The Most Influential Contemporary African Diaspora Leaders by Dr. Roland A. Y. Holou

Author:Dr. Roland A. Y. Holou [Holou, Roland A. Y.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781524605582
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Published: 2016-05-19T04:00:00+00:00

The contributions of Esther Stanford-Xosei have also been recognized by Professor Adjoa Aiyetoro in the chapter “Black Women and Reparations Movements” of the book “Black Women and International Law” edited by Jeremy I. Levitt in 2015. Aiyetoro states that Esther’s “greatest contribution to the global reparations movement is her focus on education about the importance of the demand in the Diaspora, in Africa, and in …England”. Ultimately, Esther Stanford-Xosei sees her greatest achievement as carving out a unique professional niche serving as a Jurisconsult for the ISMAR (International Social Movement for African Reparations) specializing in the praxis of ‘law as resistance’.

Esther Stanford- Xosei’s told me that her life work and legacy epitomize the dictum of one of her spiritual fathers, the late Ben Ammi Ben Israel (October 12, 1939- December 27, 2014), the founder and spiritual leader of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem that I developed in the chapter devoted to Dr. Khazriel Ben Yehuda.

Esther Stanford-Xosei’s biggest challenges in African Diaspora engagement and strategy for success

The major hindrances that Esther Stanford-Xosei has faced in her career concerning African Diaspora engagement is “People’s lack of consciousness of the importance of Africa in the realization of our success and progress in the Diaspora and the lack of political consciousness among the African Diaspora as opposed to other people’s interests”. Talking to me about the central issues related to Africa and its Diaspora, Esther Stanford-Xosei said. “We are aware of our power, but we have been conditioned and are afraid to harness and turn it into a fighting force for our own benefits”. Because of the fear of the unknown, many African Diaspora members do not want to rise up to confront and transform the white supremacist power that keeps them subjugated to harness their own Black power: “We question ourselves: Can we succeed? Do we have the strength to take on our oppressors? Although we know the situation of where we are, we uncomfortably exist in it. Our historical and contemporary oppressors heavily use that propaganda against us. We have been educationally and psychologically conditioned to fear that unknown”, she added.

As Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson taught, “If you can control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think, you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.” It may be worth mentioning that Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson (December 19, 1875 – April 3, 1950) was an author, journalist, founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), and one of the first scholars to study African American history.

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