Guinea Bissau Officially Welcomes Descendants for Decade of Return Events in May and June

On February 23, 2021, The Secretary of Tourism of Guinea Bissau sent the following message to the Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society in America:

“Distinguished greetings,

Excellence,

It was up to me, as the maximum Responsible for this area and, WHEREAS the members of the Society of History and Genealogy Balanta Burassa in the United States of America, are now preparing to return to their origins, from 9 to 15 May and from 7 to June 15, 2021 for a Welcome Celebration, something unprecedented in the history of our young nation; in this context, we would like to invite Your Excellency Illustrious Siphiwe Baleka, founder, to be present with his members at the referred event, which is of major importance for Guinea-Bissau.

Without another subject at the moment, please accept Excellency, best regards.

High regard

Ms. Nhima Sisse”

Letters of invitation to celebrities of Balanta descent in America were also sent, including musician Shelia E, Olympic legend Jackie Joyner Kersee, boxing legend Roy Jones Jr., and radio personalities Tom Joyner and Charlamagne tha God.

Click here for information on the Guinea Bissau Decade of Return Events in May and June

Editorial: A Stolen Legacy? - A Critical examination of Barak Obama Post Presidency, and his enduring impact on the collective Black Consciousness

The following editorial was penned by the Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society in America Vice President Midana. He is also author of the exceptional Balanta novel, 13 Bars of Iron.

A Stolen Legacy? - A Critical examination of Barak Obama Post Presidency, and his enduring impact on the collective Black Consciousness

The legacy of President Barack Obama post-presidency is beginning to become increasingly complex. I believe this complexity will increase with the addition of time and retrospection.  An objective review of his prescriptions on foreign and domestic policies, in addition to the positions and policy platforms he presently endorses, will leave many objective observers in a place of leveling harsher criticism towards him than many were willing to level during his presidency. What makes criticizing our brother still so exceedingly difficult is the impact he had and continues to have on the psyche of Black America and the entire world.  Brilliant by every objectionable measure, Barack represented the Black genius that does not often get displayed to the rest of the world. Then there is the most impressive aspect of his story, his wife. His equal in every way, and most importantly, Black! Add to that two beautiful daughters, and this was the image that we wanted representing us, the optics, and the substance of it all.  That is why Barack and his family were and still are so especially important to us and why we, as Black people are so very protective of them.  It is also why it is nearly impossible for us to view him objectively or with the necessary criticality.

 Like many, I was critical of people such as Cornel West and Tavis Smiley for their seemingly unfair and mean-spirited attacks that did not seem objective or necessary considering the political climate. It appeared they were simply on some hater shit, even if some of the criticism was legit. Many of their critiques seemed to cross the line; the stakes were too high, we needed him to succeed.  I like others continued to justify Obama's moderate right of center politics; his rising tide lifts all boats. I am the President for all of America rhetoric.   What did we know... none of us were in his shoes; we rode with it.

For this reason, when I heard Barack was coming out with a memoir detailing his time in the oval office, I could not wait to read it and get his side unfiltered.  I had read the book Dreams of my Father, his first memoir, and The Audacity of Hope, a policy book that contained all the necessary pre-presidential run content.   I also read Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars, biographies, Rising Star, and The Story. I was impressed at the many testimonies from friends, classmates, and colleagues attesting to his near genius-level intelligence and quick mastery of any academic subject matter put in front of him. His writings, both creative and scholarly, were without a doubt impressive. I was eager to receive the actual first-person recounting of the Obama presidency straight from the horse's mouth. However, after getting about a quarter of the way through the book, those hopes began to subside. It did not matter what lay in the remaining 3/4th of the book. He had set the tone and tenor within the first 200 pages.

While I fully expected the tact and the careful choosing of words, we who have listened to him have come to expect.  I did not expect President Obama to be an apologist for white people, white supremacist ideals, and white racism. To be entirely fair, some of this is understandable. As Obama points out repeatedly, he was raised by his white grandparents and white mother. He constantly referrers to being shaped by his midwestern values and roots. However, a particular point of contention was a theme that carried over from his book The Audacity of Hope. In this book, he referred to on more than one occasion his delightful and heart-warming encounters with voters in downstate Illinois as a State Senator and a US Senate candidate. For those not familiar, downstate Illinois typically refers to anything in the state south of the Greater Chicagoland area. More specifically and in the context he uses it, southern Illinois or the more rural areas.  He details how many of the people he met were indistinguishable from his very own family members. This retelling of these experiences might have served as just anecdotal for some readers. However, for me, it struck a particular chord. The fact that this seemed to be a reoccurring theme of his, one that spanned his last two publications, may provide us with insight into why his values and worldview may not be firmly in line with most Black Americans. The people who were his staunchest supporters and who hoped he would champion their causes.  For the record, I happened to have been born in raised in downstate Southern Illinois, the very place he references multiple times in his memoir and The Audacity of Hope.  My experiences and the experiences of others who look like me were quite different from those he recounted.

