Churches should pay reparations for complicity (Christianity Today)
Gloria Emeagwali
Gloria Emeagwali
https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2020/06/11/african-american-reparation-bill-passes-california-assembly/
Biko Agozino
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit
Cornelius Hamelberg
--
Gloria Emeagwali
On Jun 13, 2020, at 10:30 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAC50OP_mxpOrBLnzBpRByszU-Fzp_%2B4YbOibF%3DGH-7NW6X%2BcpQ%40mail.gmail.com.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Gloria in Excelsis Emeagwali,
Am I “for or against?”
How could you ever ask me such a question?
I expect you to be at the forefront of reparations. If you’re not, then I don’t love you no more.
I know who I am and where I stand in the struggle.
It says so in my birth certificate: Nationality of Father (Theodore Joseph Hamelberg):
British West Indian.
As soon as I can access my blog, I will make who I am and where I stand in the struggle abundantly clear in my very next blog entry, so that nobody will start asking me some dumbass questions.
About culpability, there’s also this aspect to it – but this is something that’s been thoroughly investigated and the cards on the table: In the United States less than 1% of slave owners were Jews. OK, less than 1% too many….
I visited Elmina Castle several times in 1970 -1971. Early in March 1971, when the US artist that participated in the Soul to Soul Concert and were shown the dungeons where fellow Africans were shackled, awaiting shipment to “ the New World” and were made to understand that the floorboards immediately above the dungeon/ slave quarters were, in fact, the floor of the chapel above, some of them started to weep, profusely.
I’m talking about Wilson Pickett, Ike & Tina Turner, Les McCann and Eddie Harris, the Staple Singers, Santana, Willie Bobo, Roberta Flack, the Voices of East Harlem, and their musical crew on a guided tour of Elmina Castle…
If the Jews are still seeking reparations and every manner of compensation for what the Nazi and Nazism did to the Jews, then in like manner when the so-called Church ( the body of Christ) deviates from the Sermon on the Mount, incarnates as the church of enslavement or as St. Paul puts it, becomes “ the synagogue of Satan” - and please take note that Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan was only taking up from St. Paul when talking about the so-called “synagogue of Satan” ( so why accuse Louis and not Paul, the church’s greatest theologian?)
Well, don’t accuse me of the opposite of anti-Semitism when I say that when the Church that was supposed to follow Jesus but instead became the Nazi church by espousing and putting into practise the doctrines of Nazism, then that church’s victims and the descendants of that Church’s victims – those who survived and those who perished from the first cargo of the Jesus of Lubeck to the latest atrocity, the US police murder squad shooting Rayshard Brooks in the back as he ran away from them in Atlanta, Georgia they too have to be brought to justice and to be duly compensated. That’s a moral obligation.
It could have even happened to a Muslim like Farooq Kperogi or any one of us who, globally speaking lives in that neighbourhood locality, so he too had better watch out - the heavily armed US law enforcement doesn’t like big grammar in their neck of the woods, they want to see your driving licence, not to listen in about your magna cum laude from Oxford or Buckingham Palace and as things are, it looks like they love niggers from Nigeria or any of Trump’s other shithole countries even less, after all there are no special marks of distinction in the US when you are merely an international African – like Louis Gates jr - who has also had his brush with US law enforcement - got arrested, mistaken for a burglar, when putting the key to his own front door in his posh neighbourhood in genteel suburbia’s Cambridge, Massachusetts.
About who I am?
Derek Walcott ( great poet) summarised it twice, in A Far Cry from Africa and even more succinctly in The Schooner Flight :
“I’m just a red nigger who love the sea,
I had a sound colonial education,
I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me,
and either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation”
Of course, I answer that question a little differently. Wait and see.
Let’s see how the Racism debate at the UN goes. Hopefully, that will ignite some more demonstrations. I wish that you, Oga Falola, Ayo Olukotun, Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani), Biko, Jibrin Ibrahim, Tunde Bewaji, could be there are participants, not just observers. Let’s see if Trump will dare to challenge the legitimacy of their recommendations ( shithole countries)
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/F4E81DB3-91C1-424A-A5FB-273E0EC600EC%40gmail.com.
