Fresh and Green Academy was opened in 2000 by Ethiopian teacher Muday Mitiku
The school not only provides lessons but clothes and three meals a day for the students
Mothers are also involved in the school and help out with the cleaning and cooking
The school is funded through donations
(CNN) -- Seeing the deprivations faced by children in her neighborhood, one Ethiopian school teacher decided to make it her mission to provide them with a safe place to learn and play.
Muday Mitiku decided to open a school 11 years ago, when she realized that most of the children in her suburb were spending their days on the streets, unwashed, unfed and unschooled.
But the little school in Keteme, a poor neighborhood on the eastern edge of Ethiopia's capital city Addis Ababa, aims to do a lot more than just provide children from impoverished backgrounds with an education.
"Fresh and Green is the only school of its type in the area," explained Mitiku. "It is unique in that it provides three daily meals year round to the children and assists the families in becoming more self sufficient."
When Fresh and Green Academy was established it was a fee-paying kindergarten but it wasn't long before Mitiku started bringing children in off the streets. She says the parents of the paying students started pulling their children out but it didn't stop her from wanting to help those in need.
"Their (the students') parents are often beggars or prostitutes," she said. "If the academy didn't exist the children would be on the streets begging to find their next meal and not attending school."
It's a place to learn and a place to play. --Muday Mitiku, Fresh and Green Academy founder
Mitiku says that many of her students have no parents and are brought up by older siblings or relatives.
Donations from as far afield as the United States keep this little school afloat but Mitiku says it is always a battle.
When Trish Hack-Rubinstein visited the school in 2008, it was in transition and dangerously low on funding. Hack-Rubinstein decided she wanted to help raise funds for the project and upon returning home to the United States she founded Friends of Fresh and Green Academy.
"I fell in love with the children and their mothers at Fresh and Green, and of course Muday," explained Hack-Rubinstein. "I wanted to help Muday fulfil her dream, which very soon became my dream as well."
Hack-Rubinstein now raises money for the academy through quarterly fundraisers, a child-sponsorship program and individual donations.
She and Mitiku now have plans to expand the school by a grade level each year and find ways of generating more income for students' families.
They would also like to eventually buy some land for the facility instead of renting and dream of one day building a boarding school there.
"Our goals are to keep the children educated and fed in a nurturing environment while creating a model for a private school in this area," Hack-Rubinstein said.
The academy encourages the mothers to get involved as well and about 50 help the school, preparing meals and cleaning. It says the Mothers' Cooperative has been instrumental in reducing the need for prostitution and begging.
Hack-Rubinstein says the mothers also make crafts which are in turn sold to generate more income for their families.
"We are also trying to develop more products that are marketable to be able to bring in more money for the moms and their families," she said.
Older siblings and teenagers are also encouraged to get involved in the academy. There are Saturday afternoon classes and Mitiku has taught the 15 to 16-year-olds to lead some of the lessons, which has led to some of them getting teaching jobs elsewhere.
For Mitiku it's all about building a firm structure for neighborhoods in the future.
"We hope to instill a spirit of giving and compassion in the children so they go on to give back to the school and their community," she said.
Avi is a technical writer and gardener who lives in Philadelphia with his wife, young son and toddler daughter.
Laird Scranton is an independent software developer from Albany, New York. He is the author of several books and articles on African and Egyptian mythology and language.
Avi Solomon: Who are the Dogon?
Laird Scranton: The Dogon are a modern-day African tribe from Mali who seem to observe many interesting ancient traditions. In fact, their culture can be seen as a kind of cross-roads for several important ancient traditions. As just a few examples, they wear skull caps and prayer shawls, circumcise their young, and celebrate a Jubilee Year like ancient Jews, they observe the same calendars and establish their villages and districts in pairs called "Upper" and "Lower" like ancient Egypt, and they preserve a detailed cosmology that bears close resemblance to Buddhism, only expressed using ancient Egyptian terms.
Dogon granaries in North Africa. Photo: Robin Taylor
Avi: What got you interested in the Dogon?
Laird: I came across references to the Dogon in a book called "Unexplained" by Jerome Clark, one of whose chapters discusses the mystery of how the Dogon - without the aid of modern telescopes - may have acquired specialized knowledge of astronomy.
Avi: How do the Dogon embody and transmit their knowledge?
Laird: The Dogon have no native written language and have apparently transmitted their knowledge from generation to generation orally, with the assistance of a complex set of mnemonic symbols and drawings, beginning with a grand mnemonic aligned ritual structure called a granary. Although the Dogon religion is a secret or esoteric tradition — meaning that only initiates to the religion are allowed to learn its innermost secrets — it is open to any person (male or female, Dogon or non-Dogon) who sincerely wishes to pursue it. A Dogon priest is required to respond truthfully to any question that is deemed appropriate to the initiate's status, and to remain silent (or lie, if necessary) in response to any question that is deemed to be "out of order."
Avi: What is the significance of Dogon cosmological myths?
Laird: The Dogon see their myths both as an instructed civilizing plan for humanity and as a coherent description of the processes of creation — both cosmological and biological. These myths begin with what are essentially fireside stories that describe in general terms how the stars and planets were formed, and include many of the archetypical themes and storylines of classical mythology, such as the Greek notion of stealing fire from the gods. However, the next level of myth and symbolism is intimately intertwined with civilizing skills such weaving, agriculture, metallurgy, and so on. Each act of daily Dogon life carries with it a degree of cosmological symbolism, and so each daily act reinforces what a Dogon tribesperson learns about the processes of creation.
Avi: How did the Dogon know that Sirius had a companion star and the exact length of it's orbit?
Laird: The contention of the Dogon priests is that they learned it from revered ancestor or teachers, who were more capable and knowledgeable than the Dogon.
Avi: Could this knowledge have been transmitted to the Dogon by westerners?
Laird: A person could argue that the Dogon learned it from westerners, however in my opinion there are some significant difficulties with that point of view. First, both Dogon cosmology and their concepts relating to Sirius are given using ancient Egyptian words. For example, the great Dogon festival of Sirius — called the Sigi — is arguably the Egyptian word skhai, meaning "to celebrate a festival." In fact, in my books I trace virtually every key cosmological term of the Dogon to likely ancient Egyptian counterparts. Moreover, these words typically carry at least two levels of meaning, both of which can be shown to have existed in similar form in ancient Egypt. So the first difficulty lies with finding a western source that could have credibly given this information to the Dogon couched in ancient Egyptian words. Moreover, many of these same words are known to exist in the languages of other African tribes, so we would then have to explain how they came to be adopted in those languages.
Avi: Did the Dogon trick Marcel Griaule? Or did Griaule make up the Dogon mythology himself?
Laird: In his day, Marcel Griaule was the pre-eminent French anthropologist. He and his team studied the Dogon over the course of three decades, from the 1930'ss to the time of Griaule's death in 1956. Griaule characterized the Dogon religion as a closely-held secret tradition. In 1975, the Dogon became controversial when Robert Temple suggested that their Sirius knowledge could represent evidence of an alien contact. In the 1980's, Belgian anthropologist Walter Van Beek conducted a much briefer re-study of the Dogon, which turned up no evidence of Griaule's tradition. Based on this, Van Beek — rather than surmising that he might have failed to successfully penetrate what Griaule described as a secret tradition — concluded that the obliging Dogon priests had invented a cosmology to satisfy Griaule's questions. Van Beek also concluded that the Dogon granary was a form known only to Griaule.
In 2007 — fifty years after Griaule's death — my daughter returned from a visit to India excited to have seen aligned ritual structures called stupas that she felt resembled my Dogon granary. I pursued the resemblance and soon discovered that the cosmological symbolism of a Buddhist stupa is a point-for-point match with the symbolism reported by Griaule for the Dogon granary. In fact, the Dogon are known to have migrated to their current location from a region of North Africa that was a known home to ancient Buddhism. In other words, for Professor Van Beek to be correct, we'd have to believe the Dogon priests capable of having casually invented Buddhism. Likewise, the granary form that Van Beek concluded was known only to Griaule, was in fact familiar to large populations all across India and Asia.
