World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures
December 10 to 31, 2010

« The next festival should not be an accumulation of events. It should send out a message. What message is it? Sent out by whom? To who? [...] What does Africa want to say to the rest of the world? »
President Abdoulaye Wade --11 August 2009

Registration and further details at: www.blackworldfestival.com

Editorial by Professor Iba Der Thiam
General Coordinator of the Forum

The next World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures, which will be held in Dakar from 10 to 31 December 2010, while in remaining the tradition of the first World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures organised in Dakar in 1966, the Algiers Pan-African Festival and the Lagos Festival of 1977, will be marked by a fundamental change. Actually, organised on the theme of African Renaissance, it will introduce a major innovation consisting in organising a Forum during which 5 structuring conferences will be held:

1. The Contribution of Black Peoples to Science and Technology

 2. Permanent resistance of Black People from the Slave Trade of the present day

3. The African Diaspora: Geography-Settlement-History-Prospects-Political situation

4. The contribution of Black Peoples to the advent of a Free world and what place and role for Africa in global governance?

5. Were ancient Egyptians Black or not?

For each of these issues, the idea will be to look into subjects that will offer Africa the opportunity to send out an important message to the rest of the world. This is the meaning of the directive that President Abdoulaye WADE issued in the meeting of 11 August 2009 during which he said:

« The next festival should not be an accumulation of events. It should send out a message. What message is it? Sent out by whom? To who? [...] What does Africa want to say to the rest of the world? »

It is an inspiring mission that concerns each and every Black of Africa and its Diaspora, each researcher, each expert.
I call on all public and private universities, all historians, political scientists, economists, philosophers, artists,  writers, intellectuals, irrespective of sex and nationality,  to participate in this reflection by submitting papers, the best of which will be published in the Proceedings of the Forum,  to ensure that conclusions are given wide publicity and made known to everyone. The Proceedings will present us with the opportunity to remain permanently in touch to exchange ideas, discuss and communicate in accordance with strict scientific rigour.
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1ST STRUCTURING CONFERENCE THE CONTRIBUTION OF BLACK PEOPLES TO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

I. ARGUMENTS

The next World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures will be held on the theme of African Renaissance.

During a meeting he convened on Monday, 11 August 2009, the President of the Republic said: "The next Festival should not be an accumulation of events. It should send out a message. What message is it? Who will send it out? To who?" This is the question we must answer.

The cradle of Humanity, it was in Africa that the first social groups were formed, before spreading to the rest of the world. It was on its soil that the first manifestations of the human being's creative genius saw the light of day.

The Egyptian civilisation today dates back to 5,000 years, at least 2,000 years ahead of the rest of humanity

Traces of this remarkable civilisation, founded on four weapons, namely water, fire, the Nile and the sun are visible to this day. There has never been a break in this creation and improvement impulse.

It continued in various forms in the various countries of Africa and its Diaspora, to the extent of arousing the respect and, at times, even the lust of others. The result has been a proliferation of inventions in all areas of human existence.

Unfortunately, no comprehensive inventory has been undertaken to-date to accurately determine the extent and variety of the contribution of Black peoples of the continent and its Diaspora to all areas of Knowledge, Science, Technology and all the other human activities, in spite of isolated, significant and praiseworthy works realised since the XIXth century, notably by many researchers.

As part of the Festival, the time has come to fill this gap and meet a need that has become vital. By putting at the disposal of Africans of the continent and its Diaspora accurate information on the discoveries made by their ancestors, their brothers and sisters or their contemporaries, in the specific area of Science and Technology, the rest of humanity will be shown the fundamental role that Black peoples play in human progress.

We have here the first message that the Festival is duty-bound to send out to the planet. The idea is less about finding a reason to be proud and more about seeking to inform, by re-establishing the historical truth arising from authentic evidence, in order to awaken and stir consciences, arm the African masses with legitimate reasons to have faith and confidence in their race, establish them more in their continent, culture and dignity as men and women, whose creative genius enabled the current civilisation to be born, flourish and prosper. The exercise will train citizens that are more conscious about their history, more attached to their past and better motivated to put themselves into the effort, and take their turn to further Science and Progress.

The world, in its richness and diversity, having become better informed, will respect Africa and its Diaspora more. The image of the continent and its relation with others will be fundamentally changed by this. An African that is new, at ease, and confident in his abilities, will emerge, because he has become better situated and better equipped to engage in dialogue, exchange ideas, give and take.

In addition to this is the fact that by recognising that creation and the dissemination of knowledge are increasingly important drivers of innovation, sustainable economic growth and social wellbeing, the African Renaissance will be the opportunity for Africans and Black peoples in general to underscore the benefits that society can reap from progress in Science and Technology.

This could be the message that the Festival should send out to the rest of the world on this theme.

II. OBJECTIVES

- show, on the one hand, that the Black world of Africa and the Diaspora contributed significantly to the birth and to the development of Science and Technology, and on the other, that there has never been a break;

- list discoveries, inventions, patents and the applications of Science and Technology to the sustainable development of Africa;

- create a forum for the exchange of ideas on the impact of Science and Technology on the sustainable development of Africa;

- identify possibilities for cooperation between the Americas, Africa and the Diaspora, in the utilisation of Science and Technology for the sustainable development of Africa;

- identify resources necessary for increasing the participation of Africa in global forums dealing with the theme;

- identify a series of concrete actions and projects to be carried out

III. PROGRAMME

The conference will include a series of presentations on technological inventions and discoveries of Black peoples and on the actions carried out or to be carried out to make Science and Technology a lever capable of setting in motion the African Renaissance. The programme will revolve around two plenary sessions, including:

1. the contribution of Africa and the Diaspora to Science and Technology and their applications in the progress of humanity:

— the case of Africa;

— the case of the Americas;

— the case of the Diaspora;

2. Intergovernmental and nongovernmental activities in the areas of Science and Technology in Africa;

— their relationships and functions;

— the development of regional and interregional cooperation in favour of Africa; — conditions and resultant potentials and prospects.

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2ND STRUCTURING CONFERENCE:
THE PERMANENT RESISTANCE OF BLACK PEOPLES

I. ARGUMENTS

The long saga of Black peoples of Africa and its Diaspora, throughout history, was, but for a few exceptions, an unbroken series of heroic acts and behaviours by the sons and daughters of Africa, every time their freedom and dignity were at issue. This permanent resistance is strewn with corpses and a high number of victims because each incursion to capture slaves and each invasion from outside generally came up against a people on their feet, i.e., against authorities bound to their subjects, who were ready to pay the price for their freedom. This notwithstanding, slave drivers, their accomplices and local tyrants, by means of disgraceful cunning, weapons that were more advanced for the era and the « divide and rule » strategy, succeeded in capturing and transplanting millions of Africans to the Americas and other continents.