Cornelius Hamelberg
A-mended! Too many mistakes earlier, I have now read this over ( once)
Gloria in excelsis Emeagwali,
Am I “for or against?”
How could you ever ask me such a question?
I expect you to be at the forefront of reparations. If you’re not, then I don’t love you no more.
I know who I am and where I stand in the struggle.
It says so in my birth certificate: Nationality of Father (Theodore Joseph Hamelberg):
British West Indian.
As soon as I can access my blog ( I am having some difficulties doing so), I will then be making who I am and where I stand in the struggle abundantly clear in my very next blog entry, so that nobody will start asking me some dumbass questions.
About culpability, there’s also this aspect to it – but this is something that’s been thoroughly investigated and all the cards are on the table : In the United States less than 1% of slave owners were Jews.
OK, less than 1% too many….
I visited Elmina Castle several times in 1970 - 1971, I have/had some relatives in Takoradi. Early in March 1971 when the US artists that participated in the Soul to Soul Concert were shown the dungeons where our fellow African men, women and children were shackled awaiting shipment ( deportation) to “ the New World” and our US-based brothers and sisters were made to understand that the floorboards immediately above the dungeon/ slave quarters were in fact the floor of the chapel above, at that point some of them started to weep, profusely.
I’m talking about Wilson Pickett, Ike & Tina Turner, Les McCann and Eddie Harris, the Staple Singers, Santana, Willie Bobo, Roberta Flack, the Voices of East Harlem, and their musical crew about a hundred and fifty people altogether on a guided tour of Elmina Castle…
If the Jews are still seeking reparations and every manner of compensation for what the Nazi and Nazism did to the Jews, then in like manner, it should be expected that the victims of US slavery should be compensated too, when the so Church ( the so-called body of Christ) deviates from the Sermon on the Mount, incarnates as the devil’s church of enslavement or as St. Paul puts it, becomes “the synagogue of Satan” - and please take not that Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan was only taking up from where St. Paul left off when talking about the so-called “synagogue of Satan”. So, why accuse the Hon Minister Louis Farrakhan and not St. Paul, Saul of Tarsus, the church’s first and greatest theologian?
Well, don’t accuse me of the opposite of anti-Semitism when I say that when the Church that was supposed to follow Jesus but instead became the Nazi church by espousing and putting into practise the doctrines of Nazism, then that church’s victims and the descendants of that Church’s victims – those who survived and those who perished from the first cargo of the Jesus of Lubeck to the latest atrocity, the US police murder squad shooting Rayshard Brooks in the back as he ran away from them in Atlanta, Georgia should also, be compensated and that those perpetrators and traitors to Jesus have to be brought to justice and their victims have to be duly compensated. That’s a moral obligation. As Cornel West has said time and again, that’s justice.
What happened to many a Rayshard Brooks could have even happened to a Muslim like Farooq Kperogi or any one of us who globally speaking lives in that neighbourhood/ locality, so he too and people like him, like you and me had better watch out - the heavily armed US law enforcement doesn’t like big grammar in their neck of the woods, they want to see your driving licence, not to listen in about your magna cum laude from Oxford or Buckingham Palace about which they are not going to be terribly impressed - if anything that would only increase their hostility, their hatred and their propensity to violence (the nigger thinks that he is better than us, he thinks that we are trash, that he is superior to us ) and as things are, it looks like they love niggers from Nigeria or any of Trump’s other shithole countries even less than they love their boss and leader, commander-in-chief, President Donald J Trump, after all, there are no special marks of distinction in the US when you are not merely an international African like Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, George Jackson, Rodney King, and in their eyes, everybody else is no different from Louis Gates jr - who has also had his brush with US law enforcement, since he too got arrested, mistaken for a burglar, when putting his key into the keyhole to his own front door in his posh neighbourhood in genteel suburbia’s Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mis-taken for a black burglar in the white suburbia neighbourhood ( like me going home in my first weeks in Sweden, home at Strandvägen 57, Stockholm, entering the lift somebody ( another inmate of the house) asked me, “Do you know anybody who lives here?” – this was in October 1971, “ Yes”, I answered.
“Who?” he pressed on.
“Me,” I told him. He did not say anything more.
I should have added “muthafukkker”.
Back then I was very much Black Power, no-nonsense, fully charged, fresh from Ghana.
