making of human beings. So her behavior can be interpreted in different ways, as Professor Assensoh indicated.

I am currently in Nigeria serving as a Fulbright Scholar for a year. Prior to the commencement of the fellowship, I completed ten weeks of Carnegie Fellowship in Federal University Gashua, Yobe State  (northeastern Nigeria) and now I am in Southeastern Nigeria. For close to twenty four years now since I left Nigeria, this is the longest time I am staying in the country and it is opening my mind to so many things that I could avoid when I am here for a relatively short time. At least I now realize that many of us in Diaspora probably enjoy distant pontification but have to admit that we did not have the courage to live through the kind of challenges here and understand their complexity and inner workings. For certain reasons, just based on my own experience here, I now have utmost respect for Africans who in spite of all the challenges remain in the continent and doing their best to make a difference. Many of us cannot survive in the environment for months. One fellow Fulbrighter came to one of the Southeastern universities in Nigeria, but in less than a month, packed quietly and returned to the U.S. because she could not cope with the realities on the ground. More about that later.

Regarding the whole discussion about how the Republican and Democratic Party treat black people and using skin color and racism as a framework of analysis, with all sense of humility, I used to think that way but I have jettisoned that mode of analysis in the nursery school of critical social and historical analysis based on honest careful observation. I think there is danger is starting an analysis by looking at "appearances" and end it there. During my graduate school days, I spent an inordinate amount of time on understanding theories of the state in capitalist society and their implications for politics and society. The whole way that Professor Kwame framed the discussion makes me remember the difference between instrumentalist and structuralist schools of Marxist analysis of the state. In particular, the work of Ralph Miliband and Nicos Poulantzas. Miliband tries to understand the state and society by looking at the people managing the state i.e., personalities. By looking at their  social characteristics, presumably, we can arrive at who they are and how they behave while in office in terms of decision making and policies. Poulantzas on the other hand said no, that is a wrong way to understand the capitalist state. For him, we should start by understanding the structure of society and how that produces certain institutions and the kind of people that manage the offices and  the constraints and opportunities  that they face. He would not reduce the decision of state officers to simple whimsical choice or voluntarism of the personalities managing state offices. It is for this reason that he developed the concept of "relative autonomy of the capitalist state" which allows him to account for concessions made by the state in capitalist society to either oppressed or minority groups, even when such concessions may on the surface appear against the desires of the ruling classes.

I have taught social equality, urbanization and a course titled "peoples and cultures of the United States." I have contributed a lot financially to President Obama's first election. They even sent me an invitation card to attend his official inauguration. I was however never never misled even as at that time, given what I knew of  the American state, society and history through teaching, that the appearance of a "Black Political Messiah" in office known as Obama will solve the problem of Blacks, minorities or the working classes. To think so in my view, is to fail to appreciate the structure and process of Americans society historically. The U.S. President in theory is powerful but in practice he is not as powerful as the president of other countries. Take for instance the question of infrastructure. China is increasingly having better infrastructure than the U.S. They have an authoritarian government and therefore once they are convinced about something, they can proceed to implement it quickly while in the U.S., the presumably high educated, richest and democratic country, a necessarily needed project or problem that will cost say three million dollars initially, will be debated and for partisan reasons governed by the short term desire for reelection and other concerns, they will delay the project until it costs 100 million dollars.

Anyone who assumed that the mere emergence of a particular individual in a political office will solve the race problem, ignoring the history, state and structure of U.S. society I believe has not gone deep enough in his or her analysis. Whatever the oppression that Blacks face in the U.S. and other parts of the world, when one checks the history of Western societies from the time of Ancient Greeks to the French Revolution and beyond, he or she would find situations where white people equally oppressed or treated fellow whites like trash. As discussed in the Melian Dialogue by Thucydides, it is about power. And when some of power and others do not have it, I do not care what race or region of the world we are talking about, I will say expect some landmines. It is not about the skin color per se. Using skin color to exploit or oppress others, is just one particular moment or expression of power and domination. Unless there is a hidden dimension of the foundation of that white supremacy, the oppression cannot survive long. If you are white in some parts of Appalachia and you are fifty or more years but literate, how far can you sustain your sense of white supremacy in an information or knowledge economy. We need to move generalizations to understand the complex inner workings of exploitation and oppression over time. 

