October 2016 Edition : simplebooklet.com

About The Pan Africanist is the journal of The Pan African Society and Foundation Inc www panafsofo org Its goal is to exposit the Black Worldview by looking at and analyzing unfolding world events and developments through the prism of a distinctly delineated corpus of African interests to draw out the forces that strengthen or weaken these interests to galvanize countervailing structures against Black people s persistently vulnerable linkages to the world system and to sound the clarion call for the political integration of black African states Submission Guidelines We invite participation in thinking and reasoning together about the trials and tribulations of Black existence about what needs to be done regarding the low social and political stock of the race across the universe about how to change the equation of forces between Black people and the rest of the world about how to inject substance and dignity into a long belittled and ignored race In particular we invite essays comments and opinions about progressive elements in various African societies that deserve encouragement and support and negative tendencies and forces that need to be vanquished Above all we invite contributions that tackle viable strategies of political integration of black African states into one powerful superstate Submissions must not exceed 750 words and must be saved as a Microsoft Word file and sent electronically as an attachment to panafsofo gmail com 2 The PAN AFRICANIST www thepanafricanist net

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Editorial SuperWhites Whites and Blacks I deas of race superiority in the US as Edward Burns observed have long been ingrained in American life with a tenacity almost unmatched by that of any other doctrine Their essence was that Europeans characterized variously as Teutonic Caucasian or White were the exemplar the standard of human worth and superiority The imperialist minded Europeans seeking to assure themselves of the righteousness of their cause assumed the hopelessly romantic and deluded conception of themselves as a morally unsullied chaste people as a people white and pure as the driven snow as the apotheosis of human worthiness and virtue In the bargain to complete this exercise in ideological self elevation they thereafter set out to assert a special connection with God by depicting the historical Jesus as European In all this by resolutely and unwaveringly brushing aside the irrefutable fact that the European skin is cast in shades of pink the supremacists made it clear that skin pigmentation really had nothing to do with their construction of Whiteness It is unarguable that the authentic birthplace of White Supremacy was America The pillars of the construction of Whiteness were the laws passed in colonial Virginia from the 1620s until 1723 that established that to be American one first had to be white Immigrants seeking lawful residence and citizenship as Beydoun has noted were compelled to convince authorities that they fit within the statutory definition of Whiteness which in essence was the antithesis of Blackness Condemned to a fixed status as slaves African Darkies were deemed in the words of Senator John T Morgan of Alabama to hold the lowest stratum in physical social inventive religious 4 The PAN AFRICANIST and ruling power In sharp contrast European whites occupied the highest stratum of humankind were deservedly entitled to monopolize political capacity to wield material and symbolic privilege and to impose themselves as the arbiters of all conceptions of beauty and intelligence Somewhere in between were the mess of Asiatic pottage the yellow mongrels particularly the Chinese who were brought in the era of railroad building designed to link the East Coast to the West Coast and were associated with drudgery that was as Rubin Weston wrote similar to slave labor in that it was debasing degrading and a curse to all who came in contact with it Presently Judy Helfand elucidates a race and class hierarchy emerged in America in which the group of people who qualified as white disproportionately controlled power and resources and within that group of white people a small minority of elite controlled most of the group s power and resources But given the constancy of change in human affairs the construction of Whiteness has shifted over time to accommodate the demands of social change The Irish Italians Spanish Greeks and European Jews who were once raced as nonwhite in America in time became accepted as white Toward the close of the Twentieth Century the Asians were by and large elevated to the status of honorary whites And now in the Twenty First Century they are not only reckoned with as full fledged whites but they seem irrevocably to be on their way to becoming the super white group in America as further changes redefine the social stratification system A Pew Research Center report of June 2016 maintains that Asian Americans are smarter are better www thepanafricanist net

