Saturday, December 4, 2010

Idea...

Next semester my plan is to organize a think thank/group discussion event every other week...i haven't yet come up with a name for this group or fully conceptualized everything...but in short 


The meetings will be a think thank were the the group basically discusses problems that we (the group) observe in the our community...after the group has reached a consensus...

the 2nd part will be to discuss realistic solutions for those problems
3rd  part (which will be the main purpose of the group)...is to pool our resources and develop a  project or projects, long term or short term, to implement the solution/s we came up with in part 2   
An example lets say the group consensus is that  there not enough black men in college..we would also have to come up with a way to tackle this problem ...lets say the solution we come up with is to go to high schools around the city and talk to the students about the importance of college...we would make it a project and actually go do it!     

another example would be...lets say the group consensus is that to many black youth are ignorant of African History...the group would then have to come up with a realistic solution or way to tackle the problem and then actualize it!

If you have observed some important issue or issues in the our community you would like to work to fix then come to the first meeting!

I still have some planning to do and still haven't gotten the space from Howard to have these meetings but if you are interested....in-box me your email or phone number...or email me at saboorsalaam@gmail.com

Real talk..whether 100 people or 5 people or even 1 person is with me on this I will still do it!  



 

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Excerpt from an article by Eric Kasum
(On Columbus)

"Columbus wasn't a hero. When he set foot on that sandy beach in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, Columbus discovered that the islands were inhabited by friendly, peaceful people called the Lucayans, Taínos and Arawaks.Writing in his diary, Columbus said they were a handsome, smart and kind people. He noted that the gentle Arawaks were remarkable for their hospitality. "They offered to share with anyone and when you ask for something, they never say no," he said. The Arawaks had no weapons; their society had neither criminals, prisons nor prisoners.They were so kind-hearted that Columbus noted in his diary that on the day the Santa Maria was shipwrecked, the Arawaks labored for hours to save his crew and cargo. The native people were so honest that not one thing was missing.

Columbus was so impressed with the hard work of these gentle islanders, that he immediately seized their land for Spain and enslaved them to work in his brutal gold mines. Within only two years, 125,000 (half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead.

If I were a Native American, I would mark October 12, 1492, as a black day on my calendar.

Shockingly, Columbus supervised the selling of native girls into sexual slavery. Young girls of the ages 9 to 10 were the most desired by his men. In 1500, Columbus casually wrote about it in his log. He said: "A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand."

He forced these peaceful natives work in his gold mines until they died of exhaustion. If an "Indian" worker did not deliver his full quota of gold dust by Columbus' deadline, soldiers would cut off the man's hands and tie them around his neck to send a message. Slavery was so intolerable for these sweet, gentle island people that at one point, 100 of them committed mass suicide. Catholic law forbade the enslavement of Christians, but Columbus solved this problem. He simply refused to baptize the native people of Hispaniola. 

On his second trip to the New World, Columbus brought cannons and attack dogs. If a native resisted slavery, he would cut off a nose or an ear. If slaves tried to escape, Columbus had them burned alive. Other times, he sent attack dogs to hunt them down, and the dogs would tear off the arms and legs of the screaming natives while they were still alive. If the Spaniards ran short of meat to feed the dogs, Arawak babies were killed for dog food.

Columbus' acts of cruelty were so unspeakable and so legendary - even in his own day - that Governor Francisco De Bobadilla arrested Columbus and his two brothers, slapped them into chains, and shipped them off to Spain to answer for their crimes against the Arawaks. But the King and Queen of Spain, their treasury filling up with gold, pardoned Columbus and let him go free.

One of Columbus' men, Bartolome De Las Casas, was so mortified by Columbus' brutal atrocities against the native peoples, that he quit working for Columbus and became a Catholic priest. He described how the Spaniards under Columbus' command cut off the legs of children who ran from them, to test the sharpness of their blades. According to De Las Casas, the men made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. He says that Columbus' men poured people full of boiling soap. In a single day, De Las Casas was an eye witness as the Spanish soldiers dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 native people. "Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel," De Las Casas wrote. "My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write."

De Las Casas spent the rest of his life trying to protect the helpless native people. But after a while, there were no more natives to protect. Experts generally agree that before 1492, the population on the island of Hispaniola probably numbered above 3 million. Within 20 years of Spanish arrival, it was reduced to only 60,000. Within 50 years, not a single original native inhabitant could be found.

In 1516, Spanish historian Peter Martyr wrote: "... a ship without compass, chart, or guide, but only following the trail of dead Indians who had been thrown from the ships could find its way from the Bahamas to Hispaniola."

Christopher Columbus derived most of his income from slavery, De Las Casas noted. In fact, Columbus was the first slave trader in the Americas. As the native slaves died off, they were replaced with black slaves. Columbus' son became the first African slave trader in 1505.

Are you surprised you never learned about any of this in school? I am too. Why do we have this extraordinary gap in our American ethos? Columbus himself kept detailed diaries, as did some of his men including De Las Casas and Michele de Cuneo. (If you don't believe me, just Google the words Columbus, sex slave, and gold mine.)

