H|Y|P|E Information Service > Your "Talking Drum" www.afrikan.net/hype > ytoure@mindspring.com > 404.767.1275 > USA TO: Feature Editors / News Editors / Opinion Leaders / Talk Show Hosts - - You are free to publish, broadcast and to forward at will - - If used, please hit your Reply button and let us know? Thanks. Comment
Racism Conference: Role of Blacks in the US
We learned that rhetoric and passion simply are not, and will not be, enough if victory is our real goal.

By David L. Horne

After an 18-hour flight of over 11,000 miles from Durban to Johannesburg to Cape Verde to New York to Los Angeles, I am back. I am bleary-eyed and probably spastic, but much wiser and informed from the tremendous experiences of the World Conference Against Racism and its sister conference, the NGO Forum.

By the way, when you decide to go to South Africa, I highly recommend that you take South African Airlines. Their service to passengers was nearly impeccable (though our luggage got temporary left in Johannesburg), and you get a chance to see first-hand a microcosm of that country's on-going experiment in diversity.

The Middle East crisis will not be solved by the World Conference Against Racism, nor should anyone have expected it to. However, language was found and agreed upon that was at least mutually tolerable concerning two hot-button issues: the Zionism/Palestinian confrontation, and on the "slavery as a crime against humanity" issue.

The Dalits, the dark-skinned people of India, the Roma (gypsies) of Europe, and many other issues got an airing.

The continuingly negative news reports to the contrary were simply mistaken. (There were over 1,000 journalists/media people at both conferences, and they had to have something to write home about everyday. Negative news is always easier news.)

The WCAR, slow and plodding as it was, got on with its business, and cannot be adjudged a failure at any level, save the common denominator problem with housing accomodations courtesy of Turners Travel and Tours (the single company assigned by the S.A. government to handle accomodations for over 15,000 guests in a city with only 6,000 registered hotel/bed 'n breakfast units). Turners, in a word, was not equal to the task.

What did blacks in the US get out of the WCAR and the NGO Forum?

-- We participated on a world stage with several thousand other groups, organizations and individuals.

-- We gave voice to several perceptions of harm being done internationally to women, caste groups, nationalist groups, apartheid victims, etc.

-- We represented ourselves well. The Conference Declarations and Programs of Action are to be put into various implementation projects worldwide, and we had significant input. We rallied, demonstrated, negotiated, and communicated with the best and worst of them, and we showed some skills and aplomb at international protocol, diplomacy and analysis. As African Americans we were not marginalized at these two conferences, although the US government relentlessly attempted to do that to us.

-- We networked broadly and grandly. We now know of reparations advocates in Brazil, Jamaica, Belize, Tanzania, France, Senegal, Columbia, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Libya, South Africa, etc.

-- We got a real feel for how deep and wide the growing international movement is, and a closer scrutiny of the depth of the opposition. The United Council of Churches was there, so were several Presbyterian groups, and the United Methodists as advocates of reparations for African and African Americans. Black American church groups were conspicuous by their absence.

-- We gave primary recognition and re-introduced ourselves to a whole slew of heroes and sheroes in this effort: Jamaica's 85-year-old Dudley Thompson, who is a superb negotiator; December 12th's Viola Plummer and Roger Wareham; Fidel Castro; Adjoa Aiyetoro; the Black Political Leadership Forum; N'COBRA; the National Black United Front; reparations lawyer Charles Ogletree; Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte; and the Africa and African Descendants Caucus, to name but a few.

-- We learned once again that rhetoric and passion simply are not, and will not be, enough if victory, rather than merely noise and publicity, is our real goal. We've got to hit the books and records hard and develop tight, tight arguments. The European Union came to the WCAR coordinated with denials, excuses and counter-arguments for virtually everything we had, and they ran a strong tag-team assault on our reparations positions in virtually every commission, every meeting and every discussion. If we plan on running with and conquering the big dogs of this particular war, we better get our stuff very much together, and we are clearly not yet there.

-- We attended and frequently participated in many of the hundreds of panel discussions and information forums presented at the WCAR. There were too many great ones to name here, but a new UNESCO historical project on the Slave Trade Routes, Peoples, Issues and Resolutions was presented (mostly in French, with excellent work by the translators). Other issues included: A full elaboration of the May 2001 French law that declared the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade a crime against humanity and promised future discussions on possible compensation; racism and the media; issues of women's status in relation to racism, sexism other forms of intolerance; racism in the criminal justice system in international perspective; racism in Japan, were some of them. The learning opportunities at both conferences were immense.

-- We got a clearer vision of what this is all about and what we have to do.

-- We learned, again, about the perils of little or no communication between allies in a major battlefront. We handicap ourselves and sap our own strength. Too often, one group of African Americans was doing one thing, while another group operated as if it was fighting alone, and another acted as though it was the only group that counted and that could speak for us all: altogether sometimes confusing issues and negotiating partners unnecessarily, and all sometimes cancelling each other's efforts and hard work.

-- We learned that we are not alone and we have some permanent friends.

-- We learned that we better choose our own leaders and spokespeople better, or they will anoint themselves to our detriment. Rev. Jackson, for example, did a lot of speaking for us without consulting any of us, and he did not always get it right.

I have "tons" of paper and documents that I have to sort through and organize for some public presentations back in L.A. And yes, I do have quite a few pictures (at least, I think I do; the security scans which we had to go through at least 50 times, hopefully didn't zap them).

First, however, I need some sleep. -- Dr. David Horne teaches at California State University-Northridge. (c)2001 David Horne, distributed by HYPE, www.afrikan.net/hype, mediablacks@hotmail.com