Friday, January 29, 2010

For all those with "Paul Shirley" logic, we introduce Sir Hilary Beckles, President of UWI-Cave Hill

The Hate and the Quake

Published on 1/17/2010

BY SIR HILARY BECKLES

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES is in the process of conceiving how
best to deliver a major conference on the theme Rethinking And Rebuilding Haiti.

I am very keen to provide an input into this exercise because for too long
there has been a popular perception that somehow the Haitian
nation-building project, launched on January 1, 1804, has failed on account of
mismanagement, ineptitude, corruption.

Buried beneath the rubble of imperial propaganda, out of both Western
Europe and the United States, is the evidence which shows that Haiti's
independence was defeated by an aggressive North-Atlantic alliance that could not imagine
their world inhabited by a free regime of Africans as representatives of the
newly emerging democracy.

The evidence is striking, especially in the context of France.

The Haitians fought for their freedom and won, as did the Americans fifty
years earlier. The Americans declared their independence and crafted an
extraordinary constitution that set out a clear message about the value of
humanity and the right to freedom, justice, and liberty.

In the midst of this brilliant discourse, they chose to retain slavery as
the basis of the new nation state. The founding fathers therefore could not see
beyond race, as the free state was built on a slavery foundation.

The water was poisoned in the well; the Americans went back to the
battlefield a century later to resolve the fact that slavery and freedom could not
comfortably co-exist in the same place.

The French, also, declared freedom, fraternity and equality as the new
philosophies of their national transformation and gave the modern world a
tremendous progressive boost by so doing.

They abolished slavery, but Napoleon Bonaparte could not imagine the
republic without slavery and targeted the Haitians for a new, more intense regime of
slavery. The British agreed, as did the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese.

All were linked in communion over the 500 000 Blacks in Haiti, the most
populous and prosperous Caribbean colony.

As the jewel of the Caribbean, they all wanted to get their hands on it.
With a massive slave base, the English, French and Dutch salivated over owning
it - and the people.

The people won a ten-year war, the bloodiest in modern history, and
declared their independence. Every other country in the Americas was based on
slavery.

Haiti was freedom, and proceeded to place in its 1805 Independence
Constitution that any person of African descent who arrived on its shores
would be declared free, and a citizen of the republic.

For the first time since slavery had commenced, Blacks were the subjects
of mass freedom and citizenship in a nation.

The French refused to recognise Haiti's independence and declared it an
illegal pariah state. The Americans, whom the Haitians looked to in
solidarity as their mentor in independence, refused to recognise them, and offered
solidarity instead to the French. The British, who were negotiating with
the French to obtain the ownership title to Haiti, also moved in solidarity, as did
every other nation-state the Western world.

Haiti was isolated at birth - ostracised and denied access to world
trade, finance, and institutional development. It was the most vicious example of
national strangulation recorded in modern history.

The Cubans, at least, have had Russia, China, and Vietnam. The Haitians
were alone from inception. The crumbling began.

Then came 1825; the moment of full truth. The republic is celebrating its
21st anniversary. There is national euphoria in the streets of Port-au-Prince.

The economy is bankrupt; the political leadership isolated. The cabinet
took the decision that the state of affairs could not continue.

The country had to find a way to be inserted back into the world economy.
The French government was invited to a summit.

Officials arrived and told the Haitian government that they were willing
to recognise the country as a sovereign nation but it would have to pay
compensation and reparation in exchange. The Haitians, with backs to the
wall, agreed to pay the French.

The French government sent a team of accountants and actuaries into Haiti
in order to place a value on all lands, all physical assets, the 500 000
citizens were who formerly enslaved, animals, and all other commercial properties
and services.

The sums amounted to 150 million gold francs. Haiti was told to pay this
reparation to France in return for national recognition.

The Haitian government agreed; payments began immediately. Members of the

Cabinet were also valued because they had been enslaved people before
independence.

Thus began the systematic destruction of the Republic of Haiti. The
French government bled the nation and rendered it a failed state. It was a
merciless exploitation that was designed and guaranteed to collapse the Haitian
economy and society.

Haiti was forced to pay this sum until 1922 when the last instalment was
made. During the long 19th century, the payment to France amounted to up to 70
percent of the country's foreign exchange earnings.

Jamaica today pays up to 70 per cent in order to service its international and domestic debt. Haiti was crushed by this debt payment. It descended into
financial and social chaos.