 Columbus' reign of terror is one of the darkest chapters in our history. The REAL question is: Why do we celebrate a holiday in honor of this man? (Take three deep breaths. If you're like me, your stomach is heaving at this point. I'm sorry. Sometimes the truth hurts. That said, I'd like to turn in a more positive direction.)"



Thanksgiving from a Native American perspective...


Indeed, in 1970, the Massachusetts Department of Commerce asked the Wampanoags to select a speaker to mark the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrims' landing. Before Wamsutta Frank James could read his speech, though, it had to be approved by the people in charge of the ceremony.

Here is an excerpt of the speech he was not allowed to read:

"Today is a time of celebrating for you...but it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my people...The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors and stolen their corn... 

 Massassoit, the great leader of the Wampanoag, knew these facts; yet he and his people welcomed and befriended the settlers...before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoags...and other Indians living near the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases that we caught from them...Although our way of life is almost gone and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the lands of Massachusetts... "


To the right is a map of Native American ethnic groups which spanned the entirety of both north and south america as well as Canada....what are all of these places called now? where are the indigenous inhabitant of the Americas, what happened to more than 80% of their population?




Sunday, November 21, 2010

Quotes...

A list of quotes that i find to interesting...


"When you address a people by their right name that name must relate to land, history and culture. All people go back to the geography of their original origin and identify them selves no matter where they live on the earth. We have over used to the word black because black tells you how you look...but not who you are...you can call an Italian white but that doesn't tell you anything about him "
John Henrik Clarke

"Powerful people never educate powerless people in what they need that they can use to take the power away from powerful people; it's too much to expect. If I was in power, I would not educate people in how to take my powers away."
Dr. John Henrik Clarke

"Black Consciousness is in essence the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their operation - the blackness of their skin - and to operate as a group in order to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude."
Steve Biko

"You're not an African because you're born in Africa. You're an African because Africa is born in you. It's in your genes.... your DNA....your entire biological make up. Whether you like it or not, that's the way it is. However, if you were to embrace this truth with open arms....my, my, my....what a wonderful thing."
Marimba Ani

"African-Americans have not yet learn that no other people have continued worshipping another's God, especially their slave master's god or gods and freed themselves from cultural and physical genocide. Why should Africans and African-Americans be the only exception to this historic reality?"
Dr. Ben


"History is a clock people use to tell their historical culture and political time of the day. It's a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. The history tells them where they have been, where they are and what they are. But most importantly history tells a people where they still must go and what they still must be"
Dr. John Henrik Clarke

"The economic philosophy of black nationalism only means that our people need to be re-educated into the importance of controlling the economy of the community in which we live, which means that we won't have to constantly be involved in picketing and boycotting other people in other communities in order to get jobs"
Malcolm X

"Billions of dollars a year is pumped into the propaganda machine to keep black people ignorant of the truth about their history and condition."
Unknown


"If you have achieved any level of success, then pour it into someone else. Success is not success without a successor."
T. D. Jakes

"The most disastrous aspect of colonization which you are the most relunctant to release from your mind is their colonization of the image of God."
Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing

"The only protection against injustice in man is power.....physical, financial and scientific."
Marcus Garvey

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Columbus Day (To be continued...



A few of many Olmec Heads found in south america.....with distinctly african features and Nubian Style War Helmets


Columbus Day

Professor John Henrik Clarke says that

“History is a clock people use to tell their historical culture and political time of the day. It's a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. The history tells them where they have been, where they are and what they are. But most importantly history tells a people where they still must go and what they still must be"

The last line of this quote can never be iterated enough. “Most importantly history tells a people where they still must go and what they still must be”. When discussing history and the struggles of our ancestors we often regard them as “past” and go on about our days. This is very ignorant! History tells us where are, where are going, and serves to remind us of our continuing mission. So in fact history is very important.

John Herik Clarke also tells us that The events which transpired five thousand years ago; Five years ago or five minutes ago, have determined what will happen five minutes from now; five years From now or five thousand years from now. All history is a current event”

So when dealing with so called “holidays” like Columbus Day and Thanks Giving, it is important that we know the truth and how it has affected us.

At the base of Columbus Day we celebrate Chistopher Colombus for being the first to discover America. This is an outright falsity.There is ample evidence of Pre-Columbus prensence of Africans in the Americas.

