A portrait of Queen Victoria's ex-slave goddaughter is going on display in historic English mansion


Written by
Eoin McSweeney, CNNLondon

A painting of an African ex-slave who became Queen Victoria's goddaughter has been unveiled at Osborne, the seaside home of the former British monarch.
The work, by Hannah Uzor, is part of a series of portraits detailing the lives of previously overlooked Black figures that will be commissioned by the charity English Heritage.

The painting of Bonetta by artist Hannah Uzor (pictured with painting) is on display at Osborne throughout October during Black History Month. Credit: Christopher Ison/English Heritage

It depicts Sarah Forbes Bonetta in her wedding dress and is based on a photograph in the National Portrait Gallery in London. It will be on display in Osborne throughout October, which is Black History Month in the UK.

Bonetta was the daughter of an African ruler who was orphaned and sold into slavery at the age of five, according to English Heritage, which cares for more than 400 historic buildings, monuments and sites.

Originally named Omoba Aina, she was presented as a "diplomatic gift" to a captain of the British navy, Frederick Forbes, and brought to England.

Some months after her arrival in England, Forbes presented Bonetta to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. The UK's second longest-serving monarch wrote in her journal in 1851 that Bonetta was "really an intelligent little thing." Forbes described her in the ship's diary as "a perfect genius" with "a great talent for music."

The Queen paid for her education and became her godmother. Bonetta married a Sierra Leone-born merchant, James Davies, in 1862 and their first daughter was named after the monarch, who became her godmother as well.

They remained close throughout Bonetta's life and Victoria continued to follow the progress of her children, whom she met several times. In an 1873 journal entry, Victoria wrote: "Saw Sally Davis' little girl, Victoria who is now 8, & wonderfully like her mother, very black, & with fine eyes."

The grim truth behind Britain's stately homes

When Bonetta died in 1880, the younger Victoria sought comfort from the Queen in Osborne, English Heritage said in a statement on Wednesday.

"Through my art, I'm interested in exploring those forgotten black people in British history, people such as Sarah," said Uzor. "What I find interesting about Sarah is that she challenges our assumptions about the status of black women in Victorian Britain. I was also drawn to her because of the parallels with my own family and my children, who share Sarah's Nigerian heritage."

English Heritage said it plans to display more portraits next spring of other Black figures with links to some of the historic sites under its care. These include Rome's African-born emperor Septimius Severus, who reinforced Hadrian's Wall, and James Chappell, a servant at Kirby Hall, who saved the owner's life.

"These stories reach far back and we're keen to represent their voices too," Anna Eavis, English Heritage's curatorial director, told CNN on Wednesday. "It's important and possible to have visual images act as a vehicle to the many instances in which this island has welcomed or received different cultures."

'Price of blood': Financial London's grim history revealed in new tour

Black history is "part of English history" she added and English Heritage's portrait series is part of research into links between the slave trade and the sites in the charity's care. From 2021, new interpretation at certain sites will emphasize those links.

The news comes after another charity, National Trust, admitted in an interim report in September that 93 historic places in its care have links with colonialism and slavery. Some 26 of English Heritage's properties have links to the slave trade, a 2007 report commissioned by the charity showed.

"The black history of Britain is by its nature a global history," said British historian David Olusoga in his book "Black and British: A Forgotten History," adding: "Yet too often it is seen as being only the history of migration, settlement and community formation in Britain itself."

In an essay he presented on BBC radio last year, he said Bonetta's story was "so remarkable" that he "found it difficult to believe when he first came across it."

Published 7th October 2020

"You cannot kill the working class"

WORKING CLASS HISTORY
PRIMARY DOCUMENTS #CPUSA
I LOVE THE TITLE OF THIS PAMPHLET
"You cannot kill the working class,"
by Herndon, Angelo, 1913-1997.
https://archive.org/details/youCannotKillTheWorkingClass
a pamphlet by a CP activist who became a cause celeb when he was arrested in Georgia for "inciting insurrection"
Topics African Americans. Working class -- Southern States. Communism -- United States. Herndon, Angelo, 1913-1997.
Publisher [New York : International Labor Defense and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights,
ITS THE #BLM OF ITS TIME

Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line
https://www.marxists.org/…/…/proletarian-cause/article13.htm
Proletarian Cause
N. Sanders
Let Me Live! a book review
* * *
Editor’s Note
Angelo Herndon was a great hero of the Afro-American people and of the United States working class. The fact that a hero as great as Angelo Herndon emerged in the South during the twenties and thirties is testimony to the high- level of struggle waged by the masses of Black and white people in the South.
We must encourage the study of past working class struggles in the United States and bring back to life the examples of past working class heroes such as Herndon. The U.S. ruling class has carried out a campaign to deny the masses of people in the United States their true heroes and their revolutionary history. Periods such as the twenties and thirties in this country are periods of class struggle that showed to the whole world and ourselves the great power, unity, and revolutionary spirit of the American working class. It is this revolutionary spirit and revolutionary history that the capitalists would have us forget.

