The late Harold Cruse wrote and spoke of the attempts at some to truly unite the Black Disapora in the Americas:

His book on the subject was/is called THE CRISIS OF THE (BLACK) NEGRO INTELLECTUAL...

Also do keep in mind there are more people of African descent in Brazil than they are in the United States...

I do feel and think we've shouldered the burden all by ourselves and for far too long:

After all?

Many hands make the burden(s) much lighter...

It has become far too obvious other ethnic groups are slow (if at all) to openly acknowledge our past support of their efforts at true equality and social justice around the globe:

Therefore let us do what is natural and normal for any group looking out for our own best interests...

Then maybe some of them will just follow our leads etc.

:SuN020:

The late Harold Cruse wrote and spoke of the attempts at some to truly unite the Black Disapora in the Americas:

His book on the subject was/is called THE CRISIS OF THE (BLACK) NEGRO INTELLECTUAL...

Also do keep in mind there are more people of African descent in Brazil than they are in the United States...

I do feel and think we've shouldered the burden all by ourselves and for far too long:

After all?

Many hands make the burden(s) much lighter...

It has become far too obvious other ethnic groups are slow (if at all) to openly acknowledge our past support of their efforts at true equality and social justice around the globe:

Therefore let us do what is natural and normal for any group looking out for our own best interests...

Then maybe some of them will just follow our leads etc.

:SuN020:

I was so shocked to find out about the statistics on the Black people in Brazil. I learned this when I read books at an Afrocentric school. It brought a lot of questions to my mind though such as, why has our educational system kept this fact a secret from us? We have experienced Europe of which correlated to the Statue of Liberty . . . beckoning them to come; We experienced so much information about the people of Mexico 'crossing the border'; So, why haven't we heard anything about the millions of Black people in Brazil, Middle America and probably many other places? Why has American been so secretive? -- Not only America but also, the Western Powers in their leagues!!! Why have they been so secretive?

I was so shocked to find out about the statistics on the Black people in Brazil. I learned this when I read books at an Afrocentric school. It brought a lot of questions to my mind though such as, why has our educational system kept this fact a secret from us? We have experienced Europe of which correlated to the Statue of Liberty . . . beckoning them to come; We experienced so much information about the people of Mexico 'crossing the border'; So, why haven't we heard anything about the millions of Black people in Brazil, Middle America and probably many other places? Why has American been so secretive? -- Not only America but also, the Western Powers in their leagues!!! Why have they been so secretive?

What did they do to our brothers and sisters there,
to keep them so quiet and unable to network and communicate with us
since there are more folks of African descent in Brazil then in the United States?

What did they do to our brothers and sisters there,
to keep them so quiet and unable to network and communicate with us
since there are more folks of African descent in Brazil then in the United States?

Good morning, poster...

(And I just use the word--'poster'--because I also don't always know what the person's gender is as well as I'd just as soon not unintentionally offen anybody by misspelling your on line monickers)...

But not to digress...

The idea is that socially and politically prgressive people of african descent can and will both feel and think they do represent the rest of their various peoples...

The reality is that there's only a handful of us who did or do feel and think the need or want to network etc. with each other...

Also do keep in mind (as one of my black indian acquaintances reminded me):

Leaders reach out to other leaders...

I. e., it would help you to answer your own questions, as in--check out whenever and wherever afrolatino activists come together with your own,
and/or elected representatives of various afrolatino communities from Central/South America/etc. do likewise...

FYI...

Later...

Peace...

Good morning, poster...

(And I just use the word--'poster'--because I also don't always know what the person's gender is as well as I'd just as soon not unintentionally offen anybody by misspelling your on line monickers)...

But not to digress...

The idea is that socially and politically prgressive people of african descent can and will both feel and think they do represent the rest of their various peoples...

The reality is that there's only a handful of us who did or do feel and think the need or want to network etc. with each other...

Also do keep in mind (as one of my black indian acquaintances reminded me):

Leaders reach out to other leaders...

I. e., it would help you to answer your own questions, as in--check out whenever and wherever afrolatino activists come together with your own,
and/or elected representatives of various afrolatino communities from Central/South America/etc. do likewise...

FYI...

Later...

Peace...
any example of what you mention would be apreciated coming from Brazil within the past 20 years,
to be honest I have only heard about the folks there in the past 15 years from folks like Dr. Leonard Jeffries and Tony Brown but realy , every nation has websites and what not from the grassroots of all folks of African descent, and to be honest we have not heard from these folks, who are a larger population then us here,
except for Pelle and Milton Nasciemento.

Good afternoon, Corvo...

And I wish I could directly answer your questions...

But the sources are out there...

Even wilipedia would be a good start:

Just type in the prefix 'afro' then whatever nation those descendants wound up...

By the way:

The last I heard and read:

The Afrobrazilians were as well as are on the more...

And we're the one's playing catch up nowadays!

Though given all we're being challenged by these days?

We need refresher courses--ala Grassroots Activism 101--anyhow...

So good luck to them!

And I can easily guess they feel as well as think likewise...

Take care...

Later...

Peace....

What did they do to our brothers and sisters there,
to keep them so quiet and unable to network and communicate with us
since there are more folks of African descent in Brazil then in the United States?


I do believe that this is 'the million dollar question!!!' Based upon my experiences here in North America, I am very opinionated regarding this question as well. I believe this American system has conditioned us to be content and arrogant and therefore, why look outside 'of the box'!? Aren't we the best!?

I believe we have been taught to put on blinders to the obvious in our younger years in school just by the mere 'blackout in regards to the presence of Black farther down south!' --And so, only a few of us have decided to look 'outside of the box' and we are asking questions, . . . posing questions . . . -- I do believe that 'THEY' are steps ahead of us on this!

This government knew a few of us would soon wake up!

But, they have been doing the same brainwashing to the Black people farther south as well. So now, if we try to connect, we should be prepared for the same issues that we face in our own system amongst our own people due to western manipulation and exploitation.

Several years ago, I read about 'Sandinisto' during the Raegen years! I know how USA exploits those people down there. I read about the 'Contras' of whom were financially supported to get rid of the Sandinistos and etc.. I read about how black leaders in Russian impacted the Blacks down south. And, I realize that here, we have not been taugh about this. I'm sure a few of them know about our Black struggles up here too, but what can we do!?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Afro-Brazilians


Notable Afro-Brazilians:
Ernesto Carneiro Ribeiro • Ronaldinho • Machado de Assis
Pelé • Daiane dos Santos • Lima Barreto
Cruz e Souza • Nilo Peçanha • Joaquim Benedito Barbosa Gomes
Benedita da Silva • Seu Jorge • Francisco Félix de Souza

Total population
"Black": c. 12.908 million
6.9% of Brazil's population
"Pardo": c. 79.782 million
42.6% of Brazil's population[1]

c. 92.69 million
49.5% of Brazil's population

Regions with significant populations
Brazil
Languages
Portuguese

Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic; Protestant, non-religious, Kardekist, Umbanda, Candomblé

Related ethnic groups
African, Angolan, Yoruba, Igbo, Ewe, Afro-Chilean, Afro-Argentine, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Ecuadorian, Afro-Latin American, Afro-Mexican, Afro-Peruvian, Afro-Trinidadian, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Jamaicans, Afro-Costa Rican, Afro-Uruguayan, African-American

Afro-Brazilian, African-Brazilian or Black Brazilian, is the term used to racially categorize Brazilian citizens who self-reported to be of black or brown (Pardo) skin colors to the official IBGE census. As of 2005, 91 million Brazilians were included in the black and brown category.[2]

Brazil has the largest population of black origin outside of Africa[3] with, in 2007 (the US has the 2nd largest at around 40 million "African Americans"), 7.4% classyfing themselves as preto (black skin color) and 42.3% as pardo (brown color). The latter classification is broad and encompasses Brazilians of mixed ancestry, including mulattos and caboclos[1] making the total 49.5%.

The largest concentration of Afro-Brazilians is in the state of Bahia where over 80% of the people are descendants of Africans.[4][5][6]

A large number of Brazilians have some African ancestry and Brazilian populations are remarkably heterogeneous. Due to intensive mixing with Europeans and Native Indians, Brazilians with African ancestors may or may not show any trace of black features[7].

Contents [hide]
1 Who is Afro-Brazilian?
2 History
3 The travel
4 Origins
5 Afro-Brazilian formation
6 Conception of Black and prejudice
7 Violence and resistance
8 Main Afro-Brazilian communities
9 Genetic studies
9.1 Famous African Brazilians
10 Media
11 Religion
12 Cuisine
13 Capoeira
14 Music
15 Literature
16 See also
17 References
18 Further reading
19 External links


Who is Afro-Brazilian?
The Brazilian racial classification is based on self-classification. In the census, respondents choose their race or color in five categories: branca (white), parda (brown), preta (black), amarela (yellow) or indígena (indigenous). The idea that human beings can be divided in races first appeared in the 18th century and it became widespread in the 19th century through scientific racism. These ideas were based on belief in the existence and significance of racial categories, typically with a hierarchy of superior and inferior races. The concept of races was supported by many scientists, intellectuals and governments around the world. In the 20th century, with the development of human biology and genetics study, it was concluded that human races do not exist because the genetic differences between humans is nonexistent, making it impossible a subspecies division.[8]

In Brazil, the racial divisions were never very clear, due to the high degree of miscegenation among Brazilians, making the concept of race weaker. Many Brazilians find it hard to define their own race. The 1976 Census found 136 different answers to the question about race. Some of the self-reported racial classifications were: honeyed white, tanned, cinnamon, chocolate, sarará, copper, sunburned, polished, kind black, fire pink, toasted, etc. These responses were interpreted by scholars and activists of the black movement as proof of Brazilian racism, where Blacks do not want to assume their identity, and hide themselves in euphemisms. From this idea, since the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the Black Brazilian population is treated as the sum of the self-declared Blacks and Browns. This conception is based on the idea that Black Brazilians lie to the census and say they are Browns. Also, based on social indicators, in which Blacks and Browns appear disadvantaged when compared to Whites.[8]

This binary division of Brazilians between Whites and Blacks (largely influenced by American one-drop rule) has received much criticism. Sociologist Demétrio Magnoli considers the sum of Blacks and Browns as Blacks an assault on the racial vision of the Brazilians. A survey about race replaced the word "Pardo" by "Moreno". Much of the Pardos choose the Moreno category, half of people who previously reported to be White then reported to be Moreno and also half of self-reported Blacks also choose the Moreno category. According to Magnoli, Brazilians choose the Portuguese word Moreno because it has different meanings in Brazil (it can mean Black, Brown or White person with dark hair). This way, many Brazilians do not see themselves as a member of a certain racial group, since the word Moreno is widely used by people of different skin colors. Then, the official figures count Afro-Brazilians as the union of self-reported Blacks and Browns. However, in Brazilian day life the conception of who is Afro-Brazilian is different from the officially adopted.[8]

History
Main article: History of Brazil
Brazil obtained 37% of all African slaves traded, and close to 4 million slaves were sent to this one country.[9] Starting around 1550, the Portuguese began to trade African slaves to work the sugar plantations once the native Tupi people deteriorated. During the colonial epoch, slavery was a mainstay of the Brazilian economy, especially in mining and sugar cane production.

The Clapham Sect, a group of Victorian Evangelical politicians, campaigned during most of the 19th century for England to use its influence and power to stop the traffic of slaves to Brazil. Besides moral qualms, Brazilian slavery hampered the development of markets for British products, which was a main concern of British government and civil society. This combination led to intensive pressure from the British government for Brazil to end this practice, which it did by steps over several decades. Slavery was legally ended May 13 by the Lei Áurea ("Golden Law") of 1888.

The travel
Slave trade was a huge business that involved hundreds of ships and thousands of people in Brazil and Africa. There were officers on the coast of Africa that sold the slaves to hundreds of small regional dealers in Brazil. In 1812, half of the thirty richest merchants of Rio de Janeiro were slave traders. The profits were huge: in 1810 a slave purchased in Luanda for 70,000 réis was sold in the District of Diamantina, Minas Gerais, for up to 240,000 réis. With taxes, the state collected a year the equivalent of 18 million reais with the slave trade. In Africa, people were kidnapped as prisoners of war or offered as payment of tribute to a tribal chief. The merchants, who were black Africans too, took the slaves to the coast where they would be purchased by agents of the Portuguese slave traders. Until the early 18th century such purchases were made with smuggled gold. In 1703, Portugal banned the use of gold for this purpose. Since then, they started to use products of the colony, such as textiles, tobacco, sugar and cachaça to buy the slaves.[10]

African disembarkments in Brazil, from 1500 to 1855[11]
Period 1500-1700 1701-1760 1761-1829 1830-1855
Numbers 510,000 958,000 1,720,000 618,000
In Africa, about 40% of blacks died in the route between the areas of capture and the African coast. Another 15% died in the ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and Brazil. From the Atlantic coast the journey could take from 33 to 43 days. From Moçambique it could take as many as 76 days. Once in Brazil from 10 to 12% of the slaves also died in the places where they were taken to be bought by their future masters. In consequence, only 45% of the Africans captured in Africa to become slaves in Brazil survived.[10] Darcy Ribeiro estimated that, in this process, some 12 million Africans were captured to be brought to Brazil, even though the majority of them died before becoming slaves in the country.[12]

Origins
The Africans brought to Brazil belonged to two major groups: the West African and the Bantu people.

The West African people (previously known as Sudanese, and without connection with Sudan) were sent in large scale to Bahia. They mostly belong to the Ga, Adangbe, Yoruba, Igbo, Fon, Ashanti, Ewe, Mandinka, and other West African groups native to Guinea, Ghana, Benin, Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria. The Bantus were brought from Angola, Congo region and Mozambique and sent in large scale to Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and the Northeastern Brazil.


The typical dress of women from Bahia has clear Muslim influences.The blacks brought to Brazil were from different ethnicities and from different African regions. Gilberto Freyre noted the major differences between these groups. Some Sudanese peoples, such as Hausa, Fula and others were Islamic, spoke Arabic and many of them could read and write in this language. Freyre noted that many slaves were better educated than their masters, because many Muslim slaves were literate in Arabic, while many Portuguese Brazilian masters could not even read or write in Portuguese. These slaves of greater Arab and Berber influence were largely sent to Bahia. Even today the typical dress of the women from Bahia has clear Muslim influences, as the use of the Arabic turban on the head. These Muslim slaves, known as Malê in Brazil, produced one of the greatest slave revolts in the Americas, when in 1835 they tried to take the control of Salvador, Bahia. The event was known as the Malê Revolt.[13]

Despite the large influx of Islamic slaves, most of the slaves in Brazil were brought from the Bantu regions of the Atlantic coast of Africa where today Congo and Angola are located, and also from Moçambique. In general, these people lived in tribes. The people from Congo had developed agriculture, raised livestock, domesticated animals such as goat, pig, chicken and dog and produced sculpture in wood. Some groups from Angola were nomadic and did not know agriculture.[13]




Estimated disembarkment of Africans in Brazil from 1781 to 1855[14]
Period Place of arrival
Total in Brazil South of
Bahia Bahia North of
Bahia
Total period 2.113.900 1.314.900 409.000 390.000
1781-1785 63.100 34.800 ... 28.300
1786-1790 97.800 44.800 20.300 32.700
1791-1795 125.000 47.600 34.300 43.100
1796-1800 108.700 45.100 36.200 27.400
1801-1805 117.900 50.100 36.300 31.500
1806-1810 123.500 58.300 39.100 26.100
1811-1815 139.400 78.700 36.400 24.300
1816-1820 188.300 95.700 34.300 58.300
1821-1825 181.200 120.100 23.700 37.400
1826-1830 250.200 176.100 47.900 26.200
1831-1835 93.700 57.800 16.700 19.200
1836-1840 240.600 202.800 15.800 22.000
1841-1845 120.900 90.800 21.100 9.000
1846-1850 257.500 208.900 45.000 3.600
1851-1855 6.100 3.300 1.900 900
Note: "South of Bahia" means "from Espírito Santo to Rio Grande do Sul" States; "North of Bahia" means "from Sergipe to Amapá States"





African slaves from Benguela and Congo
African slaves from Cabinda, Kilwa, Rebolo and Elmina
African slaves from Mozambique
African slaves from Benguela, Angola, Congo and Monjolo

Afro-Brazilian formation
Evolution of the Brazilian population
according skin color: 1872-1991


Population growth
Caucasians in white color
Mixed and indigenous in black
Negro in yellow
Asians are very few[15]

Percentual in overall population
Caucasians in white
Mixed and indigenous in yellow
Negro in black
Asians are very few[15]
The growth of the African-Brazilian population was mainly due to the acquisition of new slaves from Africa. In Brazil, the black population had a negative growth. This was due to the low life expectancy of the slaves, which was around 7 years.[16] It was also because of the imbalance between the number of men and women. The vast majority of slaves were men, black women being a minority. Slaves rarely had a family and the unions between the slaves was hampered due to incessant hours of work. Another very important factor was that black women were held by white and mixed-race men. The Portuguese colonization, largely composed of men with very few women resulted in a social context in which white men disputed indigenous or African women.[16] According to Gilberto Freyre in colonial Brazilian society, the few African women who arrived quickly became concubines, and in some cases, officially wives of the Portuguese settlers. In large plantations of sugar cane and in the mining areas, the white master often choose the most beautiful black slaves to work inside the house. These slaves were forced to have sex with their master, producing a very large Mulato population. The English diplomat and ethnologist Richard Francis Burton wrote that "Mulatism became a necessary evil" in the captaincies in the interior of Brazil. He noticed a "strange aversion to marriage" in the 19th century Minas Gerais, arguing that the colonists preferred to have quick relationships with black slaves rather than a marriage.[17]

According to Darcy Ribeiro the process of miscegenation between whites and blacks in Brazil, in contrast to an idealized racial democracy and a peaceful integration, was a process of sexual domination, in which the white man imposed an unequal relationship using violence because of his prime condition in society.[16] As an official wife or as a concubine or subjected to a condition of sexual slave, the black woman was the responsible for the growth of the African-Brazilian population.[18] The African-Brazilian population has grown mainly through sexual intercourse between the black female slave and the Portuguese master, what explains the high degree of European ancestry in the black Brazilian population and the high degree of African ancestry in the white population.[19]

