AfroTrad’s Political Stance?

According to ontheissues.com, I am a moderate Libertarian. Not sure I agree with or can relate to the various Libertarian groups, many of who are incurable loons by any standard.

Grab Dem Shrimp

Title: “Grab Dem Shrimp”
Artist: John W. Jones

Self Hate?

 

There is a movie called The Help out in theaters that has seemed to cause a ruckus among the Black woman on the various social networks. I have no real interest in the movie but a thought ran across my mind. Could the woman complaining about this movie suffer from a little shame from seeing their forbearer as domestic workers? Mammy’s as they are called by some. I find that ludicrous of course. Especially considering all the black families who were clothed and fed because of these hardworking women. I greatly prefer the woman from that time with their native intelligence,  ingenuity in the kitchen, self-reliance and hard work , to the women of this age who’s best attribute I can ascertain is the ability to put their college educations to use on twitter whining about how whites haven’t accepted them more thoroughly.   Telling of the character of the women of 1950’s, when a reporter asked one  domestic, who had walked tens of miles per day,  how she was holding up with so much walking during the boycott which lasted for 13 months between 1955 and 1956 she responded, “My feet is tired, but my soul is rested.”  I am not confident the women of this age have such resolve.

Elizabeth Wright RIP

Elizabeth Wright was one of the clearest and most honest writers on the topic of race in America. How she was not embraced by a larger audience is a testament to how thoroughly Black folks have been convinced we aren’t able to do anything on our own by liberals and Republicans both Black and white.
I don’t exactly remember when I first came across her writings. I do remember, not being completely able to place her on the racial writing spectrum as I knew it at the time, and honestly she offended me slightly, she was so blunt and direct, her belief in self reliance resolute. Over time she became a great influence on me and my style of thought. One won’t find many people offering warm and personal stories about her as she was intensely private and preferred to communicate through email, it seems most never got a chance to speak to her personally. She and some refer to her as a Booker T Washington conservative, but I don’t, there was no tinge of seeking white acceptance in her writing. Sometimes it seemed she dared whites to be racist; hoping it would force self-determination on us. She was her own creation. I also hesitate to call her a conservative, as she certainly is not be included in the same sentence as Jesse Petterson or Larry Elder.

RIP Elizabeth Wright. I don’t know how many minds your writings will live on in, but they surely will stay with me.

To read some more of her work visit her blog : http://issuesviews.blogspot.com/

Henry McNeal Turner – God is Black

 

Waah gwon, good day , hello and nice to meet ya. This is the AfroTrad’s inaugural post. I look forward to sharing my views and perspective with everyone, hopefully I can gain enough readers and commentators to make this an interesting venture.

     My first post will feature one of my favorite words; Buckra. I associate the use of the word Buckra with the Geechee or Gullah people of South Carolina but I imagine it was used by others Blacks also. Buckra generally just means white person and can be said with contempt or neutrally, I prefer the former when possible. Who couldn’t use a largely intelligible racist word to spout out on occasion? I certainly could. Buckra is thought to have been formed from the word Mbakara which means master in the Efik language spoken by the Ibibio people of Southern Nigeria.

Now the subject of this post, Black Repratrionist and AME church Bishop Henry McNeal Turner.  Mr. Turner was born in Newberry, South Carolina as a free Black child, due to his mother being a German.  As a youth he was largely a laborer in the cotton fields and an apprentice at a blacksmith’s shop.  Unsurprisingly, he formed no appreciation for these “careers.”  For the brother saw himself as a leader of men, even as a child, he dreamed of himself atop a mountain preaching to people awaiting his direction.  This desire likely led him to his later career as a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.  As a testament to Negroes of that era, Elder Turner’s main ambition while young was to educate himself and he went through great lengths to achieve this goal. In pursuit of his aim , the industrious Mr. Turner worked to achieve his goal with the aid of another Black man who could not read but was a prodigy with sounds.  Henry used his knowledge of the alphabet—gained from a short spell when he was taught by a white boy and his mother—a Webster’s Dictionary he procured, and his associates skill with sounds to learn how to read a goodly portion of the words in the Webster’s Dictionary.

At the young age of 15, Henry gained employment at a law firm. The lawyers were so impressed with his ability to remember everything said to him, to the letter, they helped him finished his quest to learn to read.  The assistance he received from his employers in concert with an angel Mr. Turner saw in his dreams who helped him pronounce words he had mispronounced during the day enabled the industrious young man to gain an impressive command of the English language.  Through prayer and a boundless commitment to his goal, Elder Turner reaped the rewards. The time with the lawyers and prayer “taught me in defiance of state laws… how to read accurately history, theology and even works on law. Also taught me arithmetic and geography , astronomy and anything I desired to know except English grammar  which I manifested no desire to study.” I admire his refusal to learn English grammar as I too doggedly refuse to learn it, though in my case it’s not be quite purposeful.

In addition to eventually learning English grammar, a short time later in life under the tutelage of ministers, a priest and a rabbi, he learned Latin, Greek, Hebrew and German. Combined with his great oratory skills and ambition, this training,  led him to be a leader and a power with-in the African Methodist Church, being appointed a chaplain to the Black troops during the civil war by Abraham Lincoln, he was later recommissioned to be the Chaplin of the general army, serving in various places in the South. He has a venerable laundry list of achievements. He lectured relentless and eventually built the largest AME convention, in 1868 he was elected member of legislator and was reelected in 1870 he served until he and other Black men were expelled simply for being Black. I would go on but if anyone is curious to learn more they can follow the links I will provide later. I will go on to say with all his great achievements he had an obvious confidence in the Black man.

He also wrote this, quite scandalously and brave for the period, in regards to how the Negro should see Jesus:

We have as much right biblically and otherwise to believe that God is a Negro, as you buckra or white people have to believe that God is a fine looking, symmetrical and ornamented white man. For the bulk of you and all the fool Negroes of the country believe that God is white-skinned, blue eyed, straight-haired, projected nosed, compressed lipped and finely robed white gentleman, sitting upon a throne somewhere in the heavens. Every race of people who have attempted to describe their God by words, or by paintings, or by carvings, or any other form or figure, have conveyed the idea that the God who made them and shaped their destinies was symbolized in themselves, and why should not the Negro believe that he resembles God.

If you would like more info on this great man check out this link. Men of Mark