August 27, 2001 - September 13, 2001
Racism: when will we face the facts?
Posted: Thursday, September 13, 2001
( Sherri Muzher ) The rambunctious U.N. Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racial Intolerance has ended, and language has finally been adopted to summarize the major points. "We recognize the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to the establishment of an independent state and we recognize the right to security for all states in the region, including Israel," the text says.
The statement also recognizes the right of return for refugees. "We recognize the right of the refugees to return voluntarily to their homes and properties in dignity and safety, and urge all states to facilitate such return," the text continues.
The conference, the largest ever held on racism, unfolded like a soap opera. The issue of Zionism seemed to be the primary focus of the media, though many other issues were addressed.
Sadly, the United States walked out of the conference because of the Zionism issue. This upset many African-Americans, who wanted to see our nation finally address the issue of slavery and reparations. The U.S. role was never to be seen.
The European Union had also threatened to walk if specific references were made to Israel and racism. Ultimately, the Europeans agreed to stay after they viewed and agreed to a South-African-brokered compromise.
It was all truly mind-boggling. How could anyone claim that Israel is not a racist state? It is even called the Jewish state of Israel. It is a state for one religion and the founders of Zionism simply intended for such a homogenous state. Racism is defined as:
1) The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2) Discrimination or prejudice based on race.
More water is given to Jewish citizens than to Palestinians; jobs are more plentiful for Jewish citizens than Israeli Palestinians; Jewish citizens are not subjected to torture while in prison; only Israeli citizens and illegal Jewish settlers drive with yellow license plates, which allow them freedom to travel throughout the Holy Land; non-Jewish Israelis cannot buy or lease land in Israel; Israel's policies have involved planning regulations prohibiting Palestinian building on 40 percent of Gaza, 70 percent of the West Bank and 80 percent of East Jerusalem. While restricting Palestinian development, Israel builds housing for its people in the occupied territories.
According to an Amnesty International report, released shortly before the conference: "prejudice against Palestinian citizens of Israel is widespread in the criminal justice system, both in the courts and law enforcement methods." How can we forget the use of live ammunition, which killed 13 Israeli Palestinians last fall? Live ammunition was not used on Jewish rioters.
A few years ago, the Israeli government was shown to have a 70:30 policy in the City of Jerusalem which to maintain a 70 percent Jewish population over 29 percent Muslim and 1 percent Christian minorities. This has been accomplished through home demolitions, denial of building permits, ID card confiscations, and residency revocations.
Is their any question as to whether these would be considered racist policies in other regions of the world?
A few years back a survey in the Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahranoth showed that the majority of Israeli teens believe that Palestinians do not deserve the same rights as them. One shudders to think what they are learning from their parents.
One would think that more than most individuals, Jews who survived the Holocaust or descended from victims and survivors would be among the greatest teachers of tolerance. Not as it pertains to Palestinians.
Here lies another of the great tragedies associated with the Palestinians: they have been expected to pay the price for the ills of the Europeans and Americans – the perpetrators and enablers of the Jewish Holocaust.
For decades we have seen the West try to wipe away its sins on the backs of Palestinians: often turning history upside down, or trying to solve problems by creating other problems. For example, the West lead in formulating the U.N. Partition Plan of 1947 which apportioned 55 percent of British Mandate Palestine to the Jewish community which owned less than 10 percent of the land, and it was American F-16 jet fighters and Apache helicopters that Israel has used in putting down the intifada.
The U.N. conference was yet another extension of these amelioration tactics. When does it stop? And when do these same countries begin to look within themselves and realize that just as they enabled the Jewish Holocaust, so they have and continue to enable another catastrophe?
It is understandable that the term "racist" bothers Israelis. Nobody wants to be called a racist, particularly those who were forced to wear patches to identify them in Nazi Germany. But the policies Israel pursues are exactly this.
If it doesn't like the well-deserved label, then it should stop its racist practices.
As to the West, which seems to suffer from the endless guilt and fear of the label "anti-Semitic," it is time to ask how it is advancing justice by refusing to call a spade a spade?
How many Palestinians have to die or suffer from Israel's policies before futile condemnations are translated into the kind of punitive policies that became commonplace with Apartheid South Africa?
It was Henry Katzew, a former South African journalist now living in Israel, who once stated in South Africa: a Country Without Friends: "What is the difference between the way in which the Jewish people struggles to remain what it is in the midst of a non-Jewish population, and the way the Afrikaners try to stay what they are?"
There is no difference.
Sherri Muzher is a Palestinian-American activist, lawyer, and freelance journalist.
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The US Failed to prepare
Posted: Thursday, September 13, 2001
( Akinkawon ) For all who were not aware that America is more vulnerable than any other country in the world, the pictures tell a new story.
It is one thing to sympathize with the sufferings of some Americans but it is another thing to forget that America joined other nations in refusing to offer an unqualified apology for slavery. The American elites refuse to discuss reparations and they dictated the terms of the Racism conference.
It is not simply a case of being sorry for Blacks and others who were victims of the carnage but it is important to remember that in all struggles, even in the struggle for enlightenment, many people including Africans remain indifferent. Indifference is an enemy of us all.
While some of us speak in urgency about raising awareness and utilizing history to understand how the forces of nature work, others condemn such efforts and want us to focus on the illusion of now without deep reflection and attempts to correct past injustices.
Well as we see, while some of us are patient and tolerant, others act as the counter balance to that patience. Justice does not wait on mortals. It operates in the balance in nature between the enlightened and unenlightened, giving room for the enlightened to regroup and prepare for the new era while sending the unenlightened into heightened states of fear.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for those who felt we could get along without examining the past. The sins are here with us to be addressed.
Are those who did the damage innocent? No they are not. Is America innocent? No. Who but the dead should bury the dead?
I empathize with those who did not have access to a proper version of the history of the sufferings America caused many nations. I empathize with those who were not aware that there is a better version of World History, with which to evaluate their lives and make better alliances. But for those with the 'America first' Identity, they are the enemies of enlightenment as their arrogance of holding on to the illusion of an American (military brutal, and greedy) identity blinds them from their true identity. An American or an other identity that is not of our deep common bonds are all illusions and would leave people with false loyalties and totally unprepared to interpret the tides as they swell.
The Arabs are no better as they direct the world's attention to conflicts in Israel and Palestine; they are blinding many to Slavery in many Islamic nations like Sudan and Mauritania.
Now that Americans realize they are vulnerable like all other nations it is a good time for people to re-evaluate their identities and try to understand that our Identities must be shaped from and by our deepest common bonds.
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America Under Attack
Posted: Tuesday, September 11, 2001
( Woizero Sera'el Tafari ) Yesterday morning, I, like most of the world, sat and watched in awe, as the 'Great' America came under seige.
Again, I watched and listened to the responses of righteous indignation from the various leaders, governmental officials and the ordinary man on the streets of America, condeming this "cowardly act of terrorism on the strongest democratic nation in the world." That this 'evil and merciless' act, was the worst tragedy in the history of the world. BULLSHIT!!!
In watching this scenario unfold in America, the images conjuring in my mind, was that of my African homeland being invaded by a blood-thirsty, EVIL nation, hounding and capturing innocent BLACK people; uprooting them from their homes, their family and loved ones, their stability and sense of security, their FREEDOM.
I watched countless of ones jumping from the fifty-something and upper floors of the World Trade Center, trying to escape from the fury surrounding them; but instead jumping straight to their deaths. In my minds' eye, I saw countless of BLACK people jumping into the Great Ocean, to their deaths, from slave ships herding them off to a life of UNTOLD, UNFELT anguish, despair and sufferation.
I MAKE NO APOLOGIES, but the compassion and mercy that I could have afforded the Great America, is STILL not even enough, for my own people, and other deserving nations, MUCHLESS America.
Life follows the cycle of KARMA: Cause and Effect.
In the REVOLUTIONARY spirit of EQUAL RIGHTS AND JUSTICE,
Woizero Sera'el Tafari
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The American DREAM zzzz
Posted: Tuesday, September 11, 2001
( Jenny ) Who in the history of this world have perpetrated more cowardly acts than the US?
I see nothing cowardly about what those people did with the planes. Americans staying thousands of miles away and raining bombs on other countries is COWARDLY!
As the Trinicenter headline says, "The US suffers surgical strikes with heavy collateral damage"This is the language they use while killing others. The American public has not stopped their government from being the World's bully!!
While I do not support violence, in no way am I in sympathy with America or victims of this act. I am certain I have acquaintances who lost their lives in that attack but I would have felt the same if it was a member of my family or myself who suffered there.
I have been expecting more than this to hit America and have been warning family and friends that it will come. While some of us stay home and fight to develop our country, others prefer to run to 'greener pastures'. They don't care about all that America does to smaller countries. Even many African Americans have adopted the habit of using their American nationality as a badge of superiority. It is time for them to feel the vulnerability many of us feel and to know they will not be safe as long as they make us smaller countries feel unsafe. All it takes is a few people willing to die to inflict casualties like American military power does all over the world.
Many Americans felt insolated from American aggression and while as I said I do not support violence, I cannot help but feel a sense of joy that this insulation is shattered.
They could take their revenge now but once they remain dictating to other countries causing mayhem all over the world, there would always be a few willing to die to exact revenge.
It takes that type of ignorance to combat American arrogance.