Historian Manolo Florentino refutes the idea that a large part of the Brazilian people is a result of the forced relationship between the rich Portuguese colonizer and the Indian or African slaves. According to him, most of the Portuguese settlers in Brazil were poor adventurers from Northern Portugal who immigrated to Brazil alone. Most of them were men (the proportion was eight or nine men for each woman) and then it was natural that they had relationship with the Indian or Black women. According to him the mixture of races in Brazil, more than a sexual domination of the rich Portuguese master over the poor slaves, was a mixture between the poor Portuguese settlers with the Indian and Black women. Then most of the Black women were not raped, but actually had a romance with the white partner.[20]

The Brazilian population of clearer black physiognomy is more strongly present along the coast, due to the high concentration of slaves working on sugar cane plantations. Another region that had a strong presence of Africans was the mining areas in the center of Brazil. Gilberto Freyre wrote that the states with stronger African presence were Bahia and Minas Gerais. Freyre wrote, however, that there's no region in Brazil where the black people have not penetrated[17]. Many blacks fled to the interior of Brazil and met Amerindian and Mameluco populations. Many of these acculturated blacks were accepted in these communities and taught them the Portuguese language and the European culture. In these areas the blacks were "agents for transmitting European culture" to those isolated communities in Brazil. Many blacks mixed with the Indian and caboclo women, settling in remote areas where it was usually believed that only Indians and Whites settled, such as in the Amazon Rainforest.[17]

Conception of Black and prejudice
According to anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro:

“ In Brazil black is the very dark black, the mulatto is the brown and then is half white, and if the skin color is a little lighter, the person is incorporated into the white community.[16] ”

In Brazil the "race" of an individual is based primarily on physical appearance, while in the United States the ancestry is more important. In Brazil the children born to a black mother and a European father who had more pronounced physical African features would be classified as black, while the children with more European features would be classified as white.[21] In Brazil it is possible for two siblings of different colors to be classified as people of different races. With no strict criteria for racial classifications, lighter-skinned mulattoes were easily integrated into the white population, introducing a large proportion of African blood in the white Brazilian population, as well as a large proportion of European blood in the black population. In the United States, on the other hand, which had defined concepts of race, due to the one drop rule any person with any known African ancestry was automatically classified as black, regardless of skin color. Thus, many black Americans have some degree of European ancestry, while few white Americans have African ancestry.[21] The Brazilian society is an example for geneticists argue that human races do not exist and that they are mere "social constructs".[22] According to geneticist Sérgio Pena:

“ Only a few genes are responsible for someone's skin colour, which is a very poor indication of ancestry. A white person could have more African genes than a black one or vice-versa, especially in a country like Brazil.[23] ”

According to the sociologist Simon Schwartzman the official figures about the size of the black population in Brazil are criticized because "(the official figures) would hide the true size of the black population in Brazil, which if defined in a similar way to what happens in the United States would reach at least 50% of the population; and they would also not measure the true size of the Amerindian population."[24] According to Schwartzman in Brazilian society people can easily pass from a race to another. This would be the result of a prejudice of class, in which people move from one race to another as they enrich. According to this thinking, also followed by Darcy Ribeiro, in Brazil social prejudice is stronger than racial discrimination. Many black Brazilians live in poor conditions which in the popular imagination created an association of being black as a synonym for being poor. Moreover, for many decades, the Brazilian ruling classes blamed the blacks for the underdevelopment of Brazil, even encouraging the arrival of masses of European immigrants to melhorar a raça ("improve the race"). The Brazilian assimilationist society was peculiar because it expected that the black population should disappear within the white population.[16] In this context, the black population was poor because of the "inferiority of the black race", and not because of slavery and its consequences. The poverty of many black Brazilians is due to the problem that when the slaves were freed the Brazilian government did not give them any social assistance, leaving former slaves in a condition of underemployment and vulnerable to the arbitrariness of land owners. With no lands, which in Brazil were monopolized by a small rural aristocracy, many blacks migrated to urban centers that were not prepared to receive so many people because there were few jobs available. Then a large underemployed and unemployed population was formed and many favelas appeared, today centers of crime and drug dealing.[16]

Gilberto Freyre wrote that few wealthy Brazilians admit to have African ancestry[17]. The same analysis was performed by Ribeiro, who wrote that the people of darker complexion from the dominant classes usually associate their skin color with an Indian ancestry rather than African. For the large part of Brazilian society to be associated with the condition of black is "totally undesirable" and Ribeiro wrote that "This happens in a sick society, with a distorted consciousness, where the blacks are regarded as guilty of their misery". Ribeiro believed, however, that the prejudice in Brazil, due to be primarily social, can be finished. This will happen when many black Brazilians be out of the condition of misery and take part in the consumer market. A 2007 resource found that the white workers had an average monthly income almost twice that of blacks and pardos (brown). The blacks and brown earned on average 1.8 minimum wages, while the whites had a yield of 3.4 minimum wages.[25] Ribeiro considered that through the example of many African Americans who became wealthier, many black and mulatto Brazilians began to be pride of themselves and started to assume their blackness. According to Ribeiro, then, when black Brazilians start to be part of the wealthier classes, through social democracy, the racial democracy will be possible in Brazil.[16]

Self-reported race in Brazil in 1835, 1940, 2000 and 2008[26][27]
Year White Brown Black
1835 24.4% 18.2% 51.4%
1940 64% 21% 14%
2000 53.7% 38.5% 6.2%
2008 48.8% 43.8% 6.5%
The stigma of being Black because of the unfavorable social situation of this population prevents the creation of a Black identity in Brazil: "It is not a surprise that Blacks self-report to be Pardos (brown), because the prejudice in Brazil is based on the representation, on what people think about themselves or on what others think about them. And while Blacks are disadvantaged in access to education or earning lower wages, for example, it is understandable that many people do not want to assume a Black identity" says author and historian Joel Rufino dos Santos. In the last years, however, the consequences of the "whiten ideology" on racial classifications in Brazil seem to be gradually reversed. According to a IBGE resource, from 2007 to 2008 the self-reported Pardo (brown) population increased by 3.2 million people, while 450,000 Whites and 1 million Blacks "disappeared". This phenomenon should not be attributed solely to the variation in the birth and death rates. The conception of race is a social construction and these changes may be related to the feeling of belonging to a particular ethnicity, prejudice or even a reaction to the affirmative action policies recently taken by the Brazilian Government. In fact, many of the people who used to classify themselves as Whites in previous Censuses are now reporting to be Browns. Even though the proportion of Brazilians who self-report to be Brown is growing in each Census, the self-reported Black population is not and, in fact, their proportion decreased between 2007 and 2008, from 7.2% to 6.5%. According to scholars, this is because the Black Brazilian population, because of the prejudice, is reporting to be "Brown" in the Censuses.[28][29]

Violence and resistance

Slave being punished (1839)Slavery can only be maintained through constant vigilance, frequent violence and the fear that brings the physical violence, which prevent the riots and rebellion of the slaves. Although there is a myth that the slavery in Brazil was more lenient, the reports of colonial chroniclers claim the opposite. The African slaves in Brazil have suffered various types of physical violence. Lashes on the back was the most common punishment. About 40 lashes per day was a commom punishment and they prevented the mutilation of slaves. After the violence, the wounds were washed with salt, pepper or vinegar to prevent infection. This washing was also painful. Preventive punishments were also common, as they served to frighten the slaves even if they did not "deserve" a punishment. The foreman monitored the slaves during all day, forcing them to comply with their tasks and punishing the slaves when he thought to be necessary. In 1741 the Portuguese Crown decreed that all blacks who fled to quilombos should have their back burned and marked with letter F (from fugido, escaped in Portuguese). If the slaves scaped again they should have one ear cut off and should be sentenced to death. The colonial chroniclers recorded the extreme violence and sadism of the White Brazilian women on black female slaves, usually by jealousy or to prevent a relationship between the husband and the slaves, which was very common.[17]

The African-Brazilians resisted against slavery during all the centuries it lasted. The most frequent form of resistance was the leak, which often led to death. These escaped slaves found other slaves, forming quilombos. Quilombos were communities composed of escaped slaves. The biggest Quilombo, Palmares had a population of about 30,000 people and resisted for 100 years, when finally succumbed to attacks by the colonists. Another form of resistance was to work slowly or to hurt animals in order to hinder the production of the master. The most notorious slave rebellion occurred in 1835, when slaves of Muslim aspirations wanted to kill many of the whites and the mulattos of Salvador, Bahia and free all slaves, founding a Republic in Bahia[30] . As with all other rebellions, the insurgents have been repressed, killed or sold as slaves to the Caribbean.

Main Afro-Brazilian communities
As of 2007, the Brazilian Metropolitan Area with the largest percentage of people reported as of African descent was Salvador, Bahia, with 1,869,550 Pardo (brown) people (53.8%) and 990,375 Black people (28.5%). The state of Bahia has also the largest percentage of Afro-Brazilians, with 62.9% of Brown and 15.7% of Blacks.[31]

As of 2000, the towns with the highest percentage of blacks were: Riacho Frio (PI) with 61.71%, Pugmil (TO) with 41.33% and Pedrão (BA) with 39.32%. The towns with the highest percentage of Pardos (Brown) were: Nossa Senhora das Dores (SE) with 98.16%, Santo Inácio do Piauí (PI) with 96.90% and Boa Vista do Ramos (MA) with 92.40%.[32]

Genetic studies
Genetic origin of Brazilian population (Perc.% rounded values)
Line Origin Negros
(Black)[33] Brancos
(Caucasian)[34]
Maternal
(mtDNA) Sub-Saharan Africa 85% 28%
Europe 2.5% 39%
Native Brazilian 12.5% 33%
Paternal
(Y chromosome) Sub-Saharan Africa 48% 2%
Europe 50% 98%
Native Brazilian 1.6% 0%
A recent genetic study of Afro-Brazilians made for BBC Brasil analysed the DNA of self-reported Blacks from São Paulo.[35]

The research analyzed the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), that is present in all human beings and passed down with only minor mutations through the maternal line. The other is the Y chromosome, that is present only in males and passed down with only minor mutations through the paternal line. Both can show from what part of the world a matrilineal or patrilineal ancestor of a person came from, but one can have in mind that they are only a fraction of the human genome, and reading ancestry from Y chromosome and mtDNA only tells 1/23rd the story, since humans have 23 chromosome pairs in the cellular DNA.[36]

Analyzing the Afro-Brazilians' Y chromosome, which comes from male ancestors through paternal line, it was concluded that half (50%) of African-Brazilian population have at least one male ancestor who came from Europe, 48% from Africa and 1.6% who was a Native American. Analyzing their mitochondrial DNA, that comes from female ancestors though maternal line, 85% of them have at least a female ancestor who came from Africa, 12.5% who was Native American and 2.5% from Europe[33].

The high level of European ancestry in Black Brazilians through paternal line exists because, for much of Brazil's History, there were more Caucasian males than Caucasian females. So inter-racial relationships between Caucasian males and Sub-Saharan African or Native American females were widespread[37].

Caucasian Brazilians and
Caucasian Americans
with 10% or more of
Sub-Saharan African genes[34]
Region Perc.(%)
Brazil - Northern, Northeastern
and Southeastern regions 75%
Brazil - Southern region 49%
United States 11%
Over 75% of Caucasians from North, Northeast and Southeast Brazil would have over 10% Sub-Saharan African genes, according to this particular study. Even Southern Brazil that received a large group of European immigration, 49% of the Caucasian population would have over 10% Sub-Saharan African genes, according to that study. A research showed that the average European American has approximately 10% to 12% non-White genetic material.[36]

Thus, according to those studies, 86% of Brazilians would have at least 10% of genes that came from Africa.

As an example, one thousand individuals from Porto Alegre city, Southern Brazil, and 760 from Natal city, Northeastern Brazil, were studied in relation to 12 and 8 genetic systems, respectively. The gathered data were used to estimate quantitatively the ethnic composition of individuals from these communities. More than half of the genes present in individuals classified as Black in Porto Alegre city are of European origin, while the Whites from this city have 8% of African alleles genes.

The estimated degree of admixture in persons identified as White or Mixed in Natal city is not much different. The ancestry of the total sample can be characterized as 58% White, 25% Black, and 17% Indian[38]

According to another study (covering all regions of Brazil), the 'average Brazilian' is predominantly European, 'regardless of census classification, at about '80%' European (and the rest made of a minor, roughly split, Amerindian and African contribution). In some regions, like in the Southern part of Brazil the average would be '90%'. SOURCE:[1].


Crioulo (Brazilian born) slaves
Slave women from various African regions wearing European-style hairdressing
African slaves from Monjolo, Elmina, Mozambique, Benguela e Calava

Famous African Brazilians
In 2007 BBC Brasil launched the project Raízes Afro-Brasileiras (African Brazilian Roots), in which they analyzed the genetic ancestry of nine famous Afro-Brazilians. Three tests were based on analysis of different parts of their DNA: an examination of paternal ancestry, maternal ancestry and the genomic ancestry, allowing to estimate the percentage of African, European and Amerindian genes in the composition of an individual.[39]

Of the 9 famous Afro-Brazilians analyzed, 3 of them had more European ancestry than African one, while the other 6 people had more African ancestry, with varying degrees of European and Amerindian admixture. The African admixture varied from 19.5% in actress Ildi Silva to 99.3% in singer Milton Nascimento. The European admixture varied from 0.4% in Nascimento to 70% in Silva. The Amerindian admixture from 0.3% in Nascimento to 25.4% in soccer player Obina.

Seu Jorge is: 85.1% African, 12.9% European and 2% Amerindian
Daiane dos Santos is: 40.8% European, 39.7% African and 19.6% Amerindian
Neguinho da Beija-Flor (left) is: 67.1% European, 31.5% African and 1.4% Amerindian
Djavan is: 65% African, 30.1% European and 4.9% Amerindian

Sandra de Sá is: 96.7% African, 2.1% European and 1.1% Amerindian
Obina is: 61.4% African, 25.4% Amerindian and 13.2% European
Milton Nascimento is: 99.3% African, 0.4% European and 0.3% Amerindian

Media
Afro-Brazilians have a low representation in the Brazilian media. Blacks are under-represented in telenovelas, which have the largest audience of Brazilian television. The Brazilian soap operas, as well as throughout Latin America, are accused of hiding the black and Indian population and to make almost entirely white casts, usually as upper middle-class people.[40][41][42] Brazil produces soap operas since the 1960s, but it was only in 1996 that a black actress, Taís Araújo, was the protagonist of a telenovela, the role of the famous slave Chica da Silva. In 2002, Araujo was protagonist of another soap, being the only African-Brazilian actress to have a more prominent role in a TV production of Brazil. The black actors in Brazil are required to follow stereotypes usually as subordinate and submissive roles, as maids, drivers, servants, bodyguards, and poor favelados. Joel Zito Araújo wrote the book A Negação do Brasil (in English: The Denial of Brazil) which talks about how Brazilian TV tries to hide its black population. Araújo analyzed Brazilian soap operas from 1964 to 1997 and only 4 black families were represented as being of middle-class. Black women usually appear under strong sexual connotation and sensuality. Black men usually appear as rascals or criminals. Another common stereotype is of the "old mammies". In 1970, in the soap "A Cabana do Pai Tomás" (based on American novel Uncle Tom's Cabin) a white actor, Sérgio Cardoso, played Thomas, who was a black man in the book. The actor had to paint his body in black to "look black". The choice of a white actor to play a black character caused major protests in Brazil. In 1986 a white actress, Lucélia Santos, played a slave in the soap A Escrava Isaura. In 1975 the telenovela Gabriela was produced and it was based on a book by Jorge Amado, who described Gabriela, the main character, as a black woman. But to play Gabriela on television Rede Globo choose a non-black actress, Sônia Braga. The producer claimed he "did not find any talented black actress" for the role of Gabriela. In 2001 Rede Globo produced Porto dos Milagres, also based on a book by Jorge Amado. In the book Amado described a Bahia full of blacks. In the Rede Globo's soap opera, on the other hand, almost all the cast was white.[43]

In the fashion world African-Brazilians are also poorly represented. In Brazil there is a clear predominance of models from the South of Brazil, mostly of European descent. Many black models complained of the difficulty of finding work in the fashion world in Brazil.[44] This reflects a Caucasian standard of beauty demanded by the media. To change this trend, the Black Movement of Brazil entered in court against the fashion show, where almost all the models were whites. In a fashion show during São Paulo Fashion Week in January 2008, of the 344 models only eight (2.3% of total) were blacks. The Brazilian Prosecutor had to force the fashion show to contract black models and demanded that during São Paulo Fashion Week 2009, at least 10% of the models should be "Blacks, African-descendants or Indians", under penalty of fine of 250,000 reais if the condition was not fulfilled. [45]

Religion

Afro-Brazilian girls during a Candomblé ceremony.Main articles: Religion in Brazil and African diasporic religions
Most Afro-Brazilians are Christians, mainly Catholics. Afro-Brazilian religions such as Candomblé and Umbanda have many followers, mainly Afro-Brazilians. They are concentrated mainly in large urban centers such as Salvador de Bahia, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Brasília, São Luís. In addition to Candomblé which is closer to the original West African religions, there is also Umbanda which blends Catholic and Kardecist Spiritism beliefs with African beliefs. Candomblé, Batuque, Xango and Tambor de Mina were originally brought by black slaves shipped from Africa to Brazil.

These black slaves would summon their gods, called Orixas, Vodous or Inkices with chants and dances they had brought from Africa. These religions have been persecuted in the past, mainly due to Catholic influence. However, Brazilian government has legalized them. In current practice, Umbanda followers leave offerings of food, candles and flowers in public places for the spirits. The Candomblé terreiros are more hidden from general view, except in famous festivals such as Iemanjá Festival and the Waters of Oxalá in the Northeast.

From Bahia northwards there is also different practices such as Catimbo, Jurema with heavy, though not necessarily original, indigenous elements. All over the country, but mainly in the Amazon rainforest, there are remnanst of the original Indian population still practicing their original traditions.

Cuisine
Main article: Cuisine of Brazil

FeijoadaThe cuisine created by the Afro-Brazilians has a wide variety of foods. In the State of Bahia, an exquisite cuisine evolved when cooks improvised on African, American-Indian, and traditional Portuguese dishes using locally available ingredients. Typical dishes include Vatapá and Moqueca, both with seafood and dendê palm oil (Portuguese: Azeite de Dendê). This heavy oil extracted from the fruits of an African palm tree is one of the basic ingredients in Bahian or Afro-Brazilian cuisine, adding a wonderful flavor and bright orange color to foods. There is no equivalent substitute, but it is available in markets specializing in Brazilian or African imports.

