WERE THE JEWS ORIGINALLY NEGROES?
EUROPEAN painters and sculptors by their use of white models to typify
*-J Biblical characters have falsified tremendously the physiognomy of
the ancient Jews. We are familiar with the scores of portraits offered
to us as Christ. But do good Christians ever stop to think what he
really looked like? Josephus, first century historian, described him
as dark skinned and simple in appearance, in the Halosis, suppressed
portion of his work.*
Solomon, too, is portrayed as a white man, though in the Songs
attributed to him he speaks of himself as "black but comely." After
visiting most of the leading galleries of Europe and America, the only
realistic painting of an Eastern crowd that I have ever seen is
"Christ and Barabbas" by Verlat in the Royal Museum of Antwerp where
the mob is clamoring for Barabbas in preference to Christ.
Solomon, too, is always painted white. The only picture I have ever
seen of him as a Negro was in a certain luxurious palace of Cytherea
in Paris.
Mention was made of the biblical theory that Negroes became black
because Noah, supposedly white, cursed the sons of Ham. But the
earliest Jews were in all probability, Negroes.
Abraham, their ancestor, is said to have come from Chaldea and the
ancient Chaldeans were black. "The Chal-dees," says Higgins, "were
originally Negroes." As was said, too, relics of prehistoric Negroes
have been discovered in this region.
It is even possible that the Jews originated, not in Asia, but in
Africa. Gerald Massey has advanced considerable argument in proof of
that theory.
Whatever was the original color of the Jews they lived for more than
four centuries among the Negroid Egyptians. Their supposed oppressor,
the Pharaoh, Mernepthah, shows marked Negroid traits.
Only seventy Jews went to Egypt, but according to the Bible, 600,000
men left it, which must have meant an additional two or three million
women and children. Since the Jews were slaves their women were
undoubtedly concubines of the Egyptians and must have produced mixed
offspring.
After more than three centuries of slavery almost every trace of the
first seventy Jews must have been lost, together with their culture.
Thus Jewish culture was Egyptian culture. For instance, the Egyptians
did not eat pork, and still do not eat it.
To get an idea what must have happened to only those seventy Jews,
think of what has happened to Negroes in the United States who came in
'See sources in "Nature Knows No Color-Line" p. 40.
92
SEX AND RACE
hundreds of thousands over a period of centuries and not all at once
as the Jews did in Egypt. The Negroes are so Americanized that were it
not for their color one would forget that they ever came from Africa.
The Falashas, or Black Jews of Ethiopia, are probably very ancient.
They claim lineal descent from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, call
themselves Beta-Israel (The Chosen People), and observe the passover.1
Tacitus (80 A.D.) says that many Romans of his time believed that the
Jews originated in Ethiopia, having left there to escape oppression
from Cepheus, the king. Whiston, translator of Josephus' History of
the Jews, asks with regard to this: "One would wonder how Tacitus or
any other heathen could suppose the African Ethiopians under Cepheus,
who are known to be blacks, could be the parents of the Jews, who are
known to be whites ?"2
But, as was said, the Negro Jews in Ethiopia are actually Jews.
Moreover, it is only in the white men's lands that the Jews are
white, this being the result of intermixture with the whites. In the
black man's land they are black. If some Romans believed that the Jews
were of Ethiopian ancestry, there must certainly have been black Jews
in Rome. Negroes were very well known to the Romans.
Moses himself was black. In all likelihood he was the son of Pharaoh's
own daughter, which would account for his adoption and rearing for the
throne. The story of his finding in the bullrushes is so identical
with that told about Sargon, King of Babylon, who preceded him, that
to some it seems doubtful."3 Moreover, this finding a child in the
water is an old African tradition.
When Jehovah wished to give Moses a sign, so runs the famous legend,
he told him to put his hand into his bosom. The hand came out white,
proving that it could not have been white before. The miracle lay in
turning a black skin white, and turning it to black again. Hence the
perfect logic of the Mohammedan belief that Moses was a Negro.
As Sir T. W. Arnold says: "According to Mohammedan tradition Moses was
a black man as may be seen from the following passage in the Koran,
'Now draw thy hand close to thy side; it shall come forth white but
unhurt'— another sign (XX, 23). 'Then he drew forth his hand and lo!
it was white to the beholders. The nobles of Pharaoh said, "Verily
this is an expert enchanter." VII, 105-06).'"4
Similarly Suyuti tells: "A Negro who pretended to the gift of prophecy
was brought before al-Mamun (the Caliph) and said: 'I am Moses, the
son of Imram,' and al-Mamun said to him, 'Verily, Moses the son of
Imram
drew forth his hand from his bosom white, therefore, draw forth thy
hand white that I may believe thee.' "5
Turning to modern anthropology one finds confirming evidence. Ratzel
says: "The entire Semitic and Hamitic population of Africa has.. .a
mulatto character which extends to the Semites outside of Africa."6
Prof. Elliott Smith in "Human History," similarly states: "Every kind
of intermingling has taken place between the original groups of the
Negro, Hamitic and Semitic peoples."7
In the Sudan, Upper Egypt, and North Africa there are Jews whose color
and features are indistinguishable from Negroes. The Jews outside
Africa retain, large numbers of them, their Negroid traits.
Fishberg traces the physical resemblance between the white Jews and
the black ones. Speaking of the color prejudice among Jews in India he
says: "The white Jews keep aloof and do not associate with their
(black) co-religionists." Of the latter he says: "Such persons also
have a Jewish physiognomy, which is so specific that one would be
inclined to believe that they are of mixed blood, were they not so
cruelly maltreated by their white co-religionists and treated as black
Jews." They are kept at a respectable
« History of the Caliphs, (trans. H. S. Jarrett), p. 342. Calcutta,
1881. •History of Mankind. Vol. II, p. 246. i p. 143. London,
1934.
iFishberg, M., The Jew, pp. 117, 147-48; 120-134. London, 1911.
Nesfield, Brief View of the Caste System, para. 135. Massey, G. A.,
Book of the Beginnings, Vol. II, pt. 2. pp. 364-441. London, 1881.
2 Josephus' History of the Jews. Dissertation III, p. 923. London.
1841.
3 Jewish Encyclopedia. (See Moses).
4 The Preaching of Islam, p. 358. London. 1913
RACE-MIXING
94
SEX AND RACE
distance and not permitted to enter the synagogue of the whites, nor
do they bury their dead in the same cemetery.
Dr. Hans Guenther in his "Rassenkunde des Judischen Volkes," does the
same. His work is illustrated with portraits of Negroid Jews of Europe
and elsewhere. As was already said he compares a portrait of Abraham
Plattje, a Hottentot, with that of Benjamin Disraeli, Jewish Prime
Minister of England.8 The resemblance is striking. Guenther,
it is said, did this
to depreciate the Jew but since we do not concede that Negro ancestry
is a disgrace we cannot consider that Guenther's alleged aim has
been achieved.
Count Adam Gurowski of Poland, who visited the United States in 1857,
said similarly, "Numbers of Jews- have the greatest resemblance to the
American mulattoes. Sallow carnation complexion, thick lips, crisped
black hair. Of all the Jewish population scattered over the globe
one-fourth dwells in Poland. I 'am, therefore, well acquainted with
their features. On my arrival in this country (The United States) I
took every light-colored mulatto for a Jew."9
Measurements of the skulls of Polish Jews in Whitechapel, London,
revealed that about 30 per cent of them were Negroid.10
The Negro strain is apparent among a considerable number of American
Jews. Some Jewish women go to Negro hair-dressing parlors to have
their hair straightened. The Island of Jamaica has a considerable
number of mulatto Jews, also.
8 pp. 90-95, 99-115, 143-148. Munich, 1930.
9 America and Europe, p. 177. N. Y., 1857.
10 Man, Vols. 5:6. No. 55, p. 93. Additional Bibliography:
Williams, J. J. Hebrewisms of West Africa. N. Y., 1930. Wheless, J. Is
it God's Word? N. Y., 1926. Wheless, J. Forgery in Christianity. N.
Y., 1930. Scribner's Maga Apr., May, June, July, 1929, for West
African Jews. Additional data and sources in Rogers, J. A. Nature
Knows No Color Line, pp. 122, 130, 140-142.
Friday, November 9, 2007
RACE-MIXING UNDER ISLAM!
ImHotep,
If you are desirous of more mind boggling information on these and
other subjects similar to this, email me and we can work out a way to
get you this KNOWLEDGE.
All of this accurate information comes from books that have been
banned, and are very difficult to obtain. The Caucasian world does not
want anyone to know the truth about who and how the world was
populated.
Chapter Ten
RACE-MIXING UNDER ISLAM
ONE fact about Islam stands glowingly forth through the centuries: Its
almost total freedom from race and class prejudice; the opportunity it
gave to every capable and aspiring follower, regardless of color or
social status, to rise to the highest possible rank.
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Slaves rose to be sultans, and slave women to be favorites of the
ruler, and mothers of heirs to the throne. At times the slave,
himself, became a master while still enslaved and held freeborn men of
wealth and power in dread of him.
Christianity, which too, was an Oriental religion, had begun with the
same broadmindedness. "Of one blood," said St Paul, "God made all the
races of the earth." Race distinctions were unknown in early
Christianity.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first great leaders of Christianity, next to St. Paul, were all
born in parts of Africa where Negro strain was abundant in the
population, and were very likely Negroes themselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is true of St. Augustine, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, and
Clement of Alexandria. Tertullian and St. Athanasius (296-373 A.D.),
for whom the Athanasian Creed is named, are definitely said to have
been Negroes. Nevertheless, Christianity was not long in developing
class differences in addition to slavery and after the discovery of
the New World color prejudice too.
Of What Race Was Mohamet?
Mohamet, the founder of Islam, was an Arab. What is an Arab?
The Encyclopedia Britannica (11th edition) says of Arabia's present
inhabitants, "Arabia has a considerable free black population and
there again by intermarriage with the whites around have filled the
land with a mulatto breed of every shade till in the eastern and
southern provinces especially a white skin is almost an exception.
In Arabia no prejudice exists against Negro alliances; no social or
political line separates the African from the Arab."
There is every reason to believe that the above picture has been true
of Arabia for the past several thousand years. Arabia is but an
extension of Africa where black people from the southwest, and white,
or nearly white people, from the northwest met to mingle their
cultures and their blood.
Mohamet, himself, was to all accounts a Negro. A contemporary of his
describes him as "large-mouthed," and "bluish-coloured, with hair that
was
95
96
SEX AND RACE
neither straight nor curly,"1* that is, hair that was probably frizzly
like that of the "Fuzzy-Wuzzy." "Bluish," also, happens to be the
precise color of certain very Negroid natives of the Sudan. Mohamet's
mother was also African. His grandfather, Abd el Mottalib, is spoken
of as being "very dark." He might have been a slave, "Abd" or "aabd"
originally meant "slave." Therefore when Dermenghamlb says that the
Negro strain "seemed scarcely perceptible,"in Mohamet, he is evidently
wrong.
Most of Mohamet's first disciples were Negro slaves. His second
convert and closest and most honored friend until his death was Bilal,
an Ethiopian ex-slave. Mohamet thought so highly of Bilal that he gave
him precedence over himself in Paradise. Mohamet also adopted as his
own son, another Negro, Zayd bin Harith, his third convert, who rose
to be one of his greatest generals.2 Later, to show his regard for
Zayd, he took one of Zayd's wives, the beautiful Zainab, as his own.
One of Mohamet's earliest injunctions was, "Variety of your languages
and of your complexions, verily herein are signs unto men of
understanding." (Koran XXX, 21).
Of course, the mere issuance of this injunction is proof that there
must have been some prejudice against color. In fact, wherever
differences of color exist, there are certain preferences, mostly
sexual, which like anything else in creation can be expanded into a
fetish over which human beings can be made to fight.
Hollywood, for instance, gives the preference to blondes; and
gentlemen, we are told, prefer blondes. It must be rather irritating
for a brunette beauty to find herself rejected by a movie director,
because her skin and hair are not whiter.
Arabia, in Mohamet's time, was, even as it now is, a mulatto land.
These mulattoes considered themselves superior, but not very seriously
so to both the "pure" whites and the "pure" blacks. This trait was not
local, nor is it entirely of the past. Certain old mulatto families of
the West Indies, West Africa, and Ethiopia still feel the same towards
whites and blacks.
The Arab considered a white skin inferior; perhaps one had better say
he had a certain repulsion for it such as exists today nearly over all
Africa and Southern Asia because of its unfamiliarity.
Gobineau says that Mohamet was too near divinity "to show a white
skin" to his followers. Professor Toynbee says also, "The Primitive
Arabs who were the ruling element of the Umayyad Caliphate called
themselves 'the swarthy people' with a connotation of racial
superiority and their Persian and Turkish subjects 'the ruddy people'
with a connotation of racial inferiority, that is to say, they drew
the distinction that we draw between blonds and brunets but reversed
the values."3
*» Margoliouth, D. S. Mohammed, p. 63. London, 1927. lb
Dermengham. Life of Mohamet, p. 5. London, 1930. 2 Islamic
Review. Vol. 20, p. 220. June-July, 1932. » A Study of History.
Vol. I, p. 226. London, 1934.
RACE-MIXING UNDER ISLAM
97
This feeling of superiority on the part of a mixed race was probably
heightened by the very low culture of the Nordics of that time.
Draper, writing of the eleventh century, speaks of the vastly superior
social and artistic development of the swarthy Moors, who, he says,
might well have looked "with supercilious contempt on the dwellings of
the rulers of Germany, France, and England, which were scarce better
than stables—chimneyless, windowless, and with a hole in the roof for
the smoke to escape like the wigwams of certain Indians."4
The Zenghs, or Zends, the very black natives of Africa, who were
imported in great numbers as slaves, were looked down on too, probably
for the same reason. A work by Al-Jahiz, a Negro writer, whom
Christopher Dawson calls "the greatest scholar and stylist of the
Ninth Century,"5 leaves little doubt of that. This book is entitled
Kitab al Sudan wa 'l-Bidan, or "The Superiority in Glory of the Black
Race Over the White," a title that speaks for itself. "White" here, be
it noted, does not mean the fair whites, but dark-skinned whites and
mulattoes.
