Buxton and Victoria:Rape of the mind?

I have always been amazed that no Guianese historian,  no Guianese  social scientist, No Guyanese Commentator  has found it necessary to condemn and /or criticize the colonial attitude which the former slaves so incorrectly sought to honor persons who profited off their misery.  

In this the age of social reformation in this enlightened age our people seemed hell-bent on clinging to the vestiges of colonialism Kwame Nkrumah called it neo-colonialism. Minister Farrakhan calls it the Willie Lynch syndrome. It disturbs me that our people parrot Europeans even in this day and age.   

Africans and persons of African descent must assume the primary responsibility

and leadership in historical research....if we are to continue to leave

practically all important historical research and writing concerning the black

race to the white man, then we must be prepared to accept, uncomplainingly, the

white man's point of view."  --Chancellor Williams  

In Europe , the victims of feudalism still prayed to the same to the same God as their Feudal masters and still assumed that they were born of the same culture.  When the Europeans encountered the Africans and the indigenous Americans, they declared war on their God concept, their religious rituals, and everything in their way of life that might be called culture.  Their capture of the Africans and the indigenous Americans was not only the rape of the body; it was the rape of the mind.  It was the rape of a way of life. - Dr. John Henrik Clarke  

Quotations From the Writings of Arturo (Arthur) Alfonso Schomburg (1874-1938) Librarian and Book Collector.

The whole of Africa has suffered ignominiously at the hands of European nations for inexcusable reasons. The terror of oppression and injustice stalks freely in that region of the earth where armed men are a power unto themselves. There is no documentary evidence of any payment tendered for the acquisition of immense territories looted from African natives. We need not open the ulcer for public view. Can we point to any part of the Dark Continent where the sword has not cleansed its steel sharpness on the hide of inoffensive black men? The memories of Khartoum , where men tied to cannons were shot to points of the compass to impress the natives with the power of might, are perpetuated in history. African exploration  

What of it if the darker races are getting consciousness isnt the world large enough for the people of all bloods to dwell therein? Are not the wild beasts of the field living together without hindrance, as they have done since the foundation of the world? The force of résistance with the whites is the consciousness of having robbed the weaker races of all that was lootable, their  consciousness squeams with the animus furandi and they are afraid the worm will some day turn, for a thousand and one wrongs unjustly inflictedMasonic Truths

"The earliest instruction was imparted orally, a system still extant in Africa and the orient. It trains the mind to listen."  

"We seem lately to have come at least to realize what the race issue has been a plague on both our historical houses, and that history cannot be properly written with either bias or counter bias".

"We need a collection or list of books written by our men and women."

"The American Negro must remake his past in order to make his future. Though it is orthodox to think of America as the one country where it is unnecessary to have a past, what is a luxury for the nation as a whole becomes a prime social necessity for the Negro. For him a group tradition must supply compensation for persecution, and pride of race the antidote for prejudice. History must restore what slavery took away. For it is the social damage of slavery that the present generation must repair and offset  ...The Negro Digs Up His Past

already the negro sees himself against a reclaimed background, in a perspective that will give pride and self-respect ample scope, and make history yield for him the same values that the treasured past of any people affords   ...The Negro Digs Up His Past

We have reached the crucial period of our educational existence. I have shown by a few examples of the past available and useful material upon which we can base our future structure. We have chairs of almost everything, and believe we lack nothing, but we sadly need a chair of negro history. The white institutions have their chair of history; it is the history of their people, and whenever the negro is mentioned in the text books it dwindles down to a footnote Racial Integrity

 where is our historians to give us our side view and our chair of negro history, to teach our people our history? We are at the mercy of the flotsam and jetsam of white writers Racial Integrity

we need the coming dawn the man who will give us the background for our future; it matters not whether he comes from the cloisters of the university or from the rank and file of the fields. We need the historian and philosopher to give us with trenchant pen the story of our forefathers  Racial Integrity  

Source:

de Rivera Flor Piñeiro 1989 Appendix three: Quotations From Arthur A. Schomburgs Writings - Arthur A. Schomburg: a Puerto Rican's Quest for his Black Heritage / his writings annotated and appendices, foreword, Ricardo E. Alegría. San Juan de Puerto Rico: Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe: pages 269 273.  

Marcus Garvey (1887-1940)  preached a doctrine of freedom:

"A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots."

"A reading man and woman is a ready man and woman, but a writing man and woman is exact."

"There shall be no solution to this race problem until you your selves strike the blow for liberty."

The Black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness"

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.

God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.

Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people's actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself. - Dr. John Henrik Clarke

The myth of the European as a discoverer of other people.  There is a tendency to give the European credit for discovering the people who were not lost.

The myth of the European as a spreader of civilization.  In general, no people has ever spread any civilization anywhere at anytime.  People spread their way of life nearly always at the expense of destroying other peoples way of life.  The world did not wait in darkness for Europeans to bring the light of civilization and culture a matter of fact, Europeans put out more light than they brought, and they destroyed civilizations that were already old before Europe was born.

In Europe , the victims of feudalism still prayed to the same to the same God as their Feudal masters and still assumed that they were born of the same culture.  When the Europeans encountered the Africans and the indigenous Americans, they declared war on their God concept, their religious rituals, and everything in their way of life that might be called culture.  Their capture of the Africans and the indigenous Americans was not only the rape of the body; it was the rape of the mind.  It was the rape of a way of life. - Dr. John Henrik Clarke

"The people are doing nothing.  It is the Government who are rioting and shooting down the people." Guyanese worker to British soldier: Guiana Chronicle, 5th December 1905

  Guyana's 1905 Rebellion - Nigel Westmaas

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