Feijoada is the national dish of Brazil (for over 300 years). It is basically a mixture of black beans, pork and farofa (lighly roasted coarse cassava manioc flour). It started as a Portuguese dish that the African slaves built upon, made out of cheap ingredients: pork ears, feet and tail, beans and manioc flour. It has been adopted by all the other cultural regions, and there are hundreds of ways to make it.

Capoeira

CapoeiraMain article: Capoeira
Capoeira is a martial art developed initially by African slaves that came predominantly from Angola or Mozambique to Brazil, starting in the colonial period. It is marked by deft, tricky movements often played on the ground or completely inverted. It also has a strong acrobatic component in some versions and is always played with music. Recently, the art has been popularized by the addition of Capoeira performed in various computer games and movies, and Capoeira music has been featured in modern pop music (see Capoeira in popular culture).

Music
Main article: Music of Brazil
The music created by Afro-Brazilians is a mixture of Portuguese, Amerindian, and African music, making a wide variety of styles. Brazil is well known for the rhythmic liveliness of its music as in its Samba dance music. This is largely because Brazilian slave owners allowed their slaves to continue their heritage of playing drums (unlike U.S. slave owners who feared use of the drum for communications).

Literature
Afro-Brazilian literature has existed in Brazil since the mid-19th century with the publication of Maria Firmina dos Reis's novel Ursula in 1859. Yet, Afro-Brazilian literature did not gain national prominence in Brazil until the 1970s with the revival of Black Consciousness politics known as the Movimento Negro.

See also
Ethnic groups in Brazil
Batuque
Candomblé
Kalunga
Liberated Africans in Nigeria
Macumba
Quimbanda
Racial democracy
Umbanda
Helvécio Martins
List of Brazilians of Black African descent
Tambor de Mina
Chica da Silva (person)
References
^ a b "PNAD" (in Portuguese) (PDF). 2006. http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/populacao/trabalhoerendimento/pnad2006/brasilpnad2006.pdf. Retrieved 2007-09-14.
^ MAIOR POPULAÇÃO NEGRA DO PAÍS
^ Newint.org
^ Estados@
^ Edward Eric Telles (2004). "Racial Classification". Race in Another America: the significance of skin color in Brazil. Princeton University Press. pp. 81–84. ISBN 0691118663.
^ David I. Kertzer and Dominique Arel (2002). Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in National Censuses. Cambridge University Press. pp. 63–64. ISBN 0521004276.
^ Estudos Avançados - Pode a genética definir quem deve se beneficiar das cotas universitárias e demais ações afirmativas?
^ a b c MAGNOLI, Demétrio. Uma Gota de Sangue, Editora Contexto 2008 (2008)
^ Negros IBGE
^ a b Gomes, Laurentino. 1808
^ IBGE - Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística
^ Darcy Ribeiro. O Povo Brasileiro, Vol. 07, 1997 (1997).
^ a b Freyre, Gilberto. Casa-Grande e Senzala, Vol. 51, 2006 (2006).
^ IBGE. Brasil: 500 anos de povoamento. Rio de janeiro: IBGE, 2000. Apêndice: Estatísticas de 500 anos de povoamento. p. 223 apud IBGE. Desembarques no Brasil (visitado em 23 de agosto de 2008)
^ a b REIS, João José. Presença Negra: conflitos e encontros. In Brasil: 500 anos de povoamento. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE, 2000. p: 94 apud IBGE. Evolução da População/Cor (visitado em 22 de agosto de 2008)
^ a b c d e f g RIBEIRO, Darcy. O Povo Brasileiro, Companhia de Bolso, fourth reprint, 2008 (2008).
^ a b c d e Freyre, Gilberto. Casa-Grande e Senzala, Edition. 51, 2006 (2006).
^ A África nos genes do povo brasileiro 1
^ A África nos genes do povo brasileiro 2
^ Metade de negros em pesquisa tem ancestral europeu
^ a b "Sex-biased gene flow in African Americans but not in American Caucasians". Genetics and Molecular Researchs. http://www.funpecrp.com.br/gmr/year2007/vol2-6/gmr0330_full_text.htm. Retrieved 2009-07-13.
^ Scientists prove that race does not exist
^ BBC delves into Brazilians' roots accessed July 13, 2009
^ Fora de foco: diversidade e identidade étnicas no Brasil
^ Em 2007, trabalhadores brancos ganharam quase duas vezes mais que os negros, diz IBGE
^ Skidmore, Thomas E. (April 1992). "Fact and Myth: Discovering a Racial Problem in Brazil" (PDF). Working Paper 173. http://www.nd.edu/~kellogg/publications/workingpapers/WPS/173.pdf.
^ Brasil perde brancos e pretos e ganha 3,2 milhões de pardos
^ Brasil perde brancos e pretos e ganha 3,2 milhões de pardos
^ Em quase um século, brasileiro mudou de raça, idade e de condição de vida, mostra IBGE
^ http://www.direitos.org.br/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1214&Itemid=25 O que foi a Revolta dos Malês?
^ IBGE 2008
^ Sistema IBGE 2000
^ a b Afrobras - DNA do negro
^ a b As pesquisas na Bahia sobre os afro-brasileiros
^ BBCBrasil.com - Notícias - Raízes Afro-brasileiras
^ a b DNAPrint Genomics Genealogy website
^ A mestiçagem é sinônimo de democracia racial?
^ HELENA, M; FRANCO, L. P.; WEIMER, Tania A.; SALZANO, F. M. Blood polymorphisms and racial admixture in two Brazilian populations. Departamento de Genética, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6284806.stm
^ Soap operas on Latin TV are lily white
^ The Blond, Blue-Eyed Face of Spanish TV
^ Skin tone consciousness in Asian and Latin American populations
^ http://books.google.com.br/books?id=olglgaas0SoC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=negros+telenovelas+brasil&source=bl&ots=3MDF3xjX53&sig=dX_SIQp2ilQwsLpAJrSYdZWe6Dw&hl=pt-BR&ei=a9pwSqT8DNKPtgeCi4igDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9 A Negação do Brasil
^ http://estilo.uol.com.br/moda/ultnot/bbc/2008/01/18/ult3362u30.jhtm Glamour da SP Fashion Week não reflete diversidade do Brasil
^ Cota para Negros mobiliza SPFW
Further reading
Ankerl, Guy. Coexisting Contemporary Civilizations: Arabo-Muslim, Bharati, Chinese, and Western. 2000, Geneva. INUPRESS, ISBN 2881550045. Pp. 187-210.
External links
Portal Afro (Portuguese)
Afro Brazilian Connection
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Mark Wells

It’s Recognition Time: The Similar Lives of Afro-Brazilians and African-Americans

Posted on VidaAfroLatina.com on November 4, 2008

Ever since I learned of Brazil’s huge population of African descent, I have made it my business to inform others of our brothers and sisters in Latin America’s largest, most populous nation. When I first discovered Brazil’s Black population on Christmas Eve of 1999, I thought, “If I didn’t know about the country’s 75 to 100 million Black folks, it was quite possible that most other African-Americans don’t know either.”

Africa’s contribution to the country’s culture, history and population was conveniently excluded from our textbooks. To this day, most of us don’t know that Brazil was the largest importer of African slaves into the New World. Some 38 percent of all Africans shipped to the Americas were taken to Brazil. In comparison, 4 percent were shipped to 0the United States.

Why are Americans in general and African Americans in particular so ignorant about Black Brazilians? Number one, Americans have a very “U.S.-centric” view of the world. For the majority of us, if events don’t happen in the U.S., they don’t matter. Number two, Latin American countries have promoted their societies as being more racially fluid than the stringent United States. While this may be true in some superficial ways, in general, Whiteness represents power, wealth and beauty in every country south of Texas.

Latin American countries have promoted themselves as racial democracies, countries of vast racial mixture. Under this ideology, countries proclaimed that racism could not exist where there was such widespread racial mixture.

Brazil, like Argentina, Mexico and other Latin American nations, implemented policies that would eventually Whiten its population through significant European immigration. Many Brazilian politicians and social scientists made predictions as to how long it would take for Afro-Brazilians to disappear so that Brazil’s population would be as beautiful as that in Europe, thus allowing the country to take its rightful place among White nations.

At the end of the 18th century, news of the Haitian revolution petrified Brazil’s elites of the possibility that the country’s Blacks would revolt against the established order. Early in the 20th century, elites viewed African Americans as hateful subversives that would inspire a new brand of militancy in Brazil’s Black population that they saw as docile, submissive and subservient.

In the 1920s, Robert Abbott, editor of the Black newspaper Chicago Defender, sought to lead groups of Black Americans to Brazil to settle and cultivate lands in the state of Mato Grosso. Impressed with what he saw during a visit, he enticed other Black Americans to relocate. But it was not to be. After learning that the prospective immigrants to the country were Black, the government of Mato Grosso immediately rejected visa requests.

In the ’40s, President Getulio Vargas would issue Decree #7967 that would establish conditions to be met by immigrants wishing to come to Brazil. This decree declared the necessity of restricting immigration to the country to those who had more “desirable” characteristics of the White race.

In the 1970s, Black Brazilians increasingly drew inspiration from the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in the U.S., and decolonization movements occurring throughout the African continent. Frustrated with White appropriation of Afro-Brazilian Samba music, Black Brazilians began celebrating Black American soul and funk music. Afro-Brazilian activists participated in panels and conferences with other Blacks of the Diaspora to discuss racism and inequality.

Throughout the period, Brazil’s military dictatorship harassed, infiltrated and kept tabs on militant groups of the Movimento Negro (Black Movement) which advocated the acceptance of a Black identity, promoted social equality and urged an end to racist practices. Intellectuals of the time vehemently attacked what they saw as an imitation of Black American racial antagonism, culture and identity politics that would threaten the nation’s supposedly harmonious racial coexistence.

The problem with this view is that Brazilians of visible African ancestry have lived at the bottom of Brazilian society in terms of standard of living indicators for five centuries. Afro-Brazilians attain less education, earn on average half the salary of Whites, die younger, have less access to health care and are killed and incarcerated at alarmingly higher rates than White Brazilians. Brazil’s business community, media representation and political offices are overwhelmingly White.

The same problems affecting African Americans affect Afro-Brazilians and other populations of African descent in the Americas.

In 2002, President George W. Bush asked Brazil’s president at the time, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, if his country had Blacks too. According to 2008 predictions, this year, Afro-Brazilians will officially become the country’s majority. With this in mind, the time is now for African Americans to begin connecting our struggle with our extended family throughout the world, particularly in Latin America.

As one professor entitled his study on Afro-Brazilians, it is “time for recognition.” Brazil’s recognition of its African-descendent population and African-American recognition of our long lost brothers and sisters in the República Federativa do Brasil are long overdue.

Mark Wells is a labor union organizer based in Detroit. He has written various articles about Brazil and visited the country eight times. He can be reached at MrMarques72@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2008-2009.

All rights reserved.

The late Harold Cruse wrote and spoke of the attempts at some to truly unite the Black Disapora in the Americas:

His book on the subject was/is called THE CRISIS OF THE (BLACK) NEGRO INTELLECTUAL...

Also do keep in mind there are more people of African descent in Brazil than they are in the United States...

I do feel and think we've shouldered the burden all by ourselves and for far too long:

After all?

Many hands make the burden(s) much lighter...

It has become far too obvious other ethnic groups are slow (if at all) to openly acknowledge our past support of their efforts at true equality and social justice around the globe:

Therefore let us do what is natural and normal for any group looking out for our own best interests...

Then maybe some of them will just follow our leads etc.

:SuN020:

Interesting topic -

Now I've had the opportunity to actually speaking with many Brazilians on this topic and I don't think that the problem is so much as us her in America. As a matter of fact AA's are some of the most accepting folks from the Diaspora but what need to be understood is the mentality of those in Brazil.

First, let me state that the CIA Factbook has changed those statistic found on Wiki to be 6.2% African of Brazil which dramatically decreases the numbers:

"white 53.7%, mulatto (mixed white and black) 38.5%, black 6.2%, other (includes Japanese, Arab, Amerindian) 0.9%, unspecified 0.7% ..."

The ideal is to reclassify what black is as they are doing here in America. The inclusion of the 'Other' on applications begins to break-down what is traditionally known in America as AA (Northern African American). Well Brazilians are AA's (Southern African American) as well and their knowledge and views of us her in Northern America are misinformed.

Here's the thing, many of them don't even want to call us African Americans because they feel that we are white. They feel that we have no true cultural connection to Africa unlike them in Brazil. As I said earlier, they are misinformed about Northern AA's because their have been many African cultural connections maintained here in the US but it doesn't speak for the majority as it does with them. The second issue we have to deal with in concerns to Afro/Afrik Brazilians is that many of them have been conditioned to believe that they are not black/brown anymore because they have European ancestry like many AA's here in America. Many of them do not feel that cultural connect to us because they don't subscribe to the 'necro/negro' aka black talk.

Here's the thing - they have been misinformed about us but at the same time we are misinformed about ourselves. Its hard to connect with misinformation and so for such a connection to work with us we have to first properly describe who we are. We are the only ones carrying the burden possibly because we are the only ones who subscribe to the burden. There is a famous saying, "you train the mind to be a slave, long after the physical slavery is dead and gone, that mind will still be a slave".

The objective shouldn't be about burdens or carrying anything - we definitely have to unite but we have a lot of work to do amongst ourselves first (a mentality makeover) because we can bridge gaps between us and our fellow diaspora[n].

Interesting topic -

Here's the thing, many of them don't even want to call us African Americans because they feel that we are white. They feel that we have no true cultural connection to Africa unlike them in Brazil. The second issue we have to deal with in concerns to Afro/Afrik Brazilians is that many of them have been conditioned to believe that they are not black/brown anymore because they have European ancestry like many AA's here in America.

I have to agree with that. I see this in most diaspora areas of the world except for the US. The other former slaves kept so much more of the African culture, whereas we were integrated here in the US. There are small pockets (Gullahs, Geechees, etc) that retained some of the original African culture, yet this is the exception, not the norm. There have been attempts to get back to our roots in modern times, but it is not the same as being submersed in a culture like they have.

I also agree that non-US blacks are quick to distinguish themselves from us.
I don't have the facts, but I imagine most diaspora blacks are mixed with something in their family tree. Somewhere along the line, something happened. So for me, even though they claim to be Brazilian or Haitian French or Creole, it's all black to me. If they don't believe me, they can come to the nearest redneck bar and find out where they stand.

:toast:


Interesting topic -

Now I've had the opportunity to actually speaking with many Brazilians on this topic and I don't think that the problem is so much as us her in America. As a matter of fact AA's are some of the most accepting folks from the Diaspora but what need to be understood is the mentality of those in Brazil.

First, let me state that the CIA Factbook has changed those statistic found on Wiki to be 6.2% African of Brazil which dramatically decreases the numbers:

"white 53.7%, mulatto (mixed white and black) 38.5%, black 6.2%, other (includes Japanese, Arab, Amerindian) 0.9%, unspecified 0.7% ..."

The ideal is to reclassify what black is as they are doing here in America. The inclusion of the 'Other' on applications begins to break-down what is traditionally known in America as AA (Northern African American). Well Brazilians are AA's (Southern African American) as well and their knowledge and views of us her in Northern America are misinformed.

Here's the thing, many of them don't even want to call us African Americans because they feel that we are white. They feel that we have no true cultural connection to Africa unlike them in Brazil. As I said earlier, they are misinformed about Northern AA's because their have been many African cultural connections maintained here in the US but it doesn't speak for the majority as it does with them. The second issue we have to deal with in concerns to Afro/Afrik Brazilians is that many of them have been conditioned to believe that they are not black/brown anymore because they have European ancestry like many AA's here in America. Many of them do not feel that cultural connect to us because they don't subscribe to the 'necro/negro' aka black talk.

Here's the thing - they have been misinformed about us but at the same time we are misinformed about ourselves. Its hard to connect with misinformation and so for such a connection to work with us we have to first properly describe who we are. We are the only ones carrying the burden possibly because we are the only ones who subscribe to the burden. There is a famous saying, "you train the mind to be a slave, long after the physical slavery is dead and gone, that mind will still be a slave".

The objective shouldn't be about burdens or carrying anything - we definitely have to unite but we have a lot of work to do amongst ourselves first (a mentality makeover) because we can bridge gaps between us and our fellow diaspora[n].

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The African Diaspora was the movement of Africans and their descendants to places throughout the world - predominantly to the Americas, then later to Europe, the Middle East and other places around the globe.

The term is applied in particular to the descendents of the Black Africans who were enslaved and shipped to the Americas by way of the Atlantic slave trade, with the largest population in Brazil (see Afro-Brazilian). People of Sub-Saharan descent number at least 800 million in Africa and over 140 million in the Western Hemisphere, representing around 14% of the world's population.[1][2]

Contents

1 History
2 Dispersal through slavery
3 Dispersal through migration
4 Definitions
5 Estimated population and distribution
6 Top 15 African diaspora populations
7 North America
8 Latin America
9 Europe
9.1 United Kingdom
9.2 France
9.3 Netherlands
9.4 Russia
9.5 Turkey
10 The Americas
11 Canada
12 Indian & Pacific Oceans
13 See also
14 References
15 External links

History

Based on human genetics, it is widely believed that prehistoric Africans who left the continent within the past 100,000 years are the ancestors of all non-African humans. But as communities began to form, especially in Egypt and the Middle East, these migrations were greatly reduced because the only land route out of the African continent is through the Sinai Peninsula. After the rise of civilization and the development of sailing, black Africans traveled to the Middle East, Europe, and Asia in a number of occupations.[citation needed] Many of these individuals settled in Europe and Asia and invariably intermarried with the local populations.[citation needed] Today, human genetic research suggests that mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome haplotypes in Europeans and Asians have distant African ancestry. But these early migrations out of Africa are dwarfed by those associated with the Atlantic and Arab slave trades.[3]

[edit] Dispersal through slavery
See also: Atlantic Slave Trade and Arab Slave Trade
Much of the African diaspora was dispersed throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas during the Atlantic and Arab Slave Trades. Beginning in the 9th century, African slaves were taken from the northern and eastern portions of the continent into the Middle East and Asia. Then beginning in the 15th century, Africans were taken from much of the rest of the continent to Europe and later to the Americas. Both the Arab and Atlantic slave trades ended in the 19th century.[4]

The dispersal through slave trading represents one of the largest migrations in human history. The economic effect on the African continent was devastating. Some communities created by descendants of Black African slaves in Europe and Asia have survived to the modern day, but in other cases, blacks intermarried with non-blacks and their descendants blended into the local population. In the Americas, the confluence of multiple racial groups from around the world created a widespread mixing bowl effect. In Central and South America most people are descended from European, American Indian, and African ancestry. In Brazil, where in 1888 nearly half the population was descended from African slaves, the variation of physical characteristics extends across a broad range. In the United States, racist Jim Crow and anti-miscegenation laws maintained a distinction between racial groups. The adoption of the one drop rule defined anyone with any discernible African ancestry as African, even though the strictest application of that rule would categorize nearly all Americans as African.[3]

[edit] Dispersal through migration
From the very onset of Spanish activity in the Americas, Africans were present both as voluntary expeditionaries and as involuntary colonists.[5][6] Juan Garrido was one such black conquistador. He crossed the Atlantic as a freedman in the 1510s and participated in the siege of Tenochtitlan.[7]

African immigration has become the primary force in the modern diaspora. It is estimated that the current population of recent African immigrants to the United States alone is over 600,000.[8]. Countries with the most immigrants to the U.S. are Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and South Africa. Some immigrants have come from Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique(see Luso American), Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, and Cameroon. Immigrants typically congregate in urban areas, moving to suburban areas over time.

