Amazing Grace: Corresponding with the distributors

Not wishing to wait for Galleria Cinemas to get back to us, the National Commission on Cultural Development (of which I'm the Deputy Chair) contacted the distributors for the film Amazing Grace to see what the story is on the release of the film to the Caribbean.Now. Let me make my position clear here, lest people get sidetracked by the politics of the whole thing. I tend to agree with Frances-Anne about the reasons behind the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery itself, although I would go further and say that I believe that the abolitionist movement sprang from a genuine crisis of conscience. The fact that this gained political mileage when it did had plenty to do with power-struggles and economics, and the fact that the industrialists and factory owners who were gaining economic strength in Britain wanted to break the backs of their powerful predecessors, the land-owning aristocracy and the planters overseas. I don't, however, discount the question of conscience.The problem is that conscience is often compromised by prejudices and bigotry, which are often so unconscious that they are invisible to those who practise them. The release of the film Amazing Grace provides a fascinating study in the juncture of bigotry and conscience -- if indeed there are no plans to release it in the Caribbean.This is one fact I'm still investigating.So here is the email sent by me on behalf of the Cultural Commission to the distributors:

Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 3:04 PMSubject: Amazing Grace - Limited Release?I am writing from Nassau, Bahamas, to inquire about the release of the film Amazing Grace in The Bahamas.I currently serve as the Deputy Chair of the National Commission on Cultural Development, a government-appointed group whose purpose is to monitor and oversee cultural activity and development for The Commonwealth of The Bahamas. One of our main foci in 2007 is the Commemoration of the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Countries throughout the former British West Indies are observing this Bicentenary, which has fundamental significance for our populations and for our nations.As part of our commemorative activities, we wish to urge all Bahamians to view the film. However, it is not currently screening here. Inquiries of the Galleria Cinemas, the only distributor of mainstream movies in the nation, revealed that the film is in limited release and is not available to The Bahamas for showing.Given that the Abolition Act championed by William Wilberforce and his Abolitionists directly affected the British West Indian colonies, of which The Bahamas is one, we find the unavailability of this film, which provides an account of his struggle, beyond our comprehension.The National Commission on Cultural Development for The Government of The Bahamas wishes to invite a response from the distributors of the film regarding the screening of Amazing Grace in The Bahamas, and would be grateful for any light you might shed on this matter.Sincerely,Nicolette BethelDeputy Chair, National Commission on Cultural DevelopmentNassau, Bahamas

I received the following response from Roadside Attractions, one of the distributors (there are two - Samuel Goldwyn's the other):

Unfortunately, we don't hold the international rights to the film. Any inquiries about the Bahamas should go to the film's producers Bristol Bay Productions. They can be reached here: www.bristolbayproductions.com.

Thinking about Emancipation: White Privilege

There's a very interesting dialogue about race here, at the Anti-Essentialist Conundrum, and here, at the Anarchist Black Cross Network.On ABC, Peggy McIntosh writes:

I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, code books, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks....After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we are justly seen as oppressive, even when we don't see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow "them" to be more like "us".

I find much of this valuable, especially coming from a white (American) feminist. It's part of what I talk about when I refer to hegemony -- the idea that what is "normal" is actually what is white -- and, from the perspective of The Bahamas, what is white and other (what is white and Bahamian is actually a rather African-flavoured form of whiteness; more on that later). White Bahamians are not white Americans or white Europeans; their Bahamianness -- from the national cuisine to, these days, the national accent -- already rendering them different from the norm.Now McIntosh is, as I say, a white feminist. Sylvia, author of the Anti-Essentialist Conundrum, a pretty cool blog that considers issues of race and equality, written by a black (American) woman, while agreeing broadly with her principles, also critiques them. As she says:

There are three main problems with the essay and its framework. The first is its voice: the author is a privileged, white, intellectual, feminist, American woman with some level of financial self-sufficiency and physical ability, and her mode of explanation proceeds from these characteristics in its word choice and description. To say that each characteristic needs its own privilege study would be too obvious; to say that one characteristic should monopolize the discussions of privilege for everyone — too divisive. The second problem is its method of identifying white privilege: its language leaves the gate wide open for white people engaged in denial to invoke defenses leaning towards white pride or white guilt. The third problem is the list of characteristics surrounding white privilege would function easier if separated into categories of the types/classes of privilege instead of specific situations.

