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Internalized Racism & White Supremacy

Within sociology there isn’t a unique term for when white people enact white supremacy; we might just call it “white racism”. However we use the term Internalized Racism to denote the ways people of color adopt white supremacy. The idea here is that when people of color internalize white supremacy this often whittles at their self-esteem and may lead them to dislike the aspects of themselves that they feel are part of their non-white raci al-ethnic identity. Many people of color can easily think of times in their life where they felt shame or felt shamed by others for the non-white aspects of their identity. For instance an African American student recently said to me, “I hate my name [because it sounds Afrocentric], people hear it and immediately assume I’m loud or… you know, ’stereotypically black’.” People of color are also just as capable of using white supremacy to stereotype or discriminate against other people of color and themselves. Nathan Palmer

Angelo Soliman

(1721 - 1796)  Angelo Soliman  is historically recognized as the "First Moorish Freemason." Born in the Congo (Cameroon), at  age seven he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. In Europe, he was the slave (child toy) of a prominent Sicilian lady. Later, at age 16,  he was sold to a royal  family in Vienna, Austria. There, he so impressed his masters with his remarkable intelligence, they chose to educate him. I n his mid twenties , Soliman distinguished himself as a studious and honorable subject with his masters, and actually won his freedom through his high moral character and education. As a free citizen of Vienna, the world's citadel of culture and enlightenment at the time, Soliman, now a member of the royal Hapsburg household, continued to pursue a personal course of erudite and moral excellence. He spoke six languages fluently and could write three of them fluently as well. He was also a master swordsman, war hero,  chess specialist,...

Brief history of Jamaica

Brief history of Jamaica before, doing and after the Europeans invaded, occupied, colonized and enslaved the Island by the way of Christopher Columbus. You might call this the testing ground for the enslavement of Africans in what we now call the USA. Pre-Colombian Jamaica Prior to the arrival of Columbus in 1494, Jamaica was inhabited by Arawaks, living in simple communities based on fishing, hunting, and small scale cultivation of cassava. The impact of the contact with the Spanish was traumatic, and these communities disappeared in 70-80 years. Plunder, disruption of economic activities, new diseases, and migration decimated the indigenous population. Only a few artifacts-facts, examples of which are on display at the small museum at White Marl, and a few Spanish corruptions of place names (such as Ocho Rios) remain from this period. Otherwise, there is no Arawak influence on the subsequent development of life on the island. The Spanish Occupation, 1494-1655 Disappointed...

Mark Curry: Dancing with the Devil, How Puff Burned the Bad Boys of Hip- Hop

As an artist signed to Bad Boy records, Mark Curry rapped on songs with the Notorious B.I.G., appeared in big-budget music videos and rubbed shoulders with hip-hop's elite. His ultimate goal: a chance to write and debut his own album. But when a combination of bad business agreements with label owner Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs and personal choices got in the way of that, he turned to a different type of writing. The result was  Dancing with the Devil, How Puff Burned the Bad Boys of Hip- Hop. In the explosive cautionary tell-all, Curry, 39, delves into the hip-hop beef that ultimately resulted in the deaths of rappers Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. and exposes Combs — one of the most powerful people in hip-hop — as an economic opportunist with little interest in helping his artist get ahead. When you first signed to Bad Boy, where did you see your music career going? All the way to the top as an entertainer and rapper. I saw me being able to feed my f...

Michelle Alexander on Neo Slavery (The Prison Industrial Complex)

Dr. Molefi Kete Asante

"In one instance the spread of Africans and Europeans to continents other than Europe and Africa helped to produce a world order that has reigned supreme in technology, science, economics, law, and sociology for five hundred years. It was, however, a racist construction created out of stolen land, broken treaties, stolen labor and broken backs. Any interpretation of the post modern views of the present world has to take into consideration that the entire discourse on the fluidity of cultures, the notion of subjective identities, the instability of social and cultural space, and the interaction and interpenetration of peoples is a direct result of the most massive forced movement of people the world has ever known (Cohen, l982). It becomes impossible to speak of the Americas or Caribbean without Africans or indeed Europe without Africa. One cannot speak intelligently about Portugal and its history without Brazil or without Angola and Mozambique; this is an incredibly interco...

John S. Rock

John S. Rock was born to free black parents in Salem, New Jersey in 1825. He attended public schools in New Jersey until he was 19 and then worked as a teacher between 1844 and 1848.  During this period Rock began his medical studies with two white doctors. Although he was initially denied entry, Rock was finally accepted into the American Medical College in Philadelphia.  He graduated in 1852 with a medical degree. While in medical school Rock practiced dentistry and taught classes at a night school for African Americans.  In 1851 he received a silver medal for the creation of an improved variety of artificial teeth and another for a prize essay on temperance.    At the age of 27, Rock, a teacher, doctor and dentist, moved to Boston in 1852 to open a medical and dental office. He was commissioned by the Vigilance Committee, an organization of abolitionists, to treat fugitive slaves’ medical needs. During this period Dr. Rock increasingly identified with t...