In 1920 Leo Weiner, a Harvard University philologist, produced a pioneering examination of the existence of Africans in the Americas prior to the arrival of Columbus…After further study he was led to conclude that much of the American archaeological work done on both Africans and native Americans was erroneous. Commenting on his work he says,

“In the first volume I show that Negroes had a far greater influence upon American civilization than has heretofore been suspected. In the second volume I shall chiefly study the African fetishism, which even with the elaborate books on the subject, is woefully misunderstood, and I shall show by documentary evidence to what extraordinary extent the Indian medicine-man owes his evolution to the African medicine-man.”[The African Presence in America before Columbus; by Floyd W. Hayes III]

“The presence of Negroes with their trading masters in America before Columbus is proved by the representation of Negroes in American sculpture and design, by the occurrence of a black nation at Darien early in the XVI century, but more specifically by Columbus’ emphatic reference to Negro traders from Guinea, who trafficked in a gold alloy, guanin, of precisely the same composition and bearing the same name, as frequently referred to by early writers in Africa” [ Leo Weiner, Harvard University]

“The Negro type is seen in the most ancient Mexican sculpture. . . . Negroes figure frequently in the most remote traditions.’ Riva-Palacio, Mexican historian, says, ‘It is indisputable that in very ancient times the Negro race occupied our territory (Mexico). The Mexicans recall a negro god, Ixtilton, which means ‘black face’.”[ C.C. Marquez says]

“here archaeologists have found carved jade, sensitively modeled clay figurines ‘of an unprecedented high artistic quality,’ said Miguel Covarrubias. . . . Only in recent times have the great Olmec stone heads been unearthed, by Dr. Matthew Sterling. At Tres Zapotes he found one colossal head seven feet high, flat-nosed and sensually thick-lipped.”[ Dr. Von Hagen]

I could go on and on with proof of Pre-Columbus African presences in the Americas, but you get the idea. Something else that I find perhaps even more shocking about the fact that we honor and celebrate Chistorpher Columbus is the fact that he was a sick, perverted, mass murderer who was a proprieter of genocide. To add to my point I am going to borrow from an article writen by Eric Kasum called ‘Columbus Day? True Legacy: Creulty and Slavery”

“When he set foot on that sandy beach in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, Columbus discovered that the islands were inhabited by friendly, peaceful people called the Lucayans, Taínos and Arawaks. Writing in his diary, Columbus said they were a handsome, smart and kind people. He noted that the gentle Arawaks were remarkable for their hospitality. "They offered to share with anyone and when you ask for something, they never say no," he said. The Arawaks had no weapons; their society had neither criminals, prisons nor prisoners. They were so kind-hearted that Columbus noted in his diary that on the day the Santa Maria was shipwrecked, the Arawaks labored for hours to save his crew and cargo. The native people were so honest that not one thing was missing. Columbus was so impressed with the hard work of these gentle islanders, that he immediately seized their land for Spain and enslaved them to work in his brutal gold mines. Within only two years, 125,000 (half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead.”

Within only two years, 125,000 (half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead? Does that sound like a man worthy of celebration or phrase of any kind? It doesn’t stop there!

“Shockingly, Columbus supervised the selling of native girls into sexual slavery. Young girls of the ages 9 to 10 were the most desired by his men. In 1500, Columbus casually wrote about it in his log. He said: "A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand."

“On his second trip to the New World, Columbus brought cannons and attack dogs. If a native resisted slavery, he would cut off a nose or an ear. If slaves tried to escape, Columbus had them burned alive. Other times, he sent attack dogs to hunt them down, and the dogs would tear off the arms and legs of the screaming natives while they were still alive. If the Spaniards ran short of meat to feed the dogs, Arawak babies were killed for dog food.

Columbus' acts of cruelty were so unspeakable and so legendary - even in his own day - that Governor Francisco De Bobadilla arrested Columbus and his two brothers, slapped them into chains, and shipped them off to Spain to answer for their crimes against the Arawaks. But the King and Queen of Spain, their treasury filling up with gold, pardoned Columbus and let him go free.

One of Columbus' men, Bartolome De Las Casas, was so mortified by Columbus' brutal atrocities against the native peoples, that he quit working for Columbus and became a Catholic priest. He described how the Spaniards under Columbus' command cut off the legs of children who ran from them, to test the sharpness of their blades. According to De Las Casas, the men made bets as to who, with one sweep of his sword, could cut a person in half. He says that Columbus' men poured people full of boiling soap. In a single day, De Las Casas was an eye witness as the Spanish soldiers dismembered, beheaded, or raped 3000 native people. "Such inhumanities and barbarisms were committed in my sight as no age can parallel," De Las Casas wrote. "My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature that now I tremble as I write."

De Las Casas spent the rest of his life trying to protect the helpless native people. But after a while, there were no more natives to protect. Experts generally agree that before 1492, the population on the island of Hispaniola probably numbered above 3 million. Within 20 years of Spanish arrival, it was reduced to only 60,000. Within 50 years, not a single original native inhabitant could be found.

In 1516, Spanish historian Peter Martyr wrote: "... a ship without compass, chart, or guide, but only following the trail of dead Indians who had been thrown from the ships could find its way from the Bahamas to Hispaniola."

Christopher Columbus derived most of his income from slavery, De Las Casas noted. In fact, Columbus was the first slave trader in the Americas. As the native slaves died off, they were replaced with black slaves. Columbus' son became the first African slave trader in 1505.”

Essential after the killing of a large number of the native american population we (Africans) were brought in as slaves

To be continued….