AfricaNow! August 23, 2023 Of Hesitance: W.E.B Du Bois from Josh Myers’s Of Black Study w/ Nathalie Frédéric Pierre

Topic and Guest: As we continue to commemorate Black August, we feature a critical exploration of Chapter 1 of Dr. Joshua M. Myers’s book Of Black Study.  Chapter 1 is entitled “Of Hesitance: W.E.B. Du Bois.” This is the first of five sessions where we unpack Myers’s meditations on Black Study, a line of thinking that is calling for us to think of ways to merge the material with the nonmaterial. To call into question the very foundations of systems of thought that guide our everyday practices of being human, of being human in the rhythms of Blackness.   This is a conversation between AfricaNow!’s Executive Producer and Co-Host James Pope and Dr. Nathalie Frédéric Pierre, an Assistant Professor of History at Howard University.  

In the classroom and within her research agenda, Professor Pierre highlights the plans and processes people of African descent set into motion in order to sustain sites of autonomy across the Americas.  She is currently writing her first book, The Vessel of Independence... Must Save Itself’: Haitian State Formation, 1757 - 1815 which articulates the political thought of Haitian statesmen, who were bound to preserve antislavery and create a government suitable for emancipated citizens of African origin in a revolutionary Atlantic world still reliant on enslaved labor.  Her work has been published in The Journal of Haitian Studies, Cultural Dynamics, Remembrance: Loss, Hope, Recovery after the Earthquake in Haiti, and other forums.

Myers opens, Of Black Study, with an epigraph from June Jordan, who along with Barbara Christian, Addison Gayle, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and Toni Cade Bambara were supporting students in a struggle around the “Free University”, an attempt to realize the dream of a Black University at City College of New York.  ....
 
MUSIC ON THE SHOW: intro and on sign-off--“MAYIBUYE” BY HUGH MASEKELA; intro by James Pope--“MILLIONS OF US (Part 2)” BY BCUC—BANTU CONTINUA UHURU CONSCIOUSNESS; break--“HYMN TO FREEDOM” BY OSCAR PETERSON commemorating his birthday on August 15 (August 15, 1925—December 23, 2007);outro of interview--“FREEQUENCY” BY BLACK STAR FEAT. BLACK THOUGHT; closing song--“STRAIGHT AHEAD” BY COUNT BASIE commemorating Count Basie’s birthday on August 21 (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984).

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Originally broadcast on WPFW 89.3FM, Washington, DC. Tune into AfricaNow! live on WPFW 89.3 FM in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area or visit www.wpfwfm.org on Wednesdays from 1:00 to 2:00PM (U.S. Eastern).

AfricaNow! Aug. 23, 2023 Of Hesitance W.E.B. Du Bois from Josh Myers’s Of Black Study

AfricaNow! October 30, 2024 Meditations On: Black Labor & ‘The White Architects of Black Education’

Topic and Guest: From our archives--Labor has changed. Its production. Its definition. Its control. But one thing that has not changed are the parameters within which labor has been defined, its value extracted and dehumanized – mechanized – automated – artificially intelligentized.

What does "Labor" mean in a settler imperial world fortified by racial capitalist sociopolitical and cultural structures that maintain a social order that places the African and African descendant worker, beyond the periphery of benefiting from their labor? What about decolonizing labor and labor movements?

What about a world without work----What are the ideological frameworks that ‘labor’ is using to attempt to construct the material realities of our current world? .... Today, Dr. Kamau Rashid joins us in conversation where we meditate on black labor and the white architects of black education.

Our thoughts are centered on William H. Watkins work, the White Architects of Black Education: Ideology and Power, 1865-1954. In the White Architects of Black Education, Watkins “explores the body of ideas that undergird social, economic, racial, and educational beliefs about Black education in the U.S.: therefore, it is an ideological study. His stated objective is to investigate the ideological construction of colonial Black education by examining the views, politics, and practices of the white architects that funded, created, and refined it. Supporting this approach, Watkins argues that “a body of ideas serves to rationalize and justify any political, or economic system, but ideology helps organize our world and explains it in relation to power and vested interest” [1-2].

Watkins work highlights that “the white architects of black education represented great power and wealth. Most often they stood for the interests of northern capital and white southern expediency. Therefore, “colonial education in the South must never be confused with the educational agenda of blacks in the south. In fact, these agenda conflicted” [2].
The central question guiding this discussion, simply asks: How far have we moved away from these foundational ideas and their ideological grounding?

Dr. Kamau Rashid is currently Professor and Founding Director of the Urban Education, Ed.D. program at Northeastern Illinois University. ...

Dr. Rashid work focuses on African American history and culture, particularly on the inter-generational dynamics of African/a social critique, ....

Lastly, likely most importantly, Dr. Rashid is active in a number of community organizations in the Chicago-area including the Kemetic Institute of Chicago, a research and educational organization focused on mapping, exploring and applying the ancient and contemporary contributions of ancient Nile Valley civilizations.

