Volume 7 Issue 1…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…January 9, 2003

Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902)

"The world is nearly all parceled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonized. To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far." -- Cecil John Rhodes

British business tycoon and imperial statesman, Cecil John Rhodes was born July 5, 1853. The fifth son, he was expected to follow his father into the clergy, but fell ill at sixteen. He joined his brother Herbert on a Natal cotton plantation in 1870, the year diamonds were discovered at Kimberley fields. The brothers staked a lucrative claim. At nineteen, the dry air had restored his health, and he had become financially independent.

Rhodes explored Southern Africa. Impressed with its agricultural possibilities and mineral wealth, he became determined to secure it for occupation by the British and ensure Britain dominated its administration. He returned to Oxford and earned his degree (1878).

In 1880, Rhodes founded De Beers Co. He entered the Cape Colony Parliament in 1881 and held a seat until his death. He used his influence and wealth to convince Mankodoane, who claimed to own half of Bechuanaland, to cede these territories to Britain. By 1885, a British protectorate extended north to the 22nd parallel. The discovery of gold in 1886 added wealth and importance to the Transvaal.

The territory north of the 22nd parallel was under Lobengula, chief of the Matabele. Rhodes succeeded in tricking him out of this land. Under the British South Africa Company, which was granted its charter to oversee mining and trading in the region, Rhodes hoped to create British possessions from the Cape to Cairo. The 1890 treaty between Great Britain and Germany that extended Germany's sphere of influence to the Congo Free State thwarted his plan.

In 1892, Rhodes threw his influence and wealth behind the retention of Uganda and offered to fund the telegraph connection between the territory and Salisbury. In 1893, a war with the Matabele added 450,000 square miles to the British Empire; large portions of which were suitable for white colonization. The pioneer party crossed the frontier at the end of 1889.

In 1890, Rhodes became Prime Minister of the Cape. A virtual despot, he restricted the franchise to effectively eliminate the majority population. In 1895, a committee investigation of the Jameson Raid, a revolt of mostly British foreigners in the Transvaal that attempted to overthrow the Paul Kruger government, found his actions inconsistent with his duty as prime minister and managing director of the British South Africa company. Rhodes resigned his premiership on January 6,1896.

Rhodes devoted his remaining years to developing the colony of Rhodesia. He never married. Biographers vary regarding his sexual preferences. He was known for attracting crowds of young admiring bachelors. In reply to Queen Victoria's suggestion that he disliked women, Rhodes asked, "How can I possibly dislike a sex to which Your Majesty belongs?"

On March 26, 1902, Rhodes died at Muizenberg near Capetown. He left behind a will in which he dedicated his fortune exclusively to public service. The bulk of his wealth funds the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford University for students from every important British colony, the United States and Germany.

White settlers in Rhodesia increased in numbers. By 1905 Rhodesia had "turned the corner." In that year, with a gold export of £1,500,000, it took its place among the gold-producing countries of the empire; and in that year the first train steamed slowly across the majestic span of the Victoria Falls Bridge. (Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica, www.bartleby.com, www.davidicke.net and www.bind.org)

What Ever Happened To Peace On Earth
By Willie Nelson

There's so many things going on in the world

Babies dying

Mothers crying

How much oil is one human life worth

And what ever happened to peace on earth

We believe everything that they tell us

They're gonna' kill us

So we gotta' kill them first

But I remember a commandment

Thou shall not kill

How much is that soldier's life worth

And whatever happened to peace on earth

(Bridge)

And the bewildered herd is still believing

Everything we've been told from our birth

Hell they won't lie to me

Not on my own damn TV

But how much is a liar's word worth

And whatever happened to peace on earth

So I guess it's just

Do unto others before they do it to you

Let's just kill em' all and let God sort em' out

Is this what God wants us to do

(Repeat Bridge)

Now you probably won't hear this on your radio

Probably not on your local TV

But if there's a time, and if you're ever so inclined

You can always hear it from me

How much is one picker's word worth

And whatever happened to peace on earth

But don't confuse caring for weakness

You can't put that label on me

The truth is my weapon of mass protection

And I believe truth sets you free

(Repeat Bridge)

About Me: For country singer Willie Nelson, this song "just came pouring out" on Christmas day. With five nominations in the upcoming Grammy Awards, Nelson says, "I hope that there is some controversy. If you write something like this and nobody says anything, then you probably haven't struck a nerve. I got it out of my system. I was able to say what I was thinking."

