Mijok Lang fled Sudan for his life. He does not know his birthday, and he never saw his people again.  He wrote a letter to God and it became a song of hope.

I follow African Perspectives on Facebook.  Thank you for sharing, African Perspectives!

Commitment
  Be true to...............Loyalty
  Exercise patience with..........Tolerance
  Seek to understand..............................Open Mindedness
  Set aside time to help.........................................................Flexibility

Documentary available at  http://cincinnatiiptv.com

"The Vanishing Black Male" at CincinnatiIPTV

Chances are that most of us may have never heard of the Sidis. They are a community in India whose roots lie in Africa. They were brought to India beginning in the 12th Century as slaves.  See Sidis and Scholars:  Essays on African Indians by Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy.

Not all Sidi ancestors were slaves.  Some were sailors, servants, and merchants who came as the result of the "sea trade through East Africa and the Gulf."  See The Lost Africans of India.  Much of the history of the Sidis is lost to them, however, a study of their music and dance bares resemblance to Africa.  Also, their hair and complexions and features are distinctly African.

Gazetteer, Volume 11

1st Afromexican Queen in La Costa Chica  by AfroMexico

If you think we know too little about African ancestored people in the United States, you would probably agree that we a totally ignorant to the experience of Africans of the Diaspora in a place like Mexico.  Many people do not realize that Africans were also brought to Mexico by slave ships.  Over Troubled Water was created to strengthen relationships between all African ancestored people.  In order to do that, we must learn about the history and the culture of African people everywhere.

Colonial Mexico


"In fact, during the colonial era, there were more Africans than Europeans in Mexico, according to Aguirre Beltrán's pioneering 1946 book, "The Black Population in Mexico." And he said they didn't disappear, but in fact took part in forging the great racial mixture that is today Mexico.

"There were blacks in Mexico from the moment of the Conquest....In Mexico, Blacks were a minority group. representing between 0.1% and 2% of the colonial population; the total number introduced by the slave trade was not much more than 250,000, over a period of three centuries.  But there were fewer Spanish than Blacks in New Spain.  On the other hand, the products of racial mixture, with Blacks as well as Spanish, were numerous: at the end of foreign domination in Mexico they represented 40% of the population, of which 10% were considered clearly Afro-metizo. ...The first contacts among Blacks, Indians, and Spanish took place by means of the Islamic Blacks from the Congo cultural area,...followed by contact with a few Black groups from the gulf of Guinea at the beginning of the last colonial century,"  said Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran to sum up the African presence in Mexico.  See The Garland handbook of Latin American Music, Volume 1 (Included at the end of this article.)

"Because of race mixture, much of the African presence is no longer discernible except in a few places such as Veracruz and the Costa Chica in Guerrero and Oaxaca," wrote Aguirre Beltrán.

Image via Wikipedia

It did not take long for the drafter of the Marriage Vow to figure out that it made strange bedfellows with the "slavery passage."

"Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President."


I guess that's what happens when you jump into things without thinking.  They solicited an additional signer in Rick Santorum before dropping the passage which now reads: click here.  Also, without the slavery passage, there is no need to embellish it with the following study which did not support or verify the slavery passage in the first place:  The Consequences of Marriage for African American Families.

I was able to determine this on my own because things are a lot different now than when were in 1860.  I can read, form my own perspectives, and write and share my opinions.  We are the Frederick Douglasses of our day.

Malcolm would be proud.  He once explained that we had become a different people than we were in slavery. We have become more educated, more conscious, and are making better decisions.  Thank you to George Geder for also writing about this topic. See Michele Bachmann Thinks Slavery Times Were Better for Black Children.  I appreciate all my followers on Facebook and Twitter for reading and sharing as well.

I am especially appreciative to Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post who said:

"Didn't want to stay together for the children, The Family Leader? Oh well, it may have disappeared from the pledge, but the internet never forgets." See "The Family Leader Drops Controversial Section From Marriage Vow Pledge."

We have separation of church and state so that no one religious group can force their doctrines upon any citizens of this country.  The false belief that people of a darker race were put on this earth here to serve the others because they were somehow perceived to be inferior or generally less than human and in need of direction of other races is a doctrine used to justify the enslavement of African people for hundreds of years.

It is impossible to form an alliance with anyone who sees you as less than equal.  Years of European and American Colonialism rested in the belief that we needed to be conquered and forced to be subservient to be considered acceptable.  When you begin to exercise your agency which is a purely human characteristic, you are interfering with some who still hold to this old frame of reference, and the reaction will many times be aggression,  control, and contempt.

It is wonderful that the slave passage has been blotted out, however, when will we see the perceptions that put it there in the first place blotted out as well?  Until then, it behooves us not to forget:

Image via Wikipedia

Michele Bachmann, 1st signer of original Marriage Vow

                                     Image via Wikipedia                                                  Rick Santorum,                                   2nd signer of original Marriage Vow

Image via WikipediaIf you just watch and listen long enough, people reveal who they truly are.  Given  a certain measure of influence and power, humility subsides, and tongues yield revealing anger, hate, and pride.  Conservative Bob Vander Plaats through his organization, Family Leader released a vow on marriage and the family. As complex as our social and economic issues are that we face, he complicated things even further by including slavery:

"Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President." Learn more.

I follow the Facebook page, African Traced Descendants of the Diaspora, and I saw the video that they posted today and was happy to see the news about the statehood of South Sudan:

• A New Country Emerges this Weekend (sullivanlibrary.wordpress.com)