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educated than any other group are harder working than everyone else and have the highest earnings in the US Inferentially the Asians have better access to higher education live in safe and exclusive neighborhoods and overall enjoy social prestige that shields them from the widespread contempt and brutal police assaults that are a staple of African American life What accounts for this staggering rise in the economic and social fortunes of Asian Americans Malcolm X whose penetrating thoughts were mercifully free of the shackles of miseducation that Black people with formal tutelage tend to carry enunciated in 1970 this compelling causal linkage between the rapid empowerment of the ancestral homeland of China and the accelerated social upsurge of Overseas Chinese There was a time in this country when they used to use the expression about Chinese He doesn t have a Chinaman s chance Remember when they used to say that about the Chinese You don t hear them saying that nowadays Because the Chinaman has more chance now than they do It was not until China became independent and strong that Chinese people all over the world became respected They never became respected by sitting in begging in praying in kneeling in or crawling in They became respected only when China as a nation became independent and strong And then they had something behind them Once China became independent and strong and feared then wherever you saw a Chinaman he was independent he was strong he was feared and he was respected are in point In particular since the 1990s China followed by India have emerged as global powers intent on preserving their sovereignty and independent will and reclaiming the human honor of their people Against this stands the sharply contrasting pathetic record of deepening prostration and relegation in Africa fed by puerile leadership dead to the cause of racial regeneration and dignity and complicit in the imperialist machinations of the IMF the World Bank and the WTO Given that the fate of the African Diaspora is inextricably linked to Africa and its fortunes and misfortunes given the correlation between Africa s persistent weakness and inconsequence and the tribulations afflicting the African Diaspora the need for a Diasporic organization of committed Dignificationists to intervene in the internal political processes of African States becomes axiomatic Such intervention would support forces of progress toward creating political viability through political integration and by the same token counteract the opponents of Black empowerment on the continent The necessity for the Diaspora s direct involvement in the internal political processes of African countries confers on Overseas Africans everywhere a primordial citizenship that in effect legitimizes their interventionist role in Africa It is a sacred citizenship based on their identities as people of African descent whose human honor wherever they may be depends upon Africa s resurgence and reclamation Extrapolating from the Asian experience Malcolm X added in a poignant observation directed at African Americans We will not go forward any faster than Africa will As long as Africa is not respected it doesn t make any difference if you re a doctor or a lawyer why they ll bounce your head like a knot on a log no matter where you go The huge gap in the achievement of Asian nations and those of Black Africa since World War Two helps to explain the stark differential in social status between Asian Americans and African Americans The image catapulting technological industrial exploits of Japan and the likes of South Korea www thepanafricanist net The PAN AFRICANIST 5

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Essays Why Are So Many Black Women Dying of AIDS BY LAURIE SHRAGE T HE injustices caused by racial profiling in law enforcement and bias in criminal prosecution and sentencing are now a subject of significant public attention And they should be The loss of life and liberty from these practices is shameful and tragic But it is critical that we do not overlook the significant evidence showing that the Sophie L cuyer end result of these practices the mass incarceration of nonwhite men may also be fueling an urgent public health crisis among some of the most disadvantaged members of our society Although African Americans represent about 12 percent of the United States population they account for roughly half of all new infections and deaths from H I V AIDS The H I V infection rate among black women is 20 times higher than for white women and in 2004 H I V AIDS was the leading cause of death for black women ages 25 34 During a 2007 Democratic primary debate Hillary Clinton called attention to this statistic and asserted If H I V AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34 there would be an outraged outcry in this country Given that men who have sex with men account for a majority of H I V cases among both black and white 6 The PAN AFRICANIST men the spike in H I V infections among black women has perplexed public health officials Because most gay men do not have female sexual partners and there are relatively low rates of infection among nonblack women and because rates of injection drug use or unprotected sex among black women are no higher than for other groups the rapid increase in H I V AIDS cases among black women has been hard to account for But several public health studies now suggest that because people tend to select sex partners from within their own communities higher rates of H I V among men who have been in prison may raise the risk of infection in their community A study conducted by two professors of public policy at the University of California Berkeley determined that from 1970 to 2000 a period in which the incarceration rates for black men skyrocketed to roughly six times the rate for non Hispanic white men the H I V AIDS infection rate for black women rose to 19 times the rate for non Hispanic white women Using various sources of data to investigate the connection between these developments they concluded that higher incarceration rates among black males explain the lion s share of the black white disparity in AIDS infection rates among both men and women The exact transmission rates for prisoners are not known and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the majority of prisoners with H I V are exposed to the virus before they are incarcerated Yet some researchers have concluded that incarceration is a risk factor for H I V infection for the following reasons There is a higher prevalence of H I V among prison populations there are higher than average rates of sexual assault and coercive sex among men in prison inmates have little access to condoms injectable drugs and tattooing are risk factors that also occur in prisons and when people are released from prison they typically have inadequate www thepanafricanist net