MUSIC ON THE SHOW: intro--“YOU’VE GOT HAVE FREEDOM” BY PHAROAH SANDERS; closing--“OUTUBRO” BY MILTON NASCIMENTO & ESPERANZA SPALDING commemorating their birthdays—Milton Nascimento (October 26, 1942—); Esperanza Spalding (October 18, 1984—).

Support AfricaNow! and your community station WPFW during our Fall Pledge Drive October 14 to November 3.  Donate online visit https://pledge.wpfwfm.org/index.php and then on Step 1: Contribution scroll down to AfricaNow! to make your donation to the show. Or on our CashApp, which is $WPFWFM write it is for AfricaNow! and include your email address. Thank you.

Originally broadcast on WPFW 89.3FM, Washington, DC. Tune into AfricaNow! live on WPFW 89.3 FM in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area or visit www.wpfwfm.org on Wednesdays from 1:00 to 2:00PM (U.S. Eastern).

AfricaNow! Oct. 30, 2024 Meditations On--Black Labor & ‘The White Architects of Black Education’

AfricaNow! December 11, 2024 Jacob H. Carruthers and the Restoration of An African Worldview with Kamau Rashid

Topic and Guest: In the introduction of his recently published, Jacob H Carruthers and the Restoration of An African Worldview: Finding Our Way through the Desert, Kamau Rashid [2024] posits that:  “One of the central concerns evident in the scholarship of Jacob H. Carruthers was the intellectual foundations of the modern world. Although he acknowledged the importance of studying systems of oppression, he argued that such structures rested upon the foundation of Western thought, knowledges that facilitated the formation of the systems of domination and that have also served to refine their application [Rashid, 2024; Carruthers 1972, 1999]. He queried how African people could hope to free themselves from the thrall of Europeans if their conceptions of reality were derived from them. He recognized that such a mind could only reproduce the conditions ultimately responsible for its subjugation and therefore concluded that any process of social transformation must also be predicated upon one of Africanization [Rashid, 2024; Carruthers, 1994]. ....

For Carruthers, Africana Studies was not simply an area of theoretical inquiry, but was a
critical ground upon which “Intellectual Warfare” was waged....

Dr. Kamau Rashid is currently Professor and Founding Director of the Urban Education, Ed.D. program at Northeastern Illinois University. Dr. Rashid earned his Ph.D. and BA from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Arts degree from Northeastern Illinois University.

Dr. Rashid work focuses on African American history and culture, particularly on the inter-generational dynamics of African/a social critique, which includes an exploration and theorizing of W.E.B. Du Bois as well as contemporary African-Centered scholars and critical race theorists. Undergirding this, he studies art (Hip Hop and comics) as a radical public pedagogy.

He is co-developing an oral history and archival project focused on African American social movements in the Chicago area from the 1960s to1980s with Dr. Richard Benson of Spelman College. And is currently working on Finding our way through the desert: Jacob H. Carruthers and the restoration of an African worldview as well as the critical theory of W.E.B. Du Bois: The Struggle for Humanity. 

He has published a number of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and received various grant awards to support his work.

Lastly, likely most importantly, Dr. Rashid is active in a number of community organizations in the Chicago-area including the Kemetic Institute of Chicago, a research and educational organization focused on mapping, exploring and applying the ancient and contemporary contributions of ancient Nile Valley civilizations.

MUSIC ON THE SHOW: intro--“FLIGHT TIME” BY DONALD BYRD remembering Donald Byrd’s birthday (December 9, 1932—February 4, 2013); intro--"DREAM STATE" BY KAMASI WASHINGTON AND ANDRE 3000; intro--"CHENREZIG" BY DON CHERRY; break--“AFRICANO” BY EARTH, WIND & FIRE remembering Earth, Wind & Fire’s founder and leader Maurice White’s birthday (December 19, 1941—February 4, 2016); sign-off--“JARABI” BY SONA JOBARTEH; closing--“MAMA AFRICA” BY COLOMBIAFRICA THE MYSTIC ORCHESTRA & LOUIS TOWERS FEAT. DALLY KIMOKO & NYBOMA.

Support AfricaNow! and your community station WPFW.  Beginning on Giving Tuesday, December 3, through the 31st, we ask you to embrace radical generosity and donate to WPFW.  Donate online: visit https://pledge.wpfwfm.org/index.php and then on Step 1: Contribution scroll down to AfricaNow! to make your donation to the show. Or on our CashApp, which is $WPFWFM write it is for AfricaNow! and include your email address. Thank you.

Originally broadcast on WPFW 89.3FM, Washington, DC. Tune into AfricaNow! live on WPFW 89.3 FM in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area or visit www.wpfwfm.org on Wednesdays from 1:00 to 2:00PM (U.S. Eastern).

New tracks tagged #African Studies