Let Me Live
Angelo Herndon
Introduction by Marlon B. Ross
The passionate prison autobiography of Angelo Herndon, Communist union organizer of the 1930s
Description
Series Class : Culture
Let Me Live tells the remarkable story of Angelo Herndon, a coal miner who worked as a labor organizer in Alabama and Georgia in the 1930s. Herndon led a racially integrated march of the unemployed in 1932 and was subsequently arrested when Communist Party literature was found in his bedroom. His trial made only small headlines at first, but eventually an international campaign to free him emerged, thanks to the efforts of the Communist Party and of labor unions interested in protecting the right to organize in the South. Herndon was finally set free by the U.S. Supreme Court, with the help of well-known leaders including C. Vann Woodward, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Whitney North Seymour, Sr.
https://www.press.umich.edu/208151/let_me_live

Review: ‘Let Me Live’
Chris Jones
MAY 4, 1998 | 12:00AM PT
This startling and abrasive prison drama by the author of "I Am a Man" (slated for future broadcast on HBO) is an impressive addition to the growing canon of an African-American playwright increasing in prominence and influence. Bleak and depressing themes, extensive onstage violence and raunchy language will doubtless limit future productions to those theaters with a taste for controversy and adventure. But this fictionalized treatment of the real-life experiences of Angelo Herndon in a 1932 Georgia jail is a searing piece of theater with the capacity to profoundly disturb even the most complacent audience member (and with the right ensemble of actors, it would make a startling movie).

COVERS FOR LET ME LIVE
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/…/510d47db-d7dc-a3d9-e0…

ANGELO HERNDON
PAPERS
The New York Public Library
Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture
515 Malcolm Blvd.
New York, New York 10037
In 1936, Herndon became a member of the Executive Committee of the Youth Branch of the National Negro Congress. His autobiography, Let Me Live, was published by Random House in early 1937. Writing in the Harlem edition of the Communist Party newspaper, The Worker (July 14, 1949), Abner Berry called him “one of the most celebrated of American political prisoners... greeted by the President of the United States, [and] entertained on the White House lawn by Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt.” Herndon worked subsequently for the Daily Worker, co-edited the short-lived Negro Quarterly: a Review of Negro Life and Culture with Ralph Ellison (1942-1943), and was the editor-in-chief of The People’s Advocate, a biweekly newspaper published in 1944 by the Negro Publication Society of America. He left the Party shortly thereafter and relocated to the Midwest. He
apparently changed his name around 1937 to Eugene Braxton. He died in 1997. http://archives.nypl.org/…/col…/pdf_finding_aid/scmmg124.pdf

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: REMEMBERING ANGELO HERNDON
Posted on February 23, 2011 by David L. Hudson Jr.
During Black History Month, we should remember those who had the courage to face government opposition — even imprisonment — for their convictions.
Imagine, for example, the bravery of a young black man who traveled to the South to enlist members for the Communist Party in the early 1930s. The Chicago Defender called him a “young Communist martyr.”
http://www.newseuminstitute.org/…/black-history-month-reme…/

History & Archaeology
Civil Rights & Modern Georgia, Since 1945
Angelo Herndon Case
Original entry by Edward A. Hatfield, New Georgia Encyclopedia, 08/14/2009
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/…/hi…/angelo-herndon-case

Angelo Herndon: "LET ME LIVE"
http://books.google.com/books?id=75Fvul4dNMwC&printsec=...
At Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Herndon

UNZ REPRINT SERVICES PDF COPIES OF REVIEWS
OF LET ME LIVE FROM 1937
http://www.unz.org/Pub/HerndonAngelo-1937

“History” as Ideology: the Case of Angelo Herndon
As an African-American Communist in total dedication to the liberation of the working class and other oppressed peoples, Angelo Herndon’s 1937 autobiography, Let Me Live, brought a fresh perspective that challenged the traditional themes carried in both black slave and uplift narratives and white proletarian literature. Herndon’s story grants readers powerful insight into the many ways African-Americans experienced the Great Depression era, how they felt, thought, and interacted with the social and economic vagaries of American capitalism. In addition, the story of Angelo Herndon represents the emergence of a new experience for African-African organizers – political imprisonment. Yet, regardless of its unique contribution and power innovations, Let Me Live fell out of publication and into obscurity for decades. While Herndon’s story fallen has into obscurity, other accounts of black oppression have become standard history curriculum and part of popular consciousness. At the time, Herndon’s case received just as much attention as the case of the Scottsboro Boys, and, yet, today, the Scottsboro case is the approved representation of black victimization taught in “History” classes, while Herndon’s case remains largely unknown. However, the practice of only admitting certain parts of the past into institutional memory is no mystery. Angelo Herndon has not been incorporated into “History,” for his autobiography was and still is a subversion to several dominant American mythologies, including the mythologies of black male victimization, black male achievement, and the idea of black labor, which made it irreconcilable with the existing superstructure and a threat to the dominating systems of power.
https://daretostruggle.wordpress.com/…/%E2%80%9Chistory%E2…/

#LABORHISTORY #LABOR #LABOUR #LABOURHISTORY#WORKINGCLASS #WORKINGCLASSHISTORY #CPUSA

Opinion: As GOP governors obscure Black history, let’s finally tell the truth about Marcus Garvey

Opinion by Justin Hansford • Thursday

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden called out the GOP for “trying to hide the truth” about Black history. While politicians like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin have described their efforts to reform education as bans on teaching critical race theory, in reality, these bans have been invoked to prohibit teaching elements of American history, especially Black history.


