List of Eight Unbiased News Sources from Alex Chrum

A part of the problem with trying to be engaged in today’s world is the flow of information. We have access to more sources than ever before in history. And, sadly, much, I would hazard most of it comes packaged with so much bias, hidden agendas, or, flat out lies that what we are awash in is a sea of misinformation. Of course the problem with bias is that it is how we see the world, and so it becomes wildly difficult to pull back and get a larger perspective. I am on a quest for a manageable list of sources. While I don’t think this does the job, Alex Chrum’s list from 2012  remains one of the most popular and controversial lists on the web that at least tries. And I find it worthwhile seeing what she thinks. The following list includes direct links, and Ms Chrum’s comments.

Wikinews
Wikinews is perhaps one of the best places to find original and unbiased news stories. Like Wikipedia, it allows for collaboration with and feedback from the general public, ensuring that differing viewpoints are heard, and that lies and partisanship are actively called out.

AlterNet
AlterNet is one of my favorite online news sources. Their mission describes them as “award-winning news magazine and online community that creates original journalism and amplifies the best of hundreds of other independent media sources.” Their goal is “to inspire action and advocacy on the environment, human rights and civil liberties, social justice, media, health care issues, and more.”

The Real News
The Real News is another one of my favorites. The header of their website proclaims, “NO GOVERNMENT, CORPORATE OR ADVERTISING $$$,” which stands as a marker of self-proclaimed nonpartisanship, political and otherwise. They report on news from all around the world, offering stories ignored by most other major outlets.

Reuters
Reuters, an international news agency stationed in London, is so dedicated to journalistic objectivity that they sometimes receive criticism for it. After the September 11 attacks, they were accused of insensitivity because of their reluctance to use the word “terrorist” except when in quotes.

The Independent
The Independent is a U.K. newspaper that reports on news from around the world. While its status as “independent” often garners accusations of liberalism, the paper does not endorse any political party and offers a wide range of views on different topics.

PBS, BBC and CSPAN
PBS, BBC and CSPAN are also major notable outlets. When compared to others, such as Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, they offer unprecedented objectivity.


Me, I have a rather different list.. Possibly of interest to some who find their way to this posting…



JULY 9, 2016 BY JAMES FORD

Christopher Columbus was too late! We were here already.

THE BLACK PRESENCE IN AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS

Christopher Columbus wasn't the only European explorer who made note of an African presence in the Americas upon his arrival. Historians revealed that at least a dozen other explorers, including Vasco Nunez de Balboa, also made record of seeing “Negroes” when they reached the New World.

 5 Pieces of Evidence That Prove Black People Sailed to the Americas Long Before Columbus

Columbus Himself

According to renowned American historian and linguist Leo Weiner of Harvard University, one of the strongest pieces of evidence to support the fact that Black people sailed to America before Christopher Columbus was a journal entry from Columbus himself. In Weiner’s book, “Africa and the Discovery of America,” he explains that Columbus noted in his journal that the Native
Americans confirmed “black skinned people had come from the south-east in boats, trading in gold-tipped spears.”

American Narcotics Discovered in Egyptian Mummies

The discovery of American narcotics in Egyptian mummies has left some historians amazed.
Recently, archaeologists discovered the presence of narcotics only known to be derived from American plants in ancient Egyptian mummies. These substances included South American cocaine from Erythroxylon and nicotine from Nicotiana tabacum. German toxicologist Svetla Balabanova reported the findings, which suggest that such compounds made their way to Africa

through trans-Atlantic trade that would predate Columbus’ arrival by thousands of years.

Egyptian Artifacts in North America

For years, Eurocentric archaeologists have largely turned the other cheek when it came to the discovery of artifacts from ancient Egypt being discovered in the Americas. According to Dr. David Imhotep, the author behind the book “The First Americans Were Africans: Documented Evidence,” “Egyptian artifacts found across North America from the Algonquin writings on the East Coast to the artifacts and Egyptian place names in the Grand Canyon” are all signs of an
early arrival in the Americas by Africans. This is also paired with a much earlier account of Black people with incredible skills at sea. Back in 445 B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus wrote of King Ramses III leading a team of Africans at sea with astounding seafaring and navigational skills. Together, both accounts would point to Africans sailing over to the New World before

Columbus.

Ancient Pyramids

Constructing pyramids was a highly specialized and complicated task that took the ancient Egyptians a lot of time to master. In ancient Egypt, there are signs of progression from the original stepped pyramid of Djoser to the more sophisticated pyramids that now stand at Giza.
According to historians, it would be impossible for any group of people to have built those same complex pyramids without going through the same progression. Professor Everett Borders noted the presence of completed pyramids in La Venta in Mexico but the unusual absence of an earlier forms of the pyramids. According to Borders, it’s a sign that Africans, having already
mastered the construction of pyramids in Egypt, sailed over to the New World and constructed these dual-purpose tombs and temples in the Americas.

Ancient African Skeletons Discovered in the New World

There have been many instances of archaeologists discovering skulls and skeletons that they believed clearly belonged to people of African descent. Polish professor Andrzej Wiercinski revealed the discovery of African skulls at Olmec sites in Tlatilco, Cerro de las Mesas and Monte Alban. Even more ancient African skeletons that would clearly predate Columbus’ arrival in the
Americas were discovered throughout Central America and South America with some even being unearthed in what is now California.

Before Columbus: How Africans Brought Civilization to America

It has now become common knowledge amongst academics that Christopher Columbus clearly did not discover America, not least because is it impossible to discover a people and a continent that was already there and thriving with culture. One can only wonder how Columbus could have discovered America when people were watching him from America’s shores?

Contrary to popular belief, African American history did not start with slavery in the New World. An overwhelming body of new evidence is emerging which proves that Africans had frequently sailed across the Atlantic to the Americas, thousands of years before Columbus and indeed before Christ. The great ancient civilizations of Egypt and West Africa traveled to the Americas, contributing immensely to early American civilization by importing the art of pyramid building, political systems and religious practices as well as mathematics, writing and a sophisticated calendar.