Avi: How is the Dogon granary related to the Buddhist Stupa?
Laird: Each represents the Grand Mnemonic of their associated cosmologies — a structure whose plan recreates key shapes that relate both to the processes of creation and to the acquisition of civilizing skills. Both are based on the same basic plan, evoke the same series of geometric shapes in the same sequence and assign the same symbolism to those shapes. Both are tied to detailed cosmologies that define the processes of biological and cosmological creation, defined by matching symbols and concepts.
Avi: Can you give some significant examples of connection between Dogon and Egyptian words?
Laird: Each key term of Dogon cosmology comes packaged as a kind of bundle that includes: 1) Its pronunciation. 2) At least two logically-disconnected meanings, such that you cannot reasonably guess the secondary meanings simply by knowing the first. 3) An associated cosmological drawing. 4) A relationship to a stage of creation and/or mythogical character within the cosmology.
When proposing correlations between Dogon and Egyptian words, my intent is to demonstrate likely correlations between each of the bundle's elements.
While developing these matching sets of elements, I came to realize that the most consistent matches were to the Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary of Wallis Budge, not to the German Worterbuch that is preferred by many modern Egyptologists. The consensus is that Budge's dictionary is outdated and often unreliable — some Egyptologists go so far as to say that Budge could barely read Egyptian hieroglyphs. Nonetheless, I realize that it would be unreasonable to suggest that Budge could have been grossly wrong about Egyptian words and yet still somehow in predictable agreement with the Dogon. And so I offer the body of interrelated Dogon words as new evidence to show that Budge must have been substantially correct in his understanding of Egyptian words of cosmology.
In my books I provide detail to support various Dogon/Egyptian word correlations. Examples include the name of a Dogon mythological character named Ogo, who plays the role of "light" in the Dogon creation myths, and the name of the Egyptian light god Aakhu. The Dogon counterpart to an atom is called po, while the Egyptian term for "mass, matter, substance" is pau. Components of the po are referred to using words such as sene, and sene bennu that are likely counterparts to the Egyptian words sen and sennu. The Dogon term bummo is a likely correlate to the Egyptian phrase bu maa, both the Dogon and Egyptian terms nu refer to water. The name if the Dogon creator god Amma is commonly correlated to the name Amen in the languages of various African tribes. The Dogon nummo is a likely counterpart to the Egyptian phrase nu maa.
I have attempted to correlate each key Dogon cosmological term to an Egyptian counterpart and supported those correlations with other "bundled" evidence - relationship to a common drawn shape, relationship to a matching mythological character, sharing position in the overall cosmology, and so on.
Avi: What are the Dogon parallels to Judaism?
Laird: I've mention that the Dogon wear skull caps, prayer shawls, circumcise their young, and celebrate a Jubilee year. They also have a tradition of ancestral families similar to the tribes of Judaism — one called Lebe (similar to the Levi in Judaism) and a priestly class called Hogon (similar to the Cohen in Judaism). The traditional symbolism of a Jewish altar and a Jewish chuppa are a close match for the Dogon granary and Buddhist stupa. Many of the Egyptian cosmological words are also Hebrew words — for example, a skhet is defined as a hut made of twigs and branches, similar to a sukkah. Budge often uses Hebrew words as a basis for comparison for pronunciation and meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphic words and the Dogon terms support these comparisons. Early in my studies, seemingly obvious parallels between Dogon words, symbols, concepts or rituals and those of Judaism helped convince me that the Dogon could be an important subject for study.
Avi: What wider speculations about the development of civilization can you draw from your comparative studies?
Laird: Each culture that I've studied who outwardly shares what I call "signature aspects" of this same cosmology understands it as an instructed civilizing plan, which they associate with knowledgeable teachers. Some explicitly claim that these teachers were non-human. Many - like the ancient Egyptians - state that they received their systems of writing, agricultural grains, or skills of metallurgy from "gods".
The suggestion is that there was - at some time prior to 3400 BC - a global Peace Corps - like effort to raise humanity up from the state of hunter-gatherers to a more civilized state.
From that perspective, the many striking similarities we see globally in ancient myth and symbol would be the surviving product of a shared system of instruction. Although many argue that cultures of similar capability and with access to similar environments and materials would naturally evolve similar themes and form, in my opinion these arguments beg the question of the often very complex symbolism that commonly attaches itself to those forms.
For example, the four faces of the pyramid-like Dogon granary are associated with the same four star groups as pyramids in the Americas, which were then used to regulate an agricultural cycle. Both cultures conceived of their pyramids as a woman lying on her back.
Perhaps most important is the notion, corroborated from culture to culture , that the system was instructed. One purpose of my studies has been to try to illuminate by way of comparison some of the very sensible aspects of that apparent plan.
Avi: What is the situation of the Dogon today?
Laird: The Dogon represent about 300,000 individuals today and are facing the many pressures of contact with more modern societies and technologies. Tourism has created an industry for them and provides a venue for their interesting traditional artwork. Even so, their inhospitable location in a hot, remote desert climate helps to maintain their independent identity. One can only hope that a cultural system that has proved its stability over periods of almost three thousand years in Egypt and perhaps an additional two thousand years, the Dogon will sustain itself in the midst of many modern pressures.
"One can only hope that a cultural system that has proved its stability over periods of almost three thousand years in Egypt and perhaps an additional two thousand years, the Dogon will sustain itself in the midst of many modern pressures."
Let's hope so Laird. Their art, architecture and funeral masquerades remain a fascination for many, even to those of us with strong birth and cultural links to the continent
This is crazy, unscientific woo. I'm disappointed that you would publicize such nonsense. You should have consulted someone with a background in African archaeology, history, and ethnography.
@Zora point taken, but listening to so called experts, who often inhabit their own "expert world" spew their knowledge incessantly is like watching paint dry.
So odd that this was posted just now. I watched a recent addition to Netflix stream called The Secret Life of Plants the night before last which was concerned with a great number of, shall we say, fortean claims. I knew of it because of the Stevie Wonder album, which turns out was the soundtrack to the film (there was a book first, too.)
ANYway, the film details how the Dogon knew the specific orbit of a star around Sirius, even though they had no telescopes and the orbiting star is not visible without powerful ones. They claim this star was the seed that begat life in the universe (hence the plant connection.) Cut to a very modern-for-the-time (hilariously dated now) computer lab at an allegedly reputable astronomy outfit, which alleged that their lab was the first to accurately track said orbit, confirming that the Dogon were right all along. Mind-boggling, if true.
Hey, man; I dunno nothing, but if it isn't on the level, then this is a tremendously elaborate hoax without any obvious gain. "Follow the money?" What money? They've lived in the desert for centuries. It would seem the whole society is only concerned with metaphysics. Besides: Stevie Wonder did the music! Right?
I suspect that these claims that the Dogon knew something special about Sirius are a result of cultural contamination by the anthropologists.
First, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius), the fact that Sirius is a pair of stars was well-known before Marcel Griaule did his work:
"In 1844 German astronomer Friedrich Bessel deduced from changes in the proper motion of Sirius that it had an unseen companion. Nearly two decades later, on January 31, 1862, American telescope-maker and astronomer Alvan Graham Clark first observed the faint companion, which is now called Sirius B..."
The Dogon wouldn't have known this (unless someone had given them a nice 12 inch amateur telescope 50 years prior to the anthropological study), but Griaule could have.
Second, the orbit of the pair of stars is 50 years long. This just happens to be the same length as the interval between Old Testament Jubilees, which Griaule also claimed that the Dogon celebrated. So, the claimed knowledge of the orbit can be a coincidence, seeded either by actual Dogon knowledge of the Jubilee, or by the anthropologist's possible desire to synthesize many cultural threads within his research.
I'm always a little wary of the "ancient knowledge" of oral societies. I have a couple examples, and while anecdotes are not data, neither is oral history:
In about 1987 my father went to work on the San Carlos Apache reservation. Because he was working in, let's say, a social service dimension he bought literally EVERY book on Apaches. Some were racist monographs by people who considered them savages, some were well researched archeological tomes. Linguistic and cultural theory books, arts and crafts books, historical accounts from conquistadors, Spanish missionaries, territorial governments etc. etc.