 My parents were both a part of the great southern migration to mid-western and northern industrial cities. My mother's parents came up from the south several years before her birth, and my father came up as an adult shortly after being discharged from the military after serving in Vietnam. My father often shared a particular story regarding his arrival to East Saint Louis; this experience left an indelible impression. When my father got off the bus, bags in tow, he witnessed several white police officers brutally assaulting an elderly black man with their nightsticks. It was mid-winter, and snow was on the ground, much like I imagine it is today in East Saint Louis. My father told of seeing blood staining the white snow as the officers beat the Black man in the head, and with each blow, additional bright red blood continued to color the white snow.  I can also recall having discussions with individuals who came of age in the 1940s, 50's 60's, 70's in Southern Illinois; and listening to them recount how segregated life in East Saint Louis was far more racist than life in the Jim Crow South.   I can also recall very clearly, as a child and teenager in the '80s 90's my encounters with very racist peers, adults, law enforcement, opposing coaches. I recall being called racial slurs during sporting activities while visiting towns like Shiloh, Lebanon, Freeburg, Red Bud, Mt Vernon, or, as President Obama referenced, downstate Illinois.  

 I can also recall harassing and illegal encounters by law enforcement, retail clerks, and other random white people, which informed my views on white people and race relations in the country.  These were the people who gave Barack Obama so much hope. He found relatable people who had given him faith and who he stated were owed his political loyalties. While in contrast, they were the people who had displayed nothing but racial animus and terroristic behavior towards people who shared my background for decades.  I will not even dive into the racial politics that led to my own hometown's economic and environmental conditions, or how the record will show that Barack Obama did mostly nothing to improve the Black citizens' needs in downstate Illinois as a State Senator, US Senator or President.

Throughout his memoir, President Obama consistently attempts to make the point that he was limited in his ability to affect direct and targeted change as a politician. He implored people to absolve him for his failures to accomplish progressive change for America's most disenfranchised citizens, but rather to be appreciative for change that aided everyone.  According to him, Black Americans, too, were likely to have experienced some residual benefit.  Not a sound argument for closing the racial disparities resulting from America's racist history from such a brilliant legal mind.  

The most troubling aspect of the book for me was the title itself, A Promised Land.  This title was lifted from the speech Dr. Martin Luther King gave the night before his assassination. Obama parallels himself to King and implies that he believes that the absolute best days for this country lie ahead. With patience, diligence, and collectively, WE as a Nation will one day come to experience this more perfect union. One day, someday in the future, even if that future is distant, we will reach that promised land. However, contrary to Obama's musings, when King stated, "I may not get there with you," it was not because he believed that this promised land lies hundreds of years in the future. That slow incremental progress was the only path to arrive at this fateful destination. It was because Dr. King knew that J Edgar Hoovers FBI was trying their damnedest to blow his head off and that they would likely soon be successful. Before making that speech, Dr. King had spent the past year railing and organizing against the very same Neoliberal forces that President Obama spent his entire presidency defending.  This rhetoric and organizing by King, combined with his opposition to the Vietnam War, would set him on a path that eventually inspired the frighteningly foretelling remarks on the night before his murder. It had nothing to do with his belief in non-revolutionary progress as Obama would have you believe. President Obamas's bastardazation and attempted co-opting of Dr. Kings' remarks and his effort to connect them to his own legacy is blasphemous.

 It is my sense that based upon the favorable reviews of President Obamas latest memoir and his continued personal high favorability ratings that President Obama's support among Black Americans will continue to remain high for some years to come.  However, the complexity referenced early will not begin to manifest until the pride and novelty of his groundbreaking accomplishment begins to subside, and the reality of what remains as a result of what he failed to achieve or advocate for in the interest of Black America has firmly set in.

BBHAGSIA Member Kamm Howard to Give Testimony at Reparations Hearing

Kamm Howard, a member of the Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society in America, serves as the National Male Co-Chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA). On February 17, 2021, he will be giving testimony to The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties.

The hearing will be broadcast live here: https://youtu.be/rSeFwdx4Xe0

There will be a discussion Post Hearing at 7 pm EDT

Listen to BBHAGSIA President Siphiwe Baleka and Latinya Channer discuss Reparations and the Lineage Restoration Movement with NCOBRA

REPARATIONS NEWS!!!

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties will hold a hearing on H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, on February 17, 2021. The 10:00 a.m. ET hearing will examine the legacy of slavery, its continuing impact on the Black community, and the path to reparative justice.

