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'AlikShahadah 122005(updated5/2012)
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Business&Africans

ICC&Africa
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SticksandstoneswillbreakmybonesBut
FactsAboutAfrica wordswillneverharmme
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CabralTheory

NGOandDevelopment
Jump to : African vs. Black | Subsaharan Africa | Black African | Spirituality | Terrorism
GarveyLegacy

WillieLynchHoax

MalcolmOAAU Humans are the only beings with a

EthicsoftheReparations
AfrocentrismPseudohistory?
MarleyFilmReview
812 unique power to communicate, and hold
the ability of using communication to
Like
clarity, or obstruct reality. And therefore
Share words play a critical role in articulating

AbolitionandWilberforce
reality.
No word is innocent in the hands of power, yet every
BlackPantherCritique
word is dangerous when applied to the oppressed.
JewsandSlavery

GayRights
Language in itself is an unstable vehicle, which in the hands of the
FailureOfAfricanLeadership
LanguageandThought modern sophist has the potential to mislead. It is naive to ignore the
CapitalismorSocialism? significance of linguistics and the utter need to engage this ignored
WarandWords
FemaleGenitalMutilation discourse in Pan-African studies. And just like there is a body,
BlackAfrican which monitors and controls the English language we need such a
FailuretoEngage
Africanvs.Black dedicate discourse serving our linguistic interest. [1] While some
LibyaInvasion words such as 'good' and 'bad' can be mapped across the global
SubSaharanAfrican
Dubois:SoulsofBlackfolk language spectrum, the ideological attachment to terms needs also
AfricaOrigins to be mapped to favor the speaker, regardless of the language
SlaveryinAmerica
BlackAfrican spoken.

AmilcarCabral
AgencyandAfrica
MisEducationoftheChild
AfricanRevolt
TheFlagofAfricanCinema
ThePoliticsofLiberation
WhiteSupremacy
TheHorrorsof500Years
AfricaandtheRiseofIslam
WhyKwanzaa
PtahhotepAncientEgypt
SeenButNeverHeard
AfricanClassicalMusic
SouthAfrica:10YearsOn
MusicandDanceinReligion
WhiteAbolitionofSlavery
AThreattoBlackStudies
ArtofRevolution
AfricanInfluenceinBarbados
OriginsofVoodoo
BlackOutWhiteWash
EthiopianSlaveTrade
DarfurReport
Until lions tell their
tale, the story of the
hunt will always
glorify the hunter
AfricanProverb
Power concedes
nothing without a
demand. It never did
and it never will
FrederickDouglass
The most pathetic
thing is for a slave
who doesn't know
that he is a slave
MalcolmX
Every man is rich in
excuses to
safeguard his
prejudices, his
instincts, and his
opinions.
AncientEgypt
True freedom is not
only the right to
vote, but the right to
self-define And the
right to interrogate
definitions imposed
and formulate new
ones which favor the
subject in any given
BlackAfrican
The conquest of Africa was not only a physical process, it was also
Kmt
a re-definition of the African reality relative to the European world-
Terrorism view. Introducing paradigms from Europe which favored Europe;
FeminismandAfrica notions of identity based not on geography or ethnicity, but relative
color. So even today terms such as "crimes against humanity",
ReligionVs.Spirituality
"genocide", "holocaust" used to articulate the African experience
ThirdWorld but made ineffective because they are still defined and controlled
Civilized outside of African interest.
Controversial Right now a 60 year linguistic war is waged on forums and radios
Tribe over if Israel ""occupied" or " controlled
" the West Bank. You find
prolix debates spanning thousands of pages just over these two
Traditional
words. Because language defines reality, as much as reality
Nominal defines languages. Its high real estate, which makes huge
PreColonial differences for those who comprehend these matters. So how could
a term like "black" people not need a heavy debate? When so
Slave
much is attached to that color based term? Yet, for all the instances
AntiSemitic it is used, there is rarely any clarity of its meaning.
ReverseRacism
BlackOnBlack
Homophobic
Conclusion
Tospeakmeanstobeinapositiontousea
certainsyntax,tograspthemorphologyofthis
orthatlanguage,butitmeansaboveallto
assumeaculture,tosupporttheweightofa
civilization.
FranzFanon
There is no denying the billion dollar linguistic industry of the capitalist system; correct wording for
marketing is a serious activity in fashioning consumer responses. Language is war, and that war
begins with words, not bombs. Conquest is not only done down the barrel of a gun, but through
language. In politics, the careful wording done to avoid liability, testifies to the delicate, yet critical
significance of words. In the media arena, the neologism created to marry and casually associate
Islam to terror, shows the power words have at sculpturing perception: Terrorism is a highly
contested concept and It can be `flexibly constructed' to suit ideological, nationalist, propagandist
and political objectives.
Wehavebeenfightingonalanguagechess
boardwhereallthelinguisticspiecesarewhite
'AlikShahadah
With its origins in revolutionary political violence, it is now the principle fear tactic by USA and her
allies for shifting their foreign policy around the globe. [Fisk] Words, and words alone, can mask
hell and make it seem like heaven; take the most horrendous human acts and make them seem
benign. Even today we see money being thrown into standardize words for political and social
objectives.There can be no denying that in the area of African reality, sociolinguistics requires a
full discourse.
Ontology in analytic philosophy, concerns the determination the quality of "being." It is the inquiry
into being in so much as it is being. Epistemology which follows now ask the question "how do i
know what I know," the quality of knowing. But how can you even get to ontology or epistemology
when you need words to describe yourself and to enquirer? So words then become important. But
words are arbitrary sonic symbols that we invest a whole lot of meaning into. Then the quest to
comprehend that entire process is prudent on the part of every language user. And because
language is an extension of thought; a tool for thought. It is an arbitrary oral or written symbol
representing (communicating) an idea inside one's mind. Then if the tool has poor reference or is
flawed in how it describes "self" then even ontology is in question.
 subject in any given
political climate
'AlikShahadah
We are not Africans
because we are born
in Africa, we are
Africans because
Africa is born in us.
ChesterHigginsJr. Foucault claimed that since man's view of reality is contingent on how they see reality, it followed,
Leave no brother or
sister behind the
enemy line of
poverty.
HarrietTubman
LinguisticsandAfricanReality
ReligionInAfrica
AfricanCulturalFootprint
Somali:MoneyandCivilWar
AfricaBeforeSlavery
AfricanInfluenceinBarbados
If we stand tall it is
because we stand
on the shoulders of
many ancestors.
AfricanProverb
If we do not stop
oppression when it
is a seed, it will be
very hard to stop
when it is a tree.
' AlikShahadah
If the future doesn't
come toward you,
you have to go fetch
it
ZuluProverb
Everyethnicgroupinthiscountryhas
areferencetosomelandbase,some
historicalculturalbase.African
Americanshavehitthatlevelof
culturalmaturity...Tobecalled
AfricanAmericanhasculturalintegrity
JesseJackson
then, that the manner in which language describes that reality means that language does not
reflect reality so much as language creates it. Chomsky states that those who controls
terminology shape them in their own interest. Thus "people" as defined by the United States
constitution were initially defined to protect liberated African Americans from being deprived of
due process. However, that definition has done more for allowing corporations to inherent all the
person
rights of a " ."
Freedom" in South Africa, remained unclear, vague, and ultimately post-94, has revisited South
"
Africa and now that very "freedom" is defined by right to destructive vices: A freedom that has no
economic liberation, or social agency.
Peoplesaywhat'sinaname?There'sawhole
lotinaname
MalcolmX
In his book RichardB.Moore expresses: "Human
relations, cannot be peaceful, satisfactory, and
happy until placed on the basis of mutual self
respect. The proper name for people, has thus
become, in this period of crucial change and rapid
reformation on a world scale, a vital factor in
determining basic attitudes involving how, and even
whether, people will continue to live together on this
shrinkingplanet." Language is a factor in understanding
the African Holocaust even in how demographics are
understood. The highly contested number of people
disrupted or lost to European slaving activities is partly
locked in definitions.
The term "Slave trade" has the power to mitigate or mask the reality of the African Holocaust. So
if we measure "slave trade" we get the European promoted number of 10 million arriving ( notice
the word arriving Not
to further limit Western culpability). However, the minute we change to : "
only was Transatlantic Slavery of demographic significance, in the aggregate population losses
but also in the profound changes to settlement patterns, epidemiological exposure and
reproductive and social development potential" an entirely new figure emerges. Maulana Karenga
notes that "slave trade" is a deceptive term which linguistically neutralizes the cruelty, inhumanity
and exploitation as just consensual business. European historians have generally been very
skillful at using language to define reality so that African casualties by their hands are very low but
the casualties by African or Arab hands are as high as possible.
Inspeechareembedded,likefossils,thesum
totalofapeople'svalues,attitudes,habits,
aptitudes,inshortapeople'sworldview
AhmedSheikh[2]
UnidirectionalWords
ThisphraseIsraelsrighttoexistis
thrownaroundinAmericanpoliticswithsuch
abandonthatyoudbeforgivenforthinkingthat
astatesrighttoexistisafundamental
 astatesrighttoexistisafundamental
principleofinternationalrelations(IR)that
thosestubbornPalestiniansjustrefuseto
acknowledge

MichaelLuciano

Unidirectional words describe Israel's "right to exist" without drawing into question the
Palestinians dual right to exist. In American politics "Right to exist" in the billion and one times it is
used only, exclusively, unapologetically is only used for Israel. So Israel cannot use this phrase to
defend its right to exist by denying other their human rights to also exist. [7] Only one point of view
is shown, and it all starts in the war of words.

Words and terms are political weapons with subtle yet powerful inbuilt bombs. Take for example
antisemitic and homophobia, they are both unidirectional; there can only be applied in one
direction, to attack someone outside of their group. Unlike "Racism" which can be applied bi-
directionally by the oppressed, but just as easily by the oppressor to describe the act of resisting
oppression. Antisemitism cannot be used by the anyone other than the Jewish agenda.
Homophobia could never be used by non-gays to describe gays. The ADL and AIPAC can use
antisemitism, without fear of it being used against them in any conventional discourse. Words are
crafted with this in mind to protect the authors of the words. In a flash, dropping antisemitism into
a newspaper only brings up pictures that services the interest of pro-Jewish groups. Despite the
volume of racism Africans face, they have no word which can communicate the uniqueness of
that oppression like Jews and gays. Holocaust, genocide, Diaspora words traditionally only
assigned to describe the Jewish experience. These words are vehemently guarded for
unidirectional usage. As Mazuri says it is almost as if they had a copyright. But it proves the
argument that words are serious "real estate."

LinguisticLaziness
However, as politics and culture change in our expanding world, rarely have linguistics shifted to
accommodate. With the exceptions of a few neologism there is a linguistic laziness in coining new
terms which speak to new realities. So words are handed down like family heirloom across the
generations. But these old words function in a different political-cultural landscapes, thus blurring
realities and distorting history. From the agrarian world to the digital revolution certain words have
remained unchanged. [1] The so-called Arabs of the Sudan are in fact largely an Arabized African
people, but as the reality of 1st language speakers left the ethnic boundaries of being Arab, the
terminology did not move as fast to create new definitions for these "new Arabized people." A
future scholar reviewing history would formulate confusing conclusions if they assume that
terminologies are static across time.

AgencyandLanguage

Terminologiesflyonthewingsofagency

'AlikShahadah

All words and expressions are backed up by agency. The minute a word leaves some one's lips
and hits someone else's ears the perception changes, and it might fail to communicate what the
user intended. " I am religious
" has radically different implications if Muslim to Muslim, Christian to
Muslim, or religious person to atheists: Audience sensitive and perception is key. The power of
Western politics often means their application of words such as " fundamentalist
" overrides all
local and standard definitions. Western agency not only has unilateral access to the international
microphone, but also the power to make sure their meanings are normalized across diverse
linguistic and geographical communities.

The power of Western agency means that they can construct words which speak exclusively to
their reality. "Philosophy" came from the Greeks, there is no true parallel in African languages,
does that mean " Africa never had philosophers?
" We could spin it back and say "Europeans
never had Ubuntu." Philosophy is just a word created in Greece to suit Greek paradigms. It is later
applied to favorable civilizations, considered "advanced", with the exclusion of Africa, especially
what is called 'Sub-Saharan Africa.' The seven climes (from Greek meaning "inclination") was a
Greek-centric notion of dividing the Earth into zones in Classical Antiquity. The "norm" was the
Mediterranean (Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc). The first clime (Sub-Sahara Africa) was of
intense heat and did not permit civilization and out of this Greek model of civilization comes the
modern world view of a sub-Saharan Africa, a direct descendant of Greek climes.

So Africa's development or role in intellectual progressiveness is hung on a word made, shaped

and espoused by Europe. European behaviorism is good at putting value on dichotomizing
abstract thought and explaining-away emotion, yet show no inner appreciation of spirit: Is music
only valuable it if is discussed to death and written down? If a word controlled by European
interest is hung over Africans as the mark of advancement and Africans are forced to response,
would not the thousands of African proverbs not shed light on African's " love of wisdom
" (i.e.
philosophy)?

"Language is a fundamental tool for shaping identity and

community, including the expression (or repression) of sexual
desire.SpeakinginQueerTonguesinvestigatesthetensionsand
adaptationsthatoccurwhenprocessesofglobalizationbringone
system of gay or lesbian language into contact with another.
Western constructions of gay culture are now circulating widely
beyond the boundaries of Western nations due to influences as
diverse as Internet communication, global dissemination of
entertainment and other media, increased travel and tourism,
migration,displacement,andtransnationalcitizenship. [5]
The increasing power of the gay lobby is another area which proves the case of the relationship
between language and agency. In a few decades words have started to change form to
accommodate the gay rights campaign: gay (use to mean happy)[3], marriage (use to mean man
and woman), family (use to men husband and wife). [6] There is no stronger case of linguistic
accommodation.[5]

How did 'bad' come to mean 'good'

? Had this linguistic innovation happened in the outskirts of
Calcutta it would never make sense anywhere but in that local community. Just like idiom which
are colloquial metaphora term requiring some foundational knowledge, information, or
experience, to use only within a culture, where conversational parties must possess common
cultural references. [1] And the power of African-American music created and imposed " bad =
good " as an urban shift in the wind of linguistic globalization.

