Minister Faust's Blog, page 11

REGINALD HUDLIN ON BLACK PANTHER, LUKE CAGE, MOTION COMICS, AND FILMMAKING (MF GALAXY 061)

Reginald Hudlin is one of the most successful creators of film and television of the last twenty-five years. He leapt to prominence by writing and directing 1990’s House Party, an intelligent and hilarious film about African American teenage life, following that with, among other films, Boomerang, widely regarded as Eddy Murphy’s finest performance, and the acerbic satire The Great Whyte Hype.
In television, Hudlin created Cosmic Slop,and wrote for and produced Bebe’s Kids,one of the few animated series ever to focus on African characters in the US. He also helped launch Everybody Hates Chris, The Boondocks, and The Bernie Mac Show. He’s directed for many series, including The Office and Modern Family.
During three years as President of Entertainment for the American network Black Entertainment Television or BET, Hudlin, according to his website, “created 17 of the top 20 rated shows in the history of the network including the award-winning KEYSHIA COLE: THE WAY IT IS; AMERICAN GANGSTER; and SUNDAY BEST.”
The recipient of awards and widespread critical acclaim, Hudlin also co-authored the satirical and highly lauded graphic novel Birth of a Nation about East St. Louis seceding from the United States.
It’s Hudlin’s love of and work in comics that are the focus of this episode of MF GALAXY. Hudlin reputedly owns more than 50,000 comics, and while he was heading entertainment for all of BET, Hudlin somehow managed to write Black Panther for Marvel Comics.
Black Panther is the story of T’Challa, the king of the fictional African nation Wakanda, a country that throughout history was never conquered and achieved an unparalleled height of technology. Shockingly enough, Black Panther was created back in the early 1960s not by Richard Wright, George Schuyler, Charles Saunders or Octavia Butler, but by two of the giants of modern superhero comics, the Jewish-American creative geniuses Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, ironically just a few years before the birth of the Black Panther Party.
Under Hudlin’s creative control, Black Panther continued to combine martial arts, spy thrills, science fiction and mysticism, but more than ever a critique of American politics, an Africentric perspective, and a magnificent re-imagining of some of Marvel’s few African characters such as Luke Cage and Brother Voodoo.
Reginald Hudlin spoke with me by telephone from his home in Los Angeles on December 30, 2010. We discussed:
Why comic characters such as Blade could sustain three movies and hundreds of millions of box office dollars, but never be successful as comic books
Which has created better African characters: Hollywood, or American comic books?
The pioneering breakthrough of Milestone Comics and its dramatic conclusion
Hudlin’s approach to creating the Black Panther animated series and to rebooting Black Panther as a comic book
What the Black Panther has in common with George W. Bush
The danger of writing comics about comics, and
Hudlin’s reaction to attacks from rabid comic fans accusing him of racism for his work on Black Panther.
This episode’s conversation is from the archives of the Grand Lodge of Imhotep. Reginald Hudlin spoke with me by telephone from his home in Los Angeles on December 30, 2010. Along the way, Hudlin uses the acronym “IP,” meaning “intellectual property,” such as characters, settings, and stories. At one point in our conversation, I misidentified the Juggernaut as the Rhino, but Hudlin didn’t call me out.
We began by talking about the Black Panther. 

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The following material is exclusive to the patrons-only extended edition of MF GALAXY. You’ll hear Reginald Hudlin discuss:

Why some fans attacked him for marrying Black Panther to the X-Men character StormAudience and studio reactions against the sexualisation of African male charactersWhy Hudlin downplayed his signature humour for his run on Black PantherHudlin’s re-imagining of Brother Voodoo and Luke Cage, and the relationship between Cage and Black PantherHudlin’s favourite African comics and animation creators such as Kyle Baker, Christopher Priest, Denys Cowan, and his comments on the late, great writer Dwayne McDuffie, recorded just 44 days before his deathThe bigoted backlash against the Muslim Batman in the Batman Incorporated world, and the casting of Idris Elba in the movie ThorHudlin’s own resilience in the face of attacks from former friends and colleagues, including following his very public split with Boondocks animated series co-creator Aaron McGruder who attacked him again and againHudlin’s philosophy for success
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STEPHEN NOTLEY + MINISTER FAUST ON STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS (MF GALAXY 060)