According to the Apache religion / oral history, they have lived in the Southwest (Northern Mexico, Southern Arizona, Southern New Mexico) forever and have a series of places associated with their creation myths. However, according to historical evidence from the Spanish period and archaeological evidence the Apaches were in Texas a mere 500 years ago. Linguistic evidence suggest that they are part of the last migration out of Alaska before European Colonization began and that they traveled along the Eastern side of the Rockies until they reached Texas.
But, you say, that was 500 years ago! Half a millennium!
And our second anecdote:
About four or five years into working on the res, (and buying lots of art work / crafts) my father began to notice something strange. All of these Apache ladies who had been selling things like dolls, camp dresses, bead work and cradle boards (all for tourists) were now selling (sometimes in addition to, sometimes exclusively) dream catchers. Dream catchers are a plains tribe item, but had become popular with a certain new age type crowd. They were never part of the Apache craft repertoire, even when Apaches were being kept at Fort Sill Oklahoma. But when my father asked these women why they were making dream catchers, they were all affronted. Because you see, they had always made dream catchers. Their grandmothers had taught them how. Dream catchers had hung above their own beds at night. Dream catchers were Apache and those plains tribes had stolen them.
And this wasn't rigamarole for the tourists (which someone would often jokingly admit to my father - like the time they were selling baskets made in Korea to tourists), this was something they believed and they stuck to the story to this day.
Now I don't believe these people were lying. I believe that oral culture is highly mutable and posseses different ideas about history, memory and "fact" than a culture that depends on writing.
And finally, I find the idea that aliens came to earth, because humans were too stupid to figure out, after a couple million years of being human and 7 or 8 thousand years of planting and harvesting crops, that you planted stuff in the spring and harvested in the fall and also by the way, plants need water and irrigation systems and hey if you put a couple rocks on top of each other sometimes they'll stay and you can build things, so insulting it is almost impossible for me to say. Also, I find it charming that these 'impossibly advanced' cultures were almost entirely inhabited by brown people while Europeans were still mucking about in caves -- of course Europeans didn't need aliens, only dumb brown people. Ancient aliens is little more than a cover for racism of the highest order: people would rather believe that all humans are incapable idiots than some who don't look like them got to civilization first. Astounding.
Just for giggles, let me just throw in that some ancient scholars and philosophers recorded that Sirius was reddish; when you look at it today, it clearly is not. Could one of its component members at one time been a red star? Who can say. To my knowledge, however, the Dogon do not mention this in their mythology. I tend to lean towards cultural contamination prior.
First the Dogon's ties to Buddhism are proved by the fact that "the cosmological symbolism of a Buddhist stupa is a point-for-point match with the symbolism reported by Griaule for the Dogon granary," and then two minutes later "a Jewish chuppa are a close match for the Dogon granary." So we can prove the Dogon are related to all these other implausibly distant groups because, um, some sacred spaces are similar to other sacred spaces? wtf? Anthropology FAIL.
Also, as a Buddhist, "In fact, the Dogon are known to have migrated to their current location from a region of North Africa that was a known home to ancient Buddhism" made me lol.
The source-of-Buddhism line made me go "huh?" too, but it's funny to see Buddhists jump in here all booty hurt (Buddhi hurt?) at the suggestion that some of their tenets might have a source that pre-dates Guatama sitting and meditating them up.
Well... as a Buddhist myself, the notion of Buddhism in N. Africa does seem weird. However, as someone with a BA and some grad work in Religious Studies, it doesn't. Religions are viral, and there is definite evidence of ancient travel between India and Egypt, Syria, and Yemen. Anyway, a quick google search on "Buddhism North Africa" didn't pull up tons, but it did provide enough for me to feel confident that there has been some reasonable scholarly discussion in this area. A recent, quite readable example thereof:
You can't prove languages are related just by looking for remotely similar words. You have to document regular sound changes from one to the other; this is the central method of historical linguistics.
For example, in modern German, a shift occurred from a t sound to an s sound in certain word positions. Other Germanic languages, like English and Dutch, had already split off before this occurred, and so do not show the shift. Thus German words "essen" and "aus" are equivalent to "eat" and "out."
It's easy to make unrelated languages look similar if all you're looking for are vaguely similar words. Conversely, related words may not look much alike until you trace all the sound changes. But if you want to convince me that "Hoben" is "Cohen," you'll have to show that all the initial "h" and "k" sounds switched, and that all the intervocalic "b" and "h" sounds switched. It wouldn't affect just one word; there would be a consistent pattern.
The most likely explanation for Ptolemy and others referring to Sirius as red is that the emergence of the star low on the horizon was used by the Egyptians to determine when the Nile was about to flood. As you might know from watching sunsets, objects low on the horizon often look red (the atmosphere is good at scattering blue light). Therefore, when the appearance of Sirius would have been most significant, Egyptians and their antecedents (Ptolemy, for instance) would have seen a red star; the monicker may have stuck, even if they knew it was white when it was higher in the sky. You can find a discussion of red Sirius here, although the comments are better than the article: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/01/resolving_the_red_controversy.php .
In any case, one should apply a lot of skepticism to ancient observations of nature. For instance, few people would suggest that all objects on Earth used to move predominantly straight up and down at constant speed, as Aristotle said they were wont to do...
They are primitives with no written language and a great deal of outside contamination and were hoping they stay the way they are???? I’m glad my people advanced before this inane attitude took hold.
If you base your theories of language and cultural relationships on comparing single words and word fragments you can "prove" any language is intimately related to any other language.
For example, the Japanese word for name is "namae". Just look at that! It's obvious that "name" and "namae" are just variations on the same word, so Japanese must be descended from ancient Anglo-Saxons who somehow wandered to Asia, or perhaps the entire English language and culture was derived from ideas imparted by a secret society of Shinto priests living underground in Yorkshire. (You never heard of them because they're secret, see?)
I knew a guy who was quite sure that Japanese must be related to his native Hungarian, IIRC because they both had a lot of word forms with "shta" endings.
TheDonna, your link was apparently suppressed by the Great Academic Conspiracy. Would you mind reposting it? That sounds interesting. I was aware of the Graeco-Buddhist history of Gandhara, now northern Afghanistan, but not of Buddhism making its way to the Middle East or North Africa.
A last thought: I'm more likely to accept someone from some academic specialty as an authority on software development than the other way around.
* To our knowledge, there was no significant ancient "Buddhist" settlement in North Africa (some merchants? Probably. A small community in some trading centre? could be, but we don't have any proof of it. Bigger settlements? could be, but it is more difficult and we don't have absolutely any clue about this kind of settlement)
* No one knows for sure the origin of the Dogon people
* ... so, when you read something like "In fact, the Dogon are known to have migrated to their current location from a region of North Africa that was a known home to ancient Buddhism", you have a clear idea of the kind of guy you're dealing with.
And, of course, as has been pointed out, the "linguistic" arguments are nonexistent.
The Dogon are a pretty interesting bunch of people. When I was (much) younger, I was amazed by a short film featuring a Dogon hunter shooting in the bush using a Dogon-made flintlock with Dogon-made gunpowder. It's a pity to see such a culture treated in this dismal way...
The source-of-Buddhism line made me go "huh?" too, but it's funny to see Buddhists jump in here all booty hurt (Buddhi hurt?) at the suggestion that some of their tenets might have a source that pre-dates Guatama sitting and meditating them up.
Since Buddhism stems from Hinduism, I'd be pretty surprised to meet a Buddhist who didn't think that Shakyamuni Buddha was a follower of a multi-thousand year-old tradition.
this guy is featured heavily in the 'documentary' series "The Pyramid Code", currently available via netflix streaming.. I am a little embarassed to admit that I watched the whole thing, as its definitely a steaming pile of sorts.
also, and to me more interestingly, the other night I stumbled upon this video of a free climber ascending a cliff above a dogon village - http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=isojdv36z0 - some of the 'granary' structures are shown and mentioned, as well as the 800-yr-old ruins of a lost 'pygmy' culture, situated 200 meters up the cliff face!