The strongest evidence of African presence in America before Columbus comes from the pen of Columbus himself. In 1920, a renowned American historian and linguist, Leo Weiner of Harvard University, in his book, Africa and the discovery of America, explained how Columbus noted in his journal that Native Americans had confirmed that “black skinned people had come from the south-east in boats, trading in gold-tipped spears.”

One of the first documented instances of Africans sailing and settling in the Americas were black Egyptians led by King Ramses III, during the 19th dynasty in 1292 BC. In fact, in 445 BC, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote of the Ancient Egyptian pharaohs’ great seafaring and navigational skills. Further concrete evidence, noted by Dr. Imhotep and largely ignored by Euro-centric archaeologists, includes “Egyptian artifacts found across North America from the Algonquin writings on the East Coast to the artifacts and Egyptian place names in the Grand Canyon.”

In 1311 AD, another major wave of African exploration to the New World was led by King Abubakari II, the ruler of the fourteenth century Mali Empire, which was larger than the Holy Roman Empire. The king sent out 200 ships of men, and 200 ships of trade material, crops, animals, cloth and crucially African knowledge of astronomy, religion and the arts.

African explorers crossing the vast Atlantic waters in primitive boats may seem unlikely, or perhaps, far fetched to some. Such incredible nautical achievements are not as daunting as they seem, given that
numerous successful modern attempts have illustrated that without an oar, rudder or sail ancient African boats, including the “dug-out,” would certainly have been able to cross the vast ocean in a matter of weeks.

As time allows us to drift further and further away from the “European age of exploration” and we move beyond an age of racial intellectual prejudice, historians are beginning to recognize that Africans were skilled navigators long before Europeans, contrary to popular belief.

Of course, some Western historians continue to refute this fact because, consciously or unconsciously, they are still hanging on to the 19th-century notion that seafaring was a European monopoly.

After all, history will tell you that seafaring is the quintessential European achievement, the single endeavor of which Europeans are awfully proud. Seafaring allowed Europe to conquer the world. The notion that black Africans braved the roaring waters of the Atlantic Ocean and beat Europeans to the New World threatens a historically white sense of ownership over the seas.

When most people think about ancient Mexico, the first civilizations that come to mind are the Incas, Aztecs and the Maya. However, during the early 1940’s archeologists uncovered a civilization known as the Olmecs of 1200 BC, which pre-dated any other advanced civilization in the Americas.

The Olmec civilization, which was of African origin and dominated by Africans, was the first significant civilization in Mesoamerica and the Mother Culture of Mexico.

Olmecs are perhaps best known for the carved colossal heads found in Central Mexico, that exhibit an unmistakably African Negroid appearance. Ancient African historian Professor Van Sertima has illustrated how Olmecs were the first Mesoamerican civilization to use a written language, sophisticated astronomy, arts and mathematics and they built the first cities in Mexico, all of which greatly influenced the Mayans and subsequent civilizations in the Americas. “There is not the slightest doubt that all later civilizations in [Mexico and Central America], rest ultimately on an Olmec base,” once remarked Michael Coe, a leading historian on Mexico.

Africans clearly played an intricate role in the Olmec Empire’s rise and that African influence peaked during the same period that ancient Black Egyptian culture ascended in Africa.

A clear indicator of pre-Columbus African trans-Atlantic travel is the recent archeological findings of narcotics native to America in Ancient Egyptian mummies, which have astounded contemporary historians. German toxicologist, Svetla Balabanova, reported findings of cocaine and nicotine in ancient Egyptian mummies. These substances are known to only be derived from American plants. South American cocaine from Erythroxylon coca and nicotine from Nicotiana tabacum. Such compounds could only have been introduced to Ancient Egyptian culture through trade with Americans.

Similarities across early American and African religions also indicate significant cross-cultural contact. The Mayans, Aztecs and Incas all worshipped black gods and the surviving portraits of the black deities are revealing. For instance, ancient portraits of the Quetzalcoatl, a messiah serpent god, and Ek-ahua, the god of war, are unquestionably Negro with dark skin and wooly hair. Why would native Americans venerate images so unmistakably African if they had never seen them before? Numerous wall paintings in caves in Juxtlahuaca depict the famous ancient Egyptian “opening of the mouth” and cross libation rituals. All these religious similarities are too large and occur far too often to be mere coincidences.

Professor Everett Borders notes another very important indication of African presence, which is the nature of early American pyramids. Pyramid construction is highly specialized. Ancient Egypt progressed from the original stepped pyramid of Djosser, to the more sophisticated finished product at Giza. However, at La Venta in Mexico, the Olmecs made a fully finished pyramid, with no signs of progressive learning. Olmecian and Egyptian pyramids were both placed on the same north-south axis and had strikingly similar construction methods. Tellingly, all of these pyramids also served the same dual purpose, tomb and temple.

Ancient trans-Atlantic similarities in botany, religion and pyramid building constitute but a fraction of the signs of African influence in ancient America. Other indicators include, astronomy, art, writing systems, flora and fauna.

Historically, the African people have been exceptional explorers and purveyors of culture across the world. Throughout all of these travels, African explorers have not had a history of starting devastating wars on the people they met. The greatest threat towards Africa having a glorious future is her people’s ignorance of Africa’s glorious past.

Pre-Columbus civilization in the Americas had its foundation built by Africans and developed by the ingenuity of Native Americans. Sadly, America, in post-Columbus times, was founded on the genocide of the indigenous Americans, built on the backs of African slaves and continues to run on the exploitation of workers at home and abroad.

Clearly, Africans helped civilize America well before Europeans “discovered” America, and well before Europeans claim to have civilized Africa. The growing body of evidence is now becoming simply too loud to ignore. It’s about time education policy makers reexamine their school curriculums to adjust for America’s long pre-Columbus history.

