USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: Re: Ode to MsJoe - // Can the African Community be SERIOUS?. Bobby Rush's Bill

Compliments of Season  www.lesans.org
 
http://www.icontact-archive.com/wsEF9YtIBFH71VQb4Gdda23D_9OVzk2j

Hello Charles:

Thank you.  Just doing my part - no big deal. What happened at the Congress and subsequent discussions with African American leaders are routine and incidental in the territory.  But the African community is a largely uncharted territory with few people like the Ayitteys,   Sulayman Nyangs, etc . 

Even if very few, there are serious Africans and groups doing incredible work but the dots are not connected. In management, it is referred to as: System Thinking. But we must also warn against the dire risk of using personal access/resources to help Africans - as individuals or groups with any public consequence. Why? Africans will screw you up in a heartbeat. Dr. Chika Onyeani has that in his book - the Capitalist Nigger.  Psychologists are yet to come up with intervention methods on "kill the golden goose" paradigms.  I have no exact idea whether it is  African environmental disorder or DNA.  That explains why  many Africans who can do something are not inclined to be bothered - even with their local groups.

But I prefer to focus where the deeds are teachable moments. That is what I explained to the Hill-ers and media people. Not to be partial, go to the site: www.lesans.org. The association raised about $200,000 to implement a water project. Maybe I should call Denise Rolark-Barnes of the Washington Informer to write on that.

Let's say LESA-USA (Cameroon) pairs with the Anglican Girls School (Nigeria)  and other women organizations (Hawa Barry who deals with preventing female circumcision, Brigiite Kobenan on Autism, etc) and  interface with the wives of presidents, especially educated ones like Jeannette Kagame,  and the UN to redress education and empowerment of the the girl child - that is a powerful alliance to shift news from fashion wears, hairdos, posing with barbies and who is number 4 wife  to tangible sensitization that projects Africa and the African community through constructive assessments.

But if the US Doctors for Africa filled the missing gap,  as they did when African presidential wives descended on American soil, African talents are given a short drift relative to potentials and productivity. You see no headline on the Lesans, Hawas, Brigittes,  Margaret Kortos, etc but African women who swallow cocaine or hide it in their panties - aha! those make news and hit the Internet chatters. Add that to CNN special reports on uncontrolled cholera, wars and zombies. I am simply answering your last point. Social media is an equation. I have anchored and produced public broadcast and yes - news are also filtered through the prisms of producers.

I think 2011 opened with a sense of optimism. But we have to be realistic. People have the liberty to use their time doing very useless things, especially via Internet. The real question is why should a useful person be reading/responding  to the pointedly useless?  There are respectable forums like USA Africa Dialogue Series, africa-oped, etc where you read non of the garbage talk.

The mistake comes when we fail to acknowledge the obvious - a community is a conscious construct. Just because people come from the same village, school, country does not automatically create a community in the United States. Secondly, with the passage of time, interests override native or national identities - as I explained in this mail.  Ignoring what does not matter is very effective, too. I am pleased with the sensitivity that the Bill generated. All the contributions on and off the nets have been productive.

On your appreciation, as Chinua Achebe wrote "proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten," I sometimes resort to humorous experiences when explanations can be tedious. About a week ago, Dr. Kofi Agyapong a very committed promoter of common good, Prince - the Poet and myself met on the same discussions on organizing. 

I told attendees at the Governor's event of a difference: When I was about 10 years old, I would quote Negritude, Nkrumah and Shakespeare without a clue and my Dad will give me 50 Francs (money) for the sweat. Right now, with a clue, I am sweating without commensurate pay to implement all that. In the African circles, you may even be attacked for defying the common denominators of misery loves company; ignorance is bliss; living to eat; and social climbing is everything. That sidebar mini cultural education cracked up the ice. Staffers laughed because they have experienced African disarrays in various  degrees  - but have been afraid (politically correctness) of saying so for fear of being called racists or culturally insensitive.

To the core questions on the Bill, I had an insightful exchange with Melvin Hardy who is an expert in the International community on Africa and anti-nuclear proliferation. He is also an arts enthusiast and sits on MoCo's board - Arts and Humanities. He acknowledges the gaps in African activism in the US, which influence the exclusions.  Tamiru is referring to a program on February 5th. I am yet to get the details.

 But we need to understand a salient but silent reality - if we do, nobody would be frustrated in accordance with the adage: water finds its own level.  It is unlikely to generate a massive hands-on activism because people are not at that level of preoccupation. It is extremely important to know the dynamics of a people - it not only helps in needs assessment, you avoid certain troubles.