In parts of the East, as in Ethiopia, the fair white is called "the
red man." Moreover, Jahiz in his essay includes the East Indians among
the blacks—a people which many modern ethnologists claim as white.
Another writer of that time, Masudi, has written at length of these
primitive blacks.6
The latter were treated so badly by their masters, some of whom were
native-born blacks, that they rose in what was undoubtedly the
greatest slave rebellion in history, including even that of Haiti,
Under their leader, Al Burkhui, (The Veiled Prophet), they seized
Bagdad, the capital of the world's then mightiest empire, and held it
for thirteen years (870-883 A.D.).
The Zenghs killed more than half a million of their oppressors, an
enormous number for that day. Cutting off the heads of their masters
they would toss the heads in the canals of the Tigris and let them
drift down the stream to anxious relatives waiting to see who were the
next.7
Several passages in Arabian literature also reveal a certain prejudice
against the pure blacks. In the great Arabian sex classic, Er Roud el
aater fi nezaha el khater, (The Perfumed Garden), the remarks of the
Caliph when he witnesses the sexual prowess of the Negro, Al Durgham,
and his careful inquiry into the cause of his powers, leave little
doubt of that.8
Also, the
4 Intellectual Development of Europe, p. 348. N. Y., 1863.
»The Making of Europe, p. 152. N, Y„ 1932. Hitti. P. K. History
of the Arabs, p. 382. London, 1937.
6Les Prairies d'Or. (trans. C. Barbier de Meynard), Vol. I, pp.
163-67; Vol. Ill, chap. 33. Paris, 1863.
7 Hitti, P. K. Ibid, pp. 467-68.
8Nefzawi. Le Jardin Parfume. History of the Negro, Doreramus, pp.
44-72. Paris, 1927.
100
SEX AND RACE
poet, An-Nami, when mocked about his gray hairs by another, who said
that An-Nami had but a single black hair in his head, replied, "A dark
African spouse will not remain long in the house where the second wife
is white." (Note that "white" in the East, as in Brazil, is sometimes
dark mulatto).
Abu Ishak, a poet, who wrote much in favor of his black slave, Yumn,
also says, "The dark-skinned Yumn said to one whose colour equalled
the whiteness of the eye, "Why should your face boast of its clear
complexion? Do you think that by so clear a tint it gains additional
merit? Were a mole of my colour on that face it would adorn it, but
one of your coloui on my cheek would disfigure it.' "9
Two of the greatest of all Oriental rulers, Antar and Kafur, both
suffered from color prejudice at first. Antar, who was the son of an
Ethiopian slave, was despised by the Bedouins, themselves a Negroid
people, because of his blackness. Antar is the greatest chivalrous
figure of the East and one of the world's great poets.10
Kafur, "a Negro of deep-black color with a smooth shining skin," who
had been brought out of the Sudan as a slave, and who later rose to be
ruler of Egypt and Syria, was at first mocked by his fellow-slaves,
and called "the moon of darkness' by the celebrated poet,
Al-Muttanabi.11
The phrase, "black but comely" which is said to be a correct
translation, also shows some objection to black. Some of this feeling
still exists in the East. I recall seeing once in Cairo a very black
man with short woolly hair but with an almost Grecian profile. The
type being unfamiliar to me, I asked my companion, a Bedouin, who was
at least three-fourths Negro, himself, whether the man was an
Egyptian. "No/' he replied, "that's what they call a nigger." He said
that his father had people like him as slaves but added quickly that
they were treated very kindly.
This prejudice against unmixed white and unmixed black has long
existed in Ethopia also.12 Count Gleichen correctly said that the
Ethiopian "hates a white man" and is anxious to keep him out of his
country.
The Amhara, who, in general, show more of the Negro than the average
Afra-merican, look down upon the Chankalla, or primitive black. But
this is largely true only of the first generation.
Numbers of leading Ethiopians show a marked Chankalla strain. The
great Emperor Menelik, who was coal-black, came of this stock. His
mother, Edgig-aiehou, was a Chankalla slave. In Egypt, too, these
black Negroes, some of them with their tribal
8 Ibn Khallikan. Biographical Dictionary, (trans. MacGuckin de Slane),
Vol. I, pp. 32, 111. Paris, 1842-71.
10 Hamilton, T. Antar. 4 vols. London, 1880. Also Biographie
Universelle
n Ibn Khallikan. Biographical Dictionary (McGuckin de Slane), Vol. II,
pp. 524 et seq. Paris. 1842.
12 Ludolphus. History of Ethiopia. Book I, chap. 14. London,
1682.
RACE-MIXING UNDER ISLAM
101
markings, hold high rank in the Egyptian army. The chamberlain of the
late King Fouad was a black, Sammi Bey, while the prime minister,
Nahas Pasha, was a mulatto. In short, the prejudice in the East cannot
be explained in terms of the American one. It is cultural rather than
chromatic. The nearest thing to it, I know, is the prejudice the
Northern Negro entertains for most of the Southern ones.
Color, then, was no serious bar under Islam, or in the East, from the
earliest times. Several of the rulers of the Mohammedan Empire, at the
height of its glory were not only mulattoes, but blacks. Such a one
was Ibrahim al-Mahdi, Islam's most renowned singer, and the
half-brother of Haroun Al-Raschid of Arabian Nights' fame. Ibrahim
calls himself "a Negro" in his autobiography.
So does his uncle and rival for the throne, Mamoun the Great.
Ibrahim's mother was the daughter of a Persian king.
Ibn Khallikan, Arab historian of the thirteenth century, says of
Ibrahim, "Being of dark complexion which he inherited from his mother,
Shikla or Shakla, who was a Negro, he received the name of
At-Thinnin—the Dragon (due to his size and the blackness of his skin)
— He was proclaimed Caliph at Bagdad.. .under the title of Al Mubarak
(The Blessed)."13 At least two of the other caliphs, Al Muktafi and
Rachid, had Negro mothers, according to Suyuti.
The renowned Kafur, ruler of Egypt, was a thick-lipped Negro slave of
Chankalla birth; Haroun Al-Raschid made Khusabeb, another Negro
ex-slave, ruler of Egypt.14 Mahmud of Ghazni, greatest of the Islamic
conquerors, was the son of a slave.
The Mamelukes, some of whom were white slaves from the Russian
Caucasus, and some of whom were Negro slaves from the Sudan, ruled
Egypt for three centuries (1250-1517), and held great power when
Napoleon invaded Egypt. Moslem India, also, has had many great rulers
of Negro descent, one of whom was Malik Ambar,15 a Negro ex-slave, who
ruled in Bombay; and Malik Andeel, another Negro ex-slave who ruled in
Bengal.16
The Nawabs, or Nabobs, great Moslem princes of India, are originally
of Ethiopian Negro stock.17 They enjoyed great power until the
beginning of the nineteenth century.
Negro Ranked First in Sexual Competence
As regards sex relations, the real index to prejudice, there was
little ill-will either. Black men, some of whom were eunuchs, had
sometimes great harems with women of many races. One of these
latter, Sunbullu (The
is Ibn Khallikan. Ibid, Vol. I, p. 17.
"Sadi. Gulistan (ed. Sir Edward Arnold), pp. 80-1. N. Y., 1899.
is See 40.
16 See 41.
" Morie, L. J. Histoire de l'Ethiopie, Vol. II, p. 33. Paris,
1904.
RACE-MIXING UNDER ISLAM
105
In a footnote to the second story in which the master's daughter gives
herself to a Negro, Burton says, "This familiarity with blackamoor
slave-boys is common in the East and often ends as in the story.
"In my time no honest Hindi-Moslem would take his women-folk to
Zanzibar on account of the huge attraction and enormous temptation
there and thereby offered to them." (Burton, here refers to the
muscular black men, wandering nude on the streets.)19
Napoleon on Race-Mixing in the East
When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798 and saw how the different colors
of mankind lived in harmony under Islam, while in Christian Haiti,
whites, mulattoes, and blacks were at one another's throats in a
three-cornered war, he was so impressed that he tried to introduce
legal race-mixing in Haiti. He said,
"These countries were inhabited by men of different colors. Polygamy
is the simple way of preventing them from persecuting one another. The
legislators have thought that in order that the whites be not enemies
of the blacks, the blacks of the whites, the copper-colored of the one
and the other, it was necessary to make them all members of the same
family and struggle thus against a penchant of man to hate all that is
not like him.
Mohamet thought that four women were sufficient to attain this goal
because each man could have one white, one black, one copper-colored,
and one wife of another color...
"When one wishes to give liberty to the blacks in the colonies of
America and establish a perfect equality, the legislator will
authorise polygamy and permit at the same time a white wife, a black
one, and a mulatto one. Then the different colors making part of the
same family will be mixed in the opinion of each. Without that one
would never obtain satisfactory results. The blacks would be more
nurgerous and clever and they would hold the whites in abasement and
vice versa.
"Because of the general principle of equality that polygamy has
established in the East there is no difference between the
individuals composing the house of the Mamelukes. A black slave that a
bey had bought from an African caravan became katchef and was the
equal of a fine white Mameluk, native of Circassia; there was no
thought even of having it otherwise.
"Slavery has never been in the Orient what it was in Europe.
The customs in this respect have remained the same as in the Holy
Scriptures: the servant marries with the master. In Europe, on the
contrary, whoever bore the imprint of the seal of slavery remained
always in the last rank.. ."20
"Vol. I. pp. 1-16 6. 71: Vol. II. p. 49: Vol. IV, pp. 245-60, 253,
278. *>Memoires. Vol. III. pp. 152-54. 259-76. Paris. 1904.
108
SEX AND RACE
In short, the Negro, was discriminated against in no phase of
Mohammedan life on the ground of color alone. Islam was the greatest
and freest of all great melting pots.
And it carried race-mixing throughout the length and breadth of what
was the vastest empire the world has ever known. At the height of its
power Islam stretched from the centre of France south to the
Mediterranean and along both shores of this sea to the Levant and from
thence to India, China, and the islands of the Pacific, as well as
into Asiatic Russia.
The sultans in this vast area were of all colors from blond to
coal-black and wives of all colors were to be found in their harems.
White captives of both sexes were taken from Europe and scattered over
North Africa and Asia and black captives of both sexes were carried
into Europe and Asia. Differences of color among the Mohammedans came
in time to count for almost as little as the different colors of
flowers in a garden does to the flowers themselves.
A Negroid strain, more or less predominant, ran through the whole. As
Keane says, "All who accepted the Koran became merged with the
conquerors in a common Negroid population."21
It was this empire founded by the black Mohamet with the help of
brown, yellow and white mongrels that aroused proud Europe from the
slumber of the Dark Ages, and laid the foundations of its present
culture. It was the great Arab chemists, architects, mathematicians,
physicians, and experimental scientists to whom we are largely
indebted for modern science.
Go to any part of the Mohammedan world—to India, Indo-China, Egypt,
Morocco, Spain—and you will behold art whose beauty mankind seems to
have lost the conception of. Near to the Alhambra, for instance, is a
structure erected by the architects of the Emperor Charles V of Spain
and Germany. Compared with the superb beauty of the Alhambra the
latter, is to say the least, crude and clumsy.
It was the Arabs, too, who gave to Europe her present system of
numerals, which they, in turn, had taken from the Hindus. Match this
Arabic or Hindu numeral, against the tedious and cumbersome Roman
letter-numerals! No wonder Nietzsche raged in anger when he thought of
how the Moors who had done so much for European civilization had been
driven out like dogs by the Christians.
Race-mixing, as we thus see, has been one of the functions of empire.
Egypt, Persia, Macedonia, Rome, brought hordes of whites, browns, and
blacks and amalgamated them. All great empires seem, to begin with
race-mixing, and die when they become too pure. The races that are
furthest down are the purest ones, as the Veddahs of Ceylon, the
Andaman Islanders, the Pigmies, and the Semangs. The mixed ones are
the furthest up. What 21 Man, Past and Present, p. 64. Cambridge,
1920.
110 SEXANDRACE
land is more mixed than the United States, which is now at the top ?
America, as we shall show in Volume Two, is more vastly mixed than the
average person imagines. The race-purists usually shut their eyes to
this fact. Petrie showed how repeated Ethiopian invasions brought new
life to Egypt.
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A pure race may be compared to standing water; a mixed race, to
running water. The former soon becomes stagnant; the latter by running
purifies itself. Nature knows her business. She is wiser than all
in this respect.
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Egypt Today
The color pattern of the Egyptian population today may be summed up as
follows: In Alexandria and the Delta rather more white than black due
to European immigration; at Cairo, there is also a large European
population but the native population is mulatto, and shades off
towards dark mulatto; at Thebes, it is predominantly dark mulatto with
a large proportion of blacks; and in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, it is
far more black than mulatto with only a sprinkling of whites, mostly
Europeans.
Some of these blacks haven't the broad features of the average West
African black, but their hair is woolly. Some of the jet-black,
woolly-haired Negroes, as the so-called Fuzzy-Wuzzies, have Grecian
profiles.
A Levantine strain is also apparent in certain of the population. In
short, this black population s very highly mixed.
The people of Southern Persia are still largely Negroid. Some are pure
Negroes, like the Bombassi. The Susians in the lower valley of the
Euphrates are also strongly Negroid. In all this region of the Near
East the supply of "pure" Negroes was kept up by the slave trade and
the recruiting of black women for the harems, which still goes on.
Negroes in this latter region also marry white women.
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If you are desirous of more mind boggling information on these and
other subjects similar to this, email me and we can work out a way to
get you this KNOWLEDGE.
All of this accurate information comes from books that have been
banned, and are very difficult to obtain. The Caucasian world does not
want anyone to know the truth about who and how the world was
populated.
Chapter Ten
RACE-MIXING UNDER ISLAM
ONE fact about Islam stands glowingly forth through the centuries: Its
almost total freedom from race and class prejudice; the opportunity it
gave to every capable and aspiring follower, regardless of color or
social status, to rise to the highest possible rank.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Slaves rose to be sultans, and slave women to be favorites of the
ruler, and mothers of heirs to the throne. At times the slave,
himself, became a master while still enslaved and held freeborn men of
wealth and power in dread of him.