You're absolutely right, if your intent is to trace the etymology of a word from one culture to another. However, that's not the case here. It's perfectly legitimate for a Comparative Cosmologist to provide multiple points of evidence to demonstrate a likely correspondence between two cosmological symbols, two deities, two myths, and so on. So now imagine that you have two gods - one named Amma and the other Amen - who hold the same relative positions in their cosmologies, share the same icons, perform the same acts, bear the same relationship to other deities in their respective cosmologies,whose names are explicitly equated in other languages and carry matching second meanings.
My contention is that the evidence is enough to suggest a correspondence between the deities. Now, would anyone seriously argue that there is no reasonable relationship between the names?
Compare what Griaule says about Dogon cosmology in his works with what Adrian Snodgrass says about a stupa in "The Symbolism of a Stupa." Then look up the symbolism of a chuppa in Judaism.
This short film was produced by the former Speaker of the East African Assembly and Tanzanian Minister, the Honourable Abdulrahman Kinana. He delivered the keynote address and premiered his film at a March 2011 conference dedicated to the legacy of Nyerere.Executive Producer - Abdulrahman Kinana Script - Elias Shamte Script Editing - Jeff Shellembi Narration - Daniel Kijo Footage TBC Librally Still Image - Ministry of Information Video Editor & Producer - Elias Shamte
Call for Papers Demeter Press is seeking submissions for an edited collection on:
Other Mothers/Other Mothering
Editor: Angelita Reyes
Publication Date: 2013
Other mothers and other mothering roles may be found throughout history and across diverse cultures. Other mothers may be the paradigmatic first responders, the first-teachers of informal and formal learnings, or first care-givers for the formative triage years of children and youth. Other mothering denotes the continuity and contemporary practices of shared, communal, or assumed mothering responsibilities that are empowering and inclusive of social transformation. Despite the prevalence of this practice and increasing scholarship about other mothering, an edited collection on this important and central cultural paradigm does not yet exist. The aim of the present collection is to investigate the history, possibilities, differences, continuities, transformations, or advancements of other mothering, paying particular attention to liberating potentials of destabilizing patriarchal representations of motherhood and family structures. As interconnected and transnational cultures are in full swing into the 21st century, both men and women can perform and enable diverse and holistic roles of other mothering. How does other mothering transform the language implications of gender? How do we interrogate the roles of mothering for both women and men? This collection will explore the fluid, empowering and diversified roles of other mothering across cultures. Thus, of particular interest are submissions that interrogate other mothering from global perspectives, comparative ethnicities and historical contexts. The editor of this collection seeks article-length contributions in the humanities, cultural studies and social sciences that may include, but are not limited to the following topics:
• foster mothering • queer co-mothering • gay mothering and the “modern family” • open adoption mothering • closed adoption mothering • grandmothering • non-residential mothers • non-custodial mothers • men and mothering • co-mothering • fictive kin mothers • community mothers • African American, African, Caribbean, Latin American, and Native American other mothers • other mothering in religious practices • Godmothers across cultures • tiger mothering • single mothers • representations of other mothers/other mothering in literature, popular culture, the arts •
Submission guidelines:
Abstracts should be 250 words.
Please also include a CV.
Deadline for abstracts: October 12, 2011
Accepted papers of 4000-5000 words (15-18 pages) will be due on April 2, 2012 and will conform to MLA style format
Please send submissions by email directly to: Angelita Reyes, School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85284, Email: othermothers2013@gmail.com
The Texas Book Festival (TBF) Fiction Contest is an annual writing contest open to students in grades 7 - 12 throughout the state of Texas. TBF, assisted by the University Interscholastic League, announces a theme for submissions in January of each calendar year. Students are invited to submit a piece of original fiction that is under 2,000 words in length. Submissions are sent in by teacher sponsors from the entrant’s school. TBF awards cash prizes: $250 to first place winners in three categories (7th-8th grades, 9th-10th grades, 11th-12th grades), $100 to second place, and $50 to third place.
The quality of entries the Festival receives is impressive. These students are extremely talented and have bright futures in writing. The contest is a reflection of TBF’s mission to celebrate authors and their contributions to the culture of literacy, ideas and the imagination.
Contest Rules
Students must enter in one of three divisions: Grades 7-8, Grades 9-10 or Grades 11-12. Entrants should enter the division for which they were a student during the 2010-2011 academic year.
There is no entry fee.
All entries must be submitted online between April 1, 2011 and June 24, 2011.
Entries must be 2,000 words or less, 12 point type, double-spaced, and written on the theme “End of Days.” Please include your name, entry title, grade level, and an automated word count on the cover page of your entry.
Judges will look for excellence in use of dialogue, imagery, character development, setting, plot, conflict and resolution.
Our contest is simple but competative, and takes place quarterly. Winners and runners-up will be published once a year in our literary anthology, Colonnade. Here's the deal:
This year, 2011, the Colonnade Writing Contest invites fiction authors from any genre to submit their best previously unpublished work to compete for a place in our yearly anthology, Colonnade. Any genre of fiction is acceptable, so long as it's fiction. The result is a nationally distributed collection of the best stories of the year by authors who have the ability to stand out from amongst a diverse pack.
The deadlines for each quarter are March 31st, June 30th, September 30th, and December 31st. Each quarter's submissions will be judged as an independent group. The one winner and two runners-up from each of the four quarterly groups will be announced on these dates: April 15th, July 15th, October 15th, and January 15th. Quarterly first place winers will receive a $100 cash prize. The runners-up and the winners will each be eligible for publication in that year's issue of Colonnade, the publisher's yearly anthology.
Out of these twelve best stories of the year one story will be chosen as the Colonnade Story of the Year will be awarded $500 in cash and two complimentary copies of Colonnade.
Entry fee: $12 per entry (make checks and money orders payable to CJM Books, or use the PayPal button below for all major plastic cards)
Each story must be:
Fiction
Typed on 8.5" x 11" paper (hard or electronic) using Microsoft Word (or compatible), with 1.25" margins, double-spaced,12 point font size, and Times New Roman font
No more than 10,000 words, and previously unpublished. (Authors keep all rights to their work, and are offered one-time, non-exclusive publication in Colonnade.)
At the end of each quarter we'll pick a winner and two runners-up for publication and yearly reward eligibility. So if you miss a deadline, take your time and send us your best the following quarter!
Each story will be judged objectively in each of the following categories:
Character development
Story structure and plot
Grammar, punctuation, and spelling
Style, voice, and form
Reader impact (the only subjective category, to offset cross-genre nature of competition)
You may submit more than one story, however each author is only allowed one story as a winner per year. So go ahead and submit a bunch of stories, but once one of them wins the others become ineligible. (Hard copies will not be returned unless a SASE is included with submission.)
Contestants must be 18 years or older and stories must be written primarily in English. Employees of CJM Books, editors of Colonnade, contest judges, and their immediate family members are not eligible for contest entry.
On a separate cover page, to prevent bias during judging, please include the following information:
Name
Mailing address
Phone number
Email address
Brief 1-3 sentence author bio
Word count
Title
Genre
Brief 1-3 sentence overview of story
Once we receive your submission you will be notified via email (or by phone if necessary).
Quarterly winners and runners-up will be announced via email (or by phone if necessary) 15 days after the quarter's deadline. The year's Best Story will be announced (via email or phone) upon the release of that year's Colonnade.
Please follow these submission guidelines carefully. Failure to do so may risk disqualification. Entering the contest does not ensure publication in our anthology Colonnade, but by winning one quarter, or by placing second or third runner-up you will become eligible for publication. You may decline publication at any time during the contest, even after your story has won. We will not ask you to give up more than one-time non-exclusive anthology rights to your work, unless agreed upon under different terms than those listed in these contest guidelines and rules.
Mail your submission and entry fee to:
CJM Books PO Box 565 East Rochester, NY 14445 Attn: Writing Contest
For electronic submissions please click the PayPal button below to begin the process. Have your file(s) ready to go! (Note: From PayPal, you will be directed back to CJMBooks.com to complete the contest entry. If you experience problems during any of this please email us.)
