Whitening: What Is It? Past Present Future?

[Baba Ahmed]

In the languages we speak, be it an Afrikan, Gullah, Ebonics, "Black" English, slang, Proper English, Spanish, French or an NDN language - whichever let it aid us to understand this greeting: ASOMDWEE! That these words be a cooling in your inner ears. I invoke an Almighty Everlasting Afrikan God; NYAME; Mother Earth who was created on Thursday I invoke your name: YAWADA; I invoke the ABAKOSEM SUNSUM, our most honorable ancestors and give thanks for granting us health, children, wealth, love and ask that this virtual reality be made a sacred space; that we know peace and reconciliation; that we communicate with the best spirits; that this messages be relayed to enhance our abilities to receive clarity about race and ethnicity in our struggles; THAT ANYONE WHO HAS EVIL THOUGHTS AGAINST US IN THIS GATHERING, THE ONE WHO WISHES THAT MISFORTUNES AND CONFUSIONS HAPPEN TO US, WE PRAY THAT HE, SHE OR THEY IS/ARE COMPLETELY OVERPOWERED.
AHSAY! ASHAY!! ASHAY-OOO!!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(With that done, I'm do n a personal tribute to Bud Powell piano'n a tune: Hot House. For u yunguns research that name; get a taste of the only original music created by America; its called Jazz by many, I call it Afrikan Classical Music. It'll put some Afrikan rhythm in this online hot house.)
__________________________________________________ _______________________________

I offer articles, opinions, thoughts and excerpts to three different forums at 3 different websites. All committed to maintaining a site basically for Afrikan peoples.There are common threads of interests I find in all: "Race" confusion, forms of marriages, meaning and purpose of education: who is it for and it's purpose; denials that we are at WAR, etc. Here I'm moved to address so-called Race. Through the works of those more qualified than me; whose ideas I agree with generally. I hope it'll be clear and be useful. For I believe we are in a continuing grip of a worldwide move to exterminate people of COLOR. That Eu-rope-ans and Amerikkkans have long seen as their major problem on this planet. Identity: who are u; who do u give allegiance to; does it matter who u marry; does identity matter? I think so; in fact I think it is a primary, elemental need to know and to commit one's self to. It cuts through all ideologies, religions to our essence. Its a point of focus. Consider:

"Whitening the African(1)
After being kidnapped, enslaved and carried to Brazil, the Americas, the Caribbean and other places, our ancestors still knew who they were. There were Africans. Even as the brutal slave system tried to erase their memory of Africa, most Africans never forgot where they came from. For example, in the United States, Africans often put the label 'African' in the names of their independent organizations. Africans formed the

• Free African Society in 1787

• the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1794 (later named the African Methodist Episcopal Zion

• and the Abyssinian Church - another name associated with Ethiopia, or Africa.

• The first Baptist church founded by Africans, was originally called the African Baptist or 'Bluestone' Church in 1758

• In addition, there were African free schools in New York and Africans formed a masonic lodge, the Prince Hall Lodge which was first called the African Lodge.

"While diverse and unique, Africans carried a solid ethnic family identity based upon a shared continental cultural heritage. Upon our arrival in America, however, the whitening process started. The longer Africans have remeain disconnected from Africa, the more vulnerable we have been to efforts to dilute our culture. This has left many of us divided and confused. One example of the misorientation is seen in our self references. We began to refer to ourselves as 'negroes,' 'colored,' 'blacks,' 'minorities,' 'disadvantaged,' and 'at-risk' (Moore, 1992). Were these names derived from Africans or were they one of many outside efforts to deny and suppress our cultural heritage and unity? In any case, the use of such names to refer to a group of people effectively serves to remove them from time and space. It takes them out of the human historical process. They become a people without a tradition, without a homeland, and without an interest. As others plan an agenda for Africans, we become spectators and 'cultural welfare' recipients. Moreover, what we receive as 'cultural welfare,' from 'mainstream culture' has been described as 'the culture of narciscisssm' (Lasch, 1978).