Christianity, which too, was an Oriental religion, had begun with the
same broadmindedness. "Of one blood," said St Paul, "God made all the
races of the earth." Race distinctions were unknown in early
Christianity.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first great leaders of Christianity, next to St. Paul, were all
born in parts of Africa where Negro strain was abundant in the
population, and were very likely Negroes themselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is true of St. Augustine, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, and
Clement of Alexandria. Tertullian and St. Athanasius (296-373 A.D.),
for whom the Athanasian Creed is named, are definitely said to have
been Negroes. Nevertheless, Christianity was not long in developing
class differences in addition to slavery and after the discovery of
the New World color prejudice too.
Of What Race Was Mohamet?
Mohamet, the founder of Islam, was an Arab. What is an Arab?
The Encyclopedia Britannica (11th edition) says of Arabia's present
inhabitants, "Arabia has a considerable free black population and
there again by intermarriage with the whites around have filled the
land with a mulatto breed of every shade till in the eastern and
southern provinces especially a white skin is almost an exception.
In Arabia no prejudice exists against Negro alliances; no social or
political line separates the African from the Arab."
There is every reason to believe that the above picture has been true
of Arabia for the past several thousand years. Arabia is but an
extension of Africa where black people from the southwest, and white,
or nearly white people, from the northwest met to mingle their
cultures and their blood.
Mohamet, himself, was to all accounts a Negro. A contemporary of his
describes him as "large-mouthed," and "bluish-coloured, with hair that
was
95
96
SEX AND RACE
neither straight nor curly,"1* that is, hair that was probably frizzly
like that of the "Fuzzy-Wuzzy." "Bluish," also, happens to be the
precise color of certain very Negroid natives of the Sudan. Mohamet's
mother was also African. His grandfather, Abd el Mottalib, is spoken
of as being "very dark." He might have been a slave, "Abd" or "aabd"
originally meant "slave." Therefore when Dermenghamlb says that the
Negro strain "seemed scarcely perceptible,"in Mohamet, he is evidently
wrong.
Most of Mohamet's first disciples were Negro slaves. His second
convert and closest and most honored friend until his death was Bilal,
an Ethiopian ex-slave. Mohamet thought so highly of Bilal that he gave
him precedence over himself in Paradise. Mohamet also adopted as his
own son, another Negro, Zayd bin Harith, his third convert, who rose
to be one of his greatest generals.2 Later, to show his regard for
Zayd, he took one of Zayd's wives, the beautiful Zainab, as his own.
One of Mohamet's earliest injunctions was, "Variety of your languages
and of your complexions, verily herein are signs unto men of
understanding." (Koran XXX, 21).
Of course, the mere issuance of this injunction is proof that there
must have been some prejudice against color. In fact, wherever
differences of color exist, there are certain preferences, mostly
sexual, which like anything else in creation can be expanded into a
fetish over which human beings can be made to fight.
Hollywood, for instance, gives the preference to blondes; and
gentlemen, we are told, prefer blondes. It must be rather irritating
for a brunette beauty to find herself rejected by a movie director,
because her skin and hair are not whiter.
Arabia, in Mohamet's time, was, even as it now is, a mulatto land.
These mulattoes considered themselves superior, but not very seriously
so to both the "pure" whites and the "pure" blacks. This trait was not
local, nor is it entirely of the past. Certain old mulatto families of
the West Indies, West Africa, and Ethiopia still feel the same towards
whites and blacks.
The Arab considered a white skin inferior; perhaps one had better say
he had a certain repulsion for it such as exists today nearly over all
Africa and Southern Asia because of its unfamiliarity.
Gobineau says that Mohamet was too near divinity "to show a white
skin" to his followers. Professor Toynbee says also, "The Primitive
Arabs who were the ruling element of the Umayyad Caliphate called
themselves 'the swarthy people' with a connotation of racial
superiority and their Persian and Turkish subjects 'the ruddy people'
with a connotation of racial inferiority, that is to say, they drew
the distinction that we draw between blonds and brunets but reversed
the values."3
*» Margoliouth, D. S. Mohammed, p. 63. London, 1927. lb
Dermengham. Life of Mohamet, p. 5. London, 1930. 2 Islamic
Review. Vol. 20, p. 220. June-July, 1932. » A Study of History.
Vol. I, p. 226. London, 1934.
RACE-MIXING UNDER ISLAM
97
This feeling of superiority on the part of a mixed race was probably
heightened by the very low culture of the Nordics of that time.
Draper, writing of the eleventh century, speaks of the vastly superior
social and artistic development of the swarthy Moors, who, he says,
might well have looked "with supercilious contempt on the dwellings of
the rulers of Germany, France, and England, which were scarce better
than stables—chimneyless, windowless, and with a hole in the roof for
the smoke to escape like the wigwams of certain Indians."4
The Zenghs, or Zends, the very black natives of Africa, who were
imported in great numbers as slaves, were looked down on too, probably
for the same reason. A work by Al-Jahiz, a Negro writer, whom
Christopher Dawson calls "the greatest scholar and stylist of the
Ninth Century,"5 leaves little doubt of that. This book is entitled
Kitab al Sudan wa 'l-Bidan, or "The Superiority in Glory of the Black
Race Over the White," a title that speaks for itself. "White" here, be
it noted, does not mean the fair whites, but dark-skinned whites and
mulattoes.
In parts of the East, as in Ethiopia, the fair white is called "the
red man." Moreover, Jahiz in his essay includes the East Indians among
the blacks—a people which many modern ethnologists claim as white.
Another writer of that time, Masudi, has written at length of these
primitive blacks.6
The latter were treated so badly by their masters, some of whom were
native-born blacks, that they rose in what was undoubtedly the
greatest slave rebellion in history, including even that of Haiti,
Under their leader, Al Burkhui, (The Veiled Prophet), they seized
Bagdad, the capital of the world's then mightiest empire, and held it
for thirteen years (870-883 A.D.).
The Zenghs killed more than half a million of their oppressors, an
enormous number for that day. Cutting off the heads of their masters
they would toss the heads in the canals of the Tigris and let them
drift down the stream to anxious relatives waiting to see who were the
next.7
Several passages in Arabian literature also reveal a certain prejudice
against the pure blacks. In the great Arabian sex classic, Er Roud el
aater fi nezaha el khater, (The Perfumed Garden), the remarks of the
Caliph when he witnesses the sexual prowess of the Negro, Al Durgham,
and his careful inquiry into the cause of his powers, leave little
doubt of that.8
Also, the
4 Intellectual Development of Europe, p. 348. N. Y., 1863.
»The Making of Europe, p. 152. N, Y„ 1932. Hitti. P. K. History
of the Arabs, p. 382. London, 1937.
6Les Prairies d'Or. (trans. C. Barbier de Meynard), Vol. I, pp.
163-67; Vol. Ill, chap. 33. Paris, 1863.
7 Hitti, P. K. Ibid, pp. 467-68.
8Nefzawi. Le Jardin Parfume. History of the Negro, Doreramus, pp.
44-72. Paris, 1927.
100
SEX AND RACE
poet, An-Nami, when mocked about his gray hairs by another, who said
that An-Nami had but a single black hair in his head, replied, "A dark
African spouse will not remain long in the house where the second wife
is white." (Note that "white" in the East, as in Brazil, is sometimes
dark mulatto).
Abu Ishak, a poet, who wrote much in favor of his black slave, Yumn,
also says, "The dark-skinned Yumn said to one whose colour equalled
the whiteness of the eye, "Why should your face boast of its clear
complexion? Do you think that by so clear a tint it gains additional
merit? Were a mole of my colour on that face it would adorn it, but
one of your coloui on my cheek would disfigure it.' "9
Two of the greatest of all Oriental rulers, Antar and Kafur, both
suffered from color prejudice at first. Antar, who was the son of an
Ethiopian slave, was despised by the Bedouins, themselves a Negroid
people, because of his blackness. Antar is the greatest chivalrous
figure of the East and one of the world's great poets.10
Kafur, "a Negro of deep-black color with a smooth shining skin," who
had been brought out of the Sudan as a slave, and who later rose to be
ruler of Egypt and Syria, was at first mocked by his fellow-slaves,
and called "the moon of darkness' by the celebrated poet,
Al-Muttanabi.11
The phrase, "black but comely" which is said to be a correct
translation, also shows some objection to black. Some of this feeling
still exists in the East. I recall seeing once in Cairo a very black
man with short woolly hair but with an almost Grecian profile. The
type being unfamiliar to me, I asked my companion, a Bedouin, who was
at least three-fourths Negro, himself, whether the man was an
Egyptian. "No/' he replied, "that's what they call a nigger." He said
that his father had people like him as slaves but added quickly that
they were treated very kindly.
This prejudice against unmixed white and unmixed black has long
existed in Ethopia also.12 Count Gleichen correctly said that the
Ethiopian "hates a white man" and is anxious to keep him out of his
country.
The Amhara, who, in general, show more of the Negro than the average
Afra-merican, look down upon the Chankalla, or primitive black. But
this is largely true only of the first generation.
Numbers of leading Ethiopians show a marked Chankalla strain. The
great Emperor Menelik, who was coal-black, came of this stock. His
mother, Edgig-aiehou, was a Chankalla slave. In Egypt, too, these
black Negroes, some of them with their tribal
8 Ibn Khallikan. Biographical Dictionary, (trans. MacGuckin de Slane),
Vol. I, pp. 32, 111. Paris, 1842-71.
10 Hamilton, T. Antar. 4 vols. London, 1880. Also Biographie
Universelle
n Ibn Khallikan. Biographical Dictionary (McGuckin de Slane), Vol. II,
pp. 524 et seq. Paris. 1842.
12 Ludolphus. History of Ethiopia. Book I, chap. 14. London,
1682.
RACE-MIXING UNDER ISLAM
101
markings, hold high rank in the Egyptian army. The chamberlain of the
late King Fouad was a black, Sammi Bey, while the prime minister,
Nahas Pasha, was a mulatto. In short, the prejudice in the East cannot
be explained in terms of the American one. It is cultural rather than
chromatic. The nearest thing to it, I know, is the prejudice the
Northern Negro entertains for most of the Southern ones.
Color, then, was no serious bar under Islam, or in the East, from the
earliest times. Several of the rulers of the Mohammedan Empire, at the
height of its glory were not only mulattoes, but blacks. Such a one
was Ibrahim al-Mahdi, Islam's most renowned singer, and the
half-brother of Haroun Al-Raschid of Arabian Nights' fame. Ibrahim
calls himself "a Negro" in his autobiography.
So does his uncle and rival for the throne, Mamoun the Great.
Ibrahim's mother was the daughter of a Persian king.
Ibn Khallikan, Arab historian of the thirteenth century, says of
Ibrahim, "Being of dark complexion which he inherited from his mother,
Shikla or Shakla, who was a Negro, he received the name of
At-Thinnin—the Dragon (due to his size and the blackness of his skin)
— He was proclaimed Caliph at Bagdad.. .under the title of Al Mubarak
(The Blessed)."13 At least two of the other caliphs, Al Muktafi and
Rachid, had Negro mothers, according to Suyuti.
The renowned Kafur, ruler of Egypt, was a thick-lipped Negro slave of
Chankalla birth; Haroun Al-Raschid made Khusabeb, another Negro
ex-slave, ruler of Egypt.14 Mahmud of Ghazni, greatest of the Islamic
conquerors, was the son of a slave.
The Mamelukes, some of whom were white slaves from the Russian
Caucasus, and some of whom were Negro slaves from the Sudan, ruled
Egypt for three centuries (1250-1517), and held great power when
Napoleon invaded Egypt. Moslem India, also, has had many great rulers
of Negro descent, one of whom was Malik Ambar,15 a Negro ex-slave, who
ruled in Bombay; and Malik Andeel, another Negro ex-slave who ruled in
Bengal.16
The Nawabs, or Nabobs, great Moslem princes of India, are originally
of Ethiopian Negro stock.17 They enjoyed great power until the
beginning of the nineteenth century.
Negro Ranked First in Sexual Competence
As regards sex relations, the real index to prejudice, there was
little ill-will either. Black men, some of whom were eunuchs, had
sometimes great harems with women of many races. One of these
latter, Sunbullu (The
is Ibn Khallikan. Ibid, Vol. I, p. 17.
"Sadi. Gulistan (ed. Sir Edward Arnold), pp. 80-1. N. Y., 1899.
is See 40.
16 See 41.
" Morie, L. J. Histoire de l'Ethiopie, Vol. II, p. 33. Paris,
1904.
RACE-MIXING UNDER ISLAM
105
In a footnote to the second story in which the master's daughter gives
herself to a Negro, Burton says, "This familiarity with blackamoor
slave-boys is common in the East and often ends as in the story.
"In my time no honest Hindi-Moslem would take his women-folk to
Zanzibar on account of the huge attraction and enormous temptation
there and thereby offered to them." (Burton, here refers to the
muscular black men, wandering nude on the streets.)19
Napoleon on Race-Mixing in the East
When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798 and saw how the different colors
of mankind lived in harmony under Islam, while in Christian Haiti,
whites, mulattoes, and blacks were at one another's throats in a
three-cornered war, he was so impressed that he tried to introduce
legal race-mixing in Haiti. He said,
"These countries were inhabited by men of different colors. Polygamy
is the simple way of preventing them from persecuting one another. The
legislators have thought that in order that the whites be not enemies
of the blacks, the blacks of the whites, the copper-colored of the one
and the other, it was necessary to make them all members of the same
family and struggle thus against a penchant of man to hate all that is
not like him.
Mohamet thought that four women were sufficient to attain this goal
because each man could have one white, one black, one copper-colored,
and one wife of another color...
"When one wishes to give liberty to the blacks in the colonies of
America and establish a perfect equality, the legislator will
authorise polygamy and permit at the same time a white wife, a black
one, and a mulatto one. Then the different colors making part of the
same family will be mixed in the opinion of each. Without that one
would never obtain satisfactory results. The blacks would be more
nurgerous and clever and they would hold the whites in abasement and
vice versa.
"Because of the general principle of equality that polygamy has
established in the East there is no difference between the
individuals composing the house of the Mamelukes. A black slave that a
bey had bought from an African caravan became katchef and was the
equal of a fine white Mameluk, native of Circassia; there was no
thought even of having it otherwise.
