poetic pilgrimage - silence is consent

I think the song itself is from last year, but the video gives the words a new relevance in light of what is going on in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, etc. these days:



Wikipeida: Poetic Pilgrimage
Raw Deen: Interview with Poetic Pilgrimage
Blog: Poetic Pilgrimage

heru in jamaica

Here is a roughly two hour discussion/interview/talk with Heru (whom we've talked about before) for a Jamaican TV show. Topics include: anti-black violence in Jamaican music, homosexuality in dancehall, the roots of Rastafari and Halie Selassie, the significance of Obama's election, and in general he gives a pretty good articulation of a (not "the") Pan-African outlook on politics, economics, and current events. He has a lot of positive things to say which are worth thinking about. At the same time, it was weird for me to hear his affected "Jamaican" accent. I imagine that he's either making a conscious choice to speak that way because of his involvement in dub and reggae or he's picking it up honestly because of how much time he is spending in the West Indies or with working with Caribbean people. He touches a little on his own religious beliefs but I would be really interested in hearing an indepth discussion of Ausar Auset (if that's the path he is on)

dr. sultana afroz

Dr Sultana Afroz is a researcher who has been documenting the presence and role of African Muslims in the West Indes during slavery. Here is a brief sample of some of her work. from the oddly-named blog, All history as reconstruction of the past is, of course, myth. She is a Lecturer in History at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica. She completed her doctoral degree in American History with a specialization in US Foreign Policy in South Asia. She is the co-author of The Political Economy of Food and Agriculture in the Caribbean, and is working on a manuscript entitled Invisible Yet Invincible: The History of the Muslim Umma in Jamaica.)

It includes:
1. THE MUSLIM MAROONS AND THE BUCRA MASSA IN JAMAICA
2. Islam and Slavery through the Ages: Slave Sultans and Slave Mujahids
3. The Ummah Slowly Bled: A Select Bibliography of Enslaved African Muslims in the Americas and the Caribbean
4. The Jihad of 1831–1832: The Misunderstood Baptist Rebellion in Jamaica