MY FORTHCOMING BOOK ON RACE NEEDS REVIEWERS

I read with enthusiasm the following comments by a Miss T. Elizabeth at Rock my World. She is a student of Africana Studies. I will appreciate it is she could be the first person to write a comprehensive review of forthcoming book or race, Continental Africans and African Americans. Could anyone who knows her get her to get in touch with me:

Read too what Elizabeth wrote and some of it makes sense to me. I do not know what you think.
Dr. Viban Ngo.

Not what I'm here to write about but:

Does it hurt to just ASK? I don't appreciate someone who DOESN'T live here leaving notes about cleaning things up. Especially not snaky ones. A simple note from my roommate asking me to clean the bathroom (which really wasn't THAT bad. the floor needed some vacuuming and the sink needed to be wiped down, but that's pretty much it) would suffice. which i was GOING to do anyway today. And then, my lunch, my left over pizza from yesterday, was pretty much gone. THANKS GUYS. I know these are dumb little things, but sometimes I just can't deal with her personality. This is why I need to find somewhere else to live after my lease is up because I cannot live with her. (i'm not talking about the roommate, for the record) I admit I can be a little sloppy, but I need someone who isn't so anal about cleaning. JEEZ.

ANYWAY, on to the real post.

So, this semester I have pretty much dubbed the "White People Suck" semester. 3 out of my 5 classes (and debatable 4) are about how white people suck. First, Africana Studies which is basically how white Europeans shit all over Africans. Second, Latinos in the U.S. which is basically how white people shit on people of Latino origin (Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, etc.). Third, Race and Ethnicity in American Literature, which is basically about how WASPs shit on everyone else. And still debatable, my Ancient Archaeology of North America class has a bit about how white people decimated and shit on Native Americans.

Now, while I'm a bleeding heart for the underdogs and see all the racism and shitty conditions people have to live with, I'm also frustrated about "reverse" racism (which I think is a dumb term, I see why it's used because racism usually refers to the majority against the minority, but racism is racism no matter who is being discriminated against). I don't think that I should be held accountable for slavery or exploitation of these people, and yet I still get some of that. I see it all the time. The Mexicans and Filipinos that I worked with at Chick-fil-A didn't include me in their conversations. The Filipinos especially rarely took it upon themselves to talk to anyone who wasn't Filipino. It took them a long time to warm up to you, and even then mostly ignored you. I see it in my Africana Studies class, which has a large number of African-Americans (I don't even know what to call them. What is the PC term? Is it still African-Americans? Or can you use black without being misconstrued as a racist? Obviously negro and colored is out of the question, but is black still acceptable?) who don't talk to me, or if I ask them a question look down at me as if they can't waste their time answering a question for me. Or my professor who always gives the non-black kids the harder questions to answer. Why am I being held accountable for my ancestors actions hundreds and thousands of years ago?

We had a large argument in my Africana Studies class the other day about how my professor thinks that Africans and African-Americans need reparation for what happened to them. Not necessarily in terms of money, but in acknowledgment. Students offered up possible suggestions but nothing was good enough for him. He wanted a museum devoted to slavery (like how we had a Holocaust museum), but when someone told him there was one, he said it wasn't popular or big enough. When we talked about how you're taught in school from an early age about how bad slavery was, and how badly people were treated, but he said that wasn't good enough because we need to acknowledge that these people were large contributors to the development of our country. I mean, I kind of thought that was inherent in the history. I mean, how do you apologize for something like that? And that goes across the board, not just in the sense of African slaves in America, but even for the Jews in Europe (Note too that often the Gypsies and other people that were decimated in the Holocaust are often looked over too), and the native Africans in their own countries. And what about the Mexicans who are third and fourth generation Americans but still get treated like they're all illegal immigrants? America owes them about as much as they owe the Africans and African-Americans when it comes to development of our country. Or the Chinese railroad workers? I mean, you can go on and on and on about how no one (particularly whites, I suppose) fully appreciates or acknowledges what people of other ethnicities have done for us. How do you make up for that? Nothing is going to be good enough. I mean, obviously we've matured as a nation and have let go of some of that racism. I mean, hello, Barack Obama!

Although, on the other hand, I am always inspired to see the rebellion against the heavy fist of oppression. Every country in Africa had rebellions against the colonial governments and take overs. There were African slave rebellions in America, Jamaica and just about everywhere else. The Chicanas and Nuyericans and Cubans and Boricans all protested and fought for their rights, and today Puerto Ricans are still doing so. Has America forgotten that at one point we were there too? Remember the Revolutionary War? I also feel like people with different ethnic backgrounds forget that white people have to fight for freedom and rights too. Look at the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, it wasn't just African-Americans. It was women, and La Raza Unida, and the Young Lords. Gays are fighting for their rights now. Women are still fighting for their own rights to their own bodies, people are still fighting for unions, etc. etc. etc. Oppression is still here. And people are still fighting. It's not just a racial thing, it's a human thing.

and don't even get me started on corporations with factories overseas.

This hits me kind of hard too because I'm an anthropology major. I study people. I want to learn about different cultures and different people. But, it's hard for people to shake off their prejudices. And I am going to be affected by that. I am being effected by that. I understand that because I am a white female I have more opportunities than a lot of people. And I'm not saying that it's right, but that's the way it is. There can be the people who rise above the sad odds, and the people that use them as a scapegoat for being bitter all the time, but there can also be the people that really do get fucked over by the system. And I hate that. But I feel like all the negative things about race (which is kind of a defunct term. Many people will tell you there is one race, the human race. The more PC term is ethnicity, just fyi.) are centered around whites. But white people get fucked over too. And it severely bothers me that people forget that. Maybe it doesn't add up to the same amount of bad treatment, but it's still bad treatment. and surely we're not playing the my sorrow is worse than your sorrow game, are we?


It's not fair, on any level, for many many people. But what can you do? I don't know how to end this, because, quite honestly, where does it end? Just part of what I go through in my head almost every week day. Anyway, just rambling. Now, I'm going to try to take a nap

On the Etymology of the name Yaff

Dear Charles,
The name Yaff is also known in the West African Kingdom of Nso', Grassfields, the former British Southern Cameroons (Cameroon Republic). Yaff or Yav is a name of a mount to the west of Kumbo, the capital of this Kingdom or once compact empire. Also from this Kingdom are name like JAFF which stands for skin, and JAVE which stands for to divide. Slaves from this region were found in Nova Scotia, and others were intercepted by the British frigates going after slave ships in the 1840-60s in the Gulf of Guinea or the Northern Atlantic (African Ocean) and resettled in the Province of Freedom that later became known as Sierra Leone. There was a famous one freeman, slave called Bunngo later known as Robert Shilling. He was interviewed by Rev. Koelle of the Church Missionary Society, London. More could be read in "Polygotta Africana" by Koelle or in my forthcoming book. There should be a copy at the British Library, London or the Congress House.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Viban Viban Ngo.
for further inquiry visit my Blog.