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Dr Shrage is a professor of Philosophy at Florida International University in Miami This article was first published in The New York Times of December 11 2015 www thepanafricanist net It must be understood that liberation movements in Africa the struggle for Black Power in America or any other part of the world can only find consummation in the political unification of Africa the home of black people and people of African descent throughout the world Kwame Nkrumah access to health care and treatment because of unemployment and poverty In addition high incarceration rates substantially reduce the number of men in black communities and rupture social relationships which may increase the number of concurrent sexual partners each man has These facts suggest that an important contributor to the H I V crisis among black women may be hyper incarceration Importantly these studies help dispel the sorts of stereotypes that have hobbled responses to this H I V crisis Secretive or closeted bisexuals have often been blamed for the spread of H I V to heterosexual black women but there is little evidence to support the belief that there are higher rates of bisexuality among black Americans who are not in prison Nor does the explanation lie in riskier health habits Outside of prison African Americans have the same or lower rates of risky sex or drug use as other Americans Explanations like these reinforce homophobic and racist blame the victim attitudes They have also impeded disease reduction by wrongly identifying vectors of transmission The PAN AFRICANIST 7

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Selma Still a City of Slaves BY CHRIS ARNADE Jennifer worked picking bricks from the rubble of a cotton warehouse in Selma I will do any work and this is the only work in town Photograph Chris Arnade T en figures clambered over piles of rubble from the old cotton warehouse picking up bricks It was a cold day for Selma Alabama close to freezing and as the sun disappeared they gathered to warm their hands over makeshift fires For 10 hours they removed bricks from piles mixed with wood and metal chipping each recovered brick free of mortar and then stacked them The bricks were handmade in the 1870s and a foreman was paying them between 10 and 20 in cash for a pile of 500 It was hard work A pile took about half the day to gather and most quit from fatigue after one go An older man watched them Everyone heard about this job but few want to do it because it pays nothing and lots of people been hurt doing it But there are no jobs here in Selma Especially if you got a record and almost everyone in Selma has a record Nobody knew who owned the old warehouse although most reckoned it was a white man They own everything around here A brick buyer from a construction firm came to look at the pile Handmade bricks especially histor 8 The PAN AFRICANIST ical ones like this are in demand They often sell for over a dollar per brick Jennifer had spent the day picking bricks and wasn t complaining I am a single mother with five kids I will do any work and this is the only work in town A man on a break his hands bleeding beneath a cloth wrap smoked a cigarette This is slave work that s what it is but the only work around Kind of funny when you think about it because them bricks were probably made by slaves That is Selma for you though still a city of slaves Driving towards Selma you are constantly reminded by historical markers that although once a city of slavery the city now symbolizes civil rights The march to secure voting rights for African Americans in 1965 originated there and is celebrated in a film named after the city Crossing over the river into Selma is another reminder the Edmund Pettus Bridge is recognizable from newsreels of Bloody Sunday when marchers were beaten by the police or from last year when www thepanafricanist net

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President Obama came to mark the 50th anniversary of that day The central street beyond the bridge is three short blocks filled with shops catering to tourists Yet if you walk beyond those blocks you see the ugliness of poverty that is modern Selma dilapidated and boarded up homes tagged with gang symbols empty lots littered with vodka bottles and fast food wrappers and sterile low income projects You see men clustered on corners selling drugs and on the better kept homes you see sign after sign urging Stop the violence You don t see working factories only empty ones being torn down for scrap You see a population disenfranchised economically and politically It makes Selma a symbol of past civil rights victories a symbol of current civil rights failures The black sociologist William Julius Wilson in his 1987 book the The Truly Disadvantaged wrote about the underclass a term he uses to describe those living in urban poverty In it he argues the central problem of the underclass is joblessness In the afterword to the 2012 reissue he acknowledges that Racism put blacks in their economic place but changes in the modern economy make the place in which they find themselves more and more precarious In the US joblessness for African Americans is roughly twice that of whites In Selma which is 80 African American joblessness runs even higher In 2010 unemployment in Selma reached 20 it has since been cut in half to 10 but still around twice the national average Wages in Selma as for African Americans nationally also badly lag the country with the median family income at roughly 25 000 half that of the US average There are countless theories offered by academics and politicians about why African Americans disproportionately suffer higher joblessness and lower wages a lack of education dependence on manual labor technological shifts but to many Selma residents those theories are just excuses for racism Marcus 55 moved to Selma when he was a baby Everyone always saying we don t have jobs because of things we lack but it ain t what we lack it s what we have black skin When I was a boy we had to cross through the white neighborhood to get to school and they used to sic the dogs on me and my younger sister I left Selma and joined the military When I came back nothing much changed They don t sic dogs on you any more but they stack so much against you that it might as well just be dogs Council McReynolds 52 has spent his entire life in Selma and wishes he could leave All the factories that used to be here are closed the candy factory the furniture company they all picked up and moved when we elected a black mayor His house is one of only two on the long block Homes in Selma Photograph Chris Arnade www thepanafricanist net The PAN AFRICANIST 9