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Big business is sent bill for slave trade
Posted: Sunday, September 9, 2001
FOR Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, it started with 40 acres and a mule. Like most American blacks of her generation, she knew all about the offer of land and livestock that the US government promised in the 1860s to every freed slave. She also knew how swiftly that promise was broken.
One day, researching genealogy in a New York archive, Farmer-Paellmann, 35, stumbled on a document that is helping to transform one of America's most divisive racial debates. She found a book that told plantation owners where to insure their slaves.
For the first time African-Americans, who have been demanding reparations for more than 250 years of slavery, had an identifiable corporate target. The policy was issued by a company that became part of America's Aetna insurance conglomerate. A crucial link had been made between past sins and present corporate assets.
After years of moribund protest, Farmer-Paellmann's discovery has helped rejuvenate a movement demanding modern retribution. "It's hot and it's going to get hotter," she said.
Next week a group of black intellectuals, lawyers and activists known as N'Cobra (National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America) will hold a conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when plans will be made to launch a barrage of lawsuits against state institutions and corporations with connections to slavery.
Prominent black lawyers, including Johnnie Cochran, the successful defender of OJ Simpson, plan to sue the federal government to establish rights to compensation. Other lawsuits will target corporations "in the same way that Jews sued IBM for their involvement in the Holocaust", one legal source said. MORE
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Teach your children well
Posted: Wednesday, September 5, 2001
( Jahmeek ) I have seen cotton but I have never seen a white man. I have seen crisp ash but I have never seen seen a black man. I have seen blood but I have never seen a red man. I have seen dandelion but have never seen a yellow man. As a child I was never taught about differance in people by skin so how could I beleive iNi are anything but one of a creation of JAH 1 LUV
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( RootsWomb(man) ) InI have seen the Black Man's (Afrikan) Holocaust at the hands of white (european) men. Black Man was tortured for 500 years plus so the white man's cotton could make him richer. InI have seen the Black Woman raped for hundreds of years for the pleasure of white men. InI see a global white supremist system still oppressing ALL PEOPLE OF COLOR. InI sight that the white man's religions and texts still pass as the "infallible world of god." InI sight that the white man is still MISEDUCATING the world.
Yes we are all ONE inna Creation...
But WHICH MAN has caused more destruction everywhere he has stepped foot? WHich man has NOT been his brother's keeper? Which man has caused more destruction unto Creation than any other?
IT is one thing to have a Utopian vision, which we all look forward to...It is another to face REALITY.
Teach the youths the TRUTH. Teach the youths that a man without the knowledge of his past is as a tree without roots. Teach the youths about Marcus! Teach the youths about the HALF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD! Teach the youths OUR-STORY! TEach the youths that "One Love" sounds pretty in songs, but a REVOLUTION of the Mind and Spirit must manifest, least "world peace" is but an illusion to be persued but never attained. Teach the youths GET UP, STAND UP FOR THEIR RIGHTS! Teach the youths to HONOR THEIR ANCESTORS and to RE-BUILD a New and United Afrika!
ROOTS
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( Jeff ) I have tried to hold my tongue while I read messages like this on these Rasta boards. I have was even convinced that this philosophy might be True and Right. Well, I know that the history you and certain others speak of is True, of course! Why sweep history under a carpet?
Come out with it and accept it and move on.....try and work together to create solutions, for ALL race issues wreaking havoc on this earth. Even in Japan there is race issues within those of the same Asian Blood! Half caste and things.....Tibet and China, Irish Protestants and Catholics, Hindu caste shituation, not to mention race issue within the Latin community, or shall we forget the Greek Spartans enslaving the whole Greek Healots three thousand years ago....and race issues within the African Community!
Race/speration issues between Black and White, Asian and White, Latinos, Indian...etc etc....etc etc.......on and on.....and on and on.....and then on and on again and again.....Sister, the devil within rules Man's hearts again and again.
Time to stop all the foolishness, back-biting, blaming, GENRALIZING GROUPS OF PEOPLE....and start to work together before we decide our fate on this beautiful Creation JAH has given us. I am but a poor, struggling "White" guy with a family, but I still want to do my part in Forwarding the Human Race. This ain't no "hippy" one love-thing, this is REALITY for All of us! We need to put aside blame and generalizing and work together for the sake of our childrens' children.
JAH Bless Us All,
Jeff
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( qe ) Blessed love, Ras Jeff, that was beautifully written in the spirit of HIM words that were left to guide us. though we surely can change no one's behavior but our own, give thanks for this timely and spiritual reminder of i'n'i goals--as set forth by Selassie-I, the Elect of God. BIG UP and raspect in every aspect--out of many i'n'i have CHOSEN to be ONE--one love, one people, one destiny, RASTAFARI!
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( Ras Trevor Henry ) It is amazing how every time I an I try to move forward there are those who would see the need to distract and engage in debates that serves suspect purposes. There are many issues of Rastafari to be dealt with and there are those whose focus is on anything but I an I.
Please Brethren and Sistren do not get caught in those sterile debates. The nswers still would not satisfy some people, plus there is always Rastafari work to be doing. Several Boards have been destroyed by a certain attitude, but none has been built by it. Rastafari love
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( Akinkawon ) >>>> Come out with it and accept it and move on.....try and work together to create solutions, for ALL race issues wreaking havoc on this earth. <<<<
That "come out with it and accept it and move on" comes over quite condescending and disrespectful. You can easily shave your head and fit into the echelons of the European Capitalistic System. You would have less of a problem getting a job and your wages may be far higher that that of an African with similar abilities. Whether you admit it or not although you are a White Rasta, you are still part of the European privileged class and at this time you are enjoying the best of two worlds; the soul of struggling people together with accessibility to a more materially 'privileged group'.
Why should any reasonable person choose to accept a wrong that persists today?
EXAMPLE:
Here it is qe rushes in again to agree with a platitude in another vain attempt to silence the voices of history. She has no problem with you posting without an email address. (This is not of concern to me but you are quite fortunate you were not someone else.)
What do you think we are dealing with if not the same slave mentality of worshiping Whites as superior coupled with another form of negative discrimination where wrongs are tolerated from one's peer group but for everyone else its a crime. Why do you feel so many christianized Rastafarians have a problem addressing Women's issues? We are dealing with the poor representation of women and Africans in their bibles and their ignorance of world history. Although many readily admit that these stories took place in Africa, it is done in a token manner and with contempt for our ancestors. Just examine what occurs whenever someone presents African History on this Board.
If people cannot find errors in Roots Woman's post, then what is there to oppose. Why is it necessary to mention all the other European crimes against other Europeans to show that everyone suffered? Whenever people talk about racial and gender discrimination that persists today Europeans try to control and dictate how the discussions must go.
It is not as if Europeans improved on what was in Africa when they went there but they destroyed what they placed their hands on. Even when they give 'aid/s' today it reaffirms in the minds of those ignorant of history that more White saviors have come (White idolatry is sustained).
Many on this Board use Christianity, with all its misrepresentations and contradictions coupled with their own misunderstandings to evaluate life.
How could reminding others of the atrocities committed against our ancestors be considered divisive or wrong if these events are true? We are still living through the oppressions of the past. Why is it necessary for Africans to develop amnesia in order to get along with others but everyone else is entitled to bombard us with their version of their sufferings? I do not hear many people calling the Jews divisive for showing numerous documentaries about their holocaust.
All the atrocities Jeff mentioned are about what Whites did to other Whites or non-whites and Europeans have little problems with compensating each other, but the issue of Slavery and cultural genocide should be placed on the back burner.
It was through slavery people were forced to adopt Christianity with its corruption of African philosophies. Today many Africans cannot even call a spade a spade. Look at the corruption before your eyes.
African Historians and sages have always spoken of the 'equality' of humans and Christianized Rastafarians and other Christianized Africans discard these brilliant minds in favor of a White Male Idol. Publicly they will disagree, but when you look at the amount of Africans who damage their skin using bleaching agents we know there is a serious problem.
With the exception of a few Rastafarians like IanI who post on this forum, most modern Rastafarians entered the movement because of both mental and material poverty. They just wanted to be accepted in a peer group notwithstanding their financial disposition. This is the reason many who call themselves Rastafarians today are no different to any other group of people who are ignorant of History and authentic cultural values. They were poor "Christians" and became poor Rastafarians with the same misunderstood Christian values.
People should not get me wrong as all of this is quite understandable but Rastafarian as a movement is still in search of core values to distinguish its body from the sea of ignorance.
This is the ongoing legacy of discrimination, which other Africans on this Board mentioned, that is part of the struggles of more enlightened African people today. Even on this Board Males and Females have problems conversing with reasoning Women.
For me, it is not a struggle about fighting for a bunch of ignorant people who don't care, or are unaware, but it is about the welfare of children under my tutorship.
In my country we have to privately raise funds (mostly from our own pockets) to put a better African story in schools. We have to use our personal funds to teach a better story about most other people. Christianized people including Africans do not support such efforts. They teach the children to live in hope of a salvation that never comes and is not of their understanding. All major ‘religious organizations’ are largely responsible for the poor mental health and the dependency syndrome that exists today.
Who are some persons on these public forums trying to put down? Is it the more enlightened person who can communicate a better story? Is it the person more knowledgeable of our past who can best ensure we do not repeat errors? Or are people advocating more hypocrisy, amnesia, and dependency so that a few could feel comfortable in the short term at the expense of our children’s well being.
