Respect for Prince Harry

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I find it interesting that Prince Harry wrote an insightful piece in Vogue highlighting a phenomenon know as “unconscious bias” pertaining to subtle forms of racism (unfortunately I only have the link to a BBC article about that piece). I think he has taken some stick from ignorant people who do not like the fact that he is not married to a white woman and this has aroused his sensitivity toward the kinds of bias that people far removed from his normal social sphere would be able to relate adequately.

However, I don’t think it is a “sign of the times” that we now effectively have mixed race, dual parentage, essentially black royalty; sadly it reflects how far behind the times The Royal Family is, that it has taken until the 21st Century for this situation to come about (my mind thinks at a tangent that Barack Obama only became the first black president in 2009); and subsequently for us to hear, rather than platitudes as clear as the nose on your face, someone who can do more than moralise, but actually feel that subconscious pressure, that feeling of exclusion, being a less than, even by association; by proxy for the person he loves.

Prince Harry gets my respect!

Go back to where you came from & choke holds

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Well, we know Donald Trump is brash, uncouth and crass. We have suspected for some time that he doesn’t really like immigrants, especially those from Mexico. We know he dislikes Barrack Obama, and has set himself on a course of systematically dismantling the former Presidents policies. However with his recent attack on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan really let the vomit of his racist rhetoric come right up into the open. He basically said, “go back to where you come from”, to 3 congresswomen, who were all born in America, who represent their country and communities; all because these women are not completely white or Caucasian and have mixed or ethnic parentage.

That is racist. However you want to look it. I wonder how America let’s him get away with it. But then when you look at what is happening in America, policemen can apparently get away choking black people to death, shooting us to death, because of their own negative perceptions which they largely created and perpetuate. America is a hateful place for people of colour, and it has been ever since Europeans set foot there.

I’m beginning to think that America is lost, you can’t build a just society on iniquity, hate and injustice, but that seems to be the real fuel for American society at its core, no matter how much they try to dress it us as The American Dream.

Dumping the CFA franc!

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Its good to hear that nations formally colonised by France and subject to a stranglehold on their wealth because of French domination are finally getting their own currency so that they can ditch the CFA Franc. At least that’s the plan, there are hurdles to overcome.

Here is an Al Jazeera article on this story.

Here is a link to The European Union vs French Colonial Taxes, where I wrote about the mind boggling amount that France extracts from these countries each year.

Racism is a spirit of evil

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Solomon Tekah, an unarmed 19-year-old Ethiopian Israeli was shot on June 30, by an off-duty Israeli police officer, this has sparked demonstrations, protests and riots throughout Israel.

It seems that racism is institutionalized in any predominately white society, we’ve seen it in the USA, UK, Australia, and Brazil among other nations. Israel in many ways because of its central place among many of the worlds key religions, has a special place to play in the perception of how black people are to be treated.

It seems that wherever these is a base of a major world religion, there you find some kind of discrimination against others, whether it be racism or facism in Italy and the Roman Catholic church with its proclamations against African nations going back 100’s of years which have yet to be repealed and renounced, the current day dishonorable spectacle of right wing politics in Israel, even Buddhist persecution of the Rohingya. But surely, there is a God who created all people – why would this God discriminate on the basis of colour?

For me the problem, is when we turn God into an idol and we imagine him like ourselves, that creates a space in which we exclude other people. Yet the God I worship said:

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. Exodus 20:4–6 ESV

But an idol doesn;t have to be physical, it can also be something we set up in our hearts, spiritual idolatry – some people idolize themselves! I believe it is this spirit of error and foolishness from which racism breeds, and we need to all appreciate that we are all God’s creation, there is beauty in all of us, and we need to honour God in a way that does no harm to all mankind whom he has created.

The lingering legacy of colonialisation

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Another great Al Jazeera report. Who would have though that our current refugee crisis can be linked right back to colonialism, and the need for colonial powers to maintain their grip on the resources the raped countries to obtain centuries ago.

Europe’s Forbidden Colony

Well, actually, I had figured it out already. Even though I am European, and British in fact, I still can’t help but feel excluded, out of step with, and ultimately disgusted by the colonial powers that have and continue to exploit the whole world in a crass show of hypocritical civilisation.

Corey Jones: Bitter Justice

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It’s a rare occasion that a police officer actually gets convicted for shooting someone unlawfully in the USA; and therefor Corey Jones family will have some consolation, bitter justice, that the killer of their loved one will spend 25 years in prison. This case is an exception rather than the rule.

Background courtesy: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/25/us/florida-corey-jones-shooting-sentence/index.html

The Science Agenda To Exterminate Blacks

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More evidence of the ongoing black holocaust. Mistreatment of black people at first was shamefully and an obvious festering sore on the conscience of society, now there are more subtle tactics in play.

Courtesy – Mike Adams “The Health Ranger”.

The European Union vs French Colonial Taxes

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There has been a lot of talk recently about how UK citizens pay more to The European Union than they receive back from the EU in terms of funding. In many ways that shouldn’t be a surprise, because any system of government that you pay money into has to extract more than it pays out, otherwise it will bankrupt itself.

It’s interesting that the United Kingdom spends is around 2.33% of it’s GDP on membership of the European Union, according to the Office of National Statistics (£18.9bn of £814.6bn in 2016 –  apparently this represents around 1% of UK GDP.) It’s a large sum of money, that although relatively small in comparison with our large economy has sparked deep feelings of animosity, coupled with a resentment of European Institutions and the laws they set which impact the lives of UK citizens. Some people in the UK feel this situation around Brexit could lead to violence on the streets of the UK.

What is a surprise, however, is that 14 African Francophone countries (formerly French colonies) pay France, a single country – not a union representing 27 countries, $500bn per year. On average that works out at £27.29bn for each of the 14 countries involved who have far less strong economies than the UK, and are considered for less “developed” than the UK also.

One wonders why when people fear violence on the streets of a “first world” economy over Brexit, why it isn’t more obvious that discord exists in many African countries because of the ties to leech-like foreign regimes that bleed their countries dry and leave the people to fight over the scraps of what is left! What would happen in the UK if we ever had such a situation thrust upon us?

Thanks to my work colleague Abeyomi who shared this video with me, that was a revelation, and made me decide to write about the plight of some African countries in terms that people from the UK might understand:

Further Reading:
African Heritage: The 11 Components of The French Colonial Tax in Africa
South African History Online: The Berlin Conference 1884-1885

Coronation Street, stereotypes in 2019

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I was amazed when this morning the paper review on BBC news revealed that Coronation Street, the longest running soap opera, is having its first black family after almost 60 years on air! However, I was not impressed to find out that this family will be used to tackle issues like homophobia and racism in football. Why are these two issues the first issues to be captured by the makers of this program. Are they the most significant issues that have affected black people over the last 60 years?

To me, what we are seeing here is black people as marginalised, victims, minorities, those fighting injustice. Why not have a family of black lawyers, teachers, shop owners? Why not something that portrays a positive stereotype!

Article in The Metro