Garikai Chengu is a scholar at Harvard University. Contact him on garikai.chengu@gmail.com

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Garikai Chengu, Global Research , 2015

THE BLACK PRESENCE IN AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS

by The African United Front © 2016

Professor Ivan Van Sertima

“The African presence is proven by stone heads, terra cottas, skeletons, artifacts, techniques and inscriptions, by oral traditions and documented history, by botanical, linguistic and cultural data. When the feasibility of African crossings of the Atlantic was not proven and the archaeological evidence undated and unknown, we could in all innocence ignore the most startling of coincidences. This is no longer possible. The case for African contacts with pre-Columbian America, in spite of a number of understandable gaps and a few minor elements of contestable data, is no longer based on the fanciful conjecture and speculation of romantics. It is grounded now upon an overwhelming and growing body of reliable witnesses.”  –Ivan Van Sertima, They Came Before Columbus.

On September 24th, 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in Washington, D.C. The New York Times has stated that this long awaited monument to centuries of African American suffering and triumphs “makes a powerful declaration: The African-American story is a central part of the American story.”

How central the role was that African Americans played has never been completely told and, unfortunately, a pivotal part of that history has been excluded from this exhibit. In truth, Africans began coming to the Americas thousands of years before Columbus; and the evidence of their presence, though systematically ignored by mainstream scholars, is overwhelming and undeniable. As Columbus Day (October 12) approaches and as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of They Came Before Columbus by the late Rutgers University professor, Ivan Van Sertima, we must reveal to the world the grandeur of Africa by highlighting the achievements of some of its great navigators and rulers.



EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS


Ever since Christopher Columbus first suggested that Black Africans preceded him to the New World, a number of scholars have investigated this contention. In his Journal of the Second Voyage, Columbus wrote that when he reached Haiti, then labeled Espanola, the native people told him that black skinned people had come from the south and southeast in ships trading in gold tipped metal spears. The following is recorded in Raccolta, part I, volume I: “Columbus wanted to find out what the Indians of Espanola had told him, that had come from the south and southeast, [N]egro people who brought those spear points made of a metal which they call guanin, of which he had sent samples to the king and queen for assay and which was found to have 32 parts – 18 of gold, 6 of silver, and 8 of copper.”1 Curious about the validity of this story, Columbus did indeed send samples of these spears back on a mail ship to Spain to be examined, and it was found that the ratio of properties of gold, copper, and silver alloy were identical to the spears then being forged in African Guinea.2

In a book on the life of Columbus, his son, Ferdinand, reported that his father saw Black people himself when he reached the region just north of the country today called Honduras. Nearly a dozen other European explorers also found Black people in the Americas when they reached the Western Hemisphere. In September 1513, Vasco Nunez de Balboa led his men down the slopes of Quarequa, which was near Darien, now called Panama, where they saw several Black men, who were captured by native Americans.3 “Balboa asked the Indians whence they got them [the Black people], but they could not tell, nor did they know more than this, that men of this color were living nearby and they were constantly waging war with them. These were the first Negroes that had been seen in the Indies.”4 Peter Martyr, the first prominent European historian of the New World, stated that the Black men seen by Balboa and his companions were shipwrecked Africans who had taken refuge in the local mountains.5  

Father Fray Gregoria Garcia, a priest of the Dominican order who spent nine years in Peru during the early sixteenth century, identified an island off of Cartagena, Columbia as the place where the Spanish first found Black people in the New World. As in Darien, these Africans were also captives of war among the native Americans.6 Also during the sixteenth century – after the advent of Columbus, but before the universal enslavement of Africans – Cabello de Balboa cited a group of seventeen Black people who, after being shipwrecked in Ecuador, became governors of an entire province of native Americans.7

TESTIMONY IN STONE

Although eyewitness accounts of early European explorers may be the best evidence of an African presence in the New World that preceded Columbus, it is certainly not the only evidence. “As early as the nineteenth century” wrote Jonathan Leonard, a specialist on early Mexico, “reports had come from this coastal region [the Mexican gulf coast] of gigantic heads with Negroid features.”8 The first of these heads was discovered by Jose Melgar in Veracruz in 1862. He wrote two articles about this particular head, one in the Boletin de Geografia y Estadistica, and the other in the respected Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica. “Melgar’s mind,” wrote art historian Alexander von Wuthenau,

“not yet tainted by certain currents of modern (and perhaps not so modern) anthropology, reacted quite normally to this newly found evidence of [the] black man’s presence in ancient America. He furthermore cites a document of Francisco Nunez Vega (1691), who describes an ancient calendar found in Chiapas that mentions seven ‘negritos’ representing the seven planets.”9  


In describing the Olmec head, Melgar wrote that “what astonished me was the Ethiopic [Black African] type which it represents. I reflected that there had undoubtedly been Blacks in this country and this had been in the first epoch of the world…”10 Since Melgar’s discovery sixteen other colossal stone heads have been found in many parts of Mexico, including ancient sacred sites such as La Venta and Tres Zapotes in southern Mexico. Ranging up to 11.15 feet in height and weighing 30 to 40 tons, these statues generally depict helmeted Black men with large eyes, broad fleshy noses and full lips.

They appear to represent priest-kings who ruled vast territories in Mesoamerica [Mexico and Central America] during the Olmec period, which is to be considered later herein. On the strength of the colossal Olmec heads and other evidence, several early Mexican scholars concurred with Melgar’s contention that Black people settled the New World, particularly Mexico, in antiquity. “In a very ancient epoch,” wrote historian Riva Palacio, “or before the existence of the Otomies [native Americans] or better yet invading them, the Black race occupied our territory… This race brought its religious ideas and its own cult.”11

Author C.C. Marquez, adds that “[s]everal isolated but concordant facts permit the conjecture that before the formation and development of the three great ethnographic groups…a great part of Amcerica was occupied by [the] Negroid type.”12

Historian Nicholas Leon was of a similar opinion:

“The oldest inhabitants of Mexico, according to some, were Negroes, and according to others, the Otomies. The existence of Negroes and giants is commonly believed by nearly all the races of our soil… Several archaeological objects found in various locations demonstrate their existence… Memories of them in the most ancient traditions induce us to believe that the Negroes were the first inhabitants of Mexico”13