This last critique is impotant, for, as Sylvia observes, people can be both privileged and oppressed at the same time. See what she says herself:

The third problem cycles back to the first: McIntosh invoked the list of items that existed in her perspective of the knapsack. Ongoing discussions of privilege in a variety of disciplines point to intersectionality — the ability for people to live within different frameworks of oppression and privilege simultaneously. It is disheartening, but not unsurprising, to see a black man boggle at a black woman’s accusation that he shares in male privilege. His understanding only reaches to both of them suffering under privileged whites. These debates enclose incidences where a white lesbian suffering under heterosexist privilege and male privilege engages in racist behavior, or where an affluent Vietnamese-American male’s class privilege and assimilation into white supremacist xenophobia turns on the ambiguous category of lowerclass, undocumented “Hispanic” American workers. While privilege manifests differently in each concentric circle of oppression, it never alters its M.O. As a result, we as human beings cannot cry hypocrite when a victim in one cycle switches sides in another cycle — especially with our knowledge that all privileges sprout from a fundamental hierarchy equally lacking in exposure what it gains in power.

In this year when we observe the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, it's important that we understand that emancipation is not a simple thing. Oppression and privilege are not simple, after all. Victimology is an insidious process, and imperfect understandings of history, of self, of location, of hierarchy permit all kinds of oppressions that go unrecognized. In our society, where most of us, well coached by the American mass media to view "white" as one thing and "black" as another, undifferentiated, thing, tend to imagine ourselves universally oppressed, we ignore the very real oppression we visit on one another: outrageous racism against Haitians, unexamined violence against women and children, and actions founded in self-hate.I encourage people to check out these sites. Yes, they're radical. But they're worth a good hard look.

Just so we know we're not special

In terms of racism and racist rhetoric, I mean, here's a tale about racism from Russia. A Russian Newsweek reporter and blogger, who is ethnically Kazakh, was attacked in Moscow by four young men.Here's an excerpt.

Most likely, it was an accidental attack by the neo-Nazis. Today, it may well be considered a routine crime ), or maybe not. Funny that on this very day I finished a piece on the [United Russia party] members who now have to love the “Russia for the Russians” slogan. A piece with some interesting bits on [the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, the DPNI].

What's most interesting to me are the comments. They sound so very similar to what I hear regularly about Haitians. Most interesting is the go-back-home theme that keeps recurring.

... in your Motherland, an ethnic Russian journalist exposing local nationalists wouldn’t have survived even a couple of publications. And you go on living and exposing. So everything is fair and logical. And then, if you are such a fighter against Nazism, why don’t you do this in your homeland? And we’ll deal with nationalism here ourselves ...No one is keeping you here. You can move and live somewhere in Turkmenistan. Because it doesn’t make any difference whether there are Russians around or not. But to many people it does matter, and the Russian people mainly want to live in a country where there are 80-90 percent Russians, and not 10 percent. […] So 20 million Kyrgyz come to Russia, and 50 million Chinese, and 10 million Azeris. And they multiply. And as a result, only 10 percent of Russians will remain in the country. And this won’t be Russia anymore. All our history will have to be crossed out - what for have we been building the country for? […] The thing is, in a normal state, the state itself would’ve been involved in immigration policies.

Whenever the topic of Haitians in The Bahamas is raised, the rhetoric becomes predictable. It's predictable because it's the very same rhetoric that is used by all racists to justify their perspectives on people they believe don't belong among them. The following comments are usual:

• "They" should go home to their own country

• "They" shouldn't complain about what happens to them here because "they" are immigrants (usually the word illegal is added here)

• "They" are using up all the resources "we" pay for

• "They" multiply faster and more than "we" do and "they" will soon outnumber "us"

I'm not debating the truth or lack of it about any of these statements. But I am pointing out that they are not unique to us. They are not special to Haitians. They are remarkably identical to the kinds of statements made anywhere in the world by people whose environments are changing rapidly and whose reaction to that change is to blame the Other, rather than to adapt and move forward. The language, and the rhetoric, is fundamentally racist, and that is true of whether the person who is making the statement is white, black, orange, yellow, or pink.

Martin Luther King Day

That's today.This is what the Writer's Almanac has to say:

It's the birthday of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., (books by this author) born in Atlanta (1929). It was 1955, early in King's new tenure as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on one of that city's busses. King was elected to lead the Montgomery Improvement Association, which was formed with the intention of boycotting the transit system. He was young — only 26 — and he knew his family connections and professional standing would help him find another pastorate should the boycott fail, so he accepted.

In his first speech to the group as its president of that organization, King said: "We have no alternative but to protest. For many years we have shown an amazing patience. We have sometimes given our white brothers the feeling that we liked the way we were being treated. But we come here tonight to be saved from that patience that makes us patient with anything less than freedom and justice."

