The Revolution will not be TELEVISED!

Africa's "Brain Drain"

2007-05-29T12:41:00.001-07:00

ince the end of the Second World War, many Africans who could afford to have made their way across the vast Atlantic to North America to create what one would call a “better life”. Over the years, many of them have become economically successful by becoming entrepreneurs and excelling academically in the nation’s top colleges and universities. Life is never a walk in the park as they continue to adapt to a society that is ever changing and does not cater to minorities; however, they have taken every challenge head-on and have risen above every time.
What can one say to these strong African people? What have you done for your people back in Africa lately? Seems harsh, but a very relevant question for today’s African living in America. Many Africans in America today are not just prosperous because they moved to the “Land of Opportunity”, because there are people who were born in America and have not done a thing with their lives. What causes the Africans to thrive? It is simple, their “pursuit of happiness” by tapping into the resources that are available to them and this also includes their own gifts and abilities. In order for any person to become successful, they must tap into their own endowments bestowed upon them and use it to benefit others.
All of this seems great, however it’s just the opposite. I don’t include sending a little bit of money back to the family to help them get by every month because anybody can do that. I speak of going back to a land that is rich in some areas, but impoverished in many others. Of course Africa is the most abundant in natural resources, however, if there is no one their with the knowledge to tap into this wealth, it will continue to be confiscated by those in more developed countries who will use it to make their pockets fatter.
Many Africans living in North America may view Africa as the place they escaped from because of what they endured, whether it be war or famine, however, this view keeps Africa in constant, desperate need. No one wants to help Africa because maybe there is too much work involved, or maybe their afraid that the governments may become involved. Such fear, causes AIDS, famine, war, rape and countless other atrocities to grow at rapid rates.
What will be done? Africans living in North America need not feel that they have made it. We all have fallen into the bad habit of measuring success in dollars, but success should be measured by what you are doing for others. We should lay our heads down in peace at night not because we have a fat bank account but because someone somewhere is living a better life because of our helping hand. What will be done? What African will do it?
Africa has the potential to become a super power and every other continent on earth is cognizant of this. As a result, they continue to fund the wars so that they are able to keep control over the resources that many take for granted. The sad part is that many Africans living in Africa who are poor and uneducated are not able to fight back and secure what belongs to them. If every African who came to North America to get educated returned home to Africa with that education, Africa would be overthrown from within and rebuilt by those who have its best interest at heart. Who can change the dire situation of this country better than its own people?
For those who believe that my statements are absurd and that it doesn’t apply to every country on the continent of Africa, maybe your right. However, as a support to my claims, I do not wish to argue the matter with some, but to show evidence to all, so as to shed true light on an issue that deserves attention. Below, I have added links that further explain the “brain drain” situation in Africa.

http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-71249-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html
http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol17no2/172brain.htm
http://www.emeagwali.com/interviews/brain-drain/education-in-africa-brain-drain-problem-worldnet-africa-journal.html

African American, or American with an African Heritage?

2007-05-04T17:40:00.000-07:00

For decades now, we African Americans have moved in great strides to create our place in this world. In other words, we are where we are because of what we have accomplished. We are the product of our past. In the African American community, the good which exists today are the results of the bad we have not allowed. The bad that is before us today are the consequences of the good we have not fought for.
Back in the eighteenth century, thousands upon thousands of immigrants passed through Ellis Island into New York where they hoped to create new and prosperous lives for themselves and their families. Many of these people came straight from Europe. Germans, French, Italians Spaniards, Scottish, are just to name a few of the many ethnicities that crossed the vast Atlantic to “America.”
At this time, there were already many Africans living in America because of the days of slavery which were still in hindsight. In order to distinguish between the races (especially with the Caucasians), they attached American to the nation of their origin. In essence, you now had German Americans, French Americans, and Italian Americans and so on. It would have made sense for Africans to also have the title African American. However, our ancestors were the unfortunate ones during that time and received names that were far from a respectable title.
During the last one hundred years or so, people of the European descent have come away from the process of identifying their national origins. Instead of giving themselves the designation of German American, or Scottish American, they now just say they are white or Caucasian. However, blacks have gone from colored, to black and just now we have arrived at African American.
The only problems I have surmised from this topic are who is really considered “African American?” Also, is it politically correct for our people to continue to be singled out as black? In this day and time, the influx of people entering the United States from neighboring countries and mixing with numerous other races has caused it to become hard to distinguish who is of what origin unless they tell you. In the old days, if a person was really dark, you just figured that they were African, and if they were really light, but their hair was curly, more than likely they were mixed with black and white. Today, that is not so any more. More than not, a person cannot be put under such a simple label and this is just the consequence of massive amounts of people of different backgrounds mixing.
What should our definition of African American be? Should a person from Ghana, West Africa be considered African American if they have become a legal citizen in the United States of America? Also, should a white person who was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa and migrated to the US be considered African American? After all they were born in Africa and are now legally living in the US. Who sets up the criteria for this title? Is it only for people who were born in the US and are of African descent, or any person either of African descent in the US and from Africa itself?
This topic may sound irrelevant to some; however, it should be taken seriously by all. How many people in the US that have African roots dating back to the slave trade have stopped to think about why they are considered an African American and must indicate this on almost every form that they fill out? No more do we hear about the German Americans or the Italian Americans, but for some reason African American is still alive and well. Is it important that we continue to single, or allow ourselves to be singled out based on our African heritage, or should we consider ourselves to only be Americans?
By writing this, I am by no means advocating that every African American forget where they have come from, but I am only suggesting that we not allow White America to always single us out as being different from them, when they have dropped their titles of origin and have just picked up the heading of “American”. If we continue to call ourselves African Americans, we must also include those coming to America from Africa, whether they are white or black. These people also have African ties. In the case of the white people those connections are imperialistic; however, legally they are from Africa. I am very proud to be from Africa, but I want that title to be one that reminds me of where I came from and not to single me out and place me in a certain category to alert the whites that I am black.

