Reblogged from 18-15n-77-30w

18-15n-77-30w:

ckamaria:

This statute known as ‘Redemption Song’ is located at Emancipation Park in Kingston, Jamaica, which was constructed in July 2002 according to its website. The work is symbolic of the emancipation of Jamaicans from slavery in 1838. From what I’ve gathered, it was done by a Jamaican artist, Laura Facey Cooper, and was considered controversial by many Jamaicans because they believed it promoted nudity.  In addition to that, many of them were offended by the male statue’s nakedness, in particular, his penis size, and also that the sculptor was too ‘light-skinned’.

The dichotomy is that the opposition to the statue are prime examples of how the body can be freed easily, but freeing the mind requires more work, which causes us to question whether slavery has truly ended.  Those views about the ‘color’ of the sculptor & black nudity lends itself to an uneducated public on artistic concepts; and the deeply-embedded facets of white supremacy coupled with the erasure of African memory.

In many parts pre-colonial Africa, nudity wasn’t largely regarded as sexual but rather, a way to deal with humid conditions, however, when the slave traders arrived, they viewed the so-called rampant nudity as indicative of a savage sexual nature. Once enslaved in these foreign lands, African men & women were mentally reconditioned to accept a Westernized view of themselves & to embrace & idolize whiteness. This, of course, went on for centuries spanning several generations.

To that end, here we are, in the 21st century, dealing with a statue that’s suppose to be a tribute to freedom.  The sculptor’s vision of having the bodies rise from water reconnects to the African philosophy of the power of water with its ability to cleanse & renew.  The nakedness factors into the concept of freedom as both the man and woman gaze upwards to God, presenting themselves as vulnerable & in search of heavenly guidance.  For me, the statue is divine but I am almost certain that if a statue of this kind was done in the States, it may damn near send some twisted individuals into a certified tizzy. 

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Reblogged from kushite

watercollective:

Meet Mwene. He’s a 24-year old farmer who’s bringing clean water to his village despite all the odds. This is his story. 

 

“Some of the visitors that come to our village don’t even drink the water here, because they know they’ll have problems”, says Mwene. Mwene makes this statement in frustration, as visitors are known not to stick around Ekanjoh due to the area’s questionable water source. This problem paired with bad roads and no telecommunications affects the village’s ability to trade and grow with the outside world.

Mwene is a cocoa farmer, and the son of the Chief overseeing Ekanjoh Bajoh. He has lived his whole life in this village, and has never had the convenience of using water without counting down the glasses till he’ll have to hike to fetch some more. Seeing his village still without clean, accessible water at the age of 24, Mwene felt he needed to drastically motivate change in order to address an absence that had been accepted for generations.

Mwene’s daily journey out of his village to access a computer. 

With little direction and resources, Mwene began writing a proposal with the village’s elders to bring a stream water catchment system to the village. Mwene undertook the task of finding a project partner without any connections and through heavy research and cold calls. Mwene had the added feat of traveling 3-4 hours by foot and motorbikes in heat and humidity through deeply trenched, unpaved roads in order to access a computer. If it had rained the night before, Mwene would have to find a way to safely cross the risen tides of his village’s rivers, and navigate through dangerous muddy slopes. 

While Mwene ambitiously exerted his efforts to find a project partner for the village’s water project, the elders of his village saw it as a futile effort. For generations, the village had received little attention from external organizations, and any interested parties always fell through. Facing that defeat for decades didn’t provide any hopes or confidence in Mwene’s outreach. 

Mwene’s young energy and confidence led to a persistence that the Water Collective team connected with.

Upon arriving at Ekanjoh Bajoh, several villagers voiced in unison to us: “No one believed Mwene until he left to pick you up at Douala.” 

We asked, “Really? Why no one?”

One of the villagers answered, ”Because no one ever responded before.”

Pushing for change when you have the whole village behind you is easy, but to do it without anyone believing in your impact is courageous. You have to invest everything you have with the high possibility of losing it all. Mwene’s risks were severe than most, with an income of $0.50/day, and travel & Internet costing 12x his daily income. Despite everything, Mwene took this risk to satiate his passion for change, and he ended up changing the lives of everyone around him.

Mwene is now an active member in our Ekanjoh Bajoh project, designing and strategizing community economy, education, and health agendas. His village will be the first in the district to possess an accessible, clean water source with your help. You can support Mwene’s journey here.  

——-

Mwene Pierre is the founder of our project in Ekanjoh Bajoh, Cameroon. Project founders are local entrepreneurs, leaders, and motivators who come to Water Collective to jointly strategize sustainable, long-term water projects for their villages. Together we create foundations for water technology repair teams, and income-generating activities that will keep water maintenance a financial and operational reality. 

Reblogged from blackfashion

Ludwig Deutsch: A Nubian Guard

In ancient times Nubians were depicted by Egyptians as having very dark skin, often shown with hooped earrings and with braided or extended hair. Ancient Nubians were famous for their vast wealth, their trade between Central Africa and the lower Nile valley civilizations, including Egypt, their skill and precision with the bow, their 23-letter alphabet, the use of deadly poison on the heads of their arrows, their great military, their advanced civilization, and their century-long rule over the united upper and lower Egyptian kingdoms.

