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Lloyd D. McCarthy,
In-Dependence from Bondage: Claude McKay and Michael
Manley: Defying the Ideological Clash and Policy Gaps in
African Diaspora Relations. Trenton, NJ: Africa
World Press, 2007.
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In-Dependence from Bondage
Claude McKay and Michael Manley
Defying the Ideological Clash and Policy Gaps in African Diaspora
Relations
By Lloyd D.
McCarthy Reviews
In-Dependence
from Bondage is a compilation of the
world views of the well known Poet, Claude McKay, and
the world renowned Afro-Caribbean Socialist, Michel
Manley. Both men, although of different generations, are
known for their dedication to social change as it
relates to the exploitation of the peoples of African
descent in the Western hemisphere. Claude McKay's poetry
was one of the great forces in bringing about what is
often called the Negro Literary Renaissance.
Over a period of
nearly four centuries approximately 4,000,000 Africans
were transported to North America and the Caribbean
Islands as the results of slave trading. Scattered,
dispersed, and separated from their family and culture,
these peoples persevered to maintain their traditions,
religion, language, and folklore. Lloyd McCarthy, in
this book, focuses primarily on the Jamaican
perspective; however, it is relevant to the social,
political, and economic conditions everywhere. I found
the poetry of Claude McKay thought-provoking and
enlightening on the African Diaspora and the plight of
these exploited peoples.
McCarthy
successfully illustrates the impetus, impact and
corrective tactics currently being considered which are
central to combating white racism, classicism, and
Western imperialism. McCarthy gives the reader a
definitive compilation of the writings of Claude McKay
and Michael Manley. He has analyzed their works using
references from dozens of authors and their
interpretations of the ideological clash and policy gaps
in African Diaspora relations. His research is well
documented with complete and thorough endnotes.
McCarthy also is an
Afro-Jamaican, and instills the influence of his
personal history and heritage in his writing. He reveals
his own empathy for the peasants and the working-class
outlook, and the political perspectives that McKay and
Manley expressed.
This work is a
major contribution to the study of African Diaspora as
it relates to globalization, policy planning, and
international relations with developing and impoverished
nations. McCarthy also presents valuable insight into
how literature, biographical narrative, and intellectual
history are interconnected with politics. The book is a
wake up call to the peoples and nations of the African
Diaspora to find collective solutions to survive
globalization.
In-Dependence from Bondageholds
promise of becoming the guidebook or blueprint for the
liberation movement and should be read by our Washington
politicians as well as all New World Africans.—Richard
R. Blake, Reader Views (2/07)
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In-Dependence
is an important presentation that is scholarly offered
as viewed through the eyes of two important social
change agents. Both Claude McKay and Michael Manley
provided leadership and insightful meaning to the
exploitation of peoples of African descent in the
Western Hemisphere. While the book focuses primarily
upon the Jamaican context, the book is rich in its
relevance to the social, political, and economic
situation of the African Diaspora everywhere. The
author effectively integrates history and currency in
exploring and describing the motivations, impacts, and
proposed corrective strategies that are central to
combating white racism, classism, and western
imperialism.—William
M. Harris, Sr., FAICP, PhD, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Visiting Professor Department of Urban Studies and
Planning, School of Architecture and Planning,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
02139
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McCarthy’s work is methodologically interdisciplinary
in that it explores the political implications of
biographical narrative as it intersects with
intellectual history. It is also interdisciplinary by
virtue of the persons McCarthy examines; McKay was an
artist whose life was one of expanding political
awareness and Manley was a the head-of-state whose
triumphs and tragedies on the international political
stage bring to mind classical Greek drama. “Too often
production of knowledge about the African Diaspora
entails the accretion of cultural-historical pastiches
i.e. the Afro-American story, the Afro-Columbian story,
the, the Guyana story etc. McCarthy’s book avoids
such over particularization by not only exploring
African Diaspora experiences in North America and in the
Caribbean, but also by exploring the lives of two
Jamaicans living in the respective settings, who
address the African Diaspora in global terms that both
embrace and transcend local issues.—Deidre Crumbley, PhD, Professor, Interdisciplinary
Studies Division, North Carolina State University
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In-Dependence from Bondage
illuminates the historical philosophies and ideologies
of Claude McKay and Mr. Michael Manley, both of whom had
familial ties to Jamaica. Your work is an
extraordinary researched history lesson for the reader
and a work that challenges the reader to use higher
level thinking and critical analysis. Your writing draws
us into the drama of the lives of these two men. At the
same time, you have given even greater meaning
and value to the lives of all those Afrikans who
suffered, were brutalized, and died under colonialism,
while their resources were plundered in order for
europeans to build wealthy empires in europe and the new
world. Drawing together and chronicling the lives
of both men, McKay and Mr. Manley, was a well conceived
idea that was synthesized in the presentation of
this brilliant manuscript. This work ought to be a
required textbook for the university.’