There are significant populations of African immigrants in many other countries around the world, including the UK[9] and France.[10][11]

[edit] Definitions
See also: Black people
The African Union defined the African diaspora as "[consisting] of people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union." Its constitutive act declares that it shall "invite and encourage the full participation of the African Diaspora as an important part of our continent, in the building of the African Union."

Between 1500 and 1900, approximately four million enslaved Black Africans were transported to island plantations in the Indian Ocean, about eight million were shipped to Mediterranean-area countries, and about eleven million survived the Middle Passage to the New World.[12] Their descendants are now found around the globe. Due to intermarriage and genetic assimilation, just who is a descendant of the Black African diaspora is not entirely self-evident.

A few examples of populations on continents away from Africa who are seen as "Black" or who see themselves as "Black" because they descend from Black Africans are:

African Americans. People in the United States who are of African descent.
Afro-Caribbeans. People in the West Indies who identify themselves as of African descent.
Afro-Latin Americans. Among these populations in South and Central America are those who identify as negros. Some identify as Afro-Latin Americans when they have high levels of admixture of other ethnicities, as well.
Afro-Arabs. Various people of the Middle East whose ancestors were brought during the Arab slave trade period.[13]
Siddis. Inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent (Pakistan and India) of Black African descent.
[edit] Estimated population and distribution
Continent / Region Country population Afro-descendants [14] Black/Black-Mixed population
Caribbean 39,148,115 73.2% 22,715,518
Haiti 8,924,553 95% 8,701,439
Dominican Republic [15][16] 9,650,054 84% 8,106,054
Cuba[17] 11,451,652 34.9% 3,999,626
Jamaica[18] 2,804,332 97.4% 2,731,419
Trinidad and Tobago 1,047,366 58.00% 607,472
Puerto Rico 3,958,128 11.30% 447,268*
The Bahamas[19] 307,451 85.00% 209,000
Barbados 281,968 90.00% 253,771
Netherlands Antilles 225,369 85.00% 191,564
Saint Lucia 172,884 82.5% 142,629
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 118,432 85.00% 100,667
Virgin Islands 108,210 79.70% 86,243
Grenada 110,000 91.00% 101,309
Antigua and Barbuda 78,000 94.90% 63,000
Bermuda 66,536 61.20% 40,720
Saint Kitts and Nevis 39,619 98.00% 38,827
Cayman Islands 47,862 60.00% 28,717
British Virgin Islands 24,004 83.00% 19,923
Turks and Caicos islands[20] 26,000 34.00% 18,000
Europe 590,856,462.00 4.1% 9,300,999
France[21][22] 62,752,136 5% (inc. French Guiana and other territories) 3,000,000
United Kingdom 60,609,153 3.0% (inc. partial) 2,015,400
Italy[23] 59,448,163 1.3% 755,000
Turkey 73,914,000 ?% 700,000
Spain 40,397,842 1.3% 505,400
Germany 82,000,000 0.6% 500,000[6]
Russia[24] 141,594,000 0.12% 400,000
Netherlands[25] 16,491,461 1.8% 300,000
Portugal 10,605,870 2.0% 201,200
Sweden 9,263,872 ?% 70,000
Belgium 10,666,866 ?% 45,000
Republic of Ireland 4,339,000 1.1% 43,000
Finland 5,340,783 ?% 20,000
Poland 38,082,000 0.002% 5,780
Hungary[26] 10,198,325 0.003% 321
Asia 3,879,000,000 ?% ?
Israel[27] 7,411,000 2.8% 200,000
Japan[28] 127,756,815 ?% 10,000 -
India[29] 1,132,446,000 .003% 40,000
Pakistan 172,900,000 ?% 10,000
China[30] 1,321,851,888 ?% 8,000+
Singapore 4,839,400 ?% 6,900
South America/Central America 425,664,476 23.9% 101,532,873
Belize 301,270 31.00% 93,394
Guatemala 13,002,206 2.00% 260,044
El Salvador 7,066,403 < 0.01% 0*
Honduras 7,639,327 2.00% 152,787
Nicaragua 5,785,846 9.00% 520,726
Costa Rica 4,195,914 3.00% 125,877
Panama 3,292,693 14.00% 460,977
Colombia [31] 45,013,674 26.0% 11,703,555
Venezuela[32][33] 26,414,815 Between 10-26.5% 2,641,481 - 6,999,926*
Guyana 770,794 36.00% 277,486
Suriname 475,996 47.00% 223,718
French Guiana 199,509 66.00% 131,676
Brazil 191,908,598 44.70% 85,783,143
Ecuador 13,927,650 3.00% 417,830
Peru 29,180,899 3.00% 875,427
Bolivia 9,247,816 1.1% 108,000
Chile 16,454,143 < 0.1% 0*
Paraguay 6,831,306 < 0.1% 0*
Argentina 40,677,348 < 0.1% 0*
Uruguay 3,477,778 4.00% 139,111
North America 440,244,038 11.8% 39,264,514
United States[34] 298,444,215 12.90% 38,499,304
Canada[35] 33,098,932 2.7% 783,795
Mexico 108,700,891 <1.00% 103,000
Oceania
Australia[36] 21,000,000 0.9% (includes partial) 248,605
Sub-Saharan Africa 770,300,000 99% 767,000,000
Outside Africa 5,821,000,000 2.9% 168,879,165
Total 6,581,000,000 ?% 998,000,000

(*)Note that population statistics from different sources and countries use highly divergent methods of rating the "race", ethnicity, or national or genetic origin of individuals, from observing for color and racial characteristics, to asking the person to choose from a set of pre-defined choices, sometimes with an Other category, and sometimes with an open-ended option, and sometimes not, which different national populations tend to choose in divergent ways. Color and visual characteristics were considered an invalid way to determine the genetic "racial" branch in anthopology (the field of science that original conceived of "race", as a genetic branch of people who could have a relative success together compared with other branches, now considered invalid) as of 1910, thus not fully reflecting the percentage of the population who actually are of African heritage.

[edit] Top 15 African diaspora populations
Country Population Rank
Brazil 85,783,143 1
United States 38,499,304 2
Colombia 9,452,872 3
Haiti 8,701,439 4
Dominican Republic 7,985,991 5
France 3,000,000 6
Jamaica 2,731,419 7
Venezuela 2,641,481 - 6,999,926 8
United Kingdom 2,080,000 9
Cuba 1,126,894 10
Peru 875,427 11
Canada 783,795 12
Italy 750,000 13
Turkey 700,000 14
Trinidad and Tobago 610,000 15
Nicaragua 520,726 16

[edit] North America
Several migration waves to the Americas, as well as relocations within the Americas, have brought people of African descent to North America. According to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the first African populations came to North America in the 16th century via Mexico and the Caribbean to the Spanish colonies of Florida, Texas and other parts of the South.[37] Out of the 12 million people from Africa who were shipped to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade,[38] 645,000 were shipped to the British colonies on the North American mainland and the United States; another 1,840,000 arrived at other British colonies, chiefly the West Indies.[39] In 2000, African Americans comprised 12.1 percent of the total population in the United States, constituting the largest racial minority group. The African American population is concentrated in the southern states and urban areas.[40]

In the construction of the African Diaspora, the transatlantic slave trade is often considered the defining element, but people of African descent have engaged in eleven other migration movements involving North America since the 16th century, many being voluntary migrations, although undertaken in exploitative and hostile environments.[37]

In the 1860s, people from sub-Saharan Africa, mainly from West Africa and the Cape Verde Islands, started to arrive in a voluntary immigration wave to seek employment as whalers in Massachusetts. This migration continued until restrictive laws were enacted in 1921 that in effect closed the door on non-Europeans, but by that time, men of African ancestry were already a majority in New England’s whaling industry, with African Americans working as sailors, blacksmiths, shipbuilders, officers, and owners, eventually bringing their trade to California.[41]

1.7 million people in the United States are descended from voluntary immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa. African immigrants represent 6 percent of all immigrants to the United States and almost 5 percent of the African American community nationwide. About 57 percent immigrated between 1990 and 2000.[42] Immigrants born in Africa constitute 1.6 percent of the black population. People of the African immigrant diaspora are the most educated population group in the United States — 50 percent have bachelor's or advanced degrees, compared to 23 percent of native-born Americans.[43] The largest African immigrant communities in the United States are in New York, followed by California, Texas, and Maryland.[42] The states with the highest percentages of Africans in their total populations are the District of Columbia, followed by Mississippi, and Louisiana. Refugees represent a minority.

U.S. Bureau of the Census categorizes the population by race based on self-identification.[44] The census surveys have no provision for a "multiracial" or "biracial" self-identity, but since 2000, respondents may check off more than one box and claim multiple ethnicity that way.

[edit] Latin America
Main article: Afro-Latin American
At an intermediate level, in Latin America and in the former plantations in and around the Indian Ocean, descendants of enslaved people are a bit harder to define because many people are mixed in demographic proportion to the original slave population. In places that imported relatively few slaves (like Argentina or Chile), few if any are considered Black today.[45] In places that imported many enslaved people (like Brazil or Dominican Republic), the number is larger, but most are of mixed ancestry.[46]

[edit] Europe
Main article: Afro-European
The Situation in Europe In Council of Europe countries, African Diasporans and their descendants are neither specifically identified nor described in national statistics by the colour of their skin. At best, both first and subsequent generations are described in national statistics as “foreign born citizens”. Of 42 countries surveyed by a European Commission against Racism and Intolerance study in 2007, it was found that 29 collected official statistics on country of birth, 37 on citizenship, 24 on religion, 26 on language, 6 on country of birth of parents, and 22 on nationality or ethnicity. The major result of this routine is that even though people of African descent may outnumber other ethnic minorities in some European countries, there is no statistical evidence to support the notion that they may qualify for special measures as minorities where they live. They are, in a word: invisible. (In "Basic Facts About the African Diaspora", by M. Arthur Robinson Diakité, www.thelundian.com .

[edit] United Kingdom
Main article: Black British
2 million (not including British Mixed) split evenly between Afro-Caribbeans and Africans.

[edit] France
Estimates of 2 to 3 million of African descent, although 1/4 of the Afro-French or French African population live in overseas territories[47].

see: Afro-French

[edit] Netherlands
About 300,000 of Surinamese and Dutch Antilles descent. They mainly live in the islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao and Saint Martin (which is half French), but many Afro-Dutch people also live in the Netherlands.

[edit] Russia
The first blacks in Russia were the result of slave trade by the Ottoman empire[48] and their descendants still live on the coasts of the Black Sea. Czar Peter the Great was recommended by his friend Lefort to bring in Africans to Russia for hard labor. Alexander Pushkin was the descendant of the African slave Abram Petrovich Gannibal, who became Peter's protege, was educated as a military engineer in France, and eventually became general-en-chef, responsible for the building of sea forts and canals in Russia.[49][50]

During the 1930s fifteen Black American families moved to the Soviet Union as agricultural experts.[51] As African states became independent in the 1960s, the Soviet Union offered them the chance to study in Russia; over 40 years, 400,000 African students came, and many settled there.[48][52]

Note that there are also non-African people within the former Soviet Union who are colloquially referred to as "the blacks" (chernye). Gypsies, Georgians, and Tatars fall into this category [53].

See also: Racism in modern Russia.

[edit] Turkey
Main article: Afro-Turks
Beginning several centuries ago, a number of sub-Saharan Africans, usually via Zanzibar and from places like Kenya, Sudan, Ghana, Nigeria were brought by Turkish slave traders during the Ottoman Empire to plantations around Dalaman, Menderes and Gediz valleys, Manavgat, and Çukurova.

[edit] The Americas
Main article: Afro Americans in the Americas
African Americans - There are an estimated 40 million people of African descent in the US. Note that this figure (here, and in the chart, above) directly conflicts with information in this same article that says that 30% of US people have genetic content from the [post 1400] African diaspora.
Afro-Latin American - There are an estimated 100 million people of African descent living in Latin America, making up 45 % of Brazil's population.[54] There are also sizeable African populations in Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
The population in the Caribbean is approximately 23 million. Significant numbers of African-descended people include Haiti - 8 million, Dominican Republic - 7.9 million, and Jamaica - 2.7 million,[55]
[edit] Canada
Main article: Black Canadians
Much of the earliest black presence in Canada came from the United States, comprising African Americans who came as Loyalists or escaped along the Underground Railroad to locations in Nova Scotia and Southwestern Ontario.[citation needed] Slavery had begun to be outlawed in British North America as early as 1793. Later black immigration to Canada came primarily from the Caribbean, in such numbers that fully 70 per cent of all blacks now in Canada are of Caribbean origin.

As a result of the prominence of Caribbean immigration, the term "African Canadian", while sometimes used to refer to the minority of Canadian blacks who have direct African or African American heritage, is not normally used to denote black Canadians. Blacks of Caribbean origin are usually denoted as "West Indian Canadian", "Caribbean Canadian" or more rarely "Afro-Caribbean Canadian", but there remains no widely used alternative to "Black Canadian" which is considered inclusive of both the African and Caribbean black communities in Canada.

[edit] Indian & Pacific Oceans
Some Pan-Africanists also consider other Africoid peoples as diasporic African peoples. These groups include, among others, Negritos, such as in the case of the peoples of the Malay Peninsula (Orang Asli);[56] New Guinea (Papuans);[57] Andamanese; certain peoples of the Indian subcontinent,[58][59] notably Vedda people and Dravidians such as Tamils; and the aboriginal peoples of Melanesia and Micronesia.[60][61] Most of these claims are rejected by mainstream ethnologists as pseudoscience and pseudoanthropology as part of ideologically motivated Afrocentrist irredentism, touted primarily among some extremist elements in the United States who do not reflect on the mainstream African-American community[62]. Mainstream anthropologists determine that the Andamanese and others are part of a network of Proto-Australoid and Paleo Mediterranean ethnic groups present in South Asia that trace their genetic ancestry to a migratory sequence that culminated in the Australian aboriginals rather than from African peoples directly (though indirectly, they did originate from prehistoric groups out of Africa as did all human beings on this planet).[63][64][65][66]

[edit] See also
List of topics related to Black and African people
Africana womanism
Afro Americans in the Americas
Africans
African American
Afro Australian
African immigration to the United States
Afro-Latino
Black People
Black Hispanic
Afro-Brazilian
Afro-Puerto Rican
Afro-Trinidadian
Afro-Jamaicans
Afro-Arab
Afro-Belizean
Garinagu
Afro-Colombian and Raizal
Afro-Cuban
Afro-Ecuadorian
Afro-German
Afro-Irish
Afro-Mexican
Afro-Peruvian
Afro-Turks
Black British
Afro-Guyanese
Black Canadian
Afro-European
Afro-French
Black people in Ireland
Beta Israel
Capoid
Chagossians
Dougla
Negroid
Siddi (Black African community in South Asia)


