Khabo translates : and...Obama pt.2 - translation of an article in Munich’s daily newspaper “AZ” on November 5th

To be filed under: "No, seriously... this is Germany!"
check this out. Fucking outrageous (and you think I'm making this all up...)

---

Publication: Abendzeitung
Author: Michael Heinrich (Editor at Abendzeitung)
Publishing Date: November 5th, 2008
Circulation print version: 148,000 sold copies, 290,000 readers
Circulation online version: not known
Circulation areas: mainly Munich and Nuremberg

(Added by Flow) Picture credits (left): German caricature. 19th century.


The Mystery of Skin Colour

In the past, all people were black. The fact that at one point they turned white, red or yellow, is due to the duration of sunshine.

Barack Obama's victory means that for the first time a Coloured has been elected into the highest office of the US. His frizzy black hair, negroid lips and dark complexion stem from his parentage: his father is a black African from Kenya, his mother is white. A good occasion to pose the question: Why is it, actually, that people have such diverse skin complexions?

In the past we were all black. The undisputed scholarly opinion is that humans originated in Eastern Africa - and this region had massive sun exposures already millions of years ago. "In that region those humans had better chances of survival whose strong pigmentation protected them from harmful ultraviolet rays", Wulf Schiefenhövel told Abendzeitung. Schiefenhövel is a Munich based Professor of Anthropology. During the course of thousands of years skins turned ever darker until they were black. Until today, the populations of some parts of Africa and also Melanesia are nearly inky.

In the long run, people with dark skin tones have little chances of survival under Northern conditions. Also, their birth rates drop. The reason for this lies in the weather's impact on their bones. Says Professor Schiefenhövel: "Their bones quickly become soft and warped. The womens' pelvises become distorted which eventually renders child-birth impossible for them."

All other skin complexions are hybrid forms of black and white. Schiefenhövel explains: "People always call the Chinese yellow, and the Native Americans Redskins. Obviously, that is wrong." Both these groups have simply developed skin complexions that had the "right" mixing ratio for their respective habitats. I.e., their skins would sufficiently protect them from the ultraviolet rays while at the same time absorbing just the right amount of sunlight.

By the way, the skin shade only plays a minor role in the definition of human "races" or "populations". Decisive factors are, amongst others, the shape of the head and the body height.

---

Yep.
For more info about this crap and quite an interessting follow up discussion visit "der braune mob- media watch"

Berlin Bound: Had to get 'em

I (Floweasy) have been talking about getting back to Berlin since July 07 when Khabo and I met up in Wuppertal. That trip was business and there was no time to venture off on the BAHN. Big up for Khabo for coming to meet me and helping turn my hotel room into a reunion/slumber party.

Since I left Berlin last April, I have had my moments of clarity. Ones where I knew why I left and ones where I missed sitting in Hannibal with my tall glass of steaming Tiger Spice Chai tea so much that my chest ached. The visceral pain of fleeting memories.

Now with new love in tow and fresh ideas for brunch, I've booked me and my sweetness a flight and we're heading back to my old stomping ground to burn a few and chat a bit.

Lovely. Just lovely.

Waking up on the right side of the bed, both sides of the brain

This morning I woke up more philosophical than Plato. Pla-flow. Flow-to. I had a dream that I was interviewing for a job with Diddy on his underwater yacht and Sonya Richards (she was a great dancer in my dream. We chatted in the restroom when I lent her my Aveda moisturizer for her ashy hands) was a guest judge. The interview went something like this:

Who is your favorite author? Toni Morrison.
What is your favorite book by Toni Morrison? The Bluest Eye.
Who is your favorite character from The Bluest Eye? Petunia.
What is your favorite line from the book? (silence) ooooh, I'll have to think about that one because the entire book is my favorite line.
Are you afraid (of being in competition for the job I assumed)? No.
Why aren't you afraid? Because "the man who knows something knows that he knows nothing at all".
What does that mean? Fear is an emotion shy of confidence. Understanding fear is knowing that ones success is not measured against man but relative to how well one understands his or her own place in the universal order. So losing is not about being better or worse it's about being in place, as is winning.
Tell me one of your craziest thoughts? Well, recently scientists have found another planet. I think it's planet number 362. That means that as humans, we have found evidence that there are at least 362 rocks like the one we live on. We don't quite know how inhabitable they are because they don't have the same consistency as Earth, meaning water, land, vegetation, oxygen but we know they are there. I ask myself often what is life and what a brilliant mind God has to have thought up humanity and creation. God is so smart and I know that if God has created the complexity of life and emotion, of course there must be other life forms out there. Crazy about this thought is that I hope the afterlife means discovering that we (earth dwellers) are the last ones to realize that death is not dying but energy transforming. We are so simple when it comes to emotions. Think about it. We've figured out how to fly planes and mimic the birds, we can communicate across hemispheres in seconds, we can even break molecules down and recreate the energy of fire in a microwave but our response to death is to dig a whole in the ground and throw the body in. Cry for a while and store that person in memory, if that. I hope to find out one day that God's other creations have tapped into a different vibe with the Universe, with God and have been granted the opportunity to become whatever they wish just by connecting to God and to the Universe. I think they are both equally important.

