I know you will probably hear this for the next few months so I’ll chime in: I can’t believe 2007 is gone! I DID warn you…

I can safely say that 2007 has been a busy year with many high’s and low’s for Africans on the continent and throughout the Diaspora; Our African warrior, Brother Toyin Agbetu, stood up for our Ancestors as the beast Britain tried to shaft us yet again with their Bicentennial ceremonies; while DNA scientist, James Watson insulted our intelligence with his foolish racist rhetoric. It indeed has been a busy year.

My mother use the say “the devil’s in the details” and as I look back at events that framed my year there were a lot of devilish works going on. I must say the proactive events following both the Jena 6 incident and the Don Imus “mouthful” have shown me that our people are realising, on a grander scale, their divine worth.

In the fall of 2006, two Black high school students sat under the "white" tree on their high school campus in Jena, Texas. White students responded to this by hanging nooses from the tree. When Black students protested the light punishment given to the students who hung the nooses, the District Attorney came to the school and told the students he could "take their lives away with a stroke of his pen”. Racial tension continued to mount in Jena, and the District Attorney did nothing in response to several egregious cases of violence and racist threats made against black students.

In contrast, when a white student who had been a vocal supporter of those who had hung the nooses was beaten up by Black students for taunting a fellow black student, and allegedly calling several of them by the "[n word]", all six black students were charged with second-degree attempted murder, and received sentences originally combined to over 100 years. However despite the fact that the District Attorney made every effort to ensure black folk beyond Jena did not get involved (i.e. subpoena the parents as witnesses), he failed to realise how powerful our kinship is.

On 20 September 2007, over 20,000 concerned citizens poured into the streets of Jena, Texas to show there indignation for these ridiculous sentences. “Mysteriously” sentences that couldn’t be changed were now being significantly reduced. Some of the six African teens who were charged as adults are now being re-charged as a minor, but their struggle continues which means our struggle continues.

Don Imus, a name synonymous with anti-African rhetoric in America, once again pulled his racist funnies out of his hat but this time not everyone was laughing along. In April 2007, when the African American Rutgers University women’s basketball team of New Jersey lost a game Don Imus, broadcaster of the radio and tv simulcast, Imus in the Morning, and his producer stated: “that's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos”, “some hard-core hos.”, “that's some nappy-headed hos there” and “the Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes.” MSNBC issued their standard statement stating that Imus’ views are not those of MSNBC. The National Association of Black Journalists became outraged and called for a boycott of Imus show. One by one the advertisers of the Imus in the Morning show began pulling out until a week later CBS pulled out as well and fired him.

African Americans’ indignation did not end there. They then turned their attention to the music industry with sights set at artists and their use of the n-word and misogynistic lyrics. In the spring of 2007 New York City Council voted unanimously to symbolically ban the n-word. In June 2007 at the 98th Annual National Convention in Detroit, Michigan the NAACP conducted a mock funeral to bury the racist epithet. While some of the tactics are a bit outlandish the principle remains the same: we can not re-define a word we never gave power to.

Indeed, 2007 proved to be a pivotal year in our struggle. Somewhere between the indignation and outrage we had an epiphany. Things became clearly to us. Our epiphany reminded us that we are all Africans. We’re beginning to realise that if you touch one African you touch all Africans. We’re finally understanding what it means to be our brother’s keeper and I hope we continue on our course.

I can’t wait to see what 2008 brings!

Coleen George