La V
says that she doesn't want to fight or sing. I hope that she still
enjoys taking off her shoes, waving that flag and dancing, even
barefoot on the ceiling......
You know how it is
"You may be a businessman or some high-degree thief "...but....
"You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody" etc etc etc...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgtcTVDcjH0&feature=related
Like you too, so me too, I'm being myself and nobody else. I
particularly like this one by another great one, PAUL ROBESON: "In my
music, my plays, my films, I want to carry always this central idea:
to be African."
Music goes a long way in strengthening some people's identity and in
these days of alleged
"Africa's impotence" music – more than a thousand books steadfastly
written but which nobody ever reads, music still serves as a very
potent force in delivering the message, in inspiring the sort of
understanding that translates words and ideas into action. Well, Wole
Soyinka winning the Nobel Prize in Literature gave a psychological
boost to many in Africa. At the same time, the impact of James
Brown, Fela Kuti, Bob Marley, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, in
consciousness raising at the grass-roots level in Africa, Africa-
America and the rest of the Africa Diaspora West, is inestimable –
certainly greater than some of the book-toting charlatans who think
that they are "cream of the crop"
Should our celebrated Professor Toyin Falola's works, all of them read
so far, significant , informative - and about Africa..... should they
filter through to teacher training courses, that's a lot of confidence
building successfully transmitted. It's also the sort of knowledge
that is empowerment. Building bridges, not just metaphorical ones is
another kind of power. As our Jamaican Brother Dr. Patrick Wilmot
said about Nigeria in that Guardian article in 1981, after which he
went underground, " We've got to learn to dance mathematical rhythms"
The Rev Dr. Martin Luther King said that which some people do not like
to hear since it makes them uncomfortable or it makes them feel
guilty as hell (in their hearts), to hear him saying that " Injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere and one of the most
remarkable things you Lavonda Staples have said in the USA – Africa
dialogue series is this:
"please recognize the contributions and sacrifices of Black America
which paved the way for
entry of Africans into American society."
Incontestably, the most touching thing that you've said so far and we
must pay homage to the African American people for the part that
they've played in this special struggle of the darker section of the
human race, for which Africans of the motherland the international
Black man & Black Woman, same race as all African- Americans also made
tremendous sacrifices both in the US and Europe (350,000 African-
American soldiers took part in the First World War, fighting in
Europe) and Africans fighting in liberation struggles in Kenya, South
Africa, Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, in the Africa homeland, the
original motherland of all creation.
There's the infamous incident about Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, Kwame
Nkrumah's Minister of Finance contributing to that awareness of
injustice:
"In the United States, he is most widely known from an October 10,
1957, incident when U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologized to
him after he was refused service in a Howard Johnson's restaurant in
Dover, Delaware.[8] He reportedly told the staff "The people here are
of a lower social status than I am but they can drink here and we
can't. You can keep the orange juice and the change, but this is not
the last you have heard of this."
And in Ghana, ( available in"Malcolm Talks to Young People " ) -
Malcolm X talked about the role that he wanted to see Africans playing
in the Liberation of African-Americans in those heady Civil Rights
days....
Verily, as Lavonda R. Staples says, we must pay homage to the African
American people. Today, many of the intellectual leaders of the Black
World are African American – like Cornel West and live in the United
States of America...
Indeed, Sister La Vonda "Black America is the seventh largest economy
in the world." and yes, we have to make the best of a bad situation
yet , how much of the African American wealth filters back to Africa?
So, we've got to help improve Africa-America-Africa relations, export
some of your intellectuals and engineers to help develop our Africa
and that should be a conscious factor in reversing the brain-
drain.....
I mean every word that I say.
Yours Truly,
Cornelius
On Aug 22, 4:09 am, Lavonda Staples <lrstap...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Cornelius!!!
>
> I don't want to fight or sing! I just want to hear or read something which
> resembles the truth. I want to talk to people who aren't scared of the
> truth. I want to talk to real folks. I'm impressed by folks who do good
> deeds and do not demand that the world knows their name.