FalseDichotomy

Notallwordsspokenwerecreatedequal:Some
wordscomefromamindthathasstudied,from
abodythathastraveledathousandmiles,
fromeyesthathavewitnessed,fromatongue
thathaseloquence,fromaheartthathas
passionandfromasoulthathassincerity

'AlikShahadah

Language has always being a breeding ground for setting up false dichotomy. And by a
systematic process of normalizing these views are accepted with out challenge: Assuming there
are only two alternatives when in fact there are more. For example, assuming the classical
Western dichotomy that by holding religious views it means you are unscientific; which is not a
conflict for most outside of Europe's geopolitical walls. The very suggestion of a "Black African"
implies, without even stating it, that there is also another color variant on African. Sub-Saharan
Africa is another perfect example of this, where the illusion of "two" Africa's is made real only in
language; but never in reality. Another example is Spirituality vs. Religion. (see section)

LanguageandThought

Thelimitsofmylanguagemeansthe
limitsofmyworld

LudwigWittgenstein

There can be no undermining how both philosophies of language influences thought and vice-
versa. Thus language is a key aspect of culture and culture is key in determining ones language.
The SapirWhorf hypothesis (aka Linguistic relativity) suggested that language limited the extent
to which members of a "linguistic community" can think about certain subjects.

Sticksandstoneswillbreakmybonesbut
wordswillneverhurtme(falsestatement)



It is linguistic warfare to remove people's ability to even reference themselves and to describe
their unique social reality. Semantic magic tricks make large problems vanish in thin air by shifting
linguistics to offer a bandage to the oppressor conscious. The "black problem" vanishes once the
word " Previously disadvantaged (South Africa)
." It sooths the conscious of the European settlers
and allows them to eat their dinner in peace without looking at the troubling word "African people."
And beyond that it shapes perceptions and neutralizes the racist overtones in the society. And
likewise you can vanish an entire Palestinian village with the right usage of words, causing their
condition and humanity to evaporate by labeling them 'militants.' In opinion polls, most Americans
supported the concept of a doctor helping a patient end a life with painless means, but that same
support immediately dropped once it was described as "assisted suicide " [Grossman].

Theinterdependenceofthoughtandspeech
makesitclearthatlanguagesarenotsomuch
ameansofexpressingtruththathasalready
beenestablished,butareameansof
discoveringtruththatwaspreviouslyunknown.
Theirdiversityisadiversitynotofsoundsand
signsbutofwaysoflookingattheworld

KarlKerenyi

SpeakingFrenchmeansthatoneaccepts,oris
coercedintoaccepting,thecollective

consciousnessoftheFrench,whichidentifies
blacknesswithevilandsin.Inanattemptto
escapetheassociationofblacknesswithevil,
theAfricanmandonsawhitemask,orthinksof
himselfasauniversalsubjectequally
participatinginasocietythatadvocatesan
equalitysupposedlyabstractedfrompersonal
appearance.Culturalvaluesareinternalized,or
"epidermalized"intoconsciousness,creatinga
fundamentaldisjuncturebetweentheAfrican
man'sconsciousnessandhisbody.Underthese
conditions,theAfricanmanisnecessarily
alienatedfromhimself

FranzFanon

The complicated dynamics behind word usage is solely rooted in a battle of self-interest. Many
times Africans are trapped with popular anti-African sentiments such as Africans enslaved other
Africans, Egyptians weren't black, etc. Trapped fighting battles from a strategic disadvantage
because the terms and definitions employed serve solely in a Eurocentric reality that have been
sculpted to destabilize the African historical foundation.

Technically speaking, the only difference between the prison complex and domestic slavery in
Africa is linguistics - nothing else. If we speak of the African Holocaust then facts of so-called
Slavery by Africans becomes redundant as the African Holocaust does not focus on systems of
imprisonment, but moreover, the wholesale inhumane destruction visited upon African people. In
addition, African Holocaust is not limited to the Transatlantic Slave Trade but the broader horror
that also encompasses colonial rule and more over the legacies of those systems. But English
has one word for slavery, despite absolutely different levels of 'slavery', one where someone is a
member of a family and the other system where someone is chattel, but we have one word to
describe these realities. When it suits the user we hear terms such as " corvee", "indentured labor"
and " prison system."
WAROFWORDS

Soan'occupation'canbecomea'dispute'.Thus
a'wall'becomesa'fence'ora'securitybarrier'.
ThusIsraelicolonizationofArablandcontrary
toallinternationallawbecomes'settlements'
or'outposts'or'Jewishneighborhoods

RobertFisk

There can be no political discussion of

any issue in our world today without first
 any issue in our world today without first

812 establishing the wars of words.

Like

Share
Political rhetoric is designed to be deployed in the
service of public policy.[1] So if 5 People protest in
Iran it is an UPRISING!!, if 5000 People riot in the
UK, it is civil disobedience. Language shapes
perception, creating out of similar realities two
completely different understandings.

Reasonable doubt is a common tactic to thwart any opposition, words such as controversial and
conspiracy theory give the reader, regardless of how solid the research is, that it cannot be
absolutely trusted. Conspiracy theory is the highest level of reject of an argument without actually
having to deal with the merits of the argument, it is an almost flawless tactic for curbing
institutional analysis (Chomsky). Words hide all kinds of deception " co-belligerent terrorist" makes
almost everyone a terrorist, " imminent threat" so diluted can be used and abused at will. [4]

West NonWestInterest
Freedom Fighter or Rebel Terrorist/ Militant

Collateral damage War crimes- killing innocents

Monarchy Dictator

Right To Exist Occupation

Development Aid (1) Bribery

Civil War Genocide (killing his own people)

Democracy Twopartystate
Selfdetermination Brainwashing
PatriotAct Totalitarianism
Freedomofpress Propaganda
Nationalsecurity HumanRightsviolation
FogofWar Holocaust|Genocide|
Muslimallies Islamist
RightWingconservative TerroristEstablishingSharia
Riots,Opportunistichooligans Uprising
PoliticalPrisoner Terrorist
Combatants EvilTerrorist
Passionate AngryandHateful
EstablishedFact Controversial
AcademicConsensus Fringetheory
Mainstreamopinion Conspiracytheory
Settlers Invaders
Intervention Invasion

Wewantpeace,totalpeaceandnothing
butpeace,andevenifwehavetofight
thebloodiestbattle,wearegoingtogetit

Hitler

Language and American foreign policy is amazing liberal and shameless: from stopping "Ethnic
Cleansing" in Kosovo, to saving the world against '"WMD's" from Saddam, to saving the people of
Darfur from "Genocide", to putting a halt to Gaddafi "massacring civilians" in Libya. From Bush's
"Axis of Evil" and "War on Terror" to Obama's "Network of Death" " Staying the course
" all
highlights the danger of rhetoric. It has an almost passive plea to the heart and the mind while
masking the horrendous inequity and genocide of women and children. And in its seemingly
benign personality it fails our critique even in the blatant face of human rights violations. Hitler too
did this with words, this is why so many were lulled into immorality by the power of his command
of the Germanic language. However, actions are more honest than language. This is why nature
has an honesty which humans can only dream of achieving-- because we have the power to
deceive, obfuscate, inveigle
.

BLACKNESSANDHISTORY

"White"dependsforitsstabilityonitsnegation,
 "White"dependsforitsstabilityonitsnegation,
"black."Neitherexistswithouttheother,and
bothcomeintobeingatthemomentof
imperialconquest

FranzFanon

Black history is the history of enslavement; African history is the history of humanity. If there are
no White people, could there be Black people? For over 100,000 years there were only native
people of Africa on the planet, and since there were no "White" people there could not have been
Black people, since everyone would have been "Black." This is even more profound when you
realize African people are the only truly native people of the place they inhabiteveryone else is
at some point a settler.

Inancienttimes,Africansingeneralwerecalled
EthiopianinmedievaltimesmostAfricans
werecalledMoorsinmoderntimessome
AfricanswerecalledNegroes

JohnJackson

And if all the "White people" vanished from the Earth, would the remaining "Black" people still be
Black? So the older group must define itself relative to the European newcomers? Would it not
make far more logical, historically, linguistically, and social to describe people by their land of
origin. Negro = Negroid = Colored = Nigger = Black (all associated with color none are
connected to a continent). Now compare this to Asiatic, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid (all are tied to
land, all can be located on a map but not so Negroid/Black). Black and White are therefore
debunked as regressive incomplete terms for describing people.

Thereisnothingin"blackness"thatlogically
impliesanyclaimtoanythingofvalue,except
bondage

'AlikShahadah

For all of recorded history we see in every conflict a central theme -- that of "land." So critical as
humans need land to grow crops on, to source water from (see Golan Heights), they need a place
to build cities and a place to harvest mineral wealth from. So attaching your identity to land makes
sense: Attaching your identity to an abstract color, does not. Black and African are not
interchangeable in any logical sense. African people claim an African origin and Africa as their
Motherland. There is nothing in "blackness" that logically implies any claim to anything of value,
except into bondage. All it tells the world is relative to the dominant race class these group of
people are "black." And in Africa it is even worse, because language wise no majority defines
themselves against a minority. i.e. Sudan (Northern Sudan) is still Sudan, but Southern Sudan
has to insert "South" for clarity. Holocaust, on its own, is assigned to the Jews, who do not insert
"Jews" before Holocaust, since they are the first to use the term in its modern context. How can
the majority in South Africa need to identify themselves as "black" relative to a "white" when they
are a overwhelming majority and hence "the norm"?

And what is even more revealing is that Dutch settlers in South Africa branded themselves as
Afrikanerslaying claim to the land they conquered. Signifying in that naming process they were
the native European tribe of of Africa (per Zuma). And yet Natives in South Africa still refer to
themselves, with glee, as blacks.
It is amazing in our modern era that an entire nation of
people, who are free to think and free to reflect-- the
oldest nation on the planet, the parents to every other
people are confined by a name that reflects only their
supposed skin color -- and nothing else. Being "black
people" is still today indelible fixed in Western lexicon
(both African American and White),

despite all the evidence contradictory such color-based terminologies and the profound work of
Malcolm X and especially Richard B. Moore to favor African over Black, which would give a
humanist representation of marginalized people. And the perplexing thing is general contentment
and seeming inability to see the obvious menace in the term. Only two groups remain on Earth
adhering to color labels; the most exploited people in the history of humanity (Black people), and
their apex oppressors (White people).

Truefreedomisnotonlytherighttovote,but
therighttoselfdefineandtherightto
interrogatedefinitionsimposedandformulate
newones,whichfavortheAfricaninanygiven
politicalclimate

'AlikShahadah

If linguistically we reject the

term Sub-Saharan Africa
then therefore there is no
Sub-Saharan history or
people; as distinct from North
Africa. We then only have
African people and a history
of Africa.

We must realize these are still colonial classifications like Middle East which have nothing to do
with historical Africa. We cannot discuss a history of Africa in these colonial boxes which only
served to humiliate and take away from the continent. The terms create paradigms which limit,
rather than expand, reality. If there are a black or Black people then where do "black" people
come form? Since Asians come from Asia, Indians from India (all makes perfect logically sense).

Everyethnicgroupinthiscountryhas
areferencetosomelandbase,some
historicalculturalbase.African
Americanshavehitthatlevelof
culturalmaturity...Tobecalled
AfricanAmericanhasculturalintegrity
JesseJackson

So where do Black people come from? Blackia, Negroland or Blackistan,

following the obvious
naming convention. What is the capital city of the Black home world? Black City or
Blackatropolis? So if Africans do not come from these fictitious places and we find that so-called
Black people come from Africa (at some time in our recent history) then why not just call them
Africans? At best the term is redundant. So what is the purpose of Blackness? Especially in a
world where identity and land are exclusively interlinked for every other people: Jews of Israeli,
Palestinians of Palestine, Indians of India, Zulu of Zululand, Masai of the Masai Mara.

TwentytwomillionAfricanAmericans
that'swhatweareAfricanswhoare
inAmerica

ElHajjMalikShabazz

Blackness, is largely a Western or American exonym, in which all so-called Black cultures around
the world are forced to fit into. As Americanism expanded so to did this notion of blackness, which
is attached to the civil rights struggle and today to the urban cultures of the inner cities. However,
It cannot be transplanted into ancient history to describe a people such as Ancient Ethiopia who
had no cultural similarities to the modern African-Americans communities. Neither can
"Blackness" be put in history to say the Ancient Egyptians were not Black because they did not
share characteristics with a group of Africans Europeans chose to label as the archetypal Black
population (black skin, thick lips and kinky hair). To do so creates connections and disconnections
where there are none. So "Black culture" or " Blackness" cannot be imposed anywhere beyond the
modern era. But we can say Cultures of Africa, in which Egypt and Ethiopia were part of that
African world. Being African doesn't mean we all dance to the same music and worship the same
tree. So outside of the suggestiveness of "black" and "negro" words are necessary in creating
new paradigms or we will always get stuck hearing " Well the Egyptians were not Black
" because
of a language issue or some other technicality. Far less objections could be raised if we just stuck
The Egyptians were Africans". Especially if we claim African as oppose to let it float.
to "

The political question of contributions of modern day African people must be addressed and in
this respect Ancient Egypt, Ancient Ethiopia were African civilizations, the same way Greece was
an Ancient European civilization (it was located in modern Europe). But this argument is a political
because we live in a racialized world which discredits a people's worth by notions of racial origin
and assumes black skinis too inferior to construct civilization.
and assumes black skin is too inferior to construct civilization.