Today we alert you to a few pertinent pieces from the collection, in which three prominent writers describe narratives of cities – “Tailor” by Jonny Steinberg, “Pilgrimage to Hargeisa: Hargeisa Snapshots” by Doreen Baingana and “Las Vegas: The Last African City” by Chris Abani. Read excerpts from these essays below:
From Tailor by Jonny Steinberg:
I remember quite clearly the moment I first heard an episode from Rufus Arkoi’s story. Not the familiar tale that he told to whomever came to see him in New York – of the street corner gangsters he recruited into his sports club, or the child soldiers he turned into soccer players – but his own story.
We were sitting together in his centre one winter’s evening speaking of nothing in particular. The children were filling in the big square blocks of a puzzle, while the old folk were practising their alphabet.
‘Did I tell you that I was a tailor in Liberia?’ Rufus asked, apropos of nothing at all. ‘I sew real well. I sew real well.’
From Pilgrimage to Hargeisa: Hargeisa Snapshots by Doreen Baingana:
The best coffee in town is at Sinow’s. He’s a tall elegant grey-haired man who wears all white, every day, topped by a brown kufia. Sinow makes the coffee himself, behind a huge red contraption that looks like it belongs to a museum. After I am served, he comes over and asks, ‘E buono?’ I had told him I speak Italian, which I don’t really, but we stagger along until he has to ask my guide, in Somali, what on earth I am saying. Once Sinow takes your order, he won’t ever forget it. I keep changing mine though, from caffe latte to espresso to macchiato and back again. Still, always, he comes over to ask, do I like it?
On election day, I ask Sinow if he has voted. He whispers in my ear that he is from Mogadishu. He smiles, half-shy, half-sly. But everyone knows this. He had a coffee shop there for years, first working for Italians, then on his own. He escaped the war and came up north to Hargeisa. His family, wife and kids, are still there. He sends all his money back to them.
From Las Vegas: The Last African City by Chris Abani:
Sunil took in the copper ingot of the Mandalay Bay rising into the dying sun. Next to it was the pyramid of the Luxor and reclining in front, the light catching the gold paint of its headdress, was the Sphinx. Further to his left, were the Bellagio and the tip of the Eiffel Tower rising above Paris Las Vegas. The Venetian, his favourite, was obscured.
He loved this precipitous moment just before the abruptness of night that seemed exclusive to deserts and plains. Here in Las Vegas it reminded him of the light on the Southern African veld. One moment bright and full, the next, gone. The veld was just like its name, a stubby felt of grass and trees and small hills that seemed to only break when the green rim of it touched the sky.
This book has a twofold goal: first, the contributors aim to expose the racist and sexist practices that still suffuse the instutitional culture of South-African universities. Secondly, they seek to apply the alternative theoretical and methodological frameworks of black feminist thought. However particular their individual stories, this books offers rich material of interest to women scholars everywhere.
This is an interview with Minister Faust, award-winning author of the forthcoming novel *The Alchemists of Kush*. Journey with him through the E-Town neighbourhood of Kush discussing his latest book, sure to be his most personal and controversial yet. Available as of June 15/11 at www.ministerfaust.com and www.amazon.com
__________________________
Five short excerpts from
The Edge of Things
By Michelle
The Edge of Things (Dye Hard Press, 2011) consists of 24 South African short stories selected by Arja Salafranca. The contributors are Jayne Bauling, Arja Salafranca, Liesl Jobson, Gillian Schutte, Karina Magdalena Szczurek, Jenna Mervis, Jennifer Lean, Fred de Vries, Margie Orford, Aryan Kaganof, Bernard Levinson, Hamilton Wende, Pravasan Pillay, Beatrice Lamwaka, Hans Pienaar, Rosemund Handler, Tiah Beautement, Angelina N Sithebe, Jeanne Hromnik, David wa Maahlamela, Perd Booysen, Gail Dendy, Silke Heiss and Dan Wylie.
Arja Salafranca’s debut collection of short stories, The Thin Line, was published by Modjaji Books in 2010. She has published two collections of poetry, A life Stripped of Illusions, and The Fire in Which we Burn. Her poetry is also collected in Isis X (Botsotso). She received the 2010 Dalro Award for poetry and has twice received the Sanlam Award, for fiction and poetry. She edits the Life supplement in The Sunday Independent and is studying toward an MA in Creative Writing at Wits University.
*
“The Edge of Things is an eclectic collection of short stories traversing a vast distance emotionally and intellectually. For example, Arja Salafranca’s moving story about a woman forced to live in a restrictive apparatus in ‘Iron Lung’ is a million miles away stylistically from Aryan Kaganof’s tale of decadence and debauchery on a night out in Durban in ‘Same Difference’. … Liesl Jobson’s ‘You Pay for The View: Twenty Tips for Super Pics’ is a series of verbal snapshots of pivotal moments of a mother trying to find a connection with her children. It is written with poignancy and deep longing. ‘Doubt’ by Gillian Schutte is an examination of how passion can seep out of a marriage once the chase is over and when feelings of irrelevance grow due to being part of a couple.”
– Janet Van Eeden, LitNet“There are 24 pieces here, some of which qualify as short stories, others more like prose poems and descriptions of emotional experiences. Relationships are central, aloneness integral and fictional reality flexible. The collection displays a variety of writing styles. It includes pieces by some of South Africa’s well-known writers, but also some gems from lesser knowns, including Beatrice Lamwaka’s prize-worthy ‘Trophy’ and Dan Wylie’s tour-de-force, ‘Solitude’.”
– Cape Times
*
You Pay For The View: Twenty Tips For Super Pics Liesl Jobson
3. Kill the flash 1998 – Bryanston, Sandton, Alexandra
Behind the lens I was possessed. I stood between the cars on Jan Smuts Avenue at sunset for a feature on traffic for the weekly community paper where I’d landed my first job. I composed drivers’ faces that squinted in the low light, homeward bound.
To catch the taillights, red as the sky, I turned my back to the drivers for their silhouette, impervious to danger. When the circus came to town, the elephant enclosure caught my eye. I unclipped the flash and edged in slowly to avoid startling the beast. The deep creases in its skin, the bright circle of its eye drew me in. A group of children gathered at the gate, keen for adventure. The elephant looked primal, flapped its ears, but I had super powers. The right shot would make front page. I worked the angle, pulling in closer. Disengaging eventually from the viewfinder to put in a new roll of film I snapped from my trance. The children had followed me in. We were all too close.
*
Doubt Gillian Schutte
She is walking on the side path of her married life – as she has been doing for a few years now. She has created this well-worn path out of necessity because the central path is cluttered up with ‘ifs’ and ‘whys’ and ‘maybes’. After years of clearing up others’ paths she is just too tired to bend down and pick up her own doubts. Besides there are very few empty spaces left to pack them. This circumvented pathway has led her to many possible encounters – mainly with men in white shoes. So far she has sidestepped them all – only slightly grateful for the amorous glint in the eyes of the wearers.
One day she collides with a tall man in tasteful black leathers. She, prudent by habit, looks into the horizon, for she has in her memory bank the knowledge that the heave she feels in her bosom could only mean trouble. In such circumstances any response could cause a hasty and astonished retreat, and this hardly seems right to her because if someone appears on her pathway, it is unfair that a natural chemistry should compel her to feel like the intruder. She sidesteps the man in the knowledge that it is already too late to steel herself against the onslaught of previously repressed passions and that this is sure to establish a penitentiary of emotional incoherence rather than her usual free will and forthrightness.
*
Telephoning The Enemy Hans Pienaar
Pretoria, January, 1983
Victim number two: Johnny had to go all the way to Pretoria North to fetch his big box of slides because none of us had a photograph of Suzy. Now people hang around the dining room table and look at the slides of her, which Johnny took when she was on holiday with us. Most slides did not come out good, something about melting in the sun, but you can still see that she was a sexy woman, long tanned legs without any varicose veins, not a single one, although she was 36 already.
That’s why Johnny took so many slides of her. That’s why she didn’t last: she was too sexy. Her lover did not pitch up here. He never will, the pig. When the bomb exploded, he went off like he saw the green flag on Kyalami, instead of trying to help people.
