ghadafi, frantz fanon and marcus garvey: visions for africa

Mickey Boston: Ghadafi, Frantz Fanon and Marcus Garvey: Visions for Africa

egypt and race

The Root has some interesting pieces on race relations in Egypt. First there is the blatantly-titled Egypt's Race Problem by Sunni M. Khalid which details some of the challenges, assumptions, and indignities faced by blacks (especially from sub-Saharan Africa) in Egypt. Secondly there is An African American in Egypt by Wendell Hassan Marsh with more of the same.

um... so is newt gingrich trying to defend white imperialism?

How Obama Thinks by Dinesh D'Souza is the original piece which started this mess. In it, D'Souza, rather presumptuously tries to psychoanalyze Obama and explain his foreign and domestic policy decision in terms of the "anticolonial" (read "foreign", "unAmerican", "socialist") dreams of his father. The piece also strikes me as unnecessarily insulting in parts.

Here is the National Review piece with Newt Gingrich's comments on the issue: Gingrich: Obama’s ‘Kenyan, anti-colonial’ worldview

And here is a report from the Huffington Post: Newt Gingrich Slammed For Saying Obama May Hold 'Kenyan, Anti-Colonial' Worldview

book talk: the african caliphate

A discussion of The African Caliphate : The Life, Works, and Teaching of Shaykh Usman Dan Fodio (1754 - 1817) by Ibraheem Sulaiman

Summary: This scholarly work focuses on the establishment in 1809, in what is today Northern Nigeria, of the celebrated Sokoto caliphate, which may well have been the last re-establishment, anywhere in the world, of Islam in its entirety, comprising all its many and varied dimensions.

"it doesn't end with a period, it ends with a comma"

Heru: The Epic African Drama

recovering luqman the wise

Magari Aziza: Recovering Luqman the Wise brings together some interesting materials and insights on the person of Luqman, one of the pious people of African descent mentioned in the Quran.

"mr. don't touch the banana"

see also:
(re)writing osun
"you can't keep me out of my own house"
santeria and islam

sufi rap

The Naqshbandi-Haqqani media library gives this clip the title of African Salawat / Rap / Hadrah I've been to the Burton masjid before for other activities (Eid prayer, dhikr) but apparently I missed hip-hop night.

See also sufi breakdancing.

planet grenada and islam and hip-hop

Over at Goatmilk, Wajahat Ali recently posted an in depth piece entitled: Fear of a Muslim Planet:Hip-Hop’s Hidden History by Naeem Mohaiemen on the historical connections between Islam and hip-hop. It made me want to do put together a sampling of Grenada posts on the same subject.

Pieces range from

a simple list:
an old list of rappers and their religion

to specific peeks at particular Muslim hip-hop artists:
digging below the underground
more on lupe fiasco
one.be.lo - s.o.n.o.g.r.a.m.
de la soul
ali shaheed muhammad
whatever happened to q-tip?
boricua rappers drop anti-imperialist album

to discussions of Islam's presence in pre-hip-hop African-American music:
the last poets
muslim roots of american blues
all that jazz...

to broader more "sociological"discussions of the phenomena of Muslim hip-hop across different musical groups:
verily, there is only one hip-hop umma
al-ahram does a story on muslim hip-hop
more on muslims and hip-hop
hisham aidi

to pieces which focus more on the Muslim community and speak about the music in mostly general terms:
new age jahiliyyah
islam and hip-hop
traditional islam for the hip-hop generation

to more regional-based posts...

on African Muslims doing hip-hop (whether in Europe or the Continent)
in bleak projects, emerging culture
daara j brings rap back to its african roots

or Arab and Arab-American hip-hop:
rap the casbah
(global) southern girl
representin' the west (bank)

or Asian-related hip-hop:
an african american muslim convert as the founder of chinese hip-hop
afro-asian crosscurrents in contemporary hip-hop

Enjoy.

mancala

For reasons I don't want to get into right now I've been thinking a lot about mathematics education, especially in the Black community. In that vein, I want to make a plug for using mancala games (sowing games or count-and-capture games) as a tool in the classroom and elsewhere to stimulate greater interest in mathematics, logical reasoning and strategy among Black youth.

Firstly, many of the games in this category are Afican in origin and are commonly played in Africa or the diaspora so the the games would be able synergize well with any other Afrocentric content which was part of the school curriculum. (Some of these games are also popular in Asia. E.g, recently a friend of mine sent me a picture of a Malaysian coin which has the image of one of these games on one of its sides.)

Secondly, the games are almost purely "mathematical" in the sense that they are based on keeping track of the number of stones or seeds contained in various "pits" on a game board and so they will provide a certain amount of practice in counting, doing arithmetic, and certain kinds of mathematical reasoning.

To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out which particular mancala-game is the most mathematically rich for the purposes of teaching. Oware is one of the more "serious" versions and seems to be the most respected in terms of adult-play (e.g. The Oware Society holds international tournaments and keeps track of rankings.) Kalah is the most widely-marketed version in the U.S. (It was one of the games included on my first cell-phone and it is also the game included in the links below.) I've met a group of Haitian-American students who like to play a version of mancala which is basically a race to clear their side of the board. But there are literally dozens of variations. If anyone out there takes my plug for mancala games seriously, you might even consider starting clubs or organizations where young people could come together to become familiar with several different games instead of just focusing on one.

Mancala (Kalah):
Mancala (3 stones per pit)
Mancala (4 stones per pit)

Planet Grenada on games:
submachine games
pencak silat
weeping and nashing of teeth aka he got game

points to paradise

Chickenbones: Points to Paradise (Or African Immigrants Journey to Spain) by Akoli Penoukou

the politics of naming: genocide, civil war and insurgency

Black Electorate: The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War and Insurgency by Mahmood Mamdani deal with the differences in how Iraq and Darfur are perceived:

The similarities between Iraq and Darfur are remarkable. The estimate of the number of civilians killed over the past three years is roughly similar. The killers are mostly paramilitaries, closely linked to the official military, which is said to be their main source of arms. The victims too are by and large identified as members of groups, rather than targeted as individuals. But the violence in the two places is named differently. In Iraq, it is said to be a cycle of insurgency and counter-insurgency; in Darfur, it is called genocide. Why the difference? Who does the naming? Who is being named? What difference does it make?

Mahmood Mamdani is a Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and a professor of anthropology at Columbia University. His most recent book is Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror.

we are leading the pack

From The Voice: African-Caribbeans in the UK are moving up the social and economic ladder faster than white people says new survey. Read article.

remembering (and forgetting) african muslims in the americas

Remembering (and forgetting) African Muslims in the Americas by J A Progler is an interesting discussion of the ways in which Islam was still manifested in the lives of Muslim slaves brought to the Americas. Starting with the Amistad Rebellion and the events of Alex Haley's Roots, this article also mentions that Makandal, a national hero who led a slave revolt in Haiti and was thought of as a "conjurer" was probably Muslim.