Having been weakened by slavery that lasted for over four centuries, some Africans were temporarily dominated in the XIXth century; resulting in Africa being shared out amongst colonial powers. However, the struggle is yet to end. It continued in various forms during colonisation, so much so that in spite of appearances, right up to the years of independence towards the 1960, no one can cite a single period of tranquillity spanning 15 years during which colonialists were not denounced, contested, rejected, fought in various ways, sometimes by violent armed attack, somewhere on the African continent by Africans rejecting servitude.

The resistance of Black peoples in the face of the colonial system and all the other earlier forms of oppression is a permanent element in the history of relations between Western powers and African societies. The "Indocility" and "indiscipline" of Africans, to borrow from the Cameroonian historian Achille Mbembe, took shape and drew their motivity from various resources to the extent of forcing these powers to resort to various methods of subjugation. The methods, in spite of the subtleties that underpinned them, did not, as some seem to believe, meet with the conveniences of generous, child-like and submissive hospitality all over the continent. The majority of Africans stood up to the aggression and resisted the imposition of a new form of civility that was aimed at denying their existence, reorganising (disorganising) their modes of command, life, even their "psychic regime".

Everything that could be of use in the destruction of the African and his most immediate environment was the subject of "reflection", reports and "analyses" that resulted in the establishment of a so-called "pacification" and "development policy". The violence of colonialism did not give rise to frustration or resignation on the part of Africans; on the contrary, it was at the heart of a policy of confrontation between the protagonists, in spite of the military superiority of the "rulers".

This historical event has an unprecedented special feature because it is founded on the determination to establish traumatism as a mode of relation. As a result, it was impossible to imagine a relationship that was balanced and worthy of its name, whether it is at the time when colonialists were beginning to establish their system, during the delicate period of the triangular trade, during the process of colonisation or Apartheid. According to their tactics and various ways of negotiating and skirting around "triumphalist" colonialism, Africans continued to oppose the colonial system during all these periods.

This was done so much so that the struggle of Black peoples, which had been going on for several thousand years, actually started to manifest itself since the dawn of times. The struggle which regained impetus with the advent of the slave trade, colonial domination and Apartheid, unquestionably witnessed certain continuity in various forms. Unfortunately, enough light has not been shed on this because the history written by colonisers and taught in schools is alas reduced solely to the notions of "conquest" and "pacification". There even are some African historians, who, not having seen this trap, continued to write and teach a distorted version of history, which, actually, was aimed at forming the souls of the youth in order to get them used to servitude. What we must write for Africa is not an embellished history, but the true history, which, when examined over a long period, is without any hang-ups, more of a history of the resistance of Africa than that of the submission of a people.

The slave trade that went on for centuries was horrific. It deprived the continent of part of its economically active population and seriously ruined our economy, which was shamelessly plundered.

Colonisation, its successor, in turn disorganised and dislocated our kingdoms and empires, established a culture of violence, plundering, disintegration, exacerbated by tribal antagonism and instituted permanent conflicts that it skilfully used to set the populations against each other.

Post-colonial Africa that was established to preserve the interests of the former colonisers, tribal conflicts and economic ruin could witness nothing but coups d'état, ethnic conflicts over power or what looked like power, dictatorship and instability. Apartheid, though conquered by a coalition between the continent and the rest of the world, left behind the consequences of a policy based on inequality, injustice and dehumanization through a massive propaganda effort that was aimed, originally at spreading the idea of the superiority of Whites over Blacks.

One can today note that fifty years after the accession of our people to international sovereignty, we are still far from having eradicated most of the consequences of the many historical aggressions we suffered both physically and in our consciences.

Although indisputable progress has been made, the decolonisation of mentalities and behaviours, at the level of ideas, concepts, symbols, values and models, which Cheikh Anta Diop calls the intellectual paradigm, is far from being a reality.

The Diaspora is not to be outdone. From the very outset of the heroic resistance to the campaigns to get slaves, in slave boats crossing the Atlantic to places of transplantation, in the Caribbean, in Brazil and in the United States, by defying segregationist laws, by singing and dancing, by creating and inventing, as if in an effort to draw from their culture the resources of courage and dignity that are indispensable for the success of their struggle for dignity, equality and justice.

The history of the people of the continent and its Diaspora is, seen from this angle, full of exploits and consequently of lessons on the resistance capacity of Black people.

This is the history that we want to put at the disposal of Africans, that we want to breathe into the soul of our youth so that they should have no complexes with regard to any other peoples on earth, so that they can be proud of their ancestors, so that they commit resolutely to fighting to create for the continent's populations the conditions for a decent life made of dignity, and responsibility in freedom. This image of a fighting, stoic and heroic people, people on their feet, invincible, who have never given up, never gone down on their knees, surely constitutes the surest viaticum for creating awareness in the present and future generations and definitively liberating the African from fear and the lack of self confidence, and form his personality, in the face of present and future challenges.

A structuring conference devoted to Africa and its Diaspora on this theme will provide researchers of the Black world the opportunity to identify all the forms of resistance in the long history of our people, make an inventory thereof, locate them, study them with maximum accuracy in order to draw from them lessons and reasons to be proud, reasons for moral armament and lessons for the future.

The resistance capacity by African peoples in addition will be highlighted as an example to the rest of humanity, as one of the most accomplished models of dignity, pride, a sense of honour, patriotism and victory over suffering, the forces of oppression, domination and distortion of history, which have, for centuries, spread and sustained the completely false image of a Black man as dominated, consenting, submissive and incapable of standing up to his oppressors or raising himself to the noble ambitions to which Africa and its Diaspora aspire.

The Festival is inviting researchers from all continents to come and discover with us the true history of the resistance of the Black peoples of Africa and its Diaspora, that of "slaves that conquered slavery", and that of the colonised that conquered colonisation.

Such could be the message that the structuring conference has as mission to send out to the rest of the world.

II. OBJECTIVES

The objective of this conference is to:

— inform, based on scientific arguments, the permanence of this insubordination that was for a long time minimised, even obscured;

— analyse the confrontational relations that resulted in an intelligible explanation for the relations between Black peoples and their former rulers;

— produce a scientific discourse that is informed about the permanence, genius and the different tactics used by Africans confronted with the various forms of aggression from European powers;

— result in the writing and dissemination of didactic texts, in the form of manuals and other teaching materials.

It is this complex history that the structuring conference entitled Permanent resistance of Black peoples will try to question by analysing the concrete and/or concealed acts and the various positions held with regard to the refusal to submit to the colonial order that restricted and destroyed various forms of solidarity.

