Bobby Seale Speaks at Michigan State University!

January 15, 2009. 5pm.

I look around me-- the auditorium in the Kellogg Center on MSU's campus is packed-- it’s standing room only. Around the room I see students, professors, deans of colleges, members of the community, the old and the young, all gathered together to hear Mr. Bobby Seale’s keynote speech titled “The State of Black Politics in the 21st Century.” Even the aisle ways are crowded with people, standing sitting, doing whatever they have to do to catch a glimpse of the legend before them. People who would normally never be in the same room with one another come together, waiting in anticipation to hear a legend speak before them.

Bobby Seale walks across the stage and stands tall behind the podium. Though his khaki pants, striped blue sweater and black baseball cap make Bobby Seale look pretty laid back, but the man is anything but. At age 74, Mr. Seale is still a firecracker, or as some have said: “He don’t play.” What more could one hope for former Co-founder and Chairman of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense? As a sign of my appreciation for all the great things that this man did and stood for (and continues to do and stand for) I eagerly fulfilled his every wish, demand, and answered his every question. Whether it be to get the man some coffee or more ice for his water, to move the plastic tree away from the podium so “people can see [him], not some ugly shrubbery”, or explain the purpose of the Kellogg Center—I was happy to do it all.

Mr. Seale begins his speech with some background information from his early life and about the beginnings of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. The most touching parts were when he talks about how he met Huey P. Newton and their academic adventures railing their professors for subscribing to racist ideologies while teaching the history of Black people. Newton, he said, was so smart he often dumbfounded his professors, who were unable to justify their actions. He was able to recall and recount facts and laws in painstaking detail. This skill proved handy when the Black Panthers were dealing with insolent people “in authority” such as corrupt police officers that were harassing people in Black neighborhoods.

Mr. Seale also spoke more on the ideology of the Panthers. He rejected the myth that the Panthers were the antithesis to the Civil Rights movement lead by Martin Luther King, Jr. They operated under not a doctrinaire form of socialism, but one that changed and flexed with the times. The BPP advocated for SELF DEFENSE rather than unprovoked violence, and for the ballot over the bullet. However, said Mr. Seale, “…if you take away our right to the ballot, then you force us to use the bullet because if you are taking away our lives.”

After some foreground, Mr. Seale then got into the bread and butter of his keynote speech. The state of Black politics in the United States, he said, is the state of politics itself! This goes along with my thinking about the Black Liberation Struggle (see “Why the ‘White’ Girl Joined the Black Struggle” blog post), that the Black struggle has been one for true peace and parity, unburdened by race, class, gender, sexuality, physical ability, etc. It is the struggle for true democracy. There needs to be a new movement he said, and this time it needs to involve the whole world.

Mr. Seale also offered some practical advice as to how this needs to be done. When participating in activism for social justice, you can’t completely “drop out of the system”, he said. You have work against the wrongs of the system, while still maintaining your own autonomy within the system. There also needs to be more community organizing, more community effort in organizing against injustice. This was the ideology fueling the Black Panthers. They were constantly in motion, bringing people together as a community in order to meet the needs of the people. So in addition to more community organizing, there is a need for more participatory democracies in communities. This mean having real people’s community control—such as control over the police, not “police review boards.” He asked the younger folks in the room to start thinking of other ways that more ways in which the community can take more control of what goes on.

Overall, Mr. Seale’s speech was great. He touched on a lot of salient points, including one that is close to my heart—the need for more community building and organizing. The atmosphere made it all the more inspiring. I really loved seeing the diverse group of people gathered together to hear him speak, to see and appreciate a piece of Black history in the flesh. After almost two years of organizing for the event—fundraising, asking for more funds, booking, advertising, going back and forth with agents, and planning his itinerary down to the very minute, Mr. Seale’s time with us at Michigan State was over as quickly as it had begun. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it.

Much love and thanks goes out to Jennifer White and Allie Carter for their relentless efforts to get Mr. Seale here and keep him happy. Also, much credit goes out to all the other members of the MSU Young Democratic Socialists and the W.E.B. Du Bois Society for their contributions to this event. Without your help, it would not have been possible!

