modern immigration from Africa

This week we discussed the slave trade and it's impact on Africa.  The article I am posting states a curious title.  More Africans have immigrated to the United States in the recent years than came over as a result of the slave trade. The most interesting point the article makes is that the group of immigrantsnow being admitted is being selected for by ambition. The recent immigrants from Africa collectively had a higher percentage of college degrees than did their American born counterparts. You can access the article here at: http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/09/more_africans_immigrated_to_the_us_from_2000_2010_than_came_by_slaveship.html?wpisrc=burger

Kennewick Man and First Inhabitants of America

      The article I posted this week talks about the Kennewick man. This name refers to a partial skeleton that was found in Kennewick Washington and has, since its discovery, challenged everything we know and presently understand about the peopling of North America. The skull recovered from the site tested much older than anticipated after radio carbon dating and had completely different features than expected. Do to N.A.GR.P.A all human remains older than a couple thousand years are assumed to be those of  "Native Americans" and therefor must be returned to the nearest tribe for proper burial. This his created huge amount of conflict as the skeleton had some particular features that were more European in nature and therefor challenged the idea that all early people of North America came over on the land bridge formed during the last ice age. perhaps the whole theory about the spread of humans across the planet needs to be rethought out and without pivotal evidence we may never know the actual truth. You can access the article here at: Kennewick man

African Rock Art Collection

               I found this article on African rock art from the British Museum. It is a collective project that is attempting to build a huge collection of rock art from all of the continent. The collection is somewhat in its infancy as they only have the North of Africa put together yet but it is still a massive and impressive collection. Some of the photographs are of not the best quality but I would imagine that some of them came from a slightly less than hospitable location.They have the collection broken down by country and much of the same themes seem to run throughout. I instantly wondered if one could be able to trace the migration and colonization patterns across Africa through the art. One can obviously see the major lifestyles portrayed, like pastoralism and farming but to trace peoples migrations through their art, that would be amazing. This is something I will check back into at a later date as I was really interested in some of the art from the countries, like mali and the congo region, that they have not cataloged as of yet. The project can be found by clicking here: African Rock Art Project.

Sentenced to Death for Her Faith

                 Having read the chapter about christianity and Islam in North Africa I was reminded immediately of the recent news story about the christian women from Sudan whom had been sentenced to death for not renouncing her faith. It  is hard to imagine that these types of things, that sound rather antiquated or barbaric in nature, still happen, but they do and  I would wager that they occur with much more frequency than you or I would ever care to imagine.
               The article states that the women was a Sudanese christian who was born to a christian women and a Muslim father. The father left the family when she was at very young age. Because of the patriarchal culture in Sudan the woman's faith was assumed to be Islam, that of her fathers. But we find that she was raised her mother, who was indeed a christian and raised her within that faith. I also found it very interesting that she was ultimately allowed to immigrate to the United States, in spite of a round of new trumped up charges by the Sudanese government. Of all the things that are questionable about the current United States foreign policy, we can still say that our doors will always be open to refugees; religious or otherwise.


http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/us/new-hampshire-sudanese-woman/