Stereotyping Africa

As a graduate student in journalism at Columbia (1992), Milton Allimadi conducted research for his master's thesis on the evolution of the paper's African coverage at the New York Times' archives. The information at his disposal included correspondence between reporters and editors. What he discovered puts the Jayson Blair incident into proper perspective. Roundly criticized for concocting news stories, the Blair incident is generally considered the "low point" in the paper's 152-year history. Not so, according to Allimadi.

In 2003, Allimadi published The Hearts of Darkness: How White Writers Created the Racist Image of Africa, which is based on his research. The Black Commentator (7/3/03) published an article by Allimadi that provides a synopsis of his work and his efforts to bring the "racist journalistic concoctions to the attention of New York Times editors more than 10 years ago," long before Blair manufactured his "news stories."

According to Allimadi's research, New York Times reporters, such as Lloyd Garrison and Homer Bigart, the two-time Pulitzer-winning reporter, in the 1960s and Joseph Lelyveld in the 1980s, filed news stories from Africa for which editors routinely fabricated scenes and manufactured quotes, which conformed to the racist stereotypical biases that U.S. readers had come to expect in African reports. As nationalism swept the continent, emerging leaders were denigrated and demonized. Rather than scenes of modern metropolises, cannibalistic pygmies and savage bushmen occupying grass huts became hallmarks of reports from "the Dark Continent." The paper's foreign editors routinely suppressed positive reports from the continent that could not be changed to convey negative images.

Allimadi publishes The Black Star News, a weekly newspaper in New York City. For more information about Allimadi's research, his email address is miltonallimadi@hotmail.com.

Neo-Colonialism/Slavery

By John Burl Smith

A basic maxim in the Diaspora says, "Those that eat from the master's table remain slaves." Descendants of African slaves have never had a choice about their servitude and are emblematic of this truism. Landless in America's hostile environment, we are totally dependent on whites for access to socioeconomic and political opportunities. Maintained ignorant for centuries through mis-education and institutionalized racism, blacks in the US are ensconced on a new millennium auction block in a high tech slave market.

Spared the wrenching estrangement and humiliating degradations of bond slavery, our African sisters and brothers at the other end of the Middle Passage were no better off. Captives in their homeland, Africans were European chattels. Beginning in 1957, Kwame Nkrumah opened a floodgate of demands for freedom by leading Ghana to independence. Suddenly, sub-Sahara Africa became a hotbed of wars of liberation. However, after 47 years of African killings, first by whites now each other, a nagging question remains. "Did they thrown off the mental shackles of colonialism?"

Zimbabwe is a case in point. One of the last nations to gain independence, Zimbabwe is twisting in the wind, like a corpse on the gallows of colonialism. Zimbabwe threw off colonial servitude imposed first by Britain then by white Rhodesians. Gaining independence, but accepting British Commonwealth status, has amounted to defacto colonialism for Zimbabwe because Britain holds a veto over whatever so-called independent nations decide. Zimbabweans had to agree to pay the colonial debts their masters made oppressing them for a seat at the commonwealth table.

England took African's lands as crown possessions and gave or sold them to whites. When whites take blacks land, like Israel is taking Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian territories, there is no "rule of law." Even though independent, Zimbabweans must honor land agreements and laws forced upon them by colonial rulers or suffer economic sanctions. This puts Africans in the same position as US blacks, who were supposedly freed following emancipation, the Civil War, 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments but still endure defacto slavery in the form of institutionalized racism and discrimination.

After torpedoing every effort to get debt relief for poor nations, George W. Bush's envoy James Baker is traveling the world demanding debt relief for Iraq. Indigenous people in Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, Central and South America emerged from colonialism debt-ridden, like Iraq, but no one felt they deserved such generosity or empathy by granting debt relief. Colonial hypocrisy knows no bounds, as these, unlike Iraq, remain some of the poorest nations on earth.

Freedom only means free when white Anglo-Saxon Christians hold the purse strings. Unlike African slave descendants in the US who recognize that slavery never ended, most Africans on the continent believe their leaders when they say their countries are free. The truth is, although separated by an ocean and the Middle Passage, this time Africans on both sides are captives on the same slave ship. Consequently, unless we free our minds of the self-hatred mind-set of slavery and colonialism by embracing a new consciousness, we will remain neo-slaves controlled by our past and powerless to change our future.

God's Chosen Walk All Over the Masses

African history is replete with examples of the chosen walking all over the masses. Millions of Africans were murdered and maimed as God's chosen from Belgium claimed dominion over the mineral wealth of the Congo. In virtually every African country from Angola to Zimbabwe, the chosen, usually Europeans, walked all over the masses to exploit the continent's natural riches.

