Local GOP Official Asks Congress To Amend Draft Constitution
Guest Editorial by Herbert Schoenbohm
(Editor’s note: The following is a letter sent by Mr. Schoenbohm to Senator Murkowski, the ranking Republican on the Senate Committee of Energy and Natural Resources, regarding the presented V.I. constitutional draft discussed Wednesday in a hearing in Washington. Schoenbohm is the State Chairman of the Virgin Islands Republican party. The Constitution is now with the Senate and is expected to be returned to the Territory next month.)
Dear Senator Murkowski,
Herb Schoenbohm
Thank you for your consideration of the draft Virgin Island Constitution. I beg you not to send this document back to the V.I. with the expectation that the past delegation will reconvene and make the recommended corrections. During the many hearings and meetings of the present V.I. delegates they were repeatedly reminded of their responsibility, reinforced by the enabling legislation, that they must adhere to the U.S. Constitution. They did not care to respect their oath and presented you instead with a seriously flawed draft document.
If returned there is no guarantee that they will even make the corrections Congress may require. They are now even asking Congress for funding to continue a deliberation that they failed to do properly in the first instance.
The proponents told you today that after they reconvene, the draft it would be voted upon and become law, without any further review by Congress or the Executive branch.. Such a procedure would abrogate the powers of Congress. It would remove your powers as a gatekeeper, a protector and guarantors of the Constitutional rights of our citizens. It would place in the hands the power to present to the voters anything they wish while removing Congress from the loop.
As ranking minority member of the Energy and Resources Committee, please do everything you can to protect us from unconstitutional peril. If this matter ever passes in its uncorrected form it would take years of litigation for the citizens to achieve redress.
Please encourage the members of your committee to provide safeguards that the bi-partisan concerns are dealt with first before it is returned to the voters. A more expeditious means in my view is to send instructions that a Constitutional Convention could be provided de novo by local legislation but that the Congress has no authority to reconvene a local (state) convention that is sine die.
For the U.S. Congress to throw good money after bad for the old delegates to continue hoping they would do it right would be an exercise in futility. A new convention with new delegates could proceed as local appropriations allow. To reward those with more of the U.S. taxpayers money, when they failed in the first instance to even grasp the meaning of their oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution is just plain wrong.
Thank you for your attention to this very serious matter.
1 Peacelover…Your right about the British Museum which I visited and saw so much from Africa, mostly Egypt. Many of the treasures have been returned, however, or are on loan, to other museums around the world. These are not mere trinkets of a past civilization but art, mummified remains, burial masks, and even the mummies themselves. There values is said to extend into the billions. But to me one of the create crimes of war was the use of the great Sphinx of Giza (4th Dynasty) 2558-2532 BC) by Turks for cannon target practice during the Turkish period long before Napoleon’s infantry was there. The French still get the blame today for the damage to its nose. The Egyptians have giving it a major restoration effort. It was just to big to haul to London or else it might been standing guard for the Royal Family at Buckingham Palace! Right?
Herb get’s “into” flowery stuff
I saw an interesting documentary about ancient Egypt last night.The Egyptians left details about their private lives.These pornographic materials were once hidden in the museums.I can get into the “flowery stuff” about the ancient Egyptians, but it might be above the intellectual capacity of most bloggers.The point is that today, we live in a democracy and the US.Constitution protects our freedom and civil liberties.We must focus on protecting our rights by fighting against legal discrimination which is called by a fancy term: “native rights.”
The vast amount of African artifacts are as I said, locked away from the descendants of the people who created them. They have no access to the ingenuity that is part of their history. Ingenuity that cannot be replicated today no matter how hard the scientists try to recreate that processes that produced these objects.
It is interesting in your other post how religious the the Dutch Settlers were, but obviously the application of the ten commandments weren’t for the settlers to follow, but imposed upon the people that occupied that land. Do you not see a correlation to what is happening today?
It is not about the blame game, however it is much more about admitting the role played in the colonization/exploitation/globalization in recent memory of people who had no say. Heads of government, the church and the industries that benefited/continues to benefit from the exploitation of others. When slave ships sank the owners of those vessels were paid insurance. Who benefits from the exploitation of others, the masses or the few?
