(Im)Possibilities

Towards the end of the poem, Tolson starts to write of Le Premier des Noirs of Pan-African Airways. Contrasting with the beginning of the poem, this section begins to illustrate not the history of Africa, but where the people of Africa are heading, and more specifically Liberia . The plane “whirs beyong the copper cordilleran climaxes of glass skyscrapers on pavonine Cape Mesurado.”. He is calling for us to not look at Africa as it has been historically by the European, but for what it is and what it will be. Snead also mentions that Hegel mentions that the African people are “there” and the European people are “headed there”. Africa is already wonderful in its own right without a report card from Europe that grades Africa as uncivilized because the values differ. Continue reading “On Tolson’s “Libretto for the Republic of Liberia””

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.