What did Mahatma Gandhi think of black people?

[Ikhide]

Was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the revered leader of India’s freedom movement, a racist?

A controversial new book  by two South African university professors  reveals shocking details about Gandhi’s life in South Africa between 1893 and 1914, before he returned to India.

During his stay in South Africa, Gandhi routinely expressed “disdain for Africans,” says S. Anand, founder of Navayana, the publisher of the book titled “The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire.”

According to the book, Gandhi described black Africans  as “savage,” “raw” and living a life of “indolence and nakedness,” and he campaigned relentlessly to prove to the British rulers that the Indian community in South Africa was superior to native black Africans. The book combs through Gandhi’s own writings during the period and government archives and paints a portrait that is at variance with how the world regards him today.

[The dark side of Winston Churchill no one should forget]

Much of the halo that surrounds Gandhi today is a result of clever repackaging, write the authors, Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed, professors at the University of Johannesburg and the University of KwaZulu Natal.

“As we examined Gandhi’s actions and contemporary writings during his South African stay, and compared these with what he wrote in his autobiography and 'Satyagraha in South Africa,' it was apparent that he indulged in some ‘tidying up.' He was effectively rewriting his own history.”

Prize-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy says the book, which will hit stores next month, is “a serious challenge to the way we have been taught to think about Gandhi.”

Here is a sample of what Gandhi said about black South Africans:

* One of the first battles Gandhi fought after coming to South Africa was over the separate entrances for whites and blacks at the Durban post office. Gandhi objected that Indians were “classed with the natives of South Africa,” who he called the kaffirs, and demanded a separate entrance for Indians.

- Rama Lakshmi

Nothing new here. Mahatma Gandhi was a thoroughgoing racist. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/03/what-did-mahatma-gandhi-think-of-black-people/?tid=sm_fb

- Ikhide

[Obadiah Mailafia]

Very interesting historical revision here. I would have been very surprised if Gandhi, a high-born Brahmin had not held those views about Africans. Arthur de Gobineau, Hegel, Montesquieu and Churchill held worst views. I think we should not be judging the ethics and morals of people with the standards of our own epoch. Also, Gandhi went through several stages in his intellectual, moral, political and spiritual evolution. The Gandhi that left for England was different from the young proud Westernised barrister that tried to eke out a living in the South African Bar. And the traumas he encountered changed him. He was the same Brahmin who had a metanoia and renamed the low castes as "Harijan" (Children of God). We live in a cruel and sinful world. Every man and woman must carry their own cross. Gandhi carried his. He was not a perfect human being. But he sought a new way of capitalizing on the human spirit to fight injustice and oppression. MLK was an assiduous student of Gandhi and his adoption of AHIMSA made all the difference in the world. I went to college with the grand daughter of Gandhi, a mild-mannered young woman of beauty and grace. Her grandfather was not perfect, but because of the great efforts and sacrifices he made, the world of Humanity has been transformed by the sheer weight of his moral force. The challenge for us is to pick from the elements of what he did and apply it where we are at present. It can make a difference.

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[kenneth harrow]

agreed

-- 
kenneth w. harrow 
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
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[kwame zulu shabazz]

Obadiah,

The point of the book is that we have learned the revised Gandhi. What specifically in the essay are you challenging? Do you have any evidence of anything positive that he said about Africans. And by what measure do declare that Gandhi was less racist than Hegel? Lastly, of what relevance of the virtue of Gandhi's descendents or the fact the Martin Luther King Jr. studied him for the topic at hand. Why are (some) black people so quick to defend our enemies?

[Samuel Zalanga]

Personally, I do not find anything new or strange in what is being said. Why? When we visited South Africa, we visited either Gandhi museum or a place where he had a section in the museum. I believe this was in Johannesburg.  And I know in my biographical reading of him, he himself ( i.e., Ghandi) acknowledged this stage in his life when he did not like Blacks. Often it is better to think of people's thoughts and ideas in evolutionary terms although not assuming that the evolving nature of the ideas will always lead to something progressive end. History is open-ended.

Gandhi admitted that after his education in Britain and his return to South Africa he was an anglophile. He saw himself growing up in the system and therefore liked the British. He admired the British and saw them as the ultimate expression of humanity. He had internalized their worldview and he identified with their effort to bring Black people under control and he admitted even offering himself to served them.  This is not unusual under systems of colonial domination. Hannah Arendt argues in her idea of "the banality of evil" that the Nazis could not have done what they did to the Jews without the connivance of some Jewish accomplice. No empire maintains power without recruiting some agents within the colonized. Often people connive as a way of surviving in the system. But it was after Gandhi offered to serve and he saw the dehumanizing treatment to Blacks that at some point he started having second thoughts and engaged in what some will call tactical withdrawal. And then by the time he returned to India, his views further evolved. Even in India the way the anti-colonial struggle evolved shaped the evolution of his ideas just as anything that might be called apostle Paul's theology was indirectly shaped by the specific churches in specific communities that he wrote. He was responding to concrete situations which influenced his thoughts and reflection.  Those who read the biographies of human beings and are expecting human messiahs will always be disappointed.

For those readers that are Christian, there are examples of persons who presumably God used in the Bible but they were not perfect. Indeed, scholars like Walter Brueggeman argue that often the people God used were imperfect humans and so to set perfection as a criterion for being used to do something positive is not supported in his view by concrete evidence in the Bible. This maybe the case in general history as well:

a) Moses disobeyed God and was punished for that in the sense that with all his closeness to God, he got angry. He could not control his temper -- meaning he is just like many human beings.

b) David could not control his sexual desire after he saw a woman naked having shower. He arranged for her supply and proceeded to conspire to get her husband killed at the battle front lines. Yet, there are many inspiring sayings of David that are taken serious by persons of taith.

c) Solomon appeared to be someone who cared about doing God's will when he asked for wisdom, but he ended up marrying many women that he was not supposed to. What was the motive for that? Whether political, sexual or diplomatic, it still shows he was not perfect. He fall short.

d) Adam and Eve, the first family, could not raise their kids well and the first murder was committed in their house.  This is an embarrassing situation, but it happened.  Were they perfect?

e) The apostle Peter behaved in a manner that will be considered racist today when he encountered Cornelius in the book of Acts. In spite of the fact that he was prepared for such a meeting, yet the moment he arrived in Cornelius' house he made Cornelius realized that he (peter) was not supposed to visit Cornelius' house because he was a Jew while Cornelius was a gentile. The gentile was inferior and kind of spiritually unclean. Yet by the time Peter left the house of Cornelius, he evolved to be another person and God taught him that He was no respecter of people, -- Peter confessed this lesson himself. This is life's journey. The more situations we put ourselves in, the more likely we will see our shortcomings and see the need for growth. Gandhi is one of such.  In short, what Peter thought was an exclusive reserve of his superior or special specie of human beings was actually available to all after all.

f) Plato and Aristotle could not engage in their serious intellectual work without slaves doing the job for them. The Athenians value democracy for themselves but they went outside their cities and enslaved others. Aristotle, great as he was thought women were naturally born slaves because they can only use their body, whatever that means.

g) Marx was a radical committed to social justice and he inspired many revolutions. Yet he had little or no respect for peasants who he described as Sack of Potatoes. In his writing on India, he wrote off the violence of British colonial rule on India as a necessary path to modernity given his analysis of modes of production.  In this respect, he is like late Professor Milton Friedman, the neoliberal who when asked about the continued suffering of many in America in spite of economic progress or wealth creation, he responded on camera by saying: "You cannot make an omelet without breaking an egg." That means some people have to necessary suffer or be sacrificed for the sake of progress. How about that? Marx recognized what the British did in India but saw it as part of the progressive evolution of society. Interestingly, Edmund Burke, the British conservative, will speak in defense of India, given the way ambitious capitalists were there pursuing their goal of becoming rich quick and in the process destroying India culture and civilization, which according to Burke was as old as Britain's.

g) If one watches the PBS documentary on Benjamin Franklin, in the last part of the documentary, he visited a Black school and observed black kids learning. After doing that for some days, he said publicly that he would never condone the idea that blacks were intellectually inferior because his observation of the black kids indicate that they were learning and progressing like anyone else. This reversal in the thinking of someone who owned slaves only came a time in his life.

Life is a journey and people evolve in their thinking. Deeply reflective and reflexive ones regret what they did earlier that was bad. And they apologize. Some do not apologize. Even Malcom X's biography exemplifies this idea of people evolving in their thinking given greater exposure, reflection and some degree of humility. He initially used strong language that might suggest hate towards White people but after his pilgrimage to Mecca he evolved in his thinking. He had a different kind of encounter with White people in Mecca and that made him start thinking that the problem was not Whiteness per se.

Gandhi confessed his racist attitude towards Blacks.  And the essence of what is discussed here also manifests itself in the form of one of two types of Brain Drains  in Africa. in the literature, one type of brain drain is the type that most of us fit in. We left our continent and countries for greener pastures and even though there is need there for our skills we prefer to be outside because it enables us to thrive better. We support people back in Africa in different ways, one of which is home remittances or migrant-dollars.

While this type of brain drain affects Africa, it is does not do so in very dangerous ways as the second type. The second type of brain drain is in the form of people who are highly educated and placed in Africa, and they are part of the government in Africa, but they have little or no respect for the dignity of the persons living under their control, jurisdiction, rule or supervision. They treat the people under them as sub-human and their taste and orientation is all aligned to the West and they embezzle public resources or funds to satisfy their western tastes.  They are dangerous because they make decisions that have direct and immediate consequences on the lives of the people. When they steal money, they hide it in foreign banks. They cannot live in the West because they are so full of themselves and living in the ways requires a certain degree of accepting that you will not be treated as king and you cannot treat other people any how because of legal protection. This kind of behavior is at the core of the abuse of our people and the backwardness of our country. If documented, it is even more terrible than focusing on a specific moment in the evolution of the thinking of Gandhi, which shows he was an anglophile as he himself confessed.

For those of us interested in the careful reading of biography, this kind of contradiction is very common i.e., some aspects of an historical icon that is very inspiring while another part is disappointing. For instance, Evangelicals in the U.S. see George Whitfield as one of the major Christian revival preachers that shaped the U.S. He often claimed communicating or hearing from the Holy Spirit. Only that the Holy Spirit never directed him to take a strong and unapologetic position against slavery, and if that happened he mistakenly did not hear it. Rather, the spirit directed him to help in institutionalizing or legitimizing slavery in Georgia. What to do with such a claim of a spiritual leader?

 For those interested in understanding the good, the bad and the ugly in George Whitefield as an example of the situation with Gandhi, even though they come from different religious traditions, here is the web-link to a discussion on Whitefield the major revival preacher and the champion of slavery whatever that means:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/1993/issue38/3841.html

Life is complex.

Samuel

Samuel Zalanga
Department of Anthropology, Sociology & Reconciliation Studies
Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive #24
Saint Paul, MN 55112.
Office Phone: 651-638-6023

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

"Arthur de Gobineau, Hegel, Montesquieu and Churchill held worst views.

I think we should not be judging the ethics and morals of people with the standards of our own epoch." Mailafia


Where do you draw the line? Will you give Hitler a free pass?



Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Obadiah Mailafia [obmai...@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, September 04, 2015 9:41 AM
To: USAAfrica Dialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - What did Mahatma Gandhi think of black people?

Very interesting historical revision here. I would have been very surprised if Gandhi, a high-born Brahmin had not held those views about Africans. Arthur de Gobineau, Hegel, Montesquieu and Churchill held worst views. I think we should not be judging the ethics and morals of people with the standards of our own epoch. Also, Gandhi went through several stages in his intellectual, moral, political and spiritual evolution. The Gandhi that left for England was different from the young proud Westernised barrister that tried to eke out a living in the South African Bar. And the traumas he encountered changed him. He was the same Brahmin who had a metanoia and renamed the low castes as "Harijan" (Children of God). We live in a cruel and sinful world. Every man and woman must carry their own cross. Gandhi carried his. He was not a perfect human being. But he sought a new way of capitalizing on the human spirit to fight injustice and oppression. MLK was an assiduous student of Gandhi and his adoption of AHIMSA made all the difference in the world. I went to college with the grand daughter of Gandhi, a mild-mannered young woman of beauty and grace. Her grandfather was not perfect, but because of the great efforts and sacrifices he made, the world of Humanity has been transformed by the sheer weight of his moral force. The challenge for us is to pick from the elements of what he did and apply it where we are at present. It can make a difference.