In order for there to be healing, after one has admitted the part they played in the exploitation, then by demonstration of change in the way they deal with the same people who were exploited, forgiveness may ensue. How does the cycle stop if one continues with the arrogant stance that what’s your’s is mine, but not the other way around.
As for the exploitation of Kemet (original name of Egypt) it continues in many forms today including whitewashing of literature from a Eurocentric point of view. So interesting to me, of all the museums I have visited, “Egypt” is never in the Exhibition part that deals with the continent of Africa.
While I am open to your ideas and thoughts, our thought processes and well as cultural practices are different. As it relates to my history, please, do some active research with alternatives view points or stay out of it.
1peacelover:
I noticed the same tradition, where Egyptians, even though there history is on the Northern edge of the continent, consider themselves Mediterranean peoples. Today it remains as a mixed nation influenced by or having influenced Persians, Romans, Greeks, Turks, French, Arabs, British, and Nubians. The society, and nobody is really sure, perhaps dates back from the original megalith builders who were said to be Cro-Magnons from parts of Europe. Civilization grew due to the awesome fertility of the Nile valley and its ability to feed grain to emerging societies. This was long before the Nile was linked as a route to Nubia. In about 2000 BC Egyptians gradually occupied Nubia and as Egyptian power waned, Nubia Kings, based at Napata and Meroe became influential and even dominated Egypt itself from 730-620 BC. The independent country of Nubia lasted till the 4th Century. Even later in time there was a migration of Nhiolic peoples from as far south as Sudan. You may recall that Egyptian President and Nobel prize winner Anwar Sadat was part Sudanese, Today the vast land of Nubia is under water submerged by Lake Nassar a product of the Aswan Dam on the Nile.
1Peacelover:
Let me apologize as my reply at 12:07 when out as Anonymous while it was authored by me. I forgot to add that Kermet was the original name for the Kushite or Nubian civilization above the Nile Cataracts, close to Khartoum, Sudan. It is believed to have predated much of ancient Egypt. The building of the huge Aswan Dam on the Nile has flooded much of the remaining evidence of a once great civilization. There is no doubt that this civilization existed in geographical Sub-Saharan North East Africa, was invaded by Egypt in the north until the Nubian empire returned the favor and moved north. The could have stayed even in the Nile Delta but for some unknown reason returned south in 620BCE and form there own nation much of what is today Sudan. This area over the centuries was invaded by Arabs with those “evil European British there in the 19th Century with the mission to stop the trans African slave trade of Arabs. They were able to hold Khartoum for years. The last attempt to defend Khartoum was in 1885, then the Anglo Egyptian Sudan, against invading hordes of Arabs, by British General Charles George Gordon or Pasha Gordon or Gordon Pasha, who was told to evacuate Khartoum. He was a flamboyant man of 5 feet 5 inch who preferred to wear the Sudanese dress, to the Crown Imperial uniform. Even though the British had decided to evacuate Khartoum, Pasha Gordon was determined to defend it. He requested relief by Wollesey leading The British forces, supposedly coming over the impassible portions of the Nile by boat but faced a Nile river drought and halted to proceeded by land to aid the siege at Khartoum and resupply Pasha Gorden’s out numbered forces. Gorden fought to the last man, as he said, not for the queen, but for his adopted people the Sudanese he had pledged to defend. This is an important turning point in history as much of the Genocide in Southern Sudan and Darfur is by Arabs verses the Southern Sudanese Christians. If the rainy season had arrived on time the Nile would have been navigable to Khartoum and the contemporary African Holocaust of the last decades might never have occurred.
Now you know the rest of the story.
The papers and records of Pasha Gordon were saved. Much has been written about this. Even a movie Khartoum, with Charlton Heston as Pasha Gordon
What part of the time line did they consider themselves Mediterranean peoples? Were said to be Cromagnum from Europe? I beg to differ and suggest you enlarge your reading material by including research by historians of African descent who talk about our history before the colonization such as: Cheikh Anta Diop, “African Origin Of Civilization”, Dr. Chancellor James Williams, “The Destruction Of Black Civilization, Egypt: Child Of Africa”.