The boycott worked, and King saw the opportunity for more change. He formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which provided him a national platform. For the next 13 years, King worked to peacefully end segregation. In 1963, he joined other civil rights leaders in the March on Washington — that's where he gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

Here's a link to the speech.

How did I miss this?

Marlon James on How To Make A Jamaican Music Video.It's hilarious.  Here's a taste.

Come to think of it, forget, the ghetto; you must shoot in the uberghetto. Remember that poor Jamaica is the real Jamaica. Forget high-rise buildings, Taino tribal grounds, the second oldest railroad track in the world, and the most fascinating network of underground caves in the Caribbean. You need bad roads, shit running down the side walks, zinc fences, tenements and gunmen, because this is the real Jamaica. Please have the locals stack 12 speakers together, 3 in a row and have the natives come out to wind their waists and slam dominoes on the table or your viewers will think that it’s Haiti. You must shoot in district of Waterhouse. This will be in your contract for Waterhouse is the music video ghetto of choice, probably because the quick to be violent blackies aren’t so violent there. But be sure to buy the men in mesh merinos a hot Guinness or you might not make it out of there alive. Remind yourself that if Alicia Keys can shoot there, you can too.Should you meet a gunman make sure to genuflect in the usual fashion. But feel free to pass off an offensive comment so that the Jamaican crew can never shoot in that place again. The nature of that comment is up to you but forgo the racial for Jamaican Negroes are not black. Make sure you have extra film left for the midnight dance so you can remark how bestial and sexual the natives can be while dancing. Listen as the Jamaican producer remarks that this is in keeping with our African culture, even though he or she will not do such things until after the wrap when they take you to Quad Nightclub where uptown people grind each other. Try a dance yourself but restrict it to hands, you don’t need to remind us that white people cannot dance for us to remember that we’re still safe. Because once you take our dances we’ll have nothing left! Don’t forget the smiling children.

The question of Blackface

High-fashion models in blackface, that is.Well, it's one model, actually, and it's causing quite a stir. Kate Moss was recast as a Black woman for the cover of the Independent in Britain. The paper was doing a special issue on the struggle of African woman. Here's how it starts:

It was still dark, not yet 4am. But outside Letenk'iel was moving already, rekindling the fire from the overnight embers. Inside the mud-walled hut, her husband Gebremariam coughed. Then as the first birds were heard, he swung his legs over the side of a bed made from rough rope strung across a wooden frame. He stood in the doorway and stretched. His wife was already at her morning chores.As the cold dawn light suffused the sky she sprinkled water from a squat earthenware jar across the mud floor and began to sweep the dampened earth with a brush of long grasses bound tightly together. The day had begun.

Later, after the narrative, which reveals the life of African women (not Kate Moss) as laborious, deprived, and unsanitary, come the numbers. Here's a selection:

Women: A world apartLife expectancyAfrica: 46UK: 80Chance of a girl going to primary schoolAfrica: 60 %UK: 100 %Minutes worked per dayAfrica: 590*UK: 413Female literacyAfrica: 53.2%UK: 99.9%

As usual, Africa is undifferentiated; west, north, south, central, east — all nations are lumped together as one. The numbers citing the plight of the continent are equally sloppy: they are presented as "Africa", and compared with a single country — "U.K." I imagine that if they were recalculated to include all of Europe, including the former Iron Curtain countries, they would tell a different story; but no one is talking about that. We're all focussed on the blackface.At least one paper (The Guardian) reacted with the kind of outrage that is appropriate: here's what Hannah Pool & Tomi Ajayi of that paper had to say.

What exactly is this picture of Moss-as-African-woman supposed to portray? I suppose it is meant to be subversive, but what does it say about race today when a quality newspaper decides that its readers will only relate to Africa through a blacked-up white model rather than a real-life black woman? What does it say about the fight against HIV/Aids if that is the only way to make us care? And, as a black woman (born that way), what does this trick say about me?...Blacking up has become acceptable in the same way that pole dancing is now sold to women as an empowering thing to do. Both assume that the thing they are poking fun at no longer exists - ie discrimination, racism and sexism. But of course they are wrong. If blacking up existed in a society where racism was not an issue, then it would not be such a problem. But then it would also lose its power to shock. After all, what is so shocking about a white person being made to look black if black and white are equal?And is it really so hard to relate to those who are different from us? I'm not from Iraq, but I don't have to dress up as an Iraqi war widow to care about what goes on there. As Robert Bianco wrote of the American TV show Black. White, in which two families did a "race-swap" for six weeks: "Black. White is based on two false premises, one more pernicious than the other: that you can understand someone of a different race simply by putting on makeup, and that you need that kind of understanding in order to treat people as the law and morality."And you know, there really are black women who could have done this job. Next time a photograph of an African woman is needed, they should call on Iman. Call on Alek Wek. Call on one of any number of black girls you can see on the street. Call on me.