"Slavery has never been in the Orient what it was in Europe.
The customs in this respect have remained the same as in the Holy
Scriptures: the servant marries with the master. In Europe, on the
contrary, whoever bore the imprint of the seal of slavery remained
always in the last rank.. ."20
"Vol. I. pp. 1-16 6. 71: Vol. II. p. 49: Vol. IV, pp. 245-60, 253,
278. *>Memoires. Vol. III. pp. 152-54. 259-76. Paris. 1904.
108
SEX AND RACE
In short, the Negro, was discriminated against in no phase of
Mohammedan life on the ground of color alone. Islam was the greatest
and freest of all great melting pots.
And it carried race-mixing throughout the length and breadth of what
was the vastest empire the world has ever known. At the height of its
power Islam stretched from the centre of France south to the
Mediterranean and along both shores of this sea to the Levant and from
thence to India, China, and the islands of the Pacific, as well as
into Asiatic Russia.
The sultans in this vast area were of all colors from blond to
coal-black and wives of all colors were to be found in their harems.
White captives of both sexes were taken from Europe and scattered over
North Africa and Asia and black captives of both sexes were carried
into Europe and Asia. Differences of color among the Mohammedans came
in time to count for almost as little as the different colors of
flowers in a garden does to the flowers themselves.
A Negroid strain, more or less predominant, ran through the whole. As
Keane says, "All who accepted the Koran became merged with the
conquerors in a common Negroid population."21
It was this empire founded by the black Mohamet with the help of
brown, yellow and white mongrels that aroused proud Europe from the
slumber of the Dark Ages, and laid the foundations of its present
culture. It was the great Arab chemists, architects, mathematicians,
physicians, and experimental scientists to whom we are largely
indebted for modern science.
Go to any part of the Mohammedan world—to India, Indo-China, Egypt,
Morocco, Spain—and you will behold art whose beauty mankind seems to
have lost the conception of. Near to the Alhambra, for instance, is a
structure erected by the architects of the Emperor Charles V of Spain
and Germany. Compared with the superb beauty of the Alhambra the
latter, is to say the least, crude and clumsy.
It was the Arabs, too, who gave to Europe her present system of
numerals, which they, in turn, had taken from the Hindus. Match this
Arabic or Hindu numeral, against the tedious and cumbersome Roman
letter-numerals! No wonder Nietzsche raged in anger when he thought of
how the Moors who had done so much for European civilization had been
driven out like dogs by the Christians.
Race-mixing, as we thus see, has been one of the functions of empire.
Egypt, Persia, Macedonia, Rome, brought hordes of whites, browns, and
blacks and amalgamated them. All great empires seem, to begin with
race-mixing, and die when they become too pure. The races that are
furthest down are the purest ones, as the Veddahs of Ceylon, the
Andaman Islanders, the Pigmies, and the Semangs. The mixed ones are
the furthest up. What 21 Man, Past and Present, p. 64. Cambridge,
1920.
110 SEXANDRACE
land is more mixed than the United States, which is now at the top ?
America, as we shall show in Volume Two, is more vastly mixed than the
average person imagines. The race-purists usually shut their eyes to
this fact. Petrie showed how repeated Ethiopian invasions brought new
life to Egypt.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A pure race may be compared to standing water; a mixed race, to
running water. The former soon becomes stagnant; the latter by running
purifies itself. Nature knows her business. She is wiser than all
in this respect.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Egypt Today
The color pattern of the Egyptian population today may be summed up as
follows: In Alexandria and the Delta rather more white than black due
to European immigration; at Cairo, there is also a large European
population but the native population is mulatto, and shades off
towards dark mulatto; at Thebes, it is predominantly dark mulatto with
a large proportion of blacks; and in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, it is
far more black than mulatto with only a sprinkling of whites, mostly
Europeans.
Some of these blacks haven't the broad features of the average West
African black, but their hair is woolly. Some of the jet-black,
woolly-haired Negroes, as the so-called Fuzzy-Wuzzies, have Grecian
profiles.
A Levantine strain is also apparent in certain of the population. In
short, this black population s very highly mixed.
The people of Southern Persia are still largely Negroid. Some are pure
Negroes, like the Bombassi. The Susians in the lower valley of the
Euphrates are also strongly Negroid. In all this region of the Near
East the supply of "pure" Negroes was kept up by the slave trade and
the recruiting of black women for the harems, which still goes on.
Negroes in this latter region also marry white women.
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Friday, October 5, 2007
Michelle Obama, feminism and the strong black woman
I've been following the media's handling of race in its coverage of Barack Obama's presidential bid very closely over the last few months. But right now I'm particularly interested by the media coverage of his wife, Michelle Obama. Race, gender, and feminism are intersecting in fascinating ways. Here are some highlights.
Maureen Dowd has criticized Michelle Obama's light-hearted comments about her husband being "just a man" and not knowing how to put his socks in the laundry. Dowd felt that these remarks were "emasculating":
how do you feel about her statements and about Michelle in general?
Maureen Dowd has criticized Michelle Obama's light-hearted comments about her husband being "just a man" and not knowing how to put his socks in the laundry. Dowd felt that these remarks were "emasculating":
how do you feel about her statements and about Michelle in general?
Sunday, July 1, 2007
How Educated are your favourite Hollywood Stars
How Educated are your favourite Hollywood Stars
Onscreen, Legally Blonde's Reese Witherspoon is a Harvard-educated lawyer. Offscreen? She's a college dropout.
In most professions, that might be a problem. But life is different in Tinseltown. Of the 20 best-paid actors and actresses on Forbes Most Powerful Celebrities list, who collectively raked in $529 million over the course of the year, only two--Adam Sandler and Cate Blanchett--have a college degree. Witherspoon? She earned $7 million last year.
But for non-actors on our list, it's a different story. For these authors, directors and talking heads, a college education proves far more common. For these folks, communications, broadcasting and psychology have been among the more popular majors. Among the high-profile grads: Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and Donald Trump hold degrees in speech, film and economics, respectively.
There's a simple reason for this, argues James Houran, a clinical psychologist who researches celebrity worship. A college education is an increasingly unnecessary item on celebrity résumés, and may actually be a liability. Rather than rely on skills and ability, as stars once did to get noticed, he says there exists a trivialized process by which celebrities are made today. The way Houran sees it, reaching stardom now has less to do with who has the best skills or ability than who has the best marketer or promoter. And taking time for college risks disrupting that process.
So while the absence of a degree is hardly a new phenomenon in Hollywood--bold-faced names like George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Tom Cruise never donned a tassel--it is even less of a priority for today's rising stars. Among the newest cadre of degree-impaired celebrities: Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.
"They’re earning fantastic sums by the time they’re teenagers, so the obvious question, no matter how smart they are, is why take time off to go to school?" says Tyler Cowen, author of What Price Fame?. "You can always go later--not that most of them do."
That lack of experience can be damaging as stars age, however, says David Haven Blake, author of the recently published Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity. His fear: These are people who have doggedly pursued a single goal without ever developing the kind of critical perspective that will help them face challenges later in life. "They are like mountain climbers so eager to reach the summit," he says, "that they never stop to fill their canteens on the way."
And what about society’s youth that strives desperately to emulate Hollywood’s stars? Will the non-educated A-list serve as poor role models?
The answer, according to Cowen, is no, because whether or not celebrities have attended college is rarely known, much less discussed. Simply put: Reality isn't important. For fans, an actor playing an English major on television has more impact than an actor being an English major in real life. And when people want motivation from a celebrity, they focus on the qualities that they'd like to emulate and pitch the rest. "People tend to use role models for their own purposes," he says.
For the stars, the lack of a traditional college experience may not be such a bad thing, says Cowen. Always treated like royalty, celebrities wouldn't get to learn from and enjoy the typical college experience anyhow. Consider Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, stalked by the paparazzi during their undergrad days at New York University. Normalcy? Hardly. The twin starlets eventually dropped out. So if the goal is simply to learn, Cowen says private tutors would likely prove more effective.
"A lot of school is about developing alliances, contacts and a self image," he says, "and if you're a movie star, you don't really need those things."
Source - Forbes
Labels: adam sandler, angelina jolie, cate blanchett, donald trump, forbes, george clooney, jessica simpson, lindsay lohan, oprah winfrey, paris hilton, reese witherspoon, steven spielberg, tom cruise
]
Onscreen, Legally Blonde's Reese Witherspoon is a Harvard-educated lawyer. Offscreen? She's a college dropout.
In most professions, that might be a problem. But life is different in Tinseltown. Of the 20 best-paid actors and actresses on Forbes Most Powerful Celebrities list, who collectively raked in $529 million over the course of the year, only two--Adam Sandler and Cate Blanchett--have a college degree. Witherspoon? She earned $7 million last year.
But for non-actors on our list, it's a different story. For these authors, directors and talking heads, a college education proves far more common. For these folks, communications, broadcasting and psychology have been among the more popular majors. Among the high-profile grads: Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and Donald Trump hold degrees in speech, film and economics, respectively.
There's a simple reason for this, argues James Houran, a clinical psychologist who researches celebrity worship. A college education is an increasingly unnecessary item on celebrity résumés, and may actually be a liability. Rather than rely on skills and ability, as stars once did to get noticed, he says there exists a trivialized process by which celebrities are made today. The way Houran sees it, reaching stardom now has less to do with who has the best skills or ability than who has the best marketer or promoter. And taking time for college risks disrupting that process.
So while the absence of a degree is hardly a new phenomenon in Hollywood--bold-faced names like George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Tom Cruise never donned a tassel--it is even less of a priority for today's rising stars. Among the newest cadre of degree-impaired celebrities: Jessica Simpson, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.
"They’re earning fantastic sums by the time they’re teenagers, so the obvious question, no matter how smart they are, is why take time off to go to school?" says Tyler Cowen, author of What Price Fame?. "You can always go later--not that most of them do."
That lack of experience can be damaging as stars age, however, says David Haven Blake, author of the recently published Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity. His fear: These are people who have doggedly pursued a single goal without ever developing the kind of critical perspective that will help them face challenges later in life. "They are like mountain climbers so eager to reach the summit," he says, "that they never stop to fill their canteens on the way."
And what about society’s youth that strives desperately to emulate Hollywood’s stars? Will the non-educated A-list serve as poor role models?
The answer, according to Cowen, is no, because whether or not celebrities have attended college is rarely known, much less discussed. Simply put: Reality isn't important. For fans, an actor playing an English major on television has more impact than an actor being an English major in real life. And when people want motivation from a celebrity, they focus on the qualities that they'd like to emulate and pitch the rest. "People tend to use role models for their own purposes," he says.
For the stars, the lack of a traditional college experience may not be such a bad thing, says Cowen. Always treated like royalty, celebrities wouldn't get to learn from and enjoy the typical college experience anyhow. Consider Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, stalked by the paparazzi during their undergrad days at New York University. Normalcy? Hardly. The twin starlets eventually dropped out. So if the goal is simply to learn, Cowen says private tutors would likely prove more effective.
"A lot of school is about developing alliances, contacts and a self image," he says, "and if you're a movie star, you don't really need those things."
Source - Forbes
Labels: adam sandler, angelina jolie, cate blanchett, donald trump, forbes, george clooney, jessica simpson, lindsay lohan, oprah winfrey, paris hilton, reese witherspoon, steven spielberg, tom cruise
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Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Marrying your cousin
Marrying your cousin
published: Sunday | April 1, 222,007
FYI
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070401/out/out4.html
Heather Little-White, Ph.D., Contributor
What is the deal for marrying your cousin when several other eligible partners are around? It has always been said that marrying a member of your family could be considered incestuous and an impediment to marriage. However, some persons are a little more lenient in their condemnation of the marriage between cousins, especially distant cousins.
Cousin marriages are often discouraged because of the belief that marrying blood relatives could lead to birth defects in the child. One broad definition of family is a group of two or more people related by marriage, blood relation, or adoption.
In Jamaica, there were some who gave their blessing to cousins marrying, and described in Jamaican parlance the 'cousin and cousin mek good soup'. Janetand Raymondare two cousins who have been married for 10 years and have three healthy boys. It was only two weeks before the wedding that the couple learned that they were related. Janet, born in St. Ann, is a teacher who went to do practise teaching in St. Thomas when she met Raymond, an agriculturalist, born and bred in St. Thomas.
Their meeting was love at first sight and Janet never returned to St. Ann to live. Janet's mother came from England for the wedding of her only daughter, and when she heard of the surname of Raymond's family, she started to trace her family tree. It was then she discovered that Janet and Raymond were second cousins. Initially, the thought was a little repulsive for Janet, who harboured the fear of birth defects in her children, but with counselling from her doctor and pastor, the wedding was not cancelled.
Jamaican law
Jamaican law does not prohibit cousins from entering into sexual unions with each other. A Gleaner article on Monday, March 19, reported "Kinder law of 'Kissing Cousins'" as a result of the decision by a joint select committee of Parliament not to include unions of cousins in the definition of prohibited incestuous relationships. Inter-marriage of cousins is a practice that has been around for ages and has existed across cultures. In West African francophone countries, a common saying is 'cousins are made for cousins', writes a Peace Corps volunteer in Mauritania. (www.straightdope.com).
European countries permit marriage among cousins, and in parts of Africa and Asia marriages between cousins are preferred and, as such, are arranged by older family members and friends. In several countries, cross-cousin marriages occupy a significant place in traditional matrimonial alliances. It is believed that these marriages will help siblings separated by marriage to regain contact if their children intermarry and demonstrate sibling solidarity.
Loyalty
In the Middle East, cousin marriages create a clan of fierce internal cohesiveness and unity, and are like miniature governments providing the services and social aid that western countries would receive from the local and national governments. It is this kind of loyalty and cohesiveness of inter-clan unions in Iraq which has undermined the strength of the Americans in the current war, according to Anne Bobroff-Hajal, writing in the December 2006 issue of the Christian Science Monitor in an article titled 'Clan loyalty fixed by cousin marriage was always bound to undermine democracy in Iraq'.
However, in general, geneticists believe that there is nothing wrong with in-cousin marriages or in-marrying into a small genetic pool. A New York Times article by Denise Grady (2002) writes that contrary to the age-old myth and taboos of many Americans, first cousins can have children without the risk of birth defects. A panel of researchers convened by National Society of Genetic Counsellors concluded that the general risks for life were not high, and questioned the right of other people to have children even though they have far higher risks than first cousins. High risk persons include those with Huntington's disease and haemophilia.