I could only speak for myself as a teacher who encourages students to follow these discussions to get a better understanding of the problems.
My position is quite simple; any group that does not have at the head of its agenda, the issues of race and gender misrepresentations together with the reappraisal of World history/culture to encourage a better human story, is fraudulent and irrelevant in today’s context.
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( qe ) THE SAD GAME
Blame
Keeps the sad game going.
It keeps stealing all your wealth -
Giving it to an imbecile with
No financial skills.
Dear one,
Wise
Up.
("The Gift" - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
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( TsunamiJobu ) I am new to this message board. Quite a few of the messages portray a people dwelling on the past and the anger associated with it. Justly so, I might add but, it is much better to learn from the past than to dwell on it.
I am a white man living in Compton, California, a ghetto of sorts, where I deal with people of all colors, races (if you believe they exist), ethic, and cultural backgrounds. I deal with discrimination on a daily basis, being THE minority in that city. I could take the discrimination to heart or just realize some people are ignorant. I choose the latter. The racial relations amongst the youngest generations are the best. We need to focus on these new generations to make it a better tomorrow.
I'm not saying ignore the past, we should teach the past and mourn its victims together as a society of equal, loving people. I feel the pain of the mistreated from the past and the present. Reparations have been made, my ancestors killed fighting for civil rights. I have decided to learn from the pasts mistakes and my own misfortune. I live my life to help better racial relations. We are all of the same person. It is time to teach that to our children in order to make their lives and the lives of their children better.
22 year old student
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( Akinkawon ) >>>> Quite a few of the messages portray a people dwelling on the past and the anger associated with it. Justly so, I might add but, it is much better to learn from the past than to dwell on it. <<<<<
What you might call dwelling on the past could be people simply using the past to inform their present. Many do have a right to be angry and should remain angry until they realize justice. People who are profiting from past sins are tied to past and present oppressions.
An illusion of a future in amnesia of past oppressors and victims is a fertile ground for repeating oppressions. To me, people who live in ignorance of our greatest past are stuck in the abusive aspect of our past.
I can speak for a few of us, and we dwell so far back in the past that we are the future.
If the future is about a more enlightened, self-reliant, hard working, creative people who can comfortably take care of their needs without stepping on the rights of others? Then some of us live in that state presently, which is deeply, deeply rooted in the past. Not just the past of human degradation, but all of the past including our Universal origins.
In other words, some of us went back to the future. If you think of it you would realize it is the only way.
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( TsunamiJobu ) True, yet while dwelling on the past some people do not realize the future. Some atrocities can never be repaid. Understand?
And even if I could repay those atrocities, why should I be held responsible for something people did a long time ago that just happened to have the same skin color as me? The enemies are in the past. You will never be able to fight them there. Understand? I realize that the majority of people in my surrounding area suffer from some sort of prejudice. I am here to tell you that I do not. It is possible to have a white person not act with prejudice. With that knowledge I know that it is possible to have a large society, like the U.S., not suffer from prejudices. All we need is time and effort. This is a circular argument so I will not go on much further.
One question for you: "What you might call dwelling on the past could be people simply using the past to inform their present. Many do have a right to be angry and should remain angry until they realize justice. People who are profiting from past sins are tied to past and present oppressions."
What is this "justice" people need to realize? Is it feasible? Is it productive to society? Will this "justice" make the world a better place? Will it be a race war? Or maybe we lock up all us white folk for being white? That will show us right? What is going to have to happen? I don't think there are any decent answers to these questions. Me and you are fighting the same fight. The enemy is the ignorance of the past. We need to teach it in order for people to learn from it. We shouldn't use it to fuel peoples anger.
Living in the past is a great idea. And quite feasible as well. How far do we want to go? Human origin? Just tell me where the undisputed place and time it was where life began.
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( Akinkawon ) >>> True, yet while dwelling on the past some people do not realize the future. Some atrocities can never be repaid. Understand? <<<
This is funny, are you also the one to determine when people should evolve?
Yes, the atrocities committed against many people can never be repaid in a material sense, but at least Europeans and some so called Africans can make a good effort. A few trillion dollars to invest in education is a good place to start. The education is not only for Africans but for Europeans and everyone else also . Those with the slave mentality are equally as sick as those with the slave master's mentality.
>>> And even if I could repay those atrocities, why should I be held responsible for something people did a long time ago that just happened to have the same skin color as me? <<<
You are not being personally held responsible for everything. Most people including many Africans are also responsible. But there is the question of the personal responsibilities of individuals. You need to learn European History if you are really White, because you did not just happen to be White. White was the necessary depigmentation of some people for their survival and this should be understood and respected.
When some of us speak of White, we are mostly speaking about an attitude and not necessarily White/European people.
You are held responsible because you benefited from the sins. If you are advancing the argument that because you did not personally commit the crime you cannot be held liable, then the other side of that argument should be upheld as a principle. You did not work for the money so you are not entitled to any inheritance. I do not hear Whites questioning this principle whenever they are on the receiving end.
People live in societies that deny meritocracy and most Whites happily enjoy the comforts. These comforts are part of your inheritance; these are the sins of parents being passed onto children.
Why is it right for Israel, Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium etc to build memorials for their dead and preserve the legacy of their brutalities and it is wrong for Africans to revisit the past?
Today many Whites are revisiting the African past to learn more about where they came from but when Africans do the same many Whites and colonized Africans say we are dwelling on the past.
Some Whites in an attempt to deal with the legacy of European miseducation unintentionally commit more wrongs. They now often repeat the diatribe that race is insignificant, but they are the ones getting the large grants to do the explorations. They are still benefiting from their skin color but try to feed the lie that race is insignificant.
The differences in people are not only about melanin to protect from ultraviolet rays, but these differences speak about people’s evolution and how they developed their worldview. Today differences in many people explain greater sins and amnesia. People are doing dangerous things to get straight hair and lighten their complexion. This is about economics, which is tied to the White skin color, so for many of those bleaching their skins it is about survival for which they are prepared to risk their lives.
They know the truth about economic resources being tied to skin color and they are not easily going to move from that position unless more people can present a better model of development that respects all manner of people.
>>> The enemies are in the past. You will never be able to fight them there. Understand? I realize that the majority of people in my surrounding area suffer from some sort of prejudice. I am here to tell you that I do not. It is possible to have a white person not act with prejudice. <<<
Ignorance and Greed, the two major enemies are not in our past but are very present today. And people negatively discriminate against others today. Sir, apparently you do not know the meaning of prejudice and when you are clear on the meaning you should revisit these discussions. You may be surprised to discover you are prejudice and possibly a racist. But that does not necessarily make you an evil person. You could be unaware of the numerous things you say and do that negatively impact on others. You could be making these comments to simply provoke discussions.
It is impossible for America to rid itself of racial and gender discriminations. The entire American economy is built on these poor qualities and if America were ever to genuinely pay for crimes committed against other people then America would have no money. You sir would be migrating to Africa to seek employment.
Yes it is possible to have a White person act without prejudice but I have not met one as yet. It is even difficult to find people who are not prejudice among all other people. But yes, it is possible but that comes through constant work on oneself.
>>> What is this "justice" people need to realize? Is it feasible? Is it productive to society? Will this "justice" make the world a better place? Will it be a race war? <<<
Justice is achieved by individuals who are self realized. But this justice does not come through amnesia but through seeking out more improved ways to address problems and live in harmony with nature.
Some people may resort to fighting with Whites, and that is understandable, however they would not get my support as I know the problem is not simply about Whites versus Blacks, but good over bad and right over wrong and in this respect many Africans are also on the side of wrong.
Your last point is a muddle of your own senses. However, we all have our past with us presently. Most people are simply ignorant of the true meaning of "You must know where you came from to know where you are going."
I will end by saying that in essence where you came from is exactly where you are striving to go to achieve happiness.
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( RootsWomb(man) ) Greetings Akinkawon,
Give thanks for the I's CRUCIAL WORD SOUND AND POWER!!!! Teach dem....teach dem!!!!!!
Also, it is CLASSICALLY EUROCENTRIC to seperate the Past from the Present and Future. The Afrikan Mind KNOWS that PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE ARE ONE! That is why First World Peoples HONOR their Ancestors. It is also why Marcus taught us that A MAN WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIS PAST IS AS A TREE WITHOUT ROOTS. We are the PRESENT which CONNECTS the past with the future. It is a CYCLICAL movement. Not a LINEAR one. The linear mentallity is european by nature.
ONWARD AND FORWARD TO ANCIENT FUTURE! SANKOFA!
ROOTS
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( TsunamiJobu ) I never realized, until now, that I was born with sins that can never be repaid. And I am obligated for life to repay these sins to others simply based on the color of my skin. My children (as long as their white?) will inherit these sins and pass them to their children and so on and so on.
Thank you for opening my eyes to the eternal damnation of my race. Human? Is there a human race?
Afraid not, just a bunch of different colored people, without the ability to forgive, running around mad at each other, for the un-repayable, sinful actions they committed on each other.
It is nice to live in your world, where the word forgive does not exist.
I am no longer worried about teaching my children well. Why would I, a white man, even want to have a child?
________________________________________________________
( Akinkawon ) That is a mind-boggling evaluation of my prior contribution and if you cannot understand what you read that is further proof that the Eurocentric miseducation system does not even benefit White people in a meaningful way. This is the reason the holistic education about which we speak is for all people including Whites.