FYI – INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF AFRICAN CLASSICAL CIVILIZATIONS
By RUNOKO RASHIDI
African-centered scholarship hails the advent of a major work by cultural historian and lecturer of international standing, Runoko Rashidi. Rashidi has created a textbook, devoted to the study of “That Other African:” Earth’s original human, the creator of the first civilized Earth cultures, and the first explorer of Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The title of the work–Introduction to the Study of African Classical Civilizations–highlights two of its more important elements. Rashidi juxtaposes the words “classical” and “African” which challenges the Western reflect association with the Greco-Roman roots of Western Civilization. Long overdue is the presentation of scholarship on African civilization on par with that of the roots of Eurocentric thought.
The second distinctive and functionally critical feature of this book is its organization in textbook format. The four chapters of Part One look at Nile Valley Civilizations, flourishing in the Upper Nile Valley of Northern Africa, now variously called Ethiopia and ancient Egypt, but known in the ancient tongue of our ancestors as Kmt. Rashidi recounts, with startling detail, the dynastic history of Kmt with a litany of black African rulers dating from 3200 B.C.E., giving special attention to the golden age of Kmt under the reign of Ramses the Great. Rashidi’s astounding ability to condense with great accuracy and comprehensiveness the histories of these periods is indispensable to those academicians whose research leads them into these areas of African history.
In Part Two, Rashidi turns to Asia, using the seminal research of the late eminent historian Cheikh Anta Diop to assert that Asian peoples and civilizations are an extension of Africa. Rashidi clearly stands apart as a strong advocate for the recognition of the African presence in early as well as contemporary Asia. The first chapter of this section discusses the 90,000 year history of Africans in Asia and the African roots of Asian civilizations and religions. For a long time Asia was considered the cradle of humanity, but Diop’s work has proven that the first Asians actually journeyed there from the Great Lakes region of East-Central Africa, where was born the first Homo erectus and Homo sapiens sapiens.
Particularly striking in this section are the photographs of Africoid Persians, Phoenicians, Arabians, Indians, Chinese, Jews, Filipinos, and Malaysians. Photographs of stone carvings and statues reveal that the Buddha himself was of African origin.
I hope that peaks your interest, more important is that you keep an open mind.
Peace
1peacolover…Thanks for the challenging reply. Let me cover a few of the point you raised.
The megalith builders of Europe began in 4500BC and were a race of people of astronomical and mathematical knowledge on a level akin to others during this period. These builders left evidence of their skills with hundreds of such structures in Western Europe. Some theorize that these were constructed or engineered by Tuatha people of Ireland (who originally came from Sumeria) and could have a relationship to mound building in North America. Carbon dating and other evidence suggest that the North America artifact uncovered and buried in glacial till at Manitoulin Island, Ontario indicated 40,000 BC to a minimum date of 30,000 BC for window of opportunity that North America occupancy via land bridge migration most likely occurred before or after the last Pleistocene ice age. A new theory is that we through out the cultural migratory beliefs and start with a new examination of the possible that advanced civilization could have advanced in different parts of the world though “environmental determinism” and the human natural to service. Mayans, Incas, Sumerians, Egyptians, Nubians, Maylans, Mesopotamians, Indus Valley, and others, did not need to “steal” their knowledge from some other society. It also stresses my point that throughout mankind….those at the crossroads of trade have a significant advantage to leap forward compared to isolated groups.
Yes indeed, I have high regard for the Senegalese writer Cheikh Anta Diop especially in breaking down he walls of rigid Euro-centric bias of the origin of civilization. He certainly opened the door and let in some sunshine. Unfortunately his writings became the platform for Afro-centrist in the 60′s to leap onward to the grand sweeping fallacy that all civilizations some how sprang out of mother Africa. Maps were drawn showing migration routes that in reality were figments of the writer’s imagination. At college in the 60′s I always asked the professor espousing this stuff by asking, “why did they go there”? and “how did they get there”. The answer was never conclusive nor was any plausible reason presented. It was a only theory. To which I was instructed to go out, study, and find out support for the Afro Centrist professors views or get a bad grade.
I knew what he wanted me to believe and that was the key to a good grade. That is not the key to a good classical education.
Diop, however, was crucial in driving the pendulum to include Africa consideration in its previous and nearly exclusive swing over Europe and Asia. Detractors charged Diop with racism especially with his claim that ancient Egyptians were black. (The majority of academics disavow the term black for Egyptians but there is no consensus for a substitute term) It is hard to find a single cab driver in Cairo, even of Sudanese origin, who considers himself black.