Nubians are the people of southern Egypt and northern Sudan, settling along the banks of the Nile from Aswan. Their Nubian language is an Eastern Sudanic language, part of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. The Old Nubian language is attested from the 8th century, and is thus the oldest recorded language of Africa outside of the Afro-Asiatic group.

Ancient Egypt conquered Nubian territory in various eras, and incorporated parts of the area into its provinces. The Nubians in turn were to conquer Egypt under its 25th Dynasty. Relations between the two peoples however also show peaceful cultural interchange and cooperation, including mixed marriages

There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization of much of the Nubian population. Nubia was again united within Ottoman Egypt in the 19th century, and within Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1899 to 1956.

Reblogged from buttondownmoda

(Source: theringtrick)

Reblogged from peopleofthesouth

peopleofthesouth:

Bok brew: Budding promise of a good crop of players

Young, gifted and black
The Stormers are a better side in 2012 for many reasons, but principal among them is an amended player base that includes a few who are young, gifted and black. The jewel in the crown is the 20-year-old flank forward, Siya Kolisi, who has adapted to life in the first team with the aplomb of one who believes he belongs. Also on tour with the Stormers are Siyabonga Ntubeni, a hooker who made his Super Rugby debut last year, and Nizaam Carr, an open-side flank forward who caught the eye in a series of dynamic performances for South Africa at last year’s under-20 World Cup in Argentina.

Kolisi’s background is of the kind that the South African Rugby Union (Saru) has been trying to foster with its development programmes for years. Born in Port Elizabeth’s Zwide township, he has rugby in his blood. He says: “I started playing when I was about eight or nine. My father and uncles all played when they were younger and I wanted to follow in their footsteps. I played for my township school until I was spotted and offered a scholarship to Grey PE for my grade seven year.”

From there he progressed through the ranks with Eastern Province and was spotted early by Saru scouts. They put him into the under-16 and then the under-18 SA Elite squads, picked him in the SA Schools team in 2008 and 2009 and then prepared him for senior rugby in the under-20 squads in 2010 and last year.

Kolisi is an example of what can happen when development systems work. He was spotted early, sent to an elite school on a bursary, kept in the system throughout his teenage years and then released into a professional environment. It is worth noting, because for every Kolisi there are a host of equally talented black kids who do not make it.

(read more)

Josephine Baker: An Expat’s Triumphant Return to Broadway

No American public figures — not Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, not Louise Brooks, not even the inimitable Louis Armstrong — embodied the “Jazz Age” of the 1920s more perfectly than Josephine Baker, the Missouri native who became a legendary performer in Paris in the Twenties and Thirties.

In fact, for millions of people (Europeans, for the most part, but also others all over the globe) who read about, heard about or saw the “Bronze Venus” on stage or in movies at the height of her career, Baker was the Jazz Age — a gorgeous, pyrotechnic talente who, in the words of none other than Ernest Hemingway, “was the most sensational woman anyone ever saw.”

Years after her greatest popularity, but when she was still a beloved singer and dancer in her adopted France and elsewhere in Europe, Baker returned to America — specifically, to Broadway — in 1951, and was a smash hit decades after she left home for less Puritanical and (largely) less race-conscious realms overseas.

In its April 2, 1951, issue the editors of LIFE reported on Baker’s homecoming thus:

One of the most famous American expatriates of this century came back home a few weeks ago. Josephine Baker, daughter of a Negro washerwoman in St. Louis, had begun a sensational career in Paris nightclubs in 1925 by singing an Ave Maria while clad only in a girdle of bananas. She went on a little less scandalously to become “La Baker,” darling of Paris, a citizen of France and a legend to Americans. Now, at 45, she was back on Broadway, singing love songs in five languages and making the Strand movie theater seem intimate as a boudoir. Swishing her pantalooned gown, she crossed her eyes exuberantly, brought cheers from the packed theater as she shouted, “You make me so hop-py!” She made her managers so happy that they quickly booked her for a U.S. tour at $7,500 a week.

Here, on the anniversary of Josephine Baker’s death — she died at age 68 in her beloved Paris, on April 12, 1975 — LIFE.com brings back a series of photographs from 1951 by Alfred Eisenstaedt that capture something of the woman’s energy, charisma and near-palpable joie de vivre. There will never be another …

(Source: TIME)

Reblogged from reuters

reuters:

A Florida prosecutor filed a murder charge on Wednesday against the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed unarmed, black teenager Trayvon Martin in a case that has captivated the United States and prompted civil rights demonstrations.

George Zimmerman, 28, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Martin, according to Angela Corey, the special prosecutor appointed by Florida’s governor to investigate the racially charged case.

Corey said at a news conference on Wednesday that Zimmerman turned himself in to authorities, who then arrested him. He remains in police custody.

READ MORE: Trayvon Martin shooter arrested, charged with murder

Reblogged from dessytoobadd

Because Freedom isn’t Free

(Source: nevergrowup-nevergrowold)