III. PROGRAMME

Texts submitted for examination by the scientific committee must drive home the fact that the acts of insubordination by Africans cannot be put down to fantasy or much less any determination to rewrite an embellished history. Contributions will revolve around the following paradigms:

— the composite interpretations of African resistance;

— forms of resistance according to African regions, their contexts and their modes of expression in order to interpret their impact on the shaping of an intelligence that eluded and/or was minimised by European or African researchers;

— the "invisible history", preserved in memories that consisted in opposing all forms of oppression and subjugation.
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3rd Structuring conference African Diasporas:
Geography-Settlement-History-Political situation

Since the appearance of Homo Sapiens, African peoples have been scattered over all continents. Recent works have recreated their history. Blacks from Africa have been in Asia for more than 1,000 years. Today, in India alone, there are some 350 million Dravidian Blacks. The number of Black Africans was so great on this continent that many foreign travellers and explorers that visited it from Antiquity right through to the XIXth century sincerely thought that Asia was the African continent par excellence of Blacks. There is hardly a country in the region where the presence of Blacks was not attested to in far off eras, including in Japan, China, etc.

The same can be said of the Americas, where Black communities established themselves since the expeditions of Bakari II (1300). The slave trade that went on for over 4 centuries, intensified this process. Works by Julio Cesar de Tavares and Januario Garcia have identified Black communities in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Surinam, Uruguay, Venezuela and elsewhere. They can also be found in all Latin American countries, based on evidence of research by Sheila Walker. The same holds all over the Caribbean islands, not to talk of the United States of America, Canada, Europe, countries of the Mediterranean basin and Western Asia. Recently, Black populations dating back to more than 60, 000 years were identified in the Andaman Islands, which belong to Archipelagos of the Bengal sea. If you add these Blacks of the Diaspora to the current population of Africa, which stands at one billion intra muros inhabitants, we can say the Black population is one of the largest on the planet.

The trans-Saharan slave trade and the Atlantic slave trade contributed strongly to the process of diasporisation. The trans-Saharan slave trade is very ancient; the Phoenician colony of Carthage (present-day Tunisia) received from "The countries of Blacks" gold, ivory, skins and slaves. The Garamantes and Nasamons, who had settled south of the Golf of Syrte, were their middlemen. The renaissance of the trans- Saharan trade in the Middle Age marked the start of the process of integration of sub- Saharan Africa in the Atlantic trade. Africa was better known in Europe thanks to the writings of Arab geographers, some of who lived in Spain. From the XVth century, European companies no longer contented themselves with drawing from a preexisting trade. They applied themselves to industrialising the slave trade in order to get from Africa the millions of slaves necessary for developing the tropical lands of the American continent. The African Diaspora thus was not limited to that of the New World. Although the Black Diaspora in America was relatively well-known, especially through its place in plantation economy, its musical production and its religious events such as voodoo, this was not the case with African slaves deported to other countries.

By organising this Diaspora, in order to make it the 6th region of the African continent, the Black world will be afforded an additional demographic potential that will be a source of inexhaustible production of wealth, knowledge, creations, and inventions, capable of fundamentally changing, the development of African countries and that of those of the Diaspora. To make this happen, it is necessary that populations of African Diasporas be, clearly identified, meticulously inventoried, that their history, culture, economic and political features be known and taught so as to forge between them and African people solidarity, brotherhood, mutual trust, a willingness to live together full of promises for the future.

The 6th Region of the African continent could be involved in the deliberations of the African Union, where it would take part in meetings of Heads of State, during which they would be involved in technical committees to provide their expertise to the resolution of the problems of Africa without in anyway calling into question their citizenship of countries that have hosted them for more than four centuries, countries to which they perfectly belong as all the other communities with whom they have always lived together, just like the relations that other countries have succeeded in fostering with their Diaspora.

A similar partnership could be forged with the Dravidian Blacks of India, the Black communities in the United States, Canada, and European countries, as well as in the Arab and Islamic world.

Humanity as a whole, after all is said and done, constitutes the African Diaspora. However, the fact remains that the one that still identifies itself by the African culture or by skin colour remains neglected or marginalised as to the future of the African continent as well as what Africa can give it. This conference on African Diasporas clearly leaves out any chromatic approach in the sense that it will make it possible to understand that humanity as a whole is of the same stock and that racist theories were constructed to serve basely materialistic interests.

In a world where unity is strength, this symbiosis between Africa and its Diaspora will make it possible to stem the dispersion of Black forces and hasten the process of establishing the United States of Africa as the matrix of a new political order from which the Black world and Africa can only emerged stronger, see its interests taken into consideration, while gaining recognition from all.

Such could be the message that the structuring conference has as mission to send out to the rest of the world.

Objectives

— identify and meticulously make an inventory of African Diasporas, their history, and culture in order to give a clearer outline and content to the sixth African region;

— come up with composite strategies towards the construction of African unity and clearly define the role of the Diaspora in the building of the United States of Africa and in the improvement of the conditions of Blacks in the countries where they currently live.

Programme

African Diasporas: geographical distribution, cultural identity and history; — relations between the Diasporas and Africa: what mutual contributions in protecting the interests of the 6th region of Africa and in building the United States of Africa;

— methods and strategies of approach of the populations of Africa and those of its Diaspora to own the development of the continent and the countries where African Diasporas live.
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4th Structuring Conference The contribution of Black peoples to the advent of the Free World and the resultant consequences, namely what place and role for Africa in global governance?

a) The contribution of Black peoples to the advent of the Free World I. Arguments

As far back as Antiquity, one finds in the black world testimonies drawn from the book of the dead of Pharaonic Egypt proving to what extent moral and political humanism was already accepted on our continent, at a time when most peoples were plunged in obscurantism. Works led by Cheikh Anta Diop and his successors, including Théophile Obenga, have highlighted the contribution, right from the Ancient Empire and Pharaonic Egypt to human civilisation in the scientific, economic, political, cultural, architectural and religious domains.

Taking over from Pharaonic Egypt, Meroe and Ethiopia succeeded to build the most brilliant civilisations. In the Middle Age, the Black Continent distinguished itself, in Western Sudan, more specifically around the Niger Loop, with the advent of empires (Ghana, Mali, Songhai), which put in place the most ingenious systems of political, economic and social governance that by the way continued to fill visitors , both Arab and European, with wonder.

These brilliant civilisations, as shown by the Charter of Mande hunters and the Charter of Kurukan Fuga sufficiently prove that the «Lights», most definitely, were not unknown on African soil. In the modern and contemporary era, African peoples have played a fundamental role in various theatres of war in the struggle against slavery and the Slave Trade, colonial domination, militarism, Nazism and Apartheid.

Without the Haitian revolution that knocked down slavery and colonisation, its role in the liberation of Latin America and in the independence of the United States of America, without the contribution of Black Forces in the Allied Forces, during the two wars, the fate of the planet would have been different. As a matter of fact, during the two global conflicts, the multifaceted contribution both economic (war effort, provision of fresh supplies, mobilisation of labour, tax, porterage, requisition) and military (mobilisation, recruitment, notable involvement of African soldiers) had a decisive impact on the outcome of the war and, as such, on the advent of the Free World. The role of Blacks was equally as decisive in the struggle against racial discrimination, anti-Semitism, exclusion, cultural contempt and the demand for equal dignity for all peoples and cultures.