HOW DERIVATIVE IS IT? WILL IT RESTORE LUCAS’S REPUTATION? WHO’S MORE HUMOURLESS: LUKE OR REY? DOES STARKILLER BASE MAKE ANY SENSE? WHO’S IN LOVE: REY/FINN, REY/KYLO, OR FINN/POE? Today’s episode is 100% non-stop spoilers. If you haven’t watched The Force Awakens yet, you obviously don’t care enough about Star Wars to care about these spoilers, or you’re in a coma. Either way, on we go.
Stephen Notley and I have been talking about science fiction and fantasy for more than 25 years. He’s the cartoonist who for more the last two decades has written and drawn the genre-hopping, politically satirical, gonzo fanboy comic strip Bob the Angry Flower about an evil, brilliant, and super-enthusiastic flower named Bob, and the panels of Bob frequently geek over everything S F & F.
Notley’s put out numerous Bob the Angry Flower compilation books and appeared at many major conventions including San Diego Comic Con. He has a vast following and counts among his fans no less than Joss Whedon, who also blurbed one of his collections.
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Of course I’m the author of the Philip K. Dick-shortlisted The Coyote Kings whose pages are bursting with genre references and even include a criminal gang called the FanBoys.
To talk The Force Awakens , this last Boxing Day, Notley and I sat down at Ninja Sushi on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton. They have not paid me to endorse them, but I will say they had great tuna. I also apologise to the couple sitting next to us who had to listen to us talk about Star Wars for 90 minutes. Which isn’t exactly true, because they left after 45.
If you’re listening on radio, strap in for this half-hour edition. If you’re listening via podcast, this is a special 90 minute version. Radio listeners can go to iTunes or mfgalaxy.org to get the Starkiller-size.
Notley and I will debate the following questions:
So, just how derivative was The Force Awakens?Will it help resurrect the reputation of George Lucas?How much did Lucas’s prequels successfully add to the Star Wars universe without getting any credit?Who’s better in a first movie appearance: Luke, or Rey? And who is more humourless?What’s the role of cuteness in Star Wars?Why isn’t Jaaku simply called Tattooine?When does Star Wars do planets right?How did Starkiller Base actually work?What do The Force Awakens and the original Battlestar Galactica have in common?Why does Han starts talking like Geordi LaForge?Is Poe the new Han Solo?Who’s in love—Rey and Finn, or Rey and Kylo Ren? And how will Disney decide?What’s the love and character arc parallel between The Force Awakensand Avatar: The Last Airbender?What’s the major writing no-no in how the script introduces and develops Kylo Ren, especially with his powers, his mask, and his swordsmanship?Who is Snoke? Why is he called Snoke? And why is he a giant Gollum?What was wrong in the generational values of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek reboot?The Han-Leia relationship and Han’s decline from general back to smuggler and bad father: well-written or a lost opportunity?Why should you read the novel Darth Plagueis?Does Finn possess the Force?Maz Kanata, Lupita Nyong’o. Is the character a Super Duper Magical Negro?And is JJ Abrams’ greatest Star Wars movie… Star Trek 2009?Along the way, Notley refers to local journalist and our mutual friend Fish Griwkowsky. I began by responding to Notley’s question, How many times have I seen the film?
BUY BOB THE ANGRY FLOWER BOOKS AND SWAG! AngryFlower.com

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MILTON DAVIS, AUTHOR OF MEIJI, ON SELF-DETERMINATION PUBLISHING (MF GALAXY 059)

INDIE PUBLISHING BUSINESS SKILLS + ATTITUDES, EMULATION, DON’T OVERSTRESS GENRE, HOW TO ACT AT BOOK SHOWS, AND WHY YOU NEED TO ORGANISE YOUR OWN EVENTS, AND WHERE YOU SHOULD BE DOING IT
On his website, Milton Davis describes himself professionally as being a “full time chemist and a part time writer.” But I’d say he’s full-time both. Like any chemist, Davis is focused on creation, synthesis, reaction, and results. Theory’s not enough. Experimentation and production are the whole point.
Milton Davis writes Africentric science fiction, and also sword & soul, the Africentric answer to the Eurocentric fantasy subgenre sword & sorcery. He’s best known for his novel Meji, and he’s also a pioneer in the genre called steamfunk, the Africentric response to the unquestioned Eurocentric imperialism of steampunk.
Davis is also an independent publisher and the founder of MVMedia, an Atlanta-based company that publishes his work, novels by Balogun Ojetade, and anthologies that he and legendary novelist Charles R. Saunders edit. Davis went indie because he knew that he couldn’t wait for Euro-American Big Publishing to appreciate his work or even bother to try to sell to his audience.
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As many of us have learned through bitter experience, too many editors in Eurocentric Big Publishing believe that Africans in the US, Canada, and elsewhere don’t read. MVMedia is just one example of how very wrong they are.
In today’s episode of MF GALAXY, Davis discusses:

