Part Six

by Milton Allimadi

As European powers consolidated their colonial conquests in Africa, their book-writers and journalists churned out volumes of justifications for white supremacy. Not only were Africans unfit for self-rule, said the racial propagandists, Blacks were "too low down, too completely severed from the white," to even express indignation at being reduced to non-persons in their own countries. White writers were so brazen as to judge which African groups were most or least attractive and intelligent - praising the Masai, for example, as coming closest in appearance to "very respectable Europeans" while describing other Africans as "ape-like creatures." After generations of defamation, Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora were arguing among themselves over who "is closer to the white man."

by Bill Quigley

A year and a half after Katrina, much of New Orleans remains in ruins, with government at all levels actively preventing reconstruction that would allow hundreds of thousands of exiles to return. Locals refer to the devastation as having "the Grand Canyon effect" - when you see it in person it can take your breath away. Yet amidst official cruelty and callous neglect, volunteers feed hundreds of thousands of meals to their neighbors, and thousands of non-Louisianans donate their time and skills in the struggle to resurrect a city that was left to die.

Part Five

by Milton Allimadi

  The defeat of British troops by an African, Muslim army at Khartoum, Sudan in 1885 sent shockwaves throughout the European world. The Mahdi's triumph over colonial forces challenged both white and Christian notions of supremacy over "black savages" and "Mohammedans," sparking fears that all North Africa might rise in revolt. European and American "journalists" dubbed the Mahdi a "madman" - as if one must be mad to challenge white rule in Africa. Newspapers reworked old articles on African cannibalism and Muslim treachery, extolling white Christian rule as a civilizing necessity.