LoadedWords

Poweristheabilitytodefinerealityandto
convinceotherpeoplethatitistheirdefinition

WadeNobles

812 Within the walls of democracy there is a freedom of speech and justice component, within
Like the boundaries of feminism there is a concept of equality, but this does not make either
democracy, feminism or any 'ism' directly interchangeable with justice, freedom or human
rights.

Africans must distinguish and apply their own concepts without casually borrowing pre-packaged
terms which speak in favor of European interest. Because too often the terms used have other
connotations and implication which come seeded in a linguistic nexus. Values of morality and
perceptions of superiority embedded to favor things founded in Europe over things founded in
Africa. To suggest that human rights must morph itself into the pro-homosexual left liberal
confusion is taking away from the purity of other peoples inherent ability to self-determine and
attach value to their own definitions. African centered human rights is articulated around
community and life, thus when Europe speaks of promoting human rights some of these values
actually are violations of African human rights. Therefore "Gay rights" linguistically looks like "Civil
rights" and has been intentionally stealing sympathy solely on this bases. But regardless of the
linguistic similarities, civil rights and gay rights are radically different in their moral and humanist
foundations.

Someoneoncenotedthatwedon'tspeakwith
language,butthroughit:itistransparenttous,
andwedon'tevennoticeit.Inourexperience,
ourwordsdonotrepresentconcepts:they
presenttheminawhollytransparentway.This
iswhatImeanwhenInotedthatnative
speakersdonotnormallyspeakintheir
language,butthroughit
BraddShore,CultureInMind:
Cognition,Culture,&TheProblemOf
Meaning

Normative:HomophobiaandthePolitics
812
Normatively is the usage of language to suit one's
Like
LanguageandThought rhetoric to the widest possible audience, without
losing relevant information in the process .
WarandWords

BlackAfrican
In government and business jargon is used to encrypts morally
Africanvs.Black suspect information in order to mitigate reactions to it: for
SubSaharanAfrican example, the almost benign phrase "collateral damage" to refer
to the manslaughter of innocents. Words such as
AfricaOrigins
"controversial" insert a air of question around a subject. So it is
BlackAfrican used strategically to create the "fringe factor" around any
Kmt position which is unpleasant to the user, for example "Jewish
involvement in slavery is 'controversial.'"
Terrorism

FeminismandAfrica Linguistics today is used as a tool for politically maneuvering.

We see words such as the misnomer antisemitic initially used
ReligionVs.Spirituality
against people who hate Jews now it is applied against people
ThirdWorld Jews hate. We see words like homophobia, a word that is a
Civilized neologism created in the American sub-culture in 1969 and
has no parallel in any African language or ideology; and hence
Controversial
alien to the African paradigm.
Tribe
These are political terms used to stall any form of plural
Traditional
disagreement, creating a third rail. Collapsing racism,
Nominal oppression, civil rights, bias and homophobia is a tactic to give
PreColonial gravity to a neologism.

Slave

AntiSemitic

ReverseRacism

BlackOnBlack
Homophobic
 Homophobic

Conclusion

And this is equally true for " gay rights

," It is a word used and abused but has no clear attachment
to any set of true values. Do gay rights mean the right to be gay? And who should grant that right,
in most countries no one is stopping what happens in private? Or does it mean the right to have
children, a right denied by nature? Human rights already protect all human beings from
persecution and abuse. It sets up the perfect straw man argument where any opposition to
homosexuality or vague "gay rights" is used to imply an attitude of gross violence and deep
hatred. The introduction of two equal terms, homosexual and heterosexual, for sexual preference
is to normalize homosexuality as an equal reality. Just like the direction terms 'left and right',
where 'left' or 'right' has no real social superiority.

All of this has to be stated to appreciate the power of language and thought and the power to alter
human perception and expression. Now oppressing homosexuals is very separate from
disagreeing with homosexuality, and oppression and disagreement should never be collapsed.
Behavioral scientistsWilliam O'Donohue and Christine Caselles concluded that the usage of the
as it is usually used, makes an illegitimately pejorative evaluation of certain
term homophobia "
open and debatable value positions. " The term, like antisemitic, is used as an ad
hominemargument against those who advocate values or positions of which the user does not
approve. As far as homophobia goes the National Association for Research & Therapy of
Homosexuality, states, "Technically, however, the term actually denotes a person who has a
phobia or irrational fear of homosexuality. Principled disagreement, therefore, cannot be
labeled homophobia."
BLACKORAFRICAN

Slavesanddogsarenamedbytheirmasters.
Freemennamethemselves.

RichardB.Moore

812
Black is a construction, which articulates a recent
Like
social-political reality of people of color (pigmented
people).

Black is not a racial family, an ethnic group or a super-ethnic

group. Political blackness is thus not an identity but moreover
a social-political consequence of a world which after
colonialism and slavery existed in those color terms.

"white"dependsforitsstabilityonitsnegation,
"black."Neitherexistswithouttheother,and
bothcomeintobeingatthemomentof
imperialconquest

FranzFanon

In our modern era old identities split apart and reform along more self-determined line to recover
what was lost after the impact of conquest and domination. We see The Gypsies are now to be
called "Roma," and the reindeer-herding Lapps of Northern Scandinavia are the "Saami."
Similarly, some now claim the Iroquois Indians should be called the "Haudenosaunee" and the
Cherokee the "Tsalagi" [3]

812 Africans have gone from Negro (Spanish for Black) to Black (English for Negro) what has
Like changed? Only the language. [6] An identity is generally geographical and ties the people
to their native environment or their core doctrine (Jews of Judaism, Muslims of Islam,
Chinese of China).

AfricanpeoplenotfittingtheEuropeanimposed"Black"archetype
Very few Africans are actually Black in color, so where is the foundation of a Black people or
black people coming from? It is how Africans were seen relative to the European people. So
relative to the pales skin of Europeans and White Arabs the most dominant thing about African
was relative skin color. Hence the exonym Black in the eyes of the "other." It was not the land, not
the African hair, but the relative color of a diverse skin pigment that is rarely black in color. For
Indians it is their land, for Chinese it is their land, for Jews it is their faith and a notion of Israel.
Yet Condolezza Rice feels the best thing that describes her in American is blackness. And to
some extent she is right, because there is nothing in her cultural, ethical, aesthetic, outlook that
resembles the continent her ancestors came from. She has replaced Africa with America, and
finally Africaness with dreams of the White ideal.

African and black are not interchangeable just as Dark continent and Africa are not. Self-
determination allows a people to re-examine definitions and sculpt them to their reality. Black, like
Negro is facing linguistic extinction, especially in academic circles, due to its poor foundation in
speaking about the oldest and most diverse people on the planet. Notice today only two races go
by color labels; The race with the most oppression and the ones inflicting that oppression. "I am
black and proud" is a song, nothing else. It is the rhetoric necessary at the time to lift an
oppressed people who only knew of themselves through the eyes of their oppressor. It has run its
course and has expired.

Some have argued that African people chose "black" as an acceptable identity. The evidence is in
all the books African-Americans write where the word "black" (lowercase) is used without care.
But self-determination has a condition - full knowledge of self. And this is why we see the new
Nig*er identity which by the same mass consensus process seems to be a valid new identity. And
just like "black" it is again almost exclusively the world view
of a minority African population living
in America.

Linguisticevolution?COLOREDNEGROBLACKAFRICANAMERICANNIG*ER

Blacktellsyouhowyoulookwithouttellingyou
whoyouare.Amoreproperwordforour
people,African,relatesustoland,historyand
culture.

JohnHenrikClarke

In Mauritania, the Haratin account for as much as 40% of the Mauritanian population. They are
sometimes referred to as " Black Moors", in contrast to Beidane. The Haratin are Arabic-speakers,
and generally claim a Berber or Arab origin, which is contrasted against other African peoples in
southern Mauritania (such as the Wolof and Fula people who have populations in Mauritania).
The Haratine, consider themselves part of the Moorish community. But where it becomes
problematic is because they are "darker" in color, they are assumed to be slaves brought from
"blackAfrica." So powerful is the theory of "two" Africa's that reality is twisted to accommodate
its validity. Every study is looking at Africa through the lens of "Black and White", "slave and
master." It is therefore never considered that these "black" populations, like the Kanuri, who
migrated South from North Africa, are native to the region. In a struggle to sustain colonial
linguistics all forms of pseudo -anthropology is imposed on the African reality posing itself as
mainstream studies. [5]

NOHISTORICALRECORD
Brief History : During the displacement of the African Holocaust people were disconnected from
culture, language and identity, they went from Fulani, Hausa, Igbo to a relative color, aptly
describing their status in European society-- Black. Now stuck with this name, and with no
agency, no conscious of self outside of the chains of the Holocaust, being black became a source
of reactionary pride. (especially in the 60's). This happened also because the involuntary
Diaspora had a deep self-hatred for their African connection, and would prefer to be a empty color
than connected to their Motherland--that was the dept of the self hatred. And this produced
reactionary love because they had to be something, and they could not be European, so in the
psyche reaffirming a negative name was in some sense a statement of ownership--a statement of
being. In reality it was a statement of displacement and self-hatred.

The word Black has no historical or cultural association, it was a name born when Africans were
broken down in to transferable labor units and transported as chattel to the Americas. The re-
labeling of the Mandika, Fulani, Igbo, Asante, into one bland color label- black, was part of the
greater process of absolute removal of African identity; a color epithet that Europe believed to be
the lowest color on Earth, thus reflecting the social designation of African people in European
psyche. When Africans, out of their own agency refer to themselves they do so with internal
paradigms and self-affirmation. No where in Africa did Africans see the obvious, the natural skin
color they had, as the most distinctive characteristic in defining them:

ZuluPeopleofthesky

KhoiKhoiKingofmen

Numunuu(NativeAmericans)Thepeople

Mediterranean"OurSea"
Mediterranean"OurSea"
Senegal"Ourland"

Navajo"Din"meaningThePeople

Hanin(Korean:Hanja: literally"greatpeople")
Bantu"human"{note}

In this history of Swahili the people called themselves "people" no color attached. Attaching color
is only done to refer to "the other." In Zulu Kingdom again we see no record of a self-reference to
a "Black people" they called themselves " People of the Sky " until White people showed up and
called them blacks. It is true the term Ethiopia in ancient times meant "burnt face" but the modern
name Ethiopia is a name not a Greek word. And the critical thing is name verses descriptive
terms. The same is true for Sudan.

AndWedidcertainlycreatemanoutofclay
fromanalteredblackmud

SuratAlijr|15:26

The above verse is from the Muslim Qur'an, and while it is notable in the mention of the color of
the mud from which Adam (the first human of the Abrahamic faiths) was created. But this does
not prove that Africans are historically called black people. There has never been a dispute about
the skin color of African people (a very wide range of colors including high yellow and jet black).
So the above verse just confirms the first people were dark in color: but we knew this already.

KEMET=/=BLACKPEOPLE

There is an academic debate that the Ancient

Egyptians called themselves Black based upon KMT
(Kemet) which in some circles is translated as "Black
people." Now at the end of the word KMT is an
ideogram which can only mean physical place (the
cross road sign above).

The ideogram indicates the context in which the word applies. An ideogram for humans would
always be used to represent a word that applied to people. However Kemet can only mean Black
Land since the ideogram indicates it is describing a built or non-human environment. They called
of
themselves "remetch en Kemet", which means the "People the Black Land." Where rmt means
simple without any adjectives "the people," the same way the Numunuu means "the people."(the
of
authentic people) And likewise Zulu means people heaven.

AncientEgyptiscommonlyreferredtoas'km.t',withthetheorizedreferencetotheblack
Nile Delta earth. The determinative O49 is used to designate the term for 'country,
inhabited/cultivatedland',calledtheniw.t(apoliticaldesignate).Itisacirclewithacross
whichrepresentsastreet,'townintersection"(Gardiner2005(1957):498)

But none of this discredits the founders of Kemet as being African people, just like the Fulani or
the Amhara. "Black" in the North American context. The "social "construction of race in America
does not rely on skin color. "African Americans," as even Asante notes, " constitute the most
heterogeneous group in the United States biologically, but perhaps one of the most homogeneous
socially." The issue is color is used against African interest, for example:

Statement: "The Ancient Egyptians were Black people",

Reply: "no there were brown in color, and not black as we know it"
Truth: They were African people and like many African people display skin colors from high
yellow to deep black. Blackness is relative to Whiteness and a modern term. It is accurate to say
the people of Egypt were an African civilization and were native to that region-- like the
Ethiopians and the Nubian. It is absurd to have a civilization located in a continent but default
and describe its builders by an identity that divorces them from their location. Clearly it is part of
the take away in Eurocentric academia-- reassign civilization outside of African claim.

Asians do not say " The Great Wall of China was built by yellow people " the Indians do not say
"The Taj Mahal was built by brown people". Actually even in European academia they rarely say
"Greece was built by White people" its just not academic-- white is a lay term. They would say
European. i.e. native people of Europe. People, in the case of Egypt, 100% knew the difference
between Black and Brown, it is pretty certain if they wanted a color-based name for themselves
they would have been more accurate.