The republic did not stand a chance. France was enriched and it took
pleasure from the fact that having been defeated by Haitians on the battlefield, it
had won on the field of finance. In the years when the coffee crops failed, or
the sugar yield was down, the Haitian government borrowed on the French money
market at double the going interest rate in order to repay the French government.

When the Americans invaded the country in the early 20th century, one of
the reasons offered was to assist the French in collecting its reparations.

The collapse of the Haitian nation resides at the feet of France and
America, especially. These two nations betrayed, failed, and destroyed the dream
that was Haiti; crushed to dust in an effort to destroy the flower of freedom and
the seed of justice.

Haiti did not fail. It was destroyed by two of the most powerful nations
on earth, both of which continue to have a primary interest in its current
condition.

The sudden quake has come in the aftermath of summers of hate. In many
ways the quake has been less destructive than the hate.

Human life was snuffed out by the quake, while the hate has been a long
and inhumane suffocation - a crime against humanity.

During the 2001 UN Conference on Race in Durban, South Africa, strong
representation was made to the French government to repay the 150 million
francs.

The value of this amount was estimated by financial actuaries as US$21
billion. This sum of capital could rebuild Haiti and place it in a position
to re-engage the modern world. It was illegally extracted from the Haitian
people and should be repaid.

It is stolen wealth. In so doing, France could discharge its moral
obligation to the Haitian people.

For a nation that prides itself in the celebration of modern diplomacy,
France, in order to exist with the moral authority of this diplomacy in
this post-modern world, should do the just and legal thing.

Such an act at the outset of this century would open the door for a
sophisticated interface of past and present, and set the Haitian nation
free at last.

Sir Hilary Beckles is pro-vice-chancellor and Principal of the Cave
Hill Campus, UWI.

WeBeGeekin'
www.ghettogeekin.blogspot.com

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Black Racists?! WTF?!

Professor D...do you think black people can be racist by definition?

One of my former students had this question neatly packaged on my FaceBook wall yesterday. First and foremost, I don't think this question could be anymore timely. There seemed to be a sense of urgency regarding my response, but the question was too important to be answered briefly within the confines of FaceBook---so I took a bit more time to offer my opinion on the subject. (I hope I didn't take too much time, Marcus.) In addition to space limitations on FaceBook, posting this exposition on ghettoGEEKS allows me to reach a larger audience. And as I write these words, I imagine this audience to be Black, White, Asian, Rich, Poor, Religious, Agnostic, Atheist, Heterosexual, Homosexual, Confident, Intellectual, Insecure, Stupid, Jealous, Racist, Wierd, Materialistic, Ugly, Beautiful...and any other adjective under the sun. Without further ado, I offer my opinion on the matter.

I have said, and will say again, the Conservative arm of the American political system is on a serious mission to define race and issues of race. This campaign to define race is occuring RIGHT NOW. Think about it--in wake Bush leaving office and the decline in Republican power in Washington, personalties like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, David Horowitz, Glenn Beck, and a host of others, have been consistently speaking on issues of race. (In the cases I'd like to highlight, white people are portrayed as the victims of racism and reverse discrimination, i.e.; the Connecticut Firefighters.) The Right has actually been MUCH more active than the Left in articulating philosophical arguments surrounding race. And when you think about it, it's actually a stroke of rhetorical genius. If they get out in front and DEFINE and CONTEXTUALIZE race and racism, then they are seen as operating from a position of neutrality and objectivity.

But, there is a problem. This popular right wing view on race is inherently flawed. COLLOQUIAL TRANSLATION: The shit doesn't make any sense.

I'll explain.

RACE

Race is a societal construction based on physical characteristics. According to the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, "the term race or racial group usually refers to the categorization of humans into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of heritable characteristics." If we focus on the term "heritable," we will learn that this idea is concerned with phenotypic variation in a population that results in genetic variation among individuals (Wiki, 2010). THOUGH THIS INTERESTING INFORMATION, THIS BRINGS TO CONVERSATION TO A BIOLOGICAL LEVEL...AND THIS IS NOT THE FOCUS OF THIS PARTICULAR DISCUSSION.

Our focus is, of course, SOCIAL.

Now, SOCIALLY, the concept of race gets a bit more interesting. Why? POWER. Plain and simple. Everybody wants Power. Everybody. Please be under no illusions about this. Most people want Liberty...and based on the research, a possession of POWER is a prerequisite for the possession of LIBERTY. I'm sure Patrick Henry would agree with me on this point.

