Africa in April

Africa in April Cultural Awareness Festival

                   

The 23rd Annual Africa in April Celebration held in Memphis, TN will take place April 16-19, 2009 in Robert R. Church Park in downtown Memphis. This year’s featured country is The Republic of Mauritania. 

I will definitely be in attendance. I love going out to the festival each year and viewing and purchasing the beautiful paintings, handmade jewelry, clothing, handbags and a host of other rarities. The smell of the delicate incense fills the air along with the great food being prepared by the country’s natives.  The music is vibrant and flowing through the festival by way of the breezes from the Mississippi River. This is an event for the entire family. It is an opportunity for those young and old to get a glimpse of Africa and its major significance to African Americans.

“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.”
-Margaret Mead

This video has footage of past Africa in Aprica festivals —> Africa in April, Memphis, TN

Here is more information on the featured country of The Republic of Mauritania

National Geographic – Mauritania

Business Africa.net - The Islamic Republic of Mauritania

I also found this blog on Blogger that has good info on The Republic of Mauritania and some beautiful photos of the country –> Saharan Vibe – Mauritania

Piracy on the High Seas

Maybe I have just been out of the loop and uninformed, but I had no idea that pirates still existed. I can’t really say that before this chain of events I even believed pirates ever really existed. For me; pirates were one of those things that you don’t really believe in but you don’t put in the complete fairytale category. When I saw in the news that Somalian pirates had hijacked a US crew ship and had taken the captain hostage I was shocked. How could this have happened? I had no clue that there were modern day pirates and that ships were still being hijacked at sea.

I was amazed when reading these articles

U.S. Crew Ship: Pirates Holding Captain

They outran the pirates for between three and five hours,” Murphy said. “They were finally overtaken, substantial gunfire involved.”   -from CBS News

Pirates Vow to Kill U.S., French Sailors

“We have decided to kill U.S. and French sailors if they happen to be among our future hostages,” said Abdullahi Ahmed, a member of a pirate group based at Harardhere, a coastal town in central Somalia.”      -from CNN.com

New Wave of Somali Pirate Attacks

US President Barack Obama promised on Monday to “halt the rise of piracy” in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.   -from BBC News

 Halt…I didn’t even know it was taking place. I found some very interesting info on this Q&A of Somali Piracy.  It was devastating to hear of Somalia’s extremely poor economy which plays a major part in why some of these young men have become pirates. Read more here —>Young Somalis Lured by Piracy Riches

Now the question arises on how the captured pirates should be punished –> Obama Seeks to Halt Piracy on High Seas

 

Racism Today (Post 3)

I am beginning to sway towards the belief that a blatant racist is better than an undercover, throw a rock and hide your hand racist any day…. Either way a racist is a racist, but if you have this belief why hide behind the camouflage of sarcasm and idiotic comments.

Have you noticed that both undercover and blatantly racist people can somehow throw Barack Obama into any conversation?

It is quite annoying to me that you can be holding a simple conversation about something as simple and nonpolitical as the weather, and somehow these people (who immediately put it on the table that they are not racist and do not support racism) will somehow throw in their distaste for Barack Obama.  Weren’t we talking about the weather?

There are far more people in the “Rush Limbaugh Is Our Hero” clique than we think or would like to believe and honestly it is becoming more and more disturbing by the day how so many people refuse to own up to their racism. If you dislike Barack Obama because of his race…umm that probably means that you are a racist. So when you say things constantly about Barack Obama in clearly unrelated conversations your racism shines through like a shiny new penny.

African American supporters of Barack Obama have been labeled as extremist.  It has been said by many non supporters that black people have deemed Barack Obama as the New Jesus. Somewhere along the lines our confidence in Obama and our pledged support have been scandalized and wrongly reflected as closely mimicking idolism. These people believe that the majority of black people who voted for and support Barack Obama see him as our savior. That somehow we think he is going to take all of our worries away  and deliver us from the troubles of this world which includes our car note, our mortgage, unemployment, depression, flu, money problems, bad relationships, long term illnesses, unpaid doctor bills, dwindling savings, alcoholism, drug addiction, headaches etc, you get the picture.

Much of this nonsense stems from racist people who instead of stating their reasons for not supporting Obama they turn their distaste towards those that do support him and this distaste is often reflected in their idiotic statements and behavior.

Here is a video from one of the greatest douchebags alive, Rush Limbaugh. This video is a classic example of a racist giving his political thoughts which are primarily based on his own personal racist opinion and not the facts. But honestly this kind of behavior is expected of Limbaugh.  He is one of the most racist men alive and unlike some racist people there is no hesitancy for him to open his mouth and publicly display his ignorance and high level of loserism.

In the video Limbaugh talks about his suspicions of Barack Obama. Would he have been so suspicious had Barack Obama been a white, qualified candidate running for President? Of course not!