I mean, can you believe this guy! It was him who got her to play hide and seek and always meet him on the other side of the block so that the people at work would not see them together. She would never have walked past the bomb otherwise.
*
Sepia Angelina N Sithebe
Two months later Jean received an unsigned email: I was terrified. I felt I was on an express train to an unknown destination. Before you were a shadow, now you have a face. I still dream about you.
Jean’s answer was brief: I long for you more. Where and when? What changed?
Sanele replied: I thought we might not have even three hundred and fifty hours to live; we don’t have the luxury of waiting three hundred and fifty years while we equalise the past to at least try to discover each other. Tell me where the contaminated beach is.
It took another two weeks before they made it to the bungalow in Vilankulo in Mozambique. ‘Is this the place of your dreams?’
Jean asked as he led her on the beach.
Sanele nodded. ‘I’m Judas.’
‘You’ll deceive nobody except us.’
‘I’ll disgrace all black people and future generations for four centuries of conquest and oppression.’
‘You can’t reverse history.’
*
Bus From Cape Town David wa Maahlamela
When I told my friend I had made love to a stranger, with tons of arrogance he was like: ‘Yeah dude, I also did that before.’ ‘Inside the bus,’ I added. ‘Was it standing?’ ‘No, it was on the road’. I started seeing a storm of questions blustering from his face, his eyes gleaming enthusiasm. ‘Were there passengers inside?’ ‘Of course, yes!’ I replied. ‘Tell me you’re joking. How did you do it? How did it happen? Where? I mean …’ He curiously confused me with questions. I didn’t even know which one to answer first. ‘Hooooh, relax broer. I will explain everything.’
He moved his chair closer to mine and sat directly opposite to me, with eyes that said: ‘Go on. I’m all ears.’ Even though Aryan Kaganof says that writing about a nasty event is a lot less nasty than the event itself, with my friend I knew I had to try and tell it as it was.
To be honest, writers do not write everything about themselves. There’s a certain locked shelf which is always untouched, hence they know exactly the impression they are intending to give their readers. My birthday holiday to Cape Town ended up being filed in this do-not-touch shelf, but after seeing how thrilled and fascinated my friend was when I was sharing with him about this adventurous trip, I thought … why don’t I hide this little secret of mine in a book despite how earthly saints will judge me? After all, blessed are those who admit their sins, right?
*
The Edge of Things is available from Exclusive Books countrywide, retail price R185.
Nigerian German writer Olumide Popoola discusses the difference between living in London and Germany, and she reads from a her short novel 'This is not about sadness'.
She is interviewed by Henry Bonsu, the presenter of Shoot The Messenger on the channel Vox Africa.
Olumide Popoola is a Nigerian German performer, poet and writer. She has performed internationally, increasingly also as a guest lecturer or speaker and collaborates with other artists and musicians.
“De nigger woman is de mule uh de world…” - Zora Neale Hurston
I grew up in a white suburban/rural community where I was one of a few black kids and the only one in my classes and social circle. In high school, we had this habit of waxing nostalgic for our not so distant youth in a way that made us feel older than we were so at a parties we’d often play songs from our childhood. Well once, Baby Got Back came on and I was rapping along as were a white boy and white girl. A crowd formed around them and folks were cheering them on for knowing most of the words while my flawless performance went unacknowledged. Looking back, I see clearly the messy contradictions of racism (and my own internalization of it) as white folks celebrated their proficiency in repeating a black man’s words of purported celebration of my curves that in general, made me invisible. My blackness rendered my rendition null and void as it was presumed I should be able to reproduce that lyrical dexterity on the spot. It was exceptional when they did it but par for the course for me.
And this is partly why Kreayshawn makes me mad. The White Girl Mob media darling blowing up the interwebs whose potential deal with Sony is making waves makes me angry in a way I haven’t been in a long time. Her appropriative swag is yet another reminder (not that we needed any more this month) of how little black women are valued in our society, even in genres we co-create. In a moment where cool is synonymous with swag, a particular manifestation of black masculinity, Kreayshawn’s dismissiveness and denigration of black women animate her success.
“It’s like tumblr made a video,” said one tumblrite, speaking of the white Cali hipster aesthetics of Kreyashawn’s Gucci Gucci. Replete with Indian medallion, black girl hair cut and color, black men flank her on all sides, lending their cool and legitimacy as she talks stealing bitches, smoking blunts, and realness. Catchy with no substance and ample “I’m so different from them other black girls,” Kreyashawn is the perfect accoutrement to the tortured misogyny of her friends and co-signers Odd Future. For her, calling women bitches and hoes is funny, a category she is somehow exempt from via her whiteness and sometimes queerness. She’s got swag because she fucks bitches too, though she’s quick to point out she’s “not a raging lesbian.”
I think “Hoes on My Dick” perhaps best captures my problems with Kreayshawn and those who dig her. About a year ago, comedian Andy Milonakis (Who you might remember from his brief MTV fame) and Rapper Lil’ B decided to parody rap music and made the satirical “Hoes on My Dick” which features the choice language “Hoes on my dick cuz I look like Madonna” or “Hoes on my dick cuz I look like grandma.” Anyway, we were supposed to laugh. Ha ha! Isn’t funny/ironic when they say misogynist things when they know it’s wrong? Kreayshawn took their track and made it her own adding her own lyrics, “rapped” (if you could call it that) with all due seriousness and folks love it!
As Crunktastic has already pointed out on this blog, the derogatory slang words used for women imply race. “Hoes” are black and the proverbial punchline (pun intended) for the LA hispster/hip hop mash up sound that music critics are lauding. The supposed *wink wink nudge nudge* associated with their misogynoir is what makes them so edgy and so real. The objectification of black women as a lyrical trope is what makes Kreayshawn interesting. Look at this white girl who talks like a black man! Isn’t she awesome?
And not that black women haven’t tried to appropriate a type of black masculine cool through a similar practice of denigrating other black women and expressing their allegiance to black men but they have not been as successful. Syd Tha Kid, DJ and beat maker for Odd Future is currently following this path and her queer black masculinity doesn’t seem all that queer when she speaks of women in the same derogatory fashion as her band mates.
Kreayshawn claims Nicole Wray, Missy and Aaliyah as women who inspired and influenced her sound but black women are rarely seen in her circle or videos. I’ve clocked two black women in Kreayshawn’s videos, one a silent love interest, and the other a silent hair stylist. In so far as black women are useful, they exist, though they never get to voice their own reality. It’s incredibly frustrating that the more things change the more things stay the same, that Zora Neal Hurston’s words still ring true today.
Special thanks to Alexsarah and CF’s Sheri & Whitney for talking through this with me!
Apparently Kreayshawn was on the brain today. Check out Clutch Magazine’s take.
Elvis Presley was not the originator of rock ‘n’ roll. That would be Chuck Berry. Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” is said to be the first hip-hop song to top the Billboard charts (others argue it was “Rapture” by Blondie). Justin Timberlake went from the pop sensation group ‘N Sync to the soulful singing White boy with swag. My point? America has always capitalized off of Black culture. Kreayshawn, the new White girl rapper, is only the latest byproduct.
Her government name is Natassia Toloz. Complex magazine reported the 21-year-old Oakland native is rumored to have signed a $1 million dollar record deal with Sony Music. The petite, sometimes blonde, sometimes brown-haired rapper, sparked buzz with her hit single “Gucci, Gucci” totaling over 2 million views on YouTube. Like Soulja Boy, she’s young, an Internet sensation and plans on parlaying her popularity into a full-blown rap career. She has denied the rumored record deal, but admits she has been in talks with Sony Music. Whether the ink is already dry or not, she will get a deal.
Kreayshawn (pronounced Cri-shon), possibly a play on creation, is the leader of her squad White Girl Mob. Vigilantly watching her video for the first time, I thought, ‘Is it possible for me to be intrigued, humored and disgusted at the same time?’ The huge gold doorknocker earrings. Her asymmetrical bob cut. Her homegirl rocking a similar cut, but with blonde streaks. The tats, the vernacular, the black dude entourage passing her a blunt. I hoped it was satire, while knowing it wasn’t.