BLACKANDTHE60's

LanguageandThought

WarandWords

BlackAfrican
Indians are from India , Chinese from China . There is no
Africanvs.Black country called Blackia or Blackistan and a people must
SubSaharanAfrican respectful be tied to geography as skin color is not the primary
definitive identifier.. Hence, the ancestry-nationality model is
AfricaOrigins
more respectful and accurate: African-American, African-
BlackAfrican British, African-Arabian, African-Brazilian, and African-
Kmt Caribbean. And if Black people has some validity as a political
term it can not be limited in its application to people of African
Terrorism
decent. Nostalgia is not an accurate place for African linguistic
FeminismandAfrica self-determination, and blackness is blatantly a cultural
ReligionVs.Spirituality inheritance of oppressed people. The pattern of acceptance of
a black identity globally walks hand in hand with European
ThirdWorld
cultural oppression.
Civilized
Black pride is reactionary pride, necessary then, Irrelevant
Controversial
now. As we blossom into a greater historical and cultural
Tribe awareness of a Motherland a detachment with fictional
Traditional attachments to slave names must be challenged, and we must
end the romance with things that are a disservice to our
Nominal
identity today.
PreColonial
It is worth noting parts of African that are culturally intact such
Slave
as in Ethiopia, Mali, Somalia, Nigeria and Niger have
AntiSemitic absolutely no fondness or linguistic presence of a "black
ReverseRacism identity."

BlackOnBlack
Homophobic

Conclusion

New York Times | The term African-American has crept steadily into the nation's vocabulary since
1988, when the Rev. Jesse Jackson held a news conference to urge Americans to use it to refer
to blacks. ''It puts us in our proper historical context,'' Mr. Jackson said then, adding in a recent
interview that he still favored the term. ''Every ethnic group in this country has a reference to
some land base, some historical cultural base. African-Americans have hit that level of cultural
maturity.'' Since 1989, the number of blacks using the term has steadily increased, polls show. In
a survey that year conducted by ABC and The Washington Post, 66 percent said they preferred
the term black, 22 preferred African-American, 10 percent liked both terms and 2 percent had no
opinion. In 2000, the Census Bureau for the first time allowed respondents to check a box that
carried the heading African-American next to the term black. In 2003, a poll by the same news
organizations found that 48 percent of blacks preferred the term African-American, 35 percent
favored black and 17 percent liked both terms. (ref)

OPPRESSORSCANTSAYYOURNAME
Oppressors do not like calling the real names of their victims. In cases of kidnapping the victim's
family always humanizes the victim by saying their name. It creates a realization in the
perpetrators mind that the person they have kidnapped also has a history, a life, a family, love
and is therefore not is not disposable. Whites slavers were far happier in removing the humanity
of Africans by re-classifying people as blacks. Not even "Black people", just blacks. It
dehumanized the person to a mere color, which had no name, no history, no culture and most
importantly no Motherland. To raid a village and kill women and children, you have to first remove
the notion of them possession any humanity. Notice how Israel will always say " those people
."
Because to say "those Palestinians" gives Palestine a claim to the land called Palestine. South
Africa also does not want to link Africans to land, hence the preferred identification with "blacks",
void of history, agency, culture and land rights. And in the newly fabricated contrived rainbow,
everyone became African-- thus everyone had claim.

BLACKAFRICAISARACISTTERM
Nobody on this planet puts a adjective on their identity, especially when they are a majority,
except African people. Black Africa, Dark Continent, Heart of Darkness all articulate the colonial
contempt for a continent and its people. But how does one arrive at the term black Africans, are
there green Africans? Would you speak of yellow Chinese, or brown Indians? Even terms like
"White Russian" are unused, despite Russia being a multi-ethnic nation. Because 80% white
means the majority have no need for adding White to their Russian to qualify against a minority of
means the majority have no need for adding White to their Russian to qualify against a minority of

"other" Russians. [3] Globally the term " Red Indian" is rejected as deeply pejorative yet "black
African" is still used even in South Africa which is used to define the majority of the population
against the minority so-called white-Africans. Black African is as ridiculous as "rock stone", rocks
are stones so why double up two realities which are often the same?

There is an infinite an inexhaustible list of examples which show that no one with power wears
and adjective on their identity, especially when equal or a majority. The peninsula of Korea is
called Chosn Pando (; ) in North Korea and Han Bando (; ) in
South Korea based on the respective names of the two countries. ( wikipedia
)They both
use
"Korea" as part of their official English names. In other words North Korea does not say they are
North Korean, as far as they are concerned they are the KOREA. The South does not waste time
defining itself as South Korea, again, as far as their national pride is concerned they are just
Korea. Both countries have equal political and cultural agency. So how is it possible for a
continent whose overwhelming demographic, political, cultural majority is African, need to refer to
themselves as black + African? And with the split of N. Sudan and S. Sudan it would be shocking
to see if N. Sudan adds the term "North" to its national rhetoric, to clarify itself from its new
southern neighbor.

There is only one reason the term Black African exists and that is to deny nobility from African
people. To explain away how Egypt could be nested in Africa but at the same time divorced from
the majority of the African people. Therefore the argument "yes it is in Africa, but it is not Black
African." It is almost like saying Greece was a European civilization, but not a White European
civilization.

If 95% of Africans are Black (capital B, if it must be used) then the minority should bear the
adjective--not the majority. It is disrespectful to describe Africans with a label based solely on a
color, especially when it does not accurately reflect the physical appearance of most Africans.
This is made even more offensive when the etymological root of that label (black) is derived from
the word Negro, and is used in place of the word African as a racial or cultural identity. In reality
we must ask ourselves what is the difference between "Negro" and "Black" save historical
association, the words mean the same thing, so we have moved from being Black in Spanish
(negro) to Black in English (black). It is strange that despite all the genetic research and advance
human anthropology we are still clinging to primitive 18th century post-Darwin model of race,
which sole aim was/is to segregate and de-culturalize and enslave.

The concept of a black Africa is a Eurocentric term based upon their ignorant primitive
regressive deductions. It is true Arabs and Greeks referred to Africans as "black" but this was not
a racial label, and moreover Africans themselves did not self-apply these external labels. Like the
Phoenician who were called the "red people," but no Phoenician would have referred to
themselves in this way.

CHILDRENDISIDENTIFYWITHBLACK
In a recent survey conducted by the African Holocaust society it was noted that young African
children (approx 4-5 years old, the age of race consciousness) when told they were members of
the "black race" reacted with great confusion because they were also being taught the names of
colors. Most of them objected to being called black and said they were not black but rather brown.
A repeated survey found that when they were told they were African they did not object to the
logic (they were African because their ancestors were from the continent called Africa). Blackness
is illogical and only exist by force conditioning of children. This case study is profound because it
shows how logic and identify form before social concepts are enforced.

WHITEAFRICANS
812
In the scramble for linguistic real estate, why would these descendants of European
Like
colonialist who devastated and exploited the continent want to be called African? And in
terms of self-determination who introduced these concepts?

It would be very strange if a European, after 200 years in China or India, could be so powerful to
alter the definition of Chinese just to be accommodated. Linguistic accommodation is only
possible in Africa because of the prevailing injustice of a post-colonial dominance of European
settlers. It is clear some European funded African politicians backed it, but where did it originate
from? It is interesting to note Europeans (including white Arabs) constitute around 10 million
people verses the 800 million plus Africans. Now this negligible minority by way of social influence
has caused the majority to need to refer to themselves with the adjective of black to separate
themselves from a serious minority group who want to be white Africans. Minorities of
Europeans live in China, in India and in Arabia yet only in Africa has linguistic accommodation
been given. Africans now must make room for those settlers who want to identify with the
continent for capitalist reasons. Because once you identify with a continent then you have a
legitimate claim to its resources. Thus the saying and the philosophy of Garvey Africa for the
Africans becomes usurped. In South Africa the new trend of Black Economic Empowerment
has seen the broadening, opening up of the borders of blackness so to speak. Indians are
economically classified as black, and recently Chinese have been included in this definition. So
again we see the relationship between linguistics and economic profit.

Despite claiming "African" in name they are very conscious of Whiteness when propagating the
White dominant image on the broadcast mediums they control. Being White is clearly obvious
when it comes to the dilemma of ownership which is still tipped in their favor. When all of these
White South Africans rush home to Europe (when Africa gets a little sticky) do they encounter job
discrimination experienced by fellow African South Africans or even 3rd and 4th generation
African-British? They integrate seamlessly into the social environment created by White privilege.
Seems like with the Indian "Africans", African is a jacket worn to suit an economic or political
opportunity.

Race was not only defined in the 18th century, in Aksum and Kemet African peoples have always
identified with degrees of racial inclusion and exclusion. The arrogance of Whiteness is to assume
they are responsible for every single point of view that has ever existed on this planet. All the
while South Africa remains White dominant and unchallenged by people who are the most vocal
White Africans. Interestingly if you examine their lifestyle, you will find them to be the most racial
conservative personalities. They date and marry women of their specific race, they socialize in
White circles, they engage a distinctive non-African culture. And if they do have a few token
"Black" friends they are often culturally compromised aberrations the continent can produce. The
injustices of White dominance and the legacy of that dominance are smooth over by fictional
fantasies of non-returning colonial tourist who still impose their reality as the norm for everyone
else. Moreover, in dealing with these issues they always select broad base arguments and never
deal with the core issue of African self-determination and agency.

PREVIOUSLYDISADVANAGE(SA)
In South Africa Africans have prior to apartheid were called simply African, Then in Apartheid they
became Blacks and now in the racially sterilized post-apartheid environment they have moved
from Blacks to an ethnic group called " previously disadvantage." Since the word African is being
grabbed up by whites and black [sic] has been taken by Indians and now Chinese. The
inescapable question that needs to be posed to the genius that went into constructing this
awkward term is, what is "previous" about the disadvantage of the African majority in South
Africa? According to every social-economic indicator the disadvantage is still a reality. It is
linguistic warfare to remove people's ability to even reference themselves to describe their unique
social reality. And if there is a "previously disadvantaged group" why then do you need social
programs such as BEE to treat this problem? It makes no logical sense to treat a people as
disadvantaged who are now previously disadvantaged.

AFRICANISANOTAFOREIGNNAME
Africa, unlike "black," is a name, not a adjective. You can get on a plane and visit it, you can find it
on a Sat Nav , it has boundaries, governments, you can grow crops on it, and build a house on it.
But some say, Africa was a foreign name given to us, if this is true, it was given to us by our
contemporaries not our conquerors. However, the word has Berber Tunisian origins meaning " A
sunny place" - Ifriqiya
. Romans appropriated this word from which it is believed the modern word
Africa came about the describe the entire continent. In addition, Africa is a unique name of a
place and Africans are simply people who are native to that place. And over the course of history
different names such as Habesha and Takruri
were used to refer to African people of various
regions, Ethiopia and West Africa respectively. Also the word Moor has been used across the
centuries but as critics have established, the term " Moor
" was used interchangeably with such
other ambiguous terms such as "Ethiopian," "Negro," and even "Indian" to designate a figure from
different parts or the whole of Africa (or beyond) who was either black or Muslim, neither, or both.
[3]

In the case of an "original" 100% native word for Africa the problem is tied to identity, in this case
the modern occurrence of a pan-African identity (lowercase 'p'). Therefore you cannot take a Zulu
word and apply it to a broad continent and say it was "original" Zulu people did not have the
knowledge of the continent width and breath to name it. So people of Ethiopia never saw people
in say Namibia, they did not go and look them up. Enat Hager (Motherland) was defined
exclusively within Ethiopian spheres of interest and knowledge. It was also exclusive of what they
would have perceived as other. There was no great desire for them and other African nations to
see a pan-African continent. All of these factors means there was no original pan-African name
for the entire continent that we know of.

Many fail to see that black ultimately sets Africans outside of their connection to history and
culture. Black does not connect us to Kemet, it only goes back 500 Years ago. Hence, black
people are an urban people/culture and urban people's history is 5 minutes old. In addition,
because it is a term placed on us, we have no bases for its control, and hence they are able to
say; Ancient Egyptians weren't black. Black has no meaning; except the meaning they place on
it, if and when they chose.

Ethiopia means "Burnt face" (Greek), but it has long since moved over from a "color" to a Nation --
Modern Ethiopia. Holocaust (Greek) means "burn down" that usage has long since expired,
especially with the death of Classical Greek. All words have some origin, for example Moor, but
today they have long crossed over from their original meaning to become names.

POSSIBLE ORIGINS (From Wikipedia)

SubSaharanAfricaisaColonialVestige

Thecommitteealsochoseacontinentbased
approach,whichconsidersAfricaasawhole


andabandonstheusualdichotomybetween
NorthAfricaandsubSaharanAfrica

UNESCO,DecolonizingHistory

Sub-Saharan Africa is a linguistic vestige of racist

colonialism, nested in the notion of divide and rule,
which articulates a perception based on European
terms of homogeneity. The notion of some invisible
border, which divides the North of African from the
South, is rooted in racism, which in part assumes
that sand is an obstacle for African language and
culture. This band of sand hence confines Africans to
the bottom of a European imposed location, which
exists neither linguistically (Afro-Asiatic languages),

ethnically (Tuareg ), religiously (Islam), politically (African Union, Arab league, UNESCO),
Economically (CEN-SAD) or physically (Sudan and Chad).The over emphasis on sand as a
defining feature in African history is grossly misleading as cultures, trade, and languages do not
stop when they meet geographic deserts. Thus Sub-Africa is another divisive vestige of colonial
domination which balkanized Africa assigning everything below the "waist belt" of Africa as
negative. [3] The real issue even anthropologist have is with atypical Ethiopia, which breaks every
generalization used to wash out so-called sub-Saharan Africa: domestication, scripts, Christianity,
etc.