There are several ways to put my arguments into empirical test. First, there was a time I reviewed a documentary film on "China Towns" in the U.S. I was amazed at how some Chinese terribly oppress other Chinese. The older immigrants terribly exploit the new immigrants. If it were not because of U.S. laws, it would have been even worse. The mere fact that they were both Chinese did not prevent one group of Chinese from "thingifying" other Chinese but using them as means to their ends and not as people who have ends of their own.  

Second, if one checks the history of the Black community in the United States, and this is a sensitive issue because often people do not want to go there, we will see how within the Black community many Black leaders take advantage of poorer Blacks and use them as a stepping stone to acquire wealth by serving as "brokers" between the Black and White community. On the surface such Black leaders are serving as voice to the Black community, but deep down, they have become bourgeosified and are using their positions to take advantage of other Blacks or minorities.j They have internalized the "ideals" of bourgeois society. Indeed, back in the U.S. in my office, I have a documentary on a time when some Black people in America had their own Black slaves. If the problem of one human being oppressing the other is a mere question of skin color, those free slaves would not get into the slave business of getting their own black slaves to cultivate their own lands because they also want to acquire wealth. Forget about Christianity and all that. It all depends on how people interpret the Bible. Martin Luther was not supported by all Black Churches if even all Blacks at that time were denied civil rights. Many of the pastors would rather have Martin Luther King Jr. keep quiet so that they can enjoy the status quo. It was the courageous ones that supported him. The question then is, why did these Black people feel comfortable with the system even if they knew it was oppressive.

Then now I am in Nigeria, and Africa. Across Africa, one cannot look with all honesty and ignore how fellow Black leaders have treated their citizens like trash. I have some documentary films I purchased in Nairobi on how Kenya got into the elections violence of years back. It is amazing to see how African elites can treat ordinary citizens.  If African elites fought against white colonial rule, there is a fundamental difference between the generation of Nkrumah, Cabral, Samora Machel, Mandela etc. with the current generation of African leaders. Even pan-Africanism today has metamorphosed into neoliberal pan-Africanism. The people of Africa want African Americans to come to Africa, but when you search deeply what the purpose for such invitation is, is that they just want the money they will make from tourism or the investment brought by African Americans. Try to come and settle in an African country as an African American and in the name of Pan-Africanism try to pursue a political leadership program. A person can be qualified but at that juncture he or she will see that having the same skin color is not enough. 

The point I am making is a reality when you are here on the ground. If skin color per se was the issue, these leaders in Africa, will be the most compassionate to fellow citizens. Some of them are from lowly backgrounds.Just think of what Robert Mugabe is doing. How can I identify with such a person in the name of having the same skin color with me. I am sorry, I cannot. There is a documentary I reviewed where when Mugabe tried to use the land issue to cover his failures and make Blacks fight whites, a white man left his mansion for the laborers to occupy. He went and built a round house with no iron doors and said this is where he was born and he will die in Africa; Mugabe can take the land. The Blacks got the land but which group of Blacks got it (cronies) and what did they accomplish with it to promote inclusive development so as to morally justify the takeover? Mugabe is an embarrassment to Black leadership. We cannot cover it by using skin color.