Backed by Odd Future, homies with Lil B and co-signed by Snoop Dogg, I knew a record label executive somewhere saw dollar signs within 30 seconds of watching her. The novelty of a mainstream White female rapper has been nonexistent. It was only a matter of time before a vested interest arose to capitalize off such a rarity. But White rappers are not some new phenomenon. Eminem is arguably one of the best lyrical emcees in the game, Black or White.
White rappers aren’t the problem. Exploitation of Black culture is.
Black culture is diverse with various meanings; and how one defines Black culture varies from individual. In the case of Kreayshawn, I’m referring to her misinterpretation of what she thinks Black culture and hip-hop is.
One could argue she is exactly what hip-hop has become–gimmicky, devoid of substance, whack, the glorification of a street life, sexualized and talentless. If that’s the case, is she appropriating Black culture or just a part of a watered down genre?
I don’t believe for one second her image is authentic. It is one derived of the stereotypical “sister girl” trope we’ve seen time and time again. Understand, I’m not arguing whether “sister girl” actually exists. I’m not even arguing that the “sister girl” is to be shunned. But Kreayshawn’s image, how she carries herself, her lyrics are all derivative of her very limited view of Black culture.
Beside her lack of creativity, the fact that she’s garbage on the mic, the inauthenticity of her persona is unnerving. A Berkley Film School dropout, allegedly from the hood, has found her niche in hip-hop. Perhaps her posturing is homage of sorts to what she grew up seeing. And this is what she believes she must imitate to gain credibility in hip-hop.
But with artists like Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, and B.o.B., isn’t there now a space in hip-hop that exists for rappers to just be themselves without the need for street credibility? Or a trumped up, unoriginal “sister girl” image? I guess we haven’t reached a point where female emcees are afforded the privilege of not having to be either “hood” or sexy.
It’s ironic how the White girl mimicking Black culture has been viewed as quirky, cute, and interesting in the past. But sisters who fashionably rock bamboo earrings, gold nameplate necklaces, and blonde streaked weaves, will inevitably be considered “ghetto” by society. It’s equally problematic that every female emcee post Queen Latifah and MC Lyte who has had massive mainstream success all had to sell sex. Kreayshawn, on the other hand, is able to avoid an over sexualized image because of her whiteness.
It goes without saying that most people don’t take issue with talented White artists excelling in genres Blacks created. We’ve certainly supported artists like Robin Thicke, Amy Winehouse and Eminem. I’d imagine that support was gained from them creating good music and not selling a gimmick.
Clearly I’m not Kreayshawn’s targeted audience, and I’m totally opposed to spending money on a White artist who loosely drops the n-word in casual conversation. My being unimpressed, however, does not negate her following. If only she had gained a following through actual talent, opposed to capitalizing off of a genre and culture she obviously doesn’t care to understand.
Kreayshawn’s existence within hip-hop is a reflection of the very aspects we self-proclaimed hip-hop heads find problematic. She is a result of a genre that was forever changed once America realized there was a huge opportunity to capitalize off of a global influential culture. Kreayshawn, artists like her, and those who co-sign them are all culprits in the auctioning off of our culture to the highest bidder.
May 30, 2011 8:54 a.m. EDTSTORY HIGHLIGHTS
28 Comments • Add a comment
"One can only hope that a cultural system that has proved its stability over periods of almost three thousand years in Egypt and perhaps an additional two thousand years, the Dogon will sustain itself in the midst of many modern pressures."
Let's hope so Laird. Their art, architecture and funeral masquerades remain a fascination for many, even to those of us with strong birth and cultural links to the continent
This is crazy, unscientific woo. I'm disappointed that you would publicize such nonsense. You should have consulted someone with a background in African archaeology, history, and ethnography.
@Zora point taken, but listening to so called experts, who often inhabit their own "expert world" spew their knowledge incessantly is like watching paint dry.
So odd that this was posted just now. I watched a recent addition to Netflix stream called The Secret Life of Plants the night before last which was concerned with a great number of, shall we say, fortean claims. I knew of it because of the Stevie Wonder album, which turns out was the soundtrack to the film (there was a book first, too.)
ANYway, the film details how the Dogon knew the specific orbit of a star around Sirius, even though they had no telescopes and the orbiting star is not visible without powerful ones. They claim this star was the seed that begat life in the universe (hence the plant connection.) Cut to a very modern-for-the-time (hilariously dated now) computer lab at an allegedly reputable astronomy outfit, which alleged that their lab was the first to accurately track said orbit, confirming that the Dogon were right all along. Mind-boggling, if true.
Hey, man; I dunno nothing, but if it isn't on the level, then this is a tremendously elaborate hoax without any obvious gain. "Follow the money?" What money? They've lived in the desert for centuries. It would seem the whole society is only concerned with metaphysics. Besides: Stevie Wonder did the music! Right?
I suspect that these claims that the Dogon knew something special about Sirius are a result of cultural contamination by the anthropologists.
First, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius), the fact that Sirius is a pair of stars was well-known before Marcel Griaule did his work:
"In 1844 German astronomer Friedrich Bessel deduced from changes in the proper motion of Sirius that it had an unseen companion. Nearly two decades later, on January 31, 1862, American telescope-maker and astronomer Alvan Graham Clark first observed the faint companion, which is now called Sirius B..."
The Dogon wouldn't have known this (unless someone had given them a nice 12 inch amateur telescope 50 years prior to the anthropological study), but Griaule could have.
Second, the orbit of the pair of stars is 50 years long. This just happens to be the same length as the interval between Old Testament Jubilees, which Griaule also claimed that the Dogon celebrated. So, the claimed knowledge of the orbit can be a coincidence, seeded either by actual Dogon knowledge of the Jubilee, or by the anthropologist's possible desire to synthesize many cultural threads within his research.
@Zora, you should try catching up on modern archaeology, start by googling Göbekli Tepe.
I'm always a little wary of the "ancient knowledge" of oral societies. I have a couple examples, and while anecdotes are not data, neither is oral history:
In about 1987 my father went to work on the San Carlos Apache reservation. Because he was working in, let's say, a social service dimension he bought literally EVERY book on Apaches. Some were racist monographs by people who considered them savages, some were well researched archeological tomes. Linguistic and cultural theory books, arts and crafts books, historical accounts from conquistadors, Spanish missionaries, territorial governments etc. etc.
According to the Apache religion / oral history, they have lived in the Southwest (Northern Mexico, Southern Arizona, Southern New Mexico) forever and have a series of places associated with their creation myths. However, according to historical evidence from the Spanish period and archaeological evidence the Apaches were in Texas a mere 500 years ago. Linguistic evidence suggest that they are part of the last migration out of Alaska before European Colonization began and that they traveled along the Eastern side of the Rockies until they reached Texas.
But, you say, that was 500 years ago! Half a millennium!
And our second anecdote:
About four or five years into working on the res, (and buying lots of art work / crafts) my father began to notice something strange. All of these Apache ladies who had been selling things like dolls, camp dresses, bead work and cradle boards (all for tourists) were now selling (sometimes in addition to, sometimes exclusively) dream catchers. Dream catchers are a plains tribe item, but had become popular with a certain new age type crowd. They were never part of the Apache craft repertoire, even when Apaches were being kept at Fort Sill Oklahoma. But when my father asked these women why they were making dream catchers, they were all affronted. Because you see, they had always made dream catchers. Their grandmothers had taught them how. Dream catchers had hung above their own beds at night. Dream catchers were Apache and those plains tribes had stolen them.
And this wasn't rigamarole for the tourists (which someone would often jokingly admit to my father - like the time they were selling baskets made in Korea to tourists), this was something they believed and they stuck to the story to this day.
Now I don't believe these people were lying. I believe that oral culture is highly mutable and posseses different ideas about history, memory and "fact" than a culture that depends on writing.