What concerns me, however, is a little different. The dressing of Kate Moss in blackface and placing her on the cover is not the issue; it is a symptom of the problem, and not the problem itself. Global racism is institutional, and it is far deeper and more immutable than the aesthetic choices made for a magazine cover suggest. Its roots lie in science itself, in the misinterpretation and misapplication of nineteenth century speculation about evolution, in the wholesale adoption of those theories in the construction of a global power structure. The empires of Europe may have been dismantled, but the ideas that undergirded them still remain. The concept of social Darwinism may have been debunked, but its effects continue to shape what we understand as "civilization", particularly in Europe, which perfected these ideas. Africa is still a lump, a "dark" continent, an outline in a sea, a source of raw material for others' riches, and all the complexities and challenges of its daily life are smudged by that very charcoal.The thing is, the world is interconnected. Western wealth, politics and social advancement have deep roots in the exploitation of the third world, and especially in Africa, whose continent continues to supply megacorporations with the most lucrative minerals — oil, gold, diamonds, and so on — to the detriment of its people. The fact that Letenk'iel is still living as her ancestors did — or probably worse than they did, and in more poverty, as the European occupation of that continent disrupted communities and economies with as much efficiency as a Nazi camp, but more silently — is not coincidental to the fact that a major British newspaper paid a white supermodel, a photographer, and a series of special-effects staff megamoney to make a European woman look African. It is connected by a series of old and powerful inequalities that continue today.

A different take on Guenter Grass

Ever since the revelation that Grass was a member of Germany's Waffen SS during his youth, the jury's been out on his sin. And the jury that I've been reading has been leaning in favour of convicting him of having committed the unforgivable. I've seen references throughout the media to the news, and they're overwhelmingly condemnatory; the conclusion has been that Grass is a hypocrite, that his reputation can never be redeemed.Enter Marlon James.

Far more sensible has been the reactions from the Mayor of Gdansk himself who said, “By his actions, he has already paid for the mistakes of his youth.” That’s the crucial thing to remember here. Grass was SIX when Hitler came to power. OF COURSE he would be a member of the SS, what greater ambition would a child growing up in the very shadow of Hitler have? Grass says he kept silent on his past because he was ashamed. I see nothing shocking in this. I’d be more horrified if he wasn’t so ashamed of his past that he tried to hide it. As for all the people who are calling for him to return his Nobel Prize and whatever honour he has gotten please, spare me. Knut Hamsun never regretted his Nazi sympathies and he still has his. I would think that a man who was in the elite SS going on to become the very conscience of his nation, would speak to the very best of humanity, not the worst. There’s no getting away from the contradiction of a man forcing a nation to confront truth when he could not confront his own. But that again brings us back to the ever-wise Winterson: the man needs forgiveness. Lord knows he has mine.

I have to confess that my own perspective is far closer to James' own than any of the others I've read. In part it's because I agree with him about what heroism is, and I don't make the mistake of confusing human beings with God. In part it's because I think — again like James — that sometimes it takes far more courage and conviction to take a stand against what one once was than to have condemned it for all of one's life. And in part it's because I believe that the process of forgiveness and atonement and redemption — as unpopular as those ideas are these days — is a complex one that never really ends. As recovering addicts know, one is never cured of an addiction; one is recovering as long as one lives. It's the old idea of temptation, which new translations have airbrushed out of the Lord's Prayer; the strength of human goodness can't really be measured until it's tested by the strength of human evil as well.Some other links:Austin Bay BlogBooks, InqThe Elegant VariationWhat I'm finding interesting is that some of the more forgiving perspectives are coming from people who live with fear, discrimination, hate and prejudice on a daily basis, rather than from people who don't. People of colour, from so-called "developing" nations, people whose cultures' existences depend on the decisions of one or two leaders of (mostly) irresponsibly superpowers, tend to be more forgiving of Grass than those people whose cultures shape the world.Perhaps it's because it's reassuring for us to realize that evil can change. And perhaps it's disconcerting for others to note that behind every good deed may lie a fatal flaw.We may be forgiving because we grew up with that knowledge.

