Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 33 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
OpEdNews Op Eds    H4'ed 1/16/22

Remembering the Door of No Return

By       (Page 1 of 4 pages)   1 comment
Message Dr. Lenore Daniels

When I hear of yet another ruling prohibiting the mention of the words race or slavery , I begin feeling queasy. I think back to 21 years ago when a white colleague informed me that my use of the word liberation was outdated. It was a throw-back to a bygone era. Blacks, this white woman informed me, were no longer in need of liberation.


In her, I recognized a woman reluctant to move forward. What knowledge did she possess in her arsenal to challenge not just those whom she would identify as outliers, white supremacist, with or without their white robes and hoods, but also those who looked like her? Who spoke like her of being a friend to others? Did she recognize her privilege as an American, and an inheritor of a dream denied to people who looked like me and whose ancestors labored, in bygone years, on plantations in the so-called New World? Frozen in her tracks, she believed she had arrived at a wish-for destiny. Perhaps, she had! Ironically, her allusion to black people no longer in need of any further liberation from white supremacy might be true.


In Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War (2021) , the professor of journalism, Howard French, writes that the site of forgetting "has been the minds of the people in the rich world." Born in Blackness is an account of that "forgotten European contests over control of the African bounty that built the modern world." Any account of the forgotten includes the "violent exploitation of people extracted from Africa" and taken to the New World to labor on notorious plantations for the benefit of generating wealth for western nations.


Africa, writes French, becomes "a big net recipient of ideas" that flowed to Europe. As Toni Morrison noted, Africa was the land where "whites went for self-realization, self-discovery, and loot," "The Foreigner's Home," in The Source of Self-Regard. It's only a matter of time before the "brutal arrangement" of a global economy sets into motion the birth of the "'modern'" world.

To research for his book, French first follows the maps, beginning with the 1339 map that survives today. Named after the cartographer, Angeline Dulcet, the Dulcet map, writes French, served as the founding document for the "so-called Majorcan school" of cartography as it would launch "what would become the Age of Discovery" for the whole of Africa.


In describing Africa, Dulcet's map appeals to veteran and would-be explorers who would land on the coast of Africa and cash in on the treasure troves of gold. Dulcet's map, in other words, "depicts the 'road to the land of the Negroes.'" The appearance of the Dulcet map begins the process of disappearing the lived experience of Africa, Africans, and their descendants.

Cartographers after Dulcet map out the world according to the location of gold. By the time of the Catalan Atlas, it was the mapmakers guiding European royalty to "the world's greatest source of the precious metal." And the European explorers landed, and, through the prism of greed, they saw not only the gold, but humans who could be made to labor, globally.

In the following century, Portugal, writes French, "won Church-sanctioned control of all of Sub-Saharan Africa" while Spain was granted control of over the Canary Islands. In time, Portugal could brag of "obtaining 8000 ounces of gold annually" from castle at Elmina. The Vatican-brokered deal meant that Portugal, in the long run, "became the much more powerful engine of modernity."

Next Page  1  |  2  |  3  |  4

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Must Read 1   Well Said 1   Valuable 1  
Rate It | View Ratings

Dr. Lenore Daniels Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Activist, writer, American Modern Literature, Cultural Theory, PhD.

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

Have You Had Enough of the Madness of Capitalism? Is It Time To Consider What Marx Really Said?

America's Embrace of Willful Ignorance

With Bloomberg, Are African Americans Trying On the Iron Boot?

Me Too: Abuse of Power and Managed Inequality

Get Out!: Harassment of Black Americans Has Historical Roots in American History

The All-Too Familiar American Narrative: Justice is too Scary! Witness 40 in Ferguson, USA

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend