Queen Nzinga – Nubian Warrior Queen’s Fight Against Slavery

Queen Nzinga was a fearless warrior and rebel of Angola and Matamba who fought against the whites enslaving her people. She fought until her death and she is a great symbol of the passion of our people and how Africans fought against slavery.

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The European slave trade in Africa, begun in the early 1500’s. African leaders became alarmed at the number of African seized by European slave traders. Queen Nzinga was the ruler of kingdom Ndongo in Angola. She was one of the many African rulers who fiercely resisted which was mainly due to reports of the terrible conditions in which the slaves were shipped to Africa. This period marked the emergence of a new type of slavery in which Africans were clueless about. Still, the strong states managed to prosper. Among them were the growing Yoruba empire of Oyo in Nigeria. This is where the Dutch began settlement at the southern tip of Africa which was growing rapidly.

In 1623, the king of the Ndongo kingdom in Angola died and the following year his sister, Nzinga became queen. She resisted the slave trade with all her power. This caused war with the Portuguese because she refused to supply as many slaves that they desired to ship to other colonies of Brazil. She managed to make alliances with neighboring states in Africa that were also trying to resist the slave. But the Portuguese managed to force her out of Ndongo. Once they accomplished that, she took over the neighboring kingdom of Matamba and fought on.

During her resistance, Nzinga even tried to reason with the Portuguese monsters and during her plea they decided that even though she was a queen, she wasn’t fit to sit in a chair. One of her attendants noticed this firm level of disrespect and bent down so she could use him as her seat. The Portuguese were mad with taking African slaves and many African kingdoms all over Africa were raided for slaves.

Queen Nzinga fought for her people and like many other African nations, she lost the fight against slavery, but her efforts and loyalty to her people must be remembered and live on. It must be known that Africa didn’t willingly give away slaves to endure the pathetic and terrible circumstances of slavery. But most African nations opposed it in every way and have even died to prevent slavery.

Queen Nzinga who fought for her people and died in 1663, Matamba was still an independent nation.

White People Are Ruining Racism! by Kyle Phoenix

I'll start out by saying that intermittently I don't watch television for long stretches of time, like a year or two.  Then I'll be stuck somewhere or on a long summer vacation or visiting family and stuck in a guest room somewhere....and I'll screen the televised landscape.  I abstain from TV basically because it warps reality and that warping changes the morality and perspectives of the watchers.  Some television is conscious to try and not have that warping effect but it's a very narrow bandwidth, particularly as there are now hundreds of channels available.  To that point, so much availability means that people with the resources and access to be on television will be and that invariably means within a Western context---more White people.

The secret people of color don't tell White people is that we have two thoughts about you.  Like when we're standing and you're talking and as a White person you say something---something so far from left field that we have to decide the value/power distribution in our relationship to figure out whether to correct you or just save this for when we talk to another person of color to tell them---"Do you know what one of them said?"  People of color practice a form of racial duplicity in that we don't always say or explain or tolerate some racialized things internally but blank face, nod politely, "ignore" or deflect some of what is said.  Of course it's not working and really in no way progresses racial progress and understanding but we've had to do it for hundreds of years to insure survival so we'll be doing it for a few more until the numbers balance out a bit better and we can afford to be publicly oppositional whether we're a janitor or a CEO.

However White people (throw up your arms in exasperation---because this is generally how we emotionally feel about them---kind of like seeing your dumb cousin coming up the road with another one of his insane projects made from rats and peanut butter) act out racism in new and inventive ways.  Doing so messes up the social groundwork of getting past this mental illness or neurosis based on skin color.  This new White fueled racism is when a White person does something racist or says something or tweets something or mentions something that happened 15 years ago when they used the word nigger.........and before people of color can get to the site of the racial outbreak to work it out---OTHER White people jump in, identify it and administer repercussions.

Let's start with Paula Deen.  I like the Food Network because I like to cook and eat.  I've seen her show a few times and found her to be funny, a great cook; and after seeing a few interviews with her about having overcome her fear of leaving the house after years of being a shut in by accepting the death of everyone she knew including herself---I thought she had some depth; she was a TV show I could watch whenever the odd time struck.  Then she got deposed in a civil suit and they asked her some questions and it all came out---using the word nigger, Gone With the Wind dinner parties with Black men dressed up as the help and how it looked so nice to her, and the fact that she admitted that there had been a time in her life when she'd been less racially tolerant and enlightened. 

Somewhere in all of this there were TV interviews, accusations, her Food Network show got cancelled and basically there was this push to run her granny ass out of town on a rail.  When I peeked around the edges of it, I realized that lots of natural truths were being ignored and I think her public breakdowns had to do not only with entitlement and privilege assailed but also that she honestly was being honest...and thought that honesty was what was being asked of her.  That honesty is part of her social psyche so she thought she was being "good".  And if I step out on a racial branch I can see how Gone With the Wind could not only be a favorite film of hers, a modality and lifestyle she'd childhood/fantasy want and with monied friends similar to her, access and recreate.  Actually when I heard the bits and pieces and then the clarifications and the further explosion of ire, I thought to myself---honestly---because I like the fun words "What the fuck else do you expect a non-college educated, non-diversity educated, non-married to a Black man, White Southern woman her age to fantasize about as a childhood fairy tale?  Have you seen the fantasy episodes of Designing Women?"

White people fantasies that are time period specific are going to include the dilemma of Black people in America---there's no where for us to time travel to before 1970 that doesn't include overt racism, the word nigger, servitude and an existence legislated largely by the whims of White people.  Which is why there are no time travel movies with Black folk....and the ones that we are in (Star Trek, etc.) we're real careful about prior to 1970.  It's easy to cover up Spock's ears---Uhura was never taken on those away teams----say to 1940's Germany---thought logically her communication skills and social fluency would've helped.

That Imus guy said something about some nappy headed hoes playing basketball and he got busted in the chops and now most recently some Duck Dynasty hillbilly/ZZ Top looking daddy said Black people were happy pre-Civil War.  Taken out of context or with context control, I suppose there were some bright spots of happiness for Black people prior to the Civil War---not at everything and every condition but we made love, basked in sunlight, took a swim, read a book (illegally, sure), had a nice meal, enjoyed farming---there were other human experiences for us beyond just being lashed as slaves and singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot until we uniformly stopped at the signing of the Civil Rights Act.

But my ire at the ire over him and all the foolish fallout---is we forget that until recently we could identify boneheads and assholes and dummies and stupid comments without having to light torches and suspend folk.  Ok, so far we've got an old White woman from the South saying some old White stuff from the South and a hillbilly with a slightly skewed perception of racial history and the overall enjoyment of various people throughout time.  I know---the end of the world as we know it.

Then some chick tweeted about going to Africa and not worrying about getting AIDS then added her lack of worry was over the fact that she wasn't Black, ergo less chance of infection.  She worked in Public Relations and of course got fired so fast that one has to wonder if she was essentially pissed at her job and tweeted this to quit.....and get infamous/famous at the same time.

Yet statistically on the surface her statements are insensitive but in another context, true.  The CDC hasn't launched that worldwide initiative to stop bottle blonde White women from spreading HIV in America nor Africa.  They're the smallest demographic of HIV infected, right after intravenous drug users...another irony.

I keep seeing these continuous racial guffaws, context driven statements, faux pas, hot messes, foot in mouth-ness and I thought okay, this is a great chance for us to say---"ok, s/he said this and in talking to them what they meant or how they meant it was and the way to clarify, understand and rectify that thought and it's proliferation..."

But what's started to happen instead is before we can get a Racial Black (or in a pinch Latino/Asian/Native American) Specialist in there to raise our hands, shake our heads and try to both contextualize this and minister to the folk as an individual and the masses as a whole---White folk jump in and crucify the sonsofbitches.

I mean rabidly.

They cancel shows, pull sponsorship, fire people from decade long employment, run them out of town, burn them in effigy and throw THEIR hands up in abject frustration and disgust.  Think of it like you're Store Security and you catch someone stealing something and you slap the shit out of them.  Then they leave.  And you go on about your day.  While it might frighten the other customers, the Thief hasn't stopped being a Thief---they just got slapped.  What their human inclination to do is is NOT get caught again so their thievery goes underground.

White folk are creating a new Racial Underground Railroad.

This draws me to a For Colored Girls.......... by Ntozake Shange choreo-moment.......Somebody almost run off wit alla my stuff & I waz standin there lookin at myself. The whole time & it wazn't a spirit took my stuff. Waz a man whose ego walked round like Rodan's shadow. Waz a man faster in my innocence. Was a lover I made too much room for almost run off wit alla my stuff & didn't know I'd give it up so quik. And the one running wit it don't know he got it. My stuff is the anonymous ripped off treasure of the year. Did you know somebody almost got away with me? Me in a plastic bag under their arm, me danglin on a string of personal carelessness. I'm spattered wit mud & city rain & no I didn't get a chance to take a douche.

I get that White people are trying to in justice (and guilt) clean up White folk messiness....and I'm kinda appreciative.  But it's like they clean up the mess before we get a chance to learn from the mess or teach from the mess. Instead of learning not to do it again or what was wrong in the first fundamental place, White people sweep it up so fast, castigate the offender that White and yes, even people of color, don't' learn exactly what the messiness was, where it came from, how it metastasized.  

The argument is that "they should know better."  

And you know what---they don't.  

Just like your FICO score is a mess, your momma got knocked up out of wedlock, your father got too drunk, you crashed the car, your ex did the same exact thing to you that they explained they'd done to their ex and your grandfather had an affair, you caught a sexually transmitted disease---just because we should know better, doesn't mean we do.

Learning doesn't happen by osmosis.

And sadly in defense of White people they profit from a hegemonic system based on White supremacy and entitlement but they didn't personally construct it as the individual that they are now.  (They drive the car that they didn't build.)

I'm not saying White people are dumb or stupid or ignorant or so lost in their entitlement that it would be an improvement to quantify them as routinely, lovingly and often, having their heads firmly up their asses when it comes to social dealings...but I am saying that...you know...it takes effort and learning for them not to default to the above.

To further my metaphor, in many ways individually, they are children driving cars that their forefathers constructed, not realizing how big, unwieldy and dangerous it is.

But the bigger problem is this White Race Mafia that thinks they're fixing the problem folk by shutting them down before we can have a discussion on just what the fuck happened.  Why?  Because then White folk with racist thoughts go underground, they go into a duplicitous mentality towards people of color.  We don't allow them to talk about their confusions, their mis-contextualized thoughts, their questions---remember they profited and managed racism but as anyone who's ever worked anywhere with a manager knows---your manager has a plan, an idea about how things should go but there's a whole different reality when it comes to the reality on the "floor".  They manage something that they aren't completely, generations past the architecture of, aware of the intricacy of the design.

White folk need Special Education.  

The kind of psycho-social Special Education re-training in the 21st century that only aware and engaged people of color can help administer.  When they co-opt racial justice and edification, stealing our stuff essentially, we're in for more madness.  Because race then becomes the guilt assuaging bunny rabbit for White folk to root out in each other but never their own selves.

Because here's what didn't happen in all the above incidences....other White people didn't admit that they too had said, done or thought those things.  

The biggest question for me in the whole Paula Deen drama was WHOSE party was she talking about having been at and WHO was sitting at that table?  Probably, predominantly a bunch of White folk who didn't get crucified like she did...and if we want to shift how they appreciate or desire those kinds of parties, we need them to understand the problematic concept of it.  But we never got to THEM because we were watching Paula Deen roast.  And honestly, when I think of the racial problem makers, it's not chubby White girls with visions of being Scarlett O'Hara with their own Butterfly McQueen's in attendance----it's the audiences that universally call that one of the best films of all time (coincidentally I've never seen it)----the silent majority in the audience.  That's who's warped perceptions we have to worry over.  The audience that accepts that overt racism on one hand and celebrates it as terrific entertainment and then destroys White people who act out racial stuff.  White people are consuming themselves and I would argue people of color are being drag into a false sense of racial progress.

And as history has taught us just because there are a few blood soaked bodies on crosses in the town square doesn't mean crucifixion is a good thing.

kylephoenixshow@gmail.com
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Dr Claudette Carr: Where have all the (Black)/African intellectuals gone?

Dr Claudette Carr: Where have all the (Black)/African intellectuals gone?

We came across a great post written by Dr Claudette Carr on the lack thereof of African intellectuals. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the young and brilliant Nigerian writer emphasized, Africans must tell their own stories or suffer the perils of the “Single Story.” But Dr Carr takes the conversation one step further by asking who are those telling African’s stories on the intelectual side. Dr Carr is the founding Director of the Jethro Institute for Good Governance (JIGG), wth over seventeen years experience lecturing in International and Community Development, Youth & Community Work, Social Work, and Social Policy, at Brunel, Birbeck, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland) and the University of Westminster. Here is here brilliant article on the subject, initially published on http://afritorial.com/

Celebrity Factor

So, I have also been thinking about what impact celebrity factor might have on the dearth of African intellectuals?

The white celebrity savior industrial complex is not about justice. It is about bolstering the egos of celebrities, often used as vessels for the industrial white aid complex engaged in service of elite capture of African self-determination. Central to this process of elite capture is the infantilisation of Africans on all levels: its government, its leaders (absolutely corrupt and beyond redemption); its children ( orphans bereft of the capacity for ‘care of the self’); its women ( unfit to mother the children, they so wantonly bring into this living hell); and its youth (a lost generation, devoid of vision, and bedeviled by the post-traumatic disorder – redolent in fragile/post-conflict fragile zones). This is the movie set the ‘white’ savior descends upon to re-enact their small acts of ‘compassion’.

The celebrity [do-gooder], embraces their mission on the continent with such self-righteous philanthropic zeal – rather like an obscurantist religious sect known as the bleeding Pharisees. In this guise, celebrity piety covers its eyes in the presence of African success stories, so as not to even look at those who succeed against all odds (much less acknowledge their existence) and ends up banging into walls. Their resulting blood and bruises become “red badges of courage” which they proudly display as proof of their piety. Is it any wonder why we have the mysterious cultic phenomenon of the ubiquitous kabbalistic celebrity red wrist bracelet, championed by Kabbala’s high priestess Madonna? Hmm …

Against this background, enter the Manchild project - KONY 2012. Here you have a bunch of high-tech multi-media, celebrity- philanthropist wannabes. They strike gold with their viral video – GET KONY, a resplendent, but equally pesky little African romp.

I ask myself: “Why do these young upstarts behave like they have just dropped a whole bunch of ecstasy tabs, and insist on treating the African Continent, as if it were one massive bacchanalian revel?”

Surely, it is time for a paradigm shift – enter the black celebrity vessel. Woe! and if I had a hammer!

If you raise a generation of youth on a narcissistic diet of dumb idols, such as Jay-Z, Beyonce,Lady Gaga, P Diddy, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Kanye West and such like: reality tv junk - Pop Idols, American Idols, X-Factor, Sunday Best, Big Brother, and I’m a Celebrity Get me out of Here ; send them to church on Sunday to engage in the same lust for fame and attention, peddled by present day ‘Pulpit Pimps‘, is it any wonder, we reproduce a vacuous army of KONY 2012 clones?

If these celebrities (as has been widely reported), callously continued to party like it was 2099 earlier this year at the pre-Grammy function, whilst Whitney Houston’s dead body lay in a room above them, do we really think P Diddy, Rihanna et al give a hoot about the plight of “30,000″ dead Ugandan children?” As the proverbial saying goes, “There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes and yet is not washed from their filthiness.” Let’s face it, Kony 2012 should have been titled, “When Will I [Jason Russell] be Famous” – you have until December 31, 2012, to bring me said blood sacrifice! Madness begets more madness.
When will I be Famous…

If I were to come up with a modern day nemesis for KONY 2012, it would have to be: our unfettered lust for consumerism, at its zenith, during the Global North’s insatiable property boom, which led us into the global economic crisis we currently find ourselves in. Except, this time, it’s African souls that are being merchandised, and the boom continues – speculating over how we might “end poverty in Africa”…

Thomas Sowell in his book Housing Boom and Bust writes:

“Few things blind human beings to the actual consequences of what they are doing like a heady feeling of self-righteousness during a crusade to smite the wicked and rescue the downtrodden.“

But I digress.

Recently I came up with the novel idea of Development Factor and rather like the KONY 2012 narrative is simple. Those International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs), wishing to tout their projects and proposals to “help the poor” in Africa, in an extremely competitive market, would have to present their ideas to a panel made up of ‘authentic’ African Development Factor Judges. One or two celebrities might be thrown into the mix for good measure. Imagine the educational benefits of visualising the various stages of the the creative process, in setting up an NGO project and making this transparent to a now almost development savvy global audience? After all the bottom line is, every one wants recognition, everyone is looking for their fifteen minutes of fame, why not turn it into something more constructive, that democratises development, and truly engages the public and local/indigenous communities in more meaningful ways?

KONY 2012 has blown open a much-needed debate, which has been dominated by economists and politicians and development professionals for half a century Quite rightly, Invisible Children did not want to alienate it’s targeted audience with the technical vernacular of development experts, and the semantics of economic growth. However, paradoxically, the simplicity of the KONY 2012 narrative, revealed a void in knowledge about human behaviour – that is rooted in beliefs about what constitutes progress and development.

A New Breed of African Intellectuals

“The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. ”
― James Baldwin

When all is said and done, one truth remains eternal here: we need a new breed of ‘Africanist’ scholars, who will pursue the task of their scholarly quest, with a pragmatic zeal that is second to none – as organic intellectuals, not ivory tower dim wits. Lest we forget a PhD doesn’t make you smart, or intellectual – there is no end of educated fools!

If you are vain and think the title will go nicely with your Dolce & Gabana tote, and your “in” circle of FB friends – go audition for X-Factor or F-Idols, and may you be forever confined to a wilderness, where you never receive manna from heaven – a shadow of an original thought of creativity – that might give you a clue how to get out. If your goal however, is to demystify – open eyes and ears to the mess this world is in, then may your path be filled with wonder, joy and the discernment, that knowledge puffs up, but LOVE builds up.

It never ceases to amaze me, how the powers that be continue to be the number one cheer leaders, in support of African buffoonery and intellectual inertia. One only need scratch the surface to discover the donors and sponsors, adept in this “Simon Cowell” type selection [read, schmoozing] or ‘we’re on the road to nowhere’ leaders. Of course, some Africans have internalised this longitudinal psychosis, enough to keep this diabolical pantomime of mediocrity on the road for themselves. And like all good pantomimes, let’s not mention colonialism /neo-colonialism, as the popular refrain goes [repeat after me]:

“Where is it?”
“It’s over, there”
“Where?”
“Behind you”….

I end as I begun: Where have all the African intellectuals gone?




Enjoy!!!Thank you for reading,
Kyle Phoenix
Email: kylephoenixshow@aol.com
Website: http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Blog: http://kylephoenixshow.blogspot.com/2012
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us on Facebook or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast

Book Review: The African Origin of Civilization Myth or Reality, Book Review by Kyle Phoenix

Book Review: The African Origin of Civilization Myth or Reality
This is an important book to society.  To all societies.  I often have discussions with my students and when I'm in my own classes, my professors and classmates about this system of race that has been created and foisted upon us.  Even more often I hear adults of color tell younger people that Black people built the pyramids.  What they're trying to do is engender a sense of historical pride and identification with a viable, valuable and incredible creation.  This is good.  The problem often comes when the younger people don't want to know or don't care/identify with this model.  This too is natural.  The psychology of people of color is divided with a part of the older generation still residing in the challenge, perspectives and concepts of the Civil Rights Movement.  More, more than 50%, of the newer generations don't see, want, nor have the same value attitude towards this information.  This too is natural.  Why?  Because our society has shifted, as societies do, and integration means that we're no longer segregated in our self-perceptions.  Bluntly, race, while evident is not the totality of my and younger generations self perception because we've been more integrated into the overall society than our parents our grandparents.  But this doesn't mean that there still shouldn't be a deeper origin of humanity that includes all of the segments that we have now isolated down to "race".

Cheikh Anta Diop (29 December 1923 in Thieytou, Diourbel Region–7 February 1986 in Dakar) was a historian,anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture.  He applied his scholarship to the examination of Africa and it's historical place and the racial impact upon the world.  The African Origin of Civilization was first introduced to me passing back and forth in front of my parents' bookcases as a child.  I didn't read and engage it until my undergraduate Teacher's Asst. position for Carlene Hatcher Polite.  Every semester she would set this book and another as the text for Black Literature 300 level classes.

Later visiting my parent's home I would see that we always had this book, I was just the only one in the family who hadn't read it.  Why does this matter?  I think it matters because when I look at my parents who were members of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, I come from revolutionaries.   Who were informed and strengthened in revolutionary thought.  Therefore I am comfortable in my self, my identity, my sexuality, my religious and political views being revolutionary.  This context of parents and mentors passing onto me such an important book allows me to one day sit with my children and teach them about events thousands of years ago,traceable step by step, like a pre-cyberspace Twitter feed, to the root, the Kunte Kinte, as Carlene would say, of who they are.

This is another piece of literature that falls into that special category I tell my students about, a Patience Book.  Take your time with this, tracing through history, past the often repeated perspective of American history, ack past European history and see that there was a full, vibrant, intelligent, viable world thousands of years before.  We often exclude African and Asiatic history  opting to allow ourselves to believe that Earth, time, civilization began in a manger between a couple who are the ultimate Maury Povich, who's my baby daddy episode, instead of piercing the veil and seeing.  Not merely looking but truly seeing the culture, the languages, the foundation materials from Africa of what we now deem a good civilization.

Thank you,
Kyle Phoenix
Email: kylephoenixshow@aol.com
Website: http://kylephoenixsite.com/
Blog: http://kylephoenixshow.blogspot.com/2012
Thanks and enjoy! You can Like Us on FaceBook or Follow Us on Twitter! Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) and the Thursday/Friday 12am/midnight simulcast on http://kylephoenixsite.com/