#111
Full Episode: Mexico & Peru: The Black Grandma in the Closet | Black in Latin America | PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/black-in-latin-america/featured/full-episode-mexico-peru/227
This episode explores the almost unknown history of two significant black populations.
Blacks on Earth
Actually, I did see this, or most of it, as I finally caught an episode of this series. It is informative, and I did learn something new. But H.L. Gates, God bless him, always has me on guard watching his productions, ever since that series that he did in the Motherland that so many of us felt to be such an embarrassment and misrepresentation of us.
As I pointed out in my response to his article on "Time to End the Blame Game," which was a critical look a the Reparations movement and its apparent narrow-minded focus on what White folks owe, while totally neglecting the role that Africans played (a point be did not fail to make in his series on Africa), Dr. Gates is as much showman as scholar, and one who, like most people in show business, craves and needs attention. Nothing serves this purpose better than controversy. The Cambridge cop incident served this purpose, and then the provocative article on Reparations.
The thing is, as several observers have observed, that he has been making a living by making "race" important, which is something that serves his sponsors more than it serves our community. The cynical view and stereotypical view, in other words, is that he speaks more to and for "mainstream" America than African America, which is a good way to make a living, and there is nothing wrong with success, but it can be seen as more of the problem than part of the solution. What African America has craved, needed, longed for, and demanded almost since we have been here is to tell our own story with our own voice, rather than having it told by others, or, worse yet, having it told ostensibly by one of us but in terms and from a perspective that is not really ours. But that's just one point of view.
With all of that in the background, I learned of this latest series "Black in Latin America " with a mixture of interest and trepidation. I give him great credit for exploring a fascinating topic that, arguable, too many of us know too little about. The fascination is genuine, not just because this is an opportunity to learn about people and cultures that we might not have known about, but because these cultures have so much to say in their own right -- in art, music, foodways, etc.-- and have had influences far beyond what is commonly recognized. So Dr. Gates and this series are definitely to be commended for bringing so much to light that would otherwise remain unknown and undocumented. (The value of this contribution is made clear by the many positive comments I see posted.)
Is there a downside, or nits to be picked in spite of this? At the risk of sounding petty, I would say there are. Perhaps it is just a show-biz rhetorical device, perhaps Dr. Gates wants to "identify" with his audience and not appear too much more intelligent than they (we), but there is something either terribly disingenuous, or terribly wrong, in a renowned Harvard professor, who happens to be African American, making the statement that he never knew there were Black folks in Peru. Would this shock and surprise extend to Ecuador , Colombia , Uruguay , and Argentina as well? It doesn't make "us" look good, if our most famous scholars are so...unscholarly. That, however, is but a small point, maybe even a petty one.
The larger point with which I would have to take issue, in this day and age, is having one of "our" spokespersons, as it were, bandying about the term "slaves," as if this wasn't something that we started correcting at least 30 or 40 years ago. Our Ancestors were enslaved Africans, forced laborers, African captives, but, first and foremost, human beings, which a "slave," by definition, is not. That term embodies the wishful thinking of a pathological minority dedicated to the proposition that nature can be contravened, and that, by their whim and prerogative, people can be made into non-persons. The fundamental, inherent un-naturalness of this artificial social order is proven by the fact that it could only be enforced by a regime of unremitting physical and psychic violence. It doesn't even matter that for most of this country's history, this was made legal (while escaping from it was a crime); it is still what it is, and if there is anyone we might expect to help set that record straight, it would be a renowned African American professor with an arguably global audience.
But, as with so much in life, we give thanks for the blessings we have, rather than lament what we lack. "You can't have all good," as a wise African elder once reminded me. We, whom "history has forced, obligates, challenged, and blessed to be truth knowers, truth keepers, and truth tellers," know that behind the scenes, to get such a series on television at all, with all the resources and skills that have to be marshaled into this effort, that there are compromises and sacrifices that get made. We understand. We are in a country that is still deeply and hysterically fearful of the true African voice, telling the whole African story. It may be true that the truth will make is free, but there are those who fear true freedom, and much prefer the pathological state of affairs to stay unquestioned, especially if it affords them unearned wealth and privileges that give them a certain degree of control over what makes it to the public airwaves for public consumption. That game is practically as old as America itself (and older), but we know, we understand, we are quite literate at reading between the lines while others insist that we read only the lines. We give thanks for every bit of knowledge that comes our way, and helps others appreciate the knowledge that we have been bringing their way all along.
But we still look forward to that day when we no longer have to say, "We Wear the Mask."
Thanks for helping to spread the word on this.
DGT
Reminiscing about injustice in the U.S.
China Denounces America’s Treatment of African Americans, Minorities
The People’s Republic of China demands that America stop using their cry of human rights violations against other sovereign nations in order to declare war on them to steal their resources when America flagrantly violates the human rights of Afro-descendants and other minorities within its own country.
In 1970, Joan Cartwright was arrested four times for Angela Davis in Florida. Here, Davis autographs the newspaper article about these incidents published in the Fort Lauderdale News.
What do you see in this photo?