 Now this:

Africans do not migrate to uplift " general humanity /causes " More than 95% of people come here to earn a living, help their families and the most they will venture in their entire stay in America is participate in immediate social niches like cultural  groups (transplanted annexes), and some dabble with fleeting ideas (erupting fads of the moment).  That is okay and praiseworthy because the cultural groups account for significant resources in their home villages, towns or schools. The governments do not include the valuable productivity in the Gross National Product. We should acknowledge the virtues/strengths of these groups and not expect more beyond their missions because that will result in exemplary mass confusion.

Another thing that officials are noting --  the bigger the national population, officials would be certifying headache if they imagine that people represent national groups. Social class (based on old ideas back home and new comfort levels based on anything) often overrides national affinities. In these reality-based dynamics, hierarchy of needs are more defining for representations. For example, newcomers from Cameroon, Benin, Guinea, Ivory Coast, and other parts of Francophone Africa who need ESOL services present a quality of life matter outside the scopes of cultural and national groups. Ditto for health care, employment services. But on weekends, these same members pay dues to the native groups and speak in any language, drink, dance.  But as soon as they or their elderly parents need help, they start looking outside their allegiance groups. However, they do not support the entities that they expect help from.

When the above is understood, one  should not worry over nature and nurture's influence. You took for that 5% in the entire African community. .001 is not obtainable from Internet chatters. You have control over your delete buttons and how to block addresses and groups when you want. Someone asked me - did you see such and such mails? I said nope.

So you are working with 5%.  It can define and frame/ re-frame relevance where it matters, usually outside the eyes and ears of the populace.  The emerging cadre can create the population the staffers and African American leaders described as missing.

 Let's keep the positive vibe infectious.  

Best regards
MsJoe

----Original Message-----
From: ctatebtwf@comcast.net
To: usafricadialogue@googlegroups.com, camnetwork@yahoogroups.com, mwananchi@yahoogroups.com, accdf@yahoogroups.com, kenyaonline@yahoogroups.com, msjoe21st@aol.com
Sent: Sun, Jan 9, 2011 8:46 am
Subject: [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com]  Re: Ode to MsJoe - We are Proud of Your Above the Board Ace..


Hello MsJoe:

Each one of your mails is another educational incisive piece and the difference is that it influences ground dynamics with authoritative difference. Now that the Bill is debated (thanks to your defining prowess),  where does the African community go from here? I read the Bill and I have attended so many conferences even when the African Union delegations came to the US last year.

Like Chifu wrote, you are a prototype of what the African community needs and just cannot get it. That is why the Ode is in place for

for the  rare breed of people who put values before  personal ambitions. I can understand Tamiru's and NBAS circulated mail to draft you but what the community needs are not groups wanting to sit on the table but to articulate clear objectives and move the ball. You are a class act as you have demonstrated over and over.  Alluded in Tamiru's mail, everyone  was talking about your courage, abilities and personality to cut through.  
 
In an Internet where frustrated and idle mails clutter mailboxes, your mails stand out.. I think the insights you generated should be be sustained. But the community is too fragmented and Tamiru's mail talks about something on the 5th? The email is not included in this thread.

The absence of positive news in the media also accounts for the poor portrayal that Africans are incompetent. African presidents do not even consider their own population in the Diaspora as worthy of any influence, which partly explains why a Bill like this can go through the committees without engagement of the African community. 

With regards
Charles

-----Original Message-----
From: msjoe21st@aol.com
To: nigerianID@yahoogroups.com; camnetwork@yahoogroups.com; accdf@yahoogroups.com; talknigeria@yahoogroups.com; usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com; mwananchi@yahoogroups.com; Africans_Without_Borders@yahoogroups.com; nigerianworldforum@yahoogroups.com
Cc: amacam@yahoogroups.com; africa-oped@yahoogroups.com; kenyaonline@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, Jan 7, 2011 12:46 pm
Subject: Teachable Mel Hardy's Response// Congressman Bobby Rush's "African" Bill - Is it for African Americans than the African Immigrant Community?

Hello Continental Africans:
 
Teachable moments come in unexpected packages. Mr. Melvin Hardy is gifted in the territory of African American Leadership on African issues. He conducts presentations in Africa and interfaces with the African Union. He is also a member of the Montgomery County Arts and Humanities Council. Yesterday, I was at the US Congress...always good to see the new faces before they settled into old habits:)). Can you all believe these fellas are voting to repeal health care? Their furniture and other wares are not even rearranged. 