As a result, Blacks played a very big role in the advent of the Free World, right up to the very reconfiguration of freedoms and new human rights, a role that has been unfortunately obscured because it has been interpreted from a pro-European perspective, which leaves out the contribution of Black forces. Consequently, it is imperative to deconstruct all tendencies towards distorting the history of the contribution of Black forces to the advent of a freer and more just World.

II Objectives

This Structuring Conference aims to:

 Highlight the role of Blacks in the history of humanism from Antiquity;

 Identify, by means of precise examples, the contribution of the Black world to the scientific, political, cultural and moral domains;

 Analyse the role and impact of Black people on the building of the Free World; Deconstruct the theories that tend to obscure the contribution of Black peoples to the advent of the Free World

III Programme

Texts submitted for examination by the scientific committee must highlight the role of Blacks in the history of humanity from Antiquity by emphasizing the contribution of Black forces to the advent of the Free World.

Contributions will revolve around the following themes:

 African antiquity: the role of Blacks in the history of humanity (Egypt, Meroe, Ethiopia)

 Medieval African empires, "the golden age": (Ghana, Mali, Songhai): systems of political, economic and social governance (example of Kurukan Fugha);

 Africa in the two wars, the impact and role of the continent in the victory of the Allies and the building of the Free World;

 The walk towards independence: from decolonisation movements to the end of Apartheid: the Haitian revolution, struggle against racism (USA, etc.), decolonisation in Africa;

 The post colony to the test of the building of the modern State, social movements, dictatorships, the "democratic revival", democratic advances and/or decline.

Such could be the message that the structuring conference has as mission to send out to the rest of the world.

b) What place and role for Africa in global governance?

However you look at the issue, Africa as a geographical and cultural unit, on the one hand, and on the other, Africans, in particular the Black man is showing the consequences of a tragic universal history, which forces them to re-examine, on pain of losing self-esteem and the esteem of others, the various relations that bind us to the world as they are at the start of the XXIst century.

Consequently, the idea in this conference is a lot more about re-owning the historicity of African societies and the Black man, a lot more than about scholarly or expert ranting on the academic, scientific or moral and political meaning of Global Governance. It is all about the historic action of Africa, Africans, Man and Diasporas, designed as as many breaks from the organisation of the world that we consider if not obsolete, at least not legitimate for what we represent and weigh from yesterday to this day, for whoever deigns to question History. However, it is also about the Free Will, which after examining successive globalisations from the 15th and 16th centuries, starting with the place and roles that were gradually given to Africa, Africans and the Black man, decide -1°to change through action, thought, arts and letters, science and technology, culture and industry, the products of the hand as well as those of the mind, the status given Africa by globalisations, i.e., the role and place of a negligible quantity in the world order, of an abandoned continent, without the will or courage and intelligence in the face of the hazards of ferocious globalisations; and -2° be among the main decision makers in Global Governance, at the levels of ideas, real economy and finance, science, politics, the environment, peace, etc.

This Structuring conference follows the "Symposium on the United States of Africa" followed by "Forum on the role and place of Africa in Global governance", organised in Dakar from 27 to 30 July 2009. It is "an act of faith in an Africa that changes and innovates" and "refutation of a certain Africa that has remained on the sidelines of socio-cultural progress and universal political civilisation"

It results in the obsolescence of the former non-egalitarian and racialist world, from the perspective of its functioning, methods, objectives of domination and its goals, not to mention the irrational and pseudo-humanist orientation stamped on the human, material and logistical resources of the contemporary world. Consequently, the future of our continent requires that we re-own our history; that future can also be guaranteed by a more sustained involvement by Africa, Africans and the Diasporas in the global decision-making process at all levels, a situation that will lead to the winning return of Africa to the international arena.

How can we achieve this without the programmatic Unity represented by the United States of Africa? The idea has been gaining ground for several centuries. However, the time has now come for action. The reflection has been carried out, but only actions will save this Africa that has been split up, weakened, whose cultural practices permanently overcome political and administrative borders, which have divided people that culture and history unite.

The production of knowledge will be one of the decisive weapons of an Africa that has gained awareness and taken control of its Destiny.

The Africa of geographical areas and not of States in their current configuration. In the face of the lack of knowledge or even of ignorance about this history by most Africans, not only is the writing of new history books indispensable to promote "the taking back by Africans" of their own History, but also to build the United States of Africa. "We cannot rely on outside help to develop". The recovery of the memory is a strategic act because you cannot develop with a borrowed memory or a memory structured by others.

. As a result, the Global Governance mentioned here is not an ideal to be conceived or a conservative order to mainstream, but rather a theoretical refutation and the practical condemnation of an international order that works against Africa and its Diasporas. It thus is not a theory of Global Governance, but a criticism of a system that leaves out Africa and to which the continent can only hope to accede by revisiting old attitudes, by changing old behaviours, in short, by changing awareness and position, philosophy and morality, direction and strategy, which in turn requires and involves a new prospective attitude on the course of universal history.

Prerequisite: Rethink relations between Africa and the World, according to, to borrow an expression from Professor Mamoussé Diagne, the logic of "African Cogito":

Africa can only occupy a place in Global Governance if it adopts on the operational plane an independent political approach, in all sovereignty, in order not to remain at the level of making demands without a future.

Taking back while rethinking the History of Africa, not that of victors and those that conquered Africa: E.g. the role of Africans and Blacks in the formation of the Free World does not appear in any metropolitan History book, far from it; the same goes for the Great Empires, Inventions, the role of Africa as the Cradle of Humanity, Ancient Egypt and Nubia, etc.:

Every time, says Professor Iba Der Thiam, that Africa and Africans moved, they changed the world order not to say moved lines. On the Continent or in the countries where African Diasporas live. One founding act, Two essential milestones (the IFRI conference and Wade's October 2008 call on Intellectuals from Africa to set up an African Forum) followed by the Arguments of Prof Iba Der Thiam on «The historical basis of President Wade's call to African Intellectuals »), and a theoretical and conceptual framing specifies the conditions for the Winning return of Africa to the international and universal arena: the passage from the image of Africa as an Object, which we no longer want to be to that of Africa as a Subject comes at a price, which Mamoussé Diagne examines under the concept of African Cogito, from which he draws implications used in situ by actors of the XXIth century.

The Historic Act: The IFRI Conference: October 2008 and Wade's call to Intellectuals from Africa and the African Disporas An awareness, an alert and a solemn call to Africa's elites. The conceptualisation by Professor Iba Der Thiam: «The historical basis of President Wade's call toIntellectuals from Africa and the African Diasporas».

Premisses: In Wade, A destiny for Africa

It is not a composition on the Role and Place of Africa in Global Governance, but a plea on specific conditions, in a singular historical context, for the reversal of global trends, which, if sustained, would result in the sidelining of the Continent, in the humiliation of its Diasporas, and probably – why doubt it – in the re-colonisation of the Continent. What practical steps are to be taken to ensure the Winning return of Africa to the international arena in view of the United States of Africa?