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Marcus a Selma resident it ain t what we lack it s what we have black skin Photograph Chris Arnade that isn t abandoned and boarded up The one next to his is half burned down the others sit empty although a few people squat in them Selma ain t like that movie There everyone is shown working together and putting the past behind them But the reality is Selma has been left behind and folks are certainly not working together When I asked him about one of the empty buildings next to his he smiled That ain t empty at all There is a family living there being charged by a landlord Council s block is not an anomaly in Selma Boarded up or falling down houses make up about a quarter of the city Many other buildings which in other places would be considered derelict with broken windows porches filled with holes are stunningly being used as rentals Most people do what they can legally do to get by Michael 45 makes extra money raising dogs I also deliver meals to the elderly It is a good job but doesn t pay enough to cover raising kids I won t sell drugs like so many others do so I raise dogs State senator Henry Sanders 73 who represents Selma is more blunt in his views You can t talk about Selma and you can t talk about the African American experience in America without talking about the legacy of slavery Sanders was born in rural Alabama one of 13 children He laughs when he is described as coming from humble origins Humble I was born straight 10 The PAN AFRICANIST up poor or as we say po Thirteen kids sharing room po Inspired by the US s first African American justice Thurgood Marshall he put all his energies into education eventually attending Harvard Law School After graduating in 1971 he came back to Selma Me and my wife came here inspired and determined to make things better We had such high hopes and thought it would improve and maybe five years later we could move on but it never happened When asked why he talks about the closing of the adjacent Craig air force base in the 1970s and politics The statewide political establishment is overwhelming Republican white and male It isn t that they don t care about African Americans it s that they don t even think about them unless it is in negative terms As a result everything in Alabama is tougher for African Americans As we say when the white community catches a cold the black community gets pneumonia Despite all of that when you talk about jobs in Selma you also have to talk about the drugs and jails Like many poor communities Selma has a drug problem In the absence of traditional job opportunities using and dealing drugs has filled the void Magnifying the problem are Alabama s aggressive policies it has some of the strictest drug laws and the second highest incarceration www thepanafricanist net

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Michael 45 and his dog Photograph Chris Arnade rate in the US policies that disproportionately affect the African American community It has turned Selma into a city where having a felony conviction seems almost normal A cluster of six men gathered at a friend s house beneath Selma s water tower proclaiming Selma a great place to live All had felonies most were for marijuana possession or dealing One man who had just been released from prison explained In Alabama they will throw you in jail for just standing in your yard holding a joint Getting a felony in Alabama means carrying a burden for the rest of your life Once I got my felony I became the walking dead I couldn t do nothing I couldn t vote I couldn t drive and I sure as hell couldn t work so I sat around doing nothing until I started selling again Like most people I met in Selma none wanted their picture taken No picture in Alabama ever did a black man a favor With the illegal drugs comes violence as dealers settle disputes with guns not lawyers It has all only further distanced Selma and its residents from legal opportunities few companies are going to move there when crime is so high Melvin Barnes 39 met me in the low income projects that surround the Brown Chapel AME church a historical landmark that was center of the voting rights march He grew up in Selma started dealing at 17 and got caught up in the street life www thepanafricanist net Everyone around me had guns everyone around me dealt and I got caught up in it I got a gun when I was 14 carried it around and shot it a lot Everyone did Seven years ago he got into a street altercation that ended with a bullet meant for him almost hitting a child next to him I came home from that and looked at my child and hugged him I knew I had to stop the game He quit drugs and now hosts a daily radio show and works the streets urging others to stop the violence Melvin took me to the old abandoned home he sleeps in when homeless I haven t had any money since I quit dealing nobody is gonna give a former drug user like me a job At the spot where we talked Antoine Stallworth was shot and killed only a few yards away from the church two weeks before on New Year s Eve It was the last murder in Selma of 2015 bringing the total to 11 and making Selma population about 20 000 one of the most violent cities in the US with murder rates more than 10 times the national average My last two days in Selma were spent with Escrow 34 named changed who has four felony convictions for drugs guns and attempted murder He moved to Selma at the age of 14 brought to live with his grandmother by a mother addicted to crack When he shook my hand he smiled flashing a row of missing teeth Welcome to the real hood Selma don t play games The PAN AFRICANIST 11