In July 2003, George W. Bush visited Africa. His critics contend chief White House political adviser Karl Rove orchestrated the trip to deflect attention away from the Iraqi war, while paving the way for exploitation of African resources, especially its oil. At Goree Island off the coast of Senegal, where many slave ships set sail to the Americas, Bush delivered a rhetorical address about the scourge of slavery and the virtues of freedom and democracy. Meanwhile, Goree residents, rounded up at 6 AM, cooled their heels at a distant football field.

Televangelist Pat Robertson says Bush is one of God's chosen. Robertson claims that God told him Bush will be reelected in a blowout. He says, "The Lord has just blessed him...he could make terrible mistakes and come out of it. It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad, God picks him up because he's a man of prayer and God's blessing him." Blah on those who think God blesses men who walk all over the masses!

While Black

By John Burl Smith

The hip hop expression "while black" took on international significance when New York City police killed Amadou Diallo, a young West African imminent from Guinea, February 4, 1999. Producing storms of protest in minority communities, NYCPD's Street Crime Unit, while looking for illegal guns and drugs, stopped and frisked thousands of people, regularly used overly aggressive tactics that were unconstitutional and discriminatory, according to the New York State Attorney General.

While standing in the vestibule of his apartment and trying to present identification, Amadou was gunned down in a hale of 41 bullets. Adding insult to injury, the four white cops were acquitted of any wrongdoing in his death. Amadou's mother Kadiatou and father Saikou have launched an international speaking tour to raise awareness about how easy young men die "while black." They are donating the tour's proceeds to the foundation established in Amadou's name. Kadiatou says, "I hope that Amadou's death will bring people together, so people do not judge someone by the color of their skin."

Losses to their families and the world, young men, like Amadou, are victimized daily by "rogue cops" in the US. "While black" has become a suffix for a laundry list of discriminatory or racial profiling actions perpetrated against blacks by cops and others that police and/or exploit black Americans. Getting stopped, beaten, arrested and/or killed by police "while black" happened to Kenneth Brown Walker, a Blue Cross Blue Shield manager in Columbus, Georgia, Terrance Shum a motorcyclist in Benton Harbor, Michigan and Ousmane Zongo, a Burkina Faso immigrant, who was shot by an undercover cop in Manhattan, New York.

Poets for Peace are calling for a speak out the week of February 4th to commemorate the tragic stolen lives of Amadou and hundreds of young men killed "while black." This speak out is not just to remember those painful events but to remind the world that children like Nathaniel Abraham, Donzel Washington, Michael "Little B" Lewis, Nathaniel Brazill and other preteens and teens are sentenced to life in prison as adults in the US. Poets, artists and activists are asked to speak out, read about and compose pieces that express how living "while black" makes us all a part of Amadou's legacy.

If you or your group plan to hold an event, let us know thedish@surfglobal.net. We are "touching people," teaching humanity in new consciousness, for those not involved, T.H.I.N.C. Speaking out about Amadou Diallo is a meaningful place to start.

Disgruntled wants to know: Under pressured from shrill Republicans, MoveOn.Org recently pulled an advertisement that compared the Bush regime to the reign of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. An historical connection exists between the Bushes and Nazism. During WWII, Prescott Bush, grandfather of George W., was charged with violating the Trading with the Enemy Act. As managing partner in the banking concern Brown Brothers Harriman, which became Kellogg-Brown-Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, Prescott helped finance Hitler's regime and launder Nazi money. After WWII, he helped bring hundreds of Nazis to the US. Given this history, why did MoveOn.Org find it necessary to pull its ad and apologize for speaking the truth?

Disgruntled feels: Abused! It's 2004, but living while black remains a chore! Banks, insurance companies and mortgage lenders farm black consumers like agricultural crops. We are charged high rates and an endless array of fees and fines to facilitate foreclosure. Blacks are disproportionately represented among the incarcerated, jobless, hungry and homeless. We are profiled by cops, aggressively watched in department stores and shops, and, in general, abused while being black.

Disgruntled says: Republican talking heads are adept at staying on message. Apparently, they subscribe to the notion that, if you say something often enough, you can convince the general public it is true no matter how ridiculous it might sound. The latest ball of yarn being spun into silk by Republicans concerns Attorney General John Ashcroft's recent recusal from the Valerie Plame investigation. Plame, CIA undercover operative and wife of envoy Joseph Wilson, was outed by someone in the Bush White House, according to columnist Robert Novak, Karl Rove's lackey. Wilson claims the White House outed Plame to punish him for telling the truth that the Bush administration lied about the Iraq-Niger uranium connection. After months of closely monitoring the investigation and covering up the truth, only an idiot would buy an "Ashcroft did the right thing" silk shirt.

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