"Most changes in our name, culture, and social interaction were a part of a program designed to support white supremacy. Part of this program was a policy of 'whitening.' 'Whitening' is the process of absorbing Africans into the culture of their oppressors. This makes them less threatening. Those interested in whitening do not mind having unconscious African people around because they like to utilize African culture. In fact, 'whiteners' often push a 'color blind' 'melting pot' theory of inclusion that claims to stress the value of all cultures, when what they really want is to force everyone to affirm European culture. The primary goal is to ensure that Africans serve a white supremacist system.

"The record on 'whitening' speaks for itself. The white elite in the United States and Brazil faced the same problem at the end of the 19th century. Both had a large African poplution after slavery ended and worried about what to do with them. American and Brazilian elites created different approaches to address their 'problem.' The United States chose to get rid of the 'negro problem' by instituting segregation. Brazil and other 'Latin' countries chose to absorb or assimilate Africans into the Eropean population. Neither the United States nor the other countries could conceive of real cultural or ethnic democracy. Neither recognized or respected African people or African culture as legitimate.

"In 1914, Theodore Roosevelt (the U.S. President) wrote an article in a popular magazine describing what he had seen and heard in Brazil. He was told the following by one observer:
'Of course the presence of the Negro is the real program, and a very serious problem, both in your country, the United States, and in mine, Brazil. Slavery was an intolerable method of solving the problem, and had to be abolished. But the problem itself remained, in the presence of the Negro... Now comes the necessity to devise some method of dealing with it. You of the United Staes are keeping the blacks as an entirely separte element and you are not treating them in way that fosters their self-respect. They will remain a menacing element in your civilization, permanent, and perhaps even after a while a growing element. With us the question tends to disappear, because the blacks themselves tend to disappear and become absorbed... (Skidmore, 1993,pp. 75-76)

"By absorption, the observer refers to the white Brazilian elite's whitening policy of cultural and genetic absorption, or put another way, cultural and physical genocide. His observation on physical absorption is interesting:

'In Brazil...the idea looked forward to is the disappearance of the Negro question through the disappearance of the Negro himself-- that is through his gradual absorption into the white race. This does not mean that Brazilians are or will become the 'mongrel' people that they have been asserted to be by certain writers, not only French and English, but American. The Brazilians are a white people, belonging to the Mediterranean race, and differing from the northern stocks only ony as such great and civilized old races as the Spaniard and Italians, with their splendid historic past, differ from those northern stocks. The evident Indian admixture had added a good, and not a bad, element. The very large European immigration of itself tends, decade by decade, to make the Negro build a smaller element of the blood of the whole community. The Brazilian of the future, will be in blood more European than in the past, and he will differ in culture only as the Americans of the North differ (Skidmore, 1993, 68-69).

"These were unilaterally decreed solutions. NO African was consulted. As Thomas Skidmore suggests, the stragey is rooted in an ideology of white supremacy. In Brazil and many other Latin American countries, white supremacy is masked by propaganda about a 'raceless' society (Andrews, 1980)." {baba note: 2b cont'd}

1. SBA: The Reawakening of The African MIND, Asa G. Hilliard, III foreword by Wade W. Nobles; pp32-34.
2. Moore, R.B. (1992)name negro: It's origin and evil use. Baltimore: Black Classics Press. (First published 1960).
3. Skidmore, T.E. (1993). Black into white: Race and nationality in brazilian thought. New York: Oxford University Press.
4. Andrews, G. R. (1980). [u]The afro-argentines of buenos aires, 1800-1900.[u] Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

[Baba Ahmed]

Pre "Black History" bump!

[Moorbey]

Hon.Elder Thanks for posting this information on whitening.It is sad but oh so true that yt had the believe then as they do now that if they can train us to act and behave as they do they will have solved their Afrikan problem.But let the truth be told that there are to many of us past,present and future who will not be brain-washed because we know that we have a history far greater than anything yt can ever have.