Justin Hansford - Courtesy Justin Hansford

Shaq Al-Hijaz - Courtesy Shaq Al-Hijaz

The suppression of stories integral to the American narrative not only robs us of important historical lessons, but also warps our vision of ourselves and our future — and makes all of our lives less rich.

With some of this country’s most powerful political figures trying to obscure the story of Black history, now is a good time to tell the true stories of Black leaders in America — particularly ones like Marcus Garvey, who was the subject of injustice and distortion. Known superficially as a “Back to Africa” advocate (as in, repatriating Black people to the African continent), Garvey actually founded what might well have been the largest human rights campaign in the history of the African Diaspora. At its zenith, Garvey’s organization boasted a membership of at least 6 million people with chapters registered in more than 40 nations. It provided inspiration for the life’s work of many important Black leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

The Jamaican-born Garvey energized millions by calling for an end to colonialism in Africa, for economic justice for the entire African Diaspora and for cultural and political recognition and independence 100 years ago — a time when such declarations were just about unheard of.

As part of his push to provide economic opportunity and autonomy for Black people, Garvey started the Black-owned and -operated Black Star Line shipping company, stylized after the White Star Line, which owned the Titanic. Garvey’s ships, in theory, could have helped transport Black people back to Africa, facilitated trade throughout the diaspora and instilled pride while providing a vision of economic empowerment.

Instead, Garvey’s movement splintered in the summer of 1923, when a federal judge in the southern district of New York convicted him of mail fraud for sending out advertisements for the purchase of stock in the Black Star Line, even though the shipping company was failing economically. The government not only accused Garvey of seeking to sell stock for too high of a price, but it insinuated that Garvey’s entire career was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme designed to make a quick buck.

To the contrary, historians have for decades believed that Garvey was framed for political reasons. Indeed, as one of us has documented, the entire legal process dripped with injustice and animosity toward Garvey. For example, both the trial judge and an appellate judge were conspicuously friendly with Garvey’s political opponents.

In fact, even the initial charges can be traced directly to espionage and efforts to infiltrate the Black Star Line by J. Edgar Hoover, who hired some of the first-ever Black Bureau of Investigation agents in order to stop any “Black Moses” figures like Garvey from succeeding. Hoover wrote about his search to find a charge that would allow the government to deport Garvey, settling on mail fraud when other grounds for charges were unsuccessful.

After thousands of Garvey’s followers (the supposed victims of the fraud) petitioned for his release, his sentence was commuted in 1927. Ultimately, after Garvey’s political vision had been silenced, advocates for racial justice in the United States and abroad began to focus less on economic justice and more on civil and political rights for most of the 20th century. Today, the widening wealth gap and other indicators of inequality suggest that this shift in focus was costly.

Now Democratic Rep. Yvette D. Clarke of New York, first vice-chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia are trying to set the historical record straight, recognizing the weight of evidence supporting Garvey’s innocence and identifying him as a champion for the liberation of people of African descent.

“The world deserves to know the truth about Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the truth about Black history,” Clarke declared in introducing the resolution to exonerate the civil rights leader. Johnson added that “it’s time to right this fundamental wrong” given the “utter lack of merit to the charges on which he was originally convicted, combined with his profound legacy and contributions to Black history in our country.”

To be sure, Garvey’s record involves some controversial decisions. This includes meeting with the KKK, asserting correctly that, during the 1920s, they had a strong voice in the US government. But this cannot stand in the way of learning about Garvey’s true history and exonerating him. This is more than simply an exercise in historical truth telling and providing justice for his family, although both are immensely important.

Garvey’s legacy is also relevant today because we see the same tactics — espionage and politically motivated charges — being deployed against Black leaders attempting to organize against the status quo. For example, Black Lives Matter protesters were designated as Black Identity Extremists by the FBI, and informants were inserted into their movement spaces in 2020 after the George Floyd uprisings.

As a society, we have failed to learn from Garvey’s story. That’s largely because mainstream narratives rarely teach about his legacy, and when they do, they usually fail to correct the historical inaccuracies promulgated by his wrongful conviction. By failing to learn the lessons from Garvey’s case, and by underestimating the harm of politically motivated infiltration and prosecution, we open the door to continuing these policies and practices. And this will result in shame for years to come.

Posthumous vindication for Garvey would begin the process of acknowledging that political sabotage from the government is antidemocratic and inherently wrong. And at a time when a battle is being waged against teachers and schools that dare discuss the African American experience, including threatening the banning of AP African American Studies in Florida, exonerating Garvey would be an important response. It would be a clear sign of resistance to revisionist history and the urge to promote versions of the past that fail to look critically at our path to the present.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

BLACK STAKEHOLDER CAPITALI$M

Black Economic Consciousness: Using the Greenwood District model as the blueprint

Opinion: O.W. Gurley’s investments in Greenwood's Black Wall Street is an economic model of community determination, economic power, and resilience

Dr. Lakeysha Hallmon
May 31, 2021

The “Black Wall Street” sign is seen during the Juneteenth celebration in the Greenwood District on June 19, 2020 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Photo by Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images)

When O.W. Gurley, a wealthy African American from Arkansas, moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and purchased over 40 acres of land, he committed to selling said land to Black people only. His investments would become an economic model of community determination, economic power, and resilience known now to us as Black Wall Street.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Black dollar circulated 19 to 36 times, staying in the community for almost a year. Black prosperity was a lived experience for thousands of Black Oklahomans, many transplants, seeking refuge and liberation from the suffocating grip of the South.