The business skills and attitudes he brought to indie publishing and the knowledge he’s gained since startingThe indispensability of emulationWhy in your sales strategy, you shouldn’t place too much emphasis on genreHow you need to behave when you’re at a book table or book show with your booksWhy you need to organise your own events, and where you should be doing itHow a science fiction site from Australia helped launch his career, andHow his embrace of Africanity stands in direct contrast to the current rejection of Africanity in the guise of emphasising so-called “Blackness”
Davis spoke with me from his home in Atlanta by Skype on December 11, 2015. At the beginning of our conversation you’ll hear someone coughing; that’s not me or Davis, but his son who was nearby.
I began by asking him what made him pursue indie publishing in the first place.
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TED BISHOP, AUTHOR OF THE SOCIAL LIFE OF INK, ON CRAFTING NARRATIVE NON-FICTION (MF GALAXY 058)

HOW THE BANFF CENTRE CHANGED HIS LIFE, WHY YOU NEED TO LEARN TO WRITE PROPOSALS, HOW TO BE FAIR TO YOUR REAL-LIFE SOURCES, AND WHAT TO WRITE AFTER YOUR HIT

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In 2014, Ted Bishop did the surprising: he wrote a book about ink, and it became a success. The book fits into a genre sometimes called commodity biographies which investigate how human needs produced a product to solve problems, and the problems and opportunities that product eventually created for its creators and humanity.

That story is the story of writing itself, of course, so it’s no wonder that Bishop, an English professor at the University of Alberta, would take it on. If there’s a stereotype of what an English professor is, Bishop isn’t it. With his facial features, beard, and slight stature, he looks very much like young George Lucas, although his hair is grey.

Bishop’s previous book, Riding with Rilke, was a Best Book choice of the Globe & Mail, CBC, and Playboy about the amazing people he met during his own motorcycle odysseys across North America that ended with a 160 km/h wipe-out and a back broken in two places. He lived, walked again, and wrote The Social Life of Ink.

I sat down with Ted Bishop on February 02, 2015 at the University of Alberta’s Humanities Centre to ask him about the craft of long-form nonfiction. Along the way, we discussed:


Why he so values the world-renowned Banff Centre for the Arts, with artist residencies that give writers space, time, meals, and as a beautiful a setting as any place on the planetWhy writers need to learn how to write proposals, and condense 30 pages of writing into 3 paragraphsWhy long form writing is like hiking in the rain for eight hours before you can get into dry clothes,How to render real people as great characters, without turning them into caricatures, andHow to decide what to write and what not to write after you’ve written a hit book. LISTEN/DOWNLOAD

tedbishop.com
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AUTHOR KRISTA D. BALL ON SUPERCHARGING INDIE NOVEL SALES (MF GALAXY 057)

WHY AND HOW TO START A MAILING LIST, CREATE AN AUTHOR CENTRAL PAGE, THE SWEET SPOT FOR EBOOK PRICING, WHEN AND WHY TO OFFER DISCOUNTS, AND WHY BUNDLING WITH OTHER AUTHORS FOR 99 CENTS CAN EARN YOU THOUSANDS

Last fall I was one of the guests of honour at Pure Spec, one of E-Town’s most important conventions, and because I was giving a talk, I missed a session that people were raving about. They said that an indie author who’d had major sales was handing out her success secrets for free!
Being an indie author myself and also very, very cheap, I immediately cursed myself for having missed such an excellent chance, and then remembered, Dude, you’ve got a podcast! You can ask anybody for anything!
So I asked Krista D. Ball to tell me and thus you how she went from a low-selling epic fantasy series to being able to pay her mortgage from book sales.

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Krista Ball is not only a charming and delightful interviewee, she’s also the author of 13 novels and novellas including the Spirit Callerseries, the Historical Writing Guides Series, First (wrong) Impressions, and Limelight.
In today’s episode of MF GALAXY, she tells us:
How she boosted her sales from nearly zero to clearly heroThe importance of starting a mailing list, and what service to run that listSetting up your Author Central page on AmazonThe sweet spot for pricing ebooks, when to throw a discount on them, and whyWhat “supported sales” are, and why you need themHow and why to make boxed sets and bundles of ebooksThe importance of cover design and where and how to commission one, andWhy it pays authors to have one of their books bundled with those of six other writers even though the entire bundle will be sold for only 99 centsKrista Ball spoke with me by Skype on November 25, 2015. During our conversation she cites E-Town author Eileen Bell, author of Seeing the Light and The First Circle,and I cite E-Town author Wayne Arthurson, author of the Leo Desroches mystery novels.I began by asking Krista to reveal her strategies for how an indie author can sell more books.

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If you’re looking for awesome audiobook enjoyment, visit my Minister Faust is Creating Audiobooks page on Patreon . Tomorrow, December 23, 2015, episode 2 of The Coyote Kings, Book One: Space-Age Bachelor Pad goes live with one solid hour of entertainment, plus bonus features!



Coming up next episode: Ted Bishop, author of The Social Life of Ink.

MICHAEL PARENTI ON THE ASSASSINATION OF JULIUS CAESAR (MF GALAXY 056)

PULITZER-NOMINATED AUTHOR ON THE ROMAN PRO-DEMOCRACY STRUGGLE AGAINST THE ELITISTS WHO ASSASSINATED CAESAR, AND THE STRIKING PARALLELS BETWEEN THE POLITICAL CRISIS OF ANCIENT ROME AND THE MODERN USA
Political Scientist Michael Parenti is a tireless activist-academic who has taught at many colleges and universities inside and outside the United States. He is acelebrated lecturer whose humour and anecdotes have delighted audiences across the world, in person and via broadcast.
Hundreds of his articles have appeared in scholarly journals, political periodicals, and popular magazines and newspapers. Michael Parenti is author of more than 20 books on the power of media, political elites, the wealthy, and US imperialism. His writings have been translated into 17 languages and include: Profit Pathologies and Other Indecencies   The Face of Imperialism, and  To Kill a Nation, The Attack on Yugoslavia His 2003 history The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome received a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize. Kirkus Reviews calls it “savagely entertaining ... history at its most provocative.”

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Way back in 2003, the Parkland Institute in cooperation with the University of Alberta Students’ Union Revolutionary Speakers Series hosted Dr. Michael Parenti at the Myer Horowitz Theatre. He joined me at CJSR studios for conversation about:The reasons why establishment historians have hidden the full story of Julius Caesar for more than 2000 yearsWho the Roman population really were, regardless of the slurs cast by elite historiansThe pro-democracy struggle of ancient Romans against the elitists who assassinated Caesar and those who provided ideological cover for it such as Cicero and Cato, andThe striking parallels between the political crisis of ancient Rome and the modern United StatesGet the book
THE ASSASSINATION OF CAESAR
A Republic Against Caesar - Class Power and Conspiracy in Ancient Rome
43-minute DVD $14.00
Michael Parenti CDs and mp3s
Michael Parenti DVDs
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To hear nearly one hour of bonus content featuring my conversation with Michael Parenti, click here to become a sponsor for a dollar or more per week. 
By funding MF GALAXY, you get access to all extended editions of the show, plus video excerpts from selected interviews as they become available. This extended edition includes Michael Parenti discussing:The degree to which Marxism is relevant to the post-Soviet worldCorporate media coverage of the peace movement’s opposition to the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq, and how that compares with corporate media’s coverage of the US war against VietnamThe US government’s opportunistic exploitation of the September 11th attacksThe best practices of the peace movement, andHis approach to humour in public speakingYou’ll also hear Parenti, at my request, reciting a touching poem from one of his collections, and explaining the significance bread and soda pop to his childhood and the fate of this father
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COUNTERSPIN HOST JANINE JACKSON ON U.S. CORPORATE NEWS SELF-CENSORSHIP, ITS CASE FOR TORTURE, AND WHY RIGHT-WINGERS DOMINATE TALK RADIO (MFG 055)