—Dr. Kamau Kambon, Former Assistant
Professor of Education, Former Special Adjunct Professor
of Africana Studies, Co-Managing Director of
BlackNificent Books and More
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgment xi
Introduction 1
Chapter One: Bondage: Plunder
and Resistance—The Legacy That Shaped Their Common
Outlook
7
• Spanish Elites and
Genocide
7
• “Nanny” Resisting
Cromwell’s Men
9
• Blacks and Browns in
the Struggle Against Colonialism
12
• From the English Elites
to the American Elites
16
Chapter Two: Claude McKay: From
Colonial Poet to Militant Internationalist
25
• Wha Cultural Resistance
without “Hannah Ann Elizabeth McKay”?
25
• Crysstal Eastman, The
Liberator and Workers Against Workers
31
• Syllvia Pankurst’s
Workers’ Dreadnought and the Militant Internationalist
33
• Reaction to Stalinism
and U.S. Communist Party Racism
39
• From the International
to the Personal
41
Chapter Three: Michael Manley:
From “Joshua” to Globalist
49
• What Humanism Without
Edna Manley
49
• Progressive Women and
Michael Manley’s Globalism
50
• Manley’s Regional
Consciousness
52
• Manley’s Global
Awareness and North-South Reality
55
• Manley’s Understanding
of U.S. Relations
57
• From the Global to the
Personal: Women and Myths
62
Chapter Four: McKay’s Worldview
for African Diaspora Development
71
• The Foundations of
McKay’s Worldview: Struggle for Philosophy and Strategy
71
• McKay on “Fifths”
73
• Invoke “Obi,” the
Uncompromised Ancestral Spirit
75
• Race Struggle Is Also
the Class Struggle for Black Workers
79
• Black Consciousness Is
Class Consciousness
81
• Media Democracy and the
African Diaspora
88
• “Anglophile” Ideology
and the Struggle of the African Diaspora
89
Chapter Five: Manley’s Worldview
for African Diaspora Development
97
• The Foundations of
Manley’s Globalist Worldview
97
• Neocolonialism: “One
Shilling a Ton”
100
• Moving “Out of Babylon”
102
• Manley’s Amendment: The
Race Struggle Is the Class Struggle
109
• South-South and the
African Diaspora are the Proletarian Nations
111
• Man On Northern Elites’
New World Order and South-South Crisis
114
• South-South—African
Diaspora and Proletarian Nations, Unite!
116
Chapter Six: “In-Dependence” and
Reformist Views
127
• “A ‘New’ Decree”:
Globalization
128
• “To the Ancient Gods of
Greed”: Globalization and Economic Growth
133
• “Offered Up as
Sacrifice”: Globalization and Life Expectancy
137
• “Oh, We Who Deign to
Live But Will Not Dare”: Globalization and Human
Development
142
• “The White World’s
Burden Must Forever Bear”: Debt
• Reformist Views:
“Democratic Deficit”
147
Conclusion
165
Works
Cited
173
Index
187 *
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Lloyd McCarthy is the author of the book
“In-Dependence” From Bondage. He is also a
practicing urban and regional planning consultant. He
holds a Master of Arts degree from North Carolina State
University, with a focus on political science and
African Diaspora Affairs. He received his Bachelors
degree in Planning from the University of Virginia,
where he was awarded the Virginia Citizen's Planning
Association, “Outstanding Student Award” in 1991. In
1988, he received the United States Agency for
International Development, Presidential Training
Initiative for the Island Caribbean Award. While at
North Carolina State University, he served as Teaching
Assistant for three courses in Africana Studies.