Another authority, J.A. Villacorta, has written: “Any way you view it, Mexican civilization had its origin in Africa.”14 Finally, historian Orozco y Berra declared in his History of the Conquest of Mexico, that there was, unquestionably, a significant, ongoing, and intimate pre-Columbian relationship between Mexicans and Africans.15
In addition to Mexican scholars, a number of others have described the colossal stone heads in terms similar to those of Melgar. Chief among them was the American Olmec specialist Matthew Stirling. He wrote:

“Cleared of the surrounding earth, it [the colossal head] presented an awe-inspiring spectacle. Despite its great size, the workmanship is delicate and sure, its proportions perfect… The features are bold and amazingly negroid in character.”16

Another authority, Selden Rodman speaks of the “…colossal ‘Negroid’ heads…”17 European journalist and Olmec specialist, Walter Hanf, describes “carved colossal heads with Negroid features, deformed and close-shaven skulls, blunt noses, and protruding lips.”18 Author and anthropologist Sharon McKern states that the colossal heads are “inescapably Negroid.”19

Historian Nicholas Cheetham writes of the “exaggeratedly Negroid features” of the stone heads.20 Finally, another scholar, Floyd Hayes, has provided the following thought provoking assessment of the racial significance of the colossal stone heads:

“One might merely ask himself: if Africans were not present in the Americas before Columbus, why the typically African physiognomy on the monuments? It is in contradiction to the most elementary logic and to all artistic experience to suggest that these ancient Olmec artists could have depicted, with such detail, African facial features they had never seen.”21

FIGURINES IN CLAY

According to Von Wuthenau, “[t]he startling fact is that in all parts of Mexico, from Campeche in the east to the southeast of Guerrero, and from Chiapas, next to the Guatemalan border, to the Panuco River in the Huasteca region (north of Veracruz) archeological pieces representing Negro or Negroid people have been found, especially in archaic or pre-classic sites. This also holds true for large sections of Mesoamerica and far into South America – Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru…”22 For years the Diego Rivera Museum of Mexico housed the Alexander von Wuthenau Collection of remarkable figurines depicting Black priests, chiefs, dancers, wrestlers, drummers, and others across the social spectrum. An examination of this artwork, wrote Van Sertima,


“reveals the unmistakable combination of the kinky hair, broad nose, generous lips, frequency of prognathism (projecting jaws), occasional goatee beard, and sometimes distinctly African ear pendants, hairstyles, tattoo markings, and coloration.”23

SKULLS AND SKELETONS

Author David Imhotep cites a number of scientists and scholars who have identified prehistoric skulls and skeletons of Black people of the Austro-Negrito type, dating back to as early as 56,000 years ago, throughout the New World.24 This appears to be substantiated by more recent discoveries.25

Our focus here, however, is on the Negroid skulls and skeletons that have been discovered at ancient and medieval New World sites. One of the world’s most renowned craniologists, Polish professor Andrzej Wiercinski, revealed to the 41st Congress of Americanists in Mexico in September 1974, that African skulls had been discovered at Olmec sites in Tlatilco, Cerro de las Mesas and Monte Alban. In using standard scientific measurements of skull shape and the formation of the face, Wiercinski found “a clear prevalence of the total Negroid pattern…”26

In this same vein, historian Frederick Peterson has written that “[w]e can trace the progress of man in Mexico without noting any definite Old World influence during this period (1000-650 B.C.) except a strong Negroid substratum connected with the Magicians [Olmecs].”27 Finally, in February of 1975, a team from the Smithsonian Institute reported the discovery of two Negroid male skeletons in a grave in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Scientific analysis of the surrounding soil suggests that the skeletons date back to about 1250 A.D.28  

THE OLMECS

Any objective analysis of the evidence clearly shows that Black people reached the Americas thousands of years before Columbus. But, in the words of Van Sertima, “proof of contact is only half of the story. What is the significance of this meeting of Africans and Native Americans? What cultural impact did the outsiders have on American civilization?”29 It would appear that the impact of the African explorers on the New World as a whole was widespread, profound and enduring. In this summary, however, we are confining ourselves to “a particular geographic region (the Gulf of Mexico), a particular culture complex or civilization (known as Olmecs), and a particular period of history (948-680 B.C.)”.30


The name Olmec means “Dweller in the land of Rubber” and could technically be applied to anyone who lived in the jungle areas of the Mexican Gulf Coast in antiquity.31 For centuries the indigenous people there created and perpetuated a local culture that varied little from its surroundings. Then, suddenly, sometime after the first millennium B.C., this region became the center of a full-blown civilization that had no detectable antecedents. This high culture is now known as the Olmec civilization. According to Michael Coe, the world’s foremost authority on Olmec culture, “There is not the slightest doubt that all later civilizations in Mesoamerica, whether Mexican or Mayan, rest ultimately on an Olmec base.”32 Van Sertima adds: “The Olmec civilization was formative and seminal: it was to touch all others on this continent, directly or indirectly.”33

Some of the Olmec sculptures depicting human beings are so decidedly Negroid that many scholars long thought that the indigenous Olmec culture itself was of Black origin. The original Olmecs were Native Americans who were very probably colonized and acculturated by Africans who settled their homeland. “…I have never claimed,” writes Van Sertima, “that Africans created or founded the Olmec civilization…They left a significant influence upon it…and that is more than can be said of any other Old World group visiting the native American or emigrating to the continent before Columbus.”34


A study of the Olmec civilization reveals elements that are remarkably similar to the ritual traits and techniques in the Egypto-Nubian world of the same period. When viewed in their totality these cultural similarities strongly suggest that there was contact between the ancient Africans from the Nile Valley and the Olmec people. Conspicuous among these shared elements are those adopted by the monarchies in both civilizations, “and appear in a combination too arbitrary and unique to be independently duplicated.”35 They include the following: The double crown, the royal flail, the sacred boat or ceremonial bark of the kings, the religious value of the color purple and its special use among priests and people of high rank; the artificial beard, feathered fans and the parasol or ceremonial umbrella. In an oral tradition recorded in the Titulo Coyoi, a major document of the Maya, the parasol is specifically mentioned as having been brought to the New World by foreigners who traveled by sea from the east.36

