Mr. James Lafayette- a bad-ass that you should get to know
Commentary by Chitown Kev
One of my favorite things about doing a column like this biweekly thingy that I do here on The Porch is not only that I get to look a bit deeper into the things that I do know but that I discover so much that I don’t know about black history and black culture. As I stated in a previous commentary on the subject:
In fact, to this day I don’t think that I have ever taken a course in black history (or literature, for that matter); my knowledge of black history has largely been a matter of self-study.
As a result, I have a lot of weak areas in my own largely self-studies of black history.
For example, I’ve read very very little precolonial history of the African continent; what little I have read was largely as a result of having studied (and majored in) classical civilization (I have read Martin Bernal’s Black Athena but I am nowhere near proficient enough in the requisite languages to have an informed opinion on specific areas of that controversy).
I know so little about the history of black people in colonial America (other than that African were brought here to be slaves and that from capture to enslavement, the experience of African slaves was absolutely horrific) that merely looking at this timeline of the 17th century was informative. The only personalities that I am familiar with from that time are Crispus Atticus (which many of us learn about in school) and the Salem “witch,” Tituba.
Doing this column is, in a very real sense, part of my own continuing education.
So my ears perked up when I ran across this tweet in my twitter feed.
James Lafayette?
Had never heard of him.
To me, it’s not only interesting from a black historical perspective; I recall reading a number of books about the CIA, the KGB, AND MI6 in high school as well as going through a phase of reading espionage novels at that time.
In fact, I wanted to be an intelligence agent as well as a diplomat at one point during high school and, every so often, I still read fiction and non-fiction books related to espionage and the intelligence services.
I’m ashamed to say that I had never heard of or ran across the name of James Armistead Lafayette in anything that I had read (or if I had, I don’t remember doing so...and I have a pretty good memory for things like this).
And so off I go into the GoogleBoomTube…
First, a look at the Wikipedia bio
Armistead, an enslaved man, was owned by William Armistead of Virginia. Most sources indicate that James Armistead was born in 1748 in New Kent County, Virginia, though others put his birth around 1760 in Elizabeth City, Virginia.
In 1781, after getting his master's consent, Armistead volunteered to join the army under Lafayette. He utilized him as a spy, posing as a runaway slave. He joined the camp of Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, the turncoat who was leading some British forces in the area. Pretending to be a spy for them allowed Armistead to gain Arnold's confidence to the extent that Arnold used him to guide British troops through local roads. "The ex-slave, who later renamed himself James Armistead Lafayette in the general's honor, served as a double agent against the British under the avowedly antislavery Lafayette."[2]
After Arnold departed north in the spring of 1781, James went to the camp of Lord Charles Cornwallis and continued his work. He moved frequently between British camps where the officers would speak openly about their strategies in front of him. Armistead documented this information in written reports, which he then delivered to other American spies. In this way, he relayed much information about the British's plans for troop deployment and their arms. The intelligence reports from his espionage were instrumental in helping defeat the British during the Battle of Yorktown.
(Just as sort of a offhand comment, Mr. Lafayette would have to be considered to be a ‘’bad ass’’ at any age to have done the particular type of espionage activities that he undertook but I do have to say that if he was in his early 20’s at the time of his espionage— as opposed to being in his early 30’s, as some sources seem to indicate— then Mr. Lafayette was a young ‘’bad ass,’’ at that...and that’s a good thing.)
It’s also important to note, as Ken Daigler, a retired CIA officer who specialies in Revolutionary War intelligence operations, reminds us, that '’there were no laws prohibiting education of slaves in the Virginia colony at that time’’ (in fact, even in the slave states, such legal prohibitions happened at a more gradual pace than I knew before writing this).
So James Lafayette had more than enough basic literacy skills to gather all types of oral and written intelligence for the Revolutionary War army when, with his owner’s consent, he joined the Army and was assigned under allied forces commander Marquis de Lafayette.
Talk about disguises...from the Daigler essay, which Mr. Daigler classifies under ‘’folklore’’:
Lafayette was aware that the British knew James from his travel about the area for his master and therefore his comings and goings would seem normal and usual. Claiming to have run away from his master, James became a servant in British Gen. Charles Cornwallis’s headquarters, where he was able to overhear British plans and intentions, and even read documents from headquarters desks. He passed this information, and information from other sources behind British lines, back to Lafayette. He was also involved in a well thought-out deception operation by Lafayette to cause the British to believe the Continental forces were larger than they actually were.