Raped While the World Turns its Head

2007-04-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

They may feel that the only crime they have committed was being born into this world as a woman. What’s even a worse, a Congolese woman.
Instead of being able to proudly walk this earth, provide for themselves and their families and reach for goals that many are free to reach for, they live through unimaginable horrors while their government and the rest of the world turn their head.
Today in the Democratic Republic of Congo, girls as young as the age of six, to elderly women as old as seventy, are brutally forced everyday by armed forces to give away what belongs to them-their bodies. Thousands of rapes have occurred as a consequence of the on-going war taking place in the DRC.
All the armed forces involved in the DRC conflict have committed rape and sexual violence, including government armed forces of DRC, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.
Aside from all of the fact-giving, I want to make this serious problem clearer in the minds of you readers. Sometimes it’s easy to just read a story that is all straight news and not really be able to imagine or comprehend what is being told. However, that’s not your fault. It’s the fault of the writer who has not taken the time to effectively make you aware of the realities occurring in many third-world countries.
The word “rape” and the conscious pain that it brings to many women in the DRC may be hard for any man to understand, but women have no excuse. Even if you are a woman who has never been raped, you must definitely be able to have some sort of compassion for those women who have innocently suffered.
To paint this picture, you must place yourself in this little girl’s shoes. You are twelve years old and truly happy with your young life. You feel as if you are growing up because your body is beginning to undergo the first stages of puberty. You have a wonderful father and mother who work hard daily to care for you, your brother and your sister. You don’t truly understand the meaning of being poor because you really don’t know the difference. As you are playing outside you always see teenage girls walking by with short skirts on. The kind your mother would never let you where. You always wonder why those girls dressed like that.
However, one day you are captured by rebel forces and taken from your pure surroundings into a world full of hatred and greed. Now, instead being able to experience sex for the first time with your husband, you are forced into having sex with smelly, hateful, detestable men who could care less about how you feel and what you want in life. You don’t know why they are doing this to you, but you do recognize those girls with the short skirts. They were wearing those skirts to give these men easy access to their bodies, so that they wouldn’t be beaten or killed.
All the men desire is a few minutes of sexual pleasure at your expense. They’ve done this so many times that it has become a game to them. You hear them laugh and jeer as each of them cheers the other on as to what forms of heinous acts he can perform on the next young woman. They score and rate each other by who can do the most damage to a female’s womb.