The Indian scholar, Rafique Jairazbhoy, has studied the ancient Egyptians and the Olmecs in great detail and has pointed to many other ritual parallels between the two groups. For example, there are hand-shaped incense spoons found in Olmec sites that are almost identical to their Eyptian counterparts and have similar names. In Egypt there are numerous sculptures depicting four figurines symbolically holding up the sky. A similar sculpture has been discovered at the Olmec site of Portrero Nuevo. In Egyptian mythology the human headed bird, Ba, flies out of the tomb. A bird with a human head also appears in a relief from Izapa, Mexico;37 “and Mexican sarcophagi leave an opening in the tomb as do the Egyptians, for the bird’s escape from the dead.”38

Jairazbhoy also shows remarkable similarities between several gods in the Egyptian underworld and those of Olmec Mexico. The most striking similarities between the two cultures are seen in the magnificent stone structures that have been found on both sides of the Atlantic. In America we have no antecedents for the construction of pyramids, for example, “whereas there is a clear series of evolving steps and stages [in pyramid building] in the Egypto-Nubian world.”39

Van Sertima asks, “Where do the first miniature step pyramid and the first manmade mountain or conical pyramid appear in America? On the very ceremonial court and platform where four of the African-type heads were found in the holy capital of the Olmec world, La Venta. Even among the Maya, where Dr. Hammond has found 2000 B.C. villages, no pyramid appears until much later.”40

While we could continue to cite infinite similarities between ancient African and New World cultures in various fields including linguistics and botany, let us turn instead to consider the likely origin of the Africans who appear to have reached and profoundly influenced American culture thousands of years before Columbus. The currents off Africa serve as veritable conveyor belts to the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the northeastern corner of South America. Mayan and African oral traditions speak of pre-Columbian expeditions across the Atlantic from east to west;41 and the modern explorer, Thor Heyerdahl, has demonstrated that ships modeled after the ancient Egyptian papyrus boat could indeed successfully make such a journey.42 Other Africans also built sturdy, seaworthy ships.43  

CONCLUSION

Who, then, were the Africans who sailed to America in antiquity? Jairazbhoy believes that the earliest settlers were ancient Egyptians led by King Ramesis III, during the nineteenth dynasty.44 Van Sertima contends that “a small but significant number of men and a few women, in a fleet protected by a military force, moved west down the Mediterranean toward North Africa in the period 948-680 B.C…and got caught in the pull of one of the westward currents off the North African coast, either through storm or navigational error,” and were carried across the Atlantic to the New World. In his view this fleet was probably led by Phoenician navigators who had been pressed into service by the Nubian pharaohs of Egypt during the twenty fifth dynasty.45


Other scholars contend that numerous navigators sailed to the Americas from West Africa when the medieval empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhay flourished in that region. In light of the vast evidence available (far more, for example, than that of the Vikings) of an African presence in ancient America, why is this information virtually unknown to the general public? Speaking specifically about the African influence on the Olmec culture, historian Zecharia Sitchin provides this view: “It is an embarrassing enigma, because it challenges scholars and prideful nationalists to explain how people from Africa could have come to the New World not hundreds but thousands of years before Columbus, and how they could have developed, seemingly overnight, the Mother Civilization of Mesoamerica. To acknowledge the Olmecs and their civilization as the Mother Civilization of Mesoamerica means to acknowledge that they preceded that of the Mayans and Aztecs, whose heritage the Spaniards tried to eradicate and Mexicans today are proud of.”47

In a world accustomed to suppressing, distorting, ignoring or denying the achievements of Black Africans it is difficult to accept the historical paradigm shift mandated by the evidence presented here. For, whether we accept the facts or not, Jairazbhoy appears to have been right when he wrote: “The black began his career in America not as slave but as master.”48

To Be Continued

Virginia governor declares state of emergency as white nationalist rally in Charlottesville breaks out in violence

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has declared a state of emergency as demonstrations in Charlottesville erupted into violence Saturday morning.

The demonstrations precede a "Unite the Right" rally called by white nationalists in response to a plan to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a park in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Thousands of white nationalist protesters, as well as groups that oppose them, have clashed during demonstrations that are currently ongoing.

Images and videos of the protest have appeared on Twitter and depict police confronting protesters and deploying tear gas.

The announcement came shortly after city and Albemarle County officials declared a local state of emergency as protests in the Virginia college town grew violent.


Skirmishes ignited hours before a scheduled noon protest at Charlottesville's Emancipation Park, where white supremacists, white nationalists and alt-right groups were set to protest the city's decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. 

Soon after the emergency declaration, police declared an unlawful assembly at the park and began asking crowds there to disperse. 

Video of the chaos shows police dressed in riot gear marching on the scene as some people appeared to leave the park. 

Tensions were high in Charlottesville ahead of the protest. Men holding bats and clubs and wearing helmets clashed with one another in the streets, with police doing little to break up the violence according to The Washington Post.


A protest on the campus of the University of Virginia on Friday that appeared to be connected to Saturday's event resulted in at least one person taken away in handcuffs.

Jay-Z 4:44

The Story of Jay-Z

Decoding the historical context behind the emcee’s economic nationalism on his new album 

4:44

Until 4:44, Jay-Z’s albums could be understood as an indictment of the immorality of capitalism by a man luxuriating in its fruits. Jay-Z argued that there was something revolutionary in this, in a black man born in the projects proving himself a better entrepreneur than white men born into plenty, as if to suggest the infinite human potential destroyed by the circumstances he escaped. He was right.

Jay-Z used the terms of finance to describe the drug trade—referring to his crew as his “staff,” his organization as his “conglomerate,” smoothly transitioning from acknowledging the violence of the trade to comparing it to the stock market (“drug prices up and down like it’s Wall Street homes, but this is worse than the Dow Jones, your brains are now blown”), and connecting the inequality of the system that shaped his life with his determination to triumph over it.