Janine Jackson is the program director of FAIR, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, which produces the nationally-syndicated weekly radio show CounterSpin that uncovers bias in US corporate journalism.
Her articles have appeared in sources such as In These Times, and she frequently contributes articles on media, racist coverage, and labour struggle to FAIR’s magazine Extra! She’s also testified before a US Senate subcommittee that funds the American network PBS.
In today’s episode of MF GALAXY, Jackson discusses:
How FAIR and CounterSpin pick the stories to investigate about where corporate media got it wrong or didn’t get it at allWhy the people at FAIR and CounterSpin object to being called “journalists”The reasons why US media stopped reporting about the US bomber who killed Canadian troopsWhy corporate news censors itselfHow US corporate news made the case for torture, andWhy right-wing cranks dominate US talk radio and whether US radio progressives need to change their game
We spoke at the offices of FAIR in Manhattan in the summer of 2002, for an episode of my old radio show The Terrordome that ran on CJSR FM88 the following October.
A few notes: in the second half of the episode I refer to peace-keeping forces, but while asking about Canadian soldiers during Canada’s war against Afghanistan. They and the occupation troops that followed were definitely not peace-keepers on a mission, but soldiers at war.
Also, I refer to TV host Bill Maher as having lost his career. Back in 2001, Maher lost his show for disputing George W. Bush’s characterisation of the 9-11 hijackers as “cowardly,” because in Maher’s estimation, no matter how evil the attack was, a suicide bombing, unlike launching cruise missiles from more than 3000 km away, was not cowardly. Maher, of course, got another TV show, moved further right, and has enjoyed an endless stream of money ever since.
Finally, our discussion of torture took place two years before the revelations of systematic American torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
To hear the extensive archive of CounterSpin episodes, visit FAIR.org and click on the CounterSpin links, or search for the podcast on iTunes.
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By funding MF GALAXY, you get access to all extended editions of the show, plus video excerpts from selected interviews as they become available. Today’s bonus content includes Janine Jackson discussing:Michael Moore and Jim HightowerRight-wing TV hosts Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, and why CounterSpin hosts seemed to take particular delight in exposing the inanities of right wing 20/20 reporter Jon StosselThe effects of identity politics on left journalism years before the popularization of the term “intersectionality”The revolutionary political potential of labour-owned media on the scale of a national newspaper or network

TARIQ ALI ON WHY US LIBERALS BACK GLOBAL WAR, US-CHINA RIVALRY IN AFRICA, AND THE WESTERN DESTRUCTION OF LIBYA (MFG 054)

Author-activist-artist on Christopher Hitchens selling out, why the US didn’t wage war against Iran, and why corporate journalists are simply drones for war
Tariq Ali is an internationally renowned radical activist, author, and atheist. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Ali lived in exile since the 1960s in opposition to Pakistan’s then-military dictatorship. A novelist, Ali has published four books of his “Islamic Quintet" which portray Islamic civilisation counter to Western orthodoxy, and the first two volumes in his "Fall of Communism" trilogy. He’s also written for the stage and the screen.
A longtime editor at the New Left Review, Tariq Ali has written and edited numerous books on history and politics including the classic The New Revolutionaries, The Clash of Fundamentalisms which investigates US power and its role in the creation of global terrorism, Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope, and his recent book, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad, available from Verso.
In our conversation, he discusses, among many topics:
Why US liberals back Barack Obama’s agenda for global warThe US-China rivalry across the African continentWhat would likely have resulted from what then seemed nearly inevitable: an American war against IranThe complexities of the Western destruction of Libya and the re-demonisation of Qadhdhaafi
Many thanks to the International Centre at the University of Alberta for arranging the interview. Ali spoke with me in the lobby of the Hotel MacDonald on January 29, 2012. Note that Ali spoke with me a full year before the death of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.
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To hear the patrons-only extended edition of my conversation with Tariq Ali, click this Patreon link to become a sponsor for a dollar or more per week.
By funding MF GALAXY, you get access to all extended editions of the show, plus video excerpts from selected interviews as they become available. This extended edition includes Tariq Ali discussing:
The shocking violence of Evo Morale’s government in Bolivia against indigenous protestorsThe depth of the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela and elsewhere, andTariq Ali’s own political convictions over the decades.

AMY GOODMAN ON DEMOCRACY NOW’S MISSION, CANCELLING THE INTERNET KILL-SWITCH IN EGYPT, THE SCAM OF FOREIGN AID, AND BEATING MSNBC (MF GALAXY 053)