Undue weight to put the entire discourse on Africa through a recent geographical term. And where
else does this kind of geographical designations define so much of a peoples history and identity?
(e.g. mountain ranges and deserts in China, America, Alps in Europe)

GREEK CLIMES WORLDVIEW

The seven climes (from Greek meaning "inclination")
was a Greek-centric notion of dividing the Earth into
zones in Classical Antiquity. The "norm" was the
Mediterranean (Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc).
The first clime (Sub-Sahara Africa) was of intense heat
and did not permit civilization, the 7th clime (Northern
Europe) also was incapable of producing civilization.
We can see a direct relationship and evolution of the
Eurocentric concept of Sub-Saharan Africa growing out
of this early Greek idea, which even the Arabs
subscribed to in their understanding of the "known"
world.

SOUTHERN SUDAN
In 2011 with the emergence of a New African country (Southern Sudan
) the dilemma of
classification showed the flaws of this system. Were they North Africa because of geography, or
where they Sub-Saharan African due to their demographic
(politically, and culturally)? Either way
the UN designation swings proves the problem.

The Sahara is a broad desert belt, which

encompasses countries like Mali, Niger, Chad,
Sudan, and Mauritania, and hence are neither sub
nor North Africa. In addition, many African
communities historically have traveled freely across
this European barrier set for Africans. Moreover
millions of indigenous Africans are ethnic natives in
Morocco, Libya, Algeria, and Egypt, so even
ethnically North Africa is not a non-African territory
and testimony to this is the rock art found in this
region showing native Africans hunting there 10,000 Linguistically Africa cannot be
years ago. dividedintoNorthandSouth.

The Nile Valley ca. 5000-4500 BCE, where they intermingled with indigenous hunter-fisher-
gatherer people already there (Hassan 1989; Wetterstorm 1993). Climatic cycles acted as a
pump, alternately attracting African peoples onto the Sahara, then expelling them as the aridity
returned (Keita 1990).

Maps below indicate that no definition actually fits a Sub-Saharan model of Africa.
 Ethnicallyshared Economiccommunities CountriesinbothN&S

DIFFERENCENORTHANDSOUTH
What happens when a language or a culture bumps into sand? What happens when a religion
hits a desert belt, or a caravan of salt meets a sand dune? Still there is no denying that
differences do not exist, especially after the moment of colonial conquest. One point is even more
sharp difference exist in contrasting Ethiopia with Tanzania or South Africa. If difference is the
principled motive, then Ethiopia has to be removed from this sub-box. Sub-Africa is an over
generalization which omits much of the dynamic historical relationship between Africa and the
world. Despite the generalization, Ethiopia has always had contact with North Africa and Arabia,
they do not have to go via the Sahara for this contact with Arabia as it is only 22km away.
Considering much of the seafaring history of the Arab world, the Swahili coast has always been a
breeze. The Phoenicians traded with West Africa, but the notion of a Sub-Africa has this habit of
explaining away much of the history of Africa. North Africa as a region did have more contact
especially with the Roman conquest that would have made for radical difference in development
compared to its Southern neighbors. And the most contrasting difference from that contact would
be the European and Arab genes left by these conquest. However, no degree of Whites in South
Africa alters the African reality of that region. And so to the Arabization of North Africa, while a
serious consideration for unification, should not be given undue weight in the study of the African
reality.

HISTORICALARGUMENT
Mansa Musa famous Hajj traveled through North Africa in the 13th century so why assume
Africans would be confined to this designation called sub-Saharan Africa? There is no ancient
reference to a sub-Sahara Africa as distinctive entity from the North. To discuss the history of
sub-Saharan Africa is projecting history in reverse by setting up borders that were no part of the
African historical reality. Diop held that despite the Sahara, the genetic, physical and cultural
elements of indigenous African peoples were both in place and always flowed in and out of Egypt,
noting transmission routes via Nubia and the Sudan, and the earlier fertility of the Sahara. Given
the constant movement of people over time, the fluctuations of climate over time (the Sahara was
once fertile), and the substantial so-called representation of "sub Saharan" traits in the Nile Valley
among people like the Badari. The entire region shows a basic unity based on both the Nile and
Sahara, and cannot be arbitrarily diced up into per-assigned racial zones.

812
Sub-Saharan Africa sets-up the premises for the
Like
confiscation of any civilization which happen to occur
in African territory.

These malicious definitions have been inherited by the victims of

Islam doesn't conform to
SubSaharanAfrica
European imperialism and normalize into African language and
reality. Sub-Saharan Africa is a racist byword for "primitive," a
place, which has escaped advancement. Hence, we see
statements like no written languages exist in Sub-Saharan
Africa. Ancient Egypt was not a Sub-Saharan African
civilization. Sub-Sahara serves as an exclusion, which moves,
jumps and slides around to suit negative generalization and tired
canard Europeans hold of Africa .

POLITICALARGUMENT
Politically Afro-Arabian leaders including Kwame Nkrumah, the founder president of Ghana;
Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Sekou Toure, the founding father of post-colonial Guinea (Conakry)
have refused to recognize the Sahara Desert as a divide, and insisted on visualizing it as a
historic bridge.

Recent work in the field of Saharan studies and archaeology are beginning to question this
paradigm, particularly with respect to historicizing the region. Prof. Ghislaine Lydon
of UCLA
argues that such distinctions are superficial and have been overplayed, stating that " very few
scholars have ventured into the Sahara despite the overwhelming historical evidence pointing to
the interactions, interdependencies and shared histories of neighboring African countries to the
south". Also Okoth, P Godfrey, Department of History University of California, states Sub-Saharan
Africa is symptomatic of the racist attitudes towards the former colonies. European travelers and
geographers created the concept of "two Africa's," which was adopted wholesome by racist
scholars in Euro-America. The idea of "Sub-Saharan Africa," is, therefore, 'a myth or misleading.
It cannot be accepted as it tantamount to the balkanization of Africa, thereby denying Africa its
It cannot be accepted as it tantamount to the balkanization of Africa, thereby denying Africa its

rightful role in contributing to world civilization. There is only one Africa; hence the need to
decolonize such racist and derogatory terms. Sub-Saharan Africa sets-up the premise for the
confiscation of any civilization which happened to occur in African territory.

ECONOMICARGUMENT

In Africa the regional economic blocks do not fall into the pattern of North and Southern Africa.
COMESA is inclusive of Egypt, Sudan and even Angola. There is CEN-SAD. Thus the notion of a
sub- Africa is invalid from an economical standpoint.

LINGUISTICAGRUMENT
Language research suggests that this Saharan-Nilotic population became speakers of the Afro-
Asiatic languages. Proto-Semitic and Semitic languages were spoken by Saharan people who
crossed the Red Sea into Arabia and became ancestors of the Semitic speakers there, possibly
around 7000 BC. Adding to this is the fact that the largest volume of semitic distinct language
groups are to be found in Africa. As well as the largest language pool of Afro-Asiatic languages
(Hausa, Amharic, Somali, Afar, Nubian, etc).

Africa cannot be banded linguistically into a category called Sub-Saharan Africa; as Hausa and
Moroccan languages belong to the African-Asiatic linguistic family. Africa cannot be banded
musically into a category called Sub-Saharan Africa; As Mali and North African music share many
similarities. Nor can Africa be ethnically banned into a category called sub-Saharan Africa; the
Tuareg are ethnically equally part of Niger as well as Algeria. And then there is the seemingly
obvious issue of the African native in these Arab North African lands. It is the absolutely denial
that could call a blue sky red that is so dominate that the woods obstruct our view of the trees.

Millions of Africans live in Morocco and Algeria, they are not recent migrants, or illegal immigrants
they are native people of this land, and they are actually the original people of these lands.
History is clear that those lighter-skinned people are settlers that came with the Romans and the
Greeks. Mixing has produced the people we see on television representing North Africa. Also in
the 7th century, there was the expansion of the Arab forces into the region causing much Arab-
Berber mixing.

Today these people are classified as Arab but some of them object to this classification calling
themselves Berber. And clearly, Africa cannot be banded into this division based on religion.
Islam is more prolific in so-called Sub-Saharan Africa than in all of North Africa, and North African
Arabs share the African traditional Islam. All of these points compound the fact that the so-called
Sub-Saharan division imagined by Africa's conquers is nothing less than absurd and utterly
redundant; employed solely for the racist reduction of African historical greatness.

Europeans place an emphasis on written script, and subsequent definitions of advance and
primitive are rooted in this pre-concept. It can be said however that most of the world has,
historically an oral tradition. However, both formulas for preserving history can be found in Africa :
oral and written. However, attempts to exclude Africa from civilization have hit upon an obstacle
when the Ge'ez script exists in Ethiopia . To solve this apparent contradiction the argument
moves to, it was introduced from another people, and the new claim "they were a half-Arab
people." At no point in time can Africans be allowed to be seen to have fostered anything, which
Europe labels as artifacts of civilization. So either the invisible borders comes into play and
civilizations are assigned to North Africa (non-Black) or gifts given to Africans from external non-
African sources via miscegenation and conquest.

It is said that natural barriers justify the separation of North and Southern Africa, but the Sahara is
only one such barrier in Africa. Ethiopia is more "cut-off" from the rest of Africa due to its mountain
ranges. There are barriers due to the impassible forest of central Africa. There are also the great
Southern desert belts; interestingly enough Africans have been occupying these deserts from the
beginning of human history. There is no climate change when we enter Libya, there is no religious
change, and we can argue there is no profound cultural changes which wouldt be witness moving
from Ethiopia to Southern Sudan.Arabic is spoken in Djibouti just as in Sudan; all of these are
South of the make-believe line. Somalia and Djibouti are part of the same political Islamic
alignment (Arab League) just like many so-called Arab countries. Thus the legitimacy of Sub-
Saharan Africa seems to be rooted in some more mischievous foundation.

Viewing culture from these limiting vantages-points poisons

the flexibility and deeper appreciate of subtle complexities
shared by these unique cultures. In a nutshell it is more
obstructive, outside of science and rooted in extreme racist
politics. There is more similarity between Mali culture and the
culture of the nomadic Berber people than Bantu groups in the
Congo . Amhara culture is radically different from say Ghana, Three ethnic categories as
and it can be argued to have a deeper relationship with Yemen depicted by Ethiopian artist.
(which it annexed in antiquity). Asiatic, Habesha and Nilotic
people.

So a black and white view of African culture only serves racist generalizations. Historians would
like to point to the unilateral influence on African culture by non-African people, never is Africa
seen to be the givers of cultural influence outside of its locality. This was extended to the extreme
to say Nubians offered nothing to a supposed Caucasoid Egypt. This impossible assertion means
that for thousands of years there was only a unilateral cultural and technological exchange. No
that for thousands of years there was only a unilateral cultural and technological exchange. No

culture in history shows a unilateral exchange, not even the "Great British Empire," which dietary
culture has been completely altered in a mere 20 years by Asian and Caribbean immigration.
There is also the notion of "other" suggested in Ancient Egyptian writings, which is now being
used to suggest they were of a different race to the nubians. Lopsided scholarship will always try
to work outside of established human behavior. When Ethiopian art depicts the people of
Southern Sudan there is an artistic difference between how Ethiopians paint themselves and how
they paint "other" Africans: This doesnt mean Ethiopians are not African( see above fig.) as
Ghanaians do the same thing when denoting images of "the other". Ethnic differences do not
mean racial differences.

FeminismandWoman'sRights
What were African women fighting for before the 1950's, before Europeans coined a term to
articulate their specific Eurocentric struggle within the cultural borders of European social-cultural
milieu? What were women in Angola and Ethiopia and South Africa doing in the 15th century?
What about in Ancient Egypt? To assume, by emotional attachment to the colonizers language,
that feminism and woman's justice is the same is to assume that Jewish self-determination equals
Zionism. We need to deconstruct feminism from its global linguistic imposition and evaluate its
harmony and justice.
paradigms, contrasting them against communal cultures quest for gender

In the African paradigm (sometimes mistakenly called African feminism) we see how male
inclusion is central, how biological determination is factored in, and how spiritual components
merge together. It's ethical root is on concepts such as Maat, not individualism.

LanguageandThought

WarandWords

BlackAfrican

Africanvs.Black Feminism rotates in the west and is exported to infect, and

attach themselves to the broader Womans struggle for justice
SubSaharanAfrican
and equality in a male dominated world. However as a
AfricaOrigins paradigm is diabolically anti-African anti-human neologism
BlackAfrican emerging out of the Eurocentric reactionary womens
movement in the 50s. To collapse feminism and womens
Kmt
rights is a fundamental linguistic flaw as the two concepts
Terrorism articulate completely different social realities. It is therefore
FeminismandAfrica inadequate to use the term feminism and apply this loaded
word to the gender issues of Africa. The one commonality in
ReligionVs.Spirituality
all African cultures is the de-emphasis on individuality and the
ThirdWorld emphasis on community, the priority of family and creating
Civilized new life. The feminist is in agreement with everything that
breaks the family unit and inhibits procreation. Therefore, the
Controversial
African woman should never seek to locate her liberation
Tribe within the Eurocentric boundaries of feminism. Within the
Traditional broader African philosophy, the higher focus is balance over
tick for tack equality. The feminist equality implies what men
Nominal
can do; women can do to as distinct from the African question
PreColonial of right and wrong. "ownership of their sexuality, to flaunt
Slave immorality. "This shows the flawed paradigm which is found in
many aspects of Eurocentrism, where objectives are
AntiSemitic
disconnected from spiritual and biological harmony.
ReverseRacism

BlackOnBlack

Homophobic

Conclusion

The forms of African womens rights emerging in various parts of the continent do not grow out of
individualism within the context of industrial societies, as did Western feminism. In the West,
economic and social trends historically pushed women into more active roles in the economy, and
Western feminism has focused on womens struggle for control over reproduction and sexuality.
However, African women have had a different experience. African debates do not focus on
theoretical questions, the female body, or sexual identity. African feminism is distinctly
heterosexual, supportive of motherhood, and focused on issues of bread, butter, culture, and
power. [2]

Feminismhasbetrayedanentiregenerationof
womenintochildlessness.Itisdevastating

RebeccaWalker
Women's rights responses to the injustice against women but seeks solutions within the
cultural/biological context, thus it does not ignore or try to deny the biological design of women
and men. Certain terms like "Equal rights" have floated around in popular culture for so long that
they evade interrogation. Men and women share many roles but some roles have different gender
priority, some are exclusive to women (child birth for example.) So if men do not give birth how
can the "rights of the women " equally apply to men. Men have to go to war by default, women do
not. And while women should have equal access to education, but not to war, not being held
responsible for direct conflict. Because the woman gives birth to a nation and such a key to
continuing civilization has no place being exposed to the ugliest side of human conflict. An African
man does not need his African woman, mother, sister, wife coming home in a body bag in pieces.
In the Islamic tradition women, the elderly and children cannot be targeted as a matter of human
ethics. An in ancient African societies we see woman traditionally not being engaged in direct
conflict, especially when able bodies men are available. While we can agree on commonalities in
the struggle for empowering of women we have to also realize in a diverse ethnic-cultural world
not every item relevant to women in the west can be transplanted into Africa, Asia or the Middle
East.