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The Language of Oppression: the degradation of Black languge in the USA and South Africa

I know about structural racism …. Racial oppression through entrenched systems in society through various public bodies, laws, corporations, the prison system, universities...you name it. But when the idea of racial oppression through use of language was introduced to me, I was suddenly taken aback. I had never though about it before-- was there such a thing as a linguistic hierarchy? After making some connections in my mind, I came to conclude that this is so. For the sake of making this blog entry brief, I will say that English is at the top of this hierarchy. I come to this conclusion because it seems like everywhere you go, you can find some sort of evidence that English is spoken there.

In a world where global politics are becoming more important than ever, how will people continue to communicate with one another? Will people continue to place an emphasis on learning to speak English as a common language, or will they attempt to broaden their horizons and learn to speak the language of others?

Some more things to ponder:

Have you ever stopped to think about the words you are using, or the way you are speaking in order to express yourself? How does your language or diction differ from that of other surrounding you? Do you think you speak "better" English than others?

Picture this scenario. It’s a stereotypical one at best, but it speaks to my point. An African-American child grows up in the ghetto where she learns to speak a form of colloquial English known to some as "Ebonics," or in more technical terms, Black Vernacular English. She grows up in a community where this is the dominant form of languages spoken. She doesn't think anything is wrong with the way she talks, it's just how she grew up. However, the outside world of "proper English speakers" would tend to disagree. The way she speaks is unacceptable and crude. She is accused of sounding ignorant and stupid because of the way she speaks and misses out on many opportunities in life such as being considered for job, housing, etc. How is this fair? Why isn't it OK for her to express herself in a way that feels comfortable for her? Why must she conform to certain standards of language in order to be taken seriously?

Geneva Smitherman, a university distinguished professor at Michigan State University, explores such oppressive parallels between the Black speech communities in both the United States of America (USA) and the Republic of South Africa (RSA). Though the culture, history, demography, legal structure, and other important elements of both countries have significant differences, there is a basis for comparing the Black politics in both countries as it relates to language (316).

Both the RSA and USA are attempting to adopt policies centered around the creation of the English language as an official and premier language of the country. In the RSA this would be a policy of “English Plus,” and in the USA “English Only” (316). This presents fundamental problems for all linguistic minorities, including those who speak African or Pidgin Languages in the RSA or Black Vernacular English (Ebonics) in the USA (317).

According to Smitherman, such impositions can be though of as modern day “internal colonialism” in both countries, similar to the extermination of Native Americans from the USA, the introduction of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to the global market, and the conquest of South Africa by the Netherlands and later Great Britain (317-18). Such internal colonialism is not just a polarization between and oppressor nation and a colonized people but an entrenched system of “racial capitalism” where Europeans are socially constructed as the “superior” race with superior qualities and characteristics (318). In order to do this, the Europeans created elaborate systems of law, education, politics, customs, and cultural belief sets to support the economic exploitation of the indigenous peoples (318). One can see how the European claim of superior language could greatly affect each one of these systems.

Linguistic colonialism in both the RSA and USA negatively affects the Black populations. The colonizers’ languages, English and Afrikaans in the RSA and English in the USA are considered to be much more prestigious than African languages or Ebonics. Such imposition of language makes it impossible for Africans and African Americans to experience life and learning, as they are forced to use a language that makes it impossible to properly reflect the real life of Black communities (320). Though Blacks share this major similarity, they do experiences some differences as well in their experience.

Africans brought to the USA as slaves were almost completely stripped of their native languages while Africans were allowed to keep their languages in the RSA. However, the British policy in the RSA regulated other African languages in the RSA as having a lower status by considering them “dialects” instead of “languages” (321). Africans who learned to speak English were given rewards by the British in form of allowing them to become part of a class of Black elite with special economic and social privileges.
On the other hand, African Americans developed a form of pidgin English in order to communicate with their masters as well as other Blacks who were brought to the USA as slaves. Their masters often mixed slaves who spoke different languages and came from different parts of West Africa together, and they developed their own forms of communication as a survival mechanism (322-3).

Presently in both the USA and RSA the legacy of internal colonialism continues to connect to Black language politics and pose barriers to moving toward a linguistic democracy. Blacks who speak primarily Ebonics or an African English are scrutinized for not speaking “good” English and award social and economic benefits such as jobs and mobility to those who can speak English properly (340). Language is being used to divide the Black community into groups competing with one another for material and social wealth, making it that much more impossible for Black people across the globe to stand in solidarity against the capitalist systems that continue to oppress them. At the end of the article Smitherman pushes for the Black community to unite and pressure the dominate white elite toward linguistic democratization (341).