He saw clearly that his pursuit of success visited countless cruelties and indignities upon himself and those around him, and that his triumph would come at unimaginable cost. Perhaps the one thing he didn’t expect was that it would have a happy ending, one with wealth and family, fame and fatherhood.

The contradiction of that transition is that while Shawn Corey Carter’s politics have simplified in disappointing ways, that’s come with an emotional maturity Jay-Z never had. On Reasonable Doubt, Jay-Z’s ideal relationship was one in which fidelity was optional; on 4:44, Carter raps movingly about the devastating realization that someday, his children will learn of his transgressions. He imagines himself on the other end of the knife he used to stab the director Lance “Un” Rivera in 1999. He gives his mother space on the album to speak about the years she spent hiding her sexual orientation.

The tension between Jay-Z’s love of the game and his fear of losing his soul, his indulgence in worldly pleasures as the years ripped away friends and family through death or betrayal, formed the emotional core of every Jay-Z album from Reasonable Doubt to The Blueprint 3. Appropriately enough, 4:44 begins with the metaphorical assassination of the Jay-Z persona as Carter takes on the responsibilities of fatherhood, marriage, and wealth. He offers a new vision of capitalism as a tool for community uplift. Carter is not at the height of his lyrical prowess on 4:44, but the album is ambitious and emotionally vulnerable, and represents a profound shift from Jay-Z’s previous offerings, especially in its belief in the power of the market to improve black lives rather than destroy them.  


Perhaps the most concise and perplexing statement of Carter’s new unambiguous love for capitalism comes in a couplet on the second track, “The Story of O.J.,” a song whose main theme is the indelible force of racism against black people regardless of class. On one jarring line, Carter states, “You wanna know what’s more important than throwin’ away money at a strip club? Credit. You ever wonder why Jewish people own all the property in America? This how they did it.”

Carter’s admonition is meant to encourage black people to imitate what he perceives to be a Jewish strength of ethnic solidarity and financial prowess. “‘The Story of O.J.’ is really a song about we as a culture, having a plan, how we’re gonna push this forward,” Carter said on iHeartRadio. But the line is nonetheless startling because it invokes the anti-Semitic canard that Jews maintain financial control of everything you see. It’s beneath Carter, a writer and artist of astonishing ability and sophistication who has every reason to know better. Responding to prior criticisms in his book Decoded, Jay-Z  wrote that “when I use lines like this, I count on people knowing who I am and my intentions, knowing that I’m not anti-Semitic or racist, even when I use stereotypes in my rhymes.”



There’s an old strain of black capitalism here that runs from Booker T. Washington through the Black Power movement to the Nation of Islam and beyond. Carter is also drawing on an old tradition of using American Jews as a model of a downtrodden people who found success in America. Frederick Douglass predicted that just as Jewish people had “risen” despite discrimination in Europe, “in like manner the Negro will rise in social scale.”

“The Jew, who was once in about the same position as the Negro is to-day, has now complete recognition, because he has entwined himself in America in a business or industrial sense,” Washington wrote in Industrial Training for the Negro in 1904. Washington also had a similar vision of community uplift through labor that never materialized, because the white South never truly adhered to its side of the bargain Washington offered—submission to Jim Crow in exchange for peace.

“The organization of the 3,000,000 Jews in America is little less than marvelous,” wrote W.E.B DuBois in the NAACP magazine The Crisis in 1915. “This is the great net work of organization which makes the Jewish people the tremendous force for good and for uplift which they are in this country. Let black men look at them with admiration and emulate them.”  


These sorts of admonitions, drawn from Maurianne Adams’s anthology of essays on black-Jewish relations, echo through the high point of black-Jewish cooperation during the civil-rights movement, and its nadir beginning in the late 1960s, when both communities drifted toward nationalisms that would prove to be incompatible. Shirley Chisholm asserted that within Bed-Stuy, Barbadian Americans like her parents were referred to as “Black Jews” “because of their work ethic and obsession with their children’s education,” the historian Michael Woodsworth wrote in Battle for Bed-Stuy.

And of course, there were those who bristled at the comparison, such as James Baldwin. He wrote that “the Jew profits from his status in America, and he must expect Negroes to distrust him for it. The Jew does not realize that the credential he offers, the fact that he has been despised and slaughtered, does not increase the Negro’s understanding. It increases the Negro’s rage.”

If American blacks had the same access to credit as American Jews … the Bed-Stuy that created Shawn Carter would never have existed.

The analogy has never worked, because even at its worst moments America has generally been a haven for its Jewish immigrants and their descendants, and a place of bondage for its black residents and theirs. We know the names Leo Frank, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner; the names of black people who were killed in the South under similar circumstances are too numerous to recall without aid.

“Jews had a choice, they could be white and American in all things secular, and Jewish in all things religious,” wrote Julius Lester, a former UMass-Amherst professor and African American convert to Judaism.* “This choice was not available to black people for obvious reasons.” American Jews simply have not, and likely never will, face the structural barriers that black Americans continue to face. To this day, black Americans are targeted by mainstream financial institutions with predatory loans and subprime mortgages with the potential to wipe out whatever financial success they’ve attained.

 You rarely hear black people suggesting that they emulate Jewish success anymore, although as the only Jew in mostly black spaces growing up, and almost always the only black Jew, I sometimes heard it, often with the same ambivalent mix of admiration and hostility with which it comes across on 4:44. That advice isn’t given anymore because of the popular recognition that if American blacks had the same access to credit as American Jews, if thrift and moral rectitude were all that was necessary for economic success, the Bed-Stuy that created Shawn Carter would never have existed.

At first, the Brooklyn neighborhood was actually two different ones: Bedford and Stuyvesant Heights. But when black families began to move into the adjacent communities in the 1930s, they became one entity. By 1940, the New Deal-era Home Owners’ Loan Corporation graded the neighborhood as “hazardous” because of an “infiltration of negroes.” The HOLC noted that “Colored infiltration” was “a definitely adverse influence on neighborhood desirability although Negroes will buy properties at fair prices and usually rent rooms.” Racism made Bed-Stuy, and then the government drew a red line around it.