What made things worse was that 60′s radical Afro centrist writers and “black studies” professors over played Diop’s theories with their own racial extremism. If fact Diop often stressed the multi-racial nature of Egypt but stressed that this “admixture did not change their essential ethnicity.” Diop repudiated racism or supremacist use of his theories but argued for a more balanced view of African history.
Rashidi’s work you mention is interesting but lacks factual credulity. Admittedly, I have no training in anthropology. My degree is in Climatology and Earth Sciences. I am a strong believer in environmental determinism that civilizations expand or contract. As the need to survive as climates changes, as they do over time, people’s physical structure must adapt for survival to climate change.
I disagree with this part of Diop’s single origin hypothesis. I see no driving force such as conquest of exploration for people of North East Africa to leave their fertile Nile to survive and decide the Steppes of Central Asia or the Arctic Bearing Straits to be a rason d’etre to vast migrations of African tribes somewhere. Basic question, why leave East Africa were life was good. No matter how charismatic the leader I am following…. the first few hours on the Great Erg Sands of Arabia…I’m turning back home!
Also indication of such a great movement of people, armies, across 20,000 miles of wilderness would have been chiseled in a rock somewhere for us to know “Kilroy was here.” Even Leif Erickson left a Rune stone of Norsemen near Alexandria, Minnesota. I saw it as a boy but could not read the writing…but it does detail the circumstances for being there.
Idn Khaldrun, a Tunisian astronomer, demographer, and historian till 1406 AD was said to be the father of environmental determinism. He projected that the “when a society becomes a great civilization (and predominantly, the dominant culture of the region), its high point is followed by a period of decay.” The stresses that the diminished society is taken over by barbarians who solidify their control over the conquered society, become more refined in art, literature, and even assimilated the cultures of the conquered, only to rise then fall again as the cycle repeats.
You also point out that Rashidi proposes that “photographs of Africoid Persians, Phoenicians, Arabians, Indians, Chinese, Jews, Filipinos, and Malaysians….and of stone carvings and statues reveal that the Buddha himself was of African origin.” This does not prove much, as discovered with Ivan Van Sertima’s wrongful presentation of colossal heads he used as “proof” his hoax that the Olmec civilization of Mexico was influence by African explorers…when in fact their civilization with its statues and culture existed 1000 years before the first African he claimed arrived. The statues were indeed “black” as the stone carve from was volcanic black basalt. He refers also to the broad noses…..well most Mezo-American statues were exaggerated visions of god like rulers, just as those vast Easter Islands stone carving looking out to the sea. None of them looking like any Polynesians I know. These writings may be entertaining but to base teachings on them because of the need for connectivity to the motherland is dangerous to the truth.
Some historians claim that the Saharan Barrier prevented cultural crossroad to the south. With the benefit of climatological examination it is now know that at time in the past the Sahara was indeed more fertile than it is today. In North Africa I noticed the different faces of the Berber people. Influenced over the ages, from North to South and East to West, people with blond hair, blues eyes, long hair, short hair, dark and light skinned and every shade in between, Christian, Jewish and Muslim Berbers, all giving proofs of my beliefs of “people in the cross roads”. They are the beneficiaries or victims of this, but they are still Africans and Berbers and proud of their place in history. One of the most notable Berbers was said to be St.Augustine.
And I didn’t even get to the crossbreeding between the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthal in Europe who till recently were not believe to have crossbred. This other Homosapien sub species by modern DNA extends some form of simple tools/weapons civilization back to 600,000 BC.
We eventually will find a point when geologically both Europe and Africa was one part of the same continent as they indeed were, and perhaps man existed in some form. The Euro centrists and Afro centrists with their race-based theories of self-assurance may need to find other work. I would put them both on a talk show for a year and make it “compulsory” listening. (Just kidding!)
Sorry about my delayed answer Herb, I was off-island. Why would Black people have to consider themselves Black when they knew who they were. No color/distinction was necessary. This color thing did not start with us, but used as a classification to divide, discriminate and exploit certain groups of people against each other. You and I can fill this forum with our back and forth about who got where first, etc. That really is not my level of interest because I know the history presented in the public education system were written and preserved by the victors as well as the religious organizations.
