Barack Obama checked by French Police

The black French anti discrimination organisation CRAN launched a major campaign against Police checks which are based on skin colour. The campaign began on January 12 with visit of the Obama look alike Michael Lamar.

CRAN states that visible minorities in France are likely to be checked 2 times more than others. Sometimes the same person can be checked several time a day. The organisation states that the checks reinforce stereotypes and discrimination.

Read:
French Group Uses Obama 'Double' To Highlight Racial Profiling
Press Release CRAN

Swan Lake Bijlmermeer II: Classical Ballet and Street Dance in the Netherlands

Swan Lake Bijlmermeer II is a dance encounter with the Dutch National Ballet and the Urban dance group 'Don’t Hit Mama'. It's meeting of the classic world of ballet and the dance culture in Amsterdam Bijlmermeer. The Bijlmermeer is considered to be the home of the urban Afro-Surinam community in the Netherlands.

Swan Lake Bijlmermeer II is a co-production with the Dutch National Ballet and Don’t Hit Mama in collaboration with Het 5eKwartier.

In 2006 young dancers from secondary schools in Amsterdam’s Bijlmermeer district took part in a dance encounter with Dutch National Ballet dancers. Entitled Swan Lake Bijlmermeer, the show was created by Nita Liem of Don’t Hit Mama dance-theatre at the invitation of the Dutch National Ballet. Taking themes from Swan Lake as her springboard, Liem worked with a mix of ballet and Afro-American-based dance forms, such as hip hop and street dance, to create Swan Lake Bijlmermeer. For many young and old alike, the show was often their first encounter with classical ballet and, conversely, the first time that many ballet lovers had come into contact with popular present-day dance forms. An exciting and unique encounter that resulted in sold-out performances.

In 2009 the Dutch National Ballet and Don’t Hit Mama are joining forces again to stage Swan Lake Bijlmermeer II and the show will tour the Netherlands. An ideal opportunity to experience this unique meeting of dance styles and different social worlds. In collaboration with Dutch ROCs (Regional Vocational Colleges) and VMBO schools (pre-vocational secondary), Het 5eKwartier will lead a special project centred round the performances. Specialists in community art, Het 5eKwartier will establish interrelationships in an innovative way between dance and the everyday life of students in the cities and towns to which Swan Lake Bijlmermeer II will tour.

Obama changes image of African-Americans in TV commericals

Does the role of Afro-Americans in ads change? The Superbowl offered some insight. Not the race for the finals of the American football, but the ads which frame the best viewed television event of the year - an estimated one hundred million viewers. Toyota shows it’s station car ‘Venza’ with a relaxed black man in a shiny apartment

Afro-Americans traditionally play a role in the media that confirms prejudices - criminals, firefighters, sports stars. That picture had already changed, but the ads during Superbowl showed that the election of Obama accelerated the development.

The Superbowl ads reminds of an interview with a marketing manager about why black people play stereotype rolls in TV ads. His answer: "I am hired to make money, not to change society."

Read: Obama also affects Super Bowl commercials (translated)

Black Television in Europe

Now that US entertainment network BET is broadcasting in Europe, it's time to look at black TV in Europe. A fast video overview.

In Europe Black TV reflects the differences between the communities. In France Afro-Caribbean Aka TV broadcasts professional web TV. In the UK the Ghanaian OBE TV broadcasts African programs and black European programs on Satellite. In the Netherlands SME TV broadcasts news and interviews on the public city TV network. And in Germany Cybernomads does event reporting via YouTube. On national TV in the UK and the Netherlands there have been black drama series, but nowadays the lack of diversity on UK and Dutch TV is epidemic.

Black celebrities speak about Obama

Entertainers, movie stars and celeb athletes share their private feelings about Obama. Thanks to the The Glamazon Chronicles

Do we want BET as black European television?

Should we be pleased with the European expansion of Black Entertainment Television BET?