[edit] References
^ Sub-Saharan Africa, The World Bank Group.
^ Report on the African Diaspora Open House, The African Diaspora Medical Project.
^ a b Olson, Steve (2003). Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0618352104.
^ "Historical survey > The international slave trade". Slavery. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24159. Retrieved 2007-09-30.
^ Warren, J. Benedict (1985). The Conquest of Michoacán. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 080611858X.
^ Krippner-Martínez, James (October 1990). "The Politics of Conquest: An Interpretation of the Relación de Michoacán". The Americas 47 (2): 177–198. doi:10.2307/1007371.
^ Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. p. 327.
^ "Diversity in Black and White". http://mumford1.dyndns.org/cen2000/BlackWhite/BlackDiversityReport/black-diversity03.htm.
^ Mensah, John Freelove. Persons Granted British Citizenship United Kingdom, 2006. Home Office Statistical Bulletin 08/07, 22 May 2007. Retrieved 4 November 2007.
^ Thomas, Dominic (2006). Black France: Colonialism, Immigration, And Transnationalism. Indiana University Press, 2006, ISBN 0253348218.
^ Tattersall, Nick. Africans denounce French DNA immigration bill. Reuters Africa, 5 October 2007. Retrieved 4 November 2007.
^ Larson, Pier M. (1999). "Reconsidering Trauma, Identity, and the African Diaspora: Enslavement and Historical Memory in Nineteenth-Century Highland Madagascar" (PDF). William and Mary Quarterly 56 (2): 335–62.. doi:10.2307/2674122. http://backintyme.com/rawdata/larson01.pdf.
^ A Legacy Hidden in Plain Sight (washingtonpost.com)
^ CIA - The World Factbook
^ U.S. Library of Congress
^ [www.informaworld.com/index/902542287.pdf Inter-American Dialouge]
^ [1]
^ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/jm.html|-People
^ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bf.html|-People
^ Joshua Project - Ethnic People Groups of Turks and Caicos Islands
^ http://paceebene.org/pace/nvns/nonviolence-news-service-archive/in-officially-colorblind-f
^ globeandmail.com: World
^ ISTAT (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica), stranieri 2006 Africa Occidentale, Meridionale
^ Мймй Зпмдео Й Мймй Дйлупо. Фемертпелф "Юетоще Тхуулйе": Уйопруйу
^ http://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/2DAFB377-8622-4A6F-9700-8E93EB8EDD61/0/pb01e067.pdf
^ Hungarian census 2001
^ [2]
^ POP AFRICA(Nagoya University) from the statictics at 2005 by the Immigration Bureau of Japan
^ [3]
^ -->
^ [www.informaworld.com/index/902542287.pdf Inter-American Dialogue]
^ Venezuela
^ Seeing Black
^ CIA - The World Factbook - United States
^ Visible minority population, by province and territory (2001 Census)
^ 20680-Country of Birth of Person (full classification list) by Sex - Australia (2006)
^ a b Dodson, Howard and Sylviane A. Diouf, eds. (2005). In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. Retrieved 24 November 2007.
^ Ronald Segal (1995). The Black Diaspora: Five Centuries of the Black Experience Outside Africa. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 4. ISBN 0-374-11396-3. "It is now estimated that 11,863,000 slaves were shipped across the Atlantic. [Note in original: Paul E. Lovejoy, "The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature," in Journal of African History 30 (1989), p. 368.] ... It is widely conceded that further revisions are more likely to be upward than downward."
^ Stephen D. Behrendt, David Richardson, and David Eltis, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research, Harvard University. Based on "records for 27,233 voyages that set out to obtain slaves for the Americas". Stephen Behrendt (1999). "Transatlantic Slave Trade". Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. New York: Basic Civitas Books. ISBN 0-465-00071-1.
^ United States African-American Population. CensusScope, Social Science Data Analysis Network. Retrieved 17 December 2007.
^ Heros in the Ships: African Americans in the Whaling Industry. Old Dartmouth Historical Society / New Bedford Whaling Museum, 2001.
^ a b Dodson, Howard and Sylviane A. Diouf, eds. (2005). The Immigration Waves: The numbers. In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. Retrieved 24 November 2007.
^ Dodson, Howard and Sylviane A. Diouf, eds. (2005). The Brain Drain. In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. Retrieved 24 November 2007.
^ U.S. Census Bureau. State & County QuickFacts. Retrieved 6 November 2007.
^ Harry Hoetink, Caribbean Race Relations: A Study of Two Variants (Lon-don, 1971), xii.
^ Clara E. Rodriguez, "Challenging Racial Hegemony: Puerto Ricans in the United States," in Race, ed. Steven Gregory and Roger Sanjek (New Brunswick NJ, 1994), 131-45, 137. See also Frederick P. Bowser, "Colonial Spanish America," in Neither Slave Nor Free: The Freedmen of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World, ed. David W. Cohen and Jack P. Greene (Baltimore, 1972), 19-58, 38.
^ 1/4 of the French African population comes from the Caribbean islands. in French
^ a b Лили Голден и Лили Диксон. Телепроект "Черные русские": синопсис. Info on "Black Russians" film project in English
^ Gnammankou, Dieudonné. Abraham Hanibal - l’aïeul noir de Pouchkine, Paris 1996.[4]
^ Barnes, Hugh. Gannibal: The Moor of Petersburg, London 2005
^ A New York Times review of family memoir entitled Three Very Rare Generations
^ MediaRights: Film: Black Russians
^ The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economies After Socialism By Caroline Humphrey Cornell University 2002 p36-37
^ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/br.html cia factbook
^ http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WPP2004/World_Population_2004_chart.pdf
^ Runoko Rashidi (2000-11-04). "Black People in the Philippines". http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/filipinos.html. Retrieved 2007-09-29.
^ "West Papua New Guinea: Interview with Foreign Minister Ben Tanggahma". 2007-07-25. http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/nguinea.html. Retrieved 2007-09-29.
^ Iniyan Elango (2002-08-08). "Notes from a Brother in India: History and Heritage". http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/elango1.html. Retrieved 2007-09-29.
^ Horen Tudu (2002-08-08). "The Blacks of East Bengal: A Native's Perspective". http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/bengal.html. Retrieved 2007-09-29.
^ Runoko Rashidi (1999-11-19). "Blacks in the Pacific". http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/pacific.html. Retrieved 2007-09-29.
^ Micronesians
^ Not Out Of Africa: How "Afrocentrism" Became An Excuse To Teach Myth As History by Mary Lefkowitz, New Republic Press, ISBN 046509838X, ISBN 978-0465098385
^ "Status of Austro-Asiatic groups in the peopling of India: An exploratory study based on the available prehistoric, linguistic and biological evidences", Journal of Biosciences Springer,0250-5991,Volume 28, Number 4 / June, 2003, DOI:10.1007/BF02705125, Pages:507-522, Subject Collection:Biomedical and Life Sciences, Date:Thursday, September 20, 2007
^ Multiple origins of the mtDNA 9-bp deletion in populations of South India W.S. Watkins 1 *, M. Bamshad 2, M.E. Dixon 1, B. Bhaskara Rao 3, J.M. Naidu 3, P.G. Reddy 4, B.V.R. Prasad 3, P.K. Das 5, P.C. Reddy 6, P.B. Gai 7, A. Bhanu 8, Y.S. Kusuma 3, J.K. Lum 1, P. Fischer 2, L.B. Jorde 1,American Journal of Physical Anthropology Volume 109 Issue 2, Pages 147 - 158, 2 Jun 1999
^ P . ENDICOTT, The Genetic Origins of the Andaman Islanders . The American Journal of Human Genetics , Volume 72 , Issue 1 , Pages 178 - 184
^ Genetic testing has shown the Andamani to belong to the Haplogroup D (Y-DNA), which is in common with Australian Aboriginals and the Ainu people of Japan rather than the actual African diaspora, [5]
[edit] External links
Africans in Diaspora community on line
Black History Information and Resources
"African Diaspora", a resource list, Columbia Universities, African Studies
"The Blacks of East Bengal: A Native's Perspective," by Horen Tudu
"Negrito and Negrillo", by M. Stewart
"Pan-Africanism in South Asia," by Horen Tudu
Report of the Meeting of Experts from Member States on the Definition of the African Diaspora, African Union, April 2005
"West Papua New Guinea: Interview with Foreign Minister Ben Tanggahma"
"Museum of the African Diaspora," Online exhibits and other resources from the San Francisco-based museum.
"African Diasporic and Indigenous cultures of Colombia and Brasil"
African Diaspora and Study Abroad Brazil African Studies
The African Diaspora Policy Centre (ADPC)
[show]v • d • ePan-Africanism

The Americas . Argentina · Belize · Bolivia · Brazil · Canada (Black Nova Scotians) · Colombia · Chile · Cuba · Costa Rica · Ecuador · Guyana · Jamaica (Jamaican Maroons) · Latin America · Mexico · Peru · Puerto Rico · Trinidad & Tobago · United States (African immigrants · Black Indians in the U.S. · Black Seminoles) · Uruguay

Asia India & Pakistan · Sri Lanka

Europe France (African Americans) · Germany · Ireland · Italy · Poland · Portugal (Portuguese of Black African ancestry) · Russia · United Kingdom (Scotland · Black British · African Americans in the United Kingdom · African-Caribbean community) · Turkey

Middle East Abkhazia · Iraqi · Israel

Oceania Australia · New Zealand

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Brother chuck, its a good thing we have plenty of bandwidth, I guess.

Brother chuck, its a good thing we have plenty of bandwidth, I guess.



First of all:

I applaud Sister Destee for being able and willing to allow all sides to present their various takes on what is the best course of action to advance our various peoples best interests via the here and now...

I also did and do realize there is a noticeable poster or two, who were and are more interested this be a more or less an exclusive and solely African American/U. S. oriented website, i. e., so I'm striving and striving to be fair and objective, as well as be helpful and supportive of their approaches, etc., unless and until I (among others) can (and some will) get across how that might not be the best course of action, given the ever changing nature of the socio/economic/political mix, if not nowadays--most probably via the future...

The short version:

Whatever past generations--then--felt and thought they could do on their own--nowadays we too have to be more aware of the siuation of all people of african descennt...

To be continued...

:toast: I got it Chuck, no need to continue

Things (do) fall apart...

Things (do) come together again...

Chinea Achebe...

Amanla!

:SuN020:

Interesting topic -

Now I've had the opportunity to actually speaking with many Brazilians on this topic and I don't think that the problem is so much as us her in America. As a matter of fact AA's are some of the most accepting folks from the Diaspora but what need to be understood is the mentality of those in Brazil.

First, let me state that the CIA Factbook has changed those statistic found on Wiki to be 6.2% African of Brazil which dramatically decreases the numbers:

"white 53.7%, mulatto (mixed white and black) 38.5%, black 6.2%, other (includes Japanese, Arab, Amerindian) 0.9%, unspecified 0.7% ..."

The ideal is to reclassify what black is as they are doing here in America. The inclusion of the 'Other' on applications begins to break-down what is traditionally known in America as AA (Northern African American). Well Brazilians are AA's (Southern African American) as well and their knowledge and views of us her in Northern America are misinformed.

Here's the thing, many of them don't even want to call us African Americans because they feel that we are white. They feel that we have no true cultural connection to Africa unlike them in Brazil. As I said earlier, they are misinformed about Northern AA's because their have been many African cultural connections maintained here in the US but it doesn't speak for the majority as it does with them. The second issue we have to deal with in concerns to Afro/Afrik Brazilians is that many of them have been conditioned to believe that they are not black/brown anymore because they have European ancestry like many AA's here in America. Many of them do not feel that cultural connect to us because they don't subscribe to the 'necro/negro' aka black talk.

Here's the thing - they have been misinformed about us but at the same time we are misinformed about ourselves. Its hard to connect with misinformation and so for such a connection to work with us we have to first properly describe who we are. We are the only ones carrying the burden possibly because we are the only ones who subscribe to the burden. There is a famous saying, "you train the mind to be a slave, long after the physical slavery is dead and gone, that mind will still be a slave".

The objective shouldn't be about burdens or carrying anything - we definitely have to unite but we have a lot of work to do amongst ourselves first (a mentality makeover) because we can bridge gaps between us and our fellow diaspora[n].

This was SOooo great to read!!!

First of all:

I applaud Sister Destee for being able and willing to allow all sides to present their various takes on what is the best course of action to advance our various peoples best interests via the here and now...

I also did and do realize there is a noticeable poster or two, who were and are more interested this be a more or less an exclusive and solely African American/U. S. oriented website, i. e., so I'm striving and striving to be fair and objective, as well as be helpful and supportive of their approaches, etc., unless and until I (among others) can (and some will) get across how that might not be the best course of action, given the ever changing nature of the socio/economic/political mix, if not nowadays--most probably via the future...

The short version:

Whatever past generations--then--felt and thought they could do on their own--nowadays we too have to be more aware of the siuation of all people of african descennt...

To be continued...

Thank you so much Bro Chuck for your insight!

I believe that there are some who have much more knowledge on facts that can help 'the Black Diaspora movement' and therefore, I am hungry to know what is going on in other parts of the world concerning this. I also believe because of such deliberate moves to keep Black people divided, the actual truth is so hard to get at. So it's good to refer to people like you who concentrate on these areas of 'the total Black awareness'.

We've all been mixed, sifted, exploited and now, some of us like myself, are very protective concerning certain others of whom want to climb onto our AA experience just because it perhaps seems popular.

I believe that this is crucial to self-preservation; that we as AA be aware of other people who want to claim our heritage only to capitolize on things that should not go to them but to us. This kind of capitolization is detrimental to our future generations. Therefore, I depend upon learned people like you to sift through this kind of history and also to help know how how it benefits and helps us as a whole. I'm hungry to know more about 'the Black Indians' and 'Black Mexicans', 'Black Brazilians' and etc. and how these civilizations relate to me here in North America. So, I will continue to read what you have to offer.

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/2567/chicoofarrill48f6cd896e.jpg (http://img254.imageshack.us/i/chicoofarrill48f6cd896e.jpg/)

Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill (October 28, 1921, in Mexico - June 27, 2001, in New York City, New York USA) was a musician who led an Afro-Latin big band, the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra in New York City, which influenced Cal Tjader.

He composed and arranged, and played the trumpet. He also composed many works for Machito (Afro-Cuban suite with Charlie Parker, 1950) and Benny Goodman's Bebop Orchestra.

From 1995 the orchestra, which took up residence at New York's famous Birdland nightclub, was led by Chico's son, a pianist who is also named Arturo O'Farrill. Arturo went on to form the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, which played at Lincoln Center. Under his direction the group recorded the Grammy-nominated album Noche Involvidable in 2005, and Song for Chico in 2008. He is also a professor of jazz at The University of Massachusetts Amherst.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arturo_O'Farrill

Good afternoon...

And thanks sis!

:em0200:

Afro-Cuban jazz

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

In the 1930s, the "Latin invasion" that had begun with the tango took off again when American jazz, dance music, and popular song were revolutionized by the "discovery" of other music forms of the Caribbean, Central and South America, a process that was triggered by a significant influx of migrants to the United States from Cuba, Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands in the 1940s. The blending of Latin rhythms and instrumental jazz was pioneered by established American musicians like Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie and by recently-arrived 'Latin' musicians like Machito and others, some of whom soon became stars in their own right. Latin beats rapidly became an essential part of the rhythmical vocabulary of American popular music, providing composers and musicians with a vastly enhanced repertoire of beats and meters. During the 1930s and 1940s, newly appropriated Latin music genres created a series of music movements and dance crazes, including the merengue, the samba, and the rumba.

Afro-Cuban jazz is a variety of Latin jazz, which was started by Dr. Obdulio Morales in 1930s Cuba. Other well-known variant of Latin jazz is Brazilian jazz. Afro-Cuban jazz was played in the U.S. directly after the bebop period, while Brazilian jazz became more popular in the 1960s and 1970s.

Afro-Cuban Latin Jazz includes rhythmic components from the genres of salsa, merengue, songo, son, mambo, and cha cha cha.

Although jazz had long had what Jelly Roll Morton called the Spanish Tinge through the interchange of musicians from Havana and New Orleans during the late 19th and early 20th century, it never actually used the Afro-Cuban rhythmic components or percussion instruments. A good example of this style would be the song "Caravan" by Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol.

True Afro-Cuban started with the meeting of arranger Mario Bauzá and Dizzy Gillespie in the late 1940s in the Cab Calloway orchestra. In due course Gillespie formed his own big band to try to broaden the appeal of bebop. He asked Bauzá to introduce him to "one of those tom-tom [sic] players (meaning a conga player)." Bauzá introduced Gillespie to the legendary Cuban conguero Luciano "Chano" Pozo. It was in the Gillespie band that Chano Pozo wrote the song "Manteca" that is considered the first piece of true Afro Cuban jazz.

This produced a movement known as "Cubop" that included American jazz greats such as Charlie Parker, who was on the original recording of Chico O'Farrill's sophisticated programatic Afro Cuban Jazz Suite. Another great Cuban conguero famous in jazz circles was Mongo Santamaria, who worked for many years with the American vibe player Cal Tjader. Other American bop players who played in the Afro Cuban genre include Billy Taylor started Afro-Cuban bands in later years, also Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

Mongo Santamaria, like Chano Pozo before him, utilized Yorubas rhythmic structure and instruments.

In the mid 1950s the mambo dance craze swept the United States. This movement was New York based, primarily, but of course was influenced by the music of Cuba and Puerto Rico, not to mention the instrumentation of American big-band swing. The giants of this era were Puerto Ricans Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez and Machito and His Afro Cubans. In those days, record companies used the term "instrumental mambo" for what we would call "latin jazz." In modern times the group Los Hombres Calientes carries on the tradition, led by Irvin Mayfield and Bill Summers.

A very good example of this type of music is The Conga Kings.

See also "Spanish Tinge".

[edit]Important Albums
Dizzy Gillespie Afro

Kenny Dorham Afro-Cuban

Stan Kenton Cuban Fire!

Danilo Perez " Motherland "

Michel Camilo " On Fire "

Eddie Palmieri " La Verdad "

Sebastian Schunke " Symbiosis "

Gonzalo Rubalcaba " Mi Gran Pasion "


Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Afro-Cuban jazz" or a Wikipedia translation thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on original research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

Retrieved from "http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Afro-Cuban_jazz"

Home > African Diaspora, Human Rights, Racism > Africans in Latin America
Africans in Latin America

October 23rd, 2005 Sokari

Last summer whilst in Washington DC, I attended a meeting on racism in Central and South America. At the time I was aware of a large African population in Brazil, Panama, Columbia and Belize and a smaller community in Costa Rica. I did not realise that there were also considerable numbers of descendants of Africans in Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Venezuela and Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua and Uruguay. In fact 45% of Latin Americans are Black.

The reality for Blacks in Latin America is what occurred in Choco, Colombia, where Blacks are not even counted. With about 30 percent or more of Colombia’s population being African descent, it is a matter of time that Blacks in that nation and the rest of Latin America, where the Black population is about 200 million, rise up in a struggle that is unlike any that the Americas has known.

Listening to the women speaking about their lives in their respective countries was shocking. The racism they talked about was like going back in time – a long time as far back as what I imagined life was like during the period of Jim Crow laws in the US and maybe even further back than that.

African Americans in Latin America are amongst the most oppressed people in the world living in an environment of overt institutional racism that displaces them from their land, denies them economic opportunity and access to decent housing,health care, education and participation in all levels of society. For example in Columbia where 25% of the population are of African decent, 74% of Afro-Colombians earn less than the minimum wage, and 82% have no access to public services.

However there is more to racism in Central and South America. In "Blacks in Argentina: Disappearing Acts", Hisham Aidi talks about the "silence" that surrounds Blackness.

"There is a silence about the participation of Afro-Argentines in the history and building of Argentina, a silence about the enslavement and poverty," adds Paula Brufman. "The denial and disdain for the Afro community shows the racism of an elite that sees Africans as undeveloped and uncivilized..

I would add to this the "forced invisibility" of African-Americans in Latin America. In Columbia Blacks are not even counted in the national census, in many countries they are invisible in the media and in commerce.