Therefore, most of this info I reject because it is not a true representation of the history of the World and her people’s. For the most part it is an Euro-centric viewpoint that seeks the imagined superiority of one group if people over another. Have you actually read any books by African historians or are you just relying on critics to prove your discourse? Have you taken a tour of the Nile Valley or pyramids and seen the books written on stone preserved for those who visit during many lifetimes?
In doing my research I know that the pyramids at Giza and the Sphinx are at least 10,000 years old. Have you actually ever seen any of the Olmec heads? The one’s with the scarification, or the braids or the helmets that can still be found in use today on the Continent of Africa. Shucks, the head I saw at, looks like my Uncles.
(Excerpt from http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/ancientamerica.htm)
Although archeologists have used the name “Olmec,” to refer to the Black builders of ancient Mexico’s first civilizations, recent discoveries have proven that these Afro-Olmecs were West Africans of the Mende language and cultural group. Inscriptions found on ancient monuments in parts of Mexico show that the script used by the ancient Olmecs was identical to that used by the ancient and modern Mende-speaking peoples of West Africa. Racially, the colossal stone heads are identical in features to West Africans and the language deciphered on Olmec monuments is identical to the Mende language of West Africa, (see Clyde A. Winters) on the internet.
The term “Olmec” was first used by archeologists since the giant stone heads with the features of West African Negritic people were found in a part of Mexico with an abundance of rubber trees. The Maya word for rubber was “olli, and so the name “Olmec,” was used to label the Africoid Negritic people represented in the faces of the stone heads and found on hundreds of terracotta figurines throughout the region.
Yet, due to the scientific work done by deciphers and linguists, it has been found out that the ancient Blacks of Mexico know as Olmecs, called themselves the Xi People (She People).
Apart from the giant stone heads of basalt, hundreds of terracotta figurines and heads of people of Negritic African racial features have also been found over the past hundred years in Mexico and other parts of Meso-America as well as the ancient Black-owned lands of the Southern U.S. (Washitaw Proper,(Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas), South America’s Saint Agustin Culture in the nation of Colombia, Costa Rica, and other areas) the “Louisiana Purchase,”lands, the south-eastern kingdom of the Black Jamassee, and other places including Haiti, see the magazine Ancient American).
Various cultural clues and traces unique to Africa as well as the living descendants of prehistoric and ancient African migrants to the Americas continue to exist to this very day. The Washitaw Nation of Louisiana is one such group (see http://www.Hotep.org), the Garifuna or Black Caribs of the Caribbean and Central America is another, the descendants of the Jamasse who live in Georgia and the surrounding states is another group. There are also others such as the Black Californian of Queen Calafia fame (the Black Amazon Queen mentioned in the book Journey to Esplandian, by Ordonez de Montalvo during the mid 1500′s).
Cultural artefacts which connect the ancient Blacks of the Americas with Africa are many. Some of these similarities can be seen in the stone and terracotta works of the ancient Blacks of the Americas. For example, the African hairline is clearly visible in some stone and terracotta works, including the use of cornrows, afro hair style, flat “mohawk” style similar to the type used in Africa, dreadlocks, braided hair and even plain kinky hair. The African hairline is clearly visible on a fine stone head from Veracruz Mexico, carved between 600 B.C. to 400 B.C., the Classic Period of Olmec civilization. That particular statuette is about twelve inches tall and the distance from the head to the chin is about 17 centemeters. Another head of about 12 inches, not only possesses Negroid features, but the hair design is authentically West African and is on display at the National Museum of Mexico. This terracotta Africoid head also wears the common disk type ear plugs common in parts of Africa even today among tribes such as the Dinka and Shilluk.
One of the most impressive pieces of evidence which show a direct link between the Black Olmec or Xi People of Mexico and West Africans is the presence of scarification marks on some Olmec terracotta sculpture. These scarification marks clearly indicate a West African Mandinka (Mende) presence in prehistoric and ancient Meso- America. Ritual scarification is still practiced in parts of Africa and among the Black peoples of the South Pacific, however the Olmec scarification marks are not of South Pacific or Melanesian Black origins, since the patterns used on ancient Olmec sculpture is still common in parts of Africa. This style of scarification tattooing is still used by the Nuba and other Sudanese African people. In fact, the face of a young girl with keloid scarification on here face is identical to the very same keloid tattoos on the face of an ancient Olmec terracotta head from ancient Mexico. Similar keloid tattoos also appear on the arms of some Sudanese and are identical to similar keloid scars on the arms of some clay figures from ancient Olmec terracotta figurines of Negroid peoples of ancient Mexico.