I hope you realize that I am responding to any person who may share your views and not only you because I do not know if you are White. You could be anyone trying to push a discussion.
Whites have no problem teaching innocent children that they were born in sin, so how come this concept coming from an African is so offensive to you? You and every other ignorant adult is a sinner by default of not knowing right actions to correct injustices.
You may be expecting Africans to only seek salvation in the spirit, (that is what the colonial interpretation of religion taught us) while Whites are continually trying to have it here and now in CA$H.
Our holistic approach to life teaches us to seek salvation on earth as it is in heaven. So we will no longer be blinded by the illusion of religion but instead be guided by the reality of true spirituality, which is about the restoration of justice here on earth for a fruitful life here and after.
Should you have children? Hmm... If you are not going to properly educate them so they develop to work for equal opportunity for all, they may become victims of others who may not be as non-violent and tolerant as myself. They may suffer for the sins of your ignorance and for the bigger sin you are committing today by trying to spread amnesia for education.
When I was a child and vulnerable, my ignorant teacher took me to church to confess, I was told to also give collection $. That is the teachings of 'colonial religion'. Europeans do not ask for forgiveness but expect others to forgive them. And even if they ask, it is up to whom ever they ask to grant or not grant forgiveness. All who are found guilty must also pay CA$H. (Restitution)
When European and American powers are truly sorry, they would not try to tell a free people what is adequate compensation. People do not commit crimes and dictate their own punishment.
You are not guilty because of your skin color, but for your attitude in relation to the 'benefits' you take for granted that comes with being White.
I have several White friends who understand the truth of our history and they work for the same restoration of justice like myself. In many ways they are still prejudice but at least they admit it and work on it daily. They don't go around trying to impose amnesia to replace education.
Now, I have communicated to you in the language that Europeans felt only they could master and interpret and I see you are having problems with the same English Language.
I could transmit this to you in many other ways but I feel you will not understand and may go mad from confusion.
________________________________________________________
( RootsWomb(man) ) Greetins!!!!
"Whites have no problem teaching innocent children that they were born in sin, so how come this concept coming from an African is so offensive to you? You and every other ignorant adult is a sinner by default of not knowing right actions to correct injustices."
INDEED!!!! Their whole religious foundations are built upon the "born in sin" CON-cept! Yet, when it comes from the Mind of an Afrikan...they rebuke it! BABBLE-ON....(babylon)...what a load of CON-fusion!
I just wanted to extend DEEP RAspect unto the I for the I's WISE Words. Teach dem!
ROOTS
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Fidel Castro has supported the call for reparations
Posted: Saturday, September 1, 2001
( ABSTRACT BBC: ) African leaders at the international conference on racism in the South African city of Durban have agreed that the West must apologise for slavery and colonialism, but are still divided over the issue of reparations.
One of the speakers at the conference, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, has come out against reparations.
Mr Obasanjo told the delegates an apology would recognise the wrong that was committed against Africans and constitute a promise that such an atrocity would never happen again.
With an apology, "the issue of reparations ceases to be a rational option", he said during his formal address to the conference on Saturday morning.
But the President of Togo, Gnassingbe Eyadema, said reparations were necessary to compensate for the horrors of the slave trade and colonialism.
Africans and people of African descent have noted that compensation is now being paid to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and their descendents.
They are demanding the same kind of reparations for the descendents of those who were enslaved because they were black.
Reparations could come in the form of a cancellation of African debt and greater development aid, some African delegates hope.
Cuban President Fidel Castro has supported the call for reparations, saying that countries that made money through human trafficking could afford to pay.
"This is an unavoidable moral duty," Mr Castro said.
The Cuban leader criticised the US for lowering the level of its delegation at the conference because of the discussion of what he called Israeli genocide against Palestinians.
"(Nobody) has the right to set preconditions to the conference or urge it to avoid the discussion...(of) the way we decide to rate the dreadful genocide perpetrated, at this very moment, against our Palestinian brothers," Mr Castro said.
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Fidel Castro Address Durbin Conference on Racism
Posted: Saturday, September 1, 2001
Excellencies:
Delegates and guests:
Racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia are not naturally instinctive reactions of the human beings but rather a social, cultural and political phenomenon born directly of wars, military conquests, slavery and the individual or collective exploitation of the weakest by the most powerful all along the history of human societies.
No one has the right to boycott this Conference which tries to bring some sort of relief to the overwhelming majority of mankind afflicted by unbearable suffering and enormous injustice. Neither has anyone the right to set preconditions to this conference or urge it to avoid the discussion of historical responsibility, fair compensation or the way we decide to rate the dreadful genocide perpetrated, at this very moment, against our Palestinian brothers by extreme right leaders who, in alliance with the hegemonic superpower, pretend to be acting on behalf of another people which throughout almost two thousand years was the victim of the most fierce persecution, discrimination and injustice that history has known.
Cuba speaks of reparations, and supports this idea as an unavoidable moral duty to the victims of racism, based on a major precedent, that is, the indemnification being paid to the descendants of the Hebrew people which in the very heart of Europe suffered the brutal and loathsome racist holocaust. However, it is not with the intent to undertake an impossible search for the direct descendants or the specific countries of the victims of actions occurred throughout centuries. The irrefutable truth is that tens of millions of Africans were captured, sold like a commodity and sent beyond the Atlantic to work in slavery while 70 million indigenous people in that hemisphere perished as a result of the European conquest and colonization.
The inhuman exploitation imposed on the peoples of three continents, including Asia, marked forever the destiny and lives of over 4.5 billion people living in the Third World today whose poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and health rates as well as their infant mortality, life expectancy and other calamities --too many, in fact, to enumerate here-- are certainly awesome and harrowing. They are the current victims of that atrocity which lasted centuries and the ones who clearly deserve compensation for the horrendous crimes perpetrated against their ancestors and peoples.
Actually, such a brutal exploitation did not end when many countries became independent, not even after the formal abolition of slavery. Right after independence, the main ideologists of the American Union that emerged when the 13 colonies got rid of the British domination at the end of the 18th century, advanced ideas and strategies unquestionably expansionist in nature.
It was based on such ideas that the ancient white settlers of European descent, in their march to the West, forcibly occupied the lands in which Native- Americans had lived for thousands of years thus exterminating millions of them in the process. But, they did not stop at the boundaries of the former Spanish possessions; consequently Mexico, a Latin American country that had attained its independence in 1821, was stripped off millions of square kilometers of territory and invaluable natural resources.
Meanwhile, in the increasingly powerful and expansionist nation born in North America, the obnoxious and inhumane slavery system stayed in place for almost a century after the famous Declaration of Independence of 1776 was issued, the same that proclaimed that all men were born free and equal.
After the purely formal slave emancipation, African- Americans were subjected during one hundred more years to the harshest racial discrimination, and many of its features and consequences still persist after almost four more decades of heroic struggles and the achievements of the 1960's, for which Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and other outstanding fighters gave their lives. Based on a purely racist rationale, the longest and most severe legal sentences are passed against African-Americans who in the wealthy American society are bound to live in dare poverty and with the lowest living standards.
Likewise, what is left of the Native-American peoples, which were the first to inhabit a large portion of the current territory of the United States of America, remain under even worse conditions of discrimination and neglect.
Needless to mention the data on the social and economic situation of Africa where entire countries and even whole regions of Sub-Saharan Africa are in risk of extinction the result of an extremely complex combination of economic backwardness, excruciating poverty and grave diseases, both old and new, that have become a true scourge. And the situation is no less dramatic in numerous Asian countries. On top of all this, there are the huge and unpayable debts, the disparate terms of trade, the ruinous prices of basic commodities, the demographic explosion, the neoliberal globalization and the climate changes that produce long draughts alternating with increasingly intensive rains and floods. It can be mathematically proven that such a predicament is unsustainable.
The developed countries and their consumer societies, presently responsible for the accelerated and almost unstoppable destruction of the environment, have been the main beneficiaries of the conquest and colonization, of slavery, of the ruthless exploitation and the extermination of hundreds of millions of people born in the countries that today constitute the Third World. They have also reaped the benefits of the economic order imposed on humanity after two atrocious and devastating wars for a new division of the world and its markets, of the privileges granted to the United States and its allies in Bretton-Woods, and of the IMF and the international financial institutions exclusively created by them and for them.
That rich and squandering world is in possession of the technical and financial resources necessary to pay what is due to mankind. The hegemonic superpower should also pay back its special debt to African- Americans, to Native-Americans living in reservations, and to the tens of millions of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants as well as others from poor nations, be they mulatto, yellow or black, but victims all of vicious discrimination and scorn.
It is high time to put an end to the dramatic situation of the indigenous communities in our hemisphere. Their own awakening and struggles, and the universal admission of the monstrosity of the crime committed against them make it imperative.
There are enough funds to save the world from the tragedy.
May the arms race and the weapon commerce that only bring devastation and death truly end.
Let it be used for development a good part of the one trillion US dollars annually spent on the commercial advertising that creates false illusions and inaccessible consumer habits while releasing the venom that destroys the national cultures and identities.
May the modest 0.7 percentage point of the Gross National Product promised as official development assistance be finally delivered.