The idea is not to repeat the Symposium on the United States of Africa, followed by "the Role and Place of Africa in Global Governance (27 to 30 July 2009, Méridien Président Hotel, Dakar, Senegal), but to embark on the operational aspect of the issue hic et nunc.

In a nutshell, History has a date with itself, but via the detour of our peoples and our civilisations. Consequently, the right to write the curves and trace the lines requires neither the permission nor authorisation. The African Cogito that takes back its place in a world from which it was– or had excluded itself? – is a sovereign act, i.e., essential and founding, for which Africa owes an account only to itself, feeling by itself its own freedom that can only be restricted by the Responsibility and Awareness about the Responsibility to itself and to the Other which we fully accept of course (Cf. Final resolution of the Forum on the Role and Place of Africa in Global Governance – adopted on 30 July 2009 at the Méridien Président Hotel, and published in full in the Symposium's Daily).

Such could be the message that the structuring conference has as mission to send out to the rest of the world.
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5th Structuring conference:
WERE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS BLACK OR NOT?

1. ARGUMENTS

Were the authors of ancient civilisations (Egypto-Koushite in particular) of the Nile Valley Blacks? The answer to this question is affirmative. The West knew it since ancient Greek authors (that was according to Frank SNOWDEN, Before Colour Prejudice1997) said it several times), but a deliberate choice was made to distort facts and consequently the History of Africa and Blacks by linking Ancient Egyptians and Nubio-Sudanese (the Nekhesiyou from hieroglyphical sources; Ethiopians from Greek sources) to the European and/or Semitic world.

This choice is only the expression of ideologies arising from the unequal nature of international relations since the start of modern times (XVIth century after Jesus Christ). This is one of the assets, within the overall framework of politico-cultural demands, of the accession of ancient colonies to international sovereignty and the irruption of Black intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora, in the areas of the elaboration of philosophical and scientific discourse.

Whereas distorting discourse had highlighted the current and temporary truth on the evolution of Black societies (deculturation, transportation and marginalisation), the deconstruction of the said discourse has given priority, following a reversal of prospects and paradigms, to the History of the truth (studies and analyses of processes and dynamics of processes). It turned out that in the capitalisation of experiences and the progress of humanity, Africa, in addition to being the cradle of humanity, is asserting itself as having been:

1- the land that, through the genius of Blacks, saw the birth of the most precocious and the longest cultural successes in historical eras.

In the lower Nile valley, the kingdom of Ancient Egypt, place of the development of Pharaonic civilisation, lasted more than three thousand years (3200 to 30 BC). In the Middle Valley, the Koushite State lasted over three thousand years (2500 BC to the fourth century AD;

2- the land where the Negro African genius was invented, according to the testimonies of Ounamon, Homer and Plato, arts, science and the first forms of elective monarchy;

3- the land where Negro-African societies initiated a process that made it possible for women to accede to supreme power as monarchs. In a nutshell, whatever the current Historical truth (Fernandez Armesto FELIPE, Truth. A History, 1997), Negro-African societies were, according to the words of the Greeks, systematized by Cheikh Anta DIOP, « Mutter und Modell der europaïschen Zivilisation (HARDING L. and RIENWALD B., 1990).

Let it be understood that although Blacks do not intend to promote a revanchist conception of history, they nevertheless want to have a fight with any revisionist conception, because dependent on this is their future, the place they define as theirs in the future of humanity, in what they consider as the foundations of the development of the human being, of any human being, of all human beings.

2. OBJECTIVES

This conference wants to call on Blacks of Africa and the Diaspora to own these truths that have become evident, these simple ideas and make them facts of universal awareness. In connection with this concern, they must:

— arm themselves with the sciences;

— go into all the fields where philosophical and scientific discourse is elaborated;

— disseminate the progress being built up in all areas of knowledge;

— continuously refine arguments;

— open new prospects;

— elaborate new paradigms and issues.

3. THEME

This conference will revolve around a certain number of points, including: — the evolution of Africa's historiography in antiquity;

— the evolution of the arguments forming the basis of the Negro-Africanity of Ancient Egyptians and Nubio-Sudanese;

— new trends and issues in the history of Africa and the Ancient World;

— the exploitation of current findings in the struggle that Blacks are leading (and the groups and categories quite recently dominated or still dominated) to occupy the place that they want, and not the one given to them, in the future of humanity.

Such could be the message that the structuring conference has as mission to send out to the rest of the world.

Recent Books That May Be of Interest to Black Scholars

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (JBHE) Weekly Bulletin regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. Here are the latest selections.

• Afro-Mexico: Dancing Between Myth and Reality by Anita Gonzalez (University of Texas Press)

• Before Brown: Heman Marion Sweatt, Thurgood Marshall, and the Long Road to Justice by Gary M. Lavergne (University of Texas Press)

• Benching Jim Crow: The Rise and Fall of the Color Line in Southern College Sports, 1890-1980 by Charles H. Martin (University of Illinois Press)

• Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf by Natasha Trethewey (University of Georgia Press)

• Black Families in Britain as the Site of Struggle edited by Bertha Ochieng and Carl Hylton (Manchester University Press)

• Black Megachurch Culture: Models for Education and Empowerment by Sandra L. Barnes (Peter Lang Publishing)

• Crossing the Creek: The Literary Friendship of Zora Neale Hurston and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings by Anna Lillios (University Press of Florida)

• Lincoln and Darwin: Shared Visions of Race, Science, and Religion by James Lander (Southern Illinois University Press)

• Neither Jew Nor Gentile: Exploring Issues of Racial Diversity on Protestant College Campuses by George Yancey (Oxford University Press)

• Preaching With Sacred Fire: An Anthology of African American Sermons, 1750 to the Present edited by Martha Simmons and Frank A. Thomas (W.W. Norton)

• Reds, Whites, and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music, and Race in the United States by William G. Roy (Princeton University Press)

• Social Work With African American Males: Health, Mental Health, and Social Policy edited by Waldo E. Johnson Jr. (Oxford University Press)

• Sweet Solitude: New and Selected Poems by Leonard A. Slade Jr. (State University of New York Press)

• Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America by Daniel R. Biddle and Murray Dubin (Temple University Press)

• The Quest for Citizenship: African American and Native American Education in Kansas, 1880-1935 by Kim Cary Warren (University of North Carolina Press)

• Thiefing Sugar: Eroticism Between Women in Caribbean Literature by Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley (Duke University Press)

• Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora by Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Basic Books)

• Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom edited by James Brewer Stewart (University of Massachusetts Press)

• What's Going On? Political Incorporation and the Transformation of Black Public Opinion by Katherine Tate (Georgetown University Press)

From New Orleans to New York to Nairobi: Housing is a Human Right!

