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An Interview with Nuai
By Amin Sharif
Sharif:. Nuai is an Afro-Mexican
group. What does it mean to be Afro-Mexican in America today?
INTEL:
Nuai is an Afro-Chicano organization in the sense that it has
been established by and catered towards the black and Mexicano
populace of America. Appealing to a universal sense of
pain like Jesus of Nazareth, the tribe of Nuai attempts to draw
parallels between the agony of both civilizations' colonization
and conquest. The root of the malevolence between black
and Chicano communities nationwide finds nourishment in aqueous
deception.
Los
Conquistadores Espanoles and Devil American settlers were
able to subjugate the indigenous peoples of this hemisphere so
effectively by fabricating conflicts between nations.
Still to this day, the colonizing Oppressor's methods of
"divine" and conquer remain the same. By
abhorring one another, we make things that much easier for Him.
From the boulevards and prisons of California to the barrio
children of Chicago, enlightenment is the key to understanding
affinity between our people and successfully eliminating all
discord between their two worlds.
ONUE: For me to identify myself as a
Chicano means to be a conscious participant in the ongoing
struggle to attain social justice for Mexican
Americans. The term Chicano (derived from Meshicano)
is the label chosen by Mexican American activists of the 1960s
movimiento who sought progress, demanding equality in
education, civil rights and labor unions amongst the ongoing
struggles to empower our people. I can identify as Chicano today
because Mexican Americans are still fighting for the same
causes.
Despite being amongst the majority of
Californians, Chicano's are underrepresented on college
campuses. Without a university degree earning financial capital
to develop opportunity for your family is sparse, and often
limited to underpaid backbreaking physical work, the profits of
which never pass through laborer hands. Low pay equates to long
hours of work, and long hours of work are long hours away from
your family. In the public eye we are still dehumanized,
perceived as cheap employment, unintelligent or dirty. We are
never recognized as the descendants of one of the first cradles
of civilization that developed an accurate solar calendar and
the concept of zero.
INTEL: My black experience throughout
childhood and as a young-adult in this "wilderness of North
America," as Malcolm so accurately described it, has been
frustrating, beautiful, and both agonizing and joyous.
Growing up in the United States, I have painfully witnessed the
capitalistic rape of a watered down and commercially exploited
poor excuse for my culture.
For centuries in America, a ruling-class has
enjoyed a boundless prosperity built off of the glistening backs
of my enslaved African ancestors, the majority of whom to this
day continue to suffer from the immense disadvantages of
dispossession, dehumanization, malediction, and poverty.
Coming to grips with this reality has been one of the most
difficult aspects of being black for me.
Much of our Revolution has been sold out.
Blacks in America are pimped like whores by a multi-billion
dollar corporate American machine without soul. For
perpetuating the dysfunction of a fictitious street-life of
prestige and glory, we are broken off with a few crumbs from the
table of the same rich devils who have been fattening their
bellies on the genocide of the black race for over 400 years.
Sharif: Who are the members of Nuai?
And, why did you decide to make your presence known on the
Internet
NUAI: Using the Internet as our medium
for communication was a natural decision because of its
limitless possibilities in globally projecting these voices. The
genealogy of Nuai stretches back for countless generations and,
quite frankly, it is therefore impossible to compile a full list
of its members without a griot, who chooses only to indulge such
information in the form of poetry and song. Here are a
few:
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Warriors in the flesh: Intel,
Onue, Darkman y Misol, Subcomandante Marcos y las
Zapatistas, Mumia Abu-Jamal,
Leonard Peltier, Chenua Achebe,
Deceased tribesmen: W.E.B.
DuBois, Ralph W. Ellison, Harriet Tubman, the children
of Soweto, Cherokee Chief Tsali, Alex Haley, Malcolm X,
Fredrick Douglass, Olauduh Equiano, Sitting Bull, Crazy
Horse, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Nathaniel Turner,
Tupac Amuru, Marcus Garvey, the Maroons of Jamaica,
Toussaint L'Ouverture, Caeser Chavez, Thelonius Monk,
Sun Ra, Jimi Hendrix, Oloudah Equiano, Emilio Zapata,
Pancho Villa, Juaquin Murrieta, Corky Gonzales, Luis
Valdez, Dolores Huerta |
"Herein lie buried the frustrated
efforts of our youth to unmask the fool's facade of american
patriotism. In this nation born of hatred's womb, we vent
our frustrations by exhaling these painful words and curious
pages of Nuai. In a steady stream of grim, thought
provoking images, we counterbalance the mundane billboards,
televisions, and radios of our broken homes and communities that
ceaselessly hum their distractions and insecurities deep within
our psyches. By providing a median to offset this
self-destructive cycle in which we are born, it is with our
deepest sincerity
that we fuel these feral flames of the ever thirsty nuairage."
Sharif: Does Nuai have a mission
statement?