Lloyd is a former Jamaican public servant, having held
the titles of Director of Land Policy in the Office of
the Prime Minister and Senior Director of Land
Administration in the Ministry of Environment &
Housing. While serving in this public capacity, his
personal and professional orientation was towards
instituting policies and programs to empower low-income
and dispossessed communities.
In 1997, Lloyd was instrumental in initiating the
preparation of an involuntary resettlement policy for
Jamaica to protect low income people from being
displaced without compensation by Jamaican
infrastructure development projects. He also co-edited a
publication on
Involuntary Resettlement: Experiences from Developing
Countries. The result of Lloyd’s academic
development and experience is expressed in a uniquely
honest and insightful perspective on the impact of arts
and politics on African Diaspora affairs through the
scholarly works of two legendary Afro-Caribbeans of the
20th century—Claude McKay and Michael Manley. Lloyd
currently resides in Raleigh, NC with his wife (Schatzi)
and two sons (Jela-ni and Jamar).* *
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Cuba An African Odyssey
is the previously untold
story of Cuba's support for African revolutions.
Cuba: An African Odyssey is the story of the Cold War
told through the prism of its least known arena: Africa. It is
the untold story of Cuba’s support for African revolutions. It
is the story of men like Patrice Lumumba, Amilcar Cabral,
Agosthino Neto and of course Che Guevara who have become icons,
mythical figures whose names are now synonymous with the word
revolution. This is the story of how these men, caught between
capitalism and communism, strove to create a third bloc that
would assert the simple principle of national independence. It
is the story of a whole dimension of world politics during the
last half of the 20th century, which has been hidden behind the
facade of a simplistic understanding of superpower conflict.
Cuba: An African Odyssey will tell the inside story of
only three of these Cuban escapades. We will start with the
Congo where Che Guevara personally spent seven months fighting
with the Pro-Lumumbist rebellion in the jungle of Eastern Congo.
Then to Guinea Bissau where Amilcar Cabral used the technical
support of Cuban advisors to bleed the Portuguese colonial war
machine thus toppling the regime in Europe. Finally, Angola
where in total 380,000 Cuban soldiers fought during the 27 years
of civil war. The Cuban withdrawal from Angola was finally
bartered against Namibia’s independence. With Namibia’s
independence came the fall of Apartheid… the last vestige of
colonialism on the African continent.
Cuba: An African Odyssey unravels episodes of the Cold
War long believed to be nothing but proxy wars. From the
tragicomic epic of Che Guevara in Congo to the triumph at the
battle of Cuito Carnavale in Angola, this film attempts to
understand the world today through the saga of these
internationalists who won every battle but finally lost the war.
Credits: Written,
directed and narrated by Jihan El-Tahri / Edited by
Gilles Bovon / Photography by Frank-Peter Lehmann
Sound
Recordists: James Baker, Graciela Barrault / Produced by
Tancrède Ramonet, Benoît Juster, Jihan El-Tahri
Source:
Snagfilms
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The Price of Civilization
Reawakening American Virtue and
Prosperity
By
Jeffrey D. Sachs
The Price of Civilization is a
book that is essential reading for every
American. In a forceful, impassioned,
and personal voice, he offers not only a
searing and incisive diagnosis of our
country’s economic ills but also an
urgent call for Americans to restore the
virtues of fairness, honesty, and
foresight as the foundations of national
prosperity. Sachs finds that both
political parties—and many leading
economists—have missed the big picture,
offering shortsighted solutions such as
stimulus spending or tax cuts to address
complex economic problems that require
deeper solutions. Sachs argues that we
have profoundly underestimated
globalization’s long-term effects on our
country, which create deep and largely
unmet challenges with regard to jobs,
incomes, poverty, and the environment.
America’s single biggest economic
failure, Sachs argues, is its inability
to come to grips with the new global
economic realities. Sachs describes a
political system that has lost its
ethical moorings, in which ever-rising
campaign contributions and lobbying
outlays overpower the voice of the
citizenry. . . . Sachs offers a plan to
turn the crisis around. He argues
persuasively that the problem is not
America’s abiding values, which remain
generous and pragmatic, but the ease
with which political spin and
consumerism run circles around those
values. He bids the reader to reclaim
the virtues of good citizenship and
mindfulness toward the economy and one
another.
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
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Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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posted 26 February 2007 /
updated 15 October 2007
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