Cornwallis, believing that since James knew the area so well and could, as a slave, move about without attracting much attention, recruited him to spy on American activities. James used this status as a reason to move between the two armies so he could report to Lafayette. After the surrender at Yorktown, Cornwallis saw James at Lafayette’s Headquarters and realized he had been fooled.
Daigler examines the available documentary evidence of James Lafayette’s activities and, while concluding that he had ‘’a somewhat broad access to British activities, perhaps even to papers in Cornwallis’s headquarters,’’ there is a lot that we do not and cannot know conclusively...and that’s as it should be
Bottom Line: James Lafayette was a brave American spy, who put himself in danger for the American cause. Unlike Nathan Hale, whose mission was unsuccessful, his intelligence activities produced important information which assisted Lafayette in keeping British forces in the tidewater until the American-French Army could force their surrender. How he did this is not documented. Indeed, the operational security that protected details of his operations also insured his personal safety.
Good spies seldom leave a detailed record of successes – while poor spies often leave such a record of their failure.
Yet after the cessation of Revolutionary War hostilities, Lafayette was not granted immediate freedom by his owner, William Armistead because according to Virginia law, James was a ‘’spy’’ as opposed to a ‘’soldier.’’
Mr. Lafayette did petition the Virginia Assembly for his freedom and, with written testimonials of his owner, William Armistead (a member of the Virginia House of Delegates) and Lafayette, himself, was granted his freedom by the Virginia Assembly January 9, 1787.
James Lafayette remained in Virginia and became a successful farmer. In 1818, he applied for and received pension benefits from the Virginia legislature and died August 9, 1830 in Virginia.
When I read stories of heroism and competence such as was demonstrated by Mr. James Lafayette, I am reminded of just how much the desription of slavery as this country’s ‘’original sin’’ is so apt.
The competence, intelligence, desire for freedom, etc. has always been present among black people...black Americans.
And as angry as I can get at stories like Mr. James Lafayette’s, I also find it rather sad that I live in a country that has chosen to deprive itself of so much...intelligence and talent and bravery and competence simply in the name of white supremacy and for no other reason.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has recognized only four African Americans, all men, with Oscar nominations for Best Director: John Singleton (“Boyz N the Hood,” 1991), Lee Daniels (“Precious,” 2010), Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight,” 2017) and Jordan Peele (“Get Out,” 2018). The Hollywood Reporter brought them together to discuss the significance of their nods, what can hold Black directors back and the representation of Black people on the silver screen. The article, notes that neither these men nor the one other Black Best Director nominee, Britain’s Steve McQueen, have actually won the award. Here are four poignant quotes from the roundtable:
Singleton on fearing his “Boyz N the Hood” nomination:
“I thought it meant my career was over. I thought, ‘That’s their way to get me out.’ I was really very humbled by it, too. I was a year out of film school when it happened, and I just sat down and tried to write and study film even more than I already had so I was up to that honor. At the same time, as a Black man in America, my other fear was not wanting to necessarily lose myself in the hype of Hollywood.”
Daniels on changing industry barriers that hold back Black filmmakers:
“If you really want to be real, we could only do ‘Black’ stories. And until recently, it was, ‘How can Black movies make money?’ I don’t know if you can call it racism, maybe it’s just the business and the naivete about who our audience was. People have learned through ‘Empire,’ ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Get Out.’”
Jenkins on losing Best Director but still winning:
“I have mixed emotions. It’s cool to be here now a year later because all the things I felt like I wanted to do heading into the ceremony, I did. We went and made ‘If Beale Street Could Talk,’ and we’re making ‘Underground Railroad‘ at Amazon. Those were things that were going to happen whether we lost or won. And for two minutes, we lost. And in those two minutes, I was still self-satisfied because I knew I’m going to go off and do these things, you know? Winning or losing is not gonna take any of those things off the table.