Interested in more about the link between POWER and LIBERTY?...pick up Before Barack there was Tupac or Bustin' Gats through Spittin' Raps.

Recognizing the role (social, economic, and political) POWER played in the creation of the racial hierachy in America, a person may be able to gain a clear and more historically accurate idea of race. The American racial hierarchy was constructed to serve the interests of those IN POWER. (To believe anything else, is nothing short of baffling.) The early American elite used race as a way in which to organize society. Through law, politics, money, and culture, those who were white were routed into social classes near POWER...and the darker your skin, the further removed from POWER you were. You were relegated to social positioning at the bottom of the social (power) hierarchy. In fact, America's unique system of CHATTEL slavery created beings who were legally defined as less than human yet more than four-legged beast. The concise rhetorical label for this population of chattel was: Nigger. Summarily, it is here we understand race is SYNTHETIC. It is man-made. It is a way in which the elite organized society in the interest of protecting and perserving POWER.

RACISM

It is a verb. It should be understood as "race in motion." Racism is the actual execution and protection of the current racial hierarchy. It is DEEPLY entrenched into the American social, legal, and economic system. Racism, in America, is cultural. It is NORMALIZED.

It would behoove all parties involved to decrease the emotional investment you place in examples of grotesquely overt instances of racism sensationalized on television and radio. Barack Obama is hung is effigy...white cops shoot innocent black man 49 times...such and such. (Let me be clear: These stories are sad, and they NEED and DESERVE media attention.) But, what needs just as much, IF NOT MORE, attention is the Covert/Intellectual side of race. This is where it get's sexy. The maintenance of the hierarchy is not evidenced in sensational stories; it's actually eradicated/deleted/omitted in these sensational stories. When a group of poor, disenfranchised, white men kidnap and rape a black woman EVERYONE gets emotional. Black people get LOUD and white people get QUIET. But, everyone gets emotional. When a black woman lies about being raped by a prominent collegiate lacrosse team, everybody gets emotional. White people get LOUD and black people get QUIET. But, everyone gets emotional. Now, if we focused on the quiet side of racism, the side where the historical racial hierarchy is kept intact, then we may be able to communicate (intra AND inter)racially with a basis in something real and relevant.

So....Professor D, do you think black people can be racist by definition?

Absolutely not.

BY DEFINITION, race WAS constructed, and IS maintained by people in power. In America, this means wealthy white people. There is not ONE black individual who has access to this social club. (OK, Oprah MAY have enough money to gain access...and IF she is participating in activities that maintain the current racial heirarchy...and IF she dedicated to protecting the interest of the current powerbrokers, THEN she MAY be racist.) I doubt any other black people qualify.

Now, without a single doubt, black people can be definitely be PREDJUDICE...and IGNORANT...AND STUPID. These are intrinsic human qualities; and black people are definitely not exempt from them. Prejudice, referring to the practice of pre-judging individuals based on a certain set of stereotypical misnomers, is a practice every human being of capable of performing. I have sadly witnessed many black Americans illustrate huge prejudices in unabashed fashion. In these moments, especially when they are performed in public in uniquely boadacious fashion, I have stood dumbfounded...cringing on the inside.

"You IG'NANT ass nigga...PLEASE close your mouth, because you know not what you speaketh. You are a member of a traditionally oppressed group. If anyone should understand racial and cultural sensitivity, it should be your black ass."

So, the argument I present is not in any way attempting to black people from racial slurs, racial prejudice, and race-baiting. BUT, I stand by the position that it is IMPOSSIBLE for black people to be RACIST because black people do not have access to the levels of POWER. Dick Gregory (1964) makes a similar case in his book Nigger. Race and racism are deeply connected to POWER...and that is something, frankly speaking, blacks in America don't have much of, in economic, legal, and political forms. So, to say that black people can be racist is one of two things (1.)a significant syntactic flaw; or (2.) the most racist thing I've ever heard.

WeBeGeekin'
www.ghettogeekin.blogspot.com

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Monday, January 4, 2010

What the Summer of the "Chi" got to offer an 18 - year old?...

....sell drugs or get a job---NOPE!

You can take some inspiration from Damon Williams (and his Mother), and do something a bit more constructive....and a bit more PROFITABLE.



Happy Freakin' New Year!

WeBeGeekin'
www.ghettogeekin.blogspot.com