Back to it, at downtown water holes around K Street, we engaged African Americans on the issues, notably on this Bill. Mr. Hardy was not there. As you may have read my mail, I simply opened the court for the ball. Mr. Hardy's response is a constructive reckoning, which encourages a cooperative way forward. READ BELOW. When thinking of best practices in indigenous empowerment, think of models like LESA-USA, Anambra State Association-USA medical mission....you can add yours. Brilliant.

My intent was to frame the issues. Done that.

God Bless You All
MsJoe
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Melvin Hardy <melvin.hardy@gmail.com>
To: msjoe21st@aol.com
Sent: Fri, Jan 7, 2011 11:30 am
Subject: Re: Response to Mr. Hardy and Action: Congressman Bobby Rush's "African" Bill - Is it for African Americans than the African Immigrant Community?

Ms. Joe:  Yours is an excellent primer on the circumstance of ethnic and cultural specificity between and amongst the Continental African Immigrant communities of the US and the native African Americans.  I am humbled by the breadth and scope of: your analysis of the state of Africana in the United States; your review of implication of the Rush bill as litmus to the insensitivities of our leaders in inappropriately fusing our common constituents (Continental and cultural Africans and African Americans); and your counsel that our leaders, for want of good-spirited intention, would create a stratification or tiering effect of leadership hierarchy, perhaps inadvertently pitting African Americans against Continental Africans one against the other, in this case, the matter of the economic and social development for the peoples of the African Union.

You rightly point out the need for focus.  I hope my careful reading of your brilliant letter to me has me correctly understanding that at bottom, you suggest that African Americans rightly have enough to do at home, and that Continental Africans would be, and should be the drivers of concern for African economic and social development.  This, noting that the color of money is green, and should be applied to development wherever.  

Please know that in my fervent heart of hearts, I will apply my talent to the betterment of man, without respect to geography.  It is also my fervent wish to be guided appropriately, under the wisdom and wise eye of experience, in your case, borne of the soil of your homeland.  Accordingly, while we missed the opportunity to meet each other last summer, I would enjoy the benefit of meeting you as your calendar allows, almost totally in my self-interest.

Mel
___________________________________________________________________________
Melvin L. Hardy

The New Beginning Initiative and New Beginning Advisory Systems

Systems Strategy: Global Services, Business Advisory, Peace, Philanthropy, The Arts and Culture
1213 Girard Street, NW -  Washington, DC 20009
O: 202.239.8450 * C: 202.321.6727 * Fax:215.995.8718 * melvin.hardy@gmail.com

On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 9:43 AM, <msjoe21st@aol.com> wrote:

         http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/il01_rush/pr_101217_hr6535.shtml

Hello Melvin:

Thanks, I read your response to my initial mail and saved it over the holidays. I had to study the fine lines and consult with others. This week  has been hectic with the new 112th Congress coming to town. I had hoped to stop by Congressman Rush's Office but I did not. 

I forwarded  Congressman Bobby Rush's Bill (see link above) to other African leaders and groups. First of all, I would like to extend my appreciation for your gallant outreach. Nothing in my mail should be seen as negating African American interests. Rather, the intent of my mail is to underscore the nagging realities, which we often sweep under the rug to get along (the politically correct thing to feign) but the African immigrant community and African American leadership hardly get together (that is evident)  as peers - let alone get along on core or sore issues of consequences. The custom is for African American interests to invite Africans to something on Africa. It is rare for African American groups to support initiatives originating and spearheaded by the African immigrant interests. The realities (sublime and overt) often clash with enlightened self-interests and not lost as people get more informed.

 I blind copied this mail to protect personal addresses, including those you use, because I am sending it to other groups. The current Bill, as  worded, basically gives African Americans an edge in African Affairs. Mindful of the fact that other heralded efforts such as the National Summit on Africa and predated African developments in the US had little to do with empowering African immigrants to undertake their own development - whereas reversing brain drain towards a self-reliant Africa is the ideal - does this Bill offer the metaphorical something to write home about?

I would pause to state that the African immigrant community has no one to blame when this is true: nature abhors a vacuum. If we do not participate to inform a Bill or any other decision-making process, the outcomes are not ours to necessarily like. Sometimes, the real deal -  also called devil in the details - relegates Africans to spectators and cheerleaders in their own parades. Yes, this Bill creates a veiled type of African dependency. Frankly, does it really matter whether the dependency is on other Black people with no tangible stakes in Africa,  Asian people  or White people?  The money is green and Africans are tokens however dependency is tossed. True or false?