And finally, I find the idea that aliens came to earth, because humans were too stupid to figure out, after a couple million years of being human and 7 or 8 thousand years of planting and harvesting crops, that you planted stuff in the spring and harvested in the fall and also by the way, plants need water and irrigation systems and hey if you put a couple rocks on top of each other sometimes they'll stay and you can build things, so insulting it is almost impossible for me to say. Also, I find it charming that these 'impossibly advanced' cultures were almost entirely inhabited by brown people while Europeans were still mucking about in caves -- of course Europeans didn't need aliens, only dumb brown people. Ancient aliens is little more than a cover for racism of the highest order: people would rather believe that all humans are incapable idiots than some who don't look like them got to civilization first. Astounding.
"In fact, the Dogon are known to have migrated to their current location from a region of North Africa that was a known home to ancient Buddhism."
Oh yeah, that region of North Africa.
Just for giggles, let me just throw in that some ancient scholars and philosophers recorded that Sirius was reddish; when you look at it today, it clearly is not. Could one of its component members at one time been a red star? Who can say. To my knowledge, however, the Dogon do not mention this in their mythology. I tend to lean towards cultural contamination prior.
Boingboing, I am disappoint.
First the Dogon's ties to Buddhism are proved by the fact that "the cosmological symbolism of a Buddhist stupa is a point-for-point match with the symbolism reported by Griaule for the Dogon granary," and then two minutes later "a Jewish chuppa are a close match for the Dogon granary." So we can prove the Dogon are related to all these other implausibly distant groups because, um, some sacred spaces are similar to other sacred spaces? wtf? Anthropology FAIL.
Also, as a Buddhist, "In fact, the Dogon are known to have migrated to their current location from a region of North Africa that was a known home to ancient Buddhism" made me lol.
The source-of-Buddhism line made me go "huh?" too, but it's funny to see Buddhists jump in here all booty hurt (Buddhi hurt?) at the suggestion that some of their tenets might have a source that pre-dates Guatama sitting and meditating them up.
James Randi dissects this story very nicely in his book "Flim-Flam", written almost thirty years ago.
Dogon it, this is just more ancient-astronauts woo.
Well... as a Buddhist myself, the notion of Buddhism in N. Africa does seem weird. However, as someone with a BA and some grad work in Religious Studies, it doesn't. Religions are viral, and there is definite evidence of ancient travel between India and Egypt, Syria, and Yemen. Anyway, a quick google search on "Buddhism North Africa" didn't pull up tons, but it did provide enough for me to feel confident that there has been some reasonable scholarly discussion in this area. A recent, quite readable example thereof:
This has been debunked so many times it's getting really tiresome: http://michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/2011/06/the-sirius-mystery-you-dont-columbo-for-this-one/
Cosmic coincidence control pays special attention to those who pay special attention to it,
You can't prove languages are related just by looking for remotely similar words. You have to document regular sound changes from one to the other; this is the central method of historical linguistics.
For example, in modern German, a shift occurred from a t sound to an s sound in certain word positions. Other Germanic languages, like English and Dutch, had already split off before this occurred, and so do not show the shift. Thus German words "essen" and "aus" are equivalent to "eat" and "out."
It's easy to make unrelated languages look similar if all you're looking for are vaguely similar words. Conversely, related words may not look much alike until you trace all the sound changes. But if you want to convince me that "Hoben" is "Cohen," you'll have to show that all the initial "h" and "k" sounds switched, and that all the intervocalic "b" and "h" sounds switched. It wouldn't affect just one word; there would be a consistent pattern.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_change
I thought of "red Sirius," too. However, the Chinese never recorded Sirius as red, always as white:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993ChA%26A..17..223J
The most likely explanation for Ptolemy and others referring to Sirius as red is that the emergence of the star low on the horizon was used by the Egyptians to determine when the Nile was about to flood. As you might know from watching sunsets, objects low on the horizon often look red (the atmosphere is good at scattering blue light). Therefore, when the appearance of Sirius would have been most significant, Egyptians and their antecedents (Ptolemy, for instance) would have seen a red star; the monicker may have stuck, even if they knew it was white when it was higher in the sky. You can find a discussion of red Sirius here, although the comments are better than the article: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/01/resolving_the_red_controversy.php .
In any case, one should apply a lot of skepticism to ancient observations of nature. For instance, few people would suggest that all objects on Earth used to move predominantly straight up and down at constant speed, as Aristotle said they were wont to do...
They are primitives with no written language and a great deal of outside contamination and were hoping they stay the way they are???? I’m glad my people advanced before this inane attitude took hold.
If you base your theories of language and cultural relationships on comparing single words and word fragments you can "prove" any language is intimately related to any other language.
For example, the Japanese word for name is "namae". Just look at that! It's obvious that "name" and "namae" are just variations on the same word, so Japanese must be descended from ancient Anglo-Saxons who somehow wandered to Asia, or perhaps the entire English language and culture was derived from ideas imparted by a secret society of Shinto priests living underground in Yorkshire. (You never heard of them because they're secret, see?)
I knew a guy who was quite sure that Japanese must be related to his native Hungarian, IIRC because they both had a lot of word forms with "shta" endings.
TheDonna, your link was apparently suppressed by the Great Academic Conspiracy. Would you mind reposting it? That sounds interesting. I was aware of the Graeco-Buddhist history of Gandhara, now northern Afghanistan, but not of Buddhism making its way to the Middle East or North Africa.
A last thought: I'm more likely to accept someone from some academic specialty as an authority on software development than the other way around.
Awful interview.
* To our knowledge, there was no significant ancient "Buddhist" settlement in North Africa (some merchants? Probably. A small community in some trading centre? could be, but we don't have any proof of it. Bigger settlements? could be, but it is more difficult and we don't have absolutely any clue about this kind of settlement)
* No one knows for sure the origin of the Dogon people
* ... so, when you read something like "In fact, the Dogon are known to have migrated to their current location from a region of North Africa that was a known home to ancient Buddhism", you have a clear idea of the kind of guy you're dealing with.
And, of course, as has been pointed out, the "linguistic" arguments are nonexistent.
The Dogon are a pretty interesting bunch of people. When I was (much) younger, I was amazed by a short film featuring a Dogon hunter shooting in the bush using a Dogon-made flintlock with Dogon-made gunpowder. It's a pity to see such a culture treated in this dismal way...
Since Buddhism stems from Hinduism, I'd be pretty surprised to meet a Buddhist who didn't think that Shakyamuni Buddha was a follower of a multi-thousand year-old tradition.
Really? The Dogon and the Sirius companion star thing again?
This is an embarrassing entry to find on one of my favorite web sites. I expect more from you, Boing Boing. Try to pull it together, OK?
two things:
this guy is featured heavily in the 'documentary' series "The Pyramid Code", currently available via netflix streaming.. I am a little embarassed to admit that I watched the whole thing, as its definitely a steaming pile of sorts.
also, and to me more interestingly, the other night I stumbled upon this video of a free climber ascending a cliff above a dogon village - http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=isojdv36z0 - some of the 'granary' structures are shown and mentioned, as well as the 800-yr-old ruins of a lost 'pygmy' culture, situated 200 meters up the cliff face!
"You Don’t Need Columbo For This One"? Awwwww, too soon!
Actually, there's lots of documentation on the history of Buddhism in North Africa.
http://www.shrawasti.com/historical-interaction-between-the-islamic-and-buddhist-cultures
- Laird
Unfortunately, Randi also completely missed the apparent identity between Griaule's Dogon cosmology and Buddhist stupa cosmology.
- Laird
You're absolutely right, if your intent is to trace the etymology of a word from one culture to another. However, that's not the case here. It's perfectly legitimate for a Comparative Cosmologist to provide multiple points of evidence to demonstrate a likely correspondence between two cosmological symbols, two deities, two myths, and so on. So now imagine that you have two gods - one named Amma and the other Amen - who hold the same relative positions in their cosmologies, share the same icons, perform the same acts, bear the same relationship to other deities in their respective cosmologies,whose names are explicitly equated in other languages and carry matching second meanings.
My contention is that the evidence is enough to suggest a correspondence between the deities. Now, would anyone seriously argue that there is no reasonable relationship between the names?
- Laird
Compare what Griaule says about Dogon cosmology in his works with what Adrian Snodgrass says about a stupa in "The Symbolism of a Stupa." Then look up the symbolism of a chuppa in Judaism.
- Laird