BET, short for Black Entertainment Television, becomes mainstream in Europe. The company broadcasts Hip Hop, Jazz and Gospel music and various sitcoms, and life style shows. The channel started broadcasting in 2008 via the satellite network Sky UK, but rumors are that it will broadcast via the bigger media company UK Virgin TV in march 2009.

A black President, a new future

Will Smith said that the circle has closed. From slavery, to the civil rights movement and now to something no one could have imagined, a black President.

As I was standing in front of my TV for hours, I thought of all the books and conversations my friends and I had about the civil rights movement, Malcom X, and about being black in a white society. I remembered the pictures of black people being beaten when they stood up for their rights in Birmingham.

Somehow being black is being in a constant state of protest. Although there is still a lot to fight for, I know it's time to say good bye to all my images of the African American struggle and perhaps about being black. Reinventing blackness and move on to a new circle. Because the old one has now closed.

Meet the Afro-Turks

Afro-Turks are Turkish people who are the descendants of slaves from Africa. They were brought into Turkey during the Ottoman Empire or Turkish Empire (1299–1923) . Afro-Turkish writer Mustafa Olpak (56) gives the "Afro-Turks" a voice. "I am the first person who dares to say that my grandparents were slaves" In his book Olpak discusses how his African grandfather was purchased as a household slave by an Turkish family, and later moved to Istanbul after the Turkish Revolution in 1922.

Mustafa Olpak is the initiator of the African Organization for Solidarity and Cooperation, the organization has succeeded in organizing the old sacrificial feast of Afro-Turks, the Dana Bayrami, revitalization . That party had its peak between 1880 and 1920



Gülay Kayacan, who works for the History Foundation, an institute that researches and publishes articles on Turkish history, says that some of the Afro-Turks are descendents of slaves who used to work on farms or in houses. Slaves working in agriculture were concentrated in areas where cotton production was high. It is for this reason that most Afro-Turks today live on the Aegean coast and some in the Mediterranean region.

“Some 10,000 slaves, black and white, were brought into the Ottoman Empire every year. During the constitutional monarchy period (1876-1878), slavery was abolished and former slaves settled in areas where they used to work. Some of them were even given land by the government,” Kayacan says.

Some famous Afro-Turks

Hadi Türkmen, the former Turkish football federation manager







Tuğçe Güder a Turkish model who was chosen as the Best Model of the World - an international annual competition - in 2005







Read:
Afrotürkler-Afroturcs

Update: Mustafa Olpak, the founder of the AfroTurk organisation, died in October 2016.

In 2006, Olpak founded the first officially recognised organisation of Afro-Turks, the Africans' Culture and Solidarity Society (Afrikalılar Kültür ve Dayanışma Derneği) in Ayvalık. A principal aim of the association is to promote studies of oral history of Afro-Turks, a community history of whom was usually ignored by official historiography in Turkey. Olpak's legacy and the organisation will continue. 

The Turkish film Arap Kızı Camdan Bakıyor ("The Arab Girl Looks from the Window," released with the English title of Baa Baa Black Girl)  discusses how his grandfather was purchased as a household slave by a Turkish family, but later moved to Istanbul after the Turkish Revolution.

Estelle was right about the music business

Remember Estelle's comments she made about Duffy and Adele concerning music industry racism? One example is the difference between UK/European version of the video ‘Mercy’ and the US version of the video. In Uk/European version of the video there are only white people, in the US version there are numerous black people.

UK/European version


US version

Why the difference? Is the record company Polydor afraid of a bad response the US, because there are trying to sell music of a white European singer who sings black American music? And why are the black folks left out in the UK/European version?

It must be all carefully planned, because the big record labels are all part of the global conglomerate Universal Music Group (UMG). So Estelle, this is not a UK thing.

Assaulted Black German boy in Pömmelte has died

Kevin, a black German boy, who was brutally tortured by Neo Nazi's in 1996 in the German city of Pömmelte has died. On the 28 december 2008 Keven suddenly collapsed and died. But the cause of death has not been resolved. The lawyer of Kevin's mother has stopped the cremation, because the mother wants to clarify his dead. Kevin was 15.