Outlawed
The United States of America is one of few developed nations outlawing marriage among first countries. The practice is illegal in 31 states, and some will allow it if there are no plans for procreation, for fear of producing babies with congenital defects, such as spina bifida or cystic fibrosis. Anthropologist, Martin Ottenheimer, believes that the U.S. is still holding on to the flawed 19th century research which exaggerated the dangers of mental illness, blindness and deformity among children of close relatives.
A new study published in the September issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics claimed that physicians were close to a pre-natal diagnosis of a rare genetic disorder called Joubert syndrome. This condition affects that area of the brain responsible for controlling balance and coordination. Principal researcher, Joseph Gleeson, M.D., of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, added that the search is still on to know the exact genes involved because the population of intermarrieds is relatively small. The focus has been on three Middle Eastern families whose relatives had intermarried and passed the genetic defect to several family members.
It is no April Fool's Day joke. The marriage of cousins around the world is taking on new dimensions and is of interest to researchers in medical schools, ethicists and genetic interest groups.
published: Sunday | April 1, 222,007
FYI
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070401/out/out4.html
Heather Little-White, Ph.D., Contributor
What is the deal for marrying your cousin when several other eligible partners are around? It has always been said that marrying a member of your family could be considered incestuous and an impediment to marriage. However, some persons are a little more lenient in their condemnation of the marriage between cousins, especially distant cousins.
Cousin marriages are often discouraged because of the belief that marrying blood relatives could lead to birth defects in the child. One broad definition of family is a group of two or more people related by marriage, blood relation, or adoption.
In Jamaica, there were some who gave their blessing to cousins marrying, and described in Jamaican parlance the 'cousin and cousin mek good soup'. Janetand Raymondare two cousins who have been married for 10 years and have three healthy boys. It was only two weeks before the wedding that the couple learned that they were related. Janet, born in St. Ann, is a teacher who went to do practise teaching in St. Thomas when she met Raymond, an agriculturalist, born and bred in St. Thomas.
Their meeting was love at first sight and Janet never returned to St. Ann to live. Janet's mother came from England for the wedding of her only daughter, and when she heard of the surname of Raymond's family, she started to trace her family tree. It was then she discovered that Janet and Raymond were second cousins. Initially, the thought was a little repulsive for Janet, who harboured the fear of birth defects in her children, but with counselling from her doctor and pastor, the wedding was not cancelled.
Jamaican law
Jamaican law does not prohibit cousins from entering into sexual unions with each other. A Gleaner article on Monday, March 19, reported "Kinder law of 'Kissing Cousins'" as a result of the decision by a joint select committee of Parliament not to include unions of cousins in the definition of prohibited incestuous relationships. Inter-marriage of cousins is a practice that has been around for ages and has existed across cultures. In West African francophone countries, a common saying is 'cousins are made for cousins', writes a Peace Corps volunteer in Mauritania. (www.straightdope.com).
European countries permit marriage among cousins, and in parts of Africa and Asia marriages between cousins are preferred and, as such, are arranged by older family members and friends. In several countries, cross-cousin marriages occupy a significant place in traditional matrimonial alliances. It is believed that these marriages will help siblings separated by marriage to regain contact if their children intermarry and demonstrate sibling solidarity.
Loyalty
In the Middle East, cousin marriages create a clan of fierce internal cohesiveness and unity, and are like miniature governments providing the services and social aid that western countries would receive from the local and national governments. It is this kind of loyalty and cohesiveness of inter-clan unions in Iraq which has undermined the strength of the Americans in the current war, according to Anne Bobroff-Hajal, writing in the December 2006 issue of the Christian Science Monitor in an article titled 'Clan loyalty fixed by cousin marriage was always bound to undermine democracy in Iraq'.
However, in general, geneticists believe that there is nothing wrong with in-cousin marriages or in-marrying into a small genetic pool. A New York Times article by Denise Grady (2002) writes that contrary to the age-old myth and taboos of many Americans, first cousins can have children without the risk of birth defects. A panel of researchers convened by National Society of Genetic Counsellors concluded that the general risks for life were not high, and questioned the right of other people to have children even though they have far higher risks than first cousins. High risk persons include those with Huntington's disease and haemophilia.
Outlawed
The United States of America is one of few developed nations outlawing marriage among first countries. The practice is illegal in 31 states, and some will allow it if there are no plans for procreation, for fear of producing babies with congenital defects, such as spina bifida or cystic fibrosis. Anthropologist, Martin Ottenheimer, believes that the U.S. is still holding on to the flawed 19th century research which exaggerated the dangers of mental illness, blindness and deformity among children of close relatives.
A new study published in the September issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics claimed that physicians were close to a pre-natal diagnosis of a rare genetic disorder called Joubert syndrome. This condition affects that area of the brain responsible for controlling balance and coordination. Principal researcher, Joseph Gleeson, M.D., of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, added that the search is still on to know the exact genes involved because the population of intermarrieds is relatively small. The focus has been on three Middle Eastern families whose relatives had intermarried and passed the genetic defect to several family members.
It is no April Fool's Day joke. The marriage of cousins around the world is taking on new dimensions and is of interest to researchers in medical schools, ethicists and genetic interest groups.
Caste discrimination a worldwide problem for all black people and collective resistance is needed to defeat it
FYI
http://tinyurl.com/yc9zp3
Few people are aware that India’s 160 million untouchables or Dalits are descendants of Africans who once ruled the Indus Valley. But caste discrimination affects all black people, who are regarded as untouchables, even in the US and UK.
It may seem ironic to many that India’s untouchable castes known as Dalits, who are despised and condemned in Hindu scriptures for the colour of their skin and who are oppressed and exploited are distant relations to Africans, who were dehumanised in order to justify their enslavement to enrich the West.
But two papers published by African scholar and physicist Cheikh Anta Diop in 1955 and 1967 were translated from French to English and published as : The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality in 1974. In this book, as well as establishing the African origins of Egypt, Diop also revealed that Africans known as Dravidians created the Indus Valley civilization.
Dravidians are a linguistic group under which many different groups fall, but many scholars aside from Diop, including: Chiek Tidiane N Diave, S R Santharam and U.Pupadhyaya Susheela O.Uphadyaya, have found both linguistic and cultural links between Dravidians and Africans.
Diop wrote: “…The Indo-Europeans never created a civilization in their own native lands: the Eurasian plains. The civilizations attributed to them are inevitably located in the heart of Negro countries in the southern part of the northern hemisphere: Egypt, Arabia, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia, Elam, India. In all those lands there were negro civilizations when the Indo-Europeans arrived as rough nomads during the second millennium.”
Diop described Dravidians as a type of the black race with: “Black skin, often exceptionally black, with straight hair, aquiline nose, thin lips, an acute cheekbone angle. We find a prototype of this race in India: the Dravidian.”
But the real irony of the caste system is that is that it is a corruption of a social system invented by the early African civilizations, according to a 19th century French anthropologist called Francois Lenormant, whom Diop refers to in his book: “The Aryas of India…adopted it, borrowed it from the Kushite populations.”
Today, the descendants of the Dravidians live under the scourge of what is often referred to as: “India’s hidden apartheid.” In a 1999 report by Human Rights Watch called: Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s Untouchables , the extent to which the caste system affects the lives of a population almost three times the size of the UK was revealed:
“Untouchables may not cross the line dividing their part of the village from that occupied by higher castes,” the report stated. But segregation is just the tip of the iceberg. As well as Dalits being forbidden to worship in the same temples as other castes, from using the same wells, and drinking from the same cups, they are denied land that is legally theirs, made to perform degrading tasks and are often subjected to violence, including the rape of Dalit women.
Horen Tudu was born in Bangledesh into the Santhal tribal group but grew up in the USA. He is a researcher and staunch Pan Africanist who has written extensively about African descendants in the Indian subcontinent. Asked whether Dalits are aware of their African heritage, he told Black Britain: “I do believe that they are starting to understand that the upper caste function from the paradigm of the Indo Europeans and that the Dalits and the tribals themselves are indigenous and that the proto Australoids are African.”
But aside from the Dalits, India’s tribal groups make up another 84 million of its population. Tudu told Black Britain: “When you come to the tribals there is absolutely no controversy regarding the race of these people. They are clearly, physically, Africoid, they are linguistically distinct, religiously distinct; you can connect their spiritual systems to the spiritual systems in Africa – there is no ambiguity there.”
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Caste Discrimination affects black people everywhere
The Bhagwan Valmiki Trust (BVT) is a community organisation based in London which aims to promote development, education and awareness among the Valmiki community in the UK. A Dalit sub-caste, Valmikis are descendants of the sweeping class from the Punjab region of Non-Aryan groups including Greeks that came into the sub-continent. Because of their non-Aryan ancestry they were placed into the lower caste groups. They traditionally carry out menial and degrading jobs such as cleaning toilets, removing human excrement with their bare hands.
Maria Doss, a member of BVT told Black Britain that in India the relationship between Africans and Dalits is really only known among the “intelligentsia” , as opposed to the majority of Dalits who are uneducated. He said they had “lost their cultural identity,” and see themselves as Indians rather than African descendants. But Doss said that he would welcome an alliance between Africans and Dalits to collectively fight against caste discrimination.
Discrimination against Dalits is not restricted to India and as Doss explained to Black Britain: “Is very much alive in the UK.” In July of this year, a report called: No escape: Caste discrimination in the UK , by the Dalit Solidarity Network outlined the extent to which caste discrimination manifests itself in the UK among Indian communities both at school and in the workplace.
Doss told Black Britain: “Even at the hospital where I work as a supervisor I can see clear caste discrimination between two groups.” One female worker aged 55 told Doss: “If my son marries from that caste my father will kill me.”
He told Black Britain: “That is why we say that caste discrimination is worse than racism, because it is violent and direct but hidden. You cannot see the enemy.” Yet higher caste Indians who are often in positions of power are able to exert control over the lives of Dalits living in the UK.
Doss told Black Britain: “If they do employ Dalits it will be on less wages and there is no kind of interaction. Temples are separate; there is no inter-dining or inter-marriage.” But he said that even among Dalits themselves there is little interaction. “Bhuddists look down on Ravidassis and Valmikis,” he said.
Doss told Black Britain: “I have been to many places, colleges, churches and ordinary places, campaigning against these issues…we know what we need and what we can do. We try to bring them (Dalits) together.”
BVT have been liaising with networks in India and is hoping to establish a Dalit reconciliation centre in the UK in order to unite the various Dalit sub-castes for the purpose of strengthening the Dalits as a whole to collectively fight the caste discrimination that affects them all. Black Britain asked Doss whether he felt it was important for Dalits to know their history and the origins of the caste system that put them at the bottom of society: “Yes it is very important for our movement,” he said.
Tudu pointed out that because of poverty among Dalits in the Indian subcontinent, it tends to be higher castes individuals who actually travel, but wherever they go their socio economic caste system travels with them. He told Black Britain in the USA the first wave of Indian immigrants never interacted with African Americans and: “Always treated them with contempt.”
The reason for the hostility is because: “They actually see the Anglo Saxons as super Brahmins or ultra high caste Hindus…within their perverse world view, in terms of social status, race and skin colour. So they have always had this irrational hatred towards the African Americans that the African Americans themselves do not really understand.”
Tudu went on to relay a familiar picture in the UK which has caused underlying racial tensions in Birmingham, London and other areas where Asians live in close proximity to Africans and African Caribbeans: “A lot of Indian shopkeepers and other Pakistani groups have come into the US, gone specifically into depressed urban areas and have made money off the local people and treated them very badly. You have to also understand that most upper caste Hindus view Africans, African Americans or African Caribbeans in the UK as untouchables. That’s a distinction that must be made.”
The important thing to note here is that it is not just Dalit immigrants from the Indian subcontinent who are victims of caste discrimination in the UK and USA but continental Africans, African Caribbeans and African Americans. Citing Hinduism as the basis for this discrimination, Tudu told Black Britain: “It is obsessed with racial purity and the keeping of the race separate in order to also endorse white supremacy.”
http://tinyurl.com/yc9zp3
Few people are aware that India’s 160 million untouchables or Dalits are descendants of Africans who once ruled the Indus Valley. But caste discrimination affects all black people, who are regarded as untouchables, even in the US and UK.
It may seem ironic to many that India’s untouchable castes known as Dalits, who are despised and condemned in Hindu scriptures for the colour of their skin and who are oppressed and exploited are distant relations to Africans, who were dehumanised in order to justify their enslavement to enrich the West.
But two papers published by African scholar and physicist Cheikh Anta Diop in 1955 and 1967 were translated from French to English and published as : The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality in 1974. In this book, as well as establishing the African origins of Egypt, Diop also revealed that Africans known as Dravidians created the Indus Valley civilization.
Dravidians are a linguistic group under which many different groups fall, but many scholars aside from Diop, including: Chiek Tidiane N Diave, S R Santharam and U.Pupadhyaya Susheela O.Uphadyaya, have found both linguistic and cultural links between Dravidians and Africans.
Diop wrote: “…The Indo-Europeans never created a civilization in their own native lands: the Eurasian plains. The civilizations attributed to them are inevitably located in the heart of Negro countries in the southern part of the northern hemisphere: Egypt, Arabia, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia, Elam, India. In all those lands there were negro civilizations when the Indo-Europeans arrived as rough nomads during the second millennium.”
Diop described Dravidians as a type of the black race with: “Black skin, often exceptionally black, with straight hair, aquiline nose, thin lips, an acute cheekbone angle. We find a prototype of this race in India: the Dravidian.”
But the real irony of the caste system is that is that it is a corruption of a social system invented by the early African civilizations, according to a 19th century French anthropologist called Francois Lenormant, whom Diop refers to in his book: “The Aryas of India…adopted it, borrowed it from the Kushite populations.”