My interest was drawn to a statement by one of the progressive gubernatorial candidates in Anambra State of Southeastern Nigeria, where an election will be held this coming Saturday. He said that when he wins the election he will grant citizenship to all persons who establish residency in the state and pay taxes according to state law. Remember that he is saying that to refer to other Nigerians. This is an acknowledgement of "social exclusion." I am welcomed in Nnamdi Azikiwe University but as someone whose hometown is Bauchi and Yobe, I cannot ever get a teaching position here if I was looking for one, just as it would be difficult for an Igbo person to get one in another part of Nigeria. I will never get a teaching position even in Bauchi State of Nigeria where I was born because I am an infidel. This is the reality on the ground. 57 years after independence, you are treated as refugee. And there are Muslims who will never get teaching position in some Middle Belt region Universities  of Nigeria because they are  perceived and treated like "heathen, gentiles, people living in darkness and lost." Is this the way that the Black race will build a continent, civilization or their nation. If Whites have oppressed Black people and may continue do so in sophisticated ways, but how long is it going to take us to understand that dong the same thing they did to us to our own people, or even worse, does not give us the moral grounds and authority to condemn them?

I am here on the ground and believe I have no reason to believe that simply because I meet an African in power who is Black like me, just because he or she is not white, he or she will treat me as a human being with full dignity. Some will do that and I have encountered such people, but they are very few. If they are many, how can one justify the suffering of the people in the continent when elites are lavishing in luxury?  For those who are not familiar, the category of mediation that informs the discourse of many Nigerians is ethnicity, religion, gender, region. I grew up in Bauchi and my father is from a state called Yobe but God forbid for me to think in terms of  the conceptual cocoon that this is my identity and that is all. No, the human is the starting point for me. What does it mean to be human and what do I owe my fellow human being? Staring with such a framework allows me to engage different human beings from different cultures.  I will never allow myself to back to the prison of thinking in the exclusive category of my ethnicity of birth.

I had an extensive discussion with the Fulbrighter that came to a Southeastern university in Nigeria and quietly escaped because of the disrespectful way she was treated. She quietly left the country through Enugu airport, to Abuja, Addis Ababa, Dublin and then Los Angeles. She is committed to Black history and identity etc. But now she could not get along with her fellow Blacks in Africa and even the same gender. I told her that these things are so complicated. There are individual whites who even though white have demonstrated more sincere commitment to  the dignity of Black people than some Black people. And when you add to this the horror stories of the tension between African immigrant students with some African American students in some public schools in the United States, you wonder why they cannot get alone given that they are all Blacks. I am not blaming one side by any means but I am overwhelmed by the phenomenon. My daughter did a radio documentary on this issue which was aired on Minnesota Public Radio and she received a national award for that. She was wrestling with the issue of having most of her friends being White. I once asked my children why the great majority of their friends in school are Whites. They told me that it was easier for them to get along with the White students, but it was not that they hated African Americans. What I understood form the conversation for what it was is that it is about lack of mutual respect. I am interested in that because my friend of over 23 years in the U.S. is an African American. We were roommates in the University of Minnesota and he wrote  me while in Nigeria to ask that he wants us to be roommates when I arrive the United States, which I consider to be a great honor. It was through him I became specially interested in the struggle of the African American community early. Steve and myself can sit down and talk freely. It is always easy for me to visit him for vacation and we can remember our time together.

To conclude, this whole discussion reminds me of Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program.Some scholars equate: “The Critique of the Program” with “The Critique of the Golgotha Program” because of certain similarities. Just as some Christians assume that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ immediately resolves all problems because of the power of the Holy Spirit, similarly some people see the revolution by the oppressed or theappearance of certain personalities in power as immediately and automatically resolving all problems, as some assume the appearance of Obama alone will change things; or as in Nigeria, the emergence of someone called "President Buhari" will totally eliminate corruption even if he claimed. This suggests a lack of understanding the structure and process of the workings of society. Corruption in Africa is perpetuated because of personal rule and patron-client relationship and this has become virtually institutionalized. People expect to get things only when their person is in office. You cannot quickly change this state of mind, when most of the ordinary people standstill expecting a miracle. Many underestimate the deeply rooted nature of Africa's problems and are because of gullibility easily persuaded that because a person uses progressive language as inthe critique of the Gotha program, such a person should be trusted that he or she will literally solve the problem. 