Peele on his doubts about ”Get Out”:
“Oh, I didn’t know that they’d even make [the film]. [Laughs.] So, when I finally got to, ‘This movie’s getting made,’ I was like, ‘Okay, okay, well, if it ever gets released—which, we’ll see—it’s going to do something special.’ But from a business standpoint, I knew if I gave the Black audience the movie that they’ve been yelling for my whole life, that would be big. And I knew that if I gave the horror audience—another loyal fan base—a movie that they hadn’t seen in a while, a throwback piece to some of film lovers’ favorite horror movies, then that would be something. And then I just hoped everybody else would come together.
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Jackie Aina made history as the first social media star to receive the coveted NAACP Image Award. The Glow Up: Jackie Aina: YouTube Style Warrior
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Beauty vlogger Jackie Aina, 30, is a member of the U.S. Army Reserve and has two million YouTube subscribers and counting. Averaging around 600,000 views per post, her funny and frank videos like “Bougie and Bad on a Budget” and “Edges Slaughtered” bring the real on the makeup tip, touching on issues of race and money in ways that make viewers laugh as much as they learn.
The Glow Up caught up with Jackie a few days after she made history as the first social media star to receive the coveted NAACP Image Award. She told us:
Ten years ago, when I started my YouTube channel, it was hard for me to find darker-skinned black women that did makeup the way I like to. I was used to hearing that things ‘don’t look good on you’ or ‘you can’t wear that kind of makeup.’ I struggled with being a woman who—people see you with makeup on and dressed nicely, people assume ‘she doesn’t work very hard, because she doesn’t have to’—[it] made being taken seriously a struggle.
Obviously, as a member of the U.S. Army Reserve, Jackie is no stranger to hard work. She says “women who enjoy makeup and feeling good, there’s often a lot more to it” citing the example of women recovering from cancer learning to put their eyebrows back on, or women in uniform, like herself, that want to assert their individuality.
“I’m a double minority as a black woman so I fight through a lot in that regard,” she says. As a woman in the military, “people think we’re tomboys or slobs; they say ‘You’re too pretty, how could you be in the army? Whatever that means”
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THE well-heeled residents of Legetafo are not used to demonstrations. The town on the eastern edge of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, is home to politicians and businessfolk. Although nearby towns in the region of Oromia, which surrounds the capital, have been hit by anti-government protests since late 2014, these streets have remained mostly quiet.
Yet this month demonstrations broke out there too, as people joined a strike to force the ruling coalition to release more political prisoners (in addition to the thousands it has already freed since the start of the year). “Almost everyone” took to the streets, says Zenebe, a local restaurant-owner. Things quickly turned ugly. People set up roadblocks and burned tyres. The army responded with tear gas and bullets. Faced with spreading protests and ethnic attacks on Tigrayans (who are about 6% of the population but dominate politics), the government announced a state of emergency, giving itself wide powers to ban protests and arrest people.
The declaration appears at odds with recent signs that the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) was willing to allow more democracy. In August it lifted a ten-month-long state of emergency, imposed after protests in 2016. But rather than signalling a retreat from reform, the new state of emergency appears to have been triggered by the resignation the day before of Hailemariam Desalegn, the prime minister.
Hailemariam said he was bowing out to allow for “reforms”, but his departure has opened up a succession struggle within the EPRDF, which has governed Ethiopia since it first seized power as a band of rebels in 1991. It is made up of four ethnically based parties. The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which represents Tigrayans, has long dominated the coalition. But the TPLF’s power is weakening. The Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO), which represents the largest ethnic group in the coalition, was seen for years as a puppet of the TPLF. Under Lemma Megersa, its charismatic new leader, it has rebranded itself as a quasi-opposition party. It now wants to take the helm, backed by a belief among Oromos that it is their turn to have one of their own in charge. A number of members of the coalition suspect that people within the OPDO are encouraging street demonstrations to strengthen their hand in the succession struggle.
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The European refugee crisis has deluded many voters into believing that most refugees are coming to rich countries. They are not — 84 percent are in low- or middle-income nations. Tanzania is one such country; it hosts over 350,000 refugees mostly from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and has had a long-standing commitment to offering sanctuary to persecuted people, despite being among the poorest 30 countries in the world.