"The killing of Blacks in Colombia goes unnoticed by the media, also unreported is the issue of displacing Blacks from their land," …….."The secret is out now because of so many Blacks being displaced from their farms and turning up in cities such as Bogotá, the Colombian capital. They have the worst education, and now they are at every stoplight begging and this is causing people to question why this is happening,"

The African American populations of Latin America are beginning to speak out about the racism and oppression they face. In Columbia, Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN) was founded by Libia Grueso.

PCN, which is made up of 120 member organizations, is dedicated to increasing Afro-Columbian involvement in the political process, preserving the Afro-Columbian traditional way of life, and protecting the lands that are inhabited by Afro-Columbians.

Recently another Afro-Colombian activist, Orlando Valencia of the Community Council of Curvarado in the Choco region of Columbia (historically an Afro-Colombian region) was first detained by National Police and then kidnapped by para-military. He remains "disappeared".

© 2004-2009 Black Looks

Chuck:

A case study of folk with less of everything going for them than we're either able or willing to face up, sans constantly refrains about 'whitey/racism/the the system' and 'what they owe us'...

Nothing new or news about that...

So where next for us too?

You tell me!

More background info:

Afro Colombians

"85 percent of Afro-Colombians are poor, earning less than $500 a year as compared to $1700 for non-blacks; 32 percent are illiterate as opposed to the 15 percent for the rest of the population; 49 percent of black children go to school, compared to 80 percent of the national average; only 38 percent of black Colombians go to high school, as compared to 66 percent of the national population; and finally 2 out of every 100 Afro-Colombians who finish high school go to college. This situation exists in much of Latin America, not only Colombia." -- Luis Gilberto Murillo, Afro Colombian

Historic Community of PALENQUE SAN BASILIO (CARTAGENA, Colombia)

By: Professor Nina S. de Friedemann, Bogota

A Colombian community descended from an encampment of fugitive African-born slaves who, rebelling against the Spanish colonial system of slavery, fled into swamps, marshes, and shrublands in search of liberty.

The settlement of some 3000 inhabitants, in the foothills of the Sierra de María, is 70 km (43.75 mi) from Cartagena de Indias, which was the principal Caribbean port of the transatlantic slave trade from the 16th century to the beginning of the 19th century. In Cartagena de Indias, resistance to slavery was constant. Those who were able to escape were known as cimarrones, a word which in the Americas was applied to insurgent Native Americans, wild plants and fruits, escaped domesticated animals, and later, runaway African slaves (see Complexities of Ethnic and Racial Terminology in Latin America and the Caribbean). The slaves fled from the galleys of ships, from mining operations, from ranches, and from domestic service; after their escape, they often came together to form small bands. Many were able to settle in rough encampments protected by swamps and thick brush. To protect themselves from the weapons and dogs of the Spanish slave-hunting parties, these communities surrounded themselves with fences made of posts, branches, and thorns. Such encampments became known as palenques.

Armed with arrows, blunderbusses, and stones, the encamped cimarrón communities fought furiously against colonial domination, and often went to battle with their faces painted red and white. They attacked local ranches, burned them, stole cattle, and at times raped indigenous and black women. Some palenques grew to comprise 600 men, organized in squads headed by a capitán, or captain, and a warlord. Spanish militias counterattacked by burning cassava, corn, bean, potato, and plantain patches maintained by the palenques, and by capturing indigenous and black women to obtain inside information about the encampments. The inhabitants of the palenque (the palenqueros) were often forced to flee deeper into the bush to seek new refuge or other palenques. The history of these rebellions in Colombia has been called the Guerra de los cimarrones, or the Cimarrón War

In 1603 clashes at the palenque of La Matuna between Spanish forces and groups of palenqueros headed by Domingo Benkos Biohó, known in traditional lore as the King of Matuna, brought about a peace settlement signed by the governor of Cartagena, Gerónimo Suazo. On August 23, 1691, the king of Spain issued a decree that granted liberty to palenqueros in the Sierra de María. The decree affirmed the urgency of a "comprehensive and absolute liberty, which unless unconditionally granted would never be accepted [by the palenqueros]."

Palenque de San Basilio is the result of a series of concessions agreed to by Spaniards and palenqueros in the Sierra de María in 1713. It was established as the outcome of a dispute, mediated by the bishop of Cartagena, Father Antonio María Casiani, concerning the recognition of land rights and the authority of a palenquero government that was led by a cimarrón capitán. The bishop gave the palenque the name San Basilio. In 1774 San Basilio for the first time figured in the census of the Spanish colonial government

Palenquero, a Creole language still spoken by the inhabitants of San Basilio, is a living legacy of the Bantu Kongo and Mbundu languages. Likewise, the day-to-day culture of this and other villages in the Colombian Caribbean bears the stamp of their African past, evident in musical rhythms, the particularity of gestures, funeral rites such as the lumbalú, modes of kinship and social organization, and a strong oral tradition.

Representations of an early liberation movement and a history of resistance to colonial slavery in Colombia and the Americas remain in the oral tradition of Domingo Benkos Biohó, the African leader of La Matuna, as well as in the modern-day Palenque de San Basilio, a community directly descending from the days of maroonage in Colombia.

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

Contributed By: Nina S. de Friedemann

AFRO COLOMBIANS: CAUGHT IN THE DRUG WAR'S CROSS-FIRE

By Hisham Aidi First Published: March 14, 2001

Colombian President Andres Pastrana met with President Bush in Washington late last month to discuss a new trade deal with the United States and the disbursement of a $600 million aid package that would make Colombia the third largest recipient of US funds, after Israel and Egypt. But the meeting did not include a discussion of the plight of Afro-Colombians and the disproportionate number of blacks and indigenous people displaced by the country's 37-year-old conflict. Those concerns were raised instead in New York, at a two- day event held February 23 and 24. The symposium, "Black Colombians Under Fire," sought to raise awareness about the predicament of black Colombians in the region of Choco.

The New York-based Colombia Media Project, which co-sponsored the event with the Patrice Lumumba Coalition, has organized trips to the Choco region in Colombia's rainforest as part of a solidarity campaign with the country's indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities.

"It is Black History Month and we are here to talk about a sector of the Colombian community not talked about, and to celebrate a struggle waged for years for cultural rights, land rights and human rights -- as part of a campaign launched by Afro-Colombian leaders to call attention to what's happening in Colombia," said Manuel Jaime of the Colombia Media Project, addressing a packed theater in the American Museum of Natural History.

The situation facing Afro-Colombians is complex. For starters, just how many Colombians can claim African descent is itself a controversial topic. A 1997 United Nations report estimated that Afro- Colombians make up about 16 percent of the country's population, or approximately 6 million people. The Colombian government, however, offers a more conservative number, claiming that blacks and native Colombians together make up only 930,000 or 2.75 percent of the population, while a study by the Inter-American Development Bank, adopting a broader definition of Afro-Colombian, estimated that 30 percent of Colombia's population was black.

Most Afro-Colombians live along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, and reside primarily in the cities of Cartagena, Medellin, Qibdo, Cali and Baranquilla -- cities squarely in the war zone between the state and various rebel groups, of which the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) is the largest, with about 18,000 guerilla soldiers.

The Colombian civil war has taken an estimated 35,000 lives in the past decade and has now become inextricably linked with the country's vast and notorious narcotics trade. The rebel groups have allied themselves against the government with the drug bosses, who control vast regions of Colombia, defending their strongholds with an estimated 11,000 paramilitary troops. Money from the drug trade -- mostly coca, the source crop for cocaine -- helps fuel the opposition, especially FARC, which levies a coca tax on growers in exchange for protection from attack.

According to a recent article in The Nation, "the indigenous population of the targeted southern region is already paying an elevated price. Right-wing paramilitaries have recently expanded in that area and are challenging the FARC not only for territorial control but also for collection of the coca 'tax.'"

Also caught in the crossfire are Afro-Colombians. The UN Commission on Human Rights reported in 1999 that thousands of people in black communities in Colombia faced displacement due to the country's warfare.

"Large numbers of Afro-Colombians reside in some of the most conflictive areas of the national territory," the report read. "[I]t is safe to generalize that terror and violence as practices by all of the contending forces in Colombia have taken their greatest toll on the Colombians living in extreme poverty -- a disproportionate number of whom are black citizens. The Commission was able to observe that the majority of the internally displaced populations residing in shelters and camps in the area consisted of black persons."

It's important to publicize this situation, says Victoria Maldonado of the Colombia Media Project. "We have been working since 1993 to raise awareness of the situation in Colombia," she says. "We're trying to bring voices from the civilian population to the United States. Afro-Colombians are living in areas rich in natural resources -- oil, gold, uranium. Different parties are fighting for the control of these territories and the government is trying to build megaprojects of development -- dams, canals, the Pan-American highway. There are a lot of interests in the Pacific Coast area -- a jungle area with the highest biodiversity in the world. For the past 5-6 years paramilitaries have been carrying out a program of > > depopulation, driving out people opposed to their programs."

Colombia's 1991 constitution recognized the Afro-Colombian community as an ethnicity with cultural, territorial and governing rights. By law, Afro-Colombians in the province of Choco, created in 1945, have the right to control the land and waterways where they live. Calls for self-administration, however, have not been recognized. And despite the abundance of resources, and hard work of Afro-Colombians, most live in desperate poverty.

"Everything that leaves Colombia, including products of the mines, has been largely produced by black hands," said Carlos Rosero, an Afro-Colombian who spoke at one of the weekend's events. "But still we have nothing."

"If we own the land, we should also own the subsoil and its resources, but the government does not recognize that," wrote Luis Gilberto Murillo in the San Diego Union-Tribune. Murillo, who also spoke at the conference, was kidnapped in 1998 by paramilitaries after speaking against the war and declaring Choco a neutral zone. Forced to flee Colombia in July 2000, Murillo now resides in Washington DC with his family.

Addressing his audience though a translator, Murillo said, "We cannot delink ourselves from the legacy of slavery. Despite the African ancestry of many [Colombians], we suffer from an intense invisibility. In Colombia, between 36 and 43 percent of the population is African. In Colombia, the area where Africans reside is called 'the black belt,' which stretches along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Since 1520, when Africans were first brought to Colombia as slaves, we have been part of the history of struggles, the struggle for liberation - since the 16th century there have communities of free and escaped slaves know as 'palenques' -- and the struggle to build the nation of Colombia. It is painful when they talk about the building of a Colombian identity and nation, without recognizing the people of African ancestry."

Murillo's address laid out some of the dismal facts facing Afro- Colombians today, contrasting them with the rich historical legacy of black communities in the country. "Afro-Colombians participated in the struggle for the freedom of Colombia with Simon Bolivar and in other parts of Latin America. Three out of every five soldiers in Bolivar's army were African. The navy in Colombia was founded by an African, but ironically today we're not allowed in the navy."

Today, he said, "85 percent of Afro-Colombians are poor, earning less than $500 a year as compared to $1700 for non-blacks; 32 percent are illiterate as opposed to the 15 percent for the rest of the population; 49 percent of black children go to school, compared to 80 percent of the national average; only 38 percent of black Colombians go to high school, as compared to 66 percent of the national population; and finally 2 out of every 100 Afro-Colombians who finish high school go to college. This situation exists in much of Latin America, not only Colombia."

Murillo said that the war has created 1.8 million internal refugees, most of them black, and militarized the areas inhabited by Afro- Colombians. "The conflict in Colombia is not guerrillas versus the state. It has deeper roots. It's difficult to bring peace to a country without a politics of inclusion, and with a history of intolerance and exclusion."

In this context, the drug war is just the latest skirmish in a battle that goes back centuries. "The problem is not just about peasants producing coca," Murillo said. "Fumigation [a widespread policy to wipe out coca fields] is not a solution. It destroys the environment and poisons the soil and other legitimate crops. Instead of building schools and providing services, the plan militarizes, it brings battalions and deepens the conflict. Without state support, peasants have no choice but to raise coca leaves."

Last summer, the US Congress approved a $1.3 billion package of mostly military aid to help stop the flow of drugs. The State Department's annual report on anti-narcotics operations around the world, released last month, showed that despite the aid package, the areas under coca cultivation in Colombia had grown 11 percent, to almost 336,000 acres. Commenting on the report, Stephen E. Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations told the New York Times, "What we have is more of a mess in Colombia than what we started with."

The mess, speakers at the New York event seemed to agree, would take more than short-sighted drug war policies to untangle -- its roots are simply too deep.

"Slavery was ended in Colombia in 1851, but our promise of freedom was never fulfilled," said Murillo. "Since 1852, a process of 'invisibility' has been in effect, and the model of Latin America that has been exported has excluded the different roots. Latin American history is a dialogue between indigenous, Spanish and African people."

Setting aside the White and taino populations for a second, the demographics of Brazil are

6.3% African descent
38.5 % African-European descent
(the latter sometimes mixed with traino in certain regions)

Most people in Brazil are not Black. Nor do they have any interest in being Black. There is no one-drop rule in Brazil. Period. I lived in Brazil for a year in the 1990's. There actually was an online discussion forum for Brazilian Blacks but they became fed up with African-Americans dropping in to lecture them. The forum was orginally in Portuguese, then it was an English forum, then the ADMIN changed it back to a Portuguese language forum in order to keep out African-Americans.

The only English language race forum currently operating in Brazil is Brazzilforum.com and Brazzilrace.com and both these forums (with a low level of activity) have been taken over by racists.) There is really not much to read.

But in conclusion, I would say that neither Brazilians of African descent (a small minority) nor those of European-African descent (the vast majority) have much interest in the United States or African-Americans. That was my perception after being there for a year.

Groetjes,

Denise

any example of what you mention would be apreciated coming from Brazil within the past 20 years,
to be honest I have only heard about the folks there in the past 15 years from folks like Dr. Leonard Jeffries and Tony Brown but realy , every nation has websites and what not from the grassroots of all folks of African descent, and to be honest we have not heard from these folks, who are a larger population then us here,
except for Pelle and Milton Nasciemento.

Brazil & Race...Wow!


Setting aside the White and taino populations for a second, the demographics of Brazil are

6.3% African descent
38.5 % African-European descent
(the latter sometimes mixed with traino in certain regions)

Most people in Brazil are not Black. Nor do they have any interest in being Black. There is no one-drop rule in Brazil. Period. I lived in Brazil for a year in the 1990's. There actually was an online discussion forum for Brazilian Blacks but they became fed up with African-Americans dropping in to lecture them. The forum was orginally in Portuguese, then it was an English forum, then the ADMIN changed it back to a Portuguese language forum in order to keep out African-Americans.

The only English language race forum currently operating in Brazil is Brazzilforum.com and Brazzilrace.com and both these forums (with a low level of activity) have been taken over by racists.) There is really not much to read.

But in conclusion, I would say that neither Brazilians of African descent (a small minority) nor those of European-African descent (the vast majority) have much interest in the United States or African-Americans. That was my perception after being there for a year.

Groetjes,

Denise



Biracial_Blend,

Thanks for this factual report on the racial activity in Brazil, indeed very powerful; you speak truth to power, for real.

First of all?

There were and are eras and and times etc. whereas blacks thruout the Americas have sought out each other for mutual advice and support...

I. e., via all people and all things, such includes the arts/literature/music/etc., also which included our social and political struggles, etc.

Though, during more recent eras, it has tended to be us--not them,
presuming and assuming they too need and should only approach their own siuations exactly the same means and ways we allege or really do here, in the states...

I didn't and I don't!

Instead, this time around, we would benefit from their experiences, etc., as they do hold on to their own unique sense of being people of african descent, though as equals among other people of color, etc.; i. e., as they strive towards true equality and justice for all of the exploited and oppressed people their live in the midst of, also as they strive to end the domination of outside interests over their bought off politicians and regain control of their nation's economies, etc.

Here we continue to bumble and fumble and stumble among ourselves and/or aren't able or willing to do the basic things any people need and want to do to win true respect from each other:

And that criticism I'm directing at the alleged or real activists etc...

So I say and write this to the black leftists/the black nationalists/pan africanists:

The black masses expect much better from you than to recycle other folks' past ideas etc. for advancing their bests interests...

Now you need to advance new ones!

No...

I don't have 'all of the answers' either!

But...

I'm damned sure beginning to know and understand what the questions are!

One in particular:

Eventually all trips do come to an end...

Long overdue for us to heed today's reality checks/wake up calls...

Later...

Peace...

Setting aside the White and taino populations for a second, the demographics of Brazil are

6.3% African descent
38.5 % African-European descent
(the latter sometimes mixed with traino in certain regions)

Most people in Brazil are not Black. Nor do they have any interest in being Black. There is no one-drop rule in Brazil. Period. I lived in Brazil for a year in the 1990's. There actually was an online discussion forum for Brazilian Blacks but they became fed up with African-Americans dropping in to lecture them. The forum was orginally in Portuguese, then it was an English forum, then the ADMIN changed it back to a Portuguese language forum in order to keep out African-Americans.

The only English language race forum currently operating in Brazil is Brazzilforum.com and Brazzilrace.com and both these forums (with a low level of activity) have been taken over by racists.) There is really not much to read.

But in conclusion, I would say that neither Brazilians of African descent (a small minority) nor those of European-African descent (the vast majority) have much interest in the United States or African-Americans. That was my perception after being there for a year.

Groetjes,

Denise


First there are no Tainos in Brazil.
Black or pardo Brazilians don't think of AA as white, that is crazy. Black African brazilians have been around for alot longer then AA's. they have no need for AA's. They have to do their thing their way. As we do here. We don't here from them because they don't speak english, we don't speak Portuguese. We are worlds apart on a great many things, culture for one. If any one here thinks they owe something to us, then you are crazy!

AXE!

First there are no Tainos in Brazil.
Black or pardo Brazilians don't think of AA as white, that is crazy. Black African brazilians have been around for alot longer then AA's. they have no need for AA's. They have to do their thing their way. As we do here. We don't here from them because they don't speak english, we don't speak Portuguese. We are worlds apart on a great many things, culture for one. If any one here thinks they owe something to us, then you are crazy!

AXE!



Brother Corvo, this thread interests me, what about this link:


http://www.experiencefestival.com/taino

Brother Corvo, this thread interests me, what about this link:


http://www.experiencefestival.com/taino





Hi brother cyde,
At a first glans it looks to be a bit poorly writen, some of the information is half true. But I can't say about the rest. If you have some questions about Tainos, I will try to answer them.

your brother Corvo

Hi brother clyde,
At a first glans it looks to be a bit poorly writen, some of the information is half true. But I can't say about the rest. If you have some questions about Tainos, I will try to answer them.

your brother Corvo



Hey brother Corvo, nothing other than whether Tainos are in Brazil. Thank you my brother friend.