In 2006 the 12 year old Kevin was attacked by five Neo-Nazi's in the city of Pömmelte Schönebeck. He was tortured for over an hour. According to a medical report he had 34injuries.

The criminals where found. Three of them were sentenced to three and a half year imprisonment, two others where given suspended sentences. In 2006 the small city of Pömmelte Schönebeck became headline news.

In a statement the lawyer of the mother explains why they want an investigation: "We have stopped Kevin’s cremation because - and this is unbelievable – we do not yet know whether the head of Kevin has been extensively examinated to find out if it's possible that the cause of death may be a late consequence of the then suffered skull-brain trauma."

Read:
Interview with Kevin: ‘Five Nazi’s took me and almost beat me to death’
On Black.in.NRW: Kevin (15) is dead

Rasheed Ogunlaru: "Become who you are"

Become who you are is the mantra of British personal life coach Rasheed Ogunlaru. Ogunlaru is a well-know speaker and coach. The first video I saw of him was the one about the President in you. But his mantra - to become who you are - is something I can live with. And now that it's just a few weeks before Obama will become officially president, here is the short flick.

Danny Glover's film 'The Revolution' will go on!

Danny Glover wants to make a film about the Haitian rebel leader Toussaint L’Ouverture, but he had trouble financing the film. Despite the set-backs, Glover confirmed that Toussaint is going ahead – and filming will begin this month

In an interview Glover said he was angry with Hollywood for refusing to put money behind the film. He said: ‘Producers told me: “it’s a great project but where are the white heroes?'

The film already has a glittering cast-list including Angela Bassett and Wesley Snipes. Don Cheadle plays Toussaint himself, while British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor and rapper Mos Def also features
Read:
The Revolution Will Be Televised
WILL DANNY GLOVER'S TOUSSAINT FILM EVER HAPPEN?
louverture films

Moroccan Ahmed Aboutaleb mayor of Rotterdam. A step forward?

AP wrote: 'A Moroccan immigrant was installed today as mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands' second largest city, in a move hailed as a significant step for the integration of minorities in the European Union nation. Ahmed Aboutaleb, who has dual Dutch-Moroccan citizenship, is the first Moroccan-born immigrant to be appointed a Dutch mayor. Some have compared his achievement to that of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.'

But I wonder if Aboutaleb’s appointment is a significant step for the integration of minorities in the European Union nation? To break it fast. In this case the answer is 'no'. Why?

Why does a political party moves a Maroccon muslim as mayor into a city which is the centre of the biggest anti-muslim movement in the history of the Netherlands? It would be same if Martin Luther King would have become the mayor of racist Birmingham Alabama in the sixties.

Politics in the Netherlands is becoming increasingly right wing. Even the party of Aboutaleb, the Dutch labour party, is making a move to the right by proposing hardline measures on ethnic minorities who aren't considered integrating.

To catch a bit of the Dutch climate today, some background. The murdered politician and populist Pim Fortuyn was a major force in the anti-muslim atmosphere in the Rotterdam and in the Netherlands. In parliament there is the anti-muslim party of Wilders, the one that made the anti-Islamic film Fitna. The party has 9 seats and is growing to 16 in the polls. Another party who's preparing for the next election with the same agenda has 9 seats in the polls. So this is not a Obama united country.

The answer to why Aboutaleb is mayor is not so difficult. His party wants him to break the anti-Islamic atmosphere in the Netherlands. And they want him to make sure that the party will have some political power left after the next election. But letting a 'minority' mayor solve minority problems is the same thing as asking Obama to stop the violence in the American ghetto's.

I hope Aboutaleb can bring about change. If he does he will not be the Dutch Obama, but the Dutch Aboutaleb.

And the black folks in the Netherland? There are and have been several black mayors, but never of a big city.

Read: The French (translated) comment on Bondy Blog of Aboutaleb