On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 5:29 AM, 'Ikhide' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>> wrote:

Was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the revered leader of India’s freedom movement, a racist?

A controversial new book<http://navayana.org/product/the-south-african-gandhi/> by two South African university professors reveals shocking<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZn2TW2vdhM> details about Gandhi’s life in South Africa between 1893 and 1914, before he returned to India.

During his stay in South Africa, Gandhi routinely expressed “disdain for Africans,” says S. Anand, founder of Navayana, the publisher of the book titled “The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire.”

According to the book, Gandhi described black Africans as “savage,” “raw” and living a life of “indolence and nakedness,” and he campaigned relentlessly to prove to the British rulers that the Indian community in South Africa was superior to native black Africans. The book combs through Gandhi’s own writings during the period and government archives and paints a portrait that is at variance with how the world<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/17/AR2009021703040.html> regards him today.

[The dark side of Winston Churchill no one should forget<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/02/03/the-dark-side-of-winston-churchills-legacy-no-one-should-forget/>]

Much of the halo<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/11/AR2009061103859.html> that surrounds Gandhi today is a result of clever repackaging, write the authors, Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed, professors at the University of Johannesburg and the University of KwaZulu Natal.

“As we examined Gandhi’s actions and contemporary writings during his South African stay, and compared these with what he wrote in his autobiography and 'Satyagraha in South Africa,' it was apparent that he indulged in some ‘tidying up.' He was effectively rewriting his own history.”

Prize-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy says the book, which will hit stores next month, is “a serious challenge to the way we have been taught to think about Gandhi.”

Here is a sample of what Gandhi said about black South Africans:

* One of the first battles Gandhi fought after coming to South Africa was over the separate entrances for whites and blacks at the Durban post office. Gandhi objected that Indians were “classed with the natives of South Africa,” who he called the kaffirs, and demanded a separate entrance for Indians.

- Rama Lakshmi

Nothing new here. Mahatma Gandhi was a thoroughgoing racist.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/03/what-did-mahatma-gandhi-think-of-black-people/?tid=sm_fb

- Ikhide

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[kwame zulu shabazz]

Yes, sister Gloria.

Eurocentric education has compromised our critical thinking skills.

 "Judging the ethics and morals of people with the standards of our own epoch" and similar phrasing often winds up perpetuating white supremacy. Why? Because it presumes (wrongly) that the racist/white supremacist in question was the only one with "ethics and morals" in a given epoch. There was never an epoch when oppressors were not challenged by the oppressed. You don't need advanced degrees to figure this out. People don't generally like being oppressed and they tend to resist their subordinate condition. Didn't black people challenge racism when Ghandi resided in South Africa? Yes they did! Did not people challenge the bigoted views of Hegel, Montesquieu and Churchil? Yes! Did not the Haitian scholar Antenor Firmin counter de Gobineau's with the extraordinary text "De l'égalité des races humaines"?

"The best weapon in the hands of the enemy is the mind of the oppressed" Steve Biko

kzs

kzs
===
kwame zulu shabazz

email: kwames...@gmail.com

cell: 336-422-9577
skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz
===
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

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[kenneth harrow]

gandhi changed over time; the attacks on him, judging his values as a
young indian in s africa compared with the ideal figure of resistance,
of amazing resistance, to british colonialism, for which he is known
historically, strikes me as too absolutist.
i feel the same about the recent thread on mandela, and on winnie: it
strikes me as too absolutist, too all-hero, all-heroine, or nothing.
the greatest supreme court justice of our times ("our" being relative)
was hugo black, a man who in his youth had been a member of the kkk.
the question about hitler might make more sense if we asked whether his
views changed over time. if they did, they just got worse.

i feel that examples we seek could push the discussion into spaces of
moral ambiguity, but i don't know whether the responses of gloria and
kwame on the question of gandhi admit of any ambiguity: it feels as
though one had to be truly pure revolutionary, or one was a
counter-revolutionary. reading about che's decisions to kill those he
deemed a threat to the revolutionary reverts to an absolutism which
ultimately turns totalitarian. i thought we got past that vision of the
revolution 40 years ago. anyway, i think we have to do so; we have to
continue to reflect on how a revolutionary vision can be improved, not
taken as absolute. i feel we are the children, intellectually, of a
generation of revolutionaries, whom we taught for years: fanon, cesaire,
cabral, etc
but i want to be able to question their positions; improve on them.
that's why i've cited mouffe and laclau in the past, because they do
precisely that.

the same over racism, and anti-semitism, or other positions. i would
question whether all the figures who shared these positions remain
unworthy, unredeemable, etc

so, to relativize my own thinking, with an example that springs to mind:
i know some on this list attended the ala meeting in bayreuth this june,
a wonderful meeting of africanists and our hosts. bayreuth, as some of
you know, is the center for the wagner festival, and there are statues
of wagner all over the city: seated, looking benign and very bavarian
with his funny looking hat. he shared hitler's views of jews, as did a
number of other germans. ultimately israel had to decide whether to
permit performances of his music in israel itself.
i listen to his music, and can love it, while i detest his views.
i can love much of the rhetoric of thomas jefferson, despsite his having
been a slave master.

bottom line: we might not share the views of a number of people, yet we
can still derive benefit from their thought, still enjoy their creations.
or maybe we can; maybe our distaste cannot be overcome....
ken

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

Which part of Hitler's Mein Kampf
do you like? The beginning, the middle or the conclusion?

Or maybe you liked his oratory, and management skills, and
expertise - in the creation of death camps.

He had a lovely moustache too.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [har...@msu.edu]
Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2015 12:16 PM
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[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken,

The respected Indian activist scholar Arundhati Roy endorses the thesis of the book. On what basis do you claim that Gandhi changed his views on Black people?

On a related point, I have gotten to know several Dalit activists over the years. They ALL concur that Gandhi was a tyrant and an apologist for the Varna - status quo that keeps most Dalits at the bottom of the Indian/South Asian social order.

The Dalit scholar-politician Ambedkar insisted that "Gandhi is the greatest enemy the untouchables have ever had." For context see the published works of Ambedkar. Here is a decent summary: "Why Do India's Dalits Hate Gandhi?" http://www.countercurrents.org/dalit-mountain200306.htm

kzs

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[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken,

You said,

"i can love much of the rhetoric of thomas jefferson, despsite his having been a slave master."

Loving Jefferson's rhetoric is a sort of white American privilege. I don't love anything about the rapist/Indian killer/slave owner Thomas Jefferson. Nothing. He is no better than Hitler in my view. I would rather read and reflect on the rhetoric of enslaved Africans and Native Americans who were brutally silenced by white supremacists like Jefferson and the other so - called "Founding Fathers."

Forward ever,

kzs

On Sep 6, 2015 11:23 AM, "kenneth harrow" <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

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[kenneth harrow]

white american privilege?
kwame, i can't see the world in the terms you invite me to.
sorry
ken

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[kenneth harrow]

he was a good painter. can't say i like his moustache though

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken, your world is very different from my world. Im good with that. In my world there is zero tolerance for the rhetoric of white people who annihilated Indians and enslaved Africans.

kzs

[kenneth harrow]

this piece cites ambedkar, making the situation seem much less absolute, and gandhi's position much more tenable re the dalits. http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/gandhi-and-the-dalit-controversy-the-limits-of-the-moral-force-of-an-individual/
i confess i am no expert in the topic, but gandhi's position against the classment of dalits as inferior seems more assured in this piece
ken

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[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken,

We can toss articles back and fourth all night but why not let the Dalits speak for themselves? Their position is unambiguous. Gandhi was a racist tyrant. And the fake Gandhi narrative is reinforced by the Indian state. For example, the African American historian Runoko Rashidi was banned from lecturing in India because he dared to challenge the mythic narrative. Even the author you have cited concedes that Gandhi's weak reformism undercut any chance of self - empowerment for Indian Dalits. Gandhi's legacy is clear. The Dalits remain one of the most oppressed groups on the planet to this day.

kzs

[kenneth harrow]

well, i am glad to learn more about the issue. i didn't know there was a controversy here.
ken

[kenneth harrow]

i don't feel particularly tolerant toward people who committed atrocities; but if i were to say, the lines you draw are too absolute, you'd probably say, the black people who participated in the slave trade--like equiano, at one point in his life--had no choice. i'd disagree. i know there were indian tribes that fought against their traditional enemies by working with the american cavalry. your lines seem too absolute to admit of this.
hitler had an ugly moustache; there were jews who were capos in the camps; there were collaborators, etc.
being white or black didn't automatically make you oppressed and oppressor; it meant, you had a system before you, and you chose where to position yourself vis a vis that position.
that is true today as much as yesterday.
you want to establish that we live in two different worlds;  i see worlds that overlap much more.
my hope is that we can have dialogue across these different visions.
ken

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken,

Native Americans didn't annihilate entire groups of Native Americans. Europeans did that again and again and again. Africans didn't control or invent chattel slavery in America. People like Jefferson controlled that. You say my lines are "too absolute." And to that I say your lines are much too fuzzy. I stand by my statement. There is nothing useful that Jefferson the rapist, Indian killer, African enslaver can teach me. And even during the days of the depraved and morally bankrupt Jefferson there were white men of moral fortitude. They weren't all perfect, but they all merit respect, in my opinion. I have in mind white men like Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison.

Forward ever,

kzs

[kenneth harrow]

kwame
good points, except the opening sentence. native american groups fought their enemies, who happened to be other native americans, and when they had a chance to defeat, kill, destroy them, using or allied with the u.s. cavalry, they did so. why idealize them? they were, in fact, people. the story of wolof alliances w french troops in senegal, w africa, like the chadians, is typical, as any elementary history of africa will tell you.
people, not black or white, just people, with their own wars and enemies and allies.
if you could step back a moment and ask, what is there about people that lends itself to such aggression and conquest, how does it work, why are we like that, then we'd be asking the same question...for which i have only perplexity to contribute. it troubles me that such aggression marks human behavior.
as for africans involvement in slavery, again, it makes no sense to me to draw lines as you do. europeans certainly ran the atlantic slave trade, but why go into the larger story of slavery to challenge your division of evil whites and victim blacks. it isn't really worth it, on a listserv filled with historians. chattel slavery, slavery, didn't begin or end in the new world.
ken

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken,

You don't speak for all historians. If a historian wants to challenge what I have written, they are free to do so. Bring it on. And, by the way, white people still dominate the production of scholarly knowledge, so there is that. And, yes, I will continue to insist the Europeans were generally the oppressors and Africans were generally the victims. The reverse has rarely been true. Africans have never subjugated an entire race of people.

You said:

"the larger story of slavery to challenge your division of evil whites and victim blacks."

But you somehow ignored my list of white Americans--John Brown, Sumner, et. al. --who I said merit respect.

As for Jefferson he was definitely evil. Here are some Jefferson quotes from "Notes on the State of Virginia" (1853):

1. Black people stink

"They secrete less by the kidnies [sic], and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour."

2. Black people are unintelligent and dull

"in reason [Blacks are] much inferior, as think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous."

3. Black people are an inferior species

"I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind."

4. Phillis Wheatley is too dumb to write poetry

"The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism."

5. Black people need less sleep and childlike.

"They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning."

5. Black people are too stupid to sense danger

They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites.

kzs

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken,

White people did not invent aggression. But the scale of European aggresion is mind boggling.  Native Americans certainly fought each other. However, there is not a single case that I am aware of wherein Native Americans TOTALLY ANNIHILATED NATIVE AMERICANS. There are MANY cases of Europeans wiping out entire peoples. To put the matter succinctly, contact with Europeans was catastrophic for Indigenous people in the Americas, in Australia, in Africa.

kzs

[Chambi Chachage]

KZS, did we debate here the article below when it came out in 2014?

Arundhati Roy accuses Mahatma Gandhi of discrimination

				Arundhati Roy accuses Mahatma Gandhi of discrimination Prize-winning author questions position in India of 'person whose doctrine of nonviolence was based on brutal caste system'
				View on www.theguardian.com	Preview by Yahoo

---

Kwa Nia Njema - In Good Faith

---

From: kwame zulu shabazz <kwames...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, September 6, 2015 11:09 PM

[Samuel Zalanga]

This sounds like a genetic explanation to me though  you did not state that categorically. Am I correct? It seems like there is something inherent in Whiteness that is different from all other people.