Have you seen the representation of the peoples that lived in KMT on the walls of the pyramids or temples as well as through out the country now known as Egypt? You will find that most of these representations depict black people. not Negro Caucasoid or any of those other terms archaeologists use to deny the hand of the Blacks in the development of the Continent of Africa or other places on the planet.
Do you know that from July to November if you push off the coast of West Africa, the currents will automatically bring you to this area? The reverse is true leaving from the VI or most islands in the Caribbean the currents will take you back to the continent.
As for our original conversation on the constitution, how can we base a document on another document that was created for a select group of people? The American people never voted on the adoption of their own constitution or the Declaration of Independence, so how can we vote or endorse a document that does not encourage the right to the self determination of the Virgin Islands? Besides, the only way through this process is by starting with the Status issue.
Secondly, as a student of Archaeology and Anthropology from childhood to college, the true history of the world has been revised, stolen and hidden for at least 500 years. I know your thinking is an indoctrination, because they tried to convince me of their falsehoods. For the most part many Archaeologists and Anthropologists have a dating issue because they can’t reconcile various dates with what they are taught to believe. Most of these “scientific” professions ostracize those who do not go along with their reworking of the history of our world. Radio carbon dating is not an exact science.
These 500+ years represent the advent of the trans Atlantic Slave Trade. If your version of history is correct, then why the need to infer that blacks were less than? Why the need to create a document that considers black people 3/5 of a person? Why your need to call alternative views to your Euro-centric views hoaxes? Who has been rewriting and publishing history for the last 500+ years to the masses? Why does the history of Africans brought these shores start with slavery, like the Africans existed no where else and were doing nothing with themselves until the slave traders came on the scene. Why the need to replace what people knew of themselves before they were brought through slavery with Euro-centric religion, social standards, etc.?
How come your history books don’t talk about the great kingdoms of Mali, or Timbuktu, or Ghana? Why is that, and please don’t tell me they are long lost Hindu/Indian civilizations. It is so unfortunate that you have been so brain washed by your way of thinking that you cannot open your mind to greatness we were once were or our potential to retrieve our greatness.
No matter how much you change or rewrite history so you are comfortable, there is still physical proof that we existed across this planet long before written history. As a displaced person of Caribbean and African descent in the diaspora, your view of history totally discounts the histories of people that occupied this region as well as the Continent of Africa long before contact with Europeans. Truth needs nothing to support it, however a lie needs more lies in order that it may exist. We are taking back our power.
Welcome Back 1Peacelover…..fascinating reading but before I give a rejoinder let me clear up one canard. The U.S. Constitution does not refer to former Africans as 3/5ths of a person. Article 1 Section 2 deals with the apportionment of the House of Representatives and how to *count* or do the enumeration to establish the number of representatives. People “not taxed” were still enumerated bu at a different rate. This provision, as some argue, did not degenerate the dignity of man at all. This points to the Constitution establishment of representation. The slave population of the southern states would have given the south ( and their plantation economy) significant advantage over the northern states of lesser population if as the slave states insisted slaves would have counted on par. Remember at this time not even women could vote as this was not the issue…but power in congress was. Had the north not prevailed in diluting the southern representation demand for slaves being counted on par the future of emancipation and even the civil war itself would have most likely been much different. A compromise of an arbitrary 3/5 enumeration (count) has everything to do with the apportionment of the House of Representatives. It has nothing to do with the dignity of man….there were plenty of other things in the Antebellum to point to that. It is an old Afrocentrism canard to spin the truth to inculcate hate against the U.S. Constitution.
I will reply to your other assertions as time permits. I don’t know what history books that you rely upon but even in these posts I have mentioned Timbukto, Ashanti, and Mali. The Arab trans Sahara trade of slaves, gold, and salt prospering nearly 1000 years before the Trans Atlantic slave trade points to another part of the dark side of the empire building in West Africa. Those that tout these African Kingdoms seldom if ever mention that without the trading of slaves these would not have been possible.
