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Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chpt 3, Pt 7
Malcolm’s perspective of US race history.
Malcolm’s perspective of US race history.
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Posts Tagged ‘Malcolm X’
Tidbits and Notes. Part 254
Posted on: November 22, 2018
Tidbits and Notes. Part 254
Note: My previous large file titled “Tidbits and notes. Part 211” has vanished after I pressed Leave instead of Cancel. WordPress,com support system was of No help. If you know how I can retrieve the file, I’ll be very appreciative.
Dans ma jeunesse, j’etais trop timide et plutot passif: peut-etre que les conversations autour de moi etaient inexistantes ou plutot sans interet? Je ne savais pas comment jouer le jeu des petites conversations, a caliner ou complimenter. Plus tard, les gens crurent que j’etais un snob: J’hibernais dans ma peau d’enfance.
An invariant in Israel politics: When Israel claims it is negotiating a peace treaty or a cease fire, it means that it is ready to launch a pre-emptive war. Israel establishment and weapon industrial complex believes that it cannot sustain a long period of peace, and actually never tried it.
Le Chevalier? Representative of French President visited Israel and relayed to Lebanon that Israel is preparing a pre-emptive war on Lebanon? The test in Gaza is Not encouraging Israel for another try on Lebanon. However, the plan of USA/Israel is to start another round of civil war in Lebanon. And Lebanon is fooling itself that it learned the lesson, but it learned nothing much but sinking its head deeper in the sand. And without funding, the army will be unable to maintain its cohesion.
Stupid France still think that it can foment civil war in Syria and keep Lebanon intact from the flame roaring around it: The USA is Not that stupid and the plan for starting another civil war in Lebanon is very much going ahead.
The idea of creating Israel by England around 1907, with instigation of the US Evangelical sects, was when England realized that it needed a buffer zone to protect its interests in India through Egypt by eliminating any kind of unification of the Middle-Eastern people in the foreseeable future.
An old man in the psych group said: “The assassin is serving a life sentence. And it is still Not a comfort for me” And what if this prisoner would be let free within 20 years? Instead of sorrow and anger, most probably fear will set in?
The world’s billionaires made more money in 2017 than in any year in recorded history. A UBS report says billionaires become 20% richer last year. (Mind you that their number is increasing crazily since China and India billionaires are closing the gap with the colonial powers of USA and Europe combined)
It is a Universal truth that mothers will Not “betray” their children to the police under any basis of ethics, moral or “this is the law”: They have enough loads in issues and activities to control and administer in the household that they don’t care to add a bigger problem.
If you want to lear how to express your opinions, read, take notes, reflect and write. If you want to learn the wide range of “shata2em” and “bahwaraat”, plug-in to “Arabic” and Trump-like social medias.
The EU turns its clocks back by one hour on Sunday. It may be the last time the bloc uses Daylight Saving Time, after citizens voted to abolish it earlier this year.
A lack of frequent, helpful feedback is among the top reasons people quit their jobs. Studies show that more communicative, honest cultures drive increased productivity, innovation, and employee satisfaction.
“Is Feedback a social threat”? And like any threat, it’s accompanied by physiological and cognitive responses, including an increase in heart rate and blood pressure and feelings of anger, anxiety, and fear.
Making matters worse, humans are biased towards negativity—a tendency to over-index negative interactions relative to neutral or positive ones. These physiological responses can inhibit us from effectively processing any feedback that we perceive as threatening to our identities, happiness, and jobs. (Ed Batista)
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Could Anti-black racism be related to Arab slave trade?
In response to an essay I wrote recently regarding the “essential blackness” of the Palestinian struggle, I received this reaction, among others: “What about Arab anti-black racism? Or the Arab slave trade?” The Arab slave trade is a fact of history and anti-black racism is a fact of current reality, a shameful thing that must be confronted in Arab societies. Though I claim no expertise on the subject, I think that applying notions of racism as it exists in the US will preclude a real understanding of the subject in the Arab world. I spent much of my youth in the Arab world and I do not recall having a race consciousness until I came to the United States at the age of 13. My knowledge of Arab anti-black racism comes predominantly from Arab Americans. Like other immigrant communities, they adopt the prevailing racist sentiments of the power structure in the US, which decidedly holds African-Americans in contempt.