May the tax suggested by Nobel Prize Laureate James Tobin be imposed in a reasonable and effective way on the current speculative operations accounting for trillions of US dollars every 24 hours, then the United Nations, which cannot go on depending on meager, inadequate, and belated donations and charities, will have one trillion US dollars annually to save and develop the world. Given the seriousness and urgency of the existing problems, which have become a real hazard for the very survival of our specie on the planet, that is what would actually be needed before it is too late.
Put and end to the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people that is taking place while the world stares in amazement. May the basic right to life of that people, children and youth, be protected. May their right to peace and independence be respected; then, there will be nothing to fear from UN documents.
I am aware that the need for some relief from the awful situation their countries are facing has led many friends from Africa and other regions to suggest the need for such prudence as would allow something to come out of this conference. I sympathize with them but I cannot renounce my convictions, as I feel that the more candid we are in telling the truth the more possibilities there will be to be heeded and respected. There have been enough centuries of deception.
I have only three other short questions based on realities that cannot be ignored.
The capitalist, developed and wealthy countries today participate of the imperialist system born of capitalism itself and the economic order imposed to the world based on the philosophy of selfishness and the brutal competition between men, nations and groups of nations which in completely indifferent to any feelings of solidarity and honest international cooperation. They live under the misleading, irresponsible and hallucinating atmosphere of consumer societies. Thus, regardless the sincerity of their blind faith in such a system and the convictions of their most serious statesmen, I wonder: Will they be able to understand the grave problems of today's world which in its incoherent and uneven development is ruled by blind laws, by the huge power and the interests of the ever growing and increasingly uncontrollable and independent transnational corporations?
Will they come to understand the impending universal chaos and rebellion? And, even if they wanted to, could they put an end to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other related issues, which are precisely the rest of them all?
From my viewpoint we are on the verge of a huge economic, social and political global crisis. Let's try to build an awareness about these realities and the alternatives will come up. History has shown that it is only from deep crisis that great solutions have emerged. The peoples' right to life and justice will definitely impose itself under a thousand different shapes.
I believe in the mobilization and the struggle of the peoples! I believe in the idea of justice! I believe in truth! I believe in man!
Thank you.
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The legal basis of the claim for Reparations
Posted: Thursday, August 30, 2001
By Lord Anthony Gifford, British Queens Counsel
and Jamaican Attorney-at-Law
I believe that the cause of Reparations to Africa and Africans in the Diaspora is rooted in fundamental justice - a justice which over-arches every struggle and campaign which African people have waged to assert their human dignity. For the iniquities perpetrated against African people today - whether in South Africa by the apartheid regime, in Mozambique and Angola by terrorist forms of de stabilisation, in Britain and the USA by racist attacks and by systems of discrimination - are the continuing consequences, the damages as lawyers would say, flowing from the 400-years-long atrocity of the slave system.
For me as a lawyer it is essential to locate the claim for Reparations within a framework of law and justice. If this were merely an appeal to the conscience of the White world, it would be misconceived. For while there have been many committed individuals and movements of solidarity in the White world, its political an economic power centres have evidenced a ruthless lack of conscience when it comes to Black and African peoples.
But in my experience progress has been made when the powers that rule in the white world have been compelled to recognise that the rights of non-white peoples are founded in justice. It is then that forms of legal redress, which may not have existed before, have been devised.
For example, it used to be perfectly legal in Britain, only 25 years ago, for landlords or employers to put up notices which said "VACANCIES - NO COLOUREDS". Today any employer who discriminates on racial grounds can be required by a Tribunal to pay compensation.
At an intentional level, apartheid in South Africa used to be regarded as an internal affair, however regrettable. But over the years apartheid became recognised as a crime against humanity and a threat to peace, so that international sanctions could be imposed.
This is not to say that the achievement of legal sanctions brings automatic justice. This has not happened either in Britain or South Africa. But these examples show that the demand for justice and legality is an essential element in the struggle for a just cause.
So it is with the claim for Reparations. Indeed, once you accept, as I do, the truth of three propositions. More http://www.arm.arc.co.uk/legalBasis.html
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Why Skin Comes in Colors
Posted: Wednesday, August 29, 2001
The skin is the place where Vitamin D is synthesized using ultraviolet rays to catalyze the reaction. So you need some ultraviolet light to penetrate the skin in order to make Vitamin D. Vitamin D turns out to be critical to your body because it provides the means whereby you absorb calcium from your food in your digestive system. So if you don't have Vitamin D, you can't absorb calcium from your food and you can't build strong bones.
Making the proper skin color turns out to be a balancing act between having enough natural sunscreen to prevent a lot of damage to the contents of the blood system. On the other hand, you have to let in enough ultraviolet light to still permit the formation of Vitamin D in your skin. So people who live in conditions of lower ultraviolet light, away from the tropics and toward the poles, have to have lighter skin than those people who live closer to the tropics or closer to the equator. Those people really have to have darker skin to protect themselves from ultraviolet light.
Those who are sort of in the middle, like inhabitants of most of North America and most of Eurasia, have to have skin that is capable of some level of tanning so that we can protect ourselves from lots of ultraviolet radiation in the late spring and summer. But we can de-pigment ourselves as ultraviolet light becomes less intense in the winter so we can take advantage of the ambient ultraviolet radiation that does exist.
If we look at our earliest Homo sapiens ancestors (about 100 to 150 thousand years ago in eastern Africa), we can reconstruct that those ancestors would have had dark skin to protect themselves from the deleterious effects of ultraviolet light. But those populations began to move out of the tropics and colonize areas that were much less intense in terms of ultraviolet light. As they first moved into the Circum Mediterranean, Western Asia, then onward into Eastern Asia, Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia and so forth, these populations would have to undergo some depigmentation in order for them to be able to synthesize enough Vitamin D in their skin. More
Skin Comes in Colors
Human Skin Pigmentation
Testosterone and Evolution of Skin Color in Humans
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Ancient Abyssinia/Saba
Posted: Wednesday, August 29, 2001
At least by 1,000BC Ethiopia, Eritrea and what is southern Yemen were part of a large empire known as the Sabean Kingdoms. The connections of Ethiopia and Arabia should not be surprising as the distance between the East African horn and Southern Arabia is minimal. In fact recent linguistic study indicates that the Semitic languages of Arabia and the Middle East may well be a branch of a larger Ethiopian language group.
It is also well known that this Eastern Horn-Arabian route was used for millennia by the earliest homonid migrants who later populated Asia. The people of Sabea were probably a mixture of East Africans and their Southern Arabian descendants who had long populated the region. Saba had a very matrifocal society with a host of female dieties. According to the Kebra Negast, a holy book of Ethiopia, it is said that Makedda herself created a dictate stating "only a woman can rule." Polyandry, the practice of taking more than one husband by a woman, and tracing one's kinship based upon matrilineal descent was common.
The earliest known Arabian temple was at Marib (in Southern Yemen), capital of Saba, and was called Mahram Bilqus, "precincts of the Queen of Saba." The Arabs called this woman, Bilqus or Balkis; in Ethiopia, Makedda (also Magda, Maqda and Makera), meaning "Greatness." Years later, the Jewish historian Josephus, referred to her as "Nikaulis, Queen of Ethiopia." She is the celebrated Queen of Sheba of the Bible who is described as "black and comely." Located in a strategic location, Saba flourished as a trading community in goods from Asia as well as Africa. Even coffee drinkers trace the original cup to Ethiopia's Kefa region. Pictured above are the ruins of Marib, built between the 1st and 2nd Millennium BC.
(Information Courtesy of Yemeni website and African Presence in Early Asia ed. by Ivan Van Sertima) MORE
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The Phantom of Racism Racism and Indigenous Peoples
Posted: Tuesday, August 28, 2001
"Racism has historically been a banner to justify the enterprises of expansion, conquest, colonization and domination and has walked hand in hand with intolerance, injustice and violence."
- Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Guatemalan Indigenous Leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
"The Problem of Racism on the Threshold of the 21st Century"
"Doctrines of Dispossession" - Racism against Indigenous peoples
Historians and academics agree that the colonization of the New World saw extreme expressions of racism - massacres, forced-march relocations, the "Indian wars", death by starvation and disease. Today, such practices would be called ethnic cleansing and genocide. What seems even more appalling for contemporary minds is that the subjugation of the native peoples of the New World was legally sanctioned. "Laws" of "discovery", "conquest" and "terra nullius" made up the "doctrines of dispossession", according to Erica Irene Daes, chairperson/rapporteur of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, in a study on indigenous peoples and their relationship to land.
Specifically, in the fifteenth century, two Papal Bulls set the stage for European domination of the New World and Africa. Romanus Pontifex, issued by Pope Nicholas V to King Alfonso V of Portugal in 1452, declared war against all non-Christians throughout the world, and specifically sanctioned and promoted the conquest, colonization, and exploitation of non-Christian nations and their territories. Inter Caetera, issued by Pope Alexander VI in 1493 to the King and Queen of Spain following the voyage of Christopher Columbus to the island he called Hispaniola, officially established Christian dominion over the New World. It called for the subjugation of the native inhabitants and their territories, and divided all newly discovered or yet-to-be discovered lands into two - giving Spain rights of conquest and dominion over one side of the globe and Portugal over the other. The subsequent Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) re-divided the globe with the result that most Brazilians today speak Portuguese rather than Spanish, as in the rest of Latin America. The Papal Bulls have never been revoked, although indigenous representatives have asked the Vatican to consider doing so.