Just being White accounts for everything as per oppression and domination. This might be an easy and parsimonious explanation of the specific situation you are trying to explain but now if we are going to adopt genetics to explain human behavior broadly and comparatively, it will  boomerang against the very thing you are trying to protect. Don't you think so Professor Shabazz?

There are many societies where people ended up killing each other because of competition for scarce resources. They are not Whites e.g., Easter Island. No one will deny the impact of European expansion on other people but a good grasp of European history shows that such carnage does not necessarily have to be Whites against others. Whites have fought against others and violence was carried out by both the religion of Islam and Christianity. Below is an article that shows violence can be manifested in various forms.

*********************************

Boston Globe

Dark passages

Does the harsh language in the Koran explain Islamic violence? Don't answer till you've taken a look inside the Bible

By Philip Jenkins

March 8, 2009

 

 

WE HAVE A good idea what was passing through the minds of the Sept. 11 hijackers as they made their way to the airports.

 

 

Kindness in the Koran

Their Al Qaeda handlers had instructed them to meditate on al-Tawba and Anfal, two lengthy suras from the Koran, the holy scripture of Islam. The passages make for harrowing reading. God promises to "cast terror into the hearts of those who are bent on denying the truth; strike, then, their necks!" (Koran 8.12). God instructs his Muslim followers to kill unbelievers, to capture them, to ambush them (Koran 9.5). Everything contributes to advancing the holy goal: "Strike terror into God's enemies, and your enemies" (Koran 8.60). Perhaps in their final moments, the hijackers took refuge in these words, in which God lauds acts of terror and massacre.

On a much lesser scale, others have used the words of the Koran to sanction violence. Even in cases of domestic violence and honor killing, perpetrators can find passages that seem to justify brutal acts (Koran 4.34).

 

Citing examples such as these, some Westerners argue that the Muslim scriptures themselves inspire terrorism, and drive violent jihad. Evangelist Franklin Graham has described his horror on finding so many Koranic passages that command the killing of infidels: the Koran, he thinks, "preaches violence." Prominent conservatives Paul Weyrich and William Lind argued that "Islam is, quite simply, a religion of war," and urged that Muslims be encouraged to leave US soil. Today, Dutch politician Geert Wilders faces trial for his film "Fitna," in which he demands that the Koran be suppressed as the modern-day equivalent to Hitler's "Mein Kampf."

 

Even Westerners who have never opened the book - especially such people, perhaps - assume that the Koran is filled with calls for militarism and murder, and that those texts shape Islam.

Unconsciously, perhaps, many Christians consider Islam to be a kind of dark shadow of their own faith, with the ugly words of the Koran standing in absolute contrast to the scriptures they themselves cherish. In the minds of ordinary Christians - and Jews - the Koran teaches savagery and warfare, while the Bible offers a message of love, forgiveness, and charity. For the prophet Micah, God's commands to his people are summarized in the words "act justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). Christians recall the words of the dying Jesus: "Father, forgive them: they know not what they do."

 

But in terms of ordering violence and bloodshed, any simplistic claim about the superiority of the Bible to the Koran would be wildly wrong. In fact, the Bible overflows with "texts of terror," to borrow a phrase coined by the American theologian Phyllis Trible. The Bible contains far more verses praising or urging bloodshed than does the Koran, and biblical violence is often far more extreme, and marked by more indiscriminate savagery. The Koran often urges believers to fight, yet it also commands that enemies be shown mercy when they surrender. Some frightful portions of the Bible, by contrast, go much further in ordering the total extermination of enemies, of whole families and races - of men, women, and children, and even their livestock, with no quarter granted. One cherished psalm (137) begins with the lovely line, "By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept"; it ends by blessing anyone who would seize Babylon's infants and smash their skulls against the rocks.

 

To say that terrorists can find religious texts to justify their acts does not mean that their violence actually grows from those scriptural roots. Indeed, such an assumption itself is based on the crude fundamentalist formulation that everything in a given religion must somehow be authorized in scripture. The difference between the Bible and the Koran is not that one book teaches love while the other proclaims warfare and terrorism, rather it is a matter of how the works are read. Yes, the Koran has been ransacked to supply texts authorizing murder, but so has the Bible.

 

If Christians or Jews want to point to violent parts of the Koran and suggest that those elements taint the whole religion, they open themselves to the obvious question: what about their own faiths? If the founding text shapes the whole religion, then Judaism and Christianity deserve the utmost condemnation as religions of savagery. Of course, they are no such thing; nor is Islam.

But the implications run still deeper. All faiths contain within them some elements that are considered disturbing or unacceptable to modern eyes; all must confront the problem of absorbing and reconciling those troubling texts or doctrines. In some cases, religions evolve to the point where the ugly texts so fade into obscurity that ordinary believers scarcely acknowledge their existence, or at least deny them the slightest authority in the modern world. In other cases, the troubling words remain dormant, but can return to life in conditions of extreme stress and conflict. Texts, like people, can live or die. This whole process of forgetting and remembering, of growing beyond the harsh words found in a text, is one of the critical questions that all religions must learn to address.

 

Faithful Muslims believe that the Koran is the inspired word of God, delivered verbatim through the prophet Mohammed. Non-Muslims, of course, see the text as the work of human hands, whether of Mohammed himself or of schools of his early followers. But whichever view we take, the Koran as it stands claims to speak in God's voice. That is one of the great differences between the Bible and the Koran. Even for dedicated fundamentalists, inspired Bible passages come through the pen of a venerated historical individual, whether it's the Prophet Isaiah or the Apostle Paul, and that leaves open some chance of blaming embarrassing views on that person's own prejudices. The Koran gives no such option: For believers, every word in the text - however horrendous a passage may sound to modern ears - came directly from God.

 

We don't have to range too far to find passages that horrify. The Koran warns, "Those who make war against God and his apostle . . . shall be put to death or crucified" (Koran 5.33). Other passages are equally threatening, though they usually have to be wrenched out of context to achieve this effect. One text from Sura (Chapter) 47 begins "O true believers, when you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads."

 

But in such matters, the Bible too has plenty of passages that read painfully today. Tales of war and assassination pervade the four books of Samuel and Kings, where it is hard to avoid verses justifying the destruction of God's enemies. In a standard English translation of the Old Testament, the words "war" and "battle" each occur more than 300 times, not to mention all the bindings, beheadings, and rapes.

 

The richest harvest of gore comes from the books that tell the story of the Children of Israel after their escape from Egypt, as they take over their new land in Canaan. These events are foreshadowed in the book of Deuteronomy, in which God proclaims "I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh" (Deut. 32:42). We then turn to the full orgy of militarism, enslavement, and race war in the Books of Joshua and Judges. Moses himself reputedly authorized this campaign when he told his followers that, once they reached Canaan, they must annihilate all the peoples they find in the cities specially reserved for them (Deut. 20: 16-18).

 

Joshua, Moses's successor, proves an apt pupil. When he conquers the city of Ai, God commands that he take away the livestock and the loot, while altogether exterminating the inhabitants, and he duly does this (Joshua 8). When he defeats and captures five kings, he murders his prisoners of war, either by hanging or crucifixion. (Joshua 10). Nor is there any suggestion that the Canaanites and their kin were targeted for destruction because they were uniquely evil or treacherous: They happened to be on the wrong land at the wrong time. And Joshua himself was by no means alone. In Judges again, other stories tell of the complete extermination of tribes with the deliberate goal of ending their genetic lines.

 

In modern times, we would call this genocide. If the forces of Joshua and his successor judges committed their acts in the modern world, then observers would not hesitate to speak of war crimes. They would draw comparisons with the notorious guerrilla armies of Uganda and the Congo, groups like the appalling Lord's Resistance Army. By comparison, the Koranic rules of war were, by the standards of their time, quite civilized. Mohammed wanted to win over his enemies, not slaughter them.

 

Not only do the Israelites in the Bible commit repeated acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing, but they do so under direct divine command. According to the first book of Samuel, God orders King Saul to strike at the Amalekite people, killing every man, woman, and child, and even wiping out their livestock (1 Samuel 15:2-3). And it is this final detail that proves Saul's undoing, as he keeps some of the animals, and thereby earns a scolding from the prophet Samuel. Fortunately, Saul repents, and symbolizes his regrets by dismembering the captured enemy king. Morality triumphs.

 

The Bible also alleges divine approval of racism and segregation. If you had to choose the single biblical story that most conspicuously outrages modern sentiment, it might well be the tale of Phinehas, a story that remains unknown to most Christian readers today (Numbers 25: 1-15). The story begins when the children of Israel are threatened by a plague. Phinehas, however, shrewdly identifies the cause of God's anger: God is outraged at the fact that a Hebrew man has found a wife among the people of Midian, and through her has imported an alien religion. Phinehas slaughters the offending couple - and, mollified, God ends the plague and blesses Phinehas and his descendants. Modern American racists love this passage. In 1990, Richard Kelly Hoskins used the story as the basis for his manifesto "Vigilantes of Christendom." Hoskins advocated the creation of a new order of militant white supremacists, the Phineas Priesthood, and since then a number of groups have assumed this title, claiming Phinehas as the justification for terrorist attacks on mixed-race couples and abortion clinics.

 

Modern Christians who believe the Bible offers only a message of love and forgiveness are usually thinking only of the New Testament. Certainly, the New Testament contains far fewer injunctions to kill or segregate. Yet it has its own troublesome passages, especially when the Gospel of John expresses such hostility to the Ioudaioi, a Greek word that usually translates as "Jews." Ioudaioi plan to stone Jesus, they plot to kill him; in turn, Jesus calls them liars, children of the Devil.

 

Various authorities approach the word differently: I might prefer, for instance, to interpret it as "followers of the oppressive Judean religious elite," Or perhaps "Judeans." But in practice, any reputable translation has to use the simple and familiar word, "Jew," so that we read about the disciples hiding out after the Crucifixion, huddled in a room that is locked "for fear of the Jews." So harsh do these words sound to post-Holocaust ears that some churches exclude them from public reading.

 

Commands to kill, to commit ethnic cleansing, to institutionalize segregation, to hate and fear other races and religions . . . all are in the Bible, and occur with a far greater frequency than in the Koran. At every stage, we can argue what the passages in question mean, and certainly whether they should have any relevance for later ages. But the fact remains that the words are there, and their inclusion in the scripture means that they are, literally, canonized, no less than in the Muslim scripture.

 

Whether they are used or not depends on wider social attitudes. When America entered the First World War, for instance, firebrand preachers drew heavily on Jesus' warning that he came not to bring peace, but a sword. As it stands, that is not much of a text of terror, but if one is searching desperately for a weapon-related verse, it will serve to justify what people are going to do anyway

 

Interpretation is all, and that changes over time. Religions have their core values, their non-negotiable truths, but they also surround themselves with many stories not essential to the message. Any religion that exists over long eras absorbs many of the ideas and beliefs of the community in which it finds itself, and reflects those in its writings. Over time, thinkers and theologians reject or underplay those doctrines and texts that contradict the underlying principles of the faith as it develops. However strong the textual traditions justifying war and conflict, believers come instead to stress love and justice. Of course Muslim societies throughout history have engaged in jihad, in holy war, and have found textual warrant so to do. But over time, other potent strains in the religion moved away from literal warfare. However strong the calls to jihad, struggle, in Islamic thought, the hugely influential Sufi orders taught that the real struggle was the inner battle to control one's sinful human instincts, and this mattered vastly more than any pathetic clash of swords and spears. The Greater Jihad is one fought in the soul.

 

Often, such reforming thinkers are so successful that the troublesome words fade utterly from popular consciousness, even among believers who think of themselves as true fundamentalists. Most Christian and Jewish believers, even those who are moderately literate in scriptural terms, read their own texts extraordinarily selectively. How many Christian preachers would today find spiritual sustenance in Joshua's massacres? How many American Christians know that the New Testament demands that women cover their hair, at least in church settings, and that Paul's Epistles include more detailed rules on the subject than anything written in the Koran? This kind of holy amnesia is a basic component of religious development. It does not imply rejecting scriptures, but rather reading them in the total context of the religion as it progresses through history.

 

Alternatively, one can choose to deny that historical experience, and seize on any available word or verse that authorizes the violence that is already taking place - but once someone has decided to do that, it scarcely matters what the text actually says.

 

Philip Jenkins teaches at Penn State University. He is the author of "The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia -- and How It Died."