Hey brother Corvo, nothing other than whether Tainos are in Brazil. Thank you my brother friend.




The indiguinus people who colombus thought they were calling themselfs Tainos, only lived in the greater antilies of the caribe sea. They originate from the northern south America over 6,000 years ago. So that they had their own culture. The Carib were a recent arrival from south America and were at war with the so called Tainos. The pig Colombus thought the natives called them selfs Taino, but what they were saying was that they were good people. The word Taino means noble or good. So there are no native groups in Brazil that call themself's Taino.

The descendants of the Taino came from the Orinoco river valley in Venezuela, as brother Corvo alludes to, about 6,000 years ago. Like Corvo says, by definition, they are not and never have been in Brazil.

peace

Our african ancestors and their forebears etc mated and mingled with different folks on this side of the two oceans:

Some of their descendants are for us...

Others not at all!

So what is new or news about that too?

Next question...

FYI...

Candidly and honestly:

There continues to be those among you who just believe what you choose to believe, i. e,. which is what did or does matter is either your exclusive and sole relationship to black folk or what white folk, in this nation/in this part of the North American continent...

What I know and understand to be true:

It is by their very nature, from era to era/from decade to decade/from slavery to segregation/to desegregation, the white powers that be did and do mean to keep us in a state of ignorance, etc., when it comes to our real relationship to other people of color in general--other people of african descent--in the Americas--in particular...

Instead--here/there/everywhere--white foks didn't concede anything to us--without a struggle...

They never have:

And the never will!

So we best seek out all of the allies etc. we can find!

FYI...

Take care...

Peace...

The indiguinus people who colombus thought they were calling themselfs Tainos, only lived in the greater antilies of the caribe sea. They originate from the northern south America over 6,000 years ago. So that they had their own culture. The Carib were a recent arrival from south America and were at war with the so called Tainos. The pig Colombus thought the natives called them selfs Taino, but what they were saying was that they were good people. The word Taino means noble or good. So there are no native groups in Brazil that call themself's Taino.





Corvo,

Thanks brother, unless Biracial_Blend returns with some counter persuasvive argument, your position does seem to line up with mainstream thought. Let's see if Biracial has anything more.

The United States remains a world power:

Its vested interests reflect somebody's investments around the globe...

Hence some of the employees-- of those various transnational corporations-- are bound to wind up here-- too...

The reality of this nation's policies and practices is it did and does allow immigration to this nation on the basis of the self interests of its status quo...

Yes...

We suffered thru eras of enslavement:

But...

They via eras of colonialism...

Also, some of both were and are seeking better places and spaces, i.e ., in order to pursue better options, etc.

I do feel and think the photo gallery, asssociated with the book, A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AFRICA, summed up it up pretty well...

Such folk-- featured in those photos-- don't feel or think they need or want our permission to be here:

So--ready or not--here they come--too!

Hence-- you can choose to just react--or you can prepare yourself for the challenges to come...

Your call:

One way or the other...

FYI...

Later...

CTJ

The United States remains a world power:

Its vested interests reflect somebody's investments around the globe...

Hence some of the employees-- of those various transnational corporations-- are bound to wind up here-- too...

The reality of this nation's policies and practices is it did and does allow immigration to this nation on the basis of the self interests of its status quo...

Yes...

We suffered thru eras of enslavement:

But...

They via eras of colonialism...

Also, some of both were and are seeking better places and spaces, i.e ., in order to pursue better options, etc.

I do feel and think the photo gallery, asssociated with the book, A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AFRICA, summed up it up pretty well...

Such folk-- featured in those photos-- don't feel or think they need or want our permission to be here:

So--ready or not--here they come--too!

Hence-- you can choose to just react--or you can prepare yourself for the challenges to come...

Your call:

One way or the other...

FYI...

Later...

CTJ


chuck,
some times it's not clear to me what you are saying.
perhaps because I come from P.R. or that this is not my first lengua...

I'm with you in that we all need to connect to/with our other brothers and sisters. I have had the chance and have done so on many occasion. It is a great part of why I have traveled. one of my closes friends is an African-Brazilian. Black brazilians like AA's have many different ideas about Africa and how they relate to it. I think that in some ways they are a bit more connected to Africa then our brothers here in the U.S. mostly because of religion and cultural perspectives.

AXE!

chuck,
some times it's not clear to me what you are saying.
perhaps because I come from P.R. or that this is not my first lengua...

I'm with you in that we all need to connect to/with our other brothers and sisters. I have had the chance and have done so on many occasion. It is a great part of why I have traveled. one of my closes friends is an African-Brazilian. Black brazilians like AA's have many different ideas about Africa and how they relate to it. I think that in some ways they are a bit more connected to Africa then our brothers here in the U.S. mostly because of religion and cultural perspectives.

AXE!
They are connected to Africa in every way except common sense, folk wisdom and African concepts of economics,
how else could a nation keep more folks of African descent then in the entire 50 states subjugated to lives of eternal poverty and invisible to the world?

millions upon millions of Black folks that we
hear nothing about and nothing from them?
that's kinda spooky

chuck,
some times it's not clear to me what you are saying.
perhaps because I come from P.R. or that this is not my first lengua...

I'm with you in that we all need to connect to/with our other brothers and sisters. I have had the chance and have done so on many occasion. It is a great part of why I have traveled. one of my closes friends is an African-Brazilian. Black brazilians like AA's have many different ideas about Africa and how they relate to it. I think that in some ways they are a bit more connected to Africa then our brothers here in the U.S. mostly because of religion and cultural perspectives.

AXE!

Chuck:

Good afternoon, bruh!

And, yeah, I do tend to ramble a bit...

But my point was/is this:

Not only is it a bad idea for folk outside of this nation to presume and assume just us being here in the states have 'all of the answers'?

Sometimes I'm not even sure a lot of us even know or understand what the questions are!

Lately some have tried to impose a 'one size fits all' notion about who we should be and be about:

Instead I fought for the right of my and our peoples empowerment etc.

To say the least?

The one undermines the other...

I hardly felt or feel our folk can't act in their own best interests...

I also kinda sorta believe that gets undermined by those who already presume and assume we can't (or we won't)...

Instead:

Let them strive to be much better role models...

FYI...

CTJ

They are connected to Africa in every way except common sense, folk wisdom and African concepts of economics,
how else could a nation keep more folks of African descent then in the entire 50 states subjugated to lives of eternal poverty and invisible to the world?

millions upon millions of Black folks that we
hear nothing about and nothing from them?
that's kinda spooky

Chuck:

Do keep in mind the difference between what you believe or have been misled to as opposed to you needing and we wanting you to weigh the pros and cons of the facts available...

I. e., it is a wrongheaded premise, and merely being in the majority doesn't imply or assume a clever minority can't continue to manipulate and/or control them...

Such was as true of South African blacks before the ANC etc. ousted the white racist apartheid regime and is true of our brown neighbors in Mexico...

Actually isn't that as true of this nation as well?

CTJ

Corvo

(S)ome times it's not clear to me what you are saying.
perhaps because I come from P.R. or that this is not my first lengua...

Chuck:

No...

Sometimes I don't get my points across effectively...

So one more time...

I've been in contact--off and on--with others here and there--with a number of folk--some who emigrated to here--from somewhere else--in particular--the Carribean and/or other parts of Central and South America, so I am more than aware some others-- of african descent in the Americas etc.--also have their share of internal differences--though the progressive ones don't seem or sound like it's a betrayal ad naseum--i. e., to reveal the obvious-- in public and print...

Y'see--when it comes to some--among our folk here--including some who regularly post on these message boards etc.--they do consider it an exibiting of weakness--whereas feel and think just the opposite...

I. e., let us build no new movement or movements, on a a shakey foundation, etc...

You wrote:

I'm with you in that we all need to connect to/with our other brothers and sisters.

Chuck:

However few and far between, here and there some of us have been striving and trying to do that, all along...

Thing is:

One also has to contrast those of us, i. e,. who feel and think we need to,
as opposed to those who don't (or won't)...

This forum is an exception (and not the norm)...

But somebody has to start somewhere (in order to get the word out to the black masses of this nation why they should be striving for the same things I--among others--always have been)...

You wrote:

I have had the chance and have done so on many occasion. It is a great part of why I have traveled. one of my closes friends is an African-Brazilian. Black brazilians like AA's have many different ideas about Africa and how they relate to it. I think that in some ways they are a bit more connected to Africa then our brothers here in the U.S. mostly because of religion and cultural perspectives.

Chuck:

In retrospect, perhaps it was merely being kinda sorta low on the white pecking order side themselves, hence Portugeuse (sic) and Spanish colonists etc. were probably far less concerned about those 'bizarre' and 'strange' rituals (which originated in Africa) , i. e., though which some English speaking whites etc. did (or do) associate with paganism and satanism, ad naseum; or are always being overly concerned (or worried) about losing their perches at the top of the mix, time and again needing and wanting to wipe out such practices, as regards whoever they (lorded) ruled over...

Flashforward and the disrespect continuing to be exibited towards American Indian sacred practices etc. has to be contrasted with what the white folk's bill of rights would have us to believe otherwise...

Not to digress (too much)...

And more to the point:

It is the black/red connection which is the bridge between the peoples of color in the Americas and while all should be united via a common intent as well as purpose anyhow...

Anyway that's my take on all of this...

I also look forward to hearing and reading your own...

FYI...

CTJ

Chuck:

Do keep in mind the difference between what you believe or have been misled to as opposed to you needing and we wanting you to weigh the pros and cons of the facts available...

I. e., it is a wrongheaded premise, and merely being in the majority doesn't imply or assume a clever minority can't continue to manipulate and/or control them...

Such was as true of South African blacks before the ANC etc. ousted the white racist apartheid regime and is true of our brown neighbors in Mexico...

Actually isn't that as true of this nation as well?

CTJ
Actually isn't that as true of this nation as well?



No it is not,
because the amount of inventors of literaly thousands of inventions that form the basis of everything we take for granted
, legislators, authors, teachers and men of politics that we had after slavery has put our history in the books and minds of every nation in the world.

Black Wall street

The civil rights struggle and the millions involved in that,
the Black liberation struggle and the many who lost live over that,

the UNIA of Garvey and the thousands that gained a Pan African conciousness not just here but around the world,

the Nation of Islam and it's impact on creating Black businesses, the cementing of the Black family and a paradigm of rightoeus indignation against White Supremacy as well as a self sufficency that makes one wonder why we don't have a Nation of Christianity as well based on the same principals.


All of this and more under a life of lynching and Jim Crow,

therfore were is the comparison, in a nation that has more Black folks then here???

How can we not have heard or now with the internet research any of their great efforts for the Black race in Brazil???????????????????????????????????????????? ?????

As I did and do have to repeat, time and again, there is a diffeence between presenting monologues as opposed to being able and willling to engage in dialogues...

If the first is all you're about and the second you're not really able or willing to consider being a part of:

There will be those times etc. I won't post back to you either!

FYI...

As I did and do have to repeat, time and again, there is a diffeence between presenting monologues as opposed to being able and willling to engage in dialogues...

If the first is all you're about and the second you're not really able or willing to consider being a part of:

There will be those times etc. I won't post back to you either!

FYI...
at least what I say folks understand, wether they agree or disagree wth my statements

They are connected to Africa in every way except common sense, folk wisdom and African concepts of economics,
how else could a nation keep more folks of African descent then in the entire 50 states subjugated to lives of eternal poverty and invisible to the world?

millions upon millions of Black folks that we
hear nothing about and nothing from them?
that's kinda spooky



Interesting comments. Seems like you have some issue here? I’m not sure what you expect,... From these people?
African-Brazilians have their hands full, I’m not sure that they can say any thing to us here. A great many of them are very poor, more poor then you might think. Many don’t have access to computers nor can read even Portuguese. They can only reach us through their music. And most of us don’t listen to it or could understand it…

Please don’t blame African-Brazilians for there current situation. They are working on it. Till only recently they were under a right-wing dictatorship who killed any one who spoke against them. A true Fascist government.

Corvo

(S)ome times it's not clear to me what you are saying.
perhaps because I come from P.R. or that this is not my first lengua...

Chuck:

No...

Sometimes I don't get my points across effectively...

So one more time...

I've been in contact--off and on--with others here and there--with a number of folk--some who emigrated to here--from somewhere else--in particular--the Carribean and/or other parts of Central and South America, so I am more than aware some others-- of african descent in the Americas etc.--also have their share of internal differences--though the progressive ones don't seem or sound like it's a betrayal ad naseum--i. e., to reveal the obvious-- in public and print...

Y'see--when it comes to some--among our folk here--including some who regularly post on these message boards etc.--they do consider it an exibiting of weakness--whereas feel and think just the opposite...

I. e., let us build no new movement or movements, on a a shakey foundation, etc...

You wrote:

I'm with you in that we all need to connect to/with our other brothers and sisters.

Chuck:

However few and far between, here and there some of us have been striving and trying to do that, all along...

Thing is:

One also has to contrast those of us, i. e,. who feel and think we need to,
as opposed to those who don't (or won't)...

This forum is an exception (and not the norm)...

But somebody has to start somewhere (in order to get the word out to the black masses of this nation why they should be striving for the same things I--among others--always have been)...

You wrote:

I have had the chance and have done so on many occasion. It is a great part of why I have traveled. one of my closes friends is an African-Brazilian. Black brazilians like AA's have many different ideas about Africa and how they relate to it. I think that in some ways they are a bit more connected to Africa then our brothers here in the U.S. mostly because of religion and cultural perspectives.

Chuck:

In retrospect, perhaps it was merely being kinda sorta low on the white pecking order side themselves, hence Portugeuse (sic) and Spanish colonists etc. were probably far less concerned about those 'bizarre' and 'strange' rituals (which originated in Africa) , i. e., though which some English speaking whites etc. did (or do) associate with paganism and satanism, ad naseum; or are always being overly concerned (or worried) about losing their perches at the top of the mix, time and again needing and wanting to wipe out such practices, as regards whoever they (lorded) ruled over...

Flashforward and the disrespect continuing to be exibited towards American Indian sacred practices etc. has to be contrasted with what the white folk's bill of rights would have us to believe otherwise...

Not to digress (too much)...

And more to the point:

It is the black/red connection which is the bridge between the peoples of color in the Americas and while all should be united via a common intent as well as purpose anyhow...

Anyway that's my take on all of this...

I also look forward to hearing and reading your own...

FYI...

CTJ



Yes there is little to no connection between the US and AFRi-Brazilians. Most have had very little access to education and those who have come here via Music or Capoeira have only done so since 1978 and in very small numbers.

When Africans in Latin-America gain access to education (speak English and have access to printing books. then some here will hear of them and the small gains and movements that they have accomplished. They are buisy doing things. taking over land bu squatting on it against the police. and deiing in protest. We don't read about these things, because our midia here dose not cover it. But our people here have their hands full as well.

What we have been able to do here in the states, could not have been done there at the end of a gun. Afri-Brazilians have died in the 100's of thousands, but we will never hear about it here.

AXE!

Interesting comments. Seems like you have some issue here? I’m not sure what you expect,... From these people?
African-Brazilians have their hands full, I’m not sure that they can say any thing to us here. A great many of them are very poor, more poor then you might think. Many don’t have access to computers nor can read even Portuguese. They can only reach us through their music. And most of us don’t listen to it or could understand it…

Please don’t blame African-Brazilians for there current situation. They are working on it. Till only recently they were under a right-wing dictatorship who killed any one who spoke against them. A true Fascist government.


Chuck:

Some are bound to make it personal and/or be subjective about it all...

Instead I strive to be less idealistic and more realistic...

I don't claim some message from above changed my mind:

Some folks like you did!

(Smile)...

Some folks simply believe what they choose to believe:

It is up to more than just me to contrast that with the truth...

I. e., did or does the other brother have anything to say to dispute the articles etc. I've reposted?

So no efforts/no results...

FYI...

Yes there is little to no connection between the US and AFRi-Brazilians. Most have had very little access to education and those who have come here via Music or Capoeira have only done so since 1978 and in very small numbers.

When Africans in Latin-America gain access to education (speak English and have access to printing books. then some here will hear of them and the small gains and movements that they have accomplished. They are buisy doing things. taking over land bu squatting on it against the police. and deiing in protest. We don't read about these things, because our midia here dose not cover it. But our people here have their hands full as well.

What we have been able to do here in the states, could not have been done there at the end of a gun. Afri-Brazilians have died in the 100's of thousands, but we will never hear about it here.

AXE!

Chuck:

Too oftentimes we here/there/everywhere only hear or read a fraction of what those other folks are doing for themselves...

So if and when they do take time etc. from their own efforts to pass along information etc. to us too?

I am grateful...

So should you be too...

And you know what comes next?

Nothing new or news about that either!

FYI...

Was or is the ongoing struggles of our various people of african descent ever seen or saw as unrelated to each other as far as our mutual exploiters and oppressors were or are concerned (or worried about)?

NO guess!

And a case study of a no brainer!

FYI...

Venezuelan activist lectures on social issues
By Gisel Saillant, Collegian staff


Updated: Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Afro-Latino movement reached the University of Massachusetts last Tuesday, as Jesus "Chucho" Garcia lectured about a social movement in Venezuela.

The lecture, titled "The Afro-Venezuelan Social Movement and the New Left in Latin America," brought a global perspective to UMass students.

He explained the more complex issues that exist in this community other than the stereotypes that are in the media about Latin America, "We are stereotyped as people that play drums, and shake [our buttocks] not as intellectuals," Garcia said.

Garcia is an intellectual activist and leader of the network of Afro-Venezuelan organizations and Strategic Alliance of Afro-descendants in Latin America. The lecture highlighted changes he feels must be made in the Venezuelan constitution and the involvement of the United States in the social movement.

Garcia gave his speech in Spanish, his native tongue, and it was translated into English by UMass faculty members, including Professor Agustin Lao Montes, who introduced Garcia to the attendees.

"I'm not Chavista, I'm not Bolivarian, I'm a revolutionary," Garcia said.

According to Garcia, this social movement evolves around racial and economic inequality in Venezuela.

"The problem of racism [in Venezuela] is that is under the veil of racial mixture," Garcia said. Education, according to Garcia, is the solution to the country's problems.