About who I am?
Derek Walcott ( great poet) summarised it twice, in A Far Cry from Africa and even more succinctly in The Schooner Flight :
“I’m just a red nigger who love the sea,
I had a sound colonial education,
I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me,
and either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation”
Of course, I answer that question a little differently. Wait and see.
Let’s see how the Racism debate at the UN goes. Hopefully, that will ignite some more demonstrations. I wish that you, Oga Falola, Ayo Olukotun, Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani), Biko, Jibrin Ibrahim, Tunde Bewaji, Segun Ogungbemi could be there as participants, not just observers.
Gloria Emeagwali
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAC50OP8xSCpW4YyX7GUwMSaUW%2BwJKWOZ_-U5v-TPYouUC6oT3g%40mail.gmail.com.
Cornelius Hamelberg
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAMkN8ar-iJUYiiddtJewbgG%3DE0Wp%3DKPY2cHrA7QLdBr2pyC%2BSQ%40mail.gmail.com.
OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (hamelberg...@gmail.com)
Add cleanup rule |
More info A-mended! Too many mistakes earlier, I have now read this over ( once)
Gloria in excelsis Emeagwali,
Am I “for or against?”
How could you ever ask me such a question?
I expect you to be at the forefront of reparations. If you’re not, then I don’t love you no more.
I know who I am and where I stand in the struggle.
It says so in my birth certificate: Nationality of Father (Theodore Joseph Hamelberg):
British West Indian.
As soon as I can access my blog ( I am having some difficulties doing so), I will then be making who I am and where I stand in the struggle abundantly clear in my very next blog entry, so that nobody will start asking me some dumbass questions.
About culpability, there’s also this aspect to it – but this is something that’s been thoroughly investigated and all the cards are on the table : In the United States less than 1% of slave owners were Jews.
OK, less than 1% too many….
I visited Elmina Castle several times in 1970 - 1971, I have/had some relatives in Takoradi. Early in March 1971 when the US artists that participated in the Soul to Soul Concert were shown the dungeons where our fellow African men, women and children were shackled awaiting shipment ( deportation) to “ the New World” and our US-based brothers and sisters were made to understand that the floorboards immediately above the dungeon/ slave quarters were in fact the floor of the chapel above, at that point some of them started to weep, profusely.
I’m talking about Wilson Pickett, Ike & Tina Turner, Les McCann and Eddie Harris, the Staple Singers, Santana, Willie Bobo, Roberta Flack, the Voices of East Harlem, and their musical crew about a hundred and fifty people altogether on a guided tour of Elmina Castle…
If the Jews are still seeking reparations and every manner of compensation for what the Nazi and Nazism did to the Jews, then in like manner, it should be expected that the victims of US slavery should be compensated too, when the so Church ( the so-called body of Christ) deviates from the Sermon on the Mount, incarnates as the devil’s church of enslavement or as St. Paul puts it, becomes “the synagogue of Satan” - and please take not that Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan was only taking up from where St. Paul left off when talking about the so-called “synagogue of Satan”. So, why accuse the Hon Minister Louis Farrakhan and not St. Paul, Saul of Tarsus, the church’s first and greatest theologian?
Well, don’t accuse me of the opposite of anti-Semitism when I say that when the Church that was supposed to follow Jesus but instead became the Nazi church by espousing and putting into practise the doctrines of Nazism, then that church’s victims and the descendants of that Church’s victims – those who survived and those who perished from the first cargo of the Jesus of Lubeck to the latest atrocity, the US police murder squad shooting Rayshard Brooks in the back as he ran away from them in Atlanta, Georgia should also, be compensated and that those perpetrators and traitors to Jesus have to be brought to justice and their victims have to be duly compensated. That’s a moral obligation. As Cornel West has said time and again, that’s justice.