Witnesses slated to testify at the hearing include:

The Honorable Norman Mineta, Former Secretary of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation;

The Honorable Dr. Shirley Weber, Secretary of State, State of California;

Professor E. Tendayi Achiume, Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights;

Dreisen Heath, Racial Justice Researcher and Advocate in the US program at Human Rights Watch

Kamm Howard, National Male Co-Chair, National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA); Member of the Balanta B'urassa History & Genealogy Society in America

Dreisen Heath, Program Advocate, Human Rights Watch;

Hilary Shelton, Director, NAACP Washington Bureau

Additional witnesses to be announced

If passed, H.R. 40 would establish an expert federal commission to study the legacy of slavery in the United States and its ongoing harm and develop proposals for redress and repair, including reparations.

The announcement of the hearing comes after more than 300 organizations, businesses, faith leaders, and city leaders – including Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, Color of Change, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and Amnesty International USA– sent Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House leadership a letter urging immediate congressional action on H.R. 40, as part of the We Can’t Wait project. Following the protests over the killing of George Floyd and other Black people at the hands of police, the bill garnered a record number of cosponsors.

“The historic racial and gendered injustices of slavery and its legacy, fueling the persistence of racial inequality today, remain largely accounted for,” said Heath. “The US must finally reckon with its long history of racial terror, indifference, and segregationist public policies that have created lasting harms within the Black community. That reckoning begins with H.R. 40.”

BBHAGSIA and the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

Also giving testimony will be Professor E. Tendayi Achiume, Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. At the Reparations, Defund Movements, and International Human Rights Webinar held on October 29, 2020, BBHAGSIA President Siphiwe Baleka had the following exchange with Professor Achiume:

SIPHIWE BALEKA: (My question at 46:37)

African Americans have consistently used international forums including the United Nations, to petition for redress for genocide, slavery, etc. With all of the interventions since the We Charge Genocide Petition in 1951, why has the international community and the United Nations not initiated any process to force the United States to pay reparations? What will it take and what do you recommend that African Americans, and specifically, groups like the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA) do that they haven't already done, to make the international frameworks effective?

Tendayi Achiume, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law and UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance:

"The project of Reparations is about undoing structures and remaking societies that were deliberately designed along logistics that reinforce racial subordination. . . . Another concrete way. . . to take advantage of the UN system is through the treaty body system. So we have the International Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination which provides for individual petitions and you can bring claims at that body for violations of human rights at the national level. The challenge right now is that the U.S. . . . hasn't signed the provision that would make it possible for American citizens to be able to make those claims at the international level, but this might be something that, you know, IF THERE IS A CHANGE IN ADMINISTRATION IN THE NEXT YEAR DEPENDING ON WHO IS IN POWER, IT MIGHT BE PART OF THE CLAIMS THAT RACIAL JUSTICE ADVOCATES ARE MAKING IN THE US ARE REMOVAL OF THOSE KINDS OF BARRIERS AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL FOR RELIEF . . . . SO ENSURING THAT NATIONAL CONVERSATIONS AROUND RACIAL JUSTICE ARE ALSO THINKING ABOUT HOW TO OPEN UP INTERNATIONAL PATHWAYS FOR SEEKING REMEDIES AND MAKING THAT A POLITICAL PRIORITY DOMESTICALLY. . . . From the perspective of lawyers and legal academics and legal advocates I would say we have invested far too much time in taking advantage of strategic opportunities and THAT HAS KEPT US IN THE REFORM FRAME. And I think one of the things that has been the most powerful about the defund movement is that it has shown just the transformative power that comes from ASKING FOR YOUR IDEALS AS YOUR STARTING POINT. . . . One of the things I am trying to challenge myself to do as a law professor, for example, is to think about what it might mean to teach law school classes that are MORE ABOUT IDEALS, THAT ARE MORE ABOUT REIMAGINED SOCIETIES AND HOW WE MIGHT GET THERE RATHER THAN THE FOCUS ON LITIGATION AND PLUGGING THE HOLES OF A SYSTEM THAT IS DESIGNED TO PRODUCE INJUSTICE. . . . WE ARE AT A MOMENT WHERE WE ARE BEING REMINDED OF WHAT CAN HAPPEN WHEN YOU INSIST ON THE IDEALS IN THE PRESENT."

Now, none of the so-called black leaders of our community made signing the provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination or implementing any of the other international instruments related to our international civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights part of the BLACK AGENDA. No Presidential candidate was asked whether or not they would sign the provision if elected.... No one put forth a vision of the ideals we are demanding (in the context of our international human rights) except THE AGENDA FOR BLACK AMERICA'S RESTORATION AND SELF DETERMINATION

The reason for this failure is the Civil, Political and Legal Illiteracy of African Americans who have not done the work of internationalizing our struggle as Malcolm X instructed us to do.

However, BBHAGSIA has submitted the AFRODESCENDANTS' RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT BIDEN'S EXECUTIVE ORDER ON ADVANCING RACIAL EQUITY AND SUPPORT FOR UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES THROUGH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

PLEASE READ THIS

REPARATIONS REMINDER FROM 18 YEARS AGO. . . .