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He has been shot six times and shot many others I don t know how many times I shot at people I am just a shooter always have been He talks quietly and methodically only stopping to sell drugs excuse me I got to make a deal When I ask about guns in Selma he grimaces When I got here everybody had a gun everybody was shooting I needed to be like them I learned quickly you got to escalate or guys will see you as weak and shoot you dead so I escalated He always carries a gun except when on his block In the two days I spent with him in some of the roughest parts of Selma around open drug deals I never once saw any police When I commented on this another dealer spoke The police here are corrupt as anything One offered me to sell for him but second you do that then they own you and you are their bitch Everybody else I spoke to on the streets agreed Escrow knows he doesn t have long outside but assumes the end will come from another dealer s gun not from the police I want to get out of this life but to do what Ain t no jobs here I got no skills and four felonies who is gonna hire me And the minute I drop my gun and put on a McDonald s outfit someone gonna pop me for being weak At the end of my last day in Selma exhausted from seeing so much pain I sat outside the Brown Chapel AME church watching kids play and making small talk with a group of men I went to take a picture of the kids and forgetting their age started my normal interview Do you like Selma What was it like growing up here They all looked at me confused except one girl Robin aged nine No I don t like Selma Not at all Too much shooting and my momma can t find a job That is why we are moving to Florida As I photographed the kids in front of the sunset a BMW pulled up Two tourists got out to look at the Brown chapel The gang of men including Escrow watched them wondering where they were from I went over and talked to the tourists who were from Ontario and excited to see places they knew from the movie but concerned about their safety When I came back and told the men where the tourists had come from they all whistled in proud disbelief Damn CANADA Wow They came all the way from Canada to see Selma I also mentioned their fears of the neighborhood Escrow stopped playing with his phone looked at me eyes drilling into me smile gone We never harm tourists Never Got that We keep our shit to ourselves They come here because special things DID happen here Just wish they would happen again This article was first published by The Guardian on February 4 2016 You can be walking down the street and you may see a person who is of Chinese descent They look Chinese right Now they may have been in America for as many generations as we have here They may not be able to speak a word of Chinese but when you see them the first thing you say is That s a Chinaman You never say that s a Chino American As soon as we recognize them on the street we never question their nationality We always go back to their ancestral bearings They are Chinese or Japanese or they re Indians Malcolm X 14 The PAN AFRICANIST www thepanafricanist net

