hen
you come to hear a speaker at Rev. Dr. Johnny Ray Youngblood’s St. Paul
Community Baptist Church in East New York, Brooklyn, you know it’s going
to be pretty special. That was certainly the case when the
internationally respected foreign policy advocate and author Randall
Robinson spoke there recently.
As to Robinson’s background, he established
TransAfrica in 1977 and was its President until 2001. TransAfrica’s
mandate was to promote enlightened, progressive US policies towards
Africa and the Caribbean. While President of that organization, he
spearheaded the US campaign to end apartheid in South Africa. His
leadership in support of the pro-democracy movement in Haiti caused the
US to lead the 1994 multi-national effort to return to power Haiti's
first democratically elected government. Robinson also fought
passionately to thwart US government attempts to end the Caribbean's
access to the European banana market.
Randall
Robinson’s books include national bestsellers The Debt: What America
Owes to Blacks, The Reckoning: What Blacks Owe to Each Other, and
Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from His Native Land.
Robinson, the recipient of numerous awards for his
global humanitarian work, now lives in St. Kitts with his wife and
daughter. He’s writing a new book on the impact of the US on the
English-speaking Caribbean.
Robinson began by speaking of the Black community’s
need for a collective Ministry of Information because you can't hold
people responsible for things they have no way of knowing anything about
– and they sure can’t find it out by reading the likes of the New
York Times, which either misinforms us about important issues or
omits them altogether.
He observed that what the media says about most
people of consequence is untrue. Take his dear friend of many years,
former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide who he called, "one of
the finest human beings I have ever met - an extraordinary man: a
democrat and a humanitarian." Yet, he said, "This man has been so mis-described
that I couldn't recognize my friend Aristide in the newspapers."
Robinson
explained that Aristide had only asked for a few things, one thing being
that, for the first time, wealthy Haitians pay taxes like any ordinary
citizens in a well-run democracy. But Haiti’s privileged class have had
their way for so long they really didn’t go for it. Besides, he
commented, "They were really bothered when this tiny, brilliant and
self-possessed Black man born in poverty became President in the first
place."
He added that America as well "isn't bothered by us
having leaders - as long as our leaders are not really our leaders. But
when you develop a mind of your own you get in trouble with America.
Because Aristide thought his responsibility was to serve the poor people
first, he had to go."
Robinson took the audience through what Aristide had
told him about the US-backed coup, the abduction of his wife Mildred and
himself from the palace, and their journey, against their will, to the
Central African Republic. This was where Robinson, accompanied by
Congresswoman Maxine Waters and a representative of the government of
Jamaica, went to get them.
The Central African Republic is a French military
dictatorship, and Robinson asked the General in charge whether Aristide
was being held prisoner or was free to go. The General replied
forthrightly, "Well, I might let him go. But first I have to clear it in
Washington."
After staying in Jamaica for about six weeks, the
Aristides went to South Africa where they were given the red carpet
treatment, and Aristide was welcomed as a Head of State. Now they both
have positions at the University in Pretoria. "In the meantime,"
Robinson said, "the rich families in Haiti are being kidnapped by the
very thugs they supported. They have learned the hard way that thugs
ain't got no politics."
Robinson also touched on the US Presidential
election, the genesis of AIDS, and the burgeoning for-profit American
prisons. He called this warehousing of American Black womanhood and
manhood "the new and modern slavery right before our eyes."
He spoke, too, about the division in the Black
community between those who were able to get themselves together after
slavery and Jim Crow, and those who couldn't and landed in prison.
"There are some who might quibble with me and say, ‘You do the crime;
you do the time,’" Robinson said. But, referring to himself and his own
fortunate upbringing, he explained, "There's a reason why I don't do
crimes, and a reason why people with different realities do. I had a
mother and a father. I wasn't afraid to face the judge; I was afraid to
face my mother." And we could see the quality that makes Randall
Robinson so rightly loved as he continued, "I don't consider myself
special or successful. I was lucky. While it's almost impossible for
some to succeed; it's almost impossible for me to fail."
Following his very moving talk, Robinson fielded
questions from the audience. A book signing session ended the event.