Okay, thank you.

And I woke up. I had to blog. My girlfriend chuckled as I recounted my dream but it's such a great feeling to find insight into what's going on in your life. At the moment, I'm looking for a job and have had a few interviews that seemed to go well but didn't get me the position. I feel as if I've been given a pat on the back by God through my dream. Somehow saying don't trip too much, you're on the right track, you just haven't come across the right thing for your life.

Be easy. Be good to each other. Be well.

It's A New Day. At least on my calendar...

November 4th. The day the world got some. Where were you when the Man got an open invitation to pick its cracked face up off the ground? Race relations not healed but definitely took a huge step in a positive direction (not forgetting the setback civil rights received with the passing of Proposition 8.). I was seated in Slice, a lounge slash bar slash hella good pizza joint in the downtown area of Atlanta. As the breaking news alerts continued to push me and my good friends to the edge of our seats, we waited patiently on Hope. We knew in our hearts that America would not leave possibility on the corner, waiting for yet another Freedom bus. Me, Reese and Liz left the house that day knowing anything could happen. If Obama didn't win, we might be compelled to violence, tears and or madness. Seriously, we knew that each of us had invested so much of our emotion into November 4th being the day we lived to see a black president that there was no consolation awaiting us in explanations of the electoral college or the Republican voter populous. Bottom line, we weren't trying to hear anything other than President-elect Obama.

Our day went like this: woke up that morning, had some Cap'n Crunch, watched the news, suited and booted up, rolled up, rolled out. Brunch, jammin and finally landing at the King Memorial that evening. After getting glimpses of Al Sharpton marching over to the new Ebenezer Baptist Church from the tomb of MLK, Jr. we headed back to the car and ended up at Slice after stopping by the Verve lounge. As we the music tuned in and out for commercials and Wolf Blitzer's announcement of poll results, it seemed as if the announcement was planned as a surprise. Seriously, one minute the ticker said Obama was in the lead by over 100 points and then all of a sudden "CNN predicts Obama elected president"! There was about 2 seconds of silence as every one in Slice processed what was happening in that moment and then from then on until I left, an eruption of cheers, Young Jeezy and hell yeahs. Bananas doesn't even describe the energy in the room. Maybe electric bananas. Perhaps acid bananas on jazz emotion captures somewhat the mood. White people happy. Black people happy. Even the po-leese was dapping up. Hell to the yeah. I was proud to be an American for the first time in my life. I felt like my father, brother, cousin and best friend was just elected president. In that moment, Obama was definitely proud relative of mine and when he and his family walked out onto the stage, I was there with them. Standing right there on that stage saying "we did it!".

Since then, I'm on cloud Obama. This joy is something can't nobody take away. Fa real, I'm good. Sinceriously.

Man shot three times in street by racist gunman - for wearing Barack Obama T-shirt

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 6:01 PM on 07th October 2008

• Comments (21)
• Add to My Stories

A man told today how he was shot three times in a London street for wearing a Barack Obama T-shirt.

Dube Egwuatu was buying a mobile telephone top-up card in an off-licence when the gunman confronted him and glared at the top, which carries an image of the Democrat US presidential candidate underneath the legend 'Believe'.

The man then launched into a tirade of racist slurs, shouting 'I f***ing hate n*****s' and urging 36-year-old Mr Egwuatu to leave the shop with him.

Respect: Dube Egwuatu wearing the Obama T-shirt that provoked a racist attack

The man then left the shop but when Mr Egwuatu re-emerged, the attacker was waiting for him in broad daylight with a threatening-looking dog and holding a gun behind his back.

Realising what had sparked the increasingly violent assault, the terrified Mr Egwuatu zipped up his jacket to cover the image of Mr Obama and walked to his car.

But the shaven-headed man, who was white, followed Mr Egwuatu and after pulling open the passenger door pointed the gun at him.

After pleading with the man to leave him alone, the married former street warden put the keys in the ignition and turned the engine on.

The attacker then fired the gas-powered ball-bearing pistol three times, hitting the civil servant in the face, hand and shoulder.

Fearing for his life and bleeding heavily, Mr Egwuatu raced away in his car and found somewhere safe to call for help.

He was taken to hospital and later sent to have a piece of metal removed from his jaw.