>
> I get real fired up sometimes but believe me, I'm peaceful! I think the
> revolutions should take place in schools. Let's see some of the made it
> Negroes NOT buy a Bimmer or Benz and spend a little time and money teaching
> someone to read. Let's see some of the made it Negroes NOT using the less
> fortunate for odd jobs, casual sex, drug suppliers, and negotiated down down
> down handy men/women and etc etc. etc. and instead actually inspire someone
> at the beginning of a journey towards greatness. Yes. The Black elites in
> this country are some of the most pampered pets on the plantation. Please
> read, Our Kind of People by Otis Graham. Read the biography re: Adam
> Clayton Powell. The Civil Rights Movement was not a movement of the light
> bright and damn near White Black elite. Not in the least. The Black Power
> Movement was also not habited by these elusive creatures. So, we have our
> own segmentation. And very few people understand that Black is not
> necessarily Black. The biggest lie going is the one about those
> scholarshpis connected to cotillions - just rich Black folks passing money
> around so their children can have some interesting falsehoods on their
> secondary school resume.
>
> Black America is the seventh largest economy in the world. What do we spend
> it on? I'll send you the list and you'll just fall out of your chair. When
> we do travel abroad it's to make ourselves feel better'n "those poor
> Africans." The Africans generally have a mommy and daddy in the home and
> they're married. The Africans have managed to make remittances number one,
> two, and three sources of revenue in some countries. The Africans come here
> as the MOST educated immigrant who arrives in the United States. The
> African manages to maintain family ties when he just happens to make it.
> His African American counterpart? Forget about it. It's a done deal dada,
> a wrap.
>
> I was at a church service in MD right before I left the east coast. The
> minister, a very educated Black man from U penn, was saying the same things
> I just said and more. You should have seen those screwed up faces.
>
> So, again, there are a whole lot of problems that could be obliterated,
> dessicated, and just wrecked all to hell if someone cared enough to try.
>
> On the other hand....
>
> It has been ponted out to me that I don't know that many "regular"
> Africans. I'm going to remedy that in my own very soon.
>
> On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 9:19 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> corneliushamelb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Sister La Vonda,
>
> > It's Three O'Clock in the morning. A couple of hours ago I/ we got
> > back from the latest theatre performance of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle
> > Book - adapted for the stage by Alexander Mork-Eidem
> > (a very daring Norwegian director) and supported by music composed
> > by Eric Gadd. It's set in Stockholm, Sweden in the year 2107 with
> > an underground (Tube) system that's been devastated and the city
> > itself has been transmogrified into a jungle which the monkeys are in
> > the process of taking over.... Great performance. Mowgli's last line
> > is that where ewe live is a jungle.... and then the last light visible
> > on stage, encircling Mowgli's face goes out and thunderous applause
> > brings the emotionally moving performance to an end...... This
> > performance is going to be affecting me for some time to come and you
> > might say that it's influencing my reaction to what I read, you just
> > said.....
>
> >http://www.google.com/search?q=stockholms+stadsteater%3A+Djungelboken...
>
> > I wonder what a Nigerian version of this piece would be like under
> > the direction of a Nigerian director who would like to take liberties
> > (and so he should) and take his place in the Africana Heaven of music
> > and theatre and the performing arts......we should not forget the
> > importance of the artists, the painters, sculptors, actors,
> > musicians, singers, vocalists, instrumentalists, composers, poets,
> > orators, story tellers..., griots.....
>
> >http://www.google.com/search?q=Kipling+%3A+The+Jungle+Book&ie=utf-8&o...
>
> > Having mentioned all of the above I look forward to the production of
> > this play, written by a friend of mine, Claude Philogene of great
> > intellect, a modern African renaissance man from Guadeloupe:
>
> >http://www.amazon.co.uk/Exhortacion-Concerning-Obedience-Magistrates-...
>
> > Lady La Vonda, how I wished that you had been there in my sitting
> > room about ten years ago when my radical Kenyan guest was expressing
> > his great disappointment in what he saw as the utter passivity of the
> > African American (compared to the more uncompromising "lawlessness"
> > of the more radical Jahmaican - not to mention his machete-wielding
> > Mau-Mau Brethren
>
> > What do you want the brothers to do , to declare war on the United
> > States Military? I asked him, the Brothers would annihilated.. He
> > wasn't sympathetic. He continued to rage, like one utterly depraved,
> > that he was so disgusted with African Americans because they are so
> > good at "Shuffering and Shmiling"
>
> > There's Lady Day...and there's our Lady Lavender whose got the spunk
> > 'n' spirit of a Nina Simone. Who else (other than Nina Simone) would/
> > could blow some smoke rings into Tim Sebastian's face during a BBC
> > Hardtalk interview ( if my memory serves me right) as she passionately
> > launched into something like this, which I think that First Lady La
> > Vonda Staples would also like to get her teeth onto and grind grind
> > away, swinging that axe like Sista Nina:
>
> >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanTalk/message/24152
>
> > On Aug 21, 6:49 pm, Lavonda Staples <lrstap...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Mr. Hamelberg,
>
> > > For some reason, I liked what you wrote. Seems like it came from your
> > gut.