Let us go through the wordings of the proposed Bill. The African immigrant community in the USA is seen as a mere inclusion / appendage in the descriptor: Africa Diaspora. There is a definition variance right off the bat. The so-called Sixth Region construed by the African Union and interpreted as Black people all over the world whose ancestors must have left in the 1600s-1800s is vague and contradictory in practice and every day realities.

Why? Let us do the reality checks:

An increasing number of African states are having Africa Diaspora ministries and departments, with outreach to their immigrant communities abroad. The mission of the offices does not include African Americans; the focus is tapping the resources of those who left Africa, mostly to study, and engaging them in developments, including voting rights while abroad. For example, in the Nigerian House of Assembly, Ghana, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, to name a few, the role of the  African Diaspora offices are articulated. With the need to  integrate African economies, redressing brain drain has included brain circulation. This means Africans from any country can be deployed to undertake development anywhere in Africa. Regional blocks are stepping up. For example, there is a common CEMAC passport for persons from the Central African region.

In view of the ground realities, why would the US Congress attempt to create a geopolitical block  inside its shores when the AU has not figured out how this whole thing works in practical terms? If tax payers' dollars are used to impose an African American take charge of African development  from/in  America when the implementation of such does not exist on the Continent itself, the Sixth Region concept, as broadly interpreted,  must be a very alluring cherry picking exercise. Not to make matters light, does the Sixth Region contribute troops or represented by who at any AU organ? 

You see where the Republican fellows who are manning the committees in the US Congress would be wryly amused as to how their constituents are now Sixth Regionalists in Africa? We ought to be making concrete sense that does not conjure other hard to justify  psychology as economic development. But why should Africa be the affirmative action price? Those places where the Bill believes are heavily "Africa Diasporan" can be given the status of economic zones and African Americans can champion their own development right here in America.

 When it comes to sustainable African development, self-reliant, endogenous development has been the mantra, including the focus on smart aid. Why should congressional policies be different? Throw in additional bones - it would prevent immigration that republicans don't like and reduce dependencies on foreign experts.

The Bill made a whopping leap to African Americans arrowing democracy in Africa. How so? Check the lobbyists, all kinds of colors take the money, even if it is to help very undemocratic dictators. Just like in America, economic latitude can also create plutocracies  where the resourceful few are king makers. So there is no direct relationship between African American economic stewardship and generated democracy in Africa. Let's be real.

I think Congressman Bobby Rush should be given more briefs. Don't we think African immigrants constitute a bastion of brain drain and this Bill should be realistically premised on redressing that as the foremost point? That is the conversation we should be having with Congressman Bobby Rush's office. Understanding the structural realities on the ground is essential in development in order to avoid dictating theories that may not work from foreign perspectives. US laws should not be promoting structural irrelevance.

The contributions of African immigrant organizations - from cultural, alumni to specialty associations surpass USAID grants. The assistance ranges from undertaking medical missions, building schools, libraries, providing scholarships, technologies, micro loans etc. Yet, these indigenous groups do not have access to compete with mega and political connected US organizations. Congressional staffers and representatives need to have evidence-based assessments, which should inform their decisions.

 Nothing cancels the need for African Americans participation. In fact, whoever has money and other skills to invest, please come to Africa. But there is a significant difference between investors, lovers, volunteers, foreign experts, favorable partners and  the indigenous stakeholders who bear the consequences of what happens in Africa. For example, when wars break out, when families need monies, when people die in America and are sent home, on immigration debacles, it is the African immigrant community bearing the dire consequences on quality of life. We hear nothing of the Sixth Region concept on Africa Diaspora.

How can any conscious people in their right minds think that consequences should be shouldered but they are not vanguards on the solutions?
 
The part on cultural ties highlights the poor knowledge of the African immigrant community. 99% of African groups are based on direct cultural affinities in Africa. As a transnational community, the cultural ties are not broken. Check out the rowdiest to the decorous groups on the Internet - it is more about native talk and politics in local villages, countries and Africa in general.  The salad bowl multicultural  American - as opposed to melting pot - allows people to basically transport and maintain their cultural allowances.  American Americans and other multicultural adherents can be acquainted with the culturally versed African immigrant population and established institutions. Of course, there are many avenues to learn about Africa and creating relationships is good for everyone and eco-tourism.

The summary of my position is not to  necessarily oppose this Bill. If it is resubmitted in February 2011 as worded, we should not confuse the clear intent to provide resources for African American empowerment and leadership on African issues. Nobody should be fooled.  An informed community can take it from there - or not.

Best regards to all,
MsJoe

http://www.rwnetwork.net/Evelyn_Joe
www.continentalafricancommunity.org

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