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Building Peace in Africa Give More Power to African Women BY JAN T R GRIFFIN R ealities of the basket case syndrome the time consuming wars the unstable border conflicts and the fragile state society relationship in Africa are all themes that have grown stale from repetition The age old NEW scramble to resolve to manage to build and to discover not only a sustainable peace building truce but also a lasting kind of peace frames numerous themes in scholarly articles and textbook The challenge to provide some understanding of the causes of the endless wars perpetual armed conflicts and crippling insecurities that threaten and burden development in Africa today is complex Kingsley Okoro suggests that contemporary violent conflict is attributable to the avid neglect of the traditional role of women in peace initiatives since women occupy a preponderant position in the socio political arrangement of every society Reinforcing this point Tony Karbo posits that peace building must be more than designing interventions that lack basic principles of consensus collective responsibility and communal solidarity There are few published gendered approaches to peace building and conflict transformation in Africa More than that there is an absolute neglect of African women in the peace initiative especially those women who have leadership and combat experiences The value of including African women in decision making indeed the wisdom of placing African women at the center of decision making at every level is the focus of this article Whatever the nature of the conflict ravaging Africa whether impelled by struggle for control over mineral and other resources or triggered by secessionist autonomy motives African www thepanafricanist net women have borne the brunt of the resulting violence According to the findings of S McKay women s participation is highest both in combative and noncombative roles The legeadary roll call of women fighters include Yaa Asantewaa of Asante Wambui Waiyaki of Kenya and the African Amazons of Dahomey Regarding noncombat roles women have been used horrendously and particularly as sex slaves In Southern Sudan for instance a vortex of rape of women accompanied the festering culture of violence that erupted before and during the war years Historically African women have always defied the confines of their gender and provided leadership in peace building Examples are referenced in case studies in Mali Niger and Senegal compiled by Christiane Agboton Johnson Women in Mali perform traditional duties that assure social cohesion that contribute to family stability and peace When self empowerment required more vigorous interventions Mali women defied tradition that would surely prevent them from involvement in conflict resolution They organized a number of women s groups such as Women s Movement for Peace and Preservation of National Unity MRPSUN and the Women s Association for Peace Initiative AFIP Joining consultation meetings on rebel bases in Northern Gao and Northern Timbuktu raised eyebrows of male officials After enduring more than thirty years of separatist conflict in Senegal women from the Casamance region employed traditional methods of truth solving known as Kabonketoor entailing priestesses of sacred groves Usoforal traditional tales and drama and the symbolic use of woven cloths They formed activist organizations that partnered with other women in Mali and Guinea creating cohesion and learning environments of peace mediation committees for the training of students Unfortunately there are many other African indigenous and endogenous structures of peace and conflict resolution that tend to exclude women in the face of African men s determination to monopolize power Examples of these are the jir mediation forum of the Tiv of Nigeria the shir in Somaliland the Mato Oput of the Acholi of northern Uganda and the ubuntu of South Africa It is an unquestionable postulate that had African women been included in the deliberation processes of these structures they would have been able to produce more meaningful and effective outcomes In the final analysis the future of African gender inclusion is linked to more than women s inclusion in conflict resolution deliberations What is needed fundamantally is a concerted effort to elect an equal number of African female candidates in various parliaments across Africa to make a difference With a legitimate seat at the decision making table at all government levels African women s voices will be realized on a local regional and national level creating space for peace building inclusive of human security and reconciliation arrangements Dr Griffin is a professor at the Center for Academic Reinforcement at Howard University The PAN AFRICANIST 15

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Kongo Power and Majesty Review BY JACK FLAM I n 1483 the navigator Diogo C o an emissary from the king of Portugal made the first European contact with the kingdom of Kongo situated in Central Africa around the basin of the Congo River The relationship was initially equitable Trade was established and many Kongo people converted to Christianity including the king himself But the timing turned out to be Power Figure Nkisi N Kondi Mangaaka very bad for the Africans from the 19th century PHOTO COURTESY The first Europeans OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART arrived on their shores only a decade before the discovery of the New World which created an enormous demand for human labor Within a short time the Atlantic slave trade began and Central Africa became one of its main suppliers This is part of the history that is evoked in the splendid thought provoking exhibition Kongo Power and Majesty The exhibition organized by the Met s Alisa LaGamma has the great virtue of weaving together several narratives about Kongo art and society It combines a vivid sense of history with works of art that embody a wide range of expression from small elegantly finished court sculptures to large roughly textured manifestations of raw power Along the way the exhibition controverts two longstanding clich s that Africans are a people without history and that the canonical forms of African art allowed for little personal expression by individual artists The historical dimension of the exhibition is stated right at the entrance by a limestone pillar that C o erected to commemorate his arrival The first galleries contain carved ivory tusks that date to the 1500s along with intricately worked ivory figurines and patterned textiles from the 17th and 18th centuries There are also a number of powerfully emotive crucifixes in which the faces of the Christ are clearly African and which appear to reflect an amalgamation of Christian and traditional beliefs As we learn from the excellent catalog however these two did not always coexist in harmony A number of Kongo religious sculptures were burned by Catholic officials and even ritual objects that were sent back to Portugal during the first phase of contact have not survived What did survive in princely European collections were decorative luxury items 16 The PAN AFRICANIST such as ivory figurines The most dramatic part of the show is the large gallery that contains 15 nearly life size wood figures that bristle with nails fragments of blades and other metal objects that have been pounded into them Each stands majestically with his hands on his hips chin raised large eyes staring upward an icon of law and order Such figures were carved by a sculptor then consecrated and used for rituals by a priest called an nganga who imbued them with the abstract spiritual force known as Mangaaka Over time the nganga would drive nails and other sharp metal objects into a figure to seal solemn oaths and covenants The Mangaaka spirit often presided over trade arrangements and the nails driven into the sculptures symbolized the dire consequences suffered by anyone who reneged on an agreement this was especially important for a culture in which a good deal of wealth was based on trade Such ritual embedding could also be used to ward off illness protect from evil spells or cast spells on adversaries Seeing 15 of these power figures together is a truly memorable experience But one should not miss a nearby group of works that is less dramatic but equally moving and symbolically even more complex These are the small intricately carved wood sculptures that depict a woman seated cross legged on a dais with a nursing child or sometimes a supine adult male spread across her lap It is here in the variations created within a clearly prescribed compositional format that one can best appreciate the great expressive range of Kongo sculpture and see how different the styles of individual masters were The carvings by the Master of the Boma Vonde Region for example are composed of swelling curves and are almost voluptuous while those by the Master of Kasadi are more angular and austere These female figures embody the Kongo ethic of cultivated perfection social harmony and continuity They personify fertility and generosity and also carry signs of beauty and of high social rank as evident in their headdresses and jewelry and in the elaborate cicatrization patterns on their bodies Each sits proudly erect radiant with energy gazing outward implicitly showing respect for and serving as an intermediary to the spiritual authority of the godlike ancestors Great art as we know embodies the values of the society that produced it One of the triumphs of this exhibition is how well it relates various aspects of Kongo culture to the art it produced while creating in turn a rich sense of the important role art played in different aspects of Kongo society The exhibition was staged at The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City from September 2015 until January 2016 Dr Flam is an art historian and President of the Dedalus Foundation www thepanafricanist net