This is the Black Agenda Morning Shot for Monday, August 30, 2010 being brought to you by Kali Akuno from New Orleans, Louisiana. As Black August 2010 draws to a close, Black people in New Orleans, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and throughout the country commemorated the Ma’afa or great calamity of Hurricane Katrina that struck the Mississippi Gulf Coast on August 29th, 2005.

The day was one of remembrance for those who needlessly lost their lives due to government incompetence and strategic neglect and those who were and remain displaced. It was also a day of continued resistance to the ethnic and class cleansing taking place in New Orleans and other Black and oppressed communities throughout the Gulf Coast.

Perhaps the most strategic act of resistance occurred in the St. Bernard Community of New Orleans where Survivors Village protested President Barack Obama’s visit of the Columbia Parc development, which rests on the site of the demolished St. Bernard Development.

In a statement issued after the demonstration, Survivors Village stated: “as the rest of the city focused on the disaster of August 29, 2005 as an event that happened and has passed, residents of public housing and supporters stood in an all day rain to protest the visit of President Obama to a neighborhood that has been purged of poor people, turned over to Warren Buffet and his investor friends, and is being promoted as the future of public housing around the country.”

The future that Obama came to support today is the total privatization of public housing throughout the country, which his administration is advancing with its promotion of the PETRA Bill. As billionaire Warren Buffet stated on his visit of the Columbia Parc development in March, “New Orleans is Key”, by which he meant the total destruction of public housing which he is promoting through his Purpose Built Communities organization which he co-founded with Atlanta Tom Cousins, who administered the destruction of all of Atlanta’s public housing earlier in the decade.

However, activists in New Orleans have no intention on submitting to the designs of PETRA, or complaining with Buffett’s dreams and going the way of Atlanta. They are mobilizing on the following demands:

•  that any former resident wanting to live in Columbia Parc should be admitted immediately and unconditionally
•  that the false charges against Sharon Jasper be dropped immediately and the threat to terminate her voucher be withdrawn
•  that the demand for more than 30,000 Section 8 vouchers be met immediately, and
•  that the PETRA bill threatening to privatize public housing throughout the country be permanently withdrawn.
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To learn more about this story or to support the initiatives of Survivors Village visit http://communitiesrising.wordpress.com.
Also visit the US Human Rights Network www.ushrnetwork.org.
Again, this is Kali Akuno bringing you some news you can use for the Black Agenda Report.

 Fewer Than Half of African-American
Males Graduate from High School
on Time, Schott Report Finds

 www.blackboysreport.org

Despite the hype about education progress in NYC's schools by Mayor Bloomberg and his YESMen, our young Black Male citizens are deeper into the School-to-Prison Pipeline. A mere 28 out of 100 young Brothers graduate. Let's not even talk about what those graduates know since they -on average (median or mean... take your pick... either way, it reveals Educational Genocide)- read and do math at 3rd and 4th grade levels. The solution here in NYC and across Black America is in Our Black Hands and Minds-- not some corporate-sponsored hype machines called Green Dot, Kipp or Harlem Children's Zone.

(click on chart to enlarge)

 

Is Princeton's DuBois Institute's Scholars Summer Program Trying to Create a 21st Century "Talented Tenth"?

Take a look at this short video news report and see whether or not they (The WEB DuBois Institute at Princenton University) are trying to create what DuBois in his later life saw as an elitist error. Please also read their statements below so as to generate your own understanding of what they are trying to do.

WEB DuBois realized that true leaders emerge from sites of struggle-- not manufactured out the of ebony and ivory towers of academe. Yes, many of our 20th Century leaders were Sisters and Brothers who came thru colleges. But their leadership skills and acceptance came via struggles in our communities and places of work.

The Revolutionary Leader commits class suicide and hence, dedicates her/his life to the Liberation of her/his people. This does not have to mean that one gives up their profession. It means that one pushes their profession as far as it can go for the sake of advancing the Black Liberation Struggle. I don't get that sense of development with this Princeton based Institute that is named after a great Black Revolutionary who dedicated almost nine decades of his life to the fundamental social and economic transformation of US Society so as to help make Black Liberation a reality.

Dubois, like Martin Luther King, is being pimped by those very same class enemies of the vast majority of our People. It is great to see the young Sisters and Brothers from different class backgrounds coming together for 5 intellectually intensive weeks. But to have the goal of being elite "leaders" who will legitimate and guide our people further into the HellHole called Capitalism is absolutely wrong!

And we need to challenge that at every opportunity we get!

I also understand that this is about the only thing that could come out of the Princeton of 2010. why? Because we are now in an age when reactionary ideas and policies dominate academia. The liberals and progressives in academia have been kicked to the curb or sequestered in academe's version of "the box" (i.e. intellectual solitary confinement). Class stratification among Black students and faculty is more pronounced now than since the 1940s and 50s when E Franklin Frazier was observing and writing about the budding Black petty bourgeoisie.

I am sure many of you who have not yet given up The Good Fight have ideas on how we can combat this creeping malaise of the "Niggeoisie." Feel free to post your suggestions here!
-------------------

=============================

W.E.B. DuBois Scholars Institute:  

Message From the Executive Director

Guided by an inspired sense of duty to help our people and make America better, the W.E.B. DuBois Scholars Institute was founded in 1988 with the aim of solving some of society’s intractable problems of poverty, urban decay, and disintegrating families, not by attacking the problems but by strengthening the solution. The solvers of these problems will most likely come from the high-achieving African- American and Latino-American youths that demonstrate an ability to lead and achieve both in and out of the classroom. The Institute provides training to equip them with the skills and confidence to function as effective “change agents” in their schools, their communities, and the community at large. For the duration of its existence; the W.E.B. DuBois Scholars Institute has benefitted from the support of many people, groups, and organizations. Many people have volunteered their service and talents as well as financial support on our behalf.


As we begin the first quarter of the 21st century, hopelessness, despair, and poverty remain problems of epidemic proportions in African-American and Latino-American urban communities. After decades of neglect in a society that is rapidly changing through advancement in technology, science and education, these problems have become increasingly more complex and difficult to understand and solve. They have contributed to a steady increase in the education and economic gaps that exist between impoverished urban and affluent suburban households. As such, the need for cadres of highly trained scholars, leaders, and entrepreneurs who are committed to mobilizing their talents and other resources to improve their comminutes and the nation is greater now than ever before.

Hence, at this phase of the W.E.B. DuBois Scholars Institute’s existence, it is appropriate for us to reflect on its effectiveness. What is its real value? To what extent are former participants engaged in personal growth and community service activities consistent with the aims of the Institute?

Each year from 1988 to the present, we have maintained statistical data in such areas as student participants’ academic-achievement records and leadership activities. It is clear from the data, as well as from reports from students, parents, educators, and community leaders that the Institute is on target in preparing the quality of minds and character that will be needed in the new century. We find that young scholars, after attending the Institute, often move on with higher expectations for themselves; have a more informed world view; and have a commitment to engage their talents in the study of complex problems and in improving the lives of others.