This attitude is also becoming more prevalent in Arab countries for various reasons, but mostly because Arab governments, particularly those that import foreign labour from Africa and Southeast Asia, have failed to implement or enforce anti-discrimination and anti-exploitation laws. (It is mainly a colonial expression to discriminate among the indigenous people and the colonial people, whether the colonizer is western, Islamic or Chinese. My folks worked and traded in Africa during French colonialism and they brought back the expression “3abeed” (slaves) to mean Blacks) In many Arab nations, including Kuwait where I was born, workers are lured into menial jobs where their passports are confiscated upon arrival and they are forced into humiliating and often inhuman working conditions. They have little to no protection under the law and are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, including extraordinarily long working hours, withholding of salaries, sexual, mental, and physical abuse, and denial of travel. The recent case of Alem Dechesa brought to light the horrors faced by migrant workers in Lebanon. Dechesa, a domestic worker from Ethiopia, committed suicide after suffering terrible mental and physical abuse at the hands of her Lebanese employers, whose savage beating of her in front of the Ethiopian Consulate went viral last year. Defining beauty An extension to Arab anti-black racism is an aspiration to all that our former – and current – colonisers possess. Individuals aspire to what is powerful and rich, and the images of that power and wealth have light skin, straight hair, small noses, ruddy cheeks and tall, skinny bodies. That image rejects melanin-rich skin, coiled hair, broad or pointy noses, short stature, broad hips and big legs. So we, too, reject these features, despising them in others and in ourselves as symbols of inferiority, laziness, and poverty. That’s why the anglicising industries of skin bleaching and hair straightening are so profitable. And yet, when Palestine went to the UN for recognition of statehood, the vast majority of nations who voted yes were southern nations. The same is true when Palestine asked for admission to UNESCO. In fact, when the US cut off funding to UNESCO in response to its members’ democratic vote to admit Palestine, it was the African nation of Gabon that immediately stepped up with a $2m donation to UNESCO to help offset the loss of income. It was not Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait, or Qatar, or Lebanon, or Sweden, or France. It was Gabon. How many Palestinians know that, much less expressed gratitude for it? So concerned are Palestinians with what the European Union and the United States think of us. So engrossed are we in grovelling for their favour and handouts as they support a system of Jewish supremacy pushing our ancient society into extinction. We dance like clowns any time a European leader spares us a thought. Have we no sense of history? No sense of pride? No comprehension of who is truly standing with us and who is sabotaging us? In a world order that peddles notions of entire continents or regions as irreducible monoliths, the conversation among Arabs becomes a dichotomous “Arab” versus “African”, ignoring millennia of shared histories ranging from extensive trade and commerce, to the horrors of the Arab slave trade, to the solidarity of African-Arab anti-colonial unity, to the current state of ignorance that does not know history and cannot connect the dots when it comes to national liberation struggles. Arab slave trade When I was researching the subject of the Arab slave trade, I came upon a veritable treasure of a website established by The African Holocaust Society, or Mafaa [Swahili for “holocaust”], a non-profit organisation of scholars, artists, filmmakers, academics, and activists dedicated to reclaiming the narratives of African histories, cultures, and identities. Included in this great body of scholarly works is a comprehensive section on the Arab slave trade, as well as the Jewish slave trade, African-Arab relations over the centuries, and more, by Owen Alik Shahadah, an activist, scholar and filmmaker. Reading this part of our shared history, we can see how a large proportion of Arabs, including those among us who harbour anti-black racism, are the sons and daughters of African women, who were kidnapped from Eastern African nations as sex slaves. Unlike the European slave trade, the Arab slave trade was not an important feature of Arab economies and it predominantly targeted women, who became members of harems and whose children were full heirs to their father’s names, legacies and fortunes, without regard to their physical features. The enslaved were not bought and sold as chattel the way we understand the slave trade here, but were captured in warfare, or kidnapped outright and hauled across the Sahara. Race was not a defining line and enslaved peoples were not locked into a single fate, but had opportunity for upward mobility though various means, including bearing children or conversion to Islam. No-one knows the true numbers of how many African women were enslaved by Arabs, but one need only look at ourselves to see the shadows of these African mothers who gave birth to us and lost their African identities. But while African scholars at the Mafaa Society make important distinctions between the Arab and European slave trades, enslavement of human beings is a horror of incomprehensible proportions by any standard, and that’s what it was in the Arab world as it was – or is – anywhere. There are some who argue that the Arab slave traders were themselves indistinguishable from those whom they enslaved because the word “Arab” had cultural relevance, not racial. One-way street This argument goes hand-in-hand with the discredited excuse that Africans themselves were involved in the slave trade, with warring tribes capturing and selling each other. But no matter how you look at it, the slave trade was a one-way street, with Africans always the enslaved victims. I know of no African tribe that kidnapped Europeans and put them in bondage for generations; nor do I know of an African tribe that