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Libretto for the Republic of Liberia

One moment that helps me think about Afrofuturism in this text began at line 59 (Before America…) to line 65 (…tribes), which describes the history of Liberia and Songhai, and represents the pride of their country before the Westerners came upon them. They had history with Portugal, but enough power to remember it with pride. The arrival of Westerners in Liberia robbed them from the possibility of that in the future. It relates to our course by showing the upheaval of life Africans had to endure, and why they suffered at the expense of foreigners interests.

I found a good amount of the reading to be a little hard to understand because it used a lot of culture-specific vocabulary that I may just not be acclimated with. However, it’s evident that one of the readings main purposes is to outline the life of Liberians and the state of the Republic before the influence of Westerners arrived. By outlining what the people were like, it can serve as guide point for the future of the country as they hope for a more Afrocentric future.

 

Okay, this reading made me angry. The way Hegel discussed people of color was truly disgusting, and racist and wrong. It is dangerous language and although I haven’t heard such blatant racism expressed by anyone in my own life, I know that a lot of the same things he says are words used by people today.  But the thing is, this isn’t just calling names. The idea that black culture is a “lower culture” is not only offensive, it must also be very destructive to the livelihood of black individuals in western culture. It makes me think: what kind of effects does this kind of mindset, one encouraged by daily microaggressions and wrong assumptions based on race, have on the black population? It reminded me of a book I’m currently  reading, So You Want To Talk About Race. This book describes that these words and assumptions have a MAJOR effect on the way African Americans are treated. Because of the assumption that “black culture” is less sophisticated than “white culture,” African Americans can often be written off as less intelligent and according to author Ijeoma Oluo, the darker the skin of the African American, the more likely people are to assume this. This immediately puts black Americans at a disadvantage for getting jobs which leads to a poorer demographic of African Americans which leads to African Americans living in poorer communities and school districts, which puts them at a disadvantage for getting higher education, which only reinforces the stereotype. This cycle is based on small, seemingly insignificant, things people say or assume about African Americans, and it has more of an effect on their lives and communities than I think any white person (myself included, of course) could ever understand.

Line 72 really intrigued me so I decided to look into it a bit more.”Wanawake kwanzaa ovyo! Kazi menu wazungu!” which generally translates to “The women keep having children! It’s the work of you white men!” This quote heavily comments on the brutally one-sided nature of the slave trade and rape of black women by white men. The quote really made me think more largely about the history and modern reality within the hyper-sexualization of black women. Black/African women have been branded as sexually deviant beings in terms of their relationships and interactions with Euro-hegemonic forces throughout history. The way that dominant groups in our history and society today have misrepresented women of color has led to a either a silencing of the topic of sexuality when it comes to black women or a conversation that places these groups as innately savage sexual beings. This places black women in a double bind that erases the histories of institutionalized rape that is referred to in the poem, as well as creates a dominant ideology of a racist/sexist stereotype that follows black women and the discussions of black sexuality, desire and gender relations.

“The Good Gray Bard in Timbuktu chanted:

‘Europe is an empty python in hiding grass!'”

This quote could be viewed as a warning. The fact that the crier of this quote is described by Tolson as “good” most likely means he is doing something helpful, or kind, for the community in Timbuktu as he describes Europe. Most importantly, the way the bard describes Europe as “an empty python” is a strong metaphor of Europe as a colonizing force as well as a threatening slave trader. Pythons are vicious and venomous and powerful, just as Europe was, colonizing Africa and forcing out native cultures, and then kidnapping millions of Africans to be enslaved. The adjective empty also goes to show that Europe is not satisfied, and is always hungry for more lands and people to conquer and make use of for themselves. The “hiding grass” paints a picture of the Europeans just waiting to pounce on other parts of Africa and make them their own.

That was one bit I analyzed, and I analyzed a few other parts of the Libretto as well, but in all honesty I found a lot of the reading pretty hard to read and understand. A lot of what I got from the passage was that one of Tolston’s main intents was documenting for current and future Africans and people of African descent, the histories and backgrounds of African culture as well as what the African people went through during the peak of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

 

Although it is hard to understand at times, The Libretto for the Republic of Liberia is a condemnation of Western colonialism and imperialism and a celebration of Libera as an African nation. The first stanza which reads, “Liberia?/No micro-footnote in a bunioned book/Homed by a pendant/With a gelded look:/You are/The ladder of survival dawn men saw/In the quicksilver sparrow that slips/The eagle’s claw!” (Tolson) seems to be a recognition of Libera’s greatness in spite of slavery and colonialism. the line “No micro-footnote in a bunioned book,” speaks to Tolson’s belief that Liberia is a country to be remembered, while the lines “The ladder of survival dawn men saw/In the quicksilver sparrow that slips/The eagle’s claw!” seem to speak to Tolson’s celebration of Liberia’s freedom from Western domination. He is speaking about the greatness of an African country that has overcome subordination on the part of the West, which most definitely aligns with the values of Afrofuturism.