Though in some ways its simplicity flies in the face of wisdom: Our aim is to help solve some of society’s intractable problems of poverty, urban decay and disintegrating families, not just by attacking the problems, but by strengthening the solution. Activist scholars, who possess a commitment to eliminating poverty and racism are an integral part of that solution. As they mature, these potential leaders are expected to work collectively to provide hope, direction and vision for African-Americans and Latino-Americans in the 21st century.

Indeed, that is the essence of the Institute’s philosophy: Giving Back.

Cordially,
Sherle L. Boone
Founder and Executive Director 

--------------------

About The Institute

Since its inception in 1988, a primary aim of the W.E.B. DuBois Scholars Institute has been to develop a cadre of young leaders / scholars with a sense of community purpose, who would be committed to giving back for the betterment of their communities and nation. As they evolve into maturity, these potential leaders are expected to provide hope, direction, and vision for African-Americans and Latino-Americans in the 21st century. The Institute provides training designed to develop such cadres of brilliant minds from these groups who will possess a commitment to eliminating poverty and racism, and will inspire the masses to overcome conditions that impede their prosperity and pursuit of happiness.
====================

...And a Lil Sumthin Sumthin via Poltical HipHop... What if the Tea Party Was BLACK?

Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) Score By Race

 Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) 

Score By Race + Gender- 2009

(Click image to enlarge)

==============

Let's Look at the Racial Disparity a little closer...

...And the Gap is Widening!

Video Interview With Chicago Teachers Union Prez Karen Lewis

Charter School Hype & Privatization--

Karen Lewis Breaks It Down

PARTII of Interview:

-----------------

Karen Lewis is a president of Chicago Teachers Union and a chemistry teacher at Martin Luther King College Prep, Chicago, IL.

====================================

French Cops Brutalize Evicted African Women & Babies

French Riot Police Drag Away Women And Babies

VIDEO: 

UK, Monday August 02, 2010

Damien Pearse, Sky News Online

French riot police have been captured on video dragging immigrant women along the ground with babies on their backs during an eviction.

The video posted on the web shows officers armed with batons scuffling with African immigrant squatters from an encampment in the suburbs of Paris.
One of the women is visibly pregnant.

A mother clings desperately to her terrified baby during the eviction

The footage, shot by a member of a housing-rights organisation, shows police dragging a woman across the ground with her infant trailing behind in the dirt.
No-one was injured in the July 21 operation in La Courneuve, a suburb northeast of Paris, local officials said.
But human rights campaigners denounced the "brutal evacuation" of some 200 people.

A baby - strapped to its mother's back - is dragged along the dirt

MRAP, a leading human rights group, said people in the video had all been expelled from previous housing and provided with no long-term solutions.
The evacuation was handled "according to legal procedures and rules", the government of the Seine-Saint-Denis region around La Corneuve said.
French politicians and the media have attacked a host of new government proposals targeting immigrants suspected of crimes.

A pregnant woman is dragged along the ground by riot police

They have accused President Nicolas Sarkozy of pandering to the far-right in a bid to boost his popularity.
The interior minister defended the measures, calling them part of France's "war against insecurity".

Sista Shirley Sherrod, Hypocrisy and Political Expediency

By: Charlie Cobb Jr.

July 21, 2010

A friend takes a look at the real Shirley Sherrod.

(Also see Rachel Maddow video below)

Let me say--putting all my cards on the table so to speak--that the Sherrods are my friends. Charles Sherrod, the husband of the now controversial, fired USDA official Shirley Sherrod, was one of the founders and leaders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). We worked together.

So what are we looking at? Well, the whole video shows Shirley Sherrod using an anecdotal story to describe a prejudicial attitude she had 24 years ago about her reservations with helping white farmers given the plight of black farmers; she used it as an illustration of racial reconciliation. It was important, she said, to get beyond race when it came to helping farmers in need.

Here's the conclusion Sherrod comes to in her remarks on this matter: ''Working with him made me see that it's really about those who have versus those who don't. And they could be black, they could be white, they could be Hispanic--it made me realize that I needed to help poor people.''

In truth, nobody black--at least of a certain age--completely escapes the inclination to mentally mutter: How come the white people get most of the help? That Sherrod was willing to use her own attitude from a quarter century ago seems like a positive thing; especially with a U.S. government department that has been as notoriously racist and discriminatory as the USDA.

I know Charles Sherrod better than Shirley Sherrod. Back in the day when he was SNCC project director for southwest Georgia, he insisted on a racially integrated organizing team. Those of us stationed in Mississippi were reluctant, saying, that our assignment was dangerous enough without adding to the danger in this way. But Charlie insisted that we had to force the issue. This history adds to the strangeness of the kind of controversy swirling around Shirley Sherrod.

As a reporter, I know how easy it is to take an excerpt and project it in such a way as to distort the position of someone, especially if you have a political agenda.

After watching the entire video of Sherrod's remarks, NAACP president and chief operating officer Ben Jealous has now retracted his organization's initial renouncement of Shirley Sherrod, declaring that the NAACP had been  ''snookered.'' Jealous even suggested that the controversy was a deliberate deception by the conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, who ''broke'' this story.

At least the NAACP's Jealous took the time to look at the entire video. Apparently neither the White House nor the Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack bothered to do so once they felt the flames of right-wing criticism. But then again, blacks traditionally have been expendable at this level of politics.

Charles Cobb Jr. is senior analyst for All Africa. His latest book is On the Road to Freedom: A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail.

----------------------------

Shirley Sherrod and the Politics of Overreaction
By: Terence Samuel
July 20, 2010

I feel bad for Shirley Sherrod. Not just because she lost her job. Not just because it may be that she did not do what she is accused of doing. Not because her only crime may be the very postmodern transgression of being on video and out of context. (Hear her remarks in context here.) I feel bad for Shirley Sherrod because she is only the latest example of how difficult it is for us to get beyond our own racial race. I feel bad for her because I feel bad for all of us. We're stuck. Her firing and the overreaction from the White House, the USDA and the NAACP are just more depressing plot points in the sad story of race in America.

The irony here is so rich that it is almost farcical. After almost 150 years of the USDA being a bastion of racist and discriminatory practices that hurt hundred of thousands of black people, a black USDA employee is accused of not helping a white farmer because he was white, and gets fired. It's a small thing, but that's what racism is: small, stupid and always painful. It appears that Sherrod told this story on herself, but she is bigger and smarter than that and was actually making the opposite point.

Sherrod is not just a victim of current partisan circumstances; she is also a victim of our long, tangled and painful history of race. Her "confession" that she did not apply "the full force of what I could do" to help a white farmer save his farm is exactly the kind of thing that had been happening to black farmers who dealt with the USDA since President Abraham Lincoln established the "people department" in 1862. Only that is not what Sherrod did. For generations, white employees of the USDA, particularly in the South, used the full force of what they could do to make sure that black people were shut out of loan, grant and housing programs that should have been open to everyone.