One thing is for certain—these languages with their variations, history, and cultural influence aren’t going away any time soon. Both sides need to develop a way to make room for the diversity of people within them and the way in which they express themselves. If some happy medium can't be reached, future generations of Black people will be both physically and psychologically damaged by the internal colonialism of language heiarchy and its practices.

Another thing that certain-- respect should be given to all people, regardless of what words they choose to use. All language is sacred; it brings dreams and ideas to life, sharing the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of humans to the rest of the world.

Works Cited:

Smitherman, Geneva. “Language and Democracy in the USA and the RSA.” Ed. Roseanne Dueñas González and Ildikó Melis. Language Ideologies: Critical Perspectives on the Official English Movement. Lawrence Elbaum Associates, 2001. 316-344.

Make Love Not CO2

Valentine's Day is fast approaching, so why not hold back on a few chocolates and donate $2 to Student Environmental Action Coalition! Or, if you're REALLY awesome, sign up for a monthly donation of 2 dollars – only $24 for the whole year!

All you have to do is go to the following link and fill out the form – it seriously takes five minutes!
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=697

My goal is to raise at least $400 for Student Environmental Action Coalition by next Wednesday!!! I'm on SEAC's National Council and our goal this year is to really ramp up our grassroots fundraising so we can be as sustainable and independent as possible.

Your donation will go to support a growing coalition of student environmental organizations that are most notably involved in fighting Mountain Top Removal in Appalachia, oil infrastructure expansion in Detroit and a whole host of local campaigns throughout the North East, Appalachia and the Midwest.

Here's a link to our blog so you can get a little bit of an idea of what's been going on recently: http://www.seac.org/blog

Please send me a message and/or leave a comment on this event page once you've made a donation and let me know how much you donated so I can keep track! I'll send out status reports to let y'all know if I'm on track to meet my goal!

Call for Papers

SCOUT BANANA, in conjunction with Michigan State University's African Studies Center and Office of International Development, invites you to submit a manuscript to Articulate: Undergraduate Research Applied to International Development.

Articulate is an undergraduate journal that publishes academic papers and writings (research papers, field work, interviews, etc.) on issues in international development, focusing primarily on African studies and health care issues. Our journal focuses on relationships between development, health care, and the African continent. Articulate is a forum for students to contribute to, as well as make, the debates in international development. Undergraduate students remain a vital, untapped force that can bring new ideas, perspectives, and concepts into the development dialogue. Our goal is to spark, share, and spread knowledge to create innovative change now.

Articulate is peer-reviewed by fellow undergraduate students and an appointed editorial board. Publication is based on relevance, quality, and originality. We ask for submissions that are 10-15 pages long and formatted in the Chicago Manual of Style with 200-word abstracts. In addition, we ask that the author's name, major, college, and university appear on a separate cover sheet, with no reference to the author within the manuscript.

Potential topics, include, but are not limited to:
The effectiveness of foreign aid, microfinance, and social enterprise in Africa
Intersections of gender, religion, ethnicity, and sexuality in African development
Ethics and development in African countries
Historical analyses and case studies of health care programs in Africa
Politics of water and medicine in Africa
The role of African youth in development programs and projects
Effects of conflict and forced migration on health care and development

In addition, Articulate is also seeking brief reflective essays on young peoples' experiences in Africa. Ideally, these pieces are 2-3 single-spaced pages and can take a variety of creative forms. These essays should explore how development work is from the perspective of a young person from the Global North, entering the Global South. Is it how you thought it would be? What did you enjoy and hate about it? What do you wish you'd known when you were just 'studying' as opposed to working in Africa on health-related issues? Other themes may be considered with consultation from the Editor-in-Chief.

Papers will be accepted until March 15th, 2009 with an intended publication date during Spring 2009. For submissions, please contact the Editor-in-Chief at articulate@scoutbanana.org. For more information on SCOUT BANANA, check out www.scoutbanana.org.

Not an undergraduate student? Paper too long? Still want to get your ideas published as a volunteer or researcher in the field? Inquire at: banana@scoutbanana.org.

Are you an undergraduate looking to be a larger part of SCOUT BANANA? Can you peer review articles extremely well and motivate others to do the same? Apply for the Editor-in-Chief position, contact: alex.h@scoutbanana.org