 

Samuel

kzs

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[Samuel Zalanga]

Interesting argument. But as the argument is, it is not clear whether the violence is strictly due to something inherent in Whiteness (essentialism) or whether is a question of disproportionate accumulation of power (situational and opportunistic), which then corrupts a human mind, culture, society and history. I surely would like to feel good that as Black person I am inherently not having the desire or the capacity to dominate and oppress others as Whites are, but I am afraid from a sociological point of view, such a position is not tenable. If ISIS has the means they will conquer the whole world and kill many of us. Some of the killings I saw on the internet by them does reassure me that only White people are essentially violent given certain situations and contexts. Even the horror of Boko Haram in Nigeria is terrible.

What is of interest is to know is whether even if Black people were to have the same power and capacity to dominate others over a long time, are they going to be inherently immune from such tendencies or behavior as were Whites? If so, why and how?  There were many Whites that were victims of white violence especially when one reads Thucydides' "Justice and Power" e.g., the portion titled" Melian Dialogue. " 

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like this argument at its core is about different species of beings that are essentially different i.e., blacks and whites. One group is essentially corrupt and violent towards others just for being White, and the others (Native people, Blacks etc) are essentially gentle and caring, and therefore not having the desire to dominate and control others as Whites, irrespective of the situation and context.  If this is the case, as I assume it is one possibility to characterize the argument as I follow your exchange with Ken, then it opens a whole new debate that has far broader implications beyond what you are specifically addressing.

No one will disagree with you that Europeans oppressed other people in history, but the claims of the argument is far more than this if I understand you well Professor Shabazz.

Thank you very much.

Samuel

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Brother Samuel,

I should have noted the obvious. It was Europeans, not Africans, who invented the myth of genetic inferiority and essential difference. They used that myth to subjugate much of the planet. The white myth racial/genetic supremacy also fueled the carnage in Rwanda and the wider Great Lakes zone.

kzs

On Sep 7, 2015 4:34 AM, "kwame zulu shabazz" <kwames...@gmail.com> wrote:

Brother Samuel,

White people are not inherently violent. I have never suggested anything like that. This is about history, not genetics. The Portuguese set sail from Europe with the aim of conquering, plundering, and enslaving. We know this because it's clearly outlined in decrees issued by the Pope, so called Papal Bulls.

As for Islam and other Abrahamic religions. They are only good as their human interpreters. I have argued elsewhere that the insistence on one God, the elimination of female Gods, the general subordination of women, etc., tends to lead Abrahamic faiths down the path of what I call the "slippery slope of intolerance." Europeans and Arabs have invoked religion to dominate the planet.

kzs

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[kwame zulu shabazz]

Brother Samuel,

White people are not inherently violent. I have never suggested anything like that. This is about history, not genetics. The Portuguese set sail from Europe with the aim of conquering, plundering, and enslaving. We know this because it's clearly outlined in decrees issued by the Pope, so called Papal Bulls.

As for Islam and other Abrahamic religions. They are only good as their human interpreters. I have argued elsewhere that the insistence on one God, the elimination of female Gods, the general subordination of women, etc., tends to lead Abrahamic faiths down the path of what I call the "slippery slope of intolerance." Europeans and Arabs have invoked religion to dominate the planet.

kzs

On Sep 7, 2015 4:14 AM, "Samuel Zalanga" <szal...@bethel.edu> wrote:

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[kenneth harrow]

i agree the scale of some european aggression is mind boggling. but so was the scale of japanese aggression against the chinese, and the list of violence  around the world, including in africa, is also mind boggling.. i agree with samuel that as europeans and americans acquired power, they used to often to extreme degrees. but for an internet chat-dispute, you'd probably need to have a firm grasp of history throughout the world to pretend to assign brutality to one race over another.
i really find the approach unfortunate in seeking to make the comparison. i prefer to look at what happened, in case by case instances, and ask under what conditions did this people deploy force and brutalize that people.
if we don't do that, we wind up ignoring brutalizing uses of force by africans, turning them just into victims.

in bekolo's long movie-interview of mudimbe, mudimbe spoke repeatedly and at length about singularity, the way in which africans were assigned difference from europeans. in the end, that was the greatest brutality visited against africans, over the long run. i agree with material readings of history, but when the material conquest or exploitation has ended, the effects of singularity linger and continue their damage.

when i also think about the deplorable exploitation of say the senegalese seas or the material resources of east congo, it seems to me that every possible group of people, from malaysians to israelis to chinese trawlers to europeans, east europeans, and zimbabweans, rwandans, ugandans, are all in on the take. all participate in the destruction of african lives, greedy and powerful people who sell guns to anyone willing to pay, buy diamonds and tin and forests and ivory, and have only one value, money. there is plenty of inhumanity going around.
lastly, although i am not not not an historian, i recognize that europeans not only destroyed others, but also themselves, and asians did the same, during the world wars. who did not participate in the killing of 100 million people in wwII? who was not made a hero among their people?
even now, monuments to the war dead, Died for the Patrie, are everywhere....except in germany.
ken

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[kenneth harrow]

let me say i have the highest respect for arundhati roy, and take seriously her allegations. the article included here is far to sketchy to allow us to dismiss gandhi. so, i am glad the challenge to him was opened up, saddened too, but feel we need more to establish a clear view on the allegations
ken

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Brother Chambi,

I haven't seen this piece, but Roy is basically saying what I have said. Gandhi supported the status quo. Every respondent in this essay was silent on caste and the status of the Dalit.

kzs

[Abolaji Adekeye]

Its not everybody who is enamored of the wheel spinning Mahatma.
Before Arundhati Roy, Hitchens in his book God is Not Great has this
to say about Mohandas:
" Just at the moment when what India most needed was a modern secular
nationalist leader, it got a fakir and guru instead."

Ghandi was notorious for his tendency to violence when convenient or
necessary, contrary to the avatar of peaceful disobedience mask he
wore. He is equally renown for his intolerance of Muslims, and
Hindu-Supremacy tendencies.

The new revelations are hardly surprising if a tad shocking.

We live in a world where nothing and nobody is or should be sacred,
immuned or excused from examination. I was trying to get an Indian
acquaintance's opinion but met with familiar hostility. Like our
Nkrumahs , Awos, Ziks, Mandelas, even Stalins, he can do no wrong. He
is the patron saint that cannot be searched (read besmirched).
Thankfully not all Indians are in accord.

We construct our heroes with marbles of the highest quality but the
foundation of clay settles under the glare of objective scrutiny.

>>>>>> ph. 517 803 8839 <517%20803%208839>

>>>>> ph. 517 803 8839h...@msu.edu

>>>> ph. 517 803 8839h...@msu.edu

>>> ph. 517 803 8839h...@msu.edu

>>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Samuel Zalanga
> Department of Anthropology, Sociology & Reconciliation Studies
> Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive #24
> Saint Paul, MN 55112.
> Office Phone: 651-638-6023
>

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken, I am still awaiting your source for the claim that Gandhi changed his views on Black Africans. The allegations against Gandhi are plastered all over the internet. They have been there for at least a decade. I posted the basic details earlier in this thread. I also cited the work of Ambedkar and Runoko Rashidi. Or you could just go and buy the book we are debating.

kzs

kzs
===
kwame zulu shabazz

email: kwames...@gmail.com

cell: 336-422-9577
skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz
===
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

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken, I am really puzzled by your arguments. Again and again you attempt to qualify the massive carnage of Europeans. You said:

"who did not participate in the killing of 100 million people in wwII? who was not made a hero among their people?"

Isn't it obvious that the so-called "world wars" were instigated by Europeans? And wasn't the weaponry mostly made in Europe. And didn't the weapons really on minerals found in abundance in Africa? And according to W.E.B. Du Bois in his important text "The World and Africa." A primary cause of WWI was the "scramble" (brutal theft) of Africa's resources.

kzs

kzs
===
kwame zulu shabazz

email: kwames...@gmail.com

cell: 336-422-9577
skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz
===
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

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[kenneth harrow]

this paragraph seems striking in challenging some of the rejections of gandhi:

Despite what Ambedkar said at the time to Gandhi and others, he later said he signed under immense pressure and claimed that Gandhi was actually against equality for the Dalits. Ambedkar suggested in a 1955 interview that Gandhi didn’t truly “deserve” the title of Mahatma (great soul). And yet, a close look at Gandhi’s own words leads me to conclude that his position was based on a deep commitment to fully eradicating untouchability from Hinduism.

here is the site: http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/gandhi-and-the-dalit-controversy-the-limits-of-the-moral-force-of-an-individual/

kwame, in response to the question of whether he  changed, this piece in the guardian ends with that surmisal: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/oct/17/southafrica.india

ken

[Samuel Zalanga]

Thank you very much indeed Professor Shabazz. Your clarification helps very much and I surely agree with your assessment below about the slippery slope. I am not willing to protect or condone any injustice but clarifying that even though Whites committed violence, they are not inherently violent is an important affirmation and statement for the humanity of all of us.

I was just looking at some books yesterday on human nature. One is "Theories of Human Nature" by Peter Loptson and the other is titled "12 Theories of Human Nature" by some other authors. Every social theory whether explicitly or implicitly makes some assumption about human nature and the assumption they make leads them one direction or the other. We are discussing "instrumental individualism" based the work of Thomas Hobbes which primarily concerned about the problem of human nature and social order in all human societies. Thanks for sharing the list of books you are using.

Samuel

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken you complained about vagueness but the your source is exceedingly vague. Quote from ANC leader "Later he got more enlightened."

What the ANC leader apparently doesn't know is that anti-Black racism is pervasive in India.

At any rate Gandhi's actual words are despicable. Just believing that he changed on good faith is insulting to black people.

kzs

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

The European migrations/refugee movements/ invasions
into the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and South/Southeast Asia certainly led to
genocide, land grabbing and settler colonialism. That is a historical fact that
nobody can wish away.

But we don't have to reinvent the wheel. A.G Frank, J. Blaut, W. Rodney, Eric Williams,
and a host of other scholars have worked on this issue, from different angles, using a variety of
paradigms. Development-underdevelopment theory, Rise-of -the West explanations,
Toynbee/ counter Tonybee environmental determinism.....
and a lot of other intellectual packages are out there.

The thesis of inherent violence has little traction. It is as bad a theory as the theory of original sin.
No need to conjure that straw man. Move on to greener pastures.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Samuel Zalanga [szal...@bethel.edu]
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2015 12:30 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - What did Mahatma Gandhi think of black people?

Thank you very much indeed Professor Shabazz. Your clarification helps very much and I surely agree with your assessment below about the slippery slope. I am not willing to protect or condone any injustice but clarifying that even though Whites committed violence, they are not inherently violent is an important affirmation and statement for the humanity of all of us.

I was just looking at some books yesterday on human nature. One is "Theories of Human Nature" by Peter Loptson and the other is titled "12 Theories of Human Nature" by some other authors. Every social theory whether explicitly or implicitly makes some assumption about human nature and the assumption they make leads them one direction or the other. We are discussing "instrumental individualism" based the work of Thomas Hobbes which primarily concerned about the problem of human nature and social order in all human societies. Thanks for sharing the list of books you are using.



Samuel

On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 4:34 AM, kwame zulu shabazz <kwames...@gmail.com<mailto:kwames...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Brother Samuel,

White people are not inherently violent. I have never suggested anything like that. This is about history, not genetics. The Portuguese set sail from Europe with the aim of conquering, plundering, and enslaving. We know this because it's clearly outlined in decrees issued by the Pope, so called Papal Bulls.

