Spring Jazz Funk
It’s spring, the weather is getting nicer, and America is finally getting rid of Daylight Saving Time!
I have been really feeling this Jazz Funk playlist lately.
About Talia Whyte
Posts by Talia Whyte:
Book Review: White Malice
I’m one of those people who doesn’t like to judge a book by its cover. However, when I saw the cover for this book, I knew I needed to read it immediately, and it didn’t disappoint!
Susan Williams’ latest book, White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa, is a triumphant, well-researched contribution to the historical record of post-colonial Africa. The book focuses on the rise and tragic fall of Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba, the first leaders of independent Ghana and the Congo, respectively. Because of their left-wing, Soviet-leaning politics during the Cold War, they were easy targets by the U.S. government. The CIA did a lot of covert and not so covert activities on the African continent to protect its access to natural resources in Shinkolobwe’s uranium, which was central to the value of the Congo to the U.S. through the 1950s. “By 1959,
about 9 percent of the world’s copper, 49 percent of cobalt (rising to 54 percent in 1960), 69 percent of
industrial diamonds and 6.5 percent of tin came from the Congo.”
We all know that the CIA played a role in Lumumba’s assassination, but did you know that CIA may have also poisoned writer Richard Wright, causing his fatal heart attack? Or that the CIA spied on Louis Armstrong during a concert tour in the Congo? Or that Wole Soyinka was given a fellowship by a CIA-fronted organization? Or that the CIA allegedly spiked a drink Paul Robeson had in Moscow and made him delusional? Or that the CIA was behind many other people either dying or going missing under highly suspicious reasons in Africa, including Nkrumah?
This book is wild and full of CIA history tea! But it is also a long book. Clocking in at over 600 pages, White Malice is not for the casual reader but rather for serious students of African history, Cold War politics, or covert CIA activities. But I highly recommend reading it.
Time To Cancel The Empire
“There is no British history without the history of the empire.”
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are visiting some Caribbean nations this week, and there is a lot of resistance to their visit, especially in Jamaica. There were protests yesterday, demanding reparations from the British government for its role in the transatlantic slave trade. Some Jamaican politicians are in the process of removing Queen Elizabeth as the head of state.
Of course, there is also hostility from the African diaspora to the alleged racist treatment Meghan Markle has received from the British Royal Family.
“Jamaicans don’t want the Queen… If Harry [was coming], people would react different. People would go and meet Harry. But William, nobody wants to see that” – Beenie Man on Prince William and Kate’s Tour of Jamaica.
“Jamaicans don’t want the Queen… If Harry [was coming], people would react different. People would go and meet Harry. But William, nobody wants to see that” – Dancehall star Beenie Man on Prince William and Kate’s visit to Jamaica (via @GMB)pic.twitter.com/hLBNaMvQXb
— Dionne Grant (@DionneGrant) March 22, 2022
Another issue is the treatment of Windrush descendants – Jamaicans who came to Britain legally before 1973 and are now being deported back to the island.
The Gross Absurdities of White Privilege
I recently had a chance to watch Netflix’s Inventing Anna and Hulu’s The Dropout. Both of them are fabulous programs about how far a lie can go. Anna Delvey pretended to be a German heiress who scammed her way into New York’s elite society. The miniseries is based on the legendary New York magazine article about her. Elizabeth Holmes is the founder of Theranos, a company that claimed to diagnose medical ailments quickly through a blood testing machine. She thought she was going to be the next Steve Jobs, even wearing black turtlenecks to emulate the late Apple founder. In the end, she stole a lot of money from investors.
Both ladies were convicted for a garden variety of fraud charges.
Something that isn’t really discussed with these programs is how the women were able to get away with so much. I have a hard time believing that any woman of color would ever be taken seriously if she even attempted to commit this level of fraud. Being an attractive, young white woman does have a lot of cachet. The craziest thing about Inventing Anna happened in episode four when an investment banker just gives Anna a $40 million loan without a detailed background check or even a basic Google search on her. I remember applying for a $10,000 business loan years ago, and I was told to bring in five years of tax returns, W2s, 1099s, two government-approved photo IDs like a passport and driver’s license, and a host of other notarized paperwork just to be considered for an interview with the bank, which later denied me the loan.
Even Ryan Coogler can’t even withdraw $12,000 from his own bank account, but, sure, let’s give crazy Anna millions of dollars. In what galaxy does any of these make any sense?