A central theme in Africa idealism is the quest for harmony and justice. Justice trumps equality
every time. And we need clarity on these issues to avoid liberal pitfalls. Both male and female live
inside communities, not individual cells, and communities build nations-not individuals. The
female energy creates a different world to the world men create. All of this violence we see is
partly because of a gender imbalance (Coni and Ms.. Clinton you are excused from this example).
There is a myth going around that women's rights /justice is a woman only affair
. No that is
feminism. Women have agency, but it is a man's problem as well, especially men are 1 out of 2 of
the agents of female oppression. <See Feminism article>

CONTROVERSIAL | RELIABLE |
CONSPIRACY|ALLEGED
Conspiracy theory is the highest level of reject of an argument without actually having to deal with
the merits of the argument, it is an almost flawless tactic for curbing institutional analysis.
(Chomsky)

The word controversial is often applied to any African opinion which is not supported by
mainstream academia. The African origins of Ancient Egypt is "controversial" to suggest it is
outside of established opinion and therefore untrustworthy. You can throw entire African studies
on linguistics, history, slavery, down the toilet by liberally applying "controversial" to all and every
text. However, despite very few people actually believing in evolution of monkey to man, it is
rarely considered a theory nor ever referred to as controversial. Two Europeans with a opinion is
established and solid academic work while one hundred African opinions is cute and
controversial. Barely entertained to satisfy affirmative action quotas.

In law, politics, and academia words such as " Alleged" play a sophist role in whitewashing claims
of oppression. it almost makes racism look like it subjectively lives inside of the minds of the
victims. "It is alleged that African Americans suffer from institutional racism" -- creates reasonable
doubt to the legitimacy of the claim: mitigatory language in, which to continue to deny oppression.

EthnicityandTribe
Africa is the second largest continent, divided into a collection of post-colonial sovereign nations
populated with a variety of ethnic groups, not tribes. Fulani are more than 15 million strong that is
not a tribe--that is a nation. The label tribe only seems to apply to non-European ethnic groups.
And comes with a notion of backwardness and non-modern values.

Also ethnic when used as "exotic" is also incorrect because it normalizes European culture,
placing all other cultures on the outside of this standard human culture. In this instances, ethnic,
exist as some "exotic" trite sub-culture, for and only the entertainment destination of European
cultural tourist.

And in more subtle ways language affects perception. The term ethnic is used by Africans inside
of Africa to describe their nature features and cultures. How can an African be "ethnic" in a
continent where Africaness is the norm? We also see people saying "cultural dress" ; the mental
process is creating a "normal dress" and then a "cultural dress" and while it is 100% accurate, we
need to examine how European culture is so normalized it forces everyone else's culture to be
"Culture." (See Culture)

NominalFaithandSyncretism
A re-emerging Eurocentric term, which is awkwardly re-asserted in history is that of the nominal
Muslim in African history. Unless we are saying Islam itself is an absolute value which has
degrees of purity set against some Saudi Arabian standard then it is impossible to discuss the
spiritual purity of Islam as expressed by one culture against another. Because what does the term
really mean? That someone prays 2 times a day and not 5? Or that they do not pray at all? The
criterias of "being Muslim" are not some absolute set of values set by European and Afro-
orientalist. The person the West calls "Muslim" might be an apostate or a Qadianis. [4]

People of Islamic heritage are generally called Muslims. Clearly some societies are more
adherences to the doctrine of the faith; say Nigerian Muslims versus Islam in Turkey. Some claim
African Muslims blended ancient African traditions into the pure Islamic they encountered
coming from Arabia. Every single form of Traditional Islam absorbs aspects of its culture where
ever it goes. So In Bangladesh we see the Barelwi flavor of Islam, bringing in aspects which are
part of pre-Islamic Bengali spirituality, and again in North Africa and Saudi Arabia. The customs
and cultures of Arabia inevitable get blended in with the so-called mainstream Islamic theology.
So this pattern is not only true for Africa, nor is it unique to the Islamic faith (see religions of Brazil
and Hati). Its not the place of history to hold up some litmus test to religions and weight them
against some imaginary standard of purity. Because it supports the idea that everything the Saudi
Arabian brand of Islam does is 100% and anything which varies from this is impure. Sonni Ali Ber
may have been less religious in zeal than say Uthman Dan Fodio but both of them were members
of the Islamic faith, and thus historically Islamic.

Syncretism is a term used to explain the mixing of elements of different religious beliefs. While it
is an aspect of Africa it is not unique, not special and certainly not peculiar. It is a worldwide
reality from India, to China to Brazil and even in North Africa and Arabia. And technically speaking
It is also true for much of Western Christianity, which is plagued with so-called pagan rituals
(Xmas, etc). But these phenomena when occurring in European religion are forms of . orthodoxies
There is undue weight placed by academics and anthropologist on this phenomenon, and part of
this has to do with issues in studying Africa and understanding African agency. Therefore what is
Islam in Senegal is African Islam, not Islam with pagan habits. There must be a respect for
African agency to create its own Islam and a respect for the native faiths to naturally be part of the
shaping of the Africanization of Islam. The final product is still Islamic or Christian because there
is no such thing as a pure religion
, or there is no standard of Islam to measure all varients against
--as anthropologist are trying to do.

Syncretism according to some definitions is only valid if the elements being mixed are in
contradiction or serious compromise the integrity of the faith. In this instant the word in Arabic
would be Bidah (innovation). For example if a Muslim worships Allah but also the tree God of
Lake Hora in Debre Zerit Ethiopia ( Irreechaa holiday ). Attending the festival is no different to a
European Christian celebrating Guy Fawkes.

European Anthropologist also have this habit of lumping and misunderstanding African customs.
Because unlike the obsession with terms like "religion", "culture", "nation," Africans have a more
fluid non-dichotomized worldview. Taking elements of culture into Christianity is not syncretism.
The misidentification of every ritual in Africa as "religious" is due to poor understanding of
distinctions between religion and culture.

Africa is seen to have fostered no orthodoxies of its own. Therefore any variation in Christianity,
Judaism or Islam is seen as semi-orthodox. For example as oppose to treating African Judaism
as a type of Judaism Israeli religious authorities demonized and tried to discount Ethiopian Jewish
traditions. And in doing so try to reform them to match their version of Orthodox European
Judaism. So for Ethiopians to be considered "Jewish" they had to become "European Jews" and
lose millennia of unique Ethiopian Orthodox Judaism. The same is true for Islam. So as oppose
accept the unique flavor of African Islam as 100% as Islamic as what is practised in Saudi Arabia,
it is demonized as flavored with "paganism." Eurocentric anthropologist have always struggled to
give validity to anything Africanized.

Ethiopian Christians find it taboo to mix with the Oromo rituals, Muslims in Sudan and Nigeria are
very hard-line about what they call Bidah
(innovation with other religious ideas). And it was
Uthman Dan Fodio who waged a jihad against what he saw was contamination of Islam. The
same thing happened in Saudi Arabia with the Wahabi movement.

In understanding Africa we must understand the dynamics of religion in living and historical Africa.
Native African faiths are meet with challenges for their existence but to suggest it is unique to
Africa invokes a kind of distortion of reality. It takes away from the validity of native systems as
being influential in shaping African orthodoxies and it also tries to "tribalize" African indigenous
belief. And since these beliefs are seen to be backward or primitive it is used to suggest a
"tribalness" to any influence these faiths have.

Slavevs.enslaved
The notion that free Africans were slaves degrades the reality on-the-ground in Africa and makes
the assumption that Africans in Africa were born into that condition; that their reality was always
slavery. However, the term enslaved offers a more accurate reality, for it describes a condition
placed upon Africans by their enslavers. Hence, captive Africans came across the Atlantic and
were subsequently enslaved. Never were they slaves because this is not the natural condition of
African people. Writers of history who are ignorant of this reality set-up a relationship between
black and African, African and Slave and in this cocktail, Africa and all its contents becomes a
completely negative entity which offers our imagination nothing more than images of Slaves,
poverty and backwardness.

AfricanHolocaust(Maafa)
Maafa is a Kiswahili term for "Disaster/Holocaust" or "Terrible Occurrence." Maafa or Holocaust is
more inclusive and hence better describes the 500 hundred years of suffering of people of African
descent through Slavery, Imperialism, Colonialism, Oppression, Invasions, and Exploitation. The
Maafa is thus a area of study that looks at the collective experience of the cultural and physical
Holocaust and the legacies of that Holocaust (holocaust). Thus the repairing of the Maafa by
definition extends to encompass all areas of African life; culture, linguistics, religion, economics as
all of these areas was impressed upon by the Maafa or African Holocaust. Holocaust is an
English word (taken from Greek) it is not the property of anyone group, in the same way that , pain
slavery, genocide and suffering is not exclusive to one group of people.
TraditionandIndigenous
Often, and mistakenly so, the terms traditional (classical) and indigenous are merged into one
understanding as it relates to African culture and history. It is a fundamental mistake as it warps
and limits a true understanding of Africa and its many complex international relationships thus
restricting and confining African history and culture.

LanguageandThought

WarandWords

BlackAfrican

Africanvs.Black
Traditional:
SubSaharanAfrican Traditions carry the notion of histories and legitimacy
(Olupono). But it should be used with care because
AfricaOrigins
"traditional" human sacrifice was a reality of some cultures. As
BlackAfrican
these words relate to religion, Islam becomes a traditional
Kmt African religion, which exists in classical and contemporary
Terrorism
Africa. It is often said by scholars and historians that Islam has
been in Africa longer than it has been in any other part of the
FeminismandAfrica
Middle East (bar Mecca in Saudi Arabia). Judaism and
ReligionVs.Spirituality Abyssinian Christianity have also been in Africa for such a
long period that in certain places (and this is key) there are
ThirdWorld
traditional African religions. This does not mean that all forms
Civilized
of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are classical or traditional.
Controversial And hence terms like traditional African Islam are fundamental
in defining the African reality in classical African and
Tribe
contemporary history: Just as Christianity traditional to Rome
Traditional
is starkly distinctive from Christianity local to Ethiopia.
Nominal Fundamental ingredients embody the essences of these
religions in Africa, which makes them traditional, and this must
PreColonial
be recognized in any constructive appreciation of African
Slave
culture and history.
AntiSemitic

ReverseRacism

BlackOnBlack
Homophobic

Conclusion

Indigenous

Indigenous can only be used to describe something fostered exclusively by a particular

community. Because something is indigenous to Africa does not make it traditional or for that
matter classical. Indigenous thus does not by default speak to a peoples legacy only to the
fostering of that item irrespective of time.

Slave,vassalshipandbondservants
The system of imprisonment found in Africa prior to European enslavement was not slavery, but
vassalship or indentured servitude. Too often chattel slavery is married to the systems found in
Africa , which then sets-up all kinds of nasty arguments rooted in mitigating the African Holocaust,
alleviating European's responsibility, and putting Africans as the sole bearers of the sin.

If forms of Slavery are diverse, then one word for a complex multifaceted system is inadequate. If
the Inuit people have more than 20, words for snow to articulate its variety, why then must we limit
ourselves to one term in relation to slavery? Clearly Arab enslavement of Africans contrasted the
European enslavement of Africans, and the non-free class within the Muslim Songhay Empire
was different from captivity among the Oba or the Asante . Fundamentally, academia must
advance and embrace new terminologies for these different realities. But when a dis-empowered
people are forced to use the tools of their oppressors it is little wonder more voices don't see the
anti-scholarship principle found in the abhorrent generalization of enslavement; a system so
diverse that in one system you could be a king while in another you were little more than a
domestic animal.

African Renaissance and PreColonial/Post

Colonial
Pre-Colonial Africa: Since when does 7000 Years of recorded history orbit around the century of
occupation of Europeans in Africa? Since when does the entire discussion of African history spin
around 80 years of colonial rule? Pre-Colonial seems to take the place of saying "Africa pre-
civilization." These terms like "Discovered by so-and so European" are a blatant rejection of
African agency. Also Pre-Colonial Africa denies the fact that the history of Ethiopia and Liberia are
not contained in any Pre or Post colonial African discourse. So the entire subject is another
example of undue weight based on European worldwide: Africa relative to their contact with it.
And why should Africans themselves as a proud people define their historical state relative to
European conquest? Yes it was a journey interrupted but why hang all events prior to that event
on it? Does the entire history of Ancient Egypt become "Pre-Colonial"? By adding a pre and post
on it? Does the entire history of Ancient Egypt become "Pre-Colonial"? By adding a pre and post

European encounter into every aspect of African history we make Europeans the masters of the
universe and our world view.

