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 <corneliushamelberg@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&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:sv-SE:official&client=firefox-a
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&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:sv-SE:official&client=firefox-a
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-ebook/dp/B003Z4K5X0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1313975143&sr=1-1
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 <
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> >http://www.google.com/search?q=Kwame+Anthony+Appiah+CV&ie=utf-8&oe=ut...> corneliushamelb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > where everybody's go-ing (some people ain't going nowhere....
>
> > Be what you are, put it all in poetry and you can get away with
> > anything....
>
> > As the cosmological professor says, we should be gracious enough to
> > make allowances for diversity, i.e. for where various people are
> > coming from.
>
> > And as Dr. Alban says,
>
> > "So why be shy? Why be humble?
> > I just came straight from the jungle "
>
> > Some others from less privileged backgrounds. Not that such background
> > information or even self- promoting advertisements for the self when
> > it takes the intensely personal autobiographical form or the form of
> > third person omniscience will significantly quantify knowledge,
> > background or perspective about e.g. the Great Gatsby by just taking
> > a look at his CV and you get the docile to back off in awe as if
> > listening to Ozymandias say;
>
> > "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
> > Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'"
>
> > The house of learning is a big house. Understandably, education is
> > such a prized thing in Africa and nobody wants to be a carpenter any
> > more.
>
> > In Western Universities, many of the luminaries in Islamic Studies,
> > are non-Muslims....but Africans and African-Americans are much more
> > jealous and more protective of their home turf (even the rappers guard
> > their turf as a piece of paradise, to keep it clean and tell people
> > like Vanilla Ice to f – off....
>
> > Sure, it's not everybody that's here; nor should we narrow down the
> > field of stars that shine down upon us from the starry dynamo of
> > heaven to the few luminaries that are present or come across in this
> > dialogue series. That would be a gross miss-calculation. Out of
> > hundreds in the field, from the Ivy League to the Milky Way Savannah
> > we could apply the theory of relativity and take a look at the Cee
> > Vees of Kwame Anthony Appiah and Lewis Ricardo Gordon and Gilbert M.
> > Khadiagala for good measure and compare. We could eventually arrive at
> > a compendium of the luminaries : Beyond dispute: Who is Who in the
> > Africana professors' heaven in History, Philosophy, Economics,
> > Sociology, Political Science, Anthropology, Linguistics, Mathematics,
> > Physics,Chemistry, Theology, Psychology, Law, Medicine, Education -
> > in all the things that you always wanted to know, without putting any
> > artificial limits or lowering of standards to enter the Africana
> > heaven.
>
-->
> > Anonymity – listening to the message without committing any biographic
> > heresies that could interfere with the message could even be a better
> > solution for the entirely human for whom criticism is as inevitable as
> > breathing...... or dreaming.....
>
> > So, in time, there was all the hullabaloo about Martin Bernal's
> > "Black Athena"
> > Not to mention the fallout from Keith Ricburg's "Out of America: A
> > Black Man Confronts Africa"
> > There's been a lot of babble and all that rubble from the fallout
> > caused by Skip Gates rolling and tumbling with Ali Mazrui and to add
> > some pepper to the palaver and the fun, the heavyweight fight between
> > in one corner representing Tanzania Ali Mazrui and in the other
> > corner the Nigerian literary heavyweight Wole Soyinka.....all these
> > are Africana episodes to remember.
>
> > Wonder what/ who's next?
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa
> > Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
> > For current archives, visit
> >http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
> > For previous archives, visit
> >http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
> > To post to this group, send an email to
> > USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
> > unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
>
> --
> La Vonda R. Staples
> Adjunct Professor, Department of Social Sciences
> Community College of the District of Columbia
> 314-570-6483
>
> "It is the duty of all who have been fortunate to receive an education to
> assist others in the same pursuit."
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
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--
La Vonda R. Staples
Adjunct Professor, Department of Social Sciences
Community College of the District of Columbia
314-570-6483
"It is the duty of all who have been fortunate to receive an education to assist others in the same pursuit."
--
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For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
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