 Do not expect the appearance of just some people at the top to automatically solve our problems. As Thomas Piketty argues in his book "Capital in the 21st Century" there is nothing inherently in capitalism that says it should care about human dignity or equality etc. When African leaders quietly embrace capitalism or when minority leaders in the U.S. embrace it and remain agnostic about its internal contradictions, do not expect a miracle please.  It is progressive social movements that brought about the relative sense of justice that is perceived to exist in Western societies. Without the women's struggle, without the civil rights struggle, without workers' struggle, without the struggle against apartheid by socialmovements (see: Have You Heard From Johannesburg'), there will not have been the social structural changes and institutions that we take for granted.  But today, capitalism has succeeded in subverting that. Whether it is here in Africa or the U.S. most people are more concerned about getting ahead, unlike as in the 1960s where people are struggling for civil repair in the structure of society. And when you add to that Herbert Marcuse's concept of the "Culture Industry" where the mass media promotes the unlimited expression of sexual desire and romantic love as the ultimate goal of life, the minds of many young people or even adults is consumed by that and so only a small percentage of the population have the desire to invest in social struggles aimed at civil repair and socially transforming society, which I believe is what Professor Kwame is  genuinely concerned about. 

For example, one day I went to one African American barber shop and heard people having conversation about the struggles in the U.S.. There was one person at the margins but the great majority were justifying if you have the opportunity to accumulate then pursue and make your own "utopia." I intervened in the conversation and they were shocked to realize that I could cite example to them that the little rights that they have today, were made possible by Black leaders who saw beyond personal self aggrandizement. When one hears Martin Luther King Jr. saying that he can see the promised land but he is not going to be there with the people, this is a person consumed by the struggle. Martin Luther had the options of cooperating with the system to live a comfortable life as an individual. I always tell people that without the struggle of the civil rights movement I will not have enjoyed some of my rights today in the U.S. I do not believe that people will go to church and pray and then come down from the mountain as Moses did in the past  and say God gave them a revelation to give Black people like me more rights or dignity. It is struggle. Even here in Africa, merely critiquing the West or those in power, irrespective the erudite nature of such critique, without trying to understand the complexity of structure and process of African societies run by fellow Black people and how to transform it, there will be little progress. Frankly, looking at my age and Nigerian society, but also the situation in many African societies, I am tired of seeing elites immaculately dressed or preachers speaking with divine authority. I have seen and heard many of such since I was young as the son of an evangelist but in my eyes, all such talks have produced nothing impressive. I am amaze at how some people are still gullible enough to take those politicians or preachers seriously. If something has been there for fifty or more years and it has not created the kind of positive transformation promised, what new thing is going to reorient or reignite the system if there are no broad-based progressive social movements. Religion has expanded and flourished at the very moment when the moral and ethical fiber of African societies have weakened, amidst a situation where there are no already well -establishedinstitutions.  We will have economic growth and all those kinds of things in Africa but the benefits will only go to a small percentage of the persons.