Pre-Colonial Black Africa is a paradox, as they were no "Blacks" in any pre-Colonial Africa. The
reality of a "Black people" is largely an construction of the "post-colonial world." We fully
understand why African scholars of the past used the term. But we are in a new age of discovery
and advancing their good work.

African Renaissance is a anachronisms, 1st because the Renaissance is a specific period (14th-
17th century) in European history brought about by the cultural Islamic impact on Europe. So
Europe had its rebirth in this period so to name something a. Africa had its "golden age"
thousands of years ago in the Nile Valley. Renaissance almost says Africa is now experiencing
this same revolution centuries after the rest of the world. The phrase was promoted by then
President Thabo Mbeki, a typically western educated and influenced African leader. And when
your entire center of knowledge is European it forces the mind in an attempt to feel valid to assert
the African reality based and within the cultural context of Europe. So the most profound problem
with the specific usage of the Renaissance is shows the framework of Africa as nothing more than
a cultural orphan of Europe. Africa must exist and define itself in its own terms of reference and
not be boxed into European concepts and constructs. Europe is not the gravity in the African
historical reality so to articulate African history based upon Europes recent presence in the
45,000 years of recorded African human history is ridiculous.

3rdWorld
Third World If there is a third world then there must be a third world people and a third world
system of management and governance. Third world is equivalent to second class citizen a
person of an inferior standing in the community. The alternative concept of developing worlds is
better but still articulates a need for non-European nations to "catch up" with some standard
exemplified by the European world. And all those who fall below this benchmark are third world or
developing. This is why GDP and development is measured from urbanization giving a natural
inferiority to agriculture based industries.

ReligionandSpirituality

Religionisabottlewithalabelonit,spirituality
isthethinginside.Religionissimplytheculture
ofspiritualbelief

AlikShahadah

Historically, the words religious and spiritual

in European languages have been used
synonymously to describe all the various aspects of religious life. Gradually, in Western societies
the word spiritualcame to be associated with the private realm of thought and experience while
the word religious
came to be connected with the public realm of membership in a religious
institution with official denominational doctrines. The notion of a private "religion" is a nu-age
reality brought into recent existence, it has no trans-historical roots in reality. It only exists as a
European language debate, and a social science study.

TheGodconceptdoesnotsurvivelongoutside
ofthebottleofreligionreligionisan
institutionalizedmechanismwhichpassonthe
Godheadpackagefromgenerationto
generation

'AlikShahadah

Spirituality describes the world of super natural interactionsforces outside of traditional science.
Like "Power," it can be contained or expressed in a battery, a power plant, a fuel cell, or a nuclear
reaction: It is the essence of energy. Religion is what holds, and defines, or makes "usable"
spirituality in terms of functionality; It communicates between that realm and reality.

African spirituality cannot exist as an authentic African paradigm as a standalone construction; it

does not float in free space without roots in a specific African culture. The sense of a spiritual
connection does not (in Africa) stand outside of an organized religious belief. When people say
they are just "spiritual" they are saying they have a belief in divinity, but have no culture; no
rituals, no communal responsibility, no structure how is that being African? It is African
elements without the discipline or loyalty to social or cultural structures. For example in Palo,
participation in a community of Paleros is critical to growing spiritually and within the religious
hierarchy. But some try to take piecemeal elements; ancestors, burning oils, and other cherry
hierarchy. But some try to take piecemeal elements; ancestors, burning oils, and other cherry
picked aspects of African religions and amass them into a heap called African spirituality, as
distinct from the religions these elements come from. Despite the good intentions of many of
these neo-spritualist, this paradigm is an out crop of the trivializing and misunderstanding of
things African; part of the legacy of Eurocentrism. It is a de facto new religion, without a name.

But it is only a semantic debate; for all intents and purposes, practical and theological, they are
the same thing. Because part of any paradigm shift is not to create things that do not actually
exist in living Africa. All spiritual elements in Africa are expressed in structured ways, with defined
deities, rituals, ceremonies, taboos and practices. Some dont have actual names, and usually
take on the name of the ethnic group; Maasai for the faith of the Maasai people, Kikuyu for the
people and their faith.

In Amharic there is no category called religion and then another category called spirituality. This is
a Western home-grown debate locked in a individualistic, self-centered and rebellious culture. In
Amharic the two terms exist within the same paradigm, and there is no concept of one without the
other. In Amharic (religion) (spirit) there is no way to construct "I have but
not (religion)." The spirit is an essence, not a self-contained belief system which one
declares allegiance to. It is tantamount to say my religion is "emotions" not Vodon. And this is not
unique to Amharic, but Amharic is the best example because of the longstanding presents of both
Christianity, ATR, and Islam in the region. Thus it eliminates confusion that the word religion is
being used in some imposed fashion.

For Jesuit priest James Martin, the phrase also hints at something elseegotism:

Beingspiritualbutnotreligiouscanleadto
complacencyandselfcenteredness...Ifit'sjust
youandGodinyourroom,andareligious
communitymakesnodemandsonyou,why
helpthepoor?

JamesMartin

With the recent emergence of spirituality as a distinct concept from religion in both academic
circles and common language, a tension has arisen between the two constructs. One possible
differentiation among the three constructs religion religiosity spirituality
, , and , is to view religion as
primarily a social phenomenon while understanding spirituality on an individual level: A personal
faith for societies who thrive on forming self-identities away from the group collective-- an alien
concept in Africa.

Beingprivatelyspiritualbutnotreligiousjust
doesn'tinterestme.Thereisnothing
challengingabouthavingdeepthoughtsallby
oneself.Whatisinterestingisdoingthisworkin
community,whereotherpeoplemightcallyou
onstuff,orheavenforbid,disagreewithyou.
WherelifewithGodgetsrichandprovocativeis
whenyoudigdeeplyintoatraditionthatyou
didnotinventallforyourself.

LillianDaniel

The birthplace of this false dichotomy is exclusively Western and exclusively and only possible in
individualistic societies. There is nothing in any part of Africa that is spiritual but divorced from
institutionalized rituals which are transmitted in an organized fashion across the generations. It is
therefore telling that African people will adopt this Spiritual stance in some revolt against what
they see as White man religion or oppressive religion when it stands against some of the most
intrinsic African values of community.

Religion is the organization of spirituality into something that became the handmaiden of
conquerors. Nearly all religions were brought to people and imposed on people by conquerors,
and used as the framework to control their minds - John Henrick Clarke.
There are some fallacies in the John Clarke rhetoric: Religion is not exclusive to conquerors' the
two are not caused by each other, or dependent upon each other. Clarke is speaking about an
African-American experience in Christianity. Most religions in Africa are not imposed on anyone,
by anyone. It also ignores and marginalizes the capacity of African people to also formulate
religions. A blatant rejection of African agency and this habit of painting Africans as perceptual
victims. It also stands in disagreement with the multitude of circumstances around the world
where communities select religions they deem beneficial to their interest. (Christian Ethiopia,
Islamic Rwanda, etc) It is also very strange to split religion from spirituality when you consider the
largest religious structures in the world are found in Africathe pyramids of Egypt and Sudan.
On the issue of "control their minds" we see another classic misunderstanding. There is no way
you create anything other than a hunter gather society without systems of control. Human are a
social group and have imprinting behaviorism (we live in dense societies by socialization which
involves group control), that process of imprinting is done by attaching ourselves to group ritual,
routine, shared belief, shared governance, leadershipthat is how societies functionthat is how
city states and empires form, and stay formed. The suggestion of control is therefore moot, as no
complex society functions without national control, national personalities which are ultimately
guided consciously or unconsciously. The issue of control shows that religion is just one tool, it is
not the only tool, and certainly not the most effective when dealing with plural populations who
have other heavily institutionalized beliefslike Europeans trying to conquer and colonize
Muslims for example. Control therefore uses all systems, habits, traditions, cultures, polities
available to exercise its interest. Religion in any configuration cannot be isolated and given some
special weight, in an attempt to build a case for some uncontaminated "spirituality" which is
exempt from being exploited.

Scienceinvestigatesreligion

interprets.Sciencegivesman
knowledge,whichispowerreligion
givesmanwisdom,whichiscontrol.
Sciencedealsmainlywithfacts
religiondealsmainlywithvalues.The
twoarenotrivals
MartinLutherKing

CivilizedWorld|Modernity
Europeans have been firm in holding up themselves as creators of civilization: That only when
people left Africa did civilization come into existence. This is done by doing exactly what the
Romans did before, by defining civilization to include their traits, habits, and defining everyone
else's on the outside of those virtues: the Greeks did it with the Persians despite being at a lower
level of social-technological development. Hence despite all the sophistication of some
"barbarian" tribes, they were still barbaric in Romes eyes. Civilization defined by the conquer is
suspect. US foreign policy, like Roman foreign policy, like all foreign policies in antiquity uses
these terms to seperate them from the other. It has no other serious purpose but in foreign policy.

An on another paradigm civilization cannot be defined by the height of tall buildings, but only by
the humanity between human beings. The word Civilized is often muddied with modernity.
Modernity is a technological state not a status on humanity. Technological accomplishment have
no connection to social development which constitutes civilized behavior. The Western world has
redefined civilization to continuously point away from glorifying Africa in any respect. Even
Africans have borrowed these mangled terms to define themselves. The civil conduct between
people in the poorest regions of Ethiopia are far more civilized than the heartless inner cities of
Europe and America. The way in which neighbors care and interact with each other, looking after
each others children is African humanity. Families responsibility to collectively share economic
burdens is humanity. Modernity only describes the technologies which one uses. And often
because of the glaring lights of the Western cities of the dammed, Africans trade modernity for
humanity and think they are making progress.

SemiticandAntiSemitic

Lyingisdonewithwordsandalsowithsilence

AdrienneRich

To be Semitic means to speak a Semitic language and in this

LanguageandThought regard all of Amhara, Gurage, Tigray (etc), all Arabs and all
Hebrew Speakers. This means the largest linguistic group in
WarandWords
Africa is a Semitic one. However, if Semitic means mixed
BlackAfrican then the majority Semitic people are Arabs. European Jews in
Africanvs.Black neither of the above classifications are Semitic, because they
are racially European, culturally European, and linguistically
SubSaharanAfrican
European. Terms for Jew" in the 1980 Jewish Almanac we
AfricaOrigins read: "Strictly speaking it is incorrect to call an Ancient
BlackAfrican Israelite a 'Jew' or to call a contemporary Jew an Israelite or a
Hebrew." Modern facts show they are genetic Khazars who
Kmt
converted to Judaism.
 converted to Judaism.
Terrorism
One cannot be anti-Semitic against a non-Semitic European
FeminismandAfrica
people. Thus anti-Semitic in its truth sense means to be anti-
ReligionVs.Spirituality Arab, Anti-Ethiopian, anti-Amhara, anti-native Jew, etc. Anti-
ThirdWorld Semitic is part of a collection of words used globally that are
linguistically inaccurate (misnomer). But because of tradition
Civilized
these words continue to have narrow definitions. The
Controversial discussion of what a word represents and what a word is
Tribe meant to mean is very important, especially when it is used as
a third rail.
Traditional

Nominal

PreColonial

Slave

AntiSemitic

ReverseRacism

BlackOnBlack
Homophobic

Conclusion

And maybe in this we see the persistence of words like Ethiopia and Habesha, although the roots
are inaccurate today they are simple words that are somewhat independent of their etymological
origin.

Forgettheworldwiderampant
Islamophobiaanddemonizationof
Arabs...HumanRightsandLabor,has
"institutionalizedthefightagainst
globalantiSemitism",eventhoughthe
USmilitaryandtheirallieshavebeen
destroyingcountriesmostlypopulated
byMuslimsforoveradecade.Or
maybeisitpreciselytosupportthe
waronIslamandtheArabWorld
a.k.a."waronterrorism"thatthe
"waronglobalantiSemitism"isbeing
launched?
JulieLvesque[3]

The first sign of agency is the inherent power to define ones terms of reference. Specific words
exist for racism against Jewish people and US congress monitors global antisemitism (Global
Antisemitism Review Act) yet no such policies or terms exist for the greatest victims of racism.
The ongoing African Holocaust is denied, ridiculed, mocked, and deemphasized daily without any
global sympathy. How is it possible for 60 Million people to have so many terms which articulate
their self-interest yet 1 billion Africans seem disabled in this capacity? For 500 years Africans
have been on the receiving end of historical racism culminating in the final Great Holocaust of
chattel enslavement in the Americas yet nothing exist in any language to speak directly to this
ongoing Holocaust.

If you call an African a Nig... it is called racism

If you call an Semitic Arab a Sand.. N it is called racism

If you call a Latino a Spi it is called racism

If you call an Chinese a Gou it is called racism

If you call a Jew a Kyk it is a special kind of racism called Antisemitism.

Antisemitism flies off the tongue so loosely these days and is an betray of the victims of the
Germany Nazi holocaust. Actors, anyone seeking attention talks about being victims of
antisemitism. Even Paula Abdul (the Jewish dancer) and Mila Kunis (Black Swan) claim for
publicity to being victim of antisemitism. Yet when Africans play the "race card" they are fashioned
as having a "chip on their shoulder". What is the specific term in the English language for racism
as having a "chip on their shoulder". What is the specific term in the English language for racism

which 1 billion plus Africans live in the shadow of every day? Dogs, lynch mobs, hoses, apartheid,
slavery, genocide, mustard gas, HIV experiments, Gene warfare (created by Israel and Apartheid
South Africa) and yet no word exist to describe the peculiarity of this ongoing and unrelenting
African oppression.

The blatant visibility of physically being African means there is virtually no shelter from global
racism from China to Chile. Yet nothing exist in any language for this peculiar treatment of
Africans and this is testimony to one thinglack of agency. Where agency is the ability of a
people to project their experience to the world.