When I saw the 2018 film Black Panther, I saw a futuristic version of those all-Black American towns that embodied the core principles of Black Wall Street — wealth circulation and creating an economic system that was for us, by us. However, Black Wall Street was not solely derived from imagination. It was an economically thriving community, built from necessity and sheer determination.

Historian Hannibal Johnson describes the experience for Black residents in many cities across the country as one where we “were shut out of the mainstream economy.” The Greenwood District, comprising 35 blocks, was derived from a vision to intentionally create pathways for economic stability and acceleration for the Black residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Vision and intentionality led Greenwood District to become one the most successful — and until recently — lesser-known Black enclaves in America’s history.

Greenwood District also known as “Black Wall Street.”

 (Photo: Black Wall Street Times)

I first learned of Black Wall Street during my matriculation at Tougaloo College, a private HBCU in Jackson, Mississippi. I remember sitting in Dr. William Woods‘s African American history class. He, the quintessential HBCU professor, shared his genius, often with a book in hand that he never opened. With gentle candor, he painted the colorful history of this prosperous district in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I can still see how his voice lifted Black banks, Black theaters, Black insurance agencies, Black beauty salons, and Black ownership from the ashes of a massacre and made them come to life for a class of hungry and deprived minds.

Yet, as Dr. Woods’s lectures reminded us, America’s history has proven that as Black communities ascend, peril is imminent and wholly devastating.

On May 30, 1921, I imagine the day started like many days before. It was Spring. Birds chirped. Rudbeckias, irises, and peonies were in full bloom. Business owners opened their shops. Fathers read The Tulsa Star. Handshakes, head nods, loved ones were kissed, boys ragging on each other, children running up and down the street, mothers calling do not mess up your school clothes, shoes being shined, and babies coming into a world innocent and unaware were born.

Wikimedia: Tulsa Race Riot

America is filled with juxtaposition.

Also on May 30, 1921, Dick Rowland would be accused of assaulting a white woman on an elevator. Within the next 48 hours, led by a bigoted white mob, one of the most horrific massacres in America’s history would take place. Hundreds of Black people killed, flames dancing across family photos as thousands of homes burned to the ground. Hundreds of businesses were destroyed as hate ripped a community and an economy apart. The final insult –erasure from American history books.

The consistent under-told narrative in America’s history entails the horrific aftermaths of white resentment when white American’s economic power is threatened. As detailed in The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap, whether it be Tulsa, Oklahoma, Durham or Wilmington, North Carolina, when Black people have done the impossible act of pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps, we have been bombed, our dreams have been burned. Policies have been written to create seemingly impassable barriers and oppressive infrastructure has been built to dismantle our progression. We find ourselves endeavoring, always yet again striving to create legacies from trauma and ashes.

Read More: 100 years after Tulsa Massacre, fight remains for insurance companies to pay up

Dr. Maya Angelou once said, “the more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.” Knowing my history led to my current work as the CEO and founder of the Village Market. Black Wall Street is my blueprint. I am driven by O.W. Gurley’s prolific example of collective consciousness and upward mobility.

Without hard numbers, based on the economic strength of the Greenwood District, it is still evident that the greater money circulation in a community, advances economic mobility and opportunities for land, commercial, business, homeownership and wealth creation within a community. 

Home construction continues at a housing development where building had been dramatically slowed during the recession on December 22, 2009 in Santa Clarita, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

Black ecosystem building is not a thing of the past. It’s what Black Americans should presently lean into and many are. Establishing a community-driven model that is focused on boosting the Black economy has facilitated the exchange of $5.3 million from the Village Market directly to Black businesses. As businesses shuttered during the pandemic, the Village Market opened a collective retail space, the Village Retail, that houses over 30 rotating Black-owned businesses in one of the most successful shopping districts in Atlanta.

It’s thriving. It’s thriving because it’s built intentionally for the advancement of Black businesses with verticals in place that directly connect the businesses to tangible resources, provide access to industry leaders, and open knowledge sharing by way of our retail readiness academy and our ELEVATE program. During the pandemic, businesses have witnessed a surge in sales and an increase in social engagement.

One company indicates that before joining Village Retail, their average sales were between $300 to $500 per month. Being featured in the retail store, the sales skyrocketed by 3761.7%, with an average monthly sales of $11,585 in November and December. In 2021, the monthly sales average so far is $7,804, still a significant increase from prior sales before participation in Village Retail (2501.3%).