These "doctrines of discovery" provided the basis for both the "law of nations" and subsequent international law. Thus, they allowed Christian nations to claim "unoccupied lands" (terra nullius), or lands belonging to "heathens" or "pagans". In many parts of the world, these concepts later gave rise to the situation of many Native peoples in the today - dependent nations or wards of the State, whose ownership of their land could be revoked - or "extinguished" -- at any time by the Government.
Indigenous leaders today contend that it is essentially discriminatory that native title does not confer the same privileges as ordinary title. According to Mick Dodson, an Australian Aboriginal lawyer, the concept of extinguishment "treats indigenous rights and interests in land as inferior to all other titles". According to indigenous law and custom, indigenous interests can only hold native title, and, according to the law put into place since then by the European immigrants, native title can be extinguished.
Indigenous Peoples in the 'New World'
The world's indigenous peoples - or "first peoples" - do not share the same story of colonization. In the New World, white European colonizers arrived and settled suddenly, with drastic results. The indigenous peoples were pushed aside and marginalized by the dominant descendents of Europeans. Some peoples have disappeared, or nearly so. Modern estimates place the 15th century, or pre-Columbus, population of North America at 10 to 12 million. By the 1890s, it had been reduced to approximately 300,000. In parts of Latin America, the results were similar; in others, there are still majority indigenous populations. But even in those areas, indigenous people are often at a disadvantage. Indigenous peoples in Latin America still face the same obstacles as indigenous peoples elsewhere - primarily, separation from their lands. And that separation is usually based on distinctions originally deriving from race.
Indigenous peoples in the 'Old World'
Among African peoples, there are clearly groups of peoples who have always lived where they are, who have struggled to maintain their culture, their language and their way of life, and who suffer problems similar to those of indigenous peoples everywhere, particularly when forcibly separated from their lands. These include poverty, marginalization, the loss of culture and language, and the subsequent problems of identity that often lead to social problems such as alcoholism and suicide. Because of these particular similarities, many people find it useful and suitable to consider such groups indigenous peoples.
The hunter-gatherer Forest Peoples (Pygmies) of the central African rainforests, comprising many groups, are threatened by conservation policies, logging, the spread of agriculture, and political upheavals and civil wars. They are usually at the bottom of the social structure. It is ironic that modern conservation policies intended to protect species of animals, not groups of humans, forbid many of these hunter-gatherers from hunting.
Nomadic pastoralist peoples like the Maasai and Samburu of east Africa are struggling with the encroachment of farming and conservation into their areas. As they are limited to smaller and smaller spaces, it becomes more and more difficult for them to maintain their livestock, especially in difficult periods, such as times of drought. Increasingly, they are being forced to move to urban areas.
The San, or Bushmen, of southern Africa have in some cases disappeared, or nearly so, as they have lost or been driven from their traditional homelands. Large numbers remain in Namibia, but they are usually impoverished and unable to live their traditional way of life. Many of them, with nowhere to go, have simply stayed, and now find themselves poorly paid laborers on farms - made up of their traditional territory -- now owned by whites or by other Africans.
The Imazighen (Berbers) are the indigenous peoples of northern Africa and the Sahel. The best known Imazighen may be the Tuareg. Most Imazighen who have not been assimilated live in the mountains or the desert. In Mediterranean areas, they have become sedentary; those living in the desert are usually nomadic. Today they exist as small linguistic pockets, with few, if any, cultural protections. Activists are working to maintain their language and culture.
"Well-intentioned" discrimination: the cost
In Australia, Canada and the United States, one practice which has only been recognized as discriminatory and damaging in the second half of the 20th century is the forced removal of Native/Aboriginal children from their homes. In Australia, the practice focused on mixed-race Aboriginal children, who were forcibly taken from their parents and given to adoptive white families. These children usually grew up without the knowledge that they were in fact partly Aboriginal. Today they have been named the "Stolen Generation".
In the US and Canada, Native children were sent to the notorious residential schools, which persisted well into the latter part of the 20th century. Language, religion and cultural beliefs were often the objects of ridicule. Speaking native words was forbidden, and often earned physical punishment - to force a stubborn Indian child to learn to speak good English. Contact with parents and family was often discouraged, or even disallowed. In the worst examples, to discourage run-aways, children were told their parents had died, that there was no home to return to; or, vice versa, to discourage parental visits, families were told that their children had died. In an ironic twist, these falsehoods sometimes proved prophetic: there were cases where children did run away in mid-winter, dressed only in nightclothes, hoping to find their way home. Today it is assumed that they froze to death, as their parents have never been able to find them.
In an earlier age, these actions were defended as being in the "best interests" of the Indian/Aboriginal child, to improve her chances in the modern world. Assimilation was the goal. The value inherent in indigenous cultures and knowledge was not then recognized.
In isolated areas, some residential schools attracted faculty and staff of the sort who prey on children. Extensive physical and sexual abuse has been documented. In North America, as the abuse has come to light, victims have been identified and there have been attempts to provide remedies and retribution.
The United Nations Tackles the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations
The United Nations first focused its attention formally on the problems of indigenous peoples in the context of its work against racism and discrimination.
In 1970, the Subcommission on Prevention and Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (a subsidiary body of the Commission on Human Rights) commissioned Special Rapporteur Martinez Cobo of Ecuador to undertake a study on "The Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations". That monumental study, completed only in 1984, carefully documented modern discrimination against indigenous peoples and their precarious situation. His report catalogued the wide variety of laws in place to protect native peoples: some of these were discriminatory in concept, and others were routinely disregarded by the dominant community. It concluded that the continuous discrimination against indigenous peoples threatened their existence.
The report found that some governments denied that indigenous peoples existed within their borders. Others denied the existence of any kind of discrimination - in contradiction to the reality encountered. It described cases where the governmental authorities, when reporting on the situation of indigenous peoples, unwittingly betrayed their baldly discriminatory thinking. For example, a governmental official in the Americas replied to Mr. Cobo's request for information on "protective measures" by stating: "In our civil legislation, the Indians are not even included among the incapable persons." Another responded: "They are not inscribed in the Birth Register, which means that they have no legal civil personality. They are beings without political, social or economic obligations. They do not vote. They pay no taxes." A judicial decision concluded that an Indian could not be found guilty of homicide because of "unsurmountable ignorance", stating "Although in our country they belong to the category of Citizens with rights and duties…. The Indian does not reach the text of Law. He does not understand it."
The establishment of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982 was a direct result of the Cobo study. Consisting of five independent experts, the Working Group meets annually in Geneva, and, until now, has been the only arena in the United Nations system in which indigenous peoples could state their views. The United Nations International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995-2004) has helped to focus efforts in the UN system on two primary goals: the creation of a Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and the drafting of a declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. The draft Declaration is still under consideration by the UN Commission on Human Rights. The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the UN Charter body to which the Commission on Human Rights reports, recently took steps to establish the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which will consist of eight governmental experts and eight indigenous representatives. Indigenous representatives will for the first time be allowed to address directly an official United Nations Charter body, ECOSOC.
Due to growing concerns about the environment, the activity undertaken by the Working Group and other United Nations bodies and the advocacy work carried on by indigenous groups and non-governmental organizations, indigenous peoples worldwide are receiving increasing attention from their respective governments. Countries such as Canada, Australia and the United States have focused efforts on settling land claims with indigenous groups and on achieving reconciliation for past injuries, including those done in the name of assimilation. In Scandinavia, the native Saami have established a parliamentary forum across their national borders. In Africa, indigenous groups have just begun to mobilize. In other areas, indigenous groups have taken strong positions in defiance of their governments. And in a first, a UN-brokered peace agreement in the civil war in Guatemala gave a specific role to indigenous peoples. But a lot has not been settled.
Retribution: Land claims and more
Native groups have made a great deal of progress in pursuing land claims, particularly in the Americas and Australia. Of particular note is is Nunavut, Canada's newest and largest territory. Established on 1 April 1999 to be a homeland for the Inuit, who make up 85 per cent of its population, it was the result of the process that began in the early 1970s when Canada decided to negotiate settlements with aboriginal groups that filed land claims. The establishment of Nunavut represents a new level of indigenous self-determination in Canada.
In response to the reports of widespread abuse in the residential school system, the Law Commission of Canada in 1996 published a report, "Restoring Dignity: Responding to Child Abuse in Canadian Institutions". In its research, the Commission found that, in addition to physical and sexual abuse, it was imperative to also consider the emotional, racial and cultural abuse. Following the report, the Government of Canada announced a new programme "Gathering Strength - an Aboriginal Action Plan". It called for a renewed partnership with Aboriginal people based on recognizing past mistakes and injustices, the advancement of reconciliation, healing and renewal, and the building of a joint plan for the future. The Government also offered a Statement of Reconciliation, in which it said "To those of you who suffered this tragedy at residential schools, we are deeply sorry."
Unfortunately, it has become apparent that resolving such emotionally charged issues will take a great deal of time and commitment. With over 6,000 lawsuits currently seeking reparations for physical and sexual abuse, the Churches who ran the schools for the Canadian Government and who are co-defendants in the suits report that they are facing almost certain bankruptcy. And a number of the victims of abuse have committed suicide.
Elsewhere in North America, the United States is also in the process of settling many land claims. Some Indian Nations have successfully established a level of sovereignty. A few have established casinos that have become multi-billion dollars industries and that provide needed jobs to depressed areas - and not just to residents of the reservation.