> > > All I've ever asked is that people think with more than one mind. There
> > > are very few things which are mala en se. I just want to step to the
> > > threshold of discussion. Nothing more and nothing less. I've been
> > through
> > > so much in my life: hunger, poverty, abuse, joy, pleasure, satiation,
> > up,
> > > down, in and out, that I really bristle when a simple bastard implies
> > that I
> > > approach things with my "me" in tow. Now, you cannot divorce self from
> > > yourself but that can't always be the ONLY explanation.
>
> > > "She's just bitter." "She's jealous." "She's angry!"
>
> > > What's wrong with you that you're not angry? Why aren't you pissed as
> > > hell? Is your heart somewhere discreetly shoved up the toxic environs of
> > > your colon?
>
> > > There's got to be something that makes you passionate, something which
> > moves
> > > you. Doesn't there?
>
> > > I'm not saying, not one teensy weensy bit, that we all have to perform
> > acts
> > > of self-immolation. I would hide all the petrol in the world to keep
> > this
> > > from happening. I'm just saying that you can't keep being scared and
> > > getting quiet. Neither do I expect anyone to join the ghost of Martin on
> > > the veranda of the Lorraine Motel. Not saying that either. I'm asking
> > that
> > > you not always ascribe a passionate person's energy to some petty,
> > > self-serving emotion.
>
> > > Am I saying that I'm beyond jealousy and envy? No, I'm not. If I let
> > > myself think about certain things, certain people, and certain places I
> > can
> > > quickly be consumed in negativity. It's not about that for me anymore.
>
> > > I cannot allow my compassion for anyone to blanket my passion for people.
> > I
> > > hope my energy is catching. I'm getting old. I feel my blood cooling.
> > The
> > > sight of a young muscular man only causes the spectre of trouble to arise
> > in
> > > my mind. The offer of a gift or assistance makes me think of what I'll
> > have
> > > to pay for the "free" thing. Experience is a double-edged sword that can
> > > obliterate a blessing and deliver a self-induced curse.
>
> > > As world resources dwindle a whole lotta folks are going to get brand
> > new.
> > > The major powers, the colonizers, will come up with a marketing scheme,
> > an
> > > advertising stratagem to avoid the consternation which will undoubtedly
> > come
> > > from the murders of unarmed young, Black men. Isn't it happening now?
>
> > > August 29, 2005 - Hurricane Katrina - THEY SHOWED THE WORLD PHOTOS OF THE
> > > SAME BLACK MAN STEALING A TELEVISION WHILE THOUSANDS STARVED, DROWNED,
> > AND
> > > FLOATED DOWN INTO THE GULF!!!
>
> > > I'm telling you that it will be more expedient for these scenes to be
> > > re-played again and again, these manufactured and machined systems which
> > > makes Black folks love the system more than they love each other. Read
> > the
> > > articles on visas. Read the articles on immigration. Read the words
> > which
> > > say, "we have this program and that program" and then synthesize and
> > > compare. Will your degree help you then? Will your title shield you?
> > Yet
> > > now, when something can be done and when there is time to plan, you turn
> > > away.
>
> > > I'm closing my chest now. Suturing the self-made wound on the left side
> > of
> > > my chest. I've given you the best of me: my candor and our truths.
> > Tell
> > > me, can you go about your business of frying your hair, bleaching your
> > skin,
> > > closing your eyes, and shutting your ears? If you can, go ahead. The
> > > revolution will most certainly be televised. Watch it from your couch,
> > > nothing out of the ordinary, just your usual routine.
>
> > > La Vonda
>
> > > On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 7:52 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <
>
> ...
>
> read more »
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