Marlon James on the Great White Hope

The man's got a point. I'm linking to his post because I agree with him about the movies, but I'm not sure I agree with him wholly about the African-European thing. He's correct, as far as that goes, but I believe that atrocity is a function of being human, not of wearing any so-called race or culture on your skin or in your heart. Violence and war warp minds — not that it takes a whole lot to warp human minds. What American soldiers do to Iraqi civilians, what terrorists plan for their victims, what the powerful of any nation do to the powerless — these are the actions of human beings. Not one of us is exempt.Which is why I agree with him about the movies (though it doesn't stop me enjoying some of them), and the oh-so-recurrent theme of the altruistic European navigating his or her challenged way through the near-savagery of the non-European.

White Guilt & the Middle East

I was led to this article by my trawling through the blogosphere, and was reminded that Rick Lowe made a note of Shelby Steele's book White Guilt some time ago.Now I am familiar with Steele's work, having once been an avid subscriber to Harper's Magazine, and still having a fondness for that magazine, specially for its Index. And I admire Steele for being an African-American intellectual who doesn't parrot the party line.That doesn't mean I agree with him.In this article, he has a point. I would agree with him here, only I would substitute the word "bigot" for his word "anti-Semite":

The anti-Semite is always drawn to the hatred of Jews by his own unacknowledged inadequacy. As Sartre says in his great essay on the subject, the anti-Semite "is a man who is afraid. Not of Jews of course, but of himself." By hating Jews, he asserts that his own group represents the kind of human being that God truly wants. His group is God's archetype, the only authentic humanity, already complete and superior. No striving or self-reflection is necessary. If Jews are superior in some ways, it is only out of their alienated striving, their exile from God's grace. For the anti-Semite, hating and fighting Jews is both self-affirmation and a way of doing God's work.So the anti-Semite comes to a chilling place: He easily joins himself to evil in order to serve God.

But I would differ with him regarding the concept — implicit in his article — that white oppression is over, or that it is so incidental today as to be insignificant. I may be spouting liberal blahblah here, but I do not buy the argument that Israel is merely a defender of its territory. It's true that Palestine seems paralyzed by its victimhood, yes, much in the same way that African Americans and even some Bahamians use the idea of oppression to justify stagnation. But we cannot forget that Israel is the only nuclear power in the region, and that until this war, fought all battles with superior firepower. What is frightening to it is that for the first time in a generation its enemy appeared to be evenly matched with it.Further, I resist Steele's idea that this love of death is a particularly Muslim thing. Fundamentalist, perhaps; human, surely. The love of glory and honour in death being exhibited by today's suicide bombers is no different from the love of glory and death-for-God practised by white Europeans during the Crusades.What makes the difference now is the fact that the love of life comes from comfort and material wealth, and that, no matter what arguments are put forward, people who see them but don't share in them become desparate. I do not believe for one moment that Bin Laden wishes martyrdom upon himself. Rather, he is expert at turning the desperation of young men who have nothing — no identity, no homeland, no wealth, no future — into his very own weapon of mass destruction.We Bahamians should take heed. After all, there is not a huge difference between the plight of the Palestinian Arab or the young men who identify with him and the plight of the child of Haitian parentage growing up in today's Bahamas. White guilt is not the key here, though it may play some part in masking the real problem. At the bottom of this struggle is that good old Marxist bugaboo — class.

The Real Free Press

Lynn Sweeting writes about true journalistic freedom here, on her blog. Here's some of what she has to say:

I was a reporter in that newsroom for about eight years. During the bad days of the “Pindling regime”, (Christ, was it really a regime?). As I recall there was an endless stream of English “editors” at that desk throughout. As I recall the paper lambasted Pindling’s government every single day. Still, one English man after another was still able to get a work permit. They put hell on the government every day in their editorials and in their front page stories, and as I recall their freedom to do this was never threatened. There were no arrests, no one was thrown in jail never to be seen again, there were no killings, there were no disappearances, the paper didn’t get shut down, and their work permits were not denied. As I recall they went to print with stories that put the PLP in a stinking light every day and that regime never disallowed them to do it.If we were not a free press then, and if they are not now, there is only the Tribune to blame. I was only there for a few years, but I can think of five or ten good and dedicated reporters and photographers from my time alone who were forced to leave their employ and even give up their dreams of real journalism, because there wasn’t a hope in hell of Going Further, there would be no training opportunities, there would be no chance of an upwardly moving career, there was no chance of ever reaching the editor’s chair, no chance of ever making a decent salary, no chance for advancement whatsoever.