In one particularly difficult case, the Federal Government has filed suit against New York State for illegally acquiring and selling land belonging to the Oneida Nation - land that is now occupied by thousands of upset American homeowners. While the Oneida Nation has insisted throughout that they have no intention of seizing anyone's land or evicting anyone, feelings have run very high. Death threats have been made.
The Cayugas, the Senecas, the Mohawks and the Onondagas - all Haudenosaunee, or members of the Iroquois Confederacy, along with the Oneida Nation - also have claims on property in New York State. Because the population of New York State is much more dense than in most other areas of "Indian country", these may prove difficult to resolve to everyone's mutual satisfaction.
Pine Ridge Reservation, in South Dakota, is the poorest county in the United States of America. The midwestern states are also the site of more obvious racism against Native Americans. It has been commonly charged that there are two tiers of justce, one for Native Americans and another for "whites". Native Americans say that crimes committed against them - including those resulting in death - receive only a cursory investigation, while crimes committed against "whites", allegedly committed by Native Americans, are fiercely prosecuted. And daily expressions of racism of the type long thought to exist only in memory still occur -- but the apparent recipients are Native Americans. The segregated lunch counters of the South may no longer exist, but Native Americans say they are not surprised when they are refused service in a coffee shop. Such experiences of Native Americans living in Indian Country, however, are not known to vast majority of American citizens. Which gives rise to another question: is racism against Native Americans less likely to be covered by the mainstream media?
World Conference against Racism
Copyright United Nations 2001
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Religious Fanaticism: Is Rasta Guilty?
Posted: Monday, August 27, 2001
( RootsWomb(man) ) RELIGIOUS FANATICISM (excessive and irrational enthusiasm or zeal for a belief or cause)
IS RASTAFARI ALSO EFFECTED BY THIS?
Once again, much Raspek is due unto the I's (Ras Jahaziel) Epistles! The I has spoken TRUTH, and we all know that TRUTH stands on its own. It is in that Spirit that InI would like to address this very issue of RELIGIOSITY which also PLAGUES Rastafari. We ALL should know that when the finger is pointed out, there are always three pointing back at us. Part of the Healing of the Nations, and Afrikan Liberation, is not only to REVEAL the destructive OUTTER influences which plague us, but most importantly, how those ideals have been ingrained into the Mindz of the Black Nation, and to COURAGEOUSLY tackle our own "dirty laundry", so to speak. It is much easier to point the finger at the origin of the infection, than to begin to cleanse its stench and foul pus.
The Global White Supremist System has affected ALL of Creation and Her children. Only a fool could deny the RESIDUAL effects of the Afrikan Holocaust which continues to plague us. Indeed, the I mention Willy Lynch, which is an excellent point. Would the I agree that Willy Lynch is just as pleased with the ongoing effects of his MIND-SET inna Rastafari as he is with the rest of the Black Nations? Can it be denied that Rastafari Houses are also GUILTY of "allowing IGNORANCE and FANATICISM to disguise itself as RIGHTEOUS ZEAL for the cause"? When the Nyahbinghi House chants down the next house (or vice verca) because one sights "Jesus Christ" as being the "savior" while the other sights Gad, and yet the other sights or Prince Emmanuel, or Rastafari? Can it be denied that Rastafari also suffers DISUNITY and STAGNANCY due to squabbling over who is the "true messiah" and over the Divinity and Deification of Haile Selassie I? How many Rastafari Idren beat the next Idren over the Divine Nature of this god-man as opposed to INCULPORATING his Teachings and his Examples? It is in InI opinion (due to experience) that Rastafari sons and dawtahs spend much more energy in "comparing notes" (as to this house's principles/tenets versus that ones) than we do in Pan Afrikan WORKS. It is oddly remiscent of the the "jesus freaks" who exhault much more energy squabbling over the deification of the MAN rather than his teachings…
Is it so far fetched to say that the FALSE interpretations of our Afrikan Sacred Texts and Teachings have also bled into Rastafari? (EXCLUDING the Koptic Teachings, Faith, Church and Traditions of Haile Selassie and Eastern Koptic Christianity) Is it so far-fetched to admit that the OPRESSOR'S teachings and mindset also affect Rastafari? If RELIGIOSITY has effected the ENTIRE GLOBE, than how has Rastafari not been effected, seeing that we are still using his interpretations of the bible? How many Rastafarians actually follow the SAME TRADITIONS as His Majesty? How many Rastafarians read The Gospel of Myriam? How many venerate Myriam as did His Majesty? How many study Ge'ez and follow the ceremonies of the Koptic Church? How many Rastas have read the Quran, the Torah, etc, as did His Majesty? How many Rastafarians DEIFY the man rather than actually FOLLOW his teachings? Is Rastafari also guilty of BLIND FAITH and religious (King James) fanatisism? Who can deny having experienced the chanting down of one house or the other in the name of biblical differences, this scripture versus that one, and debates over who is the "messiah"? Can it be denied, for example, that the Nyahbinghi House would deny "membership to the inner circle" based on "religiosity" , treatment of the Afrikan goddess (woman), Pauline principles, etc?, or straight out deny the "rastaness" of this or that Idren based on their interpretations, rules, regulations, and order? Does not EVERY RASTA HOUSE consider itself more "rasta" then the next? Its akin to the "brown paper bag test", when degrees of melanin were used to define "blackness", only to turn around and have WE USE IT ON OURSELVES, not only in regards to light-skin/dark-skinn issues, but "degrees of Rastafarianism" based on this one or that one's interpretations, when in fact FEW, and I repeat FEW, actually follow the SAME TENETS AS HIS MAJESTY! Am I the only one to sight a CONtradiction here??
The treatment of RASTAFARI WOMEN and the SEVERE INBALANCE OF THE OMEGA PRINCIPLE is enough to make us realize that RELIGIOSITY and Pauline Teachings PERMEATE our "LIVITI". What about the Idren who INSULTS the Mother of Creation by sabotaging the works of Rastafari Women, in the name of "domestic duties", or chants down the sistren for being "feminists" or "lesbians" when in fact they are merely following the Nyahbingi Priniple of RESTORING THE OMEGA BALANCE? A nation which does NOT uplift its WOMEN is a nation DOOMED FOR FAILURE. The FACT that the eurocentric bible are still regurgitated among InI cannot be denied. The fact that EDUCATION is still considered "Babylon" by many Rases is not only a direct insult to Garvey and His Majesty, but "education" in and of itself is still misinterpreted among InI. Western education is mistaken for ecudation in general. How many Rases chant down the study of Ancient Khemet (Egypt) as being "pagan", STILL NOT OVERSTANDING that Khemet is KUSHITE in its very foundation. How many still chant down the Principle of Osiris and Isis (Auset and Ausar) as being "not rasta", when IN FACT, those very principles are IMBEDED and ORIGINATED out of Ethiopia? (ROOT of Rasta)
Indeed….RELIGIOSITY is alive and well among InI. Fanatisism and intolerance is alive and well inna Rastafari as it is elsewhere.
"Throughout the long history of black struggle for liberation there have always emerged leaders who became "GODS" AND "MESSIAHS". Their exalted status of honor and worship has been in most cases A RESPONSE TO THE SHEEP MENTALITY'S NEED FOR SOMEONE TO WORSHIP. In their SHEEP MENTALITY the people yearn for someone who will be SUPER-MAN, someone who will miraculously do all that they themselves fear to do or fail to do. This IRRESPONSIBLE condition opens the door wide for THOSE THAT CRAVE WORSHIP, and a circle of RELIGIOUS FANATICISM evolves to become an obstacle in the path of that liberation which both leader and follower claim to be pursuing."
"While the political campaigning, the fratricide, and CHARACTER ASSASSINATION is going on, the train of liberation slows to a halt...........AND WILLIE LYNCH LAUGHS. "Well done boys, keep it up"…
THE ABOVE TRUTHFUL STATEMENTS ARE JUST AS APPLICABLE TO SELF (RASTA NATION) AS THEY ARE TO BABYLON (OPPRESSOR)
THE ONLY TRUE "SAVIOR AND MESSIAH" IN THIS IWAH IS NOT IN THE HANDS OF ONE MAN, BUT IN THE RIZING OF OUR COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS AND RESPECT OF OUR DIFFERENCES WHILE ALL THE WHILE HONORING "ONE GOD, ONE AIM, ONE DESTINY AND ONE GOAL".
I have posed many THOUGHT PROVOKING questions, which may or may not present a response, however these questions are questions which we MUST ask of ourselves. It is not my intention to offend but to enlighten and create solutions in order for us to FORWARD IN UNITY UNDER THE BANNER OF THE BLACK, THE RED, GOLD AND GREEN. SELAH.
ROOTS
_________________________________________________
( IanI ) Irie Sistren
How could the I offend when the I writes such Wisdom? Only those that be guilty could be offended... seen.
The Wise One knows an sees the Truth. Perhaps the day or iwah will come when those that no see will recieve the Wisdom and embrace it. If not, sadly they too will go down and not forward. Jah know.
Give Thanks for the reasoning. Is strong and Power-Full!
In the Name of the Almighty Most High
Selassie I
IanI Rastafari
Guidance and Protection
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The legacy of slavery
Posted: Monday, August 27, 2001
(Gwynne Dyer) Human beings, most philosophers would agree, are not a resource. (Human Resources Department, please note.) But since the rise of civilisation most human beings have been treated as an economic resource, and often treated very badly.
