Another Angle
topaka - Rather than feel racist, consider this article and viewpoint, which shows how far we really grow from our forebears of even a few generations ago, let alone 40 or more.
Outrage As Black Journalist
Says 'Thank God for Slavery'
From ReportersNotebook.com
12-10-2
Editorial Reviews Amazon.com
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From 1991 to 1994, Keith Richburg was based in Nairobi as the Africa
bureau chief for the Washington Post. He traveled throughout Africa, from
Rwanda to Zaire, witnessing and reporting on wars, famines, mass murders,
and the complexity and corruption of African politics. Unlike many black
Americans who romanticize Africa, Richburg looks back on his time there
and concludes that he is simply an American, not an African American. This
is a powerful, hard-hitting book, filled with anguished soul-searching as
Richburg makes his way toward that uncomfortable conclusion.
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Outrage As Black Journalist Says 'Thank God for Slavery'
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A black American author has sparked anger and controversy among black
nationalists "by repudiating his African roots and thanking God his
ancestor was enslaved."
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Keith Richburg has been shunned and insulted for daring to reject the
Afro-centric idealism which is an article of faith in black America.
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In 'Out Of America', published in February,1997, (paperback edition now
available; hardcover, 288 pages; 'Basic Books,' ISBN: 0465001874), after
he spent three years reporting from Africa for the Washington Post, Mr
Richburg hurls down a challenge to black American leaders to stop
deceiving themselves and the 35 million (black) descendants of slaves,
that Africa is Eden on earth.
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"I'm tired of lying,' he writes. 'And I'm tired of all the ignorance and
hypocrisy and the double standards I hear and read about Africa, much of
it from people who've never been there, let alone spent three years
walking around amid the corpses.
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"Talk to me about Africa and my black roots and my kinship with my African
'brothers' and I'll throw it back in your face, and then I'll rub your
nose in the images of the rotting flesh.'
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Richburg spent three years covering the continent's senseless violence,
corruption, bloody and incessant cruelties--machete-wielding Hutu
militiamen, a cholera epidemic in Zaire, famine in Somalia, civil war in
Liberia, disease, dirt, dictatorships, killer children, AIDS, terror.
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"Had my ancestor not made it out of here,' Richburg muses, 'I might have
ended up in that crowd...maybe I would have been one of those bodies,
washing over the waterfall in Tanzania or maybe my son would have been set
ablaze by soldiers. Or I would be limping now from the torture I received
in some rancid police cell...'
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Afrocentrism 'has become fashionable for many blacks, Richburg notes. 'It
cannot work for me. I have been here, I have lived there and seen Africa
in all its horror.'
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Mr Richburg's every word is an assault on the group identity politics
which have taken hold among black intellectuals and leads, critics say, to
a Balkanisation of American society.
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Thinking about his slave forebear, transported in chains to the Caribbean
and thence to South Carolina, Mr Richburg writes: "Thank God my ancestor
got out, because, now, I am not one of them [Africans]. In short, thank
God I am an American."
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Borders, a Washington D.C. book shop, was packed this month for a lecture
by Mr Richburg at which hecklers accused him of racial betrayal. 'One man
demanded to know if the author had a white girlfriend,' said Mary Ann
Brownlow, who organised the lecture.
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When Mr Richburg appeared on a talk show on Black Entertainment Television,
_ Randall Robinson, leader of the TransAfrica lobby group and one of
America's most prominent blacks, refused to join the discussion.
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Jackie Clark, producer of the show, said: 'We African-Americans have this
vision of Africa as the motherland which we see in this wonderful light,
but people who have lived there can burst this bubble. It takes courage to
say things you know are going to outrage people, but I think Richburg
wishes he were white.'
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Out Of America is a gruesomely detailed account of barbarism and
corruption across the continent, particularly in Somalia and Rwanda. The
author pulls no punches in condemning it, and no...myth is spared. When
sketching how his ancestor was enslaved, he says it was first 'probably by
a local chieftain.' The suggestion that African blacks were slave owners
is anathema in America...
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Mr Richburg, who is now working for the Washington Post in Hong Kong, says
he is not condoning the evil of slavery, but insists that condemning it
should not blind blacks to the fact that good has emerged from it..."
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Reviews of Richburg's 'Out of America':
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E.G. Long: "Africa is a painful reality. Over the past 21 years, I have
lived and worked in five African countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zaire
and Nigeria. ..There is nothing in Richburg's book that I could contradict.
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I too, experienced the horror, and hopelessnesss of that continent. I read
'Out of America' in one sitting... "
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Steve Wishnevsky: "This is the voice missing from the current race
'dialogue.' Mr. Richburg is a courageous writer and clear observer...His
is an authentic voice and should be listened to closely. America is the
only land where the descendants of Africans have anything approaching
freedom and economic opportunity."
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H. Luther: "So much of what you hear about Africa lately is from people
who have never been there. People who want to romanticize what is in fact
chaos and disaster...Richburg has written what he has seen, he has
presented reality with great integrity. It is a must read. "
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Peace is patriotic! Michael Santomauro Editorial Director 253 West 72nd
street #1711 New York, NY 10023 RePortersNoteBook.com
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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465001874/