Intel: nuai tribe is a afro-mexicano
hip-hop team based out of both los
angeles & san jose, ca. nuai, pronounced NEW
EYE, represents the way we
as youth are constantly reevaluating ourselves and our
society. We founded the site in late august, 2003, in the
name of providing a force to counterbalance the sickness of
mainstream america.
Through
our website, our goal is to draw parallels between the
indigenous peoples of africa, and the americas (north, central and
south), their conquest,
and their role in today's society. seeing that we are all
full time students, it is sometimes difficult for us to
find the time to
update our page.
this is especially the case for myself.
i am in my senior
year of high school, and am getting ready to start applying
to colleges. in case you're wondering, i'm looking
at uc berkeley, stanford,
and uc santa cruz (in state). i am originally from
washington, d.c., and my mother is pushing me to go back
to the east coast, or
even to one of the south's many historical black colleges.
we will see soon enough what god's plan
is. in the next update, I
plan on adding many more photographs from history.
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in the images bin we have sitting bull, crazy horse, tupac amuru (the
indigenous peruvian
revolutionary), marcus garvey, amd nat turner, just to
name a few.
currently, we are working on getting a newsletter
out.
in issue
1 we will have some commentary and historical
information of the crises of liberia and sierra leone. you may have
noticed a page, "los
nuais (spanish for 'the nuais')," that
is under construction. This site will link to our individual pages respectively.
decorating this page
will be revolutionaries and heroes from around the
world. We will
call them all nuais and offer links and writeups on them
as well. also, i'm hoping to upload and analyze the
declaration of independence,
the bill of rights, and the constitution of the united
states. we
have a show up in san jose later this month. we are very
effective live. after sharing with the crowd our gift of music,
we will promote our site
& message in hopes of building and strengthening the
nuai.org community.
i would appreciate it so much if obs would link to us, and
like i said we would without question return the
favor. i feel that as soldiers in this cause, it is our
duty, under god, to support one another. |
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i understand that nuai.org has not yet fully
bloomed, and our site is anything
but extensive--but believe me, brother... we are working hard to
change that. definitely keep me posted on los
angeles based events. I
would love to show up and give my support to my
people/peers. I appreciate
your interest in our organization. thank you for taking
the time out.
More about Nuai Music: Audio pans from
right to left hit our listeners like thought patterns. Layering
endless vocal upon vocal track, we are able to artistically
capture and channel the wild agony of conquest and colonization,
in the face of mockery and minstrelsy, into a powerful message
of spiritual and economic progression and unity. Check us
out at www.nuai.org.
Peace.
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Becoming American Under Fire
Irish Americans, African Americans, and the Politics of Citizenship
During the Civil War Era
By Christian G. Samito
In Becoming American under Fire, Christian G. Samito provides a rich account of how African American and Irish American soldiers influenced the modern vision of national citizenship that developed during the Civil War era. By bearing arms for the Union, African Americans and Irish Americans exhibited their loyalty to the United States and their capacity to act as citizens; they strengthened their American identity in the process. . . . For African American soldiers, proving manhood in combat was only one aspect to their quest for acceptance as citizens. As Samito reveals, by participating in courts-martial and protesting against unequal treatment, African Americans gained access to legal and political processes from which they had previously been excluded. The experience of African Americans in the military helped shape a postwar political movement that successfully called for rights and protections regardless of race. For Irish Americans, soldiering in the Civil War was part of a larger affirmation of republican government and it forged a bond between their American citizenship and their Irish nationalism. The wartime experiences of Irish Americans helped bring about recognition of their full citizenship through naturalization and also caused the United States to pressure Britain to abandon its centuries-old policy of refusing to recognize the naturalization of British subjects abroad. / For Love of Liberty |
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Alain L. Locke: The Biography of a Philosopher
By
Leonard Harris
and Charles Molesworth
Alain
L. Locke (1886-1954), in his famous 1925 anthology
The New Negro, declared that “the pulse of the
Negro world has begun to beat in Harlem.” Often called
the father of the Harlem Renaissance, Locke had his
finger directly on that pulse, promoting, influencing,
and sparring with such figures as
Langston Hughes,
Zora Neale Hurston,
Jacob Lawrence, Richmond Barthé, William Grant Still,
Booker T.
Washington,
W. E. B. Du
Bois, Ralph Bunche, and John Dewey. The long-awaited
first biography of this extraordinarily gifted
philosopher and writer, Alain L. Locke narrates the
untold story of his profound impact on twentieth-century
America’s cultural and intellectual life.
Leonard Harris
and Charles Molesworth trace this story through Locke’s
Philadelphia upbringing, his undergraduate years at
Harvard—where William James helped spark his influential
engagement with pragmatism—and his tenure as the first
African American Rhodes Scholar. The heart of their
narrative illuminates Locke’s heady years in 1920s New
York City and his forty-year career at Howard
University, where he helped spearhead the adult
education movement of the 1930s and wrote on topics
ranging from the philosophy of value to the theory of
democracy. |
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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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 /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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