Indeed, five or ten per cent of all the people who have lived during the past 5,000 years have probably been slaves.
This makes it hard for today's Africans or African-Americans to claim compensation for the enslavement of their particular ancestors, just as the multitude of misdeeds committed in the name of nationalism over the years makes it implausible for Arabs to insist on singling out Zionism as a form of racism.
But these conflicting claims threaten to sabotage the global conference on racism that opens in Durban, South Africa, on August 31.
Who cares? Not the conference-going classes, certainly.
Washington has said it will boycott the conference unless the organisers drop the nonsense about condemning Zionism and demanding reparations for slavery, but around 10,000 of the usual suspects will go to Durban and enjoy a week of networking by the sea regardless of whether all, or some, or none of the US delegates show up at the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. (I know, they left out tooth decay.)
With or without a stripped-down, low-level US delegation, the conference will go through the motions (affecting the real world not one whit), and then they will all go home several good lunches heavier. Yet an opportunity is being lost here. The old "Zionism is racism" accusation has been allowed to steal centre-stage from a much more important debate about slavery.
Zionism is not racism. It's merely 19th-century European nationalism exported to the Middle East. It doesn't treat minorities well, but which old-fashioned European nationalist movement ever did?
The Arab states who forced the "Zionism" references into the conference texts were indulging in pointless point-scoring.
The slavery allegations are important not because 10-15 million black Africans unwillingly crossed the Atlantic as slaves between the 17th and 19th centuries, but because today's Africa is the world's poorest and most troubled region. Those demanding reparations for slavery are effectively saying that that's the reason for Africa's present problems, or a big part of it.
Today's African-Americans also tend to live near the bottom of the local heap in the US, Brazil and the West Indies: all places where the lighter you are, the higher you are likely to be in income and social status. A lot of people blame that on the legacy of slavery too.
The Durban conference would not have settled these issues for us, being an event where the working language is Cant, but if it hadn't been hijacked by the Zionism issue it would have stimulated a very useful debate around race, slavery and history.
The debate about all that is not now going to happen in Durban, but we can have a bit of it here anyway_and you have to start by splitting it in two down the middle of the Atlantic.
There is no evidence that the slave trade did any lasting harm to Africa as a whole between the 17th century and the early 19th century (by which time the British navy had effectively ended it). To remove an average of say, 60,000 people a year from regions of Africa with a total population of over 50 million would have had virtually no long-term demographic or economic impact, especially since the process did not involve European invasion and conquest.
The African kingdoms who raided their neighbours or enslaved their own lower classes for sale to the Europeans would have behaved in much the same way if there were no overseas market for slaves. Smaller tribes and kingdoms occasionally got smashed, but that was always happening anyway.
European colonisation in South Africa was a disaster for the local peoples, but elsewhere along the African coast things were not significantly different in 1800 than they had been in 1600.
By contrast, full-scale colonisation by Europeans after about 1875 had a huge impact on Africa, both negative and positive. Whether the negative aspects outweighed the positive is still deeply controversial: for example, much of Africa is now worse off economically and socially than it was before decolonisation in the 1960s. But that argument is about colonisation (which also happened to most other places); slavery had nothing to do with it.
The true victims of slavery, unsurprisingly, are not the descendants of the people who sold the slaves but the descendants of those who were sold. Though more than half of African-Americans in the United States and smaller proportions in the West Indies and Brazil have now made it into the middle class, a hugely disproportionate number remain outside it.
If it were simply "racism", more recent non-white immigrants to these countries would suffer similar disadvantages, which they obviously don't. Specifically, being the descendant of a slave is a huge social and economic handicap in the Americas. As to how much of this disadvantage is due to majority prejudice, and how much is the internalised residue of past trauma, consider this.
In Britain, where majority attitudes are less prejudiced because there has never been large-scale slavery at home, they track the performance of various ethnic groups in the schools. African-Americans (almost all from the West Indies, in Britain's case), come dead bottom in the rankings. Recent immigrants from black Africa come absolute top, ahead of Chinese, Indians, whites and everybody else. What's the difference?
Maybe it's that these Africans are not descended from slaves.
* Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
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Black Canada Lifts Its Voice and Seeks the World Stage
Posted: Monday, August 27, 2001
(Barbara Crossette) HALIFAX, Nova Scotia - On the edge of Atlantic Canada, far from the American South and the slave-trading ports of Africa, a long-established community of black Canadians is beginning to join calls for reparations for slavery and for greater recognition of their history.
Like civil rights campaigners in the United States, black Canadians want their voices to be heard in Durban, South Africa, at the end of August at the United Nations international conference on racism and discrimination. That is especially true in this port city, where a once strong black community is in the midst of a cultural revival.
The black residents of greater Halifax - in the old city itself, across the harbor in Dartmouth and in the semirural township of Preston - form one of the oldest and largest black populations in Canada, their leaders say. Black immigrants arrived along with the French, British and Scottish settlers of the British colonial era.
"Well, you won't hear much about us on the regular tours," said Carolyn Thomas, as she guided a visitor around the Citadel, the fort that looms over the town of Halifax. Black residents say it may have been built in large part with forced labor by the Jamaican Maroons, sent here in the late 18th century because they were troublesome to the British in the Caribbean.
Although most of the Maroons were again forcibly moved, to help colonize Sierra Leone a few years later, hundreds managed to stay.
That is part of what Ms. Thomas calls "the other half of the story" of Halifax. In the mid-1990's, she and her husband, Matthew, distressed because black Nova Scotia seemed invisible, took early retirement from their government jobs to start Black Heritage Tours. It is still a two-person operation.
A former teacher and government affirmative action director, Ms. Thomas, 58, said she had not been able to increase significantly the participation of black residents or the inclusion of their history in the mainline tourism industry, which is important to the local economy. The struggle continues, she added.
"All traces of segregation were not removed from our statutes until 1954," she said, about the same time as the Supreme Court decision in the United States outlawing school segregation. Before that, most black students here had no opportunity to go beyond eighth grade, she said, and, "that denial included the denial of our history."
A conference on racism and discrimination - a kind of warm-up for Durban - was held here in early August. Among the organizers of the Halifax conference was Esmeralda Thornhill, who holds a chair in black Canadian studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax. She told a local newspaper that if governments could address the Holocaust, the incarceration of Japanese during World War II and the forced movements of indigenous people, then "reparation talks for slavery are needed to address the legacy of colonialism."
Black Canadians, whose ancestors were enslaved under both British and American rule, fear that their government will join the United States in trying to keep the issue off the agenda.
Greater Halifax has 12,000 to 15,000 black residents out of a population of close to 400,000. Their ancestors include slaves freed by the British in colonial America in return for their labor or willingness to fight for England in the Revolutionary War or in the War of 1812. Others escaped slavery along the Underground Railroad, often with help from Quakers.
"In my grandmother's house there was always a picture of the Quakers," Ms. Thomas said. "It was in my mother's house, too. Like by osmosis, it became part of my life. The picture now hangs over my computer."
Some people owned slaves in Nova Scotia, but slavery was not much in evidence by the time it was abolished throughout the British Empire in the 1830's. Black residents here say that there are enduring wounds, though.
When their ancestors arrived, they were given far smaller plots of land than white Loyalists, and rural townships where they were settled lacked basic services.
Ms. Thomas said that when she taught school three decades ago in Preston, there was no bus service or snow plow. Community leaders shoveled their way to the end of the bus line to take her to school.
The story of Africville is not a happy one. Black historians say it was settled by blacks in 1796 on a lush meadow beside Bedford Bay, outside Halifax. It was bulldozed away in the 1960's to make room for an approach to a bridge and other development. Many families who had built homes over several generations, scraping together savings from their wages as servants and porters, were moved. A park called Seaview was built where their community once stood. The name Africville disappeared from the map.
"The destruction of our community meant the loss of the physical - the land; the spiritual - our church, and the community - the people," said Irvine Carvery, president of the Africville Genealogy Society, founded to keep its history alive. "These three things had worked in harmony, cultivating the heritage and culture that allowed us to survive over two hundred years of exclusion and marginalization with a sense of worth and dignity."
Pictures and objects from old Africville are on display at the Black Cultural Center for Nova Scotia in Dartmouth, where black history has been reconstructed from the limited documents available, along with the stories of a rich oral tradition handed down through families and churches.
The center, which has grown steadily since its opening in 1983, promotes the achievements of local black heroes. They include church leaders like the 19th-century pastor Richard Preston, founder of the African United Baptist Association, a strong force for development in the region. It has a library and works by black artisans on display and offers musical performances to schools.
Linda Carvery, a Nova Scotian singer and actress, called the impact of the center phenomenal. On a recent morning, she brought her grandson, Dwayne Carvery, 8, to look at the exhibits. "To see these things is wonderful for our self-esteem, our being," Ms. Carvery said.
Like some other black Canadians, Ms. Carvery said she regretted that black Americans did not seem aware of these communities.
Matthew Thomas recalled that some years ago, when he and his wife were invited to speak at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, a black American asked afterward, "Where did you say you were from?" When he answered, "Nova Scotia," the response was, "We didn't know we went up that far."
Mr. Thomas said he told them, "Well, we've got news for you."
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
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