The serious and on going study of meso American civilization does not bring any credibility to your single point African source of all civilizations of the world. Case by case and point the truth is that different civilizations developed in different parts of the world without any significant exchange of mass migrations. You suggest that one such group traveled, without any reason to do so 20,000 miles across the barren and most inhospitable parts of three continent, without any reason to do so, without and way to sustained themselves, without any means of travel known then to man, if this is something you can support…..I definitely want to hear more.
Herb wants to be Master of our Destiny and Captain of our Ship.
Not really…I just think when Afrocentrism becomes an excuse for teaching myth for history somebody should stand up and say wait a minute what about the truth as supported by sciences as we know them. Many civilizations rise and fall on their own as we certainly can prove.They didn’t need the help from either European or African explorers per se. DNA and Carbon dating *is* for real and a better means of proof Then some crackpot like Al Gore or Ivan Van Sertima deciding they are scientists rather than authors of fairy tales.
Herb said, “Let it be, and it was.”
Herb said, “Let me make them into my distorted image.”
Herb descended and walk among them.
Herb is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
Herb caused me to lie near still water, and he read it me my history.
1Peacelover
I will take your points in shorter replies: You said:
“Do you know that from July to November if you push off the coast of West Africa, the currents will automatically bring you to this area? The reverse is true leaving from the VI or most islands in the Caribbean the currents will take you back to the continent.”
Yes indeed, in fact Thor Heyerdahl attempted to establish the possibility of a papyrus reed raft, like those on Lake Chad, made it one way, was the basis for his RAI and RAII expeditions. RAI was constructed from reeds at Lake Chad and transported over land to Morocco. RAII was built on Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca with an improved design.
RAI was breaking up several hundred miles from Barbados when Norman Baker the radio operator on board, with who I was in daily amateur radio communication, called for help. Heyerdahl made it clear that he was *not* sending an SOS as a Coast Guard rescue would over shadow what he was trying to prove. Instead he asked me to arrange for a rescue ship, which I did. The motor yacht “Shenandoah” was in Christiansted and agreed to the mission. WSTX program Director Bob Miller went on board and sent exclusive reports heard on WSTX daily.
The second missions made some changes to the raft’s construction to avoid the seawater soaking which scuttled the first attempt. The second attempt was successful and RAII was towed into Bridgetown harbor for all to see. After a wonderful restaurant dinner on gourmet flying fish, even though the crew had plenty on their voyage, later that night we all got together at Harry’s Nightery for some local Bajan kulture, but that is another story.
So yes, the voyage from Africa to the West Indies can be done on a raft or water bed during certain times of the year. It took Hyerdahl only 57 days to make the trip. Yet for a civilization to be established in the western hemisphere from some other part of the world it takes considerably more then this. What did the RA expeditions prove? Certainly not that at some time there were Egyptians or other Africans roamed the world in reed boats spreading their own unique cultures. To prove that Egyptians were some how involved in the design and construction of Mayan pyramids, when taking into account the vast disparity of time with obvious chronological incongruities, is another hoax. What the RA Expeditions did support that such boats were capable and seaworthy of open ocean travel between continents. To extend this as a platform to prove the Afro-centrist’s one source origin for other civilizations requires a leap of faith to a grand sweeping fallacy.
When I am in the Dark, Herb is my Light.
When I am lost, Herb is my compass.
When I seek knowledge, Herb is my Greek Tutor.
No matter how much you change or rewrite history so you are comfortable, there is still physical proof that we existed across this planet long before written history. As a displaced person of Caribbean and African descent in the diaspora, your view of history totally discounts the histories of people that occupied this region as well as the Continent of Africa long before contact with Europeans. Truth needs nothing to support it, however a lie needs more lies in order that it may exist. We are taking back our power.
For forty days in the desert, Jesus battled the Devil with The Scriptures.
For forty days on this site, you may have to battle Herb with The Truth.
herb is a joker without a clue.
1peacelover on June 2, 2010 at 10:05 pm Afrocentrism as an excuse to teach myth for history…..