Maverick journalist on torrenting for democracy, what connects the Egypt Revolt, and the occupation of Palestine, and whether future USA is friendly or fascist
Amy Goodman has hosted Democracy Now! since 1995. It’s heard and now watched across the world on the web, and broadcast from over 1200 stations. Harvard graduate Goodman first received widespread attention for her work while she was covering the Indonesian army’s mass-killing of Timorese demonstrators.
Increasingly since 1995 she and Democracy Now! have been at the forefront of American progressive reporting on war, peace, and social justice issues that corporate news cannot or will not cover. Amy Goodman is the author of four books including Breaking the Sound Barrier, an anthology of her columns. She’s won numerous awards, including the Right Livelihood Award, often called the Alternative Nobel Prize. 
This episode’s conversation is from the archives of the Grand Lodge of Imhotep in Edmonton. Amy Goodman spoke with me by telephone on February 17, 2011, a mere 15 days after the Canadian magazine Adbusters called on pro-democracy activists to occupy Wall Street, more than a year before the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement, and two years before the seemingly unstoppable rise of DAESH or ISIL.
We discussed:
Democracy Now’s pioneering use of then-new file-sharing hacks back in 2003 to smuggle footage out of US-occupied Iraq, and their workarounds to get news out of Egypt during the kill-switch blackout of the anti-Mubarak uprising The relationship between the Egypt Revolt and the occupation of PalestineThe scam of so-called “foreign aid” that instead of helping poor people overseas is actually corporate welfare feeding the super-rich at homeHow and why Democracy Now! is available to more people than is MSNBCHer commentary during the Egyptian Revolt as to its nature, aims, and likely results, and why she chose to call the ouster a revolution, andWhether major change to the United States will come from progressives, or from fascists
To watch or listen to Democracy Now!, visit democracynow.org and sample from their massive archive of news and interviews with world-shaping activists, artists, academics, and intellectuals from across the planet.
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RUNOKO RASHIDI ON AFROCENTRICITY, AFRICAN PRESENCE IN EARLY EUROPE AND ASIA, AND HISTORICALLY TOURING THE AFRICAN PLANET (MFG 052)

Even today, Hollywood’s Pink-Washing produces Whitesupremacist revisionism of African civilisations through work such as The Gods of Egypt, Exodus: Gods and Kings, and the HBO series Rome whose second season visits Greek-occupied Egypt.


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Fortunately, numerous scholars and activists have dedicated their lives to erasing such lies and restoring the truth about the Africanity of world-shaping ancient civilisations such as Ancient Egypt.


One such scholar-activist is Runoko Rashidi, an historian and world traveler who for decades has investigated the ancient migrations of Africans out of the mother continent and across the world. His work highlights the civilisations they founded and the titans they produced, especially in early Asia and Europe. He’s lectured in over 50 countries, and his articles have appeared in more than 75 publications.



Rashidi is the author of the books Introduction to the Study of African Classical Civilizations, The Global African Community: The African Presence in Asia, Australia and the South Pacific, and A Thousand Year History of the African Presence in Asia. With Ivan Van Sertima he co-edited The African Presence in Early Asia. For years he hosted educational tours of archeological sites.


In today’s episode, Rashidi discusses:


The influence on him of the great scholar Ivan Van Sertima, author of They Came Before ColumbusThe Dalit nation, or so-called “Untouchables” of IndiaHis appraisal of the how the weakest links in the Afrocentric academic movement are mirroring the mistakes of Eurocentric scholarshipThe contemporary scholars whose work he admiresContinent-shaking Africans in European and Asian history, andThe astonishing ancient Indian civilisations of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro


This episode’s conversation is one of the last interviews I recorded for my CJSR show Africentric Radio. Until now, it’s been entombed in the archives of the Grand Lodge of Imhotep—so I’m delighted to bring it forth by day for you. Runoko Rashidi spoke with me by telephone from his home in Los Angeles on February 26, 2012.

I began as I often do by asking him to talk about his favourite teacher. His response is powerfully introspective, revealing, and refreshingly honest.

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To hear the patrons-only extended edition of my conversation with Runoko Rashidi, click on the Patreon link to become a sponsor for a dollar or more per week.

By funding MF GALAXY, you get access to all extended editions of the show, plus video excerpts from selected interviews as they become available. This extended edition includes Runoko Rashidi discussing:

How to preserve the archeological remnants of ancient African civilisations in the face of cultural Arabisation and war, andThe historical guided-tours he leads of West and North Africa, Europe, and Asia, and how some people learn or change as a result 
If you enjoyed this episode of MF GALAXY, be sure to download the previous two shows: Black Athena Author Martin Bernal on the African Origin of Ancient Greece, and Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilise Ancient Europe, with author Richard Poe
COMING IN DECEMBER, don’t miss the serialized AUDIOBOOK VERSIONS of my cult-classic novels THE COYOTE KINGS and my award-winning SHRINKING THE HEROES, available exclusively on PATREON!