REVERSERACISM

Like its partner in politicsantisemitismit is the political tool of curbing African dissent to racism.
In other words when the African seeks solutions to the prevalent White racism he is accused of
reverse racism. Again, it is linguistically nonsensical, an oxymoron, reversing racism is actually a
good thing. It is devoid of functionality and exclusively political in construction and usage. Its
application is void in defining any tangible discourse. How can someone be a reverse racist? It
adds power to white ethnocentrism since they perpetuate power of racism and all we can do is
reverse their own medicine on them. So it is Eurocentric. If an African has power and is being
racist towards Arabs or Whites then he is a racist. So if ANC seek to redress the racist economic
policies and are trying to create a level playing field it is not racism, because there is no notion of
supremacy but a notion of justice and equality. It is the same as positive employment of women in
fields, which are traditionally male, dominate. It seeks to redress a gender imbalance.

TERRORISMDEFINED

Theuseofviolenceandthreatsto
intimidateorcoerce,especiallyfor
politicalpurposes.
Thestateoffearandsubmission
producedbyterrorismorterrorization

Dictionary

This word terrorism has a very broad application. But the one common thread is it seems
terrorism is always some act that is not in US foreign interest. But according to the above
definitions then the entire history of America, UK, France, Germany and Israel [7] would be the
biggest terrorist on the planet and their victims are the native peoples of the planet who live in fear
and submission. [8] As the popular saying goes:

Oneman'sterroristisanotherman's
freedomfighter

GeraldSeymour

And while most find the act of terrorism morally reprehensible when it targets innocent non-
combatants. This is the aspect which becomes reprehensible, the single act of targeting innocent
civilians. Apart from this, terrorism is just another type of ugly and heinous warfare, which
mankind seems not to be able to evolve out of. But the old canard of the random crazy terrorist is
not a serious assessments just a better way to continuing denying the merit and agent of
certain grievances. Especially when those grievances are the results of US foreign policy and
admitting that would make America liable. Terrorist, if anything, are not random, cowards, or
illogical. A coward is someone who flies a nuclear bomb high in the sky and drops it on women
and children at zero risk to himself. A coward gets 7 nations to attack one 3rd world country. A
coward hides behind White House walls while sending the poor to Vietnam to die. Terrorist, just
like the crying of a baby creates a desired effect. And from a social perspective it is always a
sign of a society which has failed to represent, or incorporate plurality and marginalize groups.
Robert Pape, Dying to Win (2005))[8] One thing we can agree on, unlike most politicians, is their
(
are no insincere or fickle suicide bombers.

"The term terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated

against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually
intended to influence an audience." Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003, p. xii, US
DepartmentofState

"[T]he unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or
coerce a government, the civilian population in furtherance of political or social
objectives."Terrorism20022005,p.iv,FBI,USDepartmentofJustice

"Theunlawfuluseofviolenceorthreatofviolencetoinstillfearandcoercegovernments
orsocieties.Terrorismisoftenmotivatedbyreligious,political,orotherideologicalbeliefs
andcommittedinthepursuitofgoalsthatareusuallypolitical."Department of Defense
DictionaryofMilitaryandAssociatedTerms,(Amendedin2012),p.317

Clearly, keywords in these definitions like "ideological beliefs", "religious", "subnational",

"violence", even "societies", can be amply twisted to include as much as exclude,
subject to convenience, what counts as terrorism which, according to India's The
Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002, includes any "intent to threaten the unity, integrity,
securityorsovereigntyofIndiaortostriketerrorinthepeople".Inmainstreamdefinitions,
theterm"political"isusedtodistinguishterrorismfromcrimebyan"abnormal"person
shootingsbyanindividualfor"personal"reason.However,defining"political"thiswayis
problematic because in another definition of politics everything is political or, as the
feministcredoheld:"thepersonalispolitical"~IrfanAhmad

America is a psychopathic psychofrenic. They go around the world pissing people off and then get
teary eyes and confused when the colonized kick back. Like when you see a child pulling at a
dogs tail, the dog was cool and ignored it once then twice, but on the 3rd time you know what
happens. Cry yes, but most children learn that pulling at dogs tails = you get bitten. America is still
trying to figure out why it got bitten. And as oppose to learn, they keep repeating the behavior that
keeps the cycle in place. The idea is alter your foreign policy. Alter your attitude to the Zionist
state. (Mearsheimer & Walt (2008))

TheUSsaysitispromotingdemocracy
anddevelopmentinAfrica,butmilitary
baseslitterthecontinentandits
intelligenceactivitiesundermine
Africansovereignty

PressTV

"I have compiled a database of every suicide bombing

and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003
315 attacks in all.1 It includes every attack in which at
least one terrorist killed himself or herself while
attempting to kill others; it excludes attacks authorized
by a national government, for example by North Korea
against the South. This database is the first complete
universe of suicide terrorist attacks worldwide. I have
amassed and independently verified all the relevant
information that could be found in English and other
languages (for example, Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and
Tamil) in print and on-line.

The information is drawn from suicide terrorist groups themselves, from the main organizations
that collect such data in target countries, and from news media around the world. More than a "list
of lists," this database probably represents the most comprehensive and reliable survey of suicide
terrorist attacks that is now available. The data show that there is little connection between
suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world's religions. In fact, the
leading instigators of suicide attacks are the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group
whose members are from Hindu families but who are adamantly opposed to religion. This group
committed 76 of the 315 incidents, more suicide attacks than Hamas. ~ Robert Pape
"Terrorism is not an organization or a movement or even
an 'enemy' that one can declare war on; terrorism is
simply the tactic of indiscriminately attacking enemy
targets--especially civilians--in order to sow fear,
undermine morale, and provoke counterproductive
reactions from one's adversary. It is a tactic that many
different groups sometimes employ, usually when they
are much weaker than their adversaries and have no
good option for fighting against superior military forces.
Zionists [e.g., especially the members of Irgun (or 'Etzel')
and Lehi (or the Stern Gang)] used terrorism when they
were trying to drive the British out of Palestine and
establish their own State...
...and the United States has backed a number of 'terrorist' organizations in the past (including the
Nicaraguan contras and the UNITA guerillas in Angola). American presidents have also
welcomed a number of former terrorists to the White House (including PLO chairman Yasser
Arafat and Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, who played key roles in
the main Zionist terrorist organizations) which merely underscores the fact that terrorism is a
tactic and not a unified movement." John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel
Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.
BLACKONBLACKVIOLENCE

Noonehassaidthatcrimebetween
AfricanAmericansisntaproblem.The

pointisthatBlacknesshasnothingto
dowithit.Blackonblackcrimeisa
framethatpresupposesBlack
criminalitythattheressomething
inherenttoBlacknesswhichmakes
intragroupcrimemoreprevalentand
moredeadly

JamelleBouie

Conclusion

LanguageandThought

WarandWords

BlackAfrican

Africanvs.Black
We must not walk on the outside of our own history and thus a
SubSaharanAfrican challenge to systems, which remove us from this noble place
AfricaOrigins within human history need to be critically and objectively re-
evaluated. To continuously fight an opponent who makes the
BlackAfrican
weapon we fight them with, means victory will always escape
Kmt us. This is why no matter how close we come--we lose. Unlike
Terrorism other groups, we fail to institutionalize and control concepts
and definitions relevant to our reality. We only need to look at
FeminismandAfrica
the current anti-Islamic campaign to see the role of language
ReligionVs.Spirituality usage in a battle for supremacy and mind control. Today
ThirdWorld terrorist might as well mean Muslim. They employed a
strategy which started by saying Muslim and terrorist, Islam
Civilized
and terrorist. These words always accompanied one another.
Controversial Once the marriage had been established, either word; may it
Tribe be Muslim or terrorist conjured up the other, thus Muslim
implied terrorist and terrorist implied Muslim.
Traditional

Nominal Until an African lingua franca is established we will always be

seeking our reality within the linguistic boxes built for
PreColonial
Europeans. This paradox of seeking a new African paradigm
Slave within Eurocentric constructions is questionable , but
AntiSemitic necessary.

ReverseRacism

BlackOnBlack

Homophobic

Conclusion

The Western controlling powers have the single most powerful weapon at their disposal: mass
media, they also have the military, the missionaries and the merchant to secure their worldview
(4Ms of European agency). And thus concepts, precepts, ideas and ideologies can be
communicated in the blink of an eye. Thus we must too find a way of communicating our new
realities to our people and it must start with those in positions of mass interface with the public;
writers, musicians, politicians, et al employing these terms. No one should deny the oppressed
people of this planet the right to self-determine and use linguistics to navigate and explain their
reality. This is a key part in our path to self-determination and must not be under-estimated or
over-looked if freedom and destiny are to be ours.

There is no line drawn under words and the future of linguistics in articulating our reality, for our
empowerment is a continuous journey. Its ultimate destination is when the African languages are
completely used in our communicate. As African people, we must seek to redefine our reality, and
part of this redefinition must begin with the terminologies we use to define ourselves and the
terminologies others use to define us. The war of words is perhaps the greatest battle field of the
 terminologies others use to define us. The war of words is perhaps the greatest battle field of the
21st century and when we employ and integrate them into our conscious, we ultimately embark
on a journey that has only one destination-- cultural emancipation.

Owen 'Alik Shahadah, is an African Cultural writer and a multi-award winning Filmmaker who
documents African history and culture. For more info see www.owenshahadah.com

Footnotes
Invention of the Jewish People - Shlomo Sand Kindle Edition

Ahmed Sheikh, 1992, p.30).

A Caribbean steel-pan group called the gay crusaders had to change their name after a tour of
California. Aparently, they were attracting the wrong clients.

Therefore, idioms are not considered part of the language, but part of the culture. As culture
typically is localized, idioms often are useless beyond their local context. But
language/expressions/terminologies fly on the wings of agency.

"War of Words" Language, politics and 9/11, 2002, Sandra Silberstein

The Story of the Moors in Spain. Stanley Lane-Poole, Arthur Gilman. "In ancient times, Africans in
general were called Ethiopian; in medieval times most Africans were called Moors; in modern
times some Africans were called Negroes." He goes on to state that "In the literature on Africa,
Africans are commonly identified in two groups: one progressive and the other backward. The
progressive people are called Hamites, Kushites, Moors, etc, and the backward are called
Negroes. The word Negro comes from the Latin word Niger, which means black. "

Catherine Lowe Besteman, Unraveling Somalia: Race, Class, and the Legacy of Slavery,
(University of Pennsylvania Press: 1999): "While upholding the perception of Somalis as distinct
from and superior to the European construct of "black Africans", both British and Italian colonial
administrators placed the Jubba valley population in the latter category"

Words like linguistics, ethnicity, Anthropology, sociology, evolution, archeology, history,

indigenous, are all neutral words they might have negative connotations in the sense of how they
have been used against a particular group of people. However, they have no inherent agenda.
Anthropology simple means Human discourse hence the writings of the Ancient Egyptians about
the Nubians would be a form of anthropology, since we are currently stuck using English it is a
term of reference. All knowledge systems have historically been used to oppress people; so we
cannot for historical reasons throw every word in English language in the bin. Knowledge because
of its inherent nature has the possibility to enslave or liberate and it is on this bases that it is
critical to study terminologies and in the contemporary moment and selectively apply them to a
peoples self-determination.

Russian is translated into Russian as rossiyanin (, plural rossiyane), while the ethnic
Russians are referred to as russkiye (sg. , russkiy)

It has been suggested, but not verified that : kiswahili: mtu: a person, a human
kinyarwanda/kirundi: u-muntu: a person, a human kiswahili: watu: peoples, humans lingala: batu:
peoples, humans

3. Tajudeen Abdul Raheem, ed., Pan Africanism: Politics, Economy and Social Change in the
Twenty First Century, Pluto Press, London, 1996.
Okoth P Godfrey, Truman Administration and the Decolonization of Sub-Saharan Africa, Journal
of Third World Studies. In reference to Africa, whether advertently or inadvertently, Munene falls
in the trap of the so-called concept of "Two Africas." Munene's usage of the term, "Sub-Saharan
Africa" is symptomatic of the racist attitudes towards the former colonies. European travellers and
geographers created the concept of "two Africas," which was adopted wholesome by racist
scholars in Euro-America. It has, however, been established that Africa was not self-isolated by
the Sahara. The Sahara came into existence when that part of the world dried up thereby forcing
the inhabitants to migrate north and south. Additionally, the practice of Trans-Saharan trade
established the pre-Saharan life and activities. The idea of "Sub-Saharan Africa," is, therefore, 'a
myth or misleading. It cannot be accepted as it tantamount to the balkanization of Africa, thereby
denying Africa its rightful role in contributing to world civilization. There is only one Africa; hence
the need to decolonize such racist and derogatory terms.

NOTES
What is a derogatory term? With what certainty can we say a word is offensive? Who gets to decide if it
is offensive or not? A case study regarding an ethnic classification in Southern Africa highlights this
issue: "The Term San is not without problems of its own. Some point to this Nana term's negative
connotations, meaning "worthless" or "no account." And the term Bushman has its advocates among
anthropologists and others. San leaders themselves are divided over the term Bushmen. At a recent
meeting reported by Megan Biesele, one said he never wanted to hear the term used again in post-
apartheid Namibia. Another argued that the term could be ennobled by the way in which they
themselves now chose to use it. However, as Pan-San or Pan-Bushman political consciousness grows
in southern Africa, we assume a general term will emerge. By the late 1990s, San had come into
general use by the San people themselves. ( The Third Edition of The Dobe Ju/'hoansi by Richard B.
Lee)


You cannot measure an African success with a European ruler

Owen ' Alik Shahadah

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