Mr Egwuatu, a data analyst with Croydon Council, said: 'The venom in his voice was frightening.

'He was telling me that he was going to kill me.

'I couldn't believe it was happening - and just because I was wearing an Obama T-shirt. He was trying to make me walk somewhere quieter, saying: 'I've got something for you,' and 'I'm going to kill you.'

He added: 'Obama inspires me, his educational track record alone is quite unbelievable - that is why I was wearing the T-shirt.

'I did not think for one minute it could stir up such powerful feelings of hatred and I never said a word to him.'

Mr Egwuatu's wife, Angela, 35, said neither of them had experienced anything like it during their childhood in Nigeria.

Mrs Egwuatu, an immigration officer, said: 'At first my feelings were pure horror and now it is pure anger.

'If he had been carrying a real gun I would have been a widow. It is just ridiculous.

'I don't know how a person's mentality works. Why would a T-shirt get you to the point where you want to shoot someone.'

To the untrained eye, ball-bearing guns like the one used in the attack look every bit like a real firearm.

The potentially lethal weapons are often converted by criminals to fire real bullets, and can be bought easily in high-street shops and on websites.

The Met said it was investigating the incident, which took place in South Norwood, and that police searched a nearby house which the attacker was seen going into.

No one has been arrested.

Grada Kilomba - Plantation Memories

Plantation Memories.
Episodes of Everyday Racism.
Grada Kilomba



„Plantation Memories is a compilation of
episodes exploring everyday racism.

Linking postcolonial theory and lyrical narrative,

the book provides a new and inspiring interpre-

tation of everyday racism in the form of short

stories.

From the question "Where do you come from?"

to the N-word to Hair Politics, the book is

essential for anyone interested in Black studies,

postcolonialism, critical whiteness, gender

studies and psychoanalysis"

(Unrast-Verlag, September 2008)




"The combination of these two words, ‚plantation'

and ‚memories,' describes racism as not only the

restaging of a colonial past, but also as traumatic

reality.

Everyday racism, argues Grada Kilomba, is
experienced as a violent shock which suddenly
places the Black subject in a colonial scene
where, as in a plantation scenario, one is
imprisoned as the subordinate and exotic
‚Other.' „What a beautiful N.! Look how nice
the N. looks. I want to be one too!" says a girl
to Kathleen. Kathleen is schocked, for she
didn't expect to be perceived as the inferior
‚Other.'

This moment of surprise and pain describes
everyday racism as a mise-en-scéne where
whites suddenly become symbolic masters and
Blacks, through insult and humiliation, become
figurative slaves. Unexpectedly, the past comes
to coincide with the present and the present is
experienced as if one were in that agonizing
past, as the titel Plantation Memories
announces."

(Unrast-Verlag, September 2008)



price: 14€


You can order this book at any bookstore or at:
www.amazon.com
www.unrast-verlag.de

Grada Kilomba on understanding trauma

Check out Grada Kilomba's last essay: The Mask. Remembering Slavery,
Understanding Trauma" published recently at the AfricAvenir.
http://africavenir.com/news/2007/12/1663/the-mask-remembering-slavery-


The Mask: Remembering Slavery, Understanding Trauma
By Grada Kilomba, writer and psychologist from the West African Islands Sao Tomé e Príncipe, works predominantly as a writer and as a lecturer to the topics: Psychoanalysis, Slavery, Colonialism, Trauma and Memory.

We truly regret (to be filled out by future EU immigration officials)

Dear Mr/Mrs _________,

Your personal safety is our concern

but we are busy counting bodies as they currently burn

and, using popular language, we'd advise you to chill

until we're finished dragging gallows to the top of the hill

Now, you wouldn't have to worry, you're good and legit

you would fit our requirements for citizenship

but

as we were lighting up the bible stock for torching the mosque,

we unfortunately lost - your papers.

We are sorry.

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,528504,00.html.

http://www.netzeitung.de/deutschland/882172.html.

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,529349,00.html

7 months, no bail

So they really charged a black activist with selfdefence. Brother's got 7 months, no bail.
What? They've charged a black german activist with selfdefence. 7 months, no bail.
STOP.

Now, he did raise a fencepole, bashed a skinhead's face in.
ONE OF SIX that jumped him
IN DEEP WOODS;
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.
Brother's got 7 months, no bail.
For stompin one of six
White supremacists
Skinhead,
Lumberjack n shitkickers
Out to take his life
that would deny his right of existence
in deep woods
in his own country
(in a country that struggles in front of a european commission
to explain its ..uhm..non-multiethnic composition,
but promises to target hate-crimes, for which it has no definition
yet
for 7 months, no bail
they put a man in jail
for saving his black ass.
Wow!