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Thinking Capsule Excerpts from Malcolm X BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY 1970 Y ou catch any white man off guard in here right now you catch him off guard and ask him what he is he doesn t say he s an American He either tells you he s Irish or he s Italian or he s German if you catch him off guard and he doesn t know what you are up to And even though he was born here he ll tell you he s Italian Well if he is Italian you and I are African even though we were born here Who taught you to hate the color of your skin Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose Who taught you to hate your own kind Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your heads to the soles of your feet Who taught you to hate the race you belong to so much that you don t want to be around each other You should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God gave you Since self preservation is the first law of nature we assert the Afro American s right of self defense The history of unpublished violence against our people clearly indicates that we must be prepared to defend ourselves or we will continue to be a defenseless people at the mercy of a ruthless and violent racist mob We assert in those areas where the government is either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property of our people that our people are within their rights to protect themselves by whatever means necessary A man with a rifle or a club can only be stopped by a person who defends himself with a rifle or a club Tactics based solely on morality can only succeed when you are dealing with basically moral people or a moral system A man or system which opposes a man because of his color is not moral It is the duty of every African American community throughout this country to protect its people against mass murderers bombers lynchers floggers brutalizers and exploiters Not only Crispus Attucks but many of us in America have died defending America We defend our master www thepanafricanist net We re the most violent soldiers America has when she sends us to Korea or to the South Pacific or to Saigon but when our mothers and our own property are being attacked we re nonviolent No one can react to persecution like this but the Negro and he does it under the counseling of the Negro preacher Were it not for the Negro pastor our people would be fighters The Negro is a fighting man all right He fought in Korea he fought in Germany he fought in the jungles of Iwo Jima But the same Negro will come back here and the white man will hang his mother on a tree and he will take the Bible and say Forgive them Lord for they know not what they do This Negro preacher makes them that way Where there is a slave like that why you have a slave making religion Nat Turner wasn t going around preaching pie inthe sky and nonviolent freedom for the black man There in Virginia one night in 1831 Nat and seven other slaves started out at his master s home and through the night they went from one plantation big house to the next killing until by the next morning 57 white people were dead and Nat had about 70 slaves following him White people terrified for their lives fled from their homes locked themselves up in public buildings The PAN AFRICANIST 17

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The police made me sing the national anthem three times because they wouldn t believe I was Mexican says Chogo el Bandeno a black Mexican singer songwriter I had to list the governors of five states too He was visiting the capital Mexico City hundreds of miles from his home in southern Mexico when the police stopped him on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant Fortunately his rendition of the anthem and his knowledge of political leaders convinced the police to leave him alone but other Afro Mexicans have not been so fortunate Clemente Jesus Lopez who runs the government office in charge of Afro Mexicans in Oaxaca state recalls two separate cases both involving women One was deported to Honduras and the other to Haiti because the police insisted that in Mexico there are no black people Despite having Mexican ID they were deported With the help of the Mexican consulates they were able to return but were offered no apology or compensation Lopez says Black Mexicans have been living in the Costa Chica area on the Pacific coast of Oaxaca since their ancestors were brought from Africa as slaves in the 16th Century Colonial Spanish cattle ranchers often used them as foremen in charge of indigenous Mexican workers who were not used to animals the size of cows or horses But outside the Costa Chica area there is little awareness of their existence An interim census in 2015 indicated a black population of 1 4 million or 1 2 of the www thepanafricanist net The PAN AFRICANIST 19