Lynn's writing about the John Marquis controversy, which changes meaning as it changes reporters and perspectives.  Here's Oswald Brown on the subject, and here's more on the topic, this time from the Tribune itself. Below are some more links of interest.Bahamas Uncensored.comNassau Guardian OpinionWeblog Bahamas on the subjectBut Lynn, as always, has a voice that's unique.

Some more on land — now Zimbabwe

From time to time, we hear reports about Mugabe and his misrule of Zimbabwe. Now know that I was at Pearson College with the first student from Zimbabwe, Zobo Chimurenga, and I watched him conduct his own flagraising ceremony — alone — on Zimbabwean Independence Day in February 1980. Mugabe was for us then a hero, a man who had led his people to victory in a war of liberation.Mugabe's no longer a hero.What has dominated the news, though, is what a tyrant he is. Like many great leaders, it's said, corruption and paranoia have overtaken him and have turned him into a dictator who is destroying the very country he created. Like Castro.I've often wondered what the other side of the story is. I had some idea; one of my favourite ethnographies during my MPhil studies at Cambridge was Guns and Rain. But Rosemary Ekosso gives yet another perspective — the point of view of a fellow African.Well worth the read. And follow her links, too.Here's a bit of what she has to say:Zimbabwe: White Lies, Black Victims

Despite their pious claims, Britain and the others are not angry because Mugabe is a corrupt dictator. They sponsor corrupt dictators when it suits them. They are not angry because ordinary Zimbabweans are suffering under Mugabe. They don’t care about ordinary Zimbabweans. They were quite happy to herd them into reserves when it suited them.No, what they care about is the expropriation of white farmers. They express indignation at Mugabe’s cronies acquiring the land. That is a bad thing, of course. I myself come from an area where government or government-affiliated bigwigs are buying up all the prime sea-front locations because they can afford them. But in the case of Zimbabwe only 0.3% of people settled on land have acquired it through undue influence or corruption. So 99.7% of Zimbabweans got their land fair and square.So we agree that Mugabe is doing a BAD THING. The bad thing is not, however, the fact that he has taken land that should go to poor landless Zimbabweans and given it to his friends. The bad thing is that he has taken the land from white people.

It's been a while

since I visited Laila's blog, but I thought this post was pertinent to us here and now.Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian-American novelist, and considered one of the finest contemporary writers. What she has to say about the current American immigration policies should have resonance for us, because it is equally true of our ambivalence.When she writes

Should we desire in our midst a group of people only when they’re willing to do for less pay the work that our own citizens find too grueling, too demeaning, or too hazardous? The moral question aside, what does it say about our own societal structure that we cannot within our own borders make these jobs more appealing and more humane for our own citizens?The bottom line is we’d like our immigrants to be disposable, to work when we need them, then disappear when we don’t.

she's spot on.Laila's postThe Danticat article

How do we know what we've done for forty years ain't working?

Because we have to do it again and again.I've already linked to the question of how we've responded to our Haitian immigrants. Our governments are bankrupt of ideas, and, predictably, they resort to what every person can understand: violence and persecution.Here's what the Miami Herald has to say:

NASSAU, Bahamas - Nearly six decades ago, Valentino O'Bainyear's father moved to these sun-bleached shores to start his new life as a Bahamian. He became William Bain, a new name for a new beginning. He passed that new life to his son, who grew up thinking most of his identity was rooted in the Bahamas. Then he realized it wasn't. ''I didn't know anyone who was a Bain,'' said O'Bainyear, 48, a telecommunications expert who in 1984 reached into his father's past and changed his name back to its Haitian roots. ``I consider myself 75-percent Bahamian, 25-percent Haitian.'' Therein lies the struggle of the Haitian-Bahamian community: Many feel unable to celebrate fully who they are in a country where Haitians remain marginalized.

There's a reason I referred to Rwanda, below. Here on this side of the world, where hate so often wears a face that's different from ours, we need reminding that it's not the sole provenance of paleskin people.We need reminding that civil war isn't just the provenance of people on the other side of oceans.We need reminding that to turn against "immigrants" is to turn against outselves. The O'Bainyard in the Herald article isn't the only Bahamian whose roots are planted in Haiti. Until we remember we are all immigrants, we are all vulnerable.

The Universal Black Constant

So I'm browsing Nalo Hopkinson's blog, and I find this link to Kwasi's Ramblings of an African Geek, and I come across this post. It's definitely worth a read.