As Woodsworth wrote in Battle for Bed-Stuy, “subsequent assessments by private lenders reinforced the notion that Central Brooklyn, with its expanding black population, should be quarantined. As a result, few prospective homebuyers in the area, black or white, could access federally guaranteed mortgages; existing homeowners, foreseeing plummeting property values, sold out while they could.”

The HOLC’s designation ensured that banks would not extend their usual loans there—depriving black Americans of the credit lines and capital investment that other communities would use to build wealth, and then look down their noses at black people wondering why they had not done the same. Ten years after the HOLC’s assessment, the New York City Housing Authority opened a 27-building complex known as the Marcy Houses, built on nearly 30 acres of homes and businesses cleared to make room for the public housing project. It was built to house working-class Americans and veterans, and was the childhood home of Shawn Corey Carter.

That Bed-Stuy, like all of New York City and black neighborhoods all over America, was created through private racism and state discrimination, by the hands of presidents like Franklin Roosevelt and city bureaucrats like Robert Moses. “Until the last quarter of the twentieth century,” wrote Richard Rothstein in The Color of Law, “racially explicit policies of federal, state, and local governments defined where whites and African Americans should live.” Black Americans in Bed-Stuy (as elsewhere) organized to fight these policies, but as Woodsworth described, fighting segregation in the North could be as daunting as fighting it in the South: “The problem for New York activists was that segregation was illegal, even if it persisted on the ground. They could not hope to deal a fatal blow to the Jim Crow system, since the Jim Crow system did not officially exist.”

That historical context is lacking from the economic nationalism of 4:44. The strip-club line is a more risque expression of the Obamaesque notion that black people would have better credit if they spent less money on vice, that they would have money to invest in gentrifying Brooklyn real estate or fine art that appreciates in value. “What’s better than one billionaire? Two,” Carter raps on “Family Feud.” “Especially when they from the same hue as you.” Does Carter really believe a few more black members of the one-percent club is going to change circumstances for the black masses?

  This is far afield from the Jay-Z on Reasonable Doubt who acknowledged, “nine to five is how you survive but I’m not trying to survive I’m trying to live it to the limit and love it a lot”; who recalled the fleeting and bittersweet triumph of drug money, allowing him to sit at the bar “laughin’ hard, happy to be escapin’ poverty, however brief.” It’s not the Jay-Z who reveled in the skills he learned in the same drug trade, while confessing that drugs killed his father and led him to carry the gun that he used to shoot his brother. Who bragged about being able to sell “ice in the winter, I’ll sell fire in hell, I am a hustler baby, I’ll sell water to a well,” a line that’s brilliant because it identifies the essence of hustling as selling people things they don’t need. The Jay-Z who confessed that “the pressure for success can put a good strain, on a friend you call best, and yes, it could bring out the worst in every person, even the good and sane.” The rapper who acknowledged that his experience, the “American dream,” was “a journey seldom seen.”

There are hints of the old Jay-Z on 4:44 (“I still ain’t trippin’, that’s life, winners and losers, drug dealers and abusers, America likes me ruthless”), but he is largely gone, replaced by Shawn Carter the mogul, who raps on “Legacy” about leaving his wealth to his children over a sample of Donny Hathaway singing “one day we’ll all be free.” In 1999, Jay-Z told Vibe that his most important goal was “to create a comfortable position for me and everybody around me ... blacks, when we come up, we don’t normally inherit business. That’s not a common thing for us to have old money, like three and four generations, inheriting our parents’ businesses. That’s what we workin on right now, a legacy.” Nearly two decades later, Jay-Z’s vision of legacy has evolved past his inner circle to the larger black community.

Jay-Z has always asked a lot of his audience, rewarding those who look for a deeper meaning behind his deceptively casual flow.

It’s a sunny optimism that stands out across the release of albums from black artists over the past two years from Solange Knowles to Kendrick Lamar that linger in the shadow of post-Obama melancholy, the sort of feeling Jay-Z might have been describing when he said in 2000, “niggas say it’s the dawn but I’m superstitious, shit is as dark as it’s been, nothing has moved as you predicted.” The point is not that 4:44’s message of community uplift is not inspiring—it is. But a lack of inspiration or motivation is not the reason that the black community suffers disproportionately from poverty, unemployment, crime, or incarceration.

And so the arc that began with Reasonable Doubt comes to an end of sorts: Jay-Z was willing to exploit the unjust system that condemned him to a life of poverty to escape it; Shawn Carter the mogul believes that system can set black people free, implying his improbable success and undeniable genius could or should be imitated. Jay-Z savaged the hypocrisy and cruelty of American capitalism while mastering it; on 4:44, Carter wonders if the system might work after all.  

Jay-Z has always asked a lot of his audience, rewarding those who look for a deeper meaning behind his deceptively casual flow. Carter’s newfound positivity and calls to buy black—and therefore subscribe to his TIDAL streaming service and buy his  champagne and cognac—whether sincere or otherwise, help his bottom line.

It’s hard not to think back to The Black Album, Jay-Z’s temporary farewell to the industry in 2003, in which he explains why he doesn’t adopt the more overtly political and activist stances of rappers like Talib Kweli and Common, and wonder whether, like Batman hiding behind Bruce Wayne, Jay-Z  the hustler is as dead as you might presume from listening to 4:44’s first track.

“If skills sold, truth be told, I’d probably be lyrically Talib Kweli, truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense, but I did 5 mill, I ain’t been rhyming like Common since,” Jay-Z raps. Later, he says, “so next time you see the homie and his rims spin, just know my mind is working just like them (the rims, that is).”

ADAM SERWER  JUL 7, 2017

  

Jeff Horn shocks Manny Pacquiao to capture welterweight title

Manny Pacquiao was the heavy favorite to retain his welterweight world title against unknown Jeff Horn in what most viewed as an easy fight, and Pacquiao sure looked like he had done just that when the final bell rang to end the action-packed brawl.