Weathered Not Worn data indicates, 175% increase in sales and Love Ground shares that their website page views have also increased by 65.7%. We are positioning Black businesses directly to a larger ecosystem of consumers. More importantly, Black businesses experience the safety of a beloved community that only aspires for collective success.

Intentionally building and buying Black are two important ways to ensure Black communities survive. Community land trust and community ownership models such as the Guild and organizations like Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative and RICE are pathways to build community wealth and preserve historic Black neighborhoods. Establishing funds such as the Fearless Fund and Collab Capital ensures that Black founders receive the capital they need to scale their businesses. Shared ownership models are another way to create wealth, establish ownership and determine what happens within a community.

Tracey Pickett, founder and CEO of Hairbrella and Jewel Burks Solomon, managing partner of Collab Capital, and I partnered to purchase a commercial property in Castleberry District, which is a historic Black community in Atlanta. Moving Black communities from surviving to thriving, takes collective ingenuity, collaboration, and the willingness to strategically build in tandem.

What I know to be true, vision is often rooted in our ancestors who whisper to us in dream states, telling us what to build and how to build. Always in my dreams, I see shared prosperity, and us building like O.W. Gurley did — intentionally together.



Dr. Lakeysha Hallmon is a transformational leader, speaker, educator and the Founder and CEO of The Village Market, an Atlanta based business dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs by connecting them to engaged consumers, impactful resources and investors. A leader in bringing national exposure to black-owned businesses, The Village Market reaches small businesses in 21 states and 4 countries and has an official partnership with The Bahamas.

SEE PROUDHON ON PEOPLES BANKING 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36744742-proudhon-and-his-bank-of-the-people

New poll shows WHITE Americans at odds over Black history

Andrew Romano
·West Coast Correspondent
Fri, February 10, 2023 

FATHER OF AMERICAN SOCIOLOGY; WEB DUBOIS

A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that white Americans are just as likely to favor (40%) as to oppose (41%) a ban on teaching Advanced Placement courses in African American studies in public schools — the same sort of ban that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis recently threatened to implement in Florida, unleashing a storm of national controversy.

In contrast, Black Americans (65% oppose, 20% favor) and Democrats (70% oppose, 19% favor) are far more resistant to a DeSantis-style ban. Yet because white Americans outnumber Americans of color — and because a full 58% of DeSantis’s fellow Republicans support a ban — the overall number of Americans who are against banning AP African American studies (46%) does not even clear the 50% mark.

The rest of the country either favors a ban (34%) or isn’t sure (20%).

The survey of 1,585 U.S. adults, conducted during the first week of Black History Month, offers a striking reminder that America is increasingly at odds over what Black history even means — and who should learn what, when.

The issue has become predictably polarized in the wake of DeSantis’s recent efforts to block an AP draft framework that he repeatedly likened to “indoctrination.”

“This course on Black history, what’s one of the lessons about? Queer theory,” DeSantis said last month. “Now who would say that an important part of Black history is queer theory? That is somebody pushing an agenda".

Books for students taking AP African American studies at Overland High School in Aurora, Colo. (RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

In response, critics have explained that the concepts (Black queer studies, intersectionality, Black Lives Matter) and scholars (bell hooks, Angela Davis, Ta-Nehisi Coates) that DeSantis slammed as “divisive” are in fact, as an article in Vox put it, “core to modern Black studies and essential to include in any college-level survey class” (which AP courses are meant to emulate).

“[These are] complicated works of sociology and philosophy. They’re highly contested polemics,” Joshua Zeitz wrote in Politico. “We read them to sharpen our capacity for analysis and argument. Contra Gov. DeSantis, being assigned a text is not an exercise in indoctrination.”

Regardless, the College Board announced last week that it had removed the contested material from the finalized curriculum.

The new Yahoo News/YouGov poll suggests that Republicans will be happy with that decision and Democrats will not. A full 65% of 2020 Donald Trump voters favored the initial Florida ban; even more Joe Biden voters (75%) opposed it. But when asked about the revised curriculum — which no longer includes “contemporary topics such as Black Lives Matter, incarceration, queer life and the debate over reparations” — the numbers flipped, with most Trump voters now saying they favor offering the AP course (53%) and a plurality of Biden voters saying they oppose it (44%).

These gaps reflect a deeper divide between Republicans and Democrats — and, to a degree, between white and black Americans — over the role of race in America today. The right largely believes that racism is now personal, the product of one individual discriminating against another. The rest of the country mostly agrees that racism is still systemic, a force that continues to harm people of color, regardless of how isolated individuals treat them.

An AP African American studies class at Baton Rouge Magnet High School in Baton Rouge, La. (AP Photo/Stephen Smith)

Asked if there is “a problem with systemic racism in America,” nearly every demographic group says yes more often than not: Democrats (by a 63-point margin), Black Americans (by a 61-point margin), adults under 30 (by a 28-point margin), independents (by a 26-point margin) and even white Americans (by a 13-point margin). Overall, far more Americans say yes, the U.S. has a problem with systemic racism (54%) than say no, it does not (30%).

The only groups that say no more often than not are on the right: Republicans (by a 15-point margin) and Trump voters (by a 33-point margin).

As a result, the right — a group that is also disproportionately white — seems to be suspicious of any teachings that suggest systemic racism is a present-day problem and not just a thing of the past.