As for Islam and other Abrahamic religions. They are only good as their human interpreters. I have argued elsewhere that the insistence on one God, the elimination of female Gods, the general subordination of women, etc., tends to lead Abrahamic faiths down the path of what I call the "slippery slope of intolerance." Europeans and Arabs have invoked religion to dominate the planet.

kzs

On Sun, Sep 6, 2015 at 9:29 PM, kwame zulu shabazz <kwames...@gmail.com<mailto:kwames...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Ken,

White people did not invent aggression. But the scale of European aggresion is mind boggling. Native Americans certainly fought each other. However, there is not a single case that I am aware of wherein Native Americans TOTALLY ANNIHILATED NATIVE AMERICANS. There are MANY cases of Europeans wiping out entire peoples. To put the matter succinctly, contact with Europeans was catastrophic for Indigenous people in the Americas, in Australia, in Africa.

kzs

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[kenneth harrow]

i agree his words were despicable. his reputation later for fighting against caste discrimination would seem to indicate a change, but maybe that was undeserved. i don't know.
also, racism in india does not surprise me, but its form seems to be joined to religious caste thinking. isn't the question at stake whether he actually sought to change indian views on caste? and if he did, was that also a factor in changing views of people of color? i don't know if race is even the appropriate word to use in india. is it used there to signify difference between dalit, brahmin, etc?
ken

[kenneth harrow]

kwame,
why assign blame to the killings in world war II to europeans, as though no one else joined in the killing?
was it europeanism that accounted for the weapons?

in fact, i am confused by this train of thought.
how can we distinguish between people called up to fight in world war two, or who joined military forces--willingly, unwillingly--by such an identity marker as "european"?
i can agree on some points, but you push the identity factor far too much for me.
ok, so, i agree on this: europeans became economically and militarily the most powerful after the 18th century, mostly with the 19th century, and by the end of that century established dominion world-wide. with that dominion they conquered and ruled the 3d world, justifying it on the grounds of being civilized and bringing civilization.
in fact, civilization was an ideological buzzword that justified the conquest and exploitation of labor and material goods of the colonized people. perhaps we can agree on that.

the wars demonstrated graphically that the all powerful civilized world was capable of immense barbarism--killing, torturing, on a vast scale.
let's agree on that.

after that, to use those agreed upon points to assign specific qualities to europeans as opposed to others is something i can't accept. i stated why briefly before, and really don't think it is very interesting to make the claim again: i simply find that historically people with more power than another, with the fight over resources, as samuel stated, unleashed violence and brutality. everywhere. i cited the most notorious--the japanese actions in world war two, and the massive killings of the chinese. but really, the most elementary historical overview finds examples everywhere, unless there is some kind of balance of power.
on this list, everyone knows there is one word that signifies how the imbalance of power = killings of millions. that word is biafra.
but it can be pronounced differently, like "rwanda" or "burundi" or especially east congo. or maybe it is zanzibar; and if it was maumau, it wasn't simply europeans killing kikuyu.
we have african historians on this list--founded by an african historian--who can make a much more interesting case than i can.
to assign all this to europeans is wrong. europeans fueled killings, when it was in their interest, but so did everyone else.

if you want to point our particularly egregious killings, massive deaths, in the New World, all i can say is, yes, you're right; but i also taught Oscar Acosta, Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo and learned that the plains indian wars were not simply the US cavalry against a united indian front.

in our historical moment, the strongest are able to kill the best. but over the span of history, when others besides the europeans were strongest, they were pretty good at killing as well. what are we to conclude? you want to somehow set apart the europeans. i can agree, 1939=45, for sure; and then i remember the japanese at that time, and start to back off.
i remember what the french did to the algerians, 1954-61, for sure. but i remember other factors, like the engagement of the tirailleurs senegalais, the harkis, etc., and begin to think this isn't so clear. when we get to FIS vs the FLN in algeria in the 1980s, it ceases to be a question of europeans, and yet the brutality and hundreds of thousands of deaths return. what do you want to say? that algerians are still white? no, there has to be a stronger way to understand the human propensity to violence, and we need stronger arguments to counter them.
ken

[kenneth harrow]

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/18/arundhati-roy-accuses-mahatma-gandhi-discrimination
the same guardian piece we are all citing states: "

Prof Mridula Mukherjee, an expert in modern Indian history at Jawaharlal University in Delhi, said Roy's criticism was misplaced. "Gandhi devoted much of his life to fighting caste prejudice. He was a reformer not a revivalist within the Hindu religion. His effort was in keeping with his philosophy of nonviolence and bringing social transformation without creating hatred," Mukherjee said.

Roy's comments are part of a long-running historical argument over Gandhi's views on caste."

i confess i do not know enough to pronounce an opinion on this. however, it would surprise me considerably if the indian living in s africa, where discrimination against africans was common within the indian community, had not shifted somewhat over time with his activism in india. at least in the case of the dalits, it seems to be a controversy rather than a settled historical view.

ken

-- 
kenneth w. harrow 
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department of english
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[kwame zulu shabazz]

No Europeans didn't invent violence. Yes, Europeans instigated two world wars and thus they are primarily accountable for the resulting carnage of said wars.

kzs

[kenneth harrow]

agreed.
as for reinventing the wheel, we die if we don't. that doesn't mean all
the thinkers and paradigms you cited were wrong; they should inspire us
to work further, not to stop at their threshold.
ken

[Samuel Zalanga]

Within the Dalits too, there is hierarchy just as African Americans were oppressed but within the African American community there is also hierarchy of inequality. Interestingly, this has continued to this day.

There is a documentary about inequality among the Dalits. We have it in our library. It is part of a series call "Life" produced by Bullfrog Films. Their oppression is part of a grand cosmological worldview, which indicates the potential role of religion in perpetuating oppression of one group of people by another. But among the oppressed too, there are some who see themselves better than others as they see it. The documentary on the Dalits titled "Untouchables" highlights this clearly.  One would wish that among the oppressed, since they know what oppression is, they will reason and treat each other in a more humanistic way. That this is not the case is a problem. One way to make meaning out of this is to blame it on others instead of them to taking their own share of responsibility because of the problem of "libido dominandi" i.e., the lust to conquer, according to St. Augustine.

 Frankly, any of such feelings as attributed to Gandhi will be found among Africans against other Africans. We do not need to go far. Some of it is part of the human condition and the moment we realize that it is not just a problem of White or Indian people but all of us humans, the faster we are on the road to dealing with it. In New Orleans, there were Blacks who owned Black slaves. One would think that even though slavery is a system for producing wealth, but being Black will make the Blacks refuse to participate in it --  in the process of filthy lucre. But many did not.  Here we have problem of the human condition, which is everywhere. Context is what leads to its different manifestation. In Nigeria, I know a lot of terrible prejudice that different groups attribute in an essential way to other groups. They will say either Hausa person is this, or an Igbo person or Yoruba person is this. Even educated people do that. Where can we go with this kind of near essentialist thinking that is in Africa. People may not systematize it into a genetic argument but the logic is the same and if they have the resources, some would not mind proving that.

 If we will collect all the prejudiced sayings or beliefs of one ethnic group against the other even in precolonial Africa, we will easily conclude that while there are other distant people's prejudice against we Blacks in Africa that negatively impacted us, but we Blacks (ourselves), are not immune from that.

 In Basil Davidson's documentary on Africa, in the episode on "Kings" the horse of the emir of Kano is better fed and taken care of than many of the talakwas and it was obvious even in the precolonial period, the rulers extract resources from rural areas to maintain the royal lifestyle. If you see the way the horse was specially fed becasue it is the Emir's animal while the peasants are out there struggling, it shows you that the problem of inequality, power and domination are part of the human condition.

Of course this condition has manifested itself differently, at different times and locations, but there is an underlying reality that informs it beyond the variation in appearance. We should be as hard on ourselves as Africans in terms of how we treat each other and our people as we are on how others treated us.

Coming back from Nigeria recently and seeing how many Nigerian citizens are treated as "non-persons," and given how Abuja operates, this is a more forceful statement to me about how fellow Blacks treat other Blacks in Africa today, Many years after whatever Gandhi said or did that denigrated Black Africans, many African elites learned nothing from it. Maybe Gandhi was honest by speaking up his mind, but what I see in Africa is many dubious people who by their acts of commission and commission, say in concrete terms worse than what Gandhi said or did.

 How can one account for all this level of corruption in Nigeria? We have a Nigerian kind of apartheid system, but not by law i.e., not de jure, but de facto as is in the U.S. There was a time when racial segregation of neighborhoods is by law, but now it is built into the economic system and therefore inscribed in economic geography. The same thing in Abuja or any major city. People are segregated and that segregation has developed well into a pattern that any careful and honest observer will admit it exists. Yes, Nigerians are all blacks but through government policies promulgated by fellow blacks, over the years, the spatial distribution of people is a kind of apartheid that is looking fine because of democracy.

Simply because we have the rich coming from elites in different groups does not make the situation to be less of a segregation. This is a terrible statement from our leaders through their actions. I am more worried about that than what Gandhi said, not because we should not focus on it, but becasue what the leaders in Africa are doing to ordinary Africans have more direct negative impact on the dignity of the Africans. . If Gandhi did something terrible, the most embarrassing thing about it is that Blacks have not cared to learn anything from it, more than fifty years after independence  in Africa. If the leaders in Africa want to show that Gandhi was bad, they should do so through their public policies on those that Fanon called "Wretched of the Earth."  Even the way some university communities, communities of the educated treat others is embarrassing and indicates little was learned or if it was, it was ignored in pursued of filthy lucre.

Some of us will always remember the "non-persons" no matter the deceptive and flamboyant buildings in Abuja and the talk of a constitution that claims people have dignity and human rights but they are treated like "non-parsons." We will also never be satisfied by just having comfortable life in the West. The U.S. had her own problem in the past as terrible as other countries but some people decided to do something about it which then attracted many of us. It is about struggle. 

Unless the constitution is going to be taken seriously, the document itself has become part of a grand strategy by postcolonial elites to persuade people that they have a democracy when in reality, the system only allows few to get rich at the expense of the majority i.e., exclusive instead of inclusive development. And more than fifty years after independence, it is still the same discourse and language that I am tired of: "North, South, Southwest, Southeast, South South" etc or Eurocentrism. There is more focus on between group differences instead of the human development of all.  I just want to see something that elevates the dignity of the human being irrespective of where he or she comes from. Asian countries recognize all the problems we are talking about here but they did not just focus just on talking about the issues but discipline their systems to do things differently. Unless we focus on concrete action to bring about change over and above the trenchant critique, we will just be in the situation where Marx critiqued his fellow Young Hegelians in German Ideology. The world has been analyzed form time immemorial, what remains is to change it.

Let us focus on where we have failed and betrayed the yearnings of the ordinary people form different ethnic groups, religions, and regions of the continent and make a commitment to change, recognize our personal responsibility even as we trenchantly critique outsiders. Indeed, Africa has a greater chance of fighting international or external obstacles to her development when we get our domestic acts together. You cannot fight a serious battle internationally if you refuse to deal with your domestic challenges sincerely. 

For example a country like Nigeria will never rise if the talk is always about this region or that region instead of really focusing on what really empowers the ordinary citizen. Even at my age, and I know there are many in this forum older than me, I feel scared that I will die and Africa will still be no where. They just talk about economic growth when fairness and equity in distribution is ignored.

Samuel

On Sun, Sep 6, 2015 at 11:58 AM, kwame zulu shabazz <kwames...@gmail.com> wrote:

Ken,

The respected Indian activist scholar Arundhati Roy endorses the thesis of the book. On what basis do you claim that Gandhi changed his views on Black people?

On a related point, I have gotten to know several Dalit activists over the years. They ALL concur that Gandhi was a tyrant and an apologist for the Varna - status quo that keeps most Dalits at the bottom of the Indian/South Asian social order.

The Dalit scholar-politician Ambedkar insisted that "Gandhi is the greatest enemy the untouchables have ever had." For context see the published works of Ambedkar. Here is a decent summary: "Why Do India's Dalits Hate Gandhi?" http://www.countercurrents.org/dalit-mountain200306.htm

kzs

On Sep 6, 2015 11:23 AM, "kenneth harrow" <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

gandhi changed over time; the attacks on him, judging his values as a young indian in s africa compared with the ideal figure of resistance, of amazing resistance, to british colonialism, for which he is known historically, strikes me as too absolutist.
i feel the same about the recent thread on mandela, and on winnie: it strikes me as too absolutist, too all-hero, all-heroine, or nothing.
the greatest supreme court justice of our times ("our" being relative) was hugo black, a man who in his youth had been a member of the kkk.
the question about hitler might  make more sense if we asked whether his views changed over time. if they did, they just got worse.

i feel that examples we seek could push the discussion into spaces of moral ambiguity, but i don't know whether the responses of gloria and kwame on the question of gandhi  admit of any ambiguity: it feels as though one had to be truly  pure revolutionary, or one was a counter-revolutionary. reading about che's decisions to kill those he deemed a threat to the revolutionary reverts to an absolutism which ultimately turns totalitarian. i thought we got past that vision of the revolution 40 years ago. anyway, i think we have to do so; we have to continue to reflect on how a revolutionary vision can be improved, not taken as absolute. i feel we are the children, intellectually, of a generation of revolutionaries, whom we taught for years: fanon, cesaire, cabral, etc
but i want to be able to question their positions; improve on them. that's why i've cited mouffe and laclau in the past, because they do precisely that.

the same over racism, and anti-semitism, or other  positions. i would question whether all the figures who shared these positions remain unworthy, unredeemable, etc

so, to relativize my own thinking, with an example that springs to mind: i know some on this list attended the ala meeting in bayreuth this june, a wonderful meeting of africanists and our hosts. bayreuth, as some of you know, is the center for the wagner festival, and there are statues of wagner all over the city: seated, looking benign and very bavarian with his funny looking hat. he shared hitler's views of jews, as did a number of other germans. ultimately israel had to decide whether to permit performances of his music in israel itself.
i listen to his music, and can love it, while i detest his views.
i can love much of the rhetoric of thomas jefferson, despsite his having been a slave master.

bottom line: we might not share the views of a number of people, yet we can still derive benefit from their thought, still enjoy their creations.
or maybe we can; maybe our distaste cannot be overcome....
ken

On 9/6/15 10:44 AM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) wrote:

"Arthur de Gobineau, Hegel, Montesquieu and Churchill held worst views.
I think we should not be judging the ethics and morals of people with the standards of our own epoch." Mailafia


Where do you draw the line?  Will you give  Hitler a free pass?