Today, the descendants of the Dravidians live under the scourge of what is often referred to as: “India’s hidden apartheid.” In a 1999 report by Human Rights Watch called: Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s Untouchables , the extent to which the caste system affects the lives of a population almost three times the size of the UK was revealed:
“Untouchables may not cross the line dividing their part of the village from that occupied by higher castes,” the report stated. But segregation is just the tip of the iceberg. As well as Dalits being forbidden to worship in the same temples as other castes, from using the same wells, and drinking from the same cups, they are denied land that is legally theirs, made to perform degrading tasks and are often subjected to violence, including the rape of Dalit women.
Horen Tudu was born in Bangledesh into the Santhal tribal group but grew up in the USA. He is a researcher and staunch Pan Africanist who has written extensively about African descendants in the Indian subcontinent. Asked whether Dalits are aware of their African heritage, he told Black Britain: “I do believe that they are starting to understand that the upper caste function from the paradigm of the Indo Europeans and that the Dalits and the tribals themselves are indigenous and that the proto Australoids are African.”
But aside from the Dalits, India’s tribal groups make up another 84 million of its population. Tudu told Black Britain: “When you come to the tribals there is absolutely no controversy regarding the race of these people. They are clearly, physically, Africoid, they are linguistically distinct, religiously distinct; you can connect their spiritual systems to the spiritual systems in Africa – there is no ambiguity there.”
 |
Caste Discrimination affects black people everywhere
 |
| Maria Doss at a campaign in Norway. |
 “If they do employ Dalits it will be on less wages and there is no kind of interaction. Temples are separate; there is no inter-dining or inter-marriage.  Maria Doss from the Bhagwan Valmiki Trust in London |
Maria Doss, a member of BVT told Black Britain that in India the relationship between Africans and Dalits is really only known among the “intelligentsia” , as opposed to the majority of Dalits who are uneducated. He said they had “lost their cultural identity,” and see themselves as Indians rather than African descendants. But Doss said that he would welcome an alliance between Africans and Dalits to collectively fight against caste discrimination.
Discrimination against Dalits is not restricted to India and as Doss explained to Black Britain: “Is very much alive in the UK.” In July of this year, a report called: No escape: Caste discrimination in the UK , by the Dalit Solidarity Network outlined the extent to which caste discrimination manifests itself in the UK among Indian communities both at school and in the workplace.
Doss told Black Britain: “Even at the hospital where I work as a supervisor I can see clear caste discrimination between two groups.” One female worker aged 55 told Doss: “If my son marries from that caste my father will kill me.”
He told Black Britain: “That is why we say that caste discrimination is worse than racism, because it is violent and direct but hidden. You cannot see the enemy.” Yet higher caste Indians who are often in positions of power are able to exert control over the lives of Dalits living in the UK.
Doss told Black Britain: “If they do employ Dalits it will be on less wages and there is no kind of interaction. Temples are separate; there is no inter-dining or inter-marriage.” But he said that even among Dalits themselves there is little interaction. “Bhuddists look down on Ravidassis and Valmikis,” he said.
Doss told Black Britain: “I have been to many places, colleges, churches and ordinary places, campaigning against these issues…we know what we need and what we can do. We try to bring them (Dalits) together.”
BVT have been liaising with networks in India and is hoping to establish a Dalit reconciliation centre in the UK in order to unite the various Dalit sub-castes for the purpose of strengthening the Dalits as a whole to collectively fight the caste discrimination that affects them all. Black Britain asked Doss whether he felt it was important for Dalits to know their history and the origins of the caste system that put them at the bottom of society: “Yes it is very important for our movement,” he said.
Tudu pointed out that because of poverty among Dalits in the Indian subcontinent, it tends to be higher castes individuals who actually travel, but wherever they go their socio economic caste system travels with them. He told Black Britain in the USA the first wave of Indian immigrants never interacted with African Americans and: “Always treated them with contempt.”
The reason for the hostility is because: “They actually see the Anglo Saxons as super Brahmins or ultra high caste Hindus…within their perverse world view, in terms of social status, race and skin colour. So they have always had this irrational hatred towards the African Americans that the African Americans themselves do not really understand.”
Tudu went on to relay a familiar picture in the UK which has caused underlying racial tensions in Birmingham, London and other areas where Asians live in close proximity to Africans and African Caribbeans: “A lot of Indian shopkeepers and other Pakistani groups have come into the US, gone specifically into depressed urban areas and have made money off the local people and treated them very badly. You have to also understand that most upper caste Hindus view Africans, African Americans or African Caribbeans in the UK as untouchables. That’s a distinction that must be made.”
The important thing to note here is that it is not just Dalit immigrants from the Indian subcontinent who are victims of caste discrimination in the UK and USA but continental Africans, African Caribbeans and African Americans. Citing Hinduism as the basis for this discrimination, Tudu told Black Britain: “It is obsessed with racial purity and the keeping of the race separate in order to also endorse white supremacy.”
Caste Discrimination and White supremacy on the Indian subcontinent
Tudu said that the aim of marketing bleaching creams in the region is: “To destroy the self-esteem of the local people.” He branded Bollywood as “Openly racist…because they don’t allow anybody who is dark skinned in there and they are 100 per cent Brahmins.” Bollywood producers are “Ashraf Muslim ethnicities who are descendants of non-black people,” he said. Tudu told Black Britain that Pakistanis are also non-black people closely related to people in the Middle East : “And also have contempt for Africans and blacks.” Upper caste Indians and Pakistanis have even gone to the extreme of creating their own ethnic group called Desi , because they are so desperate to believe they are Caucasians. He told Black Britain: “I find this skin colour issue to be very debilitating, if you look at the psychological state of the indigenous people. They are being pounced on in every single way,they are really trying to destroy these people inside out [and] it’s very shameful.” In Bangladesh dark skinned, short people assume a lowly status in society, despite the fact that 80 per cent of its population is of that appearance: “But you have individuals of foreign origin who are ruling the country and who are not indigenous to Bangladesh, but they are promoting their white supremacist ideals on the local people,” Tudu said. Bangladeshi women suffer most from self-loathing and a lack of confidence, despising their broad, flat noses and fuller lips and comparing themselves less favourably to the fair-skinned women portrayed in Bollywood movies: “It’s very, very sad to see a group of people with so much self-hatred and so much of a lack of consciousness [because] they have no concept of their history,” he said. One form of resistance chosen by Dalits as a means of escape is conversion to Buddhism, an action advocated by Dr B R Amdedkar, an Indian who was born into the Dalit castes who overcame discrimination to become a scholar, lawyer and architect of the Indian constitution as well as the political leader of the Dalits. He was also a Buddhist revivalist who advocated conversion to Buddhism as a means of escaping discrimination. Diop suggested that Buddha was a black Egyptian priest who was driven out of the City of Memphis by Cambyses. Iniyan Elango, M.D, is the author of a book called Without Malice: The Truth About India . Elango suggests: “Gautama Buddha, the Black revolutionary who founded the egalitarian religion of Buddhism to counter and destroy the bigotry of Hinduism, was a Black prince. But the Hindus highjacked Buddhism and killed Buddhists in large numbers. The Buddhist missionaries fled to other parts of Asia and spread the message of the Buddha in China and other parts of Asia. Those indigenous Dravidians who were loyal to Buddha and resisted the caste system became the untouchable outcastes (Dalits).” Horen Tudu concurs with this view describing Buddha as a tribal from north-east India: “He protested against this racism coming from the Brahmins and the Hindus and he created his own spiritual system that was for the black people and for the indigenous people there.” Tudu also feels that Hindus appropriate these indigenous beliefs, incorporating them into the Hindu system as a means of control by trying to pass off the Buddha as a Hindu god. Speaking to Black Britain about the reason Dalits choose to convert to Buddhism, Doss explained: : “Today most Dalits feel that they should be Buddhists.” But many state governments in India have introduced legislation to prevent Dalits from converting. Black Britain asked in what way converting to Buddhism would change the fortunes of the Dalits if they remain in the same caste even after conversion. He explained: “As a community of Buddhists together, they are quite different – very strong. It empowers them socially and economically and they would proudly say they are neo-Buddhists.” Doss admitted that whilst conversion to other religions “hasn’t helped” , conversion to Buddhism “is helping and creating an identity.” Some Dalits, especially in Bangladesh have turned to Islam because of its absence of caste and to escape oppression whilst others have converted to Christianity, sometimes merging it with their indigenous beliefs. The African influence on Dalit resistance Given the fact that Dalits are closely related to Africans and that globally Africans are victims of caste discrimination (whether they are aware of it or not) makes them natural allies in resistance of it. Tudu told Black Britain: “If you go to Bangladesh, for example, you’ll find in various regions that you cannot distinguish those people from [Africans ]. You’ll see people darker and more physically African than any person in Sub-Saharan Africa.” He also feels that in terms of the political development of Dalit organisations: ”I think you can compare these movements directly to the struggles of the African Americans in particular.” Since the 1970s resistance movements modelled on black pride have sprung up all over the Indian subcontinent including the Dalit Panther party, based on the Black Panthers which has several branches. Tudu told Black Britain: “This kind of consciousness among the Dalits is making the upper castes and Hindu fundamentalist parties very scared.” He explained that many people are unaware that the Dalits are descendants of Indian tribals that fought against the Aryans who were later brought into the caste system by force. But in terms of politicised Dalit groups: “They mentally function from this indigenous African paradigm.” Scholars like Runoko Rashidi who is US based is essentially the voice of the Dalits in the US. He has written several books on the subject, most notably African Presence in Early Asia. Rashidi has worked with many African American scholars including John Henrik Clark as well as other prominent Dalit scholar activists such as V.T Rajshekar. Tudu explained: “There are quite a few Dalit intellectuals who are promoting this African centred belief. In fact, I believe all of them function from an African centred paradigm.” Periyar E.V.Ramasamy is considered the father of the Dravidian Nationalist Movement and founder of Dravidar Kazhagam, the first Dravidian political party in India. He pioneered the idea of self-respect among Dalits: “That is, why should an indigenous person or black person within the Indian subcontinent accept low status within this Aryan supremacist framework? They should have self respect and promote their own identity,” Tudu told Black Britain. Tudu believes that many radical elements in Dalit movements: “Were influenced by the struggles of African Americans,” but furthermore that the time is right for a resurgence of Pan Africanism to deal with white supremacy and the oppression of black peoples. Commenting on the way that Marcus Garvey was able to mobilise millions of Africans across the globe in the last century, he told Black Britain: “We need something like that to unify the world’s oppressed and fragmented black masses. If you look at any country in the world, you’ll find that the poorest members of the society, the persons that have the lowest social status have African origin.” This particularly applies to indigenous people such as the Africans on the western coast of Mexico who are descendants of slaves and the tribals in India and Bangladeshi who have become victims of oppression in their own country. Commenting on the upper castes in India Tudu remarked: “We regard these people as foreigners. I myself am a direct descendant of the indigenous people – black people of the Indian subcontinent and I consider those individuals to be foreigners and I see all African people worldwide as my brothers and sisters.” Like Doss, Tudu is adamant that resistance and the solutions for black people lies in education of self: “I think the critical effort should be directed toward the education of [our] people. We need to have our own scholars doing this research [and] we need to resurrect our history. We have to know where we come from – all of us worldwide.” Tudu told Black Britain that the ideology of Pan Africanism has a major role to play: “All of us can take credit for each other’s accomplishments and that we are one people. That is all African people are one united people, not fragmented based on language or tribe, we’re all the same. Sunday, May 6, 2007Should older men beyond 40 date women from 17 to 25?Imhotep, Now. I don't want to be disrespectful to anyone reading this post., but there are other sides to this story that carry a lot of weight. :-) I must say that I agree with the young lady from Kansas City. When I was thirty one, I had no use for anyone over thirty five.That is normal. Young people are naturally attracted to other young people. People who are FIT are naturally attracted to other fit people. People who are beautiful/handsome are naturally attracted to other handsome/beautiful people. Just the same with the TREMENDOUS numbers of black women choosing to have many babies out of wedlock, then they let the White doctors sterilize them, by tying their tubes, performing unnecessary hysterectomies, or other dangerous procedures. So all that is left for people like me is to get to raise the children of other men, many of whom are questionable in morals, ethics, and intelligence. That simply is not a viable option for me, and I suspect MOST other decent black men feel the same way, although they are probably to frightened of the wrath of black women to admit it in a public forum as I am doing now. Well, that is to bad. The truth needs to be told. This is not a one sided issue. It is not all the Black Mans fault, nor is ALL the black woman’s fault. In most disagreements between genders, there are three sides to every story. Your side. My side. And the truth which is usually somewhere in betwixt the two. So here is my story, and here is why any woman of any ethnic group, that I find attractive, is of age, and likes me, needs to watch out in a good sort of way. J