For instance, the new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows majority approval of “U.S. public schools including lessons on African-American history within the regular U.S. history curriculum” among all Americans (67%), white Americans (65%), Black Americans (79%), Democrats (82%) and Republicans (58%).

Yet Republicans (40%) and white Americans (41%) are far less likely than Democrats (54%) and Black Americans (52%) to say the lessons that “U.S. public school students are currently taught about African-American history” are “appropriate.”

The reason for this wariness becomes clear when respondents are shown a list of specific topics drawn from the AP African American studies draft framework — and then asked to say “which U.S. public high school students you think they are appropriate for: No students, only students enrolled in an Advanced Placement (AP) African-American studies course, or all students.”

While large majorities of Americans say it is appropriate for all students to study subjects drawn from prior centuries — the civil rights movement (74%), the role of slavery in the Civil War (71%), the history of the slave trade (71%), the experience of African Americans during Reconstruction and Jim Crow (59%) — the numbers are much lower for elements of the curriculum that address contemporary debates. And that’s in large part because they are lower among Republicans and white Americans.

Here are some selected topics, along with the numbers of those who say they are not appropriate for any public high school students — even those who choose to take AP African American studies.

● The experience of queer Black Americans (31% of all Americans, 39% of white Americans, 54% of Republicans, 66% of Trump voters)

● Black activism to abolish prisons (29% of all Americans, 38% of white Americans, 50% of Republicans, 61% of Trump voters)

● The Black Lives Matter movement (28% of all Americans, 35% of white Americans, 53% of Republicans, 65% of Trump voters)

● Black feminism (22% of all Americans, 28% of white Americans, 40% of Republicans, 47% of Trump voters)

● The debate over slavery reparations (22% of all Americans, 28% of white Americans, 39% of Republicans, 47% of Trump voters)

Notably, the right’s aversion to “politicized” subjects in African American studies does not extend to one that the College Board just added to its official curriculum as a possible final-project topic: Black conservatism. Just 18% of Republicans and 19% of Trump voters say Black conservatism is not appropriate for any public high school students. About twice as many — 37% and 40%, respectively — say it's appropriate for all high schoolers.

Even with that subject, however, more Democrats and Biden voters — 50% in both cases — say it’s appropriate across the board.

__________

The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,585 U.S. adults interviewed online from Feb. 2 to 6, 2023. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to March 15, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (32% Democratic, 27% Republican). Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.8%.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Black History Month Posts

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Black History Month Posts: Here we are half way through February and half way through Black History Month. Here are my posts from the past dedicated to Black History. ...

Photographer brings to life legendary Black Alberta cowboy John Ware

Sat., February 26, 2022

John Ware was born into slavery and migrated to Canada after the American Civil War.

 (Dickson Obasuyi/Doba Photography - image credit)

Alberta's most legendary Black cowboy was known for his excellent horsemanship, farming skills, and good nature.

Born into slavery, John Ware was one of the first Black people to migrate to the province after gaining his freedom during the American Civil War in 1865. He and his wife Mildred eventually settled down in Millarville, Alta.

Despite the discrimination and racism he faced, Ware became a folk legend in the province.

And he recently inspired an Edmonton photographer with his story.

When planning a project for Black History Month, photographer Dickson Obasuyi came across Ware's story and was instantly captivated.

"His ability to start from scratch and get somewhere, you know, is what every immigrant aims at," Obasuyi told CBC Edmonton's Radio Active. "He picked up a job in a bar, like every immigrant."

Dickson Obasuyi/Doba Photography

Now that he had his muse, Obasuyi conducted a thorough, month-long research.

From the beginning, Obasuyi knew he wanted to recreate the cowboy's story with models who closely resembled the cowboy and his family, in order to portray them as accurately as possible.

"Pictures helped me pick someone with his [Ware] facial features, to play him in my photographs," he said.

Listen here | Photographer recreates the life of John Ware

Obasuyi wanted to portray Ware's story as accurately as possible, which meant he had to find costumes similar to what would have been worn in the late 1800s.

For the photo shoot, Obasuyi sourced a lot of his costumes from Value Village, Kijiji, and the Anything and Everything Vintage boutique in St Albert.

He shot the photos in a location appropriate for visiting the past.

Dickson Obasuyi/Doba Photography

"Luckily when I shared the idea with the Fort Edmonton Park management, they immediately told me the idea was a great one," Obasuyi said.

To show support for the project, the park management allowed Obasuyi to use the venue without charge.

The project kicked off with Obasuyi splitting his time between Fort Edmonton Park and Still Meadows Ranch, east of the city.

"I was a bit worried about the Alberta weather which can be unpredictable," he said. "Because if it got too cold, getting to take outdoor pictures wouldn't be fun. Luckily for us the weather that day was in our favour."

John Ware the immigrant

Ware left a long and lasting legacy in his adopted home. Fellow cowboys remembered him long after his death.

Legend goes he could train the wildest broncos, and brand an 18-month-old steer by throwing it onto its back.

But to immigrants, Ware's story is one of perseverance, hard work and motivation.