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Obadiah Mailafia [obmai...@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, September 04, 2015 9:41 AM
To: USAAfrica Dialogue

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - What did Mahatma Gandhi think of black people?

Very interesting historical revision here. I would have been very surprised if Gandhi, a high-born Brahmin had not held those views about Africans. Arthur de Gobineau, Hegel, Montesquieu and Churchill held worst views. I think we should not be judging the ethics and morals of people with the standards of our own epoch. Also, Gandhi went through several stages in his intellectual, moral, political and spiritual evolution. The Gandhi that left for England was different from the young proud Westernised barrister that tried to eke out a living in the South African Bar. And the traumas he encountered changed him. He was the same Brahmin who had a metanoia and renamed the low castes as "Harijan" (Children of God). We live in a cruel and sinful world. Every man and woman must carry their own cross. Gandhi carried his. He was not a perfect human being. But he sought a new way of capitalizing on the human spirit to fight injustice and oppression. MLK was an assiduous student of Gandhi and his adoption of AHIMSA made all the difference in the world. I went to college with the grand daughter of Gandhi, a mild-mannered young woman of beauty and grace. Her grandfather was not perfect, but because of the great efforts and sacrifices he made, the world of Humanity has been transformed by the sheer weight of his moral force. The challenge for us is to pick from the elements of what he did and apply it where we are at present. It can make a difference.

On Fri, Sep 4, 2015 at 5:29 AM, 'Ikhide' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>> wrote:

Was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the revered leader of India’s freedom movement, a racist?

A controversial new book<http://navayana.org/product/the-south-african-gandhi/>  by two South African university professors  reveals shocking<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZn2TW2vdhM> details about Gandhi’s life in South Africa between 1893 and 1914, before he returned to India.

During his stay in South Africa, Gandhi routinely expressed “disdain for Africans,” says S. Anand, founder of Navayana, the publisher of the book titled “The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire.”

According to the book, Gandhi described black Africans  as “savage,” “raw” and living a life of “indolence and nakedness,” and he campaigned relentlessly to prove to the British rulers that the Indian community in South Africa was superior to native black Africans. The book combs through Gandhi’s own writings during the period and government archives and paints a portrait that is at variance with how the world<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/17/AR2009021703040.html> regards him today.

[The dark side of Winston Churchill no one should forget<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/02/03/the-dark-side-of-winston-churchills-legacy-no-one-should-forget/>]

Much of the halo<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/11/AR2009061103859.html> that surrounds Gandhi today is a result of clever repackaging, write the authors, Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed, professors at the University of Johannesburg and the University of KwaZulu Natal.

“As we examined Gandhi’s actions and contemporary writings during his South African stay, and compared these with what he wrote in his autobiography and 'Satyagraha in South Africa,' it was apparent that he indulged in some ‘tidying up.' He was effectively rewriting his own history.”

Prize-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy says the book, which will hit stores next month, is “a serious challenge to the way we have been taught to think about Gandhi.”

Here is a sample of what Gandhi said about black South Africans:

* One of the first battles Gandhi fought after coming to South Africa was over the separate entrances for whites and blacks at the Durban post office. Gandhi objected that Indians were “classed with the natives of South Africa,” who he called the kaffirs, and demanded a separate entrance for Indians.

- Rama Lakshmi

Nothing new here. Mahatma Gandhi was a thoroughgoing racist.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/03/what-did-mahatma-gandhi-think-of-black-people/?tid=sm_fb

- Ikhide

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[Abolaji Adekeye]

The Ghandi that exhorted the British to allow the Nazi's:

"take possession of your beautiful island, with your
many beautiful buildings. You will give all these
but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these
gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will
vacate them. If they do not give you free passage
out, you will allow yourself man, woman and
child, to be slaughtered …"

was not indulging in irony neither was he naïve. He was a dangerous
man. A fundamentalist that saw his own world view of ahimsa and
satyagraha as the only view worth keeping and sought to impose it on
every other person. He was also a crass opportunist who thought the
Japanese at the borders of India signified the end of the Raj with a
Japanese victory.

This was the fakir that claimed to represent the untouchables but
threatened to embark on hunger strike if the British grants any
special concessions to them. The best he did for the untouchable was
renamed them Harijans " children of the gods" which they rejected in
favor of Dalits.

Mohandas Ghandi has been photoshopped and air brushed for far too
long. Its time to see his ragged self for all he's worth.
Kindly read Joseph Lelyveld's book; The Great Soul :Mahatma Ghandi and
The Struggle With India. You may read Christopher Hitchen's review of
same too.

>> *Boston Globe*
>>
>> *Dark passages*
>>
>> *Does the harsh language in the Koran explain Islamic violence? Don't
>> answer till you've taken a look inside the Bible*
>>
>> *By Philip Jenkins *
>>
>> *March 8, 2009 *

>> */Philip Jenkins teaches at Penn State University. He is the author of

>> "The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the

>> Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia -- and How It Died." /*

>>
>>
>>
>> Samuel
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 6, 2015 at 9:29 PM, kwame zulu shabazz
>> <kwames...@gmail.com <mailto:kwames...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Ken,
>>
>> White people did not invent aggression. But the scale of European
>> aggresion is mind boggling. Native Americans certainly fought
>> each other. However, there is not a single case that I am aware of
>> wherein Native Americans TOTALLY ANNIHILATED NATIVE AMERICANS.
>> There are MANY cases of Europeans wiping out entire peoples. To
>> put the matter succinctly, contact with Europeans was catastrophic
>> for Indigenous people in the Americas, in Australia, in Africa.
>>
>> kzs
>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Samuel Zalanga
>> Department of Anthropology, Sociology & Reconciliation Studies
>> Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive #24
>> Saint Paul, MN 55112.
>> Office Phone: 651-638-6023
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>
> --
> kenneth w. harrow
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> professor of english
> michigan state university
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[kwame zulu shabazz]

Brother Samuel,

I think you are confusing issues. The fact that a group of Dahlits might feel superior to another group of Dahlits has no bearing on the brutal degradation of Dahlits generally. And to the degree that Dahlits are oppressing Dahlits (if in fact this is the case) it should be condemned. Superiority or hierarchy are conditions but not in and of themselves causes of Dahlit degradation. Group X can feel superior to Group Y and still treat their subordinates with dignity and respect. As for Gandhi, the issue is not just his utterances or beliefs, rather the position of many Dahlits is that Gandhi's actions contributed directly to undermining Dahlit prospects for self-determination.

kzs

kzs
===
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email: kwames...@gmail.com

cell: 336-422-9577
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===
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

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Samuel,

African Americans don't typical kill each other over hierarchy.  And in no way are those tensions justifications for centuries of white terrorism directed at black people. Moreover, much of the tensions that are extant in our communities--e.g., colorism, classism, regionalism--are outcomes of white supremacy.

kzs

kzs
===
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email: kwames...@gmail.com

cell: 336-422-9577
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===
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 Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 12:43 PM, Samuel Zalanga <szal...@bethel.edu> wrote:

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Lord Harrow

please accept the honorific as a Brahminical title, respect, that’s all, not of the type that was being bartered/ traded/ sold at “the irish international university”

in a still small voice little i asketh:

is there anything like Whitey Privilege?  a special category?

maybe, White Privilege sounds less aggressive, in some cases less assertive…

anyway it’s in print , in black on white

so far I have been patiently holding my sacred peace  waiting for a good moment, but not too long,  to pounce as the enemies vilify and denigrate Mahatma Ji who indeed is far beyond their capacity to denigrate , in this world,  in any of the other lokas of the here and now or the hereafter.

you know how some of the windbags can be, they like to say evil things about revered religious or political personages.

 most of my time in harlem in new york was in clothes from the Mahatma Gandhi Ashram

the little i is in full agree-ment with thee about Mahatmaji’s good heart for the Harijans when you say, “a close look at Gandhi’s own words leads me to conclude that his position was based on a deep commitment to fully eradicating untouchability from Hinduism”

as to the sexual customs and mores of his time,  those interested in such stuff should please read at least the first part of his five part autobiography which can also be read online HERE

should I sign off

 wee sweden or

 just Cornelius

We Sweden ?

 

On Sunday, 6 September 2015 23:32:50 UTC+2, Kenneth Harrow wrote:

white american privilege?
kwame, i can't see the world in the terms you invite me to.
sorry
ken

On 9/6/15 1:08 PM, kwame zulu shabazz wrote:

Ken,

You said,

"i can love much of the rhetoric of thomas jefferson, despsite his having been a slave master."

Loving Jefferson's rhetoric is a sort of white American privilege. I don't love anything about the rapist/Indian killer/slave owner Thomas Jefferson. Nothing. He is no better than Hitler in my view. I would rather read and reflect on the rhetoric of enslaved Africans and Native Americans who were brutally silenced by white supremacists like Jefferson and the other so - called "Founding Fathers."

Forward ever,

kzs

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[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

Ken, in case you did not get it , the statement simply meant that we have to be aware of the
various theories out there and move on. Who ever said that we should idiotically stop at
one point?

Moving on implies that you work further indeed while building on accumulated knowledge in the
process.

My point was that the essentialism argument should be abandoned for more
complex theory, even though it is a historical fact that a great deal of genocide
and land seizures, plunder and exploitation have been associated with
European settler colonialism across the Americas, Australia, New Zealand,
Africa and South/Southeast Asia.

If this is not a historical fact, prove otherwise.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [har...@msu.edu]
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2015 1:51 PM

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[Samuel Zalanga]

OK, if I get it right, white racism is a parsimonious explanation for all other forms of oppression. Other forms of injustice can be somewhat ignored because they are just a by-product of something more fundamental.  Other forms of oppression subsist on White racism.

Wow! Methodologically, this is an powerful and straightforward explanation to use because like classical Marxism, we can relate everything to mode of production. My problem is that with an empirically-minded orientation being a sociologist and desiring to see the empirical reference of concepts, I know even if I believe this if I go out there in the empirical world, the reality is far too complex than this. The current explanation elevates White racism to an exceptional status. That is just my concern.

Thank you very much again for the clarification.

Samuel

[kenneth harrow]

gloria
i agree with you. maybe you would want to qualify your last point re
genocide and land seizures, to mark them as being in the modern period;
and in fact, it ignores much of asia, until relatively late. in s
america it becomes complicated because of the exit of the british. but
in the modern period, anyway, i agree with your last paragraph. before
that, well, europeans didn't have the means to conquer others, including
on the african continent, until the end of the 19th century....as we all
know.
i think of people as being a little like animals, who eat when they get
hungry. consider the end of the roman empire, and who ate it up.
consider the raiding that took place from around 450 or 500 a.d. down
till around 1100, when finally the norsemen either stopped or settled in
the south. consider the long reign of the arab states in the
mediterranean, and then the spanish and turks.
all the plundering across much of that time; and the empires i just
mentioned that arose. all this before 1500, and then the rise of the
europeans, slowly, after that.
history and plundering didn't begin in the modern period with europeans.
didn't begin with the franks, with the romans, with the greeks or the
mongols.
it didn't begin with the incans either, or the aztecs.
homo homini lupus.
k

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Brother Samuel,  

In the USA, white supremacy was exceptional--exceptionally deadly. This land (America) was occupied by indigenous people who had resided here for thousands of years. Those people were totally annihilated by white people.