Personally, I would much prefer to be with a woman around 35 to 45. They can wind my clock just as good or better than 18 to 30 year olds. Having said that. sadly my situation is that my first wife who was 18 and I was 28, had blocked tubes. So after five years of marriage with no baby, I pulled the plug on the relationship. My second marriage which just ended last August was to a very bright woman from the Republic of Panama. She saw my dating service ads online and began talking to me by phone, and by Internet. She was 34 years old in 1997 and I was 50. She had never been married so she didn't bring any baby daddy mess to the relationship. She had a college degree. She was an attractive, medium to dark brown skin woman. She spoke excellent English with a heavy Spanish accent. We discussed having children, and she assured me that when she found the right man she wanted to begin having children right away. She came to America and spent a week with me when she had business on the East Coast. During the summer of 1999, she called me to tell me that she was going into the hospital for an operation to correct Fibroids in her reproductive area. My heart fell then. I know enough about female anatomy to know that quite often after that type of surgery, women are no longer able to have children. During September of 1999, she moved here to live with me and get married. The Panama canal was being transferred to the Panamanians, and the American military was shutting down MOST of their bases in Panama. So thousands of locals were going to be out of work; including Rosamunda. She survived the operation OK, but we were unable to have sex for 90 ninety until she healed. Rosamunda was a very high status woman in panama. She was high up in the banking industry there. Coming to Cape was a tremendous letdown for her. No matter how many resumes she sent out, or places she visited she was unable to find any sort of work. Cape Girardeau is the home townof Rush Limbaugh. It is about 45,000 in number, around ninety percent hostile, ultra conservative Caucasians. She had come from a country that was mostly black and where black people had lots of powerful positions. One morning in August of 2000, around 3:00 AM I awoke and noticed that she was not in bed. So I got up and walked into the living room. She was not there either, but the front door was open. So I walked outside and there she was walking in circles crying for her mother to come and get her. So I put my arm around her and took her back inside comforting here. She was trembling and crying for a long time after that. I had tried to explain to her before she arrived, how racially hostile these Limbaugh loving Caucasians could be. The White people didn’t care how much education she had. She was still just a “GG” to them. Griselda was a sophisticated lady from head to toe. When she got up in the morning, she bathed, fixed her hair, made sure her clothes looked sharp, polished her nails and shoes. She fixed her lovely REAL short , nappy black hair and she looked wonderful. The black women didn’t like they couldn’t figure out how such a dark skinned woman, could speak with such a Spanish accent. So she continued to go downhill until one day in September of 2000, she told me she was leaving and going to New York to be with her family and find a good job opportunity. She flew off, and three weeks later she called to tell me that she had found a good job in the accounting division of one of the major networks, paying $25,00 an hour. I knew she would do better there, but I was amazed at how quickly she found her footing. I asked her how did she do it. She told me “You are always talking about how many degrees you have, but as I kept telling you America isn’t about degrees, it is about WHO you know; not WHAT you know. I put out the word that I had lots of banking experience in Panama, and in no time at all I was called to go in for a job interview. The woman like me and she hired me” I asked Rosmunda, how many black people work with you?” She responded “Just me and my boss along with about fifty whites” I asked her from whence her boss hailed” She replied “The republic of Panama” Ah hah! So I told her to make sure she watches her bosses back and hopefully her boss watches hers. So I stayed married to her until August of last year when I received divorce papers from her. She seems to be doing fine now, but she says she never wants to return to Cape Girardeau. I can’t say that I blame her at all. Anyway, back to the original thread. Now I’m sixty years young and still without children. Rosamunda decided after she got here that she was no longer interested in having children. Surprise! Surprise! In my younger days when I lived in Italy, if my girlfriend was a few days late on her question mark, she would push me down to the pharmacia where I was able to purchase something like the Morning After pill. It would bring on her bidness in a day or so. Alma Bonetto went out of her little village and had an abortion. Mary Hilyard, claimed she had a miscarriage. Cindy Edwards, Caucasian, had a child by me in 1985, and told all of her close black and white friends that I was the father. Then when I asked her about it, she said “Hell no it isn’t your kid and don’t ask me again” She then gave it up for adoption and told family services that she didn’t know who the father was. So I moved to Seattle for two and a half years. When I came back I inquired about the child, and again Donald Mitchell told me that she said it was mine. I ran into Cindy about ten years ago at the airport. I asked her if she remembered me, and she said she did. I asked her if she had time to talk to me about the child, and she said she wasn’t interested. She walked on over to a table where are White coworkers were sitting. I didn’t pursue it any further because I know there were about five of them and just one of me. So I have been searching for that child since 1987 with no luck. Folks, I come from a very aristocratic family here that has not one, but TWO streets in wealthy White neighborhoods named after my mothers side of the family. According to some old clippings my mother has saved, my great grandfather Forest Lacey was the “wealthiest colored man in the area, and he had more land than any blacks, and most whites”. None of my mother’s sisters, or my mother had children outside of marriage. We came together every Sunday in the country for dinner. Not once even with over a dozen people in the house did my family get into a physical fight with each other. I don’t remember them even having a loud disagreement. It was love and harmony whenever I was around. Now me personally, I am the only Black player in the over 100 year history of the high school here to play on the Tennis team. I was the number one player my junior and senior year. I went undefeated my senior year; eleven and zero I believe. I went to State that year and placed first in front of the person who finished in the rear. I went to the university for two years, then was called to the Army. Being a brainwashed "Needtogrow" at the time, I felt the Army wouldn’t teach me anything except how to kill people. So I enlisted in the Air Force where they quickly made me a cop, teaching me how to kill people. After three years of that, I crossed over into Air Traffic Control which was an amazing job. I got more satisfaction from doing that than anything else I have ever done. After four years of that I crossed into the computer operator filed. I have worked with computers every day since then for eight to twelve hours a day. More importantly, I have stayed away from illegal drug use, avoided the criminal justice system, have not become a sexual pervert, and have managed to maintain my sanity and dignity despite the grinding daily pressure of living in this White Supremacist minded Nation. Now! If I had a young daughter, say 18, and she same home telling me that a 60 year old man wanted to hit it off with her, I would be very concerned. I would wonder why a man of that age would want my daughter other than for sexual purposes. However, instead of going wild about it, I would ask the man to meet me someplace and sit down and pick his brain, hopefully he has one, and discover why he is interested in my daughter. I would also check out his background. If I found he was a criminal, abuser of drugs, or people, con artist, bi-sexual, or any of those other negative dangerous lifestyle, I would them let him know he is not welcome regardless of what my daughter wants. I would show the information to my daughter and hope she would be wise enough to know for herself that this is a person she should avoid regardless of how much money he appears to have, or what he claims to be. If she didn’t listen to me, then I would discreetly put things together that would result in this fellow assuming room temperature very quietly. Now if I discovered that he was a decent fellow, who just had luck in choosing women, and he was the last male on his fathers side, as I am, my closes cousin is the Chairman of the Harlem Globetrotters team, but his name is Jackson; not Benson. His grandfather and my father were first cousins, then I would allow him to date my daughter, if that was her wish. After all what can a nice, ethical, and moralistic 60 year old to a young woman that an 18 year can’t do more often? If all she could find her age was the typical thuggish looking and acting young brothas that I see around here, I would be much happier if she picked the older guy. Anyone who wants their children to date these young gangstas and gangsta wannabee’s, is not , to my mind a parent who really wants the best for their children Unfortunately, in the black community there are tremendous numbers of unethical, immoral black men and women of all ages. Those people who live by the idea of “Get what you want by any means necessary? So in closing, I think the bottom line for our children is that they find someone who genuinely loves them and respects them. Once a person is 18 or over, they generally know whether they feel comfortable with someone or not, regardless of their age. I think the black community would be much better served, if the women married serious minded men who want to love them, raise a family WITH them, and together they build the best life they can for themselves and their children. Is there anyone else out there who can relate to what I’ve said here? And so it goes www,frutavida.com/2283012 use order code of 7777 Telephone 1-573-803-0603 Don’t hide your number when you call. I don’t answer those kinds of calls. If someone desires to enter my home electronically, or physically, they must identify themselves. If they are on the up and up, why wouldn’t they? Friday, April 20, 2007How to show the immorality and unethicalness of homosexuality without using the Bible
Imhoteph,
Folks, when you are dealing with people who dismiss the Bible outright, there are other logical ways to prove that that lifestyles is an immoral, unnatural, and unethical one. One way is by observing Nature and pointing how other animals rarely engage in homosexual activity. How many of you have honestly seen tow make bulls on a farm, two male Tigers, Lions, Elephants, dogs, cats, or any other animals that is living in it's natural environment do that? I have had many cats for about twenty years and I have never a Tom cat hold still and let another Tom cat have a go at his arse. I have also never seen two female cats do that. they sniff each other once they identify that the animals is same sex, they walk away, or the animal being sniffed hisses violently, and throws a paw or two at them. Also in Science, electricity, tow positive currents violently repel each other. The same goes for two negative currents. Opposite charges attract. Culture wise, by far only WHITE countries are trying to give homosexuality the same acceptance as they do the natural and proper heterosexuals. Most first world, nonwhite countries, who havne't lost their minds, have stiff penalties for that type of activity. And of course the Bible specifically condemns it in several locations. Do not let these freaks convince you that you are "homophobic" Homophobia implies that you have a fear of queers. Most of the people I know have no fear of them. We are disgusted when we see acting out. It is the same feeling you would have if you sat down to a plate of huge Lobster Tails, baked potatoes, sour cream, and some Chenin Blanc, or Pinot Noir. You were rubbing your hands together in anticipation of the meal when all of a sudden a huge green fly lands in the middle of your plate and spins around for about 30 seconds. Remember that feeling of nausea that comes over you when a fly gets in your mouth, or tries to get in? That is a natural response to something that your subconscious knows is FILTHY. It is not FEAR. Here is how a few countries around the world punish homosexuals like Rosie O' hydrocephalic head, and Ellen Degenerate: HOMOSEXUAL RIGHTS AROUND THE WORLD Here you go Rosie, Brandy, Ellen, Angelina, and other sexual deviates: :-) Isaiah, the world is on your side! AUSTRALIA CANADA UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES all White countries so of course anything goes whether it is proper or not. very few in those countries will go to paradise. AFGHANISTAN LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, the punishment is execution, the methods are throwing the homosexual down from a high roof or hill or by burying them beside a wall which is then toppled on to them. ALGERIA LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is illegal, punishable with up to 3 years imprisonment and a fine between 1,000 and 10,000 Algerian dinars. ANGOLA LAWS: 1. Homosexual acts are illegal, described as offenses against public morality. ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with 14 years in prison. ARGENTINA The city of Buenos Aires, and the town of Rosario have gay rights laws that bans some anti-gay discrimination. The law, however, does not grant legal status to same-sex marriages. The law also does not give gay couples the right to adopt children or receive inheritances. 5. BAHRAIN LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with imprisonment not exceeding 10 years, with or without corporal punishment. 6. BANGLADESH LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with deportation, fines, and/or up to 10 years to life imprisonment. BARBADOS LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is illegal. BELARUS LAWS: Most Belarussians consider homosexuality a disease. The country's only gay club, Oscar, was closed by the government in February 2000 because police said it "gathers abnormal people," although some mainstream clubs reportedly hold specific gay nights. BENIN LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law. BHUTAN LAWS: 1. Male homosexual sex is forbidden by law, punishable with a maximum sentence of life in prison. BOTSWANA LAWS: 1. Male homosexual conduct is illegal punishable with up to 7 years imprisonment. BRAZIL LAWS: 1. military personnel who engage in gay sex can be sentenced to from six months to one year in prison. BRUNEI LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, with a penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment or a fine of up to 30.000 Brunei dollars. BURMA (MYANMAR) LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law. BURUNDI LAWS: 1. Has no sodomy laws. CAMEROON LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with a penalty of 6 months to 5 years imprisonment and a fine of up to CFA 200.000. If one of the persons involved is under the age of 21 the penalty is doubled. COOK ISLANDS LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with 7 years in prison for sodomy, and 5 years in prison for indecent acts with males. CUBA LAWS: 1. Has no sodomy laws for private sex, but Article 303a of the Penal Code punishes "publicly manifested" homosexuality with between three months and one year in prison, or a fine of 100 to 300 cuotas for people "persistently bothering others with homosexual amorous advances". Cyria 1. Homosexuals are banned from the military on (health) grounds. CZECH REPUBLIC LAWS: 1. The law, , does not allow marriage or adoption of children by same-sex partners. NOTE: 1. President Vaclav Klaus is very anti-gay. DJIBOUTI LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Public morality laws, however, are especially used against gay men. Article 330 Penal Code penalizes "every violation of decorum and good behavior on public streets" with up to 2 years imprisonment. EGYPT LAWS: 1. Egyptian law does not explicitly refer to homosexuality, but a wide range of laws covering obscenity and public morality are punishable by jail terms. Contempt of religion (falsely interpreting the Koran and exploiting Islam to promote deviant ideas), is punishable by up to five years in jail. Immoral behavior (debauchery offense), is punishable by up to a maximum sentence of three years in jail. The age of sexual consent is 18. ESTONIA LAWS: 1. Has a national gay rights law that bans some anti-gay discrimination, employment. 3. Allows homosexuals to only be slaves. ETHIOPIA LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is illegal, punishable with a penalty of 10 days to 3 years' "simple imprisonment". This penalty may be increased by 5 or more years when the offender "makes a profession of such activities", or exploits a dependency relation in order to excercise influence over the other person. The maximum sentence of 10 years' imprisonment can be applied when the offender uses violence, intimidation or coercion, trickery or fraud, or takes unfair advantage of the victim's inability to offer resistance. The maximum sentence can also be applied when the victim is subjected to acts of cruelty or sadism; when the offender transmits a venereal disease although fully aware of being infected with it; when an adult is charged with committing homosexual acts with persons under 15 years of age; or when distress, shame or despair drives the victim to committing suicide. FALKLAND ISLANDS/MALVINAS LAWS: 1. Has no sodomy laws, the age of sexual consent is 18 for homosexual males, and 16 for lesbians and heterosexuals. FAROE ISLANDS LAWS: 1. Has no sodomy laws, the age of sexual consent is 18 for homosexuals and 15 for heterosexuals. FIJI LAWS: 1. Has no sodomy laws. The High Commission in Fiji declared that consensual sex between homosexual adults is legal. The High Commission said the prohibition on homosexual sex was overridden by a 2005 High Court decision that retracted the imprisonment of two gay men based on human rights protections in Fiji?s Constitution. 2. Grants explicit constitutional protections to homosexual citizens. COURT:1. On 8-26-05 Fiji's High Court overturned the convictions of two gay men, ruling that the South Pacific island's sodomy law was unconstitutional. The court released Thomas McCoskar, a 55-year-old Australian, and Dhirendra Nadan, a 23-year-old native man, telling McCoskar he was free to leave Fiji and return home. McCoskar, a retired university professor from Victoria state, and Nadan were convicted earlier this year and sentenced to two years in prison. In passing sentence the trial judge described gay sex as "something so disgusting that it would make any decent person vomit." They were on bail while their appeal was heard. The convictions and sentences sparked an international outcry, particularly in Australia. In his landmark ruling Justice Gerald Winter said that the sodomy law - a holdover from British colonial rule - was inconsistent with the Fijian constitution and therefore invalid. "What the Constitution requires is that the law acknowledges difference, affirms dignity and allows equal respect to every citizen as they are," his ruling said. "The State that embraces difference, dignity and equality does not encourage citizens without a sense of good or evil but rather creates a strong society built on tolerant relationships with a healthy regard for the rule of law." "A country so founded will put sexual expression in private relationships into its proper perspective and allow citizens to define their own good moral sensibilities leaving the law to its duties of keeping sexual expression in check by protecting the vulnerable and penalizing the predator." FINLAND LAWS: 1. Has no sodomy laws, the age of sexual consent is 16 for all. 2. Has a national gay rights law that bans some anti-gay discrimination including employment. 