I understand all the oppression of white racism and Western society, but it is not about skin color. I have seen oppression here, in my country of birth Nigeria locally, but it is not white people that are operating. I have seen oppression in my state of birth, fifty more years after independence. Just this Sunday, someone gave me a ride to church and he was castigating the north of Nigeria as taking everything and hating Igbos. This for him is why he supports IPOB and why the road from the Southeast to the North is bad. This is so in spite of President Jonathan being in power. My driver to the church was speaking with a lot of energy about the North. It did not look we were going to church to experience the love of Jesus.  I told him that if IPOB  (Ingenious people of Biafra) was for justice as were the Zapatistas, I can join them but what they are talking about is on blood ancestry and not the universal language of justice. But I warned him, and he was caught unawares, that when I did my NYSC in Imo states decade ago when he was just a baby, and they organized a farewell for us in Aboh  Mbaise Local Government Headquarters, where I served in the social welfare office, I told the people in the gathering my piece of mind when they told us that we are agents of national unity in Nigeria given that most of us came from the northern part of the country. When it was my time to speak, I told them that this may not be true. It may not be true because during my stay with them, I learned about a saying that: If an Mbaise man and a snake are coming to your house, leave the snake and attack the Mbaise man.  I was in my twenties then but I now feel proud of my courage then to tell the officials of the local government that such a statement is dehumanizing and I do not have to be an Mbaise man to understand even as a young person that there was something wrong in such a statement. So I told the person taking me to church that this statement was not said by Sokoto people or Hausa people in Northern Nigeria against Igbo people. It is Igbo people saying it against fellow Igbo people in the same state. He was shocked and I noticed he feltembarrassed because what I said was not false. During my stay here, I now truly believe that there is oppression with all Nigerian ethnic groups and within all religious groups. Religion and ethnicity are essentially used as labor market strategies. Initially the struggle is between one religion, region or ethnic group against the other. But then once that is taken care of, within the religion, region or ethnic group, the strong oppress the weak. Let me warn all Nigerians that given the problems you have in that country, even if every family is given a local government or a state of its own, with the current mindset, where justice and fairness are not taken seriously, some will exploit some. My driver here told me about situations even members of one family disagree based on the struggle for accumulating limited resources. You will find these problems in every region of country. We must not forget what Goran Hyden said,  "No Shortcuts to Progress: African Development Management in Perspective."

The National assembly in Nigeria has wardrobe and hardship allowance. But I see women sweeping the road when I go to the university to teach here and I ask, do these women not deserve better to be paid hardship allowance? Just as there are whites who think they are superior to Blacks, there are Black ethnic groups across Africa who see themselves as superior to other fellow citizens whose ethnic groups is different. Let us be honest about this. I remember reading from Professor Ochonu's book "Colonialism by Proxy" where one African traditional ruler on tour with a British colonial official in one part of Nigeria, said to the colonial official when he saw the indigenous people coming out of their communities to attend meeting with the colonial official accompanied by a traditional official, the traditional official said in Hausa "Ga Shanun mu suna zuwa" translation --- There are our cattle coming.  According to Ochonu's account, the colonial officer wrote of his disappointment given that they thought they came to civilize Africa, as Kipling, said, "The White man's burden." But the traditional ruler was not sharing that colonial vision, whatever its authenticity. I have no reason to believe that simply because someone is black if he or she has power, he or she automatically cannot oppress another person who is also black. There are examples all over the world. Many Nigerian ethnic groups in the U.S. do not get along with each other. They just reproduce their fear of each other in Africa in the U.S. If any ethnic group across Africa can claim inherent superiority over other ethnic groups, that framework of reasoning to justify such belief could be used by White supremacist to justify their superiority over other races. All one needs is to logic of reasoning informing the framework of reasoning and develop his or her own justification. Of course this will be moral and ethical duplicity. 

If Africans do not get their acts together and struggle against the ruling classes, we should not expect these corrupt elites will transform Africa in the interest of the common person. So also, we should never expect that we will wake up and because someone is in office, the appearance of such a political Messiah will transform the condition of Blacks or minorities in the U.S. In fact many minority elites have sold out their consciences. They have been co opted. Even in religion, people fear the god of the market than the Abrahamic God because for the god of hte market, justice and penalty is immediate and certain. Many minority elites have become bourgeosified but they think just distant criticism can solve the problem. I remember when Bill Maher, one of the talk show hosts in the U.S. made this statement, he received negative reaction but I see something similar happening in Africa now. Maher made the point that the terrorist were more courageous than Americans. America fire missiles from far away expecting to make impact or damage to the enemy or the target (i.e., problem). But the terrorist just make up their mind and go right up to the target and explode their bomb. People in the U.S. were angry for him saying that. Having been here for sometime, I sometimes contemplate on in my hotel room whether, we African scholars in diaspora approach Africa's monumental problems the way America fire missiles and drones from a distance hoping to make impact on the target. Can we really transform Africa this way. I will continue to ponder on this but my stay here is a truly a deeply reflective one for me. The culture industry has persuaded them them to see the struggle to personally get ahead to pursue the American Dream as the key thing, and not the struggle for broad social repair or transformation of society. 