Over and Over again they rape your poor defenseless body. The pain is unbearable as you feel the sex organs of a full-grown man pierce through your newly developing body. You scream so much pleading for him to stop that you lose your voice and it becomes pointless, because nobody hears you. They are all deafened by their own cries for mercy and help. He treats you like a cheap animal by spitting on you, beating you with objects and calling you names that you don’t really understand.
This goes on day after day inside the camps of the militia. It becomes a regular routine to know what is about to happen when you see three to six sex-hungry soldiers coming towards you with iron bars and sticks in their hands to use on you if you resist.
They may beat you, however, you know what will happen if you rebel, because you’ve watched what goes on in the camps with the other women who’ve tried to fight back. Those women were gang raped, and had those same wooden sticks and iron bars viciously shoved into their vaginas only to have their reproductive parts torn beyond repair. Sometimes, you have to cringe and pray for the future of your own existence as you see those men take a gun and shoot a woman where she was raped, while you and other women and girls are forced to watch.
You know many of these women because they are from your tribe. They were also captured along with you. You wonder how it must be for your friends to have to watch their mothers being raped over and over again and then some shot and killed.
Life has now become one big struggle for survival against sexual barbarians. The women around the camps are not joyful, but have turned cold in their hearts towards any kind of a positive future. Those who have become pregnant know that they can never return to their homes because they would be shunned by their family members. If they run away, where do they go?
Is it possible for someone to be able to return to a normal, happy life after they have had to witness such atrocities not only to themselves but with thousands of other women as well?
Now, you must either stay in this situation until they shoot you dead one day, or you must figure out a way of escaping. At the age of eight, you are faced with decisions that no female at any age should have to make. Still, you must find a way out. That’s all you keep telling yourself, “There’s got to be a way out.”
You may come back to your setting now. I hope that I was able to explain the situation in the Congo as accurately as possible. What’s sad is there are so many horrific rape cases that it would take me a year’s worth of research and a 400 paged book to include just half of the sad stories that so many Congolese women have to tell.
The ultimate questions right now are why should I care and what can I do? First of all, there is absolutely nothing that I can do to make anyone care about anything, however, my duty is to bring the truth to the table without sugar-coating any of it, in hopes that it may empower someone somewhere in this world, to make a difference in the lives of others who couldn’t on their own because of their tragic situations.
We must as a people develop a heart that not only cares for ourselves and those around us, but also extends its support and strength to a young girl or a middle-age woman in the Congo who is ravaged while you watch television and have a nice dinner with your family.
What can you do? The biggest thing you can do for these women is to speak out on their behalf. No longer should we allow the DRC government and governments all around this world to ignore these beautiful women and girls while they perpetrate wars in other countries for their own personal gain.
You can also get with local and foreign charities that send aid to the refugee shelters and clinics in the DRC to help pay for the medical and surgical expenses of many Congolese women who are able to escape, but now are in need of corrective surgery and by doctors who must be trained and skilled in these procedures. Many women have also contracted HIV and other STDs which are spreading at an alarming rate to the children. They are in need of medicine which is even expensive in first-world countries.
There is always light at the end of the tunnel for anyone in this world, no matter what has happened. However, those of us who live in freedom must not allow ourselves to be spectators, but participators in order to bring an end to the suffering of many Congolese women.

Some websites of non-profits that are taking action in the DRC are:

http://www.amnesty.org/actnow/

http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/08/drc_help_and_ju.html

The women of the DRC.

2007-04-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

Coming soon, I will be posting a full story on the horrific situation with the women of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Many people are unaware of the tragedies that occur on a daily basis in many third world countries. I intend to begin to change that. Stick around!

What is safety?

2007-04-17T18:38:00.001-07:00

In light of the horrific events that have occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech, the question of safety is now a big topicof discussion for many. Since it is safe to say that over the majority of Americans travel between public places on a dailybasis, safety issues are now being pushed to the front of our minds. What does it mean now to be safe? Can we really be 100% safe and if not what about at least 50%? With the way our society is quickly becoming, it seems like we now have to watch our backs inside of a grocery store and what's worse, a school. What is driving the young people of America to committ such atrocities?What are the parents doing or neglecting to do in their homes with their children? With each shooting, it seems as if things are getting worse and worse>Will North America have to resort to placing armed guards inside of all of our public places like many third-world countries where crimes are more frequent? Let's hope not. If our society desires to live the life of freedom and the pursuit of happiness, then wemust begin to take steps in evaluating what we must do for our future and the future of our generations. We must not overlook the criesfor help with our young people who are facing more and more stress and pressure than ever before. Those unanswered cries are taking theirlives and the lives of our family.

Where do African Americans draw the line?

2007-04-17T12:17:00.001-07:00

Where do we draw the line?

By Karen Thompson
North Carolina A&T State University

The remarks made by Don Imus on his morning radio show about the African American girls from Rutgers University basketball team not only has caused controversy within the American community as a whole, but also brings the question to the mind of many about where African Americans should draw the line within our own community.

As soon as the phrase “nappy-headed hos” hit the air waves, leaders of the black community as well as other prominent figures demanded Imus’ immediate termination. As a result, MSNBC dropped its simulcast of “Imus in the Morning,” and a day later CBS terminated its broadcast of the radio show.

However, now that Imus has been removed from the radio, should the black community continue on with business as usual, or do we need to look within and go beneath the surface by beginning to hold ourselves accountable for the promotion of our own degradation?

Over the past decade, the African American community has allowed self-humiliation to slip into our society. We can see this mainly in our hip hop music. Our lyrics do not up lift us in any kind of way but instead, they demolish us as a people and destroy the reputations of many job-seeking African Americans who are respectable human beings.

Don Imus should definitely be held liable for what he said, but we can not place all of the blame on him. He is just reiterating what he has heard us tell one another in so many ways and in so many words.

Instead of viewing Imus as the enemy, every African American should use what he has said as the opportunity to revolutionize the black community by establishing an affirmative foundation that can be built upon for the next generation of African Americans. They should not lose out in life before they can even get started, because of what those who come before them have allowed one another to say about our race.

The support of negative hip hop lyrics and any other means of disgrace to our people, who have fought to survive since the days of slavery and Jim Crow, must end immediately if we are to reshape what we – and others around the world – think of us.