Interview with Dr Ibrahima Seck

Insightful discussion on the cultural ties between Louisiana and West Africa as Dr. Seck “awakens the mind!”

 

Living Legend

 
Dr Ibrahima Seck is co-founder of the Whitney Plantation Museum where he serves as Director of Research. His research is mostly devoted to the historical and cultural links between West Africa and Louisiana.
 
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LD and Dr Seck
 
“Until the Lion writes his own story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Thanks for letting the “Lion” speak! Dr. Seck’s podcast was excellent in every way and I learned and re-learned much about African and world history. Indeed, slavery was a world system that sought to exploit Black people everywhere. In October, I will participate in a panel on “Louisiana Black Massacres.” Same old story about Black domination, exploitation, subjugation, and annihilation. 
 
Dr. Tom Durant

Selected quotes and notes from Count Time Podcast with LD Azobra Interview of Dr. Ibrahima Seck

Good evening. Good evening. Good evening is 4:00 PM. Stand up. It’s count time, time for every man and woman to stand up and be counted. Welcome to another edition of count time podcast. I am brother LD Azobra formerly named Lyman white. Thank you for joining us today.

Today we have a special special guest, a brother by the name Dr. Ibrahima Seck, author, professor, historian, student of Cheikh Anta Diop. That’s the way we say Diop right? The writer of a book called I can’t pronounce it Bouki Fait, Gombo.

Dr Seck book

 

Dr Seck

Bouki Fait Gombo.

LD

that’s French. I can’t say it. I’m getting I’m getting it. In America. We got a term that says Straight out of Compton, straight out of Africa. We have a real brother here. And we honored to have you. And especially we feel very special to have you. Welcome to Count Time, Doc.

Dr Seck

Thank you so much. My brother LD. I feel so proud to be your guest today. And I don’t have often the opportunity to talk because so many people don’t want me to talk. They don’t want to hear my message.

Of course I’m not talking about African and African American brothers. Somewhere somewhere out there, there are some people who don’t like to hear about the truth. But you know what Truth like we say in Senegal is like fire. You may choose to sit on it, but not forever. Not forever. Yeah. Just like fire.

LD

So we going to expose something here today. That’s what Count Time was all about. We here to awaken those who are civilly dead by awakening the mind. So that’s what you’re about to do here today. You’re going to waken the mind?

Dr Seck

Absolutely.

Dr Seck with his son and Dr Jackson
Dr Seck with his son and Dr Jackson

LD

So the same thing was going on in this country has also been duplicated?

Dr Seck

You have so many parallels. Like what I told you when you were facing the slave trade over there, the destruction of life, permanent warfare that was promoted by European companies.

You were suffering slavery here.

And then they said, 1865 13th Amendment slavery is over. But they reinvented it under another name, Jim Crow. He lasted 100 years at the same time.

You know, when the French, British when they conquered West Africa, the French started to on the conquest of West Africa In 1855. They started in Senegal. And they said, Slavery is over. In 1848, they say abolition, no more slavery in Africa. In this country. Then they drafted the former enslaved people into their own army. And they reinvented slavery under another name. They did not call it slavery. They call it force labor, travail forcé.

What is the difference between forced labor and slavery?

And they have also their own Jim Crow. Los Hashim Delan Dijana trust means black codes for black people in Africa. They have black codes, mass incarceration.

Dr Seck

LD

So Senegal had Mass incarceration?

Dr Seck

Absolutely.

LD

And they still have it?

Dr Seck

No. That’s what they were doing. Our own Jim Crow.

LD

So you all had Jim Crow?

Dr Seck

Jim Crow was everywhere, you know. And they are also not only they put people in jail so easily to have free labor, but also they had a role or black code that divided people in two sections. Like people born along the coast, like Dakar San Luis Gory Island  they were recognized as French citizens. And many of them were used in the French administration. Divide and conquer, just like on a plantation. So the vast majority of people were considered as subjects of France. And every year they drafted young people. One section of those drafted people were taken into the French colonial army.

In the beginning, it is just one big group. But not everybody ended into the military. One section. The first portion, they call it a prime portion, goes into the army. And there was a person who was taken into work camps. Just likely they used to do here and in Mississippi.

All over these people go into the army. They have weapons. They have their uniforms and the other side, the other section. They were just given like shovels and picks and whatever and taken into work camps, building roads, cutting down, clearing the wilderness.

LD

So, It was just slavery?

Dr Seck

It was slavery.

 

What should a world map look like?