W.E.B. Du Bois on Socialism and the American Negro

Someone has been so kind as to share W.E.B. DuBois's speech for a socialist audience in Madison, WI. Speaking on African-Americans and socialism, this speech provides an interesting example of the last shift of DuBois's life, a shift to socialism and Pan-Africanism. In addition to this fascinating talk from 1960, one can find the 'audio autobiography' recordings of DuBois explaining the story of his life to Moses Asch, available on Youtube. Once you realize how long he lived and how influential he was in US intellectual history, his life story becomes even more impressive. 

Guerrillas

"Everybody wants to fight his own little war, everybody is a guerrilla."

V.S. Naipaul's Guerrillas is his literary attempt to encapsulate what occurred with the rise of Black Power in the West Indian context. Writing on the subject in his nonfiction, much of Guerrillas is consistent thematically with his other writings on the subject. Here, from one of his essays on Black Power and the killings in Trinidad, is a brief commentary on Black Power: 

Black Power as rage, drama, and style, as revolutionary jargon, offers something to everybody: to the unemployed, the idealistic, the dropout, the Communist, the politically frustrated, the anarchist, the angry student returning home from humiliations abroad, the racialist, the old fashioned black preacher who has for years said that after Israel it was to be the turn of Africa. Black Power means Cuba and China; it also means clearing the Chinese and the Jews and the tourists out of Jamaica. It is identity and it is also miscegenation. It is drinking holy water, eating pork and dancing; it is going back to Abyssinia. There has been no movement like it in the Caribbean since the French Revolution.

With this framework in mind, Naipaul's Guerrillas dissects Black Power into psychological, sexual, political, racial, and economic terms. I disagree with much of his characterization of 'Black Power,' yet find his depiction of white liberals as even more scathing in this unnamed Caribbean location. Roche, a white South African jailed by the regime for his bombings of a powerstation and railway, and Jane, an English woman full of lies and half-truths, come to this island as the gangs (or guerrillas) are threatening the government and status quo. 

However, as Naipaul's essay indicates, the motives and goals of Black Power varied consistently and meant numerous things. Jimmy Ahmed, the Black Power 'leader,' back in the Caribbean after accusations of rape in London, is half-Chinese, was never fully accepted by the Chinese shopkeepers of the island, and exploits his power to abuse slum boys and rape. Much like the riots and dissolution of his agricultural commune, supported by the government and a company, Sablich, Jimmy Ahmed reveals himself to be a sexually frustrated, confused individual whose final actions in the novel leave one breathless. Much like the incomplete sexual climax, this novel ends similarly.

What dragged down the quality of this novel, which, is not too far from Bend in the River, (a novel I hated profusely for its image of Africa and the Congo), is the lack of a first-person narrator. The sort of deracinated Indian figure Patrick French describes as Naipaul's first-person narrator in novels like Bend At the River would have improved the prose, dialogue, and pace of the text. One feels little for any of the main characters (Jimmy Ahmed, Jane, Peter Roche). While surprisingly very critical of certain forms of neocolonialism (US bauxite mining companies and influence, for example), the novel also continues Naipaul's casual derision for the Caribbean as a dependent region with little ideas of its own. 

To its credit, Naipaul manages to describe in great detail an island that could be multiple places in the Caribbean in the 1970s. His vivid descriptions of colors, plants, the bush, social and physical segregation in the capital, and the insistent beat of reggae speak to his personal experience and travels in the region. The frustrations of the local elite, the black and brown poor, internalized racial and class prejudices, and the good intentions of white 'liberals' like Jane and Roche are all depicted as part of the problem in this complex tale of sexual frustration, personal failures, acceptance, and pain. Kudos to Naipaul for managing to keep his narrative together and weave together themes of race, Black Power, apartheid South Africa, and white liberals together. 

Bilongo

Bilongo! Mandinga! Enjoy a classic song from Latin jazz artist Frank Emilio Flynn. They even quote "Dark Eyes," too.

Small Island

"And Hortense. Her face still haughty. But how long before her chin is cast down? For, fresh from a ship, England had not yet deceived her. But soon it will. All us pitiful West Indian dreamers who sailed with heads bursting with foolishness were a joke to my clever smirking cousin now."

Andrea Levy's Small Island is actually quite reminiscent of Samuel Selvon's The Lonely Londoners, but also the more recent White Teeth. While focusing specifically on two couples, Jamaican and English, around the time of World War II, Levy's novel tells the story of the Windrush generation of Jamaican immigrants in London. Zadie Smith's White Teeth occurs decades later, but both novels share a similar fixation with the Second World War as the springboard for anticolonialism and immigration in London. Both novels also feature India and Jamaica, although none of the major characters in Levy's novel are from South Asia. 

Instead, we get a very Jamaica-centered narrative on how West Indians contributed to the war effort, experienced extreme discrimination in the military and civilian life in London, and the rising tides of independence in Jamaica and India. Levy's novel somehow manages to encapsulate so much of the tragedy and contradictions of World War II with a sense of humor that is quite endearing and optimistic. The film adaptation is very faithful to these themes and humor of the novel, which pleasantly surprised me when I finally completed the book. 

One gets a very useful background in Jamaica during the 1930s and 1940s. Hortense and Gilbert's intriguing backgrounds reveal so much of the intricacies of color and class in Jamaican society, with the strong assumptions forced into West Indian minds that England is the 'Mother County,' English ways are best. Upon finally reaching England, the dream dies as Hortense and Gilbert endure the racist and classist prejudices of London. Like Selvon, Lamming, Smith, and numerous other Caribbean or Caribbean-descended writers, the bitterness of the immigrant experience pervades the text. The imperialism (and outright racism) of England's military and treatment of Indians during Bernard's service also tie in here, revealing how the myths about World War II as a 'fight for democracy' or 'freedom' were nothing but. 

The real magic of Levy's novel lies in how she manages to juxtapose this Caribbean immigrant experience with the class nuances of white England. Queenie's character eventually becomes a sympathetic one, despite her disturbing upbringing (Queenie used to mock the children of miners, the poorest of the poor) and being reared by a class-conscious aunt in London who prepared for her for a loveless marriage for economic security and status. The strictures of the class system of English society seem to come to life in Levy's tale, revealing some common threads with the search for opportunity by Caribbean immigrants after the war. It is, in this sense, one finds the mutual experiences of the Blighs and Josephs capable of expressing some hope for the subsequent generations of a multicultural, multiracial London.

Small Island (Film)

Small Island was humorous and retains aspects of Andrea Levy's novel quite well. The acting talent of David Oyelowo and Benedict Cumberbatch certainly helped. The actress who played Hortense is the very same woman who played the mother of Irie in the White Teeth miniseries. Unfortunately, the movie omitted the colorism of Hortense's Jamaican background and omitted numerous aspects of Hortense and Gilbert's Jamaican background. The film succeeds excellently in criticizing the incredible xenophobia and racism against the Windrush West Indians in London, but could've benefited from a miniseries format instead of a two-part film.

Johannesburg Mines (Langston Hughes)

In the Johannesburg mines

There are 240,000 natives working.

What kind of poem

Would you make out of that?

240,000 natives working

In the Johannesburg mines.

Dodo Turgeau

A lovely version of "Dodo Turgeau" from Dupervil. Enjoy this stately song. For those interested in earlier recordings, there's also one from Issa El Saieh online.