That is why the Afro-Venezuelan movement has made it a priority to implement more African elements in the school curriculum.

"We went to the ministry of education to demand our participation," Garcia said.

These demands were discussed with Cuban instructors that came to Venezuela to implement a new school agenda. Garcia admitted that the Cuban instructors had strategies, methods and objectives that should be included in the Venezuelan school system.

However, when the question about the content that should be taught came up, disagreements arose.

"The Cubans thought the issue of racism should not be included," Garcia said. After a month and a half of deliberations, Garcia said that they had won their petition.

Garcia expressed that the Afro-Venezuelan contributions needs to be included because, "[Professors] are the first reproducers of racism," according to Garcia.

According to Garcia, one of the mistakes made during the Cuban revolution was ignoring of the racism issue.

In order for the Afro-Venezuelan movement to gain momentum, changes need to be upheld in the Venezuelan constitution, according to Garcia.

"Chavez proposed a constitution reform, which among other things would announce Venezuela as a socialist nation, and dismantle the capitalist that it is now, in the 1999 constitution, we were not officially recognized," Garcia said.

This new addition in the Venezuelan constitution grants recognition to the indigenous population, but not African descendants in Venezuela.

The movement remains strong, as Garcia spoke about the accomplishments the Afro-Venezuelan organizations have made since 2005 by creating a presidential commission against racism.

"To advance recognition in the issues in the constitution in the organic laws of education, cultural, and land laws, [we] need to push the topic into public policy," Garcia said.

Although it was the first time Garcia visited UMass, the United States has been involved with this social movement.

Garcia questioned the true intentions of the United States' support of the social movement.

"The Afro blackness social movements have become important to the U.S - it is not an accident that there was a delegation in Columbia," Garcia said.

Garcia focused on how the United States wants to capture this black movement, the creation of schools of leadership that were put in place by Colin Powell, has only one objective.

"We see it as [that the U.S] will pick leaders that will support invasions," Garcia said.

This is a subtle manipulation tactic from the United States to catch the black movement in Latin America, Garcia said during his lecture.

"The agenda is low intensity, low profile intervention, is not like in 2004 the overt intervention in Haiti," Garcia said.

"Take a look at the diaspora in Latin America in light of the changes that are happening now," Garcia said.

The lecture was hosted by the Afro-American Studies department and the center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies. Students and faculty alike crowed the Shirley Graham Du Bois Library located in the New Africa house.

"Garcia's thought-provoking presentation at UMass-Amherst enables us all to see how global the problems of capitalism and white supremacy truly are and how our local struggles are significant fronts in a worldwide resistance movement," said Amilar Shabazz, department chair of Afro-American Studies. "Certain details may be different and delivered in a different language, but the bottom-line truth is the same: The unchecked power of rampant racism and corporate capitalism equals disease, death and dislocation whether in Caracas or Katrina."

"I'm interested in Latin American social movement, but more familiar with Mexico," said Quincy Saul, a junior at Hampshire College,. "It was very interesting to hear a radical perspective in Venezuela that is both critical of Chavez and recognizes the change."

Was or is the ongoing struggles of our various people of african descent ever seen or saw as unrelated to each other as far as our mutual exploiters and oppressors were or are concerned (or worried about)?

NO guess!

And a case study of a no brainer!

FYI...


Chuck,
I have taken Ankh's comments personally, not yours. You have been level headed on these issues. One of the post you responded to me on, was actually addressed to ankh. I am an African-Latino so that when any one makes generalized poorly inform and seemingly arrogant comments. I do take it personal. I don’t want my brothers here to misunderstand our African Latino brothers and their situations. We are actually related, in some ways more so then to our continental African family. So I do think it can have a mutual benefit if we can learn from each others movements in liberating our self's from our perspective exploiters.

Brazil has had a long history of fighting it’s oppressors, But Brazil has not been a democracy till only recently. It’s been difficult for Black Brazilians to fight for equality when all other racial groups don’t have equality, except the ruling class. Brazil and all Latin American countries did not have a bill of rights as the U.S. has. We here can’t make blanket statements about other countries when we don’t now their history, nor the actual cultural dynamics. That would be foolish. Here in the states we have a tendency to view the world and make judgments from our perspective only. I think that this is inappropriate since we don’t usually know very much about other cultures and their histories.

AXE!

This last post shows very well how we can educate our brothers and sisters. thanks.

Venezuelan activist lectures on social issues
By Gisel Saillant, Collegian staff


Updated: Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Afro-Latino movement reached the University of Massachusetts last Tuesday, as Jesus "Chucho" Garcia lectured about a social movement in Venezuela.

The lecture, titled "The Afro-Venezuelan Social Movement and the New Left in Latin America," brought a global perspective to UMass students.

He explained the more complex issues that exist in this community other than the stereotypes that are in the media about Latin America, "We are stereotyped as people that play drums, and shake [our buttocks] not as intellectuals," Garcia said.

Garcia is an intellectual activist and leader of the network of Afro-Venezuelan organizations and Strategic Alliance of Afro-descendants in Latin America. The lecture highlighted changes he feels must be made in the Venezuelan constitution and the involvement of the United States in the social movement.

Garcia gave his speech in Spanish, his native tongue, and it was translated into English by UMass faculty members, including Professor Agustin Lao Montes, who introduced Garcia to the attendees.

"I'm not Chavista, I'm not Bolivarian, I'm a revolutionary," Garcia said.

According to Garcia, this social movement evolves around racial and economic inequality in Venezuela.

"The problem of racism [in Venezuela] is that is under the veil of racial mixture," Garcia said. Education, according to Garcia, is the solution to the country's problems.

That is why the Afro-Venezuelan movement has made it a priority to implement more African elements in the school curriculum.

"We went to the ministry of education to demand our participation," Garcia said.

These demands were discussed with Cuban instructors that came to Venezuela to implement a new school agenda. Garcia admitted that the Cuban instructors had strategies, methods and objectives that should be included in the Venezuelan school system.

However, when the question about the content that should be taught came up, disagreements arose.

"The Cubans thought the issue of racism should not be included," Garcia said. After a month and a half of deliberations, Garcia said that they had won their petition.

Garcia expressed that the Afro-Venezuelan contributions needs to be included because, "[Professors] are the first reproducers of racism," according to Garcia.

According to Garcia, one of the mistakes made during the Cuban revolution was ignoring of the racism issue.

In order for the Afro-Venezuelan movement to gain momentum, changes need to be upheld in the Venezuelan constitution, according to Garcia.

"Chavez proposed a constitution reform, which among other things would announce Venezuela as a socialist nation, and dismantle the capitalist that it is now, in the 1999 constitution, we were not officially recognized," Garcia said.

This new addition in the Venezuelan constitution grants recognition to the indigenous population, but not African descendants in Venezuela.

The movement remains strong, as Garcia spoke about the accomplishments the Afro-Venezuelan organizations have made since 2005 by creating a presidential commission against racism.

"To advance recognition in the issues in the constitution in the organic laws of education, cultural, and land laws, [we] need to push the topic into public policy," Garcia said.

Although it was the first time Garcia visited UMass, the United States has been involved with this social movement.

Garcia questioned the true intentions of the United States' support of the social movement.

"The Afro blackness social movements have become important to the U.S - it is not an accident that there was a delegation in Columbia," Garcia said.

Garcia focused on how the United States wants to capture this black movement, the creation of schools of leadership that were put in place by Colin Powell, has only one objective.

"We see it as [that the U.S] will pick leaders that will support invasions," Garcia said.

This is a subtle manipulation tactic from the United States to catch the black movement in Latin America, Garcia said during his lecture.

"The agenda is low intensity, low profile intervention, is not like in 2004 the overt intervention in Haiti," Garcia said.

"Take a look at the diaspora in Latin America in light of the changes that are happening now," Garcia said.

The lecture was hosted by the Afro-American Studies department and the center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies. Students and faculty alike crowed the Shirley Graham Du Bois Library located in the New Africa house.

"Garcia's thought-provoking presentation at UMass-Amherst enables us all to see how global the problems of capitalism and white supremacy truly are and how our local struggles are significant fronts in a worldwide resistance movement," said Amilar Shabazz, department chair of Afro-American Studies. "Certain details may be different and delivered in a different language, but the bottom-line truth is the same: The unchecked power of rampant racism and corporate capitalism equals disease, death and dislocation whether in Caracas or Katrina."

"I'm interested in Latin American social movement, but more familiar with Mexico," said Quincy Saul, a junior at Hampshire College,. "It was very interesting to hear a radical perspective in Venezuela that is both critical of Chavez and recognizes the change."
that was shocking aboutt Cuba's attitude, but not shocking about Chavez working towards the end of preferential treatment for whites and latinos over Blacks, since he has said in public he considers himself to be Black

Good afternoon, Corvo...

And, I too have been on a few forums, where other afrolatinos did try to get the word out, i. e., striving and trying to both resolve their own past or present conflicts etc., then trying to get the word out as to the illusions vs the reality of their siuations as opposed to our own, in the states...

But, some things were and are new and news to them, too...

All I can and should do is to advise and assist, whereas others things you and others have to do for yourselves...

So another word of advice, on the basis of my past and present experiences, etc.

If you too let it get personal and/or choose to be subjective about it all,
much is lost and nothing will be gained...

Do keep in mind there are also 44 million plus of us:

No one poster can or should dare to imply or suggest that he or she speaks for us all...

FYI...

Good luck!

Take care...

Peace...

Chuck,
I have taken Ankh's comments personally, not yours. You have been level headed on these issues. One of the post you responded to me on, was actually addressed to ankh. I am an African-Latino so that when any one makes generalized poorly inform and seemingly arrogant comments. I do take it personal. I don’t want my brothers here to misunderstand our African Latino brothers and their situations. We are actually related, in some ways more so then to our continental African family. So I do think it can have a mutual benefit if we can learn from each others movements in liberating our self's from our perspective exploiters.

Brazil has had a long history of fighting it’s oppressors, But Brazil has not been a democracy till only recently. It’s been difficult for Black Brazilians to fight for equality when all other racial groups don’t have equality, except the ruling class. Brazil and all Latin American countries did not have a bill of rights as the U.S. has. We here can’t make blanket statements about other countries when we don’t now their history, nor the actual cultural dynamics. That would be foolish. Here in the states we have a tendency to view the world and make judgments from our perspective only. I think that this is inappropriate since we don’t usually know very much about other cultures and their histories.

AXE!

This last post shows very well how we can educate our brothers and sisters. thanks.

I'm just trying to get the word out there as well...

Otherwise thanks for the props too!

(Smile)...

CTJ

that was shocking aboutt Cuba's attitude, but not shocking about Chavez working towards the end of preferential treatment for whites and latinos over Blacks, since he has said in public he considers himself to be Black

If too many of us here also only approach issues and problems etc. in exclusive 'us'--as in black--vs. 'them'--as in white folks:

A chronic bad call for us...

Worse are those other people of color, who benefited from our past freedom struggles, though side with our enemies, in order to advance themselves,
at our expense...

On the other hand:

What others--like Bobby Vaughan etc., did and do reveal to us, i. e., via their articles etc., is the negative efforts of white bigotry and white racism, etc., by the way of past eras of colonialism and neocolonialism, etc., which did or do plague whoever else their ancestors etc. invaded/enslaved/occupied, e. g., that other people of color also kinda sorta got a lot of catching up to do too, on the true equality and freedom side, too...

Also let us hope and pray more of the progressive ones wind up being not the exception and the norm as well...

FYI...

Corvo:

I have taken Ankh's comments personally, not yours.

Chuck:

Good morning...

And hello again...

But, please don't misinterpret my advice, i. e., as me trying to make up your mind for you, since it is the general practice to ask those in conflict to resolve their own issues and problems, etc.

Corvo:

You have been level headed on these issues.

Chuck:

I am pleased and suprised to have read that too...

Corvo:

I am an African-Latino so that when any one makes generalized poorly inform and seemingly arrogant comments. I do take it personal. I don’t want my brothers here to misunderstand our African Latino brothers and their situations.

Chuck:

I do have some idea as to how you felt and how you feel

You are merely the latest (not the first) afrolatino I've come into contact with via cyberspace and real life contacts...

Corvo:

We are actually related, in some ways more so then to our continental African family.

Chuck:

I may well have had an afro puerto rican aunt (since some did change their namse etc. in order to blend in with the general black mix)...

We called her Ida Ree--the Ree may well have been 'Ruiz'...

Both of her sons used to 'pass' themselves off as light skinned latinos in our local barriors (though maybe they kinda sorta weren't 'passing' at all):

On the other hand, one of my second cousins is the son of my late African American cousin and his Mexican-Americana wife...

That's why I do have some idea what it's like to be 'different' via either ethnic/racial group here too...

Corvo:

So I do think it can have a mutual benefit if we can learn from each others movements in liberating our self's from our perspective exploiters.

Chuck:

On the other hand?

Efforts to accomplish just that have to be considered via the usual context of what people merely immigrating to this nation were and are expecting,
i. e., as was true of my late aunt, etc., they were or are expecting to be a part of what already exists, not be among those striving to make this a better place than they found it...

Corvo:

Brazil has had a long history of fighting it’s oppressors, But Brazil has not been a democracy till only recently.

Chuck:

Check...

Corvo:

It’s been difficult for Black Brazilians to fight for equality when all other racial groups don’t have equality, except the ruling class.

Chuck:

Check...

Corvo:

Brazil and all Latin American countries did not have a bill of rights as the U.S. has.

Chuck:

Double check...

Corvo:

We here can’t make blanket statements about other countries when we don’t now their history, nor the actual cultural dynamics.

Chuck:

On the other hand?

One has to contrast what the posters on these forums know as opposed to what our people in the states don't understand about this particular socio/economic/political systems inner workings etc. too...

Corvo:

Here in the states we have a tendency to view the world and make judgments from our perspective only.

Chuck:

Also that too oftentimes a chronic shortcomings of some posters themselves, i. e., who like other U. S. citizens only know of--not much about--other people of african descent in the disapora...

Corvo:

I think that this is inappropriate since we don’t usually know very much about other cultures and their histories.

AXE!

Chuck:

Well--to me--the exibiting of empathy and sympathy--as in--for what one does know and understand about those other folks plight etc.--reveals a concern--and a connection--which others in the states neither feel or think they have to-!

Simply put:

It's a start...

Everybody has to start somewhere...

If some do air uninformed opinions:

It is up to folks like us to present verifiable facts etc. so they eventually will replace them with informed ones too...

The black disapora is a unfamiliar place for some to venture into...

All we can provide is a virtual road map...

The rest us up to them...

FYI...

Take care...

Later...

Peace...

It's good to read this.

I have had this conversation with many, in the last 30 years. I do know first hand that a great many don't understand the cultural dynamics involved. We here tend to group all black Africans together and have allot of intolorance for even our self's here.

Our people here in this country need to work together and solve our problems here (this country) first, before we can help others help them selfe's. But pointing fingers at others for what we think should be done, does not help any one.

This guy Chavez is not a black man, To blame the real black people of Venezuela for their lack of progress would be silly.

I am fully on board in helping our brothers here on destee's becoming more informed on some of the issues in Black Latin-America, and the progress in their Black movements as well.


AXE!

It's good to read this.

I have had this conversation with many, in the last 30 years. I do know first hand that a great many don't understand the cultural dynamics involved. We here tend to group all black Africans together and have allot of intolorance for even our self's here.

Chuck:

Good evening, afrolatino bruh...

But, even as my social aware/not necessarily politically involved nephews, (my sisters two sons--one a teen--the other a young adult) kinda sorta have reminded me as well, even the would be teacher can learn new things from their students...

(Smile)...

Simply put:

New individuals...

New eras...

New challenges...

On the other hand:

Me and my generation also made the same past mistakes, i. e,. in our cases it was Fidel Castro and Mao, etc.

Particularly in Fidel's case:

The Afrocubans had and have a past history of resistance to their exploiters and oppressors which predate what others only attribute to Fidel's liberation movement efforts...

Flashforward and there are a lot of black critics of the Castros as well...

Corvo:

Our people here in this country need to work together and solve our problems here (this country) first, before we can help others help them selfe's.

Chuck:

On the other hand?

Our inspirations etc. once did (or do) come by the way of other black folks liberation movements, i. e., Cabral and Mandela on the African continent,
in more recent days, etc.

Corvo:

But pointing fingers at others for what we think should be done, does not help any one.

Chuck:

Some things we also must be forgiving (if not forgetting) about our allies and friends etc.

I. e., some past or present black leaders make both good and bad judgement calls, be it Coleman A. Young here--or Jesse and Farakan elsewhere...

Corvo:

This guy Chavez is not a black man,

Chuck:

I am really kinda sorta slow to decide that--one way or another--from a distance...

Corvo:

To blame the real black people of Venezuela for their lack of progress would be silly.

Chuck:

And who did that?

Chuco?

So please do elaborate a wee bit further...

Corvo:

I am fully on board in helping our brothers here on destee's becoming more informed on some of the issues in Black Latin-America, and the progress in their Black movements as well.


AXE!


Chuck:

And such is why I reject what has become a 'one size fits all' notion of who we are and are about here as a given too!

FYI...

Well chuck, I guess I've wasted my time in writing to you. Be happy, I won't bother you any longer.

AXE!

Well chuck, I guess I've wasted my time in writing to you. Be happy, I won't bother you any longer.

AXE!

Now I'M the one confused and dumbfounded!

If anything, while others here continue to just make noise, your posts make sense...

So, how about I just lay back, and listen, while you do your thing, and others can learn something?

As in:

Others can and will gain from the experience, i. e. of hearing and reading about this nation/this world/etc., from a perspective other than their's...

Us having been in the spotlight for so long:

Maybe kinda sorta we're suffering from temporary blindness!

We too oftentmes choose to see things as we need them to be...

We don't oftentimes want to see things as they are...

Instead:

Even if we choose to stand still?

Somebody else is bound to run us over anyway!

My point was and is to give other people of african descent in the Americas etc. props , which they earned by the way of their own deeds and words, and by their present day examples are reminders of what we used to be about here too...

Maybe that's a better approach, than folk like me going on and on about what Martin or Malcolm said or did, before some of the people reading our posts were even born!

I. e., the eras today's generations actually live or lived thru matters,
sometimes the ones they didn't kinda sorta don't...

Anyway another FYI...

Take care...

Peace...