I could have written white terrorism and capitalism to be more precise. Gandhi was in South Africa and India. Both countries were colonized by Europeans. So, yes, white racism is far reaching (which is not the same as saying everything can be reduced to white supremacy). Gandhi aligned himself with Aryan-ness. He based the claim of Indian/Brahmin superiority to Africans in part on the Aryan-ness. Those are Gandhi's explicit words.

I stated that color, class, regional antagonisms in African American communities are (mostly) the outcome of centuries of white terrrorism. That should be obvious. I you some direction for more research.  

Colorism: Whites in the southern USA used mixed race slaves (i.e. the children of Africans women raped by European slave masters) as social buffers against the enslaved masses. This was especially the case in Lousiana. There is tons of work on this. See, for example, "White by Definition" by Domínguez and "Creole," edited by Kein 

Class: Classism and colorism were often entangled because of the buffer tactic I mentioned previously. You might look into how desegregation intensified class antagonisms within the African American community. It is also important to keep in mind that during the one hundred year Jim Crow era, whites often brutally punished (relatively) successful blacks. So-called "uppity niggers" were frequently lynched. See the documentary Black Wall Street.

For regionalisms: you might start with a work on the "Great Migration" by "Warmth of other Suns" by Wilkerson. These migrations were instigated by black people fleeing white terrorism in the South. Wilkerson has several lectures online.

All of these isms were violently policed by white people up until the 1970s. 

kzs
===
kwame zulu shabazz

email: kwames...@gmail.com

cell: 336-422-9577
skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz
===
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

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Brother Cornelius,

I said Ken exemplifies white privilege when he endorses the idea one can respect Thomas Jefferson's soaring rhetoric despite Jefferson's slave holding and his despicable views of black people. I insist that there is nothing that the rapist, Indian killing, slave-owning, white supremacist Jefferson can teach me. I am reposting disgusting views about African people below:

Jefferson quotes from "Notes on the State of Virginia" (1853):

1. Black people stink

"They secrete less by the kidnies [sic], and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour."

2. Black people are unintelligent and dull

"in reason [Blacks are] much inferior, as think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous."

3. Black people are an inferior species

"I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind."

4. Phillis Wheatley is too dumb to write poetry

"The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism."

5. Black people need less sleep and childlike.

"They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning."

6. Black people are too stupid to sense danger

​"​

They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites.

​"​

kzs
===
kwame zulu shabazz

email: kwames...@gmail.com

cell: 336-422-9577
skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz
===
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

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[kwame zulu shabazz]

All,

I reached out to my comrade/colleague Noel Didla. Sister Noel is a Dalit and grew up in India. She is an activist and a professor of English at Jackson State University Feel free to contact her directly. I asked if, in her view, Gandhi had any redeeming qualities. Her reply was an emphatic "no." In fact, according to Noel, his nationalist project did more harm than good by eroding and even erasing local identities, agendas, and struggles. Noel also concurs that the primary issue for Dalits has always been the right to self-determination. Gandhi explicitly denied that right to Dalits.

She also cautioned against relying on Arundhati Roy, herself a high caste Indian, interpretations of Ambedkar's outlook. She suggests that one should allow Ambedkar (and Dalits generally) to speak for themselves (see link to his writings below). Noel notes, for example, that Roy's understanding of caste and its implications for Dalits is mediocre at best.

I inquired about Samuel's point regarding hierarchy within Dalit communities. She acknowledges that there are caste divisions and endogamous marital practices within Dalit communities, but that those divisions are not even remotely related to or comparable to thousands of years of gross degradation of Dalits in India. She finds such comparisons insulting and strongly repudiates them. She shared several links that I am passing along to the listserv:

1. Quoting Noel: "Roundtable india is the only Dalit/bahujan publication that only allows folks from our communities to publish."

http://roundtableindia.co.in/

2. Ambedkar readings at Columbia Univ.

http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar/web/readings/aoc_print_2004.pdf

3. Ambedkar correspondence with W.E.B. Du Bois

http://www.colorlines.com/articles/letter-web-dubois-sheds-light-dalit-leaders-global-vision

kzs
===
kwame zulu shabazz

email: kwames...@gmail.com

cell: 336-422-9577
skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz
===
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

[Samuel Zalanga]

Dear Professor Shabazz,

I will assume that no one in this forum condones injustice or oppression. But my interest in the conversation is much broader than what you are trying to get at. My interest is broader and deeply conceptual. Given my current level of concerns with oppression in Africa or India more than fifty years after independence with so many universities and erudite scholars, I am not too concerned about what Gandhi said per se. In one respect, I am interested in whether some people have the exclusive essential  characteristic of being oppressors, or whether the capacity to oppress another is a human condition that potentially applies to all but concretely varies with time, context, history, opportunity etc.etc. Depending on how one answers these questions, his or her interest and analysis will go in different direction with regard to the Gandhi case. Personally, I do not think it deserves the significance you give it because people have not learned from his mistakes.

I have already concluded as someone who comes form the "talakawa" group or those that are considered to be means to other persons ends in Nigeria to use Kantian language, that there are many Nigerian / African elites who are Black like me but through their acts of commission and omission in office, have said worse things about their  people than what Gandhi said about Black people. It is alarming that such leaders have not learned from Gandhi' s mistake.

 What I tried to do was to situate the debate about what Gandhi said within the contemporary realities of oppression in order to decide where I should invest my energy. There are many talks about liberal democracy and the empowering nature of modern capitalism but there are other forms of dehumanization and oppression that have existed under these types of regimes that are sugar-coated. One Indian Doctor who volunteers in Appalachia to help the sick said that the kind of poverty in Appalachia 9and the people are white), does not exist in where he comes from from in India (See the documentary film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dXPuh15Vmc)  For a narrative summary and analysis, see this: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=6845770.


This discussion also reminds me of some of the arguments of "The Subaltern School." All along, they argued that people experience multiple forms of oppression. So they leave the position of the oppressed somewhat vacant given that it is only when you know the specific case that  you can tell the dimension of the oppression.  One person may experience the intersection of multiple forms of oppression. One can be Dalit, and still experience other forms of oppression. Which of those forms of oppression is more important is a historical, contextual and empirical question. 

For instance, the Associate Dean for Off campus programs and international studies in my University is a Dalit and a friend. As minorities in the U.S. himself and myself face certain struggles, but the struggles will be different from a Dalit who is a peasant and living in an economy or society whose values are still traditional and where the human capital of the person plays minimal role in such economic context. The U.S. is not a perfect society, but with investment in human capital, a person even as a Dalit has broader opportunities than many localities in India.. Another example.

 In my state in Nigeria, Bauchi, in spite of my education, I am treated by the elites there as an INFIDEL. It does not matter what I know. But yet, even though I live in a society that is predominantly White and racialized, I am respected and guaranteed better recognition based on what I contribute than in Bauchi State in my home country. I still remain Black. Someone here may not like my race, but if they know that my human capital or skill set can truly be a value addition to his or her business, they will care for me. In Bauchi, they will not value that. They will rather condone mediocrity.

It is difficult for me as a social scientist to talk about oppression and leave the conversation at the level of huge amorphous categories. Please tell the Dalit sister that I resonate with her pain, but ideally, one would expect that as part of a principled strategy for rejecting the oppression of the Dalits based on HIndu Cosmology, within the Dalits themselves, they should reject any form of stratification as a matter of commitment and principle. The question then is while one understands the external oppression by the Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and maybe Shudra caste group towards the Untouchables, why tolerate injustice within the Dalit group?  This is a moral question and it can illuminate the moral grounds for the Dalits reject Hindu Cosmology.

In effect, what I am saying is just like this. We Blacks in Africa can critique Western imperialism and domination. You provide a brilliant analysis of documentation of White oppression in your writings and analysis. OK, fine. But if we Blacks understand the form and mechanisms of such oppression, why is it that in the African continent, and in my own country of birth, with all the accumulated knowledge of oppression, some treat others like trash or as sub-humans? My immediate reaction to the talk about Gandhi is to reflect on my own society. And when I did that, I felt embarrassed about my country. It seems like you want me just to focus on Gandhi but I am broadening the discussion.

 In my view, what this means or suggest is a lack of true understanding of what oppression means from our study of it all over the world and since ancient times, or if we did understand it, the fact then is we lack the courage to live out our values i.e., we are not willing to pay the price. And that is what I consider to be of immediate importance. The Dalits who tolerate any kind of oppression within their group by members of that same group lack the courage to fight injustice if they understood it.  This is not a problem of the Dalits alone but of many of our people in Africa.

 Oppression is like a seed that given fertile conditions and soil, it can grow, blossom and germinate.  In the documentary I mentioned, the least Dalits were a group that perform laundry service to other Dalits in the community and their reward is that the other Dalits who are superior to them compensate them by giving them the remnants of their food. So you see the Dalits performing laundry, going round the Dalit community collecting the laundry and remnants of food. My hope and prayer is that the Dalits will agree to stop this kind of internal oppression because it is part of the larger ideology of oppression, and rejecting it within the group will be a good step to express their moral outrage. Dismissing it as small while understandable from the point of view of moral and ethical commitment, it is a weak position. Fighting the larger ideology rooted in Hindu cosmology while condoning its local manifestation within the Dalit group sounds to me like people who in religious circles continue to do the wrong thing morally, but still expect God's miracle to transform the macro and broader unjust system. If the Dalit or the African understands oppression, there must be transformation in his and her heart and character along this line, when that happens, we must see its impact on culture, institutions and history. What I sense you saying is that it is ok for the average Dalit to fight Hindu cosmology which justifies the oppression of the group, while within the group, the Dalit continue to oppress each other and dismiss it by saying it is minor. That will not take us far. I suppose this is like saying it is ok to be oppressed or exploited by a fellow form one's ethnic group, region, or country that a foreigner, especially of a different race. This reminds me of the question Socrates asked in Euthyphro: If piety is doing what the gods say we should do, the follow up questions are: is something pious because there is something inherent in the act that makes it pious, or is it just pious because the gods just say so? These are two different things conceptually.

Let us say that Gandhi was the most terrible man in the world. The question is, what have we learned in Africa from such knowledge to treat other humans with dignity and respect? One fundamental ontological question is answering the questions: what exists and what is the nature of its existence? The answer to these questions affect how we study or treat the thing that exists. So how we perceive another person's existence and the nature of that existence in our mind and thinking, affects how we treat the person. Proceeding from this understanding, there are people who even if they have use nice words towards others, yet through their actions have proven to be some of the worse oppressors towards other people. In effect, we can arrive at an understanding of how they think or treat the nature of others, by the way they have concretely treated them.

And when you are down to this level of dealing with or effort to understand oppression, Gandhi's statement alone is not the problem, important as it is. We cannot be taken too seriously about our honest critique and rejection of white oppression if within our own communities we condone some degree of oppression but dismiss it because it is small. What kind of small when some children are dying in Africa becasue of the lack of drugs that will cos less than $2. For some, the lack of receiving two dollars per day is a question of survival / dignity and anyone who puts them in this condition becomes an oppressor threatening their life and existence, whether the person is white or black.

White people have oppressed Black people but they oppressed each other too, if one's scope of historical understanding is not just modern. There are many people of the same race who oppressed each other, Just read how the Jewish oppressed each other in the book of Amos and Nehemiah. Chinese feudalism was very oppressive.  The history of peasants' oppression in France before the revolution is very interesting, or just the medieval social order. I remember the way the Greeks enslaved other Greeks and send them to the mines etc.

We should not make excuses for any kind of oppression. We need to kill the seed, no matter how small, else it will grow. Yes, White oppression was terrible. But we have to ask whether if others had the same power, with the same interest, under the same condition, they will not do the same. I always tell my students that if China becomes the sole superpower, do we have any guarantee that they will not treat other people with disrespect or even impose their will like Westerners?  It seems like power can corrupt a lot of human beings depending on context and the contexts are so complex that we need to do some careful analysis instead of just using a big brush. Let us commit ourselves to fight injustice within oppressed groups and against oppressed people.

Human behavior is often not strictly is a simple question of declared moral beliefs, It is only when we put people on concrete situations that we can say whether their behavior is shaped by their beliefs or the social conditions they find themselves in. A good example of this point is the contrast between "Pericles Funeral Oration" and "The Consequences of the Plague on Athenian People" as documented in the book by Thucydides titled" Justice and Power."  Pericles presented his people as superior and highly elevated over and above other Greeks. But when Athens was affected by a plague and epidemic, the records of their behavior make you wonder whether they are the same people that Pericles pompously elevated. Well, human behavior is significantly shaped by situational conditions.