The class-action suit that tried to redress this harm, famously known as Pigford, was filed in 1997 and settled in 1999. Pigford has achieved iconic civil rights status for the light it cast on the historical wrongs committed by the department. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman, who issued the ruling in the case, looked squarely at the history: "Today there are fewer than 18,000 African-American farms in the United States, and African-American farmers now own less then 3 million acres of land," he wrote. "The United States Department of Agriculture and the county commissioners to whom it has delegated so much power bear much of the responsibility for this dramatic decline."

The suit alleged that not only had the Agriculture Department discriminated against black farmers, but when they complained about that discrimination, the USDA did not investigate or respond to those charges of bias. One of the conditions of the settlement was that the federal government would pay $50,000 to each farmer who sought USDA help and did not get it.

But when the Obama administration took office, the farmer found a champion in former Iowa governor and new Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who announced that fixing the civil right enforcement problems and the department's poor reputation were among his top priorities.

Vilsack concluded that the eight years of the Bush administration that followed Pigford only made a bad problem worse. More than 14,000 civil rights claims were filed against the USDA during the Bush administration, but almost none got any attention.

Vilsack ordered a review. "We just need to know," he told me in the spring of 2009. "One of two things happened: Either we don't let people know when they have a legitimate claim or we were not reviewing them properly."

The sensitivity and focus attached to this case is such that in February of this year, Vilsack and Attorney General Eric Holder announced a settlement of $1.25 billion to pay more Pigford claims, and the administration budgeted $1.15 billion in a 2010 supplemental budget request for those settlement costs.

This was not the time for Sherrod to say that she did not do what she could to help a farmer because of his race. This is the kind of this that will get you fired at USDA. In a statement released by the USDA Tuesday, Vilsack said he had accepted Sherrod's resignation, and took the time to repeat that the department would not tolerate discrimination.

The irony, of course, is that Shirley Sherrod may be guilty of no such thing. Just to recap:

Sherrod's story about the white farmer took place more than two decades before she worked for USDA, and the entire point of the story was that race is not an issue. The story was about how she and the family became friends and how she eventually helped them save their farm.

In the wake of her resignation, the farmer's wife, Eloise Spooner, told CNN that Sherrod went all out to help them. "She's the one I can credit with helping us saving our farm," Spooner said, but 26 years later, conservative bloggers could rewrite that story to great effect.

Soon after Obama took office, Vilsack noted that some of the lingering problems had to do with USDA'S troubled history: "I think it is a reflection of the past and decisions that were made long ago, and we are still dealing with the consequences," he said.

Add Shirley Sherrod to the list of consequences. We're stuck in consequences.

Terence Samuel is The Root's editor-at-large. His first book, The Upper House: A Journey Behind the Closed Doors of the U.S. Senate, was released in May by Palgrave Macmillan. Follow him on Twitter.

---------

Source URL: http://www.theroot.com/views/shirley-sherrod-and-politics-overreaction

Links:
[1] http://www.theroot.com/users/tsamuel
[2] http://www.theroot.com/buzz/usda-official-resigns-over-racist-remarks
[3] http://www.theroot.com/buzz/plot-thickens-naacp-retracts-condemnation-shirley-sherrods-remarks
[4] http://www.theroot.com/views/usda-still-last-plantation
[5] http://www.newser.com/story/95984/usda-employee-resigns-over-racist-video.html
[6] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0230623611?tag=root04c-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0230623611&adid=1V6B00NB2KDAZKAH1ZE4&
[7] http://www.twitter.com/tsamuel100
[8] http://www.facebook.com/theroot
[9] http://www.twitter.com/theroot247

-----------------------------

Rachel Maddow Cuts to The Chase on Racist Smear of Sista Sherrod

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

-----------------------------------------

Shirley Sherrod To Sue Andrew Breitbart

JESSE WASHINGTON | 07/29/10

 

SAN DIEGO — Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she will sue a conservative blogger who posted a video edited in a way that made her appear racist.
Sherrod was forced to resign last week as director of rural development in Georgia after Andrew Breitbart posted the edited video online. In the full video, Sherrod, who is black, spoke to a local NAACP group about racial reconciliation and overcoming her initial reluctance to help a white farmer.

Speaking Thursday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Sherrod said she would definitely sue over the video that took her remarks out of context. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has since offered Sherrod a new job in the department. She has not decided whether to accept.

Sherrod said she had not received an apology from Breitbart and no longer wanted one. "He had to know that he was targeting me," she said.

Breitbart did not immediately respond to a call or e-mails seeking comment. He has said he posted the portion of the speech where she expresses reservations about helping the white farmer to prove that racism exists in the NAACP, which had just demanded that the tea party movement renounce any bigoted elements.

Some members of the NAACP audience responded approvingly when Sherrod described her reluctance to help the farmer.

The farmer came forward after Sherrod resigned, saying she ended up helping save his farm.

Vilsack and President Barack Obama later called Sherrod to apologize for her hasty ouster.

Obama said Thursday that Sherrod "deserves better than what happened last week."

Addressing the National Urban League, he said the full story Sherrod was trying to tell "is exactly the kind of story we need to hear in America."

Obama has acknowledged that people in his administration overreacted without having full information, and says part of the blame lies with a media culture that seeks conflict but not all the facts.

At the journalists convention, Sherrod was asked what could be done to ensure accurate coverage as conservatives like Breitbart attack the NAACP and other liberal groups.

Sherrod, 62, responded that members of her generation who were in the civil rights movement "tried too much to shield that hurt and pain from younger people. We have to do a better job of helping those individuals who get these positions, in the media, in educational institutions, in the presidency, we have to make sure they understand the history so they can do a better job."

She said Obama is one of those who need a history lesson.

"That's why I invited him to southwest Georgia. I need to take him around and show him some of that history," Sherrod said.

Sherrod said the description of the new job she has been offered in the office of advocacy and outreach was a "draft," and she questioned whether any money had been budgeted for its programs.

"I have many, many questions before I can make a decision," she said.

Despite her experience, Sherrod said she believes the country can heal its racial divisions – if people are willing to confront the issue.

"Young African-Americans, young whites, too, we've done such a job of trying to be mainstream that we push things under the rug that we need to talk about. And then we get to situations like this," she said.

"I truly believe that we can come together in this country. But you don't (come together) by not talking to each other. You don't get there by pushing things under the rug."
Sherrod said her faulty firing should not be blamed on all media.

Before the full video was released, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said Sherrod should be fired, and others called her speech racist. O'Reilly later apologized.

"They had a chance to get the facts out, and they weren't interested," Sherrod said.

She said she declined to give Fox an interview because she believed they were not interested in pursuing the truth. "They would have twisted it," she said.

A Fox News spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
___

Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press. He is reachable at jwashington(at)ap.org.