3. Allows homosexuals in its military. 4. Allows foreign partners of its homosexual citizenry to receive residency permits. 5. Allows Finns who are at least 18 years of age to register a same-sex union in a civil ceremony comparable to traditional matrimony. They also give gay couples the same rights as married heterosexual couples when inheriting each other's property and in cases of divorce. The law makes same-sex partnerships legally binding but stops short of letting lesbian and gay couples adopt children or use the same surname. COURT:1. On 10-19-01 Finland's supreme court awarded custody of two children to their deceased mother's lesbian partner instead of their biological father. Lower courts had said the children should be handed over to the father, who has been living abroad for most of the children's lives, but the supreme court based its decision on the will of the children, who wanted to stay with their mother's partner. It is the first supreme court ruling in which custody of children was given to a person not related to the children rather than to a biological family member. The two children, ages 12 and 14, had been in the sole custody of their mother and her partner since 1993. "The court came to the conclusion that it was in the best interest of the children that custody be awarded to the person with whom the children were living," the ruling read. On 9-28-01 Finland granted legal recognition to same-sex partnerships, although it stopped short of giving lesbian and gay couples adoption rights. FRANCE LAWS:NOTE: 1. President Jacques Chirac is very anti-gay. GHANA LAWS: 1. Homosexual acts between men can be punished under provisions concerning assault and rape. This will only happen when one of those involved makes a formal complaint or when it concerns an act with a minor. GRENADA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law. GUYANA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with up to life in prison. INDIA LAWS: 1. Male homosexual sex is forbidden by law, punishable with a maximum sentence of life in prison. COURT:1. On 9-2-04 the Delhi High Court dismissed a legal challenge to Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, India's sodomy law. The Court claimed that the validity of the sodomy law could not be challenged by anyone "not affected by it." The case was filed by two prominent Indian organizations that represent the interests of men who have sex with men, the Naz Foundation IRAN LAWS: 1. Homosexuality is illegal, those charged with love-making are given a choice of four deathstyles: being hanged, stoned, halved by a sword, or dropped from the highest perch. According to Article 152, if two men not related by blood are discovered naked under one cover without good reason, both will be punished at a judge's discretion. Gay teens (Article 144) are also punished at a judge's discretion. Rubbing one's penis between the thighs without penetration (tafheed) shall be punished by 100 lashes for each offender. This act, known to the English-speaking world as "frottage" is punishable by death if the "offender" is a non-Moslem. If frottage is thrice repeated and penalty-lashes have failed to stop such repetitions, upon the fourth "offense" both men will be put to death. According to Article 156, a person who repents and confesses his gay behavior prior to his identification by four witnesses, may be pardoned. Even kissing "with lust" (Article 155) is forbidden. This bizarre law works to eliminate old Persian male-bonding customs, including common kissing and holding hands in public. IRAQ LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, the punishment is death. ITALY Allows homosexuals in its military, but homosexuals may be expelled for (overt homosexual sexual behavior). . Allows only married couples to adopt children. JAMAICA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with up to 10 years imprisonment and hard labor. A penalty of up to 7 years imprisonment, with or without hard labour, is provided for anyone attempting to commit homosexual acts or an "indecent assault" on another male person. JAPAN Bans open homosexuals from its military. KENYA LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is strictly forbidden, punishable with up to 14 years in prison. NOTE: 1. Daniel Toroitich arap Moi, President of Kenya, is extremely anti-homosexual. KIRIBATI LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with up to 14 years in prison. KUWAIT LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishes sexual intercourse between men over 21 years of age with imprisonment of up of to seven years, it punishes sexual intercourse with a male under 21 with imprisonment of up to 10 years. LEBANON LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with imprisonment not exceeding one year. LIBERIA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law. LIBYA LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is illegal, punished with 3 to 5 years imprisonment. MACEDONIA LAWS: 1. The Bar Association in Macedonia voted to ban homosexuals and alcoholics from becoming lawyers. Gays who already are licensed to practice law will be allowed to continue. MALAWI LAWS: 1. Section 153 Penal Code, which prohibits "unnatural offences", and Section 156 concerning "public decency", are used to punish homosexual acts. It is reported that, in the past, Europeans who committed homosexual acts with Malawis were prosecuted under Article 156 and expelled as undesirable aliens. MALAYSIA LAWS: 1. Homosexual acts are illegal, punishable by lashing and a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Even cruising is illegal, punishable with up to 2 years in prison. 2. Bans homosexuals from appearing on radio and television. MALDIVES LAWS: 1. Male homosexual sex is forbidden by law, punishable with a maximum sentence of life in prison. MARSHALL ISLANDS LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with 10 years in prison. MAURITANIA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with death. MAURITIUS LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with up to 5 years in prison. MONGOLIA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law. Section 113 of the Penal Code prohibiting "immoral gratification of sexual desires", can be used against homosexuals. MOROCCO LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is illegal, which provides a penalty of between 6 months and 3 years imprisonment and additional fines from 120 to 1200 dirhams for "lewd or unnatural acts with an individual of the same sex". MOZAMBIQUE LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is illegal, punishable with a penalty of up to 3 years imprisonment in a "re-education institution" where hard labour is used to alter the prisoners "aberrant behaviour". NAMIBIA LAWS: 1. Male homosexuality is illegal. 2. Namibia's Labour Code (Clause 107) explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace. COURT:1. The High Court in Windhoek on June 24 reaffirmed a German lesbian's right to permanent residence status based on her relationship with her Namibian partner. Judge Harold Levy found that since heterosexual couples are recognized for common-law relationships -- "universal partnerships" -- then, given the "equality provision in the Constitution and the provision against discrimination on the grounds of sex, I have no hesitation in saying that the long- term relationship between the applicants in so far as it is a universal partnership, is recognized by law." NAURU LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law. NEPAL LAWS: 1. Male homosexual sex is forbidden by law, punishable with a maximum sentence of life in prison. NICARAGUA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with up to 4 years in prison. NIGERIA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with up to 14 years in prison. Since 2000, 12 of Nigeria's northern states have adopted Sharia codes for their courtrooms. Under Islamic law, homosexual sex is punishable by death. NOTE: 1. President Olusegun Obasanjo is very anti-gay. He says homosexual tendencies are clearly unbiblical, unnatural, and definitely un-African. NIUE LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with up to 10 years in prison. OMAN LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable by up to 3 years in prison, but only acts arousing scandal lead to public prosecution. PAKISTAN LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is illegal, punishable with life in prison, and corporal punishment of 100 lashes, while Islamic law, which also can be enforced legally, calls for up to 100 lashes or death by stoning. PAPUA NEW GUINEA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, anal intercourse is punishable with imprisonment of up to 14 years, other homosexual relations between men are punishable with up to five years imprisonment. Lesbian relations are not criminal, the age of sexual consent is 16. PHILIPPINES LAWS: 1. Has no sodomy laws, the age of sexual consent is 12 for all, but bans homosexuals from its military. The Islamic city of Marawi City bans overt homosexuals as well as skintight jeans and other skimpy attire from public places. Violations of the dress code or open display of homosexuality will be punished with the pouring of paint on the head by the "muttawa" or religious police. POLAND President Lech Kaczynski is extremely anti-gay. 2. Roman Giertych, Polish Education Minister, is extremely anti-gay. QATAR LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishes sodomy between consenting adults (irrespective of sex) with up to five years imprisonment. SAINT LUCIA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law. SAMOA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with 5 to 7 years in prison. SAUDI ARABIA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, homosexual acts are subject to a maximum penalty of death. Sodomy is proved either by the culprit confessing four times or by the testimony of four trustworthy Muslim men. If there are less than four witnesses or one of them is not trustworthy, they are all to be punished with 80 lashes (a slave 40) for slander. SENEGAL LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, an improper or unnatural act with a person of the same sex will be punished by imprisonment of between one and five years and by a fine of 100,000 to 1,500,000 francs. If the act was committed with a person below the age of 21, the maximum penalty will always be applied. SEYCHELLES LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law. SIERRA LEONE LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law. SINGAPORE LAWS: 1. Male homosexual sex is illegal, and can be punished by life in prison, lesbian sex is legal in private. 2. Visual representation of homosexual acts are banned, and so are materials that portray homosexuality as a legitimate and acceptable lifestyle. 3. The Ministry of Defence does not admit self-acknowledged gay men into the military, but they have to serve the army in the capacity of administrative or logistical clerks when serving their two and a half-year compulsory military service. NOTE: 1. Singapore's Registrar of Societies refused to register the gay organization People Like Us on March 31, 2004 and ordered its members to cease activity. The agency said registering the group would violate the Societies Act's ban on organizations that are "likely to be used for unlawful purposes or for purposes prejudicial to public peace, welfare or good order in Singapore" and its ban on organizations that are "contrary to the national interest." People Like Us said it would launch an appeal to the Minister of Home Affairs. However, on April 7, 2004, the ministry suggested that would be pointless. "As the mainstream moral values of Singaporeans are conservative, it is hence contrary to public interest to grant legitimacy to the promotion of homosexual activities and viewpoints," the ministry said in response to a press inquiry. For the time being, People Like Us has halted activity, but a spokesman said the organization's more than 1,000 members will continue to advocate for gay rights individually. 2. Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore, is anti-gay. SOLOMON ISLANDS LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punished with 14 years imprisonment. SOMALIA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punished with imprisonment from 3 months to 3 years, and an act of lust different from sexual intercourse is punished with imprisonment from 2 months to 2 years. SOUTH AFRICA LAWS: . Homosexual sex with a person under 19 is punishable with imprisonment of up to six years with or without a fine of up to 12,000 rand. SOUTH KOREA LAWS: 1. Has no sodomy laws, the age of sexual consent is 13 for all. 2. Bans homosexuals in its military. SPAIN LAWS: the age of sexual consent is 12 for all, but it bans seduction by deception until age 16. 2. Allows homosexuals in its military,but they can only suck the officers. SRI LANKA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with up to 10 years in prison. No laws cover sex between women. SUDAN LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is illegal, punishable by 100 lashes or death. SURINAME LAWS: 1. Homosexual acts with someone under the age of 18 is punishable with a penalty of up to 4 years imprisonment. SWAZILAND LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable by imprisonment or a fine. SYRIA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable by up to 3 years in prison. TAIWAN LAWS: Annette Lu, Vice President, is very anti-gay. TANZANIA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with up to 14 years imprisonment. On the island of Zanzibar male homosexual sex is illegal, punishable with up to 25 years in prison. Lesbian sex is also illegal, punishable with up to 7 years in prison. The male homosexual sex sentence is the same as that for murder. THAILAND LAWS: 1. Has no sodomy laws, the age of sexual consent is 15 for all. The age of consent for sex involving prostitution is 18. 2. Bans homosexuals from its military. TOGO LAWS: 1. Homosexual acts are illegal and are often prosecuted as rape or assault, punishable with fines and up to 3 years imprisonment. TOKELAU LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with 10 years in prison. You can receive 5 years imprisonment for making a pass at another male. TONGA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with 10 years in prison. TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with 10 to 20 years in prison. It provides a penalty of up to life imprisonment if committed on a minor (under 18 years old). 2. Under Article 8 of the Immigration Act, homosexuals are not allowed to enter the country. TUNISIA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with imprisonment of up to 3 years for sodomy between consenting adults, entrapment is common. TURKEY LAWS: 1. the age of sexual consent is 18 for vaginal and anal sex, and 16 for all other sex. 2. Homosexuals are banned from the military, and homosexual officers and conscripts must serve prison sentences of 3 to 6 months, officers are discharged immediately following imprisonment. 3. The southern town of Adana bans public male-male kissing, public male-female and female-female kissing are still permitted. 4. Article 10 of the Law of Associations can be used to make gay organizations illegal. TURKMENISTAN LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with 2 years in prison. TUVALU LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with 14 years in prison. You can receive 7 years imprisonment for making a pass at another male. UGANDA LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is illegal, criminalizes "carnal knowledge against the order of nature" with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Section 141 prohibits "attempts at carnal knowledge" with a maximum penalty of 7 years imprisonment. Section 143 punishes acts of, procurement of, or attempts to procure acts of "gross indecency" betweem men in public or private with up to 5 years imprisonment. Prosecutions are rare. 2. The constitution of Uganda bans same-sex marriage. The constitution says that "marriage is lawful only if entered into between a man and a woman" and specifies that "it is unlawful for same-sex couples to marry". NOTE: 1. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of Uganda, is extremely anti-gay. UNITED ARAB EMIRATES LAWS: 1. Has some sodomy laws, the Abu Zhabi Penal Code makes sodomy punishable with imprisonment of up to 14 years, the Penal Code of Dubai imposes imprisonment of up to 10 years on consensual sodomy. UZBEKISTAN LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with up to 3 years in prison for anal sex. Oral sex is legal. Lesbian sex is not mentioned in the law. VANUATU/NEW HEBRIDES LAWS: 1. Has no sodomy laws, the age of sexual consent is 18. VENEZUELA LAWS: 1. Has no sodomy laws, the age of sexual consent is 16 for all. 2. Bans homosexuals in its Military. VIETNAM LAWS: 1. the age of sexual consent is 18 for all. Consensual sex with a person under 13 is punishable by death. 2. Vietnam's national assembly has banned gay marriage. YEMEN LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is forbidden, punishable by death. ZAIRE LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is illegal, punishable with up to 5 years in prison. ZAMBIA LAWS: 1. Has a sodomy law, punishable with 14 years imprisonment. NOTE: 1. Frederick J.T. Chiluba, President, is extremely anti-gay. ZIMBABWE LAWS: 1. Homosexual activity is illegal, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The law states that sodomy is any "act involving contact between two males that would be regarded by a reasonable person as an indecent act". The "sexual deviancy" law could also make it a criminal offense for two males to hold hands, hug, or kiss. NOTE: 1. On August 1, 1995, president Robert Gabriel Mugabe called homosexuality an abhorrent offense against nature. He is extremely anti-gay. Sources & Resources Encylopedia Britannica World Legal Survey compiled by the International NAMBLA, Lesbian & Gay perverts Association
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