Like Fanon, who abandoned his practice of psychiatry in a hospital in Algeria to join the struggle to transform the  social and political environment and institutions that consistently cause the patients to develop mental health problems after they are cured in the hospital, I feel now that if there was a truly progressive movement, doing that is far better than just engaging in distant pontification. But I understand how this is an existential conundrum given that we have limited time to live and the way things are in many African countries is that you can dedicate your life to fight for justice and die for it, but there is little legacy built on you. See how Mandela stood firm during his trial and see how some Black Africans forgot about all the ideals he stood for. It is truly humbling and painful to see the conditions of fellow Africans after being independent for more than five decades. 

My lamentation from the social margins of Africa of the 21st century.

Samuel

Samuel Zalanga, Ph.D.

Bethel University

Department of Anthropology, Sociology and Reconciliation Studies,

Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive, #24, Saint Paul, MN 55112.

Office Phone: 651-638-6023

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Samuel Zalanga:

Wow! I have just finished reading your piece below, and I must tell you that I had some of the same experience as you expressed or saw below:

(1)  When I finished my NYSC at Aba in 1971, I was asked to give a speech at the local Rotary Club about my experience and prospects for Nigerian unity.  I gave them a piece of my mind, that despite all appearances, national unity was not a given.  I faced a little "anti-Yoruba" push-back in the Tennis Club that I frequented, and also saw some intra-Igbo ribbings when they would epitheticially describe each other in what I guess was some form of "amanjakiri".

(2)  I finished five years of Vice-Chancellorship in Ijaw-land twenty months ago, and despite the fact that my mother is Ijaw, my YORUBA "father-origin" still painted me as an OUTSIDER, and ANY Yoruba that got appointed was considered as if I was showing favoritism.

For example, the local National Union of Journalist visited me in 2013 and commended what was going on:

 July 2013:    http://www.fuotuoke.edu.ng/news/2013-07/nigeria-union-journalists-visits-fuotuoke-commends-management

However, when some time later, I did not appoint one of them as the University PRO - but a Niger-Deltan - I got their ire:

April 2014:   http://newsexpressngr.com/news/detail.php?news=7639&title=More-trouble-for-Mobolaji-Aluko-as-NUJ-alleges-irregularities-at-Otuoke-varsity-demands-probe

Haba!

   

  September 2014:   https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/more-news/167740-otuoke-community-shuts-down-federal-university-over-employment-admission.html

  Jume 2015:   http://globalpatriotnews.com/sack-prof-mobolaji-aluko-as-vice-chancellor-angry-otuoke-women-ask-nuc-threaten-to-protest-naked/

  July 2015:   https://guardian.ng/news/bayelsa-youths-protest-marginalisation-at-federal-university-otuoke/

and in my last few days as VC:

  February 2016:   http://newsherald.com.ng/2016/02/vice-chancellor-of-federal-university-otuoke-held-hostage-by-workers/

Interesting, my country Nigeria, I knew thee not until I lived among you for seven years now!  So when you write that:

QUOTE

At least I now realize that many of us in Diaspora probably enjoy distant pontification but have to admit that we did not have the courage to live through the kind of challenges here and understand their complexity and inner workings. For certain reasons, just based on my own experience here, I now have utmost respect for Africans who in spite of all the challenges remain in the continent and doing their best to make a difference. Many of us cannot survive in the environment for months. One fellow Fulbrighter came to one of the Southeastern universities in Nigeria, but in less than a month, packed quietly and returned to the U.S. because she could not cope with the realities on the ground. More about that later.

UNQUOTE

And there you have it!

Bolaji Aluko

Shaking his head