What happened to many a Rayshard Brooks could have even happened to a Muslim like Farooq Kperogi or any one of us who globally speaking lives in that neighbourhood/ locality, so he too and people like him, like you and me had better watch out - the heavily armed US law enforcement doesn’t like big grammar in their neck of the woods, they want to see your driving licence, not to listen in about your magna cum laude from Oxford or Buckingham Palace about which they are not going to be terribly impressed - if anything that would only increase their hostility, their hatred and their propensity to violence (the nigger thinks that he is better than us, he thinks that we are trash, that he is superior to us ) and as things are, it looks like they love niggers from Nigeria or any of Trump’s other shithole countries even less than they love their boss and leader, commander-in-chief, President Donald J Trump, after all, there are no special marks of distinction in the US when you are not merely an international African like Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, George Jackson, Rodney King, and in their eyes, everybody else is no different from Louis Gates jr - who has also had his brush with US law enforcement, since he too got arrested, mistaken for a burglar, when putting his key into the keyhole to his own front door in his posh neighbourhood in genteel suburbia’s Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mis-taken for a black burglar in the white suburbia neighbourhood ( like me going home in my first weeks in Sweden, home at Strandvägen 57, Stockholm, entering the lift somebody ( another inmate of the house) asked me, “Do you know anybody who lives here?” – this was in October 1971, “ Yes”, I answered.
“Who?” he pressed on.
“Me,” I told him. He did not say anything more.
I should have added “muthafukkker”.
Back then I was very much Black Power, no-nonsense, fully charged, fresh from Ghana.
About who I am?
Derek Walcott ( great poet) summarised it twice, in A Far Cry from Africa and even more succinctly in The Schooner Flight :
“I’m just a red nigger who love the sea,
I had a sound colonial education,
I have Dutch, nigger, and English in me,
and either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation”
Of course, I answer that question a little differently. Wait and see.
Let’s see how the Racism debate at the UN goes. Hopefully, that will ignite some more demonstrations. I wish that you, Oga Falola, Ayo Olukotun, Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani), Biko, Jibrin Ibrahim, Tunde Bewaji, Segun Ogungbemi could be there as participants, not just observers.
Let’s see if Trump will dare to challenge the legitimacy of their recommendations ( shithole countries)
Elias K. Bongmba
Amen OAA and thank you.
In the eschatological discourse in the New Testament, Jesus said
that final destinations to hell or heaven will be based on what
one has done to the "least" of these my brothers and sisters. I
should add that Africans are not the "least" of humankind despite
the legacy of colonial racism and postcolonial maleficence, but
all the same that language by Jesus should be scrutinized in the
light of human history.
Elias Bongmba
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB2982276273F208F3BC604871A69F0%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Lord Agbetuyi,
Having just read Adekeye Adebajo’s iconoclastic piece “Requiem for the Monuments Men” in which he justifies the several demolitions ( all kinds) and not unexpectedly, he celebrates “ the removal of the statue of arch-imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, from the University of Cape Town campus in 2015” – not unexpectedly, in fact understandably too, since he’s writing from South Africa where his bread is being buttered, and he is writing not only as a committed Pan- Africanist but also as “ Director of the University of Johannesburg’s Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation in South Africa”, which means that some of his words ought to survive beyond this blip moment and be transmitted to posterity…
“Statues made of matchsticks
Crumble into one another” -
Statues, painted idols made of mere clay and metal or even Swedish steel are also easily demolished. We all saw how both Saddam and his statue were toppled – the Shia and the Kurds and George Bush were overjoyed and said, “Good riddance !” It was payback time for the latter - Saddam had tried to kill baby Bush’s father, but it’s much more difficult when it comes to demolishing ideas and ideologies, religious dogmas and doctrines - easily down with an effigy of Karl Marx but infinitely more of an uphill task when it comes to demolishing the ideology or philosophy known as Marxism, even if your name is David McLellan. The Romans easily terminated Jesus on the Cross, but who can kill Christianity? Long live Confucius!
So, I am left - not spellbound but thinking – wishfully thinking that if only we could demolish some of the arguments presented by those who do not feel morally obligated to pay for the sins committed by their ancestors.
How do we narrow down the definition of Church to those directly responsible and those who must pay the reparations in tune with, “as you sow so must you reap”?
It’s such as abstract theological notion, the Church made flesh as “the body of Christ “when the church has been fragmented into so many denominations! So, who should Pay?
Donald Trump?
Pope Francis has said that Trump “is not Christian”
So, who should pay?