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Mexican population Even in Oaxaca state they only account for 5 of the total By comparison indigenous peoples made up nearly 10 of Mexico s population as measured in the 2010 census The appearance of those who identify as black Mexicans varies considerably Some are hard to distinguish from indigenous Mexicans It s not only about skin colour it s also about how you feel says Tulia Serrano Arellanes a council worker You may have had a grandmother who was black and feel black even if you don t look it Much of their identity is based on where they live if you live in a black town such as Santiago Llano Grande as Chogo el Bandeno does you are likely to think of yourself as black But there is also a common culture For example there s a distinctive style of music called the chilena which was brought to the Costa Chica in the 19th Century by Chilean sailors on their way to the gold rush in California which black musicians have adapted They have added Afro Mexican instruments such as the quijada a dried out donkey s jawbone with rattling molar teeth There s also the bote a friction drum you rub a stick attached to the drum skin and it makes a kind of growling percussive noise These sounds are a central part of Afro Mexican musical life There are also dances that hark back to the colonial ranching days including the Dance of the Devils performed around the Day of the Dead at the end of October and in early November 20 The PAN AFRICANIST www thepanafricanist net

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The dancers wear devil masks and are led by the brash character Pancho who plays the colonial ranch foreman He struts around with a whip while his buxom white wife played by a black man flirts outrageously with the devils and even with the audience In the towns of the Costa Chica even nursery age children learn steps of the dance and are taught to take pride in their black heritage But there is frustration here that the Afro Mexicans are not more widely known in Mexico and are not officially recognised as a minority by the Mexican government According to Humberto Hebert Silva Silva head of the Bureau for Afro Mexican Affairs in Oaxaca this is because Afro Mexicans speak Spanish like most other Mexicans they do not have their own language When we go and ask for recognition as a minority they come up with excuses or say that we don t have an indigenous mother tongue Language is the real criterion he says We are being discriminated against If Afro Mexicans were classified as a minority they would receive extra funding for promotion of their culture and public health programmes But activists including Israel Reyes a teacher want more than money it s also important to www thepanafricanist net The PAN AFRICANIST 21

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them that the existence of Afro Mexicans is recognised at the level of the Mexican state The story of the black population has been ignored and erased from history he says The activists efforts have born some fruit The 2015 interim census for the first time gave respondents the option to identify themselves as black negro in Spanish though this is not a term used by all Afro Mexicans many of whom call themselves dark moreno or use other local terms to describe themselves But some Afro Mexicans are impatient for more recognition Humberto Hebert Silva Silva warns that the black community may end up emulating the indigenous uprising in Chiapas in the 1990s known as the Zapatistas So far the black communities have endured discrimination and they have stuck to legal avenues which they have now exhausted he says With the Zapatistas the indigenous rose up and it was an armed uprising to claim their rights And well our community is thinking the same It s thinking in the distant future to rise up too he says It may be the only way to get the rights we re entitled to It can t be right that the constitution of our country doesn t recognise us There s a big gap between what the politicians say and what they do We ll have to take action to give them a warning 22 The PAN AFRICANIST www thepanafricanist net

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Vital Quotes No 2 October 2016 The PAN AFRICANIST An Independent Expositor of the Black Worldview Editorial Committee Editor Opoku Agyeman Which way then you still unshackled Blacks Six thousand years of their history has answered Unite or perish The tragedy that bloodied the pages in every period of their history because of disunity should be warning enough for the Blacks of Africa the Caribbean and everywhere But being the one people who are generally ignorant of their history it may well be that many will not see unity as a question of life or death Chancellor Williams Director of Concept Review Esi K A Gillo Director of Art Layout Peter Markeeo Gillo Photo Credits Cover M Dresse When a white boy comes into our community we are not afraid of that white boy as an individual we are afraid of him because of the power represents And he is respected wherever he goes When we see an African anywhere in the world he is not respected because there is no power behind him That is precisely why the European can go all over the world and people bow to him because of the power he represents The African has no power anywhere Stokely Carmichael 24 The PAN AFRICANIST www thepanafricanist net

October 2016 Edition

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