captured Arab women for centuries and made them sex slaves. I think humanity has truly never known a holocaust of greater magnitude, savagery, or longevity than that perpetrated against the peoples of Africa. This Mafaa has never been fully acknowledged and certainly never atoned for – not that the wounds or enduring legacies of turning human beings into chattel for centuries can ever be fully comprehended or atoned for. But one must try, because just as we inherit privilege from our ancestors, so do we inherit their sins and the responsibility for those sins. Gaddafi’s role The late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi understood this and he used his power and wealth to try to redeem our shared history. He was the first Arab leader to apologize on behalf of Arab peoples to our African brothers and sisters for the Arab slave trade and the Arab role in the European slave trade. He funnelled money into the African Union and used Libya’s wealth to empower the African continent and promote pan-Africanism. He was a force of reconciliation, socialism, and empowerment for both African and Arab peoples. Gaddafi’s actions threatened to renew African-Arab reconciliation and alliances similar to that which occurred at the height of the Non-Aligned Movement during the presidencies of Jamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. Thus, NATO’s urgency to prevent “massacres” and “slaughter” in Libya was manufactured and sold wholesale. The fear of African-Arab solidarity can be seen in the way the US-backed Libyan insurgency spread rumours that “black African” mercenaries were committing atrocities against Libyans. Gaddafi became an even bigger threat when an agreement was reached with the great anti-imperialist force in South America, Hugo Chavez, to mediate a solution to the uprising in Libya. Now both of these champions of their people are gone, and the so-called Libyan revolutionaries are executing “black Africans” throughout the country. Gone, too, is NATO’s worry about slaughter in Libya, and another high-functioning Arab nation lies in ruin, waste and civil strife – primed for rampant corporate looting. I wrote previously that the Palestinian struggle against the erasure of our existence, history and identity was spiritually and politically black in nature. So, too, are other struggles, like that of migrant workers throughout many Arab nations. These are our comrades. They are the wretched, exploited, robbed, and/or, at last, liberated. I refer to Black as a political term, not necessarily a racial or ethnic descriptor. In the words of Owen Alik Shehadah: “Black People is a construction which articulates a recent social-political reality of people of colour (pigmented people). Black is not a racial family, an ethnic group or a super-ethnic group. Political Blackness is thus not an identity but a social-political consequence of a world which after colonialism and slavery existed in those colour terms. The word “Black” has no historical or cultural association, it was a name born when Africans were broken down into transferable labour units and transported as chattel to the Americas.” But that word has been reclaimed, redefined, and injected with all the power, love, defiance, and beauty that is Africa. For the rest of us, and without appropriating the word, “black” is a phenomenon of resistance, steadfastness – what we Palestinians call sumud – and the beauty of culture that is reborn out of bondage and oppression. Right to look the other way Finally, solidarity from Africans is not equivalent to that which comes from our European comrades, whose governments are responsible for the ongoing erasure of Palestine. African peoples have every reason to look the other way. Ethiopians have every reason to say: “You deserve what you get for the centuries of enslavement and neo-enslavement industry by your Arab neighbours.” African Americans have every reason to say: “Why should I show solidarity with Arabs who come here to treat us like white people do, and sometimes worse?” Malcolm X once said: “If I was that [anti-American], I’d have a right to be that – after what America has done to us. This government should feel lucky that our people aren’t anti-American.” We can substitute the word “Arab” for “American” in that sentence and it would be a valid statement. And yet, Africa is right there with us. African American intellectuals are the greatest champions of our struggle in the United States. The impact of solidarity from four particular individuals – Desmond Tutu, Alice Walker, Angela Davis and Cynthia McKinney – can never be overestimated. Last month, the former South African ambassador to Israel refused a “certificate” from Israel confirming the planting of trees in his name. In his letter, he called Israel a racist, apartheid state and said the gift was an “offence to my dignity and integrity”. He added: “I was not a party to, and never will be, to the planting of ’18 trees’, in my ‘honour’, on expropriated and stolen land.” I would like my countrymen to think long and hard about this until they truly comprehend the humbling beauty of this solidarity from people who have every reason to be anti-Arab. I wish my countrymen could look through my eyes. They would see that black is profoundly beautiful. They would see that Africa runs through our veins, too. Our enslaved African foremothers deserve to be honoured and loved by their Arab children. And it is for us to redeem their pain with the recognition and atonement long owed. Arriving at this understanding is a good starting place for reciprocal solidarity with nations and peoples who are standing with us, in heart and in action. Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian writer and the author of the international bestselling novel, Mornings in Jenin (Bloomsbury 2010). She is also the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, an NGO for children. Follow her on Twitter: @sjabulhawa The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy. |
A few saying of Malcolm X
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Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chpt 4, Pt 3
Malcolm had an interesting life.