T. B. Joshua? In fact, shouldn’t they (Adeboye & Joshua) also be agitating for reparations on our behalf or are they still only preaching the prosperity gospel with much less emphasis on Matthew 6:19–20 which says,
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal”
With regard to reparations to Africa-America here’s an early ten-point rejectionist argument by David Horowitz one of the recalcitrant folks advanced back in 2001: “Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea for Blacks—and Racist Too”
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB2982276273F208F3BC604871A69F0%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.
OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
Cornelius Hamelberg
Lord Agbetuyi,
I should like to remind David Horowitz that when the children of Israel made their hasty exodus from Egypt, they took with them all the reparations that they could carry ( Exodus 12:35 – 36) :
“The Israelites had done Moses’ bidding and borrowed from the Egyptians objects of silver and gold, and clothing.
And the LORD had disposed the Egyptians favourably toward the people, and they let them have their request; thus they stripped the Egyptians.” (Exodus 12:35-36 - Sefaria)
So the children of Israel got their immediate reparations – they took with them, all that they could (some of which resulted in the sin of the Golden calf (Whilst Moses was up Mt. Sinai talking to the Almighty, the children were getting impatient about his return some of the mixed multitude ( of course) wanted to return to their cow worship days and insisted - to delay the fruition of their demands, Aaron requested that they then surrender their gold earrings and gold( to which they were attached ) fast forward – when Moses came down and saw what he saw, he could not believe his eyes, he asked Aaron, “ What’s going on? “Aaron replied, “… so I threw the gold into the fire, and up popped the golden calf!”
I’m making the point about the children of Israel taking their reparations with them – immediately, mindful of this that the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King said: “Justice too long delayed is justice denied"
When it comes to race and reparations, we are not and sometimes cannot be on the same page as David Horowitz. Never. Here are some of his latest opinions, all arrived at after he metamorphosed, migrated from his Rampart days on the extreme left to his cosy seventh heaven in the extreme right: It is noteworthy that the miracle of transformation was accomplished not by demolition but by persuasion leading to his new convictions. Since he started his Freedom Centre (less to do with runaway slaves, more to do with freedom of speech on the US campus (where pro-Palestinian propaganda and anti-Semitism is a major problem that regularly rears its ugly head)
Earlier in the day, my son was talking about quite something else and “an endless amount of space to raise freedom of speech martyr points into certain circles” at which point I thought of Horowitz’s Freedom Centre… / Well earlier in the day he was on radio ( PI) talking about the pulling down of the statutes that we're still talking about in this forum
In fairness to Horowitz we could engage his arguments, such as they are, blown by blow (even if for the time being the main thrust in this thread is that “Churches should pay reparations for complicity (Christianity Today); Sacramento Reparation Bill passes Assembly”
Here are Horowitz’s arguments which were considerably fleshed out in his original advertisement in 2001…
1. There Is No Single Group Clearly Responsible for The Crime of Slavery
2. There Is No One Group That Benefitted Exclusively from Its Fruits
3. Only A Tiny Minority of White Americans Ever Owned Slaves, And Others Gave Their Lives to Free Them
4. America Today Is A Multi-Ethnic Nation and Most Americans Have No Connection (Direct or Indirect) To Slavery
5. The Historical Precedents Used to Justify the Reparations Claim Do Not Apply, And the Claim Itself Is Based on Race Not Injury
6. The Reparations Argument Is Based on The Unfounded Claim That All African-American Descendants of Slaves Suffer from The Economic Consequences of Slavery and Discrimination
7. The Reparations Claim Is One More Attempt to Turn African-Americans Into Victims. It Sends A Damaging Message to The African-American Community.
8. Reparations to African Americans Have Already Been Paid
9. What About the Debt Blacks Owe to America?
10. The Reparations Claim Is A Separatist Idea That Sets African-Americans Against the Nation That Gave Them Freedom.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB29820E69417D26E47C63997CA69C0%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Cornelius Hamelberg
Another correction (please forgive)
Re – “ migrated from his Rampart days on the extreme left to his cozy seventh heaven in the extreme right” - properly speaking should have been “from his Ramparts Magazine days”
Gloria Emeagwali
On Jun 15, 2020, at 7:49 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelberg...@gmail.com> wrote:
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAC50OP_czUJ7g-TOtQr09_tPZrzsHtGx2njN15EaknuG%2BYGqyg%40mail.gmail.com.