Before you accuse me of lying let us look at the proof you presented that African pre-Columbian migration was the causation or influence for Olmec or Meso-American civilization. You use a device such as putting the word “Black” in front of peoples who clearly then, nor as now are not black. Calling people black who don’t consider themselves so and whose skin is tan or various shades of brown doesn’t make them black. Of course if you subscribe to the racist concept of one drop, which is political rather than accurate, is misleading at best and dangerous at worse. If politicians want to place society into little check off boxes doesn’t aid in the quest for truth or liberation. Let people call themselves by what they wish but the fact remains that many races from many parts of the world a darker than most of the people of the Eastern Caribbean. Those people of the Solomon Islands and New Guinea have no known relationship to migration from another continent 10,000 miles away. There dark skin is a product of environmental determinism rather that some Afro- centric Diaspora. Using skin color to support such theories whether done by Euro-centrists or anyone else is a fallacy unsupported by science, logic or reason. You appear to believe that mythologies about the past can trump the truth. The Europeans in the last century who practiced this device certainly demonstrate how dangerous it is when we allow propaganda to usurp truth.
The term “Diaspora” and the claim that “truth” needs nothing to support it, is definitely not a scholarly approach. You are not alone in this. Afro-centrist writers such as George James’s “Stolen Legacy”, Martin Bernal’s Black Athena, and Ivan Van Sertim’s “They came before Columbus” are interesting reading but the falsity of their conclusions leap from the pages.
These writers have serious problems with chronological occurrences so they just ignore them. For example, Van Sertima claims that the Meso-American Olmecs culture was strongly influenced by Nubians boarding Phoenician ships, and for reasons unknown, to establish a culture in Mexico. The scant proof is some similarities in statues and linguistics. His time line places this at about 1000 years after the Olmecs were known to have their origin. James claims that Greeks stole their culture from Egypt. He states Cleopatra and Socrates were “black”. The writings about here, the coins stuck in her likeness, have her as a Macedon Greek. James also claims that Aristotle stole his philosophy from the library at Alexandria when in fact the library was built more than 100 years after his death. Yosef A.A. ben-Joachannan, a student of James, even claimed that Aristotle removed the names of Egyptian authors and inserted his own, again ignoring the time line of history.
Just as some Euro-centric propagandists did before him, these writers downplay any evidence to the contrary, then deduce from some limited facts they have assembled the conclusions that support one’s central thesis, or if necessary to invent evidence that suits particular purposes. First one needs to begin with an assumption of a direct connection, then make the evidence fit the facts, by overlooking significant differences. The problem with this process is that the results are not history but rather a kind of hybrid between myth and history, a myth about history.
There is a new and fresh look at all of this, discounting the single source origin and migratory establishment of cultures, that they could have developed on their owns in across the world. To think otherwise suggests that only Africans had the skills, knowledge, and ability to develop a society. To think that the cultures of the Mesopotamian Fertile Crescent, Nile Delta, Indus Valley, Central and South America as well as the Far East all required African migration to begin their civilization is a huge leap of faith without any scientific support. I have even seen websites such as 58int.com/Olmecs.html, where claims are examine that African, Hindu, and Chinese societies were the reason for the Olmec civilization. Yes indeed birds and fishes have reason to be migratory. Humans on the other hand stay with their base societies, along with their fertile land, their temples, and their people. Exploring the unknown 15,000 miles away would have required some urge to do so. What was it? What was the driving force to leave relative comfort, cross the barren desserts, steppes, and ice fields of the Arctic to go somewhere? What was the means of sustenance of such an incredible journey?
There is more on you comparison of linguistics that is probably the weakest argument considering the similarity of the writing methods and the formation of vowels and consonants. Many languages, not related, have many similarities. To the Chinese, written Finnish and English look the same when they are not related. If you want to say, “thank you in Japanese you say “Arigato” and if you are in Rio you say “Obrigato”. One is an oriental language. The other is a romanced language with Latin roots. To use such similarities as a bridge to migratory and cultural bridge to nowhere, is meaningless. To assume such similarities even suggests that either Latin or Japanese required some sort of migration is folly. Fascinating reading on a related topic is Noam Chomsky’s book on Universal Grammer, written in 1988. He posits that it is remarkable that babies can learn to talk remarkably well from what seems to be inadequate exposure to language. He suggests that babies acquire some basic rules of grammar that they could never have learn from what was available to them suggesting that some core part of all languages is innate.
If you are interested in power as you say, consider knowledge. If you enjoy living in myths, then go for it.
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Herb,
Have you received official word of your sons’ pardons from deJongh yet? You have certainly worked hard enough for them!
Imagine a Republican advocating borrowing money to avoid layoffs of government workers. You more than earned those pardons. deJongh owes you change.