Malcolm had an interesting life.
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Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chpt 3, Pt 8
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Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chpt 3, Pt 6
Learn the truth about America’s complex race history.
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Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chpt 3, Pt 3
History thru Malcolm’s eyes.
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Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chpt 2, Pt 2
The life of Malcolm X in his own words.
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Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chpt 4, Pt 2
American history direct from Malcolm.
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Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chpt 2, Pt 5
America’s race history is complex.
America’s race history is complex. @gringaofbarrio #books #education #school #history #malcolmx #civilrights #racism #equality #gringa
Can you Spot The Difference? Modern Israel versus Nazi Germany
The genocidal public discourse against Palestinians and non-Jews in Israel is reaching fever pitch.
If we’ve learned anything from the horrors of the 20th century it is that fascism doesn’t stop: We must stop it.
We need to call time on Israeli fascism.
Kerry-Anne posted this November 21, 2014
Independent Israeli journalist David Sheen brought this image to my attention, with this tweet:
You may find this image shocking, eerily reminiscent of the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany, African Americans through the era of the Jim Crow segregation laws, or the UK hotel signs of the 1950’s reading ‘No Blacks, no dogs, no Irish’.
I do not make these comparisons for kicks, hype or wanton disregard for these past horrors. It is because of those disgraceful periods in our history that we must not stand by while it happens again.
Here are just some samples of the sort of sentiments now acceptable to air in public in Israel today.
These are public figures, many on the public payroll, calling for the expulsion, harassment, torture and murder of civilians purely because of the ethnic group to which they belong.
And if you feel uncomfortable by the similarity between these pronouncement and those of Hitler, Goebbels and co, then just look what happened when 327 Jewish holocaust survivors and their descendents published an open letter calling on Israel to end it’s genocide against the Palestinians this Summer.
These people, who survived the worst of the Nazi regime, say clearly:
“Genocide begins with the silence of the world.
‘Never again’ must mean NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE!”
So how did Israelis react to this letter? Here are just a sample of the responses from Jewish Israelis on Facebook:
Translation:
Katy Morali: Holocaust survivors who think like this are invited to go die in the gas chambers.
Shmulik Halphon: He’s invited to go back to Auschwitz.
Meir Dahan: No wonder Hitler murdered 6 million Jews because of people like you you’re not even Jews you’re disgusting people a disgrace to humanity and so are your offspring you are trash.
Asher Solomon: It’s a shame Hitler didn’t finish the job.
This level of dehumanization and demonization of ‘Arabs’ does not remain confined to incitement and hate-speech, but spills over into street-level violence.
In recent days, Israelis publicly lynched a Palestinian-Israeli bus driver, just hours after Jewish-Israeli hate mob JSIL changed their profile picture to this:
The body of Palestinian-Israeli bus driver Yusuf Hasan al-Ramouni, 32, from al-Tur in East Jerusalem was found hanging from a steel bar in the middle of his bus.
Palestinians claim six Israelis attacked al-Ramouni while he worked on his vehicle, while Israeli authorities argue suicide.
These same authorities claimed the murder of Palestinian-Israeli teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir was an ‘honor killing’ committed by family member over his sexuality. Mohammed was kidnapped from outside his parents home, beaten, had gasoline poured down his throat and was burnt alive from the inside out in July. It was later found that Jewish-Israeli settlers had committed the act.
But western media outlets continue to air Israeli propaganda as if the state were a credible source. One example would be when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer aired Israel’s Liar-in-Chief Michael Oren claiming the 2 teens killed on Nakba day, Nadim Nuwara and Mahmoud Salameh, was a staged event and they might not even be dead. Never mind that local CCTV clearly shows the murders were real.
Whenever a Palestinian is murdered by Israelis, the Hasbara machine of Israeli PR kicks in to confuse and mislead.
Conversely, any act of violence against Israelis by Palestinians is amplified, and escalated to Al-Qaeda, War on Terror levels of significance.