I began to become confused with the poem beginning with the section that reads, “The Futurafrique, the chef d’oeuvre of Liberian/Motors slips through the traffic/swirl of axial Parsi-Feirefiz/Square, slithers past the golden/statues of the half-brother as/brothers, with cest prace…” (Tolson). At first, I could not understand any reference in this stanza, but upon further investigation, I found that Tolson wrote this poem to celebrate the centennial of the founding of Liberia. In this context, I read this stanza as a look into modern-day Liberia, as Tolson ties the first section of the poem, which talks about a more archaic Libera, to this new section of the poem, which discusses a thriving, contemporary Libera that has withstood the test of time. He clearly discusses the relationship between history and the future.

 

“Cultures then are virtually all varieties of ‘long term’ coverage, against both external and internal threats- self dissolution, loss of identity or repression, assimilation, attachment (in the sense of legal seizure); or attack from neighboring or foreign cultures – with all the positive and negative connotations of the ‘cover-ups’ thus produced.”

This quote seemed to have the greatest impact on me because what Snead is saying here is that we form cultures and create these societies in order to protect ourselves. It is no different from black panther which we discussed in class. The biggest decision for T’Challa throughout the whole movie is whether or not he opens his gates to the people of the outside world. He knows that they have the capability to help them, however he also knows that if he does do that, Wakkandan culture may be forced upon or changed as history has shown and as Snead discussed. Forming a culture offers an individual protection from both physical and mental threats. However black culture has seen their culture destroyed by foreigners many many times, which is why T’Challa is so hesitant to lead his people into the open world. It is also why many tribes in Africa are seen as not as advanced or behind the rest of society. They do this because they are trying to preserve their culture and their way of life in order to protect themselves. Snead argues that culture is constantly evolving which I also agree with. As new factors come into play such as foreigners and new technology, culture will continue to evolve with it.

Hegel’s excerpt starts almost immediately with a harsh criticism of Africans. “The Negro, as already observed, exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state. We must lay aside all thought of reverence and morality – all that we call feeling – if we would rightly comprehend him; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in this kind of character.” Hegel makes his prejudice clear right away, juxtaposing black people with other humans, but noting a clear difference in the way he perceives Africans and humans as a whole. By saying that Negroes are untamed – and using that as a slight against their humanity – he is just exposing his thinking that in order to be at a point of equality with other people, black people need to be controlled, presumably by a [white] majority. Throughout the text, Hegel’s language and just the overall tone in which he describes Negroes/Africans reveals that he sees them as a different entity of people, an outcast group that is taking up space in his preferred society. He accuses them of hypocrisy for selling their own children into slavery in Africa even though “their own people” are being enslaved in the Americas by Europeans. Hegel reads like someone who is on the outside looking in to a topic in which he speculates in the absence of knowledge.

During class this week we spoke about the one of the opening scenes in “Black Panther” when T’Challa enters the city. Specifically, the scene’s special attention to detail and the culture of Wakanda itself. I noticed the language imprinted on the buildings in class wasn’t English which brought about a new class conversation about the idea of inclusion. There seems to be a common theme juxtaposing “reality” and “what could have been” with comparisons between America/Wakanda and T’Challa/Killmonger. To speak some more on that, I believe that since Wakanda is such a secluded nation that it began to evolve on its own without influence from the western world which explains while there was such a thick mixture of tradition and technology. I also believe that the filmmakers were trying to bring attention to how successful black people could’ve been if slavery had not occurred. However, the “what if it hadn’t?” question about slavery always troubled me because as a black man I honestly believe that oppression is honestly a sizeable part of what makes black culture so strong and unique. Maybe this is the wrong interpretation on my part but honestly, I think that the idea of using the fact that my ancestors died for me to fuel me to honor them by being one of the most influential people to walk the Earth.