December 8, 2024
Symposium on the banning of black authors in the US. Photos: Marcelino Vázquez Hernández/ Cubadebate
Attempts to control historical memory and impose a white racist narrative on society were discussed this Friday at Casa de las Americas, in the context of the symposium “Banning Black Books, Silencing Black Voices. Apartheid in the United States”.
The first lecture of the day was given by journalist and reporter for The New York Times Magazine Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of “The 1619 Project”.
Hannah-Jones explained that “The 1619 Project” is a long-term journalism project aimed at reframing American history, placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of African Americans at the center of the U.S. national narrative.
“The 1619 Project ” was first published in The New York Times Magazine in August 2019, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colony of Virginia.
Nikole Hannah-Jones explaining profound policies and social changes are still needed to compensate for the racial and social injustices that have accumulated over four centuries in the US.
Hannah-Jones is an investigative journalist recognized for her coverage of civil rights in the United States and a Pulitzer Prize winner. A few years ago, she inaugurated the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University’s School of Communication, where she also created the Center for Journalism and Democracy.
Interviewed at the symposium by her colleague DeWayne Wickhman, the noted journalist explained that what the project seeks to do, through a series of essays, is to introduce slavery as a fundamental American institution and to place the contributions of black Americans at the center of the country’s history.
In addition, it seeks to show how the racist white narrative at home has oppressed the black community and to illustrate the social control intended from the very teaching of national history in the nation’s schools.
For Hannah-Jones, slavery is critical. “You can’t understand America, you can’t understand the Atlantic world, you can’t understand what has happened on the African continent, and you certainly can’t understand the great wealth of the Western colonial powers if you don’t understand slavery and its legacy,” she said.
She also referred to the assassination of George Floyd in the U.S. and the protests that then erupted across the country, creating a new climate regarding the need for racial justice in the United States. “After the murder of George Floyd in 2020 white people start to join the anti-racist movement in the US.”
However, she considered that there is still a need for profound policies and social changes that tend to compensate for the racial and social injustices that have accumulated over four centuries in the territory of the United States and that break the logic of residential segregation and systematic discrimination suffered by African Americans and other minorities in that country.
“When a society resorts to the prohibition of a certain narrative, it is because it does not have a better narrative or enough arguments to counteract it,” said the American journalist, who during her presentation criticized the idea of white supremacy and cultural supremacy in her country.
What “The 1619 Project” is about, Hannah-Jones added, is not to break with history but to include all its actors and rescue the role of the black community in the United States.
“The 400-plus year history taught in American schools shows a ‘perfect man’ who seeks freedom, but whose development is sustained by slavery (a failed economic system). As a result of that history and idiosyncrasy, we are the most unequal democracy in the world,” he reaffirmed.
She also commented that “black Americans suffer a lot, but today many whites in the U.S. also suffer. The figures show that today in the U.S. more whites than blacks are poor and more whites than blacks are in prison, and even whites have a lower life expectancy than blacks. This is also a consequence of that failed economic system.”
“Exploitation arises from the economic institutions that historically justified racism and slavery,” he said and argued for the need to understand the role of the press in revaluing history.
Dr. Lisa Brock, co-editor of “Between Race and Empire: African Americans and Cubans before the Cuban Revolution,”
A second presentation at the symposium on Friday featured “The Harlem Renaissance and the Afro-Cuban Movement,” in a panel moderated by Wayne Dawkins of Hampton University’s School of Journalism and Communications.
Dr. Lisa Brock, co-editor of “Between Race and Empire: African Americans and Cubans before the Cuban Revolution”, alluded to the struggle against fascism and the anti-racist and anti-capitalist movement in the U.S. and affirmed that there is only one way to confront this “multi-headed beast” and that is – in her opinion – by uniting all the progressive forces in the world.
In her book, not yet published in Cuba, the author discusses how the Revolution gave opportunities to blacks and other minorities that had previously been discriminated against.
On the reality of social movements in her country, she said that “we are not anarchists, but we consider that the nation-state is a bourgeois model imported from Europe that sometimes has worked but most of the time does not allow the individual to show solidarity with causes that question the system, as for example happens today with the issue of Palestine”.
“Free, free Palestine! This is a struggle in which we should all participate, because the weapons with which these people are attacked come from the U.S.,” the activist stressed. “Resistance is the fundamental thing we have to defend”, she stressed.
Zuleica Romay, director of the Afro-American Studies Program at Casa de las Americas, referred to the impact of slavery on the peoples of the Americas and affirmed that, for blacks in the region, reconciling color and nation has always been problematic.
She spoke about “the common pain” of blacks in the Americas, which translates into “not knowing what we would have been called and not knowing our grandparents,” a pain that has been expressed in the literature and artistic creation of each country.
She also argued about the influence of the Harlem Renaissance in Cuba and how this movement changed the thinking about what it means to be black in America and the value of revaluing history.
Intervention of Dr. Kenia Serrano, during the Symposium on the prohibition of black authors in the US.
For her part, Dr. Kenia Serrano, dean of the Language Preparatory School of the University of Havana, explained the basis of the National Program against racism and discrimination and the principles it defends, with terms such as “Cuban color”.
She also recalled Fidel Castro’s visit to Harlem and his meeting with the leader Malcom X, which in some way marked the course of the Revolution’s policy regarding true social inclusion and non-discrimination.
In the afternoon session, Michael H. Cottman, author of “The Wreck of the Henrieta Marie,” presented his work, one of the books banned in the United States for more than a year.
Interviewed at the symposium by Randall Pinkston, deputy director of the Center for New Media and Strategic Initiatives, the writer explained that the text takes readers back three centuries on a journey across three continents to trace the complex and poignant history of slaves and slavers.
Intervention by Michael H. Cottman, during the Symposium on the prohibition of black authors in the US.
“The Wreck of the Henrieta Marie ” is a powerful and compelling testimony to one man’s attempt to make sense of the history of his ancestors, narrating his journey as he faces unanswered questions and struggles for reconciliation with the past of his homeland and the future of his own country, Cottman described.
He recounted the timing of the discovery off the Florida coast of the Henrieta Marie, which is the earliest known and scientifically documented slave ship. “In it we found very strong evidence of slavery and the harsh conditions in which black Africans traveled on ships from England to America, we even found child shackles,” he said.
“For children to have their right to know their true history and culture taken away from them is very painful,” concluded Cottman.
Organized by the School of Journalism and Global Communication at Morgan State University and Casa de las Americas, the symposium, ran through Saturday, addresses the growing ban on texts by Afro-descendant authors in libraries, bookstores and schools in the United States.
Source: Cuba en Resumen