"John and Mildred's story is a true story of hard work, hope, focus, patience, determination and humility, which — with a bit of luck — led to success," said Obasuyi.

"A true immigrant story, a real example of success that anyone can achieve with a positive mindset."

Scroll through this 11-shot photo galllery:

Ware established himself and his 9999 (four-nines) or walking-stick cattle brand successfully in Western Canada.

His name is echoed across the province still, especially in southern Alberta where he ranched. In 2012, Canada Post issued a stamp in Ware's honour for Black History Month.

Obasuyi initially picked up his camera to start a hobby during the pandemic. Pretty soon after that, he began Doba Photography and fell in love with narrative storytelling through photography.

His project, "A John Ware Story," is his second visual series as a photographer.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.

Canadian Ethnic media provides added perspectives on “Freedom Convoy”

Over the last week, from Feb 3. to 10, various ethnic media outlets offered a wider range of perspectives on three hot-button issues that have dominated mainstream headlines.

From the so-called Freedom Convoy, to Erin O’Toole’s ousting as leader of the Conservative Party, to the Black History Month, ethnic media provided coverage that went beyond the usual suspects interviewed by the mainstream.

By elevating different cultural perspectives, opinions and narratives, ethnic media was able to provide coverage that offers a fuller understanding of the issues at play. NCM has worked with MIREMS to bring readers these added perspectives.

The top story in both the mainstream and the ethnic media was the ‘Freedom Convoy’ protesting against vaccine mandates and pandemic restrictions in Ottawa and provincial capitals as well as land border crossings to the U.S. The Romanian paper Faptu Divers, for example, supported the convoy in multiple articles and likened Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu for curtailing people’s freedoms, while the Polish paper Goniec reported that that community provided food for the protesters. The Polish Gazeta, on the other hand, focused on the harassment, racism and misbehaviour of the protesters.

Both the Russian Vancouverovka and Russian Week highlighted comments by CBC host Nil Köksal suggesting that Russian actors are behind the protests because of Canada’s support for Ukraine.

Multiple features on OMNI TV News Filipino focused on the impact the protests had on members of the Filipino community, who reported being afraid to leave their homes because of the harassment from protesters.

A feature on OMNI TV Italian focused on the racist messaging at the protests. G98.7 FM online radio featured responses from the Black parliamentary caucus to the public display of hate symbols, including the Confederate flag as a symbol for slavery.

Punjabi media focused on Punjabi truckers, who make up about a quarter of all Canadian truckers, and the hardships of the industry. OMNI News Punjabi featured some Punjabis among the protesters, who emphasized that they are against the mandates, not the vaccine, and object to protesters being silenced and insulted as extremists.

Several other features on OMNI Punjabi focused on Punjabi truckers who are stuck on the U.S. side of the Canadian border by Coutts, Alberta and by Windsor, Ontario. These truckers had to reportedly live in their trucks for days without access to food or medical supplies and were unable to do their jobs, deliver their goods and attend to personal commitments back home. Several other features highlighted that the Punjabi truckers have other priorities.

According to ethnic media reports, most Punjabi truckers are vaccinated, as vaccine coverage in the Punjabi community is high. Their priorities are around road safety, snow clearance, road maintenance, as well as working conditions and wage theft.

In fact, the West Coast Trucking Association organized a separate protest in January to demand better road maintenance on B.C. highways, which has not been mentioned by anyone taking part at the ‘Freedom Convoy.’ One trucker started an online fundraiser to “Support Canada’s real struggling truckers,” which had raised $7,866 as of Feb. 9, according to OMNI Punjabi.

Another top story was the Conservative leadership race.

Coverage reflected the vote to oust Erin O’Toole, the selection of Candice Bergen as interim leader, the candidacy of Pierre Poilievre, and speculations around other potential candidates such as Premier Doug Ford, Mayor Patrick Brown, Peter MacKay and Jean Charest.

However, the race took a particular spin in the Chinese media, where it was coloured by perceptions of the Conservative party’s hostility towards China. Erin O’Toole was perceived to be extremely anti-China, which may have lost the Conservatives several constituencies with a significant Chinese population in the last election, as Ming Pao Toronto reported on Feb. 3.

Reports reflect that Chinese media were relieved and delighted at O’Toole’s ousting, because having him as prime minister would, in their view, further increase discrimination and hate against the Chinese diaspora, according to reports from Van People.

And according to a report on Sing Tao Vancouver, Lin Wen, co-founder of the Canadian Chinese Political Affairs Council, figured that no matter who the new Conservative leader is, the Conservative Party’s China policy will not be changed.

Another topic that has more prominence in the ethnic media than in the mainstream has been Black History Month.

In the mainstream, Black History Month was covered either from a bird’s-eye view of its significance, sometimes with reference to event listings, or with a focus on statements by political leaders, from the Prime Minister to local mayors. It also looked at ceremonies like flag-raisings and museum exhibits. Some contributions feature a Black author or a celebrity like Lincoln Alexander.

The ethnic media, on the other hand, were more focused on issues of concern to and activities arising within the Black community.