In contrast to other countries in the region such as Kenya, Tanzania’s reputation for hosting has been generally positive; it pioneered rural self-reliance programs for refugees under its founding president, Julius Nyerere, and offered naturalization to tens of thousands of Burundians under President Jakaya Kikwete from 2005 to 2015. Recently, though, it announced its withdrawal from the so-called Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), a centerpiece of the United Nations’ current reform plans for the refugee system. The CRRF is the operational pillar of a new U.N. Global Compact on Refugees, and one of its main aims is to better support refugee hosting countries like Tanzania, including through greater development assistance.
After months of discussions, Tanzanian President John Magufuli rejected a bill on the compact. The apparent sticking point was that the country would have to borrow money from the World Bank in order to support greater opportunities for refugees. As part of the bank’s annual lending window for poor countries, known as IDA18, Tanzania was offered $100 million, split between a loan and a grant. The idea that a country like Tanzania should have to borrow, even at preferential rates, to host refugees on behalf of the international community was roundly derided by Magufuli when he addressed foreign ambassadors in Dar es Salaam on Feb. 9. The government has been clear that it supports refugees but rejected the plan on principle because it wants rich countries to pay Tanzania rather than forcing it to borrow.
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THE annual “Spring Festival Gala”, broadcast on the eve of the lunar new year, is the most-watched television programme on Earth. It is also one of the most vetted by the authorities, for it is intended not merely to entertain its 800m-odd Chinese viewers. Less-than-subliminal messaging is designed to showcase how contented all Chinese are under a wise Communist leadership—and, in recent years, how gratefully the world welcomes China’s benign activities in it. So what could one make of an excruciatingly crass sketch in this year’s show that put racist stereotypes of Africans at the heart of the supposed jollity?
The skit’s topic was, for sure, a sketch-writer’s nightmare: celebration of a Chinese-built fast train in Kenya. And if the savannah backdrop and tribal dances with which the scene opened were the stuff of cliché, at least real Africans were used in the making of it. But then a Chinese actress appeared in blackface and African dress, with exaggerated fake buttocks and a bowl of fruit on her head. For no clear reason she had in tow a blackfaced Chinese man dressed as a monkey. The humorous highlight was meant to be when this woman’s daughter missed the prospect of a date with the show’s handsome Chinese host thanks to the unexpected arrival of his (Chinese) bride. Far from being upset for her daughter, the mother didn’t mind because, she exclaimed, “I love the Chinese people! I love China!” The audience were delighted.
Chinese officials often try to portray racism as primarily a Western problem. Yet there is a widespread tendency in China to look down on other races, especially black people. Two years ago a television ad for a laundry detergent showed a young Chinese woman luring a black man closer, triumphantly popping a detergent capsule into his mouth and stuffing him into a washing machine. At the end of the cycle, out came a fresh-faced Chinese man, over whom the woman swooned. Among the tens of thousands of Africans living in a neighbourhood of Guangzhou known as “Chocolate City”, many report racist slights.
The outraged response of many netizens in China to the African skit suggests a growing awareness at home that bigotry is a Chinese problem, too. It may be one that time will help alleviate. After all, America went from bans on inter-racial marriage to electing a black president in a mere four decades. And even those Chinese who acknowledge that China has a problem rightly observe that it is far from the worst offender. Myanmar burns Rohingya villages, Islamic State tried to wipe out the Yazidis, and Sudan until recently enslaved black Africans. Racism in China, by contrast, is seldom expressed violently.
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In recent months, corporate America's corner office has gotten a little less diverse when it comes to the number of African Americans.
With American Express Chief Executive Kenneth Chenault stepping down, there are just three black CEOs in the Fortune 500. And with the departure of former CEO Ursula Burns from Xerox, announced in 2016, there are no black female CEOs leading companies in the S&P 500 index.
New research featured in the latest issue of Harvard Business Review doesn't offer much hope that those numbers will improve any time soon. Even among graduates of Harvard Business School — arguably the most elite graduate business program in the country — only 13% of black female Harvard MBAs over the last 40 years have reached the senior-most executive ranks. That's compared with 40% of non-African-American Harvard MBA degree holders who reach those top ranks.
The analysis, the first of its kind to examine the career paths of Harvard Business School's black female alumnae, found that 532 African American women graduated from the program between 1977 and 2015, but just 67, or 12.6%, had reached chair, CEO or other C-level executive status. (About 19% of black male graduates had attained similar positions.)
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