Just this week, myself and other journalists close to the Israel-Palestine issue called to task CNN’s Washington Chief Jake Tapper for retweeting this image:
The whole situation brings to mind that famous quote from Malcolm X:
If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
While Palestinians, either side of Israel’s Apartheid Wall continue to face daily threats to their homes, livelihoods, and lives – they are treated by Israeli and Western media as the aggressors.
It is almost beyond belief that such a clearly asymmetrical scenario can be recast into a ‘conflict’ – it is not a conflict. It is an illegal military occupation of one people over another, it is a racial Apartheid, it is a slowly unfolding genocide. It must end.
The harsh truth is this: those people turning their heads and disowning the rights of Palestinians today, would have done exactly the same to Europe’s Jews during the holocaust.
They would have believed the propaganda, they would have absorbed and espoused the same bigotry, they would have tacitly or overtly gifted their complicity. “Never again” means never again for anyone, or it means nothing.
Adonis Diaries 
Titbits #99
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 23, 2021
Titbits #99
Posted on November 22, 2018
Note: My previous large file titled “Tidbits and notes” has vanished after I pressed Leave instead of Cancel. WordPress,com support system was of No help. If you know how I can retrieve the file, I’ll be very appreciative.
Dans ma jeunesse, j’etais trop timide et plutot passif: peut-être que les conversations autour de moi, dans la famille, etaient inexistentes ou plutot sans interet? Je ne savais pas comment jouer le jeu des petites conversations (small chatting) , un calin ou compliment. Plus tard, les gens crurent que j’étais un snob: J’’hibernais dans ma peau d’enfance.
An invariant in Israel politics: When Israel claims it is negotiating a peace treaty or a cease fire, it means that it is ready to launch a pre-emptive war. Israel establishment and weapon industrial complex believes that it cannot sustain a long period of peace, and actually never tried it. Pre-emptive wars on Lebanon is No longer feasible as Hezbollah managed to counter with a deterrence force
Le Chevalier? This representative of French President Macron visited Israel and relayed to Lebanon that Israel is preparing a pre-emptive war on Lebanon? The test in Gaza is Not encouraging Israel for another try on Lebanon. However, the plan of USA/Israel is to start another round of civil war in Lebanon. And Lebanon is fooling itself that it learned the lesson, but it learned nothing much but sinking its head deeper in the sand. And without funding, the army will be unable to maintain its cohesion. But with Hezbollah ready and able, there is no fear for another war with this implanted apartheid colonial State.
Stupid France still think that it can foment civil war in Syria and keep Lebanon intact from the flame roaring around it: The Trump administration is so out of touch and is planning for another round of civil war in Lebanon.
The idea of creating Israel by England around 1907, with the instigation of the US Evangelical sects, was when England realized that it needed a buffer zone to protect its interests in India through Egypt by eliminating any kind of unification of the One Near-Eastern people in the foreseeable future ( Current Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan…)
An old man in the psych group said: “The assassin is serving a life sentence. And it is still Not a comfort for me” And what if this prisoner would be let free within 20 years? Instead of sorrow and anger, most probably fear will set in?
The world’s billionaires made more money in 2017 than in any year in recorded history. (2020 was even more mind boggling. A UBS report says billionaires become 20% richer last year. (Mind you that their number is increasing crazily since China and India billionaires are closing the gap with the colonial powers of USA and Europe combined)
It is a Universal truth that mothers will Not “betray” their children to the police under any basis of ethics, moral or “this is the law”: They have enough loads in issues and activities to control and administer in the household that they don’t care to add a bigger problem.
If you want to learn how to express your opinions, read, take notes, reflect and write. If you want to learn the wide range of boasting and cursing (“shata2em” and “bahwaraat”), plug-in to “Arabic” and Trump-like social medias.
The EU turns its clocks back by one hour on Sunday. It may be the last time the bloc uses Daylight Saving Time, after citizens voted to abolish it earlier this year.
A lack of frequent, helpful feedback is among the top reasons people quit their jobs. Studies show that more communicative, honest cultures drive increased productivity, innovation, and employee satisfaction.
“Is Feedback a social threat”? And like any threat, it’s accompanied by physiological and cognitive responses, including an increase in heart rate and blood pressure and feelings of anger, anxiety, and fear.
Making matters worse, humans are biased towards negativity—a tendency to over-index negative interactions relative to neutral or positive ones. These physiological responses can inhibit us from effectively processing any feedback that we perceive as threatening to our identities, happiness, and jobs. (Ed Batista)
readwiththegringa.com
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