The radio station G 98.7 FM and OMNI TV reported in depth on the BE-STEMM 2022 virtual conference organized by the Canadian Black Scientists Network. The network has found that there are few Blacks in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) because Black students are not encouraged to pursue these areas in school. The network aims to open doors for Black people in Canada and around the world, as G 98.7 FM and OMNI TV Focus Punjabi reported on Feb. 4.

Another talk show on G 98.7 FM was devoted to a discussion on COVID with members of the Black Scientists’ Task Force on Vaccine Equity. According to the task force, the Black community is over-exposed to COVID because many cannot work from home, have to commute on public transit, work in customer service or care-giving jobs, and have underlying health conditions putting them at greater risk, such as hypertension, diabetes and asthma.

School disruption was also discussed as something that wreaks more havoc for Black and low-income children’s learning than for other groups. At the same time, Blacks are under-vaccinated because they distrust the authorities, information is not communicated to them appropriately, and they are targets of racialized disinformation using specific triggers from their historical experience.

Often, ethnic media highlights issues of concern to a community that are either not reflected in the mainstream media or which are only picked up by it after they circulate in the ethnic media for a while.

One such example was a story about the Hindu community in B.C. protesting against a new small business owner who is using an image of Lord Ganesh along with profane language in her logo.

Community members, including about 40 organizations, are gathering signatures to have her stop using either the image or the wording, have approached local MLAs and MPs, held a protest at the Hindu temple, and are looking into legal action and mounting a PR campaign on social media.

They feel this is cultural appropriation, Hinduphobia and racism, and they want a new law to protect Hindu culture. MP Sukh Dhaliwal attended the protest and said Canada is a diverse country and that we should celebrate each other’s culture and faith. He was going to approach the Heritage Minister and Prime Minister about this.

The story broke on the indiansinvancouver.ca blog on Jan. 31 and then on the Desibuzz Canada news website on Feb. 4. It was only then that it was picked up by CBC Vancouver on Feb. 6 as a report about the protest at the temple and by the Punjabi station Zee TV on Feb. 8.

This article has been produced in collaboration with MIREMS Multilingual Research and Ethnic Media Services, which provided summaries from print, web and broadcast news platforms in a variety of languages.

Fernando Arce, with files from the NCM News Desk, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, New Canadian Media

Left Communism and Trotskyism

Loren Goldner has published a four way debate between left communists on Left Communism and Trotskyism that is a very interesting read. And for those of you who read Le Revue Gauche, he begins his email looking at CLR James whom I blogged about in February for Black History Month.

Left Communism and Trotskyism: A Roundtable (2007)

The following is a round-table which took place in March 2007. The common thread is the question of whether the terms of the debate emerging from the years 1917-1923, codified today in different variants of "left communism" and "Trotskyism" have any practical meaning today. Three of the participants (Loren, Amiri and Will, live in the U.S.; the fourth, Yves, lives in France. We decided to make the proceedings public in hope that they are of use to others interested in these questions.

You are familiar with James's rather unusual take on the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, expounded here but actually stated better in his masterpiece Notes on Dialectics (which I highly recommend). For James, Lenin was almost a spontaneist, a party-builder yes, but after he bit the Hegelian apple in 1914, was in another universe from What Is To Be Done?, which he repudiated ca. 1909 (following the events of 1905). James sees TROTSKY as the problem, for having continued Lenin's pre-1917 conceptions into the new period in which they were superseded (all this is laid out in the two texts on James on my web site http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner). For James, bureaucratic capitalism after the defeat of the Russian Revolution teaches "everyone" the truth of capitalism, so the party is no longer necessary, as witnessed by Hungary '56, France '68 and Poland 80-81. It's so simple it's charming, I guess. But the Marxist organization, for reasons never explained well, is still necessary, not to organize the workers, mind you, but to organize the Marxists. This is (as I say in those two texts on my web site Break Their Haughty Power) where they lose me, namely saying on one hand that the "whole class has become (and therefore superceded) the party" but at the same it is necessary to organize the Marxists because the working class needs them. For what?

But again, I digress. What I really wanted to write you about is my inability, 90 years on, to shake free of the Russian Revolution. Symptoms: in Ulsan (South Korea) in December, the worker group there asked me to speak on the differences between Rosa and Lenin, which I did (not terribly well, and with a very mediocre interpreter). In no time we were deep into a two-hour discussion of what happened in Russia in the 20's (the agrarian question). And this was not some cadaverous nostalgia piece as might be served up at an Spartacist League meeting, but with intense back-and-forth and questions and furious note-taking. The point is that no matter where you start out, somehow the question of "what went wrong in Russia" comes front and center. (In January, the Kronstadt debate erupted in Korea. A leading member of the British SWP-affiliated All Together group published a large theoretical work with a defense of Trotsky. This resulted in more "hue and cry over Kronstadt" in the press.

Is this just me or is it still contemporary reality?

ALSO SEE

Trotskyist Cults

LaRouche Takes Over Vive le Canada

Fukuyama Denounces War In Iraq

IWD: Raya Dunayevskaya

Black History Month; C.L.R. James

Bureaucratic Collectivist Capitalism

State Capitalism in the USSR

Red Baiting Chomsky

Trotskyism

State Capitalism

Trotskyist

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