Pacquiao had rocked Horn, bloodied him and nearly stopped him in a violently one-sided ninth round. But then the judges' scorecards were read, and Pacquiao was the victim of a hugely controversial decision, as Horn was awarded a stunning unanimous decision -- a hometown decision, many will call it -- before 51,052 at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Australia, on Saturday night (Sunday morning in Australia).

Judge Waleska Roldan had it 117-111, and judges Chris Flores and Ramon Cerdan both had it 115-113 for Horn. ESPN.com scored the fight 117-111 for Pacquiao, and ESPN ringside analyst Teddy Atlas had it 116-111 for Pacquiao.

Pacquiao, the Filipino legend and boxing's only eight-division world champion, has been here before, losing a split decision and a welterweight world title to Timothy Bradley Jr. in 2012 in one of the most controversial decisions in boxing history. Like he was after that loss -- which he avenged twice -- Pacquiao was gracious after his bout with Horn.

"That's the decision of the judges. I respect that," Pacquiao said.

Freddie Roach, Pacquiao's Hall of Fame trainer, also took the high road.

"I have to go along with Manny and say I respect the decision of the judges," Roach said. "Well, two of the judges [who had it 115-113]. I did think Manny won, but Jeff Horn showed a lot of heart. He is a big, strong fighter, and I congratulate him."

Pacquiao holds the contractual right to a rematch, and he said he would exercise it.

"Absolutely, yes," Pacquiao said of fighting Horn again in Australia. "We have a rematch clause, so no problem."


The fight, which aired live on ESPN, was Pacquiao's first non-pay-per-view fight since 2005 and supposed to be a showcase. That Horn was still standing at the end of the rough, tough fight was a surprise, but Pacquiao looked to be the clear winner -- until his belt was handed to Horn, a 29-year-old former Olympian and former school teacher with a very thin ring résumé.

Horn seemed as shocked as anyone that he got the decision, if body language means anything, but he said he thought he won what will go down as the biggest fight in Australian history.

"I thought I was coming forward more and landing the cleaner blows," Horn said. "That's just my opinion."

Asked how he managed to win, he struggled for words at first.

"I don't know. I guess with the crowd behind me and all the support," said Horn, who was Pacquiao's mandatory challenger. "I've just believed since I was young that I could do this. There's lots of thoughts going through [my mind]. I managed to get the decision. It was close."

It did not appear to be all that close, however, even though the action far exceeded the modest expectations going into the fight. Pacquiao also dominated the CompuBox punch statistics, getting credit for landing 182 of 573 blows (32 percent), while Horn landed 92 of 625 (15 percent). Pacquiao also landed more punches in 11 of the 12 rounds, according to CompuBox.

Horn (17-0-1, 11 KOs) tried to rough Pacquiao up and landed a couple of shots in the first round, but Horn also had his mouthpiece dislodged. Still, Horn was extremely aggressive and busy.

But Pacquiao came back strong in the second round, landing two very solid straight left hands, but the chin of Horn, who has been knocked down a few times in his career, held up.

In the third round, Pacquiao continued to land and opened a cut over Horn's right eye, which got worse as the fight went on.

Horn was trying very hard to land big punches and spent the fight bulling forward and trying to smother the faster Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KOs).


In the sixth round, an accidental head-butt opened a cut on Pacquiao's hairline, and blood streamed down his body. Then Horn rocked Pacquiao with a right hand in a stunning scene. Pacquiao quickly recovered, but it had to give Horn confidence.

There was another accidental head-butt in the seventh round, and it cut Pacquiao, 38, again, this time near his left eye, and more blood streamed down his face. Horn went right at Pacquiao after the ringside doctor took a look at the cut, and the crowd got very excited.

"I feel his power. He is strong," said Pacquiao, who after the fight needed nine stitches to close the cut on the hairline and eight stitches to close the cut by his left eye.

But Pacquiao, a southpaw, had a huge ninth round. He turned up his aggression and battered Horn, landing numerous brutal shots, especially with his left hand. Horn took them all and refused to go down, but he was in rough shape at the end of the round. Referee Mark Nelson went to Horn's corner and told him he would not let him continue to take punishment; Nelson strongly considered stopping the fight. Horn convinced him to allow the fight to go on.

"He was a tough opponent," Pacquiao said. "I tried to knock him out in the ninth round, but he survived. In the ninth round, I thought I am going to win the fight."

Horn said he felt Pacquiao's power in the ninth round but was able to recover.


"I felt fine in that corner. I wanted to keep going on," Horn said. "I wasn't really that hurt. I was a little bit buzzed in that round, but I recovered very quickly. He buzzed me a little bit. I felt a little off-balance in that round."

Pacquiao, who was making the first defense of the title he won via lopsided decision against Jessie Vargas in November, continued to go after Horn in the 10th round. Horn looked spent but was somehow able to remain on his feet as he continued to show his enormous heart.

The 12th round was another intense one, as Pacquiao, without a knockout since 2009, tried to close the show. But Horn also fought hard until the final bell, thinking he might be able to land a big shot. When the fight ended, the crowd erupted. Pacquiao pumped his fists, and Horn's cornermen raised him up.

And then came the shocking reading of the scorecards by ring announcer Michael Buffer.

"I am professional. I respect the judges. He survived that [ninth] round," Pacquiao said, adding that the two cuts from the head-butts bothered him.


"It affected me. A lot of blood came out of my head," he said.

Pacquiao, who made at least $10 million to Horn's $500,000, also said he was a little under the weather, having picked up a cold upon his arrival in Australia a week earlier, but he did not harp on that.

Instead, he graciously stood at ringside next to Horn as they were both interviewed.

Horn, who is a huge Pacquiao fan and said he drew inspiration from him earlier in his career, was still seemingly in awe that he got the decision. He had the belt over his shoulder and as he walked away from ringside, he first went to Pacquiao and said, "Manny, you're an absolute legend. Thank you."


What he probably should have done instead was thank the judges.

By Dan Rafael
ESPN Senior Writer