Thank you very much.

Samuel

[kenneth harrow]

kwame
this has nothing to do with white privilege, which you evoke almost automatically when disagreeing on a point. maybe a racist figure like jefferson could also have brilliant ideas concerning democracy. you don't want to accept that, which is your prerogative. i don't dispute the repugnance at jefferson's racism, but that wasn't all there was to him.
more to my point, why do you always insist on reading people--me, in this case--in such pure racial terms?
what really authorizes you to do so?
ken

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken,

I have stated my point of view. You are obviously welcome to yours. Thanks.

kzs
===
kwame zulu shabazz

email: kwames...@gmail.com

cell: 336-422-9577
skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz
===
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

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken,

This will be my final statement on this thread regarding the rapist, white-supremacist, Indian-killing Thomas Jefferson. I think its insulting to African Americans and Native Americans to hold up Jefferson as some sort of paragon for philosophical thought on so-called "democracy." His repugnant views on Africans disqualifies him from that status. The fact that Jefferson is still elevated by some (for the sake of a bogus "complexity") despite his repugnant views, is a clear example of how white privilege works in the USA. It is no different, in my view, from renewed efforts to remove Confederate symbols from university campuses or the "Rhodes Must Fall" effort in South Africa. Whether you like it or not, Ken, the good old days of venerating disgusting white racists are gone. And to that I say good riddance!

Forward ever,

kwame zulu shabazz

kzs
===
kwame zulu shabazz

email: kwames...@gmail.com

cell: 336-422-9577
skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz
===
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 Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 9:47 PM, kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

[Obadiah Mailafia]

Friends,

I grew up in Nasarawa State in the Middle Belt of Nigeria. In the 1900s, the story goes, the Eggon people of the Mada Hills region of the State caught the first white man, a British army captain who was exploring the hills, cut him to pieces, cooked him and ate him. They absolutely believed he was a newly discovered pale species of the mountain gorilla. They absolutely had no clue that he was human at all. If these people had a writing system, they no doubt would have described the white man as a mountain gorilla who speaks through his nasal orifices rather than through his buccal cavity like “normal” humans. Later generations of English people would no doubt have been scandalized by such depictions of their race.

I would still insist that we try to see these people as products of their time and epoch. The world has changed and is changing, with breathtaking rapidity. In spite of the persistence of race in America and Europe, there is a new generation for whom race means much less than it did their parents’ generation. My son recently came down from Oxford. One of these late afternoons we found ourselves discussing race. He surprised me by commenting that he believes himself to be suffering from “superiority complex”.

What am I saying? I am trying to say that, painful as it is, we do not have to overly dramatize what people of the past felt about us. Thomas Jefferson was indeed a racist. But he slept with his female black slaves. Did he genuinely believe himself to be sleeping with “animals” when he took sexual advantage of his female slaves? And we know that he was not alone in that sordid practice. Barack Obama counts Jefferson among his ancestors, albeit from his mother’s side. My judgement regarding the place of Jefferson in American and world history cannot be predicated exclusively on his racism. Jefferson was the prime author of the Declaration of Independence, a document of unsurpassable prose and elegance. Like all of them, old Abe Lincoln was a racist, although he was pragmatic enough to see that abolition was in the long-term good of the young American republic.

Having spent several years in Tunis, I became fond of Ibn Khaldun, the medieval Arab historian and jurist. There is an august life-sized statue of him at the chic Avenue Bourgouiba just a stone throw from the Catholic cathedral. I soon had to change my views, when I came across his awful racist commentaries on black people.

According to him: “The only people who accept slavery are the Negroes, owing to their low degree of humanity and proximity to the animal stage. Other persons who accept the status of slave do so as a means of attaining high rank, or power, or wealth, as is the case with the Mameluke Turks in the East and with those Franks and Galicians who enter the service of the state [in Spain]”.

He went on to say that the reason for their characteristic "levity, excitability, and great emotionalism is due to the expansion and diffusion of the animal spirit" in them.  He concluded ominously that blacks in the southernmost portion of Africa cannot “be numbered among humans."

To our esteemed Professor Toyin Falola and eminent historians such as Gloria Thomas-Emeagwali and Moses Ochonu, may I ask if it is possible to do a book project on the archaeology, origin and evolution of Negrophobia in world intellectual history? We could look at Chinese, European, American, Japanese and other writings depicting black and African peoples. We could then also look at contemporary forms of racism which is camouflaged in huge elegant tomes from All Souls to Pantheon Sorbonne and the College de France etc. Such a book will be painful to write, but I believe that exposing evil is the best way to overcome it in the long-run.

Any takers??

Obadiah Mailafia

 

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

My friend, why don't you do such a project?

Some of the best institutions in Britain have
produced some of the most racist of philosophers and negrophobes - and you
have been there.

You have a lot of earlier scholarship on the subject to build on.
This is not a brand new subject of research.


Besides, I don't know how to speak with a forked tongue.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora

________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Obadiah Mailafia [obmai...@gmail.com]

Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2015 8:04 AM

To: USAAfrica Dialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - What did Mahatma Gandhi think of black people?

Friends,
I grew up in Nasarawa State in the Middle Belt of Nigeria. In the 1900s, the story goes, the Eggon people of the Mada Hills region of the State caught the first white man, a British army captain who was exploring the hills, cut him to pieces, cooked him and ate him. They absolutely believed he was a newly discovered pale species of the mountain gorilla. They absolutely had no clue that he was human at all. If these people had a writing system, they no doubt would have described the white man as a mountain gorilla who speaks through his nasal orifices rather than through his buccal cavity like “normal” humans. Later generations of English people would no doubt have been scandalized by such depictions of their race.

I would still insist that we try to see these people as products of their time and epoch. The world has changed and is changing, with breathtaking rapidity. In spite of the persistence of race in America and Europe, there is a new generation for whom race means much less than it did their parents’ generation. My son recently came down from Oxford. One of these late afternoons we found ourselves discussing race. He surprised me by commenting that he believes himself to be suffering from “superiority complex”.

What am I saying? I am trying to say that, painful as it is, we do not have to overly dramatize what people of the past felt about us. Thomas Jefferson was indeed a racist. But he slept with his female black slaves. Did he genuinely believe himself to be sleeping with “animals” when he took sexual advantage of his female slaves? And we know that he was not alone in that sordid practice. Barack Obama counts Jefferson among his ancestors, albeit from his mother’s side. My judgement regarding the place of Jefferson in American and world history cannot be predicated exclusively on his racism. Jefferson was the prime author of the Declaration of Independence, a document of unsurpassable prose and elegance. Like all of them, old Abe Lincoln was a racist, although he was pragmatic enough to see that abolition was in the long-term good of the young American republic.

Having spent several years in Tunis, I became fond of Ibn Khaldun, the medieval Arab historian and jurist. There is an august life-sized statue of him at the chic Avenue Bourgouiba just a stone throw from the Catholic cathedral. I soon had to change my views, when I came across his awful racist commentaries on black people.

According to him: “The only people who accept slavery are the Negroes, owing to their low degree of humanity and proximity to the animal stage. Other persons who accept the status of slave do so as a means of attaining high rank, or power, or wealth, as is the case with the Mameluke Turks in the East and with those Franks and Galicians who enter the service of the state [in Spain]”.

He went on to say that the reason for their characteristic "levity, excitability, and great emotionalism is due to the expansion and diffusion of the animal spirit" in them. He concluded ominously that blacks in the southernmost portion of Africa cannot “be numbered among humans."

To our esteemed Professor Toyin Falola and eminent historians such as Gloria Thomas-Emeagwali and Moses Ochonu, may I ask if it is possible to do a book project on the archaeology, origin and evolution of Negrophobia in world intellectual history? We could look at Chinese, European, American, Japanese and other writings depicting black and African peoples. We could then also look at contemporary forms of racism which is camouflaged in huge elegant tomes from All Souls to Pantheon Sorbonne and the College de France etc. Such a book will be painful to write, but I believe that exposing evil is the best way to overcome it in the long-run.

Any takers??

Obadiah Mailafia

On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 12:44 AM, kwame zulu shabazz <kwames...@gmail.com<mailto:kwames...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Brother Cornelius,

I said Ken exemplifies white privilege when he endorses the idea one can respect Thomas Jefferson's soaring rhetoric despite Jefferson's slave holding and his despicable views of black people. I insist that there is nothing that the rapist, Indian killing, slave-owning, white supremacist Jefferson can teach me. I am reposting disgusting views about African people below:

Jefferson quotes from "Notes on the State of Virginia" (1853):

1. Black people stink

"They secrete less by the kidnies [sic], and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour."

2. Black people are unintelligent and dull

"in reason [Blacks are] much inferior, as think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous."

3. Black people are an inferior species

"I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind."

4. Phillis Wheatley is too dumb to write poetry

"The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism."

5. Black people need less sleep and childlike.

"They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning."

6. Black people are too stupid to sense danger

​"​
They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites.
​"​

kzs
===
kwame zulu shabazz

email: kwames...@gmail.com<mailto:kwames...@gmail.com>
cell: 336-422-9577<tel:336-422-9577>

skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz
===
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 Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 4:10 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com<mailto:cornelius...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Lord Harrow

please accept the honorific as a Brahminical title, respect, that’s all, not of the type that was being bartered/ traded/ sold at “the irish international university”

in a still small voice little i asketh:

is there anything like Whitey Privilege<https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4VRHB_svSE642SE642&q=Whitey+Privilege>? a special category?

maybe, White Privilege<https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4VRHB_svSE642SE642&q=White+Privilege> sounds less aggressive, in some cases less assertive…

anyway it’s in print , in black on white

so far I have been patiently holding my sacred peace waiting for a good moment, but not too long, to pounce as the enemies vilify and denigrate Mahatma Ji who indeed is far beyond their capacity to denigrate , in this world, in any of the other lokas of the here and now or the hereafter.

you know how some of the windbags can be, they like to say evil things about revered religious or political personages.

most of my time in harlem in new york was in clothes from the Mahatma Gandhi Ashram<https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4VRHB_svSE642SE642&q=Mahatma+Gandhi+Ashram>

the little i is in full agree-ment with thee about Mahatmaji’s good heart for the Harijans<https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4VRHB_svSE642SE642&q=Harijans> when you say, “a close look at Gandhi’s own words leads me to conclude that his position was based on a deep commitment to fully eradicating untouchability from Hinduism”

as to the sexual customs and mores of his time, those interested in such stuff should please read at least the first part of his five part autobiography which can also be read online HERE<http://www.mkgandhi.org/autobio/autobio.htm>

should I sign off

wee sweden or

just Cornelius

We Sweden<http://www.thelocal.se/blogs/corneliushamelberg/> ?

africahistory.net<http://africahistory.net>
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos<http://vimeo.com/user5946750/videos>

ph. 517 803 8839<tel:517%20803%208839>

har...@msu.edu

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[Segun Ogungbemi]

"We should be as hard on ourselves as Africans in terms of how we treat each other and our people as we are on how others treated us."

The suggestion above is a fundamental solution. If you don't respect your people and treat them with dignity, you have no moral ground to demand what you fail to give to your people from foreigners.
At our own airports in Nigeria, fellow Nigerians treat foreigners better than their people on arrival and you wonder the kind of mentality they have. I believe all human beings should be accorded better treatment wherever they are. But in France, Netherlands, United Kingdom etc, you can feel the subtle racial prejudices right there in their airports.
Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

What manner of brilliance is the “brilliance” that denies the humanity of fellow human beings? Has anyone imagined the crimes and injustices that were and still are visited on Native Americans, African Americans, and other minority communities because of the “brilliance” of Thomas Jefferson and others like him? He ensured that the rights he claimed for his people were denied to those he did not consider to be his people. If he was as brilliant as some of his admirers profess him to be, he must have known that to deny the humanity of communities and legitimize their enslavement and other brutalization was wrong. He chose not to do the right thing. He and his favored future generations have exceptionally been privileged and profited from that choice and still do. One may only imagine how different the United States would have been today had Jefferson been different than he was in his esteemed position of consequence. It may be fairly argued therefore, that he helped to institutionalize racism in the United States.  

It is often argued that the baby be not thrown away with the bath water. There are times it may seem to be the better thing to do I am afraid.

 

oa